Tag Archives: Justin Sloane

Pixel Scroll 3/11/25 The Demolished Hobbit

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(1) TERRY BROOKS ANNOUNCES SEMI-RETIREMENT. Shannara series author Terry Brooks is stepping back. Delilah S. Dawson will be producing future installments. “Easy Come, Easy Go” at Terry Brooks Online.

Let’s start with a few life facts that I have come to accept and just recently decided to address. I am now eighty-one years old. I have been writing in the Shannara series since 1968 – which is more than fifty years. I have written steadily with no breaks save for vacations and illnesses. I have a total count of just under fifty books to my name as of today. In all that time, I have been writing at least one book or often two at the same time.

I am still writing regularly, but I noticed recently that my physical and mental abilities have diminished. Not that I am derailed in any measurable way from what I was, but my endurance, concentration, attention span and memory are not what they once were. All this is a function of what aging involves and living requires of us at one point or another. I knew this was coming, but I did not expect it when it arrived and have spent my eightieth year coming to terms with its presence. Whatever happens, I do not want to be one of those writers who is remembered for going on a bit too long than his or her faculties could tolerate and thereby produce books that are less than my best work.

Accordingly, I have decided to step back from my intense writing lifestyle and settle down into a form or semi-retirement. This was a hard choice to make. I hate to admit that I don’t have the abilities I once had.  But better to face up to your diminishments than pretend they don’t exist. Better to make some adjustments to account for the onset of those diminishments before the readers you rely on to support your efforts begin to point them out.

Beginning immediately, with the publishing of my new book GALAPHILE, I am stepping back in my author role and engaging help from another writer in steering the series in the proper direction with the necessary amount of care. I will no longer be doing the primary writing. My new co-author will take on that task. Instead, I will offer what help I can with providing storyline ideas, revisionary plot suggestions and a thorough overview that will help my co-author to continue to give you the kind of book you would expect of me. I know her well and have been friends with her for years. Both my editor and I have agreed that she is the right choice to take on the task of continuing SHANNARA. That she can provide the skills and inventiveness that is needed to accomplish this is something of which I am sure. She is every bit as professionally capable and committed as I am. What help and support I can give her, I will. That she will give you what you want and expect is something I am certain she will do.

Her name is Delilah Dawson, and she is a skilled professional writer and a delightful person.  If you haven’t read any of her work to date, I encourage you to do so now….

Delilah S Dawson and Terry Brooks

(2) WORLDS OF IF #178. Justin T. O’Conor Sloane, Editor-in-Chief of the Starship Sloane Publishing Company, has announced that the second issue of Worlds of IF, the relaunched classic science fiction magazine, is available to order: Buy Worlds of IF: Science Fiction #178. Click here to see the Table of Contents.

The cover art is by Rodney Matthews (front) and Marianne Plumridge (back).

(3) SCIENCE WRITERS CONFERENCE CANCELLED. [Item by John A Arkansawyer.] Carnegie Mellon and Pitt were trading hosting duties. Now they’re not, thanks in part to budget cuts: “Pitt, CMU pull out of hosting conference for science writers” from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Citing federal funding cuts, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have pulled out of a prior commitment to host a science conference that would have brought around 1,000 visitors to the city.

The ScienceWriters conference, put on by the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, has been an annual mainstay for science journalists and communicators for years. Pitt and CMU had agreed on Nov. 6 to host and fund the conference and act as the hosting city, which rotates each year, per a Wednesday statement from the association.

“On Feb. 13, 2025, representatives of both universities informed CASW that they were withdrawing their commitment, including the financial support, for the conference,” per the statement. “Despite our efforts, subsequent discussions have not led to a resolution.”

Both Pitt and CMU said the decision to step away from the conference was directly related to federal cuts to research funding, saying those cuts cinched resources that would have otherwise made the hosting doable….

(4) SEVERAL TOP NASA STAFF CHOPPED. “NASA Eliminates Chief Scientist and Other Jobs at Its Headquarters” reports the New York Times.

NASA is eliminating its chief scientist and other roles as part of efforts by the Trump administration to pare back staff at the agency’s Washington headquarters.

The cuts affect about 20 employees at NASA, including Katherine Calvin, the chief scientist and a climate science expert. The last day of work for Dr. Calvin and the other staff members will be April 10.

That could be a harbinger of deeper cuts to NASA’s science missions and a greater emphasis on human spaceflight, especially to Mars. During President Trump’s address to Congress last week, he said, “We are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond.”

Mr. Trump did not give a timeline for astronauts to reach the red planet, and during an interview on Fox News on Sunday, he said it was not a top priority. “Is it No. 1 on my hit list?” he said. “No. It’s not really.”

He added, “It’d be a great achievement.”

The administration sent notice to Congress on Monday that NASA was abolishing the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy….

(5) FANS REACT TO NEW YASSIFIED SHREK. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Hey, sometimes an ogre of a certain age just needs a bit of, shall we say, touch-up, to feel and look their best. “Did Shrek Get a Nose Job?” asks New York Magazine.

Shrek might live in Far Far Away, but he looks like he just came back from somewhere even Farther Away: Turkey. In a newly released trailer for the highly anticipated Shrek 5, Shrek, Fiona, and their daughter (voiced by Zendaya), and Donkey all gather to scroll through ogre-thirst-trap memes with mister Mirror Mirror on the Wall. There’s no time to discuss how on the nose this is, because Shrek and Fiona have visibly undergone radical, off-putting facial reconstruction. I don’t care that these ogres are a mere amalgamation of zeros and ones inside some DreamWorks animator’s computer. This is serious.

Donkey somehow looks the same level of goofy as before, but Shrek’s and Fiona’s new faces are … jarring. Their noses are shaped differently, their philtrums are less pronounced and longer, their lips and smiles curve in odd ways, and both of them have seemingly larger eyes. It’s like they both got processed through Alix Earle’s favorite TikTok smoothing filter, or as one user on X wrote: “rhinoplasty, lip filler, cheek implants, jaw shave, chin reduction, face lift, blepharoplasty, buccal fat removal, botox, eye lift, cheek filler.”…

(6) DOCUMENTARY TRACKS THE LAST OF STAN LEE. [Item by N.] The framing here seems similar to Abraham Riesman’s nonfiction book True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee (nominated for Related Work in 2022). Will this bring the situation to a wider audience? “Stan Lee Doc Alleges Exploitation in Final Years of His Life” at IndieWire.

A new documentary on Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee claims that Lee was mistreated and exploited by some of those in his inner circle during the last few years of his life.

Jon Bolerjack, a comic book artist and a former assistant to Lee during the last four years of Lee’s life, filmed the documentary and on Tuesday launched a Kickstarter campaign looking for funding to complete the film, titled “Stan Lee: The Final Chapter.” In a trailer for the movie, Bolerjack says Lee spent “his final years enduring mistreatment, manipulation, and betrayal at the hands of a few very bad actors.”

At this writing, the Kickstarter has raised $29,079 of its $300,000 goal.

Bolerjack says the film includes interviews with other witnesses close to Lee and with comic book creators like Rob Liefeld and Roy Thomas. It also concludes with a string of interviews with other comic book artists who have seen an early cut of the footage discussing what they say are some of the shocking details.

“Seeing Stan in that situation, being taken advantage of, was really hard to watch,” artist Tyler Kirkham says in the trailer.

“I had no idea how badly he had been exploited, and that’s a message people need to hear,” comic book writer Mark Waid added.

Lee, who passed away in 2018 at age 95, was the subject of an investigation from THR shortly before his death in which it was claimed that he was the victim of elder abuse and had other individuals improperly influencing his family members and worked to gain control of his assets and money. Lee’s estate in 2023 lost an elder abuse lawsuit on a technicality against a former attorney, but Bolerjack’s documentary claims to explore other aspects of Lee’s exploitation.

The trailer for the documentary does not name any individuals specifically, but it has several sequences involving Max Anderson, Lee’s former road manager for many of his convention appearances. Anderson was named in THR’s 2018 investigation, though he has denied wrongdoing…

(7) WHEN THE WICKED WITCH LANDED ON SESAME STREET. The Wikipedia explains why you probably haven’t seen “Episode 847”.

Episode 847 (commonly known as the “Wicked Witch episode“) is the 52nd episode from the seventh season of the American educational children’s television series Sesame Street. It was directed by Robert Myhrum and written by Joseph A. Bailey, Judy Freudberg and Emily Kingsley, it originally aired on PBS on February 10, 1976. The episode involves the Wicked Witch of the West, from the film The Wizard of Oz (1939), losing her broomstick over Sesame Street and causing havoc as she attempts to recover it. Margaret Hamilton, who portrayed the witch in the film, reprises her role in the episode. Produced as the 52nd episode of the series’ seventh season, the episode was created to teach children how to overcome their fears.

Shortly after its premiere, the creators of the series and Children’s Television Workshop received numerous letters from angry parents, who said that the Wicked Witch had frightened their children. Due to this, the episode was pulled from rebroadcast and was not seen by the public again until 2019, when clips of the episode were shown during a “Lost and Found” event celebrating Sesame Street’s 50th anniversary and the full episode was archived in the Library of Congress. It was then only available for private viewing until June 2022, when it was leaked online by an unknown individual.

Scribbles To Screen is one of the YouTubers who have analyzed the episode: “Wicked Witch Sesame Street Episode Found”.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

March 11, 1952 – Douglas Adams. (Died 2001.)

By Paul Weimer: Douglas Adams is an author who competes with the equally late Terry Pratchett as the greatest humorist in science fiction and fantasy history. 

I think of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as a sort of ever being re-written palimpsest. You have surely heard the stories that Adams was writing some of the original radio scripts right before the actual BBC broadcast. While this shows his ability to produce on the cutting edge of a deadline, it does mean that the polish wasn’t there. But the genius, secret of Adams was that he could write, and rewrite his work, changing it, tweaking it, altering it, reflecting it. 

The core story is always there. An ordinary human (or at least he starts ordinary), Arthur Dent, winds up on an adventure in time and space when his house, and then his planet are scheduled for demolition. The details change from iteration to iteration, from radio plays, to novels, to the TV series, to the video game (one of the hardest Infocom games!  That damned Babel fish!) to the movie. But the main throughline is the same. A humorous irrepressible set of characters, situations and ideas that he continually and enthusiastically refined and refined.  Just like Greek Mythology is not a monolith, neither is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A person who hated and despised me in High School had exactly one thing in common with me–we were perhaps the only two people in the entire school who knew what a Vogon was. I had seen the TV show first, then read the novel, then played the game, and then only some years later when they came available on the internet, actually got to listen to the versions of the radio plays and learned the real story. I remember being upset at the changes, but have mellowed and come to see the genius of his endless reinvention and updating of the material. 

And then there was Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, which is such a weird and unusual bird of an idea, and it was born, as it were, from the unfinished Doctor Who episode “Shada” that he wrote.  (Yes, he wrote two of my favorite DW episodes, “The Pirate Planet” and “City of Death”. “Shada” would have been his second).  Ghosts, time travel, changing history, and wry British humor.  And of course, in Adams fashion, there are TV and audio adaptations of Dirk Gently, where, again, the work is changed, refined, and the palimpsest nature of his writing and humor and creations comes to light again. 

Thinking of his work, in any of its iterations, always brings to me a smile. He died in 2001. Requiescat in pace. I raise a Pangalactic gargle blaster to you, good sir.

Douglas Adams

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) DAVID EHRLICH TAKEDOWN. “’The Electric State’ Review: Another Lifeless Netflix Mockbuster” accuses IndieWire’s critic David Ehrlich.

Whatever your expectations for a (supposedly) $320 million Russo brothers Netflix movie starring Chris Pratt as a Chris Pratt type, Millie Bobby Brown as a wannabe Edward Furlong, and Woody Harrelson as the voice of an animatronic Mr. Peanut, I would recommend that you lower them.

A derivative, self-impressed, and seriously confused adventure set in the aftermath of a global war between humans and the talking robots that were “invented” by Walt Disney to amuse tourists at his theme parks (suck it, William Grey Walter!), “The Electric State” is essentially a feature-length adaptation of the argument its directors have been making in the press since “Avengers: Endgame,” the scale and success of which seemed to convince them it was the ultimate film in every sense of the word, and thus inspired them to proselytize about how cinema as we know it is about to be replaced by AI holograms of Tom Cruise or whatever. …

… Truth be told, there isn’t a single laugh — or even a knowing smile — to be found in this relentlessly stale ordeal, which does for sci-fi adventure comedies what “The Gray Man” did for action thrillers: absolutely nothing….

(11) GRRM CAMEO. Did you catch these George R. R. Martin and Robert Redford cameos in the Season 3 premiere of Dark Winds? “High Stakes Chess feat. George R. R. Martin and Robert Redford!” New episodes premiere Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on AMC and AMC+.

Dark Winds is an American psychological thriller television series created by Graham Roland. Based on the Leaphorn & Chee novel series by Tony Hillerman… Executive producers include Roland, McClarnon, George R. R. Martin and Robert Redford.

(12) ON THE ROAD. And Michael Cassutt, in a “Not-A-Blog Guest Post” tells what he’s doing for GRRM.

This is not your occasional message from George or the minions of Fevre River, but a new addition to the team – I’m Michael Cassutt, writer of fiction, non-fiction, lots of television (TWILIGHT ZONE, MAX HEADROOM, EERIE INDIANA, more recently THE DEAD ZONE and Z-NATION).  Since October I’ve been working with George as his “creative director,” helping to shape and advance non-HBO TV, film and game projects and even some publishing. (No, I’m not “helping” George with his writing.)

Last spring and early summer I directed a short film titled THE SUMMER MACHINE, based on a lost TWILIGHT ZONE TV concept by George, from my script. We shot for eight days in Alamagordo and Las Cruces, New Mexico, with a cast led by Lina Esco, Charles Martin Smith and Matt Frewer, and just recently finalized the cut.

This is the fifth film that George has produced, following four adaptations of stories by his great friend Howard Waldrop: NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, HEIRS OF THE PERISPHERE, MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER and THE UGLY CHICKENS. Four are complete.

So what do you do with a short film? Theatrical exhibition is always a goal, but difficult for even feature-length projects these days.

Streaming? Yes, but you have a short film, under 40 minutes in length. Where does it fit on Netflix, Amazon, Apple+ etc.? Almost nowhere.

But you want your film seen, so . . . .

You hit the festival circuit….

(13) STEVE VERTLIEB Q&A. Interfleet Broadcasting brings viewers “75 Years Of Cherished Reflections And Memories From A Nearly 80 Year Old ‘Monster Kid’”. Steve’s segment begins 48 minutes into the video. Originally aired on Leap Day last year.

Join us for an interview with actor writer and Film Journalist Steve Vertlieb. He has spent most of his life around film makers!. John 1 hosts with the Tipsy Toaster since NY Pete is exploring and trying to find his way. Tiny Bean is also on Deck that is if those pesky internet people fix the lines after an Arcta class storm.” I was both honored and humbled on February 29th, 2024 to do a ninety-minute interview with the folks at Interfleet Broadcasting that I hope you’ll find interesting. We discuss Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Films and Literature, as well as Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury, “King Kong,” Boris Karloff, Robert Bloch, Peter Cushing, Buster Crabbe, Frank Sinatra, the early years of television, and the history of Music for the Movies, with such composers as Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa, and John Williams. I’d like to thank the hosts of the program for their most gracious kindness toward me. You’ll find the interview some forty-eight minutes into the broadcast.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, N., Steve Vertlieb, John A Arkansawyer, Justin T. O’Conor Sloane, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “Good, Bester, Best!” Dern.]

Professor Jameson Rides the Intergalactic Range Once Again!

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By Justin T. O’Conor Sloane, Editor Worlds of IF Science Fiction: [An excerpt from his editorial in the forthcoming issue.]

The second issue of Worlds of IF Science Fiction magazine will be here soon and I am beyond excited to be publishing in this issue one of the “lost” and never-before-published Professor Jameson stories by Neil R. Jones, titled “Battle Moon!”

Nobody knew what had happened to the lost stories and it was believed, incorrectly, that there were a total of six stories that had yet to be published. But there is ONE more that no one knew about, a PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN story titled, “The Metal Menace!” The addition of “The Metal Menace” to the Professor Jameson series will require that histories of the series be appended to include this story. All of this thanks to Mike Dooley, whose enthusiasm for the Professor Jameson stories ultimately led to the discovery of the manuscript of “The Metal Menace” and the other six stories, bringing them at long last, to the publishing world and the reading public, after untold years spent in the dusty oblivion of archival boxes!

Mike spent years diligently tracking down these stories and attempting to get them published, but because of the various legal ambiguities surrounding the rights, no one was willing to publish them. But his steadfast perseverance in working to see these stories published was finally coming to fruition as I saw nothing problematic with any of it and knew this to be the perfect magazine in which to introduce the stories to the world: a relaunched classic, ideal for showcasing these previously unpublished and newly rediscovered science fiction stories from a legendary series. How wonderful! It was meant to be.

Neil R. Jones

 The process to acquire the rights moved very quickly and smoothly I am happy to say. (Waiting patiently for this issue to hit the presses will have been the hard part for everyone.) Entirely through Mike’s efforts and the relationships that he has built with members of the Jones family over the years and librarians at Syracuse University like Amy McDonald who are the custodians of the stories, Starship Sloane Publishing was granted the rights to publish these stories by Javene Decker of the Neil R. Jones literary estate (thank you!) and Neil R. Jones Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries (thank you!).

I think this is a big deal, even if there are only several dozen serious fans of the series out there right now—which, by the way, is good enough for me! Though I reckon there are far more than that and I hope that many new fans will be made with the appearance of these stories from the classic era of science fiction.

The Professor Jameson series influenced some of the greatest science fiction writers of all time, like Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl and in turn, that influence has been transmitted into popular culture in some very memorable ways (see more about this in Douglas Draa’s excellent essay in this very issue). Professor Jameson is the longest-running science fiction series in history—and now running even longer!—and is the oldest series involving cyborgs. I also have a special place in my heart for these stories as T. O’Conor Sloane published the first twelve installments of the series while the editor of Amazing Stories. They were extremely popular with the readership.

The remaining five stories will be published in upcoming issues of IF. In this issue, we are presenting the first and the second to last of the unpublished stories, with the new and corrected sequence of these stories now understood to be as follows:

#25 “Battle Moon”
#26 “The Lost Nation”
#27 “The Voice Across Space”
#28 “The Satellite Sun”
#29 “Hidden World”
#30 “The Metal Menace”
#31 “The Sun Dwellers”

Neil R. Jones

In doing it this way, we will follow the sequence with the exception of the previously unknown story, which is the true #30, “The Metal Menace,” because my enthusiasm to bring it to science fiction readers could not wait until a future issue, simple as that. Further to all of this, I have been informed by Mike that “The Sun Dwellers,” which is in fact the final story in the series, is NOT a finished manuscript. What?! So, I am pleased to say that Mike will be sharing co-writer credit with Mr. Jones in completing the manuscript—with the blessings of the Jones estate. Is that cool or what? It will be a history-rich writing credit for a good guy and super sleuth who has spent years working to bring these lost stories to science fiction fans everywhere—in the process becoming its own noteworthy story, a story of lost stories. Quite an accomplishment. Cheers, Mike! (Be sure to read Mike’s guest editorial in this issue to get the full scoop.)

To be able to conclude the Professor Jameson series at long last, with its never-before-published stories, almost 100 years after the first story appeared in print, is an exciting development I think and hopefully readers will agree! I am honored to help Mike see all of his hard work finally materialize (and those who helped him along the way). This is part of the continuum I wrote about in the editorial of the debut issue. I had also thought about publishing these stories in Galaxy, but decided against doing such as the rights would need to be revisited, but more importantly, because Worlds of IF is literally the perfect magazine for these stories, both in the tradition of its approach to its content and especially as the illustrious former editor of this very magazine, Frederik Pohl, was a fan of the series. Again, it was just meant to be. The Prof rides the science fiction range once again on wild stories swift and sure to entertain!

Pixel Scroll 11/23/24 Virtual Pixels Just Scurry Around On Screens, Trying To Fake It

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(1) BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE SHORTLIST. The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Comic Fiction Prize shortlist includes two genre works — High Voltage and Ministry of Time.

The Bollinger is awarded to “the funniest novel of the past 12 months, which best evokes the Wodehouse spirit of witty characters and perfectly-timed comic phrases.”

  • A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray (Hutchinson Heinemann)
  • Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree)  
  • Good Material by Dolly Alderton (Fig Tree)
  • High Vaultage by Chris Sugden and Jen Sugden (Gollancz)
  • The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
  • The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue (Virago)
  • You Are Here by David Nicholls – published by (Sceptre)

The winner will be announced December 2.

In winning the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Comic Fiction Prize, you get not only a jeroboam of the Special Cuvée, but also a case of Bollinger La Grande Année, a complete set of the Everyman’s Library PG Wodehouse collection and, most entertaining, a pig who is to be named after your winning book.

(2) PRIMATES APLENTY. Dave Hook rounds up all the sfnal variations he can find that address the literature Infinite Monkeys might produce in “Monkeys and Shakespeare: The Infinite Monkey Theorem and Speculative Fiction” at A Deep Look by Dave Hook.

…I read nine stories and one essay for this blog post. I suspect there might be more stories out there connected to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, and I’d love to hear from my readers with other suggestions….

He analyzes (beware spoilers) and rates them all.

(3) ONE WAY TO GET A HANDLE ON YOUR POPCORN CONSUMPTION. “AMC Reveals Its Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim 27-Inch Popcorn Bucket” – CBR.com shows it to you.

…Commemorative popcorn buckets are increasing in popularity, with these collectibles released for movies such as Dune, Wicked and Gladiator II, among others. The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim arrives in theaters in the U.S. on Dec. 13, 2024, alongside its own exclusive popcorn bucket. The long handle of the movie’s war hammer replica is designed to appear as though it’s wrapped in leather, with a gray and red face and a gold spike on top. Fans will be able to purchase the limited-edition ‘hammer bucket’ at AMC theaters for $32.99 (not including tax), but only while supplies last.

Some people have complained that this popcorn bucket is potentially deadly, being modeled after a weapon and closely resembling one as well. While the design of the bucket is made to immerse fans in the experience of the movie, it’s also now being called the “most dangerous” popcorn bucket ever. Buyers of this product are urged to exercise caution and good judgment when wielding it.

For those who don’t want a potentially inconvenient 27-inch long popcorn bucket to snack from, another item is also being sold in celebration of the release of the upcoming movie — a faux-wooden stein (or traditional beer mug) with the official Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim logo on the side…. 

(4) MURAKAMI Q&A. [Item by Steven French.] Tangentially genre related: “Haruki Murakami: ‘My books have been criticised so much over the years, I don’t pay much attention’”

… Japanese fiction now represents a quarter of all translated fiction sold in Britain. Why do you think it has such a wide appeal?
I didn’t know that Japanese novels are that popular in Britain. What’s the reason? I have no idea. Maybe you could tell me – I’d like to know.

The Japanese economy is not doing well these days, and I think it’s a good thing that cultural exports can make a contribution of sorts, though literary exports don’t make that much of one, do they?

Did Mieko Kawakami’s criticism of the women in your books, made in 2017, have any effect on how you write female characters?
My books have been criticised so much over the years that I can’t remember in what context the criticisms were made. And I don’t pay much attention to it, either.

Mieko is a close friend and a very intelligent woman, so I’m sure whatever criticism she made was spot on. But honestly, I don’t recall what exactly she criticised. Speaking of women and my works, though, incidentally my readers are pretty much equally divided between men and women, a fact that makes me very happy….

And if you want to know more about those popular Japanese novels, read the Guardian’s article, “Surrealism, cafes and lots (and lots) of cats: why Japanese fiction is booming “.

…The popularity of modern Japanese fiction is not a new phenomenon in the UK … In the 1990s, two writers broke through and became cult hits in this country. Haruki Murakami, a worldwide literary phenomenon, took off in Britain when Harvill Press published The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in 1998. Scott Pack, who ran Waterstones’ buying team in the early 2000s, is a big Murakami fan and remembers giving him “lots of attention. Whatever books of his came out, we got massively behind.” This week, Murakami publishes his 15th novel The City and Its Uncertain Walls, about a man who travels to a mysterious walled town in pursuit of the woman he loves, finding himself in a strange world of libraries, maps and dreams. So what’s behind the lasting success of Murakami’s books, which tend to combine lonely protagonists, jazz, cats, and fantasy elements? “It’s fairly accessible, weird shit,” Pack says….

(5) DIALED IN.  Sharon Lee is restarting her blog with shares like “Opening the windows”:

…Speaking of Just Me, I decided that I would watch “Astrid” last night (people who love the show, my comments are about the show not about you or your preferences in pleasure viewing). I will not be continuing. Not only does the first segment start with a man dousing himself with gasoline and lighting himself on fire on-screen, Astrid herself was a little too close to home. I remember mapping out phone calls before I made them, so I’d be sure to transmit the correct information in a socially normal way, and the feeling of panic when there was a vary. (I once called somebody to ask them a question before I had Breathed In, and when they answered the phone said, “MynameisSharonLeecallingforXandIwouldliketoknowthisnthat.” The person I was calling paused for a moment, then said, very gently, “Wow. Are you from New York?”) I’ve gotten much better, with lots of practice, and lots of years, about making eye contact when talking to people, but it was sorta painful to watch. This is, in case it’s not clear, a tribute to the actor who plays Astrid. She clearly Gets It….

(6) LONG-REMEMBERED THUNDER. [Item by Steven French.] Sometimes a line in an obituary will raise the old eyebrows! Peter Sinfield, who has recently passed away, wrote the lyrics for late 60s/early 70s ‘prog rock’ band King Crimson, as well as going on to write a number of pop hits (including for Celine Dion). And amidst all the music production details, there’s an interesting genre related connection: “Peter Sinfield obituary” in the Guardian.

…In 1979 he narrated Robert Sheckley’s In a Land of Clear Colors, an audio sci-fi story with music by Brian Eno….

Editor’s note: I’m running this item because I remember that my friend Richard Wadholm was a big fan of their first album, In the Court of the Crimson King (1969). And that if it had been within his power, I’d have been a big fan, too.

(7) KORY HEATH (1970-2024). W. Eric Martin pays tribute to the late Kory Heath at BoardGameGeek:  “In Memoriam: Kory Heath”.

Designer Kory Heath took his own life on November 18, 2024, after “enduring years of chronic pain and depression”, in the words of John Cooper, who co-designed The Gang with Kory.

More from Cooper: “He was a genius, also funny, kind, patient. I’m so grateful we could spend so many years, laughs, and tears together, and that he knew he was deeply loved by all of his friends.”

Kory was best known for his game Zendo, a game of inductive logic in which the master exhibits two “koans” — one following a secret rule created by the master, one violating this rule — and students create koans of their own in order to determine what this rule is.

…Kory Heath’s list of published games is an eclectic one: the party game Why Did The Chicken…?, in which players create punchlines for randomly generated situations; the inductive logic game Zendo, in which players try to determine rules for constructing figures; the bluffing game Criminals; and the abstract game Uptown….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Anniversary, November 23, 1963 — Doctor Who premieres

It would take years for me to see An Unearthly Child, the premiere of Doctor Who.  On PBS in NYC, the Fourth Doctor was the first Doctor widely shown in the states, and for years, was the only one. Eventually a channel on Long Island branched out from the Fourth Doctor, showing what they called “The Doctor Who movies”–basically an entire serial in one go on a Saturday evening. They started with the Fourth Doctor, moved to the then new to me Fifth Doctor.  And then after the end of the Fifth Doctor’s run (The Caves of Androzani), they then went back to the beginning. Back to the First Doctor…

Back to the premiere of Doctor Who…An Unearthly Child which happened on this date in 1963 on BBC.  I had already seen the First Doctor, but not the original actor. The First Doctor appears, as played by Richard Hurndall. So I knew the First Doctor as a somewhat crotchety figure…but William Hartnell’s appearance was completely revelatory as the original and sometimes very alien First Doctor.  He is brutal and savage and ready to commit a bit of murder right there in the first serial. I appreciated the mystery of the Doctor as Ian and Barbara try and figure out what’s so strange about their student, Susan, and the terror and horror in being cast in time and space. I still think the episode holds up, the premiere of Doctor Who, even today. A story of progress, and tolerance, and trying to understand things beyond your ken (on several levels). And so ably directed by Verity Lambert, the BBC’s first female drama producer. 

Those “Doctor Who movies”, starting chronologically with An Unearthly Child, would cement my love of Doctors other than the Fourth (especially the Third) and I suppose in a sense were the original “binge watching” for Doctor Who. And the Doctor Who movie format made me ready, in 1996, for the TV movie, on a snowy television set. But that, as they say, is a story for another day.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) GET YOUR GRAINS OF SALT READY. “‘Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse’ Reportedly Scrapped & Rewritten” – Movieweb tells what they know.

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse won’t be following up on that crazy cliffhanger anytime soon, if the latest rumor is to be believed. Ever since the upcoming Across the Spider-Verse sequel was delayed from its 2024 release date, fans have wondered what is happening with the highly-anticipated project. It currently has no set release date, and Sony never even officially acknowledged that major change. Rumors have since circulated about its production woes, and the latest report explains why development on Beyond the Spider-Verse has been at a standstill.

According to Brandon Davis (via World of Reel), Sony scrapped what they completed for Beyond the Spider-Verse shortly after the release of Across the Spider-Verse. Moreover, the script was thrown away and set to be rewritten, and it’s not clear if that process is complete yet. The craziest part is that the studio reportedly still doesn’t have an ending in place for the trilogy, and that has not changed yet. Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt until proven otherwise, but the writing has been on the wall for the past year. Originally slated to release on Mar. 29, 2024, Beyond the Spider-Verse remains away from the Sony release schedule….

(11) HISTORIC HOLLYWOOD PROPERTY WILL HAVE NEW FOLKS PULLING THE STRINGS. SFGate says there’s a way to tour the old Chaplin/Jim Henson studio, which can’t be counted on to be around for much longer now that the place has new owners: “Hollywood A-listers buy Jim Henson’s LA studio for $40 million”.

…Given that its departure seems imminent, fans may want to pay their way into one last La Brea lot tour while they can. Here’s how: If you book a VIP ticket to the vulgar and “perverted” improv puppet show “Puppet Up!” — which will run you $175 — you’ll be instructed to arrive an hour and a half early. That’s when a Henson Company tour guide will take you around the lot for a rare look at this treasure trove.

Chaplin’s fingerprints (and literal footprints, in the concrete) are all over the space, which he built starting in 1917. (If you want to see how wildly different LA looked back then, Chaplin shot his studio’s construction as part of a never-released film that was completed years later.)  The stage where “Puppet Up!” takes place is Chaplin’s former soundstage, and the hand saw — as well as the barn — that the actor-director used to build sets is still on the lot. Even the vault where Chaplin stored his coveted reels for famous films like “The Kid” (which was shot on site) is still nestled inside the reception office, although these days it holds office supplies like a printer and a fax machine. 

There are fascinating asides during the tour, too, that explain quirky touches like why certain doors are located several feet off the ground: It’s because the lot used to hold a swimming pool, which Chaplin used to film several movies of his. The conference room also features a comically large table, which has been there since the A&M days because, apparently, the movers couldn’t get it out of the doors….

(12) ARTEMIS NEWS. “NASA chooses SpaceX and Blue Origin to deliver rover, astronaut base to the moon” reports Space.com.

NASA is keeping its foot on the gas for the space agency’s Artemis program, announcing plans to assign demonstration missions for the two vehicles it has picked to land astronauts on the moon.

Both SpaceX and Blue Origin were awarded contracts for NASA’s Human Landing System, and have been in the process of designing their respective vehicles for returning astronauts to the surface of the moon. Now, NASA has given both companies a heads-up to expect to put those designs to the test in some upcoming qualification missions that will task them with sending large cargo to the moon.The mission assignments follow a 2023 request from NASA, which also directed SpaceX and Blue Origin to build cargo variants of their lunar landers, the space agency indicated in a statement. Having two different lunar landing systems to choose from will give NASA flexibility for both crew and cargo missions, while also “ensuring a regular cadence of moon landings for continued discovery and scientific opportunity,” said Stephen D. Creech, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for technical at the agency’s Moon to Mars Program Office….

… “Based on current design and development progress for both crew and cargo landers and the Artemis mission schedules for the crew lander versions, NASA assigned a pressurized rover mission for SpaceX and a lunar habitat delivery for Blue Origin,” Human Landing System program manager Lisa Watson-Morgan said in the statement.

The pressurized rover Starship will deliver is being developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and is currently targeted to launch in 2032 to support missions after Artemis 6, according to NASA. Blue Origin’s lunar habitat is slated sometime a year later, 2033….

(13) OUT TO LAUNCH. “I Renovated a Missile Silo for $800,000. It’s Not for Everyone” – Business Insider finds out how it was done.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with GT Hill, a 49-year-old former director of technical marketing who lives in Vilonia, Arkansas. He bought a $90,000 decommissioned missile silo and turned it into an Airbnb….

…  really wanted to dig it up and see what was in there. Initially, I intended to make it a house for my family.

Lastly, I was interested in owning a missile silo because it’s just kick ass. The place has 7,000-pound doors. Its three floors are made out of a steel structure nicknamed “the birdcage.”

It’s on eight springs and actually hangs from the ceiling. And the reason is if it gets hit by a bomb, it allows the structure to shake to try to preserve the equipment and the people inside….

… Titan II was denuclearized after the US and Russia signed a 1979 treaty to limit each country’s nuclear weapons. The US disarmed Titan II as part of that negotiation, called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II or SALT II….

… There are no walls and doors, so there’s no real primary bedroom. The top floor has a king bed, a large, open shower, and a free-standing bathtub. The middle floor has two queen beds that we can move to make more space. Then, the kitchen and the living room are on the bottom floor, which also doubles as a dance floor and can turn into a club.

We host anything on the property, including meetings. If it’s semi-legal and people want to do it there and pay for it, we’re fine with it.

The first booking we got was in November 2020. It was a couple coming for their honeymoon, but they got a little too intoxicated at their wedding to make the trip. They sent their best man instead….

(14) NEW RELEASE FROM STARSHIP SLOANE PUBLISHING.

A Wereshark’s Memoir by Justin T. O’Conor Sloane

A novelette following the fantastical journey of an immortal sea captain across the centuries, whose turbulent life as a pirate and a wereshark is by turns beautiful and haunting.

In his magnum opus Ethics published posthumously in 1677,Spinoza argues that God is substance. Evil is substance in A Wereshark’s Memoir by Justin Sloane. Original, frightening, and beautiful, this work is a study into the impossibility of evil to reign over the human race. It is a fiction of the open wound. It hurts and it makes you invent a therapy to alleviate pain. Often this is impossible. In a way, it is a subtle analysis of what society suffers from today. As Justin Sloane puts it, “Time is neither friend nor foe. But it can be made either.” —Zdravka Evtimova, 4x best novel of Bulgaria and author of He May Wear My Silence

With all the linguistic beauty of scientific romance, and a splash of cosmic horror, Mr. Sloane takes us on an aquatic romp through piracy, love, and death. Fans of William Hope Hodgson will want to devour this tale. —Jean-Paul L. Garnier, editor of Star*Line magazine and author of Garbage In, Gospel Out

Justin Sloane’s A Wereshark’s Memoir is a true megalodon of a novelette, howling hammerheaded through the centuries, timeless like that eldest breed named for Greenland. Equal parts werewolf, shark, and swashbuckler who befriends Blackbeard himself, Sloane’s narrator, sea-bewitched, bioluminescent shape-shifter, proves at least as haunted as a Ulysses unable ever to return home. —Dr. Matt Schumacher, editor of Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism and author of The Fire Diaries: Poems

Available everywhere for only $5.99.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The ultimate in nostalgia. “Family Feud: Gilligan’s Island Vs. Batman”. What year was this?

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

Pixel Scroll 10/3/24 I Don’t Think He Knows About Second Pixel Scroll

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(1) GOFUNDME FOR HOWARD ANDREW JONES. Friends have started “A Call to Help Howard Andrew Jones and His Family” at GoFundMe.

In August, Howard Andrew Jones wrote that he has been diagnosed with brain cancer––multifocal glioblastoma – and that, “People I trust––my doctors and my family––inform me it will be fatal, and we are deciding now on a course of action to make the most of the time I have left.” This GoFundMe shall go to forthcoming medical bills in the months to come and any other funding the family might need.

At this writing the appeal has raised $22,345 of the $35,000 goal.

(2) SCARE UP THE VOTE. The Scare Up the Vote event by members of the horror community hopes to raise funds and awareness to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The live online event at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on October 15 will include appearances from Stephen King, Joe Hill, Mike Flanagan, Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Cynthia Pelayo, Paul Tremblay, Gabino Iglesias, Victor LaValle, Alma Katsu, Bryan Fuller (Hannibal), Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone), and Don Mancini (creator of Chucky). Follow the YouTube page for the livestream: “Scare Up the Vote” YouTube page.

(3) GOLDSMITHS PRIZE SHORTLIST. The finalists for the 2024 Goldsmiths Prize were announced October 2. None of the six are detectably of genre interest:

  • All My Precious Madness (Mark Bowles, Galley Beggar Press)
  • Tell (Jonathan Buckley, Fitzcarraldo)
  • Parade (Rachel Cusk, Faber)
  • Choice (Neel Mukherjee, Atlantic)
  • Spent Light (Lara Pawson, CB Editions)
  • Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking (Han Smith, JM Originals).

The prize, worth £10,000 and run in association with the New Statesman, was open to novels published between 1 November 2023 and 31 October 2024, written in English by citizens of the UK or Ireland, or authors who have been resident in either country for three years and have their book published there.

The winner will be announced on November 6. 

(4) BOOK FREEDOM. Publishers Weekly reports “In Arkansas, Book Banners Dealt Another Legal Setback”.

In yet another major win for freedom to read advocates, a federal judge has ordered the Crawford County Public Library in Arkansas to stop segregating books deemed inappropriate by some local residents into special “social sections,” and to return the books to general circulation.

In his September 30 opinion and order, U.S. district court judge P.K. Holmes III held that “it is indisputable” that the creation and maintenance of the library’s so-called social sections “was motivated in substantial part by a desire to impede users’ access to books containing viewpoints that are unpopular or controversial in Crawford County.” In a preliminary injunction, Holmes ordered county officials to dismantle the sections and return the books to general circulation, as well as to refrain from “coercing” library staff to censor books.

The decision comes in a lawsuit first filed in May 2023 by three local parents, who challenged the county’s quorum court, the library board, and the library’s interim director for a policy that created special sections and classifications for segregating books, mostly LGBTQ content. Among their defenses, county officials argued that moving the books to special sections did not amount to book banning. But Holmes said the evidence showed that “viewpoint discrimination was a substantial motive” for the creation of the “social sections,” and that the policy held “profound” First Amendment implications….

(5) PAY THE WRITER. “The SoA responds to results of The Bookseller’s survey on advances and royalties” at The Society of Authors (UK).

A recent survey launched by The Bookseller on advances and royalties revealed that 52% of respondents had experienced payment issues with their publishers.

The survey found that among those who experienced issues with payment, ‘around 18% experienced problems with both advances and royalties, 17% only with advances [and] with around the same number experiencing problems only with royalties’….

(6) ZOOMING INTO FANHISTORY. Fanac.org will host a Zoom FanHistory session featuring globetrotting Australian fan Robin Johnson on October 26. To attend, send a note to fanac@fanac.org

FANAC FanHistory Zoom Session
Robin Johnson: Traveling Fan from Oz
Robin Johnson, interviewed by Perry Middlemiss & Leigh Edmonds 

October 26,2024 – 7PM EDT, 4PM PDT, 12AM London, 10AM AEDT Sunday, Oct 27 Melbourne

(7) DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS. “Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Other Toxic Fans: How Hollywood Is Fighting Back” – Variety has the details.

… Still, toxic fandoms have grown so pernicious that they’ve become a fact of life for many — and so powerful that while talent, executives and publicists will privately bemoan the issue, fear of inadvertently triggering another backlash kept several studios from speaking for this story even on background. (As one rep put it, “It’s just a lose-lose.”)

Those who did talk with Variety all agreed that the best defense is to avoid provoking fandoms in the first place. In addition to standard focus group testing, studios will assemble a specialized cluster of superfans to assess possible marketing materials for a major franchise project.

“They’re very vocal,” says the studio exec. “They will just tell us, ‘If you do that, fans are going to retaliate.’” These groups have even led studios to alter the projects: “If it’s early enough and the movie isn’t finished yet, we can make those kinds of changes.”

Several studio insiders say they often put their talent through a social media boot camp; in some cases, when a character is intentionally challenging a franchise’s status quo, studios will, with the actor’s permission, take over their social media accounts entirely. When things get really bad — especially involving threats of violence — security firms will scrub talent information from the internet to protect them from doxxing….

(8) NEW GERROLD NOVELLA COMING THIS MONTH. David Gerrold’s new SF novella Praxis will be released October 22 by Star Traveler Press, an imprint of Starship Sloane Publishing.

A lifetime in the Labor Corps—or colonize a new world. For Jamie and José, not much of a choice. But Praxis wouldn’t be easy. To survive there, you had to depend on each other. And that requires honesty that few possess. Praxis is a bold experiment in society building, a monosexual colony, with no promises of survival and no return trip. But it’s got potential. You just have to build a new civilization—on the other side of the universe.

It is a compelling story that explores social issues without skimping on the hard science fiction. 

The foreword is by John Shirley and the cover art is an original piece by Bob Eggleton commissioned for the book. F. J. Bergmann did the book design and layout and Justin T. O’Conor Sloane is the editor and publisher.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

October 3, 2017 — Anniversary: Blade Runner 2049

Science fiction fans live in hope, especially when it comes to sequels, prequels, and other works. Maybe this time it will be good. Maybe the magic will return. Maybe the horse will sing.

Maybe.

I won’t claim to be one of the seventeen people who saw the original Blade Runner in the theaters in 1982, my exposure came when versions of it arrived on videotape, but it had become one of my core SFF experiences. And so in 2017, upon the announcement of its forthcoming release, I was extremely interested in what Denis Villeneuve (whose Arrival I had loved) could do with the film. 

I saw it opening weekend, because it was my birthday weekend, and I wanted to treat myself. I had been led to expect spectacle and visuals, and I wanted the large screen, and in those days before the Covid Pandemic, I had no inhibitions in doing so. And so I sat down to see what Villeneuve had wrought. 

If the original Blade Runner is a noir classic pinpricked and studded with moments of beauty, Blade Runner 2049 was a large, sprawling epic on the screen, pinpricked and studded with moments of different kinds of beauty. Such visions, taking the future of Los Angeles from Blade Runner and adding a level of inexorable environmental devastation that we get right in the first scene and all the way to the finale at the devastated, buried Las Vegas. A twisty, twisted tale that wraps around the shed snake skin of the original film. And a story, and revelations that are of a piece, and feel like they belong in a Philip K. Dick story. The bones of the movie and its revelations.

This film doesn’t and didn’t work unless you were steeped in the original, sometimes too much for its own good.  But even for its long run time, around every corner, there was so much to see and take in. The long running time can work against it, but it gives us so much of the world to inhabit and see and explore. 

Is it the original? No. Does it depend too much on the original?  In some ways, trying to follow up on a classic movie was an impossible task. Had Villeneuve gone for another noir piece (even more than the mystery chassis of this film), it would have felt like too much of a copy. If there was no acknowledgement of the original, it would have felt like a betrayal of the original. I think that Villeneuve made the Blade Runner universe his own in a way that Ridley Scott did with his original movie. He understood the assignment and I think he hit the mark.

And long before Barbie, this movie helped cement Gosling as someone far more than just his good looks and charm. And to see Harrison Ford again, of course, was a pleasure. And Ana de Armas. And Robin Wright. And thanks to Blade Runner 2049, for better or worse, we got two Dune movies from Villeneuve. The template for those two movies is here. 

And now I need to rewatch it. Maybe you should give it a try, if you haven’t. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) UR SID TO JOIN LEE-MILLER ARCHIVE AT TEXAS A&M. Sharon Lee today informed fans of the Liaden Universe®:

Long-time Friends of Liad will recall Ur Sid, an eight-inch tall Teddy bear, dressed in a Scout uniform.  Ur Sid attended the conventions that Steve and Sharon couldn’t make, hobnobbing with the Famous, and, like every good fan, collecting buttons and memorabilia.

The authors would occasionally meet Ur Sid at worldcons, and were always happy to see him.  But his purpose was to be an Ambassador at Large for the Liaden Universe®, and in that he succeeded very well, indeed.

Ur Sid traveled between cons via the Bumpy Passage, a refurbed Scout ship that had seen better days, and he sent reports back to the Friends of Liad listserve.

Those reports are sadly lost. However, Ur Sid also kept a diary. From it, we learn that his first WorldCon was ChiCon 2000.  His last con, though it’s not noted in the diary, was Heliophere 2023, where Steve and Sharon were Writer Guests of Honor. He attended the Teddy Bear Tea, and charmed the room, as always.

All good adventures do finally come to an end.  Ur Sid stopped travelling when the Bumpy Passage suffered a catastrophic failure of its Struven Unit.  Subsequently, he spent some years with Friend of Liad Sarge, who reunited him with the authors at PhilCon 78, in 2014.

Ur Sid is about to embark on his last trip, via FedEx.  He will be escorting a shipment of Liaden Universe® books to the Lee and Miller Archive at the Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M.  Once that duty is accomplished, Ur Sid will become part of the permanent archive.  He’ll be keeping a Very Close Eye on Steve and Sharon’s Literary Legacy.  And charming the curators, of course.

Link to the Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Archive (note that the papers are still being processed).

(12) HAVE THEY GONE NUTS? “Nutter Butter, Are You Okay? The Brand’s Unhinged Social Media Has Customers Concerned” reports Delish.

You probably haven’t thought much about Nutter Butter since the cookie was in your lunchbox in the third grade. However, the snack brand has taken an interesting route to regain cultural relevance.

Nutter Butter has been posting completely unhinged TikToks for weeks now. No one seems to understand the brand’s bizarre approach, but it seems to be working. People are talking about Nutter Butter again, and the account has amassed millions of video views and hundreds of thousands of followers.

We’ll just leave these Nutter Butter TikToks here for evidence…

And while no one can’t seem to make any sense of it, that’s kind of the point. We got in touch with Nutter Butter to ask what was going on.

“Nutter Butter embraces its nuttiness, departing from a perfectly curated feed to experiment with the surreal side of the internet,” a spokesperson for the brand told Delish. “Our social channels create a realm of extreme absurdity and deep lore by going where no other cookie has gone before. Follow us as we push the boundaries of creativity to take you on unexpected adventures.”…

@officialnutterbutter

come play,

? original sound – nutter butter

(13) SIM CRADLE TO GRAVE. Variety has details about how “‘The Sims 4’ to Launch ‘Life and Death’ Expansion Pack Featuring Grim Reaper Career, Funerals, Afterlife and Reincarnation”.

… “In the Reaper Profession, Sims with an affinity for the afterlife can become Grimterns and work their way up to Reaper as they make a career out of facilitating the next phase of life for Sims,” per “The Sims” developers. “Work with Grim at the Netherworld Department of Death (N.W.D.D.) and even head off into the ‘field.’ Sims in this profession can experience reaper training with the all-around-good-guy-training-dummy, Kenny, maintain Grimtern Sims’ scythes, practice reaping souls on practice dummies, and determine causes of deaths for reaped souls. At higher levels, Sims in this Career can even determine which souls they’ll reap and which they’ll return to life. Once retrieved, souls can be placed in the Netherworld Portal to meet the soul quota. Grimterns who meet the soul quote are eligible to become Employee of the Month.”…

(14) DOXX EVERYONE IN SIGHT? According to Gizmodo, “This Facial Recognition Experiment With Meta’s Smart Glasses Is a Terrifying Vision of the Future”.

Two college students have used Meta’s smart glasses to build a tool that quickly identifies any stranger walking by and brings up that person’s sensitive information, including their home address and contact information, according to a demonstration video posted to Instagram. And while the creators say they have no plans to release the code for their project, the demo gives us a peek at humanity’s very likely future—a future that used to be confined to dystopian sci-fi movies….

… An Instagram video posted by Nguyen explains how the two men built a program that feeds the visual information from Meta Ray Ban smart glasses into facial recognition tools like Pimeyes, which have essentially scraped the entire web to identify where that person’s face shows up online. From there, a large language model infers the likely name and other details about that person. That name is then fed to various websites that can reveal the person’s home address, phone number, occupation or other organizational affiliations, and even the names of relatives….

(15) SECOND DINOSAUR ASTEROID. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The BBC have just reported that research has uncovered a second dinosaur-killing asteroid.  However this is not new news as the headline suggests as a couple of paragraphs in reveals that this discovery has previously been covered by the BBC themselves. What is new is a more detailed survey whose results have just been published in Nature: “3D anatomy of the Cretaceous–Paleogene age Nadir Crater”. See the pictures below.

Ripley once said of other monster creatures, we should “nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”  Having two giant asteroids, one for the western and one the eastern hemisphere was a good way to be sure.

I have never really forgiven the dinosaurs for what they did to Raquel Welch…

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Another movie pulled out of the vault & given the Pitch Meeting treatment. “Superman III Pitch Meeting”.

[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Joe Siclari, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge. Amd SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cliff, assisted by Nina.]

Pixel Scroll 10/23/23 In A Scroll In The File, There Lived A Pixel

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(1) WORLDS OF IF REVIVAL. The title that won three straight Hugos in the Sixties under the editorship of Frederik Pohl, Worlds of If, then folded in 1974, is making a comeback here.

The classic science fiction magazine Worlds of IF will live again starting February 2024. The magazine will be relaunched with Justin Sloane of Starship Sloane as editor-in-chief and publisher, Jean-Paul L. Garnier of Space Cowboy Books filling the role of deputy-editor-in-chief, and Dr. Daniel Pomarède as science editor. The inaugural issue will be available both in print and free download PDF, with works from multiple generations of SFF authors, artists, and poets. Leading up to the release, the website will feature teasers including interviews with notable SFF authors and fans, audio adaptations of classic tales from the original IF, and articles about SFF and beyond. In the tradition of IF, the editors plan on experimenting with new forms and styles of SF, showcasing new authors, interacting with fandom, and bringing fun and weird science fiction to readers.

Visit Starship Sloane Publishing’s homesite for a free webzine reissue of the April 1955 Worlds of IF, featuring novelettes by James E. Gunn and Fox B. Holden, with a short story by Philip K. Dick.  Learn more and find bonus content here.

(2) TOLKIEN STUDIES NEWS. David Bratman of Tolkien Studies today announced his co-editor, Verlyn Flieger, is ending her run with the journal. Her place will be taken by Yvette Kisor, Professor of Literature at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

After 22 years as co-Editor of Tolkien Studies, Verlyn Flieger will be retiring to take up the position of Editor Emerita. One of the co-founders of the journal, Verlyn has co-edited 20 volumes of the journal. Highlights include editing previously unknown material by Tolkien, some of his scholarly works that had become very difficult to access, and many of the most insightful and original articles published on Tolkien in the past two decades. It is impossible to list even a fraction of the contributions Verlyn has made to every single aspect of the journal’s operations, so we are reduced to saying the obvious: without Verlyn, there would be no Tolkien Studies. We will miss her terribly (though we expect to be drawing upon her wisdom on a regular basis). Volume 20, to be published later this year, will be the last issue she will have co-edited.

Tolkien Studies is delighted to announce that, beginning with Volume 21, Yvette Kisor, Professor of Literature at Ramapo College of New Jersey, will be taking up the position of co-Editor. The co-editor of Tolkien and Alterity, Yvette is well known to the international community of Tolkien scholars both for her publications on Tolkien, including “‘The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun’: Sexuality, Imagery, and Desire in Tolkien’s Works,” in Tolkien Studies 18 (2021), and her work organizing the influential “Tolkien at Kalamazoo” sessions at the International Congresses on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. A medievalist by training, Prof. Kisor has also published extensively on Old and Middle English literature. We are extremely pleased that she will be joining the journal’s editorial team.

(3) UNCANNY HUGO ACCEPTANCE SPEECH. Best Semiprozine Hugo winner Uncanny Magazine hasposted the video with the team’s acceptance remarks.

(4) ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDALS LONGLISTS.  The Longlist for 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction is now available on the awards’ website.

Forty-five books (21 fiction, 24 nonfiction) have been selected for the longlist for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The list is now available on the awards’ website. The six-title shortlist—three each for the fiction and nonfiction medals—will be chosen from longlist titles and announced on November 14, 2023. The two medal winners will be announced by 2024 selection committee chair Aryssa Damron at the Reference and User Services Association’s (RUSA) Book and Media Awards livestreaming event, held during LibLearnX in Baltimore on Saturday, January 20, at 9:45 a.m. Eastern. A celebratory event, including presentations by the winners and a featured speaker, will take place in June 2024 at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference in San Diego.

The fiction longlist contains the following works of genre interest. Several are novels, while others are story collections in which one or more of the stories have a genre component.

  • Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame. Chain-Gang All-Stars (Pantheon)
  • Blaché, Sin and Helen Macdonald. Prophet (Grove)
  • Brinkley, Jamel. Witness (Farrar)
  • Huang, S. L. The Water Outlaws (Tordotcom)
  • Labatut, Benjamin. The MANIAC (Penguin)
  • Norris, Kelsey. House Gone Quiet (Scribner)
  • Qian, Cleo. Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go (Tin House)

(5) ASKING FOR FLASH FICTION NEBULA. A letter being circulated for signatures calls for SFWA to create a Nebula Award for Flash Fiction. The letter says in part:

… Flash fiction, short-short fiction, drabbles, dribbles, and other forms of very short prose stories have long had a place in genre fiction. Over the years, there have been many respected genre publications devoted exclusively to flash, while other publications recognize it as a distinct category. Despite this, works of flash rarely appear on the SFWA Nebula final ballot, and even fewer works of this length have won.

We do not think this is because SFWA members do not appreciate or enjoy flash fiction or other forms of very short fiction. Rather, it is likely because the strategies and techniques of flash often differ from those used in short stories, which makes it difficult to compare them to these longer works. In particular, flash as a form encourages experimentation, and pieces of flash fiction are more likely to include unusual narrative structures and points of view, to blend elements of poetry and prose, or to otherwise approach storytelling differently than longer works of fiction.

Indeed, in early 2022 the SFWA membership recognized the value of flash fiction and its presence in the genre community by passing two rules changes to the membership qualification criteria that removed the minimum word count for joining as an associate or full member….

(6) SIDEWISE AWARD PRESENTATION. [Item by Steven H Silver.] The Sidewise Awards will be presented this Friday, October 27 at 12:30 CDT (UTC-5) at the World Fantasy Con  in Kansas City, Missouri.

The presentation will be made by judges Eileen Gunn and Steven H Silver in the Chicago A Room.

Finalists who will not be in attendance can appoint a designated acceptor or e-mail an acceptance speech to Steven H Silver at shsilver@stevenhsilver.com.

(7) NANANA NONOMO HEY HEY. Cass Morris’ latest newsletter is full of advice about “Worldbuilding for NaNoWriMo: Preptober Edition”.

What do you need to get started?

A perennial question for the worldbuilding writer: How much do you need to do before you actually start drafting?

The answer varies by writer, of course. Some of us compile chonky world bibles before setting down a word; some of us start with the plot and fill the world in as we go. For me it’s usually somewhere in the middle. The dolls and the dollhouse tend to come at least a bit at the same time.

The answer can also vary by project. Some may need more scaffolding before you can set to work. That may be dictated by how near or far your speculative world is from the “real world,” or by how much research you need to do.

When it comes to Nano, though, it can help to target your worldbuilding to the sort of story you think you’re working on. Me, I gravitate towards political plots, so I can’t really get started until I know a lot of details about what sort of government a world has, how it functions, and what factions are at play. If you’re doing a tightly-focused fantasy of manners, however, that might be something you can handwave….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born October 23, 1880 — Una O’Connor. Actress who appeared in the 1930s The Invisible Man as Jenny Hall. She had a bit part in Bride of Frankenstein, and a supporting role in the genre The Adventures of Robin Hood. Though not even genre adjacent, she was Mrs. Peters in the film adaptation of the quite excellent Graham Greene’s Stamboul. Great novel, I’ll need to see if I can find this film. She’s in The Canterville Ghost, and shows up twice in TV’s Tales of Tomorrow anthology series. (Died 1959.)
  • Born October 23, 1918 — James Daly. He was Mr. Flint in Trek‘s most excellent “Requiem for Methuselah” episode. He also showed up on The Twilight Zone, Mission:Impossible and The Invaders. He was Honorious in The Planet of The Apes, and Dr. Redding in The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler. 
  • Born October 23, 1935 — Bruce Mars, 87. He was on Trek three times, one uncredited, with his best remembered being in the most excellent Shore Leave episode as Finnegan, the man Kirk fights with. He also had one-offs in The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of The Sea, and Mission: Impossible.  He is now Brother Paramananda with the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles which he joined shortly after ending his acting career in 1969. 
  • Born October 23, 1942 — Michael Crichton. An impressive number of Hugos, both winners and nominations. The Andromeda Strain nominated at L.A. Con, Westworld at Discon II and the Jurassic Park film would win a Hugo at ConAndian.  I’m very fond of the original Westworld film, not at all enamored of anything that has followed. Same holds for The Andromeda Strain film which I think is a perfect adaptation of his novel unlike the latter series that trashes the novel. (Died 2008.)
  • Born October 23, 1948 — Brian Catling. Author of The Vorrh trilogy whose first novel, The Vorrh, has an introduction by Alan Moore. Writing was just one facet of his work life as he was a sculptor, poet, novelist, film maker and performance. And artist. Impressively he held Professor of Fine Art at the [John] Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford and was a fellow of Linacre College. Yeah that John Ruskin. (Died 2022.)
  • Born October 23, 1953 — Ira Steven Behr, 70. Best remembered for his work on the Trek franchise, particularly Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which is still my favorite Trek though Strange Worlds has its charms, on which he served as showrunner and executive producer. As writer and or producer, he has been in involved in Beyond Reality, Dark Angel, The Twilight Zone, The 4400, Alphas, and Outlander. 
  • Born October 23, 1969 — Trudy Canavan, 54. Australian writer who’s won two Ditmars for her Thief’s Magic and A Room for Improvement novels and two Aurealis Awards as well, one for her “Whispers of the Mist Children” short story, and one for The Magician’s Apprentice novel.  It’s worth noting that she’s picked up two Ditmar nominations for her artwork as well. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Shoe contains a horrible, horrible, genre-adjacent pun. Did I mention it’s horrible?
  • Tom Gauld’s pick is probably number one in its own obscure Amazon category.

(10) MYTHING ANSWERS. The Scots Magazine invites you to take the “Scottish Myths And Folklore Quiz”. Flying absolutely blind I scored 7 out of 10. All those fantasy book blurbs I’ve read must have helped.

Do you know the name of the Loch Ness Monster’s cousin, who is said to live in Loch Morar? Or which season, Beira, who washes her clothes in the Corryvreckan whirlpool, represents?

There’s so much more to learn about Scotland’s strange and mystical past….

(11) MONSTER MAVEN. The Hollywood Heritage Museum presents “Jack Pierce: Hollywood’s Greatest Monster Maker” on October 25. Tickets for this in-person event are available at the link.

Please join us on Wednesday, October 25th at 7:30PM as we kick off the 2023-24 season of our Evening @ The Barn series with a very special Halloween edition!

In this exclusive multimedia event, the career of Jack Pierce, legendary makeup department head at Universal Pictures from 1928-1947, will be explored in depth. Unquestionably, Pierce was responsible for many of cinema’s most memorable screen characters, including The Frankenstein Monster, The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and The Phantom of the Opera, during that seminal period in horror films. Videos, photos, and unique, rarely seen elements will be critical aspects of this two-hour presentation hosted by author and historian Scott Essman. Additionally, special guests and surprises are in store for attendees!

Free parking is available in Hollywood Bowl Lot “D” which is directly adjacent to the museum.

In case you’ve never heard of the Hollywood Heritage Museum before:

The Hollywood Heritage Museum is a must-visit for cinema enthusiasts. It is located in the oldest surviving motion picture studio in Hollywood. Here, you can learn about the history of the studio and how it played a crucial role in the birth of Paramount Pictures Corporation in 1916. The first feature length film was produced here in 1912 by Jesse L. Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille. This 1901 barn turned studio was designated California State Historic Landmark No. 554 in 1956. 

(12) SPIELBERG Q&A. SYFY Wire speaks to the director about Laurent Bouzereau’s new book in “Spielberg: The First Ten Years Excerpt Reveals E.T. Secrets”.

Last fall, Neil DeGrasse Tyson made the claim that E.T., the lovable cosmic visitor, “was a sentient plant” during a guest appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. When asked how he came by this strange piece of information, DeGrasse Tyson simply replied: “Steven Spielberg told me in my office.” He didn’t elaborate any further than that, but we now know he wasn’t just blowing smoke.

The legendary director confirms the titular alien of his 1982 coming-of-age classic (now streaming on Peacock) is “more like a plant or a vegetable” in the pages of Laurent Bouzereau’s new book — Spielberg: The First Ten Years. 

Bouzereau is, perhaps, one of the few people alive who could actually pull off something like this. After all, he’s spent decades cultivating a close professional relationship with the celebrated storyteller while serving as director on the numerous behind-the-scenes documentaries found on the home release editions of Spielberg’s own movies.

Hitting stands tomorrow, Tuesday, October 24, from Insight Editions, Spielberg: The First Ten Years features exhaustive and must-read interviews centered around the productions of Duel, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and, of course, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial….

What other references did you study?

I wanted E.T. to give the impression of a thousand-year old wizened life form. Carlo took directions the same way an actor would — but it’s of course really the actor who creates the performance, and in that sense, it’s really Carlo Rambaldi who created E.T. I also remember saying to Carlo that E.T. should kind of waddle when he walks like Chaplin with his cane, that he should look like Bambi on ice. When E.T. starts to walk on Earth, he is ungainly, and he is insecure. Several times in the movie, we showed how awkward E.T. is and how funny he is when he falls over…

(13) WHAT CATS THINK. This book trailed for The Adventures of Trim series is pretty cute – probably because several cats are interviewed on camera.

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Please Don’t Destroy: “Bad Bunny Is Shrek” on Saturday Night Live.

Three guys listen to Bad Bunny’s idea for a script.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, Lynne M. Thomas, Daniel Dern, John-Paul L. Garnier, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]