Tag Archives: Ridley Scott

Pixel Scroll 1/17/25 Now Either Put On These Glasses Or Start Scrolling That Pixel

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(1) OKORAFOR Q&A. On NPR’s 1A “Nnedi Okorafor’s ‘Death of the Author’ explores the relationship between art and AI”.

Nnedi Okorafor is back on 1A. And this time, the award-winning speculative fiction author is turning her eyes and her pen from the stars to a story a little closer to reality. But not by much.

“Death of the Author” is her latest novel. It’s a book within a book that follows the story of a Nigerian author who publishes a work of science fiction that ends up affecting things far beyond her lifetime. Okorafor’s book grapples with the relationship between art and artificial intelligence and the question of who controls a story….

A quote from the transcript:

[OKORAFOR] This is this is really the novel that I wanted to write from the very beginning. I just did not feel ready to do this. And as you’ve said, it’s very autobiographical, and I just just that whole idea was hard for me. Mhmm. I think that so the way that the way that this book started was painful. It was painful. This was something that my sisters and I have 2 older sisters and then one younger brother, and we would always talk about me writing this book about our family, about the Nigerian American experience, and all of that. And, you know, we’ve talked about this for years, but I just was I just wasn’t ready. And then in 2021, my middle sister passed, and it was very sudden, and it was unexpected. And, when that happened, it was just time. It was just time. And that was when I was like, okay. It’s I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna do this. And I literally, 2 days after it happened, I started writing this book, and I don’t outline. I don’t outline. I just started writing and just pouring it out, and this is what came out.

(2) ORANGE MIKE Q&A. Chattanoogan.com interviewed a Filer who’ll attend a milestone convention: “’Orange Mike’ Lowrey Hasn’t Missed A Chattacon In 50 Years, And He’s Coming This Weekend”.

…Chattacon, an annual science fiction convention, will be held at the DoubleTree Hilton in Downtown Chattanooga from Friday through Sunday (Martin Luther King Weekend.)

“Chattacon matters because it is in the old tradition of a fan run, not-for-profit, science fiction convention for people who actually read the stuff,” says Chattacon historian and panel speaker Lowrey.

“It is not a commercial operation, like the bloated gigantic Dragon-Con. It (Chattacon) is still run by fans. If there are excess funds, they (Chattacon) donate to local charities and it is a place for people in that part of the South to gather and talk about science fiction, whether they’re professional writers or 12-year-old kids or retirees.

“Anybody who cares about science fiction can get together and talk about the stuff, and nobody’s going to check your credentials at the door. And the prices are deliberately set as low as possible so that as many people as possible can attend. It is multi-age. It is multi-cultural and it’s a heck of a lot of fun.”

Chattacon is celebrating its 50th edition, and, having been to all 49 before, Mr. Lowrey has witnessed the evolution of the convention since its inception. Founded by Chattanooga resident Irv Koch, Chattacon held its first event in January 1976 at the East Ridge Sheraton. It was a fanfare that drew just a crowd of 81 people….

Lowrey also tells us, “Prep for this interview gave me an excuse to go through old Chattacon Flickr albums; too damned many memories of dead people, from Terry Pratchett to Ken Moore to the Amoses. Here’s one from Chattacon 27 in 2002, when Kelly was 6.5 (she’s 29 now) and I didn’t have a gray hair on that head.” — Chattacon at Flickr.

(3) HAPPY ANNIVERSARY. Tachyon Publications will be celebrating their 30th anniversary throughout 2025.  

In July 1995, Jacob Weisman, an avid young science fiction fan and intern at Asimov’s Science Fiction and Locus magazines, published Ganglion and Other Stories by Wayne Wightman. The success of Ganglion, as well as that of the next book—The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum—inspired Weisman to continue expanding his publishing program. Initially, Weisman concentrated on bringing classic works that he loved back into print, including fiction by Robert Nathan and Mary Shelley. But Weisman quickly branched out by publishing work by contemporary authors he admired, such as Peter S. Beagle and Patricia A. McKillip.

By the early aughts, Tachyon had become widely known for its carefully curated, high-quality publications. In 2002, Weisman hired his firstemployee, managing editor Jill Roberts. He signed on for national distribution shortly thereafter. Over the years, Weisman’s staff has grown to a six-member international team, which includes editor Jaymee Goh, lead designer Elizabeth Story, publicity manager Rick Klaw, and publicist Kasey Lansdale.

In 2025, Tachyon Publications will reach its 30th year in publishing. Tachyon has already put out more than 220 books, typically between 8 and 10 titles annually, and primarily in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The company continues to champion smart genre fiction for everyone.

30th Anniversary Planned Events

  • San Francisco Public Library exhibition of Tachyon books, historical photos, and documents
  • Anniversary party, open to the public, at the SFPL on October 5, 2025
  • Publication of a limited edition commemorative chapbook, which will also be given to anniversary party attendees
  • Free monthly e-book giveaways to all Tachyon newsletter subscribers, including titles by Carrie Vaughn, Jane Yolen, Ellen Datlow, Bruce Sterling, and Naseem Jamnia
  • Ongoing events, panels, signings, and readings, including at the World Fantasy and World Science Fiction
    Conventions
  • Virtual salon with Tachyon authors, artists, and editors

During its 30th anniversary in 2025, Tachyon is publishing 10 titles that encapsulate the variety and quality of the company’s publishing program:

  • A 30th anniversary edition of Patricia A. McKillip’s The Book of Atrix Wolfe
  • The Essential Patricia A. McKillip, a career retrospective collection
  • Two fantasy debuts, If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw and Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill
  • One Level Down, Mary G. Thompson’s taut science fiction thriller
  • Pat Murphy’s original take on Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Mary Darling
  • The Unkillable Frank Lightning, Josh Rountree’s reconstruction of the Frankenstein mythos in the Wild West
  • A new middle grade adventure from the legendary Daniel Pinkwater, Jules, Penny & the Rooster
  • Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!, a collection of radio interviews with science fiction luminaries in- cluding Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, and Margaret Atwood
  • Two new fiction collections from bestselling authors, Refreshments from Hell by Joe R. Lansdale and Letters from an Imaginary Country by Theodora Goss

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to share shawarma with the award-winning Eric Choi in Episode 245 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Eric Choi

I plucked Eric Choi‘s short story “From a Stone” out of the slush pile to publish in the September 1996 issue of Science Fiction Age, and our paths have unfortunately rarely crossed since….

…Choi was the first recipient of the Asimov Award (now the Dell Award) for his novelette “Dedication.” He also won the Aurora Award for his short story “Crimson Sky,” and a 2023 Sidewise Award for Best Short Form Alternate History for his novelette “A Sky and a Heaven”. His short story collection Just Like Being There was published in by Springer Nature in 2022. He edited the anthologies The Dragon and the Stars with Derwin Mak in 2010 (winning a 2011 Aurora Award in the category of Best Related Work) and Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction with Ben Bova in 2014.

He’s also an alumnus of the International Space University….In 2009, he was one of the Top 40 finalists (out of 5,351 applicants) in the Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut recruitment campaign.

We discussed what William Shatner’s Captain Kirk might sound like dubbed into Cantonese, the wonders of fan-run science fiction conventions, how the Asimov competition gave him the courage to make his first submission, what it was like co-editing an anthology with the great Ben Bova, the accident that gave birth to his first short story collection, why his claim never to have experienced writer’s block comes with a footnote, his moving memories of the Columbia accident as experienced at the Kennedy Space Center, the Richard Feynman quote he shared throughout the pandemic, why the first Harry Turtledove story he read wasn’t written by Harry Turtledove, his unfortunate introduction to The Lord of the Rings, and much more.

(5) CAN CASH BRING THEM BACK FROM THE DEAD? “Colossal raises $200M to ‘de-extinct’ the woolly mammoth, thylacine and dodo” — VentureBeat heard the register ringing.

Colossal BioSciences has raised $200 million in a new round of funding to bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth.

Dallas- and Boston-based Colossal is making strides in the scientific breakthroughs toward “de-extinction,” or bringing back extinct species like the woolly mammoth, thylacine and the dodo….

…Since launching in September 2021, Colossal has raised $435 million in total funding. This latest round of capital places the company at a $10.2 billion valuation. Colossal will leverage this latest infusion of capital to continue to advance its genetic engineering technologies while pioneering new revolutionary software, wetware and hardware solutions, which have applications beyond de-extinction including species preservation and human healthcare….

(6) WHO DAT? Variety learned, “Harrison Ford Got Cast in ‘Blade Runner’ After Playing Han Solo, but the Financiers Asked Ridley Scott: ‘Who the F— Is Harrison Ford?’”

Ridley Scott sat down with GQ magazine for a retrospective video interview and revealed that the financiers on “Blade Runner” originally questioned his decision to cast Harrison Ford in the lead role. Ford was already Han Solo in “Star Wars” at the point in his career, in addition to being picked by Steven Spielberg to headline “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Apparently the financiers were not paying attention.

“Harrison Ford was not a star. He had just finished flying the Millennium Falcon in ‘Star Wars,’” Scott said. “I remember my financiers saying, ‘Who the fuck is Harrison Ford?’ And I said, ‘You’re going to find out.’ Harry became my leading man.”…

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

January 17, 1931 — James Earl Jones. (Died 2024.)

By Paul Weimer: What does one say about the voice of Darth Vader? Besides the fact that despite having a solid voice of his own, David Prowse had his voice dubbed memorably by Jones in Star Wars, and then in the subsequent two movies as well. The original releases of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back didn’t even think to mention this fact in the credits, it was only in Return of the Jedi and then in subsequent re-releases that Jones’ voice was given credit.

But with such a voice, it is no surprise that the most memorable of Jones’ film and television work (with the exception of things like Conan the Barbarian or Field of Dreams) has been for that voice, even given his considerable and undeniable on screen charisma. He was The Voice. He did The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror. He read Bible stories. He won a Grammy award for Best Spoken Word Album. 

And of course, he was Mufasa. Sure, Mufasa isn’t really on screen much in The Lion King, after all, his murder is the inciting incident that kicks off the real plot of the movie. But does he sound like the lord of the Savanna? He most certainly does. 

Finally, for many years, his was the voice for the Tagline “This is CNN.” 

He died in September of 2024. Rest in Peace.

James Earl Jones

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 17, 2002 – Chicago (movie)

Twenty three years ago, Chicago premiered. I just rewatched it on Paramount+ which is why you are getting it as the Anniversary piece tonight.  The very last line of this essay will tie it to our community. 

I first saw this film at the theater when it came out. It’s based off the 1975 stage musical of the same name which had music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. That in turn was based off Chicago, a rather successful 1926 play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins. 

This film was directed by Rob Marshall and produced by Martin Richards from the screenplay by Bill Condon.  Fosse was contracted to direct this but died before he could do so. The film marked the directorial debut of Marshall, who also choreographed the film, with music by Kander and lyrics by Ebb, both had worked on the Fosse musical. Marshall would later direct Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns.

Chicago was primarily set in Cook County Criminal Court Building and Jail. And this is a musical which means we get to hear a stellar cast sing, including performers I swear I never knew could do so —  Richard Gere, Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly, Lucy Liu, Taye Diggs, Colm Feore and Dominic West. No dubbing here as I checked, they sing everything here — and really, really great.  

Gere in particular is very, very impressive though the women performers are stellar in part because they pass the Bechdel test in that much of the script is dialogue between women smartly done without men present. This you don’t see but rarely. 

Reception for Chicago was almost unanimously positive. I think Robert Ebert summed it up best when he called it “big, brassy fun” which it definitely is.  It gets a most excellent eighty-seven percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.  Oh, and though costly to produce at almost fifty million, it made over three hundred million. 

And yes we can tie the film into the genre as Mike pointed out to me that “Chicago is the source of a tune Maytree used to create one of the best-ever Puppy satire filks” which is here.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) CANDORVILLE CARTOONIST CHARGED. “Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Darrin Bell arrested for AI child porn, Sacramento sheriff says” – KCRA has details. Bell is the creator of Candorville and Rudy Park.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a Sacramento-based Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist on accusations of being in possession of child pornography.

Detectives from the Sacramento Valley Internet Crimes Against Children served a search warrant to 49-year-old Darrin Bell’s home Wednesday morning after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Detectives said they recovered images and movies depicting child sex abuse, material believed to be computer-generated content.

“The reason that’s important is prior to Jan. 1, none of those were illegal,” said Sgt. Amar Gandhi, of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.

AB 1831 went into effect Jan. 1. It explicitly made computer-generated and AI-generated child sexual abuse material illegal, putting its possession under the same penal code as child pornography…

(11) NOT JUST FOR CRUMBS. “’Harry Potter: Wizards Of Baking’ Renewed For Season 2 At Food Network” – Deadline finds when the heat was on they all stayed in the kitchen.

Prepare for more baking wizards.

Food Network has renewed Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking for a second season.

It comes after the competition series premiered in November and cooked up solid ratings for the Warner Bros. Discovery cable network.

It ranked as the number one non-news or sport cable show on Thursday nights for audiences aged 25-54. Its premiere episode scored a 0.57 rating in the 25-54 demo and a 0.74 across women in the same bracket, more than doubling the benchmark over the previous six weeks, per Nielsen live+three day data….

(12) NARNIA FILM. “Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia’ Gets Imax Release” – Variety tells when that will be.

Greta Gerwig has leveraged her “Barbie” star power to convince Netflix to give her the big, broad theatrical release she wanted for “Narnia,” her adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ fantasy series.

After months of negotiations, Imax announced that “Narnia” will be released exclusively on its screens worldwide for two weeks in advance of the film’s debut on Netflix. “Narnia” is currently slated to open in Imax on Thanksgiving Day 2026. It will premiere on Netflix at Christmas of the same year.

(13) POOH PAPERS SELL FOR PLENTY. “Winnie the Pooh papers fetch £95,000 at auction” says Yahoo!

A plastic bag attic find that contained original Winnie the Pooh manuscripts and drawings and other papers linked to the bear’s creator AA Milne has sold at auction for £95,000.

The rare archive was discovered in Malvern, Worcestershire, among private possessions belonging to Leslie Smith, who had a lifelong career in publishing.

A total of 34 individual lots included drafts and corrected proofs for stories Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner, along with Milne autographs and correspondence from The Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien and children’s writer Enid Blyton….

(14) FAIRY FINDING GUIDE. [Item by Steven French.] Atlas Obscura offers a list of “15 Places to Find Fairies”.

Stories about fairies exist all around the world and in many different cultures. Often depicted as winged women—though occasionally men!—with magical abilities, fairies can sometimes be good-hearted, while others are characterized as mischievous tricksters. But it seems that, no matter the culture, finding fairies is a universally challenging task.

To help you on your quest, we’ve rounded up 15 places known for fairy sightings, from enchanted forests to pagan worship sites. But beware, seeking them out can be a dangerous task: You may be tripped by a sprite disguised as a ball of string, or even lured into a fairy grotto where time is not what it seems.

(14) A FREIGHT TRAIN LONG AGO AND FAR, FAR AWAY. Toot-toot! All aboard for Tattooine! The Star Wars and other media-related trains start on page 119 in the latest “Lionel Trains Catalog”.

(15) DAREDEVIL RETURNS. “Daredevil Born Again Trailer: Punisher, Kingpin Return in Marvel Show” – Variety sets the frame. Marvel’s TV series, “Daredevil: Born Again,” comes to Disney+ on March 4, 2025.

…The “Daredevil: Born Again” logline reads: “Matt Murdock (Cox), a blind lawyer with heightened abilities is fighting for justice through his bustling law firm, while former mob boss Wilson Fisk (D’Onofrio) pursues his own political endeavors in New York. When their past identities begin to emerge, both men find themselves on an inevitable collision course.”…

(16) MAKING PREHISTORY. UPI invites you to “Watch: Florida museum gathers 468 people in dinosaur costumes”. The event took place January 13.

A Florida museum gathered 468 people in dinosaur costumes to break a Guinness World Record.

The Cox Science Center and Aquarium teamed up with the City of West Palm Beach to take on the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people dressed as dinosaurs at West Palm Beach’s Screen on the Green….

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

Pixel Scroll 12/10/24 We Are The Telepath Guild, The Telepath Guild, The Telepath Guild

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(1) UNION AND STRAND BOOK STORE SETTLE. “Strike Ends at the Strand as Union, Management Reach Tentative Agreement” reports Publishers Weekly.

The Strand Book Store has reached a tentative contract agreement with its staff union, which is represented by United Auto Workers Local 2179, putting an end to a strike that stretched through the weekend and much of Monday, December 9. Should the contract be ratified, it would last through Aug 31, 2028, adding an additional year to a contract that was previously three years long, said Will Bobrowski, the former Strand employee and current second VP at UAW Local 2179.

Among the changes to the contract, Bobrowski told PW, are an increase to the store’s per hour hiring rate, which will now be $0.50 above New York State minimum wage and a $1.50/hour raise in an employee’s fourth year, amounting to a roughly 37% wage increase over four years for Strand workers who begin at the base salary. (The minimum wage in New York will increase by another $0.50 on January 1, 2026, and on Jan. 1, 2027, the state’s rate will be tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, taking inflation into account in the establishment of a minimum.)

Paid time off for employees will remain unchanged in the new contract, totaling nine days for all workers. Charges of unfair labor practices filed by the union to the National Board of Labor Relations over the weekend will also be dropped….

(2) DEADLINE APPROACHES TO APPLY FOR OTHERWISE FELLOWSHIPS. The Otherwise Motherboard is soliciting applications for two 2024 Otherwise Fellows.

The Otherwise Fellowship (formerly Tiptree Fellowship) was established in 2015 to support and recognize new voices who are creating work that is changing our view of gender today. The Fellowship program seeks out creators who are striving to complete new works, particularly creators from communities that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy genre and those who are working in media other than traditional fiction! Each Fellow receives USD $500 in support of a new or ongoing project.

Applications are due December 15, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, via email. Selected Fellows will be announced in Spring 2025. The Fellowship committee is being chaired by Otherwise Motherboard member Jed Samer.

For more information about what the Fellowship entails and how to apply, see “How to apply for an Otherwise Fellowship”.

(3) GENRE SPECIALISTS’ PICKS. At Reactor: “Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2024”.

As readers of speculative fiction, we are spoiled for choice. The book releases in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and beyond this year took us to lands of magic and wonder, newly terraformed planets and generation ships, crumbling gothic mansions, and tech-fueled future Earths—and we are so lucky to get to read them all. Our reviewers each picked their top contenders for the best books of the year, along with some personal favorites….

(4) ASFS’ REVISED CODE OF CONDUCT. The African Science Fiction Society released its new Code of Conduct today in concert with this statement about Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. (The Code of Conduct is at the link.)

ASFS had started gathering information in response to Erin Cairns’ report discussed in File 770’s post “Two Accusations Against Ekpeki Disproved”.

(5) SCOTT EDELMAN’S OTHER PODCAST. Episode 10 of Scott Edelman’s podcast Why Not Say What Happened? — “Why I Was Questioned by the Police for Wearing a Mister Miracle Mask” — includes his ramblings about his first cons — plus a couple of con photos of him at 16.

And here’s the link to all episodes in the series, which can be downloaded through multiple sites.

Scott Edelman, at right wearing glasses.

(6) CALL ME ISHMAEL, BUT DON’T CALL ME LATE TO DINNER. “’People are rooting for the whale’: the strange American tradition of Moby-Dick reading marathons” at Yahoo!

Every fall on Venice beach, local residents set up a director’s chair by the water. A harpoon goes on one side, a whalebone on the other. Then, in honor of grey whale migration season, they spend two days reading Moby-Dick aloud.

Nearly 200 years after Herman Melville first published the story of a sea captain’s obsessive hunt for a white whale, Moby-Dick marathons have become a surprisingly popular American tradition. There are an estimated 25 or more across the US each year, in locations ranging from museums to a 19th-century whaling ship….

…The Venice beach marathon, held for 29 years, is a particularly surreal scene. Even in late November, the beach is crowded: French tourists on bicycles, the men of Muscle beach lifting weights, friends playing volleyball in short shorts. Far out on the sand, where the air begins to smell more like salt than weed or essential oils, the Moby-Dick readers sit in a circle, switching readers every chapter, as tourists and surfers eddy around them, drifting up to take photographs and then drifting away again. Occasionally, readers spot whales in the distance….

…Other classic novelists may inspire larger fan events, but Jane Austen celebrations don’t typically include a live reading of all of Pride and Prejudice.

“No offense to Jane Austen, but more happens. It’s more exciting to hunt a whale than to hunt a husband,” said Dawn Coleman, the executive secretary of the Melville Society, and an English professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville….

(7) MANY DOLLARS WERE LOST. Giant Freakin Robot makes its case for “How Disney’s Horrible Marketing Forever Changed Sci-Fi Movies”. They begin by dissecting the corpse of Disney’s marketing campaign for John Carter (2012).

In the long, storied history of Disney, the company has had massive successes, including the history-making Marvel Cinematic Universe and their entire animated output in the ’90s. At the same time, they’ve created some of the biggest bombs of all time.

The 2012 sci-fi adventure John Carter was, at the time of its release, the least profitable film ever made, a title it might end up losing to Joker: Folie a Deux by the end of the year. A rollicking sci-fi adventure based on classic pulp novels, John Carter should have been a massive success, but it never had a chance, thanks to the worst marketing campaign of all time….

…The second trailer course-corrected and starts off with Carter fighting in an arena before launching into a montage of the alien planet with Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” playing. As with everything about this movie, it was too far ahead of the curve, as today, every trailer has a slowed-down, epic version of a classic rock song playing over the trailer, but in 2012, this confused most of the general audience.

Worse, there’s nothing about being based on the legendary pulp novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, nothing about being an adventure 100 years in the making, no mention of how it’s starring Taylor Kitsch, who at the time Hollywood was pushing as the next big thing. In interviews leading up to its release, Kitsch publicly spoke about his disappointment with the film’s marketing, which lacked any sort of “hook” or jaw-dropping special effects shot to leave an impression on viewers. Even his other sci-fi dud, Battleship, included a screen-filling shot of the alien ship in all of its glory to tease moviegoers of the battle yet to come….

(8) WICKED INSPIRATION. Saturday Night Live gives us “Gladiator II: The Musical”. “There’s No Place Like Rome.”

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

December 10, 1960 — Kenneth Branagh, 64.

I first saw Kenneth Branagh with his then-wife Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing, the Shakespearean comedy which he adapted. Truly lovely film.

So let’s look at his genre work as a performer. Dead Again might or might not be his first genre film where he was Mike Church / Roman Strauss, but Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where he was Victor Frankenstein is genre and he directed it as well. I’ve heard varying opinions on it. What did y’all think of it? 

Then there’s Wild Wild West where he was Arliss Loveless, some bastardized variant on Michael Dunn’s perfectly acted Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless. He didn’t work for me. Not at all. Nor did that shudderingly awful film. 

Alien Love Triangle is a thirty-minute film starring Kenneth Branagh, Alice Connor, Courteney Cox and Heather Graham. Teleportation. Aliens. Genders, alien. 

He got to play in Rowling’s universe in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as Gilderoy Lockhart. Great role it was.

Oh, and in an alternate reality sort of way, he plays William Shakespeare in All is True, another name for Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII.  It’s a very lovely role and a sweet film as well. Recommended. 

For hard SF, I’ve got him directing Thor. (Well sort of hard SF.) For fantasy, he directed Cinderella and Artemis Fowl. 

Finally, he’s Hercule Poirot in the three Agatha Christie films produced so far — Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice. He was also director and producer for these. He’s certainly a different manner of that detective. Really different.

Kenneth Branagh

(10) SPIDER-MAN FIGURES. “Hasbro Unveils New Spider-Man Marvel Legends Wave for 2025” – Bleeding Cool has all the photos. Here are a couple.

…The first wave of Marvel Legends figures for 2025 have been revealed, with Spider-Man bringing some heat in the new year…. However, the whole roster has been unveiled, with six iconic heroes and villains coming to life, with each getting their own card back. For the classic Spider-Man: The Animated Series retro wave, we have the debut of The Chameleon, and yes, he gets a J. Jonah Jameson mask. We are also getting a Clone Saga debut with Kaine from a time before he was a hero and the corrupt clone of Peter Parker. Lastly, we are stepping into the Spider-Verse with the 1st ever-Marvel Legends figure of Spider-Man Unlimited!…

…The latest wave of Marvel Legends Series Spider-Man inspired figures:

  • Spider-Man Unlimited
  • Agent Venom (Flash Thompson)
  • Spider-Boy
  • Marvel’s Chameleon
  • Marvel’s Kaine
  • Electro (Francine Frye)

(11) CASTING OUCH. Variety reports “Jeremy Allen White Joins ‘Star Wars’ Film ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ as Jabba the Hutt’s Son”. Eh, Jabba the Hutt’s son? How? Parthenogenesis? Binary fission? Actual sex? Where’s my eye bleach.

… Plot details have been hard to come by for “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” so White’s casting as Jabba’s son provides the first real glimpse for what could be in store for the titular bounty hunter and his adorably wee adopted son. Their Disney+ series “The Mandalorian” is set in the years following the events of 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” in which Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) strangles Jabba to death. The recent spin-off series “The Book of Boba Fett” revealed that Jabba’s absence left a power vacuum among the organized crime bosses on Tatooine; two of Jabba’s cousins made a play for his territory, only to be defeated by Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), who takes over instead. It seems likely that, with Jabba’s son somehow involved in the new film, Boba Fett and his deputy Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) could show up as well….

(12) BLASTED IN THE PAST. Larry Correia would never do this. “Why ‘Gladiator’ director Ridley Scott keeps a 40-year-old negative review framed on his wall: ‘I was actually hurt’” at CNBC.

At 87 years old, director Ridley Scott has seen a tremendous amount of success over the course of his career. 

His films have grossed billions at the box office and taken home nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture for 2000′s “Gladiator.” But despite the plaudits he has received as a filmmaker, it’s the critical pans that have stayed with Scott the most. 

In an interview with filmmaker Fede Alvarez on the DGA’s “Director’s Cut” podcast, Scott revealed that he has a negative review from famed film critic Pauline Kael of his 1982 science fiction epic “Blade Runner” on display in his office. 

Scott explained that Kael “destroyed Blade Runner in four pages” in the New Yorker, likening the review to “industrial espionage, because you’re destroying a product before it’s out.”…

… “I framed that. It’s still in my office today,” he said. “It taught me this: there’s only one critic that means anything, and that’s you.”…

(13) THE WEST EGG AND I. Chuck Tingle seems to have embraced Scott’s number – and a good many other things.

(14) UNUSUAL VIDEO GAME. [Item by N.] “I Hope This Hurts: Mouthwashing Through A Disabled Lens” at The Jimquisition is a video essay from game critic James Stephanie Sterling, which analyzes the recent indie sci-fi horror success Mouthwashing from the vantage point of disability.

(15) CASTLEVANIA. Netflix dropped a trailer for “Castlevania: Nocturne Season 2”, which is available there starting January 16.

The legendary Alucard, Richter Belmont, and his band of vampire hunters are in a desperate race against time. Erzsebet Báthory, the Vampire Messiah, who already seems invincible, seeks the full power of the goddess Sekhmet so she can plunge the world into endless darkness and terror

(16) ZOMBIES BY INCREMENTS. Gizmodo says, “In 28 Years Later’s First Trailer, the Apocalypse Just Keeps Going”. Beware spoilers (maybe). Beware gory zombie stuff (definitely). In theaters June 20, 2025.

A lot can change in nearly three decades, even in a zombie apocalypse. New ways to survive, new mysteries evolving in the infection that laid the world low. Sometimes people grow up and become Aaron Taylor-Johnson, even. But one thing that doesn’t change? The violence….

…28 Years Later is just the first half of our long-awaited return to this version of the zombie apocalypse, however–Boyle’s sequel was shot back-to-back with its own continuation, helmed by Nia DaCosta and titled The Bone Temple (which we seem to get a brief look at in this trailer, too). That film will see Cillian Murphy reprise his role from 28 Days as Jim, but it hasn’t stopped people from speculating that one of the zombies glimpsed in the trailer could be his grim fate, as there is one that looks especially like a particularly gaunt Murphy glimpsed rising out of a bed of wild grass….

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Sumana Harihareswara, N., Daniel Dern, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “We’d Like To Welcome You” Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 11/4/24 There Were Three Files Scrolled Out Of The West, Their Pixels For To Try

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(1) DID YOU VOTE? I voted by mail two weeks ago, and was notified the ballot has been received and counted. However, the official LA County voter outreach service I registered with is still sending me email and text reminders to vote. They don’t want me to feel left out!

(2) DETROIT PUBLIC LIBRARY BRINGS BACK COLOR OF SCI-FI EXHIBIT.  The inaugural Color of Sci-Fi events occurred in 2023 at Detroit Public Library and will return this month by popular demand. Get “The Color of Sci-Fi” Tickets at Eventbrite.

DMJ Studio is curating an all-new exhibit celebrating people of color in science fiction. This year, the exhibit celebrates diversity within the world of science fiction with a special focus on Star Trek characters Captain Benjamin Sisko and Lt. Uhura, icons who have inspired generations through their portrayal by actors Avery Brooks and Nichelle Nichols.

COLOR OF SCI-FI EVENTS

November 9 | Opening Reception

Art Exhibition and Author Discussions

Featuring artists; April Shipp, Justin Perry, Kimberly Givens, Tia Nichols , Mandisa Smith, Anthea Calhoun, Miriam Uhura, Molouk Harp, and works by members of the DMJStudio team.

Authors Discussion | November 9

Steven Barnes – NY Times bestselling author of over thirty novels of science fiction, horror, and suspense, author of the Star Trek novel, Far Beyond the Stars.

Derek Tyler Attico – A speculative fiction author, essayist, and award-winning photographer. Author of The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko.

Storytime for All Ages

Reading of To Boldly Go: How Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek Helped Advance Civil Rights by By Angela Dalton, Illustrated by Lauren Semmer.

(3) A BOOK BAN DEFEATED. “Freedom to Read Advocates Notch a Legal Victory in Alaska” – Publishers Weekly has details.

After a favorable legal ruling in August, freedom to read advocates in Alaska have scored a significant victory in court over would-be book banners. In an October 31 filing, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District in Alaska agreed to pay $89,000 to settle claims that the district improperly removed dozens of books, including several works of classic literature, from school libraries.

“First the court, and now this settlement, confirm what these students and their parents have known all along: you cannot remove dozens of books from school libraries simply because a vocal minority dislike those books,” said Savannah Fletcher, attorney for advocacy group the Northern Justice Project, in a statement. “Our Constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom of ideas. After successfully having the majority of those books returned to school shelves, we hope the District has learned to not judge a book by its cover.”

First filed nearly a year ago, on November 17, 2023, against the Mat-Su school district, north of Anchorage, by eight local plaintiffs, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, and the Northern Justice Project, the suit sought the return of 56 books that school officials ordered to be removed after a handful of parent complaints until a committee was established to review the allegedly offensive books….

(4) MOORCOCK WARNS ABOUT FRENCH PUBLISHER. Linda Moorcock is circulating this complaint:

EDITIONS L’ATALANTE:

This French company continues to sell books by Michael Moorcock ILLEGALLY. All Moorcock contracts have expired. Editions L’Atalante were refused renewal requests earlier this year after they illegally reprinted and put on sale one of the books they no longer had rights to.

If you are doing business with this company, at least be aware of how they have behaved towards Michael. We have repeatedly asked them to stop all sales and they continue to ignore us.

(5) PRO TIPS. Charlie Jane Anders advises “It’s Not About Making the Word Count, But Making the Work Count” at Happy Dancing. Anders seems to have been farther along than the point where Anne Lamott’s famous advice about getting down a “shitty first draft” applied. And at that point —

2) Your first draft doesn’t need to be total garbage.

I’m currently trying to finish something — it started as a novella, but I’m afraid it may have ballooned into a novel. Just last week, I hit a wall and spent a few days trying in vain to keep moving forward. I even beat myself up over the paucity of words I was producing, because I just could not get any purchase on the story.

At last, I reluctantly scrolled back in the document and found the problem: about 8,000 words earlier, there was a scene which set completely the wrong tone for a key relationship, and basically left the relationship no place to go. Without giving too many spoilers for something you might not read for a couple years, these characters had already reached a place in their relationship that they shouldn’t have reached until closer to the end of the story. This literally gave them no room to grow, no space for an arc, no way build out the story.

I completely scrapped that scene and replaced it with a brand new one, and then went about revising large chunks of the following 8000 words, until they had the beginnings of a proper arc to their relationship — one that started in one place and ended in a different place. As soon as that was done, I could once again start cranking out the rest of the story moving forward….

…And some of my earliest attempts at writing a novel got messed up, in large part, due to a mistaken decision that I made and never fixed, which ended up throwing the entire rest of the draft out of whack. Speaking from experience, it’s actually very hard to revise a first draft where everything is headed in the wrong direction and the basic character stuff doesn’t hold water.

I think of the first draft as being like the foundations of your house: if the foundations aren’t sturdy, the rest of the house is going to be rickety as heck. And going back and redoing the foundations later can sometimes be a lot more trouble….

(6) BOMBS DEFUSED. “’It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen’: 10 film flops that became classics – ranked!” in the Guardian.

At number four:

4. Blade Runner (1982)

Budget: £21.6m. Worldwide gross: £32.2m

Not the biggest flop among all these, but still a galling disappointment for Ridley Scott and Warner Bros, not least given the sensational design. The same weekend The Thing tanked, this came a distant second to ET, and sank fast: word-of-mouth, at first, was more bewildered than awestruck. When Scott was allowed to revisit it for his 1992 director’s cut, one of seven versions that now exist, interest flourished and its reputation soared.

(7) UNIFORM TENDENCY. Camestros Felapton’s “Fashion Blog: Near Future Space Adventure” shows what the best-dressed space crew will be wearing.

… There you are in your new and yet somehow grungy spaceship/space-station facing the important questions of the future: what to wear that will be in keeping with the hot fashion of your community….

(8) AI TRANSLATION PLANS. [Item by Steven French.] The thin end of the wedge? “Dutch publisher to use AI to translate ‘limited number of books’ into English” reports the Guardian.

A major Dutch publisher plans to trial translating books into English using artificial intelligence.

Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK) – the largest publisher in the Netherlands, acquired by Simon & Schuster earlier this year – is “using AI to assist in the translation of a limited number of books”, Vanessa van Hofwegen, commercial director at VBK said.

“This project contains less than 10 titles – all commercial fiction. No literary titles will nor shall be used. This is on an experimental basis, and we’re only including books where English rights have not been sold, and we don’t foresee the opportunity to sell English rights of these books in the future,” she added…

(9) UPSCALE BRANDING. Wayne Enterprises (at brucewaynex.com) encourages you to immerse yourself in Batman’s secret identity while selling you stuff at Bruce Wayne prices.  

Exclusively curated products—including many limited editions and capsule collections created only for the Wayne Enterprises Experience are inspired by the world of Bruce Wayne, who has access to the best of the best of tech, fashion, automobiles, art, multimedia, watercraft, residences, and much more.

Via this site and live events, we are placing retail at the center of a theatrical experience for the first time—and you can be a part of the Bruce Wayne story via these truly limited editions and collaborations.

Maybe you’d like to drive around on a set of Batman’s wheels? Price tag $2,990,000.

Limited production of 10 Wayne Enterprises Tumblers, fully functional iconic “Batmobile”, are exclusively being sold by invitation only. These highly collectable Tumbler Batmobiles are officially sanctioned by Warner Bros. and will be available for sale to an exclusive audience of avid car collectors.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

November 4, 1996 — Anniversary: DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-ations”

Twenty-eight years ago on this evening in most markets, DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-ations” first aired in syndication. 

A most delightful episode, it blended footage from the original “The Trouble with Tribbles” into the new episode in a manner that allowed the characters from DS9 to appear to interact with the original Trek crew. 

SPOLER ALERT 

 The story is that those meddlesome Agents from Temporal Investigations have arrived on Deep Space 9 and so Sisko is recounting how he and the crew of the Defiant traveled back in time to the 23rd century to prevent the assassination of Captain James T. Kirk during the original Enterprise’s mission to Space Station K-7.

END OF SPOILERS. REALLY. 

The story was by Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler and Robert Hewitt Wolfe with Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria writing the actual script. It’s amazingly well done for that many hands being involved. 

So let’s talk about this episode to the Deep Space Nine.

It would digitally insert the performers from this series into the original  episode. I’m still amazed after watching a half dozen times how well they did this.  I’ve watched both shows back-to-back several times, which is well worth doing as they did a stellar job of making the DS9 characters work seamlessly in the old episode. (I know they weren’t actually there but still think they are there.) 

It was because of the complexity of these digital interactions, and may other things, the single longest shooting of any Trek episode. Just creating the footage for the fight with the Klingons in the bar would take almost a full week to shoot due to the number of separate shots involved, the complexity of staging, and other minor details.

And everyone loved that they brought Charlie Brill back to film new scenes. 

Every detail possible was attended to. The original model of station K-7 was long lost by the time this episode was being shot so the model here was created by watching the original episode over and over until they got just right says the modeling staff. Yes, almost everything here isn’t digital. 

For their model of the Enterprise, the staff consulted sketches made for the original series and had a special set of plans made for the new model’s construction. They couldn’t use the original model in Smithsonian as the restoration over the decades had altered the way it looked. 

I think can best have its attitude summed up in this conversation…

Sisko to Bashir: “Don’t you know anything about this period in time?” 

Bashir: I’m a doctor, not an historian.”

Dax in her red short skirt: “In the old days, operations officers wore red, command officers wore gold… (Looks at her outfit.) “And women wore less. I think I’m going to like history.” 

No wonder it got nominated for a Hugo at a LoneStarCon 2 but lost out to Babylon 5’s “Severed Dreams”. I personally think it should’ve won. 

Critics loved it. Really. Truly. They all turned into fanboys.  

Paramount promoted the episode by arranging the placement of around a quarter million tribbles in subways and buses across the United States. Anyone see one of these? 

A note: In the original episode, after Kirk opens the cargo hold door and is showered in tribbles, lone tribbles continue to fall on him one by one, every minute or so, for the rest of the scene. This episode provides the explanation as to why this happens: Sisko and Dax are hiding in the cargo hold, scanning all the tribbles and then tossing them out the door. Very neat.

It like almost everything Trek is available on Paramount+. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) SANS CULOTTES. “Kathryn Hahn Receives Award For Historic Marvel Nudity” — Giant Freakin Robot has coverage (well, not exactly).

Agatha All Along has proven to be one of the better Disney+ MCU shows, one featuring quirky characters, a fun cast, and plenty of dark laughs. All of these would be great reasons to tune in, but the first episode featured an additional incentive: our lead actor getting naked and flashing audiences her rear end. Recently, Jennifer Hudson decided to reward Kathryn Hahn for her fearless Marvel nudity with an (ahem) cheeky plaque that reads “First Woman To Show Butt in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

Before giving the star her award, Jennifer Hudson asked the Agatha All Along star if she realized she was “the first woman to show butt in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?” Kathryn Hahn clarified that she didn’t know that ditching her clothes was making Marvel history but that she is now happy to share this honor with Chris Hemsworth, who showed off his own godly glutes in Thor: Love and Thunder. “Thor and me,” Hahn quipped before receiving her plaque, “just our butts encased in gold — that’s my dream.”…

(13) CANCEL THE PARADE. John Barrowman says the announcement is fake:

If for some reason you want to see the fake news item at its source – click this Facebook link.

TORCHWOOD RETURNS!!! JOHNATHAN GROFF!!!

Prepare for an epic return in Torchwood Rogues as Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) team up with Rogue (Johnathan Groff), a mysterious new character from Doctor Who. This eight-episode series, produced and directed by Russell T Davies, promises thrilling adventures and unexpected twists. Premiering in November 2024 exclusively on Disney+, Torchwood Rogues is a must-watch event from BBC Studios.…

(14) THE LESSON OF HAL. At Collider: “’It Warns Us What Happens If We Allow AI Into Our Universe’: Ridley Scott Explains How ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ Predetermined The Future”.

RIDLEY SCOTT: I think Kubrick did a film that predetermines everything by 50 years with AI. He did 2001 [A Space Odyssey]. 2001 is an act of genius because it warns us what happens if we allow AI into our universe. It will take over, and all it has to do is switch [cellphones] off, and you’ve got chaos. It could switch that off for fun. If I’m gonna design an AI, I’m gonna say, “Okay, the first job for you is I want you to design another AI smarter than you are.” By the time you’re done with that, we’re in deep shit.

(15) RADIO DAYS. “NASA’s Voyager finally phoned home with a device unused since 1981” reports Mashable.

…Voyager’s problem began on Oct. 16, when flight controllers sent the robotic explorer a somewhat routine command to turn on a heater. Two days later, when NASA expected to receive a response from the spacecraft, the team learned something tripped Voyager’s fault protection system, which turned off its X-band transmitter. By Oct. 19, communication had altogether stopped. 

The flight team was not optimistic. 

However, Voyager 1 was equipped with a backup that relies on a different, albeit significantly fainter, frequency. No one knew if the second radio transmitter could still work, given the aging spacecraft’s extreme distance. Days later, engineers with the Deep Space Network, a system of three enormous radio dish arrays on Earth, found the signal whispering back over the S-band transmitter. The device hadn’t been used since 1981, according to NASA. 

“The team is now working to gather information that will help them figure out what happened and return Voyager 1 to normal operations,” NASA said in a recent mission update….

(16) THE UNDERWATER WAY TO OZ. “Scientists Found a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ at The Bottom of The Pacific Ocean” says ScienceAlert. You can get a good look beginning around 1:34 of the video below.

An expedition to a deep-sea ridge, just north of the Hawaiian Islands, revealed a surprise discovery back in 2022: an ancient dried-out lake bed paved with what looks like a yellow brick road.

The eerie scene was chanced upon by the exploration vessel Nautilus, while surveying the Liliʻuokalani ridge within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM).

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

2020 VES Awards

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The Lion King, Baby Yoda, and Ridley Scott’s “Seven Worlds” ad for Hennessy X.O cognac all brought home hardware as genre ruled the roost at the Visual Effects Society’s 2020 VES Awards ceremony on January 29.

Along with The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones and Stranger Things won two trophies apiece for short-form work.

As previously announced, Martin Scorsese received the VES Lifetime Achievement Award. The VES Visionary Award was given to Roland Emmerich, and the VES Award for Creative Excellence was presented to VFX supervisor Sheena Duggal.

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature

THE LION KING
Robert Legato
Tom Peitzman
Adam Valdez
Andrew R. Jones

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature

THE IRISHMAN
Pablo Helman
Mitch Ferm
Jill Brooks
Leandro Estebecorena
Jeff Brink

Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature

MISSING LINK
Brad Schiff
Travis KnightSteve Emerson
Benoit Dubuc

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode

THE MANDALORIAN; The Child
Richard Bluff
Abbigail Keller
Jason Porter
Hayden Jones
Roy Cancinon

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode

CHERNOBYL; 1:23:45
Max Dennison
Lindsay McFarlane
Clare Cheetham
Paul Jones
Claudius Christian Rauch

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Real-Time Project

CONTROL
Janne Pulkkinen
Elmeri Raitanen
Matti Hämäläinen
James Tottman

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial

HENNESSEY; The Seven Worlds
Carsten Keller
Selcuk Ergen
Kiril Mirkov
William Laban

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project

STAR WARS: RISE OF THE RESISTANCE
Jason Bayever
Patrick Kearney
Carol Norton
Bill George

Outstanding Animated Character in a Photoreal Feature

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL; Alita
Michael Cozens
Mark Haenga
Olivier Lesaint
Dejan Momcilovic

Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature

MISSING LINK; Susan
Rachelle Lambden
Brenda Baumgarten
Morgan Hay
Benoit Dubuc

Outstanding Animated Character in an Episode or Real-Time Project

STRANGER THINGS 3; Tom/Bruce Monster
Joseph Dubé-Arsenault
Antoine Barthod
Frederick Gagnon
Xavier Lafarge

Outstanding Animated Character in a Commercial

CYBERPUNK 2077; Dex
Jonas Ekman
Jonas Skoog
Marek Madej
Grzegorz Chojnacki

Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal Feature

THE LION KING; The Pridelands
Marco Rolandi
Luca Bonatti
Jules Bodenstein
Filippo Preti

Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature

TOY STORY 4; Antiques Mall
Hosuk Chang
Andrew Finley
Alison Leaf
Philip Shoebottom

Outstanding Created Environment in an Episode, Commercial, or Real-Time Project

GAME OF THRONES; The Iron Throne; Red Keep Plaza
Carlos Patrick DeLeon
Alonso Bocanegra Martinez
Marcela Silva
Benjamin Ross

Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a CG Project

THE LION KING
Robert Legato
Caleb Deschanel
Ben Grossmann
AJ Sciutto

Outstanding Model in a Photoreal or Animated Project

THE MANDALORIAN; The Sin; The Razorcrest
Doug Chiang
Jay Machado
John Goodson
Landis Fields IV

Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
Don Wong
Thibault Gauriau
Goncalo Cababca
Francois-Maxence Desplanques

Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature

FROZEN 2
Erin V. Ramos
Scott Townsend
Thomas Wickes
Rattanin Sirinaruemarn

Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Episode, Commercial, or Real-Time Project

STRANGER THINGS 3; Melting Tom/Bruce
Nathan Arbuckle
Christian Gaumond
James Dong
Aleksandr Starkov

Outstanding Compositing in a Feature

THE IRISHMAN
Nelson Sepulveda
Vincent Papaix
Benjamin O’Brien
Christopher Doerhoff

Outstanding Compositing in an Episode

GAME OF THRONES; The Long Night; Dragon Ground Battle
Mark Richardson
Darren Christie
Nathan Abbott
Owen Longstaff

Outstanding Compositing in a Commercial

HENNESSEY; The Seven Worlds
Rod Norman
Guillaume Weiss
Alexander Kulikov
Alessandro Granella

Outstanding Special (Practical) Effects in a Photoreal or Animated Project

THE DARK CRYSTAL: THE AGE OF RESISTANCE; She Knows All the Secrets
Sean Mathiesen
Jon Savage
Toby Froud
Phil Harvey

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project

THE BEAUTY
Marc Angele
Aleksandra Todorovic
Pascal Schelbli
Noel Winzen

Pixel Scroll 3/29/19 This Is File 770, You Can Scroll On The File And Call The Cat A Pixel

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(1) HIGH PRAISE AND SOME CASH. A student stage production of Alien has earned the highest seal of approval – and it’s more than just kind words: “Ridley Scott Praises Students for ‘Alien’ Stage Show, Offers Funds for Encore Performance”.

The North Bergen High School students who put on a stage production of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” have made a fan out of the director himself…

“My hat comes off to all of you for your creativity, imagination, and determination to produce such an ambitious show,” Scott writes in the letter. “Limitations often produce the best results because imagination and determination can surpass any shortfalls and determine the way forward – always.”

Scott continues, “Self-sufficiency is what this country was largely based upon with its immigrant population coming in to a New World and working together. This is maybe the biggest lesson for all of you, and your future plans – stay with this determination, and this spirit in everything you do, and you will succeed – let nothing put you off – or set you back.”

The letter ends with Scott encouraging the students to put on a live production of his Oscar winner “Gladiator” next year. The director is currently working on a sequel to the blockbuster. Scott said he felt “very complimented” the students decided to use “Alien” as a source of inspiration. The filmmaker ended his note with good news: “Scott Free will advance some financial help to fund an encore performance of ‘Alien.’”

(2) CHICK-A-BOOM. In science news: they have fossils from very soon after Chicxulub hit. Like within a few hours afterward. Fish, dinosaurs, trees with amber, tektites. Science Daily has the story: “66-million-year-old deathbed linked to dinosaur-killing meteor”.

Paleontologists have found a fossil site in North Dakota that contains animals and plants killed and buried within an hour of the meteor impact that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. This is the richest K-T boundary site ever found, incorporating insects, fish, mammals, dinosaurs and plants living at the end of the Cretaceous, mixed with tektites and rock created and scattered by the impact. The find shows that dinosaurs survived until the impact.

(3) UP AGAINST THE WALL. In anti-science news, Lonely Planet announced that “The Flat Earth Cruise wants to sail to the edge of the world in 2020”.

Despite real, scientific evidence to the contrary, the Flat Earth Society is continuing its quest to convince the world that spherical planets are a hoax and the earth is flat. In 2020, they’ll bring their message to the seas with a special cruise they promise will be “the biggest, boldest, best adventure yet.”

It may seem somewhat dangerous to embark on a cruise on a flat surface, given the danger of potentially falling off the edge. Fear not, however, as the flat earth theory proposes that we think of as Antarctica is actually a giant ice wall which “helps protect us from whatever lies beyond.”

(4) DIRECTOR CUT. NPR’s Chris Klimek says of Dumbo: “Elephants Never Forget, But Audiences Will”.

Dumbo, the first of three live-action(ish) remakes of beloved Disney cartoons due in the next four months (Aladdin is coming in May, The Lion King in June), coulda been a contender. Its director is Tim Burton, who began his career as an animator, and who has periodically returned to that medium for heartfelt, handmade pictures like Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. More recently, Burton is the filmmaker most directly responsible for this cartoon-reclamation trend: His 2010 re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland took in more than a billion dollars around the world. Do you know anyone of any age who likes that film? Dumbo is better, but that’s a bar any able-bodied adult elephant could clear, no unusual talents necessary.

Once the most idiosyncratic of big-studio filmmakers, Burton has long since become a company man. This efficient, indistinct Dumbo could’ve been directed by any number of Chris Columbuses or Brad Peytons or Jon Favreaus (who made 2016’s The Jungle Book and that upcoming digitized Lion King) — able project managers all, and not a one of them possessed of the fevered imagination to pull off a Beetlejuice, never mind an Ed Wood. The docile Burton we have here is the one Warner Brothers’ wished they’d had on Batman Returns a generation ago, when parents and a certain billions-and-billions-served burger chain screamed about how the blockbuster sequel turned out awfully weird and kinky and violent, for a film they’d worked so hard to sell to children.

(5) SHIRAISHI OBIT. Voice actress Fuyumi Shiraishi passed away March 28 at the age of 82 reports Anime News Network.

She is arguably best known outside Japan for voicing Mirai in the first Mobile Suit Gundam anime series.

She won a Merit Award for lifetime achievement at the 9th Annual Seiy? Awards in 2015.

(6) RIMMER OBIT. Thunderbirds voice actor Shane Rimmer had died reports The Guardian.

Actor Shane Rimmer, who voiced the character of pilot Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds, has died. The official Gerry Anderson website carried the news, saying that the death of the 89 year old had been confirmed by his widow Sheila Rimmer. Rimmer died at home in the early hours of 29 March. No cause of death has been given.

… . The actor also contributed his voice to other Gerry Anderson projects including Joe 90 and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and appeared in person in the Anderson’s live action project UFO. Behind the scenes, Rimmer also wrote episodes of Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, The Secret Service and The Protectors.

As well as his work with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson he appeared in over 100 films including Dr Strangelove, Gandhi and Out of Africa. He played three different roles in three different James Bond movies, appearing in Diamonds Are Forever, You Only Live Twice, and The Spy Who Loved Me.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born March 29, 1923 — Geoffrey Ashe, 96. British historian and lecturer, Arthurian expert. His first book, King Arthur’s Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury, was published sixty years ago. He wrote one novel, The Finger and the Moon, set at Allhallows, a college near Glastonbury Tor. 
  • Born March 29, 1943 — Eric Idle, 76. Monty Python is genre, isn’t it? If not, I submit that The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Yellowbeard, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Quest for Camelot, Shrek the Third and Nearly Departed, an updated version of Topper, which he all hand in are.
  • Born March 29, 1947 — Patricia Anthony. Flanders is one damn scary novel. A ghost story set in WW I it spooked me for nights after I read it and I don’t spook easily. Highly recommended.  James Cameron purchased  the movie rights to  her Brother Termite novel and John Sayles wrote a script, but the movie has not been produced. (Died 2013.)
  • Born March 29, 1948 — Bud Cort, 71. First genre role was in  producer Roger Corman’s final film for AIP, Gas-s-s-s (also known as Gas! or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It). Next was Brave New World which was followed by Invaders from Mars, a remake of the early Fifties film of that name. There was a pilot for a Bates Motel series (H’h?) but ignored the timeline from Psycho II and Psycho III. Last I’m going to note his voicing Toy Man in the Justice League and Superman animated series.
  • Born March 29, 1955 — Marina Sirtis, 64. Counselor Deanna Troi in the Trekverse. I admit I never did find her role all that interesting. As for her roles outside of Trek, let’s see what we’ve got. Her first genre film appearance, The Wicked Lady, a highwayman film being noted here only for Sirtis somehow getting whipped while topless by Faye Dunaway. Waxwork II: Lost in Time as Gloria is her true genre film role followed shortly by a one-off on the The Return of Sherlock Holmes series as Lucrezia. And then there’s her mid Nineties voice acting as Demona on Gargoyles, possibly her best role to date. Skipping some one-offs on various genre series, her most recent appearance was on Titans, the DC streaming service based series, as Marie Granger in the “Hank and Dawn” episode. 
  • Born March 29, 1957 — Elizabeth Hand, 62. Not even going to attempt to summarise her brilliant career. I will say that my fav works by her are Wylding Hall, Illyria and Mortal Love. 
  • Born March 29, 1968 — Lucy Lawless, 51. Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, cylon model Number Three D’Anna Biers on that Battlestar Galactica series. She also played Countess Palatine Ingrid von Marburg, the last of a line of Germanic witches on the Salem series. Her most recent genre role as Ruby Knowby, one of the Dark Ones, on the Ash vs Evil Dead series. Though not genre, she was Lucretia in  Spartacus: Blood and Sand, its prequel Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and its sequel Spartacus: Vengeance. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Another Incidental Comic from Grant Snider:

(9) ON JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter has been patrolling the airwaves again: “Not a science fiction answer/question, but a good topic,” he says.

Answer: This 1883 classic ends with the words “A well-behaved little boy!”

All contestants got it wrong, with the questions, “Who is Little Lord Fauntleroy,” “What is The Velveteen Rabbit,” and “What is Peter Pan?”

The correct question: “Who is Pinocchio?”

(10) HELP WANTED. According to Jezebel, “Space Scientists Need Women Volunteers Who Will Stay in Bed Eating Pancakes for Two Months”.

Do you speak German and hate getting out of bed? That could be worth almost 19k to space scientists.

A study commissioned by NASA and the European Space Agency being conducted at the German Aerospace Center needs German-speaking, non-smoking women ages 22-55 to lie in bed for 60 days in order to help understand the impact of weightlessness on the body.

(11) NOT JUST CATS. It’s a veritable hitchhikers’ guide… “Dozens Of Nonnative Marine Species Have Invaded The Galapagos Islands”.

The Galapagos Islands are like a biological ark in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Giant tortoises live there, and swimming iguanas, and numerous species found nowhere else. It’s one of the world’s most protected places.

But scientists have discovered that dozens of exotic species have invaded the Galapagos — underwater.

Marine biologist James Carlton remembers when he first got to thinking that the famously wild Galapagos, a World Heritage, might not be as pristine as people thought. “On my first visit to the Galapagos,” he recalls, “I collected some samples from a boat bottom.” He found barnacles, sponges and other hitchhikers.

That was in 1987. Carlton didn’t know if the creatures he found were native or not. So about four years ago, he and a team of scientists decided to return and take a closer look.

“We didn’t know quite what to expect,” he says. They already knew there were lots of invasive species — species not native to the Galapagos — on land. But in the surrounding ocean, there were only five known species of invaders. Everything else, presumably, was native.

When Carlton’s team looked underwater, however, they found a horde of invaders. “Now we have 53, which is a rather stunning increase,” says marine biologist Gregory Ruiz, who was on the trip. “It’s about a tenfold increase.”

(12) AT LONG LAST. Try and look on the bright side —

[Thanks to P.J. Evans, JJ, rcade, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day BGrandrath.]

Pixel Scroll 2/12/19 Fans Scroll In, Where Pixels Fear To Tread

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(1) RIDLEY SCOTT’S COGNAC AD. The noted director of Blade Runner, various Aliens movies, and the Apple Mac: 1984 commercial, Ridley Scott, has returned to commercial work this year. First to air was his Turkish Airlines ad for the Super Bowl, and now comes a short video tailored for airing online and on TV during the Oscars:

The liquor brand is promoting its Hennessy X.O cognac in “7 Worlds,” a mix of epic drama and sci-fi odyssey. The video highlights the seven notes of X.O and pays homage to the Oscars with a scene that includes colossal golden figures similar to the Oscars award statue.

Scott, who directed films including “Alien,” “Blade Runner” and “Gladiator,” created a four-minute film for the brand that will air on Hennessey’s site during the Oscars on Feb. 24. A 60-second version airs during the show on ABC.

The YouTube blurb explains:

Hennessy X.O – The Seven Worlds – Directed by Ridley Scott. Each time you taste Hennessy X.O, you go on an odyssey. Seven tasting notes, like seven unique worlds to explore. Seven oneiric stories to convey the incredible richness and complexity of this cognac. …The Seven Worlds are creative interpretations of each tasting note, described by Hennessy’s Comité de Dégustation as illustrations of Hennessy X.O’s taste and feel: Sweet Notes, Rising Heat, Spicy Edge, Flowing Flame, Chocolate Lull, Wood Crunches. Culminating in Infinite Echo. These seven notes are envisioned by Ridley Scott as individual worlds each brought to life through wonderous and extreme physiography.

(2) ZAK SMITH CALLED OUT. Game author Zak Smith, a four-time Ennie Award nominee in 2018, has been accused by several women of sexual assault. One company will no longer do business with him.

The Morrus’ Unofficial En World Tabletop RPG News site summarized the story: “RPG Writer Zak S Accused Of Abusive Behaviour”.

RPG writer Zak S (aka Zak Smith, Zak Sabbath) has been accused by multiple women of abusive behaviour in a public Facebook post by his ex-partner, and two other women.

Zak Smith appeared in the video series I Hit It With My Axe, and is known for the Playing D&D With Porn Stars blog. He has also written several RPG books, most recently for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, consulted on the D&D 5th Edition Player’s Handbook, has won multiple ENnies, and recently worked for White Wolf. As yet, he hasn’t made any public response to the accusations.

The Facebook post referred to is public, and can be accessed here. Consider ALL the content warnings given. Many reactions and links will be found using this search on Twitter.

OneBookShelf / DriveThruRPG President Steve Wieck says they basically won’t be doing business with Zak Smith going forward — “DriveThruRPG Responds to Current Industry News” at OneBlogShelf.

Thanks to everyone for your patience as we deliberated on the situation that has unfolded regarding Zak Smith (aka Zak Sabbath). At DriveThruRPG, we want to do our part to keep bad actors out of the roleplaying community, and we don’t want business relationships with such people. As such, you’d think there wouldn’t be much deliberation needed on our part. However, the situation posed a number of challenges for us to consider in terms of precedent and collateral impact on other parties.

I have decided that we will not accept future titles for sale on DriveThruRPG (or our other marketplaces) if Zak is a contributor on the title. If any publisher has a title-in-process to which Zak is a contributor and this policy would impact you financially, then we’d ask that you please reach out to us via the publisher services link to have a dialogue about that title…

So DriveThruRPG is now banning certain creators? Will whoever the “outrage brigade” complains about next be banned as well?
We all share a responsibility for the health of our hobby. Any demographic measure we’ve ever seen on the roleplaying hobby shows women are under-represented. Things won’t improve if people shirk the responsibility to make our hobby inclusive.

Zak Smith has a long and well-documented history of behaviors antithetical to a healthy community. In light of recent allegations, which we find credible, we think our business and our hobby is better off without him, so we’re doing our part.

Eric Franklin explained the significance of this decision in a comment: “DTRPG/OBS is the largest RPG PDF retailer on the planet, and are the ONLY legal source for many publishers’ games. This is equivalent to Amazon cutting a publisher off – without OBS, it’s super-hard to make money selling RPG PDFs.”

(3) LEGO CAMEOS. Kevin Polowy, in the Yahoo! Entertainment story “How LEGO MOVIE 2 Scored Those Surprising Celebrity Cameos (Spoilers!)” discusses how Bruce WIllis and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have cameos in the film, with Justice Ginsburg saying she would only be in the movie if her action figure had a small gavel.

But there are a few cameos in the new hit animated sequel that will catch you for a loop. While folks like Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill return as superheroes Superman and Green Lantern, respectively, and DC stars Jason Momoa and Gal Gadot are onboard to voice Lego versions of Aquaman and Wonder Woman, fans who saw the film over the weekend got an unexpected surprise in the bricky form of Bruce Willis playing… well, Bruce Willis (though he bears a striking resemblance to Bruce Willis as Die Hard‘s John McClane).

(4) ERRM, NO. The BBC’s Nicholas Barber asks: “Does The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part match the original?”

Set five years after the original, a new film continues the story of Lego figure Emmet – and it fails to measure up.

Perhaps no sequel could ever have reached the giddy heights attained by The Lego Movie. Written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the best cartoon of 2014 was such a magnificently animated and dazzlingly inventive delight that there was probably only one way its follow-up could go. But it is still depressing to see The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part falling so far short of its glorious predecessor.

One obvious reason for the shortfall is that the first film caught everyone unawares. Those of us who walked into the cinema fearing a cynical advert for a Danish construction toy brand found ourselves gawping instead at a daring Orwellian satire, the exhilarating and hilarious adventure of a cheerfully conformist construction worker, Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt), who learns that the tyrannical Lord Business (Will Ferrell) plans to glue every one of Bricksburg’s Lego citizens into place….

(5) NOT PRIME ENOUGH? The Counterpart TV series has been cancelled. (At least in this universe.)

Creator Justin Marks announced Monday on his verified Twitter account that the premium cable network has opted to cancel the drama starring J.K. Simmons after two seasons. The news comes ahead of Sunday’s season two finale, which will now serve as a series finale should another outlet not pick up the Media Rights Capital-produced drama.

(6) MARVEL MIGRATION. Hulu looks like the new home for Marvel TV programs: “Marvel, Hulu Set Four-Show Animated Slate”. The Hollywood Reporter has details:

As Marvel’s Netflix relationship sours, the comic book powerhouse is entering a new pact for a slate of four animated series with Hulu.

The streamer — soon to be majority controlled by Marvel parent Disney as part of the Fox asset sale — has greenlit four animated series (and a special) as part of a new partnership with the comic giant.

M.O.D.O.K. centers around an egomaniacal supervillain with a really big head and a really little body, who struggles to maintain control of his evil organization and his demanding family. Writers Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt will also executive produce.

Hit-Monkey tells the tale of a wronged Japanese snow monkey, mentored by the ghost of an American assassin, as he cuts a wide swath through the Tokyo underworld in this darkly cinematic and brutally funny revenge saga. Writers Josh Gordon and Will Speck will executive produce.

Tigra & Dazzler Show is a story about two woke superheroes and best friends, Tigra and Dazzler, as they fight for recognition among powered people who make up the eight million stories in Los Angeles. Writers Erica Rivinoja and Chelsea Handler serve as executive producers.

Howard the Duck is trapped in a world he never made, but America’s favorite fighting fowl hopes to return home with the help of his unstoppable gal pal Beverly before the evil Dr. Bong can turn him the crispiest dish on the menu. Writers Kevin Smith and Dave Willis will also executive produce.

The Offenders follows MODOK, Dazzler, Tigra, Hit Monkey and Howard the Duck as they are all forced to team up in order to save the world and certain parts of the universe.

(7) HOLLOMAN OBIT. Master costumer D. Jeannette Holloman (1955-2019) died February 11.

Jeannette was a founding member of the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumers Guild. Her costumes have been featured in Threads magazine and The Costume Makers Art. She has participated several WorldCon, CostumeCon and Malice Domestic award-winning costumes. She was a noted voice-over artist. She is survived by her husband Ron Robinson, author, costumer, and technocrat. She also leaves a vast number of good friends.

(8) SMITH OBIT. British fan Tony “Blindpew” Smith died of cancer on February 9 according to the Novacon 49 Facebook page. He is survived by his wife Wendy and his family. Smith was an early member of the Peterborough SF Club.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born February 12, 1920 — Russ Chauvenet. He co-founded the National Fantasy Fan Federation, with Damon Knight and Art Widner, and was a member of First Fandom. He coined the word “fanzine” in the October 1940 issue of his fanzine Detours and was for many years a member of the Fantasy Amateur Press Association. He later coined prozine, a phrase for professionally published magazines containing SF stories. It looks like he wrote one piece of fanfic called “If I Werewolf”.  He shares credit for it with Harry Jenkins, Jr., Elmer Perdue, Jack Speer, Wilson Tucker and Arthur L. Widner, Jr. and it was published in Spaceways, January 1942. (Died 2003.)
  • Born February 12, 1922 – Sam Youd. Best known for writing under the name of John Christopher, which he used when he penned The Tripods series. A BBC and Seven Network (Australia) series would be made from the books. He also wrote two other genre novels, The Death of Grass and The Guardians. (Died 2012.)
  • Born February 12, 1933 — Juanita Ruth Coulson, 86. She apparently is well-known for her Children of the Stars books though I’ve not heard of them. She co-edited the fanzine Yandro for many years. The magazine won the Hugo in 1965, thus making Coulson one of the very first women editors to be so honored. She’s also known for being an excellent filker. She was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 1996.  She was nominated for several Pegasus Awards for filk music, winning the award for Best Writer/Composer in 2012.
  • Born February 12, 1942 — Terry  Bisson, 77. He’s best known for his short stories including “Bears Discover Fire,” which won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award and “They’re Made Out of Meat.” His genre novels includes Talking Man, Wyrldmaker and a rather superb adaptation of Johnny Mnemonic. 
  • Born February 12, 1950 — Michael Ironside, 69. Ahhhh, he of Starship Troopers fame. His first SF role was actually as Darryl Revok in Scanners. Later roles included Overdog in Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Ricther In Total Recall, General Katana in Highlander II: The Quickening and of course Lt. Jean Rasczak In Starship Troopers. Now he also did some series work as well including being Ham Tyler on V The Final Battle and V The Series, seaQuest 2032 as Captain Oliver Hudson, General Sam Lane on Smallville and on the Young Blades series as Cardinal Mazarin. 
  • Born February 12, 1952 — Steve Szilagyi, 67. This is going to get very meta. Photographing Fairies, his first novel, was short-listed for the 1993 World Fantasy Award. But the novel itself is based on the Cottingley Fairies hoax so is the novel a metanarrative? Ok I’ve been up too long again. At any rate the film made the novel starring Ben Kingsley is first rate.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • In its own way, Non Sequitur asks whatever happened to that sense of wonder?

(11) TOLKIEN TRAILER. Oxford, WWI, true love – it’s all in Tolkien, the biopic, arriving in theaters on May 10.  

TOLKIEN explores the formative years of the orphaned author as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school. This takes him into the outbreak of World War I, which threatens to tear the “fellowship” apart. All of these experiences would inspire Tolkien to write his famous Middle-Earth novels.

(12) STAR STRUCK. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] One of pop star Ariana Grande’s tracks on her new album is called “NASA,” though it’s more about self-empowerment than space exploration. That didn’t keep there from being some cross-talk (Bustle: “Ariana Grande’s Twitter Exchange With NASA & Buzz Aldrin Perfectly Shows Why She’s Such A Superstar”) featuring Twitter exchanges between NASA and Grande plus between Buzz Aldrin and Grande. For the latter, she seemed a bit, shall we say, star struck.

Another article (The Atlantic: “A Space Nerd’s Reading of Ariana Grande’s ‘NASA’ Song”) notes that the song begins “with a reimagining of Neil Armstrong’s famous line: ‘This is one small step for woman / One giant leap for womankind.’” Self-empowerment indeed.

(13) THE RIGHT-ER STUFF. TV will take another look at America’s space pioneers.Variety: “Nat Geo Orders Adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Right Stuff’ to Series”.

National Geographic, in partnership with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way and Warner Horizon Scripted Television, has greenlit to series an adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book “The Right Stuff,” which recounts the early days of the U.S. space program and its astronauts.

Using Wolfe’s book as a jumping-off point, the first season begins in 1958, the height of the Cold War, with the Soviets leading the space race and the U.S. launching NASA’s Project Mercury. The best-selling book was previously adapted into a feature film in 1983.

The show is described as taking “a clear-eyed, non-nostalgic look at the lives of these ambitious astronauts and their families, who became instant celebrities in a competition that would either kill them or make them immortal.” Following seasons will follow the Apollo Space Program, the moon landing, and other missions.

(14) THE FUTURE IS UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED. BBC asks, “Sweden’s Cashless Experiment: Is It Too Much Too Fast?”

Cash is still king around the world, but there are pockets of places, especially in Europe, moving away from cash. And no one is dropping cash as fast as Sweden.

In 2018, only 13 percent of Swedes reported using cash for a recent purchase, according to a nationwide survey, down from around 40 percent in 2010. In the capital, Stockholm, most people can’t even remember the last time they had coins jingling in their pockets.

By contrast, around 70 percent of Americans still use cash on a weekly basis, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center.

In Sweden, however, especially in bigger cities, going cashless is becoming the norm. Purchases usually happen as digital transactions — by card, online or with Sweden’s most popular mobile payment app, Swish.

…But all this change has also spurred a debate in the Nordic nation over the consequences of how quickly Sweden is going cashless, especially for the most vulnerable groups in society. Many retirees, people with disabilities and newly arrived refugees struggle with digital transactions.

“If you go to a bar or if you go to some shops, they say to you that the only way to pay is to pay with cards or this Swish system,” explains 75-year-old Christina Tallberg, who is president of the Swedish National Pensioners’ Organisation.

She says that even going to public toilets can pose a problem. These often cost 10 kronor (around a dollar) in Sweden, but the toilets rarely accept cash these days.

(15) OF THIS EARTH. Dylan Narqvist has translated his research into graphic form —  

He’d love to sell you a copy of the “World Map of Alien First Contacts in Popular Motion Pictures – Poster”. Here’s an excerpt of the detail —

(16) THE ONE ELLISON TOOK HIS NAME OFF. Cancelled SciFi tells you how to watch Cordwainer Bird’s 1973 TV show: “Streaming Finds: The Starlost Has Its Own Roku Channel”.

The Skinny: This oddity from the 70’s is not well known, but some sci fi fans may be interested in checking it out. It was a Canadian production that was syndicated in the U.S. and that ran for only one season of sixteen episodes. It was created by Harlan Ellison and his script for the pilot even received the Best Original Screenplay award from the Writer’s Guild of America. But Ellison distanced himself from the show after growing disillusioned with the production direction (the studio made many changes and recorded the show on video tape like classic Doctor Who), and had his name removed from the credits (replaced with his usual protest moniker Cordwainer Bird). The resulting series was not great, but still of interest to fans of 70’s sci fi. 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s Keir Dullea was one of the leads in the series and Star Trek‘s Walker Koenig showed up in a couple of episodes as an alien.

Apparently this series has slipped into the public domain and a Roku channel titled–what else?–The Starlost has been set up with the entire sixteen episodes available for streaming.

(17) LIVING ON MARS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The Verge: “The company that promised a one-way ticket to Mars is bankrupt”.

As the subheading says, “What a shocker.” (Not.) 

Mars One Ventures — the company that claimed it was going to send hundreds of people to live (and ultimately die) on the Red Planet — is now bankrupt, according to Swiss financial notices. It’s an unsurprising development, as many experts suspected that Mars One has been a scam for years, preying on people’s desires to travel to space without having a real plan to get them there. 

—On the other hand—

CNBC:   “Elon Musk: Moving to Mars will cost less than $500,000, ‘maybe even below $100,000’”.

Elon Musk says he is “confident” moving to Mars will “one day” cost less than $500,000 and “maybe even” cost below $100,000.

While the final cost is “very dependent on [the] volume” of travelers, Musk said the cost of moving to Mars will be “low enough that most people in advanced economies could sell their home on Earth [and] move to Mars if they want.” (The median home price in the U.S. is $223,900, according to Zillow.)

Mike Kennedy says, “Hmmm, I move to Mars and weigh about 60% less? I would say ‘sign me up NOW,’ but I suppose that people who move there will be expected to work and I don’t want to un-retire.”

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, ULTRAGOTHA, Errolwi, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Pixel Scroll 10/8/18 And We Are Her Sisters, And Her Cousins, And Her Ancillaries

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(1) RECESS IS OVER. File 770 was down for approximately 7 hours today, for reasons never fully explained by customer support, except they were “actively working” on a server problem. Well, to quote Sam Gamgee, “I’m back.”

(2) WHO WATCHED. The Guardian has the numbers: “Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who debut is most watched launch for 10 years”.

Jodie Whittaker’s take on the Time Lord drew Doctor Who’s biggest series launch audience in more than a decade on Sunday night.

An average of 8.2m viewers watched Whittaker’s first outing as the Doctor, beating the ratings for political thriller sensation Bodyguard, which attracted 6.7m viewers when it debuted in August. With an audience share of 40.1%, Whittaker’s performance was the most-watched episode of the science fiction drama since the 2008 series.

The first female doctor bettered Matt Smith and David Tennant’s debut viewing figures of 7.7m and 8m respectively. While she drew a smaller audience than Christopher Eccleston’s first appearance, which was watched by 9.9m, he had the advantage of appearing in the show’s comeback episode in 2005.

(3) WHO LISTENED. But some claim the Doctor Who theme music has been defaced. “Yes,” says SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, “thought impossible but some consider true.”

The brand new theme for Doctor Who Series 11, composed by Segun Akinola, which premiered tonight during the closing credits of ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’

 

(4) IT’S ALREADY BEEN DONE! Alastair Reynolds apparently blazed the trail for Banksy – “Artist shreds unique work of art”.

Alastair Reynolds destroys last english copy of his short-story “Pandora’s Box” at Finncon’09

 

(5) A VOLUNTEER FOR PICARD’S CREW. Wil Wheaton told a Baltimore Comic Con audience he’d say yes — “Star Trek: Wil Wheaton Wants to Return in New Picard Series” at Comicbook.

Of course, fans also want to know if he could appear as Wesley Crusher could appear in the new show. Wheaton says he thinks its unlikely he’ll be asked, but he’d definitely be up for it if asked.

“I think it is very unlikely they will ask me to participate in it,” Wheaton said. “I mean, I think it is just extraordinarily unlikely that will happen. If they did, I would say ‘yes,’ of course. I think all of us would say ‘yes.’ I think all of us if we were given the opportunity to put on the spacesuits again and go work together and bring those characters back, as they would be thirty years later, we would all say ‘yes.’ And I don’t think it’s because we want the work. I don’t think it’s because we need the money. I don’t think it’s because we don’t have other things to do. It’s because we love each other so much and an opportunity, even for a day, to return emotionally to some of the best times of our lives, I think that we would jump at that opportunity.”

(6) LONG LIST ANTHOLOGY. David Steffen’s Long List Anthology Volume 4 Kickstarter has fully funded, included the stretch goal — 204 backers pledged $4,754.

(7) BITE CLUB. Ron Charles in the Washington Post discusses how Fangoria, which died last year, has been revived “as a new quarterly journal with photos so high-gloss that the blood looks wet.”  But Charles notes many book reviews amid all the gory photos, as well as a short story by Chuck Pahlaniuk — “Fangoria, the fabled horror magazine, has risen from the dead”.

…There’s also a piece for die-hard fanatics about continuity problems among the various “Halloween” sequels and a true story about a young man in North Carolina who built a replica of the Myers house. “I have to carefully pick what I’m going to invest my time in,” he says without any apparent irony.

Handy advice abounds in these pages. Makeup artist Tate Steinsiek explains “how to slit your own throat,” and director Corin Hardy walks us through hideous visuals in his new movie “The Nun.” “Malignant Growths,” a piece about homemade horror films, should come with its own barf bag….

(8) RAH RAH RAH (RAH RAH).  In a piece for Tor.com, James Davis Nicoll says there are “Five Books That Improve Upon Heinlein’s Juveniles”. (How can that be possible?)

Nothing fills me with dread quite like a middle-aged male writer announcing that he plans to write a YA novel just like the ones Robert Heinlein used to write . I could explain why this is such a harbinger of disappointment…but Charles Stross has already beat me to it. Instead, allow me to offer some non-Heinlein novels that succeed in scratching some of the same itches that the RAH juvies once scratched. For me, that requires the intended audience to include teens, that the genre be science fiction in the narrow sense, that the protagonist be a young adult, and that they get to do something that actually matters in the course of the book .

(9) NYCC COSPLAY. Huffington Post’s photo gallery promises “Here Are The Best Costumes From 2018’s New York Comic Con”.

But aside from stars to see, artists to discover, and unique merchandise to buy, people go to Comic Con to see (and be seen in) costumes. There were probably as many people in costume as not this year, and as always it was a wonderful distraction when walking from one part of the convention center to another.

(10) NYCC PROGRAM VIDEOS. On the Penguin Random House YouTube channel you’ll find links to 12 full panels recorded at New York Comic Con. These include a Patrick Rothfuss panel, Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Panel, A Night with Author Andy Weir (The Martian), “How Writers Build Authenticity Into Diverse Worlds Panel,” Patrick Rothfuss and R.A. Salvatore Discuss Epic Fantasy, “Disney-Lucasfilm Publishing: Stories from a Galaxy Far, Far Away,” The World of Lore with Aaron Mahnke Panel, “Disney-Lucasfilm Presents: A Celebration of Female Writers in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.”

 

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]

  • Born October 8, 1916 – George Turner, Writer and Critic from Australia, who was a successful mainstream novelist but turned to writing SF fiction and criticism in his sixties. His novel Drowning Towers (also published as The Sea and Summer) was a near-future story about global warming and economic collapse, which won the Clarke Award and was a finalist for the Nebula, Campbell, and Ditmar Awards. His book In the Heart or In the Head: An Essay in Time Travel, a memoir in which he chronicles his chaotic growing-up in a family for whom fact and fantasy were equally acceptable and often indistinguishable, won the William J. Atheling Jr. Award and was a finalist for the Hugo for Best Nonfiction Book. He wrote a lot on the history of the genre, including John W. Campbell: Writer, Editor, Legend for an Australian symposium on Campbell in 1971. He was given an A. Bertram Chandler Award – Australia SFF fandom’s highest honor – and his other works, both SF and genre nonfiction, received many nominations and wins for Ditmar and Atheling Awards, all earned between the age of 60 and his death at age 80. He was to be Author Guest of Honor at Aussiecon 3, the 1999 Worldcon, but died prior to the convention. The interview “Judith Buckrich in Conversation with George Turner” can be found in SF Commentary #76.
  • Born October 8, 1920 – Frank Herbert, Writer well-known for his Dune series – the first of which won Hugo, Nebula, Seiun, and Locus Awards – which has been translated into more than a dozen languages and adapted to movies and videogames, including the Hugo-nominated version by David Lynch. Songs of Muad’Dib: Poems and Songs from Frank Herbert’s Dune was published posthumously, edited by his son Brian Herbert. Other work includes the ConSentiency universe novels, Under Pressure and Hellstrom’s Hive (which was awarded the Prix Apollo), and works in his Pandora and Jorj McKie universes. He was nominated for the 1956 Most Promising New Author Hugo, and was Author Guest of Honor at a number of conventions.
  • Born October 8, 1941 – Penny Frierson, 77, Writer, Editor, Conrunner, and Fan who chaired or co-chaired several conventions and Worldcon bids, and co-chaired the 1986 Worldcon. She was one of the founders of the Birmingham Science Fiction Club. She collaborated with her husband Meade in her fan writing; they were big H.P. Lovecraft fans, and their fanzines included Science Fiction on Radio, HPL, The HPL Tribute, The HPL Supplement, and the fannish play, Shattered Like a Clockwork Orange. She was a member of the APAs Myriad, RAPS, and SFPA, Guest of Honor at Coastcon in 1978, and in 1987 Southern Fandom recognized her with the Rebel Award.
  • Born October 8, 1943 – David Dvorkin, 75, Writer from England who emigrated to the U.S., and has written more than a dozen of his own speculative fiction novels, but is perhaps best known for three of the earliest novels written in the Star Trek Original Series and Next Generation universes for Pocket Books.
  • Born October 8, 1943 – R.L. Stine, 75, Writer, Editor, and Producer. Author of more than 300 novels, mostly young adult horror, most famously the Goosebumps series, which, along with some of his other works, has been made in TV series and videogames. He has written novelisations of the genre films Ghostbusters II and Spaceballs. He was recognized with a Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2013.
  • Born October 8, 1949 – Sigourney Weaver, 69, Oscar-nominated Screen and Stage Actor and Producer. Her most famous genre roles are in Hugo-winning movies the Alien series and the Star Trek homage Galaxy Quest, in addition to parts in both Hugo-nominated versions of Ghostbusters, Dave (an uncredited version of Robert Heinlein’s Double Star), the Hugo finalist Avatar and its upcoming sequels, The Village, Vamps, and Chappie. She has also provided voices for animated films including the Hugo-winning WALL-E, Happily N’Ever After, The Tale of Despereaux, and Finding Dory.
  • Born October 8, 1949 – Richard Hescox, 69, Artist and Illustrator who, between the years of 1976 and 1993, illustrated over 135 covers for genre books, but now works mostly in the games industry and for private commissions. He is also notable for producing advertising art for such movies as Escape from New York, Time Bandits, Swamp Thing, The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, and Conan the Barbarian. Some of his work has been gathered into two collections, The Fantasy Art of Richard Hescox and The Deceiving Eye: The Art of Richard Hescox, with text by Randy Dannenfelser. He has been nominated for a Chesley a half a dozen times, winning in 2003, named Artist Guest of Honor at numerous conventions, and received The Jack Gaughan Award for Best Emerging Artist in 1991.
  • Born October 8, 1956 – Stephanie Zimbalist, 62, Writer and Actor of Stage and Screen. While she is best known for the lead in the TV series Remington Steele, she has appeared in more than 60 stage plays and as many TV series, with her most notable genre appearances being the films Jericho Fever and a Saturn Award-nominated role in The Awakening, the film version of Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars. She appeared in the 2006 documentary Christa McAuliffe: Reach for the Stars, and also portrayed McAuliffe in the play Defying Gravity.
  • Born October 8, 1970 – Matt Damon, 48, Oscar-winning Writer, Actor, and Producer. His most famous genre roles involve having to be rescued in both the Hugo-winner The Martian and the Hugo finalist Interstellar. After starting his career with a role as an uncredited extra on the Hugo-nominated Field of Dreams, he later had parts in genre films The Adjustment Bureau (based on a Philip K. Dick story), The Brothers Grimm, Contagion, Elysium, The Zero Theorem, Downsizing, and he reprised his Dogma role playing Loki in a cameo in the Hugo-nominated Thor: Ragnarok.
  • Born October 8, 1979 – Kristanna Loken, 39, Actor and Producer, known to genre fans as the cyborg Terminatrix from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Her other genre appearances include the films Bloodrayne and In the Name of the King, and the TV series Mortal Kombat: Conquest and Painkiller Jane.

(12) HERBERT DAY. Steven H Silver finds a story to celebrate in a 1971 Analog – “Birthday Reviews: Frank Herbert’s ‘By the Book’” at Black Gate.

Originally published by John W. Campbell, Jr. in the October 1966 issue of Analog Science Fiction Science Fact, “By the Book” was reprinted in 1971 in The Worlds of Frank Herbert and again in The Best of Frank Herbert. It was also included in the Herbert collections Eye and The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert. The story was translated into Croatian in 1978 for inclusion in the Yugoslavian magazine Sirius and into French in 1987 for the Hebert collection Champ Mental.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

(14) LOCAL TALENT. In LA on October 11 — “Dana Gould – A reading of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space”. Here’s some names you don’t see all the time anymore.

Dana Gould presents A Live, Stage Reading of EdWood’s… Plan 9 from Outer Space

w/ Bobcat Goldthwait, David Koechner, Janet Varney , Laraine Newman, Kevin MacDonald, Dana Gould, Matt Braunger, Rob Zabrecky, Ron Lynch, Nate Mooney, DeborahBaker, Jr., Ken Daly, G CharlesWright, w/ Eban Schletter and other surprises!

(15) DADDY DATA? Variety reports — “TNT Orders Ridley Scott-Produced Sci-Fi Drama ‘Raised by Wolves’”.

TNT has given a straight-to-series order to a sci-fi drama project that hails from executive producer Ridley Scott.

Titled “Raised by Wolves,” the series centers on two androids tasked with raising human children on a mysterious virgin planet. As the burgeoning colony of humans threatens to be torn apart by religious differences, the androids learn that controlling the beliefs of humans is a treacherous and difficult task….

(16) SECOND NOVEL. Adri Joy has been looking forward to the continuation of this series – see “Microreview [Book]: The Phoenix Empress by K. Arsenault Rivera” at Nerds of a Feather.

…The Phoenix Empress pick up almost exactly where its predecessor leaves off, and while the “present” takes up more of the narrative in this volume, there’s still a substantial story-within-a-story as Shizuka fills Shefali in on the events that led to her becoming empress, not to mention developing an alcohol addiction and a severe phobia of water. Shefali has returned from her own travels even more changed, following events in that have led to her being contaminated by black blood but not succumbing to the usual progress of the illness, and now expects to die on her next birthday in four months’ time. A great deal of the book is therefore based on learning each others’ secrets and renewing their relationship, as well as working out what the wider implications of Shefali’s return are for the future of Hokkaro and the black- blood plague.

I suspect that the unusual structure of these novels is playing an important trope-subverting role as well as being a narrative choice….

(17) AGE BEFORE BEAUTY. Apparently D.B. Jackson couldn’t resist the challenge – at Whatever, “The Big Idea: D.B. Jackson”.

Anyone who has written a time travel novel knows that they can send an author ‘round the bend. Time travel is a plotting nightmare. It creates narrative holes big enough to accommodate a truck. It acts as a virtual eraser, a do-over generator, a distributor of endless mulligans. Even the most sound, well-considered plot point can be undermined by the simple question, “Well, why can’t one of our characters go back and prevent this?” Hermione Granger’s ill-advised flirtation with Time-Turners is just the tip of the iceberg. Time travel will make an author’s brain explode.

So, naturally, I have just published the first novel in a new time travel/epic fantasy series.

(18) PALACE INTRIGUE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Various sources are reporting that the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) has announced an intent to deorbit their Tiangong-2 (Celestial Palace 2) space laboratory during or after July 2019. You may recall that Tiangong-1 deorbited in an uncontrolled manner (though the Chinese claim otherwise) earlier this year. Fortunately,  the bits of Tiangong-1 that didn’t burn up on reentry happened to hit an unoccupied part of the Pacific Ocean. The plan for Tiangong-2 is to deliberately aim for such a spot.

Neither of the Celestial Palaces were intended to be permanent space stations, though China is planning a modular space station of a more permanent nature. Mooted dates for launching the various parts of that are currently 2020–2023.

(19) GOTHAM’S FIFTH. The trailer for the last season of Fox’s Gotham was played at the New York Comic Con.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jZy85qOWLc

(20) THE LAST GYRO. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] NASA has confirmed, via Twitter, that the Hubble Space Telescope has been put into “safe mode” following the failure of one of its gyroscopes (Space.com: “Hubble Space Telescope in ‘Safe Mode’ After Gyroscope Failure”). This leaves the iconic telescope with only two gyros operating, not enough to “ensure optimal efficiency” per the Hubble website. All six gyroscopes were last replaced during Servicing Mission 4 when Shuttle Atlantis visited in 2009 during mission STS-125. With the Shuttle fleet long retired now, further servicing is not an option.

Dr. Rachel Osten, Hubble Deputy Mission Head, has tweeted that the “[f]irst step is try to bring back the last gyro, which had been off, and is being problematic.” If that fails, there was quick speculation that a change in operational mode may emerge, Dr. Grant Tremblay, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tweeted:

*IF* the third [gyroscope] doesn’t spin back up, I wouldn’t be surprised if they drop to 1 gyro mode, keeping the second as reserve. @rachelosten might know, but I imagine it’s a stressful, difficult decision. Let’s just hope the brilliant people at @STScI can recover the third. Stress.

That plan was confirmed shortly after, when Dr Osten replied:

It’s not a difficult decision, @astrogrant: the plan has always been to drop to 1-gyro mode when two remain. There isn’t much difference between 2- and 1, and it buys lots of extra observing time. Which the Astro community wants desperately.

In fact, the gyroscope that just failed lasted “about six months longer” than had been anticipated. This failure is one more confirmation that the Hubble is nearing the end of it’s life, though it is clearly still doing good science.

(21) RED HAT. Mlex says he’d wear one –

(22) STYLE POINTS IF YOU STICK THE LANDING. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] There’s video of the first Vandenberg landing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 on The Verge (“SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on the California coast for the first time”). The video includes launch, side-by-side views of the second stage burn and the first stage return to Vandenberg, and more. If you want to skip ahead to the final landing  burn, that starts just after the 29 minute mark of the video when the stage is still over 4 km in altitude. This is a night landing, so the burns are spectacular, but overall visibility is limited. The split screen for the last few moments of the landing has video from the side of the stage (looking down) and from a ground camera viewing from a safe distance.

(23) EPISODE RECAP. Martin Morse Wooster says, “My local public television station is showing the New Zealand series The Brokenwood Mysteries.  Last night they showed an episode which appeared in the show’s third season and was broadcast in New Zealand in 2016.” —

The premise is that a sleazy tour operator is offering “Lord of the Ringz” tours to the Brokenwood forest for Chinese tourists.  They’re shown a crappy matte painting of mountains.  Guys with pointy ears do some swordplay. The climax of the tour is when a giant plush toy spider descends on a woman wrapped up in spider webbing–but the unplanned but is that the woman is dead, and the detectives then find out who killed her.

A German guy complains that he isn’t seeing anything from The Lord of the Rings, and is told, “Oh, in New Zealand we spell things creatively.”  In another scene, a lawyer explains that as long as the customers aren’t told they’re seeing things from The Lord of the Rings–and every sign, for some reason, isn’t spelled correctly!–then it’s legal.  “We could be showing scenes from some direct-to DVD film,” he said.

I hope this lawyer never deals with the Tolkien estate…

(24) SHADOW OF VADER. Chuck Wendig will write a five-issue miniseries for Marvel Star Wars:

Chuck Wendig on Darth Vader and his newly-announced series, Shadow of Vader: “Vader is a character with a long shadow, literally and figuratively. His legacy is deep and unpleasant.” The world will not be bereft of Darth Vader in their comics for long, as Wendig announced that he will be writing a miniseries called Shadow of Vader, beginning in November. Each issue will feature a different set of characters: Issue #1 is a Friday the 13th homage, with Vader hunting down kids at summer camp; issue #2 stars the one-and-only Willrow Hood; issue #3 centers on a morgue attendant on the Death Star; issue #4 diverges to focus on the Acolytes of the Beyond; issue #5 follows a New Republic pilot — whose parents were killed by Vader — who joins the Resistance only to learn that Leia’s father is the Sith Lord.

(25) AMERICAN GODS TRAILER. The second season of American Gods is on the way.

A storm is coming. American Gods returns to STARZ in 2019. Starring Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane, Yetide Badaki, Orlando Jones, Omid Abtahi, Mousa Kraish, and more.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EJEa9aW5PQ

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Andrew Porter, Carl Slaughter, John King Tarpinian, Bill, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 5/24/17 Hives And Filers Were Spawned To be Released

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(1) COLLATERAL DAMAGE. This week’s terrorist bombing in the U.K. has quashed Wonder Woman’s London premiere.

Warner Bros. has canceled its Wonder Woman premiere in London, following Monday’s terrorist attack following an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena.

“Our thoughts are with those affected by the recent tragedy in the U.K.,” the studio said in a statement. “In light of the current situation, we will not be proceeding with our plans for the Wonder Woman premiere and junket activities in London.”

The red carpet event had been scheduled for May 31…

(2) STAR POWER AHEAD. Vanity Fair’s “Cover Story: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Definitive Preview” includes great cast photos.

The first trip to Skellig Michael was wondrous: an hour-long boat ride to a craggy, green island off the coast of Ireland’s County Kerry, and then a hike up hundreds of stone steps to a scenic cliff where, a thousand years earlier, medieval Christian monks had paced and prayed. This is where Mark Hamill reprised his role as Luke Skywalker for the first time since 1983, standing opposite Daisy Ridley, whose character, Rey, was the protagonist of The Force Awakens, J. J. Abrams’s resumption of George Lucas’s Star Wars movie saga….

“When I read the script for Episode VIII, I went, “Oh my God, we’re going back?’ Because I said I was never going back,” Hamill told me when I sat down with him recently at his home in Malibu. He wondered, in vain, if they could drop him in by chopper this time, “which is so clueless of me, because there’s no landing pad, and it would mar the beauty of it all,” he said. Hamill is a youthful 65 but a sexagenarian nevertheless; whereas the fit young members of the crew were given 45 minutes to get up to the now iconic Rey-Luke meeting spot — carrying heavy equipment — Hamill was allotted an hour and a half, “and I had to stop every 10, 15 minutes to rest.”

None of this was offered up in the form of complaint. Hamill just happens to be a rambling, expansive talker — in his own way, as endearingly offbeat a character as his friend and on-screen twin sister, Carrie Fisher, who passed away suddenly and tragically last December. Like Fisher, Hamill was put on a diet-and-exercise regimen after he was reconscripted into the Star Wars franchise. (Harrison Ford was under less obligation, having retained his leading-man shape because he never stopped being a leading man.) Over a spartan snack plate of carrot sticks and hummus, the man behind Luke held forth at length on this subject.

(3)WHY HE USES THE OXFORD COMMIE. James Davis Nicoll wants your suggestions for book to review in his new series Reds Under the Bed.

Subversives! They lurk everywhere! They could be anyone, from the kindly couple next door to the innocent seeming nuclear researcher mailing thick bundles to Moscow every week, from your child’s teacher to the President himself! Even you could be an unsuspecting brainwashed puppet of the enemy!

There have been many noteworthy works about the hidden enemy. Some were even readable. Many will be reviewed.

(4) A TIE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR. Love this art — and shouldn’t they be able to make a tie that actually animates the way it does in the ad? Think how many of those they could sell this Father’s Day. “Coffee & Donuts DIY Coloring Book Tie”.

Colorfully formal

The fun part about getting a tie that you can color is that you can choose how formal you get to be. Casual Friday? Draw some some chocolate sprinkles on those donuts. Wearing a tux? We mean, you could just color the whole thing black – we aren’t stopping you. Although, we wouldn’t say drawing a vibrant rainbow donut is a bad idea either. Hint hint. Color in your perfect neck-wear with the Coffee & Donuts DIY Coloring Book Tie. Get those creativity wheels turning for you to unleash on the world. The only thing we don’t encourage is spilling actual coffee on it. Save the impressionist art for another day.

(5) OLD FAVES. At Tor.com Natalie Zutter explains “Why I Stopped Reading The Queen’s Thief Series”. The answer is surprisingly simple.

My best friend handed me Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief probably shortly after its publication in 1996, at a point where we had read through all of Tamora Pierce’s then-current body of work and were slowly going mad waiting for the next installment. The Thief was the logical recommendation for a next read: Gen was small and sassy like Alanna, stubbornly self-reliant even when the gods decided to take an interest in his business, and as creative an interpretation of the thief archetype as Alanna is with knighthood. It was also, I think, the first fantasy novel that actually bowled me over with its twist. The stuff I had read before then — ”The Song of the Lioness, The Blue Sword, etc. — kept me enthralled simply exploring every inch of their lush worlds, but The Thief set up expectations and then swiftly subverted them.

It was such a perfect standalone novel that I remember initially being leery of the sequel. But then 2000’s The Queen of Attolia, true to the brutal ruler after which it’s named, upped the ante with a devastating act of violence early on that forever alters Gen’s identity. Suddenly, instead of a thief or trickster he is neither, simply a beloved protagonist coping with the unimaginable. By the end of the book, our worldview — both as readers and as participants in the ongoing conflict among Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia — has radically shifted. So why didn’t I continue on with The King of Attolia, published in 2006? For one, I didn’t even know that a third installment existed. Around that time, I met new fantasy heroines in Rani Trader (from Mindy Klasky’s The Glasswrights’ Apprentice) and Mel Astiar (from Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel) and forgot all about Gen.

But twenty years after I read The Thief, Turner’s series has stolen my attention back….

(6) HELP BAEN DESIGN CHALLENGE COINS. Baen Books is calling on their fans for suggestions about a planned set of souvenir coins.

Challenge coins, which began as a military tradition, have become a widely recognized way of showing membership and boosting morale. Collectors have spent thousands of dollars tracking down coins but now you can get a full set of Baen coins for free!

We’ve commissioned artist Jack Wylder (of Monster Hunter Nation fame) to design a set of 12 Baen Challenge Coins, and we’d like your input on designs! What do you think should go on coins representing the following four series?

Tom Kratman’s Carreraverse

John Ringo’s Posleen Wars

Travis S. Taylor’s Tau Ceti Agenda

Michael Z. Williamson’s Freehold

Please email your design ideas to PR@baen.com with “Baen Challenge Coin Design”in the subject line. Submissions must be in by Memorial Day (May 29th). If your design is selected, you will win a free coin when they’re minted, so be sure to include a mailing address in your idea submissions. The winning design across all four series (as voted on by the Baen team and our authors) will receive a full set of all 12 coins–and the exclusive Baen bonus coin! We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

(7) WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COMIC? NPR has opened the digital voting booths — “It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane … It’s Our Comics And Graphic Novels Reader Poll!”

Here at NPR headquarters in DC, MARVELous IMAGEs and FANTAstic GRAPHICS are dancing in our heads as we contemplate this year’s edition of our famous Summer Reader Poll — who will make the cut? Will it be packed with old favorites or BOOM! Will a DARK HORSE muscle in?

Oh god, we can’t keep this up anymore. Let’s just come right out and say it: This summer, we’re celebrating comics and graphic novels, and we need your help! Whether it’s a dogeared childhood treasure, the latest Eisner award winner or the webcomic you binge-read last week, tell us about it using the form on this page.

Based on what you tell us, our expert panel of comics creators, reviewers — and geeks — will curate a final list of 100 favorite comics…

(8) HIGHLY SPECIALIZED. Enjoy Atlas Obscura’s “Ultimate List of Wonderfully Specific Museums”. Cat Eldridge sends the link with a note: “There is here in this city a museum devoted to umbrella covers. And of course we have the world famous International Cryptozoological Museum…”

A lot of them seem really interesting, despite a few doubtful-sounding entries like The Museum of Celebrity Leftovers…

(9) WORLD FANTASY CON MEMBERSHIPS TO RISE. World Fantasy 2017 will be held in San Antonio, Texas from November 2-5.

WFC2017 attending membership rates will be go up on June 1 to $275. Supporting memberships will remain at $50. Currently attending memberships are $225 and have been held at this rate for over 6 months. Memberships are available for immediate purchase at various conventions, online at http://www.wfc2017.org, and by postal mail. Attending memberships will be transferable until either September 1, 2017, or when 850 memberships are sold, whichever comes first.

The guests of honor of World Fantasy 2017 are David Mitchell, Karen Joy Fowler, Greg Manchess, and Gordon Van Gelder, with Martha Wells as the Toastmaster.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • May 24, 1985 — H.P. Lovecraft’s classic tale comes to the big screen in Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator, first seen on this day.
  • May 24, 2003 — Crop circle discovered in Haysville, Kansas.

(11) SHUT UP AND DEAL. The Spinoff invites us to follow along: “Let’s play — Legendary: the Marvel Deck Building Game”.

…There will be Marvel-themed poetry slams by 2020. Until then, Marvel Legendary is here to perform a hostile takeover in the board game scene — and it’s eerily addictive. My board game dealer, Douglas Moore, opened up his trench coat and gave me a free hit.

As you are my guest, dear Liam, I’ll let you pick the heroes we will play with. Given the three sets I have crammed in here, I should be able to pick them ou-

I like Dr. Strange. Can I be Dr. Strange?

*sigh* OK, I don’t have Dr Strange. He’s from the Secret Wars Expansion… I think. Try again.

Can I be Wolverine?

Will that be X-Men Wolverine or X-Force Wolverine?

Oooooh, X-force please!

So what I have here are the hero cards for just one hero. We need to shuffle them in with four others to form the hero deck we will be recruiting from.

…can I choose Nightcrawler?

Yes, ya can.

…and Storm? …and Spider-Man? …and Groot?

Yes, yes, and yeeesssssss. I’ll go ahead and set up the rest of the game….

(12) ALIEN TOUCH. GeekTyrant says “Ridley Scott Working on a Sci-Fi Series Lineup for TNT”.

With the release of Alien: Covenant this past weekend comes news that the movie’s director, Ridley Scott, is developing a Science Fiction block of programming for the cable network TNT. Scott will develop one night of original sci-fi programming that will showcase several formats including an hour long series, short form programs and other formats in collaboration with TNT.

(13) JEOPARDY. An answer from last night’s Jeopardy!

The correct question is what is Andy Weir’s book, The Martian?

(14) A LATE-HATCHING EASTER EGG. PopSugar has been hitting the books: “Here’s Another Harry Potter Detail We Can’t Believe We Never Noticed Before”.

J.K. Rowling always surprises us with the amount of detail she poured into Harry Potter, and it feels like every day we learn something new about the series. Reddit user SunshineallDay’s fan theory provides more evidence of how much Rowling hid in her books.

It might be hard to catch when you’re first reading, but look a little closer and you’ll see it. The fun Easter egg shows how Hermione’s character learned Wizard Baruffio wasn’t the most intelligent in The Sorcerer’s Stone from Professor Flitwick. Later in The Order of the Phoenix, Harry and Ron are tempted to drink Baruffio’s Brain Elixir before their O.W.L.s, but Hermione clearly recalls their lesson and pours the drink down the toilet. An image from the books highlighting these two passages is below….

(15) THIS FELL OUT OF THE WRINKLE IN TIME. An item old enough to be new. Cynthia Zarin’s 2004 New Yorker profile about Madeleine L’Engle, “The Storyteller”.

I once asked L’Engle to define “science fiction.”She replied, “Isn’t everything?”On another occasion, in the vast, sunny apartment in a building on West End Avenue where she has lived since 1960, and where she and her late husband, the actor Hugh Franklin, brought up their three children, she offered an example. “I was standing right there, carrying a plate of cold cuts,”she said, pointing at a swinging door between the dining room and the pantry. “And I swooped into the pantry, bang, and got a black eye. It was exactly as if someone pushed me.”At eighty-five, L’Engle is a formidable figure. She is five feet nine in her stocking feet, and uses a wheelchair owing to a broken hip. She has a birdlike head, a sharp nose, and an air of helpless innocence that is almost entirely put on. She wore a loose-fitting dress in one of her favorite colors, peacock blue. “Most likely,”she continued firmly, “it was a poltergeist. There must have been a teen-age girl in the house. All that energy! They create the best atmosphere for them, you know. We don’t know how to catch and harness it.”She nodded. “Too true of most things.”

(16) INCONCEIVABLE! Aussiecon II guest of honor Gene Wolfe, joking about his out-of-print books, said that the difference between a fanzine editor and a professional publisher is that if a faned sells all the copies of his fanzine, he’ll print more.

— So can this Marvel Comics news item really be true?

An alliance for the ages — Amadeus Cho joining forces with Old Man Logan, Sabretooth, Domino, Warpath, and Lady Deathstrike to battle the new Weapon X. Now, this Hulk-sized team-up is about to get even bigger, as Marvel is pleased to announce that TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #19 has sold out and will immediately return for a second printing.

A mysterious new director of the Weapon X program is creating soldiers who threaten the lives of some of the most powerful and deadly heroes the Marvel Universe has ever seen. But the man behind the curtain has now set his sights on a new target: the fearless, gamma-imbued Amadeus Cho. What will become of the Hulk when he is forced to partner with some of Marvel’s deadliest killers and hunters? One thing is for sure — this is a story not to be missed!

(17) WORDS FROM A MASTER. Fantasy-Faction scored an interview with Bernard Cornwell.

  1. SEAN BEAN AND SHARPE

FF: Sean Bean is renowned for his repeated and progressively messier mortality on both the large and the small screen.

Surely this means there is one book at least still to write: “Sharpe’s Death“?

BC: There is another Sharpe book to be written, maybe more than one, but none of them will be called Sharpe’s Death!

He’s immortal.

(18) SUMMER IS COMING. Another season of Game of Thrones begins July 16.

[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Phil Nichols, Cat Eldridge, Mark-kitteh, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]

Pixel Scroll 5/8/17 I Saw A Pixel Filing Through the Streets of Soho With A Chinese Menu In Its Scroll.

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(1) IT HAD TO BE SNAKES. James Davis Nicoll gives the Young People Read Old SFF panel Vonda McIntyre’s “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”.

The second last entry in Phase I of Young People Read Old SFF is Vonda N. McIntyre’s 1973 Nebula award-winning “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”, later expanded into the Hugo winning novel, Dreamsnake. I am pretty confident the double win is a good sign, and that McIntyre is modern enough in her sensibilities to appeal to my Young People.

Mind you, I’ve been wrong on that last point before….

(2) GENRE BENDER. Jeff Somers praises Gregory Benford’s new book at B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog: “Gregory Benford’s The Berlin Project Gives Science and History a Thrilling Twist”.

The lines between book genres can get a blurry as authors push against boundaries, trying to do something new with a story. Sometimes the result is a novel that incorporates the best parts of several genres, creating a category all its own. Gregory Benford’s The Berlin Project is one of those books—equal parts alternate history, spy thriller, history lesson, and physics textbook, it’s one of the smartest, most entertaining sci-fi novels of the year.

(3) EXPANSE. Aaron Pound’s review of Caliban’s War is online at Dreaming About Other Worlds.

Full review: Caliban’s War continues the story started in Leviathan Wakes, with James Holden returning along with the rest of the crew of the Rocicante to deal with yet another interplanetary crisis. They are joined by new characters who replace the missing Detective Miller as view point characters – the tough Martian marine Bobbie, the naive Ganymedean botanist Prax, and the calculating and shrewd U.N. official Avasarala, all of whom must navigate the crisis caused by the raw tensions between the governments of Earth, Mars, and the Belt. Against the backdrop of this raging internecine human conflict, the mysterious alien protomolecule carries out its enigmatic programming on the surface of Venus, sitting in the back of everyone’s mind like a puzzle they cannot understand and an itch they cannot scratch.

(4) ZENO’S PARADOX. You can’t get to the Moon, because first you have to…. “So You Want to Launch a Rocket? The FAA is Here for You by Laura Montgomery”, a guest post at According To Hoyt.

Do you want to put people on your rocket?  There are legal requirements for that, too. There are three types of people you might take to space or on a suborbital jaunt:  space flight participants, crew, and government astronauts. The FAA isn’t allowed to regulate how you design or operate your rocket to protect the people on board until 2023, unless there has been a death, serious injury, or a close call.  Because the crew are part of the flight safety system, the FAA determined it could have regulations in place to protect the crew.  That those requirements might also protect space flight participants is purely a coincidence.   However, just because the FAA can’t tell you what to do to protect the space flight participants doesn’t mean you are out of its clutches.  You have to provide the crew and space flight participants, but not the government astronauts because they already know how dangerous this is, informed consent in writing.  You have to tell them the safety record of your vehicle and others like it, that the government has not certified it as safe, and that they could be hurt or die.

(5) NEWS TO ME. Did you know that Terrapin Beer’s Blood Orange IPA is “the official beer of the zombie apocalypse?”

It is an official tie-in beer with The Walking Dead and has a cool blood red label with a turtle on it!

(6) NEWS TO SOMEONE ELSE. Daniel Dern sent me a non-spoiler review of Suicide Squad when I was in the hospital last August. I didn’t notice it again until today. Sorry Daniel!

(“Non-spoiler” as in, assumes you have seen some or all of the three trailers, particularly trailer #2, done to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”…)

I enjoyed it enough. Hey, it’s a comics-based movie.

I’ve skimmed some reviews listing the flaws in S/S. Probably mostly correct, but arguably BFD.

The good: it didn’t thematically overreach or overbrood, unlike (cough) BvS (which I liked enough, but accept that it had big problems). A lot of good lines (you’ll see many/most in the trailers), good action, etc. A little (but not too much) Batman.

The big challenges S/S faced IMHO:

– DEADPOOL has set/upped the ante and standard for humor/violent comic-based live-action movies. Particularly the BluRay version of Deadpool, which is what I saw. And before that, lots of Guardians of the Galaxy bits.

– S/S’ Trailer # 2. I would have been happy/er with a shorter, even 12-minute, video not bothering with plot, just lovely musical jump cuts and snappy lines.

– Is it just me, or did S/S seem to do the “who’s who” twice, and not really bring in the antagonist (“big bad(s)”) for an astonishingly long time?

– This is an A-level plan? I mean, Captain Boomerang? Having seen Ghostbusters a week earlier, I would have considered sending that team in instead, in this case.

On the other hand, at least it wasn’t Manhattan that got trashed this time.

I can see how if you aren’t a superhero comic fan you’d find this less satisfying. Granted, I’m still happy-enough when it simply looks reasonable, doesn’t insult continuity gratuitously, and doesn’t try to go all philoso-metaphysical on us.

Recommended enough, particularly if you can get a bargain ticket price…

(7) TV LIFE AND DEATH. Cat Eldridge says Adweek’s “A Guide to 2017’s Broadcast TV Renewals and Cancellations” “on who stays and who gets the ax is fascinating as regards genre shows.”

The renewal is pretty much everyone save Sleepy Hollow, Grimm, Frequency, and possibly iZombie and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The Arrowverse of course was kept intact.

If you’ve not watched the second season of Legends, do so as its far entertaining than the first season was.

(8) O’HARA OBIT. Quinn O’Hara (1941-2017), a Scottish-born actress who starred in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, died May 5. The Hollywood Reporter elaborated:

In The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), from American International Pictures, O’Hara played Sinistra, the nearsighted daughter of greedy lawyer Reginald Ripper (Basil Rathbone); both were out to terrorize teens at a pool party held at a creepy mansion. She also sang “Don’t Try to Fight It” and danced around a suit of armor in the horror comedy.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • May 8, 1886 — Coca-Cola went on sale.

(10) THE SAME OLD FINAL FRONTIER. Tom Scott explains “Why Sci-Fi Alien Planets Look The Same: Hollywood’s Thirty-Mile Zone.”

There’s a reason that a lot of planets in American science fiction look the same: they’re all filmed in the same places. But why those particular locations? It’s about money, about union rules, and about the thirty-mile zone — or as it’s otherwise known, the TMZ.

 

(11) MEMORIAL NIGHT. See Poe performed in a Philadelphia graveyard, May 18-20.

As the sun sets over the cemetery’s historic tombs, The Mechanical Theater will bring some of Edgar Allan Poe’s most haunting tales to life in this original production, directed by Loretta Vasile and featuring Connor Behm, Neena Boyle, Nathan Dawley, Tamara Eldridge and Nathan Landis Funk.

Two young men hide out in the shadows of Laurel Hill Cemetery while hosting a secret on-line auction. The clock is ticking as they try to sell a priceless, stolen object known only as The Anathema. When the antique expert finally arrives to verify the object’s authenticity, he shares with them some of The Anathema’s dark history as well as rumors of its power. But as the night goes on, one of the thieves starts to suspect these stories are far more than legend. This anthology piece will include Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop-frog,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Pit and The Pendulum.”  Written and directed by Loretta Vasile.  Starring Connor Behm, Neena Boyle, Nathan Dawley, Tamara Eldridge and Nathan Landis Funk.

(12) BIG ANSWERS. Coming June 5 on the UCSD campus: “Sir Roger Penrose: Fashion, Faith and Fantasy and the Big Questions in Modern Physics”.

Sir Roger Penrose

The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination presents an evening with Sir Roger Penrose, the celebrated English mathematician and physicist as well as author of numerous books, including The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. The talk is titled “Fashion, Faith and Fantasy and the Big Questions in Modern Physics.” A book signing will follow.

Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Professor at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, winner of the Copley Medal and the Wolf Prize in Physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking, has made profound contributions encompassing geometry, black hole singularities, the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity, the structure of space-time, nature of consciousness and the origin of our Universe. His geometric creations, developed with his father Lionel, inspired the works of MC Escher, and the Penrose Steps have been featured in several movies. His tilings adorn many public buildings, including the Oxford Mathematics Institute and will soon decorate the San Francisco Transit Terminal. Their five fold symmetry, which was initially thought impossible or a mathematical curiosity, has now been found in nature. In 1989 Penrose wrote The Emperor’s New Mind which challenged the premise that consciousness is computation and proposed new physics to understand it.

(13) DEARTH WARMED OVER. Trailers are supposed to sell people on a movie. But here’s a pre-dissatisfied customer.

https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/861686295101407233

On the other hand, a cast list on IMDB includes three Hispanics and a black actor born in England

(14) DIALING FOR NO DOLLARS. Vote on how Jim C. Hines should spend his time. Well, within certain limits, anyway.

(15) SPLASH. Most SF writers didn’t think about the waste heat of monster computers:” Google Moves In And Wants To Pump 1.5 Million Gallons Of Water Per Day”.

“We’ve invested a lot in making sure the groundwater quality that we treat and send to the customers is of high quality. We also want to protect the quantity side of that,” Duffie said.

In addition to building several reverse osmosis plants to treat the water, Duffie said the community has spent about $50 million since the mid-1990s to install pipelines and purchase surface water from the Charleston Water System to supplement the water being pumped from underground.

Google currently has the right to pump up to half a million gallons a day at no charge. Now the company is asking to triple that, to 1.5 million. That’s close to half of the groundwater that Mount Pleasant Waterworks pumps daily from the same underground aquifer to help supply drinking water to more than 80,000 residents of the area.

(16) WHITE NOISE. On the other hand, sff authors are wellaware of the high noise levels from widespread communication: “Facebook – the secret election weapon”.

A quarter of the world’s population now use Facebook, including 32 million people in the UK. Many use Facebook to stay in touch with family and friends and are unaware that it has become an important political player.

For example, the videos that appear in people’s news feeds can be promoted by political parties and campaigners.

The far-right group, Britain First, has told Panorama how it paid Facebook to repeatedly promote its videos. It now has more than 1.6 million Facebook followers.

(17) AUDIO KILLED THE MUSIC HALL STAR. Edison probably never realized he was killing off the mid-level performer: “Superstar economics: How the gramophone changed everything”

In Elizabeth Billington’s day, many half-decent singers made a living performing in music halls.

After all, Billington herself could sing in only one hall at a time.

But when you can listen to the best performers in the world at home, why pay to hear a merely competent act in person?

Thomas Edison’s phonograph led the way towards a winner-take-all dynamic in the performing industry.

The top performers went from earning like Mrs Billington to earning like Elton John.

But the only-slightly-less good went from making a comfortable living to struggling to pay their bills: small gaps in quality became vast gaps in income.

(18) BANAL HORROR. In other news: the BBC slags Alien: Covenant but still gives it 3 stars: “Film Review: Is Alien: Covenant as good as the original?”

Given that he is now 79, and so he doesn’t have many directing years left, you have to ask whether it’s really the most stimulating use of [Ridley] Scott’s time and talents to churn out yet another inferior copy of a horror masterpiece that debuted nearly four decades ago. He certainly doesn’t seem to be interested in recapturing the scruffy naturalism, the restraint, or the slow-burning tension which turned the first film into an unforgettable classic.

Much of Alien: Covenant is simply a humdrum retread of Alien. Once again, there is a spaceship with a cryogenically frozen crew – a colony ship this time. Once again the crew members are woken from their hypersleep, once again they pick up a mysterious radio transmission, once again they land on an Earth-like world, and once again they discover some severely rotten eggs.

(19) FOLLOW THE MONEY. Pascal Lee, Director of the Mars Institute, talks to Money magazine about the expense of going to Mars: “Here’s How Much It Would Cost to Travel to Mars”

At this point, what would it cost to send someone to Mars?

Pascal Lee: The Apollo lunar landing program cost $24 billion in 1960s dollars over 10 years. That means NASA set aside 4 percent of U.S. GDP to do Apollo. To put things in perspective, we also spent $24 billion per year at the Defense Department during the Vietnam War. So basically, going to the moon with funding spread over 10 years cost the same to run the Department of Defense for one year in wartime.

Now, 50 years, later, today’s NASA budget is $19 billion a year; that’s only 0.3 percent of GDP, so that’s less than 10 times less than what it was in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense gets $400 billion a year. So the number I find believable, and this is somewhat a matter of opinion, a ballpark figure, doing a human mission to Mars “the government way” could not cost less than $400 billion. And that was going to the moon. This is going to Mars, so you multiply that by a factor of 2 or 3 in terms of complexity, you’re talking about $1 trillion, spread over the course of the next 25 years.

(20) TOP TEN FELLOW WRITERS HELPED BY HEINLEIN, AND WHY: Compiled by Paul Di Filippo. None of these facts have been checked by File 770’s crack research staff.

10) A. E. van Vogt, needed money to open a poutine franchise.

9) Barry Malzberg, stuck at Saratoga racetrack with no funds to get home.

8) Gordon Dickson, wanted to invest in a distillery.

7) Keith Laumer, wanted to erect barbed wire fence around home.

6) Damon Knight, wanted to enroll in Famous Artists School.

5) Anne McCaffrey, ran out of Mane ‘n’ Tail horse shampoo during Irish shortage.

4) Joanna Russ, needed advice on best style of men’s skivvies.

3) Isaac Asimov, shared the secret file of John W. Campbell’s hot-button issues.

2) Arthur C. Clarke, tutored him in American big band music.

1) L. Ron Hubbard, helped perform ritual to open Seventh Seal of Revelation.

(21) SJW CREDENTIAL ENTRYIST INVASION. The Portland Press Herald is aghast: “Cats at the Westminster dog show?”

Dogs from petite papillons to muscular Rottweilers showed off their four-footed agility Saturday at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, tackling obstacles from hurdles to tunnels. And next door, so did some decidedly rare breeds for the Westminster world:

Cats.

For the first time, felines sidled up to the nation’s premier dog show, as part of an informational companion event showcasing various breeds of both species. It included a cat agility demonstration contest, while more than 300 of the nation’s top agility dogs vied in a more formal competition.

It didn’t exactly mean there were cats in the 140-year-old dog show, but it came close enough to prompt some “what?!” and waggish alarm about a breakdown in the animal social order

(22) POOH ON THE RANGE. Atlas Obscura explains the popularity of “Five Hundred Acre Wood” outside London.

Every year, more than a million people travel to Ashdown Forest to find the North Pole. Ashdown Forest is 40 miles south of , but they’re not crazy. In the forest they’ll find the Five Hundred Acre Wood, and somewhere in the Five Hundred Acre Wood is the place where Christopher Robin discovered the North Pole.

Five Hundred Acre Wood is the place that inspired the Hundred Acre Wood, the magical place in which a fictionalized version of A. A. Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, had adventures with Winnie the Pooh and friends.

In 1925, Milne bought a Cotchford Farm on the edge of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, and he brought his family there on weekends and for extended stays in the spring and summer. The next year, he published the first collection of stories about a bear that would become one of the most beloved characters in children’s literature, Winnie the Pooh, based on his son, his son’s toys, and the family’s explorations of the woods by their home.

The book’s illustrator, E. H. Shepard, was brought to Ashdown Forest to capture its essence and geography, and a plaque at Gill’s Lap (which became Galleon’s Leap in the Pooh stories) commemorates his collaboration with Milne and its importance to the forest. A pamphlet of “Pooh Walks” is available to visitors who want to visit places like Gill’s Lap, or Wrens Warren Valley (Eeyore’s Sad and Gloomy Place), the lone pine (where the Heffalump Trap was set), a disused quarry (Roo’s Sandy Pit), or, yes, the North Pole.

[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Daniel Dern for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kurt Busiek.]

Pixel Scroll 1/30/17 There Are Studies Underway To Fluoridate Pixels. Children’s Pixels!

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(1) CAPALDI MAKES IT OFFICIAL. Not unexpectedly, the Twelfth Doctor is leaving Doctor Who as new showrunner Chris Chibnall gets ready to take the reins.

“Doctor Who” star Peter Capaldi has announced he’ll step down from the role at the end of the year.

Capaldi has starred in the long-running sci-fi series as the titular Twelfth Doctor since 2013, following the departure of Matt Smith.

“One of the greatest privileges of being Doctor Who is to see the world at its best. From our brilliant crew and creative team working for the best broadcaster on the planet, to the viewers and fans whose endless creativity, generosity and inclusiveness points to a brighter future ahead,” Capaldi said in a statement. “I can’t thank everyone enough. It’s been cosmic.”

Capaldi will conclude his time as the Doctor with the 2017 Christmas special.

The actor’s departure will correspond with the exit of executive producer Steven Moffat, who previously announced his intention to leave his post.

(2) BURN OF THE DAY. J. K. Rowling knows how to deal with fantastical creatures, like frogs that tweet.

(3) DECOLONIZING SF. Strange Horizons has posted an Indigenous SF special issue.

It’s our second special of the month, and showcases fiction, poetry, and non-fiction by native and indigenous writers.

We have Drew Hayden Taylor’s story “Take Us To Your Chief” (from his collection of the same name); we have three poems apiece by poets Halee Kirkwood and Tanaya Winder; we have a round-table moderated by Rebecca Roanhorse; and of course reviews, including a double-feature look at Moana.

(4) THE HARP THAT ONCE OR TWICE. R. Graeme Cameron wrote a superlative column based on Walt Willis’ 1952 U.S. Trip report for Amazing Stories that combines his analysis with the old master’s storytelling.

Walt actually had a good time aboard ship. When asked what he did for a living he said he was a pulp fiction author going to America to pick up his earnings. The “Greenwich Village” pseudo-intellectuals on board coming back from bumming around Europe stood in awe of this creative type who actually earned money. Late in the voyage he was asked if anyone was meeting him in New York and he replied (more or less honestly) “Just a few fans.” This only increased his reputation. Sometimes fannish ploys work very well on Mundanes.

QUOTE

At last we docked, and hordes of officials swarmed on board … I had a whole stack of documents in an old Galaxy envelope and every time I came to an official I would shuffle them and deal him a hand. If I’d won I’d be allowed to go on to the next table, like a bridge tournament. I’d had some practice in this game already and at last I won the first prize, a clear view of the gangway. I found to my shocked surprise that suddenly there was absolutely nothing to stop me walking ashore. I promptly walked ashore.

Someone in a blue suit came up and shook my hand … It was Dave Kyle … Joe Gibson came along in a few seconds. After a few minutes chat the two revealed conspiratorially that Will Sykora and his henchman Calvin Thomas Beck were lurking outside to meet me. They suggested a cloak and dagger scheme by which they would go out and wait for me a couple of hundred yards outside the shed, while I strolled out by myself past Sykora and Beck, who wouldn’t recognise me.

I was thrilled. Nobody could have arranged a more fannish welcome. Not two minutes in the country and already I was up to my neck in New York fan feuds. However I temporized; I had nothing personally against Sykora … I had never been able to sort out New York fandom anyway … and I rather wanted to meet such a legendary figure. Besides, I knew Shelby had in his innocence asked Beck to meet me …

Outside, in the fresh clean smog of Hoboken … I had my first hamburger, closely followed by my second. As far as I was concerned, the food problem in America was now solved …

END QUOTE

(5) RECOMMENDATIONS. There are a bunch of sites whose Hugo picks I’m interested in hearing, and Nerds of a Feather is high on that list — “2017 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Award Longlist, Part 1: Fiction Categories”.

Given the vast number of Hugo categories, we’ve also made the decision to split the longlist up into multiple posts. Today we look at the fiction categories (Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette and Best Short Story). For fiction that is available free of charge, we’ve embedded a direct link to the story. For novels and works of short fiction that are not available for free, the embedded link redirects to a review.

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • January 30, 1933 — The Lone Ranger made its radio debut.

(7) GAME WRITING. “Guest Post: On Representation in RPGs, from Monica Valentinelli” on Jim C. Hines’ blog.

Why does representation in RPGs matter? The answer is simple: players play games so they can be the hero in their own stories. The characters they choose (or build) allow players to perform heroic acts with their group, and they’re crucial to a player’s ability to have fun. There’s even a joke told about this at conventions. What’s the best way to get a player excited to talk about their game? Ask them about their beloved character!

Characters are important, and I feel it’s a game designer’s job to acknowledge different styles of play to offer a broad range for players to choose from; the other side of that coin, however, is to remember that players also possess different identities. In order to consider both in the games we make, developers, designers, writers, and artists address inclusivity through the lens of representation.

(8) MOVIN’ ON. I had forgotten that James Cameron did Aliens, but that explains why someone asked his opinion about Ridley Scott’s upcoming trilogy that begins with Alien: Covenant – “James Cameron On The ‘Alien’ Franchise: ‘I Don’t Think It’s Worked Out Terribly Well. I Think We’ve Moved On’” at ScienceFiction.com.

“The franchise has kind of wandered all over the map. Ridley [Scott] did the first film, and he inspired an entire generation of filmmakers and science-fiction fans with that one movie and there have been so many films that stylistically have derived from it, including my own Aliens, which was the legitimate sequel and, I think, the proper heir to his film. I sort of did it as a fanboy. I wanted to honor his film, but also say what I needed to say. After that, I don’t take any responsibility.

I don’t think it’s worked out terribly well. I think we’ve moved on beyond it. It’s like, okay, we’ve got it, we’ve got the whole Freudian biomechanoid meme. I’ve seen it in 100 horror films since. I think both of those films stand at a certain point in time, as a reference point. But is there any validity to doing another one now? I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s see, jury’s out. Let’s see what Ridley comes up with. Let me just add to that — and don’t cut this part off, please — I will stand in line for any Ridley Scott movie, even a not-so-great one, because he is such an artist, he’s such a filmmaker. I always learn from him.

(9) CASSINI ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. Dr. Linda Spilker, Cassini Project Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was recently interviewed by Starship Sofa, appeared on Cassini’s Ring-Grazing Orbits Facebook Live today. You can view the half-hour video recording at the link.

NASA’s Cassini Mission to Saturn Project Scientist Linda Spilker and mission planner Molly Bittner are taking questions about these exciting orbits, the closest look ever at Saturn’s moons and ring particles — what we’ve learned so far and what we can expect to see as they continue.

(10) OPEN THE PILL BAY DOORS HAL. In our future, robots as care companions: “Robots could help solve social care crisis, say academics” at the BBC.

Humanoid robots, with cultural awareness and a good bedside manner, could help solve the crisis over care for the elderly, academics say.

An international team is working on a £2m project to develop versatile robots to help look after older people in care homes or sheltered accommodation.

The robots will offer support with everyday tasks, like taking tablets, as well as offering companionship.

(11) A BLACK AND WHITE ANSWER. Opus would be proud: penguins used as models for better software: “Hungry penguins keep car code safe”.

The communal, co-ordinated action helps the penguins get the most out of a hunting expedition. Groups of birds are regularly reconfigured to match the shoals of fish and squid they find. It helps the colony as a whole optimise the amount of energy they have to expend to catch food.

“This solution has generic elements which can be abstracted and be used to solve other problems,” he said, “such as determining the integrity of software components needed to reach the high safety requirements of a modern car.”

Integrity in this sense means ensuring the software does what is intended, handles data well, and does not introduce errors or crash.

By mimicking penguin behaviour in a testing system which seeks the safest ways to arrange code instead of shoals of fish, it becomes possible to slowly zero in on the best way for that software to be structured.

(12) THE RIVALS OF 1984. The BBC has hard data on dystopia sales surge.

It Can’t Happen Here – Sinclair Lewis

Sales: As of Friday, the eighth best-selling book on Amazon. It was out of print in the UK but publishers Penguin launched a new edition following the inauguration – promoting it as the book that predicted Trump – and has so far ordered three print runs, totalling 11,000 copies, a spokeswoman said.

Plot: A charismatic demagogue, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, runs for president on a promise to restore American greatness, dragging the country into fascism.

The Trump factor: Sales of this relatively obscure 1935 satirical novel took off when critics began claiming it was essentially the Donald Trump story. Sally Parry, of the Sinclair Lewis Society, claims there are parallels with Trump in the way that Windrip targets his message at disaffected white working class males – The League of Forgotten Men in the book – sweeping to victory on a wave of anti-immigrant, nationalistic sentiment.

But she adds: “Some of his satire is not necessarily towards Buzz Windrip, the fascist character, but towards the lazy intellectuals, the lazy liberals who say ‘well, things will go along’ and the constant refrain of ‘it can’t happen here’, this is America, we are exceptional.”

(13) MAKING LEMONADE. Someone has a plan for putting a contaminated area to use: “How solar may save Ukraine’s nuclear wasteland”.

Earlier this year Ostap Semerak, the minister for ecology and natural resources in Ukraine, announced plans to build a large-scale solar farm in Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone. “The first phase will install solar panels with a total capacity of one gigawatt,” says a ministry spokesperson. “In the future [there] are plans for capacity increase.”

A large field of 25 acres, filled with solar panels, generates approximately 5MW. To put this into perspective, the football pitch at Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground is 1.75 acres and would only generate 0.35MW. So, for a solar farm to generate a gigawatt of power, it will need an area of 5,000 acres, which is nearly eight square miles. There is, fortunately, a lot of available land in the Exclusion Zone.

(14) BRUCE WAYNE’S ROOMMATE. Lego Batman explains why his movie is awesome.

Lego Batman hypes up his own upcoming Lego Batman Movie in a new behind-the-bricks featurette that breaks the fourth wall.

“Obviously after I made The Lego Movie, a monster hit $468 million worldwide, not that I’m counting of course, it seemed clear to everyone that the world needed more of me,” Will Arnett says as Lego Batman in the clip released Thursday.

 

[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve “Dr. Strangelove” Davidson.]