Tag Archives: Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

Pixel Scroll 1/12/25 Make Sure There’s No Pixelite Nearby

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(1) GENESIS OF SF ANTHOLOGIES. A Deep Look by Dave Hook turns its attention to “The First SF Reprint Anthology – ‘The Pocket Book of Science-Fiction’, Donald A. Wollheim editor, 1943 Pocket Books”.

…The Pocket Book of Science-Fiction was the first anthology of reprinted science fiction. Another important aspect of this anthology is that it was the first one with “science fiction” in the title.

Finally, it was probably the first paperback of science fiction. After first publication in hardback in 1933, Lost Horizon by James Hilton was published in paperback in 1939 by Pocket Books. I have not read it, but what I found suggested that it is probably more fantasy than SF. I could be wrong.

R. D. Mullen makes a great case for the importance of paperbacks to science fiction in Science Fiction Studies Volume 1, No. 3, Spring 1974 in essay “AN INDEX TO AMERICAN MASS-MARKET PAPERBACKS”…

… On this basis, I believe that The Pocket Book of Science-Fiction was important both for what it was and as a harbinger of easier access to SF by more people….

(2) HOW MICHAEL WHELAN GOT HIS START. [Item by Bruce D. Arthurs.] Michael Whelan writes interestingly about how he broke into professional illustration, along with pics of some of his early book covers. “1975: Year in Review”.

Ever since I can remember, it seemed natural to draw things that interested me. I just did it. I wasn’t aware of wanting to be an artist until the concept of a career impinged on my mind, but in any case I never thought of it as a serious option until my third year in college.

I had grown to think that I had to be something professional, and since I’d always had an interest in human anatomy, I was intending to become a doctor. In college I was able to separate what I wanted to do from what I thought was expected of me, and in the latter half of my junior year I changed my major to art.

After graduating from San Jose State University, I attended The Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. I enrolled hoping to acquire some mysterious quality of refinement I felt was lacking in my work.

I knew it would be a big mistake to attempt to find my first commission with anything less than professional-level work in my portfolio…

The rest of Whelan’s article tells why he was more surprised than anyone when sf publishers said his work made the grade.

(3) NOT HIS BEST VINTAGE. Jason Sanford’s latest Genre Grapevine devotes a long passage to justifying Erin Cairns’ disproven complaints against Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, in the process shading File 770’s post “Two Accusations Against Ekpeki Disproved”. Sanford refuses to account for the critical fact that Cairns made up two of the worst accusations in her “ODE Ethics Report”.

First, when Erin Cairns claimed that Ekpeki had left her name off the byline when submitting their co-authored story, she merely assumed that must have happened because it was a way she could make sense of how Ekpeki was responding to her, and how she was being ignored by the magazine’s editors. She didn’t know whether that had actually occurred when she made the claim. It wasn’t true. Her name was on the byline of the cover letter and the manuscript. I’ve seen the magazine’s archived copies.

Second, Cairns, a white woman, was distressed because she was under the impression the publication their story was submitted to was a “Black voices magazine”. Cairns emailed the magazine about her concerns and received no answer from them. Therefore, in her report she represented her belief about the magazine’s policy as a fact. It wasn’t a fact. Through contact with an editor of the magazine involved File 770 learned that it was not inappropriate for Cairns’ co-authored story to be submitted to the magazine, which has published a white author in the past.

Jason Sanford had exactly the same opportunity as File 770 to fact-check Cairns’ story. He did not choose to do it, instead devoting the Genre Grapevine for September/October 2024 to a Queeg-like exercise of geometric logic denying Ekpeki’s self-defense:

…In Ekpeki’s response, he essentially says the story was co-written by both of them and he submitted it without her name due to “miscommunication and misunderstandings and assumptions on both sides from two people in not great situations.” Ekpeki also says all the claims Cairns made were incorrect.

However, his argument doesn’t hold up for me. I see it as semantics and legalese, trying to rationalize away what happened. For example, Ekpeki said in his report that “As for her name not being on the bi-line, even if that were true (which it isn’t), it would not be theft, or even an attempt at theft, just an oversight, unless there was an intention to eventually publish it without her name on the bi-line.” And he then says that the magazine he submitted the story to wasn’t a Black voices publication because the magazine “caters to Africans and African diasporans. So there was no malfeasance there. She was eligible to be on the mag.”

That claim is absolutely wrong. As a white person born in South Africa, Cairns specifically said she wasn’t eligible to submit works to the magazine….

Sanford rejected Ekpeki’s statement that her name was on the byline. Yet it was. And about the magazine not being a “Black voices publication”, how did Sanford establish that claim was “absolutely wrong”? By the circular process of referring back to Cairns’ report. Not by pursuing third-party verification, through which he could have learned that it is Cairns’ claim that was wrong.

(4) MOONFALL. Slashfilm discovers there’s a new record-holder for “The Least Scientifically-Accurate Sci-Fi Movie, According To Neil deGrasse Tyson”.

Know that when celebrated astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson nitpicks the bad science commonly encountered in mainstream Hollywood blockbusters, he’s not trying to spoil anyone’s fun. He’s just being a nerd, and I think we can all respect that. There’s nothing shameful about possessing a lot of scientific knowledge, and pointing out the physics and astronomical errors in a movie can only, one might hope, encourage filmmakers to be more accurate next time….

… There are a few movies, however, that would strain the credulity of anyone. Michael Bay’s 1998 thriller “Armageddon,” for instance, is about a team of oil drillers and astronauts who fly to an oncoming comet to blow it up. On a 2024 episode of “The Jess Cagle Show,” Tyson pointed out several reasons why blowing up a potentially lethal comet is a bad idea. In fact, he once felt that “Armageddon” was the most brazenly unscientific sci-fi film ever made.

But “Armageddon” was recently supplanted by an even stupider movie. Tyson has some harsh words for Roland Emmerich’s 2022 mega-dud “Moonfall.”…

“It was a pandemic film […] — you know, Halle Berry — and the moon is approaching Earth, and they learned that it’s hollow. And there’s a moon being made out of rocks living inside of it. And the Apollo missions were to visit and feed the moon being.* And I … And I just couldn’t … I thought ‘Armageddon’ had a secure hold on this crown. But apparently not.”…

(5) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Batman movie (1966)

By Paul Weimer: Batman 1966 film, or some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.

The Batman movie was, for me, just a long two-part episode of the Batman 1960’s TV series. I didn’t even know for years that it was meant to be a movie, I just thought it was a long episode of the second superhero show I remember watching. (The first is another story entirely).

Come back me to the days of the 1970’s and endless reruns. Among the reruns on Channel 5 (I swear, by the time I finish doing these anniversaries, you filers will know every nuance of TV in NYC in the 70’s and 80’s) was the 1960’s Batman TV show.  I’ll save my thoughts about the entire show for another day.

Today we’re talking about the movie. It’s the classic set up, have several supervillains (Catwoman, Penguin, Joker, and Riddler) team up for their greatest plot yet, which Batman and Robin must foil.  Sadly, Julie Newmar was unable to play Catwoman for the movie, and instead fell on Lee Meriweather.  I’m sorry, but Lee is a distant third behind Newmar and the last Catwoman, Eartha Kitt, in my book.  She’s not bad, but she doesn’t quite inhabit the role as the other two actresses do.   

The plot is silly but the movie has a lot of the extra tropes and gadgets that people associate with the entire series but were only in this movie or were much more prominent in this movie. The Batboat. Bat Shark repellent. Batcycle. Batcopter. Catwoman with a secret identity. Someone figures out a way into the Batcave! Lots of silly fights and chases.

And of course, the bomb. In trying to save some civilians, we are treated with Batman carrying a preposterous large bomb with a fuse, unable to dispose of it safely.  He becomes so exasperated by this that he utters the memorable line “some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.”

The movie itself is not a bomb. Sure, Batman is a very different character these days. But the movie is pure fun, and it never takes itself too seriously, not even in the denouement.  

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 12, 1980 — Kameron Hurley, 45.

So I’ve been re-listening to Kameron Hurley’s space opera The Stars are Legion as I write this Birthday essay. A most excellent story indeed. 

Her time travel novel which I listened to recently, The Light Brigade, is one the best works in that sub-genre I’ve encountered. It was nominated for a Hugo at CoNZealand. 

Her first novel which I need someday to listen to (if it’s in audiobook format) is the start of her matriarchal Islam culture Bel Dame Apocrypha biopunk trilogy. Her term, not mine. 

The Worldbreaker trilogy which begins with The Mirror Empire I find delightful with its merging of hard SF underpinned by magic in a space opera setting. Now that shouldn’t work, should it? Really. But it magnificently does.

And let’s talk about her non-fiction. The Geek Feminist Revolution which garnered a BFA is a collection of previously published blog posts and none news essays written for here. One of the first, “We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” got a Hugo for Best Related Work at Loncon 3, and she also won a Hugo for Best Fan Writer.

Her exemplary short stories have been collected so far in Meet in The Future and Future Artifacts. Meet in The Future was nominated for an Otherwise Award. 

Of course, everything she’s written is available from the usual suspects. 

Mur Lafferty, Ursula Vernon, and Kameron Hurley at 2017 Hugo Award reception.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Lio tries to be a good neighbor.
  • Off the Mark shows what cats are doing with Zoom.
  • Speed Bump reveals a surprising thing about a dog’s space suit that you probably don’t want to know.
  • Tom Gauld hypothesizes about why she’s a Sleeping Beauty.

The Sleeping Beauty- my latest cartoon for @theguardian.com

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-01-11T09:56:46.883Z
  • Tom Gauld wonders how to tell the difference between this trio.

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-01-12T12:29:45.769Z

(9) WARWICK DAVIS TO BE HONORED BY BAFTA. “Warwick Davis to Receive BAFTA Fellowship” – Variety has the story.

Warwick Davis, the British star best known for his appearances in the “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter” franchises, is to be awarded the British Academy’s highest honor, the BAFTA Fellowship.

Recognizing those who have made an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, games or television, the honor will be presented at the BAFTA film awards on Feb. 16….

(10) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. The Week has learned “Florida condos sinking at ‘unexpected’ rates”.

For as long as humans have endeavored to build upwards toward the sky, they have also been forced to contend with inexorable laws of nature — ones that are not always so accommodating to our species’ vertical endeavors. In the modern era, that tension is perhaps best exemplified in Florida, where coastal erosion, sinkholes, and other environmental factors have become a constant challenge in the march toward upward construction.

Nearly three dozen structures along Florida’s southern coast sank an “unexpected” amount between 2016 and 2023, according to a report released this month by researchers at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. All told, “35 buildings along the Miami Beach to Sunny Isles Beach coastline are experiencing subsidence, a process where the ground sinks or settles,” the school said in a press release announcing the results of its research. Although it’s generally understood that buildings can experience subsidence “up to several tens of centimeters during and immediately after construction,” this latest study shows that the process can “persist for many years.” What do these new findings mean for Miami-area residents, and our understanding of how to build bigger, safer buildings in general?…

(11) THE BULGE FINALLY CAPTURED. Live Science posted “Space photo of the week: The tilted spiral galaxy that took Hubble 23 years to capture”. See the image at the link.

Why it’s so special: This image of a spiral galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope is a portrait more than two decades in the making.

Like most full-color images of space objects, it’s a composite of images taken in different wavelengths of light. What sets this image apart, however, is that the data used to create it was collected during observation sessions in 2000 and 2023 — 23 years apart. That’s one advantage of having a space telescope in orbit for so long: Hubble was launched from the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990, and its long service has enabled it to capture a huge amount of data about every corner of the cosmos.

But besides the prolonged methods used to create it, it’s also an unusual image on its face. Spiral galaxies — which account for about 60% of all galaxies in the universe, according to the European Space Agency — are, by chance, typically seen face-on when viewed from the solar system. That’s why spiral galaxies are typically associated with vivid spiral arms, which can only be seen from a face-on vantage. However, UGC 10043 is viewed edge-on, with its rings seemingly flattened into a line. This unique angle gives astronomers the chance to see how spiral galaxies are structured in 3D.

(12) HI-TECH PERCH. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Ars Technica finds“Three bizarre home devices and a couple good things at CES 2025”. See the cat tower/air purifier at the end of this article. Gloriously free of AI. 

This cat tower is also an air purifier; it is also good

There are a lot of phones out there that need charging and a bunch of gamers who, for some reason, need even more controllers and screens to play on. But there is another, eternally underserved market getting some attention at CES: cats wanting to sit.

LG, which primarily concerned itself with stuffing generative AI interfaces into every other device at CES 2025, crafted something that feels like a real old-time trade show gimmick. There is no guarantee that your cat will use the AeroCat Tower; some cats may just sit inside the cardboard box it came in out of spite. But should they deign to luxuriate on it, the AeroCat will provide gentle heat beneath them, weigh them, and give you a record of their sleep habits. Also, it purifies the air in that room….

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

Pixel Scroll 12/10/24 We Are The Telepath Guild, The Telepath Guild, The Telepath Guild

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(1) UNION AND STRAND BOOK STORE SETTLE. “Strike Ends at the Strand as Union, Management Reach Tentative Agreement” reports Publishers Weekly.

The Strand Book Store has reached a tentative contract agreement with its staff union, which is represented by United Auto Workers Local 2179, putting an end to a strike that stretched through the weekend and much of Monday, December 9. Should the contract be ratified, it would last through Aug 31, 2028, adding an additional year to a contract that was previously three years long, said Will Bobrowski, the former Strand employee and current second VP at UAW Local 2179.

Among the changes to the contract, Bobrowski told PW, are an increase to the store’s per hour hiring rate, which will now be $0.50 above New York State minimum wage and a $1.50/hour raise in an employee’s fourth year, amounting to a roughly 37% wage increase over four years for Strand workers who begin at the base salary. (The minimum wage in New York will increase by another $0.50 on January 1, 2026, and on Jan. 1, 2027, the state’s rate will be tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, taking inflation into account in the establishment of a minimum.)

Paid time off for employees will remain unchanged in the new contract, totaling nine days for all workers. Charges of unfair labor practices filed by the union to the National Board of Labor Relations over the weekend will also be dropped….

(2) DEADLINE APPROACHES TO APPLY FOR OTHERWISE FELLOWSHIPS. The Otherwise Motherboard is soliciting applications for two 2024 Otherwise Fellows.

The Otherwise Fellowship (formerly Tiptree Fellowship) was established in 2015 to support and recognize new voices who are creating work that is changing our view of gender today. The Fellowship program seeks out creators who are striving to complete new works, particularly creators from communities that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy genre and those who are working in media other than traditional fiction! Each Fellow receives USD $500 in support of a new or ongoing project.

Applications are due December 15, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, via email. Selected Fellows will be announced in Spring 2025. The Fellowship committee is being chaired by Otherwise Motherboard member Jed Samer.

For more information about what the Fellowship entails and how to apply, see “How to apply for an Otherwise Fellowship”.

(3) GENRE SPECIALISTS’ PICKS. At Reactor: “Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2024”.

As readers of speculative fiction, we are spoiled for choice. The book releases in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and beyond this year took us to lands of magic and wonder, newly terraformed planets and generation ships, crumbling gothic mansions, and tech-fueled future Earths—and we are so lucky to get to read them all. Our reviewers each picked their top contenders for the best books of the year, along with some personal favorites….

(4) ASFS’ REVISED CODE OF CONDUCT. The African Science Fiction Society released its new Code of Conduct today in concert with this statement about Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. (The Code of Conduct is at the link.)

ASFS had started gathering information in response to Erin Cairns’ report discussed in File 770’s post “Two Accusations Against Ekpeki Disproved”.

(5) SCOTT EDELMAN’S OTHER PODCAST. Episode 10 of Scott Edelman’s podcast Why Not Say What Happened? — “Why I Was Questioned by the Police for Wearing a Mister Miracle Mask” — includes his ramblings about his first cons — plus a couple of con photos of him at 16.

And here’s the link to all episodes in the series, which can be downloaded through multiple sites.

Scott Edelman, at right wearing glasses.

(6) CALL ME ISHMAEL, BUT DON’T CALL ME LATE TO DINNER. “’People are rooting for the whale’: the strange American tradition of Moby-Dick reading marathons” at Yahoo!

Every fall on Venice beach, local residents set up a director’s chair by the water. A harpoon goes on one side, a whalebone on the other. Then, in honor of grey whale migration season, they spend two days reading Moby-Dick aloud.

Nearly 200 years after Herman Melville first published the story of a sea captain’s obsessive hunt for a white whale, Moby-Dick marathons have become a surprisingly popular American tradition. There are an estimated 25 or more across the US each year, in locations ranging from museums to a 19th-century whaling ship….

…The Venice beach marathon, held for 29 years, is a particularly surreal scene. Even in late November, the beach is crowded: French tourists on bicycles, the men of Muscle beach lifting weights, friends playing volleyball in short shorts. Far out on the sand, where the air begins to smell more like salt than weed or essential oils, the Moby-Dick readers sit in a circle, switching readers every chapter, as tourists and surfers eddy around them, drifting up to take photographs and then drifting away again. Occasionally, readers spot whales in the distance….

…Other classic novelists may inspire larger fan events, but Jane Austen celebrations don’t typically include a live reading of all of Pride and Prejudice.

“No offense to Jane Austen, but more happens. It’s more exciting to hunt a whale than to hunt a husband,” said Dawn Coleman, the executive secretary of the Melville Society, and an English professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville….

(7) MANY DOLLARS WERE LOST. Giant Freakin Robot makes its case for “How Disney’s Horrible Marketing Forever Changed Sci-Fi Movies”. They begin by dissecting the corpse of Disney’s marketing campaign for John Carter (2012).

In the long, storied history of Disney, the company has had massive successes, including the history-making Marvel Cinematic Universe and their entire animated output in the ’90s. At the same time, they’ve created some of the biggest bombs of all time.

The 2012 sci-fi adventure John Carter was, at the time of its release, the least profitable film ever made, a title it might end up losing to Joker: Folie a Deux by the end of the year. A rollicking sci-fi adventure based on classic pulp novels, John Carter should have been a massive success, but it never had a chance, thanks to the worst marketing campaign of all time….

…The second trailer course-corrected and starts off with Carter fighting in an arena before launching into a montage of the alien planet with Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” playing. As with everything about this movie, it was too far ahead of the curve, as today, every trailer has a slowed-down, epic version of a classic rock song playing over the trailer, but in 2012, this confused most of the general audience.

Worse, there’s nothing about being based on the legendary pulp novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, nothing about being an adventure 100 years in the making, no mention of how it’s starring Taylor Kitsch, who at the time Hollywood was pushing as the next big thing. In interviews leading up to its release, Kitsch publicly spoke about his disappointment with the film’s marketing, which lacked any sort of “hook” or jaw-dropping special effects shot to leave an impression on viewers. Even his other sci-fi dud, Battleship, included a screen-filling shot of the alien ship in all of its glory to tease moviegoers of the battle yet to come….

(8) WICKED INSPIRATION. Saturday Night Live gives us “Gladiator II: The Musical”. “There’s No Place Like Rome.”

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

December 10, 1960 — Kenneth Branagh, 64.

I first saw Kenneth Branagh with his then-wife Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing, the Shakespearean comedy which he adapted. Truly lovely film.

So let’s look at his genre work as a performer. Dead Again might or might not be his first genre film where he was Mike Church / Roman Strauss, but Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where he was Victor Frankenstein is genre and he directed it as well. I’ve heard varying opinions on it. What did y’all think of it? 

Then there’s Wild Wild West where he was Arliss Loveless, some bastardized variant on Michael Dunn’s perfectly acted Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless. He didn’t work for me. Not at all. Nor did that shudderingly awful film. 

Alien Love Triangle is a thirty-minute film starring Kenneth Branagh, Alice Connor, Courteney Cox and Heather Graham. Teleportation. Aliens. Genders, alien. 

He got to play in Rowling’s universe in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as Gilderoy Lockhart. Great role it was.

Oh, and in an alternate reality sort of way, he plays William Shakespeare in All is True, another name for Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII.  It’s a very lovely role and a sweet film as well. Recommended. 

For hard SF, I’ve got him directing Thor. (Well sort of hard SF.) For fantasy, he directed Cinderella and Artemis Fowl. 

Finally, he’s Hercule Poirot in the three Agatha Christie films produced so far — Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice. He was also director and producer for these. He’s certainly a different manner of that detective. Really different.

Kenneth Branagh

(10) SPIDER-MAN FIGURES. “Hasbro Unveils New Spider-Man Marvel Legends Wave for 2025” – Bleeding Cool has all the photos. Here are a couple.

…The first wave of Marvel Legends figures for 2025 have been revealed, with Spider-Man bringing some heat in the new year…. However, the whole roster has been unveiled, with six iconic heroes and villains coming to life, with each getting their own card back. For the classic Spider-Man: The Animated Series retro wave, we have the debut of The Chameleon, and yes, he gets a J. Jonah Jameson mask. We are also getting a Clone Saga debut with Kaine from a time before he was a hero and the corrupt clone of Peter Parker. Lastly, we are stepping into the Spider-Verse with the 1st ever-Marvel Legends figure of Spider-Man Unlimited!…

…The latest wave of Marvel Legends Series Spider-Man inspired figures:

  • Spider-Man Unlimited
  • Agent Venom (Flash Thompson)
  • Spider-Boy
  • Marvel’s Chameleon
  • Marvel’s Kaine
  • Electro (Francine Frye)

(11) CASTING OUCH. Variety reports “Jeremy Allen White Joins ‘Star Wars’ Film ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ as Jabba the Hutt’s Son”. Eh, Jabba the Hutt’s son? How? Parthenogenesis? Binary fission? Actual sex? Where’s my eye bleach.

… Plot details have been hard to come by for “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” so White’s casting as Jabba’s son provides the first real glimpse for what could be in store for the titular bounty hunter and his adorably wee adopted son. Their Disney+ series “The Mandalorian” is set in the years following the events of 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” in which Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) strangles Jabba to death. The recent spin-off series “The Book of Boba Fett” revealed that Jabba’s absence left a power vacuum among the organized crime bosses on Tatooine; two of Jabba’s cousins made a play for his territory, only to be defeated by Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), who takes over instead. It seems likely that, with Jabba’s son somehow involved in the new film, Boba Fett and his deputy Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) could show up as well….

(12) BLASTED IN THE PAST. Larry Correia would never do this. “Why ‘Gladiator’ director Ridley Scott keeps a 40-year-old negative review framed on his wall: ‘I was actually hurt’” at CNBC.

At 87 years old, director Ridley Scott has seen a tremendous amount of success over the course of his career. 

His films have grossed billions at the box office and taken home nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture for 2000′s “Gladiator.” But despite the plaudits he has received as a filmmaker, it’s the critical pans that have stayed with Scott the most. 

In an interview with filmmaker Fede Alvarez on the DGA’s “Director’s Cut” podcast, Scott revealed that he has a negative review from famed film critic Pauline Kael of his 1982 science fiction epic “Blade Runner” on display in his office. 

Scott explained that Kael “destroyed Blade Runner in four pages” in the New Yorker, likening the review to “industrial espionage, because you’re destroying a product before it’s out.”…

… “I framed that. It’s still in my office today,” he said. “It taught me this: there’s only one critic that means anything, and that’s you.”…

(13) THE WEST EGG AND I. Chuck Tingle seems to have embraced Scott’s number – and a good many other things.

(14) UNUSUAL VIDEO GAME. [Item by N.] “I Hope This Hurts: Mouthwashing Through A Disabled Lens” at The Jimquisition is a video essay from game critic James Stephanie Sterling, which analyzes the recent indie sci-fi horror success Mouthwashing from the vantage point of disability.

(15) CASTLEVANIA. Netflix dropped a trailer for “Castlevania: Nocturne Season 2”, which is available there starting January 16.

The legendary Alucard, Richter Belmont, and his band of vampire hunters are in a desperate race against time. Erzsebet Báthory, the Vampire Messiah, who already seems invincible, seeks the full power of the goddess Sekhmet so she can plunge the world into endless darkness and terror

(16) ZOMBIES BY INCREMENTS. Gizmodo says, “In 28 Years Later’s First Trailer, the Apocalypse Just Keeps Going”. Beware spoilers (maybe). Beware gory zombie stuff (definitely). In theaters June 20, 2025.

A lot can change in nearly three decades, even in a zombie apocalypse. New ways to survive, new mysteries evolving in the infection that laid the world low. Sometimes people grow up and become Aaron Taylor-Johnson, even. But one thing that doesn’t change? The violence….

…28 Years Later is just the first half of our long-awaited return to this version of the zombie apocalypse, however–Boyle’s sequel was shot back-to-back with its own continuation, helmed by Nia DaCosta and titled The Bone Temple (which we seem to get a brief look at in this trailer, too). That film will see Cillian Murphy reprise his role from 28 Days as Jim, but it hasn’t stopped people from speculating that one of the zombies glimpsed in the trailer could be his grim fate, as there is one that looks especially like a particularly gaunt Murphy glimpsed rising out of a bed of wild grass….

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Sumana Harihareswara, N., Daniel Dern, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “We’d Like To Welcome You” Dern.]

Two Accusations Against Ekpeki Disproved

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Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki didn’t do the things author Erin Cairns accused in the opening line of her report published October 25:  

I am reporting Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for unethical practices. He submitted a story entirely written by me into a Black voices magazine without my name on the byline….

In fact, Cairns’ name was on the byline. File 770 has identified the publication. An anonymous source in a position to have direct knowledge has verified that when Ekpeki submitted the story (1) his cover letter identified Erin Cairns as the co-author, and (2) the manuscript had both authors’ named on the title page. File 770 has seen archived copies of the documents.

Furthermore, while the publication’s mission is “supporting Black, African, and African Diaspora creatives globally”, File 770 learned from the source that the magazine has published material by a white author before, and that a submission having a white co-author would not have been a barrier to publication there. 

The characterization of the story as “entirely written” by Cairns is disputed by Ekpeki in his rebuttal “ODE Response to Accusations By Erin” for the following reasons.

Cairns and Ekpeki came to work together on her story “The Face of Our Demon” in 2020 as detailed in her report. File 770’s post “Author Erin Cairns Charges Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki with ‘Unethical Practices’” outlined that history:

…Ekpeki, telling her there was by now more demand for his work than he could satisfy, asked if Cairns was interested in co-authoring, which in this case would mean jointly revising a story she had already drafted: “[He] would change the story to reflect a more own-voice context, and give it more Nigerian spiritualism and culture, but distance it from the real world inspiration I’d had for the story (a Makonde mask I’d seen in the Dallas Museum of Art).”

But when [Editor S] solicited the story they had co-authored for [Market 2], a “Black voices magazine”, Cairns disagreed with Ekpeki about the ethics of allowing that to happen, and following some tense correspondence (reproduced in the report) she got Ekpeki to withdraw the story….

In Ekpeki’s rebuttal posted on October 31, he calls the story a collaboration:

I submitted a story, written entirely by her, that’s not true. It was a collaborative piece. She consented to it being collaborative, before and after. She was satisfied with my contributions and okay with me sending it out. I gave her updates, before, during and after.

Asked for specific examples of his contributions, Ekpeki told File 770: “I helped ground the story. Things like settings, location, world, cultural leaning, character names. Basically world building.” Here are screencaps of texts where he recommended changes to her. [Click for larger images.]

His rebuttal continues:

“Erin was fine with my contributions, name change, settings, grounding the story regionally. These things are valid contributions which she consented to, accepted and was happy with. That constitutes a collaboration.

“These are from Erin Cairns own screenshots on her document which show us deliberating on the story. The grounding and changes I suggested which were made. Which she was fine with. So it wasn’t solely written by her. It had contributions from me, which we agreed on. That it was solely written by her, is just not true. After we dropped the story, she reached out to ask me for permission to send out her version without my contributions.”

Whether or not the quantity of writing Ekpeki had done would satisfy everyone that it should be termed a collaboration, the screencapped correspondence between them in Cairns’ report shows they intended to treat this story as being co-authored. 

THE BACKGROUND TO CAIRNS’ CHARGES. Reading the messages between Cairns and Ekpeki shows that she was frustrated by their communications, and suspicious about why she wasn’t in the loop with the submission process for the story.  Cairns explained in her report:

…He sent me a screenshot of him telling the magazine that I was attached (after the story had been accepted), but they had never responded. To me, this meant it was likely he had removed my name from the byline of the manuscript.

He reiterated that [Editor S] knew who I was and had still solicited the story. But still refused to give me contact with them…

Nevertheless, her name was on the byline of the manuscript. Was he unable to document that at the time? Because Ekpeki seems to have created more doubt by trying to allay Cairns’ concerns. That was the reason why, on the day the submission was accepted, he wrote to remind the editors about the co-authorship, and Cairns’ background, then copied that message to her.

Then there still remained her second concern, whether her story should have been submitted to this market at all. After the story was submitted, other editors — not [Editor S] — were assigned to review it. Cairns became worried whether it was ethical for her, as a white South African, to have submitted a story to [Market 2]. She was aware of their mission statement about “supporting Black, African, and African Diaspora creatives globally”.

I didn’t know how to even answer all of that, so the conversation became about whether or not [Market 2] was a Black voices only magazine. I said it seemed like it was black voices only from everything I could see. He insisted it wasn’t explicitly stated.

…I tried to be non-accusatory, but after realizing that [Editor S] wasn’t involved in the story’s selection, and this was a black voices magazine, I was panicking.

Even File 770 required the input of an anonymous source to verify that a white author could potentially be published by the magazine. Whereas Cairns got no reply from the editors of [Market 2] when she contacted them about her concerns directly:

Dear [Market 2] editors, My name is Erin Cairns, your magazine is publishing a story I co-wrote with Oghenechovwe Ekpeki called “The Face of Our Demon”. I only learned about this recently, and I’m feeling a little out of the loop. Oghenechovwe has been understandably busy these past few months, and while he’s passed on some of your communications in recent days, I can’t help but feel that some lines of communication have been crossed for a while. I did not understand that [Market 2] was a primarily, if not entirely, black voice magazine. I am a white South African, and if I had known, I would first have asked through this portal if a contribution from me would have been welcome. From what I understand, the story was accepted mid-December, but you did not know I was attached until early February. This leaves me a little unsure about whether my name will make it to the byline, or even if you still want to publish this story. If not, I completely understand, and I would immediately withdraw the story with sincere apologies. If there is to be more communication about ‘The Face of Our Demon’, could you please cc me in on the emails with Oghenechovwe so that we both have the information? He’s cc’d me in on his last email, the one with the revisions, but it was in response to a [S]ubmittable reply that I cannot see or follow

(Note: As discussed above, Cairns was unaware the editors knew she was a co-author from the beginning.)

The editors did not reply to Cairns. Instead, she learned from Ekpeki that they had informed him about the message. 

I asked him outright why they weren’t willing to talk to me. In response, he abandoned the pretense of the market being open to a submission from me and told me ‘It’s an African exclusive space’ and the ‘politics of white Africans is complicated’. But he’d just spent months obfuscating this issue between me and the magazine. He said he was ‘trying to make sure things went smoothly till publication’ though what me or the magazine were supposed to do in the rough waters after publication would then likely be up to me and the magazine, with me looking like I was a part of hiding my own involvement in a story I’d written in its entirety.

Cairns soon asked Ekpeki to withdraw the story from [Market 2] and he did.

Ekpeki’s Response characterizes the problems between them as miscommunication, misunderstanding, and mismatched expectations:

…Could I have communicated better? Of course. You always can. But you must remember that we are both disabled, chronically ill people. And one of them, me, lives in way worse conditions, in the poverty capital of the world, with little to no access to health care. If anything there’s a human being who is less than perfect, doing the best he can, which could yet be better. Not malfeasance or lack of ethics, or malice or an attempt at theft. There was a lot of miscommunication and misunderstandings and assumptions on both sides from two people in not great situations…

At one point he says, “I apologize for the pain that caused”, however, the statement comes in the middle of a paragraph focused on his extenuating circumstances.

OTHER ISSUES IN CAIRNS REPORT. Cairns also objected to not having received the credit she deserved for the work she did on Ekpeki’s behalf. For example:

We interacted on twitter for a while, exchanging stories for critique which I had done many times before. But this gradually shifted into me editing stories, which at the time I did not know was for his co-edited anthology: [Anthology D]. When he told me a story I’d worked on was going to be in the anthology, I questioned him about what I’d been doing. He told me that for my help and work, my name would be in the acknowledgments of the book.

When the book was released, I bought a copy, and my name was nowhere to be found….

…He hadn’t been transparent with me about his involvement with [Anthology D] when it was being put together, even while I was editing for it. And when I asked about the other stories I was critiquing or editing for him, he would give me vague answers like he wanted it to be a pleasant surprise…

Ekpeki’s response is that the only story she edited for [Anthology D] was his:

…She did not edit stories, not the plural which were for the anthology. She edited one story, mine, which appeared on it. How can I acknowledge you in a book that’s not mine, for one story I have in it? Do people give credits for one story being copy edited, in the whole book? I do not recall promising this….

People’s reaction in social media has ranged from expressions of empathy for Cairns to contending that she should have been given credit as a co-editor of the book.

We now know that Anthology D was Dominion, which on the cover says it was edited by Zelda Knight and Ekpeki, with Joshua Omenga also named as an editor in the Amazon listing. Silvia Moreno-Garcia has weighed in on Bluesky (relevant portion of the thread begins here). Her updated views are excerpted below. Knight and Ekpeki have posted counter arguments to the thread.  

ADDITIONAL REACTION IN SOCIAL MEDIA. Cairns’ report prompted several people to comment publicly about issues involving Ekpeki that until now were known to a limited number, or to come forward with their own complaints.

Ekpeki has responded to several of these criticisms and allegations in a Bluesky thread that starts here.

CONCLUSION. Erin Cairns led her report with the most volatile charges – that Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki had submitted a story “entirely written” by her solely under his own byline, and with the added deception that the market was a “Black voices magazine” whereas she is a white South African (living in the U.S.) But it has now been established that both her and Ekpeki’s names were on the byline of the manuscript, that the editor who solicited the submission knew her background, and that it was not inappropriate for her co-authored story to be submitted to the magazine, which has published a white author in the past.

The result is a more accurate set of facts to discuss. That does not put all controversy to rest. Other issues in Cairns’ report still remain open and are the subject of debate. And its publication has created ripples of criticism against Ekpeki in social media from those with complaints of their own.   

African Speculative Fiction Society Issues Statement on Member Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

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The African Speculative Fiction Society today released a statement acknowledging the recent allegations against Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki: “ASFS Statement on Member Code of Conduct”.

Ekpeki has been an active ASFS member, and was one of the presenters of the organization’s Nommo Awards at Glasgow 2024.

In its statement ASFS invites the membership to come forward with any concerns. They plan to hold workshops about “fair practices in publishing”, and will be creating a new ASFS Code of Conduct.

The statement says:

We are aware of the specific allegations regarding ethics violations and appropriation reported, and other public concerns, related to one of our members and Nommo award recipient, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. 

We are also aware of the investigation and decision made by SFWA, however, we have not received complete information from all the parties involved, or a response from Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki.

As a membership organization of African writers and artists, we are committed to upholding standards that foster respect and integrity, and do not condone behaviour that causes harm or risk to any person, in any form, nor practices that seek to appropriate and erase other authors’ work, or any other allegations. 

As an urgent response, the ASFS is committed to create a space for our members to come forward with any concerns, and an opportunity for Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki to respond.

We will be setting up a series of workshops for our members to discuss Codes of Conduct and fair practice in publishing. This will offer guidance on commercial publishing including contracts, processes, and rights – the benefits, the opportunities and the costs. 

A direct outcome of these workshops will be a new ASFS Code of Conduct providing clear ethical guidance which will be circulated to our members for voting and to add to our Charter.

Pixel Scroll 10/28/24 John Pixel Is Dead, He Scrolled On His Head

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(1) DETECTING AI-GENERATED TEXT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The rise of large language model AI provides not only boons in tidying up text (of particular benefit to some users such as those with English as a second language or those suffering from, say, dyslexia) but comes with issues when used nefariously by those wishing to pass off AI generated text as their own creativity. Manual checks on text come with the risk of relatively high false positives as well as false negatives. Mandatory archiving all AI generated text comes with both compliance and privacy issues, so this leaves digital watermarking.

AI-generated text (and images) is already causing problems in science with fake paper submissions and also in science fiction where magazine editors have been receiving AI-generated works causing some bodies to come up with rules to govern their use, or banning, AI, one recent body doing so is the Horror Writers Association.

The latest issue of Nature has as its cover story (and an accompanying editorial such is this subject’s importance) on a new digital watermarking system developed by researchers at Google DeepMind in London. Their system is called SynthID-Text. File770 readers interested in this should check the original, open access, paper (I am not a computer scientist and this is definitely outside my comfort zone) but the way it works is to generate ‘tokens’ which are synonym words generated from the text’s context. A number of tokens are needed for the system to work.

Both the researchers and Nature say that this research is an important step in establishing an effective watermarking system, but both the researchers and Nature also clearly note that there are still many hurdles to overcome. For example, it is possible to wash out such digital watermarks by simply running through the AI-generated text through another large-language-model AI.

Currently, both the US and EU are considering legislation and respective bodies to oversee AI. China has already made digital watermarking mandatory and in the US the state of California is thinking of doing the same.

Meanwhile, DeepMind has made SynthID-Text free and open access. Yet, as said, the hurdles are great and there is still a long way to go. As the Nature editorial makes plain, ‘we need to grow up fast’.

The paper is Dathathri, S. et al ((2024) Scalable watermarking for identifying large language model outputs. Nature, vol. 634, p818-823.

The editorial is Anon. (2024) AI watermarking must be watertight to be effective. vol. 634, p753.

(2) OPEN LETTER. Literary Hub reports “Hundreds of Authors Pledge to Boycott Israeli Cultural Institutions” – among them are Jonathan Lethem, China Miéville, Junot Díaz, Marilyn Hacker, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, and Carmen Maria Machado. They have signed an open letter titled “Refusing Complicity in Israel’s Literary Institutions”, text available at Google Docs. It says in part:

…We have a role to play. We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement. This was the position taken by countless authors against South Africa; it was their contribution to the struggle against apartheid there.

Therefore: we will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians. We will not cooperate with Israeli institutions including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that:

  1. Are complicit in violating Palestinian rights, including through discriminatory policies and practices or by whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid or genocide, or
  2. Have never publicly recognized the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law. 

(3) CHANGING OF THE TAFF GUARD. Michael J. “Orange Mike” Lowrey imparts the latest Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund news:

Sarah Gulde has returned home “after many days” and has as of today taken over North American TAFF admin duties, allowing Mike Lowrey to retire.

Sarah Gulde, of course, was the 2024 TAFF winner and went to the Worldcon in Glasgow.

(4) THE WITCHING HOUR GOES HIGHBROW. Midnight book release events began to market Harry Potter, and initially most (but not all) subsequent ones were for genre works. Not anymore. Publishers Weekly points out that Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and Haruki Murakami’s The City and its Uncertain Walls, translated by Philip Gabriel have or will get the midnight treatment this year: “Literary Publishers Embraces the Midnight Release Party”.

The midnight book release party, which sees patrons descending on bookstores at 12 midnight to get their copy of a buzzy new book, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Still, it has evolved considerably in its short lifespan. The rise of the midnight release in the book business can be traced back to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which debuted in the U.S. in 1998. But it was the strict embargo put on the fourth book in the series, before its publication in 2000, that helped popularize the late-night bookstore gatherings.

While this trend began with books for younger readers—Stephanie Meyers’s Twilight series and the final installment of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games series also got the midnight release treatment—it hasn’t stayed that way. In the years since, bookstores have held midnight release events for the likes of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, and Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments….

(5) ARCHIPELACON 2. The week after Midsummer will be the highlight of the European sci-fi summer of 2025! This will be when the 2025 Eurocon, or Archipelacon 2, comes to Mariehamn in the Åland Islands of Finland.

Date and venue: June 26–29, Culture and Congress Center Alandica (Strandgatan 33, Mariehamn).

“We wanted to organise a second Archipelacon because the first one was so great that people still get dewy-eyed remembering it. Mariehamn is exactly the right place for this type of event. It is a place where land and sea, Finland and Sweden, small town idyll and world history all come together,” says Karo Leikomaa, chairperson of Archipelacon 2.

Guests of Honour:

Ann VanderMeer (USA): editor, anthologist, acquiring editor for Tor.com and Weird Fiction Review, and Editor-in-Residence for Shared Worlds.

Jeff VanderMeer (USA): writer, environmental activist, and friend of many baby raccoons. Has recently published Absolution, the fourth part of the award-winning Southern Reach Trilogy. The New York Times calls it “his strangest novel yet”.

Mats Strandberg (Sweden): purveyor of fine Swedish horror, set in the most mundane of environments: conference centres, care homes and the very weird world that exists on board the massive passenger ferries between Finland and Sweden. His book Blood Cruise (Färjan) will be made into a TV series by the Swedish public service broadcaster SVT, set to be broadcast in late 2025.

Emmi Itäranta (Finland) writes her books in both Finnish and English. Her debut, The Memory of Water (Teemestarin kirja), was produced as a feature film in 2022 and set the tone for her work, which often explores environmental themes. She has since published two more novels, The Weaver (Kudottujen kujien kaupunki), and The Moonday Letters (Kuunpäivän kirjeet). Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. 

“Being selected as the 2025 Eurocon is a great honour, and also recognition of the work that the Finnish and Nordic fandom has done. The first Archipelacon proved that large international conventions can be organised in Finland, and Worldcon 75 in Helsinki in 2017 demonstrated what Finnish, Nordic and international fandom can achieve together,” says Leikomaa.

Archipelacon 2 memberships are on sale on the con’s website.

Memberships are capped at 1,000. By the beginning of October, well over half of the memberships had already been sold.

Adult membership costs 40 euros, for 13–26-year-olds the membership fee is 20 euros, and for children 5 euros. The price will remain the same all the way.

(6) HOLD THE PHONE. “Publication of The Martian Trilogy Will Be Delayed” — here’s Amazing Stories’ official announcement.

The Martian Trilogy’s release will be delayed and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s introduction to that book has been removed from the contents.

This follows the release of serious allegations made against Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki of “unethical behavior and bad faith dealings” by Erin Lindi Cairns, a South African author, which has since been supported by statements from others, including a detailed statement by Jason Sandford.

This is a huge blow to the team that worked on this book, to John P. Moore’s legacy, and to the science fiction community at large, as this will delay the release of what is considered to be an important chapter in the history of Black science fiction and its contributions to the genre…

They are now looking at a mid-2025 release date.

(7) GABINO IGLESIAS REVIEWS. Yesterday we had the link to the September column, which is why we are able to come back so soon with the link for Gabino Iglesias’ next New York Times column “New Horror for Readers Who Want to Be Completely Terrified” (behind a paywall). In October he reviewed Yvonne Battle-Felton’s new novel, Curdle Creek (Holt, 292 pp., $27.99), Kevin J. Anderson’s Nether Station (Blackstone, 308 pp., $27.99), Nick Cutter’s The Queen (Gallery, 374 pp., $28.99), and Del Sandeen’s debut, This Cursed House (Berkley, 374 pp., $29).

(8) KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES. California’s governor has a proposal to encourage film and TV productions to stay in-state. “Newsom To The Rescue: Governor Supersizes California’s Film & TV Tax Credits To Get Hollywood Back To Work” – Deadline has the story.

… In an announcement this afternoon at Raleigh Studios, the Governor will reveal that he aims to boost the state’s tax credits from their present level of $330 million a year to around $750 million annually, I’ve learned

The whooping increase will not take place immediately, and is subject to approval by the Democratic majority legislature in the Golden State’s 2025-2026 budget. However, in this election year of close down ticket races, Sunday’s announcement is intended to swell confidence locally for an industry and a workforce that has seen production in L.A. and across the state dramatically shrink and jobs dry up over the last year or so, sources say….

… Also, besides the more than doubling of California’s credits, which were established in their current form in 2014, the increase will make the Golden State the top capped source for production tax incentives in the nation — at least on paper. Presently, with a $280 million expansion last year, New York state offers about $700 million in capped incentives. However, that number is augmented by a patchwork quilt of other offsets and exemptions available to productions in various specific jurisdictions in the Empire State.

While states like New Jersey, Nevada, and Utah have been putting more tax credit money on the table, Louisiana and Georgia still remain among the top rivals to California. Coming out of the shutdown of production during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and industry wide layoffs and cost-cutting measures, the Peach State, like California, hasn’t anywhere near fully rebounded. Having said that, while California has more production than anywhere else overall, Georgia, especially Atlanta, still attracts more big budget productions on average that anywhere else in the U.S.A.

It doesn’t hurt that costs in Georgia are generally much lower than on the West Coast, and that the state has an uncapped incentive program that ranges from around $900 million to $1.2 billion per annum. Movies or TV shows that shoot in the Southern state receive a 20% base transferable tax credit. As accounting execs at Disney, Netflix and everyone else in town will tell you with no small sense of disbelief, productions also easily receive a 10% Georgia Entertainment Promotion “uplift” if they include the state logo in their credits for five seconds or, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, an “alternative marketing promotion.”

This new increase recommended Sunday by Gov. Newsom will certainly shake up the tax credit status quo….

(9) THE OTHER CHOSEN ONE. Variety tells what happens when “Timothée Chalamet Makes Surprise Appearance at Lookalike Contest”.

A sea of 20-something boys, with a mix of defined jawlines, hazel eyes and mops of curly hair congregated at New York City’s Washington Square Park on Sunday afternoon to take part in a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest. But in a surprise twist, around 30 minutes after the contest kicked off, the real-life Chalamet made a surprise appearance in the middle of the crowd.

Chalamet snuck his way through the packed mob, hiding behind a black mask and baseball hat, before sneaking up on two doppelgangers posing for photos. Once he got to the middle, he took off his mask for the big reveal as shrieks quickly erupted across the park….

… The lookalike contest was promoted the past few weeks through flyers posted across the city, in addition to a public Partiful invitation promising a $50 cash prize for the winner. By Sunday morning, the event had more than 2,500 RSVPs.

Chalamet pulled up behind one of the more popular lookalikes, 22 year-old Spencer DeLorenzo who spent much the afternoon posting for photos. At one point, he was even hoisted on a chair as the crowd cheered him on…

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Media Anniversary: It Came From Outer Space film (1953)

Seventy-one years ago It Came From Outer Space premiered, the first in the 3D films that would released from Universal-International. It was from a story written by Ray Bradbury. The script was by Harry Essex.

Billed by the studio as science fiction horror — and I’ll get to why in the SPOILERS section — it was directed by Henry Arnold who would soon be responsible for two genre classics, Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man, the latter of which as you might remember won a Hugo at Solacon in 1958.

HORROR, ERRR, SPOILERS, ARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN. BEWARE!

Amateur sky watcher (as played by Richard Carlson) and schoolteacher Ellen Fields (as played Barbara Rush) see a large meteorite crash near the small town in Arizona. Being curious and not at cautious (who is in these films?), they investigate.

Putnam sees the object and knows it is a spacecraft but everyone else laughs at him. People start disappearing. (Cue chilling music.) The sheriff opts for a violent answer, but Putnam wants a peaceful resolution.

In the end, a Bradburyan solution happens, atypical of these Fifties pulp SF films and the aliens get what they need to leave without anyone, human or alien, dying. 

YOU CAN COME BACK NOW FROM UNDER THE TABLE. 

The screenplay by Harry Essex, with extensive input by the director Jack Arnold, was based on an original and quite lengthy screen treatment by Bradbury off the fore mentioned story by him. It is said that Bradbury wrote the screenplay and Harry Essex merely changed the dialogue and took the credit. There is no actual written documentation of this though, so it may or may not be true. You know how such stories get their beginning. 

It made back twice its eight hundred thousand budget in the first year. 

Many, many critics took to be an anti-communist film about an invasion of America. However, Bradbury pointed out that “I wanted to treat the invaders as beings who were not dangerous, and that was very unusual.” 

Twenty years ago, Gauntlet Press published a collection of essays about It Came from Outer Space. Bradbury contributed an introductory essay plus a number of other pieces. There’s also the four screen treatments Bradbury wrote before the final screenplay along with photos, original ads, marketing posters, reviews and quite a bit more. 

Final note: It Came from Outer Space is one of the classic films mentioned in the opening theme (“Science Fiction/Double Feature”) of The Rocky Horror Show theatre performance and the film.

It Came From Outer Space is streaming on Peacock and Prime.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) WITNESS THE SCOPE OF MARVEL’S NEW ULTIMATE UNIVERSE. An epic connecting cover by Josemaria Casanovas will run across every Ultimate series over the next few months, starting with this week’s Ultimate X-Men #8.

The second year of Marvel Comics’ new Ultimate Universe is on the horizon. To celebrate, a special connecting cover by acclaimed artist Josemaria Casanovas will run on upcoming issues of each current Ultimate title—Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man, Bryan Hill and Stefano Caselli’s Ultimate Black Panther, Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men, Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s Ultimates, and the just announced fifth ongoing Ultimate series, Chris Condon and Alessandro Cappuccio’s Ultimate Wolverine. An homage to Jim Lee’s iconic X-Men #1 cover, the breathtaking 6-part piece teases upcoming storylines and characters from future issues—including the long-awaited return of the creator of this exciting universe, the Maker.

Check out the full piece below. For more information, visit Marvel.com. [Click for larger image.]

(13) MOOMIN IN THE MUSEUM. [Item by Steven French.] Ahead of next year’s 80th anniversary of the Moomin stories, the Helsinki Art Museum is putting on an exhibition of Tove Jansson’s paintings, including a number of large murals (and if you look closely at Party in the City, from 1947, you can see a certain big nosed, pot bellied figure, hidden away beside a vase on the edge of the festivities!). “Tove Jansson murals, with hidden Moomins, seen for first time in Helsinki show” in the Guardian.

The exhibition, entitled Paradise, at the Helsinki Art Museum focuses for the first time on the murals and frescoes Jansson was commissioned to paint on the walls of factory canteens, hospitals, nurseries and even churches – long before Moominmania conquered the world and the adventures of Snufkin, Snork Maiden and Little My became a Finnish secular religion.

“By the end of her life, Tove was most famous as a writer,” said the artist and author’s niece, Sophia Jansson, now president of the board of the company that manages her copyright. “But she always saw herself first and foremost [as] a painter. It was only later that her reputation as the ‘Moomin woman’ overtook her.”

See more information about the exhibition at the Helsinki Art Museum website.

Tove Jansson: Bird Blue, 1953 (detail). © Tove Jansson Estate. Photo: HAM / Maija Toivanen.

(14) A LOT OF THIS GOING AROUND. Another publication won’t be telling you their pick for President: “The Starfleet Gazette Will Not Be Endorsing a Candidate for President of the United Federation of Planets” — McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has the scoop.

… The Starfleet Gazette will not be endorsing a candidate in the upcoming election for president of the United Federation of Planets. This decision was not made lightly, but neither of the two candidates—decorated Starship Voyager Captain Kathryn Janeway or The Borg—has shown us a real path to endorsement, and we must stay true to our priorities: journalistic integrity and not pissing off The Borg….

(15) WHEN EYES RETURN FROM ORBIT. Futurism reports “Space Tourist Alarmed When Vision Starts to Deteriorate”. But it was a short-lived phenomenon.

Scientists are still trying to understand the toll that spaceflight takes on the human body.

With SpaceX’s civilian Polar Dawn mission, which lasted five days and wrapped up last month, we’re getting an opportunity to observe the effects on more or less average humans — rather than the elite, highly trained government astronauts who are normally the ones that spend so much time in orbit.

Some of what they’re reporting sounds a little worrying. At the top of the list: inexplicably malfunctioning eyeballs.

“My vision acuity started to deteriorate those first few days,” Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former US Air Force pilot who served as pilot of the mission, told CNN of the journey.

… As it turns out, Poteet’s faltering vision wasn’t the end of the crew’s optic oddities. Jared Isaacman, the mission’s commander and a billionaire entrepreneur, told CNN he saw “sparkles or lights” when he closed his eyes, a mysterious symptom related to space radiation that other astronauts have reported…

… What caused Poteet’s vision to deteriorate is likely a condition known as spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS. This is believed to be the result of a microgravity environment, which causes the optic nerve to swell, and fluids in the eye and brain to shift.

SANS is still poorly understood. All four crew members wore high-tech, cyberpunk-looking contact lenses to measure intraocular pressure throughout the mission, in the hopes of teasing out its causes.

Poteet said his vision quickly returned to normal once he was back on Earth. But as SpaceX engineer and the mission’s medical officer Anna Menon told CNN, the effects — if unaddressed — could be disastrous in the long term….

(16) TOP SF BOOKS – MAYBE? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.]  BookPilled has just re-ranked his top 15 SF books. Like or dislike his ratings, the titles are interesting. I’m guessing that most of you will have nearly all the books in his top chart, and even if you haven’t you will probably know of them. Personally, it was good to see a Bob Shaw in the mix. Alas, poor old Alan Dean Foster…  There are one or two authors in Pilled’s list I have not read, but that might be a Brit-N.America divide thing (?). Anyway, see if you agree with him… “Ranking All the Books from Every Top 15 Sci-Fi List”.

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

Ekpeki Removed as SFWA Board Director-at-Large

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The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) Board, in response to ethics complaints about Director-at-Large Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, voted yesterday to remove him from office.

Here is the text of the official announcement: “SFWA Board Statement on Removal of a Director-at-Large”.

On 10/27/2024, the Board met to discuss multiple ethics complaints regarding Director-at-Large Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki after hearing statements from various parties involved. Mr. Ekpeki was also given a chance to speak to the Board regarding these complaints. After due consideration, and in compliance with Article V(5)(iii) of the SFWA Bylaws, the Board voted unanimously to remove Director-at-Large Ekpeki from his position on the SFWA Board of Directors for good and sufficient cause, effective immediately.

The Board will not be answering questions on this matter to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki had just been voted onto the Board this summer, and started serving on July 1.

Pixel Scroll 10/27/24 I Do Want To Pixel It, Just To Ride With Mr. Mxyxptlk

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(1) EKPEKI ALLEGATIONS. Yesterday File 770 published Erin Cairns’ allegations in the news post “Author Erin Cairns Charges Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki with ‘Unethical Practices’”.

Erin Cairns, a South African-born white woman who moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was young, has published a 78-page memo charging Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki with unethical practices, among them submitting her work under his name to a “Black voices magazine”.

“I am reporting Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for unethical practices. He submitted a story entirely written by me into a Black voices magazine without my name on the byline. He lied about who he knew and how well he knew them. He obfuscated information about publications and editors and manipulated me to such an extent that I still struggle to trust myself and others.”…

The 770 post also quotes and links to more information about Ekpeki and the status of his projects which has been broadcast in social media in response.

Jason Sanford has also written a summary of “Allegations raised against Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki” which is available as an unlocked post on his Patreon. It includes his personal reaction:

… As someone who helped Ekpeki fundraise to both attend the Chicago Worldcon and to deal with his visa issues, and who also donated my own money to support him, these revelations have left me pissed and gutted. I spent a lot of time helping Ekpeki. I’m glad Cairns went public with her report, but I also wish I’d pressed her for the name of that author when she’d originally approached me. At the time I felt, based on her email, that she was fearful to reveal the name and that it wasn’t appropriate for me to even ask. Now I wish I had done so…

Finally, Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories says they are delaying the release of The Martian Trilogy – a project reported in yesterday’s Scroll which includes a contribution by Ekpeki — owing to the current controversy.

(2) BEWARE OF GARDEN GNOME. Deadline’s Pete Hammond offers praise in “’Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ Review: Return Of ‘Toon Duo”.

It has been 19 long years between the first Wallace & Gromit feature in 2005 and now the second in 2024, but it is an understatement to say it was well worth the wait. Nick Park‘s and Aardman‘s delightful buddy movie, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is an animated film noir merged with the dangers of technology running rampant….

(3) LIS CAREY MEDICAL UPDATE. Yesterday Filer Lis Carey was admitted to the hospital. Today she reports feeling a bit better, and reports more tests are being done to diagnose the problem.

(4) GABINO IGLESIAS REVIEWS. In the New York Times,  Gabino Iglesias assesses Laird Barron’s latest collection, Not A Speck Of Light: Stories, Hildur Knutsdottir’s new novella, The Night Guest (translated from the Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal), Richard Thomas’ novel Incarnate, and Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror, translated and edited by Xueting C. Ni: “4 New Horror Books Filled With Eldritch Terrors and Other Frights” (behind a paywall.)

(5) MEAT LOAF RECIPE? Well, yes, there is one in The Rocky Horror Cookbook by Kim Laidlaw.

From the depths of Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s laboratory comes 50 culinary concoctions to titillate the taste buds of Rocky Horror fans, in this lip-smacking officially licensed cookbook based on the cult classic stage musical.

Never worry about the likes of Brad and Janet crashing your party; there will be plenty of food for everyone with this delightful and delectable cookbook beamed directly from the galaxy Transylvania to your kitchen. Give your guests a little tease with appetizers like Magenta Mash(ed) Potato Cakes and Thrill Me Chill Me Spicy Gazpacho. The main courses—which can be served in either the dining room or bedroom—offer scintillating options like Rocky’s Mussels, Riff Raff Ramen, and Slow-Cooked Thigh Ragu that will have you shivering in antici…

…pation. Wash it all down with a Make You a Man-hattan before biting into Midnight Double Chocolate Feature Brownies for dessert. With a foreword by Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien, The Rocky Horror Cookbook will have long-time fans and newly discovered creatures of the night singing in unison, “Don’t dream it. Eat it.”

(6) WAIT – THERE’S MOORE! Sam Thielman reviews two Alan Moore books in the New York Times (link bypasses paywall): “Book Review: ‘The Great When,’ by Alan Moore, and ‘The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic’”.

“Have you got a name or should I just keep thinking of you as ‘the liability?’” a beautiful young woman named Grace asks the protagonist of Alan Moore’s THE GREAT WHEN (Bloomsbury, 315 pp., $29.99).

He does indeed: Our hero rejoices in the name of Dennis Knuckleyard, and that’s the least of his problems. Dennis, a miserable teenager who works in a bookshop for a phlegmy old crone named Coffin Ada, has been sold a dangerous book — “A London Walk,” which ought not to exist outside the fiction of horror writer Arthur Machen, but has somehow left the world of ideas and entered his possession. He must properly dispose of it or be drawn into a magical world called Long London that exists parallel to the Shoreditch of 1949 where Dennis usually resides. Also, at least some of Long London’s inhabitants possess the ability and possibly the inclination to turn Dennis inside out…

(7) MARC WELLS HAS DIED.  Portland fan Marc Wells passed away October 25 after several months of illness. OryCon’s Bluesky account posted a statement provided by Linda Pilcher:

I am sending this on the behalf of Marc’s family:

With sadness, we share that Marc Wells, a long-time Portland fan, passed away on October 25 after several months of illness. Throughout his life, Marc was an active techie at conventions, served as president of the Portland Science Fiction Society, and President of the Board of Directors of OSFCI fo many years.

Above all, he was a cherished husband, father, grandfather, and friend.

Marc didn’t believe in funerals. Instead, his ashes will be scattered in the Columbia River Gorge. We will hold a wake at a future date, likely at the Rose City Book Pub, with a general invitation to follow.

As many of you know, Marc was a talented musician himself who loved supporting young musicians and all sorts of music, especially Friends of Noise, a non-profit dedicated to helping to support diversity among young musicians. If you wish to make a donation in Marc’s name, you can find the donation link as well as more details about Friends of Noise and their upcoming shows on their website: Friends Of Noise | All Ages. Always. 

The family extends deep gratitude to everyone who supported Marc during his illness.

(8) JERI TAYLOR (1938-2024). Jeri Taylor, the showrunner behind Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager (which she co-created), died October 24 at the age of 86. The Deadline tribute

…In 1990, she began writing for Next Generation Season 4, eventually working her way up to co-executive producer in Season 6. She was the showrunner of the Patrick Stewart vehicle in its seventh and final installment, for which she garnered an Emmy nom for Outstanding Drama Series.

Afterward, Taylor co-created Voyager alongside Next Generation co-EPs Rick Berman and Michael Pillar, serving as showrunner from 1995 through 1998 and later creative consultant for its final three seasons. She pioneered the idea of a female lead captain in the franchise with actress Kate Mulgrew. In a tribute post on X, Mulgrew wrote that Taylor was “responsible, in large part, for changing my life. She was elegant, erudite, and fiercely opinionated. She wanted Kathryn Janeway to be a significant part of her legacy and I think there is no doubt that in that endeavor she succeeded.”…

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born October 27, 1939 — John Cleese, 85.

By Paul Weimer: My first introduction to John Cleese was not, as it turns out, Monty Python.  My older brother was to blame. He was in fact a Python fan, although in those times before we had a VCR I had never gotten to see any of it, and it had not circulated back around to being syndicated again, But he loved it, and loved Cleese’s work in it. And so, in 1986, he and I went to the movies to see…Clockwise.

Clockwise is an absurdist film that defies description and easy plotting. Let us say that a punctual school headmaster played by Cleese, someone bound to schedules and timing and order winds up making a single mistake, and his entire schedule and life go off the deep end. The absurdity and unbelievable vignettes and adventures Cleese gets up to as he tries to get back to normalcy are not just Pythonesque in their comedy, they are sui generis.  It’s a movie you have to be in the mood for, but I was in the mood then, and have often been in the mood since to see a man’s life just go so off kilter, hilariously.

After seeing Clockwise, I finally was able to see Monty Python films…and later, the series itself (I realize just how weird it was to go in that order, but that was the hazards of life before having a VCR or streaming).  I then enjoyed Cleese in other films and works like A Fish Called Wanda (a favorite) and the sometimes frustratingly fun, frustratingly terrible Rat Race (I am also an It’s a Mad Mad Mad World fan, you see). I found some of his later work disappointing (looking at you Fierce Creatures) and some of it surprisingly delightful.  When I played Jade Empire, I was surprised to hear what I thought might be his voice playing an outlander wandering in the Empire. When I found out later that Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard was indeed voiced by Cleese, I was *delighted*

Cleese’s rants against “Cancel Culture” are disheartening, and make me sad that an actor and comedian whose work I’ve enjoyed for years could go so very wrong headed.  Alas.

John Cleese

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • The Argyle Sweater has ideas about restroom signs for monsters.
  • Carpe Diem knows they better look impressed.
  • Wumo overhears complaints about a different infestation.

(11) TIM BURTON EXHIBIT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Halloween may not be as big a deal in the UK as in North America, but fans in the London area will now have a chance to celebrate it with one of the modern Patron Saints of the day: Tim Burton.

Continuing a world tour that started in 2014 (albeit with a hiatus in 2019–21), The World of Tim Burton exhibition will opened October 25 and will be open until April 21, 2025 at the Design Museum in London. 

In fact, Burton fans around the world may want to take note since this is said to be the very last time the exhibition will be displayed. “Tim Burton Says He’s ‘Technophobic’ And Jack Skellington Came From Subconsciousness” at Bored Panda.

(12) SUPERCHEAP PC. [Item by Steven French.] Here is “an edited extract from the book Curious Video Game Machines by Lewis Packwood, which explores the stories behind rare and unusual consoles, computers and coin-ops” and which describes how engineer Voja Antonic got around import restrictions in Yugoslavia to build his own computer, which had a major impact on the gaming and computer enthusiast community (I loved the description of an early form of ‘wireless’ tech when software was recorded in tape and transmitted over the radio!). “How one engineer beat restrictions on home computers in socialist Yugoslavia” in the Guardian.

…Antonić was pondering this while on holiday with his wife in Risan in Montenegro in 1983. “I was thinking how would it be possible to make the simplest and cheapest possible computer,” says Antonić. “As a way to amuse myself in my free time. That’s it. Everyone thinks it is an interesting story, but really I was just bored!” He wondered whether it would be possible to make a computer without a graphics chip – or a “video controller” as they were commonly known at the time.Typically, computers and consoles have a CPU – which forms the “brain” of the machine and performs all of the calculations – in addition to a video controller/graphics chip that generates the images you see on the screen. In the Atari 2600 console, for example, the CPU is the MOS Technology 6507 chip, while the video controller is the TIA (Television Interface Adaptor) chip.

Instead of having a separate graphics chip, Antonić thought he could use part of the CPU to generate a video signal, and then replicate some of the other video functions using software. It would mean sacrificing processing power, but in principle it was possible, and it would make the computer much cheaper….

(13) ALL’S WELL. “NASA astronaut is released from the hospital after returning from space” reports WAFF.

A NASA astronaut who was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton has been released from the hospital.

A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and one Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week. The capsule was hoisted onto the recovery ship where the four astronauts had routine medical checks.

Soon after splashdown, a NASA astronaut had a “medical issue” and the crew was flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, for additional evaluation “out of an abundance of caution” the space agency said in a statement….

(14) THE ORVILLE GUIDEBOOK PUBLISHED. “’The Orville’ executive producer delivers deluxe guidebook to the cult sci-fi series” – Space.com has the details.

… “Dark Horse presents ‘The Guide to The Orville,’ a jam-packed lore book collecting everything a new crew member needs to know about the Planetary Union’s most remarkable ship!”…

…Written by seasoned “The Orville” writer and co-executive producer Andre Bormanis, it’s a beautifully bound 192-page volume immersing followers into every aspect of the show’s world. It features dozens of illustrations, diary entries, and detailed cutaways that serve as an exacting manual for newbie spacefarers familiarizing themselves with the huge vessel and the vast universe it explores….

(15) SATURDAY AND OTHER MORNINGS. CBR.com surprises with these forgotten series: “15 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Movies You Didn’t Know Had Cartoons”.

Sci-fi and fantasy movies often challenge viewers to imagine infinite possibilities, but many forget just how many cartoon spinoffs exist in their wake….

Cinema has long captivated children with its fantastic worlds, and over the years, it became increasingly common for movies to spin off into animated TV series… Today, that tradition continues with titles like Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, Gremlins: The Wild Batch, and an upcoming Ghostbusters project. For pop culture archivists, these animated adaptations often offer a glimpse into how beloved franchises evolve and reimagine themselves for new generations….

Here’s an example:

A Forgotten Cartoon Featured an American Werewolf in High School

Teen Wolf (1986-1987)

The teenage years come with plenty of changes, but for most high school students, those experiences don’t include fangs, claws, or the awkward discovery that they’re a werewolf. Starring Michael J. Fox of Back to the Future fame, this hair-raising comedy takes the term “fantasy sports” to a new level as protagonist Scott Howard becomes a basketball-playing lycanthrope.

The Cartoon Adventures of Teen Wolf, as it was known in the UK, followed the chaotic life of the “all-American werewolf” and his family. Navigating the ups and downs of high school, Scott’s life is less The Wonder Years and more “The Werewolf Years” as he tries to protect his family’s secret while dealing with a world that still sees them as monsters. While overshadowed by the 2011 live-action TV series, hopes were high in 2017 when Shout! Factory announced the release of the Teen Wolf cartoon in its entirety. However, due to legal issues, audiences are still left wondering where this werewolf series will resurface next.

(16) HORROR CLASSIC IN PUBLIC DOMAIN. [Item by Cat Eldridge.] The film is legitimately in the public domain due to some really stupid legal mistakes by the producers. “House on Haunted Hill, 1959 with Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart” – see it at Public Domain Movies.

House on Haunted Hill is a 1959 American horror film directed by William Castle. The film was written by Robb White and stars Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart as eccentric millionaires Frederick Loren and Annabelle Loren, who have invited five people to the house for a “haunted house” party.

Whoever stays in the house for one night will earn $10,000. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors….

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

Author Erin Cairns Charges Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki with “Unethical Practices”

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Erin Cairns, a South African-born white woman who moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was young, has published a 78-page memo charging Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki with unethical practices, among them submitting her work under his name to a “Black voices magazine”.

I am reporting Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for unethical practices. He submitted a story entirely written by me into a Black voices magazine without my name on the byline. He lied about who he knew and how well he knew them. He obfuscated information about publications and editors and manipulated me to such an extent that I still struggle to trust myself and others.

Cairns has had work appear in Writers of the Future Vol. 34, the Silent Screams anthology, and The Dark Magazine. 

Her memo about Ekpeki begins with a nine-page summary, and is supported by 69 pages of screencaps of text messages. It is available to download from Google Drive: ODE_Ethics Report_Compressed.pdf. Cairns has redacted the names of the anthology projects, and other professionals and sources.

The PDF shows her discussions with Ekpeki as she edited several of his stories and co-authored another, all of which was work done without credit and with his initially telling her he was just looking for a critique.

…We have never met or spoken outside of emails or twitter DMs. My first interaction with Ekpeki was in late 2018 when I posted on twitter that I had won a writing award. We interacted on twitter for a while, exchanging stories for critique which I had done many times before. But this gradually shifted into me editing stories, which at the time I did not know was for his co-edited anthology: [Anthology D]. When he told me a story I’d worked on was going to be in the anthology, I questioned him about what I’d been doing. He told me that for my help and work, my name would be in the acknowledgments of the book.

When the book was released, I bought a copy, and my name was nowhere to be found….

… None of the work I did for Ekpeki has ever been publicly acknowledged. The extent has been that he included my name in a ‘writer’s boost’ once or twice (a tweet with a list of writers usernames). This was fine-ish. It was a lot of work, it was hard work, and sometimes it was work I did not believe in, but there were no contracts. I knew I should say no when it became clear I wasn’t going to get credit, but I didn’t. I tried once, but he sent me a story anyway, and I did it. By that point it felt like a firmer ‘no’ was going to cost me a connection in the writing world I had already poured a ton of time and work into.

Much later, in 2021 he said: “I really wish you hadn’t gone off the radar around when I was doing [Anthology D],” as a way to say he would have published my work in that anthology. But I was on the radar, editing a story for [Anthology D]. I did not submit to the call (though I had been sent the submissions link by a friend, and did not know I was at that time editing a story in said anthology) because the submissions guidelines said “white South Africans need not apply,” and I am a white South African.

He hadn’t been transparent with me about his involvement with [Anthology D] when it was being put together, even while I was editing for it….

Ekpeki, telling her there was by now more demand for his work than he could satisfy, asked if Cairns was interested in co-authoring, which in this case would mean jointly revising a story she had already drafted: “[He] would change the story to reflect a more own-voice context, and give it more Nigerian spiritualism and culture, but distance it from the real world inspiration I’d had for the story (a Makonde mask I’d seen in the Dallas Museum of Art).”

But when [Editor S] solicited the story they had co-authored for [Market 2], a “Black voices magazine”, Cairns disagreed with Ekpeki about the ethics of allowing that to happen, and following some tense correspondence (reproduced in the report) she got Ekpeki to withdraw the story.

On the other hand, Cairns makes clear that it was her choice not to receive compensation for any work she did:

…I would like to note that as time went on, he started to offer payment, especially as he started to rise in popularity, but I always refused…. Money never exchanged hands. Whenever he offered it, it was always far past the time I’d done the work and that always felt odd to me. So I insisted he also worked hard on the stories he sent me and declined the sudden offers of payment again and again….

Cairns’ report prompted several people to comment publicly about issues involving Ekpeki that until now were known to a limited number.

Cairns posted the link to her report on Bluesky here, where it has received comments from several dozen writers. R.S.A. Garcia said there that Ekpeki’s behavior has already resulted in his being removed from two shared writer spaces:

L. D. Lewis said specifically that Ekpeki was removed from the FIYAHCON 2022 project. And gave added insights about that situation in a thread that starts here.

Elsewhere, some are now distancing their projects and themselves from Ekpeki.

Michael Bailey has announced that Ekpeki is no longer his co-editor on the You, Human anthology.

Two authors have announced they are leaving one of Ekpeki’s projects:

Gautam Bhatia has written a thoughtful interpretation of the meaning of the popular and financial support Ekpeki has received up til now within the overall power dynamics of the sff field. The thread starts here. Some excerpts follow below. (OED = Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki.)

Jason Sanford, who has pitched in again and again to help Ekpeki solve problems with his Amazon royalties and other international payment tangles, told File 770: “I’m pissed and gutted to learn all this. I’m also worried about how these revelations might close off opportunities for new writers from around the world who are trying to break into the SF/F genre.”

And Chris Barkley, who worked on a fundraiser to bring Ekpeki to Glasgow 2024, commented:

The last thirty six hours have been quite an eye opener for myself and my partner Juli. We have been supporters of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for the past few years and we were both shocked and deeply saddened at the recent allegations that have been against him over this past weekend.

We have heard from friends and acquaintances who, in some instances, have confirmed the allegations of ethical misbehavior. They involve malfeasance of funds that were raised or given to him, personal transgressions against individuals at conventions, questionable submissions to magazines and anthologies and theft of literary property that did not originate directly from him.

In light of these revelations, we are both angered, shocked and most of all disappointed that he took advantage of the goodwill of others to further his own writing career and social status at the expense of the people who earnestly tried to help him.

File 770 contacted Ekpeki for his comment on the Cairns report. He is preparing a response which will be reported in a follow-up post.

Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction Winners

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The inaugural Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction winners were announced today.

DISABLED WRITER CATEGORY JOINT WINNER

  • Dare Segun Falowo, for Sonskins (Baffling 1/1/21)
  • Seanan McGuire, for “Treatment Plan” (Vital)

Other finalists

  • Jaye Viner, for “Cannibalism in the Inhuman Age” (Drabblecast 3/4/21)
  • Christine Lucas, for “Echoes of a Broken Mind” (Future SF 12/22/21)

DISABILITY REPRESENTING WORKS CATEGORY WINNER

  • Justin C. Key, for “The Algorithm Will See You Now” (Vital)

Other finalists

  • P.H. Low, for “The Loneliness of Former Constellations” (Strange Horizons 8/9/21)
  • Jennifer Lee Rossman, for “The Steel Magnolia Metaphor” (Escape Pod 5/7/21)
  • McKinley Valentine, for “The Code for Everything” (Fantasy 3/1/21)
  • Tabatha Wood, for “Long Drop” (Seeds)

Award founder Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki explained why the results took this long to appear:

The finalists were announced in December 2022 and the award was meant to be presented in 2023. But unfortunately, immigration issues, incarceration, and subsequent grave illness that nearly claimed my life, delayed it.

He detailed adjustments to the prize money, and announced this will be the only edition of the award.

The winner of each category was to receive the sum of $250. The winner of the disability representing category Justin C. Key has, and Dare Segun Falowo and Seanan McGuire, joint winners in the disabled writers category shared the $250 price for that category, and got $150 each. Each of the finalists listed, got the token sum of $50. Marissa Lingen, a former finalist in the Disabled Writers category withdrew from consideration, and McKinley Valentine donated the $50 token sum back to the award to assist in operating costs. We offer our thanks for that. All monies have been disbursed to the winners and finalists.

Wole Talabi was a co-sponsor of the award, to the tune of $200

I regret to announce though, that this will be the first, final and only edition of the award. Unfortunately, my health and other challenges have made me unable to continue it. I do hope though that we will continue to value disabled people and their creative works, especially those operating from the margins, and places that make their existence and creation even more difficult. Anyone else who wants to take this up or set up an endeavor like this is highly encouraged to and I’ll strive to render any assistance I can. So feel free to reach out. 

More information about the finalists and their works can be found here.

Pixel Scroll 8/4/24 Portmanteau’s Complaint

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(1) HWA’S USE OF NDA’S EXPLAINED. Horror Writers Association President John Edward Lawson explains why their organization requires elected officers and trustees, paid employees, and certain committee chairs or volunteers (but not all volunteers) to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements. Ten-part thread starts here.

(2) THE STATE OF HORROR. Ellen Datlow, Brian Keene, Lisa Wood, Lisa Kröger, Maxwell I. Gold, moderated by Angela Yuriko Smith, recently discussed “The State of Horror 2024”, part of the HWA “Halloween in July” program set up to help fund scholarships and educational programs year-round.  

(3) SUCCESS! Good news. Chris Barkley reports the GoFundMe to “Help Oghenechovwe Ekpeki Attend the 2024 Glasgow WorldCon” has fully funded.

(4) EKPEKI PROGRAM. And he’s got a visa. Here’s his Glasgow 2024 schedule. Click for larger images.

(5) NOMMOS. He’ll be one of the hosts of the “Nommo Awards Winners Event” explained by JAYLit, the Journal of African Youth Literature.

An exceptional evening awaits guests of the forthcoming Glasgow 2024 Worldcon in a special evening dedicated to the 2024 winners of the Nommo Awards for the best in African Speculative Fiction. 

The event will feature presentations by renowned African writers Tendai Huchu, Wole Talabi, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Nnedi Okorafor, with sponsorship from Tom Ilube.

The Nommo Awards, in their 7th edition, honour excellence in four categories: The Ilube Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel, and the Nommo Awards for Novella, Short Story, and Graphic Novel. Finalists from Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone highlight the diverse talent in African speculative fiction.

Organised by The African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS), the awards celebrate works in genres like science fiction, fantasy, horror, and more. The event receives support from Dublin 2019 – An Irish Worldcon, Glasgow 2024, and the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA).

Join in celebrating the creativity and innovation of African writers at the Nommo Awards 2024 on Saturday, August 10, 2024, at 17:30, at the Lomond Auditorium. The ceremony will last for 60 minutes.

(6) RUH-ROH. “Warner Bros. Discovery Unplugging Boomerang Streaming Service” reports Deadline.

Warner Bros. Discovery is shutting down the Boomerang streaming service and moving some of its programming, which includes many classic cartoon series, onto Max.

The kids-and-family move is set for September 30, according to an email to subscribers.

It comes in the same year as a similar strategic shift by Paramount Global, which shuttered Noggin and moved its content onto flagship Paramount+.

Boomerang, which began as a cable network in 2000 featuring a range of animated classics like Scooby Doo, Tom & Jerry and Loony Tunes, became a streaming service in 2017. In more recent years, it expanded into original programming….

(7) SOME ARE MORE FANTASTIC THAN OTHERS. What did theme park blog AllEars hear? “’They Designed an Entire Land Around the Worst Movie I’ve Seen in My Life’ – Fans React to Latest Epic Universe News”.

Universal just revealed the first in-depth look at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic, one of the five new lands coming to the new park. While many Universal and Harry Potter fans have been extremely excited to hear more about this new land, it appears that the announcement hasn’t exactly landed the way Universal wanted it to with some fans…

… It is true that the second and third Fantastic Beasts films did not do too well, especially compared to the first. The first film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, has a 7.2/10 rating on IMDB, while the second film, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, has a 6.5/10 rating. The last film, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, has the lowest rating of 6.2/10….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 4, 1964 — Jaroslav Olša Jr, 60. That we doing the Birthday of Czech fan Jaroslav Olša Jr. is entirely the credit of Our Gracious Host as he will explain later on with a charming tale of their encounter.

Today’s the sixtieth birthday of Jaroslav who currently is the Czech Consul General in Los Angeles. (OK I’m foreshadowing why Mike will be telling a tale.) He’s also done diplomatic service in Zimbabwe, South Korea and the Philippines — very impressive. 

In our corner of things. Jaroslav’s a SF editor, translator and bibliographer. That in itself is also quite impressive, isn’t it? 

Jaroslav Olša Jr. Portrait by Svenkaj.

Let’s start off with his amateur work. Jaroslav started the major Ikarie XB fanzine back in the Eighties which turned into their sf monthly magazine Ikarie which had a twenty-year run before becoming the still published XB-1. He was assistant editor there for a time.

In the period after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. with Alexandre Hlinka he also started the AFSF press which was active until the late 1990s, publishing some seventy titles including such as selections of the best stories by SF writers and also novels by Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Silverberg and Kim Stanley Robinson to name a few. 

If you were at Conspiracy ’87 in Brighton, you might have him as he was there. And he attended many other international conventions. 

Finally, before I let Mike have the last words here, I should note that he was responsible for twenty years for the Czech Encyklopedie literatury science fiction (“Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Literature”, 1995) co-editing it with Ondřej Neff. He also has edited about a dozen sf anthologies; has compiled bibliographies of Czech and Slovak fanzines; and often contributed to Locus.

Mike: In 2019 Jaroslav Olša, jr. invited me to a nice lunch in Westwood – making sure we had the restaurant’s front window seat. That was nice. We discussed science fiction and what he could do in that line when he became Consul General of the Czech Republic in LA. And first thing, he gifted me with copies of several sff publications he’d helped produce, including a copy of XB-1, the longest-running monthly publication in the Czech Republic, which began life as Olša’s fanzine Ikarie XB (1986-1989). He also gave me a copy of a Czech SF anthology (English translation). Since then, he’s hosted a lot of cultural events in LA, including one in conjunction with an in-person LASFS meeting.  A very fannish fellow!

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) CLOSE ENOUGH FOR GOVERNMENT WORK. You may have seen it elsewhere, however, a Bluesky user recently posted a copy of the travel voucher Buzz Aldrin filed on his return from the Moon in 1969. Only $33.31, and the itinerary is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

(11) FAN MAIL FROM SOME FLOUNDER. Attention dads — having AI write your letter to your daughter isn’t cool. “Google pulls Gemini AI ad from Olympics after backlash” – The Verge has the story.

Google is not winning any gold medals for its Olympics ads this year. After days of backlash, the company has decided to pull its controversial “Dear Sydney” ad from Olympic coverage.

In the 60-second ad, a father seeks to write a fan letter on behalf of his daughter to her Olympic idol, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The premise is the sort of treacly ad you’d expect to see at the Olympics, but things take a twist when instead of helping his daughter write a letter, he just has Gemini do it for them. “This has to be just right,” he says, before prompting Gemini to tell Sydney how inspiring she is, that his daughter plans to break her record one day, and to add a “sorry, not sorry” joke at the end.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Cool Worlds asks whether Dyson Spheres are possible…?  I recall when Niven’s Ringworld and some bright wags from MIT (I think — though my memory may be dodgy) pointed out that it’d be unstable. So if true for a ringworld then must be too for a Dyson sphere….

The idea of a Dyson sphere was a radical proposal by the physicist Freeman Dyson, an enormous shell of material enveloping a star. Dyson’s idea may be over half a century old, but interest in looking for such objects has only grown in the decades since. But how would such structures work? Are they physically even possible? And what might someone use them for? Today, we dive into the physics of Dyson spheres.

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