Tag Archives: Middle Earth

Pixel Scroll 4/12/25 Hey, Scroll. Take A Walk On The Filed Side

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(1) THE FATE OF U.S. WORLDCONS WEIGHED. Two editorials came out today addressing how Worldcons should react to the increased risks of international travel to the U.S.

The Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog’s post “Worldcon In An Age Of American Truculence” concludes:

…Because of the voter base, institutional knowledge, and enormous fan base, US Worldcons will and should always occur. But perhaps there should be an increased willingness among fandom to support overseas conventions in locations that present logistical hurdles for North American travellers. If we may be so bold, perhaps we as fans should encourage the practice of having a Worldcon outside of North America every second year.

In an age of US truculence, Worldcon needs to embrace friends and allies around the globe without turning its back on the generations of fans and volunteers who have built it as an institution.

Gary Westfahl’s “Op-Ed: ‘No More Worldcons in the United States?’” at File 770 starts with a more draconian conclusion:

The time has come to cancel or move the 2025 Seattle Worldcon.

And to cancel or move the 2026 Los Angeles Worldcon.

It has to be done, in order to honor a century-old tradition of science fiction….

(2) FRANK R. PAUL AWARDS. Frank Wu has announced that the 2025 Frank R. Paul Awards will be presented at Philcon (November 21-23). Due to the lateness of the convention in the calendar, he is extending the deadline for submissions for the Frank R. Paul Awards for another month, to May 15. All artists, publishers and editors are enthusiastically encouraged to submit their 2024 work to the main awards administrator, Frank Wu, at FWu@Frankwu.com Details are available here: “Frank R. Paul Awards”.

Frank R. Paul Award trophy. Photo by Rich Lynch.

(3) BALTICON SUNDAY SHORT SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL 2025. [Item by lance oszko.] The Balticon Sunday Short Science Fiction Film Festival 2025 has curated 19 short films representing 8 countries. Featured are Short Stories adapted into Short Films.

Sunday 25 May 2025 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

George RR Martin produced another Howard Waldrop film Mary Margaret Road Grader“. Estimated budget $2.2 Million. Director Steven Paul Judd is known for Dark Winds and Marvel’s Echo. It has a score by Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi.

Italian Director Luca Caserta brings us The Reach. One of the last authorized Dollar Baby Stephen King Films.
With a song by Bruce Springsteen.

Director George Vatistas adapted The Hobbyist by Frederic Brown.

Actor Stacy Thunes (Nosferatu – Head Nurse) currently at Universal Studios, Japan stars in The Hairdo.

An Old Friend. Director Nuk Suwanchote. An imaginary friend (Jason Faunt) finds out his sole purpose is to bring happiness to his child, only to discover his child is a 90 year old man (Tom Skerritt) on his deathbed.

First time Local filmmakers were also selected in Twilight Zone and Animation motifs.

Horror and Fantasy round out our offerings.

(4) “I’M NOT A ROBOT” [Item by lance oszko.] The Balticon Sunday Short Science Fiction Film Festival could not arrange a screening, but still worthy of your attention. “Watch The Surreal Identity Crisis of ‘I’m Not a Robot’” in The New Yorker.

(5) SFF BOOKS OUT OF NAVAL ACADEMY LIBRARY. Allen Steele pointed out that the list of 381 books pulled from the U.S. Naval Academy library (reported at the top of yesterday’s Scroll) includes several works of sff (even though the vast majority are nonfiction about gender issues or racism). Steele asks, “Wonder what Robert Heinlein would have to say about the actions of his Alma mater?”

The three sff works I found on the list are:

  • Light From Uncommon Stars / RykaAoki.
  • Sorrowland / Rivers Solomon
  • A Psalm For The Wild-Built / Becky Chambers.

(6) AUSTEN IN INNSMOUTH. Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein finds much to enjoy in “’Innsmouth Park’ (2025) by Jane Routley”.

Jane Austen’s role in weird fiction is underappreciated, largely because she herself didn’t really write any (although Northanger Abbey is a biting satire of the Gothic novel, and a must-read for Gothic fans which even Lovecraft acknowledged, which has to at least classify Austen as weird fiction’s strange aunt.) Yet the world she described, the characters and milieu she envisioned, have been enduring and influential far beyond the genre she initially worked in. Generations of writers have called back to Austen, and mashups like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009) by Austen & Ben H. Winters, Regency Cthulhu (2023) by Andrew Peregrine & Lynne Hardy, and Secrets & Sacrifices: A Regency Cthulhu Novel (2024) by Cath Lauria all point to a similar rainy-day afternoon brainstorm:

Why not mix Austen and Lovecraft?…

(7) PEN AMERICA LITERARY AWARDS FINALISTS.  There are almost no nominees of genre interest among the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards Finalists. The one exception is in this category, a work of horror fiction.

PEN Translation Prize ($3,000)

For a book-length translation of prose from any language into English.

The Empusium, Olga Tokarczuk. Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Riverhead Books)

(8) BBC COVERAGE OF BELFAST EASTERCON. Eastercon got a 15-minute slot on BBC Northern Ireland with Jo Zebedee and Ian McDonald doing an interview and chatting about it. “Saturday with John Toal – Puppets, Worms and Sci-fi”. Interview starts at 45m20s.

…As Belfast prepares to host a special Sci Fi convention Eastercon, for the first time in its 76 year history, John hears from two successful science fiction writers Ian McDonald and Jo Zebedee….

(9) STUNT OSCAR APPROVED. “Oscars Add Best Stunt Design Category Starting in 2027” – Variety has the story.

…“Since the early days of cinema, stunt design has been an integral part of filmmaking,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy president Janet Yang. “We are proud to honor the innovative work of these technical and creative artists, and we congratulate them for their commitment and dedication in reaching this momentous occasion.”

In a statement, Leitch said, “Stunts are essential to every genre of film and rooted deep in our industry’s history—from the groundbreaking work of early pioneers like Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin, to the inspiring artistry of today’s stunt designers, coordinators, performers, and choreographers.” He went on to say, “This has been a long journey for so many of us. Chris O’Hara and I have spent years working to bring this moment to life, standing on the shoulders of the stunt professionals who’ve fought tirelessly for recognition over the decades. We are incredibly grateful. Thank you, Academy.”

…Category rules for eligibility and voting for the inaugural award will be announced in 2027 with the complete 100th Academy Awards Rules….

(10) BLACK MIRROR. “Black Mirror Season 7’s Tech Tales Come With a Knife-Twist of Emotion” — Gizmodo gets down to cases.

A new season of Black Mirror has arrived, and with it the usual cautionary tales (and screaming warnings) about technology’s darkest capabilities—wrapped in a deceptively alluring blanket of “Jeez, that would actually be really cool if it were real!” Across six episodes, season seven boasts some of the show’s all-time greatest performances, as well as its first sequel episode, which proves well worth the eight-year wait….

(11) MIDDLE-EARTH WAYFINDER. Wisconsin Public Radio profiles Karen Wynn Fonstad, “The Wisconsin cartographer who mapped Tolkien’s fantasy world”.

If you’ve ever wanted to explore the world of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” the best place to start might be Oshkosh.

That’s where a Wisconsin cartographer created dozens of maps that went into “The Atlas of Middle-earth,” the official geographic guide to the world of author J.R.R. Tolkien. Her work went on to influence “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy.

Like many readers, Karen Wynn Fonstad fell in love with the fantasy series and went through multiple readings. Unlike most readers, she was trained as a cartographer, and came up with an ambitious plan to use the texts to create realistic maps from Tolkien’s texts.

Fonstad passed away 20 years ago. Now, her husband and her son — both geographers themselves — have embarked on a new quest: to digitize her original maps and find an archive to house them…

… “It’s a little bit of an overwhelming process because, first of all, there’s hundreds of maps. Secondly, the maps are built in such a way that they have many layers to them,” Mark said. “I barely scratched the surface this week.”

As we walk into the map library, we are surrounded by Middle-earth. Mordor, the Shire and all points in between are represented. And not just Middle-earth. Karen created works for other fantasy worlds — some never published.

How do you scan a collection of maps of varying sizes, some of them in delicate condition?

You need a big scanner, caution and some patience….

… In 1977, she called the American publisher of Tolkien’s work, Houghton Mifflin, to pitch the idea of an atlas. As Todd recalled, the person in charge of handling Tolkien’s work fell in love with the idea, and the Tolkien estate gave it the thumbs-up.

Then the work really began….

(12) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Mad Max film (1979)

By Paul Weimer: The quintessential post-apocalyptic movie, the one with the real breakthrough. Sure, A Boy and His Dog and Damnation Alley and others preceded it, but this was the movie, series of movies that made a star of Mel Gibson, and the scenes of the Australian desert became the cinematic language and landscape of what a post apocalyptic world should look like in three movies that it took dozens for, say, the American Western.

That’s the power of Mad Max, that’s the power of George Miller’s cinematography. One could approach these movies from all sorts of angles, from worldbuilding to characterization, to point of view. As an example-the second movie, Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior) is not told from the point of view and perspective that you’d expect. It’s a recreation, a retelling, and that brings in all sorts of interesting questions about narrative and conventions and storytelling. 

Or one could explore Max as a character, from his end of the world cop, all through the damaged survivor in the latest Mad Max movie, where he literally is used as a resource. 

Or one could explore environmental themes, social themes, and the psychology of the survivors of the landscape, from the small to the mighty.

But I want to talk a bit about cinematography, as a person interested in image, you are not surprised. One thing that told me and showed me that Miller “Still had it” in Fury Road was the scene with the dust storm and the vehicles approaching it. You know the scene if you watched it. It was solid proof for me that Miller’s fantastic cinematography, to be able to bring the wildness of the Australian wasteland to life in the previous films, was still there. It recalled for me of many of the other iconic places and imagery used in the series, from Thunderdome back through the mean streets of Melbourne in Mad Max. The lack of dialogue in much of the films means that Miller’s storytelling in the films is necessarily what the movies are carried on. And it is indeed carried so effectively. You remember the visuals, the costumes, the sets, and of course the vehicles. How many gearheads were born from watching these movies?

One last fun note on Mad Max. The first bit of Mad Max I saw was not until the mid 80’s. I accidentally caught the last few minutes on a videotape recording of Mad Max 2 while trying to (don’t judge) see D.C. Follies. I wondered what the heck I had watched and looked it up in the TV guide…and then I recorded and watched The Road Warrior and was captivated.  Later, I found the original Mad Max…and then, of course Thunderdome.

Mad Max. A cinematic icon, four movies (5 if you count Furious) and counting.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

(14) TWO HEARTS AND TWO EARS. “Graham Norton to star in Eurovision-themed Doctor Who episode” reports BBC.

Graham Norton is to star in a new episode of Doctor Who, taking his Eurovision commentary duties to an Interstellar Song Contest.

Norton, the BBC’s voice of Eurovision, will meet Ncuti Gatwa’s Time Lord at the 803rd annual Interstellar Song Contest, where different planets compete to be crowned winner.

“And it’s not just a cameo,” showrunner Russell T Davies said. “He has a whole plot twist all to himself!”

The episode will also feature fellow Eurovision fanatic and broadcaster Rylan Clark as the event’s co-host, and will be broadcast on BBC One just before this year’s real-life grand final on 17 May….

(15) THOUGHT EXPERIMENT. “How might AI chatbots replace mental health therapists?” asks The Week.

There is a striking shortage of mental health care providers in the United States. New research suggests that AI chatbots can fill in the gaps — and be remarkably effective while doing so.

Artificial intelligence can deliver mental health therapy “with as much efficacy as — or more than — human clinicians,” said NPR. New research published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at the results delivered by a bot designed at Dartmouth College.

What did the commentators say?

There was initially a lot of “trial and error” in training AI to work with humans suffering from depression and anxiety, said Nick Jacobson, one of the researchers, but the bot ultimately delivered outcomes similar to the “best evidence-based trials of psychotherapy.” Patients developed a “strong relationship with an ability to trust” the digital therapist, he said.

Other experts see “reliance on bot-based therapy as a poor substitute for the real thing,” said Axios. Therapy is about “forming a relationship with another human being who understands the complexity of life,” said sociologist Sherry Turkle. But another expert, Skidmore College’s Lucas LaFreniere, said it depends on whether patients are willing to suspend their disbelief. “If the client is perceiving empathy,” he said, “they benefit from the empathy.”….

(16) UPON FURTHER CONSIDERATION. “MIT study finds that AI doesn’t, in fact, have values” says TechCrunch.

A study went viral several months ago for implying that, as AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, it develops “value systems” — systems that lead it to, for example, prioritize its own well-being over humans. A more recent paper out of MIT pours cold water on that hyperbolic notion, drawing the conclusion that AI doesn’t, in fact, hold any coherent values to speak of.

The co-authors of the MIT study say their work suggests that “aligning” AI systems — that is, ensuring models behave in desirable, dependable ways — could be more challenging than is often assumed. AI as we know it today hallucinates and imitates, the co-authors stress, making it in many aspects unpredictable.

“One thing that we can be certain about is that models don’t obey [lots of] stability, extrapolability, and steerability assumptions,” Stephen Casper, a doctoral student at MIT and a co-author of the study, told TechCrunch. “It’s perfectly legitimate to point out that a model under certain conditions expresses preferences consistent with a certain set of principles. The problems mostly arise when we try to make claims about the models, opinions, or preferences in general based on narrow experiments.”

Casper and his fellow co-authors probed several recent models from Meta, Google, Mistral, OpenAI, and Anthropic to see to what degree the models exhibited strong “views” and values (e.g., individualist versus collectivist). They also investigated whether these views could be “steered” — that is, modified — and how stubbornly the models stuck to these opinions across a range of scenarios.

According to the co-authors, none of the models was consistent in its preferences. Depending on how prompts were worded and framed, they adopted wildly different viewpoints.

Casper thinks this is compelling evidence that models are highly “inconsistent and unstable” and perhaps even fundamentally incapable of internalizing human-like preferences….

(17) BIRD WORRIES. “Conservationists raise alarm over Air Force plan to land SpaceX Starships on bird sanctuary atoll” reports Space.com.

The U.S. military is considering Johnston Atoll, a remote Pacific island chain that serves as an important refuge for dozens of seabird species, for “two commercial rocket landing pads” to test giant cargo rocket landings for the Department of the Air Force’s (DAF) Rocket Cargo Vanguard program, and it’s getting push-back from environmentalists.

The Rocket Cargo Vanguard program aims to develop the technologies required to rapidly deliver up to 100 tons of cargo anywhere on Earth using commercial rockets. Though not explicitly named, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is currently the only company —commercial or otherwise — capable of manufacturing rockets designed for landing and reuse, and its Starship megarocket is DAF’s leading contender. The Air Force outlined its plans in a Federal Registry notice last month. Objections from the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), however, may hinder plans for the new landing pads on the South Pacific atoll.Johnston Atoll lies about 825 miles (1,325 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii, and is home to several different species of seabirds, including the largest known colony of Red-tailed Tropicbirds. It was designated a refuge for native bird populations in 1926, but suffered environmental degradation through 2004, due to its use by the U.S. military as a nuclear weapons testing and chemical weapons disposal site. Since the military’s departure from the islands, restoration efforts have helped raise Johnston Atoll’s bird population back to nearly 1.5 million.

(18) ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES? “Purple Isn’t Real, Science Says. Your Brain Is Just Making It Up” reports Popular Mechanics. If there is no purple, does that mean there can be no purple people eaters?

You might be today years old when you realize there is no purple in the rainbow. There is no P in ROYGBIV.

But wait, what about violet? Well, despite what you may have come to believe, violet is not purple. In fact, violet (along with the rest of the colors in a naturally occurring rainbow) has something purple doesn’t—its own wavelength of light. Anyone who ever ended up with a sunburn knows violet wavelengths are real, as the Sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the reason you need to wear sunscreen, even though you can’t see those wavelengths (more on that later). Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo are all just as real.

But purple? Well, purple is just your brain’s way of resolving confusion.

That’s right. Red and blue (or violet) wavelengths are two opposite extremes on the spectrum. When you see both of these wavelengths in the same place, you eyes and brain don’t know what to do with them, so they compensate, and the clashing wavelengths register as the color we call purple. It doesn’t actually exist….

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Steven H Silver, lance oszko, Frank Wu, James Bacon, Allen Steele, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dan’l.]

Warner Holme Review: The One Ring: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin

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  • The One Ring: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin (Free League, 2024)

By Warner Holme: The One Ring: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin is a source book for the role playing game based on the work of Tolkien. Like others, it takes certain liberties, albeit in expansion terms rather than deviation. It is also a wealth of art and writing simply for a fan of the setting or fantasy in general.

Much of the book is devoted to a detailed description of the mountains and mines of Moria. This includes not only interior tunnels and chambers, and the terrain which they are underneath, but also the groups and individuals inhibiting these or vying for power over them. It is a large assortment and includes a variety of characters mentioned in the classic works as well as new individuals extrapolating from fleeting mentions. The descriptions of the internals of the mountains and mines are similarly fleshed out, explaining locations seen and going into more detail about ones which would have been assumed. 

There is material included which Tolkien probably wouldn’t have written himself, though it even feels fairly reverent.

One interesting aspect of this particular book comes from the assumption of familiarity. That is to say that the creative team is aware people playing might, and frankly most likely will, be familiar with certain twists like the meaning of the riddle at the doors and the nature of Durin’s Bane. While it treats them as their traditional nature throughout the book, it reserves some space to allow these to be changed if it is considered more entertaining (page 149 for the doors and page 62 for Durin’s Bane).

As an art book this is not the best volume one could get from Free League’s The One Ring series, but it is a good one. One of the chief flaws comes from the simple fact that page for page it has less of the large two-page color pieces that divide sections which the others sported. That said, the ones which are present are still most definitely beautiful. An evocative gloomy look at the doors in one frame to a stark and the illustration of the Balrog roaming in another both suit the book well. The latter even manages to do a decent job of keeping the wing question at least a little ambiguous, a nice Easter egg alone.

At the same time, the illustrations both major and minor continue contributing to the book as a beautiful and entertaining volume while not feeling overly reliant on the style of the films by Peter Jackson. Indeed the color and black and white illustrations of Durin’s Bane sport no resemblance to the version from the films which wouldn’t be acquired from the words of the original author. It is similar for most, if not all, of the other shared characters and places. Given the long arm those movies have had, any new interpretation separate from them is a greatly appreciated addition.

For fans of the game, this one cannot be missed. It is bursting with content that can expand on existing material, and in the process allows those involved access to a piece of the setting they have desired for some time. For non-gamers it is one of the higher interest books as well, including a lot new and wonderful art, some impressive expansions on classic Middle-Earth material, and clever thoughts on and categorization of earlier material.

Pixel Scroll 12/17/24 Pixel Yourself On A Boat On A Riverworld, With Tatooine Trees And Mesklin Skies

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(1) READY FOR WHO CHRISTMAS? Bleeding Cool is on hand when “Doctor Who Christmas Special: ‘Joy to the World’ Gets New Trailer”.

… Earlier today, we took a look at what #WhoSpy had to share on the long-running show’s Instagram “subwave network” about the upcoming special. Now, we’re getting a new look that should definitely help you piece together your speculation puzzle – a shorter second official trailer!…

(2) DISNEY BAILS ON TRANS STORY LINE. “’Win Or Lose’ Transgender Actress Speaks Out After Disney Cuts Back Role” – Deadline has the story.

In 2020, Chanel Stewart was scrolling through X when she happened upon a post about how Pixar was looking for an authentic, 14-year-old transgender girl to voice a transgender teenager in a new animated series.

Stewart, who at 14 had already logged a few commercials, knew instantly that it was her role of a lifetime.

“I was exactly what they wanted to a T, and that’s why it felt so right. It felt just so right,” says Stewart, who is a transgender girl from Los Angeles. “I immediately asked my mom if I could do it, because I just felt like if I don’t do this, it wouldn’t make sense. You know what I mean?”

Stewart eventually scored the voiceover job in Win or Lose, which revolves around a co-ed softball team at a middle school named the Pickles in the week leading up to their big championship game. Stewart couldn’t wait to share the news with her friends.

“Oh my God, it was crazy,” the now 18-year-old recalls. “I wore it as a badge. I wore it with pride. I wore it with honor because it meant so much to me. The thought of authentically portraying a transgender teenage girl made me really happy. I wanted to make this for transgender kids like me.”

So when Disney called Monday night to tell her mom, Keisha, that Win or Lose would no longer include a transgender storyline, both she and Chanel were heartsick. (Disney released a statement that said “when it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”)…

… By cutting the transgender storyline, Disney eliminated “a few lines of dialogue” from an episode that references a character’s gender identity. Stewart was not at liberty to share details with Deadline about her character, but was told by Disney that she’s “still a part of the show heavily.”

“It’s just that my character would now be a cis girl, a straight cis girl,” says Chanel Stewart, who is repped by KEY Talent Management and Innovative Artists. “So yeah, that’s all they really told me and that I was still a part of the show.”

But there’s one thing that Disney can’t take away from Stewart. “I’m definitely one of the first [transgender girls] to do this!” says Stewart of her voiceover gig. “It’s a true honor to be a part of queer history.”…

(3) TUNES OF MIDDLE-EARTH. [Item by Steven French.] Thijs Porck is a medievalist and Tolkien scholar at the University of Leiden and in a recent blog post he offers an interesting and detailed analysis of the songs in the anime film, War of the Rohirrim: “The Medieval in Middle-earth: Old English Songs in LOTR: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)”.

“Where is the horse? Where is the rider?”, the opening lyrics of “Hama’s Song” in The War of the Rohirrim (2024) will remind many a Tolkien fan of “The Lament of the Rohirrim” which Aragorn recites in the chapter “The King of the Golden Hall” in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In Aragorn’s poem, the opening lines run as follows: “Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?”. Tolkien, a Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford, based Aragorn’s poem on the Old English elegy The Wanderer, which uses the so-called ubi sunt motif (‘where are they now?’) to express the fleeting nature of worldly pleasures (the answer to the rhetorical questions being “they are no more”). As it turns out, “Hama’s Song” of the new movie is closer to the Old English original poem, which has the line: “hwær cwom mearg, hwær cwom mago” [Where is the horse? Where is the man?].’

The context of “Hama’s Song” makes clear that “the rider” referred to is the movie’s heroine Héra, who is also the subject of the movie’s credits song by Paris Paloma called “The Rider”. If you listen carefully to this song, you will notice that there is a very clear Old English lyric at 0:41 (and again at 2:01 and 3:01): “Heo is se wind, heo is se wind” [she is the wind, she is the wind]…

(4) UNHOLY ICON. [Item by Steven French.] Atlas Obscura delved into the essence of Krampus (in Milwaukee!): “Krampus Is the Christmas Icon We Need—And Maybe the One We Deserve”.

It’s the Fifth Annual Milwaukee Krampusnacht, an event that has taken over the city’s historic Brewery District. Milwaukee is a city with deep German roots, and this neighborhood, centered around the atmospheric 19th-century Pabst Brewery, with narrow streets and castellated facades, is particularly evocative of the Old World. It’s a fitting backdrop for the horde of Krampusse emerging from the shadows to mete out punishment to the naughty. Evolved from Central Europe’s pagan past and reimagined by Church elites as a kind of unholy enforcer, Krampus is now a global icon for the digital age. But what explains the ascent from obscure Alpine tradition to a 21st-century celebrity that has inspired Krampusnachten around the world? What brings people out of their warm homes, on a night when temps flirt with freezing, to stand on a sidewalk and hope to get thrashed by a masked demon? And what do the people behind the masks get out of transforming into the cool ghoul of Yule? To understand the Krampus, I must become the Krampus.

(5) KSR Q&A IN NATURE. “Sci-fi icon Kim Stanley Robinson: ‘anything can be climate work’” he tells Nature.

As climate change and artificial intelligence reshape the world, some say that reality is starting to look a lot like science fiction. A book that people often point to is Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future (2020).

The novel opens in 2025, with a deadly heatwave in India — a topic that turned out to be eerily prescient earlier this year, when the country faced extreme heat and humidity. In the book, the heatwave triggers a haphazard rallying of society to protect living creatures from climate catastrophe.

Robinson talked to Nature about how the climate crisis is causing younger generations anxiety, but also offering them existential meaning, and why he thinks that AI is a poor choice of name.

Why do you think The Ministry for the Future has garnered attention?

The novel is trying to say that, if we apply ourselves, we have the tools to avoid causing a mass-extinction event. And ordinary processes of humanity — science, diplomacy, treaties, the nation-state system, even capitalism itself — could be used to escape the crisis. That’s a very reassuring message.

(6) FUTURE TENSE. This month’s installment of Future Tense Fiction is “A Healing at the Triple B Trophy Lodge,” by Daily Show writer Scott Sherman—a story about fringe psychological treatments, human cloning, and violent catharsis.

The three-and-a-half-hour drive from Portland Jetport to the former site of Baxter State Park reminded Zayna of her midnight scrambles through the Jammu and Kashmir territory while embedded with the Indian light infantry. Just with fewer IEDs and more abandoned pawn shops. She flipped through her frustratingly thin research file on Parker Rodion as the white rental van cruised north past Bangor. There was essentially zero record of his existence before he became synonymous with kill therapy, and to make the research even more confusing, his aesthetic was so consistent it looked as if all the images of him from the last 10 years were taken on the same day. 

 The response essay, “Sorry, Clone”, is by the bioethicist Josephine Johnston.

The most compelling case for reproductive cloning is often made by infertile people or those who have lost a child. In the early days of 2001, a US congressional hearing on human reproductive cloning heard from two grieving parents. One man’s words were read aloud by a scientist working with couples interested in cloning. The man’s 11-month-old son had died after heart surgery, and in a letter to the committee the man wrote that he “hoped and prayed that my son would be the first; I could do no less for him. He deserves a chance to live … I would never stop until I could give his DNA—his genetic make-up—a chance.”…

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born December 17, 1944 — Jack Chalker. (Died 2005.)

By Paul Weimer: Jack Chalker may have had a “bit”, but he worked that bit rather well.

His bit was transformation. I have a friend, he’s not much into reading SFF books. He loves SFF movies, though and he loves physical transformations. Give him a werewolf transformation or something else, and he is there for it.  If he ever decided to try science fiction or fantasy, I would hand him a Jack Chalker novel and let him go to town on it.

Because Jack Chalker and his works were all about transformation. 

This is most evident in his most popular series, the Well World novels. The Well World itself, shorn of the transformational aspects, is one of the most interesting concepts for a SF novel or series.  A supercomputer that, in effect, stabilizes and controls our universe, posing as a planet that is cut up into 1500 hexagons. If you use one of the gates from our universe (available in old ruins on various worlds) to enter a hex of the Well World, you are usually automatically transformed into a form appropriate for that hex — because normal oxygen-nitrogen land hexes are not the only hexes to be had.  The partial maps of the Well World show all sorts of intriguing things such as the “Sea of Chlorine”, “Sea of Storms” and other intriguing bits. Even more intriguing is that given the reality warping available to the computer in the well world, the hexes can and do enforce levels of technology that work in a hex. It’s an amazing setting (but the RPG made from it was terrible).  This all puts Chalker’s Well World firmly in the realm of science fantasy. 

The real comp for that would be Farmer’s World of Tiers, which has plenty of gates and artificial worlds…but without the transformational elements therein. 

Much of the rest of Chalker’s oeuvre is more science fictional than science fantasy, but as noted before, people winding up in new bodies (long before things like Altered Carbon, sorry Richard Morgan) were de rigueur in Chalker’s books. Although he did not do as much with it as some might like, winding up in a body of a being of different gender (or genders) was par for the course for Chalker. Unfortunately, I can think of multiple times where women (and it seemed to be frequently women) who wound up in new bodies of lesser intelligence and usually higher sex appeal in combination (you don’t need a further picture than that) . That wasn’t so great. 

Chalker grew more enthusiastic with his world the longer he wrote, right up to his unfortunate passing. Midnight at the World of Souls is a lean and mean book, the books grew longer and longer as that series went on, and he went to other books.  But I think that first novel still holds up, especially if you don’t know the answer to the question of who or what Nathan Brazil really is. I think the revelation of that deflates the works, just a little bit. But still, in the end, Chalker had his bit and he worked his bit to a fine edge. If transformation is your thing, Chalker is here for you.

Jack Chalker

(8) COMICS SECTION.

A @newscientist.bsky.social cartoon for Christmas

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2024-12-17T15:34:22.610Z

(9) CAN YOU DIG IT? [Item by Steven French.] We haven’t been there that long but already there are concerns about preserving our archaeological footprint on Mars! “Anthropologists call for tracking and preservation of human artifacts on Mars” at MSN.com.

Are human spacecraft, landers, rovers and other space-exploration debris little more than trash littering the surface of Mars, or the modern equivalent of Clovis points—treasured artifacts marking Homo sapiens’ lust for new frontiers?

A new paper by University of Kansas anthropologist Justin Holcomb argues physical artifacts of human Martian exploration deserve cataloging, preservation and care in order to chronicle humanity’s first attempts at interplanetary exploration.

The paper, “Emerging Archaeological Record of Mars,” appears in Nature Astronomy.

“Our main argument is that Homo sapiens are currently undergoing a dispersal, which first started out of Africa, reached other continents and has now begun in off-world environments,” Holcomb, its lead author, said.

“We’ve started peopling the solar system. And just like we use artifacts and features to track our movement, evolution and history on Earth, we can do that in outer space by following probes, satellites, landers and various materials left behind. There’s a material footprint to this dispersal.”

Much as archaeologists use “middens” (or, ancient garbage dumps) to reveal secrets of past societies here on Earth, Holcomb argues that much of the material deemed “space trash” actually has great archaeological and environmental value.

“These are the first material records of our presence, and that’s important to us,” he said….

(10) EX-WRESTLER BEAMING UP. “Star Trek’s Next Series Casts a Major WWE Star as Part of the Bridge Crew” reports Comicbook.com.

WWE star Becky Lynch is set to embark on an Earth-bound adventure in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Earlier this afternoon, the former multi-time WWE Women’s Champion announced the news on her social media pages. “You know, when you’ve already been champion of the world there’s really only one place to go next and that’s to the stars,” Lynch said in a video. “I am so excited to share with all of you that I am joining Star Trek: Starfleet Academy as part of the bridge crew! Lads, this has been the most incredible experience acting alongside just a spectacular cast and crew. I cannot wait for all of you to check it on when it comes out on Paramount+ and hey, live long and prosper.”…

(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Ryan George talks with “The Guys Who Designed Airplane Interiors”. Yes, yes, you’re right, the content is not genre related. BUT, attending many large conventions involves flying for a lot of people. And it sucks just as much as this video implies.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Lise Andreasen, N., Joey Eschrich, 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 Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 2/5/24 To Boldly Scroll Where No Fan Has Scrolled Before

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(1) MCCARTY Q&A. Chris Barkley’s audio interview with Dave McCarty was published here overnight: “Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask #81”. The audio recording is at Soundcloud. A transcript is here.

(2) SPARE CHANGE? The New Zealand Mint has a line of The Lord Of The Rings™ Collectible coins.

Set in the mythical world of Middle-earth, The Lord of The Rings fantasy saga follows hobbit Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee and a fellowship of characters as they embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring. Considered one of the greatest works of the 21st century, its popularity has spawned numerous adaptions.

Return to Middle-earth with our limited-edition THE LORD OF THE RINGS™ coins. Made from pure gold or silver, they feature characters and landscapes from the epic fantasy adventure films. Crafted in fine detail with themed packaging, they make the perfect memento for any fan!

Famed Middle-Earth locations feature in these gold coins.

And the silver series includes one with Gollum. Heads he wins, tails you lose!

(3) LEST GRIMDARKNESS FALL. [Item by Anne Marble.] Sebastian Milbank, in an article for the British magazine The Critic (called a “contrarian conservative magazine”) refers to “grimdark” as “Grimdull” — and seems to think they are both “liberal” and “leftist.” (Umm, those are not the same thing.) The article also flings darts at Michael Moorcock and Phillip Pullman. And it calls Breaking Bad grimdark?! Boy, does this article ever make a lot of assumptions about the writers (and readers) of grimdark! And it uses a lot of words in which to do so.

For those unblessed (or uncursed) with an interest in contemporary fantasy, the phrase “Grimdark” may suggest the name of some 2000s era Goth club. It’s a recent coinage for an ongoing craze in “gritty” and dark fantasy settings, epitomised and popularised by George RR Martin, becoming the default tone for a whole range of feted fantasy offerings from Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series featuring a dark, brooding protagonist who kills a lot of people — and occasionally feels bad about it — to Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire Trilogy featuring a dark, brooding protagonist who kills a lot of people — and occasionally feels bad about it.

It’s a genre with a number of consistent features. It’s generally in a mediaeval fantasy setting, but shorn of any romance. Characters are overwhelmingly cynical, and those few who exhibit nobility are treated as foolish or naive. Generally a chaotic war is happening, or about to happen. Religion features, but largely as a tool of social control, often portrayed (usually with some real effort given the baseline awfulness) as even more cruel and cynical than the secular world around it. Dark observations about human nature substitute for any moral drama, with characters seeking to outwit, manipulate or overpower one another in a kind of Darwinian struggle for dominance.

It’s a script born of vaguely liberal, vaguely radical, vaguely anarchic sentiments common to most contemporary creative “industries”. But fantasy, with its over escapism and heroic aristocratic setting, presents something of a problem. This is the inner tension of left wing fantasy — how can a genre defined by apparent escapism not end up serving reactionary ends?…

Grimdark author Joe Abercrombie has a very concise takedown:

(4) ALERT FOR CONVENTION EMAIL RUNNERS. Andrew Trembley shared this alert on Facebook.

For y’all running conventions and running convention email, if you haven’t set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, you need to do it yesterday. If you’re reading this on Monday, February 5, literally yesterday, because today is the day Google and Yahoo started refusing mail from many email services that have failed to implement SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

(ETA long version, did not include in the share)

I’m seeing people saying “Google is starting to block more non-Gmail senders.” Now they’re right from the perspective they’re looking at this from, but they’re not seeing the whole picture.

It’s not non-Gmail senders. It’s also not just Gmail.

So what is happening? Bear with me, this is long…

(5) MARY SOON LEE Q&A. Space Cowboy Books hosts an “Online Reading and Interview with Mary Soon Lee” on Tuesday, February 6 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Register for free HERE.

How-to astronomy poetry to answer vexing questions such as How to Surprise Saturn, How to Blush Like Betelgeuse, and How to Survive a Black Hole.

“Unraveling meaning from partial glimpses of the universe has preoccupied astronomers for thousands of years. Mary Soon Lee’s remarkable collection of poetry traces this journey, capturing the wonder of the celestial bodies that comprise our universe, the elegance of the rules that guide its evolution and the humanity of those who search to better our understanding.” -Andy Connolly, Professor of Astronomy, University of Washington

Mary Soon Lee is a Grand Master of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and has won the Rhysling Award, the Elgin Award, and the AnLab Readers’ Award. Her work has appeared in Science, American Scholar, Spillway, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. This is her second collection of science poetry, following on from Elemental Haiku: Poems to honor the periodic table three lines at a time. Born and raised in London, she now lives in Pittsburgh.

(6) FAN FALLOUT. The Seattle 2025 Worldcon committee answered a query on Facebook by saying that neither Dave McCarty nor anyone else from the Chengdu Worldcon team will be involved with their Hugo Awards.

(7) SALAM AWARD OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS. The Salam Award, which promotes imaginative fiction in and about Pakistan, reminds Pakistani writers they have until midnight July 31 to submit entries for the award. See full guidelines at this link. Participants must either be currently residing in Pakistan, or be of Pakistani birth/descent.

(8) DANISH COMPLETIST. “Modstand og håb” at Superkultur is written in Danish, however, Lise Andreasen has provided an English translation in the first comment.

Niels Dalgaard is a patient man – not only in his persistent attempt to collect all the science fiction that has been published in odd corners of the Danish publishing world, but more specifically in this case in his project: to read through the approximately 250 novels that has been published in Danish, which can be placed in the category “youth dystopias”….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 5, 1941 — Stephen J. Cannell. I have come this Scroll to talk of not cabbages and kings but a man who as a mystery writer showed up regularly playing poker as himself in the Castle series with Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle — Stephen J. Cannell. James Patterson, Michael Connelly, and Dennis Lehane were the other such writers here. I’ll talk about his work as a novelist later. 

Nathan Fillion as mystery writer Richard Castle, playing poker with real-life authors Michael Connelly, James Patterson and Stephen J Cannell.

The Zorro rip-off, scripted in its one season by him, The Night Rider, described by IMDB this way, “A refined New Orleans gentleman becomes a masked crimefighter by night, both to uphold law and order and to find the men who murdered his family in order to get their silver mine” is genre the same The Shadow or Doc Savage is in that it’s pulp.

Between that series and what I’m about to note next, scripting shows, the good, the bad and the truly awful made him very wealthy. So he got to produce a series that he said was one he’d to do a very long time ago — The Greatest American Hero.  You know the story of it so I want go into deep detail here, but suffice it to say that he was very happy with its success.

Veering way out of genre, I’m going to note he created Baa Baa Black Sheep (which was renamed Black Sheep Squadron for the second season for reasons unknown by the Powers That Be), a series I really liked.

I’ll note next 21 Jump Street which he created with Patrick Hasburgh which was about the cases of an undercover police unit composed of really great looking young officers specializing in youth crime. Definitely not genre, so why mention it? Because that featured Johnny Depp who would later do so many genre performances. And yes, he’d done one before this series as Greg Lantz in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

He loved making low budget horror films such as The Demon Hunter, The Fairy and Left in Darkness. All shot on all cheap budgets (and this is after he became very wealthy), shot on locations you wouldn’t go without security in armor and shot fast enough you’d suspect use of interesting drugs to keep everyone alert, there’s more than makes sense of these in his IMDB listings. Stephen, you devil. Possibly literally.

Now about that poker game on Castle. All four of those players are there because they are mystery writers. Cannell wrote a series of novels about Shane Scully who was a detective in the LAPD force. I don’t know if they actually played poker in those scenes but I suspect they did. 

(10) SATISFIED FAN. Cora Buhlert heaps praise on a He-Man adaptation: “The Revolution Will Be Televised: Some Thoughts on Masters of the Universe Revolution”.

…So I watched Revelation and it turned out to be not just some nostalgic fun, but so much more. Here was the He-Man story I always wanted to see, a series which took the characters seriously in all their beautiful absurdity and found new depths in them and even managed to make me cry (something western animation in general very rarely does – crying is for anime), while also harkening back to the early 20th SFF which had inspired Masters of the Universe in the first place. Plus, the animation was gorgeous and finally looked as good as the Filmation cartoon looked in my memory, but never in reality, and the voice cast was stellar….

(11) GROUNDHOG DAY CAST REUNION. “Bill Murray celebrates ‘Harold Ramis Day’ Groundhog Day” at CBS Chicago.

This Groundhog Day, Woodstock Willie did not see his shadow — and thus said we should expect an early spring this year.

But at a ceremony in Chicago on Friday, a groundhog named Chicago Harry did not agree.

But first off, why is there a groundhog prognosticating on the trajectory of winter in Woodstock, Illinois? The answer, of course, is that in the 1993 film “Groundhog Day,” Woodstock stood in for Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania — home of Groundhog Day celebrations since the 1880s.

Ever since the movie came out 31 years ago, Woodstock Willie has been up there with Punxsutawney Phil in the real Punxsutawney among large-rodent long-range winter forecasters.

Members of the cast of the iconic film reunited for the first time at Navy Pier Friday, marking 31 years since the film was released. But Friday was also about honoring Harold Ramis and commemorating 10 years since his death….

…”I think it’s great that we’re here and, I don’t want to be too Irish, but it’s very nice of Harold to make it a very nice, mild day for today,” Murray said. “He’s up there stirring the clouds around, making that low pressure move out to Indiana and just drenching, ruining those people’s lives over there in Indiana.”

Ramis’ wife, Erica, was in attendance, beaming with pride as many spoke wonders about her husband. She even read a letter from former President Barack Obama encouraging people to enjoy the day as Ramis would. 

The ceremony included re-enactments of Punxsutawney festival emcee Buster Green (Brian Doyle-Murray) knocking at the tree stump with his cane, where a groundhog named Chicago Harry made his prediction.

Ken Hudson Campbell (“man in hallway”), Robin Duke (Doris the waitress), Marita Geraghty (Nancy Taylor), Richard Henzel (the DJ), Don Rio McNichols (drum player), David Pasquesi (the psychiatrist), and Peggy Roeder (the piano teacher) were also in attendance.

And unlike Woodstock Willie, and Punxsutawney Phil, Chicago Harry saw his shadow — and predicted six more weeks of winter after all.

(12) GOING ROGUE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Just learned that the 2000AD strip Rogue Trooper film is at last moving forward. Director Duncan (Moon, Source Code) Jones teased about this back in 2018 and it now looks like a cast is being pulled together. “Duncan Jones’ Rogue Trooper Movie Cast Announced, Including Hayley Atwell, Sean Bean, and Matt Berry” at IGN.

The cast for Rogue Trooper, the upcoming movie from Moon and Warcraft director Duncan Jones, has been announced. The animated adaptation of the classic 2000 AD comic will be headlined by Aneurin Barnard, Hayley Atwell, and Jack Lowden, and will also feature a number of other well-known British stars such as Sean Bean.

Aneurin Barnard, who previously starred in The Goldfinch and Dunkirk, plays the titular Rogue Trooper, a blue-skinned, genetically-engineered soldier fighting on the toxic battlefields of a seemingly never-ending war. The sole survivor of a massacre that killed his squadmates, he’s on the hunt for the traitor that arranged their deaths. He does this with the aid of three of his killed-in-action squadmates, whose digital personalities still remain conscious after death and are uploaded into Rogue’s gun, helmet, and backpack….

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Science Futurism with Isaac Arthur this week took a look at Death Worlds. These are planets on which, once you land, they set out to kill you.  Unlike most of Isaac Arthur’s episodes (other than his monthly ‘Sci-Fi Sundays’) which have a (highly speculative) science take, this one has as much a science fictional approach, starting as it does with the legendary Harry Harrison’s DeathWorld series of the 1960s. Along the way, he gives us a number of SFnal examples… So, pour a mug of builders and sit back for a half-hour episode (it won’t kill you)…

[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Lise Andreasen, 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 Jayn.]

Be Kind to Your Fur-Footed Friends

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Everyone’s used to political mudslinging — but how often does the mud come from Middle-Earth?

Senator McCain criticized some colleagues’ approach to the debt-ceiling issue on July 27, quoting extensively from a Wall Street Journal op-ed that compared tea partiers to “hobbits”.

The WSJ‘s Tolkienesque analogy reads:

The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.

Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post reports that “Tea Party members responded in kind” —

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) deadpanned that ‘he would rather be a hobbit than a troll,’ while 2010 Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada said that ‘it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land.’

True – up to the point when Frodo put on the ring for the last time, had delusions about ruling the world, and was only spared an evil fate because Gollum bit the ring off his hand and accidentally fell into Mount Doom.  I couldn’t tell you where to look for checks and balances like that in our democratic system.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster for the story.]

The Dorms of Middle Earth

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Someone who picks the right university can have a fantastic life in more than one sense of the word.

For example, after a student at UC Irvine meets with Professor Gregory Benford she may amble home to her dorm in Middle Earth:

Middle Earth houses approximately 1,690 students in 24 residence halls. The names of the halls and other facilities were selected from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The halls are divided into six clusters or theme areas of four halls and offer classes associated with their names.

Middle Earth was built in three phases:

  • Phase I opened in 1974 with seven (7) halls: Hobbiton, Isengard, Lorien, Mirkwood, Misty Mountain, Rivendell, and The Shire. Brandywine Commons, and Brandywine Student Center (BSC) are also in Middle Earth.
  • Phase II opened in 1989-90 and it includes 13 halls: Balin, Harrowdale, Whispering Wood, Woodhall, Calmindon, Grey Havens, Aldor, Rohan, Gondolin, Snowbourn, Elrond, Shadowfax, and Quenya. Phase II also includes Pippin Dining Commons, the housing office, and Bucklebury Library. 
  • Phase III opened in Fall 2000 and includes four (4) halls: Crickhollow, Evenstar, Oakenshield, and Valimar. Arkenstone, a 24-hour academic resource and study center, officially opened in fall of 2007.

And a student at Azusa Pacific University enrolled in one of Dr. Diana Glyer’s classes may leave a talk about the Inklings to return to his mod in the Shire. My own nephew Adam lived with his roommates in one of those modular apartments for a term.

While I find the naming convention quite entertaining, even names out of Tolkien’s legendarium once officially attached to university housing are prone to lose some of their magic. That’s why Azusa Pacific student Mychal Clements, Online Editor of The Clause, recently challenged people to make more playful use of the Shire’s connection with Tolkien.

In my three years at Azusa Pacific I have not heard one single joke about the Shire. I am astounded and shocked that this is the case, hey readers. It’s called the Shire. The Shire, where Hobbits come from.

Am I saying that there needs to be an overkill of references and jokes? No. But maybe the occasional comment, joke or event would make me happy. However you should not do it just to make me happy, but instead because the nomenclature of the Shire demands it.

I’m sure that if the ghost of Mr. Tolkien were to walk Azusa Pacific’s campus he would be disappointed and depressed at the lack of recognition for the Shire.

Shire residents, please make more references, or put up the occasional poster. Don’t do it for me, don’t do it for yourself, but rather do it for the possible ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien.

[Via Andrew Porter and Michael J. Lowery.]