(1) EDITORS TO AVOID. Cedar Sanderson tells freelance editors “How Not to Drum Up Business” at Mad Genius Club.

This was a new one on me. I have a reviewer who seems to think that if they leave a review describing how they would have done a better job at editing my book, I might hire them….

… Authors, you don’t have to take bad editing lying down. Demand better. And ask for references. Not only ‘who have you worked with?’ but look up the books this person has edited and see what kind of product they have had a hand in. If the books don’t sell well… yeah. That’s also a clue. Sometimes the editor can’t help pathetic covers and bad placement in categories and keywords, because that’s not their department. However, if you see a consistent alignment between an editor that works with those kinds of books? And social media presence that is full of untruths and negativities? Run, my young friend, because this is not a professional. You need support and help, not whatever that is. If they are willing to bully you in their approach to you, they will be abusive when they are working ‘for’ you….

(2) HELPING AUTHORS NAVIGATE ROUGH WATERS. At Writer Beware, Victoria Strauss says, “Bankruptcies of Unbound and Albert Whitman & Co Put Authors Between a Rock and a Hard Place”.

… The concerns for authors go beyond unpaid royalties: there are unanswered questions about the status of authors’ rights, how they can request reversion, whether they can obtain unsold inventory, and more. Unbound author Alex de Campi is offering a letter template writers can use to contact administrators about these matters…

(3) SFWA ADDS STAFF. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced their newest full-time staff:

• Executive Director Isis Asare
• Operations Director Russell Davis

(4) IMPACT OF JOANNA RUSS. Farah Mendlesohn profiles a favorite writer in “Fantastic Fiction: Joanna Russ” at the Seattle Worldcon 2025 blog.

I am partial. I truly believe that Joanna Russ is one of the greatest writers that the science fiction field has ever produced, and from 1977–1991 she was a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle….

… I wish I’d had the chance to meet and be taught by Professor Russ, although everything I’ve heard about her suggests that she could be terrifying. But as it is, I am aware that I have learned so much from her fiction and her critical work (even where I disagree with it), and I would love more people to read it and talk about it. Maybe at Worldcon?

(5) LEAP YEARS. “Best Movie Stunts of All Time, Over Nearly 100 Years of Oscars” in The Hollywood Reporter.

Any list of Hollywood’s most memorable stunt work is bound to be idiosyncratic. Do you prefer a jaw-dropping action set piece with the star visibly and unmistakably at risk (as with the silent comedians and, more recently, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise); a feat by a nameless stunt double whose fate you’re not emotionally invested in (presumably with the Wilhelm scream sounding his demise); or the choreography of battalions of humans in league with horses, trains, cars or planes (in which case Plutarch deserves a posthumous credit as stunt coordinator on Spartacus)?

Even the definition of a “stunt” is hard to pin down… Now, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has formalized a plan for its stunt design Oscar category, which will first be presented at the 100th honors in 2028.

In that spirit, here is a close read, year-by-year, from the start of the Academy Awards onward, on some of the most noteworthy stunt artistry in Hollywood cinema over the course of the last century — and which films may have claimed Oscar gold….

There are quite a few genre picks, however, they aren’t all written up in an equally interesting way. Here are two, one which cross-references a famed genre film, and another from a successful sf franchise.

1939: Stagecoach

The sequence of Yakima Canutt falling under a team of six stagecoach horses and the stagecoach remains the platonic ideal of Hollywood stunt work. In costume as an attacking Indian, he leaps at full gallop from his horse and lands between the front two horses pulling the stagecoach. Falling between the horses, he is dragged along the ground until he lets go and lies flat as the horses and the stagecoach pass over him. (Steven Spielberg could not resist repurposing the stunt in Raiders of the Lost Ark [1981], with a truck subbing for a stagecoach.) Canutt considered the exploit (“stunt” seems too trivial a description) his personal best. “A whale of a good story that has brilliant direction, writing and acting,” THR wrote in its 1939 review.

1991: Terminator 2: Judgment Day  

James Cameron’s high-tech follow-up to the low-tech noir The Terminator — Arnold Schwarzenegger joked that the catering bill for the sequel would have financed the original — is remembered for introducing a slew of then-unprecedented digital morphing effects, but Cameron went back to analog for the stunning stunt involving a helicopter and the California transportation system. The clip has been circulating around social media lately, with the commentary track from Cameron. “You see this helicopter going under the freeway overpass?” he asks. “That’s a helicopter going under a freeway overpass.”  The pilot was Chuck Tamburro.

(6) VOTE FOR 2027 WESTERCON SITE. [Item by Kayla Allen.] Westercon 79 (2027) Site Selection voting is now open.

Members (“badge holders” is their terminology) of BayCon 2025 and supporting members of Westercon 77 (those people who voted in the election at the 2023 Westercon or bought a supporting membership later) can vote on the site of Westercon 79 (2027) by paying a $20 voting fee. Fees can be paid by check or money order payable to Westercon 79, in cash (only in person at BayCon/Westercon) or by purchasing a Voting Token through the BayCon website. Voting fees go to the winning bid.

The Site Selection ballot is a PDF that you can download from here, fill out, and either paper mail or email to the addresses on the ballot. Advance ballots must arrive by July 1 to be certain they are counted. Site Selection will take place at BayCon/Westercon on the Friday and Saturday of the convention, with the results of the election announced at the Business Meeting on Sunday morning at BayCon/Westercon.

All of the details, including detailed instructions on how to buy a voting token, are in the announcement on the Westercon.org website linked above.

(7) ANTICIPATION. Fendy Satria Tulodo springs a surprise in “Indonesian Shadow Puppets. Science Fiction in the Classic Art of Puppetry” at Interstellar Flight Magazine on Medium.

Science fiction is often associated with distant galaxies, futuristic technology, and interstellar battles. But what if I told you that some of the oldest sci-fi elements exist right here in Indonesia? Not in modern literature or film, but in wayang kulit, the traditional Javanese shadow puppet performances that have been around for centuries.

When I first watched a wayang kulit performance, I didn’t expect to find anything remotely “sci-fi” about it. The puppets, made of intricately carved leather, cast flickering shadows against an oil lamp as the dalang (puppeteer) brought them to life. It felt ancient, mystical, and deeply cultural. But as I paid attention to the stories, a strange realization hit me — these tales weren’t just about kings and gods. They contained something else: futuristic technology, cosmic battles, and even philosophical questions about reality.

These elements have existed for centuries in traditional wayang stories, long before modern science fiction was conceptualized. Many of these myths were passed down through generations, integrating advanced ideas that seemed futuristic even in their time….

… One of the most mind-bending examples is Gatotkaca, a legendary warrior with superhuman strength who flies through the sky using his invisible iron suit — remind you of anything? Yeah, Iron Man. Except Gatotkaca predates Tony Stark by several centuries. The concept of flying warriors with enhanced abilities exists in many wayang kulit narratives, almost like ancient versions of superheroes or cyborgs….

(8) THE EARLY UNIVERSE, UMM… [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] Not what we thought. “’Galaxies Actually Existed Before The Big Bang’ James Webb Telescope Saw 15 Strange Galaxies beyond.”

(9) CHRIS HADFIELD Q&A. [Item by Steven French.] Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield answers Guardian readers’ questions, including one on his favorite science-fiction books (further down he lists 2001 as his favorite space movie’):  “Chris Hadfield: ‘Worst space chore? Fixing the toilet. It’s even worse when it’s weightless’”.

What about favourite sci-fi?

[Growing up] I read Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. I got to spend a day with Arthur C Clarke – he came to the Kennedy Space Centre, I spent a whole day showing him the space shuttle and the launch site, and it was like a dream come true because he’d been one of my science fiction idols growing up.

[In 2015] Ray Bradbury’s family asked me to write an introduction for the Folio Society rerelease of The Martian Chronicles – I’d read it once a long time ago but I’d forgotten just what an exquisitely good writer he was. The Martian Chronicles was written just after the second world war, so after the first two atomic bombs had been released and killed so many people but before the very first space flight. It was a really interesting moment in time – of both despair and disgust at human behaviour and then hope. And it’s a beautiful book.

(10) THE INVENTOR OF THE DOUBLE-CLICK. “Bill Atkinson, Who Made Computers Easier to Use, Is Dead at 74” – the New York Times pays tribute.

A designer for Apple, he created software that made it possible to display shapes, images and text on the screen and present a simulated “desktop.”…

 …Before the Macintosh was introduced in January 1984, most personal computers were text-oriented; graphics were not yet an integrated function of the machines. And computer mice pointing devices were not widely available; software programs were instead controlled by typing arcane commands.

The QuickDraw library had originally been designed for Apple’s Lisa computer, which was introduced in January 1983. Intended for business users, the Lisa predated many of the Macintosh’s easy-to-use features, but priced at $10,000 (almost $33,000 in today’s money), it was a commercial failure.

A year later, however, QuickDraw paved the way for the Macintosh graphical interface. It was based on an approach to computing that had been pioneered during the 1970s at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center by a group led by the computer scientist Alan Kay. Mr. Kay was trying to create a computer system that he described as a “Dynabook,” a portable educational computer that would become a guiding light for Silicon Valley computer designers for decades.

Xerox kept the project secret, but Dynabook nevertheless ultimately informed the design of both the Lisa and the Macintosh. In an unusual agreement, Xerox gave Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, and a small group of Apple engineers, including Mr. Atkinson, a private demonstration of Mr. Kay’s project in 1979.

The group, however, was not permitted to examine the software code. As a result, the Apple engineers had to make assumptions about the Xerox technology, leading them to make fundamental technical advances and design new capabilities.

In “Insanely Great,” a book about the development of the Macintosh, Steven Levy wrote of Mr. Atkinson, “He had set out to reinvent the wheel; actually he wound up inventing it.”

Mr. Atkinson’s programming feats were renowned in Silicon Valley.

“Looking at his code was like looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” recalled Steve Perlman, who as a young Apple hardware engineer took advantage of Mr. Atkinson’s software to design the first color Macintosh. “His code was remarkable. It is what made the Macintosh possible.”…

(11) WAIT, WHAT – WALT WAS SMOKED? [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian’s Stuart Heritage looks at transhumanism in the movies, both science-fiction related and otherwise: “Death is not the end! From the new robot Walt Disney to Mountainhead, movies are fuelled by immortality”.

For years, the world’s most perfect urban myth was this: Walt Disney’s body was cryogenically frozen at the moment of death, waiting for technology to advance enough to bring him back to life. Started by a National Spotlite reporter who claimed to have sneaked into a hospital in 1967, only to be confronted by the sight of Disney suspended in a cryogenic cylinder, the myth prevailed because it was such a good fit.

Disney – and therefore Walt Disney himself – was the smiling face of rigidly controlled joy, radiating a message of mandatory fun that is magical when you are a child and increasingly sinister as you age. This policy (essentially “enjoy yourself or else”) suits the idea of cryogenic preservation. After all, if you have the ego to successfully enforce a blanket emotion as a company mission statement, you definitely have the ego to transcend human mortality.

However, not only has the cryogenic Disney myth been put to bed – he was cremated weeks before the National Spotlite hack claimed to find his body – but his family has issued a strongly worded rebuttal of the very idea of a post-human Walt Disney.

The catalyst is the recently announced Disneyland show Walt Disney – A Magical Life, which will feature as its star attraction an animatronic recreation of Walt Disney. This, according to Josh D’Amaro, Disney experiences chair, will give visitors a sense of “what it would have been like to be in Walt’s presence”. However, Disney’s granddaughter Joanna Miller is convinced that this is not what Disney the man would have wanted. In a Facebook post that was stinging enough to earn her an audience with the Disney CEO, Bob Iger, Miller said Disney was “dehumanising” her grandfather. “The idea of a robotic Grampa to give the public a feeling of who the living man was just makes no sense,” she wrote. “It would be an impostor, people are not replaceable. You could never get the casualness of his talking, interacting with the camera, [or] his excitement to show and tell people about what is new at the park. You cannot add life to one empty of a soul or essence of the man.”

As recently as a decade ago, this would have been the stuff of bad science fiction – a woman worried that a multinational corporation is bringing a dead relative back to life against his wishes, like a warped nonconsensual Westworld – but no more. As an entertainment concept, post-humanism feels worryingly current….

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

June 8, 1928 — Kate Wilheim. (Died 2018.)

By Paul Weimer: Kate Wilheim has two main legacies in my mind.

The first one may not be fair. Kate has written a fair number of stories and novels, several of which (“The Planners”, “The Girl Who Fell into the Sky” and “Forever Yours, Anna”) won the Nebula award. She’s written books of poetry. She has a more than respectable oeuvre in SFF, and that doesn’t even count her mystery novels. 

But the first legacy in my mind is just one book, the fantastic Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang. It’s one of the best postapocalyptic novels out there, a story of survival, and cloning, and commonality, community, individuality, Psionic empathy and much more. Its bittersweet ending has haunted me for years. If there is still something as an SF canon, Wilheim’s book must, I say, must be part of it. It is in conversation backwards and forwards, from Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow and George R Stewart’s Earth Abides, to books like Walk to the End of the World, and on and on to today.

The reason why the novel fits so well in the genre conversation is that Wilhelm is well immersed in those waters, and the second main legacy. Wilhelm, along with her husband Damon Knight, has been instrumental in mentoring authors. Their Milford Writer’s Conference was a progenitor to the original Clarion Workshop. As a result, Wilheim’s teaching has touched hundreds of writers, and thus, as a result, most science fiction readers have read a story that has at least a glimmer of the influence of Kate Wilhelm.

Now that is definitely being a part of the genre conversation.

(13) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984)

Forty-one years ago Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, the sequel to the Hugo-winning Raiders of the Lost Ark, premiered. It’s actually a prequel to that film. Once again it’s directed by Steven Spielberg from a story by George Lucas. The screenplay was by the husband and wife team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, best known for American Graffiti which yes involved both George Lucas and Harrison Ford. 

Harrison Ford was of course back along with Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, Philip Stone and Ke Huy Quan. Capshaw would marry Spielberg seven years later and yes they are still married, bless them! 

I’ll admit that Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom was nearly not as fun for me as Raiders of the Lost Ark but critics loved it, with Roger Ebert in his Chicago Sun-Times review saying it was “the most cheerfully exciting, bizarre, goofy, romantic adventure movie since Raiders, and it is high praise to say that it’s not so much a sequel as an equal. It’s quite an experience.”  

And Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily Post was equally exuberant: “Indie, you will be happy to learn, hasn’t changed a bit. Played with gruff determination by the appealingly rugged Harrison Ford, he continues to set quite a pace for himself in Spielberg’s rip-roaring, boldly imaginative sequel to his blockbuster hit.” 

It’s worth noting that It did get banned in India which as one who spent considerable time in Sri Lanka is something I fully understand as there are truly disgusting Indian stereotypes in that film.

It was fantastically profitable as it cost just under thirty million in production and publicity costs and made ten times that at the box office in its initial run! 

Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes are very fond of it, giving it an eighty-six percent rating. 

(14) COMICS SECTION.

• Carpe Diem shows a future treat. 
• Lio shows an easy method of collecting. 
• Non Sequitur illustrates a reading triumph. 
• Pearls Before Swine receives the product. 
• Rhymes with Orange finally has convincing evidence. 
• Wumo collects ‘em all at last. 

(15) IT’S JUST AN UPGRADE. [Item by Steven French.] Keza MacDonald reviews the Nintendo Switch 2 in the Guardian’s gaming column, “Pushing Buttons”: “Nintendo’s Switch 2 is the upgrade of my dreams – but it’s not as ‘new’ as some might hope”.

Launch week is finally here, and though I would love to be bringing you a proper review of the Nintendo Switch 2 right now, I still don’t have one at the time of writing. In its wisdom, Nintendo has decided not to send review units out until the day before release, so as you read this I will be standing impatiently by the door like a dog anxiously awaiting its owner.

I have played the console, though, for a whole day at Nintendo’s offices, so I can give you some first impressions. Hardware-wise, it is the upgrade of my dreams: sturdier JoyCons, a beautiful screen, the graphical muscle to make games look as good as I want them to in 2025 (though still not comparable to the high-end PlayStation 5 Pro or a modern gaming PC). I like the understated pops of colour on the controllers, the refined menu with its soothing chimes and blips. Game sharing, online functionality and other basic stuff is frictionless now. I love that Nintendo Switch Online is so reasonably priced, at £18 a year, as opposed to about the same per month for comparable gaming services, and it gives me access to a treasure trove of Nintendo games from decades past.

But here’s the key word in that paragraph: it’s an upgrade. After eight years, an upgrade feels rather belated. I was hoping for something actually new, and aside from the fact that you can now use those controllers as mice by turning them sideways and moving them around on a desk or on your lap, there isn’t much new in the Switch 2. Absorbed in Mario Kart World, the main launch title, it was easy to forget I was even playing a new console. I do wonder – as I did in January – whether many less gaming-literate families who own a Switch will see a reason to upgrade, given the £400 asking price….

(16) SUPER MALE GAZE. “Superman Popcorn Machine Bucket Shows Off Man of Steel’s Heat Vision” reports Yahoo! Is this for real? I have no idea.

…The popcorn bucket machine sees Superman popping movie goers’ popcorn for them with his heat vision. Check out an image, via an X post from DiscussingFilm…

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure this one is not for real.

(17) INTERESTING CHOICE. GamingBible reports “Marvel officially casts our new Deadpool, and he’s perfect”.

…Meta has officially announced Marvel’s Deadpool VR, a joint venture between Twisted Pixel and Oculus Studios in collaboration with Marvel Games – and yes, that means we’ve got a new Deadpool.

This time around, the merc with a mouth will not be played by the familiar Ryan Reynolds, nuh uh.

It’s another famous face that’ll be stepping into the suit: Neil Patrick Harris.

That’s right. How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris is officially Deadpool….

(18) BUDGET IS SPACE EXPLORATION DEATH SENTENCE. “Dozens of active and planned NASA spacecraft killed in Trump budget request” reports Science.

…“This is a tragic mistake for the new administration,” says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and former NASA science chief. The proposal undercuts the country’s science pipeline and wastes billions of dollars, he adds.

The request would kill off missions that are active in space right now, including two Orbiting Carbon Observatories (OCOs): OCO-2, a standalone spacecraft launched in 2014, and OCO-3, which is mounted on the International Space Station. Both missions carry a spectrometer that spies on wavelengths of light absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules, providing an ability to map atmospheric carbon abundance around the planet. The missions enabled investigations into the variations of the natural carbon cycle and also proved capable of detecting human carbon emissions.

The budget proposal would also end the Earth-facing instruments on the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which monitors space weather and records snapshots of the planet’s surface. It would kill the space station’s Sage III instrument, which makes long-term measurements of ozone, water vapor, and other gases in the atmosphere. And it would terminate the Terra, Aqua, and Aura satellites, each of which has operated for more than 2 decades, providing unprecedented insight into climate change with steady, well-calibrated instruments. And although Terra and Aqua are both near the end of their lives, Aura, which measures the stratosphere in a way no other satellite can imitate, could operate until late this decade.

The losses would not stop at Earth. The proposal would end the Juno mission orbiting Jupiter, which has revealed the gas giant’s interior structure and provided close-up views of its large moons. It would end New Horizons, which famously imaged Pluto and is now pushing into a Kuiper belt of cold, icy objects that is deeper than scientists once thought. It would terminate the OSIRIS-APEX mission, which is reusing the healthy spacecraft that returned asteroid samples to Earth to visit the asteroid Apophis right after it makes a close pass of Earth in 2029. And it would kill off several spacecraft orbiting Mars, including Mars Odyssey and Maven, while pulling the agency’s funds supporting Mars Express, another orbiter operated by the European Space Agency.

The plans would also kill off nearly every major science mission the agency has not yet begun to build. It would end development of the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS), a multibillion-dollar series of satellites meant to study the complex formation of clouds and storms and their alteration by pollution—one of the main sources of uncertainty for future climate change, seen most recently in the debate on how much ship pollution reductions influence recent record high temperatures.

It would also terminate the Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) mission, which would loft an instrument into space capable of dividing reflected light into more than 400 wavelength channels across the visible and into the infrared. While these measurements can be used to study methane and carbon dioxide emissions, such imaging spectrometers—which serve, in effect, as molecular mapping tools—can also be used to prospect for critical minerals and track forest and farm health. The proposal to end SBG is particularly disappointing, Nolin says. “It’s deeply unfortunate they don’t understand the greater value of an instrument like that,” she says.

In the planetary science division, the administration would cancel two much-delayed missions NASA has planned for Venus. One, called DAVINCI, would send an armored sphere plunging through the venusian atmosphere, measuring noble gases to sort out the planet’s origins and sniffing for sulfur and carbon near the surface for more evidence of recent volcanic activity. The other, Veritas, would use a radar to peer through the planet’s thick clouds and re-create its topography, revealing whether volcanoes or variants of tectonic plates are active on its surface…

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