(1) STONES WILL ROLL. The Broken Earth is becoming an RPG setting: “Green Ronin To Publish The Fifth Season Roleplaying Game”.
“I’ve heard from many of my readers that they’re fascinated enough by the world of the Broken Earth that they’d like to visit it (nobody wants to live there tho!) and now they’ll get their chance,” said N.K. Jemisin. “I’ll be working with Green Ronin to try and make sure the spirit and feel of the books is rendered successfully in this new form.”
Green Ronin will publish The Fifth Season RPG in the Fall of 2020. Tanya DePass (I Need Diverse Games, Rivals of Waterdeep) and Joseph D. Carriker (Blue Rose, Critical Role: Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting) will co-develop the game. The Fifth Season RPG will use a revised and customized version of Green Ronin’s Chronicle System, which powered the company’s long-running Game of Thrones RPG, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying.
(2) LE GUIN DOCUMENTARY. At least one PBS outlet is allowing online viewing of Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, aired last night as part of the American Masters series. The info indicates it will be available through August 30.
(3) PRACTICAL PRATCHETT. In “The Tao of Sir Terry: Pratchett and Political Philosophy” by Canadian novelist J.R.H. Lawless on Tor.com, is an analysis of politics in Discworld that argues that Pratchett’s satire is a tool for “a brave, humanist outlook that fuels a deep-rooted hope for a responsible political future.”
…If the social contract produces political systems as petty and vile as the citizens themselves, then the opposite is also true—and this is the saving grace of the political systems Sir Terry develops throughout his work: a deep-rooted belief in the fundamental goodness of humankind and in our ability to strive towards greater social justice, however difficult or ridiculous the path towards it may be…
(4) TECHNOTHRILLER NEWS. Tom Chatfield, in “Towards a New Canon of Technothrillers” on Crimereads, explains why Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, and Charles Stross really wrote technothrillers.
…As someone who spent their teens eating up sci-fi and fantasy, I particularly love writers who bend or break the barriers between genres, and I guess I see techno-thrillers in these terms: as a fertile colliding ground for technology, conspiracy, crime, politics, the factual and the fantastical. If you’re interested in crime, today, you need to be interested in technology—because we’re living at a time where the kind of crimes being committed, and what it means to obey or break the law, are being rewritten in the form of code. Information itself is the battleground. It’s strange and terrifying and marvelous—and the gift of fiction is to make its urgency feel real, human and tractable….
(5) LEXOPHILE. Andrew Porter introduced me to the term.Jokes of the Day explains it and I’ve copied four examples:
“Lexophile” describes those that have a love for words, such as “you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish”, or “To write with a broken pencil is pointless.” An annual competition is held by the New York Times see who can create the best original lexophile.
- No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
- If you don’t pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
- I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.
- I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.
(6) MICE REMEMBERED. In the Washington Post, Michael Cavna notes that Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse, married Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey Mouse, in 1989 and they stayed married for 19 years until Allwine’s death in 2008. He quotes Cartoon Art museum curator Andrew Farago as saying “I think Russi and Wayne were Minnie and Mickey, in all the ways that mattered” adding they were “good-hearted, generous, kind to everyone they met.” — “She was the voice of Minnie Mouse. He was the voice of Mickey Mouse. That’s how their romance began.”
The romance between Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse was more than just an act. For two of their real-life voice actors, it was magic, and soon love, at first sound bite.
Russi Taylor, who died Friday in Glendale, Calif., won the role of Minnie Mouse in 1986, beating out more than 150 other actors with her high, pitch-perfect sound. The next year, she was on the voice-over stage for the Disney special “Totally Minnie” when she met Wayne Allwine, who had inherited the role of Mickey about a decade earlier — only the third person, including creator Walt Disney, to officially inhabit the role.
As soon as Taylor and Allwine began working together, they could make theatrical sparks fly.
“They were Mickey and Minnie,” Bill Farmer, then newly cast as the voice of Goofy, told The Washington Post on Monday. “It was typecasting.”
(7) GENOVESE OBIT. “Cosmo Genovese, Script Supervisor on ‘Star Trek’ Series, Dies at 95” says The Hollywood Reporter:
Cosmo Genovese, a veteran script supervisor whose credits include Perry Mason, The A-Team and two Star Trek series, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 95.
His first job in Hollywood was on William Wyler’s Oscar best-picture nominee Friendly Persuasion (1956), starring Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire and Anthony Perkins.
Genovese served as a script supervisor on Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987-94 and Star Trek: Voyager from 1995-2000 for a total of 275 episodes.
Star Trek: TNG and Voyager writers made subtle tributes to him on their series, putting his name on dedication plaques and directories, calling a flower shop “Genovese’s Flowers” and a coffee shop “Cosimo” and dubbing an energetic carbon-based biological reactant “bio-genovesium.”
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born August 3, 1841 — Juliana Horatia Ewing (née Gatty). Yorkshire writer of children’s fiction whose tales are very close to folklore. There are four known collections of her stories, Melchior’s Dream and Other Tales, The Brownies and Other Tales, Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales and The Land of Lost Toys. Kindle has several of her collections available, iBooks has none. (Died 1885.)
- Born August 3, 1861 — Michel Jean Pierre Verne. Son of Jules Verne who we now know rewrote some of his father’s later novels. These novels have since been restored using the original manuscripts which were preserved. He also wrote and published short stories using his father’s name. None of these were the major works Jules is now known for. (Died 1925.)
- Born August 3, 1904 — Clifford Simak. I was trying to remember the first novel by him I read. I’m reasonably sure it was Way Station though it could’ve been City. I’m fond of Cemetery World and A Choice of Gods as well. By the way I’m puzzled by the Horror Writers Association making him one of their three inaugural winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. What of his is horror? (Died 1988.)
- Born August 3, 1920 — P. D. James. Author of The Children of Men which she wrote to answer the question “If there were no future, how would we behave?” Made into a film which she has said she likes despite it being substantially different than her novel. (Died 2014.)
- Born August 3, 1940 — Martin Sheen, 79. So that who that was! On Babylon 5: The River of Souls, there’s a Soul Hunter but the film originally didn’t credit an actor who turns out to be him. Amazing performance. He’s been in a number of other genre roles but this is the role that I like most.
- Born August 3, 1946 — John DeChancie, 73. A native of Pittsburgh, he is best known for his Castle fantasy series, and his SF Skyway series. He’s fairly prolific even having done a Witchblade novel. Who here has read him? Opinions please.
- Born August 3, 1950 — John Landis, 69. He make this if all he’d done An American Werewolf in London, but he was also Director / Producer / Writer of the Twilight Zone movie. And wrote Clue which was the best Tim Curry role ever. And he Executive Produced one of the best SAF comedies ever, Amazon Women on the Moon.
- Born August 3, 1972 — Brigid Brannagh, 47. Also credited as Brigid Brannagh, Brigid Brannah, Brigid Brannaugh, Brigid Walsh, and Brigid Conley Walsh. Need an Irish red headed colleen in a genre role? Well she apparently would do. She shows up in Kindred: The Embrace, American Gothic, Sliders, Enterprise (as a bartender), Roar, Touched by an Angel, Charmed, Early Edition, Angel (as Virginia Bryce in a recurring role), Grimm, Supernatural and currently on Runaways in the main role of Stacey Yorkes.
- Born August 3, 1980 — Aaron Dembski-Bowden, 39. Author of many a Warhammer Universe novel. I’m including him so as to ask y’all a question. The only thing I’ve read in this Universe is “Monastery of Death”, a short story by Stross which was quite intriguing as stories go. Are there novels set here worth reading? Where would I start?
(9) EVERY CONDIMENT HAS ITS DAY. Popsugar’s Lindsay Miller celebrates National Mustard Day: “French’s Mustard Ice Cream Is Blindingly Yellow and Upsettingly Good”.
I’m walking home when my boyfriend texts me: “You got this horror show.” He attaches a photo of a navy blue cooler, inside which is nestled a pint of French’s Mustard Ice Cream. In honor — or defiance? — of National Mustard Day on Aug. 3, LA-based ice creamery Coolhaus is joining forces with the brand-name condiment. When I got the press release promising their questionable concoction would “have Americans enjoying mustard in a way it’s never been seen before,” I knew I couldn’t shirk my responsibility as a journalist deeply committed to serving the public interest. I had to try it.
(10) NEW JOBS. Entertainment Weekly reviews that “Man Who Fell to Earth TV series coming from Star Trek producer”
‘What if Steve Jobs was an alien?’ Alex Kurtzman is re-imagining the David Bowie classic
The new series for CBS All Access is based on Walter Tevis’ 1962 novel and the 1976 film starring David Bowie. The story followed a humanoid alien who arrives on Earth searching for a way to get water to his drought-struck planet and uses his advanced technology to create many inventions and become a tech mogul.
Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard) will write the series along with Jenny Lumet and serve as co-showrunners. Kurtzman will also direct.
“Walter Tevis’ visionary novel gave us a tech god Willy Wonka from another planet, brought to life by David Bowie’s legendary performance, that foretold Steve Jobs’ and Elon Musk’s impact on our world,” said Kurtzman and Lumet in a statement. “The series will imagine the next step in our evolution, seen through the eyes of an alien who must learn what it means to become human, even as he fights for the survival of his species.”
(11) YANG APPRAISED. Andrew Liptak declares “JY Yang’s Tensorate series is a sweeping, experimental blend of sci-fi and fantasy” in a review for The Verge.
Genre is an odd thing. At times, it’s merely a sales tactic, where similar books are grouped together in a bookstore to make them easier to find. But it can also be a codified canon of literature in which authors are engaged in a decades-long conversation, bouncing themes and tropes off one another. Every now and again, a book or author will come along that really breaks away from the conversation and ignores those tropes and conventions. One recent example is Singaporean author JY Yang, who published the final installment of their genre-blending Tensorate series last month.
The series is made up of four short novellas: The Red Threads of Fortune, The Black Tides of Heaven, The Descent of Monsters, and The Ascent to Godhood. It’s set in a world where an oppressive monarchy called the Protectorate is facing an entrenched revolution from a rebel group called the Machinists. The Protectorate holds onto power by controlling who can utilize a magical system known as Slackcraft, and it utterly controls the lives of its subjects. However, it’s grown decadent and corrupt over the decades, and under the reign of Lady Sanao Hekate, The Protector, it’s brutally cracked down on its citizens. That’s given rise to the Machinists, who work to topple the government, all while bringing power to the people with the help of machines that take the place of Slackcraft and those who control it.
(12) A NETFLIX BOMB. Camestros Felapton explains why “I didn’t finish even one episode of ‘Another Life’ on Netflix”. At the risk of stealing his thunder, basically, it sucks.
…It was more the little things. When the central character wakes up from space hibernation and just sort of spills out onto the floor of a corridor, like nobody put any thought into how the crew will wake up. If the series was set in some grungy future of second hand spaceships, I could believe that but this is supposed to be the state of the art spaceship at the peak of human technology. The science is one thing, but seriously somebody would have thought that bit through (or at least the ship’s hologram would be there waiting when the captain woke up)….
(13) BEACHCOMBING ON PLUTO. The Express (UK) unpacks one of New Horizon’s discoveries:“NASA breakthrough: Scientists believe ‘ocean of water’ exists on distant world – ‘Huge!'”
“And, at its edge, lies a range of mountains made of pure frozen water ice that rise up to 6km above the plain.
“But there’s something very strange about the region, something that sets it apart from the rest of this dwarf planet.”
Dr Cox went on to reveal how NASA noticed something particularly strange about this region.
He added: “The surface of Pluto is covered in craters, the scars of impact that have taken place over many billions of years.
“Except, if you look at Sputnik Planitia, it is absolutely smooth….
(14) EXPERIMENTATION. “First human-monkey chimera raises concern among scientists” –The Guardian has the story.
Efforts to create human-animal chimeras have rebooted an ethical debate after reports emerged that scientists have produced monkey embryos containing human cells.
A chimera is an organism whose cells come from two or more “individuals”, with recent work looking at combinations from different species. The word comes from a beast from Greek mythology which was said to be part lion, part goat and part snake.
The latest report, published in the Spanish newspaper El País, claims a team of researchers led by Prof Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte from the Salk Institute in the US have produced monkey-human chimeras. The research was conducted in China “to avoid legal issues”, according to the report.
Chimeras are seen as a potential way to address the lack of organs for transplantation, as well as problems of organ rejection….
(15) THE DOORBELL OPENED A BLUE EYE AND SPIED AT HIM. Here’s looking at you, kid — “Amazon Ring: Police tie-up criticised by anti-surveillance campaigners”.
Amazon has been criticised for partnering with at least 200 law enforcement agencies to carry out surveillance via its Ring doorbells.
The partnerships came to light after a Freedom of Information request made by Vice’s Motherboard tech news website.
The bells send live video of customers’ doorsteps to their smartphones, computers or Amazon Echo devices.
Digital rights campaign group Fight for the Future says Amazon is encouraging neighbours to spy on each other.
The partnerships allow police officers to ask customers to “share videos” and information about crime and safety issues in their area via the Ring app.
In response to the story Ring told the BBC: “Law enforcement can only submit video requests to users in a given area when investigating an active case. Ring facilitates these requests and user consent is required in order for any footage or information to be shared with law enforcement.”
Motherboard says officers do not need a warrant to ask for footage or information.
“Amazon has found the perfect end-run around the democratic process,” Fight the Future said.
(16) IT’S BENT! BBC learns “Milky Way galaxy is warped and twisted, not flat”.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is “warped and twisted” and not flat as previously thought, new research shows.
Analysis of the brightest stars in the galaxy shows that they do not lie on a flat plane as shown in academic texts and popular science books.
Astronomers from Warsaw University speculate that it might have been bent out of shape by past interactions with nearby galaxies.
The new three dimensional map has been published in the journal Science.
The popular picture of the Milky Way as a flat disc is based on the observation of 2.5 million stars out of a possible 2.5 billion. The artists’ impressions are therefore rough approximations of the truer shape of our galaxy, according to Dr Dorota Skowron of Warsaw University.
“The internal structure and history of the Milky Way is still far from being understood, in part because it is extremely difficult to measure distances to stars at the outer regions of our galaxy,” she said.
(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The Oscar-nominated “Negative Space” on Vimeo by Max Porter and Ru Kawabata is animation about a young man bonding with his father while packing luggage.
[Thanks to Nancy Sauer, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Liptak, Mike Kennedy, Contrarius, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]