Tag Archives: Phil Nichols

Pixel Scroll 4/16/25 It’s Been A Long File Since I Pixel Scrolled

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(1) WSFS BUSINESS MEETING TOWN HALLS IN MAY. The Seattle 2025 Worldcon committee today reminded members they will be hosting two Business Meeting Town Halls where members can learn how to participate in the business meeting process. They will be on Zoom, and recorded for later playback. The committee has yet to announce how to attend and RSVP. The available information is here on the convention website: “Business Meeting Town Hall”.

  • Town Hall One: May 4 at noon Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7).
  • Town Hall Two: May 25 at noon Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7).

(2) SEATTLE WORLDCON WILL HOLD CONSULTATIVE VOTE. The Seattle 2025 Worldcon also announced they will hold a consultative vote of WSFS members on two of the proposed Constitutional amendments passed on from the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting to the Seattle Worldcon: (1) the proposed revisions of the Hugo Award categories for best professional artist and best fan artist, and (2) the proposed amendment to abolish the Retro Hugo Awards.

As when Glasgow 2024 did this, there is no constitutional authorization for the poll, and it is not binding on the Business Meeting.

…The purpose of this exercise is simply to test whether a consultative vote of Worldcon members is feasible, and to learn lessons about how it might someday be formally adopted as a part of the WSFS decision-making process. We chose these two proposals in particular because they have clearly generated wide interest among the Worldcon community.

The consultative vote results will be used solely to inform the Seattle Business Meeting of the preferences of a larger sample of the membership than might otherwise be able to attend. Glasgow 2024’s consultative vote allowed over 1,200 WSFS members to share their opinion on a proposed amendment.

The consultative vote will run from May 1 to May 31 and may be accessed at the same site and in the same manner as the Hugo Award voting—so you can do both at the same time!

(3) A DATE THAT SHALL LIVE IN INFAMY. Convention History is shocked, shocked I tell you, by the party in Room 770.

(4) MARK EVANIER DID NOT OUTGROW COMICS. [Item by rcade.] The comic book writer Mark Evanier remembers the 1960s divide between fans of science fiction and comic books. “Fandom Freedom” at News From ME.

…One older female fan used to lecture me that Comic Book Fandom was an unfortunate outgrowth of Science-Fiction Fandom and oughta stay that way…or better still, disappear entirely. What they read was for sophisticated adults and what “we” read (drawing a firm, uncrossable line with that “we” there) was for the kiddos. Her suggestion was that there was something wrong with us for not outgrowing it.

The last such lecture I got — this would have been around ’73 — was from a guy wearing Spock ears and brandishing a plastic phaser that fired little multi-colored discs….

(5) THINKING INSIDE THE BOX. “A new chapter for publishing? Book subscription services launch their own titles” – the Guardian tells how it works.

Book subscription services are magic. A few clicks of a form and a bunch of new books , selected by talented curators, turn up at your door – often with collectible perks such as special cover designs and art. In a world saturated by choice and trends, not only is the choosing done for you, but you’ll often have a less conventional, better rounded and precious bookshelf collection to show for it.

This is presumably why there’s a strong appetite for such services: UK fantasy subscription box FairyLoot has 569,000 followers on Instagram alone, and many bookshops have started sending out their own boxes.

Now, some of these businesses have decided not just to sell books, but to publish their own: In January, FairyLoot announced a collaboration with Transworld, a division of Penguin Random House, while last week Canada-based subscription service OwlCrate launched OwlCrate Press….

(6) REASONS TO WATCH. Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie discuss an award-winning film in SF 101’s “Go With The Flow” episode.

Flow (2024) is an extraordinary film – Latvia’s most successful of all time, and winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Film. Colin and Phil discuss whether it counts as science fiction (of course it does!), and what makes this delightful movie tick.

If you haven’t seen the film, we think we give you enough of flavour of it for the discussion to make sense, and hopefully to inspire you to watch it.

(7) FASCINATING MARQUEE. Tony Gleeson ran the photo below on Facebook with this introduction:

The venerable Vista Theatre in East Hollywood: it’s been everything from a porno palace to a repertory house. It’s been featured in scenes for numerous movies (the one that comes to mind is “Throw Mama From the Train”). It’s now owned by Quentin Tarantino and offers some pretty unusual fare.

When he gave permission for File 770 to reprint it, Gleeson added:

One thing I love is the coffee shop attached to the theatre (it used to be called the Onyx many years ago and had the best blackout chocolate cake) is now called Pam’s Coffy and features a portrait of Pam Grier. There is also a mini-Grauman’s Chinese footprint walk in front.

(8) THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK. “No Bids Filed for 2027 Westercon” reports Kevin Standlee at the Westercon website.

No bids filed to be on the ballot to select the site of Westercon 79, the 2027 West Coast Science Fantasy Conference. Although there will be no bids listed on the ballot, there will be space for write-in bids, and bids can still file the necessary papers (specified in Section 3.4 of the Westercon Bylaws) before the close of voting at 6 PM Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -7) on Saturday, July 5, 2025. The election will take place during Westercon 77 / BayCon 2025 at the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara, California. Should no valid bids file by the close of voting, or should None of the Above win the election, the site of Westercon 79 will be determined by the Westercon Business Meeting on Sunday, July 6.

We will post the 2027 Westercon Site Selection ballot on the Westercon website by the end of April. All members of BayCon 2025 are members of Westercon 77 and all members are eligible to vote. Members can vote by postal mail (there will be no electronic voting) or in person at Westercon 77 / BayCon 2025.

To file a bid, or to ask any questions about the Westercon Site Selection process, contact Kayla Allen, the 2027 Westercon Site Selection Administrator, at siteselection2027@westercon.org.

(9) ART SPIEGELMAN AND JUDY-LYNN DEL REY PROFILED. Through May 14 PBS is making available online “Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse” part of the American Masters series. At the end of the program, they’re also running a short documentary about Judy-Lynn Del Rey. It starts about 1 hour 40 minutes into the 2-hour program.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

April 16, 1921 – Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov. (Died 2004.)

Peter Ustinov showed up in Logan’s Run as the Old Man; he had the lead role in Blackbeard’s Ghost as Captain Blackbeard based on the Robert Stevenson novel; he was Charlie Chan in Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (it’s at least genre adjacent, isn’t it?). He’s The Caliph in stellar Thief of Baghdad; a truck driver in The Great Muppet Caper and finally he has the dual roles of Grandfather and Phoenix in The Phoenix and the Carpet.

He voiced myriad characters in animated films including that of Grendel in Grendel Grendel Grendel based off John Gardner’s novel Grendel, in Robin Hood, he voiced Prince John and King Richard; and in The Mouse and His Child, he was the voice of Manny the Rat. 

Now I’m going to admit that my favorite role by Peter Ustinov was playing Poirot which he did in half a dozen films, which he first in Death on the Nile and then in Evil Under the Sun, Thirteen at Dinner, Dead Man’s Folly, Murder in Three Acts and Appointment with Death. He wasn’t my favorite Poirot as that was David Suchet but it was obvious that he liked performing that role quite a bit. 

Peter Ustinov

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) IN A BRICKYARD FAR, FAR AWAY. Gizmodo says get ready – “Lego Is Celebrating Star Wars Day With a Ton of Sets”.

The start of May is always a good time for Star Wars fans, but for Lego Star Wars ones, it’s also a time to fear the brick-maker coming down on your wallet with all the fury of a fully armed and operational battle station. This year is no exception, with Lego announcing a ton of sets ready to drop next month–including its next crowning entry in the Ultimate Collector Series line.

Today Lego announced that its annual May the 4th releases will be spearheaded by a new 2,970-piece take on Slave I as it appeared in Attack of the Clones. Renamed here as simply ‘Jango Fett’s Starship’ (aligning with prior merchandise moves away from the “Slave” naming around the ship’s return in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett), the new set includes a detailed interior cockpit which can house two new minifigures of Jango and a young Boba, an openable landing ramp and bomb hatch to place one of the ship’s legendary-sounding seismic charges in, and a display stand to have the ship posed in either landing or flight mode.

Jango’s starship will cost $300, and will release on early access for Insiders on May 1, before releasing widely on May 4….

… If you don’t want to grab Jango’s ride but still want to try and nab that Kamino set, then good news: Lego is also releasing another eight brand new Star Wars sets on May 1. Covering the whole gamut of the franchise, the releases see the first set inspired by Andor season 2, a new U-Wing, two Brickheadz releases inspired by A New Hope and the 20th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith, Rebels icon Chopper entering the buildable droid series, two new entries in the collectible helmet line, and even a buildable version of the Star Wars logo…. 

From the Lego Shop itself, the “Best Star Wars™ Gift Ideas for Adults” has photos of all the character helmets and other items mentioned above.

Fans who admire the pilots of the Star Wars™ galaxy can now showcase their passion with the LEGO® Star Wars AT-AT Driver™ Helmet (75429), inspired by the helmets worn by the pilots of the formidable AT-AT Walkers in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back™….

…For even more ways to put the heroes and villains of your favorite galaxy on display, check out the complete selection offered by the LEGO Star Wars helmet collection. From helmets inspired by Mandalorians and Clone Troopers to bounty hunters and Dark Lords of the Sith, there is something for every Star Wars fan to add to their collection.

(13) BUT ARE THOSE BRICKS PLASTIC OR GOLD? Just make sure you lock up your house after you buy those collectible Legos. The New York Times warns, “Worth Thousands on the Black Market, Lego Kits Are Now a Target of Thieves”.

It’s one Lego kit, a collection of small plastic bricks and related accessories. What could it cost? The answer, it turns out, could be thousands of dollars.

Lego kits and minifigures, figurines that are a little over 1.5 inches tall, are commanding high prices on the secondary market, with some, like the LEGO San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Spider-Man, valued as high as $16,846.

The children’s toys have even become something of an investing opportunity for those savvy enough to know what to look for.

But with the eye-popping price tags comes a dark side: Lego kits have become a hot commodity on the black market and the target of brazen thieves.

Last year, burglars hit Bricks & Minifigs outlets in California. Thieves made off with at least $100,000 worth of Lego kits and accessories.

Last month, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in California recovered nearly 200 Lego sets after arresting a person in connection with a burglary at Crush Comics, a comic book store in Castro Valley, Calif.

Joshua Hunter, the owner of Crush Comics, said that members of his staff found the store’s stolen comic books for sale on eBay within hours of the theft.

The store worked with law enforcement and alerted other small business owners, including Five Little Monkeys, a toy store that recently had $7,000 worth of Lego stolen, to solve what turned out to be a spree of burglaries in the area.

Five Little Monkeys was able to recover a lot of its stolen Lego, said Meghan DeGoey, the company’s marketing director, but the theft was only the latest in what has been a growing problem.

“It’s been a problem for probably, I mean, forever, but it’s really ramped up in the last five, six years,” she said.

Five Little Monkeys has eight stores around the Bay Area, said Ms. DeGoey, and Lego stands out among its top-stolen items.

“People are really brazen when they’re going to steal,” she said, describing the way thieves will sometimes come into a store and walk right out or “do some like crazy misdirect and have a second person that tries to distract us.”…

(14) BUSINESS SHOULD NOT BE BOOMING. “Bahamas suspends SpaceX rocket landings pending post-launch probe” reports Reuters.

The Bahamas’ government said on Tuesday it is suspending all SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landings in the country, pending a full post-launch investigation.

“No further clearances will be granted until a full environmental assessment is reviewed,” Bahamian Director of Communications Latrae Rahming said in a post on X.

The Bahamian government said in February after SpaceX’s first landing in the country that it had approved 19 more throughout 2025, subject to regulatory approval.

The Bahamas’ post-launch investigation comes after a SpaceX Starship spacecraft exploded in space last month, minutes after lifting off from Texas.

Social media videos showed fiery debris streaking through the skies near South Florida and the Bahamas after the spacecraft broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off.

Following the incident, the Bahamas said debris from the spacecraft fell into its airspace. The country said the debris contained no toxic materials and added it was not expected to have a significant impact on marine life or water quality.

The Starship explosion was not connected to the Bahamas’ Falcon 9 landing program with SpaceX.

(15) IS THAT SPACE ROT? “Webb telescope detects a possible signature of life on a distant world”  in the Washington Post.

A distant planet’s atmosphere shows signs of molecules that on Earth are associated only with biological activity, a possible signal of life on what is suspected to be a watery world,according to a report published Wednesday that analyzed observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The peer-reviewed report in the Astrophysical Journal Letters presents more questions than answers, acknowledges numerous uncertainties and does not declare the discovery of life beyond Earth, something never conclusively detected. But the authors do claim to have found the best evidence to date of a possible “biosignature” on a planet far from our solar system.

The planet,known asK2-18b, is 124 light-years away, orbiting a red dwarf star. Earlier observations suggested that its atmosphere is consistent with the presence of a global ocean. The molecule purportedly detected is dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth it is produced by the decay of marine phytoplankton and other microbes, and it has no other known source. The astronomers want to observe the planet further to strengthen the evidence that the molecule is present….

… “This is the first time humanity has ever seen biosignature molecules — potential biosignature molecules, which are biosignatures on Earth — in the atmosphere of a habitable-zone planet,” he added.The habitable, or “Goldilocks,” zone is the distance from a star that could allow water to remain liquid at the planet’s surface.

K2-18b, which is within ourgalaxy, the Milky Way,cannot be seen by any telescope as a discrete object. But it has a fortuitous orbit that crosses its parent star as seen from Earth. Such transits dim the starlight ever so slightly, which is how many exoplanets have been discovered. The transits also change the starlight’s spectrum in a pattern that — if observed with instruments on a telescope as advanced as the Webb — can reveal the composition of the planet’s atmosphere.

In 2023, Madhusudhan and colleagues reported that two instruments on the Webb had detected carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere of K2-18b, as well ashints of DMS. …

(16) SF² CONCATENATION  SUMMER 2025 EDITION. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] SF² Concatenation has just posted its seasonal edition of SF and science news and reviews. Also in the mix are some articles, convention reports as well as some archive items from its well over 30 years history and a load of standalone book reviews. Something for everyone.

v35(3) 2025.4.15 — New Columns & Articles for the Summer 2025

v35(3) 2025.4.15 — Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Reviews

v35(3) 2025.4.15 — Non-Fiction SF & Science Fact Book Reviews

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

Pixel Scroll 2/6/25 I Know It’s Only Pixel Scroll, But I Like It

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(1) RADIO FREE BRADBURY. Phil Nichols’ new Bradbury 100 podcast tunes into “Ray Bradbury on Radio: SUSPENSE”.

This time, I look at the early years of Ray’s professional career, which saw him not only mastering the craft of short story writing and putting together his first book, but branching out into media – in particular, getting his stories and scripts onto national radio shows such as CBS’s Suspense.

Over a span of a dozen years, Suspense produced no fewer than eleven shows based on Bradbury stories, with some of the stories being produced multiple times. I argue that this early media presence – which included a number of stories previously unpublished – helped cement Bradbury’s growing popularity and reputation.

The direct link is here: “Episode 61 – Ray Bradbury and Radio’s SUSPENSE!” at SoundCloud.

(2) FUTURE TENSE. ASU Center for Science and the Imagination’s “Future Tense Fiction” story for January 2025 is “The Funniest Centaur Alive”, by Gregory Mone—a story about standup comedy, AI, and the ethics of human enhancement.

The response essay “The AI House of Mirrors” is by computer scientist Suresh Venkatasubramanian.

I spend my days thinking about collisions between tech—especially artificial intelligence—and society. There was a time when I could separate out that part of my day as work, but in 2025, such a division is no longer possible. Rather than simply think through these collisions, I now also live them, in nearly every corner of my life. AI is unescapable: I go to the grocery store and the radio is talking about the technology’s use in some sector or another. I go to get a haircut and we discuss smart mirrors that could show you virtual hairstyles to choose from. My child’s school insists on deploying some rather questionable software that claims to use AI to detect concerning behaviors or online communications and wants my consent to use it….

(3) AT THE HALF CENTURY. LA Review of Books introduces Jonathan Bolton’s review of The Dispossessed: 50th Anniversary Edition saying he “thoughtfully reads Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Dispossessed’ within and against the grain of a half century of criticism”. “To Touch the Dust of Anarres”.

… Among political novelists, Le Guin stood out for her ability to blend different kinds of politics. She was fascinated by the grand politics of class and revolution—her novels are full of parliamentary factions, court intrigue, diplomats, spies, and rebels. As the Thuvian ambassador tells Shevek, “You have got to understand the powers behind the individuals.” But as a feminist and skilled imaginer of everyday life, she also had a sensitive eye for the mundane power struggles of “the personal is political.” Nor did she ignore the cruel paradoxes and structural violence of imperialism, playing out in both colony and metropole. Through it all, she maintained a keen sense of the pure force of ideas to move back and forth among these three political worlds. The Dispossessed is a running political conversation—full of intrigue and drama, to be sure—in which Shevek is forced to test and develop his anarchist ideals against a range of friendly and hostile interlocutors on both Anarres and Urras. These varied conversations leave no political idea unchallenged, even as Shevek preserves his ever-evolving anarchist ideals….

(4) BLACK HERITAGE IN HORROR. The Horror Writers Association has launched a month-long series: “Black Heritage in Horror Month 2025: An Interview with Jamal Hodge”.

What inspired you to start writing?

Pain, uncertainty, and hope. Honestly, I was a naive child, filled with joy at the thought of meeting another face. But when homelessness found my family in the South Bronx, I quickly learned that people weren’t always safe. Being exposed to ‘American history’ in school further revealed what it meant to be Black in this country, a trauma, in my view, that demands mental health support, like counseling, in schools. These harsh realities made me dream of a better world. I found that place within the pages of books, the ink of a pen, and the boundless depths of my own imagination.

What drew you to the horror genre?

Hope, survival, and truth. To me, horror encapsulates all of these. It transforms fear into something useful, something empowering, and even fun. Horror and fantasy were my first loves for precisely that reason: they validated our right to be scared, acknowledging that evil exists and that we live in a dangerous world. But they also illuminated our power to face terror head-on, to survive. That resonated with me.

(5) GROUP STATEMENT OPPOSING ANTI-TRANS EXECUTIVE ORDER. “Literary Organizations Release Joint Statement Decrying Anti-Trans Executive Order” – Publishers Weekly has the full text – read it at the link. Not sure how the 54 signing organizations were recruited, but neither the Authors Guild, HWA, nor SFWA is among them.

Following the release of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on January 20, which asserts that his administration will implement “language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” a large number of major organizations in the book business and literary world released a statement decrying the move. Among them are the American Booksellers Association, Audio Publishers Association, Comic Book Legal Defense fund, EveryLibrary, Independent Book Publishers Association, IngramSpark, National Book Critics Circle, PEN America, PubWest, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and many more.

The statement says in part:

…Trans, nonbinary, and intersex experience is vastly underrepresented in literature but disproportionately targeted by bans. During the 2022-2023 school year, 30% of books banned included LGBTQIA+ characters or themes. Such censorship robs us of perspectives that enrich the American story. Though the executive order in question tries to paint LGBTQIA+ people and allies as bullies enforcing their perspective on others through “legal and other socially coercive means,” that’s exactly what the order itself does, just as book-banning pressure groups have done since 2020 in school boards and libraries around the country. The fate of trans, intersex, and nonbinary people is not a political ideology, it’s a matter of human rights, civil rights, and freedom of expression. Government erosion of those rights should concern all Americans, regardless of their investment in LGBTQIA+ literature specifically.

This executive order is censorship, pure and simple, and it has no place in a free society. It must be rescinded or stayed as soon as possible, and at the latest, before the earliest implementation deadline, February 19, 2025….

(6) ELLIOTT SHARP Q&A. Interviewer Rob Thornton reaches back 25 years to share – “Archival Interview (2000): Elliott Sharp on Sci-Fi, Spoken Words, and Sound”.

In 2000, I did an email interview with Sharp about his work with Seeing Eye Theater, why he’s a science fiction fan, and how his approach to music has been shaped by science fiction.

There are many authors who read for Seeing Eye Theater. Did you choose to work with Murphy, Goonan, Womack & Shepard or did Seeing Eye Theater introduce you to them?

I had met the producer, Tony Daniel, through Ellen Datlow, Jack Womack, and Lucius Shepard when doing a performance. He told me that he had followed my work. the next step was easy. I’ve followed sci-fi since I first began to read and had been a longtime fan of Jack. Pat, and Lucius.

We’ve performed together on a number of occasions and I had included all of them reading in a compilation of one-minute pieces called State of the Union. Tony, as producer, makes the choices. I certainly offer feedback. I did become a fan of Kathy Ann Goonan’s after working with her on a Seeing Ear Theater production….

There’s a whole library of “Seeing Eye Theater (Radio)” episodes available at YouTube.

(7) SATURN ON THE BLOCK. A forthcoming episode of Antiques Roadshow will feature “1986 Leonard Nimoy Saturn Life Career Award”. I’m thinking, come on, it’s a Saturn Award, what can that be worth? Well, it seems that having Leonard Nimoy’s name on it raises it well above the value of the average bowling trophy. The figure is named in this clip.

(8) DAVID EDWARD BYRD (1941-2025). Deadline reports: “David Edward Byrd Dead: Artist Behind Iconic Rock And Broadway Posters”. Here’s a brief excerpt from the obituary, with his best-known genre work bolded.

…For some devotees, though, Byrd left his most indelible impression on Broadway, designing some of theater’s most influential and best-remembered posters and logos. He created the gorgeously garish and grisly poster for The Little Shop of Horrors, a more muted 1971 poster for Jesus Christ Superstar combining cathedral art and rock imagery, and that same year, the iconic poster for Follies, the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical about a reunion of aging showgirls.

In the 1980s, Byrd worked as Art Director for Van Halen and designed posters for Los Angeles theaters including The Mark Taper Forum and The Ahmanson Theatre.

While his work might best be remembered by folks of a certain age, at least one set of his illustrations is well-known to a younger generation: He designed the richly colorful covers for the first three Harry Potter books.

In 2023, Byrd published his autobiography Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd, chock full of the poster art that has delighted untold numbers of observers….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

February 6, 1922 — Patrick Macnee. (Died 2015.)

By Paul Weimer: “There are those who believe that life here began out there. Far across the universe, with tribes of humans…some believe there may be brothers of man who yet now fight to survive…”

My first encounter with the work of the formidable Patrick Macnee was, improbably, in Battlestar Galactica.  His voice is the unmistakable one in the opening credits to the 1978 series. In addition, he also showed up in a two part episode as “Count Iblis”, who was, as far as I can figure, a fallen angel or the outright devil himself.  And also he showed up at least once as the Imperious Leader, the head of the Cylons. That striking British baritone voice of his served him well and was unmistakable. 

It would be years, though, before I encountered The Avengers and his role in that, proper. In fact, I had somehow missed the existence of The Avengers for years, and didn’t know it existed or that I might like it. It was the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Community that clued me in. A particular GM and player in that community had a penchant for playing characters who were versions of John Steed himself. The first couple of games I played with him in it, I didn’t quite get who he was “supposed to be”. I finally got a chance between games, to actually ask him about the character — I was embarrassed because it seemed I was the only one who wasn’t “in on it”.  And so he told me, and urged me to see The Avengers for myself. 

And then I finally saw the series itself on VHS tape. While there were several partners (Diana Rigg’s Mrs Peel being just the most prominent), the anchor of that relationship was McNee’s stalwart John Steed. I immediately finally saw what my fellow roleplayer was doing. And why he would model his character and his very con appearance (complete with a bowler hat and an umbrella, although he preferred white to black. It all clicked. The stalwart, competent and implacable and unflappable gentleman that Macnee portrays is tailor made for borrowing as a character template, or just a fashion template. What a fascinating character! An excellent spy, cultured, intelligent, and always prepared. And a perfect gentleman who wasn’t above some very above board wordplay with his associates. I think that Macnee so created and inhabited the role is a reason why attempts to reboot the character in media have gone from horrible (sorry, Ralph Fiennes) to forgettable (the Big Finish audio dramas). 

Macnee also shows up in series and roles ever since, from Columbo to Sherlock Holmes to an episode of the series Frasier where he plays a psychiatrist. 

A class act, throughout his acting career. He died in 2015. Requiescat in pace.

Patrick Macnee

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) ON A ROLL. The New York Times tells readers about a game involving “Intergalactic Shantytowns Where Dice Dictate Your Future” (behind a paywall.)

The dice roll is the fundamental engine of numerous games. In a board game, it might determine what type of resources you receive or how far you can move. In tabletop role-playing games, it might determine whether an action is successful. When you swing your sword at an ogre, does it land a fatal blow? Or does your blade accidentally glance off a nearby statue and clatter uselessly to the ground? The dice decide.

Although video games often use similar systems to decide the outcome of a player’s actions, the dice roll itself — the machinery of chance — is typically concealed.

“The idea with video games is they’re supposed to be this warm bath of immersion that you disappear into,” said Gareth Damian Martin, whose new game Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector subverts convention by placing the dice center stage.

The dice in Citizen Sleeper 2, which releases for PCs and consoles on Friday, can be spent on actions within a cyberpunk future where mercenaries, scavengers and outcasts eke out a hardscrabble living on the margins of a galaxy ruled by rival corporations. The higher the number of an assigned die, the greater the chance that the player will successfully work shifts in an intergalactic kelp bar, sell scrap engine components down at the shipyards or overthrow a corporation as part of a labor revolution.

“The process of abstracting things to dice gives an incredible flexibility to storytelling,” said Damian Martin, who uses they/them pronouns. “The game inherently supports you and creates drama from any situation.”…

(12) TANGLED UP IN BLUE. Deadline introduces “’Smurfs’ Trailer: First Footage Of Rihanna’s Smurfette”.

…The synopsis: When Papa Smurf (John Goodman) is mysteriously taken by evil wizards, Razamel and Gargamel, Smurfette (Rihanna) leads the Smurfs on a mission into the real world to save him. With the help of new friends, the Smurfs must discover what defines their destiny to save the universe….

(13) NOT WITH A BANG. [Item by Steven French.] It’ll be interesting to see whether AI can describe the end of the universe before it brings about the end of the world: “AI to revolutionise fundamental physics and ‘could show how universe will end’”.

Advanced artificial intelligence is to revolutionise fundamental physics and could open a window on to the fate of the universe, according to Cern’s next director general.

Prof Mark Thomson, the British physicist who will assume leadership of Cern on 1 January 2026, says machine learning is paving the way for advances in particle physics that promise to be comparable to the AI-powered prediction of protein structures that earned Google DeepMind scientists a Nobel prize in October.

At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), he said, similar strategies are being used to detect incredibly rare events that hold the key to how particles came to acquire mass in the first moments after the big bang and whether our universe could be teetering on the brink of a catastrophic collapse….

(14) ORIGIN STORY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] OK, so you are an SF fan, but could you be a multibillionaire? Now, I have occasionally dreamed of having a superpower and if I ever did I guess it might be the USA.  However, you don’t have to be born on Krypton or be bitten by a radioactive spider.  All you need — as Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark showed — is lots and lots of dosh, and then you can even influence things on the national stage. But in real life one SF enthusiast did just this, and it is this interest of his in SF that gives us a clue as to his beliefs, as a BBC Radio 4 series of half-hour programmes reveals…

The story of Elon Musk, the way it’s usually told, makes him sound like a fictional character, a comic-book superhero – or supervillain. He’s the world’s richest man, and now an adviser to the US President. He uses X – his social media platform – to berate politicians he doesn’t agree with around the world.

He plans to put chips in people’s brains, and to save the world by colonising Mars. Musk’s visions of the future seem to stem from the science fiction that has fired his imagination since he was a boy. But what’s the real story, the true history, behind the comic book? Back in 2021 Harvard History Professor and New Yorker Writer Jill Lepore became fascinated by this question.

So she made a Radio 4 podcast which tried to explain Musk through the science fiction he grew up with – tales of superheroes with origin stories that seemed to influence how he understands his own life. So much has happened since then that we decided to update that series – and add three new episodes, too. Because Musk keeps changing, and so does what Lepore calls ‘Muskism’ – his brand of extreme capitalism and techno-futurism. And strangely, his origin story keeps changing, too.

How can understanding these fantasy stories – some of them a century old – help us understand the future Musk wants to take us to?

You can listen to the first episode here: “Introducing X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story”.

(15) NO LAST OF US. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] There is a review of fungi impact on Earth’s ecosystems – “Fungal impacts on Earth’s ecosystems” — in this week’s Nature.

Here, we examine the fungal threats facing civilization and investigate opportunities to use fungi to combat these threats….

This is an excellent overview but, alas, no mention of The Last of Us…!

(16) THEY KNOW WHERE THE SKELETONS ARE. Hollywood Graveyard combines filmmaking history with the pastime of tracking down celebrity graves. Can you guess what movie this installment focuses on? “Graves From The Black Lagoon : A Famous Grave Film”.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Joey Eschrich, Rob Thornton, Danny Sichel, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dan’l.]

Pixel Scroll 12/26/24 Clicks! Clicks! The Scroll Was Full Of Clicks!

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(1) SMELLING BEE. “How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking?” in The New Yorker begins with a rant against the prevalence of the English language, however, there are some interesting anthropological bits, too:

…Western writers have long assumed that human beings have an inherently limited capacity to describe some senses, with olfaction ranking as the most elusive. We can speak abstractly about colors (red, blue, black) and sound (high, low, loud). With smell, though, we usually give “source-based” references (“like cut grass”). But the cognitive scientist Asifa Majid, now of Oxford, and the linguist Niclas Burenhult, of Lund University, in Sweden, have shown that this needn’t be the case. They discovered that the Jahai, hunter-gatherers living at the border of Malaysia and Thailand, have a rich vocabulary of abstract smell words. One Jahai term, itpit, refers to the “intense smell of durian, perfume, soap, Aquillaria wood, and bearcat,” Majid and Burenhult report. Another, cnes, applies to “the smell of petrol, smoke, bat droppings and bat caves, some species of millipede, root of wild ginger, leaf of gingerwort, wood of mango tree.” Subsequent research has found large olfactory lexicons in at least forty other languages, among them Fang, Khmer, Swahili, and Zapotec.

It makes a difference. In a study that Majid and Burenhult conducted a decade ago, Jahai and English speakers were asked to identify and name twelve smells, including cinnamon, turpentine, gasoline, and onion. English speakers, despite their greater familiarity with the odors, faltered….

…Twenty years ago, abstract smell vocabularies seemed ridiculous. Burenhult studied the Jahai language for a decade, even writing a doctoral dissertation on its grammar, before Majid asked him to run a battery of tasks that revealed Jahai speakers’ exceptional way of talking about smell. Other linguistic features once assumed to be universal-such as tenses, personal pronouns, and even, potentially, a distinction between nouns and verbs-have turned up missing when greater numbers of languages have been scrutinized. Likewise, we’ve enlarged our sense of the metaphors used to map concepts. English describes acoustic pitch using a verticality metaphor (high-low), but a study by experts in musical cognition found that people around the world use at least thirty-five other mappings, such as small-big, alert-sleepy, pretty-ugly, tense-relaxed, summer-winter, and-in the case of some traditional Zimbabwean instrumentalists-“crocodile” (low pitch) and “those who follow crocodiles” (high pitch)….

Everett’s book revels in such discoveries, which multiply the conceivable differences separating languages. In a recent review of the research literature, the language scientist Damián E. Blasi, along with Majid and others, listed the many cognitive domains that English seems to affect, including memory, theory of mind, spatial reasoning, event processing, aesthetic preferences, and sensitivity to rhythm and melody.”

(2) DISSECTING THE TEASER. After you watch the short Doctor Who promo video below, The Hollywood Reporter stands ready with a “’Doctor Who’ Season 2 Trailer: Scene-by-Scene Breakdown of 2025 Preview”.

Is That Donna Noble?

Eagle-eyed fans may have been a little surprised to spot a magazine containing a promotional picture for the Doctor Who 2023 specials featuring Noble actress Catherine Tate.

In a whirlwind couple of seconds, we see the Doctor and the occupants of what looks like a soccer-loving barbershop (in what’s certainly not the U.K.) sucked out into some kind of cosmic storm. If you look closely at the magazines fluttering by, you can spot a magazine with the aforementioned image….

(3) DAVIES AND MOFFAT Q&A. Inverse introduces its interview with the pair, “19 Years Later, ‘Doctor Who’ Brings Back Its Best Collaboration — For Potentially The Last Time”, saying, “Nineteen years ago, TV magic happened: Steven Moffat wrote his first Doctor Who story for showrunner Russell T Davies…”.

…Davies: Because what you get, Steven, is a fool because he throws away huge movie franchises every time he does a Doctor Who story.

Moffat: So do you.

Davies: There’s River Song — could be bigger than James Bond every day, and now there’s the Time Hotel that could run for 20 years as a television show.

Moffat: You know you’ve got an idea that’s good enough for 45 minutes of Doctor Who if you’ve got a movie idea. If you just pissed away a franchise, yeah, I might give you 45 minutes….

(4) UNIVERSITIES PRESERVING SFF. Fanac.org’s next “FANAC Fanhistory Zoom” is “Out of the Ghetto and into the University: SF Fandom University Collections”. To attend, email fanac@fanac.org.

Most of us are collectors (or at least accumulators) of science fiction memorabilia. And others are researchers and historians. Our first program should be interesting to all of you. We will be interviewing the Curators of three of the largest library collections specializing in science fiction, fanzines, comics and other related materials.

Come to find out what is in their collections, what they want for their collections, and how to use them. January 11, 2025 – 2PM EST, 11 AM PST, 7PM GMT London, and 6AM AEDT (sorry) Sunday, Jan 12 Melbourne

(5) VIDEOS FROM NINTH CITY TECH SCIENCE FICTION SYMPOSIUM. Videos from panels held at the Ninth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on SF, Artificial Intelligence, and Generative AI have been posted to YouTube. There’s also a gallery of photos taken during the event by Andrew Porter.

This is the direct link to the YouTube video playlist.

Jason W. Ellis, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator, City Tech Science Fiction Collection at New York City College of Technology says:

Our sign-in sheet recorded 58 attendees, but I’m guessing the attendance across the day was between 75-100 people as some folks, including students, didn’t sign-in. I even heard one positive take on the symposium via the telephone grapevine from a past colleague who I didn’t know attended. In any event, it took an army to chow down 10 pizzas at lunch!

(6) CLASSIC COMIC STRIP COLLECTIONS. These used to make ideal holiday gifts. CBR.com gives us the “10 Best Comic Strip Collections, Ranked”. “…The best comic strip collections feature the best comic strip titles and probably contain strips significant to its legacy and/or offer insight into its creation….”

Coming in at number six:

Pearls Before Swine: Sgt. Piggy’s Lonely Hearts Club Comic: A Comic Strip Collection About Life, Death, and Everything in Between

Starring anamorphic animals named after the animals they are, Pearls Before Swine explores themes of death, meaning, and the world’s chaos with irony and visual humor. It’s named after the Bible verse, Matthew 7:6, which contains the phrase, “Do not cast your pearls before swine,” meaning don’t impart wisdom on those who won’t appreciate it. This is a pun because Rat, a cynical and snarky loudmouth, often feels this is what he’s doing when talking to Pig, a literal swine who is kind-natured and naïve. Pearls Before Swine also stars Goat, a character often annoyed at Rat and Pig because he’s more educated and informed than them, and a family of crocodiles who always fail at killing their zebra neighbors.

Roughly half the strips in Pearls Before Swine treasuries, which collect the strips in the previous two collections, have notes under them from Pearls Before creator Stephen Pastis. Pearls Before Swine: Sgt. Piggy’s Lonely Hearts Club Comic is the first Pearls Before Swine treasury and showcases where it all began. The strips in this book were made before Pastis started drawing himself as a character to make meta-commentary, but it still had plenty of other laughs, including a strip where Pig orders bacon and says it’s a “pig-eat-pig world.”

(7) RAY, BART AND HOMER. Phil Nichols’ Bradbury 100 podcast devoted a recent episode to “Ray Bradbury and The Simpsons”, tracking down every reference the series has made to Ray.

A few weeks ago, there was a new episode of The Simpsons which was entirely based on the works of Ray Bradbury. “Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes” is not the first time Ray has been referenced by the show. In fact, the number of Bradbury allusions across all of The Simpsons (i.e. on TV, in comics, and in books) now totals: thirteen.

In this episode I detail them all!

Many of them are represented by audio clips. But there are a few gags which are purely visual, including the comic-book and book appearances, and so I’ll present a few of them below. (Click on the images to embiggen!)

(8) PARTY TIME. People’s Elizabeth Rosner tells how “I Spent the Weekend at Neil Patrick Harris’ Murder Mystery Party—and Lived to Tell the Tale”.

…Saturday evening, the drama reached its peak during a lavish five-course dinner under a heated tent. The menu featured a Crenn Caesar salad, savoy cabbage, steak wing lamb, and soy custard, paired with fine wines. But before dinner was over, the chef’s driver, Charlie Carr, was killed.

The tension escalated when a dinner guest was poisoned for suggesting Sinclair’s death wasn’t an accident, putting her in the killer’s crosshairs.

In the end, we learned the killer and his motive…

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Galaxy Quest

By Paul Weimer: Galaxy Quest — the best movie about Star Trek fandom of all time? 

Very possibly yes. 

In the days before The Orville (which has neatly taken up the Galaxy Quest banner in some ways), Star Trek’s self importance was sometimes overweening. Oh you could see and find some deflation of the seriousness of movies like Star Trek the Motion Picture now and again in the Star Trek canon (Star Trek IV in particular).  But the strong desire and passion of fans was something that was mocked for a long time, and by William Shatner himself. 

On December 20, 1986, the infamous “Get a Life” sketch was aired on Saturday Night Live. It’s worth seeing if you haven’t seen it. People forget that at the end Shatner “recants” his rant against the fans and says he was just channeling “Evil Kirk”. Everyone remembers how for the first 6 minutes of the episode he rips and destroys the enthusiasm and geeky intense interest of those same fans. 

So, Galaxy Quest is a corrective, I feel, to that sketch and those perceptions. And at the time I saw Galaxy Quest in 1999, I had been to one Star Trek convention (with Marina Sirtis and George Takei). I knew and know the passions of people for a property, a franchise, an imaginary future. I share them, after all.

Galaxy Quest channels all that, and with love and respect, but knowing how silly its own source material is, uses it. From the funky controls on the bridge, to the “choppers” in a passageway that Sigourney Weaver’s character calls out as being stupid, the movie shows the absurdity of following a property so closely. And yet in showing the absurdity of it, it also shows the love, respect, care and humanity of fans of a property. (Consider how the fans come together to help land the remnants of the ship). It’s a movie that touches the heart and knows when to cut from horror, to comedy, to moments of tenderness and pathos.  There are few episodes, or movies of the actual Star Trek than can say the same.

And the casting is perfect. Tim Allen as the clueless captain? Sigourney Weaver, whose sole job is to repeat the computer? The late Alan Rickman, horrified he has, by Grabthar’s Hammer, been permanently typecast? Tony Shalhoub as the slacker chief engineer? All of the cast understood the assignment and give the movie their all. The movie is peppy, doesn’t flag, and entertains thoroughly. It satirizes and respects and loves Star Trek, and its fans. 

Also, in 2020, inspired by this movie, I went out of my way in my trip around the “Utah 5” to see Goblin Valley State Park, where the alien planet with the beryllium mine (and the rock monster) was filmed. Friends, it is as alien and weird as the movie makes it out to be.

Never give up, never surrender may be Captain Taggart’s catchphrase, but it’s some damn fine advice for life, too.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) ALTERNATE GALAXY QUESTS. Cracked.com has selected “25 Trivia Tidbits About ‘Galaxy Quest’ on Its 25th Anniversary”.

For the final Christmas of the 20th century, Santa dropped off an extra special gift to movie lovers: Galaxy Quest, a Star Trek parody that’s also so much more. 

In it, Tim Allen plays egotistical actor Jason Nesmith whose claim to fame was portraying the Captain Kirk-like lead, Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, in the cheesy 1980s sci-fi show Galaxy Quest. Years after Galaxy Quest has concluded, Nesmith and his co-stars are scraping by with personal appearances at sci-fi conventions. Things take a twist, though, when real-life aliens — who have mistaken Galaxy Quest as real — abduct the actors to help save them from an extraterrestrial warlord.

In the 25 years since its release, the movie has turned into a legitimate cult hit, and so, to mark its 25th anniversary, here are 25 behind-the-scenes tidbits about it…

Here are two particularly juicy tidbits – imagine Galaxy Quest helmed by the same director as Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis, and with a different cast.

21 Why Ramis Left the Project

According to Dean Parisot, who ultimately directed Galaxy Quest, “The studio wanted Tim Allen to do it, but Harold didn’t want to do it with Tim.” Additionally, producer Mark Johnson said, “Harold didn’t do the movie because we couldn’t cast it. The people we went to all turned it down, and by the time we got to Tim Allen, Harold couldn’t see it.”

20 Ramis’ Pick

Ramis had originally wanted Alec Baldwin for the lead. Other casting choices proposed were Steve Martin and Kevin Kline.

(12) ALL SINGING, ALL DANCING, ALL GRINCHING. Cat pointed out a huge oversight in yesterday’s Scroll – I should have followed his Grinch TV memory with a link to Martin Morse Wooster’s “Review of ‘Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas – The Musical’”, an account of the stage production from 2016.

I saw Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas!—The Musical last night at the National Theatre in Washington.  From the musical’s website and Wikipedia, I learned that this musical has been around since 1994 and has played in 41 other cities in the U.S. before it showed up in Washington….

….You know the plot.  The citizens of Whoville are looking forward to Christmas when they can get lots of stuff and eat many sugary treats.  Then that mean Grinch shows up and steals all their stuff.  But why?  Deprived childhood? Acid reflux? The answer here is that the Grinch is tired of all the noise the Whovians make.  At that point I started cheering the Grinch on….

(13) IF YOU CAN SAY SOMETHING NICE. [Item by Steven French.] As a counterweight to all the doom mongering about AI, here’s a positive news report for the Xmas season: “NHS to begin world-first trial of AI tool to identify type 2 diabetes risk” in the Guardian.

The NHS in England is launching a world-first trial of a “gamechanging” artificial intelligence tool that can identify patients at risk of type 2 diabetes more than a decade before they develop the condition.

More than 500 million people worldwide have type 2 diabetes, and finding new ways to spot people at risk before they develop the condition is a major global health priority. Estimates suggest 1 billion people will have type 2 diabetes by 2050.

The condition is a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, strokes and lower limb amputation. It is often linked to being overweight or inactive, or having a family history of type 2 diabetes, although not all those diagnosed are in those categories.

Now doctors and scientists have developed a transformative AI tool that can predict those at risk of the condition as much as 13 years before it begins to develop.

The technology analyses electrocardiogram (ECG) readings during routine heart scans. It can detect subtle changes too small to be noticed by the human eye that could raise the alarm early about a patient on the road to getting type 2 diabetes.

It could enable early interventions and potentially help people avoid developing the condition altogether by, for example, making changes to their diet and lifestyle….

(14) SCIENCE IN THE ASTIN FAMILY TREE. [Item by Andrew (not Werdna).] This short documentary discusses “The AD-X2 Controversy” — in which the evaluation of the effectiveness of a car battery additive led to the firing (and later reinstatement) of the head of the National Bureau of Standards Allen Astin. The documentary features interviews with Astin’s son John Astin and grandson Sean Astin. Further details in the Wikipeida here: “AD-X2”.

(15) ‘TIS ALWAYS THE SEASON THERE. “Mars orbiters witness a ‘winter wonderland’ on the Red Planet” – Space.com shares ESA’s photos.

Hoping for a white Christmas this year? Well, even if there’s no snow where you live, at least you can enjoy these images of a “winter” wonderland on Mars.

Taken by the German-built High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express orbiter in June 2022, and by NASA’s NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on September 2022, these images showcase what appears to be a snowy landscape in the Australe Scopuli region of Mars, near the planet’s south pole.But the “snow” seen here is quite different from what we have on Earth.

In fact, it’s carbon dioxide ice, and at Mars’ south pole, there’s 26-foot-thick (8-meter-thick) layer of it year-round. (These image was actually taken near the summer solstice, not the winter one — it’s very cold here all year long.)…

(16) INTERNATIONAL CHRISTMAS STATION. We’re a little bit late picking this up, folks! “Space Station Astronauts Deliver a Christmas Message for 2024”.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Paul Weimer, Andrew (not Werdna), Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 11/27/24 The Scrollcycle Of Software Pixels

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(1) JAMES SALLIS Q&A. [Item by Bruce D. Arthurs.] Readers may find this recent interview with James Sallis on CrimeReads of interest. Includes a useful term, “arealist fiction”, I don’t think I’ve heard before. “Digging Deep, Staying with It: James Sallis on Writing, Reality, and the Danger of Creative Work”.

…For those readers familiar with Sallis primarily as the author of Drive (later adapted into an ultra-violent, neon-infused film with Ryan Gosling) and the Lew Griffin mystery novels, Bright Segments contains one big surprise: many of the stories are science fiction, a genre that Sallis has explored deeply throughout his life, bending it to his whims in all kinds of ways. There’s something in here for everyone, from the bleakly comedic “The Invasion of Dallas” (aliens find relationships just as confusing as humans) to the disquieting “New Teeth” (which comes off as a more ghostly “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”)….

…Q: You’ve said that the act of writing involves always challenging yourself, always pushing into new and potentially uncomfortable territory. What makes you uncomfortable on the writing front right now? What don’t you know what to do that you’re experimenting with?

JS: On the first day of every class I taught, I’d tell my writers “If you’re serious about this, if you dig in deep and stay with it, you will never be happy with what you write, you’ll always still be reaching.” The greatest danger of any creative work, it seems to me, lies in becoming professionalized, in learning how to do things, in failing to reach. The last time you wanted some effect or another, you did this—so you do it again, instead of taking this on as a new challenge to creativity. Stop. Let the cursor blink away. Put the paint brush down….

(2) BRADBURY 100. Phil Nichols is back with a new series of Bradbury 100 podcast episodes. Beginning with “Ray Bradbury on Stage!” (Direct Soundcloud link: “Bradbury 100 – Episode 58 – Ray Bradbury on Stage”.)

I get things started with a look at Ray Bradbury as a playwright, tracing his career asa theatre writer from the 1950s to the 2010s. I cover both successes and failures, and discuss both “faithful” and “playful” adaptations of his own work.

I have touched on some of this before – see episode 12, where I talked about Colonial Radio Theatre’s audio performances of Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes, which both used Ray’s plays (rather than his books).

And elsewhere on Bradburymedia you will find a review of a performance of Fahrenheit 451.

(3) NAME TO CONJURE WITH. Jules Burt encounters Glendale Paperback Show organizer (and legendary collector) Tom Lesser at the 21-minute mark of his video about “The London PAPERBACK + PULP Book Fair”.

The London PAPERBACK + PULP Book Fair – November 24th 2024 – What An AMAZING Show! Friends, in today’s video we take a look back at the incredible London Paperback and Pulp Fair as held on November 24th 2024. What an outstanding show. Incredible books, immense crowds, happy collectors! We have multiple interviews with dealers, collectors, authors and the show organisers. This is awesome! Thanks to Kim at etcfairs, Dorset Bob, Maurice at AllYouNeedIsBooks, Neil Pettygrew, Stephen Jones, Rian Hughes, Steve Holland of Bear Alley Books, Mick Cocksedge, Tom Lesser and everyone who came along and said hello – I salute you!

(4) VINTAGE PAPERBACK COLLLECTORS SHOW. And March 2025 is not that far away! Follow developments on Facebook.

(4) COULD BE A VERY FINAL FRONTIER. “The Most Dangerous Locked Room of All? Space!” At CrimeReads, Lauren A. Forry finds, “Five reasons to take the traditional locked-room mystery to the stars.”

First reason:

1) Everyone is a suspect.

Yes, yes—in any mystery, many of the character are designed to be suspects. But when you have a murder in an isolated space— in literally isolated space—it really could be any one of them. They were the only ones there. No one could’ve snuck in. No one could have gotten away. There is no one else. It makes it that much more fun when you have to imagine that every character, even the ones that you love and are rooting for, could be the one that did it. And this makes the characters even more fun to write.…

(6) YOUNG LOVECRAFT ON ROBERT E. LEE, AND THE CLANSMAN. Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein brings us “H. P. Lovecraft, Three Letters to the Editor, 1909”. They are more or less rabidly racist, so be warned. These excerpts are from Bobby Derie’s analysis.

A nervous breakdown and poor attendance prevented H. P. Lovecraft from graduating high school in 1908. A spat in the letter columns of the Argosy led to Lovecraft joining amateur journalism in 1914. The period in between these events are the most mysterious of Lovecraft’s adult life. It is the era when we have the fewest letters to guide us on his daily activities, when he seems to have been the recluse that he later pretended to be….

…So it is always interesting to run across “new” letters from Lovecraft in this period. The digital archive of the Providence Journal in Rhode Island have revealed three letters from Lovecraft to the paper published in 1909….

… Although Lovecraft would not live to see the lies of Thomas Dixon, Jr. [author of The Clansman] overturned, Lovecraft would be around the birth of the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915, see its meteoric rise and its tremendous fall from grace. In time, the reactionary, pseudohistorical image of the American Civil War which emphasized States’ rights and de-emphasized the horrors of slavery would diminish. The Civil Rights Movement would push to complete the work begun during Reconstruction, and though great progress has been made, it has not been without decades of perseverance, violence, and setbacks. Racism is still deeply entrenched in U.S. culture.

An editor read this long letter from a 19-year-old Lovecraft and chose to publish it. Perhaps they agreed with him, perhaps they merely wished to cater to “both sides” in the debate over The Clansman play and book…

(7) TRINA KING. Longtime fan Trina King died November 21. At her request, this message was posted posthumously to her Facebook account.

To all of you, I offer my sincere and deepest apology for any wrongs I may have done to you. From the advantage of my old age, I cringe at how selfish and inconsiderate some of my behavior might have been. At the time, I was too insensitive to see how I was too self-contained to understand my words and actions.

So all I can do is hope you remember me as a better person than I really was.

Also, for those of you who think you could have talked me out of this, the answer is NO. This has been planned for years. I never wanted someone else to decide when I die. I always knew when the pain got too much and I could no longer take care of myself, then that was it. It has been too many years of living poorly.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born November 27, 1907 — L. Sprague de Camp. (Died 2000.)

Let’s start with his excellent The Incorporated Knight series comprises some 1970s short stories by de Camp and two novels written in collaboration with his wife Catherine Crook de Camp, The Incorporated Knight and The Pixilated Peeress. The early short stories were reworked into first novel.

Next let me praise his Harold Shea and Gavagan’s Bar stories, both written with his friend Fletcher Pratt.  There are five stories by them, another ten stories are written forty years later but not by them and I’m not at all fond of those. The original stories were first collected in The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea. Treasure them. 

They say Gavagan’s Bar were patterned after Lord Dunsany’s Jorkens stories and that certainly makes sense. These are quite extraordinary tales. It appears the last printed edition is Tales from Gavagan’s Bar in 1980 on Bantam Books. Orion did a UK epub just several years ago and this year released one in the U.S. 

Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and Isaac Asimov, Philadelphia Navy Yard, 1944. Heinlein and Asimov were two of The Big Three. Who was the third?

They did a lot of Really Good Stuff, say The Incomplete Enchanter and The Land of Unreason. An amazing writing partnership it was. 

So, what’s good by him alone. Surprisingly his Conan tales are damn good. Now stop throwing things at me, I’m serious. Some are stellar like “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” and “The Bloodstained God”. (Yes, I’ve a weakness for this fiction.) The three Conan novels co-written with Lin Carter (Conan the Barbarian was also written with Catherine Crook de Camp) are remarkably resistant to the Suck Fairy. 

Shall I note how excellent his Viagens Interplanetarias series is? Well, I will. Adventurous and lighthearted SF with great characters and fun stories, novels (much of which was written with his wife) and stories alike are great reads. I read a few stories a while back and even the Suck Fairy still liked them. All of his fiction holds up remarkably well despite being written upwards of six decades ago. 

Well, that’s my personal reading history with him. What’s yours? 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) HOGARTH ON SFWA. Author M.C.A. Hogarth has written a long thread at X.com intending to correct the record about why she stopped being an officer of SFWA. (See also File 770’s post from 2017, “SFWA VP M.C.A. Hogarth Steps Down; Hartshorn Fills In”, and Carl Slaughter’s interview from 2016, “M. C. A. Hogarth: Peltedverse Creator, Artist, and SFWA VP”.) Hogarth’s commentary begins:

(11) WELCOME TO DYSTOPIA. Tr!llMag’s Charlott Batson’s “Our World Is A Mirror Of Dystopian Novels. Here Is Why” uses five very well-known books as illustrations.

Imagine waking up in a world where the lines between reality and dystopian fiction blur — where the fears once confined to the pages of classic novels now seep into our daily lives. Following the recent US election, is the world echoing the chilling warnings of authors like Orwell, Bradbury, and Atwood?

George Orwell has two books on this list. You don’t need to be told the first. The second one is –

Animal Farm by George Orwell

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a story that explores how power can corrupt. The book tells the tale of farm animals that overthrow their human owner, as they feel they are not being compensated for all their hard work.

Part of their reasoning is that they work so hard, only to be slaughtered by man and never taste the fruits of their labor. However, this uprising is only focused on freedom for a short while before all animals end up under the harsh rule of the pigs. This change shows how even good intentions can lead to corruption.

Even today, the themes in Animal Farm are still relevant, as power and corruption begin to control our lives. The story shows how leaders can become selfish and betray the ideals they once supported. The pigs’ rise to power and their betrayal of the other animals highlight the need to hold leaders accountable.

This is particularly relevant following the recent US presidential election, where issues of corruption and the influence of money in politics were and continue to be hot topics.

Many people, predominately citizens of the US, are concerned about the potential for political leaders to prioritize their interests over those of the public. Animal Farm pictures and explains the horrors that this produces.

(12) WELL, WELL, WELL. [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] I forsee oil companies funding space… “There May Be 5,000-Mile Deep Oceans On Uranus And Neptune, Scientist Says” – Forbes has the story. (May be paywalled.)

…Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a new study relying on computer simulations proposes that inside Uranus and Neptune — far below their thick, bluish, hydrogen-and-helium atmospheres — are layers of material that, like oil and water, don’t mix.

Over the years, planetary scientists have suggested that the ice giants contain diamond rain within them. The new theory suggests that instead, a deep ocean of water lies just below layers of clouds in the hydrogen-helium atmosphere. Below the water, goes the theory, is a layer of hydrocarbons — a highly compressed fluid of carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen. The layers are about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) thick….

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

Pixel Scroll 11/8/24 When In Need Of Scroll, Go Find The Pixels. They’ll Know Where It Is

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(1) IGNYTE AWARDS. Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Ignyte Awards, which were announced today.

The Awards “seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscape of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts towards inclusivity within the genre.”

(2) AUGUST CLARKE Q&A. At Shelf Awareness, “Reading with… August Clarke”.

…On your nightstand now: 

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera and Loteby Shola von Reinhold, both fabulously gorgeous, knock-the-wind-out-of-you type books. I’m savoring them. Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White is next up.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle for transgender reasons or The Queen of Attoliaby Megan Whalen Turner for mischief reasons. Huge influences on the way I think about fantasy writing; I would recommend reading them aloud….

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny or Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, both of which I entered expecting quick fun pulp and leaving fully awed and unbelievably moved and excited to talk about genre….

(3) SF 101. Hear from Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie in episode 48 of the Science Fiction 101 podcast holding forth about the concept of the book: “Uniquely Portable Magic”.

It occurred to us that although we have discussed many specific books on the show, we’ve never devoted an episode to the idea of the book – those papery, texty things that Stephen King has described as “uniquely portable magic”.

So in this episode, we address the various ways in which books can be enjoyed and consumed, and discuss ten (or eleven) questions on the subject of books.

We also have a book-adjacent quiz, and our usual round up of recommendations of past, present and future SF.

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to “Feast on fish and chips with Paul Cornell” in Episode 240 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

This third episode I brought back features Paul Cornell, with whom I’ve been trying to break bread ever since the 2019 Dublin Worldcon. Paul started out writing Doctor Who fan fiction, which led to him writing canonical Doctor Who novels (where he created the companion Bernice Summerfield), audio plays, and comics. Plus he recently won the Terrance Dicks Award for lifetime achievement in Doctor Who writing from the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.

Paul Cornell

But aside from his achievements in the Doctor Who universe, he’s created so many other awesome experiences for us. He’s written episodes of Elementary, Primeval, Robin Hood, and many other TV series, including his own children’s show, Wavelength.  He’s worked for every major comics company, including his creator-owned series I Walk With Monsters for The Vault, The Modern Frankenstein for Magma, Saucer Country for Vertigo, and This Damned Band for Dark Horse, plus runs on Young Avengers and Wolverine for Marvel, and Batman and Robin for DC,  

He’s the writer of the Lychford rural fantasy novellas from Tor.com Publishing. His short fiction has been published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Interzone, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, and at Tor.com, plus he also written for George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards short story anthologies. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, a Hugo Award for his SF Squeecast podcast, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his Doctor Who work.  He’s the co-host of Hammer House of Podcast.  

We discussed where he stands on the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby debate, how his UK mind was blown the first time he saw a U.S. issue of The Avengers, why fannish history fascinates him, the reason he went the self-funding route for Who Killed Nessie (and what that did to his blood pressure), how some of his Doctor Who fan fiction eventually became canon, the reason he’s suspicious of nostalgia, how he knows when ideas pop into his head which of his many projects they’re right for, the legacy comics characters he’d love to write more of, what he learned from the great Terrance Dicks, how he manages to collaborate while remaining friends with his co-creators, his fascination with Charles Fort, why he announced there’d be no more Doctor Who in his future, and much more.

(5) ERIN UNDERWOOD PRESENTS. Erin Underwood’s two latest reviews on YouTube focus on Star Wars,

  • Music by John Williams, Review – Why is his music so iconic?

The biography that you didn’t know you needed is here, but is it what you wanted? John Williams’ career is immense and impressive, and this new documentary gets into who he is and his impact upon the music, film, and television industries. Featured guests also include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ron Howard, JJ Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and more. Check out my new review.

  • Star Wars 1977, Movie Review – Does the OG Stand Up or Fail Today?

Nearly 50 years after it was released, does the original Star Wars film still hold up today? The film has been digitally remaster, but is that enough to push it across the line? Check out my new review.

(6) A GOLDEN (BOOK) AGE. “Chris Ware on Richard Scarry and the Art of children’s literature” in The Yale Review.

…In my grandparents’ second-floor guest room, formerly my mother’s childhood room, one bookcase had a row of children’s books slumped to the side, offering a chronological core sample of my grandmother’s attempts to busy not only her own kids, but all the grandkids who’d stayed there before me. There were the original Oz books, a copy of Ferdinand the Bull, Monro Leaf’s inexplicably compelling yet mildly fascistic Manners Can Be Fun, some 1950s and 1960s Little Golden Books purchased at the Hinky Dinky supermarket down the street, and, among many others I’ve now long forgotten, the big blue, green, and red shiny square of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. The largish (even just plain large if you were smallish when holding it) book offered a visual index of the everyday puzzle pieces of life in humble, colored-in line drawings. Each page was a fresh, funny composition of some new angle on the world, making the book a sort of quotidian picture-map containing everything imaginable and unimaginable a kid might be curious about: where and how people lived, slept, ate, played, and worked.

The thing is, “people” weren’t anywhere to be seen in Best Word Book Ever. Instead, the whole world was populated by animals: rabbits, bears, pigs, cats, foxes, dogs, raccoons, lions, mice, and more. Somehow, though, that made the book’s view of life feel more real and more welcoming. A dollhouse-like cutaway view of a rabbit family in their house getting ready for their day didn’t seem to just picture the things themselves—they were the things themselves, exuding a grounded warmth that said, “Yes, everywhere we live in houses and cook together and get dressed, just like you.”…

…Golden Books employed displaced if not just plain refugee artists from Europe like Feodor Rojankovsky, Tibor Gergely, and Gustaf Tenggren. Working in a careful, deliberate, and illuminatory style, they carefully limned every hair of every dog—think The Poky Little Puppy—and set every page aglow with a strangely dark, yet warm light. On the page, their paintings were frequently vignetted in darkness, almost as if the artists still felt shadowed by the lingering specter of war. These books, dismissively looked down upon by librarians, were nonetheless immediately, snot-flyingly popular, with orders mounting into the millions of copies. Such publishing numbers were astonishing then (and are even more astonishing now, when 15,000 is considered a gee-whiz success)….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Appreciation: Elizabeth Bear’s Sub-Inspector Ferron Series

Sometimes it’s the offbeat stories that I really like from authors, the short works that aren’t expanded into full length stories. Such is the case with Elizabeth Bear’s Sub-Inspector Ferron series. Of course, everything she writes is a delight to read which is why I’m looking forward to the third White Space novel, The Folded Sky, out next year.

Bear’s Sub-Inspector Ferron series at the present consists alas of but two novellas, “In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns” and “A Blessing of Unicorns”. Will there be more? Oh, I hope so. 

TASTY, SPICY ASIAN SPOILERS FOLLOW. THEY REALLY DO!

“In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns” is set a half a century from now. In the city of Bangalore, a scientist working on cutting-edge biotechnology has been discovered inside his own locked flat, his body converted into a neat block of organic material. 

It’s up to Police Sub-Inspector Ferron to figure out the victim’s past and solve the crime, outwitting the best efforts of whoever is behind the death, her overbearing mother, and the complexities of dealing with the only witness – an ever so cute parrot-cat Chairman Miaow. (The latter, she says are, as I guessed, a cat with parrot colors and “a parrot-like level of intelligence and ability to mimic speech”. That cat will later be adopted by her. She already has a fox. 

I’ll note that the stories aren’t freestanding, so the novella, “A Blessing of Unicorns” builds off the first novella, therefore must be experienced after the first is read or listened to.

Together they make up a fascinating look at the life and work of Ferron as a Police Sub-Inspector in a balkanised world where there are no national or regional police forces. No, it’s not some small libertarian wet dream here, but a real world with actual consequences to everything that happens. 

WE HAVE CONSUMED THOSE TASTY MORSELS, SO YOU CAN COME BACK.

There is certainly more than enough story here for her to someday write a novel set in the universe. And I look forward to it. 

When I asked her if there would be a novel in the series, she replied “there might be a novel someday but I really need to visit Bangalore myself to write that! I’ve been relying on friends who hail from there, or who have family there and have visited extensively, but it’s not the same as boots in the dirt experience!”

Fantastic stories told well by a master storyteller, what more do you want? 

The Audible narrations are done most excellently by narrated Zehra Jane Naqvi. She’s an Australian expatriate in the United Kingdom of Anglo-Indian descent. She very much handles the Indian accents quite wonderfully here.  She started her voice acting career in Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who audio dramas with Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davison reprising the Seventh and Fifth Doctors.

The first one is available at the usual suspects, but the second remains at this time an Audible exclusive several years later.  I just got a note from Elizabeth Bear that said that there will not be a print edition, she says, “Not unless something unforeseen happens”.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) GOOD GRIEF. Somebody warn Jiminy Cricket! “Pinocchio Slasher Casts Robert Englund and Richard Brake, First Look“ in Variety.

Freddy Krueger has joined the cast of the next IP-smashing slasher from the makers of microbudget hit “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.”

Well, almost. Robert Englund, who famously played the murderous horror icon across the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films, will star in “Pinocchio: Unstrung,” the latest standalone feature to join the so-called low-budget Twisted Childhood Universe. Richard Brake, a regular collaborator with Rob Zombie and whose horror credits also include the likes of “Barbarian” and “Mandy,” has also joined the film in the key role of Geppetto….

(10) READY FOR YOU. Francis Hamit’s novel Starmen is now available worldwide through Ingram Spark. The direct purchase link is here: STARMEN: A Novel by Francis Hamit.

(11) A COMPUTER IS BORN. BBC Sounds hosts Witness History’s episode “The invention of the ‘Baby’ computer”.

In June 1948, the ‘Baby’ was invented. 

It was the first stored-program computer, meaning it was the first machine to work like the ones we have today. It was developed in England at the University of Manchester. 

The computer was huge, it filled a room that was nearly six metres square. The team who made it are now recognised as the pioneers of modern computing. 

Gill Kearsley has been looking through the archives to find out more about the ‘Baby’.

(12) GOING UP. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.]  The rise in global mean sea level – is one of the most unambiguous indicators of climate change.  It also is something of a minor trope in SF: cf. Stephen Baxter’s ”Flood” (2008).

In the real world, over the past three decades, satellites have provided continuous, accurate measurements of sea level on near-global scales. Research has now shown that since satellites began observing sea surface heights in 1993 until the end of 2023, global mean sea level has risen by 111 mm. In addition, the rate of global mean sea level rise over those three decades has increased from ~2.1mm/year in 1993 to ~4.5mm/year in 2023.

To put this in perspective, this is what the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change projects in its mid-level scenario in its 2021 Assessment Report.

In short, we are moving into the future science predicts… Hopefully not the one some SF presents.

The research is Hamlington, B. D., et al (2024) “The rate of global sea level rise doubled during the past three decades”..Communications Earth & Environment, vol. 5, 601.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Giant Freakin Robot says “Return Of The Jedi Almost Made Mon Calamari A Punchline”.

…For fans of this last Original Trilogy entry, there is always something new to discover, especially if you go to YouTube (the next best thing to the Jedi Archives) and look up the film’s deleted scenes. Case in point: the deleted footage has many lines from a Mon Calamari pilot (Ika Sulko) that would have made their entire species a joke, including uttering “fried Calamari tonight” as a battle cry.

What’s fascinating about these Return of the Jedi deleted scenes is that they are hilariously rough…more equivalent to behind-the-scenes footage than something you could just pop back into the movie via a fan edit. For example, in the clips, you can actually hear director Richard Marquand feeding silly lines to Tim Rose, who is both the voice and puppeteer of this Mon Calamari pilot. While “fried Calamari tonight” is definitely the silliest of the lines, there are others that threaten to turn these aliens into a punchline.

For example, another line you can hear in this deleted Return of the Jedi footage is “all this technology and no men’s room.” While we can only guess the motivation behind this silly line, it is likely a joking reference to fans always wondering where the bathroom is in their favorite sci-fi shows…

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

Pixel Scroll 10/9/24 As You Know, Boba

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(1) WIN A DOCTOR WHO SCREENING. Doctor Who’s upcoming Christmas is getting a special early release for selected fans. As part of Doctor Who and Star Trek’s “Friendship is Universal” collaboration fans in the US and the UK are eligible to enter a competition to see the episode screened in their local movie theater for them and 30 others. Enter here: “Friendship Is Universal – a Festive Special Competition”.

Friendship is Universal is a celebration of the companionship and camaraderie that is at the heart of Doctor Who, both in the characters we love, and the heart (or hearts!) of every fan of the Whoniverse. Why not honour the friends and friendships you hold dear by entering this competition?

You could win the chance to bring Doctor Who to your local cinema this Christmas for an exclusive screening of the festive special, before it airs. Plus, you can invite your friends and family too!

To enter, please submit your details before 23:59 pm (BST) on 13 October 2024. Good luck!

(2) SF 101. Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie tell listeners “Let’s Go Ape” in Episode 47 of the SF 101 podcast.

It’s fifty years since the TV series of Planet of the Apes debuted, enlivening the childhood of millions around the planet of the humans. Phil and Colin enjoyed the show as kids, but now undertake a celebratory rewatch, reviewing the adventures of Virdon (the blond one), Burke (the dark-haired one), and Galen (the hairy one).

We also have a Planet of the Apes quiz, and our usual round up of recommendations of past, present and future SF.

(3) MAKING A SALE OR SELLING OUT? “Can a Start-Up Help Authors Get Paid by A.I. Companies?” The New York Times finds The Authors Guild thinks “Yes”.  (Article is paywalled.)

…The Authors Guild, the largest and oldest professional organization for writers in the United States, is teaming with a new start-up, Created by Humans, to help writers license rights to their books to artificial intelligence companies.

The partnership, announced Wednesday, comes as authors and publishers are wrestling with the rapid incursion of artificial intelligence into the book world. The internet is already flooded with books generated by A.I., and sophisticated chatbots can instantly generate detailed summaries of books and spew out material in the voice and style of popular writers.

The Authors Guild has taken an aggressive stance against the unauthorized use of books by A.I. companies to train large language models, which power chatbots that can generate complex and often evocative text. Last year, it brought a class-action lawsuit on behalf of authors against OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, arguing that using books to train Chat GPT’s chatbot without licensing the rights amounts to copyright infringement. (The Times also sued OpenAI and Microsoft last year, claiming copyright infringement of news content used by A.I. systems.)

By endorsing Created by Humans’ platform, the Authors Guild is in a sense acknowledging that there is no avoiding the disruption that A.I. has unleashed on the book business. Through their partnership, the Authors Guild will help Created by Humans develop informational webinars for authors that will explain how licensing works and what their options are.

“What’s good about licensing is it gives the author and the publisher control, as well as compensation, and it gives you the ability to say no,” said Mary Rasenberger, the chief executive of the Authors Guild, who will serve on Created by Humans’ advisory board. “Right now, it’s the A.I. companies that just went and crawled pirate websites and swept all that material in.”

Several A.I. companies have already registered interest in licensing book content through the platform, said Trip Adler, the co-founder and chief executive of Created by Humans. Adler declined to name the companies, citing nondisclosure agreements….

(4) NPR ON OCTAVIA BUTLER’S 2024. A 31-minute NPR article discusses “The Power And Prescience Of Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable Of The Sower’’ at the link.

It’s 2024. Extreme weather events due to global warming have overwhelmed parts of the United States. Water is increasingly scarce. The mass migration of people in search of more livable conditions has caused political tension and border closures. A drug epidemic spreads across the country. And a candidate for president promises he can fix the country’s problems with more religion and fewer regulations.

That’s the premise of Octavia E. Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, which was published in 1993.

The novel contains a powerful and poignant vision of the United States of the future, one that rings scarily true in the present. The 2024 of Butler’s 1993 work isn’t so far away from the 2024 in which we’ll all currently living. Butler published a sequel, Parable of the Talents, in 1998. Both feature a protagonist named Lauren Olamina, a young woman trying to survive and make a life for herself….

(5) CRANIUM STRAINIUM. Camestros Felapton’s intelligence is not artificial but he’s still managed to give us this: “An image was put in my head & I can edit photos so now you get to see it as well”.

At File770 the eminent host replied to a post about the musical nature of the recent Joker film:

PJ Evans: Imagine the Arthur Freed Joker with Gene Kelly as Joker, Judy Garland as Harley Quinn, and let’s throw in Fred Astaire as the Riddler! “You made me love you”…”

(6) EXPANDED UNIVERSE. Dennis Wilson Wise, who served as a research consultant for PBS’ recent “Judy-Lynn del Rey: The Galaxy Gal” episode of Renegades, tells more of her story in a short article at The Conversation: “The woman who revolutionized the fantasy genre is finally getting her due”.

…Over the course of her career, del Rey earned a reputation as a superstar editor among her authors. Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” called her the “most brilliant editor I ever encountered,” and Philip K. Dick said she was the “greatest editor since Maxwell Perkins,” the legendary editor of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

She got her start, though, working as an editorial assistant – in truth, a “gofer” – for the most lauded science fiction magazine of the 1960s, Galaxy. There she learned the basics of publishing and rose rapidly through the editorial ranks until Ballantine Books lured her away in 1973.

Soon thereafter, Ballantine was acquired by publishing giant Random House, which then named del Rey senior editor. Yet her first big move was a risky one – cutting ties with Ballantine author John Norman, whose highly popular “Gor” novels were widely panned for their misogyny.Nonetheless, del Rey’s mission was to develop a strong backlist of science fiction novels that could hook new generations of younger readers, not to mention adults. One early success was her “Star Trek Log” series, a sequence of 10 novels based on episodes of “Star Trek: The Animated Series.”

But del Rey landed an even bigger success by snagging the novelization rights to a science fiction film that, at the time, few Hollywood executives believed would do well: “Star Wars.”…

Unfortunately, this scholar of fantasy literature doesn’t understand that it wasn’t a “Hugo committee” but Hugo voters who were responsible for her getting the award — the one Lester threw back in our faces, of course.

…Yet despite these accolades, Del Rey’s reputation continued to suffer from its own commercial success. Notably, Judy-Lynn del Rey was never nominated for a Hugo Award for best professional editor. When she died in 1986, the Hugo committee belatedly tried granting her a posthumous award, but her husband, Lester, refused to accept it, saying that it came too late….

(7) 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY. [Item by Steven French.] Gamer wins Nobel Prize! Well, Hassabis started out as a games designer before developing Deep Mind’s AlphaFold programme which has helped scientists make major strides towards predicting complex protein structures (looks like AI is on a roll with this year’s prizes!)

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 goes —

One half to David Baker (University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA) “for computational protein design”

and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind, London, UK “for protein structure prediction”

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about pro­teins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential….

The Guardian did a feature about “Demis Hassabis: from video game designer to Nobel prize winner”.

Most 17-year-olds spend their days playing video games, but Britain’s latest Nobel prize winner spent his teenage years developing them.

Sir Demis Hassabis, who was jointly awarded the chemistry prize on Wednesday, got his big break in the tech world as co-designer of 1994’s hit game Theme Park, where players create and operate amusement parks.

Born in London to a Greek Cypriot father and Singaporean mother, Hassabis went on to gain a double first in computer science at Cambridge University, launch his own video game company, complete a PhD in cognitive neuroscience and then co-found the artificial intelligence startup DeepMind, which Google bought for £400m in 2014.

The 48-year-old was knighted for services to AI this year….

(8) EAGLE CON 2024.  Eagle Con 2024 will take place on Tuesday, October 15 and Wednesday, October 16 on the 3rd floor of the Cal State LA University Student Union in Los Angeles.

Space Cowboy Books owner Jean-Paul L. Garnier will take part in a panel of speculative poets as part of Eagle Con 2024 “Unfrakking the Future”, along with Wendy Van Camp, Pedro Iniguez, and Denise Dumars. The event is open to students and faculty. The panel runs on Wednesday Oct 16 from 12:20-1:25 p.m. Pacific.  

Also on October 16, from 4:35– 5:40 p.m., will be the Prism Award Presentation to Edward James Olmos (University Student Union 3rd Floor Los Angeles Room 308).

The Prism Award is given to creators who have made outstanding contributions to diversity in speculative genres across media. This year we honor legendary actor and Cal State LA alumnus Edward James Olmos. Among his many acting credits, Olmos has been a central character in two of the most important science fiction stories of all time: he was Gaff in the film Blade Runner (1982) and Admiral William Adama in the series Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009). Come hear him discuss his illustrious career and his life at Cal State LA.

Awardee: Edward James Olmos, actor (Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica, Stand and Deliver, Mayans M.C., Miami Vice)

Moderator: Dr. Stephen Trzaskoma, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters

(9) DONA SADOCK DIES. Norman Spinrad today announced the death of his partner Dona Sadock.

Dona Sadock’s body has just died.  But her great spirit will allways be immortal.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Mike Glyer.]

Born October 9, 1964 – Guillermo del Toro, 60. Here at File 770 we’re big fans of filmmaker, director, and author Guillermo del Toro. And not just because of the great work he’s done – including Pan’s Labyrinth (he wrote its Nebula-winning script), The Shape of Water (which won him an Oscar as Best Director while the film took Best Picture), Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (an Oscar for Best Animated Feature), plus two Hellboy movies, and Pacific Rim. He’s also an impressive and generous person.

Guillermo del Toro in 2023. Photo by Boungawa.

As John King Tarpinian, reporting on the del Toro signing at Mystery & Imagination in 2013, told us: “Guillermo is a kind, unassuming, down to earth man. When he heard a local bookshop, Mystery and Imagination, was just getting by in this age of internet sales and big box book stores he volunteered to do what turns out to be his only official signing of his new book, Pacific Rim, as a fund raiser… Once the event got started Guillermo was more than affable with all in attendance. He spoke with everybody, shook everybody’s hand. Guillermo was great with kids, a few of which had drawn their versions of the Kaiju. He’d stop and look at the drawing showing real appreciation at their attempts….”

He’s been inducted to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (2017), and naturally has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (2019).

However, he tells interviewers that there’s a price to pay for his work:

“I think the main sign of a good story for you is that it has to hurt. It has to dig deep into who you are … I jokingly say that Hellboy is autobiographical, but it is. The way I think about myself, and the way I think about my story with my wife, everything is in there, and Pan’s Labyrinth was incredibly personal, to the point where I showed it to my wife and she turned to me after seeing the movie complete and she said, ‘You felt that bad?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I felt that bad.’ 

His latest project, a Frankenstein movie for Netflix, recently finished filming.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) HOW COOL IS THIS? The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) now has badges that Elgin Award winners can put on the covers of their books.

(13) UM, ACTUALLY. “Online Rent-a-Sage” Bret Devereaux disputes the notion in some fantasy literature that systems of magic would be reduced to a kind of science and its practitioners would resemble engineers. The fifteen-post thread begins here.

And later…

(14) ROCK’N SFF. [Item by Steven French.] As is well known, Jimi Hendrix was a huge science fiction fan and this essay in Classic Rock looks at how his SF reading shaped his second album, Axis:Bold as Love: “Jimi Hendrix: the story of the Axis: Bold As Love album”.

If you were to write a science fiction novel set in the year 1967, it would be hard to imagine a more captivating cosmic messenger than Jimi Hendrix. With a wild afro that looked like a shock of electrical wires, psychedelic duds streaked with hues from the Crab Nebula and a strange language that was part-philosophical rambling, part screaming Stratocaster, he came to London, dropping jaws wherever he went. And since aliens always arrive on earth with a manifesto to help humanity, Hendrix’s was called, with futurist bravado, Axis: Bold As Love.

He’d already grabbed everyone’s attention early that year with his band The Experience’s debut Are You Experienced. So the second album seemed the ideal vessel for a message. Axis was recorded in fits and starts amidst a hectic tour schedule that included over 180 international dates (including package outings with such strange bedfellows like The Monkees and Englebert Humperdinck), many TV appearances, and a landmark appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. It was seen by Hendrix’s manager Chas Chandler and Jimi’s labels Track in the UK and Reprise in the US as a quick follow-up release, a way to keep the conversation going with fans and critics. Considering it was followed less than a year later by Jimi’s double-album masterwork Electric Ladyland, it’s not surprising that Axis has suffered from a kind of middle child syndrome. But middle children can go to extremes to get attention, and this one often sounded like it was tuned to a radio station on another planet.

Not to belabor the extraterrestrial, but Hendrix even described the album as “science fiction rock ‘n’ roll,” and on the opener Up From The Skies, he sings from an alien’s point of view: “I wanna know about the new mother Earth, I wanna hear and see everything.” That fascination was there from his childhood. As a boy, Jimi claimed he saw a UFO, and he was obsessed with TV show Flash Gordon, even insisting that his family call him “Buster,” after the serial’s star Buster Crabbe.

(15) MOVING PICTURE OF THE DAY. Possibly inspired by Steve Vertlieb’s article “Hermann and Hitchcock: The Torn Curtain” posted on File 770 today, Andrew Porter sent this GIF.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Dann, Peer, 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.]

Pixel Scroll 8/22/24 This Is My Pixel, This Is My Scroll. This Is For Info, This Is For Lol

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(1) BROADDUS SCORES INDIANA AWARD. Congratulations to Maurice Broaddus whose book Unfadeable won the Indiana Authors Awards 2024 Middle Grade category.

(2) REID ON JRRT ADAPTATIONS. Robin Anne Reid’s fifth installment about Tolkien screen adaptations has arrived: “Books, Films, Adaptations & Reader Responses 5/?”

Welcome to the *fifth* in my long-delayed (would not want to be hasty!) series on adaptation issues around Tolkien’s fiction, Jackson’s films, and the importance of reader responses. Since it’s been so long since I posted the first posts in the series, I’m providing the links to the five earlier posts, plus short summaries of them (five because there is a Part 3 and a Part 3.5!) in the note below.²

This post is a discussion of my response to how Jackson’s film characterized the Ents and adapted the scenes between them and Merry and Pippin in Fangorn, after the hobbits escape from the Orcs.

Tolkien describes the meeting of the hobbits and Ents in one chapter (“Treebeard”) which ends with the line “‘Night lies over Isengard,’ said Treebeard” (LotR.3.4.461-487). Then the action cuts away to Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn on the verge of entering Fangorn (“The White Rider), and doesn’t return to the storyline of the Ents, Merry, and Pippin until “Flotsam and Jetsam” (which starts on page 560 of my edition). The Battle of Isengard is not directly narrated: Merry and Pippin get to describe it to their friends and to the Rohirrim.

Jackson transforms Tolkien’s interlaced narrative to a chronological one (which I think was absolutely necessary for the film to be at all understandable for the percentage of the audience which had never read the book which I would bet real money was larger than the percentage of the audience who had).³ Jackson, of course, shows us the Ents attacking and taking Isengard (which, really, makes perfect sense for a visual artform).

I love the “Treebeard” chapter—and the other scenes with Treebeard—and have ever since I first read the book….

(3) BOOK BANNING DRIVEN BY A SMALL FRACTION OF ADULTS. A Knight Foundation “Survey Finds Most Americans Unengaged with Book Banning Efforts in Public Schools” reports Publishers Weekly.

One of the persistent themes to emerge from the ongoing nationwide surge in book banning is that the bans are being pursued by a vocal, politically motivated minority. This week, a new survey report from the Knight Foundation is offering more support for that conclusion, finding that public engagement with efforts to ban books in public school libraries and classrooms is limited, despite a dramatic surge in book challenges since 2021.

The survey, based on a sizable national sample of more than 4,500 adults, found that most Americans feel informed about efforts to ban books in schools. But just 3% of respondents said that they have personally engaged on the issue—with 2% getting involved on the side of maintaining access to books, and 1% seeking to restrict access. Overall, a solid majority of respondents expressed support for the freedom to read, and expressed high levels of trust in their local teachers and school librarians.

“Strong sentiment is lopsided, with strong opponents of book restrictions outnumbering strong supporters by nearly 3-1,” the survey report states. “In general terms, 78% of adults are confident that their community’s public schools select appropriate books for students to read. Additionally, more people say it is a bigger concern to restrict students’ access to books that have educational value than it is to provide them with access to books that have inappropriate content.”…

(4) COVER OF TANYA HUFF’S NEXT NOVEL. DAW Books today released the cover for Tanya Huff’s Direct Descendants, coming next April.

Jeff Miller Faceout Studio designed this charming cover to perfectly capture the novel’s rom-com vibes with a supernatural missing person’s case at the heart of this tale. 

Releasing on April 1st, 2025, Direct Descendants is a stand-alone cozy horror from acclaimed science fiction & fantasy author Tanya Huff, mixing the creepy with the charming for plenty of snarky, queer fun….

ABOUT DIRECT DESCENDANTS: Generations ago, the founders of the idyllic town of Lake Argen made a deal with a dark force. In exchange for their service, the town will stay prosperous and successful and keep outsiders out. And for generations, it’s worked out great. Until a visitor goes missing, and his wealthy family sends a private investigator to find him, and everything abruptly goes sideways.

Now, Cassidy Prewitt, town baker and part-time servant of the dark force (it’s a family business), has to contend with a rising army of darkness, a very frustrated town, and a very cute PI who she might just be falling for…and who might just be falling for her. And if they can survive their own home-grown apocalypse, they might even just find happiness together.

(5) ANOTHER LOOK AT THE ROTSLER AWARD EXHIBIT AT GLASGOW 2024. Photographer Kenn Bates documented for fanhistorians the Rotsler Award exhibit presented at this year’s Worldcon. The panels were produced by Elizabeth Klein-Lebbink for the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, which presents the award.

(6) ROWLING’S QUIET, TOO. “The Sound of Silence? J.K. Rowling Has Not Tweeted in 12 Blissful Days” – Them has been counting.

For once, J.K. Rowling isn’t tweeting through it — and by “it,” I mean her near-pathological fixation on trans women and girls. As of this writing, the author has not posted on X since August 7.

Taking 12 days off from posting on X is highly unusual for the Harry Potter author, who posted or reposted 18 times on August 7 alone. Four days later, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif filed a complaint that named Rowling, Elon Musk, and other public figures as being part of a massive cyberbullying campaign against her. Plenty of X users observed that the timing was worth noting.

X user @Cooperstreaming pointed out that Rowling had stopped tweeting since before Khelif filed her lawsuit: “Excited to see someone fighting back, & to potentially have it laid bare in court: Rowling doesn’t care about women,” she wrote. “The protecting ‘real women’ was always a lie, an excuse for hating trans women.”…

Coincidentally, for reasons of his own, Neil Gaiman hasn’t posted to his X.com account since July 2.

(7) ON THE TRAIL(ER) OF THE ROHIRRIM. “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim Animated Movie Reveals First Trailer”, and IGN sets the scene.

The War of the Rohirrim will be released on December 13. Set roughly 200 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, this prequel reveals the untold story of Rohan’s former ruler, Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox).

The trailer gives us a much better idea of the plot of the film, which deals with a bloody conflict between Rohan and the Dunlendings. After an arranged marriage between Helm’s daughter Hèra (Gaia Wise) and the Dunland prince Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) falls through and leads to the death of Wulf’s father Freca (Shaun Dooley), Wulf declares war on Rohan. As Helm rallies his kingdom, the defiant Hèra may prove to be the only hope for Rohan’s survival….

(8) VISITING RAY ON HIS BIRTHDAY. Ray Bradbury, who died in 2012, was born 104 years ago today. John King Tarpinian made his annual pilgrimage to Ray’s gravesite.

I appeared to have been Ray’s first visitor of the day, at least the first to leave gifts.  Left Ray a tin print of Laurel & Hardy, a dinosaur, a picture with him and his buddy, Stan Grenberg @ ComiCon.  Of course, the annual birthday cake.  I always give the cake to the cemetery staff as a thank you for taking care of Ray.  (Anybody is welcome to share.)

(9) BRADBURY LIVE. The broadcast was. Bradburymedia’s Phil Nichols celebrated Ray’s natal day with a livestream: “Bradbury 100 LIVE: 2024 Edition!”

On Thursday 22 August 2024 – what would have been Ray Bradbury’s 104th birthday! – I went live once again with my Bradbury 100 podcast.

I talked about the “Chronological Bradbury” series of episodes, and went through all the steps I usually take in putting together such an episode: the books I consult, how I compare different versions of the same story, and how to track down the rarer Bradbury stories.

I also showed some of the statistics about Ray’s stories, went into questions about copyright, and looked at some of the Bradbury books which have come out in the last twelve months….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

August 22, 1920 – Ray Bradbury. (Died 2012.)

By Paul Weimer: How DOES one get their arms around a titan, a giant in the field? Very carefully, I say.

I don’t remember the order in which I read them, but The Martian Chronicles was one of the first two SF books I ever read, at the tender age of nine. (The other was Asimov’s I Robot).  I was too young to understand it wasn’t a novel, but a collection/fixup of short stories, but I didn’t care.  I was fascinated by his Mars, his Martians and the pathos of the Martians fading away. And of course, “The Million-Year Picnic” where I excitedly told my older brother that I “got it” – the family were the new Martians, the new inheritors of a world, and with Earth bombed back to the stone age, the way forward.  

Ray Bradbury in 2008 with his collection of Egyptian artifacts.

Bradbury’s story and collection moved me, it made me feel in a way that sometimes other writers tried but never could manage. The ending to Something Wicked this Way Comes, when joy and laughter are the keys to defeating Mr. Dark. The gentleness and the elegy of the stories that make up Dandelion Wine. That collection showed Bradbury’s dark side too, as does stories like “The Veldt”, which gives me chills every time I read it.  Bradbury was good at that, mixing in the horror into stories featuring children. Consider “Zero Hour” where the kids’ imaginary game with an imaginary alien turns out to be not so imaginary.

And I haven’t to this point even mentioned Fahrenheit 451, because, really, I need a re-read of it at some point. But that one, for all the horror of its dystopian society, is a story of hope, and survival at the end. (But, again, the Hound is one of the most terrifying robots in science fiction. I am pretty sure the Black Mirror “Metalhead” took some of the cues for its creatures from 451’s relentlessly tracking Hound).  

But my favorite Bradbury work (aside from The Martian Chronicles, which will always have a special place in my heart) has to be The Halloween Tree?  Again, whimsy, horror, fantasy and a profoundness of introducing children to such themes. The fact that the other children are willing to give up a year of their lives, each to restore and return Pip from the clutches of Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud moved me then, and it moved me now.  I would have done it in a heartbeat when I was thirteen…but would I do it now? I don’t know and that is what fascinates me about the book, today, as well as it’s “Halloween world tour”  (maybe only Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October exceeds it in my Halloween canon). 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Arlo and Janis names a new season.
  • Crabgrass talks about the spotting of a new fan.
  • F Minus diagnoses a cat tantrum.
  • Glasbergen would rather books worked differently.
  • Non Sequitur shows what’s left of fairy tales after the legal team gets through.
  • A cartoon by @ngoziu:

(12) AUTHORS GO AFTER ANOTHER AI CREATOR FOR INFRINGEMENT. “Authors sue Claude AI chatbot creator Anthropic for copyright infringement” reports AP News.

A group of authors is suing artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, alleging it committed “large-scale theft” in training its popular chatbot Claude on pirated copies of copyrighted books.

While similar lawsuits have piled up for more than a year against competitor OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, this is the first from writers to target Anthropic and its Claude chatbot.

The smaller San Francisco-based company — founded by ex-OpenAI leaders — has marketed itself as the more responsible and safety-focused developer of generative AI models that can compose emails, summarize documents and interact with people in a natural way.

But the lawsuit filed Monday in a federal court in San Francisco alleges that Anthropic’s actions “have made a mockery of its lofty goals” by tapping into repositories of pirated writings to build its AI product.

“It is no exaggeration to say that Anthropic’s model seeks to profit from strip-mining the human expression and ingenuity behind each one of those works,” the lawsuit says.

… The lawsuit was brought by a trio of writers — Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson — who are seeking to represent a class of similarly situated authors of fiction and nonfiction….

The Verge adds:

…In the lawsuit, the authors say that Anthropic used a sprawling, open-source dataset known as “The Pile” to train its family of Claude AI chatbots. Within this dataset is something called Books3, a massive library of pirated ebooks that includes works from Stephen King, Michael Pollan, and thousands of other authors. Earlier this month, Anthropic confirmed to Vox that it used The Pile to train Claude….

(13) JOHN WILLIAMS DOCUMENTARY. “Music By John Williams’ Doc Set As AFI Fest Opening Night Film” – Deadline has the story.

The American Film Institute has announced that Music By John Williams, a documentary on the iconic film composer from Lucasfilm Ltd, Amblin Documentaries and Imagine Documentaries, will world premiere as the opening night film of the 38th AFI Fest on Wednesday, October 23.

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau, the doc is billed as a comprehensive look at Williams’ life and career, from his early days as a jazz pianist to his 54 Oscar nominations and five wins, celebrating his countless contributions to the moving image arts, music for the concert stage as well as his indelible impact on popular culture….

… In Music by John Williams, documentary subjects speaking to the ways in which their lives have been touched by Williams’ timeless music include Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Kate Capshaw, Gustavo Dudamel, J.J. Abrams, Chris Martin, Ron Howard, Chris Columbus, George Lucas, Itzhak Perlman, Lawrence Kasdan, Yo-Yo Ma, Ke Huy Quan, James Mangold, Alan Silvestri, David Newman, Thomas Newman, Seth MacFarlane, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Branford Marsalis….

(14) AI FORGETS TO REMEMBER? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I keep on telling people that the machines are taking over the world, but nobody every listens…  So it is good news for little old me this week in today’s Nature.  It seems that Artificial Intelligences (AIs) cannot learn new tasks without forgetting old skills. “Switching between tasks can cause AI to lose the ability to learn”.  

“Artificial neural networks become incapable of mastering new skills when they learn them one after the other. Researchers have only scratched the surface of why this phenomenon occurs — and how it can be fixed.”

Sadly, researchers looking into this in “Loss of plasticity in deep continual learning” have suggested a solution…  (And so my joy is short-lived.) 

“We show that a simple change enables them to maintain plasticity indefinitely in both supervised and reinforcement learning. Our new algorithm, continual backpropagation, is exactly like classical backpropagation except that a tiny proportion of less-used units are reinitialized on each step much as they were all initialized at the start of training.”

Why can’t they leave well enough alone?

(15) BLAKE’S 7 DISCS ON THE WAY. Gizmodo cheers the announcement that “British Sci-Fi Legend Blake’s 7 Is Getting the Blu-ray Treatment It Always Deserved”.

Today the BBC lifted the lid on a brand-new Blu-ray remaster, Blake’s 7: The Collection. Styled in the vein of the corporation’s lavish Blu-ray remasters of classic seasons of Doctor Who, the first of Blake’s four series will release later this year. Including a brand-new remastering of the series—available for the first time on Blu-ray after an infamously rough home release history on VHS and DVD decades prior—complete with all new practical model work for the show’s VFX sequences, the first volume of Blake’s 7: The Collection will include all 13 episodes from series one, as well as new interviews with surviving cast and crew, and a previously unreleased documentary planned for the show’s DVD release, The Making of Blake’s 7.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George decided we needed to hear about the Elektra Pitch Meeting. A commenter declared, “’Thank you for implying that there was a plot to twist up until this point’ is my new favorite pitch meeting line.”

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Paul Weimer, 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 Randall M.]

Pixel Scroll 7/12/24 And It Seems To Me You Lived Your Life Like A Pixel In The Scroll

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(1) ALEC BALDWIN INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER CASE DISMISSED. CNN witnesses the moment when “Judge Throws Out Case Against Alec Baldwin”.

There were stunned faces across the courtroom as Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer abruptly started into her ruling on the motion to dismiss Alec Baldwin’s indictment….

…The judge began with an explanation that dismissing any case requires her to read through a formal and lengthy statement.

At that moment, members of the gallery — the general public, court officers and journalists — began to turn and look at each other in disbelief that a dismissal appeared imminent.

Looks of both shock and elation began to cross the faces of some of Baldwin’s family members and his guests in the audience as the judge detailed line by line why she was throwing out the case.

Baldwin’s sister Beth wiped her eyes with a tissue.

Members of the Baldwin family cried and embraced after the judge finished her order with, “Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted.”

Here are the issues that led to the judge’s decision:

…The judge in the trial of actor Alec Baldwin had halted testimony in the case and sent the jury home for the day before reaching her decision this evening to dismiss the indictment.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer had been considering a new motion by the actor’s legal team to have the case thrown out based on allegations of wrongdoing by investigators.

The motion stems from testimony given by a crime scene technician on Thursday about some ammunition delivered to the sheriff’s office after the conviction of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, which Baldwin’s team claims was not properly disclosed to the defense. 

Several rounds of ammunition were brought to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March after the first trial concluded by retired police officer Troy Teske, a friend of the armorer’s father, crime scene technician Marissa Poppell testified. 

Teske allegedly told investigators he believed the ammunition could be associated with the “Rust” incident, Poppell said. However, the crime scene technician said the items were catalogued separately and were not included in the Rust inventory or tested to see if they matched the lethal round….

(2) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listers to savor a seafood pancake with Ai Jiang in Episode 230 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Ai Jiang

We chatted with the Bram Stoker Awards ceremony a mere two days in the future, where she was nominated in the Long Fiction category for Linghun. And even though as you’ll hear she had doubts she had a chance of winning — she won!

And that’s not the only thing she won following our conversation, for a week later, her I am AI won a Nebula Award. I am AI is also currently on the final ballot for the Hugo Award, where she’s also up for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. But that’s not all when it comes to Ai Jiang and awards. She won an Ignyte Award for her poem “We Smoke Pollution,” received a Nebula Award nomination for her short story ““Give Me English,” was part of the Strange Horizons collective nominated for a semiprozine Hugo Award, and has been nominated for a British SF Association Award and Aurora Award as well.

Her fiction has also appeared in the magazines Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, The Dark, Kaleidotrope, The Deadlands, Planet Scumm, and others, as well as in such anthologies as Fighting for the Future: Cyberpunk and Solarpunk Tales, Step Into the Light: An Anthology of Daylight Horror, and Mother: Tales of Love and Terror. Her short story collection Smol Tales From Between Worlds was published last year.

We discussed why being nominated for multiple awards may actually have made her Imposter Syndrome worse, what the Odyssey workshop taught her which helped her finish her first novel (and whether that book might be too ambitious a debut), the novels which made her want to be a writer, what makes us power on in the face of rejection, how writing is like competitive badminton, the secret to writing successful flash fiction, the book she was given which turned her from a pessimist into an optimist, what she learned from her “soul-draining” career as a ghostwriter, how an editorial suggestion turned Linghun from flash fiction into a novella, the most daunting aspects of revision, and much more.

(3) WHO, TREK SHOWRUNNER SUMMIT MEETING. “Comic-Con: Star Trek, Doctor Who to Appear at Joint Panel” reports Variety.

In a show of geek unity, the executive producers and showrunners of the “Star Trek” TV universe and the “Doctor Who” Whoniverse — Alex Kurtzman and Russell T Davies, respectively — will appear in a panel together at San Diego Comic-Con. The panel, which will be held on Saturday, July 27 at the largest fan gathering in North America, will kick off celebration of the first “Intergalactic Friendship Day” on July 30, an effort by the two franchises to foster greater connection and fellowship between their fandoms. (The celebration lines up with the International Friendship Day, created in 2011 to bring together people across the planet.)

Under the banner of “Friendship is Universal,” “Star Trek” and “Doctor Who” will headline a gallery experience in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego during Comic-Con, which will feature original costumes and props from both franchises, along with photo opportunities and friendship bracelet giveaways….

(4) SHIELD BEARER. Animation World Network rings the bell as “Marvel Drops ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Teaser Trailer”.

The Cap is back in cinemas… finally! Anthony Mackie returns to “wield the shield” as Captain America in the upcoming superhero adventure from Marvel Studios. The Falcon, played by Mackie in previous MCU films, officially took on the mantle of Captain America in the finale of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which ran on Disney+ in 2021.

In the new film, after meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his MCU debut, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red….

(5) HOBBIT ACTORS GO PUB CRAWLING. “Billy Boyd & Dominic Monaghan Talk ‘Billy And Dom Eat The World’”.

Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan’s food travelog series Billy and Dom Eat the World gave the pair a chance to renew their Lord of the Rings fellowship with Ian McKellen.

In the first episode of their six-part series from Dash Pictures and new distributor Abacus Media Rights, Boyd and Monaghan, who played Pippin and Merry in Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, visit Gandalf — sorry, McKellen — at his east London pub The Grapes on the bank of the River Thames.

“It happened we were looking at London pub culture and it just so happens Ian McKellen has a pub,” Boyd told Deadline in an exclusive interview. “He told us why he ended up in that part of London, and what pubs mean to Britain.”…

(6) GET READY TO HEAR A DIFFERENT RING CYCLE. The Lord of the Rings musical will run from July 19-September 1 at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Steve H Silver notes that this is a heavily revised version of the Lord of the Rings Musical that premiered in Toronto and London in 2006.

(7) “CAN’T HE SHUT UP?” “Will Ferrell Says James Caan Told Him ‘You’re Not Funny’ on ‘Elf’ Set and Acting ‘Too Over the Top’; Caan Later Called Him ‘Brilliant’ After Seeing the Film” in Variety.

Will Ferrell revealed during an interview on the “Messy” podcast (via IndieWire) that his late “Elf” co-star James Caan was not a fan of his performance as Buddy the Elf until he saw the final cut of the Christmas movie at the film’s premiere. Ferrell said that Caan told him at several points during production that he just wasn’t funny, although Ferrell admitted to driving Caan “crazy” on set while playing the overenthusiastic Buddy.

“James Caan, may he rest in peace, we had such a good time working on that movie,” Ferrell said. “He would tease me. I like to do bits but I’m not like ‘on’ all the time. In between set ups, [Caan] would be like, ‘I don’t get you. You’re not funny.’ And I’m like, ‘I know. I’m not Robin Williams.’ And he was like, ‘People ask me: “Is he funny?” And I’m like, “No, he’s not funny.”‘ It was all with love but at the same time…”

Hear the complete podcast here: “MeSsy with Christina Applegate & Jamie-Lynn Sigler”.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 12, 1923 – James E. Gunn. (Died 2020.)

By Paul Weimer:  For me, James E. Gunn’s work falls into two distinct buckets.

Harlan Ellison and James Gunn in 1966. Photo by and copyright © 2013 Andrew Porter.

The first is his own fiction. When I think of novels like Transformation, or The Listeners, or Gift from the Stars (sadly, my reading of his work is far from complete), I think of his work as old-school High-Minded Science Fiction in the grand tradition.  Characters and sometimes even plot are secondary. But theme and ideas? That’s where Gunn’s work shines. There are a lot of Gunn novels and stories about contact, and often first contact with aliens, and it is the ideas and themes of those novels and story that resonate, and show power, from back at the beginning of his career, all the way to the end. The Big Damn Idea, and often, because this was Gunn, several of them intersecting together. Like in Transformation, which has transcendentalism running head-to-head against planetary sized AIs, in a space opera story that spans a good chunk of the galaxy in the process. That was Gunn’s power chords and he could surely play them.

The other half was his work as an educator, and his meta-science fictional interests. He wrote and anthologized in this mode to lengths and degrees perhaps only the likes of Silverberg or Dozois could match.  Where Gunn resonates for me in this best is his epochal and genre-defining series The Road to Science Fiction. It’s not so modest ambition takes the history and development of the field from Gilgamesh all the way to the present day of their writing. I had started with Volume Three, by pure chance and accident, and it was that volume that, for example, that I discovered authors like Joe Haldeman (yes, even before The Forever War, his story “Tricentennial” amazed me. I devoured that book, and searched far and wide to get volumes 1, and 2, and then later 4 five and 6.  I’ve lost copies over the years, and really need to recollect those volumes (the tangled rights mean that ebooks are never going to happen) so that I can have at a hand the breadth and selections Gunn made, as well as the interstitial and introductory manner that helped me understand *why* he picked those stories.  That legacy, even more than his own work, remains with me still.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) SF 101. Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie review the short story finalists for the 2024 Hugo Award in “Hugos Where I Goes” in episode 44 of the Science Fiction 101 podcast.

(11) IT’S NOT IN CLEVELAND. It’s Metropolis, wink wink. “Filming for the new ‘Superman’ movie has been happening in Cleveland” and NPR is looking in.

It’s not a bird or a plane — it’s the “Man of Steel.” Filming is underway in Cleveland for a new Superman movie to be released in the summer of 2025….

… KABIR BHATIA, BYLINE: The Man of Steel was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who met in Cleveland as teenagers at Glenville High School.

BHATIA: Filming for this latest Superman story started at a beach in a nearby state park. That’s where tents, a barracks and old Jeeps were used to create a retro Army base. Then the production moved downtown, to Cleveland’s Public Square. That’s where Will Tabar takes his daily coffee break.

WILL TABAR: Looks like they got Metropolis official park benches here in the middle of Public Square. We also have multiple new bus stops going in, replacing our RTA with the Metropolis MTAs.

BHATIA: It’s Cleveland in disguise as a 1980s version of the city where Superman and his alias, Clark Kent, lives and works….

(12) GEE-WHIZ. “Scientists design spacesuit that can turn urine into drinking water” reports the Guardian.

A sci-fi-inspired spacesuit that recycles urine into drinking water could enable astronauts to perform lengthy spacewalks on upcoming lunar expeditions.

The prototype, modelled on the “stillsuits” in the sci-fi classic Dune, collects urine, purifies it and can return it to the astronaut through a drinking tube within five minutes.

The suit’s creators hope it could be deployed before the end of the decade in Nasa’s Artemis programme, which is focused on learning how to live and work for prolonged periods on another world.

“The design includes a vacuum-based external catheter leading to a combined forward-reverse osmosis unit, providing a continuous supply of potable water with multiple safety mechanisms to ensure astronaut wellbeing,” said Sofia Etlin, a researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University and co-designer of the suit….

(13) MARGINAL IMPROVEMENTS. “Can artificial intelligence boost creativity? Yes — but at a price” NPR has learned.

…Oliver Hauser, an economist at the University of Exeter in the UK who studies artificial intelligence, wanted to try and answer the basic question of whether AI could increase creativity….

…To try and get some hard data on this squishy question of creativity, Hauser teamed up with Anil Doshi at the University College London School of Management. They recruited nearly 300 people, who Doshi says did not identify as professional writers. “We asked them to write a short, eight-sentence story,” he says.

Around one-third of the writers had to come up with ideas on their own, while others were given starter ideas generated by the chatbot ChatGPT 4.0. Those that got help were divided into two subgroups: one that got a single AI-generated idea, and one that got to choose from up to five.

Crucially, Doshi says, both the human-only and AI-assisted groups had to write the stories themselves….

…The results, published today in the journal Science Advances, found that stories written with AI help were deemed both more novel and useful. Writers who had access to one AI idea did better, but those who had access to five ideas saw the biggest boost — they wrote stories seen as around 8% more novel than humans on their own, and 9% more useful. 

What’s more, Doshi says, the worst writers benefited the most.

“Those that were the least inherently creative, experienced the largest improvement in their creativity,” he says.

So AI really does appear to make people more creative. But there’s a plot twist: When Hauser and Doshi looked at all the stories, they found a different effect.

“Collectively speaking, there was a smaller diversity of novelty in the group that had AI,” Hauser says.

In other words, the chatbot made each individual more creative, but it made the group that had AI help less creative.

Hauser describes the divergent result as a “classic social dilemma” — a situation where people benefit individually, but the group suffers….

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

Pixel Scroll 6/16/24 No Clouds Were Shouted At In The Making Of This Scroll

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(1) ON THE 101. Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie are back with episode 43 of the Science Fiction 101 podcast: “Triffids, Cuckoos and Lichen: John Wyndham”.

We’re back, with an episode about the great British SF writer John Wyndham. On many occasions we’ve found ourselves talking about his books – such as The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos – but now we attempt to do them justice with a closer look.

(2) 100%. Philip Athans asserts, “All Fantasy And Science Fiction Is Allegorical” at Fantasy Author’s Handbook.

…I talked a lot about monsters as metaphor, what could be described as the allegorical nature of monsters, in my book Writing Monsters. Of course, I’m not the only person to have ever identified that. In “Re-reading John Wyndham, I” Alexander Adams wrote of the monsters in Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids…

The triffids are not the subject of the story. Indeed, they are little more than a means to hasten the break-up of society and add an element of the unknown to an otherwise mundane catastrophe—widespread blindness. Wyndham is not interested in triffids per se but in examining how societal norms fragment under pressure and how difficult it is for man to adjust his expectations under extraordinary circumstances. Old habits and customs outlive their usefulness; sentiment can undermine necessary pragmatism; excessive ruthlessness can impose intolerably inhumane conditions; good intentions can lead to barbaric outcomes.

Again the emphasis above is mine. This is the allegorical heart of Day of the Triffids.

So then does that mean we all have to become “political writers,” like George Orwell or write overtly allegorical fiction like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. in an effort to school our readers on some political, social, economic, or religious stance? No. Of course not. But I maintain that no matter our intentions, we actually all engage in allegory, and everything we write, one way or another, has a theme/message behind that….

(3) STAR TREK, CLARION, AND COMIC-CON PACKAGES. “New UC San Diego initiative features Star Trek stars, new Clarion masterclass and housing during Comic-Con” reports KPBS.

As part of a new initiative to commemorate Comic-Con at UC San Diego, the university will host Star Trek actors and writers George Takei and John Cho, and open their renowned and exclusive Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop to the a public via a one-day masterclass.

The university will also offer campus housing during Comic-Con for all UC affiliates and alumni, any current UC/CSU/community college students and participants in the masterclass. This is significant given that Comic-Con week is a notoriously challenging time to secure a hotel stay.

While UCSD is best known for its contributions to science and technology, it has also built a vibrant arts community. The university hopes sci-fi may bring both worlds closer together….

… UCSD is calling their Comic-Con-adjacent programming “The Science of Story.” It will be centered around the pre-con masterclass offered by the folks responsible for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Workshop….

… This will be the first year that the public can gain access to Clarion through a special masterclass on Tuesday, July 23. It’s a full day of instruction and keynotes about the fundamentals of speculative fiction, and includes lunch and dinner.

Instructors and teaching artists include comic book writer Alyssa Wong (“Star Wars: The High Republic”); fiction writer and poet Isabel Yap (“Never Have I Ever”); O. Henry Prize winner ‘Pemi Aguda (“GhostRoots”); novelist and former physicist Emet North (“In Universes”); and special guest, writer Nalo Hopkinson….

… Another major component of UCSD’s Comic-Con initiative is a series of “Star Trek” events. George Takei and John Cho have both portrayed the character of Sulu at different points in the franchise — and are both writers and graphic novelists. Takei and Cho will hold an evening event to discuss the character, the series and their work as graphic novelists.

“A Tale of Two Sulus: An Evening with George Takei and John Cho” is Wednesday, July 24 at Epstein Family Amphitheater on campus. The following night, the San Diego Symphony will live score a screening of “Star Trek Beyond (2009).”…

Comic-Con housing packages at UC San Diego:

Details and registration here. Comic-Con badges are not included.

The Enterprise Package: Housing only 
Open to UC affiliates and alumni, and students enrolled in any UC, CSU, or California community college.

  • $640 per package
  • Check in: Wednesday, July 24, 2024
  • Check out: Sunday, July 28, 2024
  • Four night single-room stay (with shared common area/restrooms)
  • Free daily breakfast
  • MTS five-day transit pass, eligible for the Blue Line trolley
  • Access badge for public Park & Market events in downtown San Diego (July 24-July 28)

The Starfleet Package: Housing and “The Science of Story” programs
Open to the general public

  • $1,200 per package
  • Check in: Tuesday, July 23, 2024
  • Check out: Sunday, July 28, 2024
  • Five night single-room stay (with shared common area/restrooms)
  • Free daily breakfast
  • MTS five-day transit pass, eligible for the Blue Line trolley
  • Clarion Writers Masterclass (Wednesday, July 24), with lunch and dinner included
  • Access badge for public Park & Market events in downtown San Diego (July 24-July 28)
  • Opening night reception
  • VIP ticket for “A Tale of Two Sulus: An Evening with George Takei and John Cho” at Epstein Family Amphitheater (Tuesday, July 23)
  • VIP ticket for “Star Trek in Concert with the San Diego Symphony” at Epstein Family Amphitheater (Wednesday, July 24)
  • Ticket to “JAWS” screening at Epstein Family Amphitheater (Friday, July 26) 

The Holodeck Package: “The Science of Story” programs only (no housing)
Open to the general public

  • $425 per package
  • Clarion Writers Masterclass (Wednesday, July 24), with lunch and dinner included
  • Access badge for public Park & Market events in downtown San Diego (July 24-July 28)
  • Opening night reception
  • VIP ticket for “A Tale of Two Sulus: An Evening with George Takei and John Cho” at Epstein Family Amphitheater (Tuesday, July 23)
  • VIP ticket for “Star Trek in Concert with the San Diego Symphony” at Epstein Family Amphitheater (Wednesday, July 24)
  • Ticket to “JAWS” screening at Epstein Family Amphitheater (Friday, July 26) 

(4) BRADBURY TO BOK. Heritage Auctions’ “2024 June 20 – 23 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction #7374” includes a 5-page “Ray Bradbury to Hannes Bok – Illustrated and Signed Letter (January | Lot #94003”.

Ray Bradbury to Hannes Bok – Illustrated and Signed Letter (January 1, 1941). Written by Ray Bradbury to illustrator Hannes Bok, this five-page letter offers an incredibly juicy window into the personal drama of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

It includes the newsworthy line, “He [Hasse] and I [Bradbury] are both bi-sexual and we both agree that you [Bok] are, too. Don’t fool yourself.” 

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Compiled by Paul Weimer.]

June 16, 1896 — Murray Leinster. (Died 1975).

By Paul Weimer: Murray Leinster. Not many people get an award named after one of their stories, but Murray Leinster managed that feat.  

Murray Leinster

I read his “Sidewise in Time” (for which the Sidewise Award for Alternate History is named) decades ago. I read it as part of my first full on dunking into Alternate Histories back in the 1980s, when I was trying to read every bit of AH I could get my paws on.  Unlike a lot of those stories and worlds, Murray Leinster instead gives us a sort of a multiverse of worlds, The sheer variety of worlds crammed into the story, a story where temporary conjunctions of parallel worlds throws a bevy of people into alternate worlds, and things from those worlds into our own, showed the pulp sensibilities of Leinster in full.  When I would later read Frederik Pohl’s “The Coming of the Quantum Cats”, I saw the homage to Leinster’s “Sidewise in Time” straightaway.

Alternate history is hardly Leinster’s only badge of honor of prediction, or as a forerunner in the science fiction field. “A Logic Named Joe”, in a time when computers were in their infancy, depicted a world with an internet. In these days with AI and the perils of information on the internet, the story and its plot seems more relevant than ever. But as off kilter as the logics go in that story, even Leinster didn’t predict an internet that, tainted by AI, would offer recipes for pizza that involve glue.

“The Runaway Skyscraper”, one of his earliest stories (and written before “Sidewise in Time” by over a decade) didn’t invent the time travel story. However, it helped give it a form in a 20th Century vein.  For reasons beyond understanding, a skyscraper slips several thousand years in the past, and the building occupants must come together to figure out how to survive…and how to return to their modern day, if they can. 

Leinster is a writer who started in the pulps and kept writing into the 1950’s and 1960’s, managing a transition that very few writers of his era were able to accomplish. His staying power isn’t super dense characterization, it’s his vivid imagination and ideas that he scatters like candy throughout his work. Take his story “Exploration Team” which has an amazing wild alien planet for the protagonist to cross…accompanied by his animal companions, including uplifted bears! 

Oh, and the spaceship in the opening scenes of Starcrash is named the Murray Leinster. 

(6) COMICS SECTION.

(7) ROOMINATIONS. I’m old enough (yes, I’m fucking old, did I forget to mention that?) that I read the Harrison paperback when it came out and had watched the TV show with a comparable title in first run, so as soon as I read the headline…I knew! “Long-Dead TV Show Forced Soylent Green To Change Its Name” at Slashfilm.

…”Soylent Green” was based on the 1966 novel “Make Room! Make Room!” by Harry Harrison. Back in 1984, Harrison was interviewed by Danny Peary for his book “Omni’s Screen Flights – Screen Fantasies: The Future According to SF Cinema,” and Harrison noted that the makers of “Soylent Green” couldn’t use his original title — an allusion to overpopulation — for a mindless reason. It seems the studio felt it was too close to the title of the 1953 sitcom “Make Room for Daddy.”… 

(8) DC COMICS UNIVERSITY. Ngozi Ukazu tells “How Big Barda and Jack Kirby Changed My Life” at DC.

“The Ties That Bind,” an episode from my favorite animated series Justice League Unlimited, opens like this: a woman watches an entire train drop onto a poor, doomed escape artist. It pulverizes him. The woman rushes over and, with amazing strength, flings scraps of the wreckage aside like gift wrap. But the escape artist is already behind her, smug and completely unharmed. This superwoman embraces him, but because she is also extremely annoyed, she scolds him, picking him clean off his feet.

When I watched this unfold for the first time as a teenager, my mind was successfully boggled. I had questions. Namely: “Who is that woman? And, oh my god…is that tiny man her husband?”

This was my introduction to Big Barda and the escape artist Mister Miracle, heroes of Jack Kirby’s epic Fourth World. Barda was brawny, brash, and had a huge bleeding heart—and yes, that Houdini in the red, green, and yellow was her husband, Scott Free. The episode trotted out other incredible Fourth World staples including Granny Goodness and Kalibak, Boom Tubes and Mother Boxes, and even the super-prison, the X-Pit. Needless to say, this animated adventure left a lasting impact on me. Because over the last two years, I’ve had the pleasure of writing and illustrating Barda, the newest DC graphic novel for Young Adults….

…Barda is a graphic novel for teens…but it is also kinda my thesis submission for a master’s degree in Jack Kirby studies from DC Comics University. For two years, I dove headfirst into Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, and I didn’t just read the comics, oh no. To ensure that Barda was developed with precision, I read and watched Jack Kirby interviews, searching for the thematic DNA of New Genesis and Apokolips. I learned about Kirby’s obsession with mythology, religion, and morality, and his fascination with the Free Love movement. And of course, I read my textbooks—New Gods (1971), Mister Miracle (1971), and The Forever People (1971)—to understand the rules of Barda’s world and the cosmic stakes that went with them. Call me a purist, but my focus was narrow. I only deviated to read Walt Simonson’s brilliant solo series Orion—a virtuoso performance. But for the most part, I wanted the story straight from the King himself.

(9) PRAISE FOR METROPOLIS. ScreenRant introduces a Corridor Crew commentary on movie effects: “’So On Point’: Most Influential Sci-Fi Movie Ever Stuns VFX Artists 97 Years Later”.

The most influential sci-fi movie ever made, Metropolis, has stunned a group of VFX artists with its unique practical effects 97 years later, showing why the film still holds up in the present day. The 1927 German silent film showcases a worker’s rebellion against the rich and powerful in a dystopian, futuristic city. Even in the present day, it is regarded as one of the best science fiction movies ever made for acting as a key influence on the genre for almost a century after its release.

Now, Corridor Crew has reaction to the VFX used in Metropolis, stunned by how the practical effects bring the film to life still hold up 97 years later.

Starting at 9:46, the group talks about how the movie used meticulous drawings to make its impressive effects, while mirrors were also used to make convincing shots and scene transitions. Check out what they had to say about the movie below:

“What you’re looking at here is that they’re building a miniature of the set off to one side, and they’re filming the real set on the other side, and in between the two is a mirror at a 45-degree angle. And they’ve lined up their reflection of the miniatures to line up with the real set, and then they scraped off the backing on half the mirror. So you’re seeing through part of it, and seeing the reflection on the other part of it. They used to mirror to do live compositing of two images.

“They don’t have the tools at this era to do hold-out mats on the film and only expose part of it and do the rest. You can do that, but it’s very janky, you’d have to do it very manually. Instead, they have two sets, both full size, and they just have a pane of glass. But this time, they’ve configured the frame that holds the mirror to be able to slide it in and out, and they actually scratched off different pieces of that mirror to make certain parts of the glass transparent, and other parts reflective…”

(10) STEVE’S HEROES. Steve Vertlieb was interviewed for the 30+ Minutes with H. P. Lovecraft podcast – “Meet Your Heroes”.

Steve Vertlieb talks about befriending Horror Writer and Protégé of Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, as well as meeting others he regards as his heroes.

(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. How It Should Have Ended is there to record “Super Café – New Suit Jitters”.

Superman is a little anxious about his new suit and the reboot so Batman is offering him some pointers. Deadpool shows up with a little advice of his own.

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

Pixel Scroll 5/16/24 The First Thing We Do, Let’s Scroll All The Pixels

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(1) THE SHARP END OF SCIENCE FICTION. At Reactor, James Davis Nicoll delivers a highly scientific “Ranking of Science Fiction’s Most Dangerous Awards”.

… Most awards are woefully unfit as weapons3. Authors with a mantlepiece loaded with award trophies would have few options if, say, they had to ward off an attacker with a handy trophy. But there are a few such options.

Before I list the top candidates for most lethal award trophy4, I should grant an honorable mention to the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, also known as the Skylark Award. The trophy looks no more dangerous than any random trophy, likely to break as soon as you hit someone with it. However, the trophy is topped by a perfectly functional lens through which sunlight can and has focused to start fires. This is why Skylark Award winner Jane Yolen has advised winners to put the Skylark “where the sun does not shine.” If I were assembling a list of SF trophies most useful for arson, the Skylark would be at the top…

To paraphrase Richard Pryor, I know that when a winner is walking through an airline terminal with a pointy Hugo Award in their hand “people get out of your way.”

(Nicoll omitted the otherwise obvious number one choice, Reddit r/Fantasy’s Stabby, because they’ve been on hiatus since 2021. Fair enough.)

(2) FAN REACTION TO THE NEW DOCTOR. The New York Times tells what it’s like “Watching the New ‘Doctor Who’ With 5 Superfans” (Gift link bypasses paywall.)

…On a recent evening, Richard Unwin, a 44-year-old writer and actor, gathered four other “Doctor Who” fans at his apartment in East London to watch the first two episodes. They were a little nervous about what the Disney influence, and the need to cater to a new, international audience, might have done to their favorite program.

…“I am worried that they will Americanize it,” said George Norohna, a 61-year-old retired civil servant, who remembers the show as the first thing he ever saw on a color television. They were joined by the fantasy author Janelle McCurdy, 28, Francis Beveridge, a 27-year-old neuroscience researcher, and Beth Axford, 26, who writes for “Doctor Who Magazine,” a fan publication….

What does casting Gatwa as the Doctor mean to you?

MCCURDY I know there’s old school Doctor Who fans who might see it as just a token thing. But it means a lot to me as a Black woman.

UNWIN It’s the first time that the Doctor talks like I do, as a gay man.

MCCURDY I feel exactly the same, he’s talking like how I talk.

BEVERIDGE The Doctor has always appealed to gay men, because he’s a nonconventional male role model. So having the doctor be more queer has allowed people to identify that bit more closely with him.

(3) GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS. The trolls have found a new way to get at Patrick S. Tomlinson. He posted this on Facebook yesterday.

(4) HOW GREEN WAS YOUR BALLET. Entertainment Weekly enthuses that“The new ‘Wicked’ trailer has us dancing through life”.

…The trailer shows young outcast Elphaba (Erivo) and the ever-popular Glinda (Grande) arriving at Shiz University, where they immediately clash. But their rivalry cannot keep them apart because Headmistress Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) wastes no time in assigning them as roommates….

(5) HUGO BOOK CLUB BLOG HVP IN SCOTS. [Item by Olav Rokne.] Last year, we were one of several Hugo Award finalists who ensured that our Hugo Voter Packet materials were available in the local language out of respect for the fact that the Worldcon was being held in China. With the Worldcon being held in Glasgow in 2024, we started thinking about the fact that there are significant minority languages in Scotland, but that they don’t garner the same sort of respect from outsiders.

Having made a couple of (possibly ill-considered) jokes about the matter, Amanda and I reached out to experts in Scots languages and dialects to learn more. In the end, we decided that (although not strictly necessary), having our Hugo Voter Packet available in Scots would be an appropriate gesture in recognition of the country’s linguistic diversity and distinct cultural identity that is different than any of the other British nations. As of today, thanks to the Scots Language Centre, that translation is complete and is available on our blog. A PDF of this will be prepared and sent to the Worldcon. “Hugo Book Club Blog: Hugo Packet Translated (2024)”.

Note: Scots is one of three native languages spoken in Scotland, the other two being English and Scottish Gaelic.

Here’s a brief example of the Scots translation from the opening lines of “The Un-American wey that a Lee-Science Fan fae the Left wis haunelt” (English: “The Un-American Treatment of a Leftist Science Fiction Fan”.)

Chan Davis (1929-2022) wis weel kent tae fans o lee-science in the 1940s an 1950s. He wis a fanzine editor, an early filker, kent for his daffin at Worldcon, an a ongauin screivar wi Astounding Science Fiction.

But the publict in general is mair likely tae mind o him as a mathematician…an as a political presonar….

(6) HEARING FROM SAWYER. Science Fiction 101 podcast hosts Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie present episode 42 “Off On A Tangent – more interview fun with award-winning novelist Robert J. Sawyer”.

Time for another regular episode of the podcast, and this time we have more interview goodness from the Hugo- and Nebula-winning SF writer Robert J. Sawyer. We had so much fun talking to Rob about his new novel The Downloaded (see episode 40) that we decided to gather up our more general discussion into a separate segment. So here you will hear talk of Planet of the Apes, science fiction conferences, and much much more.

We also have a mostly Star Trek quiz, but with a few Star Wars questions thrown in to trip Phil up.

And the usual recommendations of past/present/future SF.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born May 16, 1969 — David Boreanaz, 55. David Boreanaz is one of the performers that I really like as an individual as himself, and always as a character, though sometimes better in some series.  

Before I get to his genre roles, let me tell about about me about my favorite role by him. It’s  Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes in the SEAL Team series.  It’s a role that gives a depth of personality that mostly lacking in his previous role as Angel on his own series of Angel as he is executive producer here

David Boreanaz at GalaxyCon Austin 2023.

The series tells the story of a team of Navy operatives called Bravo that do covert missions overseas, many of which, if you pardon my slang, are SNAFUed. It got more realistically portrayed when the series moved off CBS to Paramount + and the language restrictions were gone, so fuck and such language were allowed. Their personal lives of course get messily intertwined with their professional ones. 

Speaking of Seeley Booth, let’s discuss Bones. I like the series as having seen all of it save the last season. Temperance Brennan and the other characters are mostly interesting, and her relationship with Seeley is fascinating. 

The show itself? It’s is pseudoscience-science. Like such series that shows lots pretty, impressive technology, it’s not really able to do what the writers say it can. Yes, I’ve read the actual forensic experts critique such series. That it crosses over into the fantasy of the Sleepy Hollow series makes it genre in some manner. Seeley Booth actually will be on that series for an episode. 

Now Seeley himself is great character. An FBI agent that is fun to watch and I think that Boreanaz early on figured out his character couldn’t be taken too seriously.  He looks like an archetypal agent FBI — tall, muscular and handsome. He’s even a deeply religious man here , as he was raised and still is a practicing Catholic. Philadelphia born, the sports teams show up in the series.  I like him at lot in this role as I do in the following series. 

And that is on Angel, and not Buffy on the Vampire Slayer, where I thought he was was interesting but didn’t live up to his full potential as character so I’m going to skip over him there. Why Angel, you say? Because that series, like SEAL Team, was centered on him. 

By the way, The “Smile Time” episode of the fifth season had the storyline of a television children’s show stealing the life forces of those children by hypnotizing them so when Angel goes to the studio to uncover the evil doings, he triggers a spell when entering there that transforms him into a puppet. 

So, the ever so cool puppet done at time I now realize I should’ve bought. The cheapest mint one on eBay, and I think the price is quite reasonable given the Angel series aired twenty years ago, is now one hundred and twenty-five dollars. 

But more than that and yes that was crucial to his development as a performer there, I thought the scripts there were far better than they were on Buffy. Oh. Buffy had its stellar storylines, but I think Angel just worked better in terms of pure ongoing storytelling than Buffy did. So that meant Angel there was a more rounded, interesting character there than he was on Buffy. 

Finally, though not chronologically, he voiced Hal Jordan in Justice League: The New Frontier. In an episode of Bones, “The Pain in the Heart”, Seeley is in his bathtub reading a Green Lantern comic.  Nice touch that was.

As always, this is not a full look at every genre role he did, so feel free to give me anything you feel I should have included here. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Lola finds the new king.

(9) SFF AUTHOR ON JEOPARDY! THIS MONTH. Ellen Klages will be on Jeopardy! on May 22 (and possibly subsequently) reports Steven H Silver.

(10) JEOPARDY! SFF REFERENCES. [By David Goldfarb.] Monday’s episode of Jeopardy! Masters and Tuesday’s episode of Jeopardy! had some more SFF-related questions. Here they are:

Jeopardy! 5/14/2024

Prequels & Sequels, $1600: Suzanne Collins tells the backstory of Coriolanus Snow in her 2020 “Hunger Games” prequel, “The Ballad of” these 2 animals

Ashley Atkin responded, “What are songbirds and snakes?”

Prequels & Sequels, $1200: A book with famous sequels begins, “In a hole in the ground, there lived” one of these

Ashley, “What is a hobbit?”

Prequels & Sequels, $2000: “The Infernal Devices” is a prequel trilogy to this Cassandra Clare series that includes “City of Bones” & “City of Ashes”

This was a triple stumper. The series is “The Mortal Instruments”.

Jeopardy! Masters 5/13/2024

Game 1, Double Jeopardy round:

Looking for Something to Read, $2000: Published in the 1880s, his utopian novel “Looking Backward” was set in the year 2000

Victoria Groce was up on her utopias, responding “Who’s Bellamy?”

Speaking My Language, $1200: This fictional language in “Game of Thrones” has more than a dozen different words for horse

James Holzhauer knew it was Dothraki.

Speaking My Language, $2000: “The Epic of Gilgamesh” was written in Akkadian, which supplanted this, considered the world’s oldest written language

This one went to Matt Amodio: “What’s Sumerian?”

Looking for Something to Read, $400: Chess, reverse imagery & the poem “Jabberwocky” appear in this sequel from the 1870s

Victoria got it: “What is ‘Through the Looking-Glass’?”

Game 2, Single Jeopardy round:

I’m Chris Pratt, $800: “I worked hard to lose 60 pounds to play Peter Quill, also known by this name, in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. The toughest part — brace yourselves — I quit drinking beer.”

Amy Schneider sounded uncertain or even incredulous: “What is…Star-Lord?” But this was correct.

Mais Oui, French Lit, $400: The narrator of this children’s book believes the title royal is from out of town…asteroid B-612, to be Precise

It went to Yogesh Raut: “What is ‘The Little Prince’?”

(11) HALL OF FAMER’S LATEST. Matt Hughes writes fantasy, space opera, crime, and historical fiction. He has sold 24 novels as well as 100 works of short fiction. He’s won the Endeavour and Arthur Ellis Awards, and has been inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s Hall of Fame

His new novel is The One:

Meet Luff Imbry, an insidiously clever thief, forger, and confidence man . . . He likes good wine, good food, and good stolen goods, and he always maintains the upper hand.

Luff Imbry returns from the weird planet Fulda, to which he was shanghaied by a mysterious enemy, only to find that an impostor has stolen from the strongroom at his private club collection of magical paraphernalia he acquired from a would-be thaumaturge.

That’s impossible, but Imbry has to deal with reality. He sets off on a quest to solve the mystery and recover his goods, bringing him into conflict with shadowy forces that are preparing for the great change, when the universe once again gives up on rationalism and embraces an age of magic.

The odds are against him, but Imbry is a great improvisor.

The book is available as a paperback or ebook from Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

(12) EAT THE FORCE, LUKE. Gizmodo promises “Oreo’s Special Edition Star Wars Cookies Are Here to Feed Your Inner Wookiee”. (Oreo’s dedicated Star Wars webpage is at the link.)

…The fun catch? You won’t know which side you’ve got until you actually open the package. Each pack will feature one of two different color fillings: red for the dark side and blue for the light side—both infused with “kyber” sugar crystals inspired by lightsaber cores. The Oreos also feature heroes or villains embossed on the cookies themselves, with characters like Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and a stormtrooper representing the dark side, and Luke Skywalker, Yoda, and Princess Leia representing the light side. In total, there will be 20 iconic characters featured….

Greg Hildebrandt’s hand-painted pack art features 14 individual one-of-a-kind characters by the iconic Star Wars™ poster artist.

(13) INTEGRAL TREES? “Tree seeds that flew around the moon are now are being planted across the U.S.” – NPR is a witness.

In late 2022, a NASA flight around the moon carried a variety of tree seeds. After their time in space, they returned to Earth. And now, the hope is that they will become moon trees. Troy, Ala., is one of the first places to get one. Here’s Troy Public Radio’s Joey Hudson….

MCCARTHY: There was a very significant preparation process to make sure they were completely dry and that there would be no moisture or potential. They tried to protect the seeds as much as possible from any impacts related to heat.

HUDSON: The mission was a success. After about four weeks, the seeds returned to Earth and were tested for radiation levels and genetic variants. And then the seeds became seedlings to be planted in communities around the country, like here at Troy University….

(14) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. “After 250 hours, a Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom player lost an 82% complete save and declared ‘I’m free’ until he tragically realized he could get it back”. GamesRadar+ relays the pathos.

One The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom player suffered what seemed like the ultimate tragedy in losing a 250-hour, 82% complete save file. But it turns out there’s a fate even worse: getting that save file back.

Back on April 23, Brian ‘Brian_F’ Foster, a competitive fighting game player and commentator, revealed that he had beaten Tears of the Kingdom after 250 hours, having gotten all Shrines, all light roots, all Armor sets, all Sage’s Wills, and all Yiga schematics. But with six sidequests missing and the map only 77% completed, Brian_F decided to keep going for a 100% completion run.Tears of the Kingdom is an amazing, expansive game that’s an absolute joy to explore – up until the very moment you decide you want to 100% complete it. We’re talking about a feat that initially took speedrunners 139 hours – that’s over five days straight – to complete, and while Speedrun.com shows those runs are now down to ‘just’ one or two days, that’s still a good metric for you to judge just how arduous and menial going for full completion here can be….

(15) I THEME OF JEANNIE. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Not new, but only just discovered it: “Jeannie’s Diner” by Mark Jonathan Davis (1990) – Nick At Nite TV Promo from 1995.

I’m familiar with Mark Jonathan Davis from his great Star Wars parodies, including “The Phantom Medley, Bob Hope At The Mos Eisley” comedy routine (also a Johnny Carson one), and more.

(I’ve got the CD, and more recently found his “The Star Wars Cantina” parody of “Copacabana” (1997) which he wasn’t allowed to include on the CD).

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