Shrinking Violet assures us:
Here’s another snap of Casper, and this time the book is clearly visible and not hidden in a backpack!
Photos of your felines (or whatever you’ve got!) resting on genre works are welcome. Send to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com
(1) YOU PAYS YOUR MONEY AND YOU TAKES YOUR CHANCE. The Sports Geek proves to be rather clueless in its attempt to set the “2024 Hugo Awards Odds, Predictions, Best Bets”. But it made me click, which is a win for them, right? Here’s one of their lines.
The following Hugo Awards 2024 odds are courtesy of BetUS:
Why wouldn’t the front-runner among bettors be Vajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright Doors, which just won the Nebula? But for my own prediction I’m going with Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory, partly based on the buzz, and partly my having read the finalists. (Actually reading the contenders – that’s cheating, isn’t it?)
(2) META ONLY RESPONDS TO A CREDIBLE THREAT. Engadget reports litigation that ironically explains “How small claims court became Meta’s customer service hotline”.
Last month, Ray Palena boarded a plane from New Jersey to California to appear in court. He found himself engaged in a legal dispute against one of the largest corporations in the world, and improbably, the venue for their David-versus-Goliath showdown would be San Mateo’s small claims court.
Over the course of eight months and an estimated $700 (mostly in travel expenses), he was able to claw back what all other methods had failed to render: his personal Facebook account.
Those may be extraordinary lengths to regain a digital profile with no relation to its owner’s livelihood, but Palena is one of a growing number of frustrated users of Meta’s services who, unable to get help from an actual human through normal channels of recourse, are using the court system instead. And in many cases, it’s working.
Engadget spoke with five individuals who have sued Meta in small claims court over the last two years in four different states. In three cases, the plaintiffs were able to restore access to at least one lost account. One person was also able to win financial damages and another reached a cash settlement. Two cases were dismissed. In every case, the plaintiffs were at least able to get the attention of Meta’s legal team, which appears to have something of a playbook for handling these claims.
Why small claims?
At the heart of these cases is the fact that Meta lacks the necessary volume of human customer service workers to assist those who lose their accounts. The company’s official help pages steer users who have been hacked toward confusing automated tools that often lead users to dead-end links or emails that don’t work if your account information has been changed. (The company recently launched a $14.99-per-month program, Meta Verified, which grants access to human customer support. Its track record as a means of recovering hacked accounts after the fact has been spotty at best, according to anecdotal descriptions.)
Hundreds of thousands of people also turn to their state Attorney General’s office as some state AGs have made requests on users’ behalf — on Reddit, this is known as the “AG method.” But attorneys general across the country have been so inundated with these requests they formally asked Meta to fix their customer service, too. “We refuse to operate as the customer service representatives of your company,” a coalition of 41 state AGs wrote in a letter to the company earlier this year….
(3) TESTING FOR EMPATHY. [Item by Steven French.] “The Stormtrooper Scandal review – inside the Star Wars art sale that wrecked lives” in the Guardian is a review of a tv show that aired on BBC2 (available via iPlayer) about selling images of customized Star Wars Stormtrooper helmets as Non-Fungible Tokens and my eye was caught by the opening paragraph:
Here’s a tricky ethical conundrum – how much can you command yourself to care about the suffering of a monumental dickhead? Do you say a breezy “Not at all!” and move on with your day? Do you say “I have limited resources and prefer to expend them on non-dickhead entities, ta?” Do you say “No dickhead is all dickhead, just as none of us is entirely free of dickheadery ourselves – thus our common humanity demands of us always a degree of empathy and compassion?” Have a think, then test yourself again at the end of 90 minutes of The Stormtrooper Scandal. Send the results on a postcard to the usual address…
(4) DIGITAL LIBRARY PULLS DOWN BOOKS AS LITIGATION CONTINUES. “Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win” – Ars Technica is counting.
As a result of book publishers successfully suing the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library that strives to keep growing online access to books recently shrank by about 500,000 titles.
IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a “devastating loss” for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.
To restore access, IA is now appealing, hoping to reverse the prior court’s decision by convincing the US Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit that IA’s controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under copyright law. An April court filing shows that IA intends to argue that the publishers have no evidence that the e-book market has been harmed by the open library’s lending, and copyright law is better served by allowing IA’s lending than by preventing it.…
… In an open letter to publishers signed by nearly 19,000 supporters, IA fans begged publishers to reconsider forcing takedowns and quickly restore access to the lost books.
Among the “far-reaching implications” of the takedowns, IA fans counted the negative educational impact of academics, students, and educators—”particularly in underserved communities where access is limited—who were suddenly cut off from “research materials and literature that support their learning and academic growth.”
They also argued that the takedowns dealt “a serious blow to lower-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others,” who may not have access to a local library or feel “safe accessing the information they need in public.”
“Your removal of these books impedes academic progress and innovation, as well as imperiling the preservation of our cultural and historical knowledge,” the letter said.
“This isn’t happening in the abstract,” Freeland told Ars. “This is real. People no longer have access to a half a million books.”…
… Asked for comment, an AAP spokesperson provided Ars with a statement defending the takedown requests. The spokesperson declined to comment on readers’ concerns or the alleged social impacts of takedowns.
“As Internet Archive is certainly aware, removals of literary works from Internet Archive’s transmission platform were ordered by a federal court with the mutual agreement of Internet Archive, following the court’s unequivocal finding of copyright infringement,” AAP’s statement said. “In short, Internet Archive transmitted literary works to the entire world while refusing to license the requisite rights from the authors and publishers who make such works possible.”…
(5) GRIFTING FOR DOLLARS. Lucidity threatens “I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again”. God this is witty – and very informative!
The recent innovations in the AI space, most notably those such as GPT-4, obviously have far-reaching implications for society, ranging from the utopian eliminating of drudgery, to the dystopian damage to the livelihood of artists in a capitalist society, to existential threats to humanity itself.
I myself have formal training as a data scientist, going so far as to dominate a competitive machine learning event at one of Australia’s top universities and writing a Master’s thesis where I wrote all my own libraries from scratch in MATLAB. I’m not God’s gift to the field, but I am clearly better than most of my competition – that is, practitioners like myself who haven’t put in the reps to build their own C libraries in a cave with scraps, but can read textbooks, implement known solutions in high-level languages, and use libraries written by elite institutions.
So it is with great regret that I announce that the next person to talk about rolling out AI is going to receive a complimentary chiropractic adjustment in the style of Dr. Bourne, i.e, I am going to fucking break your neck. I am truly, deeply, sorry.
I. But We Will Realize Untold Efficiencies With Machine L-
What the fuck did I just say?
I started working as a data scientist in 2019, and by 2021 I had realized that while the field was large, it was also largely fraudulent. Most of the leaders that I was working with clearly had not gotten as far as reading about it for thirty minutes despite insisting that things like, I dunno, the next five years of a ten thousand person non-tech organization should be entirely AI focused. The number of companies launching AI initiatives far outstripped the number of actual use cases. Most of the market was simply grifters and incompetents (sometimes both!) leveraging the hype to inflate their headcount so they could get promoted, or be seen as thought leaders1.
The money was phenomenal, but I nonetheless fled for the safer waters of data and software engineering. You see, while hype is nice, it’s only nice in small bursts for practitioners. We have a few key things that a grifter does not have, such as job stability, genuine friendships, and souls. What we do not have is the ability to trivially switch fields the moment the gold rush is over, due to the sad fact that we actually need to study things and build experience. Grifters, on the other hand, wield the omnitool that they self-aggrandizingly call ‘politics’2. That is to say, it turns out that the core competency of smiling and promising people things that you can’t actually deliver is highly transferable….
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Compiled by Paul Weimer.]
June 22, 1947 — Octavia Butler. (Died 2006.)
By Paul Weimer: The first Octavia Butler story I encountered caused me not to read more of her work for over a decade afterwards.
The year was 1984. I was a young SF reader. Isaac Asimov’s SF magazine was one of the things I read as part of my SF education. June 1984 had a striking cover image for Octavia Butler’s story Bloodchild that drew my eye right away. I had to Know More!
But then I read the story itself. A hard-hitting Butler with an emphasis on biology, and the idea of human men becoming part of a life cycle of aliens’ breeding, I was, to say the least, a little traumatized at the idea of someone being a host for parasitic alien eggs! I got right away the parallels Butler was making and as a reader I was poleaxed.
I decided that Butler was Not for Me (or, Too Much For Me) and did not read her again for years.
Finally, I was persuaded to give Butler another go, and I picked up Wild Seed. This experience was completely and rather different. I was absolutely struck by the power and grace of her imagination, her consummate writing skill, and (yes) her ability to make me feel. I didn’t mind that I had started the series out of order, I was sucked in right away and was absorbed by the book, its pair of main characters, and the world Butler has made.
I then went on to other books in the Patterrnist sequence, the Parable novels, and in general, steadily consumed her oeuvre ever since. One of the best SF writers of all time? I don’t think that’s a stretch. Taken from us too soon? Absolutely yes, no question. (Recall that she won a MacArthur Award Genius grant, in addition to her SFF awards and nominations)
And yes, I have given Bloodchild another read…and yes, it STILL freaks me out. Some things never do change.
While I think her Parable books are the most timely books for today (and the ones I would push into the hands of interested readers), my favorite Octavia Butler piece might not be a novel at all, but rather the short story “Speech Sounds”. It focuses on her biological SF concerns, describing the aftermath of a plague which renders nearly everyone unable to speak. For those who still can talk…life is not precisely pleasant in the post-plague Los Angeles. But the bonds and the character development and worldbuilding packed into the short space of the story show just what Butler could do as a writer.
For those interested, I recount in even more detail my experience with Octavia Butler and her work in an essay in the anthology Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, edited by Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal (Twelfth Planet Press, 2017). One of the weirdest things I’ve ever had as a SFF person is someone wanting me to sign my essay in their copy of the book. I attribute that to the power Octavia Butler has, not mine own modest talents.
(7) COMICS SECTION.
(8) JOURNEY PLANET. Journey Planet’s Issue 82 – “Be The Change” is out. Fortunately, Chris Barkley thought File 770 would be interested in knowing.
Paul Weimer, Allison Hartman Adams, James Bacon, and Chris Garcia bring you a look at WorldCons and what things might be done to bring positive change! There’s discussion of the Recent Hugo Controversies, about changed needed in governance, proposals that will be sent on to the WorldCon Business Meeting, and much more!
(9) UNDESERVED DOOM, THAT’S WHO. CBR.com names “10 Doctor Who Characters Who Deserved Better Fates”.
…Doctor Who has a habit of giving viewers very sympathetic and likeable characters and then killing them off just as audiences have fully embraced them. This raises the stakes for Doctor Who fans, but it sometimes results in characters (particularly female characters) being killed in order to further the Doctor’s storyline and make them sad. Many of these characters got meaningful deaths, but there’s no denying that too often their deaths were more about the Doctor, or his companions or enemies, than truly about them….
Here’s one of the heartbreakers:
8. Chantho Never Got a Chance to Develop Past ‘Utopia’
Chantho (Chipo Chung) was an absolutely adorable alien woman. She had a fascinating quirk to her language where she had to say the first and last syllables of her name at the beginning and end of every sentence, and not doing so was like swearing to her. She and Martha (Freema Agyeman) bonded over this, and they could have had a great friendship if not for what happened next.
When kindly old Professor Yana turned out to be the evil Master, he killed the frightened Chantho with an electrical wire. She did, however, manage to get a shot off at him in her last moments, causing the Master to regenerate. It’s still a shame, however, that Chantho died, as Doctor Who has never had an alien companion like her before, and she could have been something intriguingly different.
(10) CHAPLIN, ALPERT, HENSON – WHO’S NEXT? Gizmodo alerts fans that “The Jim Henson Company’s Iconic Studio Is Now Up for Sale”. It’s a Hollywood property with quite a history. We hope it isn’t fated to be developed into another 600-unit apartment building.
According to a new report from the Wrap, the Jim Henson Company is selling its Los Angeles studio lot at 1416 La Brea Avenue as “part of a much longer-term strategy” to merge an undisclosed future location with its Jim Henson Creature Shop in Burbank, California. The building has headquartered the company since 2000, shortly after the release of the Sci-Fi Channel’s Farscape and Muppets From Space.
Before becoming ground zero for all things felt and googly-eyed, the historic lot served as Charlie Chaplin Studios from 1917-1953; it was then taken over by Red Skelton, whereupon it became the shooting location for multiple classic TV series, including The Adventures of Superman and Perry Mason. Grander still, the building went on to house A&M Studios from 1966-1999, where Nine Inch Nails recorded The Downward Spiral and U.S.A for Africa recorded charity single “We Are the World.”
(11) PLAYING TO SURVIVE. NPR witnesses “How a board game can help vulnerable communities prepare for catastrophic wildfires”.
As climate change increases the intensity of wildfires, experts are struggling to prepare vulnerable communities for potential catastrophes. One new approach is a community-wide board game that tests resilience….
KATHERINE MONAHAN, BYLINE: About 40 people are gathered in the Tomales Town Hall. They’re sitting around folding tables covered with giant maps of the region, and each map is a game board. The point of the game – to safely evacuate this remote area as wildfires threaten. First, residents calculate whether they start with a bonus or a penalty.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Do you have an evacuation plan?
MONAHAN: They add points for how prepared they are in real life, like by having a go bag of essentials or being signed up to receive emergency alerts on their phones. They subtract points for factors that could slow them down, like having extended family or multiple pets. Next, they choose their game pieces….
… MONAHAN: Maiorana says residents must think about these things ahead of time. It can mean life or death. Deadly fires have raged through California in recent years, including the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people in Paradise, another isolated town. Tiny, coastal Tomales has only two main roads in and out.
MAIORANA: My secret agenda with this game is actually to get people talk to one another….
(12) SPEAKER TO ANIMALS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In this week’s Science journal there is an article by Carlo G. Quintanilla on how SF helped him become a better science communicator. He is a health science policy analyst at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “Science and fiction”.
As I stepped out of the punishing Arizona heat and into the cool air-conditioned halls of the convention centre, I saw a sea of costumed attendees. Some wore elaborate steampunk attire; others portrayed their favourite Marvel or Star Wars characters. “Why did I agree to this?” I thought as I made my way to the room where I’d be giving a talk about the science behind the classic Dune books by Frank Herbert. I had been struggling for years to find new ways to communicate science to a broad audience. My hope was to inspire admiration and awe of what science can teach us about the world through the imaginative lens of science fiction. At first I felt like an imposter at this pop culture convention. Then I saw the audience’s excitement…
(13) LEST DARKNESS FALL. Henri Barde refutes the wonderful vision in “Space-Based Solar Power: A Skeptic’s Take” at IEEE Spectrum.
… Space-based solar power is an idea so beautiful, so tantalizing that some argue it is a wish worth fulfilling. A constellation of gigantic satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) nearly 36,000 kilometers above the equator could collect sunlight unfiltered by atmosphere and uninterrupted by night (except for up to 70 minutes a day around the spring and fall equinoxes). Each megasat could then convert gigawatts of power into a microwave beam aimed precisely at a big field of receiving antennas on Earth. These rectennas would then convert the signal to usable DC electricity.
The thousands of rocket launches needed to loft and maintain these space power stations would dump lots of soot, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants into the stratosphere, with uncertain climate impacts. But that might be mitigated, in theory, if space solar displaced fossil fuels and helped the world transition to clean electricity…
…Despite mounting buzz around the concept, I and many of my former colleagues at ESA are deeply skeptical that these large and complex power systems could be deployed quickly enough and widely enough to make a meaningful contribution to the global energy transition. Among the many challenges on the long and formidable list of technical and societal obstacles: antennas so big that we cannot even simulate their behavior.
Here I offer a road map of the potential chasms and dead ends that could doom a premature space solar project to failure. Such a misadventure would undermine the credibility of the responsible space agency and waste capital that could be better spent improving less risky ways to shore up renewable energy, such as batteries, hydrogen, and grid improvements. Champions of space solar power could look at this road map as a wish list that must be fulfilled before orbital solar power can become truly appealing to electrical utilities….
(14) WHERE THEY’RE TUNING IN TO THE BOYS. JustWatch analyzed the reception of the latest season of The Boys to see how this release compared to the previous three seasons. They found that this season is the second most popular among global viewers, with season 2 ranking first in 89 countries on their Streaming Charts.
JustWatch created this report by pulling data from the week following the release of “The Boys”, and compared it to the previous three seasons. JustWatch Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity, including: clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as ‘seen’. This data is collected from >40 million movie & TV show fans per month. It is updated daily for 140 countries and 4,500 streaming services.
(15) OOPS-EL. “Billy Zane teases ‘Superman’ Easter egg in Marlon Brando biopic” – Entertainment Weekly has the story. (Watch the Marlon Brando as Jor-El Superman outtake at the link.)
Billy Zane is set to play Marlon Brando in a new biopic — and the actor tells Entertainment Weekly that the project will briefly touch on the legendary film star’s time playing Kal-El’s Kryptonian dad in Superman.
In a conversation primarily focusing on his Lifetime movie Devil on Campus: The Larry Ray Story, the Titanic star reveals that he recently shot a last-minute addition to Waltzing with Brando. “We added this one little Easter egg for the credit sequence that we just shot a week and a half ago. That’s being color-timed and slotted in as we speak,” he tells EW. “Literally, we just added a little outtake as Jor-El — of him doing outtakes during the filming of [Superman]. We found that [footage] online and thought it was the funniest thing.”
The footage in question is a flubbed line reading from the 1978 superhero film, wherein Brando says, “Develop such conviction in yourself Alal, Kal-El, Ralph, whatever your name is,” forgetting the name of his on-screen super-son as he performs a dramatic monologue.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Andrew (not Werdna), SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
(1) BUTLER CONFERENCE AT HUNTINGTON THIS MONTH. The Huntington Library in Pasadena, CA will host a two-day conference, “Futurity as Praxis: Learning from Octavia E. Butler” on May 23-24.
The year 2024 marks the beginning of the critical dystopian future Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) envisioned in her groundbreaking novel Parable of the Sower. Her fiction and the story of her life compel us to reckon with power, leadership, creativity, the Earth, human relationships, and the unknown possibilities that await us in the stars. Now, intellectuals from different communities will gather to contemplate her legacy. This conference asks how we have learned from Butler’s writing and what her archive at The Huntington—a short distance from where the author spent her formative years in Pasadena, California—can help future generations discover.
One of the panels will feature well-known sff creators.
Session 1: Creativity as Praxis
Tickets for the two-day conference are available here. General: $25 (Students free). Optional lunch: $20 (each day)
(2) ROMAN AROUND. “’Megalopolis’: New Teaser Trailer Drops Ahead of Cannes Premiere” reports Deadline.
Ahead of its world premiere here at Cannes, Francis Ford Coppola has dropped a teaser trailer for his master epic Meglopolis. While the first trailer showed Adam Driver’s ambitious architectural idealist Cesar attempting suicide atop a skyscraper, yet stopping time, here we see a montage of the pic’s action: a devastated city indulged in neon and noir infused Bacchanal.
Coppola’s latest is billed as a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.
(3) FROM SOUP TO NUTS. The Guardian has a long feature on the history of Coppola’s efforts to make this film: “’Has this guy ever made a movie before?’ Francis Ford Coppola’s 40-year battle to film Megalopolis”.
Early reactions to Megalopolis have been mixed. After a private screening in Los Angeles last month, one executive described it as “batshit crazy”….
…Others, however, were fulsome in their praise. “I feel I was a part of history. Megalopolis is a brilliant, visionary masterpiece,” said the director Gregory Nava after the screening. “I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t do anything for the rest of the day.” An anonymous viewer at a London screening went even further: “This film is like Einstein and relativity in 1905, Picasso and Guernica in 1937 – it’s a date in the history of cinema.”…
(4) CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE. The 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which provides $150,000USD to the winner, is the largest English-language literary prize in the world for women and non-binary authors. So the announcement of the winner may be of interest to you even if the book is not genre.
V. V. Ganeshananthan has been named the winner for her novel Brotherless Night, published by Random House.
(5) COMPUSERVE GETS A PLAQUE. It didn’t take as long as you might have expected for one of the building blocks of personal computing to earn its own historic marker. Alex Krislov shared a photo of Ohio’s salute to CompuServe.
(6) LATEST ITERATION OF FANHISTORIC CLIFTON’S. Boing Boing says “Legendary L.A. eatery Clifton’s Cafeteria is back! (but is called Clifton’s Republic now)”.
…To say Clifton’s is kitschy doesn’t begin to capture it. It’s more like if uber-kitschy, ur-kitschy and mondo-kitschy had a baby….
We’re interested because LASFS used to meet at Clifton’s in the late 1930s. And consequently, Discover Los Angeles’ article “Clifton’s Republic: The Story of an LA Icon” has the tidbit of greatest interest to fans:
…The third floor is home to the Gothic Bar, which features a booth named after sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury, a patron of the original Clifton’s who became a pal of Meieran’s. The back bar is a repurposed 19th-century gothic altar. The third floor also features Clinton Hall, a live performance and private event space, and lots of taxidermy dioramas created in consultation with experts from the Natural History Museum….
(7) HE’S ON THE COVER. Fantasy author Lev Grossman in on the front of Publishers Weekly.
(8) DON’T REIGN ON THEIR PARADE. Scavenger’s Reign may get a second chance on another platform. “Netflix Just Saved 2023’s Most Underrated Sci-Fi Show From Cancelation” reports Inverse:
Scavengers Reign, the remarkable but underseen sci-fi series that premiered on Max in late 2023. Scavengers Reign was widely regarded as one of the year’s best shows, and one of many projects that heralded a golden age for indie animation. Unfortunately, the series was canceled on May 10… but that development has a silver lining.
Per Variety, Scavengers Reign will remain on Max (a rare concession for WB’s canceled shows), but its first season will also stream on Netflix. The rival streamer is reportedly interested in picking up the show for more seasons, but continuation is contingent on Scavengers’ success on the platform.
… Given Netflix’s growing interest in adult animation, the streamer might be an ideal destination. Scavengers Reign follows the crew of a deep space freighter after they crash on a hostile alien planet. Across 12 episodes, the crew works to find their way back to their ship, and survive a world trying to annihilate them. The series doesn’t shy away from dark themes, so it should feel at home alongside Netflix originals like Blue Eyed Samurai….
(9) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born May 14, 1944 — George Lucas, 80. I can say without doubt George Lucas was a director whose first work I encountered was THX 1138. What a damn strange film that is. Upon rewatching it twenty or so years later, the Suck Fairy wasn’t pleased by it as I’ll say she holds that it just feels really dated now which I agree with her.
Ahhh but then was Star Wars, and no I won’t accept the renaming it. Simply didn’t happen. The film itself which I’ve seen at the theater and watched a number of times since is extraordinary. That it garnered a Hugo at IguanaCon II shouldn’t surprise anyone here.
Confession time. I’ve not watched any of Star Wars films past the first three. I adore The Empire Strikes Back, a Hugo winner at Denvention Two, actually my favorite of the first three films. I don’t dislike the final film, Return of the Jedi, Hugo of course, this time at L.A. Con II, but I really do think the story is better in The Empire Strikes Back. Also, Lucas gave his screenwriting credit to Leigh Brackett for that film after her death from cancer.
So, what’s my next film that he did that I really like? Oh guess. It was when he was story writer and executive producer on the first four Indiana Jones films, which his colleague and good friend Steven Spielberg directed, so it is Raiders of The Lost Ark is my favorite film here (with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom being almost as good), and the last should been not have been done. So not surprisingly Raiders of The Lost Ark would win him and Spielberg a Hugo, this time at Chicon IV.
Need I say that The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was wonderful? Yes, it stretched probability to the breaking point and way beyond continuously in terms of who young Indy met, but that was the sheer fun of the series. No Hugo nomination, why, oh why?
Did you know he wrote the story for Willow? (Not the screenplay.) Well, he did. Cool. I mean really cool. Noreascon 3 nominated it for a Hugo but a rabbit from Toon Town won that year. Speaking of really cool films, he was executive producer and co-edited Labyrinth with director Jim Henson. Yes, you nominated it for a Hugo, this time at Conspiracy ’87.
He produced Howard the Duck, which the French had the gall to name on the one-sheets Howard Une nouvelle race de héros (Howard: A New Breed of Hero) was considered his worst film by far. It’s not a film I like but I feel that it should be noted here. No, you did not nominate Howard Une nouvelle race de héros for a Hugo. Nor did French give it any Awards either.
Finally for me, he also was the creator and executive producer of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series which premiered with a feature film of the same name that aired just before its first episode.
I know he’s done a lot more including some new material now on Disney+ but I’m not taking that streaming service now. At some point, I’ll gorge myself over there but not yet.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
(12) SPEAKING OF GEORGE. “’Grow up. These are my movies, not yours’: George Lucas Won’t be Happy How Star Wars Fan Group is Illegally Saving the Original Trilogy” Fandomwire says confidently.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away began George Lucas’ epic space opera tale that eventually grew into the pop culture phenomenon we know today as Star Wars. The original trilogy of films Lucas made during the 70s and 80s, became beloved across the globe, but the theatrical cuts of the movies have neared the brink of extinction following Lucas’ special edition re-releases.
As a result, a group of rebel Star Wars fans have taken it upon themselves to not only preserve but also digitally restore the original cuts so that the fanbase can enjoy the version of the films they first fell in love with. However, the group’s activities directly clash with Lucas’ vision for his franchise and border on a legal grey area. Here is why George Lucas won’t be happy with the rebel fans trying to preserve the original cuts of the original trilogy.
The original trilogy of Star Wars films, spearheaded by George Lucas were critical and commercial successes. However, in 1997 Lucas released the “Special Edition” of the films for the trilogy’s 20th anniversary, which featured extensive changes to the original theatrical cuts.
The original cuts have since become scarce. However, a group of Star Wars fans, known as Team Negative One have reportedly almost completely digitally restored the original cuts in 4K using 35-millimeter prints of the original trilogy….
To show how serious Lucas is about his later cuts —
…Similarly, when the National Film Registry aimed to preserve 1977’s Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope), Lucas reportedly refused to provide them with a copy of the original theatrical release…
(13) Q&A ABOUT FUNDRAISING ANTHOLOGY. Broken Olive Branches is a charity anthology; over 30 authors in the horror community donated stories to help the civilians of Palestine. The proceeds from the anthology go to ANERA and the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. Roseanna interviews the editor and some of the authors involved in “Roundtable Interview: Broken Olive Branches” at Nerds of a Feather.
(14) WHERE’S THE BEEF? AI raises the dead: “It was a classic rap beef. Then Drake revived Tupac with AI and Congress got involved” on NPR’s “Planet Money”.
In late April, Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) began his testimony before a Senate subcommittee hearing by doing something unusual for a stuffy institution like Congress: He played a new song from the rapper Drake.
But it wasn’t Drake’s rap verse that Tillis felt was important for Congress to hear. Rather it was a verse in the song featuring the voice of the legendary — and long dead — rapper Tupac Shakur.
In a kind of uniquely modern sorcery, the song uses artificial intelligence to resurrect Tupac from the dead and manufacture a completely new — and synthetic — verse delivered in the late rapper’s voice. The song, titled “Taylor Made Freestyle,” is one in a barrage of brutal diss tracks exchanged between Drake and Kendrick Lamar in a chart-topping rap battle. Kendrick is from California, where Tupac is like a god among rap fans, so weaponizing the West Coast rap legend’s voice in the feud had some strategic value for Drake, who is from Toronto.
Drake, apparently, thought it’d be okay to use Tupac’s synthetic voice in his song without asking permission from the late rapper’s estate. But, soon after the song’s release, Tupac’s estate sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Drake take the song down, which he did. However — given the murky legal landscape regulating AI creations — it’s unclear whether Tupac’s estate actually has the law on their side.
And so the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar has become not only one of the most brilliant — and most vicious — battles in the history of rap. It’s also become a historic flashpoint for the issues posed by what you might call AI necromancy — resurrecting traits of the dead using AI technology.
We’ve entered a new world where anyone can conjure the voice or visual likeness of a dead celebrity — or really anyone, dead or alive — with a few clicks using AI software.
(15) JEOPARDY! SFF. [Item by David Goldfarb.] Catching up on Jeopardy Masters and also watching tonight’s episode, here’s the SFF content I saw:
Jeopardy Masters, Wednesday 5/8/2024
Game 1:
Literature: Who Said It? $2000: “I freewheel a lot…I reckon I’ll become president of the galaxy, and it just happens, it’s easy”
Matt Amodio got the right book but the wrong character: “What’s Dent?”
(One of his quirks is that he never bothers to change his question words but just always says “What’s…?”)
Amy Schneider gave us, “Who is Beeblebrox?”
Most Filers I assume know this, but just in case I’ll fill in that the book was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the characters Arthur Dent and Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Literature: Who Said It? $1600: “For if he is still with the quick un-dead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live!”
Yogesh Raut knew or correctly guessed, “Who is Van Helsing?”
Literature: Who Said It? $1200: A Daily Double for Yogesh, who wagered all of his 15,400 points. “She betrayed you, Winston. Immediately — unreservedly. I have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly”.
Yogesh hesitated a bit, then tried, “Who is…O’Brien?” And this was correct, the inquisitor from 1984.
Literature: Who Said It? $400: “What’s taters, precious, eh, what’s taters?”
Matt got it: “What’s Gollum?”
Game 2:
On the Director’s Résumé, $2000: He spoke the silent language of horror in 1922’s “Nosferatu”
Victoria Groce got it: “Who is Murnau?”
Regular Jeopardy!, Monday 5/13/2024
In the Double Jeopardy round:
TV’s Fantastical Places, $1200: This undersea abode of cartoon fame is based on an actual atoll used for atomic testing between 1946 and 1958
Michael Richter tried, “What is SpongeBob Squarepants?” but this was the name of the show, not the place.
Returning champ Will Stewart knew, “What is Bikini Bottom?”
TV’s Fantastical Places, $2000: First seen in 1969, this planet on “Doctor Who” was caught up in a time war with the Daleks
Will knew it: “What is Gallifrey?”
Literary Title Occupations, $800: In a special edition, J.K. Rowling did her own illustrations for the story collection title “The Tales of Beedle the” this
Michael got it: “What is a bard?”
Literary Title Occupations, $400: Emily Chambers is one of these spiritual intermediaries in a C.J. Archer novel, hunting a demon & talking to a ghost
Will: “What is a medium?”
Literary Title Occupations, $1200: In “The Magician’s Nephew”, animals talk like humans & Jadis, an evil witch, flees from Charn & reaches this fantasy land
Will got this one too: “What is Narnia?”
TV’s Fantastical Places, $800: This castle was the ancestral home of Ned Stark & family on “Game of Thrones”
Will, evidently an SFF watcher, knew “What is Winterfell?”
TV’s Fantastical Places, $800: Mystic Falls is the locale for blood-sucking brothers Damon & Stefan on this long-running CW show
Joyce Yang got in for “What’s The Vampire Diaries?”
Jeopardy Masters, Friday 5/10/2024
Game 1, Double Jeopardy round:
Oscars for Makeup & Hairstyling, $1600: For this 2015 film, Lesley Vanderwalt got the idea for Furiosa’s look from an image of a girl with clay across her forehead
Mattea Roach got it: “What’s Mad Max: Fury Road?”
Oscars for Makeup & Hairstyling, $1200: This man has won 7 Academy Awards for makeup, including one for his work on “An American Werewolf in London”
Amy Schneider responded, “Who is Baker?” And Rick Baker was correct.
Oscars for Makeup & Hairstyling, $400: Makeup artist Ve Neill used moss to make Michael Keaton look like he crawled out from underneath a rock for this 1988 film.
Mattea asked us, “What’s ‘Beetlejuice’?”
Game 2, Single Jeopardy round
A Literary Tipple, $600: It takes a lot of flowers (weeds, some say) to make a batch of this stuff, the title of a Ray Bradbury novel
James Holzhauer knew it was dandelion wine.
Made You Say It, $1000: Compelled by his people’s naiveté, this Trojan said, “Don’t trust the horse…even when they bring gifts, I fear the Greeks”
Victoria Groce gave us, “Who is Laocöon?”
(16) ALIEN EMBASSIES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] It was the monthly ‘Sci-Fi Sunday’ over at Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur with a look at the SF trope of alien embassies.
Because it was a Sci-Fi Sunday episode, Isaac assumed some sort of FTL travel but not instantaneous communication. He takes a (he himself says) simple assumption of all civilizations arising together and expanding their sphere of influence, which in 3-dimensions would give each 12 neighbors.
With regards to SF, he draws mainly on cinema and TV looking at embassies Babylon V, Star Trek and Stargate. However Niven and Pournelle’s A Mote in God’s Eye, and Dune do get a look in.
He also points to flaws in many SF shows’ plot arising out of mis-understandings making a fairly plausible case against such actually taking place.
He opines that the embassy would be in space for control biological contaminants (both ways) and here, it is bacteria rather than viruses are the major problem. He also notes that assuming an advanced planetary system might be colonized out to the equivalent of it Kuiper belt, such is the distance between stars that any traveler passing through a stellar empire would likely come no closer than many thousands of times the Kuiper orbit distance to a single star’s civilization and so no need or practicality to control travelers simply passing through.
“We often imagine encountering many alien civilizations, and establishing trade and relationships with them, but what would being an alien ambassador be like?”
35-minute episode below…
[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, David Goldfarb, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]
(1) SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS HOF CLASS OF 2024. Muddy Colors announces the Greg Manchess and Yuko Shimizu are among the “2024 Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame” inductees. See examples of all the artists’ work at the link.
The Society of Illustrators has announced the 2024 inductees into their prestigious Hall of Fame. In recognition for their “distinguished achievement in the art of illustration” the artists are chosen based on their body of work and the significant impact it has made on the field of illustration as a whole. This year’s honorees are:
(2) LE GUIN PRIZE NOMINATION DEADLINE 4/30. There’s just one week left in the nomination period for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. This $25,000 cash prize is awarded to a writer whose book reflects concepts and ideas central to Ursula’s work.
The recipient of this year’s prize will be chosen by authors Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Megan Giddings, Ken Liu, and Carmen Maria Machado.
Through April 30th, everyone is welcome to nominate books. Learn more about the prize, eligibility requirements, and the 2024 selection panel here.
(3) MIÉVILLE REJECTS GERMAN FELLOWSHIP. China Miéville has rescinded his acceptance of a residency fellowship for literature for 2024 in Germany which he had been awarded by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service) – DAAD. The full text is here: “Letter to the DAAD” at Salvage.
(4) A LITTLE TOO ON THE NOSE? [Item by Scott Edelman.] This year’s Met Gala theme will be “The Garden of Time,” a 1962 short story by J.G. Ballard. “Met Gala 2024: A Guide to the Theme, Hosts and How to Watch”. (Read the New York Times gift article courtesy of Scott Edelman.)
OK, what is the dress code?
It’s as potentially confusing as the exhibit. Guests have been instructed to dress for “The Garden of Time,” so named after a 1962 short story by J.G. Ballard about an aristocratic couple living in a walled estate with a magical garden while an encroaching mob threatens to end their peaceful existence. To keep the crowd at bay, the husband tries to turn back time by breaking off flower after flower, until there are no more blooms left. The mob arrives and ransacks the estate, and the two aristocrats turn to stone.
Just what comes to mind when you think “fashion,” right?
(5) BUTLER IS THEME OF LITFEST OPENING. LitFest in the Dena will hold its main program on May 4-5 at the Mt. View Mausoleum, 2300 N. Marengo Ave, in Altadena, CA. The opening event will be on May 3 – “Introduction and Keynote Presentation: In Conversation with Nikki High”, founder of Octavia’s Bookshelf.
Founder of Octavia’s Bookshelf, Nikki High will tell us about her discovery of books as an early reader and how authors of color helped her discover herself and what could become of her life. Featured in conversation with her friend Natalie Daily, librarian and literacy advocate at the Octavia E. Butler Magnet in Pasadena, Nikki talks about her bookstore as a community gathering place for book lovers who will find a treasure trove of BIPOC literature.
(6) O. HENRY 2024. Literary Hub takes care of “Announcing the Winners of the 2024 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction”. Is there any sff on this list? I leave it up to you to identify it.
(7) ANTI-LGBT HARASSMENT SAFETY ADVICE. “Drag Story Hour’s Jonathan Hamilt on Bomb Threats, Safety Tips” at Shelf Awareness.
Around the country, growing numbers of independent booksellers are finding themselves the targets of anti-LGBT harassment, with bomb threats proving to be an increasingly common tactic.
In recent weeks, Loyalty Bookstores in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Md., Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, N.Y., and Mosaics in Provo, Utah, have all been targets of bomb threats related to drag storytime programming. Sadly, they are not alone, and the numbers only continue to rise.
Per the nonprofit Drag Story Hour, there were nine documented incidents of bomb threats targeting official DSH events in 2023. In 2024, there have already been at least 12 such incidents, with the number growing almost every weekend.
DSH executive director Jonathan Hamilt noted that bomb threats represent only a small fraction of the harassment directed at LGBT communities and LGBT-inclusive gatherings. In 2023, there were more than 60 documented cases of harassment targeting DSH or adjacent programming; the figure more than doubles when including anti-drag incidents in general.
Hamilt called it “deeply disturbing” that adults are choosing to incite violence and intimidate children, parents, and storytellers at family-oriented events while claiming to want to protect children.
Despite what the public perception may be, Hamilt continued, Drag Story Hour is “not scrambling.” The organization is nearly 10 years old and its efforts are “very organized.” Anti-LGBT harassment is nothing new, though sometimes it takes different forms, and the organization is “working on getting through this.”
(8) ELLISON BACK IN PRINT. Inverse interviews J. Michael Straczynski for a piece titled “The Unexpected Resurrection of Harlan Ellison “. The interviewer’s portion is largely a rehearsal of decades-old Ellison controversies. (But by no means all of them.)
…As the title suggests, Greatest Hits is a kind of historical document. These are stories that don’t necessarily reflect where science fiction and fantasy are going but where the genre has been, as seen through the dark lenses of Harlan Ellison. Some of the stories (like “Shatterday”) hold up beautifully. Some, as Cassandra Khaw points out in her introduction, have problematic elements.
But unlike recent reissues of books by Roald Dahl or Ian Fleming, these stories remain uncensored. The fight against censorship was one of Ellison’s lifelong passions, and so, other than a few content warning labels in the book, the sex, sci-fi, and rock ’n’ roll of this writer’s vision remains intact and raucous. Like the punk rock of genre fiction, Ellison’s stories are as jarring and blistering as ever.
“No, no, you don’t touch Harlan’s stuff, man,” Straczynski says. “Even if he’s dead, he’ll come after you.”
(9) SPEAKING OUT. The New Mexico Press Women presented George R.R. Martin with its “Courageous Communicator Award” last month, which Martin found thought-provoking as he explains in “Women of the Press” at Not A Blog.
“On the Occasion of its 75th Anniversary Bestows its COURAGEOUS COMMUNICATOR AWARD on March 15-16, 2024 to George R.R. Martin for building new worlds and creating strong, yet nuanced, women characters in his books and television shows.”
…Our world needs courageous communicators more than ever in these dark divided days, when so many people would rather silence those they disagree with than engage them in debate and discussion. I deplore that… but had I really done enough, myself, to be recognized for courageous speech?
I am not sure I have, truth be told. Yes, I’ve spoken up from time to time, on issues both large and small… but not always. It is always easier to remain silent, to stay on the sidelines and let the storms wash over you. The more I pondered, the more convinced I became that I need to do more. That we all need to do more.
I started by delivering a 45 minute keynote address, on the subject of free speech and censorship. Which, I am happy to say, was very well received (I was not entirely sure it would be)….
(10) 2024 ROMCON AWARDS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Best Translation goes to an old Ian Watson title from 1973…
The Best Novella winner Silviu Genescu is noted for back in the 1990s winning the Romanian equivalent of “D is for End” (that’s the English translation but the play on words works in English as it does in the original Romanian). I remember staying with Silviu’s family back in the late 1990s when doing an Anglo-Romanian SF & Science Cultural Exchange, and their son came back from school to say that they had been learning about his father’s oeuvre that day in class….
(11) THE LONG WAY HOME. “’Furiosa’ has an action scene that took 78 days to film” – NME tells why.
The upcoming Mad Max prequel film Furiosa includes a 15-minute action scene that took 78 days to film, it has been revealed.
Speaking to Total Film Magazine, the film’s star Anya Taylor-Joy and George Miller’s production partner Doug Mitchell spoke about the scene, which Taylor-Joy says is “very important for understanding” the character of Furiosa better.
Mitchell revealed that the film includes a “has one 15-minute sequence which took us 78 days to shoot” and required close to 200 stunt workers on set daily. While little else has been revealed about the scene, it has been described as a “turning point” for Furiosa…
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 23, 1973 — Naomi Kritzer, 51. Naomi Kritzer’s CatNet at this point consists of “Cat Pictures Please” which won a Hugo at MidAmeriCon II, Chaos on CatNet and Catfishing on CatNet. As one who likes this series enough that I had her personally autograph the Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories collection, I wanted to know the origin of CatNet, so I asked. Well, I also gifted her with a birthday chocolate treat, sea salt dark chocolate truffles. Here’s her answers:
Naomi Kritzer: The original short story was basically the collision of two things:
1. The line, “the Internet loves cat pictures,” which made me imagine a central internet-based intelligence that wanted pictures of cats.
2. Getting myself a smartphone for the first time (I was a late adopter), and discovering some of its quirks, and coming up with anthropomorphic explanations for things like bad directions.
I mean, the Internet clearly does love cat pictures — although “the Internet” is “the billions of people who use the Internet,” not a secret sentient AI, though!
Cat Eldridge: I went on to ask her how CatNet came to be…
Naomi Kritzer: Do you mean in the story, how it got created? I was very vague about it in the short story but sort of heavily implied it was the result of something someone did at Google. In the novel CatNet was an experimental project from a company that was again, heavily implied to be Google.
Way, way cool in my opinion.
While putting this Birthday together, I noticed that she had two other series from when she was starting out as a writer, so I asked her to talk about them. Both are available on Kindle.
Cat Eldridge: Let’s talk about your first series, Eliana’s Song.
Naomi Kritzer: Eliana’s Song is my first novel, split into two pieces. I rewrote it really heavily multiple times, and each time I tried to make it shorter and it got longer. When Bantam bought it, they suggested that I split it into two books and expand each, which is what I did.
The book actually started out as a short story I wrote while in college. It garnered a number of rejections that said something like, “this isn’t bad, but it kind of reads like chapters 1 and 36 of a novel.” I eventually decided to write the novel, and struggled for a while before realizing I could not literally use the short story as Chapter 1, I had to start over writing from scratch.
Cat Eldridge: And your second series, Dead Rivers.
Naomi Kritzer: Sometime around 2010 I picked up the Scott Westerfield Uglies series and really loved it. Uglies in particular followed a plotline that I really loved, in which someone is sent to infiltrate the enemy side, only to realize once she’s there that these are her people, far more than her bosses are. But she came among them under false pretenses, and she’d have to come clean! And she almost comes clean, doesn’t, of course is discovered and cast out, and and then has to spend the next book (maybe the next two) demonstrating her worthiness to be allowed to come back. I read this series and thought, “dang, I love this plot — I loved this plot as a kid, and reading it now is like re-visiting an amusement park ride you loved when you were 10 and finding out that even when you know where all the turns and drops are, it’s still super fun.” Like two days after that I suddenly remembered that I had literally written that plotline. It’s the plotline of the Dead Rivers trilogy. I really really love this plot, it turns out! So much that I’ve written it!
I’m not sure how well it’s aged. We were not doing trigger warnings on books yet when it came out, and the fact that the book has an explicit and fairly vivid rape scene took a lot of readers by surprise. It’s also a story that’s very much about whether someone can start out a bad guy and work their way to redemption.
Cat Eldridge: Now unto your short stories. I obviously believe everyone should read “Cat Pictures Please” and Little Free Library”, both of which I enjoyed immensely. So what of your short story writing do you think is essential for readers to start with?
Naomi Kritzer: That is a good question but one I find very hard to answer about my own work! It’s a “can’t see the forest because of all the trees” problem, I think.
“So Much Cooking” would probably be at the top, though (with the explanatory note that I always attach these days — I wrote this in 2015.) And then probably “Scrap Dragon” and “The Thing About Ghost Stories.”
To date, she has two short story collections, Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories which is only available as an epub, and of course Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories which is also available in trade paper edition.
(13) COMICS SECTION.
(14) A MONOPOLY OF WHAT? Ellie Griffin concludes “No one buys books” at The Elysian.
In 2022, Penguin Random House wanted to buy Simon & Schuster. The two publishing houses made up 37 percent and 11 percent of the market share, according to the filing, and combined they would have condensed the Big Five publishing houses into the Big Four. But the government intervened and brought an antitrust case against Penguin to determine whether that would create a monopoly.
The judge ultimately ruled that the merger would create a monopoly and blocked the $2.2 billion purchase. But during the trial, the head of every major publishing house and literary agency got up on the stand to speak about the publishing industry and give numbers, giving us an eye-opening account of the industry from the inside. All of the transcripts from the trial were compiled into a book called The Trial. It took me a year to read, but I’ve finally summarized my findings and pulled out all the compelling highlights.
I think I can sum up what I’ve learned like this: The Big Five publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Brittany Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business. They also sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like Lord of the Rings, and children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).
But let’s dig into everything they said in detail….
(15) I WALK TO THE TREES. [Item by Steven French.] If anyone fancies a walk through some weird woods … “12 Forests That Offer Chills and Thrills” at Atlas Obscura.
…While Translyvania, Romania, brings to mind images of Dracula and his imposing castle, the Hoia Baciu Forest might be more reliably scary. Known as the “Bermuda Triangle of Romania,” the forest has been home to UFO sightings, glowing eyes, strange disappearances, in addition to trees that look like they were plucked from the Upside Down. In the busy residential section of Ichikawa, Japan, is a small, seemingly out-of-place wooded area. It’s been said that those who choose to enter the Yawata no Yabushirazu are whisked away, never to be seen again. Entrance is strictly forbidden. From a woodland in the shadows of England’s “most haunted village” to a tree in a Michigan forest said to be possessed by spirits, here are our favorite spine-tingling forests…
(16) KITTY LITERATURE. “A survey of feeding practices and use of food puzzles in owners of domestic cats – Mikel Delgado, Melissa J Bain, CA Tony Buffington, 2020” at Sage Journals. (Downloadable as a PDF.)
…Environmental enrichment (although without a single, agreed-upon, definition) generally refers to the addition of activities, objects or companionship to optimize physical and psychological states and improve an animal’s welfare.1–3 Appropriate enrichment encourages species-typical behaviors,1 and may improve welfare by providing an individual a greater perception of control and choice in their environment,4 and reducing their perception of threat.5 Because all non-domesticated animals must forage for food, whether by hunting, scavenging or searching, interventions that encourage foraging behavior are commonly implemented for zoo and laboratory animals.
Previous studies of companion animals have demonstrated positive effects of foraging toys on behavior. Shelter dogs that were provided with a Kong toy stuffed with frozen food in addition to reinforcement-based training were calmer, quieter and showed less jumping behavior when meeting potential adopters.6 Shelter parrots that engaged in feather-picking spent more time foraging and showed improved feather condition when provided with a food puzzle.7 Case studies suggest positive effects of food puzzles on the behavior of cats such as weight loss and resolution of inter-cat aggression and other behavioral concerns,8 even though a recent study found that food puzzles may not increase overall activity levels in house cats.9 Despite potential benefits, a recent survey found that less than 5% of Portuguese cat owners attending a veterinary practice provided food puzzles for their cats or hid food around the home to stimulate foraging behavior.10…
TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Hampus Eckerman, Arnie Fenner, Kathy Sullivan, Scott Edelman, 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 Dan’l.]
(1) IMAGINE THERE’S NO MUSIC. “59 Years Later, The Oldest Sci-Fi Show Ever Is Fixing A Very Big Beatles Problem” — Inverse tries to guess how Russell T. Davis will do it in a Fab Four-themed Doctor Who episode — because he can’t afford the rights to the real thing.
…In the upcoming relaunched Doctor Who Season 1 (2024), the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) will travel to the 1960s in the forthcoming episode “The Devil’s Chord,” and, at some point, cross paths with the Beatles….
… As Russell T. Davies says in the new Empire interview: “‘How would you do a Beatles episode without Beatles music?” Previous movies about the Beatles have faced similar problems. The 1994 biopic Backbeat — which chronicles the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg — features no actual Beatles music. Meanwhile, the 1979 movie Birth of the Beatles (helmed by Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand!) used cover versions of most Beatles songs to avoid copyright issues of the time.
But, for Davies and Doctor Who, the copyright law problem became “the entire plot.” As Davies says, “I knew instantly you can never play Beatles songs on screen because the copyright is too expensive… That’s where the idea came from — copyright law!”
Could this mean the Doctor and Ruby will inspire alternate Beatles songs? Could the Beatles be getting by with a little help from their time-traveler friends? We don’t know the exact plot of “The Devil’s Chord,” but there’s a good bet that the Doctor will almost certainly inspire a classic Beatles song. We’ll just have to read between the lines to figure out which one.
(2) CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FINALISTS. The Carol Shields Prize shortlist has been revealed. The award recognizes “creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States”.
One of the finalists is a work of genre interest.
In this eco-thriller, a guerilla gardening collective named ‘Birnam Wood’ (after Macbeth) meets an American billionaire. In his review for WHYY’s Fresh Air, John Powers writes, “this New Zealand-set book is a witty literary thriller about the collision between eco-idealism and staggering wealth.”
The other shortlisted books are:
The winner gets $150,000 and a residency with Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland, Canada. Each of the four runner-ups will get $12,500. The prize-winner will be announced May 13.
(3) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST. Based on the descriptions of the works at the website, there are no books of genre interest among the 6 that made the International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist today.
(4) 2023’S MOST-CHALLENGED BOOKS. From the American Library Association: “ALA Releases Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023”. Publishers Weekly has the list. Based on the descriptions, none are sff works.
The Most Challenged Books of 2023
(5) IN-BODY EXPERIENCES. Logan Dreher discusses “Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, and the Power of Pleasure” at Reactor.
…I’ve been especially interested in revisiting three of her strangest works—her vampire novel Fledging; “Bloodchild,”a short story about a colony of humans living alongside an insectoid race of aliens; and the Xenogenesis trilogy, which explores human’s post-apocalypse relationship with a bioengineering race of extraterrestrials called the Oankali. Across these stories, I see a recurring fascination with the reality of our bodies, our needs and frailties, and the way our bodily desires inextricably link us to each other.
In each of these stories, humans are less powerful than their nonhuman counterparts, whether that’s the tentacled, pheromone-exuding Oankali in Xenogenesis or the three-meter long, centipede-like Tlic in “Bloodchild.” But for all of their physical superiority, the nonhuman characters are desperately reliant on their relationships with humans. In Xenogenesis, the Oankali can exude chemicals that drug humans with a thought and heal with a touch. They manipulate their own genetic makeup and easily heal their own bullet wounds. Yet they depend on their human relationships in order to live. Oankali adolescents go into metamorphosis where they are comatose—profoundly helpless—and rely on their human partners to care for them. In Imago, the final book in the trilogy, a young Oankali begins to physically dissolve, unable to survive because it does not have human companions to ground it in a stable form. As the narrator notes, “We called our need for contact with others and our need for mates hunger. One who could hunger could starve.”….
(6) AFROANIMATION AWARDS NEWS. “AfroAnimation Summit Honors Kemp Powers, Camille Eden, Bruce Smith & Jermaine Turner” – Animation Magazine introduces these icons and other awards finalists.
AfroAnimation, the largest annual event featuring diverse and BIPOC animators and creators, announced today the honorees for the first AfroAnimation Summit Icon Awards…
…Icon Award honoree Kemp Powers, director of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, will headline the summit’s kick-off panel April 10, ‘Developing Original Stories and the Art of Diverse Storytelling.’ Pioneer Award honoree Camille Eden, Vice President of Recruitment, Talent Development & Outreach at Nickelodeon, will speak on the April 11 panel, ‘Unveiling the Untold Narratives of Women in Entertainment: Triumphs, Challenges, & Journeys.’
In addition, Bruce Smith, creator and executive producer of Disney+’s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, and Jermaine Turner, Director of Adult Genre Animation for Netflix, will be honored as industry pioneers at the AfroAnimation Icon Awards….
FRWD Awards Semifinalists. (Celebrates the art of diverse storytelling in the film, new media, and streaming platform industries.)
(7) M. JOHN HARRISON MEMOIR. Saga Press will publish author M. John Harrison’s anti-memoir Wish I Was Here on September 3, 2024.
What is an “anti-memoir”? M. John Harrison has produced one of the greatest bodies of fiction of any living British author, encompassing space opera, speculative fiction, fantasy, and magical and literary realism. Yet in WISH I WAS HERE, he asks, ‘Is there even an M. John Harrison and if so, where do we find him?’ This is the question the author asks in this memoir-as-mystery, turning for clues to forty years of notebooking: ‘A note or it never happened. A note or you never looked.’
Are these notebooks records of failed presence? How do they shine a light on a childhood in the industrial Midlands, a portrait of a young artist in counterculture London, on an adulthood of restless escape into hill and moorland landscapes? And do they tell us anything about the writing of books, each one so different from the last that it might have been written by another version of the author?
With aphoristic daring and laconic wit, this anti-memoir will fascinate and delight. It confirms M. John Harrison still further in his status as the most original British writer of his generation.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 9, 1937 — Marty Krofft. (Died 2023.)
H.R.Pufnstuf.
Who’s your friend when things get rough?
H.R. Pufnstuf.
Can’t do a little, ‘cause he can’t do enough
Who here didn’t grow up watching some of the shows created by the Krofft brothers? Well, this is the day that Marty Krofft was born, so I get to talk about their work. So let’s get started.
Their very first work was designing the puppets and sets for Banana Splits, a rock band composed of four animal characters for Hanna-Barbera. To get a look at them, here’s the open and closing theme from the show.
After working for Hanna-Barbera, they went independent with the beloved H. R. Pufnstuf, their first live-action, life sized puppet series. It ran a lot shorter than I thought lasting only from September to December of ‘69. Like everything of theirs, it ended up in heavy, endless syndication.
Next was The Bugaloos. This was a musical group, very much in keeping with the tone with Banana Splits. It was four British teenagers wearing insect outfits, constantly beset by the evil machinations of the Benita Bizarre. Here’s the opening song, “Gna Gna Gna Gna Gna” courtesy of Krofft Pictures.
Lidsville, their next show lasted but seventeen episodes, and I’ve no idea if the short longevity of their series, all of them, was planned or due to poor ratings. This show had two types of characters: conventional actors in makeup taped alongside performers in full mascot costumes. It was mostly stop motion in its filming.
Opening credits are here. The opening was produced at Six Flags Over Texas. The show was itself shot at Paramount Pictures film studio in Los Angeles.
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters lasted two seasons though it was aired over three years, the second delayed because a fire at the beginning of season two which destroyed everything. It’s about two brothers who discover a friendly young sea monster named Sigmund who refuses to frighten people. Poor Sigmund. This time you get a full episode as that is all Krofft Pictures had up, “Frankenstein Drops In”.
There’s two more series I want to note.
The first is Land of the Lost which was created though uncredited in the series by David Gerrold. So anyone know why that was? It was produced by Sid and Marty Krofft who co-developed the series with Allan Foshko. Lots of genre tropes here. A family lost in a land with dinosaurs and reptile men? It was popular enough that it lasted three seasons. And here’s the opening and closing credits for season three.
The very last pick by me is Electra Woman and Dyna Girl which lasted but sixteen episodes of twelve minutes. Despite the ElectraEnemies, their foes here being way over the top, this is SF though admittedly on the pulp end of things.
So they stayed active including doing rebooted versions of new versions of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.
Marty Krofft passed on from kidney failure on November 25, 2023, at the age of eighty six.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
(10) VASTER THAN EMPIRES, AND MORE EXPENSIVE. Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis might be sff – which might matter more if the film can make it into theaters. Variety says it will premiere at Cannes. However, The Hollywood Reporter learned studios are not lining up to accept the film’s high-dollar marketing risk: “’Megalopolis’: Francis Ford Coppola’s Challenges in Distribution”.
…The project, which Coppola first began writing in 1983, cost a reported $120 million to make — funded in part by the sale of a significant portion of his wine empire (the 2021 deal was reportedly worth over $500 million). Clocking in at two hours and 15 minutes, the film follows the rebuilding of a metropolis after its accidental destruction, with two competing visions — one from an idealist architect (Adam Driver), the other from its pragmatist mayor (Giancarlo Esposito) — clashing in the process. References to ancient Rome — including Caesar haircuts on the men — abound…
… One source tells THR that Coppola assumed he would make a deal very quickly, and that a studio would happily commit to a massive P&A (prints and advertising, including all marketing) spend in the vicinity of $40 million domestically, and $80 million to $100 million globally.
That kind of big-stakes rollout would make Megalopolis a better fit for a studio-backed specialty label like the Disney-owned Searchlight or the Universal-owned Focus. But Universal and Focus have already tapped out of the bidding, sources tell THR….
(11) THANKS FOR YOUR GIZZARD. James Davis Nicoll comments on “Five Science Fiction Stories About Involuntary Organ Donation” at Reactor.
… Why should some teenager enjoy perfect skin, a pain-free back, and functional joints when persons of my age could make much better use of these body parts? Yet such are the politically correct times in which we live that simply proposing, never mind implementing, mandatory organ1 donations is considered somehow controversial.
Science fiction can see past the squeamishness of short-term social fashions to the glorious world we might have if we were willing to apply technology in a socially responsible—which is to say, one that benefits the people in charge—manner. Consider these five classic tales….
One of the selections is –
The Reefs of Space by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson (1964)
…Reefs features an intriguing deep space ecology in no way inhibited by plausible science. The use of political prisoners as involuntary organ donors is much more plausible….
(12) SPACE COWBOYS READINGS. Space Cowboy Books will host an online Flash Science Fiction Night on April 23 with Howard V. Hendrix, Ai Jiang, and Hailey Piper. These short science fiction readings (1000 words or less) are great way to learn about new authors from around the world. Starts at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Lasts around half an hour. Register for free at Eventbrite.
(13) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. “They Came From Outer Space. Now, They’re Going Into Hiding.” So says the New York Times.
If you’re looking for meteorites, here’s a tip: Go south. All the way south. And do it soon.
In some parts of Antarctica, there’s a good chance that what looks like a regular old rock could actually be a chunk of an asteroid, the moon, or even Mars. Roughly 60 percent of all known meteorites have been collected there.
But scientific sleuthing for such extraterrestrial material, which can shed light on how the solar system formed billions of years ago, will probably get more difficult in Antarctica in the coming decades. That’s because, as temperatures rise, thousands of meteorites will sink into the continent’s ice and disappear from sight every year, according to a new study published on Monday.
Antarctica’s meteorite largess isn’t because more extraterrestrial stuff is falling there, Cari Corrigan, a geologist at the Smithsonian Institution and a curator of the National Museum of Natural History’s meteorite collection, said.
Rather, meteorites simply tend to be more visible on the Antarctic ice sheet than they would be, say, in your backyard. “Your eye can pick out a dark rock on a white surface super easily,” said Dr. Corrigan, who was not involved in the new research….
(14) ON THE JOB. Here’s the trailer for “Monsters at Work: Season 2” with Ben Feldman, Billy Crystal, and John Goodman. The season premiered April 5 on Disney Channel, and on May 5 comes to Disney+.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] For the small Venn overlap who know both references: “Leslie Nielsen in Star Wars”.
[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Kathy Sullivan, Dann, Daniel Dern, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
(1) HE LIED. THANK GOODNESS! Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat is writing an episode due to air in Ncuti Gatwa’s first season as the Fifteenth Doctor: “Steven Moffat returns to write episode for new season of Doctor Who”.
….Speaking on his return to the Whoniverse, Steven Moffat says:
“Yes, okay, fair enough – apologies to everyone I’ve very slightly misled – I am in fact writing an episode of the series of Doctor Who. Exactly like I said I never would. What can I tell you? There was begging, there was pleading but finally Russell agreed to let me have another go – so long as I got out of his garden. Working with old friends and a brand new Doctor I couldn’t be happier. Sorry I was a bit reticent on the subject for so long. It was all part of an elaborate plan that would have delighted millions but at the last minute I forgot what it was.”
(2) OCTAVIA E. BUTLER SCIENCE FICTION FESTIVAL. The Pasadena middle school once attended by — and in 2022 renamed for — the author Octavia E. Butler will hold its third Science Fiction Festival on Friday reports LAist in“Student Sci-Fi”. (The event schedule is here: “Octavia E. Butler Library Science Fiction Festival 2024”.)
…The multi-award winning and best selling author graduated from what was then Washington Junior High in 1962 and wrote some of her earliest stories while a student.
School librarian Natalie Daily organized the Octavia E. Butler Magnet’s first science fiction writing contest in 2020, the same year the school’s library was renamed in her honor. The school itself was renamed two years later.
“I want [students] to realize that their ideas matter,” Daily said. “I think that Butler is a testament to that, you know, she was writing stuff and thinking about really, really deep ideas when she was a student here.”…
(3) KINGFISHER AND COMPANY. Sarah Gailey interviews the Tor team behind the publication and promotion of T. Kingfisher’s new book. “The Mess That the Editor Fixes: What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher” at Stone Soup.
T. Kingfisher has been one of my favorite horror authors since I read The Twisted Ones, one of the only novels that has ever made me scream out loud with genuine terror. In 2022, Kingfisher released the Locus Award-winning novella What Moves the Dead, an early entry into the now-thriving world of Fungal Gothic Literature. It’s a tale of declining wealth and reanimation (sort of), and it includes some fascinating worldbuilding conversations about social constructions of gender. I got to connect with Kingfisher and the production team at Tor to discuss the upcoming sequel to What Moves the Dead. What follows is a deep dive into the process behind What Feasts at Night….
Gailey: Okay, T. Kingfisher, tell us what you do.
T. Kingfisher, Author, What Feasts at Night: I write the mess that the editor fixes. I always say that my dream is to sit in a room and write and have people shove food and checks under the door, and Tor is like “Here is a sandwich and a check and we wrote a list of all the advertisements the book has appeared in on the napkin.” It’s basically the perfect relationship, so far as I’m concerned. Lindsey Hall, my editor, is an absolute champ!…
(4) XENOMORPHS ON THE LOOSE AGAIN. Variety interviews the director of the next Aliens movie in “’Alien: Romulus’ Trailer: Fede Alvarez Teases Facehuggers, Frights”.
…“Alien: Romulus” marks the seventh film in the “Alien” franchise, and the overall ninth involving acid-blooded xenomorphs, if you include the “Aliens vs. Predator” crossover films. Writer-director Álvarez is about to complicate its already convoluted timeline even further with “Romulus,” which premieres August 16. But the more important question is, will it be better than some of the more lackluster chapters in this ongoing saga — which there are probably more of than great ones?…
How tough was it to find a balance between the little green computer monitors of “Alien” and the futuristic technology of the more recent films?
I know a lot of people felt like it makes no sense. But I think we make the mistake when we watch the Nostromo and assume that’s how the entire universe looks like. If I decide to make a movie on Earth today, and I go to the Mojave Desert and I take an old truck because a guy drives a Chevy, if you’re an alien, you’re going to go, “That’s what the world looks like.” But it doesn’t mean there’s not a guy in a Tesla in the city, which would be the “Prometheus” ship. The first movie is truck drivers in a beat-up truck. “Prometheus” is the ship of the richest man in the world….
(5) PRE-WORLDCON TOUR OF SCOTLAND OFFERED. Val and Ron Ontell are fans who have been running tours in connection with Worldcon since 1987. Past tours have included Britain, Australia, Ireland, Japan, and Scandinavia/St. Petersburg. They are currently organizing one for two weeks in Scotland beginning in Edinburgh and ending in Glasgow the day before the con begins.
Some of the highlights: Loch Ness, Inverness and the Highlands, the Isles of Arran and Skye, Stirling Castle, a ride on the Jacobite Steam Train (aka the Hogwarts Express), going into a Concorde SST at the National Museum of Flight, having a traditional Scottish dinner (including haggis), and attending the Edinburgh Tattoo. Click for the itinerary.
For complete information, visit their website at <ontell.org/Scotland> or contact them at <[email protected]>.
(6) FREE FLYER. Flaco, the escaped Central Park Zoo owl, died on February 23. The owl’s story is the premise for a book competition offering a $20,000 prize from Brazen House Inc. Contact [email protected] for full details.
The story of Flaco, the owl from Central Park Zoo, has touched people all over the world as a tale of inspiration and admonition for humans. The Eurasian eagle-owl escaped from his cage after thirteen years in captivity and moved about fearlessly in the concrete jungle of New York skyscrapers, pursuing freedom and a little perch he could call home. He found neither in that rich patch of America that stands for freedom and opportunity. Even though he had a legion of human supporters rooting for him, the authorities shadowed him, trying to get him back into his cage. As for finding a home, every inch of the land had been claimed by humans. After a year of striving and struggling, Flaco met with a tragic death when he crashed into a building on the Upper West Side.
If Flaco could speak to us from the other side of the veil, what would he say about his captive life and the brief freedom he enjoyed? What resentments would he have about the humans who for years kept him in a cage as an object of mere curiosity? What were his most joyful moments in freedom? What did he pine for most as he ranged over the concrete jungle of New York City?
Brazen House is soliciting proposals for an imaginative novel that will tell his story through his eyes and reflect on how humans regard other species. The book is intended for young adults, but the story and the writing should resonate with older readers as well. And it should make a distinguished contribution to the literature for young readers in enhancing their appreciation of other species with whom we share this Earth…
The submission should be exclusive to Brazen House. The winning proposal will be announced on September 1, 2024….
Somtow Sucharitkul sent the news item to File 770 with a disclosure, “I’m doing a new trilogy with his publishing house and I’m on his committee to pick the winning book for the 20,000 prize.”
(7) E PLURIBUS YRTH. And since we’ve mentioned Somtow’s new trilogy from Brazen House…
Yrth Trilogy by S.P. Somtow
An epic series by World Fantasy Award winning author S.P. Somtow
A timeless story reinvented for the 21st Century: with the sweep of Lord of the Rings and the spectacle of Dune
An eon from now, humans are mostly a memory, wiped out by war and their own hubris, living on the fringes. Yrth is a desolate wasteland, but life has started to return. New races have begun to live in the wasteland, finding their own harmony with their environment. Some have evolved from what were once thought of as animals. Others were created to make real the myths and imaginings of the departed humans. These races have created pockets of utopia.
But will they repeat the mistakes of past, and return Yrth to the realm of shadow? Can many species become a united world?
(8) LIGHTS…CAMERA…WATCH MEDIA! “Sci-Fi Series ‘Murderbot’ Officially Begins Filming at Apple TV+” reports Midgard Times.
The upcoming Apple TV+ sci-fi series, “Murderbot” has officially begun filming this Monday in Toronto, Canada. Starring Alexander Skarsgård in the leading role, the series is based on the award-winning books by Martha Wells.
“Murderbot” is described as an action-packed sci-fi series based on Wells’ award-winning novels about a self-hacking security android who is appalled by human emotion but lured to its weak “clients.” Murderbot must suppress its free will and perform a perilous mission when all it truly wants is to be left alone to watch future soap operas and find out its place in space….
…The 10-episode Murderbot is expected to take more than three months to complete the production. As per the current schedule, the sci-fi series will officially wrap filming on June 27, 2024. The series comes from Chris and Paul Weitz, who are writing, directing, and producing it, while also acting as showrunners….
(9) THY THREE SUNS. Critic Inkoo Kang tells readers of The New Yorker, “’3 Body Problem’ Is a Rare Species of Sci-Fi Epic”.
…“3 Body Problem” belongs to an all too rare breed: mainstream entertainment that leads its viewers down bracingly original speculative corridors. The scenario the show ultimately posits bears little resemblance to traditional sci-fi fare; the aliens are coming, but not for another four hundred years, putting humanity on notice for an encounter—and possibly a war—that’s many lifetimes away. This time span is as much a curse as a blessing. Forget the science for a second; what kind of political will—totalitarian or otherwise—is required to keep centuries of preparation on track? How do we get the über-rich to contribute to a new space race in a way that also flatters their egos? And what resources does it take to accelerate scientific discovery to a breakneck pace?…
(10) M. EMMETT WALSH (1935-2024). Character actor M. Emmet Walsh died March 19 at the age of 88 reports Variety.
…In Ridley Scott’s 1982 “Blade Runner,” Walsh was Harrison Ford’s LAPD boss, while he played the vicious private detective Loren Visser in the Coen brothers’ directing debut “Blood Simple.” Wearing a sickly yellow suit, Pauline Kael said he was the film’s “only colorful performer. He lays on the loathsomeness, but he gives it a little twirl — a sportiness.”
His other roles included the corrupt sheriff in the 1986 horror film “Critters” and a small role as a security guard in “Knives Out.”…
He also did voice work in Iron Giant.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 20, 1932 — Jack Cady. (Died 2004.) Jack Cady’s Wikipedia page says he’s known “mostly as an award-winning writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He won the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award.” I’m betting that he’s much more than just his ‘Wards, don’t you think?
So let’s see… Ghost stories are a good place to begin I think. McDowell’s Ghost gives a fresh spin on the trope of seeing a War Between The States ghost, and The Night We Buried Road Dog is another ghost story set in early Sixties Montana.
Now The Well is not quite a ghost story as such but it’s a haunted house story of sorts heavy on the horror, really heavy on the horror.
Not a ghost story as such but equally impressive is Inagehi which is the story of a young Cherokee woman who inherits a mountain and the mystery of her father’s death.
Now Dark Dreaming with Carol Orlockreminds me just a bit of He Who Shapes in its use of the darker side of dreams. Well much darker than Zelazny ever did. Don’t read later at night.
Cady’s The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish is a tale of a man who make anything disappear against an organisation that might or might exist wanting to rule the world.
He wrote more novels than that but those are the ones I’m familiar with.
He also wrote quite a bit of short fiction, some sixty pieces I figure. Phantoms: Collected Writings, Volume 1 and Fanthoms: Collected Writings, Volume 2, both done a decade ago, collect about forty-five pieces of short fiction. Both are available at the usual suspects.
Those ‘Wards? He won a Nebula and Stoker for a novella, “The Night We Buried Road Dog”; the World Fantasy Award was for a short collection, The Sons of Noah & Other Stories; and the final one was the International Horror Guild Award a warded for Outstanding achievements in the field of Horror and Dark Fantasy.
(12) COMICS SECTION.
(13) CONTINUAL HEALING. “’I’m still trying to recover’: Annie Potts on Ghostbusters, Toy Story – and the car crash that almost killed her” in the Guardian.
…Ask her why she thinks Ghostbusters is so enduring, and she replies: “Well, it’s made a lot of money.” But the reason for that is the affection audiences have for it. “It was uniquely hilarious and scary – it’s scalarious – and that turned out to be a very good combination.” For those of us who loved it as children, she thinks we’re trying to “get back to that moment where you’ve been both tickled and scared. And so here we are, 40 years later.” We’re speaking over Zoom; Potts is in New York for the premiere, and she’s warm, funny and has the straightforward air of someone who has seen it all….
…As well as Janine returning, the original team played by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson are also back; Harold Ramis, who played Egon Spengler, died in 2014. Spengler’s estranged daughter and her children are part of the new crew (having been introduced in 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife). “So they have the young ghostbuster, and the mom ghostbuster, and then they have me, the old lady ghostbuster,” says Potts, delightedly….
…Just as her career was getting started, it was almost derailed by a car crash when she was 21. “Drunk drivers, three carloads of teenagers in the middle of the day were drag-racing down the wrong side of a two-lane highway and ran head on into the car I was in.” Virtually every bone in her body below the waist was broken, she says. “It took a very long time to recover. I’m still trying to recover.” It must have shattered her sense of security and invincibility, which many of us take for granted at that age. “Yes, when you almost lose your life, it becomes pretty dear. I don’t know if you can know how dear it is until you are faced with losing it.”…
(14) BUCKET TWIST. “The Surprise Ending of ‘Dune,’ the Popcorn Bucket” – the New York Times consults a nutritionist about the impact of the souvenir container.
In the “Dune” movies, a gigantic sandworm can rise from the desert and devour soldiers and military vehicles in its gaping maw. In real life, humans watching movies devour popcorn. These two ideas have been combined to spawn the “Dune” popcorn bucket, a sandworm-shaped tub that is having a cultural moment. The bucket arrives on the heels of other recent popcorn collectibles, like the 16-inch Barbie Corvette snack holder. But is there more to these vessels than meets the eye?
Lindsay Moyer thinks about popcorn. She is the senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group focused on food systems and healthy eating. She sat down with The New York Times to discuss what she sees when she considers “Dune: The Popcorn Bucket.” This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
…My colleague and I called some AMC locations this morning, and they all told us that the “Dune” bucket is like getting a large popcorn there, but that it varies by location. We talked to their employees and asked them how many calories are listed on the menu, and a large has 980 calories. My understanding is that would be before you added any buttery topping yourself, if you choose to add it…
(15) QUITE A COLLECTIBLE. “Manhattan Project Report Signed by J. Robert Oppenheimer Sells at Auction” at Smithsonian Magazine.
A report describing the creation of the atomic bomb signed by J. Robert Oppenheimer sold for $53,594 at auction last week.
The RR Auction sale took place just a few days after Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer cleaned up at the Oscars, where it won in seven categories (including Best Picture and Best Director)….
The 200-page document—titled “Atomic Bombs: A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945”—was signed by Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who directed the Manhattan Project, and 23 other contributors, including Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, James Chadwick and Harold Urey. It provides a detailed description of the “technical and administrative history” of the atomic bomb’s development….
… Nellie V. Sanderson, the secretary for General Leslie Groves (who oversaw the Manhattan Project), collected the signatures, intercepting the men as they came to meet with Groves and asking them to sign the report.
Along with the report, the anonymous buyer also got several items that belonged to Sanderson, including letters, documents and a Manhattan Project shoulder patch. One of Groves’ business cards was also included in the lot….
(16) A.I. REALLY MEANS ARTIFICIAL IMPRESSIONISM. Adam Gopnik seeks an answer to the question “What Can A.I. Art Teach Us About the Real Thing?” in The New Yorker.
…The range and ease of pictorial invention offered by A.I. image generation is startling; the question, though, is whether its arrival is merely recreational or actually revolutionary. Is it like the invention of the electric light bulb or like the coming of the lava lamp? Herewith, some thoughts.
The intersection of new machines with new kinds of images has a long history. I once owned a French drawing device—a kind of camera lucida, with reflecting mirrors and refracting prisms—that called itself a Machine to Draw the World. It took for granted that the task of image-making was to incise and adjust a drawing to a pattern of light—in itself, a fiendishly difficult action that preoccupied artists for centuries. (Whether actual machines like it played a significant role in the art of Vermeer or Rembrandt is an unsettled question.)
But systems like dall-e 2 don’t operate on light and shadow; they operate on art history—on the almost bottomless reservoir of images on which they’re trained. And the power of images lies less in their arguments than in their ambiguities. That’s why the images that dall-e 2 makes are far more interesting than the texts that A.I. chatbots make. To be persuasive, a text demands a point; in contrast, looking at pictures, we can be fascinated by atmospheres and uncertainties. Even images made to persuade—such as propaganda posters or altarpieces—are only communicative through the intercession of our outside knowledge of the narratives that they illuminate. When you don’t know the story, even tutelary religious pictures become enigmatic.
…This is not a machine to draw the world. Instead, it proposes a recombinant approach to popular imagery as a means of making art. (The dialogue of popular imagery and modern art was, as it happens, the topic of that abandoned Ph.D. thesis.) In effect, it exploits, and has installed in it as a premise, an idea specific to a particular heritage of image-making, the heritage of Symbolism, and then of the Surrealism that Symbolism engendered. Appropriately enough, the system takes its punning name from a Surrealist painter, since dall-e 2 is ideally trimmed to make soft watches and derby hats on dogs and trains racing out of fireplaces….
(17) PUTTING HIS FOOT DOWN FOR SAFETY. “Godzilla was back on the streets of Tokyo — this time for a good cause” – NPR’s “Morning Edition” has the story.
…Good morning, I’m Steve Inskeep. Godzilla, the monster of Japanese movie fame, was back on the streets of Tokyo. This time, the kaiju visited on a public service mission to encourage people to observe traffic safety laws. Godzilla was even made police chief for a day. Think of the size of his hat. The appearance was part of a campaign using Japanese movie characters to promote traffic safety. I wonder what job they gave Pikachu….
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, JeffWarner, Robin Anne Reid, Kathy Sullivan, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]
(1) HUGO, GIRL! REVERSES PERMANENT RECUSAL DECISION. The Hugo, Girl! the Podcast team tells why they have changed their minds about permanently recusing themselves from the Best Fancast category in “Statement on the 2023 Hugo Awards”. The complete explanation is at the link.
Following the Chengdu Hugo Awards, we believed in good faith that we were the legitimate winners of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fancast. We subsequently announced Hugo, Girl’s permanent recusal from the Best Fancast category. We were honored and delighted by the win, and we wanted to make room for others to experience the same.
However, with each recent revelation about the administration of the Hugo Awards, we have become increasingly uncomfortable thinking of ourselves as legitimate winners. Viewing the nomination and voting data that others have meticulously combed through, analyzed, and presented in a thorough and digestible way, it initially seemed that Fancast was one of the less obviously suspicious categories. It did not appear that any of our Fancast co-finalists or entries on the long list had been mysteriously disqualified, as was the case in several other categories. That being said, Fancast is not free from strange numbers.
We became even more dubious once we learned that the Hugo Administrators had investigated and disqualified potential finalists* on the basis of assumed politics, queer and trans identity, and an imaginary trip to Tibet. We ourselves likely should have been disqualified under the same criteria. It does not escape our notice that as four white people, we may have been scrutinized less closely….
… For the foregoing reasons, we have decided to withdraw our recusal from Hugo eligibility, effective in 2025. We hope to have a future opportunity to participate in a fair, transparent Hugo Awards process, if voters decide to honor us again with a place on the ballot.
(2) FALSE GRIT. Heard too much about Dune lately? Then your brain will probably explode in the middle of reading “Charles Bukowski’s Dune” at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
It had been a long day. The hot-shit new supervisor, who looked about sixteen and probably hadn’t even started shaving yet, had written me up twice. I’d crumpled both slips in front of him, thrown them in the trash.
On the way home, the 48-Arrakeen worm died at the base of the hill, and we all had to hop off into the sand. The thing was already starting to stink as I began the trudge uphill, bone-tired and thirsty….
(3) NO ARMY IS SO POWERFUL AS AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME. Variety reports, “SAG-AFTRA Chief: Chance of Strike Against Game Producers is ’50-50’”.
Issues around the use of AI in the production process is the big sticking point in SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations with the largest video game companies, SAG-AFTRA chief Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said Saturday during a wide-ranging Q&A at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
Crabtree-Ireland, who is national executive director and chief negotiator of the performers union, said he put the chances of union members striking against key game companies is “50-50, or more likely than that we will go on strike in the next four to six weeks because of our inability to get past these issues,” Crabtree-Ireland told Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company, during a conversation focused on AI….
… Some pushed the union to demand an outright ban on the use of AI in union-covered productions. Crabtree-Ireland said he know that was a nonstarter.
“We would not have succeeded, any more than any union ever in history has been able to stop technology,” he said. “Unions that try that approach, they fail and they give up the chance to influence how those technologies are implemented. “The fact of matter is, we’re going to have AI.”
Crabtree-Ireland emphasized repeatedly that the union’s position on AI revolves around “consent and compensation” for its members when AI engines use their work. “We want to make sure the implementation is human-centered and focused on augmentation [of production], not replacement of people,” he said….
(4) SFF WINS CANADIAN COMPETITION. The Québecois author Catherine Leroux’s The Future, in a translation by Susan Ouriou, has won the 2024 Canada Reads national competition. (Canada Reads is a television show. ) “’Canada Reads’ 2024 Winner: Catherine Leroux’s ‘The Future’” at Publishing Perspectives.
…The Future by Catherine Leroux, published by Biblioasis in Windsor, was named the winner of the weeklong series of elimination programs from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s CBCbooks. The book is translated from French by Susan Ouriou and is a dystopian history of Detroit, a book the program refers to as, “a plea for persistence in the face of our uncertain future.”
(5) REID Q&A. Sff gets two callouts in this Guardian interview: “Taylor Jenkins Reid: ‘Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy are unbeatable’”. Taylor Jenkins Reid will be international author of the day at the London Book Fair on March 12.
The writer who changed my mind
I thought I didn’t like sci-fi until I discovered Octavia Butler. Kindred defies genre, but it taught me that I’ll go anywhere in a story if I trust the writer….My comfort read
Whenever I want to read a book I know will be good, I go to Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Her genres are ever changing, her ability to take on a wild story each time is incredible. You never know what she’s going to do, but you know it will be a page-turner. I cannot wait for her next book, The Seventh Veil of Salome. Fifties Hollywood, two starlets, the role of a lifetime … what more could you want?
(6) FLATIRON STILL AWAITS ITS FUTURE. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] In a news item today on the BBC about America’s office market, there’s a passing reference to the former Tor offices:
The famous triangular Flatiron building nearby has been vacant since 2019. Last autumn, the owners said it would be turned into condos.
Way back in January 2009, File 770 reported that the owners originally had different plans:
However, the offices of Tor Books are housed in New York’s Flatiron Building, which an Italian investor has announced plans to convert into a luxury hotel. Reports say hotels take so long to construct that it might be a decade before the Flatiron Building comes online in its new capacity.
The departure of Tor and the wider Macmillan publishing organization was reported in the June 5th, 2019 Pixel Scroll.
(7) TEENAGE BROADBAND. “New Emotions Move in for ‘Inside Out 2’” – and Animation Magazine makes the introductions:
Disney and Pixar today unveiled the official trailer plus new images and poster for Inside Out 2, which welcomes new Emotions to now-teenager Riley’s mind. Joining Joy (voice of Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale) and Disgust (Liza Lapira) is a group of Emotions perfectly suited for the teenage years:
Maya Hawke voices Anxiety, the previously announced new arrival bound to shake up everything in headquarters and beyond. A bundle of frazzled energy, Anxiety enthusiastically ensures Riley’s prepared for every possible negative outcome.
Envy, voice of Ayo Edebiri, may be small but she sure knows what she wants. She’s perpetually jealous of everything everyone else has, and she’s not afraid to pine over it.
Ennui, who’s voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos, couldn’t care less. Bored and lethargic with a well-practiced eye-roll, Ennui adds the perfect amount of teenage apathy to Riley’s personality, when she feels like it.
Embarrassment, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser, likes to lay low, which isn’t easy for this burly guy with a bright blush-pink complexion….
(8) BILL WAHL TRIBUTE. Brian Keene is overwhelmed by the loss of another friend – Bill Wahl died March 6 — as he told readers of “Letters From the Labyrinth 371”.
…Bill, like me, was always blunt and spoke his mind. And he did indeed give Mary and I a TON of pointers and help in the setting up of Vortex Books & Comics. It is Saturday as I write this, in the bookstore, and it is not lost on me that he had planned on coming in here today, right about the time I’m typing this (2:31pm).
I guess maybe I wrote a eulogy after all. Maybe half-assed, but that’s still pretty good considering that I’m typing it amidst a car crash of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion from which I may not be able to beat this time.
After 56 years on this planet, I finally know what it means to be tired…
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 10, 1918 — Theodore Rose Cogswell. (Died 1987.) Let’s consider Theodore Rose Cogswell. He was a member of the Minneapolis Fantasy Society and later noted that fellow members Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson said that he should he should be a writer.
He was in his thirties before his first work, “The Spectre General” novella was published in the June 1952 issue of Astounding. SWFA considers it one of our best novellas.
He would co-write with Charles A. Spano, Jr., Spock, Messiah. Prior to this novel, only one Star Trek tie-in novel intended for adult readers instead of YA readers had been published, Spock Must Die!, written by James Blish. Blish was supposed to do a Mudd novel but his death obviously prevented that. A real pity that. Though Mudd’s Angels would be written by J.A. Lawrence, Blish’s wife.
Back to Cogswell.
He wrote a fair amount of short fiction, some forty works, collected in The Wall Around the World, the title novelette here was nominated for a Retro Hugo, and The Third Eye.
Perhaps, his most interesting work was as editor of Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies where such individuals as Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Algis Budrys, Arthur C. Clarke, Avram Davidson, Gordon Dickson, Fritz Leiber engaged in what is best described as a very long running written bull session. A copious amount of these writings was published as PITFCS: Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies. Though NESFA distributed it, it was published by Advent Publishing. It was nominated for a Hugo at ConAdian for Best Related Non-Fiction Book.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
(11) NEW MARVEL UNLIMITED PROGRAM LETS YOU ACCESS INFINITY COMICS FOR FREE. Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrolling became available starting March 7.
It’s time to Start Scrolling! Today, comic fans will have even more access to their favorite stories spanning the Marvel Universe with the all-new Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrolling digital program. The new program, exclusively from Marvel Unlimited, allows readers to access select Infinity Comics for free.
Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrollingwill provide instant access to select free comics, with no login required. Readers can experience over 100 issues of bingeable Marvel stories starring fan-favorites including the X-Men, Spider-Man, Jeff the Land Shark, and many more, by visiting Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrolling. With an extensive library of over 30,000 comics on Marvel Unlimited, fans can expect other free Infinity Comics to be rotated in throughout the year.
Marvel’s Infinity Comics are a vertical format designed for phones and tablets exclusive to Marvel Unlimited. Since launching in September 2021, Marvel Unlimited has published over 1,000 Infinity Comics to date from over 300 top Marvel creators.
(12) FOLLOW THE MONEY. Or the spice. The economic engine that drives Dune’s universe isn’t explained in the movie, but GameRant has volunteered for the job: “Dune: CHOAM, Explained”.
…The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles is a monopolistic conglomerate that controls all commerce throughout the Dune universe. All material goods flow through CHOAM. All substantial wealth comes through interests in CHOAM. The CHOAM network runs through every other seat of power. CHOAM is under the Corrino Empire, the highest station in the universe, which oversees CHOAM’s board of directors. CHOAM was a publicly traded company. Shareholder profits could make any participant fabulously wealthy. Only the noble patriarchs of the Great Houses could become shareholders in CHOAM. The Houses fought for directorship positions, seeking to earn dividends and skim profit from their impossibly vast businesses. The Emperor reserved the right to revoke or hand out director positions, giving him the final say in any profit-seeking venture….
(13) CALLING SOLOMON! Space tells “Why astronomers are worried about 2 major telescopes right now”.
There’s a bit of tension right now in the U.S. astronomy community and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it has to do with telescopes — extremely large telescopes, in fact. Here’s what’s going on.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), a source of public funding that two powerful next-gen observatories have been banking on for financial support, is facing pressure to go forward with only one telescope. This is because last month, the National Science Board — which is basically an advisory committee for the NSF — recommended that it cap its giant telescope budget at $1.6 billion. This is a lot of money, but it’s just not enough for both. The board even says the NSF will have until only May of this year to decide which telescope gets the go-ahead.Yet, both telescopes are already in the middle of construction, both are equally important and both are actually supposed to work together to fulfill a wide-eyed dream for astronomers. Because of how utterly huge they’re meant to be, they’re expected to one-up even the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in many ways. That’s the gold-mirrored, silvery-shielded trailblazer sitting a million miles from Earth right now, finding deep space gems so quickly it’s normalizing us to seeing things humanity once couldn’t fathom seeing. Imagine something better….
… One of the big scopes is the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). It’s taking shape as you read this in the clear-skied deserts of Chile, and it’s projected to cost something like $2.54 billion as a whole. The other is called The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). That one’s location is a bit more controversial. It’s planned to decorate a mountain in Hawaii called Mauna Kea, but locals have protested the decision because this stunning volcanic peak that boasts low humidity and gentle winds (perfect conditions for astronomy) is extremely meaningful in native Hawaiian culture. It’s a fraught situation, as 13 other telescopes already live in the area and some local people say the facilities are impacting the natural environment. In terms of cost, however, the projected amount is just about symmetrical to the GMT’s….
(14) WHAT’S THE MATTER? “Controversial new theory of gravity rules out need for dark matter” – and the Guardian tries to explain it to us. However, the last time I heard a doctor use the word “wobbly” in connection with anything about spacetime, his last name was “Who”.
…There are multiple lines of evidence for dark matter, but its nature has remained mysterious and searches by the Large Hadron Collider have come up empty-handed. Last year, the European Space Agency launched a mission, Euclid, aiming to produce a cosmic map of dark matter.
The latest paper, published on the Arxiv website and yet to be peer-reviewed, raises the question of whether it even exists, drawing parallels between dark matter and flawed concepts of the past, such as “the ether”, an invisible substance that was thought to permeate all of space.
“In the absence of any direct evidence for dark energy or dark matter it is natural to wonder whether they may be unnecessary scientific constructs like celestial spheres, ether, or the planet Vulcan, all of which were superseded by simpler explanations,” it states. “Gravity has a long history of being a trickster.”
In this case, the simpler explanation being proposed is Oppenheim’s “postquantum theory of classical gravity”. The UCL professor has spent the past five years developing the approach, which aims to unite the two pillars of modern physics: quantum theory and Einstein’s general relativity, which are fundamentally incompatible.
Oppenheim’s theory envisages the fabric of space-time as smooth and continuous (classical), but inherently wobbly. The rate at which time flows would randomly fluctuate, like a burbling stream, space would be haphazardly warped and time would diverge in different patches of the universe. The theory also envisions an intrinsic breakdown in predictability….
(15) GIANT SQUID. [Item by Lise Andreasen.] This is the last place I would look for characters from 20000 Leagues Under The Sea.
(16) NO PLANET FOR OLD MEN. Dan Monroe is determined to find out “What Happened to THE BOMB from BENEATH the PLANET of the APES?”
(17) WITH AND WITHOUT STRINGS ATTACHED. [Item by Carl.] “Here Come The Puppets” was a PBS special produced by KQED at the International Puppet Festival in Washington DC. It was hosted by Jim Henson and the Muppets, and features internationally known puppeteers. It’s NEVER been offered in DVD form. It can now be seen on YouTube.
(18) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. “Watch: Rare Footage Of Leonard Nimoy Hosting 1975 Special Presentation Of Star Trek’s ‘The Menagerie’” at TrekMovie.com.
In 1975, Paramount produced a special movie presentation for syndication of the two-part Star Trek episode “The Menagerie,” hosted by TOS star Leonard Nimoy. The original Spock recorded introductions for each part of the episode as well as closing remarks for the special presentation. In the special, Nimoy explains how “The Menagerie” uses footage from the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage” and more….
There’s a nod to its Hugo win at the 4:51 mark.
…This morning, WJAR Channel 10 in Rhode Island posted a clip from their morning show with guest Leonard Nimoy from what appears to be around the end of the first season of the series. The actor talks about concerns the show will be canceled and the fan campaign to keep it on the air along with the origins of his signature Vulcan ears….
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, JJ, Lori, Carl, Ersatz Culture, Lise Andreasen, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joseph Hurtgen.]
(1) OTHERWISE AWARD UPDATE. Sumana Harihareswara, Motherboard chair, has shared news about the Otherwise Award in “Our pause and interim plans”.
As has been the case for many volunteer-run organizations, the Otherwise Award has struggled since the start of the pandemic in 2020. Our (volunteer) board and other volunteers have had to juggle many more issues than previously around health, paid work, and caretaking concerns than previously, which has resulted in our falling behind on the administration and maintenance of the Award. We’re sorry that we didn’t communicate about this earlier—that made it hard for readers, authors, and publishers to know what to expect.
Our Motherboard met recently to discuss how to move forward. We remain dedicated to our mission: to celebrate science fiction, fantasy, and other forms of speculative narrative that expand and explore our understanding of gender . But we’re discussing how, as an organization, to continue to pursue that mission in a sustainable way, given our limited resources.
Here are the decisions we’ve made so far.
Most of our programs are paused. This is us acknowledging what’s already been happening. We were later than usual at deliberating and announcing the Awards for work published in 2020 and in 2021, and did not run a Fellowships process in 2021 or 2023. We have not yet convened a jury to consider works published in 2022, 2023, or 2024.
We intend to run the Fellowships this year. We will open applications in several months—August at the earliest, October at the latest.
We may honor 2022 and 2023 work in a different way. We’re exploring various approaches to celebrating work from those years. That celebration may end up taking a very different form than usual.
We’re considering alternative approaches to the Award in the future. It could be that we’ll convene a jury soon to read 2024 work and deliberate towards an Award, but if we do, we may change our practices to reduce the workload on individual jury members and to make our procurement system for recommended works less laborious. Also, we currently rely on volunteer work for almost all of the organization’s labor (exceptions being technological work on our website, and art commissioned to give to Award winners); we may try to find ways to focus more on paid labor.
We’ll be at Readercon. We usually honor the most recent Award winner at WisCon , but this year we have no new award winner, and WisCon is taking a break . So we will instead hold some Otherwise-related events at Readercon (July 11-14, 2024, near Boston, Massachusetts). Specifics to be determined.
(2) GET READY FOR THE OSCARS. Animation World Network has been running a series about this year’s Academy Awards nominees in the animation and effects categories.
Take a deeper look at ‘The Boy and the Heron,’ ‘Elemental,’ ‘Nimona,’ ‘Robot Dreams,’ and ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,’ all vying for the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 96th Academy Awards coming March 10, 2024.
Take a deeper look at ‘The Creator,’ ‘Godzilla Minus One,’ ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,’ ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,’ and ‘Napoleon,’ all vying for the Best Visual Effects Oscar
Take a deeper look at ‘Letter to a Pig,’ ‘Ninety-Five Senses,’ ‘Our Uniform,’ ‘Pachyderme,’ and ‘War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko,’ all vying for the Best Animated Short Film Oscar
(3) MEETING BUTLER. Syrus Marcus Ware delves into memory to bring us “Octavia E. Butler, Remembered”, a 2022 article at Them.
When the novelist Octavia E. Butler entered a room, you felt it. Tall, commanding, yet soft-spoken, the author’s presence inspired as much comfort as attention; you couldn’t help but be enraptured by her. The first and only time I met her was on a rainy afternoon in 2005. She was in Toronto promoting Fledgling, a brilliant novel about a young racialized vampire who challenges the white supremacy of the wider vampire community. I had been granted an hour’s time to interview not only my favorite author, but the dreamer who inspired me to become a speculative fiction writer and artist. What was supposed to be an hour turned into an entire day in her bountiful presence….
(4) BARDS AND SAGES CLOSING. Walter J. Wiese writes, “I seem to have a track record of having publications close right before they’re about to print my work. I had a story due to appear in the April issue of B&SQ.”
Bards and Sages Publishing posted a “Closure Announcement” saying they were shutting down beginning this week.
Effective March 6, 2024, I will begin the process of winding down Bards and Sages Publishing. There is a lot that needs to be unraveled and sorted out before I can formally close everything down. The most immediate impact is the closure of the Bards and Sages Quarterly and ceasing publication of new issues.
If you are an author or artist who was previously published in an issue of the Bards and Sages Quarterly, those issues will remain on sale until the end of 2024. After that, all back issues will be removed from sale, and all rights will revert to their respective authors.
The same is true for back issues of The Society of Misfit Stories and all of our anthologies. These will remain on sale through the end of the year and then unpublished. At that time, all rights will revert back to their respective authors and artists.
I’ve already informed our authors that we have stand-alone publishing contracts with about the decision. I will work with those authors individually to make sure all of their rights revert to them in a timely manner, and provide them with any raw files we have of their books. They will be free to use those files to either self-publish or take to another publisher if they wish.
Regarding our RPG offerings: I own all rights to the RPG materials through work-for-hire agreements. If other publishers are interested in buying the rights to any of our RPG products or properties, I will entertain offers. Email [email protected] to discuss.
With that out of the way, I want to provide the reasons for this decision.
As I have noted previously, I have been struggling with mental health issues for some time now. I am being treated for generalized anxiety and depression, and though my condition has improved, I’m still not where I feel I need to be to properly commit the time and effort needed to being an effective publisher.
At the end of last year, I was diagnosed with additional physical health issues that will require surgery and treatment. While none of them are life-threatening, they are an additional weight that requires my attention.
As most people who have known me a while also realize, publishing has always been my love, but it has never been my primary income source. Like a lot of micro presses, I have a proverbial “day job,” and that day job has become increasingly more complex over the last few years….
All of these issues impacted my decision. However, I also have to confess to what may have been the final straws. AI…and authors behaving badly….
(5) CARR-LICHTMAN CATALOG. Mark Funke Books has posted an online SF Catalog of Terry/Carol Carr and Robert Lichtman Material – see it here: “Science Fiction Archives”. (Click for larger image.)
(6) KUNG FU PANDA PUTS MOVES ON DUNE AT BOX OFFICE. Dune: Part Two could not hold onto first place in its second weekend at theaters reports Deadline: “Box Office: ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Kicking Up $55M For Second-Biggest Franchise Debut”.
Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 is coming in higher with a $19.4M Friday (including previews) and $55M, which is the same amount that How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World opened to back in 2019. Brand animation always opens big. That’s still the second best stateside start for the Kung Fu Panda franchise. CinemaScore is A-, the same grade as the first movie, but a notch down from the As earned on two and three.
Legendary/Warner Bros’ Dune: Part Two earned around $12.3M yesterday for what’s shaping up to be a $44M second weekend, -47%, for a running total of $154.7M. With those two movies leading the pack, it’s shaping up to be a $133.3M weekend, +13% over the same frame a year ago when Scream VI bowed. Wow. It’s been a while since we’ve seen an up weekend.
Lionsgate/Blumhouse’s Imaginary is third with $3.6M yesterday (including previews) at 3,118 theaters for what’s shaping up to be a $9.3M opening. Not shocking to see this movie below its $10M-$14M projection, nor saddled with a C+ CinemaScore and 57% on PostTrak. It is rather slow for a PG-13 horror film and there’s nothing really hip to hook the girls ala M3GAN. But it was cheap to make at $10M. Still more product means depth at the box office….
(7) GROW UP? TO HECK WITH THAT. “Miriam Margolyes Says Harry Potter Fans Should Be Over Films By Now” in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Harry Potter actress Miriam Margolyes has some thoughts about the people who are still superfans of the famous film franchise.
During an interview with New Zealand’s 1News network, Margolyes was asked how Harry Potter and Blackadder fans approach her differently when they see her in public. She explained that fans of the British sitcom that starred Rowan Atkinson usually ask her to say “Wicked child.” But instead of answering the question about Harry Potter, she decided to share how she feels about the fandom.
“I worry about Harry Potter fans because they should be over that by now,” Margolyes said. “It was 25 years ago, and it’s for children,” clarifying, “I think it’s for children.
The actress portrayed Professor Pomona Sprout in the film franchise. Her character taught herbology and was the head of the Hufflepuff House. While speaking with the host, Margolyes seemed confused about the fact that those who grew up with the books and movies are still so engrossed in the Wizarding World, despite being adults at this point.
“They get stuck in it,” she explained. “I do Cameos, and people say, ‘We’re having a Harry Potter-themed wedding, and I think, ‘Gosh, what’s their first night of fun going to be?’ I can’t even think about it. No.”
She did note, “Harry Potter is wonderful. I’m very grateful to it” but doubled down on her original thought, which is that “it’s over.”…
(8) IT’S IMPOSSIBLE. One of the audiobooks up for the British Book Awards is Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, narrated by Samuel West (Bloomsbury Children’s Books). Publishing Perspectives reports: “British Book Awards: 2024 Books of the Year Shortlists”.
(9) FIVE TO DRAW TO. Lisa Tuttle’s “The best recent science fiction and fantasy – reviews roundup” for the Guardian covers The Mars House by Natasha Pulley; Annie Bot by Sierra Greer; The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden; Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang; and Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 9, 1955 — Pat Murphy, 69. What work do I like most that Pat Murphy’s done? Well that’d be There and Back Again, by Max Merriwell if only because it, a) was indeed a lovely and playful take off The Hobbit, and b) shows how bloody obstinate, well I had another phrase in mind, that the Tolkien Estate can be at times which is why it’s no longer in print though copies are available at I think are still reasonably priced rates.
Of her first two novels, The Shadow Hunter had Neanderthals and time travelling, and oh my!, her second, The Falling Woman, was about an archaeologist who sees the spirits of ancient people while she walks at dusk and dawn. Fascinating. Thirty-six years on, it’s still perfectly readable. And it won a Nebula which it most definitely deserved.
Now I get to The City, Not Long After, the novel that I love nearly as much for its depiction of an empty magical San Francisco as I do for the characters and the story set there. Don’t get me wrong — both of those are stellar too. I get tingly thinking of this novel, something that I admit is rare.
Let’s me finish off the novels I like by her with Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell about a cruise that gets, shall I say, delightfully improbable near or even within the Bermuda Triangle? Yes, it’s written by the same writer who penned by the story that the Tolkien Estate took umbrage to.
As for her short fiction, it is excellent. Both the “Rachel n Love” novelette and the “Bones” novella that first appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine would win a Nebula, the former would also win a Sturgeon — the Award, not a fish. Sorry I couldn’t resist. Her 1990 Points of Departure anthology, which won a Philip K. Dick Award, is a generous sampling of her short work and has the “Rachel n Love” novelette and the “Bones” novella in it.
She’s hasn’t published anything in five years, so let’s hope something is forthcoming.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
(12) SHE’S A ROCKETGIRL. [Item by Steven French.] Andrew Rovenko, a Ukrainian born photographer now living in Australia was named Australian Photography Magazine’s photographer of the year for this wonderful shot of his daughter in her home-made spacesuit. His photos have been collected in The Rocketgirl Chronicles – see a gallery at the link. Full story at the Guardian: “Rocketgirl on her sixth lockdown: Andrew Rovenko’s best photograph”.
During the pandemic, Melbourne held the world record for the highest number of days spent in lockdown. That’s not really a record you want to have. My family – me, my wife Mariya and our daughter Mia who was four at the time – had done all the standard things: puzzles, daily walks, baked sourdough. By lockdown number six, options for new activities were scarce. But Mia’s obsession with space gave us an idea – to make her a spacesuit. My wife had trained as a costume designer and she thought it might brighten Mia’s day to show her how something can be created from scratch. The best bit was making the papier-mache helmet: they blew up a little balloon and then stuck newspaper cuttings around it.
At the time, we were allowed outside for only two hours each day, and we had to keep within a 5km radius of our home. Having this suit as a prop had a transformative effect on our outings, turning them into space exploration missions. Even as adults, if you put a bold piece of clothing on, you start to play the role of the costume….
(13) JEOPARDY! [Item by David Goldfarb.] The second round of the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions semifinals featured two questions involving SFF. The very first clue of the game was Literary Awards for $600:
Octavia Butler got the inaugural Infinity Award by the Science Fiction & Writers Association at these star-studded awards
Emily Sands knew this was the Nebula Awards.
Later we had Literary Awards for $1000:
The Hugo Award isn’t named after Victor Hugo, but this Hugo who founded the sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories
Yogesh Raut responded “Who is Luxembourg’s Hugo Gernsback?”
Did you know that Gernsback was from Luxembourg? I did, but only because I had previously learned it from listening to one of Yogesh’s podcasts.
(14) AREA 51 EIGHTY-SIXED. “Pentagon Review Finds No Evidence of Alien Cover-Up” – the New York Times discusses the report.
In the 1960s, secret test flights of advanced government spy planes generated U.F.O. sightings. More recently, government and commercial drones, new kinds of satellites and errant weather balloons have led to a renaissance in unusual observations.
But, according to a new report, none of these sightings were of alien spacecraft.
The new congressionally mandated Pentagon report found no evidence that the government was covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and said there was no evidence that any U.F.O. sightings represented alien visitation to Earth.
The 63-page document is the most sweeping rebuttal the Pentagon has issued in recent years to counter claims that it has information on extraterrestrial visits or technology. But amid widespread distrust of the government, the report is unlikely to calm a growing obsession with aliens.
Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman, said the Pentagon approached the report with an open mind and no preconceived notions, but simply found no evidence to back up claims of secret programs, hidden alien technology or anything else extraterrestrial.
“All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” General Ryder said in a statement.
While many reports of what the government now calls Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena remain unsolved, the new document states plainly there is nothing to see. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office concluded that if better quality data were available, “most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena.”…
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. FirstShowing introduces the “Final Trailer for Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ Mind-Bending Sci-Fi Series”.
“I have to tell you something… something insane, but true, about all of us. It started a long time ago. Back in 1977 they detected a sequence…called it the wow signal.” Netflix has revealed their final official trailer for 3 Body Problem, an adaptation of the sci-fi books of same name from Liu Cixin, which many believe are near impossible to adapt. 3 Body Problem is a series inspired by the renowned story about discovering we are not alone in the universe. From the Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. A young woman’s fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time to a group of brilliant scientists in the present day. As the laws of nature unravel before their eyes five former colleagues reunite to confront the greatest threat in humanity’s history.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Walter J. Wiese, David Goldfarb, Jeffrey Smith, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
(1) SO FEW REMAIN. George R.R. Martin calls these “Dark Days” at Not a Blog.
…2023 was a nightmare of a year, for the world and the nation and for me and mine, both professionally and personally. I am very glad that it is over.
Unfortunately, so far 2024 looks to be even worse….
…I am famous and I am wealthy and, supposedly, I have a “big platform.” Whatever that is. But I have grown more and more cynical about this supposed “power” that people keep telling me I have. Has anything I have ever written here ever changed a single mind, a single vote? I see no evidence of that. The era of rational discourse seems to have ended.
And death is everywhere. Howard Waldrop was the latest, and his passing has hit me very very hard, but before him we lost Michael Bishop, Terry Bisson, David Drake… from my Wild Cards team, Victor Milan, John Jos. Miller, Edward Bryant, Steve Perrin… I still miss Gardner Dozois and Phyllis Eisenstein and my amazing agent Kay McCauley… Len Wein is gone, Vonda McIntyre, and Harlan Ellison… Greg Bear too, and… oh, I could go on. I look around, and it seems as though my entire generation of SF and fantasy writers is gone or going. Only a handful of us remain… and for how long, I wonder? I know I have forgotten people in the list above, and maybe that is the destiny that awaits all of us… to be forgotten.
For that matter, the entire human race may be forgotten. If climate change does not get us, war will. Too many countries have nukes….
(2) FLASH MOB. The term Larry Niven coined for his stories of a world with transport booths is in the mainstream now. Shelf Awareness’ headline about this crime is: “Deadtime Stories, Lansing, Mich., Victim of ‘Flash Mob Robbery'”.
…Owner Jenn Carpenter wrote that around 2:30 p.m., a van pulled up to the corner of Washington and South St., and five teenagers wearing backpacks, carrying a big black trash bag, got out and entered the bookstore, where they remained for approximately 15 minutes.
“During this time, they took turns asking me questions and keeping me occupied on the bookstore side of the shop, while the rest of them stuffed their backpacks with over $1,300 worth of merchandise,” she continued…
The WILX story has more details: “Lansing’s Reotown store ‘Deadtime Stories’ victim of theft, catches individuals on security footage”.
“The very first clip that I pulled up was them stuffing hundreds of dollars of merchandise in backpacks,” said Jenn Carpenter.
In Lansing’s Reotown, a well known book store, Deadtime Stories, fell victim to a theft. The owner, Jenn Carpenter says she had no idea she had been stolen from until another store owner asked her to check her security footage.
In the security footage, you can see a group of people stuffing store merchandise in a backpack, purse, and even in their pants.
“We lost more yesterday in stolen than we made in sales,” said Carpenter,“This brazen like an entire group of people coming in and just stuffing hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise in their bags and leaving… I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The business across the street, Vintage Junkies, also fell victim to the thefts. The owner says the group took more than $700 in merchandise, even stealing a lamp.
(3) STUDYING OCTAVIA BUTLER. Lois Rosson, a historian of science, is The Huntington’s 2023–24 Octavia E. Butler Fellow. She is currently working on a project about the depiction of outer space over the course of the Cold War titled Scientific Realism and American Astrofutures: Octavia Butler and the Space Environment. “Interview with Octavia E. Butler Fellow Lois Rosson” at The Huntington.
Durkin: You have noted that Octavia E. Butler grew up in Pasadena, not far from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. How do you think that informed her work? And how does that inform your scholarship?
Rosson: For me, this is one of the most interesting parts of my project. The triangle formed by JPL, the Hollywood special effects industry, and commercial aerospace in Southern California has had an outsized impact on the look of outer space. A lot of the illustrators I write about found work in these three industries, and they often moved from one to another.
As you’ve noted, Butler grew up in the northwest part of Pasadena, in close physical proximity to JPL. That said, the scientific and technical expertise concentrated in the region was parsed out socially, not geographically. Pasadena’s public schools were segregated until as late as 1970 and officially desegregated only because of a federal court order. In fact, Pasadena was the first city outside of the South that needed such a mandate. Butler graduated in 1965 from John Muir Technical High School, which was then a vocational school serving the area’s growing African American population.
So, there’s a moment in my story when the illustrators I write about and many of their scientific collaborators are concentrated around JPL, Caltech, and Hollywood, and they are using a frontier model to articulate the landscapes of the outer solar system. Butler is living in the same environment at the same time and forming very different ideas about how society should be organized in space. Unsurprisingly, the arid landscapes of the West take on a different meaning in her work. In her Parable series of novels, outer space represents an escape from the degradation of Earth’s landscapes. In Butler’s work, space settlement looks more like diaspora, which upends the frontier logic we’re used to. Casting space as something other than a frontier helps us understand the persistence of the metaphor more clearly and rethink how we relate to space as an environment.
(4) AWARD FOR CALIFORNIANS. The 2024 Golden Poppy Awards were presented by the California Independent Booksellers Alliance on January 25. The 14 categories include a sff award.
(5) OCTAVIA BUTLER MURAL. Publishers Weekly’s January 29 “Picture of the Day” shows authors Sherri L. Smith (l.) and Elizabeth Wein (r.) celebrating the launch of their book American Wings: Chicago’s Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers), with a visit to Octavia E. Butler Magnet STEAM Middle School in Pasadena, Calif.
(6) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]
A Chinese fan writes in English about recent events and their impact
The author of this was OK for me to link to the source, but after a brief discussion with them, I am presenting their original unedited English language text here instead. We did not discuss any of the things that they allude to in this text; I am more interested in conveying to a wider audience the sort of thing that (I imagine) many Chinese fans are feeling, than getting into the weeds of the specifics.
The problem is not that Chinese SF is without hope. I won’t be disappointed if that is the case because there would not be any hope at the very beginning. The problem is that, people who actually care about Chinese SF, who make every effort to make it shine, who knows this industry, who want this explained fairly, are being dishonored, silenced, denied, warned. They even had to warn each other about potential cost: it’s not worth it to hang on anymore.
So, that’s it. The opportunity was cast away for a generation at least. People who had cherries picked got their fruits and headed for the next big one. The catastrophe was left behind for writers, publishers, mag editors to deal with.
As a SF reader for nearly 20y but not one who read Chinese SF for years, I was not familiar with many candidates before con. But I just heard too many familiar stories of what the survivors have to worry about afterwards.
The dishonesty, like a thorns crown, was forced on the winners’ head. Few would expect blood trailing from behind, but the bleeding will not go away easily. It was never the fault of the winners, but penalty is put on them.
I hate it.
Mike has been provided with the link to the original source, just so that he can verify that this isn’t something I’ve invented myself.
Fact-checking Babel’s status in China
Regarding all the discussion about why Babel was declared ineligible, here’s an attempt at rumour-control of the specific issue of whether it is legally published and available within China. This isn’t intended to prove or disprove if or why any censorship or interference took place in the Hugo nominations, but just to clarify whether the work is available.
On January 22nd, Yin Harn Lee pointed out on Twitter that Babel had been published and was available for purchase in China. I replied with a link to a Tweet I’d made a couple of days earlier, referring to the fact that it had recently ranked 4th in a list of the top 10 SFF books of 2023 on Douban. (I’m not sure how that list was generated – from sales, user activity, a judging panel, or something else. Also, I’d only come across that list via a post from a Chinese Twitter user, but their tweets are protected, so I can’t really credit the “real” source for that info.)
A few days later, I did a bit more digging. Per Douban (which is China’s equivalent of Goodreads/IMDB/etc), the publisher of that translated edition is 中信出版集团, which can be translated as something like CITIC Press. I’ve since had it confirmed that CITIC Press is ultimately part of CITIC Group, and their Wikipedia article has some interesting nuggets about their founding and ownership.
Note: CITIC being the publisher of Babel explains a comment on Weibo I saw shortly after the Hugo finalists were announced. My quite probably incorrect recollection is that it translated as something like “CITIC won’t be happy”, which didn’t make any sense to me at the time, even after I’d read the Wikipedia article linked above. In retrospect, I’m guessing that by the time the finalists were announced, Babel had already been announced as an upcoming publication by CITIC. Given all the buzz about it, CITIC would likely be expecting to gain a lot of publicity and enthusiasm from the Hugo nomination that many of us were assuming was a dead certainty.
(7) FUTURE TENSE. The January 2024 entry in the Future Tense Fiction series is “Sad Robot,” by E.R. Ramzipoor. The story is about what happens when a globally crucial AI system is in need of therapy. Future Tense Fiction is a monthly series of short stories from Future Tense and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 30, 1955 — Judith Tarr, 69. Did you know Judith Tarr breeds Lipizzan horses at Dancing Horse Farm, her home in Vail, Arizona? They figure into her romantic fantasies that she wrote under the name Caitlin Brennan which she used for her White Magic series, The Mountain’s Call and sequels, and the House of the Star novel. Yes, romantic fantasies.
Her Hound and the Falcon trilogy (The Isle of Glass, The Golden Horn and The Hounds of God) is set in twelfth and thirteenth century Europe. With elves. Yes elves. Why not?
Her Epona series (White Mare’s Daughter, The Shepherd Kings, Lady of Horses and Daughter of Lir) is set in prehistoric Europe. It takes the theories of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas that a matriarchal society existed in Paleolithic Europe. I’ve read her rationale on that — it’s interesting. The novels are a good read though perhaps a bit dogged at times.
Now Household Gods co-written with Harry Turtledove is a rollicking good novel that’s fun to read. Time travel, ancient Roman gods, a feisty female character — wharf’s not to like?
The next one being His Majesty’s Elephant. Charlemagne. A gift of magical elephant. A supernatural plot afoot.
A Wind in Cairo allows her to show her love of horses as one of the characters is a male who for his transgressions is transformed by a sorcerer into a magnificent stallions in medieval Cairo where one of victims is now his jockey.
Finally there’s Living in Threes which Book Cafe quite nice sums up this way, “Three lives. Three worlds. Three times. Three young women, past, present, and future, come together to solve an age-old mystery and save a world..” A novel where you don’t need the Bechdel test.
She’s written some fifty shorter pieces of fiction, none collected, save those in, and try not to be surprised, in her Nine White Horses: Nine Tales of Horses and Magic collection.
(9) BRAIN CHIP. “Elon Musk’s Neuralink implants brain chip in first human” reports Reuters.
The first human patient has received an implant from brain-chip startup Neuralink on Sunday and is recovering well, the company’s billionaire founder Elon Musk said.
“Initial results show promising neuron spike detection,” Musk said in a post on the social media platform X on Monday.
Spikes are activity by neurons, which the National Institute of Health describes as cells that use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain and to the body.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had given the company clearance last year to conduct its first trial to test its implant on humans, a critical milestone in the startup’s ambitions to help patients overcome paralysis and a host of neurological conditions.
In September, Neuralink said it received approval for recruitment for the human trial.
The study uses a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said previously, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone….
(10) NO RELATION TO THAT FLYING SQUIRREL. Atlas Obscura remembers “How NASA Got Involved With Parachuting Beavers”.
IF YOU WERE WANDERING THE wilds of the Wasatch National Forest in Utah in September 2023, you might have encountered a strange sight: a line of slowly marching horses, with beavers saddled on their backs. Unfortunately, the rodents were not wearing tiny cowboy hats and boots. They were inside carriers, but their journey via horseback was still a fairly Wild West–type of solution to a problem. These beavers were headed to a new home—a battleground in the fight against drought and wildfires in the region….
…For decades, people have gone out of their way to move beavers across great distances. Today’s preferred methods—hiking, humping, and horseback rides—are an improvement over 1948, when beavers were parachuted out of planes in Idaho. Back then, Idaho Fish and Game had loaded the animals into boxes designed to spring open upon landing, and then dropped them over the Sawtooth Mountain Range….
…However, the reason behind all of this shuttling beavers around has completely reversed since the 1940s. Then, they were being sent to remote locations because humans didn’t want them around. Today, in Idaho, Utah, and other sites, they’re being brought back. Beavers are ecosystem engineers—and the ecosystems they create happen to be key to limiting wildfires and managing drought conditions. The mini-paratroopers have been revealed to be mini-firefighters, and it was the results of that aerial feat in 1948 that helped kick it all off, at least once NASA took notice….
(11) DESERT SONG. “Dune Spice Opera 2024 remaster” available for sale at Bandcamp.
From the first Dune 1991 game, reworked in 1992 with Philippe Ulrich, a classic of 90’s Electronic music now available in a qualité never Heard before!
Carefully remastered using modern tools, this 2024 version features spectrally enhanced sound, wider stereo, and clearer dynamics, rendered in Hi-Res Audio 96/24 format.
Includes also a special bonus: The full game OST in a yet unveiled quality!
(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Deadline sums up the “’Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ Trailer”.
The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare will be released on April 19. Think Ritchie meets Magnificent Seven and Inglourious Basterds….
…The true story covers Winston Churchill and Ian Fleming’s secret WWII combat organization. The clandestine squad’s unconventional and ‘ungentlemanly’ fighting techniques against the Nazis helped change the course of the war and gave birth to the modern Black Ops unit.
The script by Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson, Arash Amel and Ritchie is based on war correspondent and military historian Damien Lewis’ best-selling book of the same name. Tamasy and Johnson initiated the project and sold it as a pitch to Bruckheimer and Paramount in 2015….
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Joey Eschrich, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
(1) EMSH REVIVAL FOR AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS. J. Michael Straczynski told Facebook readers about the work he’s doing to get the second Ellison anthology, Again, Dangerous Visions, ready for publication. It involves the interior art and graphics.
Now that Harlan’s first Dangerous Visions is locked for print, we’re now moving to getting a proper galley for Again, Dangerous Visions. The main problem, in my eyes, with that process is that many of the later editions used the same Ed Emshwiller graphics/stats made for the original book (second generation images), or worse still, simply copied/reproduced the graphics from the printed pages themselves (third generation images).
This needs to be the most pristine version of the book done since the original print run, so after an exhaustive search, Ed’s original stats/graphics were discovered, and despite being sick as a dog (long story) I’ve spent every night for the past several days, going until dawn in most cases, carefully scanning every one of those eighty-plus images at high res, using air-blowers to remove dust, and gloves to avoid getting finger oil on anything.
I’ve just finished the last of the scans, and these images are just gorgeous, in astonishing detail and clarity. Honestly, so many of them could have been book covers all by themselves. Thinking that assembling these along the lines we see in the book, joined by ECG like pulses, might make a really cool promotional poster (but that’s just a thought for the moment, haven’t discussed it with anyone yet).
(2) ON THE NOSE. Philip Athans describes the use of an evocative fiction technique in “Smells Like Vivid Description” at Fantasy Author’s Handbook.
…I was surprised to hear in this video that, “Smell is apparently the strongest inducer of memories—of early memories. And the beauty is, even people suffering from Alzheimer’s dementia, never lose their olfactory memory.”
If you look back to last week’s post about How to Tell, it’s all about triggering memories. So a particular smell can help introduce some further detail about either or both of the world and the character. For instance, I find the smell of old books particularly delightful. This is my childhood love of the old books in the library coming to the forefront, and helping to propel my own love of collecting vintage books decades and decades later. If I were a character in a novel the smell of an old book could trigger a two-paragraph mini info dump about my childhood spent primarily in books, which turned into an adulthood spent primarily in books….
… Smells can also poke certain emotional triggers in your POV character, and go a long way to establishing the atmosphere of a scene….
(3) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB speculative fiction reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present P. Djéli Clark and Eric Schaller on Wednesday, January 10. The event begins at 7:00 p.m. Eastern in the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003 (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs).
P. DJÉLI CLARK
Phenderson Djéli Clark is the award-winning and Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Sturgeon nominated author of the novels Abeni’s Song and A Master of Djinn, and the novellas Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. His short stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com and in print anthologies including, Hidden Youth and Black Boy Joy. His upcoming novella, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, will be out in 2024.
ERIC SCHALLER
Eric Schaller’s latest collection of dark fiction, Voice of the Stranger contains stories selected for Fantasy: Best of the Year, Best of the Rest, and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. His fiction can also be found in his collection Meet Me in the Middle of the Air and in many anthologies and magazines. His stories are influenced in part by his studies in the biological sciences and the uneasy relationship humans have with each other and the world around them.
(4) WHAT TECH FORESEES IN 2024. Tech.co’s post “Experts’ Predictions for the Future of Tech in 2024” begins with a survey of sff:
2024 is about to dawn on the world. But in one of the most precient novels of the science fiction genre, it already has: Octavia Butler’s decades-old novel Parable of the Sower opens in Los Angeles in 2024.
Butler’s fictional world dealt with many of the social and environmental pressures that we’ll definitely be seeing a lot of in the real 2024. Climate change has boosted sea levels and increased droughts, increased privatization from greedy corporations is threatening schools, police forces are militarized, and a Presidential candidate is literally saying he’ll “make American great again.”
It’s hard to beat Butler’s entry when it comes to predicting what’s coming down the pike in the new year, and no one has really come close. Honorable mention goes to a 1995 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featuring a time-travelling social-commentary jaunt to 2024 San Francisco that deals with revolutionaries and homelessness encampments. A distant finalist is a grim tale by Harlan Ellison, A Boy and His Dog, which features a dystopian 2024 set among post-nuclear war mutated cannibals.
Things aren’t looking quite as bad for the real 2024, however. None of the dozens of industry experts and tech leaders that we’ve looked to for opinions about the future predicted a single incident of cannibalism….
(5) NOMINATE FOR THE REH AWARDS. “The 2024 Robert E. Howard Awards Are Open for Nominations!” announces the Robert E. Howard Foundation. You do not need to be a Foundation member to nominate.
…Under the new rules, nominations are due in to the Awards committee by February 15, 2024, with the Awards committee selecting the top nominees in each category for the final ballot by March 1, 2024….
(6) CRITTERS READERS’ POLL. Meanwhile, the “26th Annual Critters Readers’ Poll” is open through January 14. The Readers’ Poll honors print & electronic publications published during 2023. Its newest categories are Magical Realism, and Positive Future Fiction (novel & short story).
(7) MAYOR SERLING. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Slashfilm reminds us of the time that Jack Benny took a detour through the Twilight Zone. No, not any of The Twilight Zone TV series nor the theatrical nor TV films. Not even the radio dramas. It all happened inside Jack Benny‘s own eponymous TV show. “Rod Serling Played The Mayor Of The Twilight Zone On The Jack Benny Program”.
…Serling’s episode aired on January 15, 1963, and, as was the show’s custom, he also played himself. In the fictionalized universe of the series, Benny hires Serling to help his struggling writers smarten up their material. Though Serling acknowledges he has little experience with comedy (before “The Twilight Zone,” he was probably best known as the Emmy-winning writer of “Requiem for a Heavyweight”), he’s excited to collaborate with Benny’s two-man staff.
This does not go well.
After repeated clashes with Benny’s writers, Serling gives up, citing his desire to tell stories with deeply considered characterizations and thought-provoking themes. Benny takes issue with Serling’s dismissive opinion of his style of comedy and fires back that “The Twilight Zone” can’t possibly tell stories of significance because the Twilight Zone does not actually exist. And you can probably guess what happens next.
After quarreling with Serling, Benny decides to take a leisurely walk home. On the way there, he gets lost in a thick fog and finds himself in an area of town he doesn’t recognize. Eventually, he encounters a road sign which tells him exactly where he is. It reads: “Welcome to Twilight Zone, Population: Unlimited.” Below this is an arrow pointing left to “Subconscious 27 Mi,” and one pointing right to “Reality 35 Mi.”
This is when matters take a distressingly surreal turn….
(8) JUST SEWN THAT WAY. Camestros Felapton gives the film a thorough critique in “Review: Poor Things”. Beware spoilers.
Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 film starring Emma Stone is a dark comedy fantasy set in an unreal, stylised world suggestive of the late 19th century. Based on the novel by Alisdair Gray (which I haven’t read) but stripped of its Scottish setting and metatextual elements, the film follows the strange life of Bella Baxter.
Dr. Godwin Baxter is a surgeon and a mad-scientist like figure who resembles Victor Frankenstein in his obsession to reanimate corpses surgically but who also resembles Frankenstein’s monster physically due to experiments conducted on him by his own father…
(9) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
1990 — Isaac Asimov’s “The Fourth Homonym” story is the source of our Beginning this time. His Black Widowers stories of which this is one I think are some of the cleverest bar style stories ever done even if they weren’t set in a bar like Clarke’s White Hart tales.
These stories which were based on a literary dining club he belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders. The Widowers were based on real-life Spiders, some of them well known writers in their own right such as Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, Harlan Ellison and Lester del Rey.
This story was first published thirty-four years ago in The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov. It may be the only Black Widower story not collected in the volumes that collect the other stories.
There were sixty-six stories over the six volumes that were released. So far only one volume, Banquets of the Black Widowers, has been released as an ePub. And yes, I’ve got a copy on my iPad as they are well worth re-reading.
And now for one of the best Beginnings done I think in the Black Widowers stories…
“Homonyms!” said Nicholas Brant. He was Thomas Trumbull’s guest at the monthly banquet of the Black Widowers. He was rather tall, and had surprisingly prominent bags under his eyes, despite the comparative youthfulness of his appearance otherwise. His face was thin and smooth-shaven, and his brown hair showed, as yet, no signs of gray. “Homonyms,” he said.
“What?” said Mario Gonzalo blankly.
“The words you call ‘sound-alikes.’ The proper name for them is ‘homonyms.’ “
“That so?” said Gonzalo. “How do you spell it?”
Brant spelled it.
Emmanuel Rubin looked at Brant owlishly through the thick lenses of his glasses. He said, “You’ll have to excuse Mario, Mr. Brant. He is a stranger to our language.”
Gonzalo brushed some specks of dust from his jacket sleeve and said, “Manny is corroded with envy because I’ve invented a word game. He knows the words but he lacks any spark of inventiveness, and that kills him.”
“Surely Mr. Rubin does not lack inventiveness,” said Brant, soothingly. “I’ve read some of his books.”
“I rest my case,” said Gonzalo. “Anyway, I’m willing to call my game ‘homonyms’ instead of ‘sound-alikes.’ The thing is to make up some short situation which can be described by two words that are sound-alikes – that are homonyms. I’ll give you an example: If the sky is perfectly clear, it is easy to decide to go on a picnic in the open. If it is raining cats and dogs, it is easy to decide not to go on a picnic. But what if it is cloudy, and the forecast is for possible showers, but there seem to be patches of blue here and there, so you can’t make up your mind about the picnic. What would you call that?”
“A stupid story,” said Trumbull tartly, passing his hand over his crisply waved white hair.
“Come on,” said Gonzalo, “play the game. The answer is two words that sound alike.”
There was a general silence and Gonzalo said, “The answer is ‘whether weather.’ It’s the kind of weather where you wonder whether to go on a picnic or not. ‘Whether weather,’ don’t you get it?”
James Drake stubbed out his cigarette and said, “We get it. The question is, how do we get rid of it?”
Roger Halsted said, in his soft voice, “Pay no attention, Mario. It’s a reasonable parlor game, except that there don’t seem to be many combinations you can use.”
Geoffrey Avalon looked down austerely from his seventy-four-inch height and said, “More than you might think. Suppose you owned a castrated ram that was frisky on clear days and miserable on rainy days. If it were merely cloudy, however, you might wonder whether that ram would be frisky or miserable. That would be ‘whether wether weather.’ “
There came a chorus of outraged What!’s.
Avalon said, ponderously. “The first word is w-h-e-t-h-e-r, meaning if. The last word is w-e-a-t-h-e-r, which refers to atmospheric conditions. The middle word is w-e-t-h-e-r, meaning a castrated ram. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”
“Don’t bother,” said Rubin. “He’s right.”
“I repeat,” growled Trumbull, “this is a stupid game.”
“It doesn’t have to be a game,” said Brant. “Lawyers are but too aware of the ambiguities built into the language, and homonyms can cause trouble.”
The gentle voice of Henry, that waiter for all seasons, made itself heard over the hubbub by some alchemy that worked only for him.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “I regret the necessity of interrupting a warm discussion, but dinner is being served.”
(10) TEA FOR 2(ND). Before reading Cat’s birthday, pour yourself a cup of “Second Breakfast – Chapters Tea”.
Small batch hand blended English breakfast tea with Marigold petals. Perfect for breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, and afternoon tea. Enter our fan drawn rendition of a realm where friendship, nature, and the simple pleasures of life come first. Inspired by, but not affiliated with, our favorite series with a ring.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 3, 1892 — J.R.R. Tolkien. (Died 1973.) Obligatory preface — this is my personal encounters with Tolkien, so if I’ve not been up close with something say The Silmarillion than it isn’t here. And I haven’t with that work. Some works I haven’t read get included anyways as they passed through Green Man and have a Story attached to them.
J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the individuals who I always picture in the photo of him that must be of in his seventies with his pipe with that twinkle in his eye. He looks like he could be akin to a hobbit himself about to set down to elevenses.
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again which was published by George Allen & Unwin eighty-six years ago written for his children but obviously we adults enjoy as much, and so it is my favorite work by him. Dragons, hobbits, epic quests, wizards, dwarves — oh my!
I’ve lost count of the number of time I’ve read over the years, and the recent time, just several back as a listening experience showed the Suck Fairy enjoys it as much as I do.
I hadn’t realized until putting together this Birthday that all three volumes of the Lord of The Rings were published at the same time. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers in 1954, The Return of The King the following year. I’m so used to trilogies being spread out over a longer period of time.
Though I’ve not read the trilogy nearly as much I’ve read The Hobbit, and that shouldn’t surprise you, I do enjoy it though I will confess that The Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite of the three novels here.
It was nominated at Tricon for a Best All-Time Series Hugo. Asimov’s Foundation series won that year. It did garner an International Fantasy Award first Best Series and the same for a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. I’m more than a bit surprised that it didn’t get nominated for a Retro Hugo.
Now unto a work that I like just as much as the sister of Kate Baker, Kathleen Bartholomew, does. That being Farmer Giles of Ham. Kathleen, who now has Harry, Kage’s Space Pirate of a parrot, says “Farmer Giles is a clever, solid, shrewd fellow, clearly cut from the same cloth as the most resourceful hobbits elsewhere in Tolkien’s most famous universe.” It’s a wonderful story indeed.
We got in a custom bag from the United Kingdom that the USPS made me sign for so that HarperCollins UK could sure that all twelve volumes of The History of Middle-Earth got here. No, I didn’t read it, but I did skim it. Liz reviewed it for Green Man and here’s that review thisaway. A hobbit sitting down and having elevenses is shorter than it is.
A much, much shorter work is The Road Goes Ever On is a song cycle and much more first published in 1967. It’s a book of sheet music and as an audio recording. It is largely based off poems in The Lord of The Rings. Tolkien approved of the songs here.
Why it’s important is that side one of this record consisted of has him reading six poems from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, than the first track on side two has him reading part of the Elvish prayer of “A Elbereth Gilthoniel” from The Lord of the Rings.
I love Letters from Father Christmas which were originally written for his children. I see Allen and Unwin gave what I think was the better title of The Father Christmas Letters when they first published then collectively in 1976 which was more declarative. A local theatre group dud a reading of them some twenty years back — it was a wonderful experience as it was snowing gently outside the bookstore windows where they were doing it as we had hot chocolate and cookies.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something by him that I like but I think that I’ve prattled on long enough this time…
(12) COMICS SECTION.
(13) BEGUILE THE DIAL. [Item by Steven French.] A call for more weirdness on U.K. TV: “Britain is plagued by bland, box-ticking television. Bring back weird TV” in the Guardian.
…Schedules from the 60s and 70s – the height of Britain’s TV weirdness –contained nuclear attacks, ghosts, war stories, brutal public safety films and intellectually demanding folk horror dramas such as Robin Redbreast, Penda’s Fen and Artemis 81….
(14) WOULD YOU BELIEVE…IRISH REUNIFICATION? Gizmodo reminds fans that “2024 Is a Hell of a Year in Star Trek History” with a slideshow that starts at the link.
A lot—a lot—happens historically in Star Trek’s 2024, crucially important events that go on to not just shape Earth as it is in the early 21st century, but form foundational pillars for the contemporary Star Trek timeline. It’s a year we’ve heard about, and visited, multiple times across several Trek shows. So what’s exactly wild about it? Well, let us take a look through Trek’s past to find out… and perhaps, our future?
(15) AI IN LAW ENFORCEMENT. “’Proceed with caution:’ AI poses issues of discrimination, surveillance” at WBUR.
There are many uses for AI as the technology becomes more accessible and normalized, but not everyone is excited about that premise. AI scholar and activist Joy Buolamwini is one of those critics. She’s the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League and author of the book “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines.”
She started her journey as a scholar enamored by the promise of AI. But her views changed when she tried face-tracking software and it didn’t work well on her dark skin. However, the software registered her when she put on a white mask.
Buolamwini questioned whether her problem was unique or would happen to others with dark skin. And she found that the data was skewed.
“The data sets we often found were largely male and largely pale individuals,” Buolamwini says.
This poses problems especially when AI is used by law enforcement agencies to identify suspects, assess whether a defendant will commit another crime, and assign bond limits or flight risk status. Buolamwini uses Porcha Woodruff’s story as an example. Woodruff was 8 months pregnant when she was mistakenly arrested for carjacking after being misidentified by Detroit police’s facial recognition software.
“We’re creating tools for mass surveillance,” Buolamwini says, “that in the hands of an authoritarian state can be used in very devastating ways.”
Buolamwini stresses that even if data set bias was addressed, accurate artificial intelligence could still pose problems and be abused….
(16) UNFORGETTABLE IMAGES. This Yardbarker slideshow might just live up to its title: “The 20 most epic moments in sci-fi movies”. At least, there’s a bunch of my favorites here.
Science fiction excels at pushing the boundaries of the possible, both in terms of the stories it tells and the methods by which it brings those stories to life. People often go to sci-fi films to see the world brought to life in ways new, strange, and sometimes terrifying, precisely because the genre is so adept at taking things in the present and exploring what they might look like in the future. Some of the best scenes in sci-fi films take the viewer out of themselves, allowing them to encounter something akin to the sublime.
In sixteenth place:
The assembling of the Avengers during the battle against Thanos in ‘Avengers: Endgame’
Throughout much of the 2010s, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was the franchise that couldn’t be beaten, and it had its fair share of epic moments. The pinnacle, however, was during the climactic battle against the genocidal Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, when at last, the Avengers and all of those who have been restored appear to strike back against the Titan. It evokes the moment in the first Avengers film where the beloved characters first united, and it is also a climactic moment for those devastated when so many were killed with the Snap. In the world of comic book movies, no one ever remains truly dead.
(17) ‘TIL THEN HE’S COPYRIGHT KRYPTONITE. Someday you may ask “When Do Superman & Batman Enter the Public Domain?” Yahoo! has anticipated your interest. First on the list:
When does Superman enter the public domain?
As per US law, 2034 is the year when Superman would be joining the public domain.
In 2034, fans of Man of Steel and a few other DC characters will be able to use Superman in their content up to a certain extent without being afraid of copyright, trademark, or patent laws as that’s when Superman will be joining the public domain (PD).
According to US law, a property introduced before 1978 makes its way into the public domain if 95 years have passed after its first publication. So, because Superman made his debut on April 18, 1938, in Action Comics #1, he will be joining the public domain in 2034.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Kathy Sullivan, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Michael J. Walsh.]