Tag Archives: Rob Thornton

Jimi Hendrix, Science Fiction Fan

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Hendrix reading a Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus
Jimi Hendrix reading a Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus

Written by RL Thornton of Freakflag

“What I like to do is write a lot of mythical scenes, like the history of the wars on Neptune and the reason Saturn’s rings are there. You can write your own mythology.”  Jimi Hendrix

“He rarely had time off, but when he did, he read science-fiction books.” Charles Cross, Hendrix biographer

Jimi Hendrix was a fan. It’s true. 

How biographies like Stone Free and Room Full Of Mirrors manage to sidestep the visionary guitar legend’s interior world is beyond belief. But an entire wave of evidence has emerged during the internet era to prove that the music and the sound world of James Marshall Hendrix, who died of drug-related causes in 1970, was inspired by the novels that inspire all of us.

Beginnings: Meet “Buster” Hendrix

When Jimi Hendrix was a child, everybody in his Seattle neighborhood knew him as “Buster.” While biographer Charles Cross contends that his nickname was from the cartoon character Buster Brown, other writers such as Jason Heller claim that the nickname came from “Buster” Crabbe of Flash Gordon fame. 

And Cross does tell the story of young Jimi, who loved science fiction and doodled spaceships in class, and both Jimi and his brother Leo experiencing a UFO incident. But for some reason, Cross misses the importance of Jimi’s interior life.

Growing His Fandom: Jimi and Chas Chandler

So what evidence do we really have for Jimi’s fandom? It becomes evident when former Animals member Chas Chandler becomes Hendrix’s manager and brings him across the ocean to become a star in England. It turns out that Chandler and Hendrix bonded over science fiction. The guitarist had the pick of Chandler’s extensive collection.

Hendrix was said to be a big fan of George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides. Philip Jose Farmer’s Night of Light and its mind-bending reality fields supposedly inspired him to write Purple Haze. And as one fan to another, these obscure picks are pretty good evidence that Jimi had been reading for some time. 

Other SF-related books or stories favored by Hendrix:

  • “Gulf” by Robert Heinlein
  • “Lot” by Ward Moore (F&SF, May 1953)
  • Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus (edited by Brian Aldiss)
  • The Tibetan Book Of The Dead
  • The Urantia Book

Jimi As Slan: Exploding The Mind Through Sound

One puzzle that many rock historians have wondered about is how Jimi Hendrix suddenly introduced us to a remarkable world of sound all at once. As JHS Pedals’ Josh Scott said in his YouTube documentary The Technology Of Jimi Hendrix: “Every move Jimi’s making lines up with a significant technological creation in guitar—it’s wild!”

Given Jimi’s background as a science fiction fan, I think he was on a quest to combine his extraordinary skill with advancements in sonic technology to explore the mind through your ears. It was no mistake that Jimi was discovering the first fuzz guitar pedals on his own then combined his talents with sonic wizard (and fellow SF fan) Roger Mayer.

“Both Jimi and I had synaesthesia, where we would see colors in sound,” Mayer also told Music Radar in 2017. “We found that fascinating. It’s a useful ability as a sound designer. I was very interested in new sounds for guitars. We would talk about the vision of the sound. For instance: ‘This sounds like what you see when you hold two mirrors in front of each other.’ And that notion became the Octavia pedal.”

And when Hendrix began to reshape what rock could sound like—layering feedback, dissonance, new sonic textures, and strange alien voices—he wasn’t trying to sound “psychedelic.” It was to sound otherworldly. Because that’s where he’d always been looking.

Axis Rising: Science Fiction as Sound and Statement

Jimi Hendrix didn’t just flirt with science fiction—he built a whole album around it. Axis: Bold As Love is, in Hendrix’s own words, “science fiction rock ’n’ roll.” And it opens like a radio drama from another galaxy.

The first track, “EXP,” begins not with music but with a mock radio interview. Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, who plays the straight man interviewer, chats with Jimi as “Paul Caruso” about UFO sightings—before Hendrix’s voice begins warping and distorting, transforming into that of a saucer-being, complete with panned echoes, fuzz bursts, and a departure into cosmic noise.

“You can’t believe everything you see and hear… CAN YOU?”

“Now excuse me, I must be on my way.”

It’s tongue-in-cheek, yes—but it’s also a blueprint. Hendrix wanted to tear down the wall between Earth and imagination, between human and alien, between rock and pure sci-fi theater.

That spirit flows through the rest of the album. In “Up from the Skies,” Hendrix sings from the perspective of a disappointed alien visitor, one who once loved Earth and has returned to find it broken, confused, and violent. His voice floats through a gently swinging jazz-rock groove, curious but concerned.

“I just want to talk to you… I won’t do you no harm.”

Behind the scenes, Hendrix was working closely with Mayer. Mayer’s experimental circuitry helped Hendrix forge entirely new tones—sounds that had never existed before. Mayer later recalled:

“The sounds of [Axis] could be thought of as bunch of disks floating in space in front of you, like flying saucers with sounds coming from them and they’re moving around. ‘Castles Made of Sand’ was partly inspired by some of the books we were reading, like Dune by Frank Herbert. It’s a science fiction kind of fantasy, but really down to earth in a way. Jimi was very good at depicting imagery that people could relate to, but with a bit of a cosmic twist to it, you know?”

Even songs that feel grounded—like the aching beauty of “Little Wing” or the dreamy heartbreak of “Castles Made of Sand”—are laced with speculative wonder. Hendrix paints emotional truths using mythic, surreal, and cosmic brushes. The sky is always open. The stars are always listening.

When you listen to Axis, it wasn’t just a concept album—it was a cosmic transmission, a collection of sci-fi stories hidden in blues and feedback. With Mayer’s alien tones and Hendrix’s interstellar vision, it became a document of someone who wasn’t content with reality as-is. He had to build new ones.

From what I see, Hendrix didn’t see science fiction as “genre.” He saw it as spiritual architecture—a way of imagining new states of being, new worlds, new freedoms. Whether he was reading Penguin anthologies or trading paperbacks with Chas Chandler, Hendrix treated science fiction as a language of transformation—and he translated it through feedback and fire.

The Lost Opera: Black Gold and Afrofuturist Echoes

Before Space Is the Place hit screens, before Parliament’s Mothership Connection landed, before the term Afrofuturism entered the cultural lexicon—Jimi Hendrix was already sketching star maps in sound. And nowhere is that more clear than in his lost science fiction rock opera, Black Gold.

Written and demoed in 1970, Black Gold was a sprawling concept album built around a central figure: a cosmic drifter, part mystic, part outcast—a mirror of Hendrix himself. The fragments Hendrix left behind include lyrics and ideas filled with temporal shifts, alien visions, and metaphysical riddles. He recorded it solo, voice and guitar, a private message from deep space that the world never fully received.

The Black Gold tapes vanished after his death, only to re-emerge decades later in a collector’s hands. Despite rumors, retrospectives, and archival interest, it remains unreleased in full, suspended like a ghost satellite in Hendrix’s mythos.

But even in fragments, it’s clear: Hendrix was aiming beyond the charts. He was imagining a narrative arc, a world unto itself—Black identity transfigured through sonic myth.

And even without Black Gold, his body of work hums with Afrofuturist resonance. Songs like “Up from the Skies,” “Third Stone from the Sun,” and “1983…” aren’t just psychedelic—they’re visionary. They deal in alienation, rebirth, otherness, transformation. They speak from a place where the Black experience meets the universal unknown.

He didn’t write essays. He wrote waveforms.

He made the alien familiar—and the familiar alien.

Artists like George Clinton, Janelle Monáe, Shabaka Hutchings, and Moor Mother continue that trajectory. Hendrix didn’t invent Afrofuturism, and Sun Ra had already taken flight—but Jimi built his own vessel.

He joined the constellation.

The Signal Still Travels: Hendrix Beyond the Stars

Jimi Hendrix’s life burned bright and fast. But his ideas—his frequencies—are still traveling.

He was more than a guitarist, more than a songwriter. He was a cosmic cartographer, drawing psychic maps across the fretboard, turning fuzz and feedback into new ways of thinking. Science fiction wasn’t a pose or a metaphor—it was a worldview, one that let him see past the boundaries of race, genre, and gravity.

He found companionship in other sci-fi fans. He filled his shelves with strange books. He wrote alien voices into his music, flew his studio into the sun, and tried—right up to the end—to leave behind something bigger than a career.

That’s why Hendrix matters in the story of speculative fiction.

Not because he called himself a futurist.

But because he acted like one.

His journey—from Buster the Flash Gordon kid, to cosmic narrator, to the lost voice behind Black Gold—isn’t just a footnote in rock history. It’s a secret chapter in science fiction history, too.

A Poem: For Buster, Who Dreamed in Stars

He was Buster once,
not yet the comet streaking across sound,
but a boy with a head full of silver ships
and Saturn’s whispered secrets.

In the shadow of city streetlamps,
he looked up and imagined
worlds that no blues guitar could yet shape,
but would, in time.

Before the flames,
before the wah-wah wails of war on Neptune,
he carried galaxies in his pockets—
tiny constellations stitched into denim.

They called him Buster,
but he was always reaching—
past fretboards, past fear,
into the wide silence between stars.

And when he played,
myth became melody,
and all the universe leaned in
to listen.

References

YouTube:

World Wide Web:

Biographies:

  • Room Full of Mirrors by Charles Cross
  • Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London by Jas Obrecht

Research and additional text supplied by the Freakflag Tag Team.

AI Tag Team: Dune vs. Popular Music

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ChatGPT does a deep dive on musical tributes to Frank Herbert’s classic (with some help). [Reprinted from Freakflag with permission.]

By Rob Thornton.

INTRODUCTION: We have seen a lot of controversy around Large Language Models (aka “AI”), If you are not familiar with them, these software tools are trained by us to act on their own, learn and grow, and handle many tasks. Despite their power, the current consequences of AI—AI companies are devouring information without permission, the tools return false information and creating deepfakes of people, becoming intelligent death machines for the military).

But as a fan of speculative fiction, I had to see what was what. So in my time with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, I asked them to search for music that was related to Dune with a little human assistance.

Freakflag: Tell us about the intersection between Dune and popular music.

Absolutely! ♥ Frank Herbert’s Dune has had a surprising influence on pop music, inspiring everything from psychedelic rock to electronic music to hip-hop. Here’s a deep dive into how Dune has shaped music across genres:

1. 1970s: Psych, Prog, and Early Space Rock

♦ David Matthews – Dune (1977) → A jazz-funk fusion album directly inspired by the novel. Think spacey, cinematic grooves with a touch of Blaxploitation cool.

♦ Tangerine Dream → While not explicitly referencing Dune, their synth-heavy, atmospheric music—like Phaedra (1974) and Zeit (1972)—feels like the perfect soundtrack for Arrakis.

♦ Zed – Vision of Dune (1979) → An obscure French electronic/synth album that’s essentially a Dune-themed Berlin School synth journey.

♦ Klaus Schulze – Dune (1979) → A massive 30-minute ambient track from the Tangerine Dream alum, evoking Arrakis’ vast, endless deserts.

2. 1980s: Synths, New Wave, and the Lynch Film

♦ Iron Maiden – To Tame a Land (1983) → An epic heavy metal song originally titled Dune, but Herbert refused to grant permission for the name! So, they changed it to To Tame a Land. The lyrics retell Paul Atreides’ journey with soaring guitars and galloping rhythms.

♦ Brian Eno – Prophecy Theme (1984) → The best-known piece of music from David Lynch’s Dune soundtrack. Eno’s ethereal synth washes capture the mystical tone of the Bene Gesserit prophecies.

♦ Toto – Dune Soundtrack (1984) → Yes, the same Toto that did Africa! They scored the entire Dune film with epic orchestration and dramatic synths. Their sweeping, sci-fi symphonic pieces still hold up today.

3. 1990s: Dune & Hip-Hop?

♦ Wu-Tang Clan & Afrofuturist Influence → While Dune isn’t a primary reference, Wu-Tang’s love of mystical, philosophical storytelling echoes Dune’s epic worldbuilding.

→ Killah Priest’s “B.I.B.L.E.” (1995)* references Dune with lines like “Reading books on Isaac Asimov and Dune”—a nod to sci-fi’s impact on hip-hop lyricism.

♦ Sleep – Dopesmoker (2003) → This legendary stoner doom metal album is essentially a Dune story in slow-motion. Spacey, repetitive, heavy-as-sandstorm riffs tell the journey of a weed priest across the desert—basically Paul Atreides meets doom metal.

4. 2000s–Present: Electronic, Metal, and Experimental

♦ Hans Zimmer – Dune Soundtrack (2021) → Zimmer reinvented the sound of sci-fi epics, using unearthly vocal tones, throat singing, and massive drum patterns to capture the raw, spiritual feel of Dune’s world.

♦ Kendrick Lamar – DNA. (2017) → No direct Dune reference, but Kendrick samples dialogue from Dune (1984) in live performances—tying Dune’s themes of destiny, prophecy, and power into his own storytelling.

Final Thoughts: Why Dune Inspires Music

⊗ Dune’s themes of fate, power, rebellion, and mysticism resonate across genres, from metal to electronic to hip-hop.

∇ Arrakis itself is an environment that lends itself to soundscapes—whether desert psychedelia, ambient textures, or thunderous metal.

Freakflag: Two of your items did not contain any Dune items so I deleted them. You missed a few things:

There was a minimal wave band called Bene Gesserit.

The 2010 Grimes album Giedi Primes was a Dune concept album.

Richard Pinhas has an album called Chronolyse with many Dune-related tracks.

in the 90s, a techno project called Eon did a track called Mindkiller, which used the “Fear is the mindkiller” chant.”

Great additions! ♥ You’re absolutely right—those are key Dune-inspired musical moments:

♦ Richard Pinhas – Chronolyse (1978) French electronic composer Richard Pinhas—known for his work in Heldon—crafted Chronolyse as a tribute to Frank Herbert’s Dune, filtering the saga through fractal synth loops and hypnotic minimalism.

♦ Bene Gesserit (1981–1990s) → A Belgian minimal wave/synth duo taking their name from Dune’s secretive sisterhood. Their music was quirky, experimental, and otherworldly, much like the Bene Gesserit themselves.

♦ Grimes – Geidi Primes (2010) Before she became a pop experimentalist, Grimes crafted this lo-fi, dreamlike debut—a hazy, otherworldly take on the universe of Dune. Named after the Harkonnen homeworld, Geidi Primes blends ethereal synths, ghostly vocals, and off-kilter beats into a soundscape that feels like a distant radio transmission from Arrakis.

♦ Eon – Mindkiller (1990) → A classic UK techno track built around the Dune quote “Fear is the mindkiller.” A perfect example of how Dune’s philosophy found its way into rave culture and electronic music.

If you would like to dive even deeper into Dune-related music, check out the Dune wiki at:

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Music_inspired_by_Dune

Pixel Scroll 2/6/25 I Know It’s Only Pixel Scroll, But I Like It

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(1) RADIO FREE BRADBURY. Phil Nichols’ new Bradbury 100 podcast tunes into “Ray Bradbury on Radio: SUSPENSE”.

This time, I look at the early years of Ray’s professional career, which saw him not only mastering the craft of short story writing and putting together his first book, but branching out into media – in particular, getting his stories and scripts onto national radio shows such as CBS’s Suspense.

Over a span of a dozen years, Suspense produced no fewer than eleven shows based on Bradbury stories, with some of the stories being produced multiple times. I argue that this early media presence – which included a number of stories previously unpublished – helped cement Bradbury’s growing popularity and reputation.

The direct link is here: “Episode 61 – Ray Bradbury and Radio’s SUSPENSE!” at SoundCloud.

(2) FUTURE TENSE. ASU Center for Science and the Imagination’s “Future Tense Fiction” story for January 2025 is “The Funniest Centaur Alive”, by Gregory Mone—a story about standup comedy, AI, and the ethics of human enhancement.

The response essay “The AI House of Mirrors” is by computer scientist Suresh Venkatasubramanian.

I spend my days thinking about collisions between tech—especially artificial intelligence—and society. There was a time when I could separate out that part of my day as work, but in 2025, such a division is no longer possible. Rather than simply think through these collisions, I now also live them, in nearly every corner of my life. AI is unescapable: I go to the grocery store and the radio is talking about the technology’s use in some sector or another. I go to get a haircut and we discuss smart mirrors that could show you virtual hairstyles to choose from. My child’s school insists on deploying some rather questionable software that claims to use AI to detect concerning behaviors or online communications and wants my consent to use it….

(3) AT THE HALF CENTURY. LA Review of Books introduces Jonathan Bolton’s review of The Dispossessed: 50th Anniversary Edition saying he “thoughtfully reads Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Dispossessed’ within and against the grain of a half century of criticism”. “To Touch the Dust of Anarres”.

… Among political novelists, Le Guin stood out for her ability to blend different kinds of politics. She was fascinated by the grand politics of class and revolution—her novels are full of parliamentary factions, court intrigue, diplomats, spies, and rebels. As the Thuvian ambassador tells Shevek, “You have got to understand the powers behind the individuals.” But as a feminist and skilled imaginer of everyday life, she also had a sensitive eye for the mundane power struggles of “the personal is political.” Nor did she ignore the cruel paradoxes and structural violence of imperialism, playing out in both colony and metropole. Through it all, she maintained a keen sense of the pure force of ideas to move back and forth among these three political worlds. The Dispossessed is a running political conversation—full of intrigue and drama, to be sure—in which Shevek is forced to test and develop his anarchist ideals against a range of friendly and hostile interlocutors on both Anarres and Urras. These varied conversations leave no political idea unchallenged, even as Shevek preserves his ever-evolving anarchist ideals….

(4) BLACK HERITAGE IN HORROR. The Horror Writers Association has launched a month-long series: “Black Heritage in Horror Month 2025: An Interview with Jamal Hodge”.

What inspired you to start writing?

Pain, uncertainty, and hope. Honestly, I was a naive child, filled with joy at the thought of meeting another face. But when homelessness found my family in the South Bronx, I quickly learned that people weren’t always safe. Being exposed to ‘American history’ in school further revealed what it meant to be Black in this country, a trauma, in my view, that demands mental health support, like counseling, in schools. These harsh realities made me dream of a better world. I found that place within the pages of books, the ink of a pen, and the boundless depths of my own imagination.

What drew you to the horror genre?

Hope, survival, and truth. To me, horror encapsulates all of these. It transforms fear into something useful, something empowering, and even fun. Horror and fantasy were my first loves for precisely that reason: they validated our right to be scared, acknowledging that evil exists and that we live in a dangerous world. But they also illuminated our power to face terror head-on, to survive. That resonated with me.

(5) GROUP STATEMENT OPPOSING ANTI-TRANS EXECUTIVE ORDER. “Literary Organizations Release Joint Statement Decrying Anti-Trans Executive Order” – Publishers Weekly has the full text – read it at the link. Not sure how the 54 signing organizations were recruited, but neither the Authors Guild, HWA, nor SFWA is among them.

Following the release of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on January 20, which asserts that his administration will implement “language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” a large number of major organizations in the book business and literary world released a statement decrying the move. Among them are the American Booksellers Association, Audio Publishers Association, Comic Book Legal Defense fund, EveryLibrary, Independent Book Publishers Association, IngramSpark, National Book Critics Circle, PEN America, PubWest, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and many more.

The statement says in part:

…Trans, nonbinary, and intersex experience is vastly underrepresented in literature but disproportionately targeted by bans. During the 2022-2023 school year, 30% of books banned included LGBTQIA+ characters or themes. Such censorship robs us of perspectives that enrich the American story. Though the executive order in question tries to paint LGBTQIA+ people and allies as bullies enforcing their perspective on others through “legal and other socially coercive means,” that’s exactly what the order itself does, just as book-banning pressure groups have done since 2020 in school boards and libraries around the country. The fate of trans, intersex, and nonbinary people is not a political ideology, it’s a matter of human rights, civil rights, and freedom of expression. Government erosion of those rights should concern all Americans, regardless of their investment in LGBTQIA+ literature specifically.

This executive order is censorship, pure and simple, and it has no place in a free society. It must be rescinded or stayed as soon as possible, and at the latest, before the earliest implementation deadline, February 19, 2025….

(6) ELLIOTT SHARP Q&A. Interviewer Rob Thornton reaches back 25 years to share – “Archival Interview (2000): Elliott Sharp on Sci-Fi, Spoken Words, and Sound”.

In 2000, I did an email interview with Sharp about his work with Seeing Eye Theater, why he’s a science fiction fan, and how his approach to music has been shaped by science fiction.

There are many authors who read for Seeing Eye Theater. Did you choose to work with Murphy, Goonan, Womack & Shepard or did Seeing Eye Theater introduce you to them?

I had met the producer, Tony Daniel, through Ellen Datlow, Jack Womack, and Lucius Shepard when doing a performance. He told me that he had followed my work. the next step was easy. I’ve followed sci-fi since I first began to read and had been a longtime fan of Jack. Pat, and Lucius.

We’ve performed together on a number of occasions and I had included all of them reading in a compilation of one-minute pieces called State of the Union. Tony, as producer, makes the choices. I certainly offer feedback. I did become a fan of Kathy Ann Goonan’s after working with her on a Seeing Ear Theater production….

There’s a whole library of “Seeing Eye Theater (Radio)” episodes available at YouTube.

(7) SATURN ON THE BLOCK. A forthcoming episode of Antiques Roadshow will feature “1986 Leonard Nimoy Saturn Life Career Award”. I’m thinking, come on, it’s a Saturn Award, what can that be worth? Well, it seems that having Leonard Nimoy’s name on it raises it well above the value of the average bowling trophy. The figure is named in this clip.

(8) DAVID EDWARD BYRD (1941-2025). Deadline reports: “David Edward Byrd Dead: Artist Behind Iconic Rock And Broadway Posters”. Here’s a brief excerpt from the obituary, with his best-known genre work bolded.

…For some devotees, though, Byrd left his most indelible impression on Broadway, designing some of theater’s most influential and best-remembered posters and logos. He created the gorgeously garish and grisly poster for The Little Shop of Horrors, a more muted 1971 poster for Jesus Christ Superstar combining cathedral art and rock imagery, and that same year, the iconic poster for Follies, the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical about a reunion of aging showgirls.

In the 1980s, Byrd worked as Art Director for Van Halen and designed posters for Los Angeles theaters including The Mark Taper Forum and The Ahmanson Theatre.

While his work might best be remembered by folks of a certain age, at least one set of his illustrations is well-known to a younger generation: He designed the richly colorful covers for the first three Harry Potter books.

In 2023, Byrd published his autobiography Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd, chock full of the poster art that has delighted untold numbers of observers….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

February 6, 1922 — Patrick Macnee. (Died 2015.)

By Paul Weimer: “There are those who believe that life here began out there. Far across the universe, with tribes of humans…some believe there may be brothers of man who yet now fight to survive…”

My first encounter with the work of the formidable Patrick Macnee was, improbably, in Battlestar Galactica.  His voice is the unmistakable one in the opening credits to the 1978 series. In addition, he also showed up in a two part episode as “Count Iblis”, who was, as far as I can figure, a fallen angel or the outright devil himself.  And also he showed up at least once as the Imperious Leader, the head of the Cylons. That striking British baritone voice of his served him well and was unmistakable. 

It would be years, though, before I encountered The Avengers and his role in that, proper. In fact, I had somehow missed the existence of The Avengers for years, and didn’t know it existed or that I might like it. It was the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Community that clued me in. A particular GM and player in that community had a penchant for playing characters who were versions of John Steed himself. The first couple of games I played with him in it, I didn’t quite get who he was “supposed to be”. I finally got a chance between games, to actually ask him about the character — I was embarrassed because it seemed I was the only one who wasn’t “in on it”.  And so he told me, and urged me to see The Avengers for myself. 

And then I finally saw the series itself on VHS tape. While there were several partners (Diana Rigg’s Mrs Peel being just the most prominent), the anchor of that relationship was McNee’s stalwart John Steed. I immediately finally saw what my fellow roleplayer was doing. And why he would model his character and his very con appearance (complete with a bowler hat and an umbrella, although he preferred white to black. It all clicked. The stalwart, competent and implacable and unflappable gentleman that Macnee portrays is tailor made for borrowing as a character template, or just a fashion template. What a fascinating character! An excellent spy, cultured, intelligent, and always prepared. And a perfect gentleman who wasn’t above some very above board wordplay with his associates. I think that Macnee so created and inhabited the role is a reason why attempts to reboot the character in media have gone from horrible (sorry, Ralph Fiennes) to forgettable (the Big Finish audio dramas). 

Macnee also shows up in series and roles ever since, from Columbo to Sherlock Holmes to an episode of the series Frasier where he plays a psychiatrist. 

A class act, throughout his acting career. He died in 2015. Requiescat in pace.

Patrick Macnee

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) ON A ROLL. The New York Times tells readers about a game involving “Intergalactic Shantytowns Where Dice Dictate Your Future” (behind a paywall.)

The dice roll is the fundamental engine of numerous games. In a board game, it might determine what type of resources you receive or how far you can move. In tabletop role-playing games, it might determine whether an action is successful. When you swing your sword at an ogre, does it land a fatal blow? Or does your blade accidentally glance off a nearby statue and clatter uselessly to the ground? The dice decide.

Although video games often use similar systems to decide the outcome of a player’s actions, the dice roll itself — the machinery of chance — is typically concealed.

“The idea with video games is they’re supposed to be this warm bath of immersion that you disappear into,” said Gareth Damian Martin, whose new game Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector subverts convention by placing the dice center stage.

The dice in Citizen Sleeper 2, which releases for PCs and consoles on Friday, can be spent on actions within a cyberpunk future where mercenaries, scavengers and outcasts eke out a hardscrabble living on the margins of a galaxy ruled by rival corporations. The higher the number of an assigned die, the greater the chance that the player will successfully work shifts in an intergalactic kelp bar, sell scrap engine components down at the shipyards or overthrow a corporation as part of a labor revolution.

“The process of abstracting things to dice gives an incredible flexibility to storytelling,” said Damian Martin, who uses they/them pronouns. “The game inherently supports you and creates drama from any situation.”…

(12) TANGLED UP IN BLUE. Deadline introduces “’Smurfs’ Trailer: First Footage Of Rihanna’s Smurfette”.

…The synopsis: When Papa Smurf (John Goodman) is mysteriously taken by evil wizards, Razamel and Gargamel, Smurfette (Rihanna) leads the Smurfs on a mission into the real world to save him. With the help of new friends, the Smurfs must discover what defines their destiny to save the universe….

(13) NOT WITH A BANG. [Item by Steven French.] It’ll be interesting to see whether AI can describe the end of the universe before it brings about the end of the world: “AI to revolutionise fundamental physics and ‘could show how universe will end’”.

Advanced artificial intelligence is to revolutionise fundamental physics and could open a window on to the fate of the universe, according to Cern’s next director general.

Prof Mark Thomson, the British physicist who will assume leadership of Cern on 1 January 2026, says machine learning is paving the way for advances in particle physics that promise to be comparable to the AI-powered prediction of protein structures that earned Google DeepMind scientists a Nobel prize in October.

At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), he said, similar strategies are being used to detect incredibly rare events that hold the key to how particles came to acquire mass in the first moments after the big bang and whether our universe could be teetering on the brink of a catastrophic collapse….

(14) ORIGIN STORY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] OK, so you are an SF fan, but could you be a multibillionaire? Now, I have occasionally dreamed of having a superpower and if I ever did I guess it might be the USA.  However, you don’t have to be born on Krypton or be bitten by a radioactive spider.  All you need — as Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark showed — is lots and lots of dosh, and then you can even influence things on the national stage. But in real life one SF enthusiast did just this, and it is this interest of his in SF that gives us a clue as to his beliefs, as a BBC Radio 4 series of half-hour programmes reveals…

The story of Elon Musk, the way it’s usually told, makes him sound like a fictional character, a comic-book superhero – or supervillain. He’s the world’s richest man, and now an adviser to the US President. He uses X – his social media platform – to berate politicians he doesn’t agree with around the world.

He plans to put chips in people’s brains, and to save the world by colonising Mars. Musk’s visions of the future seem to stem from the science fiction that has fired his imagination since he was a boy. But what’s the real story, the true history, behind the comic book? Back in 2021 Harvard History Professor and New Yorker Writer Jill Lepore became fascinated by this question.

So she made a Radio 4 podcast which tried to explain Musk through the science fiction he grew up with – tales of superheroes with origin stories that seemed to influence how he understands his own life. So much has happened since then that we decided to update that series – and add three new episodes, too. Because Musk keeps changing, and so does what Lepore calls ‘Muskism’ – his brand of extreme capitalism and techno-futurism. And strangely, his origin story keeps changing, too.

How can understanding these fantasy stories – some of them a century old – help us understand the future Musk wants to take us to?

You can listen to the first episode here: “Introducing X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story”.

(15) NO LAST OF US. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] There is a review of fungi impact on Earth’s ecosystems – “Fungal impacts on Earth’s ecosystems” — in this week’s Nature.

Here, we examine the fungal threats facing civilization and investigate opportunities to use fungi to combat these threats….

This is an excellent overview but, alas, no mention of The Last of Us…!

(16) THEY KNOW WHERE THE SKELETONS ARE. Hollywood Graveyard combines filmmaking history with the pastime of tracking down celebrity graves. Can you guess what movie this installment focuses on? “Graves From The Black Lagoon : A Famous Grave Film”.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Joey Eschrich, Rob Thornton, Danny Sichel, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dan’l.]

Pursuing the Ghost of Literary Fantasy

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By RL Thornton: In a previous article on Evangeline Walton’s Mabinogion series, I celebrated the term of “literary fantasy.” In my mind, we who explore the realm of speculative fiction have let the concept lag in the post-Potter age. Somewhere down the road, authors and readers have bought into the Young Adult financial goldmine generated in the wake of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. As a result, our genre is now dominated by massive waves of fantasy and dystopian megaseries with suspiciously familiar sets of similarly gendered protagonists engaged in suspiciously familiar activities. In response to the Puppies’ attempt to render Our Beloved Genre identical to the Baen world, our current genre is self-similar in an entirely different way.

What we need to do is turn back and return to the ideals that came about Our Beloved Readers had in the past. We should be looking for quality fantasies and science fiction books with amazing prose styles, intriguing plots, and that challenge our preconceptions and make us think. That’s what “literary fantasy” is and should be. As a challenge to you and my fellow Filers, I include a list of selected novels from the past that deserve to be called “literary fantasy” and ask all of you to add other works that belong here. What do you think?

MY GENRE STANDARDS

  • Susanna Clarke: Piranesi
  • John Crowley: Little, Big
  • Greer Gilman: Moonwise
  • Elizabeth Hand: Waking The Moon
  • Marlon James: Black Leopard, Red Wolf
  • Robert Holdstock: Mythago Wood and Lavondyss
  • Tanith Lee: Tales From The Flat Earth (Death’s Master, Delusion’s Mistress, Night’s Master, Delirium’s Mistress)
  • Mary Gentle: Rats And Gargoyles
  • Lisa Goldstein: Red Magician, The Dream Years
  • R.A. MacAvoy: Lens Of The World series, Damiano series
  • Patricia McKillip: A Song For The Basilisk and Alphabet Of Thorn
  • Nancy Springer: Book of Isle series
  • Michael Swanwick: Iron Dragon’s Daughter
  • Jeff VanderMeer: The City of Saints And Madmen
  • Walter Jon Williams: Metropolitan and City On Fire
  • Gene Wolfe: Latro In The Mist
  • Roger Zelazny: Amber series

THE ORIGINAL

  • JRR Tolkien: Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion

PRE-TOLKIEN GEMS

  • William Morris: Well At The World’s End
  • E.R. Eddison: The Worm Ouroboros
  • Lord Dunsany: The King of Elfland’s Daughter
  • H.P. Lovecraft: The Dream Cycle (including The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadadth)

Pixel Scroll 7/15/24 Frankly My Dear, I Don’t Scroll A Pixel

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(1) GLASGOW 2024 UPDATE. Glasgow 2024 has sent draft program schedules to almost a thousand participants.

(2) AUDIBLE REVEALS NEW CALCULATION  FOR ROYALTIES. “Audible’s New Royalty Model: More Opportunities for Authors and Publishers”.  

…We are now rolling out a new royalty model that prioritizes equity, flexibility, and insight for creators—one that evolved out of ongoing conversations with authors and publishers, and that advances our creator-centric ethos. Under this model, creators are able to monetize more types of content, and listeners will get to discover more innovative storytelling.

Titles in all Audible’s membership offerings can now earn royalties: Audible’s new royalty model means new opportunities for small publishers and independent authors to earn across all membership listening activity. Now more titles—including those currently in Audible Plus, Audible’s all-you-can-listen offering—can generate royalty payments. Depending on the audiences that publishers and creators want to reach, there are new ways to monetize and promote content, which means more flexibility to reach listeners where they are….

How is the new royalty model calculated? Audible takes a member’s plan value (Plus or Premium Plus) and adds the value of any additional credits used, then divides that value among the titles the member listened to over the course of the month. That figure, multiplied by the contractual royalty rate, comprises a creator’s royalty payment….

Publishers Weekly’s coverage, “Audible Rolls Out New Royalty Plan”, observes that “the announcement comes after one of Audible’s most vocal critics, bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, reported in March that Audible officials had approached him to discuss ‘a new royalty structure they intend to offer to independent writers and smaller publishers,’ a plan that Sanderson said was ‘encouraging.’”

(3) BACIGALUPI Q&A. At Colorado Public Radio:“Exhausted by climate fiction, Colorado novelist Paolo Bacigalupi turns to fantasy”.

Sure he has won the biggest prizes in science fiction– the Nebula and the Hugo awards. But Paolo Bacigalupi found himself bereft of inspiration. Penning apocalyptic climate fiction, like 2016’s The Water Knife, had taken its toll….

…The Paonia-based author knew it was time for a change. Then the invitation came.

A wine-importer friend who knew Bacigalupi’s penchant for languages (he’d studied Chinese in college) invited him to Bologna for a crash course in Italian.

The answer was yes…..

…The real-life Bolognese setting inspired Bacigalupi’s new fantasy novel, “Navola.” It takes place in a city-state reminiscent of Florence or Venice during The Renaissance.

His protagonist, Davico di Regulai, is the son of an uber-wealthy merchant and banker. The boy has big shoes to fill, but very different feet, as it were. Armed with a preserved dragon eye that possesses magical powers, Davico struggles to be the man his father and community expect him to be….

Ryan Warner: How did you know it was time for something different?

Paolo Bacigalupi: Well, when you keep trying to write things and you keep failing to actually finish them, or even when you’re starting to try to write, it’s like sticking your finger in a light socket. It is sort of painful and damaging, you think ‘maybe I should do something different.’

Warner: And that’s how it started to feel in the climate change space?

Bacigalupi: Yeah. A lot of what I was doing, the news was bad, and then the stories that you’re trying to tell are extrapolations on the present day, and those are all terrifying. Then you find you’re in this space where your creative world and your regular life are all smashed together, and they’re all really negative and they’re all full of terrors, and it’s not a sustainable space to be. If you spend all of your imaginative time in anxiety, then yeah, it takes a toll and eventually you just break down entirely.

Warner: And if the writer isn’t enjoying it, how possibly could the reader?

Bacigalupi: Yeah. I think that a healthy writer finds pleasure in their work. I think there are unhealthy ways to go about doing good work, as well. The outcome can be good, but the damage internally is bad for the writer.

(4) KGB. Ellen Datlow has posted photos from the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading on July 10.

A.T. Sayre read and Nat Cassidy read and played his guitar for a very enjoyable evening.

(5) ERIN UNDERWOOD PRESENTS. The latest Erin Underwood videos take up Star Wars fanhistory, and test the relevance of Battlestar Galactica’s 2004 remake.

Star Wars: The Impacts of How Lucasfilm Built its Fan Base

Star Wars fandom holds a unique place as possibly the first ever nurtured fanbase built by a film studio. To understand the evolution of Star Wars fandom, I decided to explore its roots by inviting Craig Miller, former publicity executive at Lucas Film, and Garen Daly, Director of the Boston SciFi Film Festival, to discuss the early days of Star Wars fandom and its lasting impact on the film industry. Watch the video podcast discussion on YouTube and share your thoughts in the comments.

Battlestar Galactica (2004) Series Review – Does this Iconic Sci-Fi Remake Hold Up Today?

It’s been 20 years since they remade the 1978 version of Battlestar Galactica, and remakes often struggle to be relevant over time. From the story to the characters and the technology, how does BSG hold up 2 decades later? Watch my review of the full series and let me know if you think Battlestar Galactica holds up as well today … or even better!

(6) NEW FILM PLAYS ON CONSPIRACY THEORIES. “Note To Hollywood: Nobody Faked The Moon Landing” complains Inverse.

It’s getting exhausting calling out Moon landing truthers. Especially when a high-profile rom-com starring Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson makes a mockery of one of the greatest human achievements in all of history. This weekend, the new film Fly Me to the Moon hits theaters, telling the story of a 1969 advertising executive (Johansson) who is determined to film a “backup” version of the Moon landing in a studio, in case the real one fails. Tatum plays an astronaut, and the two fall for each other, in a silly movie about how the nature of love is a lot like flying to the Moon, or pretending to, or something. All harmless fun, right?

Well, no. While Fly Me to the Moon isn’t presented as a dramatic film purporting to unveil long-lost truths about the space race, it is built upon a frustratingly pervasive conspiracy theory that the Apollo 11 moon landing never took place, or in this case, that NASA would try to use taxpayer dollars to create a hoax. But, the historical and scientific evidence that we did, in fact, land on the Moon is overwhelming. And, because this movie is dredging up all those conspiracy theories again, it’s worth restating why we know the 1969 Moon landing was very real….

… But outside of heroes like Buzz Aldrin, there is plenty of objective evidence that the Moon landing occurred. In light of the bogus concept behind Fly Me to the Moon, and to get a contemporary reminder of Moon landing evidence Inverse reached out to Dr. Brett Denevi, a planetary geologist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, was a vice-chair of Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, is working on the Artemis program.

“There is a whole host of evidence to demonstrate the Moon landings occurred, including images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera,” Denevi told Inverse. As she points out this is a relatively contemporary camera, launched back in 2009. “The camera is used to scout new landing sites like we are doing for Artemis, so it was built to take incredibly detailed pictures.”….

(7) SONGS OF SFF. [Item by Rob Thornton.] This is six minutes of reverb-soaked electric guitar recorded in a bathroom and reminiscent of the banjo in the theme song from the BBC’s Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. All the song titles are from my fave SF/F novels (see “Terminus Est,” “Burning Bright” and “Green Rapture.”). Bonus points if you know my musical nym! “Now And Always” by R Carnassus at Bandcamp.

(8) SDCC PROGRAM DROPS. “San Diego Comic Con Schedule: Best Panels in Hall H and More”. Variety has highlights at the link. Or you can browse the complete Programming Schedule on the Comic-Con website.

San Diego Comic-Con has rolled out its schedule for the 2024 convention this week, which runs from July 25–28. For the first time since 2019, SDCC will unfold without a virtual event, pandemic protocols or labor strike cancelations, marking a return to normal of sorts for the largest annual fan gathering in North America.

Several major franchises will make an appearance at the event, including panels for Marvel Studios, “Star Trek,” “The Penguin,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” the “Walking Dead” franchise, “Transformers One,” “Alien: Romulus,” “The Boys” and “Doctor Who.” Here are the highlights, with descriptions from SDCC and/or the panel sponsors…. 

(9) MEDICAL AWARENESS IN CANADA. CBC News led its post about tick-spread illnesses with the story of MaryAnn Harris, wife of sff author Charles de Lint: “Tick-spread illnesses are on the rise in Canada. Are surveillance, awareness efforts keeping up?”

One morning in Sept. 2021, MaryAnn Harris felt strangely tired. She told her husband, Charles de Lint, that she needed to lie down. Then more worrisome symptoms began cropping up, from nausea to double vision.

The Ottawa couple rushed to a local emergency department. 

At first, the cause of Harris’s ailment was a mystery. The ER team ran various tests, and after a few hours with no answers, they sent her husband home due to visitor restrictions put in place during the pandemic.

By the time de Lint came back the next day, his beloved partner of four decades was unresponsive and on life support in the intensive care unit.

“You don’t know what to think, what to feel,” de Lint recalled. “It was just utter panic.”

What followed was a three-year ordeal, as medical teams offered a battery of tests and treatments in hopes of bringing Harris back from the brink of death. She eventually regained consciousness, but by that point, inflammation in her brain stem had left her paralyzed. Harris never left the hospital and died in early June at the age of 71.

The cause of her devastating illness? A little-known virus that spreads through tick bites.

For years, medical experts have warned a rising number of Canadians are being exposed to ticks carrying an array of dangerous pathogens. Lyme disease is the most familiar — and by far the most common — but there’s growing concern about lesser-known threats as well, from various bacterial infections, to the rare Powassan virus that claimed Harris’s life earlier this year.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

1974 – Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia 

Fifty years ago, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia was published. (No, not on this day. Just this year.) 

Though it is often considered the fifth book of the Hainish Cycle, Le Guin in multiple interviews and her writings has stated that there is no particular cycle or order for what she called the Ekumen novels. 

And yes, I can say having read it more than once and those readings being decades apart that the full title does really make sense. Later printings would just call it The Dispossessed. No idea why the change and if Le Guin said why. 

It was by published by Harper & Row that year with a stunning wraparound cover by Fred Winkowski. I found only two first editions to be had online, the first $1200, the other substantially more, but that was signed. 

Le Guin in the forward to Ursula K. Le Guin: The Hainish Novels & Stories, Volume One which includes The Dispossessed says “The Dispossessed started as a very bad short story, which I didn’t try to finish but couldn’t quite let go. There was a book in it, and I knew it, but the book had to wait for me to learn what I was writing about and how to write about it. I needed to understand my own passionate opposition to the war that we were, endlessly it seemed, waging in Vietnam, and endlessly protesting at home. If I had known then that my country would continue making aggressive wars for the rest of my life, I might have had less energy for protesting that one. But, knowing only that I didn’t want to study war no more, I studied peace. I started by reading a whole mess of utopias and learning something about pacifism and Gandhi and nonviolent resistance. This led me to the nonviolent anarchist writers such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman. With them I felt a great, immediate affinity. They made sense to me in the way Lao Tzu did. They enabled me to think about war, peace, politics, how we govern one another and ourselves, the value of failure, and the strength of what is weak. So, when I realized that nobody had yet written an anarchist utopia, I finally began to see what my book might be.” 

So let’s now go on to note that I discovered that the novel has a story set before it, “The Day Before the Revolution” and the character in that story, revolutionary Laia Asieo Odo, is a major presence in The Dispossessed. 

But that’s not really why I’m bring the story to your attention. The story is included in the Library of America’s Ursula K. Le Guin: The Hainish Novels & Stories which has a short essay on what she was feeling after writing the novel which you can read here “Story of the Week: The Day Before the Revolution”. And the story is here “The Day Before the Revolution”.

Now where was I? Ahh it’s 1974, the novel has come out. Among us, it was widely acclaimed, and the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation definitely was appreciative of this as her website lists them this way:

Winner of the 1974 Nebula Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 1975 Locus Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 1975 Jupiter Award for Best Novel

And yes, each link takes you to the proper Award site. Stellar webmasters whoever they are. Now interestingly, the Foundation doesn’t include the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. I wonder why.  It was also nominated for a John W. Campbell Memorial Award but didn’t win. 

As near as I can tell, it has never been out of print in the last fifty years with multiple hardcover, trade and paperback editions. ISFDB lists far too many editions to really make sense of its printing history, so I can’t say definitively. 

What I didn’t see is it ever got the small press, lavish edition treatment, but then I’m having a hard time remembering if any of her works did. Come on Filers, help me out here.  

In 2019, The Folio Society published a hardcover edition with illustrations by David Lupton and an introduction by Brian Attebery.  

On November 17, Harper Perennial will publish a trade paper edition of the  book with a new foreword by Karen Joy Fowler. 

(11) SEND HIM BACK. “Mexico ‘cancels’ statue of Greek god Poseidon after dispute with local deity” says NBC News.

The gods must be angry — or just laughing at the hubris of humanity.

Authorities in Mexico have slapped a “closure” order on a 10-foot-tall (3-meter) aquatic statue of the Greek god of the sea Poseidon that was erected in May in the Gulf of Mexico just off the town of Progreso, Yucatan.

Mexico’s environmental protection agency said late Thursday that the statue, which appears to show an angry trident-wielding Poseidon “rising” from the sea a few meters from the beach, lacked permits. In the few months it has been up, tourists had gathered to take pictures of themselves with it as a striking background.

But it was symbolically “closed” Thursday — and could be removed altogether — after a group of activist lawyers filed a legal complaint saying the statue offended the beliefs of local Maya Indigenous groups who prefer their own local god of water, known as Chaac.

It’s always been dangerous for humans to get involved in battles between deities. But this one appears to be all about present-day humanity, combining “cancel culture,” social media storms, lawsuits and the one truly fearsome, overpowering force in today’s world: Instagram selfie-fueled tourism….

(12) RECAST BLACK PANTHER? Fandomwire says there’s a call to “’Remove Black Panther 2 from the timeline’: After Harrison Ford Replaces William Hurt as General Ross Fans Demand a New Black Panther in MCU”.

…And after witnessing Harrison Ford replace William Hurt as General Ross, the calls for recasting have amplified within the Marvel fandom, particularly in the instance of Black Panther. Portrayed by the iconic Chadwick Boseman, fans now want the MCU to remove the Oscar-winning Black Panther 2 from the official timeline to facilitate the character’s recasting….

…However, Ford’s casting has also triggered a wave of demand within the Marvel fandom: the demand for Black Panther recasting. Portrayed by the late Chadwick Boseman throughout the MCU until his tragic death, the actor’s portrayal has remained iconic and pretty much irreplaceable. Yet, many fans believe recasting him would not be a bad choice, but only add to the legacy of the character he so clearly loved and played.

The MCU has recast several characters throughout its run, with Bruce Banner and Rhodey being some notable examples. These recasting decisions have hardly received as much hate from fans, but instead have triggered the calls for a Black Panther replacement since Boseman’s untimely death in 2020….

(13) NOT SURE THESE ARE THE ROLLING ROADS WE’RE LOOKING FOR. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “FreightTech Friday: Japan’s proposed conveyor-belt highway” at FreightWaves.

In a recent meeting of Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the group unveiled plans to combat its transportation and logistics sector labor shortages with construction of an automated conveyor-belt highway running over 310 miles across central Japan.

Known as the Autoflow-Road proposal, the ministry showcased its blueprint for building both aboveground and underground conveyor-belt roads running between Tokyo and Osaka 24 hours a day. According to the ministry, it could move the same amount of freight in a day as 25,000 drivers.

“Automated logistics roads are designed to get the most out of road space by utilizing hard shoulders, median strips and tunnels beneath the roadway. …Our study is examining the impact on road traffic, including on surrounding roads, and costs,” senior official to the ministry, Shuya Muramatsu, told reporters.

The proposal comes as an answer to Japan’s ongoing transportation and logistics labor crisis, as the country begins to cap trucking overtime hours this year.

(14) HOW CAN A FRANCHISE CALLED THE TERMINATOR NEVER END? “’Terminator Zero’ Teases Judgement Day in First Apocalyptic Trailer” at Yahoo!

The Terminator promised he’d be back – and he is. Netflix is teasing a tense apocalyptic return to this world with the first trailer for “Terminator Zero,” its upcoming animated series set in the “Terminator” universe that will premiere on Judgement Day, aka August 29.

This teaser debuts Eiko, voiced by “House of the Dragon” star Sonoya Mizuno, a resistance fighter who is sent back in time to stop Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. “You can’t see it yet, but you’ve been on a collision course your entire life. There’s no going back, not really. It will never, ever stop,” Eiko ominously says in the teaser.

As she gives her warning, the trailer jumps between creepy shots of terminators repairing themselves, explosions and gunfire. “There’s only one thing standing between you and him — me,” Eiko says in the teaser’s final tense moment….

(15) ANDOR RETURNS. Disney+ has dropped a trailer for Andor Season 2 (2025).

The wait is over! Dive into the highly anticipated first look at Andor Season 2 with this electrifying teaser trailer. Following the critically acclaimed first season, Cassian Andor’s (Diego Luna) journey continues as he navigates the treacherous world of the Rebellion. Set five years before the events of Rogue One and A New Hope, this season promises to delve deeper into the rise of the Rebellion against the oppressive Galactic Empire.

(16) THE END AND BEYOND. “’Stranger Things’ Season 5 First Look Revealed by Netflix” at The Hollywood Reporter.

…Maya Hawke recently told Podcrushed that the eight episodes in the final season of the sci-fi hit will feel like “eight movies,” and noted the episodes are “very long.”

“Our showrunners, Matt and Ross [Duffer], take a lot of responsibility,” she added. “They have an amazing team of writers, but they’re very involved. They write a lot and they are very intense and serious about the quality of the continued writing, and so it takes a long time to write each season, and a long time to shoot them.”…

…While season five is the show’s final season, there are additional Stranger Things projects in the works, including: Stranger Things: The First Shadow live on stage in London’s West End and an as-yet-untitled animated spinoff series….

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

Speculative Sounds: Sonic Discoveries from “John The Balladeer”

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By RL Thornton: One of the great rediscoveries of this year has been the stories of World Fantasy Award-winner Manly Wade Wellman. In particular, his magical stories about the high Appalachian wanderer and silver-stringed guitarist John have been republished by Valancourt Press in an anthology called John The Balladeer and in a larger complete two-volume set by Haffner Press (h/t to Michael Dirda of the Washington Post).

As Wellman’s dialect-laden prose slowly pulled me into his fantastic world of deep magic, my inner music geek started to wonder if all the songs in the stories were real. I knew that “In The Pines” had become notorious due to Nirvana’s live acoustic version, but what about the rest? Well, a little bit of YouTube diving reveals that Wellman knew his stuff!

So if you want to hear some of the songs as you read about John’s adventures, check out what I found below and enjoy. In most cases, each song’s YouTube link is accompanied by the lyrics from the story and the performer’s name.

OLD DEVLINS WAS A-WAITIN

When John refers to Bascom Lamar Lunsford, it turns out he was a real musician and song collector who actually recorded for the Library Of Congress!

CALL ME FROM THE VALLEY

His golden locks, John Dowland

“Beauty, strength, youth are flowers and fading seen—

Duty, faith, love are roots and ever green….”

  • Grace Davidson (soprano); David Miller (Lute)

THE LITTLE BLACK TRAIN

Song: Hell Broke Loose In Georgia

  • The Skillet Lickers

Song: The Little Black Train

  • The Carter Family

Song: Many Thousands Gone

  • Matthew Sabbatella and the Rambling String Band

Song: Sourwood Mountain

  • Carolina Chocolate Drops
  • Frank Proffitt

SHIVER IN THE PINES

Song: In The Pines

  • Leadbelly (aka Where Did You Sleep Last Night?)
  • Nirvana (aka Where Did You Sleep Last Night?)
  • Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys
  • Grateful Dead (Rare from 1966)

“Fare thee well my charming girl

With the golden slippers on….”

Song: Cuckoo Waltz

Song: Pretty Fair Maid In The Garden

Song: Willie From The Western States (variant of Barbara Allen)

Song: I Dreamed Last Night Night Of My True Love, All In My Arms I Had Her

WALK LIKE A MOUNTAIN

Song: Lonesome River

“By the shore of Lonesome River
Where the waters ebb and flow, 
Where the wild red rose is budding
And the pleasant breezes blow,

It was there I spied the lady 
That forever I adore,
As she was a-lonesome walking 
By the Lonesome River shore. . . .”

(Above version currently unknown)

“Went to the rock to hide my face, 

The rock cried out,

‘No hiding place!….’”

Song: No Hiding Place

  • Bessie Jones
  • Flatt & Scruggs

John Henry

  • Leadbelly
  • Johnny Cash

ON THE HILLS AND EVERYWHERE

Go Tell It On The Mountain

  • Bob Marley
  • Mahalia Jackson
  • Dolly Parton

Talking With Michael Moorcock About His Music: Part 2

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Michael Moorcock

By RL Thornton: This is the second part of an interview with Damon Knight Grand Master Michael Moorcock about his career in music. Previously, we talked about his early career in music, his initial experiences with Hawkwind, and his album New Worlds Fair with his band the Deep Fix. Next we discuss his other work with Hawkwind, his songs for Blue Oyster Cult, and his current recordings with Spirits Burning.

NOTE: For those not familiar with the people or bands that he mentions, you can click on the link to see their Wikipedia entry (or other webpage if necessary).

Part 2:

Q: You mentioned how easy it was to do your part in Hawkwind’s Warrior On The Edge Time, which was based on your idea of the Eternal Champion. How did that album come about? What was the collaboration between you and the band like?

Michael Moorcock: Dave asked for an idea for a concept album and tour. That’s what I came up with. All my stuff by and large, links in some way!

Q: My guitarist friend Clay wanted me to ask you about your impression of then Hawkwind bassist Lemmy, who was fired just before Warrior was issued.

Michael Moorcock: Lemmy [founder of Motorhead] and I were good friends. Firing him was a big mistake for Hawkwind and a big boost for Lemmy’s career!

Q: From what I can tell, after working with Calvert on some of his albums, the next big project of yours was with Hawkwind on their Chronicle of The Black Sword. What role did you play in making that album and what did you think of the end result?

Michael Moorcock: I was working with Nicky on the project. When Nicky was fired during that project I lost interest. My last gigs with the band were at Hammersmith Odeon. I said nothing about it to Dave but with Lemmy AND Nik gone, I had decided to stop performing with Hawkwind. The result was patchy AND Dave was tricky about it. I pulled my contributions from the first issue of the album.

Q: So Hawkwind actually played Worldcon (ConSpiracy 1987 in Brighton) and one participant called them “Michael Moorcock’s band.” What do you recall of that concert?

Michael Moorcock: I saw Dave [Brock] and someone else, I think, while I was signing but I hadn’t been aware of it until Dave said ‘You coming to play with us, Mike.’ I didn’t feel like it and so I didn’t. I was staying at another hotel some distance out of Brighton. They were always, by the way, Dave’s band. Deep Fix was more a ‘project’ than a band, as such. It included Langdon Jones and Pete Pavli as well as Martin Stone.

Q: At this point, could you talk a little bit about your work with Blue Oyster Cult over the years (i.e. “The Great Sun Jester,” “Veterans Of The Psychic Wars,” “Black Blade”)?

Michael Moorcock: Eric Bloom and other band members like my stuff so they asked for some lyrics. I had some and I sent them… Since then I’ve stayed in touch with several band members!

Q: In 2012, the Deep Fix released some previously recorded demo sessions under the name “The Entropy Tango & Gloriana Demo Sessions.” Why did you issue those recordings?

Michael Moorcock: Because I was asked to. But by the time it was too late Pete Pavli objected. Felt very sorry about that.

Q: Next, you and your friends recorded a Deep Fix album “Live At The Terminal Cafe.” How did that come about and what did you think about the results?

Michael Moorcock: Very old friend Martin Stone and I had wanted to do a record and we eventually had the time in Paris with a couple of good musicians who also lived there, so we rented a rehearsal studio and put the backing tracks down in Montmartre. A local friend of mine, Sean Orr, did fiddle and Don [Falcone] did final production. It went very well indeed.

Q: And most recently, you worked with Don Falcone and his space-rock collective Spirits Burning on musical adaptations of your Dancers At The End Of Time books. How did this project come about?  

Michael Moorcock: Albert had wanted to do this project for a while and he and Don decided to do it. As with Time Centre, I can no longer play guitar or banjo etc. My neuropathic hands just won’t do it any more, so I have to play harmonica, kazoo, whistle and sing! St James’s Infirmary was done that way.

My next project with Alan Davey producing will be redoing a bunch of songs by me and Calvert. I love Robert’s songwriting and my own could do with improvement, so that’s a project for this year. Tomorrow, I do the final work on END and am much looking forward to finishing that project. Albert, Don etc. have done a superb job!

Q: Thank you very much!

Talking With Michael Moorcock About His Music: Part 1

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Michael Moorcock

By RL Thornton: When fans talk about Damon Knight Grand Master Michael Moorcock, they are usually talking about his extensive bibliography, the literary innovations that he encouraged as editor of the legendary ‘60s SF magazine New Worlds, and the tremendous influence that his Eternal Champion series has had on fantasy and science fiction. However, you may not know that Moorcock has been always pursuing a parallel career in music.

Moorcock has been performing and playing from his youth onward to recent years, where he has been collaborating with psychedelic rock collective Spirits Burning on a series of albums based on his Dancers at the End of Time trilogy. In this two-part interview, Michael Moorcock talks about his adventures with Hawkwind, his band the Deep Fix, and others.

NOTE: For those not familiar with the people or bands that he mentions, you can click on the link to see their Wikipedia entry (or other webpage if necessary).

Part 1:

Q: How did you first get involved with music? Did it start in 1955 with “your cousin’s Gretsch” guitar like you said in the fictionalized autobiography from The Whispering Swarm?

Michael Moorcock: I was into skiffle from about 1955, First stringed instrument was a six-string banjo, second was a Spanish guitar. I had friends with Gretches but my first electric was actually a Sears, which came with an amp in the carrying case. Then a Gibson and then a Rickenbacker 12.

Q: So how long did you play with skiffle bands?

Michael Moorcock: About two years. First I was with The Greenhorns, then the Travellers and I occasionally played with the Vipers. Also played individual blues in small clubs in England, Sweden, Germany and France.

Q. You were in the ‘60s UK music scene, which may have been one of the most exciting music scenes ever. What were some of your most memorable moments from that time?

Michael Moorcock: Many equally memorable times. Maybe the scratch band at Portobello Green with Paul Kossoff, Arthur Brown, Jon Trux [UK journalist], where we variously fell asleep, were chased home by girlfriends, failed to light Arthur’s hat [part of Brown’s act for his single “Fire”], and ultimately fell through the stage, was one. French fans thought it was the coolest gig they’d ever seen. Nik Turner‘s ‘frog in flight’ at Harlow was also pretty memorable!

Q: What was a Portobello Green gig like? Was it an open stage at the market?

Michael Moorcock: The stage was a small stage with bench seating, but was open on the north side facing the Green.

Q: Could you supply more info about Nik Turner’s “frog in flight” gig in Harlow? 

Michael Moorcock: Fairly famous. It was an open stage and raining slightly. We were late for the gig. He rushed into his [frog] costume and I rushed out to take my regular position. A few moments later, I saw this giant frog with a sax round its neck fly at full length past me and into the audience. The stage was slippery and Nik’s momentum took him to full flight.

Q: From what I have read, your future adventures with Hawkwind may have started when Robert Calvert started writing for New Worlds. How did you actually first meet?

Michael Moorcock: Nope. Jon Trux brought Calvert to see me around the time Hawkwind were starting but before Bob joined. Later Dave Brock asked me to perform my own material (inc Sonic Attack) at a Portobello Green gig. Trux and I had helped Bob into the Priory before he did damage to himself and Bob was worried I’d take his place so I promised him I’d fill in for him only when he was incapacitated but I’d step back as soon as he was ready to perform again.

Q: Beg pardon, but what is the Priory?

Michael Moorcock: Posh loony bin.  Several of my friends wound up there. They also treated alcoholism and serious conditions like Parkinsonism. Still do. Mervyn Peake, Martin Stone and Marianne Faithful were all in, as well as drunks. 

Q: From what I can tell, you first foray into recording was with Hawkwind on “Space Ritual.” What was that like?

Michael Moorcock: It wasn’t. I did a demo for HMV – terrible — no result. We did a comedy record Suddenly It’s The Bellyflops in 1964/5. As for the pieces I did on Hawkwind’s Warrior On The Edge Of Time, I recorded them on my way to see a movie, all one take in about an hour. I was supposed to get a fee, but never did (nor wanted it). I had no trouble. All went ok.

Q: Your next foray into music was with your band the Deep Fix on “New Worlds Fair.” How did the recording process go? The violin seems particularly prominent on the album.

Michael Moorcock: Cello from Pete Pavli. Maybe Simon House [of the Third Ear Band] did some fiddle. We did it the usual way, laying down music tracks first then doing voices, then maybe adding a little more to fill out.

Q: Looking back, how successful was New Worlds Fair?

Michael Moorcock: Pretty successful but it didn’t chart significantly mainly because UA had expected it to sound like Hawkwind and of course it didn’t. Before I did that we did a demo for a single which UA didn’t go ahead with but was released by Flicknife a few years later around 1981. Most of this was people asking me to do a record. I had no particular ambition to do records until Pete Pavli and I began to work together in the 70s and 80s — those demo and rehearsal tapes were released by Don Falcone some years ago.

Speculative Sounds Pt. 2: Composer Elinor Armer on Collaborating with Ursula K. Le Guin

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Ursula Le Guin. Photo by Eileen Gunn.

By RL Thornton. Introduction: After discussing Ursula K. Le Guin’s other collaborations with musicians (see the first part of this article), I contacted composer Elinor Armer to discuss her collaborations with Le Guin on their work Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts on Koch Classical and Armer’s settings of Le Guin’s poems in From To The Western Sea – Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin on Centaur.

Here are my questions:

1. How did you and Ursula K. Le Guin first meet and when did you decide to work together on compositions?

2. How did both of you come up with a compositional style for Uses For Music In Uttermost Parts? It feels very modernist to me.

3. Once you started to work together, what sorts of ideas did you come up with? Did you discard any concepts before settling on Uttermost Parts?

4. What was it like spending nine years to finish the composition? When did it become evident that it would take that much time?

ELINOR ARMER: During the early 80’s Ursula Le Guin’s daughter Elisabeth was a student in the first counterpoint class I taught at the San Francisco Conservatory. Elisabeth and  I remained friends after her graduation, and it was in the mid-80’s that I met Ursula at Elisabeth’s wedding. Ursula had grown up next door to my grandparents’ house in Berkeley, my grandmother and her mother had been friends, so we had reason to know OF each other but didn’t actually meet until Elisabeth’s wedding.

Ursula and I had never sought each other out, as strangers, asking about collaboration; however, when we met I asked her (naively) if she wrote poetry and had any that might be set to music. She subsequently sent me a few volumes and also loose-leaf, individual poems. From these sources I selected five which seemed to me to form a cycle and then began setting them the following summer while at the MacDowell Colony. The title, “Lockerbones/Airbones”, referred to one of the five poems containing these Ursula-contrived words. The set was performed in San Francisco the following year and subsequently published by my first publisher, J. B. Elkus & Son. Some years later we recorded another performance and Ursula put it on her website where it remains to this day. (All pertinent details regarding performers, sources, etc., may be found there.) 

So you see, it was friendship first, then my setting of already written poems—not a collaboration in the true sense at first. That friendship flourished and gave us great fun and pleasure; when we did decide to collaborate on something together from the ground up, I learned the true meaning of art as play, deep play. (We laughed uproariously at times, when Beethoven would have scowled.) On one of my visits to her California vacation home we agreed that it would be fun to collaborate on something from scratch. We came up with the preposterous notion of music being used for other purposes. We did not, however, conceive of the whole series or what it would become or what it would be called, nor did we work non-stop for ten years on this theme. Rather, when I received, sporadically, future commissions or requests from various performing forces I would consult with her to see if she thought we might collaborate in these instances. The musical forces involved on each occasion suggested the appropriate simile; for example, when I told her I had received a grant to compose something for the San Francisco Girls Chorus, she then created the text for Anithaca, designed for girls’ voices, a capella.

Ursula did not come up with “compositional styles”, nor I with textual ones. Fundamentally, I do not have a single compositional “style” that can be defined as such. Rather, I looked for characteristics in each of Ursula’s texts that could also translate to musical qualities. For example, both food and music can be crunchy, sweet, bitter, rich, liquid, thick, thin, spicy, etc; both music and weaving have threads, patterns, texture, direction (warp and weft), etc., etc.

So you see, while it was ten years or so before we recorded “Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts”, we did not start out with this as a goal. Rather, most of the pieces came about when opportunities arose as described above. It was not until after Ursula and I had co-narrated “The Great Instument of the Geggerets” with the Women’s Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta’s baton, that we decided to form a series under one title.

Speculative Sounds with Ursula K. Le Guin Part 1: Music And Poetry of the Kesh and Rigel 9

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Le Guin in 1984, a year before Rigel 9’s release. (Harlan Ellison at left.) Pip R. Lagenta/CC BY 2.0

By RL Thornton:

Introduction: When we think about speculative fiction (i.e. science fiction and fantasy), we usually think about novels, movies, or TV. But there are authors and musicians who try to expand those visions into sound. Ursula K. Le Guin was one of those people. This week, we will look at two of Le Guin’s musical collaborations with Todd Barton (“Kesh”) and David Bedford (“Rigel 9”), and next week, we will discuss Le Guin’s collaborations with composer and music educator Elinor Armen.

“Kesh” and Always Coming Home: Originally, this collection was on a cassette that came with a deluxe first edition of Le Guin’s 1985 novel Always Coming Home. Le Guin teamed up with synthesist Todd Barton to create a soundtrack to her 1985 novel Always Coming Home.

But it was reissued by the label RVNG International to acclaim by periodicals Pitchfork, who deemed it a Best New Reissue that “highlights the rich, totally immersive art Ursula K. Le Guin sought to create” and UK’s Guardian, who called it “deeply weird and enjoyable” even though they mistakenly called it an “electronica” album”. The first edition of 1000 vinyl LPs sold out and it was reissued a second time in 2018.

Music And Poetry of the Kesh is definitely different. Much of it is grounded in woodland sounds and the majority of the tunes feature sparse solo and duo unaccompanied singing that occasionally plays against a drum beating out time. Those unaccompanied tracks seem immediate and recorded live but feel a little thin due to the lack of reverb. Most of them seem to be a little thin sonically, though Barton occasionally brings in his synths (“Heron Dance”) and uses multitracked voices for “Long Singing.” It is said that there are instruments designed for the album but I didn’t really hear anything new–there was one sound that resembled a didgeridoo in “A River Song,” possibly the long droning horn that I read about.

Previously, I rejected this album out of hand because it lacked sound production values, but this album didn’t make sense to me until I actually started listening to it and reading Always Coming Home at the same time. As Le Guin’s prose cast its spell over me as usual, the soundtrack actually made Le Guin’s novel come alive. The decision to make the tracks part of the local soundscape suddenly made sense. It felt like I was among the Kesh! I swear it was absolutely magic. Who knew that the choice to use a minimum amount of recording tech would work so well! I’m really impressed. If you are a fan of Le Guin and especially a fan of Always Coming Home, I would say this is a must buy.

“Rigel 9” and Bedford: Next, we have Le Guin creating a libretto for a literal “space opera” with composer David Bedford and the County of Avon Symphonic Wind Band. In this story, explorers from Earth land on Rigel 9, a planet that seems to be nothing but bizarre trees. When the party begins to explore the world, everything changes after one of them is kidnapped by intelligent life. Bedford’s songs are grounded in that jazzy 70s British prog rock sound reminiscent of bands like Gong, Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt, and Henry Cow. Occasionally, I hear a brass band playing but most of the time it’s buried in the mix.

When the songs end and the spoken part of the libretto begins, Bereford’s blaring synths lay down weird background songs that are, well, like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s soundtracks for Doctor Who. Mix in the Dalek-ish robotic vocals that instruct the ship’s explorers, and Rigel 9 feels a lot like a rogue Doctor Who episode. My guess is the Bedford was trying to sell his rather unusual concept by deliberately pandering to the Whovians. Unfortunately, adopting the Whovian soundworld dilutes the work’s originality. The best part of Bedford’s musical setting is his cunning choice of ethereal female vocals to serve as the voices of Rigel 9’s inhabitants–literally unearthly and beautiful.

So what about Le Guin’s libretto? Honestly, it’s really meh for her and possibly the least interesting work that she has ever done, but even the least Le Guin is better than most. The explorer’s conversations are pretty flat and the characterizations are also flat, but the plot twist is actually pretty neat. Since this is on Apple Music and probably Spotify, I would suggest listening to Rigel 9 on those services before buying. And Whovians might want to try it too.