Tag Archives: Priya Sridhar

Pixel Scroll 2/24/23 Worst Pixel, Filed On Ugliest Scroll

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(1) A FIGURE OF FUN. Cora Buhlert has posted a new Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Photo Story entitled “Held Hostage”. And Cora says, “I have more of those coming up as well, because they’re a lot of fun to make and offer a great distraction from — well — everything.”

(2) ANOTHER LOOK AT LEGENDS. Mark Lawrence takes a deep dive into the work of David Gemmell: “Legends and Re-reads”.

I was a very different person in a very different world when I read Legend at 21 from the man I am at 57. I also know a lot more about writing.

A few things to say about Gemmell. 

– He is a skilled storyteller.

– He knows how to push emotional buttons. When I was starting to think about the mechanics of writing he was the first author I looked hard at and said ‘how is he making me feel like this?’

– He had a clear ethos/worldview that runs through all his books. His readers often repeat it as delivered through the eponymous Legend (Druss the Legend, aka Druss of the Axe, aka Deathwalker):

Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil.

-The Iron Code of Druss the Legend

(3) RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY! “Lord of the Rings New Movies Set at Warner Bros” reports Variety.

Warner Bros. Pictures is revamping the “Lord of the Rings” film franchise.

On a Thursday earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that newly-installed studio leaders Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy have brokered a deal to make “multiple” films based on the beloved J. R. R. Tolkien books. The projects will be developed through WB label New Line Cinema. The first “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, helmed by Peter Jackson, grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide; Jackson’s follow-up trilogy based on Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” matched those grosses.

No filmmakers have been attached to the projects as yet, but in a statement to Variety, Jackson and his main “Lord of the Rings” collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens said Warner Bros. and Embracer “have kept us in the loop every step of the way.”…

(4) NEXT QUESTION PLEASE. “Helen Mirren says the plot of ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ is ‘too complicated’: ‘Don’t ask me about the plot’” at MSN.com.

Helen Mirren said she doesn’t fully understand the plot of her latest movie, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”

Mirren makes her superhero movie debut next month in the DC Comics sequel, playing the film’s villain, Hespera.

During her appearance on “The Graham Norton Show,” which airs in the UK on Friday, Mirren admitted she’s not “a big superhero-type person” but “loved” the first “Shazam!” movie released in 2019.

“Don’t ask me about the plot, it’s too complicated,” Mirren said about her role in the movie. “[Lucy Liu and I] are angry goddesses wearing unbelievably heavy costumes. It was very hot and uncomfortable and in fact, Lucy said at the end of the first day’s shooting, ‘They are trying to kill us,’ in all seriousness.”…

(5) THE INSIDE STORY. Wil Wheaton invites us inside to “see how we are”:

…Last night, Anne and I went to the fancy premiere of Star Trek Picard’s final season at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Before the screening began, after we were all settled into our seats, Terry Matalas and Alex Kurtzman introduced the show, thanked the cast and crew, and turned the spotlight over to Patrick. He spoke lovingly and beautifully about the entire experience, in that Patrick Stewart way we all love.

As he was wrapping up his remarks, he said, “I would like to ask the cast who are here to please stand up,” so they could also be celebrated.

I remembered how humiliating it was, how much it hurt, those times Rick Berman deliberately left me seated while everyone else was standing up, those times Rick Berman made me feel exactly the way my father made me feel: unwelcome, unworthy, invisible. Not a great feeling.

But last night wasn’t about me. Yes, I have a wonderful cameo in season two, but I’m not in season three. And last night was about season three. It was about celebrating my family, who all came together for what is likely their final mission together. So I was happy to stay in my seat while they started to stand up. I clapped so hard my hands are still vibrating this morning. I applauded not just their work on this season, but everything they’ve given to Star Trek for over thirty years. I celebrated the absolute hell out of my family. And while I was doing this, I looked across the aisle at Frakes and clapped at/for him.

We made eye contact, and he gave me this incredulous look. “Why are you sitting down? Stand up, W!” He said.

So I did, and he applauded me, and I may have wept just a little bit. Or maybe a lot. I can’t remember. I was so grateful to be included in the moment by the man who I wish was my father, who loves me and sees me like my own parents never did….

(6) S&S AND $. Cora Buhlert has posted another “Semiprozine Spotlight” for New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine. Also, their team is currently running a Kickstarter that’s 85% funded. 

 Why did you decide to start your magazine?

After having some very exciting discussions last Spring, on the Whetstone Tavern discord, about how to make the S&S scene larger and more inclusive, someone suggested to me that I try to express ideas from that discussion in an anthology. I decided I’d rather do a magazine, but only if there were others who wanted to work with me on it.

There were!

So I set about creating the magazine I wanted to see in the world, made with love for the classics and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling, a gorgeous vessel for high quality writing & art, that would be a delight for Sword & Sorcery fans as well as draw in people from outside the community.

(7) A REAL HEADSCRATCHER. Priya Sridhar knows “How To Steal Right From Squid Game”. Why doesn’t Netflix? (Via Cat Rambo.)

…Here is one difference between the YouTube version of Squid Game and the Netflix reality show: no one got hurt in the former. In fact, you can see the competitors laughing and enjoying themselves. Netflix somehow hurt the production crew and reality competition members.

Sometimes you have to ask one question: how? How do you become the thing that you’re mocking? And how does a corporation remain so oblivious?…

(8) GOODMAN GAMES. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] The good folks of Goodman Games have posted a profile of Margaret St. Clair, mainly focusing on the two novels of hers that are listed in Appendix N (she has written so much more than that, but at least she’s getting attention): “Adventures in Fiction: Margaret St. Clair”.

…Margaret St. Clair is an interesting figure, one whose work is largely overlooked in the present age. St. Clair was one of only three women authors who appeared on Gygax’s list of influential writers and their works. During both the Golden and Silver Ages of fantasy fiction, the field was dominated by white males, so much so that the now-often derided pronouncement on the back cover of the Bantam Books 1963 printing of The Sign of the Labrys (“Women are Writing Science Fiction!”) was actually somewhat shocking. The fact that Appendix N includes three women authors is a testimony to the breadth of Gary’s reading…

And they’ve done a profile of Andre Norton: “Adventures in Fiction: Andre Norton”.

…Norton’s influence on adventure gaming and its creators was not accidental. She often employed a recurring motif in her books in which the protagonist begins as an outsider or “other”, and through dedicating themselves to a perilous journey in the wilderness, eventually becomes a fully-realized heroic figure. The parallels to the level advancement and experience point systems of early role-playing games is obvious….

Also at Goodman Games, Bill Ward reviews A Book of Blade, an anthology in which I have a story: “A Look at A Book of Blades”.

The folks behind the Rogues in the House Sword & Sorcery Podcast have applied their old school sensibilities to create an anthology of contemporary sword-and-sorcery from today’s modern practitioners. Edited by Matthew John, A Book of Blades delivers fifteen tales from an array of authors that fans keeping up with the genre – and especially readers of Tales From the Magician’s Skull – will be sure to recognize, such as Howard Andrew Jones, Scott Oden, John C. Hocking, S.E. Lindberg, Jason Ray Carney, and John Fultz, to name a few. From grimdark to swashbuckling, from all-out-action to moody introversion, the variety of tales found within A Book of Blades presents a fine cross-section of modern sword-and-sorcery….

(9) MEMORY LANE.

1969 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Larry Niven’s “Not Long Before the End” is the first work in the setting of The Magic Goes Away universe, published in the April 1969 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It would nominated for a Hugo at Heicon ’70. 

Though I always thought of Niven as a SF writer first and foremost, his fantasy writing here is first rate. It’s a wonderful series that shows Niven at his very best. 

Now here’s our Beginning…

NOT LONG BEFORE THE END

 A swordsman battled a sorcerer, once upon a time.

In that age such battles were frequent. A natural antipathy exists between swordsmen and sorcerers, as between cats and small birds, or between rats and men. Usually the swordsman lost, and humanity’s average intelligence rose some trifling fraction. Sometimes the swordsman won, and again the species was improved; for a sorcerer who cannot kill one miserable swordsman is a poor excuse for a sorcerer.

But this battle differed from others. On one side, the sword itself was enchanted. On the other, the sorcerer knew a great and terrible truth.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born February 24, 1786 — Wilhelm Grimm. Here for two reasons, the first being the he and his brother were the first to systematically collect folktales from the peasantry of any European culture and write them down. Second is that the number of genre novels and short stories that used the Grimms’ Fairy Tales as their source for source material is, well, if not infinite certainly a really high number. I’d wager that even taking just those stories in Snow White, Blood Red series that Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow co-edited would get quite a number based the tales collected by these brothers. (Died 1859.)
  • Born February 24, 1909 — August Derleth. He’s best known as the first book publisher of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own fictional contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos (a term that S. T. Joshi does not like), not to overlook being the founder of Arkham House which alas is now defunct. I’m rather fond of his detective fiction with Solar Pons of Praed Street being a rather inspired riff off the Great Detective. (Died 1971.)
  • Born February 24, 1933 — Verlyn Flieger, 90. Well known Tolkien specialist. Her best-known books are Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World, A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Road to Faerie, which won a Mythopoeic Award, Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth (her second Mythopoeic Award) and Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien (her third Mythopoeic Award). She has written a YA fantasy, Pig Tale, and some short stories.
  • Born February 24, 1941 — Sam J. Lundwall, 82. Swedish writer, translator and publisher. He first started writing for Häpna!, an SF magazine in the 50s. In the late 60s, he was a television producer for Sveriges Radio and made a SF series. He published his book, Science Fiction: Från begynnelsen till våra dagar (Science Fiction: What It’s All About) which landed his first job as an SF Editor. In the 80s, he would start his own company, Sam J. Lundwall Fakta & Fantasi. Lundwall was also the editor of the science fiction magazine Jules Verne-Magasinet between 1972 and 2013. He has been active in fandom as he organized conventions in Stockholm six times in the 60s and 70s. And I see he’s written a number of novels, some released in the U.S., though not recently. 
  • Born February 24, 1945 — Barry Bostwick, 78. Best remembered for being Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. His first genre undertaking was the English language narration of Fantastic Planet. He voices the Mayor in The Incredibles 2. He also won a Tony Award for his role in The Robber Bridegroom, a play based off the Eudora Welty novella.
  • Born February 24, 1947 — Edward James Olmos, 76. Reasonably sure the first thing I saw him in was Blade Runner as Detective Gaff, but I see he was Eddie Holt in Wolfen a year earlier which is I’m reasonably sure his genre debut. Though I didn’t realize it as I skipped watching the nearly entire film, he was in The Green Hornet as Michael Axford. He has a cameo as Gaff in the new Blade Runner film. And he’s William Adama on the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. He has made appearances on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Eureka.
  • Born February 24, 1951 — Helen Shaver, 72. Her SFF debut was as Betsy Duncan in Starship Invasions aka Project Genocide in the U.K. Though you’ve likely not heard of her there, you might have seen her as Carolyn in The Amityville Horror.  She’s Littlefoot’s mother in The Land Before Time, and Kate ‘White’ Reilly in the second Tremors film. She’s got one-offs in The Outer Limits, Amazing Stories, Ray Bradbury Theater and Outer Limits to name but a few. And she was Dr. Rachel Corrigan in Poltergeist: The Legacy, an excellent series indeed. 
  • Born February 24, 1968 — Martin Day, 55. I don’t usually deal with writers of licensed works but he’s a good reminder that shows such as Doctor Who spawn vast secondary fiction universes. He’s been writing such novels first for Virgin Books and now for BBC Books for over twenty years. In addition, he’s doing Doctor Who audiobooks for Big Finish Productions and other companies as well. He’s also written several unofficial books to television series such as the X Files, the Next Generation and the Avengers. 

(11) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to get crabby with writer Jennifer R. Povey in Episode 192 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Jennifer R. Povey

I attended Boskone last weekend, where I recorded three new conversations I’ll be sharing with you, but before we get to those, let’s pay a visit to the previous weekend’s Farpoint, where I had lunch with Jennifer R. Povey at the Ashland Cafe in Cockeysville, Maryland, which offers excellent diner food and great pie.

Povey has made numerous appearances in Analog, and her short fiction has also appeared in such magazines and anthologies as Daily Science Fiction, Bards and Sages Quarterly, Zombiality,  99 Tiny Terrors, First Contact, You’re Not Alone, and many others.  Her novels include the four books in the Lost Guardians series — Falling Dusk (2016), Fallen Dark (2017), Rising Dawn (2017), and Risen Day (2018) — as well as the stand-alones Transpecial (2013), Araña (2019), The Lay of Lady Percival (2019), Firewing (2020), and The Friar’s Tale: A Novel of Robin Hood (2020) She also has a number of credits in the RPG industry, having written or co-written supplements for Fat Goblin Games, Rite Publishing, Dark Naga Games, Flaming Crab Games, Avalon Game Company, and others.

We discussed how the pandemic altered the timing of her newly begun five-book science fiction series, why she once had to rethink a novel after getting 20,000 words in, the reason series detectives are rarely the true protagonists in their own stories, our differing reasons for taking issue with J. K. Rowling, her Star Trek fan fiction origins, how to avoid sequel fatigue when writing long series, techniques for avoiding self-rejection, her unusual journey to getting published in Analog, how 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea changed her life, the  Doctor Who episode which altered her existential understanding of the universe, how her archeological training helped her fiction, what writers get wrong when depicting horses, how it’s possible for pantsers to write novels, the time she horrified a Klingon in a convention bar, the divisive nature of “ship wars,” and much more.

(12) ASTEROID SCIENCE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Today’s US leading journal Science is sort of SFnal related.

An artist’s impression shows the Hayabusa2 spacecraft retrieving a sample from the surface of asteroid (162173) Ryugu. A combined total of 5 grams of samples were collected from two locations on Ryugu and then brought to Earth. Laboratory analysis of the samples has now determined the composition, formation process, and evolutionary history of the asteroid.

There’s also an open access introduction to the special section to which this cover relates here: “An asteroid in the laboratory”.

One other part of the special selection is on noble gases and nitrogen in the asteroid here: “Noble gases and nitrogen in samples of asteroid Ryugu record its volatile sources and recent surface evolution”.

The noble gas and nitrogen composition of this non-carbonaceous asteroid is of interest as they indicate how much more volatile components (such as carbon dioxide, methane and water) might have originally been there.  So they also compiled a basic model of the Solar system including temperature and radiation environments in space with distance from the Sun as well as cosmic ray exposure.  From this they infer that Ryugu’s orbit migrated from the main asteroid belt to the near-Earth region ~5  million years ago.

A recently published piece on the likely water content of non-carbonaceous meteorites suggests that much of the water delivered to Earth came from non-carbonaceous meteorites/asteroids/planetismals crashing into the primordial Earth. It is quite likely that as the above current work on the Ryugu samples continues that it will tie into this other, previous work.

At the moment there is some debate as to how Earth got its water. Was it through early accretion as our planet formed or through the late veneer 4.42 billion years ago a short (geologically/astronomically) time after the Earth formed? The answer is likely to be a mix of one and the other, but to what proportion remains highly debatable.  Now, of SFnal interest, all these questions have a bearing on the likelihood of life-bearing Earth-like planets in habitable zones around other stars.  This, in turn, relates to the far more important question of the likelihood of finding good bars, serving decent real ale, across the Galaxy.

(13) HOPE IS HARDER THAN DESPAIR. TBRCon2023 Panel 29 “Hopepunk & Optimistic Futures”. (Via Cat Rambo.)

Join moderator/author Jonathan Nevair and authors Cat Rambo, Ruthanna Emrys, Matthew Kressel and Sarena Ulibarri for a TBRCon2023 author panel on “Hopepunk & Optimistic Futures”!

(14) MASTER OF THE MASTERS. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] In 2022 the Geek Dad Live YouTube channel interviewed Ted Biaselli, who is a producer for many SFF shows at Netflix. The interview is mainly about Masters of the Universe: Revelation, but Biaselli has also produced Wednesday, The Dark Crystal and many others. Super enthusiastic and very likeable guy: 

Join John and Jay as they iscuss Masters of the Universe with fellow toy geek and Executive Producer of MOTU : Revelation, Ted Biaselli! They’ll talk about their thoughts on Season 1, the toys supporting the show, and whatever he can share about a potential second Season of the Show! They’ll discuss the latest in toy news like the conclusion to the Mattel Vs. the Dino Channels affair. They’ll talk about all of the Star Wars reveals by hasbro this week, share their latest toy hauls and try to Stump John, all of that and more tonight on Toy Geeks!

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

Pixel Scroll 2/3/23 Listen To Them, The Pixels Of The Scroll! What Files They Make!

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(1) SPACE UNICORNS SOUND OFF. You have until February 21 to make your voice heard: “Uncanny Celebrates Reader Favorites of 2022!”.

…While we have our personal favorites, we’d like to know which stories YOU loved from Uncanny in 2022.

We’ve set up a poll for Uncanny readers to vote for their top three favorite original short stories from 2022. (You can find links to all of the stories here.)

The poll will be open from January 31 to February 21, after which we’ll announce the results. We’re excited for you to share which Uncanny stories made you feel!

A snazzy certificate will be given to the creator whose work comes out on top of  the poll!

(2) LOCUS RECOMMENDED READING LIST. The 2022 Locus Recommended Reading List from the magazine’s February issue has been posted by Locus Online.

(3) CEMETARY DANCE DROPS MONTELEONE. [Item by rcade.] He was still an active columnist for the magazine, 29 years after the bigoted column. Not any more, though:

(4) A FAREWELL TO HARMS. Priya Sridhar writes “My Goodbye Letter To J.K. Rowling: What To Do When Your Magical World Has Cast You And Your Friends Out With Hate” at Medium in Counter Arts. (Via Cat Rambo.)

… J.K. Rowling has joined the list of these creators that break their pedestals. I’ve been debating on writing this article for several years, because I did not understand. How could a woman that wrote about fighting tyranny with courage and friendship say such things, to hurt people? Why would she dig herself deeper, going from misappropriating Navajo beliefs to claiming that trans people do not exist?

This recent transphobia has provided the answer. YouTuber Jessie Gender posted a video revealing that JKR found her tweets about Jessie talking about Hogwarts Legacy, and decided to send her own fanbase against one person, labeling her a “trans gamer”. Jessie had to spend Christmas in Buffalo, New York, dealing with the fallout. According to the video, JKR apparently earns more money every time she talks about this issue in her hateful way. She didn’t care that she would be hurting a vulnerable person if it got the desired reaction.

JKR isn’t causing controversy because she is being an idiot. She’s harassing marginalized creators and critics to earn more revenue from her books and establish power over those that disagree with her.

Now, doesn’t that sound familiar? Oh yes, I know two bigoted characters that did exactly the same thing in the Harry Potter series. Spoiler alert: they were not protagonists, or even heroic side characters….

(5) BLACK HERITAGE IN HORROR. The Horror Writers Association Blog continues its series: “Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Beatrice Winifred Iker”.

What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?

I grew up in Southern Appalachia with a rich sociocultural history to draw from. The horrors and allure of the South are genuinely neverending, fostering my interest in the genre, specifically in the subgenre of southern gothic.

Aside from that, I’m fascinated with the darker tendencies and desires of the human mind. We spend so much time assimilating and confining ourselves to social norms, but I’m more interested in examining people and histories who choose not to or don’t have a choice….

(6) IT’S A FELONY. Them explains why “Some Florida Teachers Are Removing Books from Classrooms Due to New State Law”.

Teachers in Florida’s Manatee and Duval counties are removing or physically covering up books in their classrooms after the State Board of Education ruled that a law restricting the books a district may possess applies not only to school libraries but to teachers’ classroom books as well.

House Bill 1467, which went into effect last July, requires that all schools’ books may only be displayed if they’ve been deemed appropriate by a librarian or “certified media specialist” who has undergone state retraining. Under the guidelines, books must be “free of pornographic material” and “appropriate for the age level and group.” New training approved by the State Board of Educators also asks media specialists to avoid books with “unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination.”

Breaking the law is a third-degree felony: A teacher could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for displaying or giving students a banned book. 

There’s a good chance that these “unsolicited theories” and “student indoctrination” tactics apply to the disproportionately high number of banned books that feature queer and trans characters, as well as other marginalized communities. A report from nonprofit group PEN America released last September found that over 41% of books banned over the past school year were targeted due to LGBTQ+ content…

(7) SCAM REVEALED. At Writer Beware, Victoria Strauss alerts everyone to: “Peak Fake: United Writers Organization and the Perpetual Eagle Awards”.

There’s a new solicitation doing the rounds. It’s from United Writers Organization, which describes itself as a “leading professional organization” for writers and publishers, and it delivers exciting news: you’ve been nominated for an award! A “complimentary nomination certificate” is yours for the asking–you don’t even have to pay! Although of course it would be nice if you became a UWO member, which will cost you a mere $99….

… Of course this is a scam–the out of the blue solicitation is a big clue, as are the language and grammar mistakes and telltale info from UWO’s domain registration–just 7 days old as of this writing, somewhat contradicting “Est. 1957” in the UWO logo….

(8) FESTIVAL OF MONSTERS. The Center for Monster Studies has put out a call for papers for the 2023 Festival of Monsters Conference. The conference will be held October 13-15, 2023 at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The deadline to submit abstracts and short bios is March 1.

The Center for Monster Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz is an interdisciplinary research, arts, and outreach organization focused on the ways monsters and tropes of monstrosity both perpetuate and contravene forms of social and cultural injustice. Each year we host a Festival of Monsters that brings together scholars, artists, students, and members of the general public to consider these issues.

Our 2023 Festival of Monsters (Oct. 13-15 in beautiful Santa Cruz) includes an academic conference, performances, readings, presentations from monster-makers in theatre, film and television, and events in association with an exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) entitled Werewolf Hunters, Jungle Queens, and Space Commandos: The Lost Worlds of Women Comics Artists.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers or presentations on any aspect of monsters or monster studies. We are particularly interested in work that addresses the following topics:

Women creators of monsters

Monsters and misogyny

Monsters in comics

Monsters and sexual politics from any time period

Monsters and queerness

Papers from all disciplines are welcome. Because participants in the Festival include members of the general public as well as people from within the academic community, we ask that proposed papers consider the Festival’s mixed audience. We welcome complex theoretical concepts and scholarly interventions, but please make sure the terms and stakes of your paper are articulated as clearly as possible.   

Please submit 250-word abstracts and 50-word bios to [email protected] and [email protected] by March 1, 2023.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

1937 — [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Now it is time for my all-time favorite Beginnings. It’s the first words of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, a novel I’ve read so many times that I know it by heart at this point. I consider it a perfect novel. 

Now we all know that the hobbit here is named Baggins but that won’t know here until the third paragraph of the novel, a nice touch indeed.  

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born February 3, 1925 — John Fiedler. He’s solely here as he played the ever so bland bureaucrat who gets possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper on the Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold”. I’m less interested in him, though it was a stellar episode, than who wrote that screenplay. It was written by Robert Bloch, a master of horror who would write two other Trek episodes, “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “Catspaw”. (Died 2005.)
  • Born February 3, 1933 — George Gipe. Screenwriter, The Man with Two Brains. He also wrote Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid but it’d be a stretch to consider that even genre adjacent. He wrote novelizations of Back to the Future, Explorers and Gremlins. And his Nearer to the Dust: Copyright and the Machine is interesting early (mid sixties) look at the potential effects of computers on copyrights. (Died 1986.)
  • Born February 3, 1938 — Victor Buono. I remember him best in his recurring role of Count Manzeppi in The Wild Wild West. In his very short life, he showed up in a number of other genre roles as well including as a scientist bent on world domination in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in an episode titled “The Cyborg”, as Adiposo / Fat man in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Colonel Hubris in  The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Professor William McElroy / King Tut in Batman, Sir Cecil Seabrook in The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. and Mr. Schubert on Man from Atlantis. (Died 1982.)
  • Born February 3, 1954 — Shawna McCarthy, 69. Editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction from 1983 to 1985, and Realms of Fantasy from 1994 to 2011. Sheila Williams in her history of the former said “While remaining a welcoming home for new writers, Shawna’s Asimov’s acquired an edgier and more literary and experimental tone.” 
  • Born February 3, 1963 — Alex Bledsoe, born 1963, aged sixty years. I highly recommend his Tales of The Tufa which can sort of be described as Appalachian Fae though that’s stretching it. His Eddie LaCrosse novels remind of Cook’s Garrett PI series and that’s a high compliment as that’s one of my favorite fantasy PI series. Anyone read his Firefly Witch series? And to my surprise, he’s stopped writing fiction altogether.
  • Born February 3, 1970 — Warwick Davis, 53. At least fifty live and voice appearances since first appearing in the Return of the Jedi in in place of Kenny Baker who was going to be a Ewok before he fell ill. Did you know he’s in Labyrinth as a member of the Goblin Corps? I certainly didn’t. Or that he did a series of humorous horror films centered around him as a Leprechaun? They did well enough that there was six of them. Hell he even shows up in Doctor Who during the Time of the Eleventh Doctor. 
  • Born February 3, 1979 — Ransom Riggs, 44. He’s best known for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children which I’ll confess I know absolutely nothing about, so educate me. I know it was turned into a film by Tim Burton which could a Very Good Thing. 

(11) CHEAP IS GOOD, FREE IS BEST. “12 Surprisingly Low-Tech Special Effects Moments In Movies” – these are Ranker’s favorites.

Before there was computer-generated imagery (CGI), special effects crews often had to use practical effects to achieve their cinematic vision. Many of these practical effects were surprisingly low-tech genius creations that prove creative thinking often trumps throwing loads of money at a problem.

Practical effects include any special effects created without the use of computer-generated imagery. It’s a kitchen-sink term that incorporates everything from prosthetics to pyrotechnics to miniature models. Find out which grotesque movie monster was constructed in part with strawberry jam and creamed corn. How did they create that swirling tornado in The Wizard of Oz, which still looks great even by today’s visual effects standards? Some of these films were made more recently when computer effects were readily available. Yet, the filmmakers opted to get creative and go old-school low-tech practical effects that yielded a more authentic-looking result.

First up –

The Tornado In ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Was Made From A Stocking Wrapped Around Chicken Wire

Back in the 1930s, practical effects were not a stylistic choice, they were a necessity. At the beginning of The Wizard of Oz, a tornado takes Dorothy (Judy Garland) from the barren lands of Kansas to the magically magnificent world of Oz. 

The production hired prolific special effects master Arnold Gillespie to figure out how to create the movie’s famous twister. The Academy Award winner attempted several different methods before finally getting it right…. 

(12) RETRO SFF. Michael Dirda reviews The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff in “The moon falls to Earth in a 1939 novel that remains chillingly relevant” at the Washington Post (behind a paywall.)

Late last month, NASA announced that an asteroid would pass exceptionally close to the Earth. As Jennifer Hassan wrote in The Washington Post, “NASA was quick to reassure people that the asteroid, which is estimated at between 11 feet (about 3.5 meters) and 28 feet (8.5 meters) across, would not end life as we know it on our planet.” Suppose, though, a much larger celestial object — say, the moon — were actually to crash into Earth. What then?

This is the scenario of R.C. Sherriff’s novel “The Hopkins Manuscript” (1939), recently reissued by Scribner. From its opening pages we learn that more than eight centuries have gone by since “the Cataclysm” and that Europe, particularly England, has been left a barren wasteland. For years, however, archaeologists of the Royal Society of Abyssinia have been seeking artifacts to help “reconstruct the lost glory of the ‘white man.’” During one expedition to what was once London, a young scientist, out gathering brushwood, unearths a small vacuum flask, inside which is a handwritten account of life in a small village called Beadle during the days leading up to the lunar catastrophe….

(13) IT’S BEING LET GO. “’Never Let Me Go’ Series Not Moving Forward at FX” reports Variety.

… The show was originally picked up to series by FX back in October and was meant to air exclusively on Hulu. It had originally been reported as being in development at FX in May 2022. According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, production had not yet begun before the decision to scrap the series was made.

The drama series was inspired by Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 science fiction novel of the same name, which was previously adapted into a film in 2010. The film was written by Alex Garland, directed by Mark Romanek, and produced by Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich….

(14) BIG APPETITES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Raquel Welch please note… “Neanderthals lived in groups big enough to eat giant elephants” says a Science story.

Meat from the butchered beasts would have fed hundreds.

On the muddy shores of a lake in east-central Germany, Neanderthals gathered some 125,000 years ago to butcher massive elephants. With sharp stone tools, they harvested up to 4 tons of flesh from each animal, according to a study that is casting these ancient human relatives in a new light. The degree of organization required to carry out the butchery—and the sheer quantity of food it provided—suggests Neanderthals could form much larger social groups than previously thought…

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

Pixel Scroll 1/14/23 I’d Love To Teach The File To Scroll In Pixel Harmony

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(1) OUT OF BOUNDS. Priya Sridhar analyzes the ethical and professional issues related to the Susan Meachen story in “’Death Is Not A Marketing Tool’ And Other Sentences We Shouldn’t Have To Say” at Medium. (Via Cat Rambo.)

Trigger Warning: This article does talk about death by suicide, specifically people faking their suicides. You have been warned.

I cannot believe I am writing about this in 2022. You would think that people would have learned by now. There are some things that we cannot forget. And I don’t feel well talking about this. The Daily Beast has all the details.

People faking their death is a hot button for me. Specifically, people faking suicide is something that will anger me forever. I feel a sickness in my stomach, and shaking anger. And an author has done this, someone that has earned revenue from this decision. They now have made the Internet very confused, especially within indie romance….

(2) DERAILED. Entertainment Weekly reports “Snowpiercer’s fourth and final season scrapped at TNT despite completing production”. But is all lost? Perhaps not.

… “We can confirm that TNT will not air season four of Snowpiercer,” a network spokesperson said Friday in a statement to EW. “This was a difficult decision, but our admiration for the talented writers, actors and crew who brought Snowpiercer‘s extraordinary post-apocalyptic world to life remains strong. We have been working collaboratively with the producers since last year to help the series find a new home where fans can continue to enjoy the compelling story and exceptional visual experience. We look forward to working with them on future projects.”

It may not be the end of the world, though. Producer Tomorrow Studios says it hopes to find a new partner for the series “shortly” in order to get the final episodes to fans. Deadline Hollywood reports that the ultimate goal is to build a franchise, including a prequel and sequel….

(3) EXOURBAN. “Alien Cities” at Black & White, an art blog by Anne Nydam focused on block prints and children’s fantasy.

Today I have a few strange and alien cities to share with you.  In each case the artist’s style is radically different from anything I do, and yet in the first two cases I, too, have made a piece that I think reveals a bit of the same curiosity, fascination, and imagination at work.  First up is Toward the Sky by Yoshida Toshi (Japan, 1911-1995).  This has a wonderfully doodly sensibility, which reminds me of my own City I and City II (about which you can read more in prior post Cities of Dreams).  Yoshida’s piece has a playful vibe somewhere between mid-century atomic and psychedelic, which isn’t so surprising given that it was made in 1965….  

(4) TO BOLDLY GO. Sistahscifi is hosting a free online book launch for To Boldy Go: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek, & Civil Rights on Wednesday, January 18 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. Pacific. Reserve your spot at the link.

 To Boldly Go tells the true story of Nichelle Nichols and how she used her platform on Star Trek to inspire and recruit a new generation of diverse astronauts and many others in the space and STEM fields.

(5) NAACP IMAGE AWARDS. There are many items of genre interest among the nominees for the NAACP Image Awards 2023 – click the link to see all the categories. The awards will be presented February 25. The awards are notable for including Literary categories. This category has two well-known genre nominees:

The Outstanding Work – Literary Fiction

  • Africa Risen: A New Era Of Speculative Fiction edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight
  • The Keeper – Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes (Abrams Books)

(6) CHINESE NEBULA AWARDS TAKING ENTRIES. The 14th Chinese Science Fiction Nebula Award is open for entries until January 31. The eligibility year for the Nebulas is 2021. For the Rising Star Award, which for authors who published their first science fiction novel, the eligibility period is between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022.

(7) AURORA AWARDS CREATING LATEST ELIGIBILITY LIST. [Item by Danny Sichel.] The Aurora Awards (which have moved from PrixAuroraAwards.ca to CSFFA.ca) are currently in Phase 1: gathering a list of everything eligible from last year. Eligibility lists close on February 25, 2023.

(8) VEGAS FANDOM NEWS. Alan White has a report on Facebook about fanzine fan Arnie Katz, who would welcome visitors at his North Las Vegas care home. See details in comments at the post.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

1954 — [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

You didn’t think I was done with quotes of hobbits eating, did you? If you did, you really don’t know me as I’m very, very fond of hobbits and the world that Tolkien created for them. Tolkien describes them in the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring as “an unobtrusive but very ancient people” who find their many of their delights in “peace and quiet and good tilled earth”.  Here’s one of my favorite passages about hobbits and food.

Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbits, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

They were washed and in the middle of good deep mugs of beer when Mr. Butterbur and Nob came in again. In a twinkling the table was laid. There was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show, and homelike enough to dispel the last of Sam’s misgivings (already much relieved by the excellence of the beer).

One or two other hobbits belonging to the farm-household came in. In a short while fourteen sat down to eat. There was beer in plenty, and a mighty dish of mushrooms and bacon, besides much other solid farmhouse fare. The dogs lay by the fire and gnawed rinds and cracked bones.

`Now, now! ‘ said Sam. `Each to his own fashion. Our bread chokes you, and raw coney chokes me. If you give me a coney, the coney’s mine, see, to cook, if I have a mind. And I have. You needn’t watch me. Go and catch another and eat it as you fancy – somewhere private and out o’ my sight. Then you won’t see the fire, and I shan’t see you, and we’ll both be the happier. I’ll see the fire don’t smoke, if that’s any comfort to you.’

After so long journeying and camping, and days spent ¤n the lonely wild, the evening meal seemed a feast to the hobbits: to drink pale yellow wine, cool and fragrant, and eat bread and butter, and salted meats, and dried fruits, and good red cheese, with clean hands and clean knives and plates. Neither Frodo nor Sam refused anything that was offered, nor a second, nor indeed a third helping. The wine coursed in their veins and tired limbs, and they felt glad and easy of heart as they had not done since they left the land of Lórien.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born January 14, 1924 — Guy Williams. Most remembered as Professor John Robinson on Lost in Space though some of you may remember him as Don Diego de la Vega and his masked alter ego Zorro in the earlier Zorro series. (Is it genre? You decide. I think it is.) He filmed two European genre films, Il tiranno di Siracusa (Damon and Pythias) and Captain Sinbad as well. (Died 1989.)
  • Born January 14, 1943 — Beverly Zuk. Ardent fan of Trek: TOS who wrote three Trek fanfics, two of them on specific characters: The Honorable Sacrifice (McCoy) and The Third Verdict (Scotty). Let’s just say that based on her artwork that I found I’d not say these are anything less than R rated in places such as her naked Kirk. She was a founding member of the Trek Mafia though I’m not sure what that was, but I’m betting one of y’all can tell me. (Died 2009.)
  • Born January 14, 1948 — Carl Weathers, 75. Most likely best remembered among genre fans as Al Dillon in Predator, but he has some other SFF creds as well. He was a MP officer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, General Skyler in Alien Siege, Dr. Artimus Snodgrass in the very silly comedy The Sasquatch Gang and he voiced Combat Carl in Toy Story 4. And no, I’m not forgetting he’s currently playing Greef Karga on The Mandalorian series. I still think his best role ever was Adam Beaudreaux on Street Justice but that’s very much not SFF.
  • Born January 14, 1949 — Lawrence Kasdan, 74. Director, screenwriter, and producer. He’s best known early on as co-writer of The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi. He also wrote The Art of Return of the Jedi with George Lucas which is quite superb. He’s also one of the writers lately of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Solo: A Star Wars Story. 
  • Born January 14, 1965 — Jemma Redgrave, 58. Her first genre role was as Violette Charbonneau in the “A Time to Die” episode of Tales of the Unexpected which was also her first acting role. Later genre roles are scant but include a memorable turn as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart on Doctor Who including an appearance with the forthcoming Fourteenth Doctor. 
  • Born January 14, 1964 — Mark Addy, 59. He got a long history in genre films showing up first as Mac MacArthur in Jack Frost followed by the lead in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (why did anyone make this?), Roland in A Knight’s Tale (now that’s a film), Friar Tuck In Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (has anyone seen this?) and voicing Clyde the Horse in the just released Mary Poppins Returns. Television work includeseere  Robert Baratheon on Games of Thornes, Paltraki on a episode on Doctor Who, “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos”, and he was Hercules on a UK series called Atlantis. 
  • Born January 14, 1967 — Emily Watson, 56. Her first genre appearance is in Equilibrium as Mary O’Brien before voicing Victoria Everglot in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. Next is she’s Anne MacMorrow in the Celtic fantasy The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. She also was in a Nineties radio production of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

(11) TIME TO CONCATENATE. [Item by Jonathan Cowie.] SF2 Concatenation has just posted its spring edition (northern hemisphere academic year spring). Full contents below:

v33(1) 2023.1.15 — New Columns & Articles for the Spring 2023

(All archived annual film charts are indexed here)

v33(1) 2023.1.15 — Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Reviews

v33(1) 2023.1.15 — Non-Fiction SF & Science Fact Book Reviews

(12) SHAKE & BAKE – LET’S NOT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The Soyuz spacecraft currently docked at the International Space Station—which took crew of three to the ISS—has sprung a leak in its coolant system. Earthbound testing plus visual inspections by ISS crew has led the Russians to believe that the damage is from a micrometeorite (as opposed to, say, a bit of human-made space debris, which would have been traveling too slowly for the damage observed). 

Since this would lead to unacceptably high temperature and humidity for a crewed return, a plan has been developed to send the next Soyuz up empty and use it to return the three crewmembers. Planners are carefully not calling this a rescue mission. “NASA and Roscosmos share ISS Soyuz leak findings” at Popular Science.

… But on December 14, the MS-22 began leaking coolant from a radiator system. Visual inspection of the spacecraft, modeling, and experiments on the ground in Russia using a hyper-velocity gun suggest the damage came from a micrometeorite about 1 millimeter in diameter, Krikalev told reporters Wednesday. Roscosmos officials believe it was a tiny chunk of rock and not a piece of space debris, he explained, because the material was traveling at an estimated 4.3 miles per second—too fast to have maintained an orbit shared by the ISS.

Without a functioning radiator system, Krikalev said, temperatures within the Soyuz spacecraft could rise to as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit during the roughly six hours necessary for a normal reentry process in Earth’s atmosphere. That heat, along with high humidity, is considered too risky to bring astronauts home….

(13) THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] What marks the beginning? When did humanity literally make a mark on the geological record that future geologists will point to and say there began the time those extinct upright apes become the dominant “geological superpower”? Via Wired, we have the story first appearing in the Guardian. “When Did the Anthropocene Actually Begin?”

… They could decide the start is marked with a bang, thanks to the plutonium isotopes rapidly blasted around the planet by the hydrogen bomb tests that began in late 1952, or with a shower of soot particles from the surge in fossil-fuel power plants after the Second World War.

Or they may choose the postwar explosion in artificial fertilizer use and its profound impact on the Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle. Microplastics, chicken bones, and pesticide residues may also be among the eclectic signs used to bolster the definition of the Anthropocene. Other possible signs may be found in lake beds in the US and China, Australian corals, a Polish peat bog, the black sediments beneath the Baltic Sea, and even the human debris accumulated under Vienna….

…An international team of almost 40 scientists, who have been commissioned by the official guardians of the geological timescale, must select a place where layered deposits show the clear transition from the previous age to the new one. The team has come up with a short list of 12 sites that have now begun a series of votes—but there can be only one winner. Humanity has unquestionably changed the Earth far beyond the stability of the Holocene, the 11,700-year period during which all civilization arose, and which will end with the declaration of the Anthropocene….

(14) KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES. At CNN — “Video: Hear the details of a new UFO report released by US government”.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a new report about UFO sightings in the United States. The US government has received over 350 UFO sighting reports since March 2021, half of which remain unexplained….

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Official Trailer”. Available on Disney Channel 2/10/23 and Disney+ 2/15/23.

Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, based on Marvel’s hit comic books, follows the adventures of 13-year-old super-genius Lunella Lafayette and her 10-ton T-Rex, Devil Dinosaur. After Lunella accidentally brings Devil Dinosaur into present-day New York City, the duo works together to protect the city’s Lower East Side from danger.

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Bruce Arthurs, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Danny Sichel, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dan’l Danehy-Oakes.]