(1) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to feast on oysters with Kemi Ashing-Giwa in episode 255 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.
Last month’s Balticon was one of the best I’ve ever experienced, due to a combination of good programming, good friends, good food (including visits to two spectacular bakeries which were new to me), and what’s most important as far as you’re concerned — good podcast guests. Kemi Ashing-Giwa, an author and scientist-in-training based in Palo Alto, is the first of three on whom you’ll get to eavesdrop.
Her work includes the USA Today bestselling, Compton Crook Award-winning novel The Splinter in the Sky, the novella This World Is Not Yours, and the forthcoming novel The King Must Die, due out in November. Her short fiction, which has been nominated for an Ignyte Award and featured on the Locus Recommended Reading List, has been reprinted in The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction Volume 3, Some of the Best from Tor.com: 15th Anniversary Edition and 2024, and The Year’s Top Tales of Space and Time 3. She studied organismic and evolutionary biology with a secondary in astrophysics at Harvard, and is now pursuing a PhD in the Earth & Planetary Sciences department at Stanford.
We discussed her conscious decision to not take any creative writing courses in college, the eight never-to-be published novels she wrote on her way to The Splinter in the Sky, how COVID-19 led her to take a deep dive into tea (and how tea then inspired her debut novel), her evolution from pantser to plotter, her outreach to 200 agents before she found the right one, how to craft compelling opening sentences, her tips for writing successful fight scenes, why she was able to handle attending Harvard and writing a novel at the same time, how best to deal with editorial revision suggestions, her love of reading debut novels, and much more.
(2) PEGGY RAE SAPIENZA ENDOWMENT ANNIVERSARY. [Item by Steven H Silver.] Ten years ago today, Chicon 7 honored its Fan Guest of Honor by establishing the Peggy Rae Sapienza Endowment at the Northern Illinois University library in order to “support the growth, maintenance, and promotion of the science fiction and fantasy collections in Rare Books and Special Collections, including documenting SF/F Fandom.” (See Memorial and Endowment Funds – NIU – University Libraries – Friends of the NIU Libraries.)
Donations to the endowment are tax deductible and a way to help preserve science fiction history in memory of one of the great Fannish leaders. The endowment is also a place for cons to consider donating any surplus funds or charitable donations.
To make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact (815) 753-9808 or libraryfriend@niu.edu.
(3) WICKED IS BACK ‘FOR GOOD’. “’Wicked: For Good’ Trailer Stars Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo” – The Hollywood Reporter sets the frame.
…Wicked: For Good centers on the two witches facing the consequences of their previous decisions and its impact on their friendship. The footage teases the first look at Dorothy, albeit without revealing her face, and also includes the yellow brick road, a wedding and no shortage of flying monkeys.
“Elphaba, they’re coming for you,” Glinda warns near the end of the trailer….
(4) WHO NEEDS NEW FRANCHISES? (Uh, us?) ComicBook.com names “10 Cancelled Sci-Fi Shows That Deserve a Reboot”.
Science fiction has been one of the most popular and fruitful genres of television since the start, taking advantage of futuristic settings, superpowered characters, and outlandish concepts. This exploration has contributed to the creation of some of the most entertaining and beloved TV shows in history, including franchises such as Doctor Who, Star Trek, Stranger Things, and more. However, not every sci-fi TV series has been lucky enough to stick around, but it would be great to see some cancelled shows brought back for modern-day reboots….
Number nine on the list is —
9) FlashForward (2009-2010)
FlashForward set itself apart from other sci-fi shows by taking on a high-concept, very-grounded storyline that impacted the entire planet. After a mysterious event causes almost everyone on Earth to experience a two-minute long blackout, which thrust their consciousnesses six months into the future, a team of FBI agents work to determine why it happened, what the flash-forwards mean, and if it will happen again. This is an incredibly intriguing concept that deserves far more exploration than just one season.
At the end of FlashForward’s first and only season, another blackout occurs, with the Earth’s residents experiencing visions of varying dates in the future. This created wild new avenues for a possible Season 2 and future instalments, but these plot threads are yet to be resolved a decade-and-a-half later. It would be great to see FlashForward get revitalized with a modern-day reboot or revival. The concept is ripe for expansion, so it would be a shame just to have it be forgotten.
(5) THEYDUNIT. There will be a Sarah Pinsker-themed mystery show during PortFringe in Portland, Maine on June 20: “And Then There Were (N-One)”. Full information at the link.
You’re invited to SarahCon! You’re Sarah Pinsker, and so am I, and so is she, and so are they — we’re all versions of the same self but from different dimensions. So, what happens when one of us gets murdered? Come join us and all of the other Sarah Pinskers for a one-night only immersive convention. Learn more about yourself and the choices that brought you here.
This is a multi-dimensional, sci-fi murder mystery, where we’re all suspects and we’re all different versions of the same person. This show is based on the novella And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker, and is presented by Fool’s Errand (Louise Ambler, Julia Jennings, Grace Kellar-Long, and Alice McMachen).
One-time-only PortFringe Late Night Experience!
(6) HELP SAVE THEIR A.S.S. [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] For anyone who does it themselves, and is a techie, American Science and Surplus is a name to conjure with – lab equipment, strange electronic gear (I have actually been in the store in Chicago, and seen a box labeled “if you know what this is, please let us know”), low prices, and wonderful catalog.
And now they’re struggling for life, to the point of asked for a GoFundMe. “Keep American Science & Surplus Alive”. The appeal has raised $153,067 of the $200,000 goal as of this writing.
…Our three stores are run by incredible people who care as much about American Science & Surplus as I do. I cannot thank them enough. They’ve created a fun, entertaining atmospheres that have encouraged and inspired generations of customers/friends.
Then there are the surplus products that help to inspire you and your passions. How about those surplus products! Mule-branding kits. Shrunken skulls. Giant suction cups. Wooden German wig heads. Do you have a favorite? If you need a widget, we have the widget! If you need a gadget, we have the gadget!
Today, we ask you to help us save our 88-year legacy. American Science & Surplus is facing our greatest challenge yet. Rising operational costs, the increased pressure from online retail giants, software issues and soaring shipping rates have pushed our small business (and many others) to the brink of closure. We need to relocate our warehouse (about a $130,000 cost), update our software (about $25,000) purchase/pay vendors for depleated inventory levels ($50,000), and reorganize our small business and keep our people employeed. After nearly nine decades, the possibility of American Science & Surplus disappearing is a heartbreak we can’t imagine, and we hope many of you feel the same….
(7) OVER THERE. Larry Latham directs our attention to early European pulps in “The other pulp heroes” at ThePulp.Net.
Let’s talk pulp heroes, you and me.
I only need two issues to complete my set of Rolf Torring, but those early 1930s issues are tough to find. I got a stack of Jan Mayen and Sun Koh in trade, a couple of dupes but. … huh? Really? Never heard of them? How about the Nyctalope? No? Zigomar? Vampires of the Air? Wow. Oh wait, I get it! You collect American pulps!…
…A Different Path to Pulp Fiction
In Europe, the evolution was slightly different. Things never quite settled into a hard and fast format. In the early 19th century there were the equivalents of story papers in most countries, but there were also unique variations. English penny dreadfuls, serial stories issued in weekly penny parts, are the best known. These became the boys’ weeklies, such as Union Jack, The Wizard, and The Magnet, and produced major fiction characters such as Sexton Blake, Nelson Lee and Billy Bunter.
In France, the feulliton (newspaper serials) prevailed as the major venue, along with romans populaires, which were often collections of said serials. American dime novels like Nick Carter Weekly and Buffalo Bill Stories were translated and reprinted in the dime novel format, but the roman populaire existed right alongside them, chronicling the adventures of Fantômas, Zigomar and the Nyctalope. We’ll return to the first and third characters momentarily.
Germany was the real hotbed of early European pulpdom. The A. Eichler Co. was the first to translate American dime novels, starting with Nick Carter Weekly in 1906. Nick Carter was so popular that the stories would be reprinted and rewritten and reissued in almost every European country up to the 1940s, as would Buffalo Bill. But new stories were also written, as in the 1934 Italian series, Lord Lister contro Nick Carter (Lord Lister vs. Nick Carter). Lister is a Raffles-like character that first appeared in 1908; he appeared in over 1,362 stories up through the 1940s, and was being re-issued as late as 1968 — and that’s not counting the modern reprints.
(8) ALIEN: EARTH. Gizmodo assure us, “In the First ‘Alien: Earth’ Trailer, Everyone Can Hear You Scream”.
…Yes, it might be primarily earthbound rather than in Alien‘s usual grimy spaceship and spacestation locales, but Earth definitely looks like it’s shaping up to nail the vibes you’d want out of an Alien project. Layer in all that wild worldbuilding, and of course, the inevitable violence that comes from unleashing a Xenomorph or two on some unwitting humans and synths, and you’re seemingly in for a treat….
(9) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
June 5, 1998 – The Truman Show
Just over a quarter of a century ago, The Truman Show, one of my all-time favorite films, premiered on this date.
It was directed by Peter Weir, the Australian director who previously done the non-genre but really scary Picnic at Hanging Rock. It was produced by committee in the form of Scott Rudin, Andrew Niccol, Edward S. Feldman, and Adam Schroeder.
Quite unlike the finished product, Niccol’s spec script was more of a SF thriller, with the story set in New York City. Thank all the Gods that didn’t happen.
It starred Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor and Ed Harris. I adore the relationship between Carrey and Linney. Actually I loved the film from beginning to end and thought it was perfectly written. Really when I saw it at theater, I was thought it was perfectly done, something I rarely think.
It was costly to make, somewhere over sixty million, but that was OK as it made well over a quarter of a billion in its first run. Let me repeat that it a very quiet film about a relationship well over a quarter of a billion in its first run. That’s really impressive, isn’t it?
Critics certainly appreciated it. Really they did.
Rita Kempley at the Washington Post thoroughly enjoyed it: “’The Truman Show’ is ‘Candid Camera’ run amok, a sugar-spun nightmare of pop paranoia that addresses the end of privacy, the rise of voyeurism and the violation of the individual. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. This show-within-the-show makes for a parody all by itself, but it is couched in an even more subversively entertaining satire. One of the smartest, most inventive movies in memory, it manages to be as endearing as it is provocative.”
Jenna Connors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer said that “The Truman Show is that rare thing, a provocative movie that is at once deeply thoughtful and hugely entertaining.”
And Wallace of the Santa Cruz Sentinel added this, “Post-O.J., post-Diana, a scenario like The Truman Show becomes a more and more vivid reminder that media realities, however true-to-life, are contrived realities and our thirst for vicarious thrills trumps our respect for other’s dignity.”
The audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a rather excellent eighty-nine percent rating.
Did I mention it won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation at Aussiecon Three twenty six years ago? Which it most deservedly deserved.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY. Everybody’s favorite SJW credential turns ten today: “Happy 10+ Brithday to Timothy The Talking Cat” at Camestros Felapton.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Brevity removes the “r” from aquarium. In a manner of speaking.
- Carpe Diem updates the treed cat tale.
- Dinosaur Comics contends it has a duplicate.
- Savage Chickens gives highly specialized investment advice.
- xkcd tries to explain the other Trojan horse.
(12) LEGO TAKING PREORDERS FOR ONE PIECE SERIES. You’re invited to “Meet the LEGO® ONE PIECE Characters!” at the Official LEGO® Shop. Items ship August 1.
Based on the popular manga series of the same name created by Eiichiro Oda, Netflix series ONE PIECE sailed onto our screens back in 2023, while series two will swashbuckle forward in 2025. The show follows the adventures of a group of hapless pirates named the Straw Hats as they explore the seas in search of the famous ONE PIECE – a mysterious bank of treasure hidden by the former King of the Pirates, Gol D Roger.
Named the Straw Hats thanks to Captain Luffy’s signature straw headgear, which once belonged to Gol D. Roger, this young group of dreamers will stop at nothing until they find the ONE PIECE treasure. Walk (the plank) this way for all the info you need to know about the LEGO ONE PIECE Minifigures and characters…
The Going Merry Pirate Ship (75639) is a beautiful model that is sure to captivate fans of ONE PIECE adventures and play-and-display building toys. This high-quality LEGO® building kit makes a great gift for boys and girls aged 10 and up and creative kids with a passion for the Straw Hat Pirates.
The iconic ship has several interior spaces: a crew’s cabin, kitchen, storage, and an accessory workshop. The model comes with 5 LEGO ONE PIECE minifigures. Luffy sits on the sheep figurehead at the front of the ship, below which is a cannon; Zoro relaxes and trains on the deck; Nami controls the rudder at the rear, where her favorite tangerine trees grow on the deck; Usopp climbs the masts and keeps watch from the crow’s nest; and Sanji takes pots down the stairs to the kitchen. Includes 4 ‘Wanted’ posters. The LEGO Builder app lets kids zoom in, rotate models in 3D and track progress. Set contains 1,376 pieces.
(13) LATE SHOW BOOK CLUB. Steven Colbert has announced the creation of the “Late Show Book Club”. Their first pick is Booker Prize-winning Orbital by Samantha Harvey.
(14) AN ACQUIRED DISTASTE. “Damon Lindelof reflects on ‘The Leftovers’ being inaccessible: ‘Stop f—ing watching’” – sort of like reverse psychology, as he told Entertainment Weekly.
The supernatural series, co-created by Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, who wrote the novel it was based on, opened with a bleak premise: How would humanity cope after 2% of the world’s population mysteriously disappeared all at once?
“One of the things that made it so special was that it wasn’t for everyone,” Lindelof said during a Leftovers reunion panel at ATX TV Festival on Saturday. “So much of the work that we all do and are asked to do is to make it as accessible to as many people as possible.”
The series wasn’t “purposely trying to exclude people,” Lindelof clarified, but he and the rest of the cast and crew were interested in creating work that was “challenging” for audiences.
“The first season, in many ways, is like, ‘Stop f—ing watching!’” said Lindelof, who went on to describe an episode in season 1, “Gladys,” in which a character is stoned to death.
He also compared an early scene in his previous show, Lost, in which a dog licks a main character’s face, to The Leftovers’ pilot, where a main character witnesses a dog being shot to death on the street.
But its numerous hard-to-watch scenes served a purpose.
“It was a show about overcoming suffering,” Lindelof said.
The Leftovers concluded eight years ago, on June 4, 2017, after three seasons….
(15) GONE WITH THE SOLAR WIND. “Something Is Destroying Elon Musk’s Starlink Satellites” claims Futurism.
Now that more than 7,000 Starlink satellites are orbiting our planet, scientists have been given a golden opportunity to study the effects the Sun’s activity can have on the aggregate lifespans of such minimalist, constellation-based spacecraft.
As New Scientist reports, it’s turning out that ferocious solar storms caused by the Sun pelting our atmosphere with energized particles can significantly reduce the crafts’ lifetimes, by prematurely pushing them to burn up during reentry.
That’s especially true as the Sun nears the most active part of its 11-year cycle, called the solar maximum.
“We found that when we have geomagnetic storms, satellites re-enter faster than expected [without solar activity],” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Denny Oliveira, who’s been investigating these effects, told New Scientist.
During the solar maximum, a given Starlink satellite’s lifetime can be reduced by up to ten days, demonstrating the Sun’s immense influence on the outer space surrounding our planet, despite the enormous distance….
(16) ELDEN RING MOVIE. George R.R. Martin says he’s pleased to hear “Alex Garland to Direct Elden Ring Movie”. Martin told Not a Blog readers, “A24 is a kickass studio, and Alex Garland is a first rate director,” and pointed them at this video: “Why the Elden Ring Movie WON’T SUCK – Director Reveals His TRUE Power Level”.
[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Steven H Silver, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
