Tag Archives: Pixar

Pixel Scroll 6/26/24 Listen To Them, Scrolls Of The Night, What Pixels They Make

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(1) CONGRATULATIONS, MR. MAYOR! We are happy to report that Hungarian Filer Bence Pintér won the mayoral election in his homewtown Győr. Győr is the main city of northwest Hungary, halfway between Budapest and Vienna, home to 130 000 people. It was a tight race against opponents who were, respectively, the incumbent and the former incumbent, a member and an ex-member of the ruling Fidesz party.

(2) SFF IN HUNGARY. And Sci Phi Journal brings us all up to speed on contemporary Hungarian SFF with Éva Vancsó’s article “The Kaleidoscope Of Hungarian Fantastic Literature In The 21st Century”.

Hungarian science fiction dates to the middle-19th century with tales of moon travels and fictional worlds of advanced technology that reflected the spirit of the age more than any other genre. In the years to come, though themes and forms had changed, Hungarian literature mirrored society’s problems, hopes, fears, and dreams. It expressed the terrors of totalitarian regimes and world wars, and later, during the communist culture policy, it either served as a „honey trap” of natural sciences or became the literature of opposition before the change of regime in 1989. For years, only selected Anglo-Saxon/Western SFF works could seep through the crack in the cultural door, but it was swung wide open by the end of the Cold War. The previously encapsulated Hungarian fantastic literature absorbed the influences from outside and started to grow in terms of authors, titles, themes and styles. In this article, I intend not to review Hungarian science fiction and fantasy since the turn of the millennium comprehensively but rather as a kaleidoscope to present the tendencies and genre-defining authors and works in the last twenty-five years….

(3) TWO-YEAR-OLD SUIT MAKING NEWS. [Item by Anne Marble.] The lawsuit involving Entangled Publishing reminds me of the case involving the agent who was dropped — except even more so. It is being discussed on Threads and elsewhere.

An author named Lynne Freeman is suing one of Entangled Publishing’s star authors — Tracy Wolff (the author of the Crave series, a popular YA vampire series). Also being sued are Prospect Agency, LLC as well as Entangled Publishing itself. Other defendants are MacMillan Publishers, LLC and University City Studios, LLC. The court documents were filed in 2022, but most people are only just starting to learn about the case: “Lynne Freeman v. Tracy Wolff – Crave copyright complaint”.

Lynne Freeman is alleging that she sent her novel to Emily Sylvan Kim of Prospect Agency (referred to as “Kim” throughout the document). Kim made Freeman do multiple revisions and create new material — and then (allegedly, of course), Kim sent this material to her client and friend, Tracy Wolff. And Wolff (allegedly, of course) used these materials to create her series, which consists of four books: Crave, Crush, Covet, and Court. Freeman claims “substantial similarities.” Usually, when I see lawsuits that claim “similarities” between two works in the same subgenre, the similarities are usually vague — or they’re thing that are common throughout that subgenre. But in this case … wow. They run from page 13 to page 74 — and some of them include multicolored highlighting. Interestingly, according to this document, the CEO and publisher of Entangled (Liz Pellitier) claimed that she created the storyline of the Crave series and then passed this concept on to Tracy Wolff.

The discussion on Threads is especially passionate.

@ellen_mint_author says:

And @dr.elle_woods’ comment drew heated agreements.  

Entangled Publishing owns Red Tower Books — the imprint that published Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros — among other romantasy books. Entangled (which started out as an indie) is now an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.

(4) OFTEN CHOPPED. Animation World Network interviews a brave writer: “’Inside Out 2’: It’s What Gets Cut That Counts”.

For Inside Out 2 story artist Rebecca McVeigh, her earliest memory of wanting to be a storyteller was a camping trip with her family when she was just five years old.

“I was writing and illustrating, as much as a kid that age can, my own books,” she shares. “On that trip, I remember just sitting with a pencil and crayons and writing a story about a princess who gets turned into a horse. So perhaps I was a writer before I was an artist. But writing and drawing were always intertwined because every time I wrote anything as a child, I also drew it in pictures.”

McVeigh, who is also known for her work on Netflix’s Annie Award-winning film Nimona, says being a story artist on a film as emotionally driven as Pixar’s latest hit film, which follows the complicated and often destructive dynamic of the emotions inside a teenage girl’s head, is not for those without tough skin. In addition to the sheer drafting mileage, creating an incalculable number of story sequences, McVeigh says one of the biggest challenges of the process is accepting the fact that 99 percent of it ends up on the cutting room floor.

“Over the course of the whole film, I couldn’t even begin to guess how many sequences I have done in total,” says McVeigh. “I’ll work on a sequence for two weeks or however long they’ll give me to do something. And then I’ll deliver it to editorial and they do what they need to do. I may not see it again for six months, or ever again if it gets cut. I’ve had scenes where I will do a version of it and then it’s a year before I see it again. Either way, you need to have the humility to let your work go.”…

(5) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

June 26, 1962 – King Kong Vs. Godzilla. Sixty-two years ago in Japan two great monsters united when King Kong Vs. Godzilla premiered. Really would I kid you? (Well I would and you well know it, but that’s for a different discussion, isn’t it?)

Not at all surprisingly, this Japanese kaiju film was directed by Ishirō Honda, with the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Nine years previously, Honda directed and co-wrote Godzilla of which Tsuburaya is considered the co-creator. 

The script was Shinichi Sekizawa, mostly known, again not surprisingly, for his work on the Godzilla films but he did some other genre work such as Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon and Jack and the Witch.  

It started out as a story outline written by King Kong stop-motion animator Willis O’Brien in the early Sixties in which Kong battles a giant Frankenstein Monster. The idea was given to the Tojo film company without his permission and they decided Godzilla would be a bigger draw. They were right. 

An individual by the name of Merian C. Cooper filed a lawsuit against the film showing here claiming he had exclusive right to the King Kong character in the United States, a claim that the film distributor quickly refuted as it turned out many individuals did.

It had already been the single most popular Godzilla film in Japan before it showed here and remains so to date. It made nearly three million here, not bad considering its tiny budget of four hundred thousand— two men in suits don’t cost much, do they? — so the film made twenty times that in its first run. Monsters rock! 

The Hollywood Reporter liked it: “A funny monster picture? That’s what Universal has in “King Kong Versus Godzilla.” 

Though the New York Times in an anonymous review grumbled quite loudly stating as only the Old Grey Lady can that“The one real surprise of this cheap reprise of earlier Hollywood and Japanese horror films is the ineptitude of its fakery. When the pair of prehistoric monsters finally get together for their battle royal, the effect is nothing more than a couple of dressed-up stuntmen throwing cardboard rocks at each other.” 

Finally John Cutts of Films and Filming says “Richly comic, briskly paced, oddly touching, and thoroughly irresistible. Outrageous of course, and deplorably acted and atrociously dubbed to boot. “

Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give a so-so rating of fifty six percent. There is no Japanese version of Rotten Tomatoes to my knowledge which would be fascinating to read in translation of course. 

(6) COMICS SECTION.

(7) MARVEL UNLIMITED LAUNCHES ‘AVENGERS ACADEMY: MARVEL’S VOICES’. Last month, Marvel’s Voices reached its 100th Infinity Comic issue and marked the milestone with a brand-new hero: Justin Jin, a.k.a. Kid Juggernaut. Now Kid Juggernaut is joining a new team and a new adventure in Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices, a new ongoing weekly Infinity Comic series written by Anthony Oliveira and drawn by Carola Borelli, Bailie Rosenlund, and guest artists. The first issue is available now, exclusively on Marvel Unlimited.

Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices will bring together some of the world’s brightest teen heroes to learn from and train with the best of the best. The Academy’s first recruits include:

  • Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, the dynamic duo of Inhuman super genius Lunella Lafayette and her psychically bonded Jurassic giant
  • Red Goblin, the grandson of Norman Osborn, Normie Osborn, bonded with the unpredictable newborn symbiote Rascal
  • Bloodline, Daughter of Blade, the Daywalker Brielle Brooks who inherited vampiric super powers, currently in the middle of Marvel’s blockbuster summer comic book event, Blood Hunt
  • Captain America of the Railways, Aaron Fischer, a protector of fellow runaways who first appeared in United States of Captain America and recently headlined his own Infinity Comic series
  • Escapade, Shela Sexton, the breakout mutant hero who first debuted in Marvel’s Voices: Pride and went on to battle alongside the New Mutants
  • Kid Juggernaut,Justin Jin,the avatar of the demon Cyttorak who also recently headlined his own Infinity Comic seriesKid Juggernaut: Marvel’s Voices, which just wrapped up last week!

 Don’t miss what lies in store for the newest students of Avengers Academy every Wednesday on Marvel Unlimited.  

(8) CITRUS CONTROVERSY. [Item by Steven French.] Is the Earth shaped more like an orange or a lemon? “Royal Society exhibition revives 18th-century debate about shape of the Earth”

…It was a row that split scientists, launched globe-trotting expeditions and for one man, ended in murder: was the Earth shaped like an orange or a lemon?

The 18th-century debate – and the endeavours that settled it –can now be relived by visitors to this year’s Royal Society summer science exhibition, in a display called “Figuring the Earth”.

Opening to the public on Tuesday, and remaining on show in London until October, the exhibition – which is presented in English and French – celebrates the importance of international competition and collaboration.

The citrus fruit conundrum, it seems, is a case in point….

(9) FROM THE MOON TO MONGOLIA. “First ever rocks from the Moon’s far side have landed on Earth” reports Nature.

The first rocks from the far side of the Moon have just landed safely on Earth and scientists can’t wait to study them.

China’s Chang’e-6 re-entry capsule, containing up to two kilograms of materials scooped and drilled from the Moon’s most ancient basin, touched down in the grasslands of Siziwang Banner in the Chinese northern autonomous region Inner Mongolia at 2.07 p.m. Beijing time on Tuesday, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

“The samples are going to be different from all previous rocks collected by the US, Soviet Union and China,” which came from the Moon’s near side, says Yang Wei, a geochemist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. “We have very high expectations for them,” Yang says….

(10) VALSPAR TIME TRAVEL COMMERCIAL. [Item by Andrew Porter.] What could go wrong in this commercial for interior house paint? See the video at the link: “Valspar TV Spot, ‘Time Machine’”.

(11) BLAST FROM THE FUTURE. Keep watching the skies — “Once-in-a-lifetime nova will appear in Earth’s sky. Here’s how to spot it.” at Yahoo!

A rare nova explosion will soon be visible in the Earth’s nighttime sky, according to officials at NASA.

The event, which could occur anytime between now and September, is creating a buzz within the astronomy community, as both professional and amateur astronomers alike will be able to see the explosion….

…Located 3,000 light years from Earth, T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), nicknamed the Blaze Star, is a binary star system in the Coronae Borealis (or “northern crown”) constellation.

In this binary system, a white dwarf (a dead star) and an ancient red giant (a slowly dying star) are gravitationally bound to each other. Every 80 years or so, the hydrogen from the red giant fuses with the surface of the white dwarf, causing a buildup of pressure and heat, resulting in a thermonuclear explosion — causing the system to go nova.

The last time a T CrB nova was seen from Earth was in 1946.

(12) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. [Item by Dann.] I came across Studio C on YouTube.  It is a creative effort coming out of BYU.  There were quite a few genre-related pieces that I thought might pique Filers’ interest.

  • Meeting King Triton – Ariel’s dad
  • Indiana Jones swapping out the golden idol

And lastly, something that might be of interest given the discussion about fandom and The Acolyte –

  • Star Wars Fans When the Acolyte Comes Out 

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

Pixel Scroll 6/17/24 You Gets No Kzin With One RingWorld

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(1) ORWELL VS. KAFKA. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published 75 years ago (June 8, 1949) less than a year before his death. BBC Radio 4 is running a series of programmes on George Orwell and Franz Kafka.

In “Battle of the Adjectives”, Ian Hislop and Helen Lewis explore the two adjectives that have arisen from the writing of both men.

But what exactly do we mean by ‘Orwellian’ or ‘Kafkaesque’? They also find a vivid illustration of the very particular dystopias conjured up by both Orwell and Kafka in the form of the current UK Post Office horizon scandal, hearing from Alan Bates about his experience of striving against injustice in a system that seemed stacked against him.

In episode one of Orwell vs. Kafka: Nineteen Eighty-Four, “Big Brother Is Watching You”, actor Martin Freeman (The Hobbit and Sherlock) reads the novel – there are an additional five more episodes to come.

The year is 1984. War and revolution have left the world unrecognisable. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, is ruled by the Party, and its leader, Big Brother, stares out from every poster. The Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal, and no one is free. Winston Smith works at The Ministry of Truth, carefully rewriting history, but he dreams of freedom and of rebellion. When he falls in love with Julia, their affair is an act of rebellion against the Party. But nothing is secret. And Room 101 awaits.

There is also a dramatization of Kafka’s The Trial. 

The most quintessentially ‘Kafkaesque’ of Kafka’s work, The Trial is a sinister satire, charting one man’s descent into self-destruction in the face of a society that has become a machine.   

(2) WESTERCON 76 GOH CHANGES. In Westercon 76 Utah’s Progress Report 2 the committee announces new Fan GoHs Dave and Keri Doering have replaced Sally Wohrle, who reportedly dropped out for health reasons.

Jewelry and many-media artist, Darlene P. Coltrain has accepted Artist GoH.

CJ Lawson, who was originally announced as a Guest of Honor, is unable to attend.

The convention takes place July 4-7 in Salt Lake City.

Artist GoH: Darlene P Coltrain. Darlene has spent decades making and selling art at conventions, art-fairs, and galleries. Her early professional work, was lost-wax precious-metal jewelry, and later brass, and even small bronze sculptures. In addition, she’s worked in polymer clay, painted-dyed silks, stencil-prints, beading, etc.

Fan GoH: Dave Doering. Dave is a long-time fan in Utah, with more than 40 years of SF/F activity. It is hard to recall any SF event here that he hasn’t participated in or been on the committee. (Including Chairing a Westercon, and a Costume-Con.) Surprisingly, though he grew up in New York, he had no idea there was organized fandom, until he got to the Beehive State. Since then, he was a founding member of the first SF/F club at BYU, started the Leading Edge magazine at the school, and also began the professional development “Life the Universe and Everything” Con in Provo (#42, this year). In addition, he and his lovely wife Keri are award-winners costumers (including at Costume-cons and Worldcons). Come find out why his tagline is “It’s NEVER boring with Dave Doering!”

Fan GoH: Keri Doering. Founding member of the Utah Costumers Guild, Master-level Award Winning costumer, competing in local, as well as international events (Worldcons, and Costume-Cons) (She has helped behind the scenes, in countless fannish events, including Costume-Con 23 Utah, and Westercon67)

(3) POKÉMON. [Item by Steven French.] Joseph Earl Thomas reflects on being a black Pokémon player: “Pokémon Is All About Reading” in The Paris Review.

… And while I’m never stepping on a court serious with AI or LeBron or Steph—shit, I couldn’t even check Damon Young last year at his local gym—anyone can play against some of the best in the Pokémon game by virtue of its general openness, whereby openness, of course, involves money. Getting out to a Pokémon tournament ain’t like buying Beyoncé or Taylor Swift tickets, but it’s also not getting penny candies from the corner store. Registration might run you around seventy dollars, but that’s the small of it; the real shit is paying for the hotel and travel. Many players move in groups, sharing the cost, at the very least, of housing. Having taken years off from gaming for real for real—between children and changing careers and being deployed to Baghdad and writing the book and all the college-degree collecting and grade-school trips and deaths in the family and living, and living and COVID and calls from school and calls from court and calls from hospitals and calls from the shelter—I have never been part of such a group….

…The potential to play gets me giddy at times, like the boy I was never supposed to be; we were never supposed to be. It encourages one to wonder what’s possible in this smaller social world, the structures of almost-togetherness heaped upon with strangers, how I’m besieged by the naive sincerity I had discarded for survival until now, and how this is also a dimension of being a black man in public. I return to Omari Akil’s provocation about Pokémon GO: the death sentence, they called it, if you’re a black man, lambasting the augmented reality approach to catching Pokémon in the streets as a safety hazard in a racist society—though one could always already guess, given history or intuition, where the best Pokémon or important locales would be, where risk would be assumed and by whom. It’s hard for me to shake the state of any game from what happened today or yesterday, what will happen next year or what went down in the eighteen- or nineteen-sixties. So why then, I ask myself, does this thing here feel so much like life?

(4) WEEKEND BOX OFFICE EXPECTATIONS TURNED INSIDE OUT. Variety runs the numbers: “Inside Out 2 Shatters Box Office Expectations With $150 Million Debut”.

Move over Anxiety, there’s a new dominant emotion at the box office: Joy!

Heading into the weekend, the follow-up film to 2015’s cerebral hit Inside Out was projected to collect $80 million to $90 million. It overtakes Dune: Part Two ($82.5 million) and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($80 million) as the biggest opening of the year. It’s also the first movie since last July’s Barbie ($162 million) to debut above $100 million. 

The second “Inside Out 2” also connected at the international box office with $140 million, enough to surpass “Frozen 2” ($135 million) as the biggest overseas animated opening of all time. Turnout was especially strong across Latin America, where it landed the second-biggest opening of all time behind Disney’s Marvel epic “Avengers: Endgame.” Globally, the movie has grossed $295 million to notch the title for biggest animated debut in like-for-like markets at current exchange rates. It carries a $200 million production budget….

(5) POE HOUSE CELEBRATIONS. A “Movie Night” in Baltimore will mark two Poe-related anniversaries.

This year we commemorate two very special anniversaries: the 175th Anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death in Baltimore in 1849 and the 75th Anniversary of The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum established in 1949. Join us festival eve at a special kick-off reception and MOVIE NITE in the glorious and newly-opened M&T Bank Exchange Theatre at France-Merrick Performing Arts Center.

This extraordinary evening includes two panel discussions with special guests Victoria Price, author and daughter of Vincent Price, and Michael Connelly, bestselling author of The Lincoln Lawyer and the Hieronymus Bosch detective series. Q&A followed by a special tribute recognizing the life and career of Vincent Price, and of the passing of the extraordinary film director, Roger Corman, followed by 60th Anniversary screening of their 1964 horror classic, “Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death” starring Vincent Price.

(6) TOWARDS MORE AND BETTER AUTHOR READINGS. Charlie Jane Anders calls on everyone to “Let Authors Read Their Work!” at Happy Dancing.

One thing that bums me out is my sense that people don’t seem to want to listen to authors reading their work in public as much as they used to. (This is a trend that predates covid.) I don’t entirely get it: audiobooks are more popular than ever, but the equivalent a of a live performance of an audiobook isn’t automatically popular….

,,, Listening to a good speaker read some of their own prose tells you things about the text that you will never learn from hearing that same person answer questions about the book. Good prose is immersive and engaging: it draws you in, and tells you a lot about what kind of story you’ll be getting. You can get to know the characters, live in their thoughts, get sucked into their problems. 

Here’s the part where I brace myself for dozens of people to email me saying that they went to too many author readings that were dull, interminable, or actually incomprehensible. And yeah, I feel you. 

Author readings are an art form, just like anything else. They can be done well or incredibly badly. Some authors are great at writing, but terrible at speaking. Believe me, I know. A big part of curating a reading series was avoiding those authors who were brilliant on the page but mumbled on the stage.

But I believe that most of us can get good at reading our work out loud, because it really is a skill that can be learned. Even introverts can master it! 

In fact, I’ve been meaning to compile a set of tips for getting better at reading your work to an audience, as someone who worked on this for years. So I’m going to spend the rest of this newsletter sharing that advice….

A series of substantial tips follows.

(7) ADAM-TROY CASTRO GOFUNDME. “The Cancer is Alas Back, But I am Fighting” says Adam-Troy Castro in an update on his GoFundMe, which is as needed as ever. Fuller medical details at the link.

…So what is happening now is that a surgery, probably one involving my prior surgeon, is being wrangled, and my blood is going to undergo testing at a genetic level to determine what chemo I get this next time, and the same will be done to the little bugger once he’s in a specimen tray, and the good news is that this time, my chemo will be in my immediate neighborhood, not an hour’s drive from me. In all ways not involving whatever side-effects I experience, this will be a smaller impact on my life.

The surgery may be as long as two or three weeks away. It is not scheduled yet. It will be determined. Maybe it’s next Tuesday. Don’t hock on me about demanding it be earlier. We are doing the best we can. People with actual power are already speaking up.

I will change the name of the current GoFundMe and establish that the cancer is back, though I do not expect spectacular uptick in collection, given how frequently fate has returned me to the same well. It will remain open, in any event. I can use the help. But this is the shitty sequel. Let it not be a trilogy….

(8) ONE WEEK LEFT TO SUBMIT FOR IMAGINE 2200. Submissions for the 2024/2024 “Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors” contest close on June 24 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific.

Tory Stephens, Climate Fiction Creative Manager, says, “If you’ve got a great short story in the works and haven’t submitted it yet, we’d love to read it.”

The contest judges are Omar El Akkad and Annalee Newitz.

(9) THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE. Abigail Nussbaum rounds up the misrepresentations about artificial intelligence in “AI and Me” at Lawyers, Guns & Money.

…The solution the AI companies have come up with to this problem is essentially fake it until you make it. Insist, loudly and repeatedly, that AI is “inevitable”, that anyone who resists it is standing in the path of technological progress, no different from anyone who futilely resisted the automation of their labor in the past. That non-technology industries are falling for this spin is perhaps unsurprising—motivated, obviously, by the dream of dumping those pesky human employees and freelancers and replacing them with cheap and uncomplaining machines (though, again, I must stress that if AI was priced realistically—and if water and energy for server farms were sanely priced—there is no AI tool that would be cheaper than a human doing the same job). What’s more interesting is that other Silicon Valley companies are doing the same, even though, again, the result is almost always to make their product worse. Google has essentially broken its key product, and Microsoft is threatening to spy on all its users and steal their data, all because a bunch of CEOs have been incepted into the idea that this technology is the future and they cannot afford to be left behind. (This desperation must be understood, of course, in the context of a Silicon Valley that hasn’t come up with a new killer app that genuinely revolutionizes users’ lives since maybe as far back as the smartphone, and where advances in screens, cameras, disk sizes, and computing power have plateaued to a point that no one feels the need to upgrade their devices every year.)…”

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

June 17, 2007 — Anniversary of “The Unicorn and The Wasp”. If you haven’t seen this episode, go away now. Really. Truly. Everything that follows is spoilers in the extreme. You have been warned. 

So one of my best loved episodes of the new series of Doctor Who is “The Unicorn and The Wasp” which aired on this date on BBC America. 

It is a country house mystery set in high summer featuring a number of murders. And, to add an aspect of meta-narrative to the story, it has writer Agatha Christie in a prominent role. It would riff off her disappearance for ten days which occurred just after she found her husband in bed with another woman. Her disappearance is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily answered to this day.

Yes, there have been entire books, Queen of Air and Darkness forgive their writers, offering up their theories as to what happened to her. 

So the Doctor and Donna Noble arrived at the grounds of that country house just during afternoon tea. When else would they arrive? The Doctor, here played by David Tennant at his very best, uses his psychic power in the form of an identity card, to convince The Lady of The Manor that she has met him previously and invited them for the weekend.

A murder will soon happen when Professor Plum is killed in The Library with a lead pipe. Yes, a Clue board game reference which his plucky companion (Catherine Tate) gleefully notes. And so it goes for the entire episode in a rather delightful manner. It’s silly, it’s fast-paced, and it’s one of the most British episodes that the new Who does. And it’s one that shows how clearly this series is fantasy, not science fiction, as I’ll note when you read on. 

The Unicorn of the title is simply the code name of an infamous jewel thief, but The Wasp of the title is a wasp, a bloody big one on that. A wasp that’s the love child of a shape shifting alien who made Her Ladyship pregnant in India forty years ago. A wasp that’s so big that it couldn’t survive in Earth’s gravity, but this is fantasy after all. (I firmly believe that almost all science fiction is fantasy — some are just more blatant about it.) And do keep an ear out for the many, many references to the novels Christie wrote. There’s even a paperback published if I remember correctly millions of the year in the future. See books do survive! 

It’s a quite delightful affair which fits very nicely into the genre of Manor House mysteries which of course the future Dame Agatha would write a few of these novels herself. Oh and Agatha Christie was played by Fanella Woolgar, to the far right in the image below, who was cast at the urging of Tennant who may or may not have known that the actress had twice appeared in the Agatha Christie’s Poirot series several years previously. She played Ellis in the “Lord Edgware Dies”, and in “Hallowe’en Party” as Elizabeth Whittaker. 

This episode is why one of the many reasons that David Tennant is my favorite actor that played a Doctor in the new Whovian era. (Tom Baker is my favorite of the classic Doctors.) Jodi Whittaker, my second favorite in the modern era, who I believe a great performer that I thought was let down too often by scripts that were less than they could’ve been. 

It, like all modern Who, is now available exclusively in the States on Disney+. I downloaded this and my other favorite episodes when they came out. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Rubes puts a funny twist on a familiar confrontation.
  • Eek! requires knowledge of those unseen to be funny.

(12) CRISTAL PRIZES. Animation Magazine reports “’Memoir of a Snail,’ ‘Flow,’ ‘Percebes’ Take Home Annecy’s Top Prizes”.

The massively popular 2024 edition of the Annecy Intl Festival of Animation came to its exciting conclusion on Saturday with the announcement of the winners of this year’s Cristal prizes. Adam Elliot‘s audience-pleasing stop-motion feature Memoir of a Snail was the winner of the 2024 Cristal for Best Animated Feature, while Alexandra Ramires and Laura Gonçalves’ s Percebese was the winner of the top prize in the shorts category….

(13) THEY’RE GOING APE OVER NEW RPG. A Kickstarter has been launched to fund “The Official Role-Playing Game of the PLANET OF THE APES by Magnetic Press Play”. How well is it going? They’ve raised $198,689 of the $15,000 goal with 24 days left in the campaign. Players are eager.

In a world turned upside down, civilized apes sit at the top of the evolutionary ladder, ruling over a population of primal humans. But this dominion will not go unchallenged. Wayward astronauts arrive to lead an uprising, questioning this madness and the events that led to this topsy-turvy, backward future. Political intrigue, societal conflict, and fantastical, dangerous mysteries abound on this planet ruled by apes!

Built on the celebrated, time-tested D6 System developed by RPG pioneer West End Games, this exciting science fiction adventure series brings a wealth of new features and roleplaying mechanics for a new generation of gamers.

Players will be easily thrust into the PLANET OF THE APES through the new “Magnetic Variant (D6MV)” Rule Set taking full advantage of the unique and popular “Wild Die” system and other unique role-playing systems. Adventures in PLANET OF THE APES will be as thrilling and cinematic as players dare to imagine.

(14) MEGALOPOLIS SECURES U.S. DISTRIBUTION. “Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Gets U.S. Release in September” – Variety has details.

Francis Ford Coppola’s sci-fi epic “Megalopolis,” which proved to be wildly divisive after its Cannes Film Festival premiere, has finally found a distributor. Lionsgate has signed a deal to distribute the film in theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

It will be released on Sept. 27. “Megalopolis” is playing in Imax, but it will likely share screens with Christopher Nolan’s 10th anniversary “Interstellar” rerelease. It’ll also have to relinquish those coveted premium large format screens a week later, as “Joker: Folie à Deux,” which was filmed with Imax cameras, lands on Oct. 4….

(15) ORPHAN BLACK: ECHOES STARTS JUNE 23: [Item by Daniel Dern.] “Orphan Black: Echoes — Cast, plot, premiere date, and everything else there is to know” – from Monsters and Critics.

… Orphan Black: Echoes is the name of the next chapter, and while it will be similar to its predecessor, it will also have some notable changes.

The original Orphan Black focused on a series of clones flawlessly played by Tatiana Maslany….

…Orphan Black: Echoes will premiere on Sunday, June 23, at 9/8c on AMC and BBC America.

Full episodes will be available to stream on AMC+….

… Orphan Black: Echoes is headlined by Krysten Ritter, who plays a young woman named Lucy who has undergone a procedure and has no recollection of what happened.

Keeley Hawes is playing Dr. Kira Manning, the daughter of Orphan Black’s Sarah Manning, serving as one of the sequel’s most significant ties to the original.

The impressive cast is rounded out by Avan Jogia (Jack), Amanda Fix (Jules Lee), James Hiroyuki Liao (Paul Darrow), and Rya Kihlstedt (Eleanor Miller).

While 37 years have passed between Orphan Black Season 5 and Orphan Black: Echoes, it is possible that some familiar faces will stop by, thanks to the show’s focus on clones….

According to the Wikipedia — “Orphan Black: Echoes”:

The series stars Krysten Ritter and is set in 2052 in the same universe as Orphan Black…taking place in 2052, thirty-seven years since the end of the original series, Echoes follows the life of the now adult Kira [daughter on one of the original clones] and her wife, as they try to help an amnesiac woman….

(16) LINER NOTES FOR TODAY’S SCROLL TITLE. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “You Gets No Kzin With One RingWorld”. Notes:

[1] Per Genius.com and other citations, Josh White sang “…you gets…” although no doubt there are versions with “…you get…”

Here’s two recordings by Josh White:

[2] Also per Genius.com:

With “One Meatball”, Josh White became the first African-American to have a million-selling hit. According to his biographer Elijah Wald it was White’s “biggest hit by far, and one of the most popular songs of the 1940s folk revival”.

[3] Song origins: See the comment in [2]; also “The meaning behind the song One Meat Ball by Joshua White”.

Here’s Dave Van Ronk performing it. And here’s further discussions, including references to the precursor “One Fish Ball” and “The Lone Fish Ball”. Hear on YouTube: “David Kelley One Fish Ball”.

And here’s Dave Van Ronk discussing the song’s origins (and then singing it).

Lastly, I’m also not seeing “You Gets No Matzoh With One Gefilte Fish Ball” – the ghost of Alan Sherman, I’m talking to you!

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. With the help of kazoos, a toy xylophone and other classroom instruments, Ray Parker Jr., Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Jimmy Fallon & The Roots render “Ghostbusters” on The Tonight Show. From a broadcast earlier this year.

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

Pixel Scroll 5/29/24 Pixel Scroll Heaven’s Just A File Away

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(1) RARE APPLAUSE. George R.R. Martin says he found an exception to the rule in “The Adaptation Tango” at Not A Blog.

…Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and “make them their own.”   It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone.   No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it.   “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound.   Then they make the story their own.

They never make it better, though.   Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.

Once in a while, though, we do get a really good adaptation of a really good book, and when that happens, it deserves applause.

I came across one of those instances recently, when I binged the new FX version of SHOGUN.

…The new SHOGUN is superb.   Better than Chamberlain’s version, you ask?   Hmmm, I don’t know.   I have not watched the 1980 miniseries since, well, 1980.   That one was great too.…

(2) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to polish off paneer biryani with Tobias Carroll in Episode 226 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll is the author of the novels Ex-Members, Reel, and In the Sight, the short story collection Transitory, and the nonfiction book Political Sign. …He writes a column on notable books in translation for Words Without Borders. Plus he has a podcast of his own — Framed & Bound, in which bookish people discuss movies set in the literary world.

We discussed which punk rock music made him a fan, why his heart belongs to novella-length works rather than massive epics, the artistic motivation for sometimes not giving readers what they’ve been taught to expect, the reason Ann Nocenti’s run on Daredevil was meaningful to him (and why he believes it aged so well), his fascination with deteriorating physical media, why Edward Hopper’s classic painting Nighthawks would have made the perfect cover art for one of his books, how you know when you’ve stuck the landing with a short story, and much more.

(3) SETTING THE STANDARD. C. E. Murphy did a lot of writing during a “Milford writing retreat” and makes that fact into an interesting story of its own.

I was afforded the unexpected opportunity to go on a writing retreat in mid-May. It was a great success, but I have to start by telling you about the first time I went on this retreat, in 2019, which MIGHT have been the first year this retreat was held.

That week, I wrote 41,000 words. Which is a lot. In fact, it’s enough that they said “we’re now going to use ‘murphy’ as our unit of measurement for this retreat forever,” which I thought they were joking about, except it turns out they’re not. :laughs: So, yeah. Wordcounts at this retreat are measured in “murphys,” although it turns out that they thought I’d written 33k that week so a “murphy,” technically speaking, is 33k. 🙂

That, however, was evidently not the legendary bit.

The legendary bit is that, because I was driving in with a friend and her van broke down, and we had to wait for the AA(A)* guy, I said, “Well, we might as well get some writing done” and made her take out her laptop and got my laptop out and we got some writing done.

I THOUGHT THIS WAS A PERFECTLY NORMAL REASONABLE THING TO DO! I now understand, at least intellectually, that…it was not. 🙂

Anyway, so that’s kind of the level of expectation I had/have for myself, going into a retreat. Nothing less than ‘legendary.’

Well, mes amis, I did not achive legendary.

Which is to say, I ONLY accomplished a Full Murphy by Retreat Standards: ie, I did about 32,000 words, which is Close Enough, sez I. I ONLY finished one novella and did 80% of another. (Well, 90%. I finished that one yesterday.) And also I edited a friend’s book, which probably should give me some kind of writing credit but is too hard to figure out in terms of wordcount….

(4) REGISTER FOR TALABI Q&A. FIYAH Literary Magazine will host an online interview with Wole Talabi on June 23. Connect at the link.

(5) NO SILVER LINING IN THIS CLOUD FOR “GOLD STANDARD OF FAMILY FILMS”. “Pixar Hit With Layoffs as 175 Staffers Cut” reports Variety.

Pixar was hit with layoffs on [May 21] as approximately 175 employees, or 14% of its workforce, were let go….

…Pixar employees have been bracing for layoffs since January, but cuts were smaller than the speculated 20% reduction that was reported at the time.Once considered the gold standard of family films, Pixar has been struggling since the pandemic when its corporate overlords at Disney used the pedigree of the animation brand to prop up its new streaming service. During that period, new offerings “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red” were sent directly to Disney+ and family audiences became accustomed to expect those movies at home. When it reverted to prioritizing theatrical releases, moviegoers rejected the $200 million-budgeted “Toy Story” spinoff “Lightyear,” which marked Pixar’s second consecutive misfire after 2020’s “Onward” (which was released just before theaters shut down due to COVID). Although “Elemental” finished with $495 million globally, much stronger than its disappointing opening weekend would have suggested, it’s far less than past Pixar movies have earned.

(6) BOMBADIL ON BOARD. “Tom Bombadil Finally Steps Forth in ‘The Rings of Power’—An Exclusive First Look” at Vanity Fair.

Tom Bombadil has finally been invited on one of the long and winding road trips through Middle-earth. The mystical character is one of the more offbeat figures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings saga, a woodland-dwelling man with an ethereal presence and a penchant for nonsense songs and brightly colored clothes, who helps rescue the hobbits from peril early in the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring. As much as he stands apart, his name would likely draw a blank from anyone who hasn’t read the novels since the two primary film retellings—Ralph Bakshi’s animated 1978 opus and Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning live-action trilogy—both cut the him from the narrative completely. Now Old Tom, as the books refer to him, is finally getting his moment in the sun.

The Rings of Power, the Amazon Prime Video series based on Tolkien’s ancient history of his fantasy realm, will break that tradition of exclusion and finally feature Tom Bombadil—along with his jolly songs and his flamboyant wardrobe—when its second season begins August 29. Bombadil was described in Tolkien’s books as “older than the old,” a benevolent entity who began life around the time all life began, so his existence in this earlier era, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, fits within the canon established by the author. In a 1937 letter to his publisher, mulling a possible sequel to The Hobbit, Tolkien described Bombadil as “the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside.” The author bristled at the notion that he wrote in allegory, but it’s clear he saw Bombadil as nature personified—right up to the character’s ambivalence about interfering in the larger world around him. That left showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay to figure out exactly how he might turn up in their show—and why.

(7) WHERE THEY’RE WATCHING BRIDGERTON. JustWatch covers one of the most anticipated releases of 2024, Bridgerton season three. Netflix has seen great success with Bridgerton, and as the newest season has just dropped they wanted to see how its release stacks up against the first two. (Click for larger image.) 

Key Insights:

  • Season 2 had the most successful launch, ranking 1st in 93 countries
  • Season 3 has the highest rating out of all three Bridgerton seasons
  • Season 1 is the least successful out of all three seasons, with the lowest IMDb rating and the lowest global popularity 

JustWatch created this report by pulling data from the week following the release of Bridgerton, and compared it to the previous two seasons. JustWatch Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity, including: clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as ‘seen’. This data is collected from >40 million movie & TV show fans per month. It is updated daily for 140 countries and 4,500 streaming services.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 28, 1906 – T. H. White. (Died 1964.)   

By Paul Weimer.

Sure, the only thing I have read of him is the four volumes of the Once and Future King, and I particularly remember best the original, The Sword in the Stone. Yes, I read the book because I saw the animated Disney version on WPIX. So when I turned to the book itself, and found just how different it was, it was an early lesson for me in the perils of adaptations. This was a good lesson to learn, that adaptations could be extremely different than the original source text.  When I saw the animated Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and Return of the King, I was prepared for the books to be very different, thanks to the Sword in the Stone and White’s book.

T. H. White

But White’s book was also a lesson in something else. The Sword in the Stone was arguably the first time I came across a book which “extended” a myth I already knew. I knew who King Arthur and the Round Table were from a book of mythology I read when I was young. But it was White’s book that showed me that you could extend a story backwards in time, that you could go “beyond the myth and legend” and invent new stories for a character. And I will bet that most people who aren’t scholars, take the events in the Sword in the Stone as fully amalgamated parts of the Arthur story.  Consider: This is where the idea that Merlin either is living backwards (something Piers Anthony would later borrow for his Incarnations books), or that he is quite aware or is preparing for our modern day (c.f. Zelazny’s The Last Defender of Camelot). Other adaptations of the Arthurian myths from Lawhead to Attanasio to Barron have had to have at least a passing familiarity with White’s ur-Arthur story, even if they take it in very different directions.  

Sure, it’s an anachronism stew, and it left me for years wondering why other books didn’t have Robin Hood and Camelot in the same time period, but the sheer audacity of mixing and remixing history and myth and telling a new story of young Arthur is, and was, audacious and I admire it still for that audacity.

Or, in other words, The Sword in the Stone is the prequel that defies the curse of prequels and in fact fully canonizes the prequel. And the rest of the series feels as fully canonical as Malory, and perhaps even more so. Not a bad legacy, in my book.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Baldo has a winner who multitasks.
  • Carpe Diem imagines a future athletic event.
  • Bizarro might remind you of Rorschach.

(10) BIG BONED. The Guardian stands by as a “’Virtually complete’ Stegosaurus fossil to be auctioned at Sotheby’s geek week”.

The largest and most complete Stegosaurus fossil ever found is expected to fetch up to $6m (£4.7m) when it is sold as the star lot in Sotheby’s “geek week” auction this summer.

At 11ft (3.4 metres) tall and more than 20ft long the “virtually complete” fossil, which has been nicknamed “Apex”, is more than 30% larger than “Sophie”, the previously most intact stegosaurus specimen which was on display in London’s Natural History Museum….

…With an auction estimate of $4m-$6m it may become one of the most valuable dinosaur fossils ever sold at auction. The record is held by Stan, a T rex skeleton auctioned off by Christie’s for $31.8m in 2020….

… Apex was discovered by the commercial palaeontologist Jason Cooper in the Morrison Formation, in Moffat County, Colorado, near the town of Dinosaur, in May 2022.

(11) INSECURITY. “Police Biometric Data Leaks In Huge Hack” – Giant Freakin’ Robot has details.

As our world becomes increasingly reliant on computerized data storage, it becomes clearer and clearer that the wars of tomorrow will be fought using leaks, hacks, and online attacks. A widespread hack of police data in India was recently conducted, releasing facial images, fingerprints, and other personal data about Indian police, and those seeking to apply for police jobs. The leaked info has also been compiled into zip files and offered for sale to criminals over the encrypted messaging app Telegram, clearly for nefarious purposes.

This hack of police data is a sign of more cyber crimes of this kind to come, as criminals continue to become better equipped with online hacking skills with each passing day. Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler explained that he’s already uncovered numerous web servers with hundreds of gigabytes of stolen data, targeting victims from multiple countries all over the Earth. This data ranges from basic information such as birthdays, purchase history, and education certificates, to more personal documentation such as birth certificates, bank info, and social security cards….

(12) FIN DE CYCLE. “Orcas are still smashing up boats – and we’ve finally worked out why” says New Atlas.

For four years now, orcas have been ramming and sinking luxury yachts in European waters, and scientists have struggled to work out just why these smart, social animals had learnt this destructive new trick. But it’s not due to some anticapitalist ‘eat the rich’ agenda, nor is it to do with territory and aggression. The truth is, well, it’s child’s play.

Following years of research, a team of biologists, government officials and marine industry representatives have released their findings on just why one particular Orcinus orca group has developed this destructive streak. And it turns out, orcas – especially the kids and teens – just want to have fun. The report reveals that a combination of free time, curiosity and natural playfulness has led to young orcas adopting this ‘trend’ of boat-bumping, which is not at all surprising for a species that has been known to adopt odd, isolated behaviors from time to time.

In recent years, a dramatic recovery in the population of bluefin tuna in the region has been a win for a group of about 40 critically endangered Iberian killer whales that feed exclusively on the large fish. This has meant they’ve cut down their time spent foraging, leaving space for other ‘hobbies.’…

(13) THE BEE SIDE. “A vaccine for bees has an unexpected effect” explains Science News.

The first vaccine designed for insects may make honeybees healthier overall.

Honeybee hives vaccinated against a bacterial disease had much lower levels of an unrelated viral disease than did unvaccinated hives, veterinarian Nigel Swift of Dalan Animal Health reported April 3 at the World Vaccine Congress.

Researchers at Dalan, based in Athens, Ga., designed the bee vaccine to protect against American foulbrood — a fatal disease caused by a spore-forming bacterium called Paenibacillus larvae. Adult bees don’t get sick but can spread spores in the hive, where the disease infects and kills larvae. Spores can remain viable for more than 50 years, so beekeepers with infected colonies must destroy hives by irradiating or burning them to keep the disease in check. A vaccine may save bee lives and beekeepers’ livelihoods….

… Dalan’s vaccine against foulbrood disease doesn’t rely on tiny syringes. Instead, bees are inoculated through a sugar paste that researchers spike with heat-killed P. larvae. Worker bees eat the candy and incorporate it into their royal jelly, which they feed to the queen. Inside the queen’s gut, bits of the bacteria attach to a protein, which in turn transports the vaccine fragments to the ovaries where they can be deposited in eggs. Larvae that hatch from the eggs should be protected from the disease…

… Yet the researchers found a surprising result: Vaccinated hives were protected from a viral disease spread by varroa mites (SN: 3/7/16). Both vaccinated and unvaccinated hives started the study with the same number of mites and a baseline level of virus, as measured by a PCR test. Virus levels continued to rise in the unvaccinated hives but declined in the vaccinated ones. At the end of the study, vaccinated hives had accumulated 83 percent less virus than unvaccinated hives did, Swift said. The number of mites per hive remained the same….

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Cliff, 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 Kip W.]

Pixel Scroll 3/10/24 He Who Controls The Pixels Controls The Scroll

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(1) HUGO, GIRL! REVERSES PERMANENT RECUSAL DECISION. The Hugo, Girl! the Podcast team tells why they have changed their minds about permanently recusing themselves from the Best Fancast category in “Statement on the 2023 Hugo Awards”. The complete explanation is at the link.

Following the Chengdu Hugo Awards, we believed in good faith that we were the legitimate winners of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fancast. We subsequently announced Hugo, Girl’s permanent recusal from the Best Fancast category. We were honored and delighted by the win, and we wanted to make room for others to experience the same.

However, with each recent revelation about the administration of the Hugo Awards, we have become increasingly uncomfortable thinking of ourselves as legitimate winners. Viewing the nomination and voting data that others have meticulously combed through, analyzed, and presented in a thorough and digestible way, it initially seemed that Fancast was one of the less obviously suspicious categories. It did not appear that any of our Fancast co-finalists or entries on the long list had been mysteriously disqualified, as was the case in several other categories. That being said, Fancast is not free from strange numbers.

We became even more dubious once we learned that the Hugo Administrators had investigated and disqualified potential finalists* on the basis of assumed politics, queer and trans identity, and an imaginary trip to Tibet. We ourselves likely should have been disqualified under the same criteria. It does not escape our notice that as four white people, we may have been scrutinized less closely….

… For the foregoing reasons, we have decided to withdraw our recusal from Hugo eligibility, effective in 2025. We hope to have a future opportunity to participate in a fair, transparent Hugo Awards process, if voters decide to honor us again with a place on the ballot. 

(2) FALSE GRIT. Heard too much about Dune lately? Then your brain will probably explode in the middle of reading “Charles Bukowski’s Dune” at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

It had been a long day. The hot-shit new supervisor, who looked about sixteen and probably hadn’t even started shaving yet, had written me up twice. I’d crumpled both slips in front of him, thrown them in the trash.

On the way home, the 48-Arrakeen worm died at the base of the hill, and we all had to hop off into the sand. The thing was already starting to stink as I began the trudge uphill, bone-tired and thirsty….

(3) NO ARMY IS SO POWERFUL AS AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME. Variety reports, “SAG-AFTRA Chief: Chance of Strike Against Game Producers is ’50-50’”.

Issues around the use of AI in the production process is the big sticking point in SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations with the largest video game companies, SAG-AFTRA chief Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said Saturday during a wide-ranging Q&A at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Crabtree-Ireland, who is national executive director and chief negotiator of the performers union, said he put the chances of union members striking against key game companies is “50-50, or more likely than that we will go on strike in the next four to six weeks because of our inability to get past these issues,” Crabtree-Ireland told Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company, during a conversation focused on AI….

… Some pushed the union to demand an outright ban on the use of AI in union-covered productions. Crabtree-Ireland said he know that was a nonstarter.

“We would not have succeeded, any more than any union ever in history has been able to stop technology,” he said. “Unions that try that approach, they fail and they give up the chance to influence how those technologies are implemented. “The fact of matter is, we’re going to have AI.”

Crabtree-Ireland emphasized repeatedly that the union’s position on AI revolves around “consent and compensation” for its members when AI engines use their work. “We want to make sure the implementation is human-centered and focused on augmentation [of production], not replacement of people,” he said….

(4) SFF WINS CANADIAN COMPETITION. The Québecois author Catherine Leroux’s The Future, in a translation by Susan Ouriou, has won the 2024 Canada Reads national competition. (Canada Reads is a television show. ) “’Canada Reads’ 2024 Winner: Catherine Leroux’s ‘The Future’” at Publishing Perspectives.

…The Future by Catherine Leroux, published by Biblioasis in Windsor, was named the winner of the weeklong series of elimination programs  from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s CBCbooks. The book is translated from French by Susan Ouriou and is a dystopian history of Detroit, a book the program refers to as, “a plea for persistence in the face of our uncertain future.”

(5) REID Q&A. Sff gets two callouts in this Guardian interview: “Taylor Jenkins Reid: ‘Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy are unbeatable’”. Taylor Jenkins Reid will be international author of the day at the London Book Fair on March 12.

The writer who changed my mind
I thought I didn’t like sci-fi until I discovered Octavia Butler. Kindred defies genre, but it taught me that I’ll go anywhere in a story if I trust the writer….

My comfort read
Whenever I want to read a book I know will be good, I go to Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Her genres are ever changing, her ability to take on a wild story each time is incredible. You never know what she’s going to do, but you know it will be a page-turner. I cannot wait for her next book, The Seventh Veil of Salome. Fifties Hollywood, two starlets, the role of a lifetime … what more could you want?

(6) FLATIRON STILL AWAITS ITS FUTURE. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] In a news item today on the BBC about America’s office market, there’s a passing reference to the former Tor offices:

The famous triangular Flatiron building nearby has been vacant since 2019. Last autumn, the owners said it would be turned into condos.

Way back in January 2009, File 770 reported that the owners originally had different plans:

However, the offices of Tor Books are housed in New York’s Flatiron Building, which an Italian investor has announced plans to convert into a luxury hotel. Reports say hotels take so long to construct that it might be a decade before the Flatiron Building comes online in its new capacity.

The departure of Tor and the wider Macmillan publishing organization was reported in the June 5th, 2019 Pixel Scroll.

(7) TEENAGE BROADBAND. “New Emotions Move in for ‘Inside Out 2’” – and Animation Magazine makes the introductions:

Disney and Pixar today unveiled the official trailer plus new images and poster for Inside Out 2, which welcomes new Emotions to now-teenager Riley’s mind. Joining Joy (voice of Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale) and Disgust (Liza Lapira) is a group of Emotions perfectly suited for the teenage years: 

Maya Hawke voices Anxiety, the previously announced new arrival bound to shake up everything in headquarters and beyond. A bundle of frazzled energy, Anxiety enthusiastically ensures Riley’s prepared for every possible negative outcome.

Envy, voice of Ayo Edebiri, may be small but she sure knows what she wants. She’s perpetually jealous of everything everyone else has, and she’s not afraid to pine over it. 

Ennui, who’s voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos, couldn’t care less. Bored and lethargic with a well-practiced eye-roll, Ennui adds the perfect amount of teenage apathy to Riley’s personality, when she feels like it.

Embarrassment, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser, likes to lay low, which isn’t easy for this burly guy with a bright blush-pink complexion….

(8) BILL WAHL TRIBUTE. Brian Keene is overwhelmed by the loss of another friend – Bill Wahl died March 6 — as he told readers of “Letters From the Labyrinth 371”.

…Bill, like me, was always blunt and spoke his mind. And he did indeed give Mary and I a TON of pointers and help in the setting up of Vortex Books & Comics. It is Saturday as I write this, in the bookstore, and it is not lost on me that he had planned on coming in here today, right about the time I’m typing this (2:31pm).

I guess maybe I wrote a eulogy after all. Maybe half-assed, but that’s still pretty good considering that I’m typing it amidst a car crash of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion from which I may not be able to beat this time.

After 56 years on this planet, I finally know what it means to be tired…

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 10, 1918 — Theodore Rose Cogswell. (Died 1987.) Let’s consider Theodore Rose Cogswell. He was a member of the Minneapolis Fantasy Society and later noted that fellow members Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson said that he should he should be a writer. 

He was in his thirties before his first work, “The Spectre General” novella was published in the June 1952 issue of Astounding. SWFA considers it one of our best novellas. 

Theodore Cogswell in 1955.

He would co-write with Charles A. Spano, Jr., Spock, Messiah. Prior to this novel, only one Star Trek tie-in novel intended for adult readers instead of YA readers had been published, Spock Must Die!, written by James Blish. Blish was supposed to do a Mudd novel but his death obviously prevented that. A real pity that. Though Mudd’s Angels would be written by J.A. Lawrence, Blish’s wife.

Back to Cogswell.

He wrote a fair amount of short fiction, some forty works, collected in The Wall Around the World, the title novelette here was nominated for a Retro Hugo, and The Third Eye.

Perhaps, his most interesting work was as editor of Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies where such individuals as Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Algis Budrys, Arthur C. Clarke, Avram Davidson, Gordon Dickson, Fritz Leiber engaged in what is best described as a very long running written bull session. A copious amount of these writings was published as PITFCS: Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies. Though NESFA distributed it, it was published by Advent Publishing. It was nominated for a Hugo at ConAdian for Best Related Non-Fiction Book. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) NEW MARVEL UNLIMITED PROGRAM LETS YOU ACCESS INFINITY COMICS FOR FREE.  Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrolling became available starting March 7.  

It’s time to Start Scrolling! Today, comic fans will have even more access to their favorite stories spanning the Marvel Universe with the all-new Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrolling digital program. The new program, exclusively from Marvel Unlimited, allows readers to access select Infinity Comics for free.   
 
Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrollingwill provide instant access to select free comics, with no login required. Readers can experience over 100 issues of bingeable Marvel stories starring fan-favorites including the X-Men, Spider-Man, Jeff the Land Shark, and many more, by visiting Marvel’s Infinity Comics: Start Scrolling. With an extensive library of over 30,000 comics on Marvel Unlimited, fans can expect other free Infinity Comics to be rotated in throughout the year.  
 
Marvel’s Infinity Comics are a vertical format designed for phones and tablets exclusive to Marvel Unlimited. Since launching in September 2021, Marvel Unlimited has published over 1,000 Infinity Comics to date from over 300 top Marvel creators.  

(12) FOLLOW THE MONEY. Or the spice. The economic engine that drives Dune’s universe isn’t explained in the movie, but GameRant has volunteered for the job: “Dune: CHOAM, Explained”.

…The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles is a monopolistic conglomerate that controls all commerce throughout the Dune universe. All material goods flow through CHOAM. All substantial wealth comes through interests in CHOAM. The CHOAM network runs through every other seat of power. CHOAM is under the Corrino Empire, the highest station in the universe, which oversees CHOAM’s board of directors. CHOAM was a publicly traded company. Shareholder profits could make any participant fabulously wealthy. Only the noble patriarchs of the Great Houses could become shareholders in CHOAM. The Houses fought for directorship positions, seeking to earn dividends and skim profit from their impossibly vast businesses. The Emperor reserved the right to revoke or hand out director positions, giving him the final say in any profit-seeking venture….

(13) CALLING SOLOMON! Space tells “Why astronomers are worried about 2 major telescopes right now”.

There’s a bit of tension right now in the U.S. astronomy community and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it has to do with telescopes — extremely large telescopes, in fact. Here’s what’s going on.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), a source of public funding that two powerful next-gen observatories have been banking on for financial support, is facing pressure to go forward with only one telescope. This is because last month, the National Science Board — which is basically an advisory committee for the NSF — recommended that it cap its giant telescope budget at $1.6 billion. This is a lot of money, but it’s just not enough for both. The board even says the NSF will have until only May of this year to decide which telescope gets the go-ahead.Yet, both telescopes are already in the middle of construction, both are equally important and both are actually supposed to work together to fulfill a wide-eyed dream for astronomers. Because of how utterly huge they’re meant to be, they’re expected to one-up even the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in many ways. That’s the gold-mirrored, silvery-shielded trailblazer sitting a million miles from Earth right now, finding deep space gems so quickly it’s normalizing us to seeing things humanity once couldn’t fathom seeing. Imagine something better….

… One of the big scopes is the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). It’s taking shape as you read this in the clear-skied deserts of Chile, and it’s projected to cost something like $2.54 billion as a whole. The other is called The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). That one’s location is a bit more controversial. It’s planned to decorate a mountain in Hawaii called Mauna Kea, but locals have protested the decision because this stunning volcanic peak that boasts low humidity and gentle winds (perfect conditions for astronomy) is extremely meaningful in native Hawaiian culture. It’s a fraught situation, as 13 other telescopes already live in the area and some local people say the facilities are  impacting the natural environment. In terms of cost, however, the projected amount is just about symmetrical to the GMT’s….

(14) WHAT’S THE MATTER? “Controversial new theory of gravity rules out need for dark matter” – and the Guardian tries to explain it to us. However, the last time I heard a doctor use the word “wobbly” in connection with anything about spacetime, his last name was “Who”.

…There are multiple lines of evidence for dark matter, but its nature has remained mysterious and searches by the Large Hadron Collider have come up empty-handed. Last year, the European Space Agency launched a mission, Euclid, aiming to produce a cosmic map of dark matter.

The latest paper, published on the Arxiv website and yet to be peer-reviewed, raises the question of whether it even exists, drawing parallels between dark matter and flawed concepts of the past, such as “the ether”, an invisible substance that was thought to permeate all of space.

“In the absence of any direct evidence for dark energy or dark matter it is natural to wonder whether they may be unnecessary scientific constructs like celestial spheres, ether, or the planet Vulcan, all of which were superseded by simpler explanations,” it states. “Gravity has a long history of being a trickster.”

In this case, the simpler explanation being proposed is Oppenheim’s “postquantum theory of classical gravity”. The UCL professor has spent the past five years developing the approach, which aims to unite the two pillars of modern physics: quantum theory and Einstein’s general relativity, which are fundamentally incompatible.

Oppenheim’s theory envisages the fabric of space-time as smooth and continuous (classical), but inherently wobbly. The rate at which time flows would randomly fluctuate, like a burbling stream, space would be haphazardly warped and time would diverge in different patches of the universe. The theory also envisions an intrinsic breakdown in predictability….

(15) GIANT SQUID. [Item by Lise Andreasen.] This is the last place I would look for characters from 20000 Leagues Under The Sea.

(16) NO PLANET FOR OLD MEN. Dan Monroe is determined to find out “What Happened to THE BOMB from BENEATH the PLANET of the APES?”

(17) WITH AND WITHOUT STRINGS ATTACHED. [Item by Carl.] “Here Come The Puppets” was a PBS special produced by KQED at the International Puppet Festival in Washington DC. It was hosted by Jim Henson and the Muppets, and features internationally known puppeteers. It’s NEVER been offered in DVD form. It can now be seen on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiwLNy24ak4

(18) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. “Watch: Rare Footage Of Leonard Nimoy Hosting 1975 Special Presentation Of Star Trek’s ‘The Menagerie’” at TrekMovie.com.

In 1975, Paramount produced a special movie presentation for syndication of the two-part Star Trek episode “The Menagerie,” hosted by TOS star Leonard Nimoy. The original Spock recorded introductions for each part of the episode as well as closing remarks for the special presentation. In the special, Nimoy explains how “The Menagerie” uses footage from the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage” and more….

There’s a nod to its Hugo win at the 4:51 mark.

…This morning, WJAR Channel 10 in Rhode Island posted a clip from their morning show with guest Leonard Nimoy from what appears to be around the end of the first season of the series. The actor talks about concerns the show will be canceled and the fan campaign to keep it on the air along with the origins of his signature Vulcan ears….

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, JJ, Lori, Carl, Ersatz Culture, Lise Andreasen, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joseph Hurtgen.]

Pixel Scroll 11/10/23 Ralph 3.14159, P.I.

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(0) Been having a lot of monitor trouble, so today’s Scroll is short.

(1) IN THE FALL. Mark Lawrence calls it the ”Goodreads Droop”. He shared a graph of the performance of his novel The Book That Wouldn’t Burn.

… When a book has ten or twenty ratings, many or all of them might come from friends and family, and the tendency is for these to rate highly. The first few hundred ratings will often come from highly motivated people – they may be fans of the author, or interested in new authors, and are generally predisposed to be generous. So that intitial high rating falls but not too much.

Next come the general readers who like the genre and specifics of the book but may have no general good feeling towards the author, and rate purely on what’s in front of them. Over the first few thousand ratings the average will generally drop swiftly…..

(2) PIECES OF EIGHT. “Paul McGann ‘to return as Eighth Doctor in new Doctor Who spin-off'” reports Radio Times.

… But just when you think things couldn’t get more exciting, the Doctor Who rumour mill has been churning out news of some very special potential spin-offs.

As reported by The Mirror, it looks as though Paul McGann could be set to make his return as the Eighth Doctor in a brand new series.

According to the newspaper, the spin-off will work in the same way as the Disney-created series for Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which also stream on Disney Plus, the new international home for Doctor Who.

A source told The Mirror: “Russell likes the idea of bringing back McGann with his own set of episodes in the TARDIS.

“Disney are on board as they want more original content and want to fully exploit the franchise as they know how big it could become.”…

(3) SWEET EMOTION. “’Inside Out 2′ Makes History as Disney’s Biggest Animated Trailer Launch” by Variety’s count.

People can’t get enough of Anxiety.

Not the emotion, but rather Pixar’s newest animated character played by Maya Hawke, as “Inside Out 2” marks the biggest animated trailer launch in Disney history.

The trailer to the animated sequel about personified feelings garnered 157 million views in 24 hours, according to Disney. “Inside Out 2” unseated the previous record holder, 2019’s “Frozen 2.” Of those 157 million views, 78 million came from TikTok.

“We are thrilled so many people have tuned in to check out the new trailer for ‘Inside Out 2,’” said Pete Docter, chief creative officer of Pixar. “When the first film came out, we knew that by telling a story where we could see our emotions — those little voices inside your head — there would be so much more to explore than we could possibly fit into one film.”…

(4) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]

The final part of Arthur Liu’s con report

The penultimate part – which was covered in Sunday’s Scroll – documented what could be thought of as more typical con activity, and was more upbeat than the earlier installments.  However the conclusion perhaps returns to the mood of the earlier parts, which is unsurprising when you read the opening paragraphs, which are very intense and perhaps not for all readers.

(Disclosure: I’m mentioned a couple of times in this report.)

Some extracts, via Google Translate with manual edits:

While we were waiting for the bus [well past midnight following the Hugo ceremony and party, after visiting RiverFlow in hospital], we looked across the road and saw the bright neon lights of a science fiction convention illuminating the ground in the cold night, like a gaudy cyberpunk street scene.

It was still dark on this side of the road, with only the screens of everyone’s mobile phones shining brightly.

We returned to the hotel in this atmosphere and went upstairs to rest.

Svetlana Alexievich once wrote a book titled [in Chinese] “I Don’t Know What to Say, About Death or Love”.  This state of wanting to say something, but being speechless due to continued depression, together with a nameless anger, continued to linger in my heart while attending the rest of the con. At 20:36 on Saturday 21st, after the Hugo Awards were presented, RiverFlow released the full text of his Hugo Award acceptance speech on his WeChat/Weixin account.  In the acknowledgments, he individually thanked all the friends who had supported Zero Gravity News. At the end, he said:

Grasp the things you can control, ignore the things you cannot control, and let go of your obsession with these uncontrollable things. This is maturity. Let your mentality be better. After all, the body is sinking, but the soul can be upward. Thank you, [Hugo Finalist] Lu Ban, for letting me understand this truth and sharing with me Marcus Aurelius’ famous saying: “Always remember, your soul is Invincible. As long as you are unwilling to be sad, nothing can make you sad. As long as you want to smile, you can smile immediately when you lift the corners of your mouth. Always remember, your heart is invincible, my friend.” [Note: I couldn’t find an English-language quote that matched this one; perhaps the Chinese version is a fairly loose translation?]

But “letting go of your obsession with things you can’t control” doesn’t mean you have to silently swallow all the hurt you receive. In China, what science fiction fans need most is a kind of self-esteem when facing so-called “professionals”, because the industry will not respect you just because you love science fiction. The industry will always only love the industry…

[From the Hugo acceptance speech Arthur prepared]

Five days ago, I came here with two identities; one as an invited guest because I was shortlisted for this award. The other was a staff member [of CSFDB and the Tsinghua University SF Society]. In the latter capacity, I had to host two panels and organize two fan tables.

When I first arrived on-site as a staff member five days ago, the reception we received was anything but friendly.  To this day, I continue to use my status as a finalist to try to resolve the various obstacles that have come in my role as a staff member. I don’t like using this privilege, but in this situation, it is the last resort.

Even so, I’m still enjoying the parts I can as much as possible.  I think this is a common goal of all the science fiction fans who have come here.  Meet up colleagues from both and abroad, whom you have never met before; make friends with them; take photos with them; exchange gifts, thoughts and imagination; and try to remember it all.  At DisCon III in Washington, it was precisely in order to share this experience and this memory with our international neighbors that we cast our votes to make the convention come true here.

This is a moment for all science fiction fans; this convention belongs to you.

On the night of the opening ceremony, when most people were waving flags and cheering, my friend RiverFlow, who was also a finalist for Best Fan Writer and Best Fanzine in this year’s Hugo Awards, was, due to physical reasons and venue reasons, sent to the hospital. That night was a sleepless night for many of us. That contrast makes me want to stand here and ask, “Why do we science fiction fans love science fiction?  What has science fiction brought us?  Why are we burdened with fatigue, illness, and all the inconveniences, yet still persevere?”

To me, the answer to these questions is this: science fiction gives us the power to use our imagination to understand these things, and to fight them. …

[End of extract from his prepared acceptance speech.]

On the way, [Dip Ghosh, who presented a panel about Indian SF] said that the “acceptance speech” I posted on WeChat Moments last night deeply touched him, and maintained the spirit of “Trufans”.  I asked him, can you read Chinese?  He replied no, but he could use machine translation.

At the fan tables, he gave me a copy of “Adventures of Ghanada“, and also the second volume of “The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction”, and Indian director Satvajit Ray’s memoir “Travails with the Alien”…  I was really humbled by these gifts, and it was a pity that the conference catalog was sold out, and I had no way to repay him. He also said that if a science fiction convention is held in India in the future, I can be a guest, and he will help me go through the procedures to go to New Delhi. His enthusiasm not only moved me, but also made me feel ashamed and sad at this time. I sincerely hope that this encounter will lead to a lasting friendship.

By now it was almost noon, so I stayed at the table, dismantling the display panels piece by piece, and handed them to Hua Wen [see the November 1st, 2nd and 5th Scrolls] along with the stickers for storage. I then took the last stack of commemorative cards and waited for someone to pick them up. Around twelve o’clock, Helen [Montgomery] came over again and gave Chicon 8 commemorative patches (the kind that can be ironed on clothes) to RiverFlow, Ling Shizhen and me. After handing over the two physical copies of “Journey Planet” to Liza [Groen-Trombi] of Locus Magazine and Vincent [Docherty] of Glasgow 2024, it was finally time to leave.

This time, it went very smoothly, except that I almost left my suitcase on the shuttle bus…

On the way to the airport, it seemed that I really had caught a fever, and it felt unbearable. On the way, Ann [Gry] sent her greetings and asked if the RiverFlow’s had improved, how I was doing, and expressed her agreement with the remarks I had made the day before. She said that while she was saddened by some of the organizational aspects, she hoped only the good memories would remain in her mind.  I think she is right, but it is precisely because of those bad memories, that the shining moments retrospectively seem more beautiful and more fragrant.

Dip Ghosh at the Indian SF panel
Items acquired at the co
Star Trek banner at a small event in Beijing post-Worldcon

Taiyo Fujii posts about two more panels

The November 2nd Scroll linked to his “Decolonize the Future” panel, but he has since posted similar write-ups on the How I Became a Professional Science Fiction Writer and Localization Paths of Science Fiction in Non-English-Speaking Countries panels.

The first of those posts is also available in a Japanese language version, which seems to be a slightly different version of the text; the extracts below are a mix of the English post, and the Google Translate rendition of the Japanese post, with minor manual edits.

In Japan, many authors make their debut  through awards for new writers, but many of the panel members did not go through that route, and I was able to hear some interesting stories.

Hosuke Nojiri made his debut with a novelization of a game that was developed by his employer. As such, Mr. Nojiri was a professional writer from the very first work, but he then talked about how he moved into science fiction novels….

Yugen Yashima is from the SF writing school founded by Nozomi Omori. His works were published on the class website. Later, he won several contests. He’s a good example of how Omori’s writing school became a notable gateway for writers to become professionals.

Two bilingual Bilibili videos by Hong Hong

The aforementioned Localization Paths panel comes up in the second of two videos posted to the Bilibili video sharing site by Hong Hong, a Chengdu resident who I came into contact with on the HelloTalk language exchange app.  Her videos are in English with bilingual subtitles.

The first video is a 4-minute wander around the vicinity of the venue, on the day before the con started, plus a visit to a restaurant.

The second one is a 12-minute compilation of various footage from the con.  We see some of the catering facilities, which have been mentioned in previous items, but I don’t think we’ve actually seen them in any of the photos or videos that have been posted.  Content warning: the final minute of this second video features a cat who is clearly unimpressed at having to appear on camera.

The food court area

Video of the water fountain show

Also from Bilibili, here’s a 23-minute video of the water fountain display that took place on the lake outside the SF museum.  There seems to be some sort of video projection or hologram sequences visible from around 09:00, maybe projections onto a continual spray of water?  Perhaps someone who was there knows more about what exactly those were?

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 10, 1946 — Jack Ketchum. Winner of four Bram Stoker Awards, he was made a World Horror Convention Grand Master Award for outstanding contribution to the horror genre. Oh, and he wrote the screenplays for a number of his novels, all of which he quite naturally performed in. He’s deeply stocked at the usual suspects, most of the Meredith Moments, and if you like listening to your fiction, an impressive number of his novels had been done that manner. (Died 2018.)
  • Born November 10, 1948 — Steven Utley. Best known for his short stories of which he had two series, the first being his Silurian tales (collected in two volumes, The 400-Million-Year Itch and Invisible Kingdoms), and his time travel stories have been collected in Where or When. The Silurian tales Are available on iBooks and Kindle, Where or When isn’t either place. His “Custer’s Last Jump” novelette was nominated for Nebula and his “Invisible Kingdoms“ story was nominated for a Sturgeon. (Died 2013.)
  • Born November 10, 1950 — Dean Wesley Smith, 73. Editor of Pulphouse magazine, about which fortunately Black Gate has provided us with a fascinating history which you can read here. Pulphouse I first encountered when I collected the works of Charles de Lint who was in issue number eight way back in the summer issue of 1990. As a writer, he is known for his use of licensed properties such as StarTrek, Smallville, Aliens, Men in Black, and Quantum Leap. He is also known for a number of his original novels, such as the Tenth Planet series written in collaboration with his wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. 
  • Born November 10, 1960 — Neil Gaiman, 63. Where to start? By far, Neverwhere is my favorite work by him, especially the version narrated by him, followed by the Sandman series and Stardust. Stardust is wonderful, particularly when voiced by him. And I sort maybe possibly kind of liked American Gods. I’ve not seen the video series. Who here has? Coraline is just creepy. By far, I think his best script is Babylon 5’s “Day of The Dead” though his Doctor Who episodes, “The Doctor’s Wife” and “Nightmare in Silver” are interesting, particularly the former. Anansi Boys is a tasty soufflé of a novel. 
  • Born November 10, 1971 — Holly Black, 52. Best known for her Spiderwick Chronicles, which were created with fellow writer & illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and for the Modern Faerie Tales YA trilogy. Her first novel was Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale. (It’s very good.) There have been two sequels set in the same universe. The first, Valiant, won the first Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Doll Bones which is really, really creepy was awarded a Newbery Honor and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. Suffice it to say if you like horror, you’ll love her.  Definitely not horror, she and Ellen Kushher, co-edited the last Bordertown anthology, Welcome to Bordertown.
  • Born November 10, 1982 — Aliette de Bodard, 41. Author of the oh-so-excellent Xuya Universe series of which the latest is A Fire Born of Exile. Her Xuya Universe novella “The Tea Master and the Detective” won a Nebula Award and a British Fantasy Award, and was nominated for the Hugo and World Fantasy Award. “The Shipmaker”, also set herein, won a BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction. Her other major series is The Dominion of the Fallen which is equally lauded. More Hugos noms?  Oh yes indeed. LoneStarCon3 saw her nominated both for her oh so amazing “On a Red Station, Drifting” novella and her “Immersion” short story; Loncon 3 for her “The Waiting Stars” novelette (a Nebula winner); “Children of Thorns, Children of Water” novelette nominated at Worldcon 76; at Dublin2019, In a Vanishers’ Palace was nominated as was the ever so stellar The Tea Master and The Detective novella (a Nebula winner), a favorite of mine ever more; DisCon III saw another novelette, “The Inaccessibility of Heaven”, nominated . Her excellent Fireheart Tiger novella was nominated for a Hugo at Chicon 8. 

(6) AS THE CHILD IS BENT. Avatar: The Last Airbender Official Teaser Trailer.

Live-action adaptation of the animated series centering on the adventures of Aang and his friends, who fight to save the world by defeating the Fire-Nation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KDNPLyhsRU

(7) ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER. “When Will the Singularity Happen? Scientist Says by 2031” in Popular Mechanics.

… Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET—who holds a Ph.D. from Temple University and has worked as a leader of Humanity+ and the Artificial General Intelligence Society—told Decrypt that he believes artificial general intelligence (AGI) is three to eight years away. AGI is the term for AI that can truly perform tasks just as well has humans, and it’s a prerequisite for the singularity soon following….

… Getting to the singularity, though, will require a significant leap from the current point of AI development. While today’s AI typically focuses on specific tasks, the push towards AGI is intended to give the technology a more human-like understanding of the world and open up its abilities. As AI continues to broaden its understanding, it steadily moves closer to AGI—which some say is just one step away from the singularity….

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

Pixel Scroll 6/18/23 I Think There Is A World Market For About Five Pixel Scrolls

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(1) STOKERCON 2024. Next year the Horror Writers Association will hold StokerCon in San Diego, CA from May 30-June 2. Here’s the Eventbrite listing: StokerCon 2024 Tickets.

(2) 3-BODY TRAILER FROM G-O-T CREATORS. “3 Body Problem: Netflix Show From Game of Thrones Creators Has Trailer” reports Variety.

At long last, Netflix has revealed the first footage of its highly anticipated sci-fi epic from “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss — their first large-scale project at the streamer since signing a mega overall deal in 2019 — and Alexander Woo.

Based on the book series by Cixin Liu, the eight-episode drama, which recently wrapped production, will launch in January 2024.

Per Netflix’s logline for the sci-fi series, “A young woman’s fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time to a group of brilliant scientists in the present day. As the laws of nature unravel before their eyes, five former colleagues reunite to confront the greatest threat in humanity’s history.”…

(3) BAD B.O. “Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Falls Flat, Adding to Worries About the Brand” opines the New York Times.

Pixar is damaged as a big-screen brand.

That was one of the rather glum takeaways from the weekend box office, which found “Elemental,” a $200 million-plus Pixar original, arriving to a disastrous $29.5 million in domestic ticket sales. “The Flash,” a Warner Bros. superhero spectacle that cost about $200 million, also struggled, taking in a lethargic $55.1 million, according to Comscore, which compiles ticketing data.

“Hard to sugarcoat this,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers.

Questions about Pixar’s health have swirled in Hollywood and among investors since last June, when the Disney-owned studio released “Lightyear” to disastrous results. How could Pixar, the gold standard of animation studios for nearly three decades, have gotten a movie so wrong — especially one about Buzz Lightyear, a bedrock “Toy Story” character?

Maybe pandemic-worried families were not quite ready to return to theaters. Or maybe, as some box office analysts speculated, Disney had weakened the Pixar brand by using its films to build the Disney+ streaming service. Starting in late 2020, Disney debuted three Pixar films in a row (“Soul,” “Turning Red” and “Luca”) online, bypassing theaters altogether.

By streaming standards, those three movies were runaway hits. But Pixar’s most recent box office success was in 2019, when “Toy Story 4” took in $1.1 billion worldwide…

(4) MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE PIECE THEATRE. Cora Buhlert has posted a new Masters of the Universe toy photo story — or rather two short ones in time for the US Father’s Day: “Two Links and a Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Double Feature: ‘New Dad’ and ‘Orko Interruptus’”.

…This version of King Randor is based on the 2002 cartoon, where Randor was protrayed as a somewhat younger and more active character than his Filmation counterpart. While the Filmation Randor mostly set around on his throne and occasionally gave a speech, the 2002 Randor charged into battle alongside his warriors on occasion and also seemed to do more actual governing. The 2002 cartoon also established that Randor was captain of the guard, i.e. Teela’s current, before he became king. All in all, I’d say that the 2002 cartoon features the best overall King Randor – and Randor is a difficult character, because his raison d’etre is to be the parent who does not understand or even see their child – though the Netflix CGI features the best version of Randor as a father. In case you’re wondering which version of King Randor is the worst, that would be the King Randor of Masters of the Universe Revelation, who narrowly missed winning the 2021 Darth Vader Parenthood Award…

(5) AGENT OF CHAOS. But trolls have made Father’s Day rough for Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki as he told Twitter readers:

Hows my Father’s day going? Saw @virtuallyleslie wrote a racist manifesto where she said I only get attention cuz of political correctness. Her supremacist cult friends are on it, including the one impersonating my dead father who was gruesomely murdered, to defame & harass me

Patrick S. Tomlinson also has commented on what Leslie Varney wrote, and the significance of it coming from an agent. Thread starts here.

Leslie Varney wrote a reply thread that starts here.

(6) ONCE UPON A BIRTHDAY. Brian Murphy profiles Lin Carter for what would have been his 93rd birthday: “Lin Carter: Enthusiast of the Fantastic” at Goodman Games.

…. I love Carter’s illuminating and occasionally gushing introductions to the volumes he edited. Introducing readers to William Morris in the BAFS, Carter makes a compelling case that his The Wood Beyond the World (1895) was the first-ever novel of heroic fantasy ever written in a true secondary world, quipping that “it was the first of all such tales of adventurous wanderings through the marvelous landscapes of worlds which have somehow managed to avoid the wear and tear of ever having actually existed.”…

(7) FREE READ. Issue 7 of Whetstone Amateur Magazine of Sword and Sorcery has just come out and is available as a free download: Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword and Sorcery: Issue 7.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

1999 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in The Sky is our Beginning this Scroll.  It won a much deserved Hugo at Chicon 2000 along with a John W. Campbell Memorial Award and a Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian SF Novel. It was also nominated for a HOMer and a Nebula as well. Damn impressive I’d say.

The novel is a loose prequel and is set twenty thousand years earlier to his A Fire Upon the Deep which was published previously. 

So let’s get to the Beginning…

The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light-years and eight centuries. It had always been a secret search, unacknowledged even among some of the participants. In the early years, it had simply been encrypted queries hidden in radio broadcasts. Decades and centuries passed. There were clues, interviews with The Man’s fellow-travelers, pointers in a half-dozen contradictory directions: The Man was alone now and heading still farther away; The Man had died before the search ever began; The Man had a war fleet and was coming back upon them. 

With time, there was some consistency to the most credible stories. The evidence was solid enough that certain ships changed schedules and burned decades of time to look for more clues. Fortunes were lost because of the detours and delays, but the losses were to a few of the largest trading Families, and went unacknowledged. They were rich enough, and this search was important enough, that it scarcely mattered. For the search had narrowed: The Man was traveling alone, a vague blur of multiple identities, a chain of one-shot jobs on minor trading vessels, but always moving back and back into this end of Human Space. The hunt narrowed from a hundred light-years, to fifty, to twenty—and a half-dozen star systems. 

And finally, the manhunt came down to a single world at the coreward end of Human Space. Now Sammy could justify a fleet specially for the end of the hunt. The crew and even most of the owners would not know the mission’s true purpose, but he had a good chance of finally ending the search.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 18, 1917 — Richard Boone. He did only two genre roles of which one, playing Maston Thrust Jr. in The Last Dinosaur, I’m willing to bet almost all of you have never seen it. (It gets a fifty percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.) The other however is one that nearly everyone here has heard, yes heard, as he voiced Smaug in the Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit. Of course his major non-genre role was as Paladin in Have Gun, Will Travel which I’ve seen every episode of at least three times. Really I have. (Died 1981.)
  • Born June 18, 1931 — Dick Spelman. A fan and a legendary book dealer who was active at SF conventions from the late Seventies through the early Nineties. He chaired Windycon IX in 1982. He was a member of the board of directors of Chicon IV, and ran the Dealers’ Room at many Worldcons. In 1991 he sold his book business to Larry Smith and retired to Orlando, where he was active in local fannish affairs. (Died 2012.)
  • Born June 18, 1942 — Roger Ebert. He got his start as a fanzine writer while in high school, publishing the Stymie zine and having his writing appear in Xero, Yandro and many other zines such as Kipple, Parsection and Psi-Phi. At university, he was a member of the Champaign-Urbana Science Fiction Association. His fannish  autobiography is  How Propellor-Heads, BNFs, Sercon Geeks, Newbies, Recovering GAFIAtors and Kids in Basements Invented the World Wide Web, All Except for the Delivery System. Mike has much to say about him in a obituary here. (Died 2013.)
  • Born June 18, 1958 — Jody Lee, 65. Illustrator with a long career in genre work. Her first cover art was Jo Clayton’s Changer’s Moon for DAW Books in 1985. Her latest is Passages: All-New Tales of Valdemar, a Mercedes Lackey anthology from DAW Books which seems to be her primary client. Her most stellar website is here.
  • Born June 18, 1960 — Barbara Broccoli, 63. Daughter of the late James Bond producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli. She has producer or director credit on at least fourteen Bond films which or may not be genre depending on how you view each one of them. Her only acting role is as an uncredited Opera patron in The Living Daylights. She produced the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang production staged in NYC at the Hilton Theater sixteen years ago. 
  • Born June 18, 1947 — Linda Thorson, 76. Best known for playing Tara King, the only actual spy in The Avengers. For her role in that series, she received a special BAFTA at the 2000 BAFTA TV Awards along with the other three actresses from the series, Honor Blackman, Joanna Lumley and Diana Rigg. She’s also been in Return of the Saint, Tales from the Darkside, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, F/X: The Series and Monsters. 
  • Born June 18, 1949 — Chris Van Allsburg, 74. For some twenty years now until the Pandemic came upon us, the local Narrow Gauge Railroad ran a Polar Express every Christmas season compete with cars decorated in high Victorian fashion and steaming cups of hot chocolate for the children. It always sold out for the entire month they ran it. Allsburg‘s Polar Express book is just magical for me and I enjoy his Jumanji every bit as much. (I’ve never seen the film.) He illustrated A City in Winter which was written by Mark Helprin and I highly recommended it. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) ROLLING THE CREDITS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Descendants of Jack Kirby seem none too happy about the recently-released Disney+ documentary on Stan Lee’s life. Granddaughter Jillian Kirby has published a statement from her father Neal Kirby at the latter’s request. 

Among other things, Neil provides an analogy for Lee having an idea for a character to others bringing the character to life. “In 1501, the Opera del Duomo commissioned a 26-year-old Michelangelo to sculpt a statue of David for the Cathedral of Florence—their idea, their money. The statue is called Michelangelo’s David—his genius, his vision, his creativity.” “Jack Kirby’s Son, Neal Kirby Responds to Stan Lee Disney+ Documentary” at Bleeding Cool.

The following is an excerpt of the statement from Neal Kirby, son of the late Jack Kirby.

…I (000ps!) understand that, as a “documentary about Stan Lee,” most of the narrative is in his voice, literally and figuratively. It’s not any big secret that there has always been controversy over the parts that were played in the creation and success of Marvel’s characters. Stan Lee had the fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media, and he used these to create his own mythos as to the creation of the Marvel character pantheon. He made himself the voice of Marvel. So, for several decades he was the “only” man standing, and blessed with a long life, the last man standing (my father died in 1994). It should also be noted and is generally accepted that Stan Lee had a limited knowledge of history, mythology, or science.

On the other hand, my father’s knowledge of these subjects, to which I and many others can personally attest, was extensive. Einstein summed it up better; “More the knowledge, lesser the ego. Lesser the knowledge, more the ego.”

If you were to look at a list and timeline of Marvel’s characters from 1960 through 1966, the period in which the vast majority of Marvel’s major characters were created during Lee’s tenure, you will see Lee’s name as a co-creator on every character, with the exception of the Silver Surfer, solely created by my father. Are we to assume Lee had a hand in creating every Marvel character? Are we to assume that the other co-creator never walked into Lee’s office and said, “Stan, I have a great idea for a character!” According to Lee, it was always his idea. Lee spends a fair amount of time talking about how and why he created the Fantastic Four, with only one fleeting reference to my father. Indeed, most comics historians recognize that my father based the Fantastic Four on a 1957 comic he created for DC, “Challengers of the Unknown,” even naming Ben Grimm (The Thing) after his father Benjamin, and Sue Storm after my older sister Susan.

Though the conflict between Lee and my father concerning creator credit gets glanced over with little mention, there is more attention paid to the strife between Lee and Steve Ditko, with Lee’s voice proclaiming, “It was my idea, therefore I created the character,” Ditko’s rebuttal being that his art and storyline is what brought life to Spiderman. In 1501, the Opera del Duomo commissioned a 26-year-old Michelangelo to sculpt a statue of David for the Cathedral of Florence – their idea, their money. The statue is called Michelangelo’s David – his genius, his vision, his creativity.

I was very fortunate. My father worked at home in his Long Island basement studio we referred to as “The Dungeon,” usually 14 – 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Most of the artists, writers, inkers, etc. worked at home, not in the Marvel offices as depicted in the program. Through middle and high school, I was able to stand at my father’s left shoulder, peer through a cloud of cigar smoke, and witness the Marvel Universe being created. I am by no means a comics historian, but there are few, if any, that have personally seen or experienced what I have, and know the truth with first-hand knowledge.

My father retired from comic books in the early 1980s and of course, passed away in 1994. Lee had over 35 years of uncontested publicity, much naturally, with the backing and blessing of Marvel as he boosted the Marvel brand as a side effect of boosting himself. The decades of Lee’s self-promotion culminated with his cameo appearances in over 35 Marvel films starting with “X-Men” in 2000, thus cementing his status as the creator of all things Marvel to an otherwise unknowing movie audience of millions, unfamiliar with the true history of Marvel comics. My father’s first screen credit didn’t appear until the closing crawl at the end of the film adaptation of Iron Man in 2008, after Stan Lee, Don Heck, and Larry Lieber. The battle for creator’s rights has been around since the first inscribed Babylonian tablet. It’s way past time to at least get this one chapter of literary/art history right. ‘Nuff said.

(12) JEOPARDY! [Item by David Goldfarb.] On Thursday’s episode there was a full category of “21st Century horror novels”, which the contestants took in order.

  • Returning champ Holly Hassel
  • Kiran MacCormick
  • Suzanne Goldlust

$200: Christina Henry’s “Looking Glass” is the last book in a chilling trilogy about a woman with this 5-letter name

Returning champ Holly Hassel tried: “What is Megan?”

Her name was Alice. (As in “Through the Looking-Glass”….)

$400: In Grady Hendrix’ “How to Sell” this place, it has a sealed attic & creepy puppet collection & Redfin will be no help

Suzanne Goldlust knew or guessed: “What is a haunted house?”

$600: The Scooby Gang was often accused of being these, the title of a book by Edgar Cantero about 4 teens with a telepathic pooch

Suzanne said, “What are meddling teens?”

Holly tried “What are those meddling kids?” but this was not accepted, as the title of the book was just “Meddling Kids”.

$800: Megan James pays homage to this horror master & his creation Cthulhu with her graphic novel “Innsmouth”

Holly knew this one.

$1000: Clive Barker’s “Scarlet Gospel” revisits the Hellraiser universe where this prickly priest of Hell mans the pulpit

Holly knew this one too: “Who is Pinhead?”

In the Double Jeopardy round, there was one:

TV Criminals, $800: The villainous supe Homelander on this series is the leader of The Seven, a group of some not-so-super heroes

This was triple stumper: nobody was familiar with the comic “The Boys” or its Amazon Prime adaptation. (I quibble with the question here. The Seven are super enough! It’s the “hero” part that should be getting the “not-so-“.)

(13) TURA SATANA. [Item by Steve Green.] Tura Satana, whose movie credits included The Astro-Zombies (1968) and its 2004 ‘reimaging’, is now an action figure, based upon her role in the 1965 cult classic Faster Pussycat… Kill! Kill!

Ms Satana, who died in 2011, was smart enough to trademark her own likeness, and this is apparently the first officially-licensed figure. It’s a collaboration between White Elephant Toyz and the publisher PlaidStallions (as Odeon Toys). “Tura Satana Action Figure Pre-Orders now open!”.

… This limited edition action figure is 8″ tall and features a detailed outfit, natural hair, motorcycle gloves, and boots. Tura is ready to kick your other action figures’ asses.

Each Tura Satana Action figure comes in vintage style packaging with striking artwork by Joseph Michael Linsner, creator of “Dawn.”…

(14) FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN IN SPACE. The National Air and Space Museum remembers “Sally Ride”.

40 years ago today, Dr. Sally K. Ride became the first American woman in space, launching aboard Space Shuttle Challenger on the STS-7 mission.

Dr. Sally Kristen Ride was a physicist, astronaut, educator, and advocate for young people in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Best remembered as the first American woman in space, Ride’s tenure as an astronaut was but one chapter in a long and impactful career.

Ride was accepted to the astronaut corps in 1978 as a member of Astronaut Group 8—NASA’s first astronaut class to include women. On June 18, 1983, when Dr. Sally K. Ride became the first American woman in space, she challenged long-held stereotypes about who would make a good astronaut. Ride spent more than two weeks in space over the course of two missions, STS-7 and STS-41G. Ride operated one of the Space Shuttle’s most important tools—the robotic arm—and loved taking photos of Earth from space.

When Ride retired from NASA in 1987, she dedicated herself to educating and inspiring learners. For more than 18 years she taught physics at the University of California San Diego. In 2001, Ride founded Imaginary Lines (now Sally Ride Science) with her partner, Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy, to inspire girls and young women to explore science careers.

(15) ANKYLOBITERS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] A new dinosaur has been found on the Isle of Wight so the BBC reports.

Don’t worry, it’s dead! So we are all safe. (Phew.) If you do go to the Isle of Wight to hunt for dinosaurs (they really all are dead) then I recommend a beer and food at the Crab and Lobster Inn. The view from outside to the left is mainland Brit Cit while straight ahead and left is the English Channel with a view of The Nab tower a few miles offshore and transatlantic liners going around the point.

But if you can’t be bothered then there is the primary research paper.

…It is the first new species of armoured dinosaur to be found on the island since 1865 and belongs to the same family – the ankylosaurs.

Though fearsome in appearance with its blade-like armour, the giant reptile – which has been named Vectipelta barretti – only ate plants.

It was discovered in rocks dating back between 66 and 145 million years….

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Here’s the teaser trailer for One Piece.

Here’s a first look at the live action adaptation of the most popular manga in history, written by Eiichiro Oda. ONE PIECE sets sail on August 31st only on Netflix.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Cora Buhlert, David Goldfarb, Steve Green, Rich Lynch, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

Pixel Scroll 6/15/23 Where Do Pixels Come From? They Are Born Of Scrolls. Where Do Scrolls Originate? Go Ask Mike

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13

(1) BLACK MIRROR CREATOR. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show yesterday was devoted to Charlie Brooker. You can download the episode here.

Brooker in SF terms is best known for being the writer behind the Black Mirror whose first two seasons were on Britain’s publicly-owned but self-financed Channel 4 before it migrated behind Netflix’s pay wall. (Netflix could afford the show a bigger budget.)

Charlie Brooker is one of the most influential satirists working today. Having started out as a cartoonist, his razor sharp writing on culture and the media made his TV columns for The Guardian, begun in 2000, essential reading for many. It wasn’t long until his acerbic and frequently absurd world view found a home on BBC Four in the form of the TV review show, Screenwipe. He’s also behind acclaimed comedies like Nathan Barley. But he’s found global fame with the series Black Mirror, which has entered the lexicon for a singular form of technology-enhanced dread. In the week that the new season launches, Charlie Brooker joins</I> The Media Show <I>to look back at his career.

(2) WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION. The 2023 winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction is Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, which despite the thrilling sound of its title is a non-genre work.

(3) 2023 KAYMAR AWARDS. The National Fantasy Fan Federation has named Will Mayo and Justin E. A. Busch the winners of the 2023 Kaymar Awards. Each is a posthumous award, a first for the N3F.

The Kaymar Award recipient is selected by a committee consisting of previous winners who are still in the N3F, from nominations submitted by members.

The award, unlike many other awards in fandom, can be awarded only once. It is not given for talent or for popularity, but for work — work for the benefit of the club and its members. The award is a memorial to K. Martin Carlson [1904-1986], who originated, maintained, and financed it for 25 years. Carlson was a long-time N3F member who held many positions in the club, including club Historian. He went by the fan name of Kaymar.

(4) ELIO. Here’s a teaser for next year’s Pixar release, Elio.

Disney and Pixar’s 28th feature film is “Elio”. Jameela Jamil and Brad Garrett join previously announced America Ferrera and Yonas Kibreab in the intergalactic misadventure that is scheduled to take off next spring—March 1, 2024.   For centuries, people have called out to the universe looking for answers—in Disney and Pixar’s all-new movie “Elio,” the universe calls back! The original feature film introduces Elio, an underdog with an active imagination who finds himself inadvertently beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide. Mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador to the rest of the universe, and completely unprepared for that kind of pressure, Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, survive a series of formidable trials and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be. 

(5) UPLIFTER. Steven Barnes showed Facebook readers his latest recognition, The Uplifter Ghost of Honor Award.

(6) ANOTHER COMPANION. “Doctor Who’ Casts BAFTA-Winner Lenny Rush As Morris” reports Deadline.

…Lenny Rush, the BAFTA-winning star of BBC comedy Am I Being Unreasonable?, has joined the iconic sci-fi series as Time Lord companion Morris. No further details were given about his role.

Rush, 14, won Best Male Performance for Daisy May Cooper’s Am I Being Unreasonable? last month. He has previously appeared in shows including A Christmas Carol and Dodger.

Showrunner Russell T Davies said: “This is what Doctor Who‘s all about, brand new talent from the next generation, and no one’s more talented than Lenny. He joins the TARDIS team just in time for the Doctor’s greatest nightmare, so hold on tight.”

(7) IT’S A GAS. [Item by Steven French.] “Blending science and the supernatural, high art and gothic horror, Hamad Butt made work that was literally dangerous, in one case sparking fears of a gas leak. He is one of the stars of Tate Britain’s rehang”. “’Dicing with death’: the lethal, terrifying art of Hamad Butt – and the evacuation it once caused” in the Guardian.

But where’s the genre interest, you ask? The work being showcased at the art gallery is Transmission which features a circle of glass books displaying etchings of John Wyndham’s triffids.

…One particularly exciting addition is the little-known Pakistani-born artist Hamad Butt, whose striking 1990 installation Transmission has been given a whole room.

Created at the height of the Aids epidemic in Europe and the US, Transmission evokes multiple terrors. Donning safety goggles at the entrance, you encounter a darkened space with nine open glass books, lit by UV lamps, arranged in a circle on the floor as if for some cabalistic ritual. Through the eerie glow, an etching looms on each book of a triffid, the giant carnivorous plants that overrun Earth after a blinding meteor shower in John Wyndham’s 1951 sci-fi novel The Day of the Triffids. On the wall, nine cryptic statements pronounce things like: “We have the eruption of the Triffid that obscures sex with death” and “We have the blindness of fear and the books of fear”. The piece explores fears of the foreign invader, of deadly desire (through the distinctly phallic-looking triffid), of literal blindness as well as blind faith, the open tomes recalling a madrasa or a witch’s coven….

(8) ROBERT GOTTLIEB (1931-2023). Robert Gottlieb, an influential editor who worked at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker during his career, died June 14 reports the New York Times. He was 92. He edited many successful books “by, among many others, John le Carré, Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Joseph Heller, Doris Lessing and Chaim Potok; science fiction by Michael Crichton and Ray Bradbury; histories by Antonia Fraser and Barbara Tuchman; memoirs by former President Bill Clinton and Katharine Graham, the former publisher of The Washington Post; and works by Jessica Mitford and Anthony Burgess.”

(9) MEMORY LANE.

2001 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

If memory serves me right, the first thing that I read by  Kelly Link was something in an early issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet that she and Gavin Grant sent to Green Man of Small Beer Press for review.

They also edited the last four years of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror that Datlow and Windling founded. Same anthology, different tastes under their editorship. 

Our Beginning this Scroll comes from the Nebula-winning “Louise’s Ghost” novelette which is in the Stranger Things Happen collection which is where it was originally published twenty-two years ago. The entire collection being her writing is wonderful. 

And now for her Beginning here…

Two women and a small child meet in a restaurant. The restaurant is nice—there are windows everywhere. The women have been here before. It’s all that light that makes the food taste so good. The small child—a girl dressed all in green, hairy green sweater, green T-shirt, green corduroys and dirty sneakers with green-black laces—sniffs. She’s a small child but she has a big nose. She might be smelling the food that people are eating. She might be smelling the warm light that lies on top of everything. 

Hit

None of her greens match except of course they are all green.

“Louise,” one woman says to the other.

 “Louise,” the other woman says. 

They kiss.

The maitre d’ comes up to them. He says to the first woman, “Louise, how nice to see you. And look at Anna! You’re so big. Last time I saw you, you were so small. This small.” He holds his index finger and his thumb together as if pinching salt. He looks at the other woman. 

Louise says, “This is my friend, Louise. My best friend. Since Girl Scout camp. Louise.” The maitre d’ smiles. “Yes, Louise. 

Of course. How could I forget?

Louise sits across from Louise. Anna sits between them. She has a notebook full of green paper, and a green crayon. She’s drawing something, only it’s difficult to see what, exactly. Maybe it’s a house. 

Louise says, “Sorry about you know who. Teacher’s day. The sitter canceled at the last minute. And I had such a lot to tell you, too! About you know, number eight. Oh boy, I think I’m in love. Well, not in love.” 

She is sitting opposite a window, and all that rich soft light falls on her. She looks creamy with happiness, as if she’s carved out of butter. The light loves Louise, the other Louise thinks. Of course it loves Louise. Who doesn’t?

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 15, 1942 — Sondra Marshak, 81. Author of multiple Trek novels including The Price of the Phoenix and The Fate of the Phoenix, both co-written with Myrna Culbreath. She also wrote, again with Myrna Culbreath, Shatner: Where No Man …: The Authorized Biography of William Shatner which of course naturally lists Shatner as the third co-author. Finally she’s co-writer with Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and television producer Joan Winston of Star Trek Lives!
  • Born June 15, 1947 — David S Garnett, 76. Not to be confused with the David Garnett without an S. Author of the Bikini Planet novels (Stargonauts, Bikini Planet and Space Wasters) which should be taken as seriously as the names suggests. Revived with the blessing of Michael Moorcock a new version of New Worlds as an anthology. Last work was writing Warhammer novels.
  • Born June 15, 1960 — William Snow, 63. He is best remembered as Lord John Roxton on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. (Yes, that’s its official title.) He also had the lead as David Grief on the Australian series Tales of the South Seas which had Rachel Blakey from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World as Isabelle Reed. It was definitely genre. 
  • Born June 15, 1960 — Sabrina Vourvoulias, 63. Thai-born author, an American citizen from birth brought up in Guatemala, but here since her teens. Her novel, Ink, deals with immigrants who are tattooed with biometric implants that are used to keep track of them no matter where they are. I’m assuming that the “Skin in the Game” story which appeared first on Tor.com is set in the future. Fair guess that “The Ways of Walls and Words” which also appeared on Tor.com is also set there.
  • Born June 15, 1963 — Mark Morris, 60. English author known for his horror novels, although he has also written several novels based on Doctor Who and Torchwood. Given his horror background, these tend to be darker than many similar novels are, I recommend Forever Autumn and Bay of the Dead if you like a good chill. 
  • Born June 15, 1973 — Neil Patrick Harris, 50. His first genre role was not Carl Jenkins in Starship Troopers, but rather Billy Johnson in Purple People Eater, an SF comedy best forgotten I suspect. Post-Starship Troopers, I’ve got him voicing Barry Allen / The Flash in Justice League: The New Frontier and Dick Grayson / Nightwing in Batman: Under the Red Hood. He also voiced Peter Parker and his superhero alias in Spider-Man: The New Animated Series. Finally he’s Count Olaf in A Series of Unfortunate Events which he also produces. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Eek! reveals something about smartphones and the undead.

(12) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree, CA has released episode 64 of its monthly science fiction podcast Simultaneous Times. The stories featured in this episode are:

  • “The Runner” by Jonathan Nevair (with music by Phog Masheeen)
  • “The Last AI Editor on Planet Earth” by Toshiya Kamei (with music by Patrick Urn)

(13) DOES SOMEBODY OWE YOU $7.70? From the New York Times: “Google Might Owe You Money. Here’s How to Get It.” “As part of a legal settlement, Google agreed to pay $23 million to users who clicked on a search link from 2006 to 2013. Individual payments are estimated to be less than $8.”

Anyone who clicked on a Google search result link from October 2006 to September 2013 is entitled to a piece — however small — of a $23 million settlement that the tech giant has agreed to pay to resolve a class-action lawsuit.

The settlement’s administrators set up a website for people to submit claims. According to the site, the estimated individual payout stands at $7.70. But that figure can fluctuate based on the number of people who make valid claims.

Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., agreed to the settlement in August. The consolidated class-action lawsuit filed in 2013 accused the company of “storing and intentionally, systematically and repeatedly divulging” users’ search queries and histories to third-party websites and companies….

(14) ROCKS AROUND THE CLOCK. Smithsonian Magazine can help you find “Seven Ways to Explore Space Without Leaving Earth”.

…Just up the road from the Cinder Hills is Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, another astronaut training site. In the early 1970s, commander Gene Cernan and geologist Jack Schmitt trained here before Apollo 17. The mission for this final lunar landing was to find evidence of volcanism on the moon. The two astronauts used the jagged Bonito lava flow, along with surrounding cinder fields and cones, to test equipment and practice geological survey techniques.

In December 1972, Cernan and Schmitt landed in a valley of the Taurus mountain range in the Sea of Serenity. Satellite imagery had suggested these lunar highlands might be volcanic in nature. The pair’s first extravehicular activity—as astronauts call such trips outside their spacecraft—turned up mostly breccias, conglomerate rocks created by the meteorite impacts that actually formed most lunar mountains. But halfway through their second excursion, Schmitt became ecstatic when he spotted something unusual: orange soil. Analysis back on Earth proved the mission a success. They had found remnants of volcanic glass. The eventual theory was that billions of years ago, the moon was a magmatically turbulent place, where lava explosively burst from the low-gravity surface to great heights before raining down as tiny grains of orange glass.

Today, the 3,138-acre Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument offers an excellent way to experience the Arizona landscape that once simulated the lunar environment. A series of short trails allow you to explore some of the volcanic processes that Artemis astronauts may search for when they return to the moon in coming years….

(15) QUANTUM COMPUTER HITS THE MARK. “IBM quantum computer passes calculation milestone” – Nature explains the significance.

‘Benchmark’ experiment suggests quantum computers could have useful real-world applications within two years.

“Four years ago, physicists at Google claimed their quantum computer could outperform classical machines — although only at a niche calculation with no practical applications. Now their counterparts at IBM say they have evidence that quantum computers will soon beat ordinary ones at useful tasks, such as calculating properties of materials or the interactions of elementary particles.”…

(16) WHAT IS A SAFE DISTANCE FROM A SUPERNOVA? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] You know me… I do worry so.  So much so that it is a wonder I get any sleep.

Among many troubling concerns is the end of the world.  Now, I have to admit liking the end of the world: it is great fun, but with the firm proviso that is that it is firmly in science fiction.  The real deal is the thing that gets me.

So Matt O’Dowd (he’s a physicist but don’t let that put you off) in this week’s PBS Space Time is sort of re-assuring (only sort of) as to one way the world might end… being caught in the blast of a supernova…

(Best make a calming cup of tea before viewing.)

The deaths of massive stars results in one of the most beautiful and violent events in the universe: the supernova. They are so luminous we can see them here on Earth and historical records show that we can even see them into the day. But supernovas release deadly and violent radiation that could destroy our atmosphere. So how far away do these supernova have to be for humanity to be safe? And when will the next supernova occur…

Nobody panic…

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Cliff, Steven French, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, 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 11/18/22 The Idiot’s Guide To Writing Scroll Titles

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(1) TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS. Jason Sanford’s Patreon has an informative open post about the current social media upheaval triggered by Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter: “Genre Grapevine Guide to Twitter’s Last Days (Including Steps to Take and Options to Consider)”.

Sanford begins with a roundup about Twitter’s state of crisis, then discusses several alternative platforms. The one he has personal experience with is Mastodon, and he shares what’s he’s learned from migrating there.

…You’ll also see the word “fediverse” a lot on Mastodon. As Lisbeth Campbell said, “Mastodon is ‘federated’ servers, not one unique platform,” hence the use of fediverse to designate different servers focused on different communities.

The fediverse a lot of SF/F authors are joining is Wandering.Shop. That’s also where I set up my account. Because Wandering.Shop has become so popular, they are currently limiting invitations to join. But invites should open again soon. And you can always join a different fediverse and follow and interact with people on different servers. The main Mastodon server page has a list of all these different fediverse and how to join them.

If you open a Mastodon account, be sure to use FediFinder to scan the people you follow on Twitter and locate those that are also on Mastodon. You can then export that list to CSV and import it into Mastodon, where the platform will automatically follow those people. FediFinder even shares the link on Mastodon where you need to go to upload the files….

(2) SPIEGELMAN HONORED. Maus creator Art Spiegelman received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution at the US National Book Awards gala reports Publishing Perspectives.

…Neil Gaiman, on hand to present the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to Maus author Art Spiegelman, told the audience about meeting Spiegelman, and watching as the writer-illustrator went on eventually to win a special Pulitzer Prize.

Having established that he has enjoyed a long, supportive friendship with Spiegelman, Gaiman pointed out that his own American Gods has been banned, and said of Spiegelman—who has taken many years of criticism for the Holocaust graphic-narrative Maus books, of course—”He’s one of the kindest people I know. He’s one of the wisest people I know. He is in every way a mensch. He is a New Yorker; he is a citizen of the world. He is a maker of comics that redefined what comics were capable of and how they were perceived. It changed the level of respect that comics got.”…

(3) DOCTOR WHO COMPANION NAMED: “Millie Gibson is the new Doctor Who companion, Ruby Sunday” at BBC Doctor Who.

Millie Gibson has landed the role of Ruby Sunday, the Doctor’s new companion.

Starring alongside Ncuti Gatwa, Millie will make her debut over the festive season in 2023 when the Fifteenth Doctor takes control of the TARDIS.

Best known for her role as CORONATION STREET’s Kelly Neelan, 18 year old Millie was the recipient of the Best Young Performer Award at The British Soap Awards earlier this year. Millie has also appeared in dramas BUTTERFLY (ITV) and LOVE, LIES AND RECORDS (BBC).

Speaking of her new role, Millie Gibson said: “Whilst still being in total disbelief, I am beyond honoured to be cast as the Doctor’s companion. It is a gift of a role, and a dream come true, and I will do everything to try and fill the boots the fellow companions have travelled in before me. And what better way to do that than being by the fabulous Ncuti Gatwa’s side, I just can’t wait to get started.”…

(4) KSR’S SUGGESTED TOOL TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CRISIS. Wailin Wong, an NPR reporter for the economics show The Indicator— and Alec Nevala-Lee’s wife — has a new episode featuring Kim Stanley Robinson. Listen at the link: “A monetary policy solution to to the climate crisis : The Indicator from Planet Money”.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 sci-fi novel The Ministry for the Future imagines a not-too-distant world where central banks worldwide come together to create a carbon coin, a monetary-policy-based solution to the climate crisis. The idea has been sparking real word debate in policy circles. What can a novel teach us about the role of central banks in addressing the climate crisis?

(5) SANDERSON KICKSTARTER NOVELS WILL ALSO GET TRADPUB. Tor US and Gollancz have announced they will also publish the four Brandon Sanderson novels marketed through his record-setting Kickstarter, which raised over $41 million.

Dragonsteel, Sanderson’s company, will release the Kickstarter titles in January, April, July and October 2023. 

The Gollancz hardcover editions will be published four months after each Kickstarter release: Tress of the Emerald Sea — 04/04/23; The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England — 06/27/23; Yumi and the Nightmare Painter — 10/03/23; The Sunlit Man — 01/02/24

(6) DWINDLING VALUES. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman asks “Is This the End Game for Crypto?” Although he doesn’t seem to think it is, his analysis of crypto’s reasons for existing is informative.

…The question we should ask is why institutions like FTX or Terra, the so-called stablecoin issuer that collapsed in May, were created in the first place.

After all, the 2008 white paper that started the cryptocurrency movement, published under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, was titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” That is, the whole idea was that electronic tokens whose validity was established with techniques borrowed from cryptography would make it possible for people to bypass financial institutions. If you wanted to transfer funds to someone else, you could simply send them a number — a key — with no need to trust Citigroup or Santander to record the transaction.

It has never been clear exactly why anyone other than criminals would want to do this. Although crypto advocates often talk about the 2008 financial crisis as a motivation for their work, that crisis never impaired the payments system — the ability of individuals to transfer funds via banks. Still, the idea of a monetary system that wouldn’t require trust in financial institutions was interesting, and arguably worth trying.

After 14 years, however, cryptocurrencies have made almost no inroads into the traditional role of money. They’re too awkward to use for ordinary transactions. Their values are too unstable. In fact, relatively few investors can even be bothered to hold their crypto keys themselves — too much risk of losing them by, say, putting them on a hard drive that ends up in a landfill.

Instead, cryptocurrencies are largely purchased through exchanges like Coinbase and, yes, FTX, which take your money and hold crypto tokens in your name….

(7) GRRM STAYING FROSTY. A non-Westeros dragon story by George R.R. Martin will be turned into a movie: “Game of Thrones Author Announces Animated Film Adapting The Ice Dragon” at CBR.com.

Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin recently announced an animated film adaptation of one of his early works, The Ice Dragon.

Martin, who penned the Song of Ice and Fire novels upon which Game of Thrones is based, announced the Ice Dragon movie during a promotional interview with Penguin Random House. “Some of you may know that I occasionally wrote other books that were not part of Westeros or that [story],” he said. “And one of them that I wrote way back in 1978 was a short story about a dragon, an ice dragon, and it’s called The Ice Dragon. Just a short story, as I said. It’s primarily a kid’s story, but we are going to make that [into a movie]. Warner Bros. Animation has purchased the rights to it, and we’re going to expand it to a fully animated film… a theatrical film, we hope, to be released in a motion picture palace near you, and David Anthony Durham will be writing the screenplay. And he better do a good job! [laughs]”

(8) ANNE HARRIS (1964-2022). Author Anne Harris died November 18. Their first genre publication, “Chango Was a Dog”, appeared in Nova Express in 1991. Their novel Accidental Creatures tied for the 1999 Gaylactic Spectrum Award. Inventing Memory was longlisted for the Otherwise Award in 2005. “Still Life with Boobs”, a short story, was a Nebula nominee in 2006. They also authored several novels under pen names, including a YA trilogy.  

(9) ALICE DAVIS (1929-2022). Costume designer Alice Davis, whose work many of us have seen in person, died November 3. “Alice Davis, Costume Designer for Disney Rides, Dies at 93” in the New York Times.

Alice Davis, a Disney Company costume designer who created the outfits worn by the animatronic figures in two of the company’s most enduring and popular rides, It’s a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean, died on Nov. 3 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 93.

Her death was announced on the Walt Disney Company’s website.

Ms. Davis had been designing lingerie and other garments for several years when Walt Disney himself asked her in 1963 if she wanted to work on the costumes for It’s a Small World.

She jumped at the chance.

“I could hardly wait to get there for the first day,” she told The Los Angeles Times in 2014.

It’s a Small World, a 10-minute boat trip through a land populated by singing and dancing robotic children representing dozens of countries while the attraction’s titular earworm song plays, was to make its debut at the World’s Fair in New York in 1964 as a tribute to UNICEF sponsored by Pepsi. It was a huge hit.

Clothing that accurately reflected the international theme was essential. So, working with the renowned Disney artist Mary Blair, Ms. Davis designed more than 150 costumes while researching the relevant nations to ensure the garments’ authenticity….

(10) MEMORY LANE.

1947 — [By Cat Eldridge.] Miracle on 34th Street 

Yes, let’s have a feel good film, one of Mike’s favorites as it turns out. It’s set between Thanksgiving and Christmas so it is appropriate to telling about now, and I will. I like to as it is indeed a very upbeat movie.

Seventy-five years ago, Miracle on 34th Street was initially released as The Big Heart across the pond, written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies. Seaton did uncredited work on A Night at the Opera, and Davies would later be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Glenn Miller Story, a most stellar film.

SNOWFLAKES ARE FALLING, AND ODDLY ENOUGH, THEY CONTAIN ,SPOILERS. REALLY THEY DO.

Kris Kringle, no I did not make his name up, is pissed off that Santa in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade went missing because he was drunk. (I know that The Twilight Zone did this later.) When he complains to event director Doris Walker, she persuades him to take his place. He does so well that he is hired to play Santa at Macy’s on 34th Street.

Most of the film is about faith. In this case believing that Kris Kringle is really Santa Claus — or not. Or that in a larger sense that individuals believe in him. The Judge rules that both are true and this Kris Kringle is not confined to Bellevue Hospital as certain parties were eager to do. 

ANYONE FOR GINGERBREAD HOT FROM THE OVEN? 

Everyone including the most curmudgeonly of critics loved it. Certainly the most excellent primary cast of Maureen O’Hara as Doris Walker, John Payne as Fred Gailey, and Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle charmed everyone. 

It was shot on location in New York City, with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade sequences filmed live while the 1946 parade was happening. The rest it was set during the Christmas season but the Studio insisted on a May premiere as that they thought was when Americans went to see films. 

The Christmas window displays seen in the film have a very interesting history. They were first made by Steiff for Macy’s. Macy’s then sold the window displays to FAO Schwarz in New York and they in turn sold the windows to the BMO Harris Bank of Milwaukee where they are on display every December in the bank’s lobby on North Water Street. 

It was remade with same name in 1994. Due to Macy’s refusal to give permission to use its name, it was replaced by the fictitious “Cole’s”.  Why so? “We feel the original stands on its own and could not be improved upon,” said Laura Melillo, a spokeswoman for Macy’s. So there. 

A final note. One group didn’t like it. The Catholic Legion of Decency found it “morally objectionable” largely due to the fact that O’Hara portrayed a divorcée here. 

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 18, 1939 — Margaret Atwood, 83. Well, there’s that work called The Handmaid’s Tale that’s garnering a lot of discussion now. (Not my my cup of Tea, Earl Grey, hot.) There’s the excellent MaddAddam Trilogy which I wholeheartedly recommend, and I’ve heard good things about The Penelopiad. What else do you like of hers? 
  • Born November 18, 1946 — Alan Dean Foster, 76. There’s fifteen Pip and Flinx novels?!? Well the first seven or so that I read oh-so-long ago were superb. The Spellsinger series is tasty too. Can’t say anything about his Stars Wars work as I never got into it. Though I’m glad the Evil Mouse is paying him for it finally. 
  • Born November 18, 1950 — Eric Pierpoint, 72. I’d say that he’s best known for his role as George Francisco on the Alien Nation franchise. He has also appeared on each of the first four Trek spin-offs, a neat feat indeed. And he’s got a very impressive number of genre one-offs which I’m sure y’all will tell me about. 
  • Born November 18, 1952 — Doug Fratz. Long-time fan and prolific reviewer for the New York Review of Science Fiction and Science Fiction Age who also published a number of zines, and wrote a column superbly titled “Alienated Critic”. He was nominated for Best Fanzine Hugo four times. Mike has a remembrance of him here. (Died 2016.)
  • Born November 18, 1953 — Alan Moore, 69. His best book is Voice of the Fire which admittedly isn’t genre. Though the first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is very close. Pity about the film which surprisingly has a forty-four percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes. I’m also fond of The Ballad of Halo Jones and Swamp Thing work that he did as well. And let’s not forget that the The Watchmen won a well-deserved Hugo at Nolacon II. 
  • Born November 18, 1970 — Peta Wilson, 52. Wilhelmina “Mina” Harker in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film, a bit role as Bobbie-Faye in Superman Returns. Inspector (yes, just Inspector) in the “Promises” episode of the Highlander series. Though The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was not well received, she received a Saturn Award Best Supporting Actress for being in it which is rather surprising I’d say. 
  • Born November 18, 1981 — Maggie Stiefvater, 41. Writer of YA fiction, she has myriad series, of which I recommend The Dreamer trilogy, The Wolves of Mercy Falls and the astonishing Raven Cycle. With her sister, Kate Hummel, she writes and records a piece of music for each novel she releases. These are released in the form of animated book trailers. She’s had two Mythopoeic Award nominations but so far no wins. 

(12) WHICH CAME FIRST? The chicken, the egg, or the test tube? “Lab-Grown Meat Receives Clearance From F.D.A.” reports the New York Times.

The Food and Drug Administration has cleared a California company’s “slaughter-free” chicken, putting lab-grown meat one step closer to restaurant menus and grocery store shelves in the United States.

On Wednesday afternoon, the agency said it had completed an evaluation of chicken from the company, Upside Foods, and had “no further questions” about the product’s safety, signaling that the agency considered it safe for consumption. It will probably take months, if not longer, before the product reaches consumers, and it first must get additional clearance from the Department of Agriculture.

… For nearly a decade, companies have been competing to bring the first lab-grown meat (or “cultivated” meat, the term the industry has recently rallied around) to market. In a process often compared to brewing beer, animal cells are grown in a controlled environment, creating a product that is biologically identical to conventional meat. But until now, cultivated meat had received regulatory approval only in Singapore, where Good Meat’s lab-grown chicken was greenlit in 2020….

(13) JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter was tuned into last night’s Jeopardy! episode and witnessed contestants flailing with these genre wrong questions about a non-genre author.

Final Jeopardy: Movies and Literature

Answer: Ridley Scott’s first feature film, “The Duellists”, was based on a story by this author to whom Scott’s film “Alien” also pays tribute

Wrong questions: Who is [PK] Dick?; Who is A.C. Clarke?; Who is Lovecraft?

(All three contestants got it wrong!)

Correct question: Who is Joseph Conrad?

(14) WHIP IT GOOD. Find out what Indiana Jones looks like today in “Empire’s World-Exclusive Indiana Jones 5 Covers Revealed”.

…In a major world-exclusive, the new issue of Empire presents your first dive into the fifth (and still-untitled) Indiana Jones film – bringing back Ford (and his fedora), but teaming him with a new director in James Mangold, providing him with a fresh batch of allies and enemies, and pitching him into a whole different era of history. Inside, you’ll find a very first look at what the top-secret film has in store, with a deluge of exclusive images – as well as world-first interviews with stars Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Shaunette Renée Wilson and Boyd Holbrook, director James Mangold, writers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, and producers Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Simon Emanuel. The adventure is only just beginning – get ready to uncover the most exciting movie of 2023….

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Elemental, from Disney and Pixar, will debut in June 2023.

Disney and Pixar’s “Elemental,” an all-new, original feature film set in Element City, where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together. The story introduces Ember, a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman, whose friendship with a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade challenges her beliefs about the world they live in.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Cliff, Alec Nevala-Lee, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, JJ, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

Pixel Scroll 6/13/22 Life’s Like A Pixel; Scroll Your Own Ending

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(1) NOT QUIET ON THE BOOKSTORE FRONT. Sergej Sumlenny tweeted a long thread about “How [the] Russian book market prepared Russians for a full-scale war against Ukraine, NATO, the West, and promoted stalinism and nazism, and how this was ignored by the West.” Thread starts here. Some excerpts:

(2) THE BUZZ. Sam Stone returns an enthusiastic verdict on “Pixar’s Lightyear” at CBR.com. If it has a fault, it’s that the movie doesn’t swing for the fences as hard as it should.

… The animation team similarly pulls out all the stops to make Lightyear a memorable sci-fi film, with a visual style that feels very much its own thing compared with the Toy Story movies while retaining that sense of familiarity. Drawing from a whole line of sci-fi influences, Lightyear evokes the sensibilities of classic ’80s sci-fi cinema, from the Space Rangers’ tech and vehicles to the creepy extraterrestrials prowling the planet where Buzz and his friends have crashed. With its time-bending concepts and a genuine sense of heart, Lightyear earns its place among that pantheon of great science fiction….

(3) WHO LEFT THE GRAVITY TURNED ON? [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] I’m up to February 2019 in my New Yorkers (you may report me to the magazine control board!) but I thought this Talk Of The Town piece was interesting: “When ‘Spaceman’ Came Crashing Down to Earth”.

… On February 22nd of last year, “Spaceman” made its début at the Wild Project, an eighty-nine-seat theatre in the East Village. The set was a room-size contraption made of welded steel and Plexiglas, fitted with buzzers and keyboards and a chair that spins on a truss. The production simulated zero gravity using low-light effects and a puppeteer. After the show, Treadway, feeling good about the performance, came out for a bow in her spacesuit. As she walked off the stage, she tripped over a speaker. She broke her fall with her arms, then popped back up and made a “clumsy old me” face.

“Then I walked backstage and was, like, whoa,” she recalled. “I realized I couldn’t even take my costume off.” Stevens helped her change clothes, and they took an Uber to a clinic in Red Hook. The doctor informed Treadway that she had broken both elbows and her left wrist. (“The woman at physical therapy said it’s an injury that a lot of break dancers have,” she said.) She would need hard casts for a week, and then splints. They would have to cancel the entire three-week run. Stevens recalled, “The next morning, I’m drafting an e-mail to everybody telling them the news, and I’m looking through all these e-mails from people saying, ‘Break a leg!’ ” He laughed ruefully. “I never want to hear that phrase again.”…

(4) THE DOOR INTO MUMMER. FirstShowing.net introduces a “Fun Trailer for Aliens vs Swordsmen Epic Sci-Fi ‘Alienoid’ from Korea”.

“How long do we have to stay on Earth?” CJ Entertainment in Korea has revealed the first international trailer for an epic sci-fi movie called Alienoid. Actually it’s two movies! This “Part 1” will be out in July in Korea, though no US date is set yet. During the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), Taoists try to take a mysterious holy sword. Meanwhile in present day (in 2022), aliens appear on Earth. A time door soon connects the late Goryeo period and the present day. The two parties cross paths when a time-traveling portal opens, causing chaos and confusion…. 

(5) AIYEE! SYFY Wire promises these are “The Star Trek movies’ 12 most disturbing moments”. First on the list:

1. RANDOM TRANSPORTER ACCIDENT (STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE) 

Here’s one way to get rid of a science officer. Sonak is a Vulcan prepped to take the place of Spock at the start of the first Star Trek movie. His tenure in the position is quite short. Thanks to a random transporter malfunction, he (and the person he transports over to the Enterprise with) dies a gruesome death. 

Transporter malfunctions happen all the time, but this is not “The Next Phase” or “Tuvix.” These two people are dead, and it looks (and sounds) horrific. What little of them is recovered does not last long. That’s what Admiral Kirk is told, anyway. 

People make light of McCoy not wanting to use the transporter a little later in the movie, but after this? Damn right he shouldn’t use it, especially since the accident was so random and is never really addressed. It’s not a transporter, it’s a character killer. What did Sonak ever do to deserve it? Highly illogical and highly disturbing. 

(6) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1980 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Forty-two years ago, a rather charming film premiered in syndication this evening as produced by Paramount. The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything was based on the novel of the same name by John D. MacDonald who of course did the Travis McGee series. I know it watched it and I know I liked even four decades on.

It was written by George Zateslo who hadn’t written anything prior to this save an episode of CHIPS. After writing this, he’d write the script for the sequel, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite. 

The two cast members to note here are Robert Hays as Kirby Winter and Pam Dawber as Bonny Lee Beaumont. That because the story is — SPOILER ALERT — rather a thin SF plot involving a young male who inherits a gold watch that inherits from his millionaire uncle a gold watch that has the power to stop time. A series of rather unlikely and comic adventures ensue. And yes there’s a girl involved. END OF SPOILER ALERT. 

An episode of the Twilight Zone, “A Kind of Stop Watch”, has essentially the same story as that of “The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything”. A lot of Twilight Zone fans would claim very loudly that McDonald ripped off Serling’s script. The episode, however, aired in October of 1963, the year after the publication of the novel on which the movie is based. Sigh. 

Neither film appears to streaming anywhere, nor does it appear to be available for purchase. Huh.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 13, 1893 — Dorothy Sayers. I absolutely love her mysteries. I think the Lord Peter Wimsey series are among the best mysteries ever done. And I thought that Ian Carmichael made a most excellent Lord Peter Wimsey in the Seventies Clouds of Witness series. Now to the matter at hand, ISFDB often surprises me and having her listed as writing four stories in the genre did it again. All of them were written in the Thirties and here they are: “The Cyprian Cat”, “The Cave of Ali Baba”, “Bitter Almonds” and “The Leopard Lady”. So, who here has read them and can comment on them being genre or not? (Died 1957)
  • Born June 13, 1892 — Basil Rathbone. He’s best remembered for being Sherlock Holmes in fourteen films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series of the same period. For films other than these, I’ll single out The Adventures of Robin Hood (after all Robin Hood is fantasy), Son of Frankenstein and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. (Died 1967.)
  • Born June 13, 1903 — Frederick Stephani. Screenwriter and film director who is best remembered for co-writing and directing the 13-chapter Flash Gordon serial in 1936. He directed Johnny Weissmuller‘s Tarzan’s New York Adventure (aka Tarzan Against the World). He was also an uncredited writer on 1932’s Dracula. (Died 1962.)
  • Born June 13, 1929 — Ralph McQuarrie. Conceptual designer and illustrator. He worked on the original Star Wars trilogy, the first Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars Holiday Special (well somebody had to, didn’t they?), Cocoon, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nightbreed, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home andE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. All of his work is quite stellar. Literally. Pun fully intended. (Died 2012.)
  • Born June 13, 1943 — Malcolm McDowell, 79. My favorite role for him was Mr. Roarke on the second rebooted Fantasy Island. (Still haven’t seen either of the recent versions.) Of course, his most infamous role was Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Scary film that was and yes, I saw it in the theater. His characterization of H. G. Wells in Time After Time was I thought rather spot on. And I’d like to single out his voicing Arcady Duvall in the “Showdown” episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Remember the truly awful Will Smith starred Wild Wild West film? Of course you do unfortunately. Here is the same premise with Jonah Hex involved instead as written by Joe R. Lansdale. Go watch it as it is a stellar script and of course everything is perfect. 
  • Born June 13, 1949 — Simon Callow, 73. English actor, musician, writer, and theatre director. So what’s he doing here? Well he got to be Charles Dickens twice on Doctor Who, the first being in “The Unquiet Dead” during the time of the Ninth Doctor and then later during “The Wedding of River Song”, an Eleventh Doctor story. He’d also appear, though not as Dickens, on The Sarah Jane Adventures as the voice of Tree Blathereen in “The Gift” episode. I’ve not watched the series. How is this series? He was also The Duke of Sandringham in the first season of Outlander. And he did have a role in Shakespeare in Love which I claim is genre. As of late, he’s been on Hawkeye as Armand Duquesne III in the pilot episode.
  • Born June 13, 1953 — Tim Allen, 69. Jason Nesmith in the much beloved Galaxy Quest. (Which of course won a much deserved Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation at Chicon 2000.) He actually had a big hit several years previously voicing Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story which would be the first in what would become a long-running film franchise.
  • Born June 13, 1963 — Audrey Niffenegger, 59. Her first novel was The Time Traveler’s Wife. She has stated in interviews that she will not see the film or the series as only the characters in the novels are hers. Good for her. (I’ve stated before that I don’t watch films or the series based on novels that I really like.)  Raven Girl, her third novel about a couple whose child is a raven trapped in a human body, was turned into performance at the Royal Opera House. Oh, and her Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories is, well, chillingly delicious.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) WHEN WILL YOU MAKE AN END? “Taika Waititi’s Star Wars Script Is Still Not Finished” he tells CBR.com.

Taika Waititi has revealed that he is still hard at work finishing the script for his upcoming Star Wars movie.

In an interview with Screen Rant, Waititi explained where he’s currently at in the writing process for his untitled film and how he approached tying his script into the wider Star Wars universe. “That’s yet to be seen. I don’t know. I’m still writing. I’m still coming up with the ideas and storylining it and just wanted to make sure that it feels like a Star Wars film,” he said. “Because, I could say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll just write any old thing and set in space and then put Star Wars on the front.’ But it wouldn’t be a Star Wars film without certain elements and a certain treatment, so I’ve just got to make sure that it stays within that wheelhouse.”…

(10) UTTERLY MADE UP. GameRant walks us through the development of the alien tongue: “Star Trek: The Klingon Language, Explained”. Dr. Marc Okrand’s 1985 book The Klingon Dictionary sold over 300,000 copies.

…The Klingons have been a steady part of Star Trek right from the beginning, starting out as the main antagonists in The Original Series and progressing to tentative friends in series to follow. Roddenberry took a leaf out of Tolkien’s book, and created the Klingon language to flesh out the culture. In doing so, he was able to add a depth of realism to his fictional race that’s not often seen even today (with a few exceptions). Instead of a bare-bones array of random sounds, the language has its own vocabulary and grammar, even its own regional dialects. The language was not always present in its fullest form, and developed slowly alongside the show. The first Klingons during the main TV series simply spoke in English, with the audience first hearing their guttural tones during the Star Trek: The Motion Picture film in 1979….

(11) SO MANY TITLES. What should File 770’s headline be for Science Alert’s story “A Hitchhiking Rock Has Traveled With The Perseverance Rover For More Than 120 Days”? Mike Kennedy couldn’t decide on one, so he sent them all.

  • Rock and Roll, OR
  • (The) Rolling Stone, OR
  • Everybody Must Get Stoned, OR
  • (Just) Along For The Ride, OR
  • Pet Rock, OR
  • Moss-free, OR
  • Stone Cold, OR
  • The Stones Must Roll, OR
  • probably dozens more

Roaming Mars is a lonely existence for NASA’s Perseverance, but the exploratory rover now has a traveling companion: a hitchhiking “pet rock” that got stuck in one of its wheels.

Luckily, the Martian stone won’t impact the rover’s science mission and is only a minor inconvenience  – like having a pebble stuck in your shoe. 

Perseverance’s front-left wheel accidentally picked up the pet rock on Feb. 4, or Sol 341 – the 341st Martian day of the Martian year, according to a statement by NASA.

The rock has periodically photobombed images taken by the rover’s front-left Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam).

Recent images show that the rock is still tumbling along with Perseverance 126 days (123 sols) after it first hitched a ride. (A sol, or Martian day, is just 37 minutes longer than an Earth day.)

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Todd Mason, Daniel Dern, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 4/21/22 And When The File Breaks The Pixel Will Scroll

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(1) SDCC REPORTS LOSS; ALSO WARNED BY STATE ABOUT UNFILED RETURNS. Petréa Mitchell at SMOF News broke the story to her readers that San Diego Comic-Con’s nonprofit corporation suffered an $8 million loss in 2020, and has been warned by the state of California the corporation is delinquent in filing some required federal tax returns and reports due to the state, as reported by the Times of San Diego: “Double-Whammy for Comic-Con: $8M Loss and Threat to State Tax Exemption”. The 2020 loss is declared below in the screencap of a California Annual Renewal Registration Fee form they have filed.

Comic-Con is at risk of losing its nonprofit status, the state says, only days after the giant tourism draw signed up with IMG in a licensing deal amid a reported $8 million loss in COVID-stricken 2020….

But last Nov. 18, Comic-Con filed its annual registration renewal fee report, which said it had $3.97 million gross revenue in 2020, when the pandemic forced suspension of Comic-Con. Its gross expenses that year were $11.98 million. (Its total assets were $42.4 million.)

The letter to Comic-Con said it has until May 15 to file a state form. Bonta said that if IRS forms aren’t sent to the state Registry of Charitable Trusts within 60 days of April 7 — or June 6 — two things would happen:

      • His office would notify the California Franchise Tax Board to disallow Comic-Con’s tax exemption. (“The Franchise Tax Board may revoke the organization’s tax exempt status at which point the organization will be treated as a taxable corporation … and may be subject to the minimum tax penalty.”)
      • Late fees would be imposed for each month or partial month for which reports were delinquent. “Directors, trustees, officers and return preparers responsible for failure to timely file these reports are also personally liable for payment of all late fees.”

(2) KGB SHOTS. Ellen Datlow shared her photos from the (in-person!) Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series event on April 20 where Robert Freeman Wexler and Victor LaValle each read form forthcoming work.

(3) FOUR TO DRAW TO. Fanac.org has posted the video of a Minicon 15 (1979) panel “History of the Future” with Ted Sturgeon, Clifford Simak, Lester del Rey, and Gordon Dickson.  

Minicon 15 was held April 13-15, 1979 in Minneapolis. In this recording, four of the most respected authors of their time—Theodore Sturgeon, Clifford D. Simak, Lester del Rey and Gordon Dickson—have a free ranging discussion on topics from earlier science fiction views of the future, to what the literature has “missed,” and the relationship of technocracy to then current society. 

Lester del Rey is at his most opinionated, getting laughs and applause, as well as exhibiting his encyclopedic knowledge of the field. There are discussions of freedom vs governance, the problems of finding information, and, triggered by a question from the audience, a long discussion on education. 

Simak tells a deeply personal story about his son’s experience in the public school system, and the other authors speak of their own experiences with education.  There are predictions, anecdotes, and a few surprising revelations…

Thanks to Geri Sullivan and the Video Archeology project for providing the recording. 

(4) HER TWIN FROM ANOTHER PLANET. The linked article talks about a science fiction film titled The Day Mars Invaded Earth and how the author, Hal Bookbinder, used his genealogical skills to sleuth out more about the twin actresses in the film: “The Day Mars Invaded Earth” at the JGSCV Newsletter.

While watching old movies. I often Google the film to learn more about it and its cast. “The Day Mars Invaded Earth” was filmed in 1962 and released in 1963. Among its cast are Betty Beall and Barbara Beall who play counterparts in the same scene, shown at the bottom. Betty Beall plays the teenage daughter of a NASA scientist who oversees the landing of a probe on Mars. After destroying the probe, unseen Martians create a duplicate of him to foil further attempts to land a probe. They then create duplicates of his family to cover their tracks. The NY Times panned the picture. Very little is to be found on either Betty or Barbara….

(5) POTLATCH. Ian Frazier shares some humorous confessions with readers of The New Yorker in “The Literature of Cabin Fever”. One paragraph reminds me that once there was an annual convention by this name (and with something of the same gift-sharing philosophy).

…A big excursion for me was to drive to the town of Kalispell, some twenty miles away. I was writing on a brand of paper called Potlatch. Such an interesting name for copy paper—Potlatch. I ran out of my first ream of it, and when I was buying more at an office-supply store in Kalispell I told the salesperson about potlatch—how it was a Native American word that meant a kind of party in which a chief or even just an ordinary person gave away stuff to other members of the tribe. “Giveaway” is a rough translation of the word into English, I told the salesperson. The potlatch was a system for showing status and spreading the wealth downward, I said. As I looked at the reaction on the salesperson’s face, it sank in that I was not in a normal frame of mind….

(6) WHEN AND WHERE DID HUMANS EVOLVE? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] We all know the basic story, archaic humans and then modern humans evolved in Africa and then migrated to the rest of the world, held SF conventions and went to the Moon (the Americans even did it without Cavorite!).

The problem is, is that the fossil record only provides snapshots.  A fossil tells us that this species lived at this place and at that time.  What it does not do is tell us when that species first evolved: it is very unlikely that a fossil discovered will be the remains of the first representative of a new species.  So, what to do?

“Climate effects on archaic human habitats”, rResearch published today in Nature  has taken a novel approach.  We know from fossils the environment in which archaic and modern human species inhabited.  What the researchers have done is link this into deep-time climate models and in turn linked that into an ecological model.  The idea here is that given a certain geography, location and climate, it is possible to work out the ecology of a locality.

Due to climate change, climate models have really improved the past one-third century and now have a good resolution and are capable of modelling back into glacial times (‘ice ages’ in common-but-inexact parlance). This means we can meaningfully identify when and where certain environmental types arise and wane as climate changes. Knowing the environmental preferences (from where fossils were found and conditions back then) of various human species, it is possible to see when and where the environmental conditions that could sustain these species begin and end.

The bottom line is that the researchers propose the following scenario: about 850–600 ka, H. heidelbergensis, which may have originated from H. ergaster in eastern Africa, split into southern and northern African branches, the latter of which included northern African and Eurasian populations.

The intensified dispersal into off-equatorial regions may have occurred during periods of high eccentricity around 680,000 and 580,000 years ago, which increased habitat suitability in otherwise inhospitable regions. The southern branch then experienced considerable climatic stress in southern Africa which could have accelerated a transition into H. sapiens. The Eurasian populations of the northern branch split around 430,000, possibly giving rise to Denisovans, which populated parts of central and eastern Asia. Inside central Europe, H. heidelbergensis, then experienced strong local climatic stress and gradually evolved into H. neanderthalensis between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago.

Neat, huh?

(7) LIGHTYEAR TRAILER. Disney Pixar’s Lightyear is coming to theaters on June 17.

Check out a new trailer for Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear,” revealing new details about the upcoming sci-fi action adventure. The definitive origin story of Buzz Lightyear, the hero who inspired the toy, “Lightyear” follows the legendary Space Ranger after he’s marooned on a hostile planet 4.2 million light-years from Earth alongside his commander and their crew. As Buzz tries to find a way back home through space and time, he’s joined by a group of ambitious recruits and his charming robot companion cat, Sox. Complicating matters and threatening the mission is the arrival of Zurg, an imposing presence with an army of ruthless robots and a mysterious agenda. A new poster and images are also available.

(8) JEAN COCTEAU REOPENING. George R.R. Martin’s Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, NM will reopen May 6, when people will get the opportunity to “Be the very first members of the public to sit in our new theater seats, hear the new sound system, and enjoy a transformed theatrical experience at the Jean Cocteau!”

It will kick off with a weekend of classic films hosted free of charge by the Jean Cocteau Cinema and Beastly Books, and they’re taking a poll to determine which five films from a curated list of 10 classics, including titles picked by GRRM, will be shown. Vote here. Voting ends Sunday, April 24th.

(9) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1976 — [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.] The mark of how good a series is not how great the pilot is but the first episode after the pilot. Forty-six years ago this evening on ABC, the second episode of Wonder Woman aired, a curiosity titled affair called “Wonder Woman Meets Baroness Von Gunther”. In it she got to take resurgent Nazis on in form of a Nazi spy ring known as the Abwehr who are active again and who are targeting Steve Trevor for imprisoning the Baroness von Gunther, their leader. 

The Baroness Paula von Gunther was created by William Moulton Marston as an adversary for his creation Wonder Woman in Sensation Comics #4, 1942. Though she disappeared during the Crisis on Infinite Earth years, Jim Byrne brought her back in 1988 and made once again the Nazi villainess she once was. 

This episode is based off “Wonder Woman Versus the Prison Spy Ring” in Wonder Woman #1 (July 1942). (The title comes from when it was reprinted later.) In the story, Colonel Darnell informs Trevor that an army transport ship was sunk by a German U-Boat. Believing the Nazis must have had a traitor inside the Army, Darnell orders Steve to interrogate the former head of the Gestapo system in America — The Baroness who is now serving time in a federal penitentiary thanks to Wonder Woman. Note that this episode made Trevor responsible for her being captured. 

So how was it received? This episode ranked twelfth in the Nielsen ratings, shockingly beating out a Bob Hope special which ranked twentieth.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 21, 1911 — John Lymington. Between the late Fifties and the mid-Eighties, he wrote twenty-six genre novels, an astonishing number but only a fraction of the estimated 150 books he wrote overall. His short genre fiction is published in his Night Spiders collection. He’s not made it into the digital realm and I’ll admit that I’ve not heard of him, so I’m hoping the brain trust here can tell me about him. E0sF says helpfully that this was the pseudonym of UK author John Newton Chance who wrote a lot of the Sexton Blake thrillers. Come on folks, tell me about him! (Died 1983.)
  • Born April 21, 1922 — Alistair MacLean. I’ll admit that I know I read at least a handful of his works when I was much younger. ISFDB lists four novels (Goodbye California, The Dark Crusader, The Golden Gate and The Satan Bug) as being genre though I personally would say they are thrillers with genre elements. Clute at EoSF agrees saying that they are “Cold War thrillers which make use of sf McGuffins”. (Died 1987.)
  • Born April 21, 1928 — Dee Hartford. Miss Iceland, companion of Mister Freeze in two episodes of that Batman series. She also had appearances on Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Land of The Giants, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.  Yes, she was very pretty and that really counted in that time. She appeared on “The Bewitchin’ Pool” which was the last original episode of The Twilight Zone to be broadcast (though it was not the last one to be filmed). (Died 2018.)
  • 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. ISFDB says he has just one novel, Sex Burns Like Fire. He’s a member of First Fandom Hall of Fame. (Died 2010.)
  • Born April 21, 1939 — John Bangsund. Australian fan from the Sixties through the Eighties. He was instrumental with Andrew Porter in Australia 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 was 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, 1965 — Fiona Kelleghan, 57. Though an academic to the bone, she has two genre stories “The Secret in the Chest: With Tests, Maps, Mysteries, & Intermittent Discussion Questions” and “The Secret in the Chest”. Of her academic works, I find most fascinating Mike Resnick: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to His Work which last was revised in 2012 for the paperback edition. Wikipedia shows her Alfred Bester, Grand Master: An Annotated Bibliography is a work in progress. 
  • Born April 21, 1971 — Michael Turner. Another one who died way, way too young. He was a comics artist known for his work on Witchblade,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. A Tribute to Michael Turner with writings from people who knew him and a cover done by Alex Ross would be released to cover his medical expenses. (Died 2008.)
  • Born April 21, 1980 — Hadley Fraser, 42. His first video acting role was 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 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 Kenneth Branagh’s absolutely smashing Murder on the Orient Express. Branagh just directed his second Agatha Christie film in which he plays the Belgian detective, Death on the Nile.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Hey, I used to sit in a green chair and read to my daughter just like in Hi and Lois. All we needed was a punchline!
  • Dino Comics knows the truth is out there.

(12) HE’S STILL READING. “Samuel R. Delany’s Life in Books” for the New York Times Magazine is a strong series of reminiscences all tied together by the printed page.

…I was brought up with a series called “My Book House,” edited by Olive Beaupré Miller, which I still refer to. Those books introduced me to mythology and history, to the “Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” the “Kalevala,” the legend of Dick Whittington and early stories of Johnny Appleseed. In them, I got my first images of what Shakespeare’s childhood must’ve looked like, and the great wagons on which the traveling mummers rode around and presented their plays. The drawings were wonderful. They were particularly important to me because I was dyslexic, and I got a lot of my education through images. The very first thing I read all the way through was a Bob Kane Batman comic book. My father wanted to stop me because he objected to comics, but my mother said, “No! He’s reading!”…

(13) MEET THE FILMMAKERS. Enjoy this featurette on Everything Everywhere All At Once.

(14) NETFLIX ORIGINAL ANIMATION ON DEATHWATCH. “Netflix kills the Bone show as its Original Animation department pretty much falls apart” reports A.V. Club. Yesterday streaming service Netflix saw its stock price plummet by record amounts in response to a dismal Q1 earnings call.

…Amidst the chaos, The Wrap released a quieter report this afternoon, one focused on the company’s once vaunted Original Animation department—reporting, among other things, that Phil Rynda, Netflix Director of Creative Leadership and Development for Original Animation, had been let go from the company this week, and that several high-profile animated projects, most notably the much-anticipated animated adaptation of Jeff Smith’s beloved comic series Bone, were dead at the service.

The Bone show is a blow, for sure; fans have been waiting for Smith’s all-ages adventure comic, seemingly a natural fit for animation, to get a worthy adaptation for years. But the report, written by Drew Taylor, also delves into Netflix’s overall treatment of animation creatives, who were once lured to the company with promises of creative freedom, and are now frequently tossed stacks of data to justify the company’s limited advertising for, and support of, its animated shows.

Case in point: The company’s slow response earlier this month to the news that Elizabeth Ito’s excellent (and already canceled) City Of Ghosts had won a Peabody Award. Ito was forced to basically launch a single-person campaign to even get the service to acknowledge the victory; this, after Netflix kept her in suspense about whether the show would get another season….

(15) THE HEAT IS ON. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Radical emissions cuts combined with some atmospheric carbon removal are the only hope to limit global warming to 1.5 °C, scientists warn.

Further to last week’s research reported in File 770, the UN’s IPCC have upped the ante, as this week’s Nature says: “IPCC’s starkest message yet: extreme steps needed to avert climate disaster”.

Humanity probably isn’t going to prevent Earth from at least temporarily warming 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels — but aggressive action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and extract carbon from the atmosphere could limit the increase and bring temperatures back down, according to the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)….

(16) I GO TO PIECES. “Lego’s Star Wars Day Offerings Include a new 1,890-Piece Ultimate Collector Series Version of Luke’s Landspeeder” – Gizmodo has the story. (Or should I say, ad?)

May the 4th is just a few weeks away and just like the Death Star targeting a defenseless planet, there’s nothing you can do to protect your budget against the onslaught of Star Wars merchandise enroute, including a new addition to Lego’s pricey Ultimate Collector Series line.

As with all of Lego’s UCS models, the new Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder puts previous Lego versions of the vehicle to shame with an incredible amount of detail and new parts you won’t find anywhere else…

(17) BRAZILIAN ANIMATION. Speaking of blocks… In Escalade, Luciano Fulgi and Paolo Muppet explain what happens when you want to tower over your neighbors!

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Pitch Meeting,” Ryan George, in a spoiler-filled episode, says the producer has forgotten so much about this series he refers to hero Newt Scamander as “Nugget Scaffolding.”  The writer explains many puzzling plot twists in this film (such as how villain Grindelwald, played previously by Johnny Depp, has become Mads Mikkelsen) by saying “magic!” MANY MANY TIMES.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Jeffrey Smith, Rob Thornton, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Daniel Dern, Linda Deneroff, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]