Tag Archives: L.A.con II

Pixel Scroll 2/1/25 Cleanup On Isle of the Dead Five

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(1) BSFA AWARDS LONGLIST. The British Science Fiction Association today put out the longlist for the BSFA Awards (see “Second Round of 2024 BSFA Awards Nominations Begins”.)

Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford’s “The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion” is a nominee in the Best Short Non-Fiction category.

(2) CLARKEWORLD’S BEST. Neil Clarke has released “Clarkesworld 2024 Reader’s Poll Finalists”. The public has until February 15 to vote on the winners at Surveymonkey.

(3) LOCUS RECOMMENDED READING LIST. The 2024 Locus Recommended Reading List has been posted by Locus Online.

Voting has opened in the Locus Awards Poll. The deadline to vote is April 15.

(4) JET CRASH IN NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA LAST EVENING. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] CNN: “Medevac jet crashes in northeast Philadelphia neighborhood”.

Northeast Airport lies on Grant Avenue in Philadelphia. I live on Grant Avenue, some five minutes from the site of the departure of a Lear Jet medical transport plane that took off at a few minutes past six last evening with a little girl being transported home following life-saving surgery.

I was enroute to my girlfriend Shelly’s home to go out to dinner at Tiffany’s Restaurant on the Boulevard. I had considered taking Roosevelt Boulevard North down to Oxford Circle, as it may have been a faster trip but, at the last second, decided to follow Bustleton Avenue down to Castor, instead.

I arrived at Shelly’s house at a few moments past six. We drove down Levick Street to the boulevard, and turned left into the middle lanes to continue our journey. Within seconds we were dodging police vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances trying desperately to reach Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard amidst screaming sirens where, thirty seconds after takeoff, the Lear Medical Jet had crashed into Cottman Avenue near the boulevard, across from the Roosevelt Mall where I had grown up.

Traffic was being re-routed from virtually every direction, and I found it difficult to keep from being hit by other oncoming busses and trucks while attempting to crossover onto nearby side streets. As I passed Cottman Avenue on the boulevard, I turned to my left and saw flashing lights, emergency vehicles, and bright flames bursting into the rainy night sky.

Had I decided to travel down Roosevelt Boulevard on my way to the Oxford Circle, as I had originally planned, I might have traveled past the outside lanes of Roosevelt Boulevard, at the corner of Cottman Avenue going South, just at the moment of impact of the small jet into the congested community adjoining the fatal crash.

It took us over an hour to finally reach our dinner destination on a trip that normally might have taken fifteen or twenty minutes. We didn’t know just what had occurred mere inches from our travels North on the boulevard until we reached Tiffany’s, and were told by the staff that a plane had fatally crashed into our tightknit community. We were shaken, but glad to be alive.

Our hearts go out to our neighbors in our surrounding community, and to the families of those who perished in this terrible, nightmarish tragedy. May God Rest Their Sweet Souls.

(5) BLACK HISTORY MONTH. Axios begins Black History Month by recounting “What Octavia Butler saw on Feb. 1, 2025, three decades ago”.

Science fiction writer Octavia Butler wrote in her 1993 novel “Parable of the Sower” that Feb. 1, 2025, would be a time of fires, violence, racism, addiction, climate change, social inequality and an authoritarian “President Donner.”

  • That day is today.

The big picture: This Black History Month, which begins this year on a day of Butler’s dystopian vision, Axios will examine what the next 25 years may hold for Black Americans based on the progress in the first quarter of this century.

  • Through her fiction, Butler foresaw U.S. society’s direction and the potential for civil societies to collapse thanks to the weight of economic disparities and climate change — with blueprints for hope.
  • Afrofuturist writers today interpret Butler’s work as metaphorical warnings that appear to be coming true and a call to action….
Octavia Butler

(6) A CITY ON MARS REVIEW. [Item by Kyra.] Published in 2023.

A City On Mars, by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith

Nonfiction/Related

Can you make babies in space? Should corporations govern space settlements? What about space war? Are we headed for a housing crisis on the Moon’s Peaks of Eternal Light—and what happens if you’re left in the Craters of Eternal Darkness? Why do astronauts love taco sauce? Speaking of meals, what’s the legal status of space cannibalism? The Weinersmiths investigate perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multiplanetary.

This is a clear-eyed look at the current barriers to settling space, including technological, physiological, sociological, and legal issues. This may be a must-read for anyone interested in the subject; it’s not the deepest possible examination (it is a pop-science book, after all), but it’s probably one of the broadest.

(7) GET READY FOR WASTED WEEKEND. Booktube luminary Criminolly has been hosting an event called Garbaugust, including the reading of some trashy books in August. Last year he added a mini-event, Wasted Weekend. It’s coming up again on February 15-16. Grammaticus Books wants viewers to pick their book: “I Need YOU to VOTE FOR….” But I don’t know – these are not names I associated with the word “trashy” —

Vote for your favorite trashy novel for this year’s Wasted Weekend. A reading event created by CriminOlly. Choose from a diverse selection of books by authors such as Samuel R. Delany, L. Sprague DeCamp, Terrence Dicks, Frederick Pohl, C.M. Kornbluth and of course…Lin Carter the King of Trash!

(8) JOHN ERWIN: CORA BUHLERT’S FAVORITE HE-MAN. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] John Erwin [who died December 20] was my He-Man.  For most Germans, their He-Man is either Norbert Langer, who voiced him in the long-running German audio drama series, or Sasha Hehn or Heiko Liebig, who voiced him in the German dub of the Filmation He-Man and She-Ra cartoons. 

But even though I first heard He-Man speak in the Filmation cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, I didn’t watch the German dub, but the English version via Sky Channel, when my Dad worked in the Netherlands in the 1980s. And in that cartoon, the voice of He-Man and his alter ego Prince Adam was none other than John Erwin.

If you rewatch the iconic opening narration of the cartoon – where John Erwin explains the entire premise of the series in one minute and ten seconds – you’ll notice the subtle difference between Prince Adam’s more youthful tones (Adam turned nineteen in the course of the series, while John Erwin was 47, when he first voiced him) and He-Man’s booming heroic voice.

However, John Erwin didn’t just voice He-Man and Prince Adam, but as was common with Filmation, he voiced multiple other characters in the He-Man and She-Ra cartoons as well, showcasing his amazing range. And so John Erwin lent his voice to Skeletor’s henchmen Beast-Man, Whiplash and Webstor. He was the delightfully dim-witted heroic warrior Ram-Man and the wise but grumpy dragon Granamyr as well as many one-of guest characters.

Beyond He-Man, John Erwin appeared in the western series Rawhide alongside Clint Eastwood, one of his comparatively few parts in front of the camera, and voiced Reggie in various Archie cartoons over the years. He was also the voice of Morris the Cat in the commercials for 9-Lives cat food. And if you ever needed proof that dragons are related to cats, just compare the snarky Morris to the equally snarky Granamyr.

Voice actors are unseen and often unsung. This is unfair, because their talent is what brings cartoon characters to life and turns them into icons. John Erwin’s voice played a big part in turning the Filmation He-Man cartoon into the runaway success that it was and in turning He-Man into the iconic hero he became.      

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

February 1, 1954 — Bill Mumy, 71.

By Paul Weimer: Bill Mumy’s intersection with my genre show watching boils down to three properties, and they are the three ones that you think they are.  I first saw him as the mutant overpowered psychic child Anthony in one of the most terrifying Twilight Zone episodes of all time, “It’s a Good Life”. What happens when a young boy develops psychic powers and takes control of the town. Nothing good…I mean, no wait, Anthony, I mean, it’s a good life. I swear, it’s a good life.  The whole idea that he cuts off the town from the rest of the universe is terrifying in and of itself, isn’t it? You can’t escape him, you can’t escape his power.   Mumy also appears in a few other Twilight Zone episodes in various roles, but they are nothing compared to the power and centrality of his performance in “It’s a Good Life”

His role as Will Robinson in Lost in Space couldn’t be any different. I stumbled across episodes of Lost in Space in reruns not long after seeing the Twilight Zone episode. As the naive, but well-meaning youngest child of the Robinson family, Will Robinson couldn’t be any different than the psychic Anthony. Whether with Robbie, or Dr. Smith (and it seemed he spent more time with either of them than the rest of his family), he showed the childlike wonder of being on alien planets.  I was delighted he had a small role in the recent remake of Lost in Space, too, as the “real” Zachary Smith. (He gets his identity stolen by Parker Posey’s character). That was a neat bit of turnaround, and not at all stunt casting. 

The other genre work I associate Mumy with is, of course, Babylon 5, and Lennier. As the assistant to Delenn, he stands with Vir (Stephen Furst) as one of the two maintained underlings in the diplomatic corps. While Vir feels like an everyman (as the Centauri as, outwardly very much human), Lennier could show, on occasion, through Mumy’s acting, just how alien and not-human the Minbari were. He was meek, mild and deferential…until he needed not to be, and then could be all too inhumanly dangerous and determined. And given that this story is ultimately a tragedy, Lennier’s story is one that hits me in the feels, from start to finish. Such great acting. I remember when watching “Midnight on the Firing Line” and seeing his name in the credits and wondering what the child actor had become. He had become a fine adult actor, that’s what. 

Happy birthday!

Bill Mumy

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) THE TEST OF TIME. The Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog analyzes the Best Dramatic Hugo finalists of 1984 as part of their continuing series: “Big Worldcon Is Watching (Hugo Cinema 1984)”.

L.A. Con II, the 42nd Worldcon, was the largest World Science Fiction Convention of all time up to that point, with more than 8,000 fans in attendance (to this day, only the 2023 Worldcon in Chengdu, China has eclipsed that number). Science fiction cinema was bigger than ever. The Hugo Awards were bigger than ever. But in 1984, the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation was still considered a second-tier award.

“We will now proceed with the minor awards: Best Dramatic Presentation,” Toastmaster Robert Bloch quipped as he introduced the nominees: Bradbury adaptation Something Wicked This Way Comes, special effects maestro Douglas Trumbull’s Brainstorm, early hacking movie Wargames, blockbuster Return of the Jedi, and Oscar Best Picture contender The Right Stuff.

It’s an uneven shortlist that reveals both a tension between the populism and the insularity to which the award was often prone….

(12) STAND BY FOR THE END OF THE WORLD. “OpenAI Strikes Deal With US Government to Use Its AI for Nuclear Weapon Security” – Futurism knows why this sounds familiar.

Remember the plot to the 1984 sci-fi blockbuster “The Terminator”?

“There was a nuclear war,” a character explains. “Defense network computers. New… powerful… hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.”

It seems like either the execs at OpenAI have never seen it or they’re working overtime to make that premise a reality.

Don’t believe us? OpenAI has announced that the US National Laboratories will use its deeply flawed AI models to help with a “comprehensive program in nuclear security.”

As CNBC reports, up to 15,000 scientists working at the institutions will get access to OpenAI’s latest o1 series of AI models — the ones that Chinese startup DeepSeek embarrassed on the world stage earlier this month.

According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who announced the partnership at an event in Washington, DC, the tech will be “focused on reducing the risk of nuclear war and securing nuclear materials and weapons worldwide,” as quoted by CNBC.

If any alarm bells are ringing by this point, you’re not alone. We’ve seen plenty of instances of OpenAI’s AI models leaking sensitive user data and hallucinating false claims with abandon….

(13) THIEVES LIKE US. Meanwhile, OpenAI apparently can’t keep its own work secure, earning a very loud raspberry from Guardian columnist Marina Hyde: “Oh, I’m sorry, tech bros – did DeepSeek copy your work? I can hardly imagine your distress”.

I once saw an episode of America’s Dumbest Criminals where a man called the cops to report his car stolen, only for it to turn out he’d stolen it from someone else in the first place. I couldn’t help thinking of him this week while watching OpenAI’s Sam Altman wet his pants about the fact that a Chinese hedge fund might have made unauthorised use of his own chatbot models, including ChatGPT, to train its new little side project. This is the cheaper, more open, extremely share-price-slashing DeepSeek.

As news of DeepSeek played havoc with the tech stock market, OpenAI pressed its hanky to its nose and released a statement: “We are aware of and reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models, and will share information as we know more,” this ran….

…So, to put it another way … wait, Sam – you’re not telling us that the Chinese hedge fund crawled all over your IP without asking and took it for themselves? Oh my God, IMAGINE?! You must feel used and abused. Financially violated. Like all your years of creativity were just grist to some other bastard’s mill. Like a host organism. Like a schmuck. Like Earth’s most screamingly preposterous hypocrite….

(14) SUPERHAMLET. From Christopher Reeve’s appearance on The Muppet Show long ago: “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid Moidelhoff  over at Media Death Cult considers the sense of place as a principal character in some SF/F… “When Location is the Main Character”.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Olav Rokne, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 8/27/24 Slan Lake

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(1) CHRISTOPHER REEVE BIOPIC TRAILER. “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” – SCIFI.radio introduces the trailer. Only in Theaters September 21 and September 25.

The story of Christopher Reeve, his astonishing rise from unknown actor to iconic movie star, and his definitive portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman set the benchmark for the superhero cinematic universes that dominate cinema today. Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films and played dozens of other roles that displayed his talent and range as an actor before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down….

(2) LACON V WSFS DIVISION. On the LAcon V website, the Committee & Staff List shows these folks will lead the 2026 Worldcon’s WSFS activities.

  • WSFS Division Manager: Linda Deneroff
  • Business Meeting: Jesi Lipp
  • Site Selection: Alexia Hebel
  • Hugo Administrator: Tammy Coxen
  • Hugo Awards Software: Chris R.

(3) 2026 HUGO TROPHIES. The LAcon V website also says that when the time comes they will run a “Hugo Base Contest”.

Keeping with Worldcon tradition, LACon V will be holding a Hugo Base Design Contest in the near future.

The basic design of the Hugo is a chrome rocket ship created by Jack McKnight and Ben Jason, with the current version based upon a refinement designed by Peter Weston in 1984. The design of the base on which the ship is mounted is left up to each individual Worldcon, so each year’s Hugos look slightly different. A photographic archive of Hugo designs is available here.

If you’d like more information, please email info@lacon.org (with the subject header: “Hugo Base Design”.) We’ll put you on a list to receive information about the contest as soon as it is available. Details will also follow here on our website.

(4) CHIANG AND ROBSON EVENT. The Toronto Public Library will host “Ted Chiang: Soulful Science Fiction” on October 24 from 7:00-8:00 p.m. Chiang will be in conversation with author Kelly Robson. The event is free – get tickets through Eventbrite.

Ted Chiang joins us to discuss his beloved stories, collected in Exhalation and Stories of Your Life and Others.

Perhaps the world’s most celebrated living science fiction author, his fantastical and elegant stories explore how our inner worlds and our societies would react to unexpected rifts in the fabric of science. How would it feel to receive a hormone injection that drastically improved your cognitive function? What if learning an alien language changed the way you perceived time? And if humanity were to create artificial life, what obligations would we owe it? Ted Chiang wrestles with the oldest questions on earth – What is the nature of the universe? What does it mean to be human? – and ones that no one else has even imagined. And, each in its own way, the stories prove that complex and thoughtful science fiction can rise to new heights of beauty, meaning, and compassion.

In conversation with author Kelly Robson.

Q & A and book signing to follow. Books available for purchase.

Ticket registration for this event is required: Free tickets for this event are available to book via Eventbrite.

(5) INFINITE MONKEYS SEEK ALIEN INTELLIGENCE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Panels are not my favorite convention programme item format: all too often they are ill-prepared with some of the panel members unwittingly being out of their depth.  But occasionally you do get some that exhibit true expertise and really engage the audience.  This weekend BBC Radio 4 gave an exemplar of one such, that would not be out of place at an Eastercon, NASFic or even Worldcon, with Saturday’s “The Infinite Monkey Cage — ‘Alien Life’”. This is a light-hearted, 42-minute science programme, helmed by a physicist and a comedian along with a couple of scientist guests, this time it was two astronomers.

This week they were discussing the search for alien life and intelligence. Much was covered including the usual Voyager message. One of the astronomers noted that the paper he had co-authored on an unusual star that irregularly periodically dimmed they designated with a number and the pre-fix ‘WTF’.

Apparently, the journal’s editor asked what ‘WTF’ stood for and – quickly realising that an acronym whose meaning included an expletive might not go down well – they replied ‘Why The Flux’. A few months later, other astronomers proposed an exotic solution, that the dimming might be caused by an alien mega-structure orbiting at an angle to the star’s line of sight with Earth hence irregularly obscuring the star’s light. (Since then there has been a more mundane explanation proffered and several other stars have now been found exhibiting such behaviour.)

The panel must be congratulated in a way that biologist and SF fan, the late Jack Cohen CBiol FIBiol would have thoroughly approved. (Jack hated it when TV programmes, and convention panels, on alien life all too often exclusively featured astronomers with no biologist present.) This week’s Infinite Monkey Cage panel did, on a couple of occasions, lament the lack of a biologist being there. Nonetheless, it was a solid 42 minutes.

You can hear it here.

(The truth is out there…)

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 27, 1998 — The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Twenty-six years ago on this date, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.  premiered on FOX. The series was created by Jeffrey Boam who wrote the screenplays for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Innerspace and The Lost Boys, and Carlton Cuse who’d later be well known for the Lost series, but at this point had only done Crime Story. It was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that got this series greenlit at Fox. 

Though supposedly a Western, the series include generous amounts of the science fiction and steampunk genres. No spoiler shall I say as to what as some here may not have seen it and the… stopping right there. 

Cuse served as show runner and head writer. Boam, who served as executive producer, also contributed scripts for the show. As might be conjectured, it was an indeed weird Western unlike any other Western. 

It starred Bruce Campbell, Julius Carry, John Astin, Kelly Rutherford and Christian Clemenson.  Though the critics loved it, and it did very well initially in the ratings, it quickly dropped off, so FOX cancelled it after the one season run of twenty-seven episodes. 

I’ve watched and thoroughly enjoyed it. What do y’all think of it? 

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) PL TRAVERS REMEMBERED. At BBC Sounds you can listen to the Witness History episode “The writer of Mary Poppins”. As you probably have heard sometime, she was not a fan of the Disney adaptation.

In 1964, the Disney film ‘Mary Poppins’ was released. It was based on the character created by writer PL Travers. Travers disliked the Oscar-winning Disney production so much, that she never allowed any more Mary Poppins books to be adapted into films. In 2018, Vincent Dowd spoke to Brian Sibley and Kitty Travers about their memories of PL Travers.

(9) ABOUT THAT SMOOCH ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR. “Carrie Fisher Fans Will Wage War: Star Wars: A New Hope Deleted Scene Reveals Han Solo Had a Love Interest Even Before Leia” dishes Fandomwire.

….In the original version of this scene, Solo was intended to appear along with a girl, who wasn’t identified on the screen by name. However, the character, played by British actress Jenny Cresswell, was meant to be Solo’s girlfriend. Furthermore, their romantic relationship was confirmed with a kiss between the two….

(10) LUNAR TUNES. Atlas Obscura wants you to know “All the Other Names for the Moon”.

Every 29 and a half days, the moon cycles through at least eight common English names: the New Moon, the Crescent Moon (new and old), the Gibbous Moon (waxing, waning), the Full Moon, the Quarter Moon (first and last). In Hawai’i, there are more ways to call the moon as it grows and shrinks: Hilo Moon, Hoaka Moon, Kūkahi Moon, Kūlua Moon, Kūkkolu Moon (with a low tide in the afternoon), Kūpau Moon, ‘Olekūkahi Moon, ‘Olekūlua Moon (the most challenging moon), and that’s only halfway through the list. Each of these moons is just a sliver more in the sky, but people noticed and called each lunar advance a new name….

(11) BITS AND PIECES. “Fallout from NASA’s asteroid-smashing DART mission could hit Earth — potentially triggering 1st human-caused meteor shower” reports Live Science.

Millions of tiny space rock fragments may be on a collision course with Earth and Mars after NASA deliberately crashed a probe into a far-away asteroid two years ago, a new study reveals. The celestial shrapnel, which could start hitting our planet within a decade, poses no risk to life on Earth — but it could trigger the first ever human-caused meteor showers.

On Sept. 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft purposefully collided with the asteroid Dimorphos, smashing right into the middle of the space rock at around 15,000 mph (24,000 km/h). The epic impact, which occurred more than 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, was the first test of humanity’s capability to redirect potentially hazardous asteroids that pose a threat to our planet.The mission was a major success. Not only did DART alter Dimorphos’ trajectory — shortening its trip around its partner asteroid Didymos by around 30 minutes — it also completely changed the shape of the asteroid. It demonstrated that this type of action, known as the kinetic impactor method, was a potentially viable option for protecting our planet from dangerous space rocks….

(12) TWIST AND SHOUT. “Meet the $16K Humanoid Robot Leaping Into Production”

Unitree unveiled a new video of its G1 robot performing acrobatic feats, as part of its lead up to production.

(13) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Many SF groups over here in Brit Cit meet in pubs. Indeed, one of our longest standing meet-ups is a descendent of the London Circle made (in)famous by Arthur C. Clarke’s collection Tales from the White Hart. Now, over at Grammaticus Books we are urged to read Larry Niven’s collection The Draco Tavern, itself a Galactic watering hole….

Which brings us on to the skit at the 1984 L.A.con II, ‘Late One Night at the Draco Tavern’.

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

Pixel Scroll 6/23/23 Yes, We Have No Tom Bombadils

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(1) NYT MARKS TWO DISASTER VICTIMS’ SFF CONNECTION. Two of the people who died aboard a submersible that imploded near the Titanic wreckage, Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, had an interest in sff, and the elder Dawood was a trustee of the SETI Institute. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times obituary.

Shahzada Dawood, a British Pakistani businessman who was among the five people aboard a submersible journeying deep into the Altantic to view the Titanic, was killed when the vessel imploded during its descent to the ocean floor, the authorities said Thursday. He was 48.

His 19-year-old son, Suleman, who was with him on the Titan submersible, was also killed.

… His son was a business student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and had just completed his first year, a spokesman for the school said. Like his father, he was a fan of science fiction and enjoyed solving Rubik’s Cubes and playing volleyball, according to a statement from Engro….

…“Don’t adventures ever have an end?” Mr. Dawood wrote in a Facebook post last year from a trip to Iceland, quoting Bilbo Baggins from “The Fellowship of the Ring.” “I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”

Khalid Mansoor, another former colleague of Mr. Dawood’s, said that Mr. Dawood was a passionate champion of the environment. He was also a trustee at the SETI Institute, an organization devoted to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence….

(2) YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE ONE. The Chengdu Worldcon committee attributed the Hugo ballot delay in part to needing to contact finalists to secure their acceptance. Naomi Kritzer urged her Twitter readers to check their spam filters.  Thread starts here.

(3) JONATHAN CARROLL Q&A. “What would it be like to live a different life? Jonathan Carroll explores the question in ‘Mr. Breakfast’” at Wisconsin Public Radio.

…The book is about a failing comedian named Graham Patterson. On a cross-country drive, he decides to get a tattoo. The tattoo artist not only gives Graham a one-of-a-kind tattoo, she also gives him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

The tattoo artist tells Graham that his lost soul can jump between three different universes. Through these experiences, he will find some combination of love, fame and fatherhood. Jonathan gives us insight into what it would be like to live a different life.

“I have always been fascinated with the life not lived, whether in real life, or in literature,” Carroll told Wisconsin Public Radio‘s “BETA.”

“There are so many wonderful versions of it, from Borges to the film ‘Sliding Doors.’ And I think it’s one of the universal questions that we ask, along the lines of why am I here? Or is there a god? The question is, what would my life be like if I had gone left instead of right? Or I’d taken that job or hadn’t taken that job? Those possibilities that you had in life that you chose to go in one direction rather than the other,” he continued….

(4) CULTIVATING CHAOS. When Frank Pournelle created Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor website, one of the things he posted was “Robert Bloch, Author of Psycho, Explains the Appeal of Jerry Pournelle”, Bloch’s entertaining introduction to his fellow toastmaster at L.A.con II, the 1984 Worldcon.

…Professionally, Pournelle has all the qualifications which I lack. To begin with, I never attended college, and he did. As a result I’ve won no honors. But Pournelle has more degrees than a rectal thermometer.

He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1933, and just celebrated his birthday a few weeks ago. After a long and varied career during the most exciting years of the aerospace program, and a stint as a university professor, he began writing science fiction comparatively late in life as a mature adult. I started my professional writing at the age of seventeen, and haven’t matured yet.

Together with Pournelle’s colleagues, Arthur Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov, he subscribes to the Cartesian paradigm of “hard science” and believes that the scientific discipline will inevitably be the key to our future salvation. My own belief is in the opposite extreme; I keep waiting for Great Cthulhu to rise again and end it all.

Both Pournelle and I have had personal experience in politics. He was a professor of Political Science and also put theory into practice as executive assistant to a former mayor of Los Angeles. In contrast, my political activity is confined to supporting Norman Thomas for President. It’s true Thomas passed away a number of years ago, but I continue to vote for him because I believe the only good politician is a dead one….

(5) MEMORY LANE.

1976 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Alice Sheldon also known as James Tiptree Jr. was without doubt one of the most brilliant writers our community was ever graced with. 

Writing under her preferred pen name of James Tiptree, Jr., she penned the “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” novella. It was first published in  Aurora: Beyond Equality as edited by Susan Janice Anderson and Vonda N. McIntyre in 1976. 

I’d normally spend some time talking about the author but I know that all of you know about this individual so I won’t. 

It would share a Hugo at Suncon with Spider Robinson’s “By Any Other Name”, and also a Nebula. 

Now here’s its Beginning…

Lorimer gazes around the big crowded cabin, trying to listen to the voices, trying also to ignore the twitch, in his insides that means he is about to remember something bad. No help; he lives it again, that long-ago moment. Himself running blindly—or was he pushed?—into the strange toilet at Evanston Junior High. His fly open, his dick in his hand, he can still see the grey zipper edge of his jeans around his pale exposed pecker. The hush. The sickening wrongness of shapes, faces turning. The first blaring giggle. Girls. He was in the girls’ can.

Oh! Her smile shows a chipped front tooth. Oh yes, I think Andy has. 

Andy?

For plays. Historical plays, Andy’s good at that.

Of course. Historical plays.

He flinches wryly now, so many years later, not looking at the women’s faces. The cabin curves around over his head surrounding him with their alien things: the beading rack, the twins’ loom, Andy’s leather work, the damned kudzu vine wriggling everywhere, the chickens. So cosy…. Trapped, he is. Irretrievably trapped for life in everything he does not enjoy. Strutturelessness. Personal trivia, unmeaning intimacies. The claims he can somehow never meet. Ginny: You never talk to me … 

Ginny, love, he thinks involuntarily. The hurt doesn’t come.

Lorimer’s brain seems to be expanding, letting in light. He is understanding actively now, the myriad bits and pieces linking into pattern. Deadly patterns, he perceives; but the drug is shielding him in some way. Like an amphetamine high without the pressure. Maybe it’s something they use socially? No, they’re watching, too.

Bud Geirr’s loud chuckle breaks in on him. Bud is joking with some of them, out of sight around a bulkhead. Dave is visible, though. Major Norman Davis on the far side of the cabin, his bearded profile bent toward a small dark woman Lorimer can’t quite focus on. But Dave’s head seems oddly tiny and sharp, in fact the whole cabin looks unreal. A cackle bursts out from the ceiling—the bantam hen in her basket.

You chicks have kids back home, what do your folks think about you flying around out here with old Andy, h’mm? Bud floats into view, his arm draped around a twin’s shoulders. The one called Judy Paris, Lorimer decides; the twins are hard to tell. She drifts passively at an angle to Bud’s big body: a jut-breasted plain girl in flowing yellow pajamas, her black hair raying out. Andy’s read head swims up to them. He is holding a big green spaceball, looking about sixteen.

At this moment Lorimer becomes sure he has been drugged.

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 23, 1945 — Eileen Gunn, 78. Her story “Coming to Terms” based on her friendship with Avram Davidson won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Two other stories were nominated for the Hugo Award: “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” at Noreascon 3 and “Computer Friendly” at ConFiction. Some of her best stories are in Stable Strategies and Others, Steampunk Quartet and Questionable Practices. With L. Timmel Duchamp, she penned The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 2: Provocative Essays on Feminism, Race, Revolution, and the Future.
  • Born June 23, 1947 — Mark Olson, 76. One could reasonably call him an Uberfan. And among his many accomplishments is that he oversees Fancyclopedia 3 which I constantly use. If you don’t know him, I’m going to send you to his Fancyclopedia 3 bio which is far too long to quote here. It’s just a little boastful as it should be. 
  • Born June 23, 1957 — Frances McDormand, 66. She’s God. Well at least The Voice of God in Good Omens. Which is on Amazon y’all. Her first genre role was in the “Need to Know” episode of Twilight Zone followed shortly thereafter by being Julie Hastings in Sam Raimi’s excellent Dark Man. She’s The Handler in Æon Flux and that’s pretty much everything worth noting. 
  • Born June 23, 1963 — Liu Cixin, 60. He won the Best Novel Hugo at Saquan for his Three Body Problem novel, translated into English by Ken Liu. It was nominated for the Campbell Memorial, Nebula, Canopus and Prometheus Awards as well. He picked up a Hugo novel nomination at Worldcon 75 for Death’s End also translated by Liu. 
  • Born June 23, 1972 — Selma Blair, 51. Liz Sherman in Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. She also voiced the character in the most excellent animated Hellboy: Sword of Storms and Hellboy: Blood and Iron. She’s Stevie Wayne in The Fog, a slasher film a few years later and was Cyane on the “Lifeblood” episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. Later on, she’d be Jessica Harris in the “Infestation” episode of Lost in Space. 
  • Born June 23, 1980 — Melissa Rauch, 43. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory which is at least genre adjacent if not genre. She gets to be really genre in voicing Harley Quinn in Batman and Harley Quinn which Bruce Timm considers “a spiritual successor to Batman: The Animated Series”. Having watched a few episodes on HBO when I was subscribed to that streaming service, I vehemently disagree. 
  • Born June 23, 2000 — Caitlin Blackwood, 23. She was the young Amelia Pond in these Doctor Who episodes; “The Eleventh Hour”, “The Big Bang”, “Let’s Kill Hitler” and “The God Complex”., all showing from 2010 to 2012. y She had a cameo in “The Angels Take Manhattan”.  She’s the cousin of Karen Gillan who plays the adult Pond.  I can’t find anything online that talks about how she was cast in the role but it was brilliantly inspired casting!

(7) STAR TREK: PRODIGY CANCELED. Variety says it’s on the hit list: “’The Game,’ ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Pulled Off Paramount+”.

…“The Paramount+ series ‘Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,’ ‘Star Trek: Prodigy,’ ‘Queen of the Universe’ and ‘The Game’ have completed their runs on Paramount+ and will not be returning to the service,” a Paramount+ spokesperson said. “We want to extend our thanks to our tremendously talented cast and crew and our producing partners for their passionate work and dedication on these programs, and we wish them all the best on their future endeavors.”…

…The cancellation of “Star Trek: Prodigy,” the first animated kids show in the “Star Trek” universe, comes despite the fact that the show was renewed for a second season back in 2021. According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, although the show had aired on Nickelodeon in addition to Paramount+, it will not be returning to Nickelodeon either. Those on the show will complete post-production on Season 2 and then CBS Studios will be free to shop it to other outlets….

(8) DEFINITELY NOT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] No. Just… no. “Furby, the bug-eyed, gibberish-talking ’90s toy phenomenon, has been revived — again” reports CNN.

Loveable or creepy? Depends on who you ask.

Furby, the ’90s toy phenomenon that divided kids and parents into opposing camps when it first hit stores and quickly became a craze, is making yet another comeback.

Furby-maker Hasbro said Thursday it is reintroducing the bug-eyed, gibberish-talking furball. The latest iteration of the animatronic toy launched on Amazon Thursday and rolls into stores nationwide on July 15 after a nearly 10-year gap.

The new Furby — which is priced at $70 and comes in purple and coral — is much like the original but somewhat cuter. It is interactive and responds to hugs, pats on the head and tickles. You can also pretend to feed it a tiny pizza….

(9) JEOPARDY! [Item by David Goldfarb.] There was a whole category on Thursday’s Double Jeopardy round that was “Vampire-pourri”. Here are the clues in the order they were encountered:

$1200: In the “Twilight” saga, the Cullens avoid the sun not because it would kill them, but because this happens

Challenger Andrea Rednick Granados said, “What is twinkle?” This was accepted.

$800: “You’re Dead” by ‘60s folk singer Norma Tanega is used as the theme song to this FX series

Andrea: “What is True Blood?”

The correct response was, “What We Do in the Shadows”.

$1600: In “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, Anthony Hopkins played this vampire-hunting professor

Challenger Dan Meuse knew it was Van Helsing.

$2000: Benjamin Walker stepped into the Presidential shoes for this 2012 metafiction monster mash-up of a movie

Returning champ Ben Goldstein: “What is ‘Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter’?”

$400: Drusilla was one of the vampire antagonists on this TV series that debuted in 1997

Surprisingly (to me at least) this was a triple stumper. I guess I’m getting old.

In addition, there was one clue in “Writing on the Walls”. At the middle level ($1200):

Writing on the Walls, $1200: In his book “Stardust”, there is a hamlet named Wall & Tristran sets out on a journey through the only hole in that wall

This too was a triple stumper. Poor Neil!

(10) THE SPEED OF DARK. A European space telescope sets off to discover the nature of dark energy—the biggest ingredient in the universe: “Into the Dark” in Science.

When the Euclid space telescope blasts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida early next month, it will embark on an unprecedented effort to survey 1 billion galaxies—and perhaps solve cosmology’s greatest mystery. The search will cover more than one-third of the sky and look back in time to galaxies shining when the universe was just one-quarter of its current age of 13.8 billion years. Although the task is immense, Euclid’s primary goal is surprisingly simple. The data it collects will be boiled down to a single number, denoted by w. And cosmologists are hoping, maybe even a bit desperately, that it is not –1.

w describes the effect of dark energy, the mysterious antigravitational force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe. All measures so far suggest that w is close to –1. If it proves to be exactly that, it will confirm the vanilla solution to dark energy: that it’s a simple tweak—a cosmological constant—added to Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, which bestows empty space with an innate springiness of its own. As the universe expands, giving birth to more space, the total amount of dark energy also grows—so that the energy density always remains constant…

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Susan de Guardiola, David Goldfarb, Danny Sichel, Michael J. Walsh, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 9/17/18 Rossum’s Universal Robocallers

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(1) MEET THE PASSENGER. Musk’s moonbound ticket buyer was introduced on a SpaceX webcast this evening. “Here’s What Elon Musk Is Charging Tourists to Fly Around the Moon”.

One thing is almost certain: the unknown passenger is ridiculously wealthy. The price for a single seat on the 100-person rocket intended to explore the moon is estimated to cost in excess of $35 million. For the inaugural passenger, it’s a massive price to pay for an adventure with no definite launch date yet.

(2) A MODEST PROPOSAL. The Washington Examiner has a series of suggestions on how the new Picard-led Trek series could please the audience (“Capt. Jean-Luc Picard is back! Here’s how to keep ‘Star Trek’ fans happy“).

  1. Pay homage to “Star Trek IV” by having Picard visit modern-day San Francisco.
  2. Reveal that every “Star Trek” movie after 1996 was actually just an elaborate Holodeck simulation.
  3. Limit the amount of mysterious energy beings to 3 per season, tops.
  4. Have Picard finally make Q shut up for, like, 20 seconds.
  5. Bring back Whoopi Goldberg. Then continue the time-honored “Next Generation” tradition of having Guinan solve everything.
  6. Actually, you know what? Picard’s back. The entire series could just be episodes of Patrick Stewart wailing on the Ressikan flute and we’d still be happy.

(3) PROTAG TIP. Ann Leckie tells readers a way to learn something about themselves.

https://twitter.com/ann_leckie/status/1040754190082080768

(4) TIPTREE ON STAGE. The Woman Who Went to Space as a Man runs at Los Angeles’ Son of Semele venue from October 17-November 17.

She dared…

Part fact, part fever dream, this captivating new work opens with Alice B. Sheldon – better known to sci-fi aficionados as author James Tiptree, Jr. – contemplating suicide. Dodging in and out of reality, the play investigates gender, longing and creativity as self-exploration through one of the Science Fiction world’s greatest literary tricksters. Directed by Maureen Huskey; music by Yuval Ron.

Broadway World profiled the play in May:

The Woman Who Went to Space as a Man – Part fact, part fever dream, and part musical, this captivating new work opens with Alice B. Sheldon – better known to sci-fi aficionados as author James Tiptree, Jr. – contemplating suicide. Dodging in and out of reality, the play, with a bold musical score from award-winning world music artist Yuval Ron, investigates gender, longing and creativity as self-exploration through one of Science Fiction world’s greatest literary tricksters. Sheldon was most notable for breaking down the barriers between writing perceived as inherently ‘male’ or ‘female’. It was not publicly known until 1977 that Tiptree was, in fact, a woman. Inspired by the biography ‘James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon‘ by Julie Phillips along with ‘With Delicate Mad Hands’ by James Tiptree, Jr., Maureen Huskey wrote and directs the first production of The Woman Who Went to Space as a Man, opening October 27 and running through November 17, at Son of Semele Theater in Los Angeles.

…The Woman Who Went to Space as a Man takes imaginary license whereby Sheldon is visited by an unexpected stranger – an extraterrestrial “star caller” from one of Tiptree’s stories – who leads her on an episodic, emotional journey through the shadows of her past where, despite her life’s accomplishments, buried pain and unmet desires reside. She encounters her younger selves, her repressed lesbian love, a domineering mother, and the incarnation of her male alter-ego: James Tiptree, Jr. The play locates unexpected links between gender orientation, creative expression and mental health, and shows how science fiction became the answer to Sheldon’s struggles as a woman

Son of Semele Theater 3301 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles Los Angeles California 90004.

(5) MEXICANX ANTHOLOGY. A reader asked how to get a copy of Una realidad más amplia: Historias desde la periferia bicultural, the anthology showcasing a sampling of MexicanX talent which was funded by a Kickstarter.

Julia Rios says —

There are no print copies available because it was a very limited print run, but we will be releasing the ebook for free to the general public. The ebook will go out to backers first, and they’ll have it for a few weeks before the public gets it, but my understanding is that all of this should be happening pretty soon!

(6) NOT YOUR TYPICAL SF WRITER. Kat Hooper reviews YouTuber Hank Green’s sf novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing at Fantasy Literature.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) is a delightful science fiction story with diverse characters and a fun and clever mystery to solve. The entire world is involved in trying to find clues and piece them together to figure out what the Carls want from us. On the surface, the book appears to be about our relationship with these aliens, but it’s really about our relationships with each other….

(7) HISTORY OUT LOUD. Thanks to Fanac.org you can listen to these speeches from L.A.con II, the 1984 Worldcon, by guests of honor Gordon R. Dickson and Dick Eney.

L.A.con II, the 42nd World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Anaheim, CA in 1984. Introduced by Jerry Pournelle, here are the Guest of Honor speeches by Fan Guest Dick Eney and Professional Guest Gordon R. Dickson. Dick talks about his life “after” fandom, with fascinating anecdotes about foreign service. Gordy tells the story of his life and his writing. If you enjoy Gordy’s Childe saga, here’s an opportunity to hear about its origins. The end of Gordy’s talk feels chillingly appropriate for today. Thanks to the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests (SCIFI) for this recording.

 

(8) A PAINFUL JOURNEY BACK IN TIME. This post leads with a news bulletin from 1963 about the horrific church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, before Galactic Journey’s Traveler seeks solace in a new issue of F&SF: “[September 17, 1963] Places of refuge (October 1963 Fantasy and Science Fiction)”.

Deluge, by Zenna Henderson
(poetic sting by Jeanette Nichols)

Now we come to the part I was most looking forward to, the return of Zenna Henderson’s The People.  This episode of the saga is chronologically the first, showing what caused a family of humanoid espers to depart from Home and take refuge in the ruralities of America.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • September 17, 1978 — The original Battlestar Galactica premiered on television on this date

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 17 — Cassandra Peterson, age 67 best known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Where she, and I quote Wiki here, “gained fame on Los Angeles television station KHJ-TV wearing a revealing, black, gothic, cleavage-enhancing gown as host of Elvira’s Movie Macabre, a weekly horror movie presentation.”  That show evolved into similar shows down the decades.

She also has appeared in a lot of films, only a few as starring roles. In 1989, she would get a  Raspberry for Elvira, Mistress of the Dark which scored a 47% with critics at Rotten Tomato, proving neither group was the target audience.

Everything from films, action figures, trading cards, pinball machines, Halloween decor, model kits, calendars, perfume and comic books to high end statues has followed down the decades. She is genre, mostly on the comic side of things.

Now who’s birthday did I miss?

Steven H Silver’s answer would be Irene Radford, judging by today’s entry in his birthday series: “Birthday Reviews: Irene Radford’s ‘Little Red in the ‘Hood’”

…Radford has published numerous series, many of them through DAW Books, including the Dragon Nimbus, Stargods, Tess Noncoiré, and Merlin’s Descendants. She is one of the founders of Book View Café, a cooperative publisher. She has also collaborated with Bob Brown and as an editor with Deborah J. Ross, Laura Ann Gilman, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, and Brenda Clough….

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) STAR WARS COMICS. Marvel will run all-new stories from all three Star Wars trilogies, starting in December. Here’s the promo art —

For more information, be sure to check out the Disney-Lucasfilm Publishing panel at New York Comic Con on Friday, October 5th at 3pm E.T. in Room 1A10!

(13) SEAT DANCING. Washington Post dance critic Sarah L. Kaufman interviews Fortnite players who tell her that in order to be really good at Fortnite you have to practice your virtual dance moves and good Fortnite players are good virtual dancers — “The dances in ‘Fortnite’ have become nearly as contagious as the game”.

In our increasingly impatient, data-driven society, where matters of style and aesthetics are largely seen as a waste, art for art’s sake is thriving in an unusual place — the massively popular video game “Fortnite: Battle Royale.”

The goal in “Fortnite,” as in most multiplayer shooter games, is to blow your enemies to shreds. It follows a typical “battle royale” format, where 100 players brawl until there’s only one survivor. Though it costs nothing to play, “Fortnite” is raking in higher monthly sales — $126 million, for example, in February — than its nearest competition, “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.” How does “Fortnite” do this? By getting players to buy “skins” — avatar costumes — and avatar dances.

 

(14) STRANGE HORIZONS. Charles Payseur keeps an eye on the latest short sff in “Quick Sips – Strange Horizons 09/03/2018 & 09/10/2018″.

Strange Horizons opens September with two new short stories and poems. And the feel of these pieces very much faces the bleak and desolate for me. People who are struggling against a world that seems like a hostile waste, where they can’t find connection, where those people they care about don’t seem to stick around, don’t seem to really understand. Where they are pulled by ghosts, of those they have lost and by the ghosts of their past selves, toward ends that mean destruction or worse. It’s a rather rending month of short SFF, so let’s steel ourselves and get to the reviews!

(15) LEGO LOTR. A post from 2013 but it’s news to me — “Mind-Blowing LEGO Recreation of LOTR’s Helm’s Deep Battle”.

We’ve all seen some incredible LEGO builds before, but this one, by Rich-K & Big J, takes the cake as one of the most impressive pop culture recreations of all time! About 150,000 LEGO bricks and 1,700 mini-figures were used to recreate the Helm’s Deep battle scene from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. It took the duo about four months to construct the 160 pound, ping-pong table size creation.

Look closely and you’ll notice the small details like the catapults, ladders and towering walls.

(16) A LEAF FROM THE LIFE OF TOLKIEN. Not only Tolkien, but Dostoevsky and General Maximus from Gladiator weigh in on this lesson: “Life Echoes in Eternity: On J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Leaf by Niggle’” in Crisis Magazine.

…It was thoughts of this kind that inspired Tolkien’s doctrine of sub-creation; the artist creates because he is an imago Dei, and that of which he is an image (God) also creates. The artist’s creation has some sort of being in eternity, because God knows the artist’s work. In eternity, though, it is perfected, for God knows what it was intended to be, and what it ought to have been….

(17) FLAG. Mikayla Burns, in “‘First Man’ author, Auburn professor speaks on controversy surrounding upcoming film” in the Auburn Plainsman, interviews Auburn emeritus professor James. R. Hansen, whose biography First Man is the basis for the movie.  Hansen says the controversy surrounding the flag on the moon scene is overblown and that he has a lot of respect for Ryan Gosling’s performance as Neil Armstrong.

Hansen understands why people could receive word of the omission and think it is odd, but he said there was a lot of thought put into that decision. When viewers see the movie, they will understand the decision, Hansen said.

“I lived and breathed the production of this movie, and I understand why (it was omitted),” Hansen said. “But people just hear this one thing, and they don’t understand why it was done the way it was done and how other elements of the movie are unbelievably patriotic and American.”

(18) HOMAGE TO HARRY. At Yesterday’s Papers, “A Crowded Life in Comics – Harry Hershfield”.

On the walls were inscribed photos of Hershfield with Einstein; Hershfield with Chaplin; Hershfield with FDR; etc. One day, talking about old comics as we were, he picked up the phone and called Sylvan Byck, Comics Editor at King Features Syndicate. “I’ve got a young boy here who likes the old timers, believe it or not,” he explained. “Can you send him some old drawings?”

A week later in the mail I received a package with vintage original artwork by Herriman, Segar, Swinnerton, Opper, Jimmy Murphy, Chic Young, McManus, Alex Raymond, Westover, TAD, Hershfield himself, and others. Can someone hum, “Those Were the Days, My Friends”?

(19) ANOTHER DISSATISFIED CUSTOMER. The good news is that people are still watching the recording of the Hugo ceremony. The bad news is….

(20) OXFORD. Amy Pay regales Lonely Planet readers about “Literary Oxford – a book lover’s guide to the city of dreaming spires”.

As the home of a world-renowned university, Oxford is famous as being a place for readers, writers and thinkers. It’s little wonder then that the city has spawned some of the biggest names in literature and has inspired many famous works of fiction. From JRR Tolkien and Philip Pullman to CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll, Oxford has long been the stomping ground of the literary elite, with footsteps left for visitors to trace.

(21) WHEN PUNDAY FALLS ON MONDAY. John Scalzi’s puns, quoted in yesterday’s Scroll, set off a pun epidemic in comments – and also produced this verse from regular Filer — and this really is his handle — Peer.

Now I feel pressure inside the mountain
I feel pressure, burning the peers
And I feel pressure, hollowing souls
And I feel pressure, filing the peer
And I hope you remember thee

Oh, should my pixels scroll
Then surely I’ll do the same
Confined in ticked boxes
We got too close to the Baen
Calling out Ray hold fast and we will
Watch the books burn on and on the martian side
Dandelion comes upon the wine

(With pressure from Ed Sheeran)

(22) SECRET AGENT REX. Would you buy a home from a dinosaur? Yahoo has a feature (“Jurassic Lark: Real estate agent dresses as 7-foot dinosaur to sell homes”) about a Nebraska real estate agent who dresses as a T. rex to push properties. The shower brush must really help with those short arms…

This real estate agent really had a Jurassic lark attempting to sell one of her most recent properties — by dressing in a 7-foot dinosaur costume. Realtor Bambi Chase dressed as the comedic T. rex for the home’s showcase shots, peeking out of the family abode’s shower, cooking up a storm in the kitchen and drinking a glass of wine in the garden. Chase, who works for Nebraska Realty, said she had seen a number of T. rex-costume gimmicks floating around the internet and  decided such an approach would be perfect for the real estate market.

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

Pixel Scroll 5/9/18 They Had Many Books For Their Kindles And Nooks And Hardcovers Kept In A Pile

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(1) AWARD REVOKED. While I haven’t located any related protests in social media that would explain the decision, evidently the Romance Writers of America received enough complaints after making their award to the Washington Romance Writers to change their minds: “Update on 2018 Chapter Excellence Award”.

On May 1, 2018, RWA’s board voted to rescind the 2018 Chapter Excellence Award granted to Washington Romance Writers. This decision was made after extensive review and deliberation, because the board found it impossible to hold Washington Romance Writers up as an example of excellence due to a number of complaints received after the board voted to grant the award.

Incidents reported to RWA were submitted by WRW members as well as meeting and retreat attendees who were made to feel unwelcome, disrespected, and embarrassed by members of Washington Romance Writers. Such incidents potentially violate RWA’s Code of Ethics for Members, RWA’s By-Laws, Chapter By-Laws, and are clearly in violation of the Chapter Code of Conduct recently adopted by RWA and required to be included in all chapters’ governing documents by March 2019.

RWA’s board is dedicated to ensuring that all members feel respected, and we will no longer tolerate insensitive or biased behavior. We hope and expect that WRW is willing to take steps to ensure its future success as an RWA chapter. Only by working together can we make RWA stronger.

(2) COCKY OR NOT TO COCKY, THAT IS THE QUESTION. You may have already read news stories about Faleena Hopkins’ effort to trademark the word “cocky” for a series of romance books (her works include Cocky Romantic and Cocky Cowboy) and reports that she warned off some other writers who use the adjective in the titles of their books (see “Romantic novelist’s trademarking of word ‘cocky’ sparks outcry” in The Guardian.)

(3) THE CASE OF THE MISSING COCKY. Now there have been claims that Amazon, a primary sales channel, has been culling other authors’ titles based upon her claim.

What’s more, there have been claims that Amazon has removed some customer reviews using the word “cocky,” and delayed the posting of others (which their makers tried to post either in protest or to test Amazon’s policy.)

You can see this one’s gone:

Original URL: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3A3NXV2FH4Q4A

Google cache copy of page with review: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zxJaTw9kaAcJ:https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Hard-New-Adult-Anthology/dp/098614150X

However, there are both titles and reviews still on Amazon with “cocky” in them which are not by the author claiming the trademark. There’s no way to tell whether any of those were zapped, then restored, by Amazon.

JJ ran a search of customer reviews containing the word “cocky” and got only 3 hits, which seemed rather low:

https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&biw=1234&bih=656&q=%22cocky%22+romance+site%3Aamazon.com%2Freview

I don’t know. It does seem like a very small search return; they’re almost all “trending” results rather than individual review results, which would indicate that they are quite recent reviews.

Heidi Cullinan did a thread on the topic:

If Amazon is deleting things — what’s with their legal staff? Do they really think they have exposure from this?

The Romance Writers of America have gotten involved:

(4) GILLIAM STROKE. And it was just the other day we were reporting his luck had finally changed for the better: “Terry Gilliam Suffers Minor Stroke Days Before Verdict on Cannes Closer ‘Don Quixote'”.

Terry Gilliam suffered a minor stroke over the weekend, days before a final verdict on whether his long-gestating passion project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will be screened as the closing film at the 71st Cannes Film Festival.

The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Gilliam, 77, had a minor stroke but is fine now and recuperating at his home in England, awaiting the outcome of a court ruling regarding the screening of Don Quixote on the last night of the festival May 19. French newspaper Nice-Matin first reported the news.

(5) FIRST LOOK. The Daily Beast tells about “The Secret Photographs of Stanley Kubrick”.

According to Michael Benson’s authoritative Space Odyssey, Kubrick shot setups with the Polaroid then, based on the results, he and cameraman John Alcott adjusted lighting and the placement of his Super Panavision 70mm cameras.

“I think he saw things differently that way than he did looking through a camera,” Alcott told Benson. “When Kubrick looked at this Polaroid still, he would see a two-dimensional image — it was all one surface and closer to what he was going to see on the screen.”

It’s estimated Kubrick shot some 10,000 insta-images on 2001, and if you only know Kubrick as a reclusive eccentric that reliance on the Polaroid might seem a characteristic quirk.

But in fact it was an extension of the creative sensibility he developed as a teenager working for Look. From 1945 to 1950, Kubrick was a photographer for the picture magazine, evocatively and empathically documenting ordinary New Yorkers, celebrities, athletes, and post-war playgrounds like the amusement park.

He shot more than 135 assignments for Look while honing the skills, relationships, and chutzpah that led him to filmmaking.

Yet this vital strand of Kubrick’s artistic DNA has been criminally underexplored. The Museum of the City of New York’s new exhibition Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs, on view through October 28, aims to change that….

(6) HIRED HELP. BuzzFeed takes you “Inside Amazon’s Fake Review Economy”. Given the ongoing debate on deleted reviews on Amazon, it may be interesting that a ReviewMeta algorithmic analysis (per CEO Tommy Noonan) of 58.5 million reviews on Amazon found 9.1% of them (5.3 million) to be “unnatural” and possibly fake. Unsurprisingly, Amazon disagrees claiming that <1% are “inauthentic.” Note that this article is concerned with paid reviews (both positive and negative), not tit-for-tat reviews as have been discussed in File 770.

The systems that create fraudulent reviews are a complicated web of subreddits, invite-only Slack channels, private Discord servers, and closed Facebook groups, but the incentives are simple: Being a five-star product is crucial to selling inventory at scale in Amazon’s intensely competitive marketplace — so crucial that merchants are willing to pay thousands of people to review their products positively.

…In October 2016, Amazon banned free items or steep discounts in exchange for reviews facilitated by third parties. But Tommy Noonan, CEO of ReviewMeta, a site that analyzes Amazon listings, said what he calls “unnatural reviews” — that is, reviews, that his algorithm indicates might be fake — have returned to the platform. In June 2017, Noonan noticed an uptick in unnatural reviews along with an increase in the average rating of products, and the rate of growth hasn’t slowed since.

Amazon’s ban didn’t stop sellers from recruiting reviewers. It only drove the practice underground. Reviewers are no longer simply incentivized with free stuff — they’re commissioned specifically for a five-star rating in exchange for cash. The bad reviews are harder to spot, too: They don’t contain any disclosures (because incentivized reviews are banned, and a disclosure would indicate that the review violates Amazon’s terms). Paid reviewers also typically pay for products with their own credit cards on their own Amazon accounts, with which they have spent at least $50, all to meet the criteria for a “verified purchase,” so their reviews are marked as such.

(7) CYBER TAKEDOWN. Equifax has been in no hurry for the complete damages to be made public. The Register has the latest totals: “Equifax reveals full horror of that monstrous cyber-heist of its servers”.

Late last week, the company gave the numbers in letters to the various US congressional committees investigating the network infiltration, and on Monday, it submitted a letter to the SEC, corporate America’s financial watchdog.

As well as the – take a breath – 146.6 million names, 146.6 million dates of birth, 145.5 million social security numbers, 99 million address information and 209,000 payment cards (number and expiry date) exposed, the company said there were also 38,000 American drivers’ licenses and 3,200 passport details lifted, too.

(8) LOOKING FOR CIVILIZATION THAT PREDATES HUMANITY. Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA, published a recent paper about what could be left in the geological record that could identify a pre-human technologically advanced civilization.

The drier scientific discussion is here: “The Silurian hypothesis: would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?”

Abstract

If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to our own era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today? We summarize the likely geological fingerprint of the Anthropocene, and demonstrate that while clear, it will not differ greatly in many respects from other known events in the geological record. We then propose tests that could plausibly distinguish an industrial cause from an otherwise naturally occurring climate event.

Impressively, he has also written a short story about the impact of making such a discovery: “Under the Sun” at Motherboard.

(9) CRAIG OBIT. Noble Craig, U.S. actor, died April 26, 2018. Severely injured during wartime service in Vietnam, he used his disabilities to forge an acting career, taking roles those with four limbs were unable to fill, beginning with Sssssss (1973). Also appeared in Poltergeist II: The Other Side and Big Trouble in Little China (both 1986), The Blob (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and Bride of Re-Animator (both 1989).

(10) STAR TOY. Have you fiddled with this yet? — ESASky is an application that allows you to visualize and download public astronomical data from space-based missions. Mlex sent this sample:

(11) 1984. Fanac.org has posted another Hugo ceremony video: “L.A.con II (1984) Worldcon – Hugos and Special Tributes – Robert Bloch, MC.”

Hey, there’s R. A. MacAvoy at 13:00. And guess who at 22:16 and 23:45.

L.A.con II, the 42nd World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Anaheim, CA in 1984. Toastmaster Robert Bloch’s introductory remarks are tantamount to standup comedy, and the video also includes several special and moving tributes along with the Hugos. The first tribute is presented by Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison to fan and editor Larry Shaw (who died within the next year) and the second to Robert Bloch himself. There’s also some fun with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle on stage having to do with a rocket shaped object. Thanks to the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests (SCIFI) for this recording.

 

(12) PLANETARY AWARDS. The 2017 winners of the Puppy-influenced Planetary Awards have been announced.

  • Best Shorter Story: “The First American” by Schuyler Hernstrom (Cirsova).
  • Best Novel: Legionnaire (Galaxy’s Edge) by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole.

(13) FREE CELL. A better model? “Artificial Intelligence Takes Scientists Inside Living Human Cells”

A new application of artificial intelligence could help researchers solve medical mysteries ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s.

It’s a 3D model of a living human cell that lets scientists study the interior structures of a cell even when they can only see the exterior and the nucleus — the largest structure in a cell. The model was unveiled to the public Wednesday by the Allen Institute for Cell Science in Seattle.

The technology is freely available, and Roger Brent, an investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle who was not involved in the tool’s development, has been using it for several months. He’s a big fan.

“This lets you see things with a simple microscope that are going to be helpful to researchers all over the world — including in less affluent places,” Brent says.

(14) VACUUM POWER. BBC video: “The amazing power of the world’s largest vacuum” — is used for testing spaceworthiness; also tests noise resistance, and was used in first Avengers movie.

(15) DOUBLE STAR. Michael B. Jordan was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to talk about his recent and his upcoming star turns in sff epics.

‘Fahrenheit 451’ star Michael B. Jordan approaches every role by journaling the character’s backstory, including his portrayal of Erik Killmonger in the blockbuster film ‘Black Panther.’

 

[Thanks to JJ, Steve Green, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Rob Day, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, and David K.M. Klaus for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributingh editor of the day Joe H.]

Now Really The Biggest Ever: Loncon 3

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With 9,596 members through today, Loncon 3 has topped the mark of 9,282 set by L.A.con II in 1984. Although it won’t open the doors for another two weeks, the 2014 Worldcon already has more members than any previous Worldcon.

When Loncon 3’s total membership passed  L.A.con II’s reported attendance last month it stimulated fresh interest in locating the 1984 con’s overall membership number, which has never been added to the data on the Long List of Worldcons.

Searching online I found Evelyn Leeper’s 1984 conreport said the membership was over 9,000. That prompted me to dig out my own report in File 770 #49 where I located the numbers Bruce Pelz provided after the con:

Pre-registered attendance 5,823
At-the-door attendance 2,542
Total attendance 8,365
Total membership (includes no-shows and corresponding members) 9,282
* from File 770 #49 (October 1984)

If I recall, the keepers of the Long List wanted information about daily memberships and other specifics for use in massaging the raw total. They’re never going to get that data, and perhaps with London setting a new record it will become less important for the 1984 figure to be perfected before it is added to the chart.

Loncon 3 Already Largest Ever By One Measure

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Worth mentioning for the record — Loncon 3 hit 8,518 total memberships at the end of June. That’s the most members any Worldcon has ever had — surpassing L.A.con II’s 30-year-old mark of 8,365.

At that time London had 5,457 attending and 2,768 supporting members. So it has a very good shot at setting a new attendance record for a Worldcon held outside North America. Glasgow’s 1995 Worldcon currently holds that title, where 4,173 were counted present.

L.A.con II has the overall record: 8,365 was also report as its attendance figure. You can wonder — like, what about no shows? — but it hasn’t been controversial because few Worldcons have come anywhere near drawing that number.