Tag Archives: Kathleen Ann Goonan

Pixel Scroll 6/10/23 Scrolls Are Here, Life Is Pixels And Life Is Bheer

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(1) BALTICON 57 COVID REPORT. The Balticon 57 committee has learned two attendees came down with Covid. They sent this report to their mailing list:

While we did our best to mitigate the risks, we did not come through unscathed. Yesterday we received a report of 2 COVID cases. Everyone is now home and recovering.

Cases A and B – Henderson Books named with permission:

– Started feeling bad Monday during breakdown
– Tested positive after the close of the convention
– They were the book vendors at the first booth to the right, just when you walked in the door

When to test:

CDC defines day of known or expected exposure as Day 0. An exposure is close or extended contact without respiratory protection with a person known or suspected of having covid. The earliest that one may show positive test results if they contract Covid is 48-72 hours after exposure; CDC recommends testing no earlier than day 5 (120 hours after exposure) or upon developing symptoms.

What to do if exposed:

If you are up to date on vaccinations, you do not need to isolate, but should wear a well-fitting mask around others for the next 10 days.

If you are not up to date, they recommend isolating for 5 days, and then wearing a mask around others for the following 5.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html (last updated May 11, 2023)

(2) BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS. Lisa Tuttle’s “The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup” in the Guardian covers: Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee; The Grief Nurse by Angie Spoto; Airside by Christopher Priest; Hokey Pokey by Kate Mascarenhas; and The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson.

(3) CULTURE WAR INTIMIDATION. “Abuse has led Sathnam Sanghera to ‘more or less stop’ doing book events in UK” he told the Guardian.

The writer Sathnam Sanghera has said he barely ever does public events in the UK because of a fear of being attacked amid a culture war-fuelled backlash over his views on Britain’s imperial past, saying he feared a Florida-style push towards the banning of books.

Sanghera, a journalist and author whose bestselling book Empireland assessed how the UK’s colonial territories still infect contemporary politics and discourse, said he had begun to dread holding book events here.

Speaking to the Intelligence Squared podcast, Sanghera, who also explored the legacy of empire in a Channel 4 series, said he had “more or less stopped doing events in Britain”.

He said: “Because actually, the trolling online is … I’m so used to it, it doesn’t really feel real. Although it does get to you when it’s relentless for days at a time when you get targeted.

“But it’s the way it translates into real life … It’s people coming to my events, and shouting at me. And you know, when that happens, it always makes for a good event in the sense that other people stand up for me – it feels like the whole event matters. I sell out my books.

“It’s good – I mean, it probably makes my publisher happy. But it comes at a personal cost to me. I realised I started dreading the moment. I was waiting to be attacked. And I just stopped doing those events. And I just did international ones.”…

(4) THE SEVENTIES. Even if you were an sf reader in the Seventies this person’s writing career could be news to you. Joachim Boaz “Short Story Reviews” series looks back on “Russell Bates’ ‘Legion’ (1971), ‘Get With the Program’ (1972), and ‘A Modest Proposal’ (1973)” at Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations.

… Born in Lawton, Oklahoma (I’ve also seen Anadarko, OK implied as a birthplace), [Russell] Bates was an enrolled member of the Kiowa tribe. After he finished high school, he entered the U.S. Air Force. While injured after an explosion at a missile assembly building, he was encouraged to take up a hobby. He began writing science fiction stories–including Star Trek fanfiction (discussed in more detail below) [4].

Interested in honing his craft, Bates attended the famous Clarion workshop in 1969, and his first story, “Legion” (1971), hit print two years later [4]. He published six science fiction short stories between 1971-1977. A seventh–“Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending 1. The Last Quest; 2. Fifth and Last Horseman”–was scheduled to appear in Harlan Ellison’s infamous Last Dangerous Visions, originally slated for 1973. It hasn’t been published elsewhere….

(5) STARS OF STAR WARS. A compilation of many well-known Star Wars celebrity media moments, and quite entertaining, even the familiar ones: “40+ ‘Star Wars’ Cast Member Interview Moments That R2-Die For” at Illumeably. Here’s an example:

On the road

Get ready to be amazed by the legendary James Earl Jones, the voice behind some of the most iconic characters in cinematic history. His rich and velvety voice is the perfect fit for the commanding roles of Mufasa and Darth Vader. But it’s not all business for this Hollywood heavyweight. Despite the weight of his fame, Jones isn’t afraid to let loose and have some fun, even if it means using his powers for mischief. In fact, he once took to the airwaves on his CB radio as Darth Vader, much to the delight of his fans. Who knew this talented actor had such a great sense of humor?

(6) SNAPPING THE SUSPENDERS OF DISBELIEF. You will not be surprised to hear there are “8 Sci-Fi Movies That Break Their Own Time Travel Rules”. Maybe there are more – but ScreenRant came up with these.

… Fans’ love for these films transcends what could be seen as splitting hairs, getting bogged down in plot holes. Indeed, even the most lauded time travel sci-fi movies are guilty of breaking their own rules, yet the captivating stories and characters can eclipse any disobedience. However, though the very concept of time travel is implausible, some sci-fi films fare better than others at convincing their audience of their realism by avoiding flouting their rules, rendering them meaningless. These eight sci-fi movies have broken their own time travel rules, prioritizing their plot and impactful scenes over time travel mechanics and rule observation.

One of their offenders is Avengers: Endgame. Beware spoilers.

Time travel in Avengers: Endgame faces no risk of the Grandfather paradox because you can’t change the past since it has already happened. Nonetheless, the film seems to establish this rule to preserve the events of previous movies but break it when it becomes inconvenient. The film’s time travel follows Novikov’s self-consistency principle which states that it is impossible to create time paradoxes; the time traveler can only do in the past what does not change history, elucidated in the film by Bruce Banner.

“If you travel back into your own past, that destination becomes your future, and your former present becomes the past, which can’t now be changed by your new future.”

Avengers: Endgame’s finale reveals that instead of Captain America promptly returning to the Sacred Timeline after replacing the infinity stones and Mjolnir to their respective timelines he stays in the past to grow old with Peggy Carter and shows up as an old man to pass on his shield. This breaks the film’s rules, changing history and the present, leaving the time loop open. By the film’s logic Steve Rogers has done the impossible and changed his future, something Avengers: Endgame doesn’t justify nor explain.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

2007 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

I was truly sad when Kathleen Ann Goonan passed on from bone cancer at the relatively young age of sixty-nine years as she was one of my favorite writers. Her first novel, Queen City Jazz, which was published twenty years ago was the first novel I read by her.

It was the beginning of the Nanotech Quartet which I enjoyed immensely.

I also enjoyed her WW II alternative history novel from which our Beginning comes, In War Times: An Alternate Universe Novel of a Different Present published by Tor sixteen years ago. It would win John W. Campbell Memorial Award. 

And here’s that Beginning…

DR. ELIANI HADNTZ was only five foot three, though she had seemed taller in the classroom, and Sam had not suspected that her tightly pulled-back hair was a mass of wild black curls until the evening she sat on the edge of his narrow boardinghouse bed. A streetlamp threw a glow onto her pale breasts, she reached behind her head and yanked out the combs, made crooked by the intensity of their lovemaking. 

Her loosened hair cascaded down her back and hid her face. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and sat with her elbows on her knees, staring out the window. 

When Sam reached out and ran a finger up her spine, she flinched. He had no idea why she was here.

Sam Dance was an uncoordinated soldier. To someone less good-natured, his last name, chosen by an immigration officer on Ellis Island a few generations back, might have seemed like a cruel joke. Because of his poor eyesight, the Army had not accepted him when he first volunteered in 1940, even with almost three years of chemical engineering classes at the University of Dayton under his belt. But while working as an inspector at a Milan, Tennessee, ordnance polant, he heard of an outfit in Indiana recruiting at a used car dealership trying to reach an enlistment quota. He hastened to their office, and was finally allowed to join the Army and serve his country.

Sam stood out because of his height. His intelligence was less visible, but must have been noticed by someone in the Army. Plucked from daily twenty-mile marches through inclement weather in North Carolina, he was sent to D.C. for an intensive course on a potpourri of esoteric subjects. The class met in a hastily assembled temporary structure on the roof of a War Department building. 

The subjects, up to now, had been curiously disparate. Codebreaking, mechanical engineering, advanced calculus, and now theoretical physics rushed past taught by an odd assortment of flamboyant Europeans with heavy accents and accompanied at the end of each week by a test. 

Properly appreciative of the warmth into which he had been suddenly deposited, Sam was always in his seat each morning at seven A.M. when Dr. Hadntz opened the door, set her briefcase decisively on the bare metal desk at the front of the room, and draped her coat and scarf over the back of the desk chair. She always began her lecture immediately, chalking formulas on the board which he was sure represented some of the most rudimentary knowledge that she possessed. She was an exiled physicist from Budapest. The Army, of course, had not provided the students with an extensive background, but it was rumored that she had worked with Curie, Wigner, Teller, Fermi. Everyone who was anyone in theoretical physics.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 10, 1922 — Judy Garland. She is remembered for her portrayal of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, and her only genre role in her tragically short life. I will note that she was the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, which she won for her 1961 live recording titled Judy at Carnegie Hall. (Died 1969.)
  • Born June 10, 1937 — Luciana Paluzzi, 86. She’s best known for playing SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in Thunderball. Genre wise, I see she was also in Journey to the Lost City (in the original German, Das indische Grabmal), Hercules, The Green Slime, 1001 Nights, Captain Nemo and the Underwater City and War Goddess.  
  • Born June 10, 1950 — Ed Naha, 73. Among his many genre credits, he was Editor of both Starlog and Fangoria. An even more astonishing genre credit was that he produced Inside Star Trek in 1976 with Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, DeForest Kelley and Mark Lenard talking about the series. Fiction wise, he wrote one series as D. B. Drumm, The Traveller series and adapted a number of movies such as Robocop and Robocop 2 under his own name. Way back in the Seventies, he wrote Horrors: From Screen to Scream: An Encyclopedic Guide to the Greatest Horror and Fantasy Films of All Time which alas has not been updated. There are no digital books at iBooks or Kindles for him.
  • Born June 10, 1951 — Charles Vess, 72. If you ever need a crash course in learning about his art, go find a copy of Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess which lavishly covers his career up to a decade ago. I’ve got a personally signed copy here along with lots of his artwork. He’s had interesting career including the Spider-Man: Spirits of the Earth graphic novel that he wrote and illustrated. I strongly recommend the illustrated version of Stardust he did with Gaiman as it’s amazing. 
  • Born June 10, 1952 — Kage Baker. I never met her but we had a decade long conversation via email and once in a while via phone. We were supposed to write a Company Concordance for Golden Gryphon but she got too ill for it to happen. And yes I loved all of The Company series. Harry the Space Raptor is now living with her sister Katheleen. (Died 2010.)
  • Born June 10, 1953 — Don Maitz, 70. Winner of the Hugo twice for Best Artist and ten Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. And a World Fantasy Award as well. Yes, I’m impressed. From Asimov to Wolfe, his artwork has adorned the covers of many genre authors. He’s married to Janny Wurtz and their excellent website can be found thisaway.
  • Born June 10, 1964 — Andrew M. Niccol, 59. Screenwriter / producer / director who wrote and produced one of my favorite genre films, The Truman Show. The film won him a Hugo at Aussiecon Three.  He also involved in Gattaca, The Terminal, In Time, The Host, The Minutes short video and Anon.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Tom Gauld is there when Hell connects to Twitter.

(10) PURSUING TRIVIA. David Goldfarb reports Friday’s LearnedLeague questions included this:

A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986) continue the story first told by author Madeleine L’Engle in what 1962 novel?

With a 70% get rate, this was by far the easiest question on a tough day (the next easiest question had a 43% get rate).

Then on TV, Friday’s episode of Jeopardy! had quite a bit of SFF-related content. In the first round, the “Pets on Film” category had several:

$200: Miss Gulch takes away this Cairn Terrier early on in a classic film; the heroine calls her a “wicked old witch”

Returning champion Suresh Krishnan: “Who’s Toto?”

$400: Bong Joon-Ho’s 2017 film “Okja” is about a big one of these who has been genetically engineered by an evil corporation
This was a triple stumper. Correct response: “What is a pig?”

$600: In the “DC League of Super-Pets” superego Krypto has an alias; punning on his master, he’s named this “Kent”
Challenger Tim Hagood was right: “What’s ‘Bark’?”

Then in “Quick books”, $200: From 2006 it’s Cormac McCarthy’s title post-apocalyptic byway
Challenger Vickie Cyr: “What’s The Road?”

$800: His “Midnight’s Children” is set in places like Kashmir and Delhi
Suresh: “Who is Salman Rushdie?” (He might be thought to have had an advantage on that one.)

In the Double Jeopardy round:

“TV: Who Said It”, $2000: “We’ve had vicious kings & we’ve had idiot kings, but I don’t know if we’ve ever been cursed with a vicious idiot boy king”
Tim evidently watched Game of Thrones and responded “Who is Tyrion Lannister?”

$1600: “Carl’s dead…Carl went out to help someone and he got bit”
Tim: “Who’s Rick?” (This was Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead)

“Eponymous Science”, $1600: The Drake Equation, which estimates the number of advanced alien civilizations in our galaxy, was created as part of SETI, short for this
Suresh: “What is search for extraterrestrial intelligence?”

“With This Ring”, $2000: Around 1850, Richard Wagner began writing a poem called “The Death of” this heroic character in the “Ring” cycle
Vickie tried “Who is Wotan?” but this was wrong.
Nobody else answered. Correct would have been, “Who is Siegfried?”

$1200: A poetic verse by this man mentions “Three rings for the elven-kings under the sky”
You knew this had to be somewhere in “With This Ring”, right? Suresh got it.

And in Final Jeopardy: “British Novels”: Midway through this 1928 novel, the title character briefly takes “their” instead of his or her
Vickie was correct with “What is Orlando?”. This Virginia Woolf novel about a sex-changing immortal surely counts as genre, for our purposes.

Neither of the other two were right. Tim tried “What is The Importance of Being Earnest?”, and Suresh’s response was “What is Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde?”.

(11) HECK YEAH! “An idea whose time had come a quarter of a century ago,” is what John A Arkansawyer calls The ACME Chocolate Registry.

This is the same idea as a wedding gift registry at a department store. You can register your preference in chocolate, and then your friends and relatives can look it up so they know what to get you.

The link comes from the ACME Laboratories website whose logo art is an anvil in outline.

(12) THE SUPREMES SAY “BAD DOG!” Here’s some cutting-edge legal news for you. “Supreme Court Rules Against Dog Toy Resembling Liquor Bottle” reports the New York Times.  

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the First Amendment did not protect a chew toy for dogs resembling a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from a lawsuit claiming trademark infringement.

The toy, the Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker, has the shape and other distinctive features of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s but with, as an appeals court judge put it, “lighthearted, dog-related alterations.”

The words “Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” on the bottle are replaced on the toy by “the Old No. 2, on your Tennessee carpet.” Where Jack Daniel’s says its product is 40 percent alcohol by volume, Bad Spaniels’ is said to be “43 percent poo.”

A tag attached to the toy says it is “not affiliated with Jack Daniel Distillery.”

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for a unanimous court, seemed amused by the dispute. “This case is about dog toys and whiskey,” she wrote, “two items seldom appearing in the same sentence.”

She added that the characteristics of the whiskey bottle were familiar to almost everyone.

“A bottle of Jack Daniel’s — no, Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey — boasts a fair number of trademarks,” she wrote. “Recall what the bottle looks like (or better yet, retrieve a bottle from wherever you keep liquor; it’s probably there).”

After reproducing a color photograph of the bottle, she continued: “‘Jack Daniel’s’ is a registered trademark, as is ‘Old No. 7.’ So too the arched Jack Daniel’s logo. And the stylized label with filigree (i.e., twirling white lines). Finally, what might be thought of as the platform for all those marks — the whiskey’s distinctive square bottle — is itself registered.”…

(13) YOU’D THINK THIS CAT WAS FROM TRALFAMADORE. Inverse celebrates that “45 Years Ago, Disney Made Its Weirdest Sci-Fi Movie — And Perfected a Classic Formula”.

…The Cat From Outer Space has a pretty self-explanatory premise. What if there was a cat from outer space and it was part of a movie starring two of the cast members of M*A*S*H? The story is almost a moot point — the joy of The Cat From Outer Space is watching a cat who is always staring just off-camera at what is definitely some kind of chew toy or food. But there is indeed a story to The Cat From Outer Space. The movie follows Energy Research Laboratory scientist Frank Wilson (Ken Berry), who is studying a UFO taken into custody by U.S. officials. His unconventional theories get laughed at by his colleagues, but pique the interest of the UFO’s passenger, a cat-like alien named Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7 that Frank decides to call Jake. Jake needs Frank’s help to return to his home planet, and the only thing that can help rebuild his ship is $120,000 worth of solid gold. So, of course, Frank sets about getting this gold by … gambling?

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, John A Arkansawyer, David Goldfarb, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 2/14/21 Oh Mandalorian, You Came And You Gave Without Taking That Too-Cute Baby Yoda

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(1) UNBOXING DAY. Juliette Wade’s copies have arrived!

https://twitter.com/JulietteWade/status/1359667543594602499

(2) IF IT WASN’T FOR THE HONOR OF THE THING. John Scalzi unpacks his “General Unstructured Thoughts On ‘Being Cancelled’” at Whatever.

…2. ‘Canceling’ is certain people discovering that capitalism doesn’t love them as much anymore. I don’t want to say that capitalism is value-neutral, because, whoooooo boy, it is not, buuuuuuut it is pretty much 100% percent accurate that capitalism will always, always, follow the money. And where is the money? Well, in America two decades into the 21st century, the large capitalist structures have decided that the money will be multicultural* and socially inclusive* and politically liberal*, and all those asterisks are there because it should be understood that the capitalist take on each of these concepts is heavily modified and strained through the “to the extent we can make money off this” filter, i.e., don’t expect capitalism to lead us to a multicultural American utopia, just expect it to be happy to rent-seek inclusively on the way there….

(3) ANCESTORS. Ann Leckie is interested in genealogy. Look who fell out of her family tree —

https://twitter.com/ann_leckie/status/1360689172105854978

(4) IT’S NOT BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND. At Vector, Paul Kincaid tries to deduce the elusive answer to “When Was Westworld?”

There is no particular issue with the timeline of the original 1973 film, Westworld, written and directed by Michael Crichton. It is set in the then near future, 1983, and the linear action takes place entirely within the Delos theme park. But when the film became the basis for the television series created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Westworld (2016-present), time became a complex and confusing issue.

Nolan had already displayed a rather cavalier attitude towards time in his earlier television series, Person of Interest (2011-2016). The first series, first broadcast in the autumn of 2011, was set in 2012, but contained multiple flashbacks to events over the previous decade. Although these flashbacks are often dated, it can be difficult to construct a coherent timeline for the two principal characters, Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) and John Reese (Jim Caviezel). But when it came to Westworld, that tendency to play fast and loose with chronology became an often understated but defining characteristic of the series.

To date there have been three series of Westworld (it has subsequently been renewed for a fourth season)…each of which presents time in a different way, even though theoretically each is a direct sequel to the series before….

(5) GOONAN MEMORIAL SCHEDULED. There’ll be a Zoom memorial held for Kathleen Ann Goonan on March 7 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. Register here. Those who wish to speak should reach out to [email protected].

(6) SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE. HBO Max released a new trailer for The Snyder Cut of Justice League which includes new footage of Jared Leto as the Joker.

(7) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • February 14, 1988 — On this date in 1988 on BBC 2, the Red Dwarf series premiered. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor and it aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009. It is a sort of a SF comedy. We think. It’s based off Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, a BBC Radio 4 series. The official website explains the convoluted cast changes over three decades far better than we could. The audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it an excellent rating of eighty percent. (CE)

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born February 14, 1906 – John Gould.  Three hundred interiors for us; much else in a long career for the pulps (so called because printed on cheap wood-pulp paper) and others e.g. Redbook, The Saturday Evening Post.  Advertising and fine art too.  Here is a cover for The Spider (no, not that one).  Here is an interior from the Jan 31 Astounding (illustrating C.D. Willard, “The Eye of Allah”).  Here is a 1948 toucan.  Here is a 1960 page for General Electric’s celestial-guidance system.  (Died 1996) [JH]  
  • Born February 14, 1919 – Dave Kyle.  A Pictorial History of SF and The Illustrated Book of SF Ideas and Dreams – a title which is like him.  Three novels, ten shorter stories.  A dozen anecdotes of “The Worldcon from the Beginning” (1939, 1956-57, 1962-63, 1969, 1974, 1977, 1982, 1986-88) in the souvenir book for Noreascon Three the 47th Worldcon; chaired NYCon II the 14th, was Fan Guest of Honor at ConStellation the 41st; by 2011 had attended more Worldcons than anyone else fan or pro.  Two dozen fanhistory articles in Mimosa; see here.  Big Heart (our highest service award; later administered it, 2000-16; after his death, named for him).  Our Gracious Host’s appreciation here.  Notes by me here.  (Died 2016) [JH]
  • Born February 14, 1925 – J.T. McIntosh.  A score of novels, a hundred shorter stories.  Journalist under another name.  I wish I could tell you that “Men Like Mules” was about Bel Riose, or even that “200 Years to Christmas” was about Eratosthenes, but it’s not so.  Nevertheless his early work warrants revival.  (Died 2008) [JH]
  • Born February 14, 1942 — Andrew Robinson, 79. Elim Garak on Deep Space Nine. He wrote a  novel based on his character, A Stitch in Time  and a novella, “The Calling” which can be found in Prophecy and Change, a DS9 anthology edited by Marco Palmieri. Other genre credits include Larry Cotton in Hellraiser, appearing in The Puppet Masters as Hawthorne and playing John F. Kennedy on the The New Twilight Zone. (CE)
  • Born February 14, 1951 — John Vornholt, 70. I was musing on the difference between fanfic and profic (if such a word exists) when I ran across this writer. He’s written in a number of media properties with the most extensive being the Trek verse where he’s written several dozen works, but he’s penned works also in the Babylon 5, Buffyverse, Dinotopia, Earth 2, Marvel metaverse… Well you get the idea. All authorized, but really no different than fanfic on the end, are they? Other than they pay a lot better. (CE) 
  • Born February 14, 1952 — Gwyneth Jones, 69. Interesting person that she is, let’s start with her thoughts on chestnuts she did when she was Winter Queen at Green Man. Just because I can. Now regarding her fiction, I’d strongly recommend her Bold As Love series of a Britain that went to pieces as it now certainly is, and her twenty year-old Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality polemic is still worth reading. (CE) 
  • Born February 14, 1954 – Jeff Easley, age 67.  A hundred covers, two dozen interiors.  Here is the Jul 84 Amazing.  Here is the Dec 98 Dragon.  Here is Legions of Space.  Here is Empire of Imagination.  [JH]
  • Born February 14, 1963 — Enrico Colantoni, 58. Any excuse to mention Galaxy Quest is one I’ll gladly take. He played a delightful Mathesar on that film and that was his first genre role, lucky bastard. Up next for him was A.I. Artificial Intelligence as The Murderer followed by appearing in the most excellent animated Justice League Dark as the voice of Felix Faust where his fate was very, very bad. He had an amazing role on Person of Interest as Charlie Burton / Carl Elias. Not genre, but his acting as Sgt. Gregory Parker on Flashpoint, a Canadian police drama television series is worth noting as it that excellent series. (CE) 
  • Born February 14, 1970 — Simon Pegg, 51. Best known for playing Montgomery Scott in the new Star Trek franchise. His first foray into genre was Shaun of the Dead which he co-wrote and had an acting role in. Late gernre roles include Land of the Dead where he’s a Photo Booth Zombie, Diary of the Dead where he has a cameo as a Newsreader, and he portrays Benji Dunn in the ongoing Mission: Impossible franchise. (CE) 
  • Born February 14, 1972 – Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, age 49.  A novel (won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize) and two shorter stories for us; another novel, eight other shorter stories.  “I’m always looking and hoping for the swerve [alluding to Joan Retallack].”  [JH]
  • Born February 14, 1975 — M. Darusha Wehm, 46. New Zealand resident writer who was nominated for the Nebula Award and won the New Zealand Sir Julius Vogel Award for The Martian Job novel. They say it’s interactive fiction. You can read the standalone prequel novella, Retaking Elysium, on their website which can be found here. (CE)
  • Born February 14, 1991 – Roshani Chokshi, age 30.  Nine novels (three NY Times Best-Sellers), half a dozen shorter stories; two poems in Strange Horizons and Uncanny.  Top of her class in law school, so dropped out and wrote.  Greek and Hindu myth, magic in 19th Century Paris.  Has read Emma, Frankenstein, Ivanhoe, Lolita, Moby-Dick, M. Tatar’s Annotated Grimm, Complete Stories & Poems of Lewis Carroll.  [JH]

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Off the Mark shows how kaiju celebrate Valentine’s Day.
  • Sarah C. Andersen thinks the action really happens on Valentine’s Night.
  • Lar De Souza depicts the surprising truth:

(10) NOTES FROM A BOSKONE 58 INTERVIEW.

(11) THE JETSONS. SYFY Wire eavesdrops as “SpaceX founder Elon Musk teases a lofty Tesla upgrade in the future” in a podcast.

During a recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Musk commented that he’d love to have upcoming Tesla Roadster hover “like a meter above the ground.”  Musk always makes the most of his visits to Rogan’s online program and it’s usually a treasure of interesting antics and sound bites.

“Maybe it can hover like a meter above the ground, or something like that,” he explained to the popular comedian and host. “If you plummet, it’ll blow out the suspension, but you’re not gonna die.”

Clearly not completely satisfied with the Roadster’s current roster of options, Musk has previously claimed that a next-generation version might be offered with a SpaceX package with rocket-like thrusters employing pressurized air to assist in acceleration, deceleration, and handling.

(12) THE BREW THAT IS TRUE. “Archaeologists unearth world’s oldest known beer factory in Egypt” – Yahoo! has the story.

American and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed what could be the oldest known beer factory at one of the most prominent archaeological sites of ancient Egypt, a top antiquities official said on Saturday.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the factory was found in Abydos, an ancient burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, more than 280 miles south of Cairo.

He said the factory apparently dates back to the region of King Narmer, who is widely known for his unification of ancient Egypt at the beginning of the First Dynastic Period (3150BC-2613BC)….

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “How Wonder Woman 1984 Should Have Ended” on YouTube, the How It Should Have Ended team takes on the many problems of Wonder Woman 1984.

[Thanks to John Hertz, Scott Edelman, JJ, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Kathleen Ann Goonan (1952-2021)

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Kathleen Ann Goonan died January 28 at the age of 68.

After teaching for 13 years, she turned to writing full time in 1988. She also attended Clarion West that year. Her first published sff story was “The Snail Mail” in Strange Plasma (1991). Goonan’s first novel Queen City Jazz (1994) began what she would later call her Nanotech Quartet, which also includes Mississippi Blues, Crescent City Rhapsody and Light Music.

The Wikipedia notes:

Goonan is best known for novels which give snapshots taken at different times of a world where nano- and biotechnologies (“bionan”) produce deep changes in humans and their habitat. She explored themes of cultural and social change and catastrophe. She was a great lover of jazz and music in general, and peppered her tales with references to (and reincarnations of) the likes of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Sun Ra.

Her essay “Science Fiction and All That Jazz” explained the pairing that permeated her own fiction.

…Music and literature are natural partners. Both have an overall form, a time-bounded sequence of beginning, middle, and end. The lyricism of notes or of words sequenced in a particular way, the cadences of timing or plot, lead, if properly balanced, to a single cumulative experience in the mind of the listener or of the reader. There is an undeniable musicality to great works of literature — the booming symphony of War and Peace, or the deep-consciousness rhythms of To the Lighthouse, where we might almost be in the mind of Miles Davis or John Coltrane. When an artist (or an improvisational jazz ensemble) composes a work of music or of literature, organizational impulses are at work. We all have musical brains.

Science fiction, like jazz, found its major flowering in America, despite those who claim Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as the Ur-text of science fiction. Hugo Gernsback’s vision of the scientification of the future thrilled readers with tales of seemingly impossible wonders. But sending the spoken word through wires, flying en masse through the air, and going to the moon turned out to be not fairy tales, but reality. We seized on the wonders made possible by science. We magnified our senses. We did away with big chunks of time and space, or rearranged them. We have changed the rhythms of nature into the rhythm of our own minds and needs via technology, and we are going to be doing a lot more of that. Science fiction is the only literature that takes the real world — the world of genetic engineering, quantum physics, and other keys to unlocking life’s meaning and potential — seriously….

Goonan’s novel In War Times was the 2008 winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and chosen by the American Library Association as Best Science Fiction Novel for their 2008 reading list. Her work This Shared Dream also was a 2012 Campbell finalist. With these books, said Goonan to a Lightspeed interviewer, “I have moved on to an investigation of ‘human nature,’ in particular looking at the sociobiological roots of our strong predilection for war.”

She was a three-time Nebula nominee, for her novels Crescent City Rhapsody (2001; it was also a BSFA Award finalist) and Light Music (2004), and her short story “The String” (1997).

Her book The Bones of Time was a Clarke Award nominee (2000). Her novel and Queen City Jazz and short story “Sunflowers” also were BSFA Award finalists (1999, 1996).

[Thanks to James Davis Nicoll for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 11/11/16 Some Say Scrolls, It Is A Pixel, That Leaves Your Eyes To Bleed

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(1) RELIGHTING FIREFLY. CinemaBlend’s Nick Venable has been listening to actor Alan Tudyk, who says “Nathan Fillion Has an Awesome Idea for More Firefly”.

[Alan Tudyk] “I’m always hopeful that it’ll come back in some form or fashion. I think as long as you have Nathan Fillion – truly, if you have the captain – he can put the crew back together. Some new faces, some old faces, and get back in the air. I think Nathan pitched an idea once to me, and I think he actually got it from some fan fiction: Now, out in some shack on some forgotten moon somewhere, somebody comes and knocks on [Mal’s] door and says, ‘We need you.’ And he answers the call.”

I know that you guys might not have gotten goosebumps like I did when Alan Tudyk was saying it, but I’m sure everyone pictured that potential opening scene accordingly. It’s the perfect set-up for an action narrative, with the unpredictable hero getting picked out of reclusion to head back out for one last mission. One. Last. Mission. Not that anyone said this would have to be the final mission for Mal Reynolds, who may or may not still have his Captain status, since there should never be a last mission for him.

I’m picturing Nathan Fillion with a big giant beard, and he’s complaining about the “gorram WiFi never working” on his moon. There’s probably some kind of a booze still behind his shack. And something happened that was so foul that he vowed never to get back out into the cosmos again, for either fun or profit. But then maybe Jayne or Zoe is in trouble – take that, Jayne – and only Mal can be the one to bring him/her/them/all the gold back. Combine that with the masterfully wild shot that Joss Whedon never got to bring to Firefly, and it all starts to write itself, though that’s only helpful if the project can also order itself to series and air itself.

(2) KC DISCOVERS SUSHI. Scott Edelman of the Eating the Fantastic podcast invites you to “Take a break for sushi with Kathleen Ann Goonan” in Episode 22 of the series.

Kathleen Ann Goonan

Kathleen Ann Goonan

I may have given you the impression, based on the three previous episodes of Eating the Fantastic, that all I ate while I was in Kansas City for this year’s World Science Fiction Convention was BBQ. Not true! This episode’s guest requested sushi, which led us Bob Wasabi Kitchen, giving me some respite from the meat sweats.

And who’s the guest this time? Kathleen Ann Goonan, whose first novel, Queen City Jazz, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and who won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for In War Times. And, I should add, who wrote the story, “The Bride of Elvis,” which I had the honor of publishing twenty years ago (yikes!), back when I was editing Science Fiction Age magazine.

(3) LIFE OF TOLKIEN. The Verge reports “J.R.R. Tolkien biopic Middle Earth will add new depth to Lord of the Rings”.

Earlier this week, Deadline revealed that New Line Cinema would be revisiting the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien. Rather than adapting one of his many novels or stories, director James Strong will be helming a film about the author himself, which has the potential to give viewers an entirely new way of looking at the works that he’s most famous for.

Middle Earth is described as following Tolkien’s “early life and love affair with Edith Bratt,” as well as his service to the British Army during the First World War. The film, to be written by Angus Fletcher, is reportedly based on years of archival research on Tolkien’s life.

(4) VAUGHN OBIT. Actor Robert Vaughn (1932-2016) died November 11. His most famous role was Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. which aired from 1964-1968, and reprised in a 1983 reunion movie for television. When reruns of the late-1950s series Men Into Space began airing recently, Rich Lynch spotted a young Robert Vaughn in his first sf genre role, the episode “Moon Cloud.”  He appeared in episodes of dozens of TV series over the decades, and in several movies, notably Bullitt and The Magnificent Seven.

The late James H. Burns wrote several File 770 posts about Vaughn, whom he had interviewed for print articles.

When I chatted with Robert Vaughn a few weeks ago, there was a fascinating surprise…

…Vaughn had just spent, for the first time, I believe, a great deal of time watching “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”!

When the U.N.C.L.E. marathon was on, a few months ago (was it on the DECADES cable channel?), Vaughn found himself checking in, within the coziness of his Connecticut home.

He had never really seen the episodes, and was now watching a number of the excellent first season shows.

Now, this isn’t unusual for any actor. In the 1960s, the schedule on television shoots could be overwhelming. (That’s been true, really, in any era of filmmaking.) Vaughn was also busy with his private education, and of course, civic pursuits….

 

We were at a tribute to Vaughn at the Players Club in Manhattan, and were chatting amiably afterwards:

Vaughn was I think I bit surprised and happy that there was someone to talk with who knew a bit about various aspects of his career… (Plus, I had just explained the ending of Bullitt  to him, something which had apparently eluded the both of us, for years!)

…In the early ’70s. Vaughn had signed to star in The Protectors, a syndicated, half-hour action adventure series about international detectives, from ITC and producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. The Andersons, of course, are well known to TV buffs and science fiction fans of a certain age for Supercar, Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet — all marionette shows, and the live-action series UFO, and Space: 1999.

…The Protectors was a big deal for Anderson, his first major (and, as it turned out, last) mainstream–non-fantasy–endeavor.

The Andersons invited Vaughn and his then business partner to their London home for dinner, for a celebratory meal.

Vaughn and his business manager/pal had drinks in the living room, and then Gerry and Sylvia led them into the formal dining room…

It was only this small group, but the huge table was set for MANY:

And seated at each gilded chair was one of the Andersons’ famous Supermarionation figures!

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born November 11, 1922 – Kurt Vonnegut

(6) VERTLIEB ON FILM HISTORY PANELS AT PHILCON. Steve Vertlieb wants you to know you can find him at Philcon 2016 in Philadelphia discussing Ray Harryhausen and Hammer Films.

The Convention of The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on Saturday, November 19th, 2016, presents…

THE CLASSIC HAMMER FILMS: AN OVERVIEW

[Panelists: Steve Vertlieb (mod), Richard Stout, John Vaughan, Tony Finan, Mark Leeper, James Chambers]

Hammer Films released numerous productions from the 50’s through the 80’s. From Frankenstein and Dracula with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing to the astonishingly brilliant Quatermass films, these movies helped set up the future of Science Fiction media

Sat 5:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Two (1 hour)

RAY HARRYHAUSEN: A LIFE

[Panelists: Steve Vertlieb (mod), Richard Stout]

An affectionate remembrance of a motion picture special effects pioneer, and a nearly fifty year admiration and friendship. Writer Steve Vertlieb recalls the Harryhausen legacy, and a profoundly moving personal relationship with a fantasy film legend

(7) SHATNER DRAMA. The Nate Sanders firm is auctioning a handwritten soliloquy “William Shatner Sincerely Wants to Know Why George Takei Doesn’t Like Him – ‘…Not so long after that very friendly time he began to say very mean things about me. – Why?’”

Fascinating account by William Shatner on his relationship with George Takei, where he seems to try to sincerely understand why Takei doesn’t like him, even perhaps using the account as a public question. Composed on Shatner’s personal stationery, autograph signed recollection reads in full, ”George Takei was living in a beautifully appointed apartment. I was there to interview him for a book I was writing. He was most gracious – kind, mannered even formal. He was the essence of an Asian gentleman. We talked memories of Star Trek, his very difficult childhood given that he and his family were put behind a wired fence – in effect a concentration camp. We were at war with Japan and American fears were such that the government put everybody with a Japanese background into those camps – what a terrible beginning of life. But George had overcome [by] working hard and with intelligence he had bettered himself – he had disciplined his body as a runner and he had done the same with his mind; he was running for office as well. His apartment showed all that discipline – it was ordered, it had character, it was immaculate and so was George. I had never really got to know him. He would come in every so often during the week while we were shooting Star Trek. I was busy learning lines and dealing with my life, so I really can’t remember a meaningful conversation – I’m sure that would be my fault – my lack of attention – Never the less when we all wrapped that last day of shooting it was all meaningfull [sic] – for all of us – Star Trek was cancelled. Until this moment in his apartment we had not spoken. Not so long after that very friendly time he began to say very mean things about me. – Why? / William Shatner”. Single page measures 7.25” x 10.25”. Near fine condition.

(8) BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Also on the auction bloc: “William Shatner Defends His Decision Not To Attend His Friend Leonard Nimoy’s Funeral – ‘…we’ll mourn Leonard, say his name and then pledge your money….’”

Very interesting handwritten signed recollection by William Shatner on the death of his friend Leonard Nimoy, who served as Shatner’s best man at his 1997 wedding, but with whom he was no longer speaking to in 2015 when Nimoy died. Shatner famously did not attend Nimoy’s funeral, which he explains here: ”Leonard was very sick – he was in the hospital. His health was difficult – he was in fact dying – but nobody but his family knew – certainly I didn’t. A month or so prior to his going into the hospital, the American Red Cross asked me to do their largest fundraiser. It would be a huge event, thousands of potential donors, millions of dollars. I enthusiastically said yes. I was to leave on a Friday night for a Saturday performance when the news of Leonard’s death was delivered – the funeral was to be Sunday – what to do? My immediate thought given the blinding news of his death, my appearance or non appearance would not be noticed – also what about the people who had given good money with the expectation of seeing me – heartbroken dilemma – I chose to go the Red Cross and as I said to the people there – all is dust – your name, my name, Leonard’s name will soon be forgotten – but the good deeds you do tonight will be long remembered – I meant those emphatically. Helping others ever reverberates through time – we’ll mourn Leonard, say his name and then pledge your money. / William Shatner”. Single page composed on Shatner’s personal stationery measures 7.25” x 10.25”. Near fine condition.

(9) COMPARING HORNBLOWER AND KIRK. The Nate Sanders house also is auctioning this handwritten anecdote: “William Shatner Describes Captain Kirk: ‘…the gravity of each decision, the mastery of everybody on board…riding a stud horse bareback, loving the ladies – sound familiar?…’”

Fantastic handwritten signed recollection by William Shatner, reflecting on Captain Kirk, his famous alter ego from ”Star Trek”. Composed on Shatner’s personal stationery, he offers an unexpectedly frank and humorous account of Kirk: ”’Horatio Hornblower’ – Roddenberry said in answer to my question ‘who is he like’ – so I read Horatio Hornblower. Horatio is a captain of a British ship plowing the unknown oceans of America in the 1600’s – the loneliness of command, the gravity of each decision, the mastery of everybody on board – awesomeness of command. Yes, very good I got it- and that was the basis of the character of Kirk – I had just, the year before, shot a movie of Alexander the Great, this marvelous, historical character who was one of the great and noble characters of history – using a sword, riding a stud horse bareback, loving the ladies – sound familiar? And those tight costumes!! I had been lifting weights and put on some muscle, I was ready to play Capt. James Tiberius Kirk. Now all I had to do is remember ten pages of dialog – a lot of those words had no basis in English – Scientific goblygook that required head pounding memorization. Memorizing is difficult, some actors, like James Spader, have a photographic memory – they glance at a paper and it’s there forever – me? I have to go over and over and over – it’s a source of great tension – what’s the next word? The eternal actor’s question. / William Shatner”. Single page measures 7.25” x 10.25”. Near fine condition.

(10) GENE FOUGHT FOR THE EARS. The fourth item of Shatner holography being auctioned by the Nate Sanders firm is — “William Shatner Reflects on Gene Roddenberry & the ‘Star Trek’ Pilot – ‘….there was some objection to Spock’s ears. ‘Too devilish’ somebody said – Gene fought for the ears….”

 Fantastic handwritten signed recollection by William Shatner on Gene Roddenberry and getting the ”Star Trek” pilot made, as well as his relationship with Roddenberry as the show progressed. Composed on Shatner’s personal stationery, in full: ”I met Gene Roddenberry over the phone – he had called me in New York to ask me to come see a pilot film he had just made for N.B.C. He was calling it Star Trek. I flew to Los Angeles and went to see this pilot film that N.B.C. didn’t want to buy. I thought it was terrific – I sat in Gene’s office and made a few suggestions – I thought the pilot was a little slow, a little ponderous. It could use some lightness, some humor – He looked at me from across the desk and after a silence said ‘Let’s do it’ – We shot the pilot film for the second time and we were rewarded by a sell. He told me later there was some objection to Spock’s ears. ‘Too devilish’ somebody said – Gene fought for the ears and like in a really good bullfight, he was awarded the ears. Gene was on the set in these early shows and we looked to him for guidance and counsel – which he freely gave. I would frequently go to the office and talk to him about the script, some item of dialogue, some thought that I might have – in these early years he was open – that slowly changed as time went on. / William Shatner”. Single page measures 7.25” x 10.25”. Near fine condition.

(11) HEIRESSES OF RUSS. A.M. Dellamonica posts the “Heiresses of Russ 2015 ToC Announcement”.

I am so pleased to announce the finalized line-up for Heiresses of Russ 2016, from Lethe Press, edited by Steve Berman and myself. This is my editorial debut and it’s the sixth, I believe in the HoR series. As the Lethe Press site says, Heiresses of Russ reprints the prior year’s best lesbian-themed short works of the fantastical, the otherworldly, the strange and wondrous under one cover.

Here’s the line-up:

(12) SECOND FIFTH ELEMENT. Sciencefiction.com invites us to “Check Out The First Trailer For Luc Besson’s ‘Valerian’”

Although Luc Besson has only occasionally ventured into the realm of science fiction, with films like ‘Lucy‘ and of course ‘The Fifth Element’ to his credit, he has nonetheless made a substantial mark on the genre. And now he is poised to do so once again, with his upcoming film ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets‘.

Based on the long-running French comic ‘Valerian and Laureline’, created by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres (who collaborated with Besson, a longtime fan, on ‘The Fifth Element), the film follows Valerian and his partner/love interest Laureline, a pair of government operatives tasked with investigating Alpha, a vast, alien metropolis that may harbor a grave danger to human civilization….

 

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Goonan Wins Campbell Award

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Niall Harrison’s Torque Control reports:

Strange day, when the John W Campbell Memorial Award is the award I feel positive about. The winner is: In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan.

I was quite interested to hear that the Goonan novel won. At Westercon, Kathryn Daugherty, Chris Garcia and I were on a panel discussing the entire Hugo ballot. When we had all said our piece about the Best Novel category, Kathryn pulled out a copy of In War Times and touted it as the book that should be winning the Hugo.

[Via SF Awards Watch.]