(1) ANOTHER MURDERBOT CLIP. Murderbot premieres May 16 on Apple TV+. Martha Wells noted on Bluesky, “If you can’t see it, this makes it clear that Murderbot doesn’t have nipples or a bellybutton.”
In a high-tech future, a rogue security robot (Alexander Skarsgård) secretly gains free will. To stay hidden, it reluctantly joins a new mission protecting scientists on a dangerous planet…even though it just wants to binge soap operas.
(2) MARTHA WELLS Q&A. At IZ Digital: “Out of Trauma”.
Author and reviewer Dr Kelly Jennings spoke to Martha Wells about creating Murderbot, engendering empathy, and the after-effects of trauma….
Kelly Jennings: I’ve been struck, especially in the new novel, System Collapse, by how Murderbot is shaped by the traumatic event/s in its past, and how it reacts to that trauma. In Witch King, Kai also is shaped by past trauma, and reacts out of that trauma. Do you have a special interest in trauma, or is this just thematic happenstance?
Martha Wells: My father was a World War II veteran who was in a Nazi prison camp and was wounded in a way that affected him for years afterward. So basically I grew up observing PTSD and the after-effects of trauma, and how it affects other people in the individual’s life, how it changes over time. I’ve also dealt with things of my own that have made me think a lot about emotional trauma and all the repercussions of it. It affects everything I write. I also do a lot of research on it, listening to people talk about their own experiences.
Kelly Jennings: Somewhere I read – it may have been on your Reddit AMA? – that by deliberately making a universe in which constructs like Murderbot can be classed as ‘not people’, you want your readers to think about how our cultures, in the actual world, do that as well – classify various groups as ‘not people’. Can you talk about that a little?
Martha Wells: I think it’s one of the most important uses of fiction, to try to engender empathy and understanding for people in situations that are not things the reader has ever encountered. To understand the power dynamics the reader might be part of, and how these dynamics affect other people who don’t have the same advantages, or who might be trapped in systems they can’t escape. I don’t know how much it helps, but creating a little bit of understanding and context through fiction is better than none.
Obviously it also helps to see people like yourself in fiction, or to use it to process trauma, or contextualise terrible events, etc….
(3) ABOUT SHOPPING OPTIONS. Agent Richard Curtis has started a Substack column called Inside Agenting. The latest installment is “What Part Of ‘No’ Don’t You Understand?”
…What I have just described is commonly known in the book and film world as a shopping option. It literally entitles the producer to “shop” your book free of charge to the movie and television industry. If they are smart or lucky or clever they will manage to round up the various elements and persuade them to commit to the project.
In my experience the chances of succeeding are slightly poorer than buying a winning ticket in a billion dollar lottery. For which reason I have resolutely turned down every such offer. I explain to producers that for the privilege of renting my client’s property for a year or eighteen months, some expression of commitment in the form of dollars – even a token – is mandatory. When this request elicits a “Sorry No Can Do” I terminate the discussion with the suggestion they go to YouTube and watch Harlan Ellison’s immortal rant “Pay The Writer”.…
(4) STATES EFFORT TO SAVE INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES. “States Challenge Trump’s Effort to Dismantle Library Agency” – the New York Times has the story. (Behind a paywall.)
A coalition of 21 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the federal agency charged with supporting the nation’s libraries.
The lawsuit, brought by the attorneys general of New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii and other states, was filed days after the agency, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, put its staff on leave and began cutting grants. The suit argues that the steep cuts there and at two other small agencies violate both the Constitution and other federal laws related to spending, usurping Congress’s power to decide how federal funds are spent.
The other agencies cited in the lawsuit are the Minority Business Development Agency and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. They were among the seven agencies targeted by President Trump in a March 14 executive order titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” which directed that they be reduced to the “maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
The move against the library agency has drawn particular outcry. Dozens of library groups have issued statements condemning it as an attack on institutions that serve a broad swath of the public in every state. Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, said in a statement that the targeting of the three agencies was “an attack on vulnerable communities, small businesses and our children’s education.”…
…The library agency, created in 1996 and reauthorized most recently in 2018 in legislation signed by Mr. Trump, has an annual budget of nearly $290 million. It provides funding to libraries, museums and archives in every state and territory, with the bulk going to support essential but unglamorous functions like database systems and collections management.
Its largest program delivers roughly $160 million annually to state library agencies, which covers one-third to one-half of their budgets, according to the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, an independent group representing library officials.
(5) WHY WAIT? Camestros Felapton has all the ingredients of his Hugo Voter Packet entry available immediately: “Packet!”
…Anyway, I just picked longer things that I liked and put them in random order and explained in the introduction that there are typos and that they add character….
(6) OCTOTHORPE TRANSCRIPT NOW LIVE. Episode 132 of the Octothorpe podcast was linked here the other day before its transcript went online. So we’re letting everyone know the Octothorpe 132 transcript link now works.
(7) HAN GREEDO NOBODY FIRED FIRST. Whatever you may think about the improvements George Lucas has made to the film in the intervening years, this is a rare opportunity for Britons to see in a theater the original version: “Star Wars: Original 1977 release to be screened in London by BFI” reports the BBC.
The original 1977 cinematic release of Star Wars will be shown on the big screen this summer in London, marking its first public screening in decades.
The original version of the sci-fi blockbuster will be shown as part of the British Film Institute (BFI)’s Film on Film festival on 12 June.
The BFI said this version of the film is rarely publicly screened since George Lucas’ produced special editions were released in the 1990s, altering some plot points and adding other CGI characters.
Today, only the updated versions are available on official streaming platforms and Blu-ray, making screenings of the film’s original cut rare….
…Lucas’s changes to key plot points, including the addition of Jabba the Hutt and other special effects upgrades, have long divided fans.
The most controversial revision was the scene where Harrison Ford’s Han Solo shoots dead bounty hunter Greedo.
In the original version, Solo shoots first. However, the 1997 re-release changed the scene to show Ford’s character responding in self-defence.
The scene underwent further edits, with other versions of the film showing the pair firing at the same time….
(8) PETER WATTS Q&A. [Item by Do-Ming Lum.] My photo of Toronto-based SF author Peter Watts was published in Peter’s interview with Forbes Magazine (website only, sadly not the print edition). The interview is by Ollie Barder, and was mainly driven by Peter’s story which formed the basis of the “Armored Core” segment in the streaming series “Secret Level”. “Peter Watts On ‘Blindsight’, ‘Armored Core’ And Working With Neill Blomkamp” in Forbes.
…“I wrote all through high school and three university degrees without making a single sale. Got lots of positive feedback, mind you; I once got rejected by a magazine I’d never even sent a story to (Analog; the editor at Asimov’s sent it on to them on my behalf). I took their “we’re interested in seeing more of your work” to heart and sent them everything I wrote over the next decade. Only in hindsight did I realize that Analog’s rejections, initially long, detailed, and encouraging, were getting ever shorter and more generic over time, which suggests that I was getting worse with practice. The most frequent criticism I got was some variant of “this is really well written but it’s awfully depressing. Could you maybe bring in some clowns?”
“I didn’t get a single thing published until I was thirty-one, and even that was in some small press no one had ever heard of. (That same story got me my first form-rejection slip from Analog, completing my trajectory from Promising Acolyte to Slush-Pile Reject.) From that point on, I started getting published semiregularly in small mags and semi-pros. To this day, I’ve never got a story into any of the big US traditionals. I stopped even trying back around the turn of the century.
(9) KERRY GREENWOOD (1954-2025). The creator of the Phyrne Fisher mysteries, Kerry Greenwood, died March 26 at the age of 70 reports the Guardian.
Australian author Kerry Greenwood, best known for her Phryne Fisher murder mystery novels, has died at the age of 70 after an illness.
She was given “a suitably royal send-off” at a small service in Melbourne’s Yarraville on Sunday, according to her partner, writer David Greagg.
Greenwood, who lived in nearby Seddon, died on 26 March. Greagg, posting on Greenwood’s official facebook page on Monday, said he had refrained from making a public announcement until after the service….
…Greenwood wrote the first Miss Fisher novel, Cocaine Blues, in 1989, and over the following three decades, went on to write 22 more. Immensely popular, the series spawned a hit ABC television show starring Essie Davis, which ran for three seasons, the first of which was picked up in more than 73 territories worldwide. It was followed by the 2020 film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, and the 30-episode Chinese series, Miss S.
In 2003, Greenwood was given the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising her “outstanding contribution” to Australian crime writing, and in 2020, awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to literature….
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
Born April 10, 1957 — John M. Ford. (Died 2006.)
By Paul Weimer: John M. Ford has, sadly after his passing, become one of my heart writers. Years ago, I came across one of my favorite novels, period, The Dragon Waiting. Possibly one of the best alternate history novels ever written and simultaneously introduced me to a new point of view on Richard III. This is a viewpoint I would later expand upon by discovering the Ricardians, but it was Ford who first showed me the idea in print. Also, The Dragon Waiting has the best “You meet in a tavern” scene I’ve ever read.
It was not until I started going to 4th Street Fantasy con, of which he is practically a patron saint, that I really have grasped just how widely broad his work really is. Space Opera? Early Cyberpunk? Urban Fantasy? The writer who Ford reminds of, today, is Walter Jon Williams: a ferocious and restless talent. And Ford was taken from us all too soon. His last and incomplete novel, Aspects, a steampunk-esque fantasy novel only cements that sentiment. It’s brilliant…what we have of it.
Ford’s work is not for everyone. It is work that not only rewards close attention, it demands it in order to enjoy it. In that way, if we wanted to reconstruct Ford, in addition to Walter Jon Williams, we’d add a lot of Gene Wolfe as well.
Finally, Ford’s writing and style also has more than a touch of the mythic and definitely the poetic. There is joy in reading his work line by line, be its setting or sharp dialogue. So to complete this reconstructIon, add a helping of Roger Zelazny as well.
But the language, the poetry, the vigor with which Ford wrote is sui generis. So, really even trying to combine him as I suggested above like this would not, in the end, be enough. You could not complete the man and his work.
Given my love of these three writers, now you see why Ford is one of my favorites. And taken from us all too soon. I wish I had met him.
It’s never too early to try a John M. Ford novel. And given how many have come back into print lately, there IS a John M. Ford novel out there, for you.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Broom Hilda starts with the ending.
- Close to Home needs a spare.
- Dinosaur Comics discusses Batman fans.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal turns a bad wish into an advantage.
(12) ASTRONOMICON 8. There’s a large number of cosplay photos in “Everything we saw at Astronomicon 8 in Ypsi [PHOTOS]” at Metro Times.
Pop culture fans packed the Ann Arbor Marriott Ypsilanti at Eagle Crest for Astronomicon 8. Twiztid and Majik Ninja Entertainment hosted a plethora of artists, vendors, and celebrity guests, including Bruce Campbell, Tommy Chong, wrestlers Sting and Danhausen, the cast of My Name is Earl, and the voice actors of Rick and Morty, among others.
(13) RE (DISNEY+) DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN EPISODE 8 TITLE, “ISLE OF JOY”. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “Isle of Joy | Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki”. In case you don’t already know, “Isle of Joy” is (I presume) a quote from the Rogers & Hart song “Manhattan” aka “We’ll Have Manhattan”
I’m guessing the title is used ironically.
Here’s Ella Fitzgerald singing it (don’t yet know whether she or anyone is singing the song in this episode, haven’t watched it yet) and here’s the lyrics (“Isle of Joy” is at end of verse #2)
It would be easy to do a list/article on “great song lyric lines about NYC.
This song includes “Tell me what street/compares with Mott Street”
From On the Town, there’s, of course, “The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.”
(14) HIVEWORKS ANNOUNCEMENT. [Item by Jim Janney.] A bit of a followup to the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal announcement from the March 5 Scroll. Hiveworks is shutting down its publishing and online store and returning rights to artists. “Hiveworks Comics announces it will end print, publishing division” at The Comics Journal.
Hiveworks Comics is winding down operations over the course of 2025 to focus primarily on its web services: hosting, ads, and technical support for webcomic artists.
Its print and publishing division, which include producing, licensing, marketing, and distributing comics, will close. All comics for which Hiveworks has printing and publishing rights are being released back to their creators.
Hiveworks will complete fulfillment for several outstanding comic crowdfunding projects, after which its crowdfunding services will cease. Warehouse services for artists will also cease, and Hivemill, its managed storefront, will be limited to print-on-demand services and sale of products purchased wholesale from artists….
(15) VARIATION ON A THEME. “Red Sonja: Steampunk Legend Epic H.A.C.K.S. action figure revealed by Boss Fight Studio”. More photos at the link.
Coinciding with the release of its Red Sonja 50th anniversary figure, Boss Fight Studio has announced that the She-Devil with a Sword is returning to the 1:12 scale Epic H.A.C.K.S. line with Red Sonja: Steampunk Legend, inspired by the character’s appearance in Dynamite Entertainment’s Legenderry Red Sonja: A Steampunk Adventure. The collectible is available to pre-order now, priced at $66.99; check it out here…
(16) OLD MEMORIES. It wasn’t easy to deliver “Voyager’s 15 Billion Mile Software Update”. For one thing, there aren’t as many programmers who know the Fortran and Assembly languages as there were in the days when computing was young.
Have you ever wondered how NASA updates Voyager’s software from 15 billion miles away? Or how Voyager’s memories are stored? In this video, we dive deeper into the incredible story of how a small team of engineers managed to keep Voyager alive, as well as how NASA could perform a software update on a computer that’s been cruising through space for almost half a century. So tune in to learn more about Voyager’s 15 billion mile software update
(17) A CLASSIC PICNIC. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid, over at Media Death Cult, has re-posted one of his vids on a Strugatsky Russian classic… Roadside Picnic — “The SF Masterwork which made it through the Iron Curtain”.
[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Thomas the Red, Jim Janney, Michael J. Walsh, Daniel Dern, John Coxon, Do-Ming Lum, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, and Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]