Tag Archives: Philip K. Dick

Pixel Scroll 7/4/24 Trigger Scrollfile – Pixelman

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(1) JULY 4, 1939: Julius Schwartz ditched the last day of the first World Science Fiction Convention and went with Mort Weisinger and Otto Binder to see a ballgame at Yankee Stadium. Here’s what happened next: “On This Day In History 7/4”.

Three AWOL Worldcon members were in Yankee Stadium when this picture was taken.

(2) ORAL HISTORY OF XENA. The Guardian talks to the people who made the show: “’I was attacked by a bloody rabbit’: how we made Xena: Warrior Princess”.

… Steven L Sears, writer and co-executive producer: …People called Xena a sword and sorcery show, even though our universe had swords but no magic. There were mythological creatures and entities with powers, but those powers had restrictions. Most of the gods echoed the pettiness of mankind, with all their egos and desires.

Back then, the studio was very hesitant about suggesting Xena and Gabrielle were in a romantic relationship. They even objected to a moment in the title sequence where Xena is seen walking seductively towards the warlord Draco, because he was shot from the back and had long hair, so could be mistaken for a woman. But as time went on, they decided to look the other way and just let us get on with it. Somebody once asked me if Xena and Gabrielle ever had sex. I said: “It’s none of my damn business. They do social and domestic duties together, they have fought for each other and died for each other. If you’re defining the relationship just on sex, you’re really missing the whole point.”…

(3) IN AND OUT OF DISGUISE. “Superman, Frodo and Star Wars: the stunning life of Kiran Shah – the world’s smallest stuntman” in the Guardian.

It was 1976 when Kiran Shah saw the advert that would change his life. “It was a sci-fi film looking for a little guy,” he says. Shah turned up at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire and was introduced to a nervous young man named George Lucas. “He said: ‘Can you get in that dustbin thing?’ I was a bit too tall for it but I got in, they put the lid on, and he said: ‘Can you look left, look right?’” Shah didn’t realise he was auditioning for the role of R2-D2 in Star Wars. He didn’t get the job – it went to Kenny Baker – but Lucas’s casting director liked Shah, and got him an agent, which set him on the path of an almost 50-year career as “the world’s shortest stuntman”…

There are very few blockbusters Shah has not been in. You might not recognise him – he is often doubling for another character or he’s disguised under prosthetics as a mythical creature. But he has played more Star Wars characters than he can count, doubled for every hobbit in The Lord of the Rings movies, did Christopher Reeve’s stunts in the Superman movies, and played every single child in Titanic (which is even more impressive given that he can’t swim)….

(4) THREE-BODY EFFECTS. “Imagine Engine Shares ‘3 Body Problem’ VFX Breakdown Reel” at Animation World Network.

Image Engine shared a VFX breakdown reel and case study for its work contributing 137 shots to Netflix’s sci-fi drama, 3 Body Problem. The studio’s attention to detail, from replicating the vastness of the Neutrino Observatory to breathing life into a photoreal chimpanzee animation, resulted in a world of remarkable visuals.

Beginning with the first episode, the studio’s craft is on display, when scientist Dr. Vera Ye enters the Cherenkov tank, walks out onto a platform, and jumps into a shallow pool of water below.

Compositing supervisor Matt Yeoman explained, “Vera’s plate element of her walking along a suspended walkway needed to be integrated into the Neutrino Observatory, which was a full CG environment render. The main objective of this shot was to create a sense of scale for her very unique and mysterious surroundings.”…

(5) OCTOTHORPE. In Episode 113 of Octothorpe, “I Realised Too Late What I Had Done” John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty discuss a variety of things, “including but not limited to: the country of Sweden; haggises; the processing of peaches; listener statistics; the way that Los Angeles is gearing up for the Olympics; and Scrabble. We also discuss something called a ‘Worldcon’, in a first for us.” An uncorrected transcript is available here.

Three stick figures run from Godzilla, who is depicted in the style of Godzilla Minus One. The words “Octothorpe 113” used to be at the top of the art, but Godzilla has knocked off the letters “O C T O”, is holding “H”, and is trying to eat “T”.

(6) DOCTOR WHO WILL TREAD THE BOARDS. Collider says watch the London stage in September: “Paul McGann’s ‘Doctor Who’ Is Making a Comeback — But Not the Way You’re Expecting”

Doctor Who is making its way to the stage for the first time in over 20 years. Last performed live in 1989, the Doctor will be appearing in front of a live audience in celebration of 25 years of audio adventures by Big Finish Productions. The live show will see Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor in a new live-recorded audio drama, titled “The Stuff of Legend,” written by Robert Valentine and directed by Barnaby Edwards. McGann will star alongside India Fisher as his companion Charley Pollard, who’s been around since the beginning of Big Finish’s Doctor Who dramas, in this exciting new venture for the Whoniverse. McGann and Fisher will be joined on stage by Alex Macqueen as the Master — who featured in the Eighth Doctor Adventures series Dark Eyes — and Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Daleks.

The drama will be performed live to audiences for one night only, at London’s Cadogan Hall on Saturday, September 14, 2024, with a studio version of the same story releasing on the same day. Although this is not the first time that Doctor Who has been performed to a live audience, it is the very first time that one of the show’s audio plays will be performed on stage. The announcement comes just weeks after the end of Season 1 of Doctor Who’s Disney revamp, which saw Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor and Millie Gibson’s companion Ruby Sunday face off against classic Who villain Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf)….

(7) THE TARDIS RETURNS THE FAVOR. And Playbill lists “Thespians Turned Whovians: All the Broadway Stars in Disney’s Regeneration of Doctor Who”. Spoilers at the link.

Whovians and theatre fans, did you spot some familiar faces in this season of Doctor Who? The 14th season of Doctor Who has just concluded on Disney+, and a few Broadway stars made guest appearances. The BBC staple, which has been running for over 60 years, has always had a rich relationship with the stage. 

Many stars and guest stars of Doctor Who have connections to the theatre, including The First Doctor, William Hartnel, who was a prolific Shakespearean actor before ever stepping into the TARDIS. The 10th (and 14th) Doctor (played by David Tennant, who has been in countless theatrical productions) once landed his TARDIS inside The Globe to fight off witches with Shakespeare himself. That episode was filmed at Shakespeare’s Globe in London—where the current 15th Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, starred as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2016….

(8) COMPREHENDING PKD. David Agranoff has written a highly interesting review of “Postcards from a Dying World: Philip K. Dick: Essays of the Here and Now David Sandner (Editor), Series Editors: Donald E. Palumbo, C.W. Sullivan III”. Here’s his comment about one of the articles.

…Umberto Rossi’s ‘From Soft Totalitarianism to TV: Philip Kindred Dick and The Tube,’ was of course an enlightening read. I am aware that David Gill believes Rossi’s writing on PKD to be some of, if not the most important analysis of the work. I admit I am late to get to his work, but this is an excellent piece.  I also had the weird experience of reading Rossi writing about the bible hypertext in The Divine Invasion while a woman on the plane (I was taking to the PKD fest) was reading the bible on her phone….

(9) ROBERT TOWNE (1935-2024). Best known for his Oscar-winning Chinatown screenplay, Robert Towne died July 1 at the age of 89. There’s some genre work among the credits listed in Deadline’s tribute.

…Towne also earned BAFTA, Golden Globe and WGA awards for Chinatown, the L.A.-set 1974 thriller starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. It was one of three Writers Guild Awards he won during his career, along with Shampoo and the drama series Mad Men, on which he was a consulting producer during the final seventh season. He also was nominated for The Last Detail (1973) and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1985). He was honored with the guild’s Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement in 1997.

Born on November 23, 1934, Towne got his start with his screenplay for 1960’s Last Woman on Earth before writing for … early-’60s TV series The Outer Limits, [and] The Man from U.N.C.L.E. He went on to work with Roger Corman on films including The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)… 

During the 1970s, Towne also did script-doctor work on Beatty’s directorial debut Heaven Can Wait.

Towne … wrote the screenplay for the 1984 Tarzan tale Greystoke, starring Christopher Lambert, with an eye to direct. But the poor financial showing of Personal Best led Warner Bros to hand the helming reins to Hugh Hudson, who was hot off Best Picture Oscar winner Chariots of Fire.

Towne was angered by the move and had his name taken off the Greystoke screenplay — opting instead to credit the script to P.H. Vazak, his sheepdog. It went on to score an Adapted Screenplay Oscar nom for Vazak, making him the only canine ever to be so honored. It also was the first Academy Award nom for any Tarzan film….

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

July 4, 1996 — Independence Day film. We’re celebrating Independence Day tonight. Now not that one, but the film of that name which premiered twenty-eight years ago this coming weekend, but I thought it should be written up on this day. (Indeed, sites think it premiered today with more than a few individuals remember seeing it today.) 

So let’s talk about Independence Day. It came out twenty-eight years ago. Now it’s a franchise as Independence Day Resurgence would come twenty years later. Well, a franchise unlikely to see a third film, as Independence Day Resurgence was financial failure unlike Independence Day which, well, I’ll note later.

It was directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Now if you think that you know Emmerich and Devlin, that’s not at all surprising as both had a major success in a genre film as Emmerich directed Stargate and Devlin co-wrote that script with Emmerich. 

Ok, any Filer who has not seen should, well, skip to the rest of of the Scroll as I cannot avoid spoilers. I really can’t. SPOILERS. INCREDIBLY LARGE SPOILERS HERE.

Emmerich wanted to write an alien invasion on a massive scale rather than on the personal scale of the Fifties films, wreaking destruction those didn’t, and having the aliens hidden until they get revealed late in the film. 

Each ship is fifteen miles across! And he had those ships destroy entire cities, be it New York or London, though the destruction of the White House is one of my favorite scenes in the film. President Thomas J. Whitmore, the former fighter pilot and Gulf War veteran, as played Bill Pullman, is one of the best secondary characters here.

The primary cast is Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller, a Marine F/A-18 pilot: Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson, an all-around technological expert; and Judd Hirsch as Julius Levinson, David Levinson’s father (the character was based on one of Dean Devlin’s uncles). All are stellar in their roles. Same applies to the many other characters such as Randy Quaid as Russell Casse, an, alcoholic former fighter pilot and Vietnam War veteran insists that he was abducted by the aliens, and Brent Spiner as Dr. Brackish Okun, the scientist in charge of research at Area 51.

Now let’s talk about creating the look at the film. I can’t possible cover everything that made this film look fantastic, and one might assume that since shows like Babylon 5 were made intensively using CGI that most of this film was likewise. There over five thousand special effects shots required to make this film but and over ninety-five percent were practical in nature. That’s a lot of models, a massive number, many of which are now in collectors hands. And they fetched very nice prices. 

So they built an actual White House, as Vogel Engel, effects supervisor, said in an interview, “Our pyrotechnician, the late Joe Viskocil, and our miniature supervisor Mike Joyce did a fantastic job in preparing a 15-feet wide and 5-feet high miniature of the building — basically a plaster shell attached to a metal body, with individual floors and a lot of furniture and other details on the inside.”  And then they blew it up in the desert outside Vegas with the press looking on with only one chance to get it right. And they absolutely did.

A outstanding script, a fantastic cast and special effects that are still considered cutting edge according to be among the best ever done. 

Next let’s talk what the critics thought. They mostly really liked it and Duane Bryge of the Hollywood Reporter is typical: “20th Century Fox’s Independence Day is a blast — a sci-fi disaster film about an alien force that attacks Earth on Fourth of July weekend. A generic juggernaut, as well as a story of appealing human dimension, Independence Day should set off box-office fireworks worldwide.”

So, want to know about well it did? Well, it didn’t cost that much to make back then, just seventy-five million. Oh, that was a good investment considering that it would go in to gross eight hundred and seventeen million. One knows that it went well over a billion with a secondary run, cassette and DVD sales, television and streaming fees. 

The sequel made as I note above half as much and Emmerich blamed that largely on the absence of Will Smith who declined to take part. Emmerich stated in an interview with Collider magazine that his originally intended script in which Steven Hiller was alive during the film was “much better” and that Smith’s absence from the film forced him to use an alternative script.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Close to Home shows zombies who love a party.
  • F Minus has a strange idea about faithfulness.
  • The Argyle Sweater knows what happened to a premature invention.
  • Tom Gauld would hate to interrupt:

(12) HOW MANY HOLES DOES IT TAKE TO FILL THE ALBERT HALL. “Researchers Make Breakthrough in Study of Mysterious 2000-Year-Old Computer Found in Shipwreck” – Futurism has an update about the Antikythera mechanism.

Well over a century after its discovery, researchers at the University of Glasgow say they’ve used statistical modeling techniques, originally designed to analyze gravitational waves — ripples in spacetime caused by major celestial events such as two black holes merging — to suggest that the Antikythera mechanism was likely used to track the Greek lunar year.

In short, it’s a fascinating collision between modern-day science and the mysteries of an ancient artifact.

In a 2021 paper, researchers found that previously discovered and regularly spaced holes in a “calendar ring” were marked to describe the “motions of the sun, Moon, and all five planets known in antiquity and how they were displayed at the front as an ancient Greek cosmos.”

Now, in a new study published in the Oficial Journal of the British Horological Institute, University of Glasgow gravitational wave researcher Graham Woan and research associate Joseph Bayley suggest that the ring was likely perforated with 354 holes, which happens to be the number of days in a lunar year.

The researchers ruled out the possibility of it measuring a solar year.

“A ring of 360 holes is strongly disfavoured, and one of 365 holes is not plausible, given our model assumptions,” their paper reads….

(13) CLIFF NOTES. A commenter on the Daytonian in Manhattan’s post“The Cliff Dwelling – 240-243 Riverside Drive” tells us: “L. Ron Hubbard lived here 1939–40, writing — with a radically customized, continuous-feed typewriter beneath a low-glare blue lightbulb — several of his most celebrated stories before moving to Washington, DC.”

…According to The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray…, [the building’s designer Herman Lee] Meader “was intensely interested in Mayan and Aztec architecture and made regular expeditions to Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán and other sites.”  Meader’s fascination with South America melded with Palmer’s terra cotta interests to create a unique design.  Completed in 1914, the Cliff Dwelling was 12 stories tall and faced in orange brick.  Meader lavished his Arts & Crafts style structure with Western motifs like cattle skulls, spears, and mountain lions, and Aztec- or Mayan-inspired designs….

(14) SO, YOU WRITE SF. DO YOU GET WRITERS BLOCK? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] “Twelve Scientist-Endorsed Tips To Get Over Writer’s Block” in Nature gives tips to scientists facing writing block. Some of these may be transferable to fiction writers (?)….

  • Know thy enemy
  • Create routines
  • Clarify the message
  • Plan first
  • Eliminate the blank page
  • Visualise
  • Write out of order
  • Give yourself extra time
  • Embrace collaboration
  • Take the pressure off
  • It might get easier, but don’t expect it to get easy
  • Know you are not alone

(15) LOOKING FOR SOMEWHERE TO PARK. For those of you who feel your place needs more clutter, we recommend the “Optimus Prime Human-Size Statue” from the Spec Fiction Shop. Only $18,549!

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Michael J. Walsh, 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 Ingvar.]

Pixel Scroll 6/28/24 The Infinity Kidney And Gall Stones (Powers To Be Determined)

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(1) IS IT WORTH THE BILLABLE HOURS? Courtney Milan has written a long thread on X.com sharing her skepticism about the lawsuit by Lynne Freeman against Tracy Wolff (the author of the Crave series, a popular YA vampire series), Entangled Publishing and other defendants, a suit which covered here the other day in Pixel Scroll 6/26/24 item #3. Thread starts here. Here are several excerpts.

(2) I’VE BEEN CHEATED, BEEN MISTREATED, WHEN WILL I BE LOVED? Victoria Strauss takes up the question “Cheated, Swindled, or Scammed: What’s a Writer to Do?” at Writer Unboxed.

You’ve chosen a publishing service, engaged a marketing company, entered a writing contest, hired an editor, inked a representation agreement, or contracted with a publisher, hybrid or traditional.

You’re aware that there are no guarantees: your book won’t necessarily become a bestseller. Your story may not win the contest prize. Your agent may not find a home for your manuscript. But your expectation is that the person or company will keep their promises, adhere to timelines, deliver acceptable quality, and generally honor whatever contract or agreement you both have signed.

What if they don’t, though? What if, after paying out a lot of money and/or waiting in vain for a service to be completed and/or receiving a product too shoddy to use, you realize you’ve been conned? What are your options? What can you do?…

Strauss first considers “Getting Your Money Back”.

Scammers generally don’t do refunds (never mind the money-back guarantees that many promise). You can certainly ask: it’s a reasonable starting point. Just be prepared to be refused, or promised a refund that somehow never arrives.

A more direct method, if you paid with a credit or debit card or via PayPal, is to dispute the charges. This doesn’t always succeed: if some degree of service was delivered, even incomplete and/or of poor quality, the decision may go against you.  However, I’ve heard from many writers who’ve been able to get some or all of their money back this way.

You do need to be prompt. There’s a limited window to file disputes–which rules out situations where the scam only becomes apparent over a longer period of time (although, from personal experience, credit card companies will sometimes honor disputes beyond their deadlines if you can make a strong enough case)…

(3) IA APPEAL HEARD IN PUBLISHER’S SUIT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The Internet Archive is appealing the judgment of a lawsuit from publishers that recently forced IA to remove hundreds of thousands of books from their online library. The appeals court panel did not rule from the bench and listened to arguments for significantly longer than originally scheduled. Lawyers for IA have said they believe this is a good sign for the archive. “Appeals court seems lost on how Internet Archive harms publishers” at Ars Technica.

… “There is no deadline for them to make a decision,” Gratz said, but it “probably won’t happen until early fall” at the earliest. After that, whichever side loses will have an opportunity to appeal the case, which has already stretched on for four years, to the Supreme Court. Since neither side seems prepared to back down, the Supreme Court eventually weighing in seems inevitable…

(4) PUBLIC DOMAIN FORECAST. Voronoi has a clever infographic showing “Which Characters are Next to Enter the Public Domain?”

(5) MEDICAL UPDATE. Sharon Lee was visiting family when she collapsed: “Life Going On”.

I was scheduled to spend some time with family this week — and in fact did spend some time with family this week, just not as much and not in the way we all would have preferred to see the thing done….

…Once we made base, vacation things — TV, games, talk — commenced.  It was while we were all standing around the kitchen, shooting bulls, as one does, when, in the middle of Making a Point, I — folded up.  The next few minutes were exciting for everybody but me. From my perspective, one second I was talking, the next, I was looking at the floor tiles and asking, “What happened?”

That was when things got exciting for me.  My prize for beeping out in the middle of a sentence was a ride in the ambulance to the island hospital, an overnight in ER, many tests, including CAT scan, MRI, blood tests, cognitive and physical/balance tests.  When I was admitted to ER, the Operating Theory was that I had suffered a posterior stroke.  By the time I was returned to the wild, on Tuesday afternoon, the thinking was divided between soft “stroke” and hard “stress.”

I also won both the coveted “no driving” and “no alcohol” awards which are mine at least until I can see my regular doctor, on July 9….

(6) STEVE MILLER MEMORIAM ON BAEN PODCAST. This week on the Baen Free Radio Hour, “Steve Miller, In Memoriam; and Tinker by Wen Spencer”.

Description: Celebrating the life and works of Steve Miller, coauthor of the Liaden Universe® series, with a collection of excerpts from past BFRH episodes; and Tinker by Wen Spencer, Part 58

For the audio-only podcast click here. For the video podcast click here.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born March 1, 1952 — Steven Barnes, 72.

By Paul Weimer. While Barnes often gets tied to his very talented wife Tananarive Due, he is a first class talent in his own right. I first came across his work, first with the Dream Park works he co-wrote with Larry Niven. Dream Park really deserves a post of its own in appreciation, and before (IMHO) it went south around book three, the idea of a LARPING RPG park was amazing and a “Why didn’t anyone think of this?” sort of idea. Barnes, with Niven, correctly predicted, back in the early 1980’s, just how popular RPGs and D&D would become and the Dream Park novels definitely ride that wave. 

Steven Barnes

I followed Barnes into other collaborations…the Heorot series, Achilles Choice…but the novels that for me define Barnes and his work are Lion’s Blood and Zulu’s Heart. These novels, together are two of the finest examples of alternate history written.  The turning point is never really said inside of the text itself (Barnes avoids the Turtledove technique of having characters think about alternate history). But the idea that the Global South turns out to come out on top in ancient history and then to the present means that we have Black Muslim estates across North America, and the backward island of Ireland is just good for slave raids for useful white men and women not suited for anything else.  

While the novels are ostensibly about Aidan, a young Irish boy who winds up a slave in the household of Kai, a rich and powerful young scion of a noble house, the novels eventually put Kai and his story front and center. The novelsl provide a rich and unflinching look at a “19th century” where the Middle Passage is taking white slaves across the ocean (many dying on the voyage), where powerful aristocratic families squabble and scheme for political power. And oh yes, there is a looming war with the Aztecs. They remain today some of the best alternate history novels I’ve ever read.

Born June 28, 1946 — Robert Asprin. (Died 2008.)

By Paul Weimer. I started off with Robert Asprin, among other authors with the Thieves World anthologies.  The 1980’s was a high water mark for shared world anthologies, sometimes more than a dozen authors contributing stories to the shared world. And while George R R Martin’s Wild Cards continues to this day, the second most successful of these shared worlds was Robert Asprin’s Thieves World. Set in the city of Sanctuary, an edge of the empire city under very uneasy rule, I came across Thieves World first as a RPG supplement for D&D, and then the actual books themselves. Asprin did a lot of the worldbuilding and scene setting in the anthology, and created The Vulgar Unicorn, the one true bar of which all fantasy bars are but shadows.

Eventually the series petered out, had side novels set far away from the city of Sanctuary, but Asprin’s initial idea helped color what a fantasy city, especially for roleplaying games, in a way only matched, I think, by Lankhmar. Lots of fantasy cities in SFF since clearly show inspiration, or acknowledge it as an inspiration. And why not?  An edge of the empire city with a spare prince sent to rule it, a resentful native population, myth and magic around every street corner? What fantasy reader wouldn’t want to spend time there?

Bob Asprin in 1993. Photo by Sharon72015

I followed Asprin to other series of his, particularly the Myth series. The Myth series, featuring a callow untrained wizard and a demon who has lost his magic, was multiverse before Multiverse was cool, as Skeeve and Aahz have adventures across a number of worlds and dimensions. And the cover art by Phil Foglio (whose work I was enjoying in Dragon magazine) definitely was a selling point for me to pick them up and give them a try.

There are many clever bits within the series. For example, what are Demons, after all, but Dimensional Travelers? Deva, the dimension which is just a bazaar for making deals,  is the home of Devils.  The broad puns and humor of Asprin’s MYTH series would be the standard by which I would benchmark humor in SFF until I later encountered the likes of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.  And yet, even given that, The Bazaar on Deva remains the standard for me for interdimensional bazaars.  I can see how the Bazaar definitely influenced places in fantasy fiction like, for example, Sigil, the City of Doors. 

It would be a mythstake not to celebrate his birthday today.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Eek! is a reminder to watch where one steps
  • F Minus demonstrates the dark side of badge collecting

(9) A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO BOOP. “Betty Boop Time Travels to New York, and Broadway, Next Spring” promises the New York Times (article is unlocked.)

A long-in-the-works musical about Betty Boop, a curvy flapper first featured in animated films of the 1930s, will open on Broadway next spring following a run in Chicago last year.

“BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical” has some thematic echoes of last year’s “Barbie” movie, although it was in the works before that film came along. The stage production imagines that Boop leaves her early-20th-century film life to travel to present-day New York, where musical comedy ensues. (Her first stop: Comic-Con.)…

(10) PKD FEST IN COLORADO. David Agranoff’s latest Amazing Stories column is “25th Century Five and Dime #6: The Philip K. Dick Festival 2024 -My Recap”, where names are dropped.

…We ran into our podcast guest Jonathan Letham at the bar. He is a bestselling author, and very respected. I just finished reading his novel The Feral Detective. I realize many at the fest were a little star-struck meeting Letham. I told one of those star-struck not to be as he clearly is one of us. He sat in all the workshops listening and adapting his keynote speech, something I was impressed with. When we shook hands he said he was a listener to our podcast, I thought he was just being nice, but as we talked he mentioned something we talked about on a four-year episode of DHP about Vulcan’s Hammer. So the man is Legit….

(11) LEFT IN THE LURCH. “NASA’s ISS Spacesuit Situation Turns Grim” reports Gizmodo.

Two NASA astronauts were preparing to exit the International Space Station (ISS) for a second attempt at a spacewalk, but it was once again called off due to a concerning malfunction with the spacesuit.

NASA was forced to cancel a spacewalk on Monday due to a water leak in the service and cooling umbilical unit on astronaut Tracy Dyson’s spacesuit. “There’s water everywhere,” Dyson could be heard saying during the live feed from the ISS, pointing to an alarming malfunction with the space station’s aging suits that put other astronauts at risk in the past. NASA is in desperate need of new spacesuits for its astronauts, but in a troubling development, the company contracted to design the suits has just pulled out of the agreement….

(12) CATCHING FRESH WAVES. [Item by Steven French.] Personally I like the one that involves putting a diamond into a quantum superposition! “Five new ways to catch gravitational waves — and the secrets they’ll reveal” in Nature.

The detection of gravitational waves has provided new ways to explore the laws of nature and the history of the Universe, including clues about the life story of black holes and the large stars they originated from. For many physicists, the birth of gravitational-wave science was a rare bright spot in the past decade, says Chiara Caprini, a theoretical physicist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Other promising fields of exploration have disappointed: dark-matter searches have kept coming up empty handed; the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva has found nothing beyond the Higgs boson; and even some promising hints of new physics seem to be fading. “In this rather flat landscape, the arrival of gravitational waves was a breath of fresh air,” says Caprini.

That rare bright spot looks set to become brighter….

(13) NEW BATMAN SERIES. Animation Magazine is there when “Official ‘Batman: Caped Crusader’ Trailer Steps Out of the Shadows”.

…Welcome to Gotham City, where the corrupt outnumber the good, criminals run rampant and law-abiding citizens live in a constant state of fear. Forged in the fire of tragedy, wealthy socialite Bruce Wayne becomes something both more and less than human — the Batman. His one-man crusade attracts unexpected allies within the GCPD and City Hall, but his heroic actions spawn deadly, unforeseen ramifications.

The series is a reimagining of the Batman mythology through the visionary lens of executive producers J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm….

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

Pixel Scroll 2/25/24 The Scroll Is Spinning. I’ll Try Again Tomorrow

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(1) NICHOLAS WHYTE TAKES UP 2024 HUGO ADMINISTRATOR DUTIES. Following the resignation of Kat Jones, Glasgow 2024 WSFS Division Head Nicholas Whyte announced this news in “The Hugos and me” at From the Heart of Europe:

I have now been appointed Hugo Administrator for Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for our Futures, double-hatted with the role of Division Head for WSFS. (If the website hasn’t already been updated, it will be soon.) This is my comment on recent events, and my own commitment to future action.

I was not involved with organising the Chengdu Worldcon in any way, though it was a close call. Shortly before the Chengdu bid won the Site Selection vote in 2021, I was invited to become one of the Co-chairs of the convention if the bid won. (I have no idea if Ben Yalow was already on board at that stage.) I declined on the grounds that I really did not have time, but agreed to become a senior adviser, and was listed as such on their org chart presented in DC.

However, I was dismayed by Chengdu Worldcon’s choice of fascist writer Sergei Lukanyenko as a guest of honour, and by a general lack of communication. By summer 2022 I had heard very little from Chengdu Worldcon and it had become clear that they were not very interested in my advice, so I resigned as an advisor and heard no more from them for several months…. 

More follows about his trip to the Chengdu Worldcon. And about his past experience administering the 2017 and 2019 Hugos, and as part of the 2020, 2021, and 2022 Hugo teams.

(2) GLYER’S APOLOGY TO SHEPHERD. I apologize to Shepherd for comparing him to Vox Day in item #15 of the February 22 Scroll. It was unwarranted and wrong for me to do. I have now deleted the Vox Day quotes and replaced them with this:

“I apologize for drawing a comparison between Shepherd and Vox Day in the item that formerly appeared in this space. I was wrong to give into the impulse, which vented at Shepherd my emotional reaction to all the Hugo stuff I’ve had to write news about for the last month, something he has nothing to do with. (But if you want to ask why, then, is item #14 still here — Shepherd intended the needle, and I felt it. Ouch.)”

I also have corrected Shepherd’s name in item #14. The apology is repeated here in today’s Scroll because not many people are going to see the changes made in a three-day-old post.

(3) SHARON LEE UPDATE. Author Sharon Lee, who lost her husband Steve Miller earlier this week, answers four questions on her readers’ and friends’ minds in “Sunday in the new world”. Here’s an excerpt (questions 3 and 4 at the link).

So!  The first question —  Will I be continuing the Liaden series?
Yes, it is my intention to continue writing in the Liaden Universe®, at least to the point of finishing out the remaining three books contracted with Baen.  There will be some changes in how things go forward, which are inevitable, given Circumstances.  Trade Lanes is off the table, at least for now.  It is possible that it will never be written, but — I’m new at this, so let’s just not say “never” and instead say “we’ll see.”

I’m about 1/3 of the way through the book following Ribbon Dance, and have Extensive Notes for the book after that.  The sequel is due at Baen in September.  The deadline may have to be renegotiated; I don’t know that yet — see “new at this,” above — and I’ll have to talk with Madames the Agent and the Publisher.

Question the Second:  How am I doing?
I have no idea.  I have moments of relative peace — work is going to be a refuge, I can already see that — moments of immobilizing terror, and breathtaking pain.  I’m assuming these things are standard, but I’ve never lost my best friend, spouse, and creative partner before.

The cats have been a comfort, piling on whenever I land in a place and stay still long enough.

Local friends have also been keeping an eye on me, to the extent that I allow it; it’s hard to ask for help, and I’m not Steve, who loved people and made connections the way the rest of us breathe.  I’m a more … private person, a fact that it will do us all good to remember, going forward.  If I’m testy, sarcastic, or clueless — recall that I’ve always been that way, and that Steve always did the heavy interpersonal lifting.

(4) GWENDA BOND & JOHN SCALZI AT JOSEPH BETH BOOKSELLERS. [Item by Chris Barkley.] On Saturday evening, Ohio-based New York Times bestselling sf author John Scalzi interviewed Kentucky-based New York Times bestselling author Gwenda Bond at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, Ohio.

For more than an hour, Mr. Scalzi quizzed Ms. Bond on what inspired her to write her latest novel, The Frame Up.

This new novel chronicles the adventures of Dani Poissant, an especially talented art thief who been approached for a special job. The problem? The crew hates her for turning in their former leader, her mother…

Be assured, it will be a magical journey for all involved and in more ways than one.

Mr. Scalzi also sold a few books as well.

John Scalzi and Gwenda Bond

(5) AGENT OF CHANGE. Victoria Strauss has advice for “Coping With Scams: Suggestions for Changing Your Mindset” at Writer Beware.

…My standard advice for how to cope with the prevalence of scams is to educate yourself: learn as much as possible about publishing and self-publishing–and do it before you start trying to snag an agent, or querying publishers, or assessing self-publishing platforms and service providers. The more you know about how things should work, the easier it will be to recognize bad practice when you encounter it. (The Writer Beware website is a good place to start.)

But it’s not just about being prepared with adequate knowledge. Mindset is also important: your default assumptions about, and responses to, the people and situations you encounter along your publication journey. Such expectations can help you, or they can hinder you–like my writer friend, whose bad experiences caused them to conclude, falsely, that no one can be trusted….

(6) MINORITY REPORT THE STAGE PLAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] BBC’s Radio 4 Front Row the other day devoted over a third of the programme to a new stage play adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story Minority Report.

The new adaptation shifts the action to Brit Cit London and the play features special effects and illusions to convey the future tech and mind games.  The show’s director said that when the Tom Cruise film (2002, Hugo short-listed in case you forgot) came out it was all pretty much science fiction. However, he opines, with recent advances in artificial intelligence and neurobiology it seems more plausible.

You can access the programme here. You will need to jump to about halfway through.

Minority report, the Sci-Fi classic by Philip K Dick, has already been adapted for film and television and now it’s a stage play that employs an innovative mix of technology, stagecraft and live performance. As it opens at the Nottingham Playhouse, Mark Burman talks to some of the creatives involved.

See also the Nottingham Playhouse website, “Minority Report”, the source of these photos.

(7) KENNETH MITCHELL (1974-2024). “Kenneth Mitchell, Star Trek and Captain Marvel actor, dies aged 49” — the Guardian pays tribute.

Canadian actor Kenneth Mitchell, known for roles in Star Trek: Discovery and the Marvel film Captain Marvel, has died following complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

Mitchell, who was 49-years-old, died on Saturday, according to a statement released by his verified Instagram account.

“With heavy hearts we announce the passing of Kenneth Alexander Mitchell, beloved father, husband, brother, uncle, son and dear friend to many,” the statement said.

“For five and a half years Ken faced a series of awful challenges from ALS. And in truest Ken fashion, he managed to rise above each one with grace and commitment to living a full and joyous life in each moment,” it added….

The Hollywood Reporter adds these details:

…Mitchell played four characters across three seasons of Paramount’s Star Trek: Discovery: Kol, Kol-Sha, Tenavik and Aurellio. He also portrayed a young Captain Marvel’s father in a flashback in Marvel’s Captain Marvel and World War II flyer Deke Slayton in ABC’s The Astronaut Wives Club….

(8) BRIAN STABLEFORD (1948-2024). British academic and critic Brian Stableford, author of over 70 novels, died February 24 at the age of 75. His Wikipedia article includes a long list of work by this prolific writer and editor.

He graduated with a degree in biology from the University of York in 1969 before going on to do postgraduate research in biology and later in sociology. In 1979 he received a PhD with a doctoral thesis on The Sociology of Science Fiction.

Brian Stableford

The Science Fiction Encyclopedia says he began his writing career in his teens, collaborating with a schoolfriend, Craig A Mackintosh (writing together as Brian Craig), on his first published story, “Beyond Time’s Aegis” for Science Fantasy #78 in 1965; much expanded, it was eventually published in book form as Firefly: A Novel of the Far Future (1994).

He won the IAFA Distinguished Scholarship Award in 1987, the Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to sff scholarship in 1999, and a SF&F Translations special award in 2011. He won a 1985 Eaton Award for best critical book with Scientific Romance in Britain: 1890-1950. His article “How Should a Science Fiction Story End?” (The New York Review of Science Fiction #78 Feb 1995) received SFRA’s Pioneer Award in 1996.

His book The Empire of Fear won a 1989 Lord Ruthven award for fiction about vampires. His short fiction “The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires”  won a BSFA Award in 1996.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 25, 1971 — Sean Astin, 53. Let’s talk about Sean Astin who played Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of The Rings films. I’ll admit that he was one of my favorite hobbits in the trilogy and Sean did a sterling job of bringing his character to life here, didn’t he? I’ll also admit that I’d completely forgotten that he wasn’t in The Hobbit as in I tend to think that the hobbits that were there are all in the trilogy.

Before The Lord of The Rings, he showed in his first film playing Mikey Walsh in The Goonies. No, not genre (remember My Birthday Write-up, my rules what gets included here) but a really fine YA treasure hunt adventure in which everyone has fun. Well not everyone.

He has a lead role in Toy Soldiers, a film I still have an odd fond spot for,  as  William “Billy” Tepper. Damn I liked those toy soldiers. I even had some of the action figures a long time ago.

Ray Bradbury and Sean Astin in 2009

He was Stuart Conway in a film named after a time travel device called Slipstream that was stolen by a group of bank robbers. Might be interesting to see.

He voiced Shazam in a pair of animated DC films, Justice League: War and Justice League: Atlantis, almost proving there are too many DC animated films. Oops, they did prove that amply as there’s another one, a Lego one he did.

In the Department of Films That I Never Knew Existed Off Novels I Never Knew Were Written is Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic, which proves how prolific he was or how bad my memory is, at any rate Sean is Twoflower here. 

Dorothy and the Witches of Oz is a 2012 series of a decade ago apparently covered The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ozma of Oz, The Road to Oz and The Magic of Oz. Somewhere in there, he was Frack Muckadoo, a servant of Princess Langwidere.

I think the last thing I’ll mention is that he showed up in a brief recurring role on The Big Bang Theory as Dr. Greg Pemberton, one of a team of Fermi-Lab physicists who accidentally confirmed the Super-Asymmetry paper published by Sheldon and Amy. Wasn’t that an amazingly fantastic series? 

Yes, there’s other kibbles and bits which I’m sure you’ll point out, but I need tea now. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Bizarro brings the litigious spirit to fairy tale land.

(11) AUCTION. Propstore’s “Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction: Los Angeles 2024” runs March 12-14. Lots of stuff you’ll recognize in their online catalog. Here’s one example:

(12) THE 1982 LAWS OF ROBOTICS. “Isaac Asimov Predicts the Future in 1982: Computers Will Be ‘at the Center of Everything;’ Robots Will Take Human Jobs” at Open Culture.

…As for “the computer age,” asks Jim Lehrer; “have we crested on that one as well”? Asimov knew full well that the computer would be “at the center of everything.” Just as had happened with television over the previous generation, “computers are going to be necessary in the house to do a great many things, some in the way of entertainment, some in the way of making life a little easier, and everyone will want it.” There were many, even then, who could feel real excitement at the prospect of such a future. But what of robots, which, as even Asimov knew, would come to “replace human beings?”

“It’s not that they kill them, but they kill their jobs,” he explains, and those who lose the old jobs may not be equipped to take on any of the new ones. “We are going to have to accept an important role — society as a whole — in making sure that the transition period from the pre-robotic technology to the post-robotic technology is as painless as possible. We have to make sure that people aren’t treated as though they’re used up dishrags, that they have to be allowed to live and retain their self-respect.” Today, the technology of the moment is artificial intelligence, which the news media haven’t hesitated to pay near-obsessive attention to. (I’m traveling in Japan at the moment, and saw just such a broadcast on my hotel TV this morning.) Would that they still had an Asimov to discuss it with a level-headed, far-sighted perspective….

(13) THERE’S A LEGO SALE, STEP ON IT! “A rare LEGO piece found at PA Goodwill set to sell for over $18K” reports Yahoo!

Bidding on a rare 14-karat gold LEGO piece has come to a close and the item sold for much more than expected.

The piece called the Bionicle Golden Kanohi Hau Mask, which sold for $18,101, was found by workers at a warehouse in DuBois, Pennsylvania, and is believed to be only one of 30 that exist. In 2001, some were gifted to LEGO employees, while the rest were awarded through a contest.

When the rare LEGO was found no one really knew what it was, the item was posted on shopgoodwill.com for just $14.95. Little did they know what someone would pay for it.

“The final bid was $18,101. The second-highest bid was $18,100,” said Chad Smith, Vice President of E-commerce and Technology for Goodwill Industries of North Central PA….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “’Borderlands’ Trailer Sees Cate Blanchett Hunt For Treasure On Scorned Planet”. Deadline sets the frame:

…[The] Borderlands movie follows Lilith (Blanchett), an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, who reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful S.O.B., Atlas (Edgar Ramirez).

Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland (Kevin Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector, Krieg; Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Jack Black), a persistently wiseass robot. These unlikely heroes must then battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power….

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, 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 Lis Carey.]

Pixel Scroll 2/21/24 Born Of Scroll And Pixel?

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(1) NOT A NEW PHENOMENON. [Item by Anne Marble.] If the article quoted in Seanan McGuire’s thread is any indication, the people marketing “romantasy” seem to think they’re the first to publish fantasy novels for women. Or maybe they know better — but they don’t care because they’re trying to market romantasy/romantic fantasy.  Bluesky thread starts here.

(2) WELCOME TO DYSTOPIA. Like Abigail Nussbaum says in her headline: “The 2023 Hugo Awards: Somehow, It Got Worse” at Asking the Wrong Questions.

… I’m going to say this again, because it is so shocking that it seems to have taken a lot of people some time to grasp the enormity of it: hundreds, perhaps even thousands of valid, legal nominating ballots were dropped from the final nominating stats, apparently under the pretext of having represented a slate, even though slates are perfectly legal under the Hugo rules. This was done on the orders of the Hugo administrator, with apparently no outside input or discussion, and appears to have elicited so little response from the Hugo team that they are casually mentioning it as if it’s nothing. If these numbers are correct, it’s entirely possible that the whole Hugo ballot should have looked completely different, and that none of the eventual winners in the fiction categories should have even been nominated.

What this means is that the entire 2023 Hugo scandal is something completely different from what we’ve understood it as during the last month. Appalling as it is, the choice to screen English-language nominees for ideological compatibility may, in fact, be a sideshow to the real scandal, which is that hundreds of Chinese voters have been disenfranchised. And—barring even more revelations—this disenfranchisement cannot be blamed on PRC sensibilities and censorship. I truly doubt that it was in the interest of China, or the Chinese business interests who took over Worldcon, to remove Chinese-language nominees from last year’s Hugo ballot. This decision came from the American and Canadian staffers who made up the English-language Hugo team, many of them Worldcon volunteers of long standing.

In this context, it is infuriating to recall just how quickly the response to our original sense of what this scandal was turned to anti-democratic measures and calls to limit the power of rank-and-file Worldcon members. “Elections have consequences!” crowed the people who are still pissed they weren’t allowed to steal the site selection vote in 2021, while others called to limit site selection to those with “skin in the game”—read, those with the wherewithal to travel to US-based conventions. But as it turns out, the call was coming from inside the house. This was never a China problem. It’s an us problem. If the allegations that are now emerging claiming that McCarty has behaved this way in the past, and also harassed other Worldcon staffers, are to be believed (and there is certainly more than enough reason to believe them at this point), it’s a profound failure on the part of Worldcon and its membership to police toxic members, which has now blown up in all our faces….

(3) TCHAIKOVSKY’S STATEMENT ABOUT 2023 HUGO. His Children of Time was announced as winner of the 2023 Best Series Hugo, however, after all the revelations “Adrian Tchaikovsky Will No Longer Cite His 2023 Hugo”.

There are many reasonable points of view about how to deal with the awards. File 770’s goal is to support and respect the recipients’ decisions.

Another author, Samantha Mills, recently made a decision comparable to Tchaikovsky’s, in a blog post titled “’Rabbit Test’ unwins the Hugo”. 

(4) THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING. The Hugo Awards scandal has even made it into Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter – “Litteraturpris valde bort kinesiska författare”. The article is behind a paywall, though that’s honestly only a problem if you read Swedish.

(5) RAH VS. PKD. Giant Freakin Robot, in “The Sci-Fi Master Whose Work Has Been Ignored By Hollywood, And That Needs To Change”, feels Robert A. Heinlein deserves the kind of cinematic attention given to Philip K. Dick. (Survey says – *bzzzt*! “Wrong!”)

…Hollywood has had an ongoing love affair with the works of Phillip K. Dick for decades now. Sometimes it’s a healthy relationship, giving us masterworks such as Blade Runner. Sometimes it’s downright abusive when it produces flicks like Screamers or Paycheck. And sometimes it splits the difference and serves up enjoyable silliness such as Total Recall.

Still, as many times as the movies have returned to Dick’s catalog, you’d think he was the only SF writer out there. We all know better, of course, and pretty much any SF fan has their dream list of books they’d love to see brought to the silver screen.

If Hollywood really wants to freshen things up, they should take a closer look at the work of Robert A. Heinlein….

(6) BANNED FROM THE HIGHWAY. [Item by Dann.] Remember when non-genre magazines used to publish SFF stories?

Every automobile begins as the sparkle in someone’s eye. In 1981, Neil Peart and his Rush bandmates introduced the world to a Red Barchetta. Saved in an old white-haired uncle’s barn. A relic from before the Motor Law being chased down by gleaming alloy air cars before being saved by a one-lane bridge

But before that, it was an old MGB roadster. Rendered obsolete by wave after wave of modern automobile safety standards had made surviving car crashes not only likely but predictable. The drivers of the newly designed cars expected to walk away from accidents unscathed. As a result, drivers of these Modern Safety Vehicles began targeting older vehicles leaving them in mangled heaps. Those driving older cars were likely to be left in a similarly mangled condition. The price for driving a classic. And so the driver of the old MGB engages in a race for his life pursued by a pair of MSVs.

The story was “A Nice Morning Drive“. It was written by Richard S. Foster and first published in the November 1973 issue of Road & Track magazine. Neil Peart had encountered the story and was inspired to re-tell it in a more distant future where automobiles were banned. It appeared in 1981 on the quintessential RUSH album, Moving Pictures as the second track, “Red Barchetta“.

The band had tried to contact Richard, but R&T no longer had his current address. They did add a credit note referencing the original story in the liner notes.

It was many years later before a friend pointed out that Neil had been inspired by Richard’s story. And it was a few years after that when Richard began corresponding with Neil. The two eventually planned a motorcycle ride along the East Coast. It turns out that they both owned the same model motorcycle, the BMW R1200GS.

As a footnote, Moving Pictures came out in my junior year of high school when I took an advanced composition class. At some point, a red car entered into the zeitgeist of my classmates. The model would shift to suit the moods and tastes of various authors. Sometimes it was only glimpsed under a protective tarp. Other times it would it would fly along country roads kicking up a stream of fall leaves. Our automobile appreciations lasted about a month before our teacher put a firm but kindly end to our vehicular ruminations.

(7) BACK IN ACTION. Nancy Collins’ February 19 update to her GoFundMe backers is good news indeed: “Fundraiser by Nancy Collins : What Doesn’t Kill Me Leaves Me With Medical Bills”.

I want to take a moment to thank all of you once again for the great kindness and generosity you have shown me in the recent weeks and also update you on my current status and plans.

This coming weekend (February 23rd-25th) I will be a guest at Pensacon 2024 in Pensacola, FL. My doctor says I’m in good enough health to travel as long as I continue to pace myself and take my meds and supplements. And, to be blunt, I can’t afford to pass up what is likely my only comic con appearance for the foreseeable future. So if any of you who have donated are at the convention this coming weekend, please stop by so I can thank you in person. My good friend, Adam–who is the one who talked me into going to the ER instead of gutting it out another 24 hours–will be driving me there and back, as well as helping set-up and run my merchandise table for the weekend, so I have reliable support with me.

I have 3 more weeks, more or less, of blood thinners twice a day ahead of me before I get an idea of whether or not the blood clots were a one-off event or a symptom of something more serious. Until I know one way or another, I will be staying close to home. However, I still plan to be at the Outer Dark Writer’s Symposium in Atlanta next month, health permitting.

(8) LEE AND MILLER PHOTO. Following yesterday’s announcement of Steve Miller’s death, Andrew Porter sent File 770 his photo of the Steve and Sharon at Book Expo.

(9) MARK MERLINO DIES. Mark Merlino, one of the early founders of organized Anime and Furry fandoms in North America, died February 20 at age 71. He suffered a stroke in December, then was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer about two weeks ago. 

Merlino was known for organizing ConFurence, the very first furry convention, which laid the groundwork for the community’s expansion and visibility. His influential role was also recognized in the documentary feature The Fandom, showcasing his significant contributions.

Mark Merlino in 2006.

(10) RICHARD MATHEWS (1944-2024). Scholar Douglas Anderson pays tribute to a colleague in “R.I.P. Richard Mathews (1944-2024)” at Tolkien and Fantasy.

I just googled to see if my old friend Richard Mathews was still the Director of the University of Tampa Press, only to find out that he died last month.

I met him at the 1987 Mythcon in Milwaukee, where we both appeared on a panel on David Lindsay. We found we had many common interests. Richard had published, with Borgo Press, a short book on Tolkien, Lightning from a Clear Sky (1978), and other short books on William Morris and Brian Aldiss. His most notable work was the Twayne volume Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination (1997; reissued in 2012), which was filled with insights despite the somewhat odd structure of the book (presumably imposed upon him as part of the series it was in). Richard also contributed introductions to some of the William Morris reprints for the Newcastle fantasy series in the 1970s…. 

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 21, 1946 — Alan Rickman. (Died 2016.) The first time I saw Alan Rickman was in the decidedly not-genre role of German terrorist leader Hans Gruber in Die Hard, a film that’s still high on my list of great thriller films. Great role for him, too. It was amazingly his first film role.

He would won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I actually did see that film. No, I’ll never watch again. Simon R. Green’s publicist tells me he made a lot of money for writing the novelization. 

Rickman went on to play the wizard Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. I can’t say I cared for the character but I don’t think we were supposed to. I never got beyond a hundred pages in the first novel before I gave up reading it, but loved the films. 

While in the film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the GalaxyWarwick Davis played Marvin, the android who was clinically depressed and in the novels I thought a royal pain in the ass, it was Alan Rickman who actually voiced the character.

He also voiced Absolem, the Caterpillar in an odd version of Alice in Wonderland. Look it up. Trust me, it’s weird.

And yes, I saved the best first last for last which as you already know is his role in the Hugo Award winning Galaxy Quest which is by far his best genre role. Alexander Dane is a Shakesperean actor who resents his character  Dr. Lazarus, the ship’s science officer. His catch phrase? Oh, you know that by heart.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

  • Macanudo shows who really was entitled to say, “How wude!!”

(13) ALL IN THE FOUND FAMILY. [Item by Steven French.] How the story of the ‘Hopkinsville goblins’ led to ET, Gremlins and a bunch of other movies! “The Long, Surprising Legacy of the Hopkinsville Goblins” at Atlas Obscura.

…THE STORY COMES TO US from the local newspaper Kentucky New Era, which, on August 22, 1955, reported strange goings-on the previous night, eight miles north of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. At about 11:00 pm, two cars arrived at the local police station, blasting out of the night filled with at least five adults and several children, all of whom were highly agitated. “We need help,” they told the police. “We’ve been fighting them for nearly four hours.”

Once they’d calmed down enough to talk, they unfurled a strange story. One of the men, Billy Ray Taylor, had been visiting from Pennsylvania. At one point, he went outside to fetch water from the farm’s well. As he walked through the failing light, he saw a circular-shaped object hover through the air before coming to rest in a nearby gully…

… Concerned, Taylor retreated inside and returned with a shotgun to investigate. As he walked into the gloom, a strange, goblin-like thing with glowing eyes appeared and moved toward him. It had “huge eyes,” and hands out of proportion with its body, and looked to be wearing some kind of “metal plate.” Taylor retreated to the house yet again and grabbed a .22 caliber pistol, while Lucky Sutton grabbed a shotgun and joined him.

A creature—whether it was the same one, they didn’t know—appeared in the window, and Sutton unloaded his shotgun at it, blowing out the window screen. When they went outside to see if they’d hit anything, Taylor felt a “huge hand” reach down from the low roof above and grab his hair….

(14) CARVING OUT A PLACE IN SPACE. “Japan to launch world’s first wooden satellite to combat space pollution” – the Guardian has the story.

The LignoSat probe has been built of magnolia wood, which, in experiments carried out on the International Space Station (ISS), was found to be particularly stable and resistant to cracking. Now plans are being finalised for it to be launched on a US rocket this summer.

The timber satellite has been built by researchers at Kyoto University and the logging company Sumitomo Forestry in order to test the idea of using biodegradable materials such as wood to see if they can act as environmentally friendly alternatives to the metals from which all satellites are currently constructed.

“All the satellites which re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles, which will float in the upper atmosphere for many years,” Takao Doi, a Japanese astronaut and aerospace engineer with Kyoto University, warned recently. “Eventually, it will affect the environment of the Earth.”…

(15) IT’S SUN-GRY. The Guardian reports — “Astronomers discover universe’s brightest object – a quasar powered by a black hole that eats a sun a day”. (“Feed me!”)

The brightest known object in the universe, a quasar 500tn times brighter than our sun, was “hiding in plain sight”, researchers say.

Australian scientists spotted a quasar powered by the fastest growing black hole ever discovered. Its mass is about 17bn times that of our solar system’s sun, and it devours the equivalent of a sun a day.

The light from the celestial object travelled for more than 12bn years to reach Earth….

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Animation Magazine encourages readers: “Watch: Prime Video Sneak Peeks ‘The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy’ in New Clip”. The series debuts February 23.

…In a new exclusive clip shared with Animation Magazine, we get an advance look at the premiere episode. The excerpt features Dr. Klak (Keke Palmer), Dr. Sleech (Stephanie Hsu), Dr. Vlam (Maya Rudolph) and Dr. Plowp (Kieran Culkin). In Season 1, doctors Sleech and Klak take on a highly dangerous and potentially groundbreaking case and, in doing so, put existence itself in jeopardy. (Although considering their dismal personal lives, oblivion might be an improvement.)…

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Taral Wayne, Rich Lynch, Anne Marble, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jeff Jones.]

Pixel Scroll 12/24/23 I’ve Got 99 Pixels But The Scroll Ain’t Fifth

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(1) WHAT HAPPENS IN TRISOLARIS — STAYS IN VEGAS. “Netflix to Stage ‘3 Body Problem’ Immersive Experience at CES 2024”. Variety tells what visitors at the Las Vegas event will encounter.

Next month, Netflix will have a booth on the main CES show floor for the first time — where it will stage an “immersive experience” for the “3 Body Problem,” the sci-fi drama series from “Game of Thrones” duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo.

The streamer’s exhibit space at CES 2024 will be located at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall, Booth #17048. Per Netflix’s description of the activation: “An otherworldly headset will transport CES attendees into the mysterious world of ‘3 Body Problem’ in a fun and experiential way, showcasing the series’ genre-bending high stakes.” The experience keys off a key narrative element in the “3 Body Problem” universe, in which a gaming headset is used by characters to transport into an unknown world.

In the wearable-display experience, CES attendees will be able to watch the series trailer for the very first time. And as they watch, Netflix says, “they are transported into an immersive, real-world extension of the series, revealing clues about the nature of the core threat in the ‘3 Body Problem.’”…

(2) BAD BUZZ ABOUT GOODREADS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The saga of Cait Corrain, et al., takes the lede in the Guardian story, “’It’s totally unhinged’: is the book world turning against Goodreads?”

For Bethany Baptiste, Molly X Chang, KM Enright, Thea Guanzon, Danielle L Jensen, Akure Phénix, RM Virtues and Frances White, it must have been brutal reading. All received scathing reviews on Goodreads, an online platform that reputedly has the power to make or break new authors.

But the verdicts were not delivered by an esteemed literary critic. They were the work of Cait Corrain, a debut author who used fake accounts to “review bomb” her perceived rivals. The literary scandal led to Corrain posting an apology, being dropped by her agent and having her book deal cancelled.

It also uncovered deeper questions about Goodreads, arguably the most popular site on which readers post book reviews, and its outsized impact on the publishing industry. Its members had produced 26m book reviews and 300m ratings over the past year, the site reported in October. But for some authors, it has become a toxic work environment that can sink a book before it is even published.

“It has a lot of influence because there are so many people now who are not in the New York ecosystem of publishing,” says Bethanne Patrick, a critic, author and podcaster. “Publishers and agents and authors and readers go to Goodreads to see what is everybody else looking at, what’s everyone else interested in? It has a tremendous amount of influence in the United States book world and reading world and probably more than some people wish it had.”

Goodreads allows users to review unpublished titles. Publishers frequently send advance copies to readers in exchange for online reviews that they hope will generate buzz. But in October, Goodreads acknowledged a need to protect the “authenticity” of ratings and reviews, encouraging users to report content or behaviour that breaches its guidelines.

Goodreads said: “Earlier this year, we launched the ability to temporarily limit submission of ratings and reviews on a book during times of unusual activity that violate our guidelines, including instances of ‘review bombing’. This kind of activity is not tolerated on Goodreads and it diminishes the community’s trust in people who participate.”…

(3) THE HAUNTENING. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] BBC Radio 4 has had a short comedy, thriller. When he gets a gift from his girlfriend, he does not realize that it is a deep fake powered by an artificial intelligence.  But the AI does not take well to criticism and things soon become personal… You can listen to it here. “The Hauntening”.

Travel through the bad gateway in this modern ghost story as writer and performer Tom Neenan discovers what horrors lurk in our apps and gadgets. In this episode, a celebrity birthday message from Joanna Lumley turns into a terrifying gift for Tom

Modern technology is terrifying. The average smartphone carries out three-point-three-six billion instructions per second. The average person can only carry out one instruction in that time. Stop and think about that for a second. Sorry, that’s two instructions – you won’t be able to do that.

But what if modern technology was… literally terrifying? What if there really was a ghost in the machine?

(4) POSTERIZED. Think of it as a start on next year’s shopping. Or simply a well-deserved gift for yourself.  “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (Millennium Records, 1977)” at Heritage Auctions. Bidding is only up to $16 at last look.

Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (Millennium Records, 1977). Very Fine on Linen. All English Language Japanese Record Store Poster (20.25″ X 29.25″) Robert Rodriquez Artwork.

Even though its films take place in a galaxy far, far away, the Star Wars franchise has connected with audiences since the original film’s release in 1977. 20th Century Fox had no idea that the film would resonate so much with fans, so when George Lucas agreed to pass up a $500,000 directing bonus to attain merchandising rights, it seemed safe for the studio to do. However, Lucas, who had seen the merchandising blitz that came with his good friend Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, knew well the power that films had on consumers. George Lucas’ imagination led to a licensing goldmine of action figures, play sets, posters, board games, books, trading cards, costumes, and more. It’s been 45 years since Star Wars hit the screen, and the franchise has raked in over $29 billion in merchandise sales alone. Much more than the Joseph Campbell hero’s journey set in a space opera, the retail and promotional items made in conjunction with this multi-faceted property have brought tremendous joy to fans worldwide and remain coveted among collectors. The characters, the settings, and the galaxy continue to be beloved by Force believers, and here we present an extensive treasure trove of rare items dating from 1977 to today. May the Force be with you!

Offered in this lot is a rare all-English language Japanese record store poster for Meco’s best-selling album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, which reworked the Star Wars score into a disco and jazz fusion medley. A restored poster with bright color and a clean overall appearance. Minor touchup and color touchup is applied to several creases. Grades on all restored items are pre-restoration grades.

(5) VISION QUESTS. Deadline studies the rapid advancement in animation effects in “’Across The Spider-Verse’, ‘Nimona’ & ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ VFX”.

… Since the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was awarded in 2002 to DreamWorks’ Shrek, the animation industry has made incredible strides. This awards season, such films are pushing the boundaries of what animation can be, and VFX plays a huge part in infusing new artistic styles into every frame….

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse pushed the animated comic book style of the 2018 film even further with six new, distinct worlds and a visually complex villain. 

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse amazed everyone in 2018 with an interpretation of animated comics, and set a bar for what animation could look like. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse exceeded expectations with the introduction of six new worlds, each with a new style of animation. While these were all challenging in their own way, VFX supervisor Mike Lasker says the most challenging aspect of the film was the new villain, the Spot. 

“This was the culmination of every tool in our toolbox we had created over the course of production,” he says. “We had a lot of great reference paintings of him, and there were all these different, dark and evil sorts of purples and ink splattering off of him as he moved his limbs.” Using 2D tools integrated into the 3D animation software, Lasker’s team was able to add hand-drawn ink lines, paint strokes, distortion, and more to create the final look. “We ended up using the stroke system, ink splatter coming off the layers, heavy compositing, lighting, paint strokes—every area of the pipeline was involved.”

Lasker says look supervisor Craig Feifarek was an essential part of creating the final look of the Spot. “Craig actually lit and composited all of these shots,” he says. “He did a great job, but also the animation department did an amazing job prototyping how the Spot acts in the last shots of the film. They were able to create all these crazy flash frames… I look at this now and I’m still in awe of what they’ve done.”

(6) HERE’S MY NUMBER AND A DIME. Slashfilm says “A Chance Run-In With Ray Bradbury Helped Bring Blade Runner To The Big Screen”.

…Paul M. Sammon’s “Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner” provides an in-depth look at the genesis of “Blade Runner” and details Fancher’s attempts to seek out [Philip K. Dick] the man behind “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Unfortunately, the search was proving fruitless at first, with Fancher claiming “it was just about impossible to learn anything about him.” The writer, eager to get going on a script, took a trip to New York in search of the mysterious author’s agents, who turned out to be unhelpful.

What happened next was complete luck, according to Fancher, who ended up “accidentally” running into an author not dissimilar to Dick: the legendary author Ray Bradbury. The man responsible for sci-fi classics such as “Fahrenheit 451” and “The Martian Chronicles” handed Fancher a lifeline during their chance encounter. Flipping through his address book, he found Philip K. Dick’s home phone number and promptly handed it over to Fancher.

As the future co-writer of the “Blade Runner” script recalled: “the next day, in fact, I called Phil about the book and we set up an appointment to meet in his apartment.” The two spoke at Dick’s Santa Ana home where they are said to have gotten along well despite Fancher sensing some “manic” and “self-reverential” tendencies in the author, who seemed initially wary of any Hollywood treatment of his novels….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born December 24, 1910 — Fritz Leiber. (Died 1992.) Now in Birthdays we come to the matter of Fritz Leiber.

Fritz Leiber. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

Warning: this is my list of favorite works by him, not a definitive look at him. 

I’ll  start with The Big Time as it has long been my favorite work by him, and I must say that it has magnificently held up over the years. No Suck Fairy has dared approach it lest she turn to dust on the winds of the Change Wars. 

First published sixty-two years ago as a novel by Ace Books, The Big Time started out as a two part-serial in Galaxy Magazine‘s in the March and April 1958 issues. It would win the Hugo Award for Best Novel or Novelette at Solacon. 

It was well-received with Algis Budrys liking it but he noted it was more of a play than an actual novel. One set, a small number of actors — perfect to be staged.

There were also the Change War stories, collected in Snakes & Spiders: The Definitive Change War Collection, published by Creative Minority Productions which I can’t say I’ve ever heard of. It is available from the usual suspects. And yes, I just got a copy as I can still read short stories fine even if novels are long beyond me. 

Next up without question are that barbarian and thief duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Leiber wrote it as a counterpoint he says in part to such characters as Conan the Barbarian, and I for one like them very much better. I think I’ve read all them, and they’re certainly his most entertaining writing by far.

I really like Conjure Wife which was awarded the Retro Hugo Award at Dublin 2019. A most delicious take on the premise that all women are witches, and told all so well. 

Yes, I like his short stories by I can’t remember which are my favorite ones other than the Change 

That’s my list of favorite Leiber works, what’s yours?

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Tom Gauld sends help to those hunting for last-minute gifts.

(9) AFTER THE CALAMITY. [Item by Steven French.] Read Jeff Vander Meer “On Sven Holm’s Novella of Nuclear Disaster” in The Paris Review. The post-apocalyptic story Termush,  originally published in 1967, was reissued earlier this year with a foreword by Vander Meer:

…In its treatment of the aftermath of nuclear war, Termush distinguishes itself from the so-called disaster cozies of the fifties, like the novels of John Wyndham, to occupy more urgent territory. In this genre, the dangers of some calamitous situation become entwined with an almost cheery disaster-tourism tone; more importantly, civilization always wins in the end, even if in an altered form. The militias may hold sway for a while, or the plague lay waste to whole towns, but by the novel’s close, equilibrium and balance, logic and order, always return to human endeavors. Not so much in Termush, which also eludes, through its particular focus and narrative velocity, echoes of Cold War conflict that otherwise might have dated the novella. Instead of a pervading sense of “the other” about to storm the gates, Holm delves into the psychology of the holed-up survivors and the hazards of societal breakdown….

… The right excerpt from Termush could easily have appeared in New Worlds, the seminal sixties magazine for the New Wave…

(10) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George takes us inside the “Wish Pitch Meeting”.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, 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 Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 9/25/23 It Was The Filer In The Scroll With The Candlestick

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(1) PKD COMING TO THE STAGE. “Minority Report drama to feature in Lyric Hammersmith’s ‘really bold’ spring lineup” reports the Guardian. Olav Rokne says, “All I want is for this to be a musical.”

A female-led adaptation of the science fiction blockbuster Minority Report is among a new season of works at London’s Lyric Hammersmith theatre, announced on Monday, placing women at its centre.

Steven Spielberg’s film, about a predictive near-future criminal justice dystopia, was based on a Philip K Dick story and starred Tom Cruise as the pre-crime chief who becomes a fugitive. The play, however, makes the hunted hero a female neuroscientist called Dame Julia Anderton. Set in 2050 and adapted by David Haig, it is produced by the Olivier award-winning team behind Life of Pi, and directed by Max Webster.

The theatre’s artistic director, Rachel O’Riordan, says the play, opening in April, will use “the most cutting-edge technology there is” for its visual effects and ambitious design concept….

(2) YOUR GO BAG. Colulmnist Emma Beddington poses a question in the Guardian: “What’s in your go bag for the apocalypse?”

The author Lauren Groff has become a prepper. “I think everyone should have a go bag right now,” she told National Public Radio (NPR) in the US. “I think every household should have enough food to last through at least two weeks. This is just logical at this point.”

Groff lives in Florida, where dangerously extreme weather has become a fact of life – we’re lucky enough to be spared that in the UK, at least for now. But as a semi-professional catastrophist – one apocalyptic sandwich board short of full doom-monger status – am I missing a trick? Should I have a go bag and what should go in it?…

(3) CHENGDU WORLDCON UPDATE. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]

These include more mundane images of what I assume is the surrounding area, including a light rail station and signage.

It’s not completely clear to me what exactly this is – it seems that several of the organizations involved in the behind-the-scenes promotion of the con are doing some interviews with science and SF people from around the world.  When these interviews might appear, and whether they’ll be text articles, videos, or something else, doesn’t seem to be stated.

Perhaps it’s also worth noting that this is the second Worldcon related article I’ve seen in as many days that namechecks Xi Jinping…

(4) HWA LATINX Q&A. The Horror Writers Association blog continues its “Latinx Heritage in Horror” series in “Interview with Luisa Colón”.

What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?

Writing horror has really brought me to a place of peace and acceptance of myself that I’ve never had before. There is a tendency for a lot of people to suppress pain, dark thoughts, and traumatic experiences, both in themselves and in others. “Try not to dwell on it,” “Don’t be so morbid,” “Why do you want to put depressing stuff out into the world?” I’ve heard it all, and it all boils down to “Don’t be yourself because being yourself is the wrong way to be.” Talk about chronic invalidation! Now suddenly I feel like I have a place in this world where I belong, where it’s okay to be me—more than okay. And that has taught me something not just about myself but about the world around me.

(5) UPDATED ASIMOV BIBLIOGRAPHY. Steven Cooper has released a revised version of his “An Annotated Asimov Bibliography”.

The files linked below are the end result of a project I have been working on at intervals since July 2017, with the object of compiling as complete an account as possible of the works of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). The original edition (running to 676 pages) was released just before what would have been his one-hundredth birthday: January 2, 2020. The reaction from others was gratifyingly positive, but comments from my correspondents also highlighted a number of inaccuracies, missing items, and various other deficiencies that prevented the bibliography from being quite as definitive as I had hoped. A minor update was made in March 2020 in response to some of this feedback, but the larger issues remained unaddressed. These, along with the uncovering of a great deal of further information that was not available to me earlier, clearly showed the need for a thorough revision.

Three and a half years later, the revision is finally complete, resulting in a new edition nearly a third longer than the original. Of course, not all of this increased page count represents items that were missed in the original edition, though there are several dozen such additions, and hundreds of previously unknown reprint publications have been added. The index of periodical publications (Part IV) is now expanded to include newspaper publications as well as magazines, and the provision of new page-based indexes throughout fixes a serious shortcoming of the original edition. The format of the individual catalogue entries has also been improved, notably in the documenting of alternate titles, excerpts and abridgements, and non-Asimov variants (there is also a new introductory section providing a detailed description of the catalogue entries’ format and features). Finally, the addition of running section headings and PDF bookmarks should significantly enhance the usability of the new edition….

(6) TRAINED ON STOLEN BOOKS. Today authors have been using a searchable database at The Atlantic to see if their books are part of the Books3 collection used to train AI. Although this gift link will take you to the article, neither of the browsers I used to read it would bring up the search tool. Don’t ask me why. “These 183,000 Books Are Fueling the Biggest Fight in Publishing and Tech”. But here are a couple of responses authors have posted to X.

https://twitter.com/JMReynolds/status/1706406256733290516

(7) WE CONTROL THE VERTICAL. GoldDerby’s Susan King celebrates as “’The Outer Limits’ turns 60”.

Where were you Sept. 16, 1963? If you were a self-respecting baby boomer, sci-fi nerd or an intellectual intrigued by the subject matter, you probably were in front of the television to watch the premiere of ABC’s thought-provoking and often terrifying anthology series “The Outer Limits.”…

As a matter of fact, that’s exactly where I was that night.

… The series was especially meaningful to writer Joseph Stefano, who is best known for his screenplay for “Psycho,” who produced the first season of “The Outer Limits,” as well as penning 12 episodes…

…I talked to Stefano about my favorite episode “The Man Who Was Never Born,” starring Landau and Knight in which a transmuted human of the future travels back to 1963 to stop the birth of a scientist who creates a bacterium that will turn humanity into mutants. While on earth he uses hypnosis to transform into a handsome, perfectly normal human. He soon finds himself in love with the young woman who will become the mother of the scientist. “”The Terminator’ was taken from that,” Stefano noted. “Anthony Lawrence wrote that. It was one of the most beautiful shows we did. I had a trick of saying, ‘let’s do a haircut’ on something, like let’s do a haircut on ‘Beauty and the Beast.’  Landau loved the part, he noted, because he got to be the horrendous mutant “and at the same time look very handsome and be loved.”…

(8) DAVID MCCALLUM (1933-2023). Actor David McCallum, known especially for his work on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and NCIS, died September 25 reports The Wrap.

David McCallum

[McCallum], who played Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard on CBS procedural “NCIS” and Illya Kuryakin on ’60s series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E,” has died at 90….

After moving to America in 1961, he was cast in the role of Russian agent Illya Kuryakin in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E,” a role that earned him two Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe nod. He went on to star in films including “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” “The Great Escape,” “Billy Budd,” “Freud” and “A Night to Remember.”

In the ’70s, he headlined the series “The Invisible Man,” later appearing in the BBC Mystery! “Motherlove,” as well as episodes of “The Outer Limits,” “Law & Order” and “Sex and the City.”…

And The Hollywood Reporter reminds us:

…McCallum also starred opposite Joanna Lumley for four seasons on the 1979-82 British sci-fi series Sapphire & Steel (she was Sapphire, he was Steel) — a show many see as a precursor to The X-Files …

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 25, 1919 — Betty Ballantine. With her husband Ian, she created Bantam Books in 1945 and established Ballantine Books seven years later. They won one special World Fantasy Award for professional work in 1975 and another one shared with Joy Chant et al for The High Kings which is indeed an amazing work. ISFDB list one novel for her, The Secret Oceans, which I’ve not read. Anyone here done so? (Died 2019.)
  • Born September 25, 1930 — Shel Silverstein. Yes we’ve decided in previous Scrolls that he’s genre. I’m fond of his poetry collection Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree. (No, I don’t think the relationship between them is abusive.) I’ll also note here A Light in the Attic if only because it’s been on “oh my we must ban it now attempts” all too often. Oh, and I’d be remiss not to note he wrote Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue”. Why would I be remiss? Just because. (Died 1999.)
  • Born September 25, 1932 — J. Hunter Holly. Her various book dedications showed she had a strong love of cats. I’ve not encountered her novels but she wrote a fair number of them including ten genre novels plus The Assassination Affair, a novel in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. franchise. Only The Flying Eyes novel by her is available from the usual digital suspects. (Died 1982.)
  • Born September 25, 1946 — Felicity Kendal, 77. She plays Lady Clemency Eddison in the the Tenth Doctor story, “The Unicorn and The Wasp”, one of my favorite Who tales which I reviewed at Green Man here. She played Baroness Ortsey in the Pennyworth series. And though it’s definitely really not genre, I’m noting her role in Shakespeare-Wallah, story of a family troupe of English actors in India, just because it’s a fascinating story.
  • Born September 25, 1951 — Mark Hamill, 72. I’ll confess that my favorite role of his is when he voices The Joker in the DC Universe. He started doing this way back on Batman: The Animated Series and has even doing on other such series as well. Pure comic genius! Oh, and did you know he voices Chucky in a Child’s Play film? Now that’s creepy.
  • Born September 25, 1952 — Christopher Reeve. Superman in the Superman film franchise. He appeared in the Smallville series as Dr. Swann in the episodes “Rosetta” and “Legacy”. His Muppet Show appearance has him denying to Miss Piggy that he’s Superman though he displays those superpowers throughout that entire episode. (Died 2004.)
  • Born September 25, 1961 — Heather Locklear, 62. Her first genre role was Victoria ‘Vicky’ Tomlinson McGee in Stephen King’s Firestarter followed by being Abby Arcane in The Return of Swamp Thing. She was also Dusty Tails in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. She’s had one-offs in Tales of the Unexpected, Fantasy Island, Muppets Tonight and she voiced Lisa Clarkson in the “Prophecy of Doom” episode on Batman: The Animated Series.
  • Born September 25, 1977 — Clea DuVall, 46. A long genre history if we include horror (and I most gleefully do) — Little Witches, Sleeping Beauties, Ghosts of Mars and How to Make a Monster. Series appearances include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a main role on Carnivàle as Sofie Agnesh Bojakshiya (loved that series), a recurring role as Audrey Hanson on Heroes, and though we didn’t see it, she was in the unsold television pilot for the never to be Virtuality series as Sue Parsons, she had a recurring role in American Horror Story: Asylum as Wendy Peyser, and finally another recurring role in The Handmaid’s Tale as Sylvia.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) SCORSESE Q&A. “Martin Scorsese: Christopher Nolan Can Combat Comic Book Movies” says the director in a Variety interview.

In a sprawling new profile with GQ, director Martin Scorsese discussed comic book and franchise culture, a topic which he has spoken out about at length in the past.

When asked about those blockbusters, Scorsese said that their omnipresence could be negative to audiences who aren’t well-versed in other types of film.

“The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture,” he said. “Because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those — that’s what movies are.”

When the interviewer posited that audiences might already believe that, Scorsese agreed.

“They already think that,” he said. “Which means that we have to then fight back stronger. And it’s got to come from the grassroots level. It’s gotta come from the filmmakers themselves. And you’ll have, you know, the Safdie brothers, and you’ll have Chris Nolan, you know what I mean? And hit ’em from all sides. Hit ’em from all sides, and don’t give up. Let’s see what you got. Go out there and do it. Go reinvent. Don’t complain about it. But it’s true, because we’ve got to save cinema.”…

(12) CLICK ALONG. Entertainment Weekly must not have gotten the memo from Scorsese because they’re eager for you to click through their gallery “Every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ranked”. The 2008 Incredible Hulk is at the bottom of the list.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe just keeps growing. It’s been more than a decade since Robert Downey Jr. donned a metal suit and introduced the world to Iron Man in 2008, and since then, the MCU has become one of the biggest and most successful film franchises in history. Part of what makes the series so much fun to follow is its constant evolution: Installments range from moody character studies to gleefully zany space operas, stretching from distant worlds to the down-to-earth streets of Queens. Here, EW takes on the Hulk-sized task of ranking each entry….

(13) POPULAR PINK PIRACY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Barbie, but apparently not Barbenheimer, is paying an unofficial visit to Russia. Behind a paywall in The Times (UK): “Proud to be pink: Russians rush to see bootleg Barbie”.

On the streets of Russian towns there are no posters for the Barbie movie. There was no official release. The owner of the screening rights, Warner Bros, swiftly left Russia after President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and did not give permission for distribution here.

Nevertheless, “Barbiemania” took Russia by storm long before the film arrived in cinemas and Greta Gerwig’s vivid monument to American capitalism has become the film of the year. It finally appeared in cinemas on September 14, two months after the world premiere.

This summer more and more people started wearing pink on the streets of Moscow, while restaurant guides started publishing their top picks of places with pink food for those wishing to eat out “Barbie style”. Russian Instagram turned pink — even though Meta is officially an “extremist resource” in Russia. Instagram users made themselves up as Barbies or Kens and flooded social media. Pink nails and blonde hair are back on trend.

A 250 sq ft “House of Barbie” has popped up in Moscow’s Kuntsevo shopping centre. In the pink pavilion you can take photos of yourself for an hour for 500 roubles (£4.25). The manager tells me it is busiest at the weekend, when entertainers dressed as Barbie and Ken put on a soap-bubble show for children.

Since the war began, Russia has yet to come up with a legislative framework for the “parallel release” of western films. When the first bootleg versions of the Barbie film turned up in June, it was a DCP (digital cinema package) file from Kazakhstan. That supply line was soon closed. Now Russian venues are showing a digital version designed for streaming platforms, not cinemas.

I opt to watch the film in one of Moscow’s “Kinomax-XL” theatres. It is advertised as a “pre-session service” before the supposed main event: Sclerosis, a Russian short film released in 2021 about a female pensioner fooled by telephone scammers.

This means that officially you are not buying a ticket to see Barbie. On cinema timetables, Barbie is nowhere to be seen; Sclerosis accounts for half the show listings….

(14) HOIST AWAY. “Solar sails could reach Mars in just 26 days” according to at article at Phys.org.

A recent study submitted to Acta Astronautica and currently available on the arXiv preprint server explores the potential for using aerographite solar sails for traveling to Mars and interstellar space, which could dramatically reduce both the time and fuel required for such missions.

This study comes while ongoing research into the use of solar sails is being conducted by a plethora of organizations along with the successful LightSail2 mission by The Planetary Society, and holds the potential to develop faster and more efficient propulsion systems for long-term space missions.

“Solar sail propulsion has the potential for rapid delivery of small payloads (sub-kilogram) throughout the solar system,” Dr. René Heller, who is an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for solar system Research and a co-author on the study, tells Universe Today. “Compared to conventional chemical propulsion, which can bring hundreds of tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and deliver a large fraction of that to the moon, Mars, and beyond, this sounds ridiculously small. But the key value of solar sail technology is speed.”…

(15) GOOD NIGHT MOON LANDER. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The Lunar lander/rover combo from India that touched down near the Moon’s south pole last month operated just fine for the first fortnight or so. After being put to sleep for the Lunar night, however, it failed to re-awaken at Lunar dawn as hoped.  “Hope fades for India’s moon lander after it fails to wake up” (paywalled in The Times (UK).)

Extreme temperatures at the moon’s south pole may have damaged India’s spacecraft which landed there last month, raising doubts over whether communication can be re-established.

Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) have been trying to contact both the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover from the pioneering Chandrayaan-3 mission since putting them into “sleep” mode earlier this month.

The probes had previously been deployed and gathering data as planned but now scientists fear that the temperatures during the lunar night — which can drop to between minus 200C and minus 250C — may have cut off contact….

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, John King Tarpinian, Olav Rokne, Kathy Sullivan, Lise Andreasen, 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 Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 9/17/23 You Don’t Need A Pixelman To Know Which Way The File Scrolls

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(1) YOU’RE FROM THE SIXTIES! The Daily Beast’s article “Gay Talese on Resisting His Frank Sinatra Assignment, and What Really Matters in a Marriage” goes into the Sinatra-Ellison confrontation at length. (Which, if you’ve never read the piece, is here,)

Harlan Ellison Photo by Barbara Alper/Getty images
Harlan Ellison Photo by Barbara Alper/Getty images

“… Gay Talese, at 91 years old, perhaps the world’s oldest living bestselling author with 17 books to his credit, and a new one just out— Bartleby and Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener (Mariner Books)—knew exactly what I was talking about….”

This is the last half of the article’s passage about Ellison and Sinatra:

…“Truman Capote thought he had total recall,” Talese chuckled again, “But I don’t have total recall, but I recall pretty well, and then I go over it later with the person I’m interviewing. I called Harlan Ellison the next day, confirmed that I heard what I heard as to the confrontation, and Harlan added a few things.”

As the late Harlan Ellison later verified on a YouTube video, “I told him what happened and Talese says, ‘Yeah, that’s what happened,’ I said, ‘But how do you know I’m telling the truth?’ And he said, ‘Because I was there.’ Whaaaat?”

Cut-up shirt carboards is why Gay Talese can write such extraordinary paragraphs, like this one that concludes “Frank Sinatra Has A Cold”:

“It was the morning after. It was the beginning of another nervous day for Sinatra’s press agent, Jim Mahoney. Mahoney had a headache, and he was worried but not over the Sinatra-Ellison incident of the night before. At the time Mahoney had been with his wife at a table in the other room, and possibly he had not even been aware of the little drama. The whole thing had lasted only about three minutes. And three minutes after it was over, Frank Sinatra had probably forgotten about it for the rest of his life—as Ellison will probably remember it for the rest of his life: he had had, as hundreds of others before him, at an unexpected moment between darkness and dawn, a scene with Sinatra.”…

(2) ON THE ROCKS. The OSIRIS-Rex mission will soon deliver its payload. “NASA’s asteroid sample mission calls on Vatican for help” at Mashable. It won’t come as a surprise to most readers here that the Vatican staffs an observatory. Many of you have met one of the astronomers at a Worldcon (but he’s not the subject of this article).

…If it works, a capsule containing bits of Bennu will fall from the heavens to Utah on Sept. 24.

In the meantime, you could say NASA has called upon the Vatican for a Hail Mary.

Brother Robert J. Macke, curator of the Vatican’s meteorite collection, has designed a custom device that will fit inside the glovebox where scientists will handle the sample. Within days of OSIRIS-Rex’s arrival, the Jesuit will leave Castel Gandolfo, where the pope sometimes summers, and head for Johnson Space Center in Houston. There he will don a protective coverall over his Roman collar and help scientists use his pycnometer, an instrument for measuring the density of tiny grains of gravel. Through these measurements, NASA hopes to get to the bottom of Bennu’s mysterious boulders….

(3) SHE HAD A WAY WITH EDITORS. “’A true original’: Katherine Rundell on the genius of Diana Wynne Jones” in the Guardian.

In 1977, the novelist Diana Wynne Jones finished a children’s fantasy novel and posted off the manuscript of the final draft to her publishers. There, an editor asked her to make further changes to the book – which she had no intention of doing. But rather than say so, Jones took her carbon copy of the draft and chopped some of the pages up into sections, pasting them back together – exactly the same words in the same order – to look as though the book had been heavily revised. She sent it back to her publishers; the book was now perfect, they declared. That was the thing: it had been all along. The book was Charmed Life, one of the wittiest, sharpest children’s fantasies ever written. There are some writers whose voices are so vividly their own that you can detect the distinctive ring of it 10 miles off in a headwind: Jones is one of them.

Jones, who died in 2011, was a true original. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Wilkins’ Tooth, her first children’s book: it would be a good year to begin reading her….

(4) IT’S NOT HEINZ 57. It’s Star Trek at 57. The Saturday Cinema podcast plays many examples of Trek theme music in its episode titled “To boldly go where no music has gone before”.

On the latest episode of Saturday Cinema, Lynne Warfel celebrates the much more than five-year mission of Star Trek on its 57th anniversary with a survey of the fine music composed for the original TV series and later incarnations.

(5) HAPPY BLOBBIVERSARY. “65 Years Ago, a Quirky Sci-Fi Classic Created The Perfect Movie Monster” – let Inverse tell you all about it.

…In The Blob, teenagers battle an alien blob that’s consuming a small town. Infamously, Steve is played by Steve McQueen in his first major movie, billed here as Steven McQueen, although if you’re looking to start your McQueen cinematic education, you should probably go straight to 1968’s perfect action flick, Bullitt. The pacing of The Blob isn’t just bad for its time; other monster movies from the 1950s were far more thrilling. Even the blob chasing teenagers through a grocery store near the end feels less exciting than it should be. The Blob is a monster movie that often seems to forget it’s a monster movie, which is a large part of why the film has such a mixed reputation.

However, the idea of The Blob is fantastic. The blob is a perfect sci-fi monster. It doesn’t have a goal, it doesn’t look like a monster-ish take on any kind of animal. It can — and will — eat anything. When the movie begins, Steve and Jane observe a meteorite crashing, which is how the blob gets to our planet. What kind of horrifying sci-fi critter could survive on a freaking meteor?…

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 17, 1908 — John Creasey. English crime and SF writer who wrote well over than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different names. His SF writings were mostly in the Dr. Palfrey series, a British secret service agent named Dr. Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey, who forms Z5. There’s a lot of his novels available from the usual suspects. And I do many really a lot, so I’m going to ask all of you where to start reading his SF novels as I am curious as to how they are. (Died 1973.)
  • Born September 17, 1915 — Art Widner. Fanzine editor. He was a founding member of The Stranger Club which created Boston fandom. He chaired Boskone I and Boskone II which were held in 1941 and 1942, they being the very first two Boston cons. Fancyclopedia 3 has a very detailed look at him here. (Died 2017.)
  • Born September 17, 1928 — Roddy McDowall. He is best known for portraying Cornelius and Caesar in the original Planet of the Apes film franchise, as well as Galen in the television series. He’s Sam Conrad in The Twilight Zone episode “People Are Alike All Over” and he superbly voices Jervis Tetch / The Mad Hatter in Batman: The Animated Series. (Died 1998.)
  • Born September 17, 1939 — Sandra Lee Gimpel, 84. In Trek’s “The Cage”, she played a Talosian. That led her to being cast as the M-113 creature in “The Man Trap”, another first season episode. She actually had a much larger work history as student double, though uncredited, showing up in sixty eight episodes of Lost in Space and fifty seven of The Bionic Woman plus myriad such genre work elsewhere including They Come from Outer Space where she was the stunt coordinator
  • Born September 17, 1950 — Roger Stern, 73. Comics writer who’s most noted work who was on Avengers, Captain America, Doctor Strange, and Starman. I’m very, very impressed of his work on the first twenty-eight issues of Starman, which were published from 1988 to 1990. 
  • Born September 17, 1951 — Cassandra Peterson, 72. Definitely best remembered as Elvira, Mistress of The Darkness, a character she played on TV and in movies before becoming the host of Elvira’s Movie Macabre, a weekly horror movie presentation in LA in 1981. She’s a showgirl in Diamonds Are Forever which was her debut film, and is Sorais in Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. 
  • Born September 17, 1979 — Neill Blomkamp, 44. South African born Canadian filmmaker of District 9 which was nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form at Aussiecon 4. EofSF says also, “Of particular note were Tetra Vaal (2004), a RoboCop-inspired advertisement for a fictional range of third-world law-enforcement drones; Alive in Joburg (2005), about an influx of Alien immigrants from a Spaceship stalled over Johannesburg; and Tempbot (2006), about a Robot office worker attempting to parse cubicle culture.” Other genre films include Elysium and Chappie.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) TIMES OUT OF JOINT. Australia’s ABC News remembers: “The New York Times mocked this scientist in 1920. His discoveries could now take us to Mars”.

…The New York Times got hold of his paper and decided he was an idiot because rockets don’t work in space. They dubbed him the “moon man”.

“That professor Goddard, with his ‘chair’ in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution [from which Goddard held a grant to research rocket flight], does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react — to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”

Goddard responded to a reporter’s question.

“Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realised, it becomes commonplace.”

Goddard became very famous, but not in a particularly good way. He was sent insulting letters for years, and started to operate in secrecy….

… Forty-nine years after the New York Times’s editorial, they issued an apology to Goddard — rockets clearly worked in space.

How did they know this? Because one was on its way to the Moon, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on board.

Aldrin’s father, Edwin Aldrin Sr, studied rocketry under Goddard as an undergraduate.…

(9) SAIL ON. Universe Today theorizes how “Tiny Swarming Spacecraft Could Establish Communications with Proxima Centauri”.

…For many years, the i4is has been working through Project Lyra to find optimal ways to explore nearby star systems using fleets (1000 or more) of gram-scale spacecraft. Like Starshot, these efforts began with Project Dragonfly (a feasibility study hosted by i4is in 2015) for small, lightweight, distributed spacecraft propelled primarily by laser sails. Per the study’s specifications, these spacecraft would need to be realizable using technology and space infrastructure available in the coming decades and capable of reaching nearby stars within a century.

Among astrophysicists, gram-scale craft and laser sails are considered the only viable means for mounting interstellar exploration in the foreseeable future. But whereas some mission architectures envision sending a single mission with a large lightsail, Project Lyra envisions using a power laser array to send swarms of spacecraft that could explore distant star systems and exoplanets collectively…. 

(10) MEDIA DEATH CULT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.]  For those that have been following Moid Moidelhoff’s Media Death Cult on YouTube, he hasn’t moved home yet…  However, given the frequency of his posts is down, things may well be afoot… Also Media Death Cult regulars will also know that over the past few years he and his regulars have been working through Phil Dick’s major SF novels. His latest post looks at a few of these… The Zap Gun, Three Early Novels: The Man Who Japed – Dr Futurity – Vulcan’s Hammer. “Philip K. Dick – The Perfect Amount Of Weirdness”.

(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. From GeekTyrant: “Darren Aronofsky Shares First Look at His Immersive ‘Sci-Fi Experience’ Film That Will Screen on the Largest Screen in the World”.

…The movie is titled Postcard From Earth and it’s a “part sci-fi story, part nature documentary” and it was specially commissioned to screen at the MSG Sphere, which opened in April 2023. This project is an “Immersive and innovative exploration of planet Earth through eyes of two human beings.”…

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

Pixel Scroll 5/25/23 Pixels Propagate Like Tribbles And They Purr Like Them Too

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(1) JACQUELINE WOODSON INTERVIEW. “U.S. Book Show 2023: Jacqueline Woodson Works from Memory and Empathy” – Publishers Weekly reports from the show.

Mention Jacqueline Woodson—a former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature—and readers begin naming favorite titles: groundbreaking LGBTQ novels (From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun), stories of BIPOC histories and identities (After Tupac and D Foster), books adapted to TV (Miracle’s Boys), and the National Book Award–winning memoir in verse Brown Girl Dreaming. At a lunch-hour keynote on May 24, Woodson sat down with bookseller Miwa Messer, executive producer and host of the Barnes & Noble podcast Poured Over, to discuss her work.

We’re here with Jacqueline Woodson, and we’ve run out of superlatives to describe her work—straight up, let’s not pretend,” Messer said, before reading an abbreviated list of Woodson’s accolades: a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, an NAACP Image Award, and a 2023 E.B. White Award for achievement in children’s literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,

… “When I write, I’m very conscious of [my reader] seeing themselves in it,” Woodson said. “Is there something about how I write a character that might break that person’s spirit?” She wants to impress upon readers “that they’re not existing alone. Theirs isn’t an isolated experience.”

Warmly acknowledging her longtime editor, Nancy Paulsen, who was in the audience, Woodson explained her revision process. She reads everything aloud to hear characters’ voices, and revises scenes while “having faith [in] the picture I’m trying to paint on the page.” Her own memories and thorough research enable her to craft people and places, she said. “I think of it like a photograph that’s developing, and it becomes more clear [as] I go back into it.”…

(2) THE 84 PERCENT SOLUTION. The Hugo Book Club Blog says “The Word For ‘World’ Isn’t America”. “If the Hugo Award is to be a truly ‘World’ award, American fandom may need to relinquish it … by establishing an American award for American fiction.”

…So why is there no national award recognizing the best science fiction published by authors from the United States?

It could be argued that this is a reflection of American exceptionalism or imperialism.

The Hugo Award — when it was established in 1953 — may have billed itself as celebrating the world’s greatest science fiction, but that was for a limited definition of “world.” This was a “world” that extended no further north than Toronto, no further east than London, and no further south or west than Los Angeles. American cultural hegemony was baked into the DNA of the award.

An American national SFF award was not seen as necessary, because the Hugos existed.

To date 84.2 per cent of all winners, and 84.5 per cent of the authors represented in the prose categories (short story, novelette, novella, novel and series) were born in the United States…

(3) NOT PARSELEY. NOT SAGE. NOT THYME. Craig Miller told Facebook readers about a close call at home last night.

About 9:30, roughly an hour and a half ago, headlights suddenly shined blindingly through our living room windows followed by a crash.

A minivan had come hurtling down the street, apparently missed the turn, came up between our two parked cars, over the curb, across the sidewalk, through our garden, and up our front path, finally stopping when it smashed into the cement and metal fences between our house and our neighbors.

I rushed out. The driver kept trying to back up but the car was stuck. The driver and the passenger got out. The driver had a hard time because he was in the middle of our bushes. They took off down the street.

I called the police. They’re still here. Eventually a tow truck will come and they’ll impound the vehicle.

One nice thing: they drove into and got stuck in the midst of a huge rosemary bush. All that friction in the rosemary and the yard smells terrific. One of the cops even said, “Is that rosemary? Smells great.”

(4) HOME AT LAST. Walter Jon Williams shared good news with Facebook readers. And some not-so-good news.

So Kathy’s finally home after 13 days confined to COVID jail in a hotel room on Malta.

She arrived just in time for me to catch a cold, which is definitely not COVID since I’ve tested negative two days in a row.

Timing could have been better. Definitely.

(5) GOLLUM GAME? “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum review – boil it, mash it, stick it in the bin” – a real KTF review in the Guardian.

This game never looked especially promising, and now it’s out, it’s about as riveting as listening to a huddle of ents discuss the finer points of deciduous shedding. It’s a technical disaster, at least on PC, and even when it does work, it feels like an extended forced stealth section from a game where stealth is just one of 50,000 other systems. It’s watery, janky, broken, alternately frustrating and frictionless, completely without tension or pathos, and squanders a great concept….

(7) NICE TRY, BUT NO CIGAR. “Max Will Revert Film Credits to List Directors, Writers After Backlash” reports Variety.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s newly launched Max lumped film directors and writers under a single “creators” heading — a change that prompted a backlash from filmmakers and Hollywood’s directors and writers guilds. Now the company says it is reverting the listings back to how they were presented on HBO Max, blaming the issue on a technical “oversight.”

“We agree that the talent behind the content on Max deserve their work to be properly recognized,” a Max spokesperson said in a statement to Variety. “We will correct the credits, which were altered due to an oversight in the technical transition from HBO Max to Max and we apologize for this mistake.”Max’s move to consolidate writers, directors and other creatives under the single “creators” listing drew ire amid the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, as the union is seeking to reach a new contract with major studios through the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers….

Meanwhile, if you want to know what movies and TV shows are available on the service, click on “Max – full list of movies and TV shows online” at JustWatch.

(8) TODAY’S DAY. This was news to me, but maybe not to most fans. May 25 is —

Craig Miller, author of Star Wars Memories, says, “I don’t know that I coined it but it’s a term I’ve been using for a number of years.  When people started arguing about whether May 4th or May 25th is Star Wars Day, I started saying — in places like Facebook — that I consider May 25th Orthodox or Old Testament Star Wars Day.  May 21st – the date The Empire Strikes Back debuted – is New Testament Star Wars Day.  And May 4th is New Age Star Wars Day.  It’s people using a popular pun to center around.  It’s apt because, in most countries, Star Wars didn’t debut on May 25th.  Further, I’ve been saying that the period from May 4th and May 25th marks Star Wars Season.  Sort of like the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter is the Lenten Season.

P.S. May 25 is also Towel Day.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

1962 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Philip K. Dick’s The Man in The High Castle is the source of our Beginning. I know it’s been turned into an Amazon series but y’all know that I never watch any series based off a piece of fiction that I really like and yes, The Man in The High Castle falls into that category.

It was first published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons sixty-one years ago in a hardcover edition which cost three dollars and ninety-five cents. The cover is by Robert Galster. 

I really cannot say anything further as it’d spoil the novel though admittedly the cover does a fairly nice job of doing that I think.

And with that, here’s our Beginning…

FOR A WEEK Mr. R. Childan had been anxiously watching the mail. But the valuable shipment from the Rocky Mountain States had not arrived. As he opened up his store on Friday morning and saw only letters on the floor by the mail slot he thought, I’m going to have an angry customer. 

Pouring himself a cup of instant tea from the five-cent wall dispenser he got a broom and began to sweep; soon he had the front of American Artistic Handcrafts Inc. ready for the day, all spick and span with the cash register full of change, a fresh e svase of marigolds, and the radio playing background music. Outdoors along the sidewalk businessmen hurried toward their offices along Montgomery Street. Far off, a cable car passed; Childan halted to watch it with pleasure. Women in their long colorful silk dresses . . . he watched them, too. Then the phone rang. He turned to answer it.

“Yes,” a familiar voice said to his answer. Childan’s heart sank. “This is Mr. Tagomi. Did my Civil War recruiting poster arrive yet, sir? Please recall; you promised it sometime last week.” The fussy, brisk voice, barely polite, barely keeping the code. “Did I not give you a deposit, sir, Mr. Childan, with that stipulation? This is to be a gift, you see. I explained that. A client.”

“Extensive inquiries,” Childan began, “which I’ve had made at my own expense, Mr. Tagomi, sir, regarding the promised parcel, which you realize originates outside of this region and is therefore—”

“But Tagomi broke in, “Then it has not arrived.”

“No, Mr. Tagomi, sir.” 

An icy pause.

 “I can wait no furthermore,” Tagomi said.”

“A substitute, then. Your recommendation, Mr. Childan?” Tagomi deliberately mispronounced the name; insult within the code that made Childan’s ears burn. Place pulled, the dreadful mortification of their situation. Robert Childan’s aspirations and fears and torments rose up and exposed themselves, swamped him, stopping his tongue. He stammered, his hand sticky on the phone. The air of his store smelled of the marigolds; the music played on, but he felt as if he were falling into some distant sea.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 25, 1808 — Edward Bulwer-Lytton. In addition to the opening seven words from Paul Clifford — “It was a dark and stormy night” — he also coined the phrases “the great unwashed”, “pursuit of the almighty dollar” and “the pen is mightier than the sword.” ISFDB credits him with eight genre novels including The Coming Race, Asmodeus at Large and Last Days of Pompeii to name but three. He wrote a lot of short fiction with titles such as “Glenhausen.—The Power of Love in Sanctified Places.— A Portrait of Frederick Barbarossa.—The Ambition of Men Finds Adequate Sympathy in Women”. (Died 1873.)
  • Born May 25, 1913 — Carl Wessler. Animator during the Thirties working on “Musical Memories” and other theatrical cartoon shorts for the Fleischer Studios, and a comic book writer from the Forties though the Eighties for including Charlton Comics, DC, EC Comics, Harvey Comics and Marvel. He also worked for editor-in-chief Stan Lee at Marvel’s 1950s forerunner, Atlas Comics. (Died 1989.)
  • Born May 25, 1916 — Charles D. Hornig. Publisher of the Fantasy Fan which ran from September ‘33 to February ‘35 and including first publication of works by Bloch, Lovecraft, Smith, Howard and Derleth. It also had a LOC section called ‘The Boiling Point’ which quickly became angry exchanges between several of the magazine’s regular contributors, including Ackerman, Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. He paid for the costs of Fan Fantasy by working as the teenage editor of Gernsback’s Wonder Stories. (Died 1999.)
  • Born May 25, 1935 — W. P. Kinsella. I’d say best known for his novel Shoeless Joe which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams, one of the few films that Kevin Costner is a decent actor in, ironic as the other is Bull Durham. Kinsella’s other genre novel is The Iowa Baseball Confederacy and it’s rather less well known that Shoeless Joe is but is excellent. He also edited Baseball Fantastic, an anthology of just what the title says they are. Given that he’s got eighteen collections of short stories listed on his wiki page, I’m reasonably sure his ISFDB page doesn’t come close to listing all his short stories. (Died 2016.)
  • Born May 25, 1944 — Frank Oz, 79. Actor, director including The Dark Crystal, Little Shop of Horrors and the second version of The Stepford Wives, producer and puppeteer. His career began as a puppeteer, where he performed the Muppet characters of Animal, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, and oh so patriotic Sam Eagle in The Muppet Show, and Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover in Sesame Street. Genre wise, he’s also known for the role of Yoda in the Star Wars franchise until he was removed from that role by The Evil Mouse.
  • Born May 25, 1949 — Barry Windsor-Smith, 74. Illustrator and painter, mostly for Marvel Comics. Oh, his work on Conan the Barbarian in the early Seventies was amazing, truly amazing! And then there was the original Weapon X story arc involving Wolverine which still ranks among the best stories told largely because of his artwork. And let’s not forget that he and writer Roy Thomas created Red Sonja partially based on Howard’s characters Red Sonya of Rogatino and Dark Agnes de Chastillon.
  • Born May 25, 1966 — Vera Nazarian, 57. To date, she has written ten novels including Dreams of the Compass Rose, what I’d called a mosaic novel structured as a series of interlinked stories similar in tone to The One Thousand and One Nights that reminds me more than a bit of Valente’s The Orphans Tales. She’s the publisher of Norilana Books which publishes such works as Catherynne M. Valente’s Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies,and Tabitha Lee’s Lee’s Sounds and Furies.  She has two Nebula nominations, one for her “The Story of Love” short story and another for her “The Duke in His Castle” novella. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Non Sequitur says Heaven is hell on editors.
  • Bizarro finds the next phase in AI authors’ evolution.
  • Bizarro shows part of the Darth Vader health regimen.

(12) ALLIGATOR LOKI MAKES A SPLASH IN HIS PRINT COMIC DEBUT. Alyssa Wong and Bob Quinn’s Alligator Loki #1 arrives in September.

After making his debut in Marvel Studios’ Loki on Disney+, the reptilian God of Mischief headlined his very own Infinity Comic series on the Marvel Unlimited app. Now, this iconic and adorable troublemaker will grace the stands of your local comic shop for the very first time in September! An extra-sized one-shot, ALLIGATOR LOKI #1 will collect the entirety of Alyssa Wong and Bob Quinn’s hit Infinity Comic series as well as an all-new adventure from the life of everyone’s favorite swamp-dwelling scamp!

 Bow down to the reptile in a helm who has enraptured the Ten Realms…with his cuteness! First Alligator Loki chomped down on Mjolnir, and then he chomped his way into our hearts. Now, the beloved Alligator of Mischief finds – and makes – trouble all across the Marvel Universe!

 For more information, visit Marvel.com.

(13) LIVES IN COMICS. NBM Graphic Novels debuts two bios about people of genre interest.

After the bankruptcy of his first two companies, the young Walt Disney decides to call on his older brother Roy to start a new business: the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studios. The combination of their opposing talents, one artistic, the other managerial, will give birth to an entertainment giant despite the difficult nature of Walt. Little by little, Walt will push his brother into the shadows and sink into chronic depression and excessive consumption of alcohol … But all this will not prevent him from producing the greatest masterpieces of animation.

The authors have chosen a cartoon style, worthy of Mickey Mouse comics, to tell a very serious story of creation, money and politics, but also… of family.

One of the greatest writers in science fiction history, Philip K. Dick is mostly remembered for such works as Blade Runner, Minority Report and Total Recall. His dark, fascinating work centered on alternate universes and shifting realities in worlds often governed by monopolistic corporations and authoritarian governments.

His own life story seems a tussle with reality, going through five wives and becoming increasingly disjointed with fits of paranoia and hallucinations fueled by abuse of drugs meant to stabilize him. His dramatic story is presented unvarnished in this biography.

(14) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 84 of the Octothorpe podcast, “I Do Not Like to Be Delighted on Every Page”, “John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty read A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge in what marks the start of the SUMMER OF FUN!”

(15) BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. A lot of you will have seen this news item already, however, it’s still a fun item. “Long story: book returned to California library nearly a century late” in the Guardian.

A history book about the US has been returned to a library in California, almost 100 years overdue. The copy of Benson Lossing’s A History of the United States, published in 1881, was returned to St Helena public library in Napa Valley earlier this month. It had been due back on 21 February 1927.

At the time the book was borrowed, fines for overdue titles were a nickel (five cents) a day, meaning Jim Perry, who had the book, theoretically owed about $1,756 (£1,417). Luckily for him, the library scrapped late fines in 2019.

Perry found the copy in a box of books that belonged to his late wife, Sandra Learned Perry, according to the St Helena Star. He told the newspaper that he was “pretty sure” her grandfather, John McCormick, a descendant of one of St Helena’s oldest pioneer families, was the original borrower of the book.

Perry originally returned A History of the United States to the library’s front desk without leaving his name, but was tracked down after the library appealed for more information about the book’s history.

Library staff suspect the book was one of 540 volumes originally available from the Free Public Library, a predecessor to St Helena Public Library. The book has now been placed in a glass display case at the library’s entrance.

The Guinness World Record for an unreturned and overdue library book is held by a book owned by Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. The history book, written in German, was borrowed in 1667 or 1668 by Colonel Robert Walpole, the father of Sir Robert Walpole, regarded as the first prime minister of Great Britain.

It was discovered by Prof John Plumb while he was working on a biography of Walpole, and returned to Sidney Sussex on 16 January 1956, at least 287 years overdue….

(16) A DEEP DIVE FOR AN ANSWER: CAN YOU HELP? S. Elizabeth of Unquiet Things tries to unravel “A Mystery That Should Not Exist: Who Is The Cover Artist For This Edition Of A Wrinkle In Time?” The guesses are still pouring in.

Why is it that in this current year of 2023, no one seems to know who the cover artist is for this iconic Dell Laurel-Leaf A Wrinkle in Time cover art?? In a time when we have so much information available to us at our literal fingertips, how could it possibly be that the above marvelously and terrifyingly iconic imagery is perpetually credited to “unknown artist”? Even the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, always an excellent and trusted resource, does not have an answer….

S. Elizabeth follows with all the steps in her investigation so far.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Barbie comes to theaters July 21.

To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, N., Danny Sichel, Kathy Sullivan, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 4/21/23 Like A Pixel, Scrolled For The Very First Time

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(1) BOTS LOVE FILE 770. The Washington Post invited readers to “See the websites that make AI bots like ChatGPT sound so smart”. They analyzed one of the large data sets that may be used in training AI, and also have made it publicly searchable. Their stats show File 770 is a leading contributor to the cause of educating AI, ranked 3,445th. Uh, yay?

…Tech companies have grown secretive about what they feed the AI. So The Washington Post set out to analyze one of these data sets to fully reveal the types of proprietary, personal, and often offensive websites that go into an AI’s training data.

To look inside this black box, we analyzed Google’s C4 data set, a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs, called large language models, including Google’s T5 and Facebook’s LLaMA. (OpenAI does not disclose what datasets it uses to train the models backing its popular chatbot, ChatGPT)…

Is your website training AI?

A web crawl may sound like a copy of the entire internet, but it’s just a snapshot, capturing content from a sampling of webpages at a particular moment in time. C4 began as a scrape performed in April 2019by the nonprofit CommonCrawl, a popular resource for AI models. CommonCrawl told The Post that it tries to prioritize the most important and reputable sites, but does not try to avoid licensed or copyrighted content….

We then ranked the remaining 10 million websites based on how many “tokens” appeared from each in the data set. Tokens are small bits of text used to process disorganized information — typically a word or phrase.

As shown in the rather scrofulous screencap below, file770.com is ranked 3,445th with 2.5 million tokens, which is 0.002% of the tokens in the set examined by the Washington Post.

(2) HUGO VOTING DEADLINE APPROACHES. 2023 Hugo nominations are closing on April 30, at 23:59 Hawaiian Time. Eligible voters can access the ballot here.

(3) AUTHOR ASKS SCHOLASTIC TO “BE BRAVER”. “Kelly Yang Speaks Up Against Scholastic Censorship” at The Mary Sue.

… One of the 663 authors and counting who signed an open letter to Scholastic’s Education Solutions Division is author Kelly Yang. She is one of many best-selling Scholastic authors horrified by this response to accelerating fascism. In a vulnerable video, Yang shared her thoughts about these actions. She also broke down what it feels like to be targeted by this censorship and bigotry. Sometimes, in person….

However, Yang correctly insists that they have to push past this. She says in the video:

“As one of your top authors, I’m asking you to have more courage. You cannot be quietly self-censoring. Whatever pressure you may be facing, know that your authors are facing even more pressure. And we’re still out here writing these books. Risking our lives. Bleeding to make you millions. Trying to write the books for the next generation that will hopefully improve the world.”

She continued discussing the importance of representation and capturing the moment children live in.

“Let me tell you, it’s not easy. I am not a giant corporation. I am an individual. Every day people attack me personally. They write me emails, they come into my comments and my DMs. I had a guy show up at an event and whisper in my ear how much he loves seeing my books get banned. And yet, everyday I keep going. You know why? Because I am brave.

“Despite getting paid pennies on the dollar, we authors are brave. The librarians—they are brave. The educators—they are brave. I need you to be braver.

“You cannot choose which books to include in your Fairs and Clubs for kids nationwide and edit lines out because you’re scared of DeSantis. If you want to carry Maggie’s book, you gotta carry all of her book. If you want to carry Kelly Yang, you’ve gotta carry all of Kelly Yang—not some stripped-down version.

“I need you to not cave to political pressure and be on the right side of history. Because it’s the right thing to do. Because you can afford it with your 90% market share of the school distribution channel. If you’re going to be deciding children’s book for the entire nation, your taste have to reflect the entire nation. And because I know it’s what Dick Robinson would have wanted.

“I love you Scholastic. You’ve done a lot of good for a lot of kids, but how you play you next move will determine how you’re remembered. The world is watching. I am watching. I hope you do the right thing.”

(4) NOT JUST ANY USED BOOKS. Plenty of sff among AbeBooks “Most expensive sales from January to March 2023”. Two Harry Potter books lead the list, with the biggest sale being a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for $85,620. Further down is a PKD first edition.

8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick – $17,195

A true first edition with an unrestored original dust jacket

One of the most famous novels by Philip K. Dick, this book was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. This copy of a true first edition is special because of the condition of the book and the dust jacket and its vibrant, unfaded colors.

The novel is about a bounty hunter who tracks tracks down escaped androids in a post-apocalyptic future. This book belongs to our list of 50 must-read science fiction books.

Recently, another copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was sold. That book came with an original letter, typed and signed by the author, along with a humorous self-review of another of his own novels, The Divine Invasion.

(5) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to share crispy spinach with Sheree Renée Thomas in Episode 196 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Sheree Renée Thomas

Over on Facebook, someone in the group devoted to Capclave — a con where I’ve harvested many conversations for you — mentioned Thomas was scheduled to speak at Maryland’s Rockville Memorial Library. When I checked the details and saw the venue was only a 90-minute drive away, I reached out to see whether she’d have time in her schedule to grab lunch — and luckily she did. So early the same day as her presentation titled “Afrofuturism & Diversity in Sci-Fi,” I scooped her up from her hotel and took her over to Commonwealth Indian Restaurant, where I’ve had many wonderful meals. Here’s how the event organizers described Thomas and her career —

New York Times bestselling, two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author and editor Sheree Renée Thomas has been a 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, and her collection, Nine Bar Blues, is a Locus, Igynte, and World Fantasy Finalist. She edited the groundbreaking Dark Matter anthologies that introduced a century of Black speculative fiction, including W.E.B. Du Bois’s science fiction stories. Thomas wrote Marvel’s Black Panther: Panther’s Rage novel (October 2022), adapted from the legendary comics, collaborated with Janelle Monáe on The Memory Librarian, and is the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949 and Obsidian, founded in 1975. In 2022 she co-curated Carnegie Hall’s historic, citywide Afrofuturism Festival.

We discussed how to prevent being an editor interfere with being a writer (and vice versa), the way a serendipitous encounter with Octavia Butler’s Kindred caused her to take her own writing more seriously and a copy of Black Enterprise magazine spurred her to move to New York, how her family’s relationship with Isaac Hayes nourished her creative dreams, the advice she gives young writers about the difference between the fantasy and reality of a writer’s life, how realizing the books she thought were out there weren’t launched her editing career, the rewards and challenges of taking over as editor for a 75-year old magazine, why she reads cover letters last, and much more.

(6) FANFIC AUTHOR SUES TOLKIEN AND AMAZON. Is he delusional or does he have a case? “Lord of the Rings Fanfic Writer Sues Amazon, Tolkien Estate For $250M” – Kotaku has the story.

Some guy is currently suing Tolkien and Amazon to the tune of $250 million. That alone takes serious bravery. But what’s notable about this lawsuit is the reason he’s suing: Copyright infringement over his Lord of the Rings fanfic. Specifically, he’s arguing that Amazon lifted elements of his fan-fiction for its own Tolkien adaptation TV series, The Rings of Power.

Demetrious Polychron wrote a book, a work of fan-fiction set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, called The Fellowship of the King, which he copyrighted in 2017 and which later were published and made available for sale, including on Amazon. According to PC Gamer, Polychron sent a letter to the Tolkien Estate asking for a manuscript review. That’s right: This man asked J.R.R. Tolkien’s grandson Simon to sign off on his fanfic. Unsurprisingly, he did not get a response.

In September of 2022, the month that Polychron published The Fellowship of the King, Amazon also began airing its extremely expensive Lord of the Rings spin-off series, The Rings of Power.  …Now, Polychron is arguing that the Amazon TV show lifts elements from his novel.

According to RadarOnline, which has seen documents pertaining to the suit, Polychron alleges that characters and storylines he created for his book “compose as much as one-half of the 8-episode series,” and that in some cases the show “copied exact language” from his book. [Also, “In other instances, Defendants copied images that match the book cover and descriptions as created in the book as authored by Polychron,” the suit read.]

However, the claims seem spurious. For instance, the lawsuit purportedly points to the fact that both his book and the show feature a hobbit named Elanor, with the Elanor in his book being the daughter of Samwise Gamgee, while the Elanor featured in The Rings of Power is a Harfoot. Images purporting to be the lawsuit circulating online include a host of other circumstantial connections or similarities to back up Polychron’s argument that the writers of Rings of Power lifted ideas from his fanfic for their own story.

… While no one believes that Polychron will win against the Tolkien Estate, there are concerns that the lawsuit might negatively impact the legality of fanworks in general. Hopefully, fanfic writers will be fine as long as they’re not trying to extort Tolkien’s grandson.

(6) MEMORY LANE.

2015 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

So let’s have a conversation about Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall which was published by PS Publishing eight years ago. 

There’s some spoilers here so skip to the Beginning if you’d rather not hear them. 

A British folk band are told by their manager to record their new album, so they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with let us say an interesting past. There they hope to create the album that will make their reputation. 

The novel, a short one at that, is told entirely in a series of interviews decades later by the surviving musicians, along with their friends, lovers and the band’s manager by a documentary filmmaker who gets them to talk about something that happened when they were there. (No, I’m not going to say what happened.) Should they be believed? Maybe, maybe not. What is the truth after all those years have passed anyways? 

I think it’s a brilliant way to approach this story. 

I’ll say no more and direct you now to the Beginning…

“I was the one who found the house. A friend of my sister-in-law knew the owners; they were living in Barcelona that summer and the place was to let. Not cheaply, either. But I knew how badly everyone needed to get away after the whole horrible situation with Arianna, and this seemed as good a bolt-hole as any. These days the new owners have had to put up a fence to keep away the curious. Everyone knows what the place looks like because of the album cover, and now you can just Google the name and get directions down to the last millimeter.

But back then, Wylding Hall was a mere dot on the ordnance survey map. You couldn’t have found it with a compass. Most people go there now because of what happened while the band was living there and recording that first album. We have some ideas about what actually went on, of course, but the fans, they can only speculate. Which is always good for business.

Mostly, it’s the music, of course. Twenty years ago, there was that millennium survey where Wylding Hall topped out at Number Seven, ahead of Definitely Maybe, which shocked everybody except for me. Then “Oaken Ashes” got used in that advert for, what was it? Some mobile company. So now there’s the great Windhollow Faire backlash.

And inexplicable—even better, inexplicable and terrible—things are always good for the music business, right? Cynical but true.

“Apart from when I drove out in the mobile unit and we laid down those rough tracks, I was only there a few times. You know, check in and see how the rehearsal process was going, make sure everyone’s instruments were in one piece, and they were getting their vitamins. And there’s no point now in keeping anything off the record, right? We all knew what was going on down there, which in those days was mostly hash and acid.

And of course, everyone was so young. Julian was eighteen. So was Will. Ashton and Jon were, what? Nineteen, maybe twenty. Lesley had just turned seventeen. I was the elder statesman at all of twenty-three.

“Ah, those were golden days. You’re going to say I’m tearing up here in front of the camera, aren’t you? I don’t give a fuck. They were golden boys and girls, that was a golden summer, and we had the Summer King.

And we all know what happens to the Summer King. That girl from the album cover, she’d be the only one knows what really went on. But we can’t ask her, can we?

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 21, 1933 — Jim Harmon. During the Fifties and Sixties, he wrote more than fifty short stories and novelettes for Amazing Stories, Future Science Fiction, Galaxy Science Fiction, If, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and other magazines. Most of his fiction was collected in Harmon’s Galaxy. EoSF says he has one genre novel, The Contested Earth, whereas ISFDB lists two more, Sex Burns Like Fire and The Man Who Made Maniacs. He’s a member of First Fandom Hall of Fame. (Died 2010.)
  • Born April 21, 1939 — John Bangsund. Australian fan most active from the Sixties through the Eighties. He was instrumental with Andrew Porter in Australia’s winning the 1975 Aussiecon bid, and he was Toastmaster at the Hugo Award ceremony at that con. His fanzine, Australian Science Fiction Review is credited with reviving Australian Fandom in the Sixties. And he’s the instigator of the term Muphry’s law which states that “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.” (Died 2020.)
  • Born April 21, 1947 — Iggy Pop, 76. Here solely as on Deep Space Nine in an episode loosely upon The Magnificent Seven film that was entitled “The Magnificent Ferengi”, he played a vorta called Yelgrun. 
  • Born April 21, 1947 — Allan Asherman, 76. Official historian for D.C., he’s also written scripts for Tarzan during the Gooden Age. A Trekker of note, he wrote The Star Trek Compendium, The Star Trek Interview Bookand The Making of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
  • Born April 21, 1954 — James Morrison, 69. Lt. Col. Tyrus Cassius ‘T.C.’ McQueen on the short-lived but much loved Space: Above and Beyond series. Starship Troopers without the politics. He’s got a lot of one-off genre appearances including recently showing up as an Air Force General in Captain Marvel, guesting on the Orville series and being Warden Dwight Murphy on Twin Peaks.
  • Born April 21, 1965 — Fiona Kelleghan, 58. Author of the critical anthology The Savage Humanists in which she identifies a secular, satiric literary movement within the genre. She also did Mike Resnick: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to His Work. A work in still progress, according to the Wikipedia, is Alfred Bester, Grand Master: An Annotated Bibliography.
  • Born April 21, 1971 — Michael Turner. Comics artist known for his work on a Tombraider / Witchblade one-off, the Superman/Batman story involving Supergirl, his own Soulfire, and various covers for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. He would die of bone cancer and A Tribute to Michael Turner with writings from people who knew him would feature a cover done by Alex Ross would be released to cover his medical expenses. (Died 2008.)
  • Born April 21, 1980 — Hadley Fraser, 43. His first video acting role was as Gareth in the superb Tenth Doctor story, “Army of Ghosts”. He’d later be Chris in The Lost Tribe, a horror film, and play Viscount Raoul de Chagny in The Phantom of The Opera, as well as being being Tarzan’s father in The Legend of Tarzan. And though not even genre adjacent, I’m legally obligated to point out that he showed up as a British military escort in the recent production of Murder on the Orient Express. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Lio takes no chances where robots are concerned.

(9) MISSY RETURNS IN TITAN COMICS’ DOCTOR WHO: DOOM’S DAY. Titan comics will launch a two-issue Doctor Who comic series on July 5 as part of the multi-platform story Doom’s Day. The comic will feature fan-favorite character Missy on the trail of new character Doom, who makes her comic book debut.

Doom’s Day is a standalone transmedia series across multiple platforms and will allow Doctor Who fans to follow Doom, the Universe’s greatest assassin, as she travels through all of time and space in pursuit of the Doctor to save her from her ever-approaching Death. She only has 24 hours and a vortex manipulator to save herself before her fate is sealed forever.

Available in comic stores and on digital devices at release, Titan’s Doctor Who: Doom’s Day #1 comic is an adventure starring Doom in her comic book debut – using her vortex manipulator, she’ll do anything to find the tempestuous time traveller, the Doctor, including cavorting with the maleficent MISSY. Every hour a new adventure, every hour closer to death…

Doctor Who: Doom’s Day #1 is written by Eisner-nominated Jody Houser (Stranger Things, Star Wars, Spider-Man) with art by Roberta Ingranata (Witchblade). The comic debuts with two covers for fans to collect: from celebrated artist Pasquale Qualano, and a photo cover variant.

Doctor Who: Doom’s Day #1 ($3.99) is now available to pre-order globally from May’s Diamond Previews catalogue, ForbiddenPlanet.com and on digital device via Comixology.

(10) FIRST LEAF ON THE TREE. Heritage Auctions has an extensive “Star Trek Trading Card Collector’s Guide” which begins by discussing the 1967 Leaf Card set.

…. The first Star Trek trading cards were produced 1967, released one year after the series debuted. These were manufactured and distributed by Leaf Brands Division, WR Grace & Co of Chicago. This was a limited-scale run with sources saying it had a small geographical distribution within the Ohio and Illinois areas. The trading cards didn’t get too far before there were controversies on whether Leaf had licenses to distribute Star Trek cards in the first place. As soon as the licensing problems came to light, all cards that hadn’t been distributed were destroyed and all others were recalled if they had not been sold yet. In the set, there were 72 base cards. They had black and white pictures on the front. The pictures were randomly chosen from episodes and, in some cases, taken from behind the scenes or from publicity shots. The text on the back typically didn’t match up to the picture on the front and were written haphazardly. These cards were printed on layered card stock and measured at 2 ?” x 3 7/16”. The popularity grew, and with this new craze came many unauthorized reprints.

Dan Kremer Imports in Europe reprinted the 1967 Leaf cards without any rights to do so. They were considered counterfeit and were of terrible quality. Most of these are easily recognizable due to the blurry picture quality, and the pictures were cropped from the original, so the outer edges of the images are missing. Also, the cut on the card was not precise and was slightly smaller than the original. The cards were printed on non-gloss-coated single-layer card stock.

1981 Reprint is easily recognized by the mark on the back stating “1981 Reprint” where the “Leaf Brands” was originally. These were also printed on a very bright white stock of paper. The images are very crisp, and the cut is precise, with the cards being the exact size of the originals. There are 2 versions of these reprints. One of the versions has a red toned print of Kirk & Spock on the backs, while the other version has a black and white print of Kirk & Spock on the backs.

Though they were unauthorized reprints, these cards are still sought after by some as being part of history….

(11) JEOPARDY! David Goldfarb has the play-by-play from the Neal Stephenson item on Jeopardy!

Category: Modern Words

Neal Stephenson coined this word in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash”; it was later shortened by a company to become its new name

Returning champion Devin Loman: “What is powder?”

Emma Hill Kepron tried: “What is uber?”

Sam Claussen’s response: “What is avalanche?”

(12) SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES. “SpaceX’s Starship Kicked Up a Dust Cloud, Leaving Texans With a Mess” according to the New York Times.

As the most powerful rocket ever built blasted from its launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday, the liftoff rocked the earth and kicked up a billowing cloud of dust and debris, shaking homes and raining down brown grime for miles.

In Port Isabel, a city about six miles northwest where at least one window shattered, residents were alarmed.

“It was truly terrifying,” said Sharon Almaguer, who, at the time of the launch, was at home with her 80-year-old mother. During previous launches, Ms. Almaguer said she had experienced some shaking inside the brick house, but “this was on a completely different level.”

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starship exploded minutes after liftoff and before reaching orbit. Near the launch site, the residents of Port Isabel, known for its towering lighthouse and less than 10 miles from the border with Mexico, were left to deal with the mess.

Virtually everywhere in the city “ended up with a covering of a rather thick, granular, sand grain that just landed on everything,” Valerie Bates, a Port Isabel spokeswoman, said in an interview. Images posted to social media showed residents’ cars covered in brown debris.

A window shattered at a fitness gym, its owner, Luis Alanis, said. Mr. Alanis, who was at home at the time of the launch, said he felt “rumbling, kind of like a mini earthquake.” He estimated that the window would cost about $300 to fix.

Closer to the launch site, large pieces of debris were recorded flying through the air and smashing into an unoccupied car. Louis Balderas, the founder of LabPadre, which films SpaceX’s launches, said that while it was common to see some debris, smoke and dust, the impact of Thursday’s liftoff was unlike anything he had ever seen….

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Isaac Arthur analyzes the possibility of “Life on Giant Moons”.

We often contemplate life on alien planets, but might giant moons orbiting distant immense worlds be a better candidate for where extraterrestrial life might be found?

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