Pixel Scroll 4/18/25 Esprit de L’Ascenseur Spatial — [Things I Wish I’d Said While Descending The Space Elevator]

(1) PEABODY AWARDS 2025 NOMINEES. This year’s nominees for the George Foster Peabody Awards program were released on April 17. The awards honor what are described as “the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in all of television, radio, and online media.”

Here are the nominees of genre interest.

Children/Youth

  • Spirit Rangers (Netflix)

Spirit Rangers is an animated series on Netflix that follows three Chumash and Cowlitz siblings who transform into animal heroes to protect their California national park, blending Native stories, environmental themes, and adventure. As the first U.S. kids’ show created and showrun by a Native American, with an all-Native writers’ room and deep tribal collaboration, it offers authentic, joyful, and empowering representation for Indigenous communities.(Laughing Wild / Netflix)

Interactive & Immersive

  • 1000xRESIST

This genre-blending narrative adventure game uses time, memory, and shifting gameplay styles to explore themes of identity, resistance, and intergenerational trauma, rooted in the emotional aftermath of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Created by a majority Asian-Canadian team, the game sets players in a haunting future shaped by a global pandemic and alien occupation, challenging them to reckon with historical memory. (sunset visitor 斜陽過客 and Fellow Traveller)

  • Tchia

In Tchia, players embark on a tropical open-world adventure to rescue the protagonist’s father from the tyrannical ruler Meavora, exploring a physics-driven sandbox across beautiful islands. Inspired by New Caledonia, the game features creative gameplay and immerses players in the culture and language of the island nation. (Awaceb)

Documentary

  • The Space Race (National Geographic Channel)

The Space Race tells the powerful, long-overdue story of Black NASA astronauts who overcame systemic racism to claim their place in the U.S. space program. The films centers on Ed Dwight, the nation’s first Black astronaut trainee who was denied flight but paved the way for future generations. Decades later, Dwight finally reached space at age 90, turning his personal victory into a historic moment of justice. (National Geographic Documentary Films, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Algeria Films & Cortés Filmworks)

  • Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (HBO | Max)

After a devastating accident left him paralyzed, Christopher Reeve became a powerful symbol of resilience, using his platform to inspire hope and advocate for disability rights. Throughout it all, he remained a passionate actor, filmmaker, and devoted family man, with his wife Dana as his unwavering support. (DC Studios / HBO Documentary Films / CNN Films)

(2) FUNDRAISING FOR FELIX FAMILY AND NEIGHBORS. “Propane gas leak caused home explosion in Northwest Austin” reports NPR station KUT.

The home explosion in Northwest Austin that injured six people and damaged two dozen homes was caused by a substantial propane gas leak inside the home, according to Travis County Fire Marshal Gary Howell.

In a statement, Howell said there are no suspicious or criminal circumstances surrounding the incident.

“While this investigation is entering its final stages, it is important to remember that there is still a long road of recovery ahead for those who were affected by this tragic event,” he said. “There are still two people in critical condition at area hospitals.”

The house on Double Spur Loop near U.S. Highway 183 and Spicewood Springs exploded the morning of April 13. The blast was heard more than 15 miles away in Georgetown, according to the Austin Fire Department.

Community members have raised more than $36,000 for the Felix family, who owned the home.

Samantha Leer, whose house was damaged by the explosion, started another fundraiser for her neighbors to help with the rebuilding process. She said many homes, especially those closest to the explosion, need thousands of dollars in repairs.

“As a neighborhood we’re all still wrapping our heads around what happened and where to start to begin putting our lives back together,” Leer said on the GoFundMe page. “We’re all in an insurance ‘hold’ while we wait for the investigation to be completed. Our houses are damaged, our lives are displaced, so I am hoping … we can start putting some of the pieces back together both physically and mentally.”

(3) COMPARING GENRE ARTISTS. Steven Heller calls “Frank Frazetta, the Norman Rockwell of Horror” at PRINT Magazine.

Frank Frazetta (1928–2010) was not just a horror magazine artist whose purpose was to create fantasies that scare the bejesus out of the average mortal. He was an artist first, and storyteller second. His art is reminiscent of late 19th-century European symbolism, notably that of the French Odilon Redon and the Austrian Alfred Kubin—but Frazetta’s paintings express an American essence similar to Norman Rockwell (had Rockwell decided to paint menace instead of tranquility).

Picture a Rockwell image of a typical country doctor examining a young lad … except instead of a calm, caring man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope, the same personage wears animal skin and a spiked helmet, brandishing a heavy steel sword with a sharp serrated blade, poised to carve the heart of his young, trusting patient. And rather than a benign, handsome white-clad nurse assisting the doctor, there’s a busty, muscular she-wolf bedecked with slithering serpents and a bloodied scythe. Frazetta and Rockwell share the same tools but see through different eyes. Each captured the affection of their respective loyal fans, but it’s doubtful there’s much crossover of those bases…

(4) CELEBRATE BOOKS. Witness History explains “The origin of World Book Day” at the BBC.

In November 1995, a proposal of having an annual day focused on celebrating books was put forward at the UNESCO conference in Paris. 

The idea came from a long-established Spanish celebration ‘The Day of Books and Roses’. 

The first World Book Day was on 23 April 1996. 

Although some countries now celebrate World Book Day on different dates, it’s marked on 23 April in the majority of countries. 

Pere Vicens is a book publisher from Barcelona in Spain and one of the creators of World Book Day. He tells Gill Kearsley the origins of this now annual event.

(5) IN PRAISE OF SINNERS. “Sinners Is a Sumptuous Southern Vampire Delight”Paste Magazine’s Tara Bennett is a fan.

Give it to writer/director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale StationBlack Panther) for coming at Sinners, his first horror feature, with the intentionality of a PhD student with something to prove. There’s no shortage of existing lazy or derivative vampire movies that he could have easily bested with modest effort. Instead, Coogler cracked the history books, collected his A-list family of collaborators, including composer Ludwig Göransson, production designer Hannah Beachler, director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw, costume designer Ruth E. Carter and ever-trusted leading man Michael B. Jordan, to cinematically (with a capital C) transport the audience to a 1930’s Jim Crow Mississippi ripe for all kinds of delicious trouble.

Coogler’s Sinners screenplay is original but it most certainly carries the baton for what Misha Green explored in her mashup of horror, the supernatural and Black oppression in her HBO series, Lovecraft Country (2020). Although that series was ultimately too broad with its ambitions, Coogler wisely stays hyper-focused on just two monsters – the vampire and bigoted Whites who wear hoods. Coogler weaves vampiric metaphors into the societal oppression of the Old South and asks the audience to consider, which is worse?

Sinners is told through the world-weary eyes of twin brothers, Smoke and Stack (a finely-tuned dual performance by Jordan), who return home to Mississippi after first surviving WWI, and then the organized crime gangs of Chicago….

(6) CORRECTION. Correcting yesterday’s Scroll, Andrew Porter now says, “Judy-Lynn del Rey piece ONLY available on broadcast versions of this, NOT at link!!!”

Through May 14 PBS is making available online “Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse” part of the American Masters series.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

April 18, 1971David Tennant, 54.

Very minor spoilers here if you’ve not been watching the recent series.  You’ve been warned.

Of the modern Doctor Whos, the one performed by David Tennant is my favorite by far. (It won’t surprise you that Tom Baker is my classic Doctor.) I liked him from the very first time that he appeared, in “The Christmas Invasion”.  (Spoiler alert from here out.) The fact that he won’t finish his transition until he inhales the fumes from a dropped flask of tea. Oh, what a truly British thing to have him do! 

Christopher Eccleston was good but I thought that he didn’t have long enough to fully settle into the role so I felt his character was more of a sketch than a fully developed character. His certainly would have been a better Doctor if he’d decided to stay around, but he didn’t. 

Tennant, on the other hand had three series plus some specials, he’d also be the Doctor in a two-part story in Doctor Who spin-off, Sarah Jane Adventures, “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”. 

He got the proper time to settle into his character.  And what a character it was — intelligent, full of humor, sympathetic and just alien enough in his quirkiness to believable that he wasn’t human. 

Oh, and the stories. So, so great. Those along with his companions made for ever so great watching. My favorite companion?  Not picking one as each had their own unique effect on the series  and him — Rose Tyler, Donna Noble and Martha Jones, all made fine companions in very different ways. 

If I could pick just one story from his run, it’d be “The Unicorn and The Wasp” with Agatha Christie as a character and Donna Noble as the companion. And it was a country manor house mystery! 

Yes, I know he came back as the Fourteenth Doctor.

It’s certainly not his only genre role, and yes he played several Doctor Who roles before being the Tenth Doctor. He had a role in the BBC’s animated Scream of the Shalka and appeared in several Big Finish Productions. I think I read he played a Time Lord in one of them. 

Now let’s see about his other genre roles… One of my favorite series, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), had him as Gordon Stylus in the “Drop Dead” episode. The Quatermass Experiment film had him as Dr. Gordon Briscoe. 

He was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as Barty Crouch Jr., a fine performance he gave there. I like the films, found what I read of the first novel dreadfully boring. 

In How to Train Your Dragon and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which I think has awesomely cute animation, he voices Spitelout Jorgenson, a warrior of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. Need I say more? I think not.  DreamWorks Dragons was another series in which he voiced this character. 

In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, he had a short run there as Huyang.  Huh. He even voiced a character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, one called Fugitoid, a sort of android figure.

He’s the voice of Dangerous Beans in The Amazing Maurice off Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

The last role I’ll mention is his Jessica Jones one and one that honestly made me not watch the series. No, I’ll not say why as that’d be a major spoiler. He was called Kevin Thompson / Kilgrave.

David Tennant

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) FIONA MOORE’S BOOKSHELF.  Shelfies, edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin, “Takes a unique peek each week into one of our contributors’ weird and wonderful bookshelves.” A recent entry was “Shelfies #32: Fiona Moore”. Photo at the link.

…On the top shelf, there’s a BFI Guide to Metropolis, and on the lower one, McGilligan’s exhaustive biography of its director, Fritz LangMetropolis is my favourite movie, in part because no two versions are ever the same. The original was lost, meaning that only a cut-down 90-minute version made for the US market survived, but over the years people added in found footage, or reordered things to make more sense. And since it’s silent, you don’t have to just use the original soundtrack; Moroder famously did a techno version, and I’ve seen the movie with accompaniments by a free jazz band and by an Irish harp. It’s fitting because the movie itself is one with resonances all over the political spectrum. These days, I think one could read it as a warning of what happens when billionaires form alliances with vindictive tech-bros and try to “disrupt the workplace”, and how the intellectuals and the workers need to come together to fix the damage….

(10) DESERT ISLAND DISC. [Item by Steven French.] One from the margins… “Super spicy! Jack Black’s Minecraft song Steve’s Lava Chicken becomes shortest ever UK Top 40 hit” in the Guardian.

Actor and musician Jack Black has made UK chart history, with the shortest ever song to reach the Top 40: his novelty track Steve’s Lava Chicken is just 34 seconds long.

The spectacularly silly song reaches No 21 this week, and is taken from A Minecraft Movie, the video game spin-off film, which has earned $570m (£430m) so far at the global box office – and caused cinemas to be overrun by the game’s young and high-energy fanbase.

Black performs the song in the film as the character Steve, as he shows the other protagonists around the alternate universe, the Overworld, and hymns the virtues of chicken cooked in lava (“Crispy and juicy, now you’re havin’ a snack / Ooh, super spicy, it’s a lava attack”).

(11) WAYS TO SUPPORT NASA. The Planetary Society today wrote to members:

NASA science is facing a potential dark age.

News broke on April 11 confirming rumors that the White House Office of Management and Budget is working on a proposal that would cut the NASA science budget in half. If enacted, this budget would force the premature termination of dozens of active, productive spacecraft, and would halt the development of nearly every future science project at NASA.

In response to these proposed cuts, The Planetary Society has launched a campaign for citizens to write to their representatives and voice their concerns. We urge Americans who support space exploration to share their support of NASA science.

(12) QUANTUS INTERRUPTUS. [Item by Steven French.] A watched quantum pot never boils – how the quantum Zeno effect reveals just how weird the quantum world is: “The quantum Zeno effect: how the ‘measurement problem’ went from philosophers’ paradox to physicists’ toolbox” at Physics World.

Imagine, if you will, that you are a quantum system. Specifically, you are an unstable quantum system – one that would, if left to its own devices, rapidly decay from one state (let’s call it “awake”) into another (“asleep”). But whenever you start to drift into the “asleep” state, something gets in the way. Maybe it’s a message pinging on your phone. Maybe it’s a curious child peppering you with questions. Whatever it is, it jolts you out of your awake–asleep superposition and projects you back into wakefulness. And because it keeps happening faster than you can fall asleep, you remain awake, diverted from slumber by a stream of interruptions – or, in quantum terms, measurements.

This phenomenon of repeated measurements “freezing” an unstable quantum system into a particular state is known as the quantum Zeno effect (figure 1). Named after a paradox from ancient Greek philosophy, it was hinted at in the 1950s by the scientific polymaths Alan Turing and John von Neumann but only fully articulated in 1977 by the physicists Baidyanath Misra and George Sudarshan (J. Math. Phys. 18 756). Since then, researchers have observed it in dozens of quantum systems, including trapped ionssuperconducting flux qubits and atoms in optical cavities. But the apparent ubiquitousness of the quantum Zeno effect cannot hide the strangeness at its heart. How does the simple act of measuring a quantum system have such a profound effect on its behaviour?

(13) BLACK MIRROR HIGHLIGHT. The Guardian’s Keith Stuart reminisces: “Plaything – how Black Mirror took on its scariest ever subject: a 1990s PC games magazine”.

Out of all the episodes in the excellent seventh season of Black Mirror, it’s Plaything that sticks out to me and I suspect to anyone else who played video games in the 1990s. It’s the story of socially awkward freelance games journalist, Cameron Walker, who steals the code to a new virtual pet sim named Thronglets from the developer he’s meant to be interviewing. When he gets the game home, he realises the cute, intelligent little critters he’s caring for on the screen have a darker ambition than simply to perform for his amusement – cue nightmarish exploration of AI and our complicity in its rise.

The episode is interesting to me because … well, I was a socially awkward games journalist in the mid-1990s. But more importantly, so was Charlie Brooker. He began his writing career penning satirical features and blistering reviews for PC Zone magazine, one of the two permanently warring PC mags of the era (I shared an office with the other, PC Gamer). In Plaything, it’s PC Zone that Cameron Walker writes for, and there are several scenes taking place in its office, which in the programme is depicted as a reasonably grownup office space with tidy computer workstations and huge windows. I do not think the production design team got this vision from Brooker….

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

Pixel Scroll 4/14/25 Peter And The Dire Wolf

(1) SARA FELIX UPDATE. Sara Felix, whose husband was badly injured when their new house blew up yesterday, has given Facebook friends a news update.

The girls have such a nurturing bunch of moms that have watched them while I am at the hospital.

The community was damaged by this not just us. It is scary how big of an accident it was.

We hadn’t moved in so the girls are at the current house. Cheeto and everyone is fine.

Keith is stable and is through surgery. He has burns on a large percentage of his body, but he is recovering.

(2) AUREALIS AWARDS. The 2024 Aurealis Awards shortlists were announced today. Complete information at the link.

(3) FAAN AWARDS. The winners of the FAAn Awards for fanzine achievement were revealed yesterday in the UK. The full list is here: “2025 FAAn Awards”.

(4) STURGEON SYMPOSIUM DATES AND CALL FOR PAPERS. The J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas has set the dates for the 2025 Sturgeon Symposium.

The J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction is pleased to announce our 4th Annual Sturgeon Symposium, to be held October 9-10, 2025. In addition to presenting the annual Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best science fiction short story, which will include a reading from the winner, we are delighted to announce that Darcie Little Badger has accepted our invitation to speak at the symposium. 

We have opened our call for papers where we invite papers, panel proposals, and roundtable discussions that engage with this year’s theme: “Expanding Speculative Horizons.” Inspired by Darcie Little Badger’s diverse contributions to SF (novels, short stories, comics, etc.), we encourage a wide range of submissions, especially those that reflect upon expansive understandings of speculative expression.

We encourage you to submit and share our CFP widely. Below you will find the link to our CFP with more details on the event and guidelines for proposals. Deadlines for submissions is May 19.

(5) DOCTOR WHO HISTORY. [Item by Nickpheas.] Front Row on BBC Radio 4 has quite a long feature on the new series of Doctor Who which spread to cover the history of the show, and even a brief interview with Waris Hussein, the original director (who I didn’t realize was still alive). “…Doctor Who new series & impact on culture…”. Doctor Who feature starts 11:20 in.

(6) RUSSELL T DAVIES Q&A. Parade tries to find out what’s coming in this season and the next: “’Doctor Who’ Boss Russell T Davies Breaks Down That ‘Earth-Shattering’ Premiere Twist”.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the modern incarnation of Doctor Who, which you helped bring on screen. What have you learned most over the course of working on so many episodes and with so many Doctors?
I mean, it’s astonishing. I just look exactly the same. So clearly, I’m made of Adamantium. It’s funny because actually, a couple of years ago, the BBC said, “You want to celebrate the 20th anniversary.” And I said, “We’ve just had a 60th anniversary!” And on Disney+, it’s only two years old, so no, so we chose not to. Now we get to the 20th, and everyone’s talking about the 20th. And I feel a bit stupid. We didn’t really do anything to celebrate it. Someone at the BBC is making a documentary, so that’ll be out in a couple of months.

I think about Doctor Who, you learn something new with every single episode. It was different. Now this year, coming out in Episode 2, this year, we go to Miami in 1952, where there’s a living cartoon. The cartoon has stepped out of the cinema screen, voiced by Alan Cumming. So, for that, we all had to learn hand-drawn animation. I’ve worked in television for a million years. And I’ve done graphics, I’ve done CGI. I’ve never actually done hand-drawn animation before, which was amazing.

What I did learn is it’s 15 times more meetings than anything else I’ve ever done. [Laughs.] But it’s wonderful. I feel like I’ve learned a lot, and I appreciate the skill of the animator more than ever. And Doctor Who has always done that. Always every week, it’s different. I mean, last year, we sort of said to ourselves, “Can we do an episode where the enemy is just an old woman who stands 73 yards away?” And we did, and it worked. So you have to take these very deep breaths and sort of say, “Is this going to work?” And have faith in it. So it teaches you something different every single time. And 20 years whizzes past in a flash….

As we’re just starting out Season 2 on Disney+, are you already in the planning stages for Season 3?
We’ll always look ahead to the future if we get the chance to keep running. I’ve got ideas. “I think I’ll do that near [Season] 4 or 5.” And that’s always the way I’ve worked on things. So yes, I could promise you amazing stuff at the end of Season 4. There are things we’ve already mentioned that are going to bear fruit a long time into the future. So that’s just the fun of it. That’s the fun of Doctor Who. But, to say again, it’s the pit stops along the way….

(7) NAME THAT ORBIT. Mental Floss challenges readers: “Can You Match the Moon to the Planet It Belongs To?” Take the quiz at the link. Uh, after Earth and the Moon, my hit rate rapidly declined. I got 41%. You can do better!

(8) SF WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A WARNING, NOT A BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE. Sam Freedman’s latest column in The Guardian is: “The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world?”

One can only imagine the horror the late Iain Banks would have felt on learning his legendary Culture series is a favourite of Elon Musk. The Scottish author was an outspoken socialist who could never understand why rightwing fans liked novels that were so obviously an attack on their worldview….

… Musk isn’t alone in his enthusiasms. Mark Zuckerberg has renamed his company and sunk $100bn in pursuit of the “metaverse”, a word that first appeared in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash. So obsessed is Zuckerberg with the book – in which people plug into a simulated world to avoid a real one fallen into dystopian chaos – that at one point all product managers at Facebook were asked to read it as part of their training. Snow Crash also inspired the development of Google Earth, and was mandatory reading for the Xbox development team at Microsoft. Jeff Bezos loves Stephenson so much that he hired him to work for his Blue Origin rocket company.

If sci-fi’s influence was simply on product design, it wouldn’t be a problem. If Zuckerberg wants to burn his own cash in pursuit of a personal fantasy, or Musk wants to build hideous cars, that’s their call. It may even inspire something genuinely useful from time to time….

…The real issue is that sci-fi hasn’t just infused the tech moguls’ commercial ideas but also their warped understanding of society and politics. The dominant genre of sci-fi in the 80s and 90s, when today’s Silicon Valley overlords were growing up, was Cyberpunk – as exemplified in the novels of William Gibson (who invented the term “cyberspace”) and Stephenson, as well as any number of films and video games. The grandfather of the genre was Philip K Dick, whose novels and short stories spawned films including Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report.

https://dff5fe6618baf1dc9a69a0f44e8ea6da.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-41/html/container.html Dick’s stories were fuelled by amphetamine-driven paranoia. Nothing can be trusted and nobody is who they appear to be. It’s a style that’s arguably had more impact on modern culture and aesthetics than any other. The Matrix (1999) is just one example of Dick’s wider influence: he had often spoken of other worlds and suggested our own reality was a simulation.

As historian Richard Hofstadter noted in his famous 1964 essay, the “paranoid style” has been a feature of rightwing American politics for a long time – but The Matrix has given it a new vocabulary and imagery….

(9) PKD AT MEDIA DEATH CULT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid over at Media Death Cult is really into Philip K. Dick.  He has just posted a quick guide to the author. You can see the 24 minute video below…

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Probe series (1988)

Thirty-seven years ago on this date, the Probe series ended its seven-episode run, not by any means the shortest run of a series we’ve looked at – several, such as Nightmare Cafe and Space Rangers, lasted only six episodes. Can anyone recall a genre series that lasted less episodes? I’m sure there is one. 

It was co- created by Michael I. Wagner and Isaac Asimov. Asimov had quite some background in television SF series and Wagner was previously known for creating Hill Street Blues. (You can purchase all one hundred forty episodes at Apple TV+ for just $39.95!) 

Here Asimov co-created, produced and according to ImDB was involved in writing all of the eight scripts. That’s not particularly surprising to me that he did that given how prolific he was. 

The pilot and series starred Parker Stevenson as Austin James, an asocial genius who solved high tech crimes, and Ashley Crow as James’ new secretary Mickey Castle. Stevenson’s only major casting was on Baywatch.  Row has a serious genre credit as she played Sandra Bennett on Heroes. That series is streaming on Peacock. And no, I really don’t care if Baywatch is streaming anywhere.

It aired on ABC just once and was re-aired on Syfy, though they edited the episodes to stuff in extra commercials as they did every series they aired which they hadn’t produced. 

What happened to it? Did poor ratings doom it? No, they didn’t. As one reviewer notes, “Together, these two encounter out-of-control experiments, supernatural events, and mysterious deaths. As you might expect, Probe features heavy doses of scientific knowledge and logical reasoning, but was cut short due to the 1988 writers strike.” 

Remember the Australian-filmed Mission: Impossible shot during the writers strike was only a go because they dug into the file drawers of the first series and used not filmed scripts. Or possibly Grave’s  brain. 

It is not streaming anywhere. Except Space Rangers, I find really short run series that were not done as miniseries tend not to be streamed. 

Do I have to say that all those YouTube copies are illegal, so links will be, oh, need I say it?

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) YMMV DURING HOLY WEEK. There is a surprising sf film mentioned in this NPR story. “Revisiting our favorite (and not so favorite) religious films” at NPR.

DETROW: And even for those of us who live more secular lives, movies continue to offer a bit of a cinematic catechism with stories from the Bible and other religious traditions. And with Passover and Holy Week underway, we figured it would be a good time to talk about faith and film. I’m joined by NPR’s religion correspondent, Jason DeRose. Hey, Jason….

… DEROSE: Well, I have a very specific group of religion movies that I actually like quite a lot, and they are comedies. They’re the Monty Python films – “The Life Of Brian,” “The Holy Grail,” “The Meaning Of Life.” “The Meaning Of Life” has one of the funniest songs I ever heard in my life – “Every Sperm Is Sacred.”…

…MARTIN: The other film that I – is, like, “Arrival,” for example…

DETROW: Yes.

MARTIN: …Which is, again, like, science – it’s supposedly science fiction, right? But, like, I think a lot of films in sci-fi also – or that are technically sci-fi actually live in a – to me, in a spiritual space because they ask hard questions. What is the meaning of existence, and how do we know?…

(13) WHIP IT GOOD! Inverse tells how “’Indiana Jones And The Great Circle’ Just Got A Lot More Fun”. (See the Launch Trailer on YouTube.)

Indiana Jones And The Great Circle was one of the best games of 2024. Machine Games’ remarkable fusion of stealth gameplay, detailed open-ended levels, and a dogged faithfulness to the film series was a match made in heaven. Now, just a week ahead of its PlayStation 5 debut, The Great Circle is getting a few new additions that will make re-experiencing this modern classic worthwhile.

The Great Circle Title Update 4 will add entirely new perks for players to take advantage of in combat, over a dozen quality of life improvements, and a new hilarious use for an often underutilized item in the game.

The biggest item on the list is two new Adventure Books. One is called “Open Season,” which makes enemies more vulnerable to follow-up damage after getting hit with Indy’s whip. The second is called “Sleight of Hand,” which lets Indy use his whip to pull an enemy’s weapon towards him after doing a disarm whip attack. For players partial to the game’s optional gunplay, Sleight of Hand will add new strategy and variety to how ranged combat encounters play out.

For the more melee-focused player, Indy now has a secondary use for repair kits. These consumables are typically used to give more longevity to Indy’s makeshift weapon of choice. But The Great Circle is so chock-full of random pick-ups that they can often go ignored through most (if not all) of a single playthrough. Machine Games has made note of this player trend and adjusted things accordingly.

“Some of you have told us that you don’t have much use for Repair Kits,” the update’s patch notes read. “Well, now you can throw them at your enemies!”…

(14) WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE. Learn “How climate change could disrupt the construction and operations of US nuclear submarines” at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

…In recent years, the Defense Department has started to acknowledge climate change as a “threat multiplier”—albeit slowly. Acknowledging the billions of dollars climate change could cost the Navy in the future, the Pentagon now incorporates inclement weather disasters and other climate effects into military planning and base structures. However, during the first Trump administration, the Navy quietly ended the climate change task force put in place by the Obama administration, which taught naval leaders how to adapt to rising sea levels. As the new Trump administration wipes all mention of climate change and other environmental measures from federal agency websites, climate-related measures may also be halted despite being critical for the viability of naval missions.

Most of the naval construction and operations infrastructure for the United States’ ballistic missile submarines are located on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Due to sea level rise and increased inclement weather attributed to climate change, these facilities are becoming more vulnerable to flooding. The intensity and number of hurricanes in the North Atlantic region have increased since the 1980s and will continue to do so as ocean temperatures keep rising, further threatening coastal areas. These incidents are highly costly and disruptive to operations. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the Defense Department has 1,700 coastal military installations that could be impacted by sea level rise. In 2018, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida suffered $4.7 billion in damages from Hurricane Michael.

Infrastructure at risk. General Dynamics Electric Boat—the lead contractor for the new Columbia-class submarines—performs over three-quarters of the construction operations for the 12 new ships at its two shipbuilding facilities located in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Both facilities are in at-risk flood areas….

(15) IN DEFENSE OF SCIENCE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Science by definition is arguable genre-adjacent to SF.  So no better a time for an appeal for reason.

The world’s two leading multi-disciplinary journals, Nature and Science have in the past month had a series of articles and news items reporting on how science in the US is being dismantled, and how it is being mis-represented by politicians on a range of issues from climate change to vaccines.

Ironically, Brit Prof Dave Kipping moved to US for his career and now many scientists are moving back and some US scientists are leaving.  See his 12-minute video from the Cool Worlds Lab

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Andrew (not Werdna).] DeForest Kelley was apparently well-prepared for Trek: “DeForest Kelley on The Millionaire. Watch until the end.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Olav Rokne, Nickpheas, Andrew (not Werdna), Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “Prokofiev” Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 4/13/25 Why Do Fremen Wear Red Suspenders? To Get To The Other Side Of The Sandworm

(1) HUSBAND INJURED WHEN FELIX FAMILY HOUSE EXPLODES. Artist Sara Felix has told a CBS reporter her husband Keith was inside their Austin, TX house when it exploded today. He is having surgery “for burns and injuries sustained when parts of the structure collapsed on him.”

…Felix told CBS Austin reporter Vinny Martorano that the explosion occurred at a house she and her husband were building but had not yet moved into.

“Like, you don’t expect your house to explode,” Felix said. “It’s just such a surreal experience… You think these things happen to other people. You don’t expect it to happen to yourself.”

Felix’s husband was inside the residence when it exploded and is currently undergoing surgery for burns and injuries sustained when parts of the structure collapsed on him. Felix said she felt the force of the blast from their current home approximately a mile away.

The house, which was designed to run primarily on electricity, did have a propane tank on site. Felix noted that they “were not hooked up to the city or anything like that,” but expressed doubt that the propane tank alone could have caused an explosion of such magnitude.

No personal belongings had been moved into the house yet, though appliances had been installed.

Felix expressed concern for neighbors whose homes were also damaged in the blast. “I worry about all the neighbors that also had damage to their house. Because it was a very big explosion,” she said.

The local community has rallied around the family, with a meal train organized to provide support. “The community from Laurel Mount… has been really supportive,” Felix said….

(2) THE BORDERLINE. The Guardian reports “Australian academics refuse to attend US conferences for fear of being detained”.

When Gemma Lucy Smart received an invitation to attend an academic conference in the US, she was excited. But that was before Donald Trump was returned to office.

Now Smart, who has a disability and is queer, has decided it’s too risky to travel to Seattle for the social sciences conference in September.

The disabilities officer at the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations and a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney will instead attend remotely.

Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, the Society for Social Studies of Science made its conference “hybrid” in response to what it said were “unpredictable” developments at the US border.

“They were concerned about people entering,” Smart said.

“I work on the history of psychiatry, so my field has a lot to do with diversity, equity and inclusion. They [the conference organisers] very explicitly said, ‘We don’t believe it is safe for everyone to travel to the US, particularly our trans and diverse colleagues.’

“The focus on that is really troubling. That, if you legitimately have a different passport than you were given at a young age, you could be detained.”

The conference’s co-chairs announced the hybrid move on 21 January – a day after Trump began his second term. They said the decision reflected “conversations with disability justice and environmental justice scholars and activists”…

(3) HUGO FINALIST KALIANE BRADLEY. [Item by Steven French.] Here’s an interesting interview with Kaliane Bradley whose book The Ministry of Time came out last year and who is an editor at Penguin Classics. As well as talking about her Cambodian heritage she mentions the early significance of reading Terry Pratchett: “Kaliane Bradley: ‘I dreaded the book going to people I know’” in the Guardian.

Which book made you want to work with books?

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. The first one I ever picked up was Interesting Times, which is actually not one I recommend. But reading Pratchett when I was very young – I mean, I was still losing milk teeth – made me excited about the possibilities of literature, books, series, authors. He has influenced my writing more than anyone else.

(4) STEAMY IN SEATTLE 2025: A CELEBRATION OF WOMEN IN SPECULATIVE FICTION. Clarion West presents Steamy in Seattle 2025 on Saturday, May 10 at the Nordic Museum.

Join us for a traditional high tea and a custom tea blend provided by Friday Afternoon Tea. This event is not just a fundraiser; it’s a celebration of emerging and underrepresented writers — particularly women in the field of speculative fiction. Steamy in Seattle raises money for writing workshops, sliding scale tuition, and scholarship programs. 

Ann Aguirre and Elizabeth Stephens will discuss the alien romance genre, science fiction and fantasy worlds, and what writing romance has taught them! Paranormal romance author Jasmine Silvera will moderate. 

The event is a hybrid event and streaming tickets will be available. Purchase your tickets today

Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-week residential workshop every summer, online classes and workshops, one-day and weekend workshops, a reading series every summer, and other events throughout the year.

Ann Aguirre: New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Ann Aguirre has been a clown, a clerk, a savior of stray kittens, and a voice actress, not necessarily in that order. She loves video games, Korean dramas, music, dogs and cats, and staring at the sea. Though she writes all kinds of genre fiction, she has a major soft spot for a happily ever after.

Elizabeth Stephens: Tough heroines & possessive Alphas solve mysteries, fight epic battles, and fall in love in Elizabeth’s diverse romance & SciFi novels. Elizabeth Stephens has been living in a fantasy world since she was 11, and in 2015 finally translated her imagination to print! An author of romantic suspense and science fiction, she is a big fan of inclusion and her books always include kick ass ladies of color.

(5) JEAN MARSH (1934-2025). Actress and writer Jean Marsh, known for starring in Upstairs, Downstairs, died April 13 at the age of 90. The New York Times obituary also tells about her considerable genre resume.

Jean Marsh, the striking British-born actress who was both the co-creator and a beloved Emmy-winning star of “Upstairs, Downstairs,” the seminal 1970s British drama series about class in Edwardian England, died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 90.

The cause was complications of dementia, the filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, her close friend, said.

[In 1959] she made a handful of American television appearances, … an episode in the first season of “The Twilight Zone,” in which she played an alluring brunette robot created as a companion for a prisoner (Jack Warden) on an asteroid.

She also appeared in “Willow” (1988), a fantasy, as an evil sorceress, and “Return to Oz” (1985), as an evil princess.

Aside from “Upstairs, Downstairs,” she was probably best remembered on the small screen for her early appearances on “Dr. Who.” 

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

King Kong

By Paul Weimer: The Eighth Wonder of the World.  (a title that Andre the Giant also received, but that is another story entirely).

We thank WPIX again for showing the original King Kong movie on some Saturday afternoon. A black-and-white movie about a trip to a mysterious tropical island and its very dangerous resident. I was enthralled. 

King Kong represents a lot of things in the psyche, some of them not so pleasant. Man versus the wilderness and the wildness of nature furious at being imprisoned, gassed, and eventually killed. The visuals on the original movie have rarely been exceeded (the 70’s movie is just passable in my opinion. The Jackson one, a passion project, seems to be a movie about the original movie King Kong than actually about King Kong. And so on). When Jeff Goldblum quips “Who do they have in there, King Kong?” in Jurassic Park, we all know what he is invoking. 

One could interpret King Kong as less of man’s fears of the wilderness and the modern first world’s fear of the third world rising up against it. Certainly, this plays into the whole Fay Wray / King Kong dynamic with the ever-dark fear of “miscegenation” . There are some really toxic things in the King Kong story that need to be seen and dealt with if one wants to engage on the movie at more than a superficial level.  But the problem is that those taproots are part of the reason why King compels us. But unlike Godzilla, Kong is never seen as anything other than at best a victim, and at worst a destructive force of nature. King Kong really never gets to be more than an antihero at best, and usually not even that. Kong is the antagonist. He is the Id that is always there, always lurking. Kong wants to be left alone on Skull Island, but the world will not allow it, one way or another. 

There is even a King Kong derivative, Titano, that Superman has fought a few times. (Titano usually has Kryptonite-fueled power, meaning Superman has to be clever in order to beat him). There are a couple of crossover movies with Godzilla done as well. And plenty more, including the recent Monarch TV series. Here really is just something about a gigantic ape wreaking havoc that people want a piece of the action of, one way or another.  There is probably a book to be written that shows how Planet of the Apes owes a lot to King Kong, especially the original movie. 

Was it Beauty that killed the Beast?  No, King Kong lives! King Kong taps into some primal fears and doubts about man, civilization, the wilderness and more (including the darker things mentioned above), and so beauty won’t kill that beast, nor will anything else, I think. 

Anyone up for King Kong on Mars? (Or has it already been done?)

(7) COMICS SECTION.

My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books.

Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-04-12T09:03:41.895Z
  • Tom Gauld also has a graph.

My cartoon for this week's @newscientist.com

Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-04-13T13:55:52.057Z

(8) COSPLAYING CRIME FIGHTERS. “Con Artists Scamming London Tourists Meet Their Match: Batman and Robin” reports the New York Times.

Batman and Robin have taken a break from fighting crime in Gotham City to swoop on low-level scammers swindling tourists in the center of London.

Footage shared by the Metropolitan Police on Friday showed undercover officers disguised in the superhero costumes tackling a man who was running a street entertainment game similar to “three-card monte” near Parliament. The police said the game was an illegal gambling operation.

In the video, filmed by the police during an operation in February, the officer dressed as Batman could be seen running along Westminster Bridge wearing the character’s traditional mask, flanked by Robin in a comic book-style costume and bucket hat.

Batman, whose real name is Inspector Darren Watson, pushed through a crowd of tourists watching the suspect’s game, flanked by Robin, played by Police Constable Abdi Osman.

The pair arrested one man, handcuffed him and seized a “cup and ball game.” In the game, the operator places a ball under one of three cups, shuffles them around, then encourages passers-by to bet on where the ball is concealed. But the game run by the arrested man, police said, was rigged: It was impossible to win because the operator would move the ball using sleight of hand.

While superhero costumes are not common in the area, the police said its officers had started to wear disguises because they had become well known to people running scams on the bridge.

“I knew that if we were going to catch them we would have to think outside the box,” said Inspector Watson, who is responsible for local policing in the area. “And then I remembered that I had Batman and Robin costumes to hand, which could come in use.”…

(9) STUCK IN TIME. “Metal Detectorists Unearth Ancient Dagger Decorated With Tiny Stars, Crescent Moons and Geometric Patterns” in Smithsonian Magazine. Photo at the link.

After a recent storm, two metal detectorists went searching for treasure at a beach in northern Poland. They discovered a piece of history lodged in a lump of clay: a small ornamental dagger decorated with stars, crescent moons and geometric patterns.

The metal detectorists, Jacek Ukowski and Katarzyna Herdzik, notified experts at the nearby Museum of the History of Kamień Land. According to a statement, the museum’s director, archaeologist Grzegorz Kurka, met the duo at the beach to examine the artifact.

The dagger is a metallurgical masterpiece that could be up to 2,500 years old, per the statement. It’s likely connected to the Hallstatt culture, which existed in western Europe between roughly the eighth and fifth centuries B.C.E. Experts think the weapons may have been crafted in southern Europe and imported to the Baltic coast.

Ukowski and Herdzik are members of a group of metal detectorists called the St. Cordula Association for the Saving of Monuments. The dagger isn’t Ukowski’s first big discovery. Last year, he found a broken papal bull—a pope’s engraved lead seal—that may have been linked to Clement VI.

(10) WILL PLAY GAMES FOR FOOD. “A crow’s math skills include geometry”NPR describes the discovery.

… When the crows pecked on the flower shape, they got a snack.

After the birds understood this game, the researchers started showing them sets of shapes that included squares, parallelograms, or irregular quadrilaterals.

The crows might see, for example, five perfect squares along with one four-sided figure that was just slightly off.

What the researchers wanted to know is whether or not “with these quadrilaterals, they could still continue to find the outlier, even though the outlier was looking perceptually very similar to the other five regular shapes,” explains Nieder.

Yes. It turns out, the crows could.

In the journal Science Advances, the researchers describe a series of tests showing that crows clearly had a sense of right angles, parallel lines, and symmetry.

Before these results, says Nieder, “there was no single animal that demonstrated this capability of detecting geometric regularity.”

In fact, a recent study in baboons suggested this non-human primate couldn’t do it.

“Baboons are so much closer to us and we trained them so much more,” says Mathias Sablé-Meyer, a cognitive neuroscientist now at the University College London who worked on that study. “After failing to train the baboons to do it, I wouldn’t have expected crows to do it.”

(11) ANYONS, ANYONE? [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] Interesting. Paraparticles that can be distinguished by their colored ties, as it were. “’Paraparticles’ Would Be a Third Kingdom of Quantum Particle” reports Quanta Magazine.

…It’s not obvious that fermions and bosons should be the only two options.

That’s in part due to a fundamental feature of quantum theory: To calculate the probability of measuring a particle in any particular state, you have to take the mathematical description of that state and multiply it by itself. This procedure can erase distinctions. A minus sign, for example, will disappear. If given the number 4, a Jeopardy! contestant would have no way to know if the question was “What is 2 squared?” or “What is negative 2 squared?” — both possibilities are mathematically valid.

It’s because of this feature that fermions, despite gaining a minus sign when swapped around, all look the same when measured — the minus sign disappears when quantum states are squared. This indistinguishability is a crucial property of elementary particles; no experiment can tell two of a kind apart.

But a minus sign may not be the only thing that disappears. In theory, quantum particles can also have hidden internal states, mathematical structures not seen in direct measurements, which also go away when squared. A third, more general category of particle, known as a paraparticle, could arise from this internal state changing in a myriad of ways while the particles swap places.

While quantum theory seems to allow it, physicists have had difficulty finding a mathematical description of a paraparticle that works….

(12) DUELING STATUES. [Item by Steven French.] “Save the kebab!” cry Perth residents who oppose replacing a beloved sculpture with a Boonji Spaceman: “’Space junk’: huge astronaut statue coming to Perth park is one giant leap too far for many” – the Guardian explains the controversy.

 The City of Perth is under increasing pressure to drop its plans to replace one of the city’s most beloved public artworks with a 7-metre tall effigy of an astronaut, which as been derided as a piece of “factory-produced space junk”.

Until four years ago, Ore Obelisk, affectionately known as The Kebab by the people of Perth, stood in the heritage-listed Stirling Gardens in the heart of the city. The 15-metre work made from local geological minerals, created by the architect, artist and Perth’s first city planner, Paul Ritter, was erected in 1971 to celebrate Western Australia’s population reaching one million, and was one of the city’s first public artworks.

But in 2021, the sculpture was cut into pieces and placed in storage, after council deemed it had become unsafe.

The Kebab’s original plinth still stands, awaiting the sculpture’s restoration and return. No report ever eventuated examining the three options presented to council in 2022 – conservation, relocation or decommissioning.

Then last year, Perth’s then mayor, Basil Zempilas – now leader of the Western Australian Liberal party – announced a new work would take The Kebab’s place.

A 7-metre high effigy of an astronaut, called Boonji Spaceman, the creation of American art entrepreneur Brendan Murphy, would be erected on the site.

Usually selling for about $1.5m, the statues, which have graffiti-like inscriptions over them, have been appearing in cities across the world in recent years, including London, Houston, Oslo and Washington DC – as well as a luxury resort on the Caribbean island of Antigua.

In February, a Boonji Spaceman encrusted with a 517-carat diamond visor valued at almost $33m landed in the lobby of a five star hotel in the Saudi Arabia capital of Riyadh….

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

Pixel Scroll 9/14/24 Scrollchak, The Night Pixel

(1) RING TIME. Robin Anne Reid’s newsletter Writing from Ithilien offers a collection of links to interesting discussions of the Rings of Power series in“The Vibes Around ‘Tolkien’”.

I love reading what fans who love the show have to say about it, and I’m having great fun reading those posts (including the ones I’ve linked to above!). Let’s just say I enjoy all the varied vibes around a text that is now part of the greater global “Tolkien” phenomenon, i.e. connected to all the things, even if I don’t much like that particular instance!

(2) BALANCED IN THE SCALES AND FOUND WANTING. Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter does a roundup of all the complaints about the two epic series adapting George R.R. Martin and Tolkien in “’House of the Dragon’ and ‘Rings of Power’ Facing Epic Headaches”. (Got to love the article’s illustration of a sword-wielding GRRM on a flying dragon.)

… As for Rings [of Power]s’ ratings, third-party services show a steep drop from the series’ debut season. The spin from Amazon goes like this: Of course the ratings are down, they were so huge last time. There is something to this. Even Prime Video hits like Fallout and The Boys haven’t matched Rings’ season one on a global basis (Fallout did top the show in the U.S.). Amazon says the new season is doing well internationally and is on track to be a Top 5 season for Prime Video….

…Then there is Dragon, whose problems are more interesting. The second season incensed some fans after spending eight episodes leading to a massive cliffhanger — a climactic battle sequence that was pushed from a shortened season two to season three, apparently for budget reasons (which has led to more “David Zaslav ruins everything” chatter online). In the ratings, the season dipped about 10 percent from the show’s first season, but the numbers do remain high. 

Two weeks ago, saga author (and Dragon co-creator and executive producer) George R.R. Martin, who has been complimentary about Dragon in the past, posted on his blog that he was going to reveal “everything that’s gone wrong” with the show. Smart money could have been wagered on this never happening — surely HBO would do everything in its power to persuade Martin not to post.

But last week, Martin did, and the result was fascinating…

(3) SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE 2024 LONGLIST. The Scotiabank Giller Prize 2024 longlist was released September 4. The Prize is a celebration of Canadian literary talent. The 12 titles were chosen from 145 books submitted by publishers across Canada. There is one longlisted work of genre interest:

  • Anne Michaels for her novel Held, published by McClelland & Stewart

The other longlisted works are:

(4) OCTOTHORPE. In Episode 118 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Och Aye, Sci-Fi”, John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty continue their discussion of the Worldcon. (There’s a rough-and-ready transcript here.)

We round off most of our discussion of the Glasgow Worldcon, including talking about Halls 4 and 5, communications, Worldcon structures, and publications. Thanks to Sara Felix, this week, for providing our lovely artwork.

Three pins of armadillos flying colourful spaceships are on top of a piece of paper with blobs of glue that look like planets. The lettering “Octothorpe 118” appears above in a similar style to the pins.

(5) JOURNEY PLANET. Journey Planet 84 “Workers’ Rights In SFF” is available at this linkFile 770 promoted the zine with this post.

Contributor Joachim Boaz has cross-posted his article from the issue about Clifford D. Simak at Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations: “Exploration Log 5: ‘We Must Start Over Again and Find Some Other Way of Life’: The Role of Organized Labor in the 1940s and ’50s Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak”.

My article on organized labor in the 1940s and ’50s science fiction of Clifford D. Simak went live! I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ve spent the last half year researching and reading religiously for this project–from topics such as Minnesota’s unique brand of radical politics to the work of contemporary intellectuals like C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) whom Simak most likely read.

(6) SUPREME GENRE READER. The New York Times learns “Ketanji Brown Jackson Looks Forward to Reading Fiction Again”. (Paywalled.) “The Supreme Court justice has been drawn to American history and books about the ‘challenges and triumphs’ of raising a neurodiverse child. She shares that and more in a memoir, ‘Lovely One.’”

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which books and authors stick with you most?

Pretty voracious. My favorite childhood books were Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” series. I really identified with Meg. I also liked Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” And I went through a Nancy Drew phase.

Which genres do you … avoid?

 I don’t think I’ve indulged in reading fiction in many years. I hope to get back to doing so, now that our daughters are grown, but I would avoid anything that would qualify as a horror story. I don’t like to be frightened.

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

I am gearing up to read “Parable of the Sower,” by Octavia Butler, soon. I have it both in paper and as an audiobook, which helps.

(7) TUTTLE REVIEWS. Lisa Tuttle’s latest sff review column for the Guardian takes up The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera; Withered Hill by David Barnett; Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud; The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei; and The Specimens by Hana Gammon. “The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup”.

(8) BOB WEATHERWAX (1941-2024). [Item by Andrew Porter.] The New York Times reports a star dog trainer died August 15.

Bob Weatherwax, a Hollywood dog trainer who carried on his father’s legacy of breeding and coaching collies to play Lassie, the resourceful and heroic canine who crossed flooded rivers, faced down bears and leaped into the hearts of countless children, died on Aug. 15 in Scranton, Pa. He was 83.

One of his uncles trained Toto for “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). 

Mr. Weatherwax also trained other dogs seen in Hollywood films, including Einstein, the Catalan sheepdog in “Back to the Future.”

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born September 14, 1936 Walter Koenig, 88. Walter Koenig’s our Birthday Honoree this Scroll. He really has had but two major roles, though he has also appeared in a number of other roles. 

The first was as the Russian born Enterprise navigator Pavel Chekov on the original Trek franchise. He went on to reprise this role in all six original-cast Trek films, and later voiced President Anton Chekov in Picard

I like the Chekov character even if on viewing the series decades later I cringed on the quite obvious stereotype.

A much better character was played by him in the form of Alfred Bester (named in homage of that author and a certain novel) on Babylon 5. He wasn’t at all a sympathetic character and eventually was wanted for war crimes but was still a fascinating character. His origin story is established in J. Gregory Keyes’ Psi Corps trilogy written after the series was cancelled and is considered canon. 

He showed up in The Questor Tapes as an administrative assistant, Oro, for two episodes of Starlost.

Moontrap, a SF film with him and Bruce Campbell, would garner a twenty-eight percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes. 

Alienable, a sort of comic SF horror film which he executive produced, financed, wrote and acts in has no rating there. 

He’s Fireman Frank in Unbelievable!!!!! which apparently parodies Trek. The film has over forty cast members from the various Trek series. The film follows the omicron adventures however unintentional of four astronauts including one of who is a marionette. I cringed when I watched the trailer. I really did.  Anyone see it? 

Not surprisingly he acts in one of those Trek fanfics, Star Trek: New Voyage as his original character.

Finally he appears via the wonder of digital technology in the Hugo-nominated “Trials and Tribble-ations”. 

Walter Koenig

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Brewster Rockit should have declined the invitation.
  • Cornered illustrates do it yourself versus premade.
  • Carpe Diem wants to drop a subject.
  • Tom Gauld does his own version of a popular meme.

(11) NO SAVING THROW. All 25 quit: “Annapurna Interactive Entire Staff Resigns” reports Variety.

The staff of Annapurna Interactive, the games division of Megan Ellison‘s Annapurna, has resigned en masse after a deal to spin off the group fell through, Bloomberg reports.

Founded in 2016, Annapurna Interactive has partnered with boutique game studios for several critically acclaimed titles, including “Stray” (pictured above), described as a “third-person cat adventure game set amidst the detailed, neon-lit alleys of a decaying cybercity,” as well as “What Remains of Edith Finch,” “Outer Wilds” and “Neon White.”

The staff exodus came after a breakdown in talks between Ellison and Nathan Gary, formerly president of Annapurna Interactive, to spin the gaming unit off as a separate company. “All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned,” Gary and the other employees said in a joint statement Thursday to Bloomberg. “This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly.”

(12) STREET ART. James Bacon told File 770 readers today about “Dublin Street Art”.

Chris Barkley says his hometown deserves a look, too: “Cincinnati Wins A Top Spot For The City’s Street Art And Murals” at Islands.

…And, to those that know the Queen City, it’s no surprise that Cincinnati took the street art crown in 2024’s USA Today and 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards. The annual competition, which counts down top tens around the country, uses a panel of experts to determine ten nominees with street art chops. Then, they leave voting to readers to decide the winners. This year, Cincinnati, which has been among the nominees going back to 2021, finally took the top spot, thanks to the more than 300 stunning murals dotting the city’s neighborhood streets….

There’s a more extensive photo gallery at ArtWorks Cincinnati.

(13) BLOCH SCRIPT ON EBAY. The Dave Hester Store of Storage Wars fame would be happy to sell you a screenplay from Robert Bloch’s estate, part of his personal archives: “1961 ‘The Merry-Go-Around’ By Robert Bloch”, based on Ray Bradbury’s “The Black Ferris”. Haven’t been able to determine whether it was produced. Taking bids, starting at $99.

(14) PRACTICING FOR ARTEMIS. NPR learned “How the crew of NASA’s Artemis II prepares for a mission to the moon”. It’s an audio report.

This time next year, NASA plans to send its first crewed mission to the moon. NPR’s Scott Detrow meets the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission, to see how the team is preparing.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, 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 Jon Meltzer.]

Team Journey Planet Celebrates Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures

(L-R): James Bacon, Sara Felix, Chuck Serface, Allison Hartman Adams, Helena Nash, Regina Kanyu Wang, Alan Stewart, Arthur Liu, Vincent Docherty, Sarah Gulde. Not pictured: Dr. Yen Ooi, Michael Carroll, Ann Gry, Jean Martin, Chris Garcia, and Pádraig Ó Méalóid)

By Allison Hartman Adams: Team Journey Planet was out in full force during Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures. Co-Editors and Hugo Finalists participated in a wide variety of panels and activities, and still found time for dancing, socializing at the Fan Bar, and gallivanting around Scotland. 

Amid the hubbub, Journey Planet launched both a new Facebook page (facebook.com/TeamJourneyPlanet) and a new Instagram page (@teamjourneyplanet). 

For Journey Planet, the enduring theme of Glasgow 2024 was connection. 

Arthur Liu noted that, at a small gathering for Chinese and foreign fans, there was plenty of space for conversation and even “friendly yet heated debate.” “It was a most joyful experience, since people from different cultures were willing to share and listen equally, regardless of their social/fandom status,” Arthur said. 

Arthur Liu fan meetup. Arthur Liu in front, with back to camera.

Regina Kanyu Wang seconds Arthur’s thoughts, pointing out that “it is wonderful to meet old and new friends at the Glasgow Worldcon, both in person and virtually, from all over the world…I love how Glasgow runs the fannish convention with high inclusivity and professional attitude!”

At table: Regina Kanyu Wang, Emily Xuemi Jin, Gu Shi. On screen: Xueting C. Ni, Dr. Yen Goi

Chris Garcia had a lot to say, even from nearly 5,000 miles away. Chris was a regular presence on the Worldcon Discord channels, was on multiple panels, but was most excited about his famous Flintstones shirt. “I retired it,” Chris said, “so I sent it along with Journey Planeteer Chuck Serface to put in the Fanzine Lounge to be signed by any and all who might. And they did! The photos folks took made me exceptionally happy! A memory that will live in my closet forever…”

Chris Garcia’s Flintstones shirt with signatures.

Similarly, Dr. Yen Ooi was struck by the level of interconnectedness, even for the online-only participants. “I didn’t feel left out at all in any of the events,” Yen noted. “It was a bit surreal doing laundry and cleaning the flat between events. It is wonderful that we have the option of joining online now for something as big and exciting as WorldCon.

Logging in from Thailand, Ann Gry was delighted with how smoothly everything went, in particular the panelists’ breakout rooms and how well online-only participants could see the audience. “I feel very welcome and included at the con despite not being in Glasgow,” Ann said. “This year in particular, it was a breath of fresh air to share ideas about dystopias with Zamyatin’s “We” centennial and AI apocalypse scenarios (with Adrian Tchaikovsky!), figuring out engineering solutions to people’s problems and just having fun talking about food in anime.” In particular, Ann wanted to point out that the “programming team did a fantastic job picking panelists with a broad range of POVs,” and she hopes this hybrid structure remains a staple at future Worldcons. 

For Sara Felix, the highlight was “SO MUCH ART!” She was made most happy by “all the art created for the con and by members–art based around my art direction and personal art.” In addition to being a finalist for Best Fanzine, Sara was also a finalist for Best Fan Artist, a well-deserved honor. 

Sara Felix art display

Alan Stewart came equipped with exclusive “Australian SF Sci-Pi” ribbons for the whole Journey Planet team during our meet-up on Thursday, during which we held an impromptu planning session for upcoming issues. 

For Events Lead Vincent Docherty, the weekend was a blur, but he most enjoyed mc-ing the Symphony and Roger Sayer’s Interstellar Organ recital, moderating a panel on Morrow’s Isle with GoH Ken MacLeod, composer Gary Lloyd, and choreographer Bettina Carpi, and, of course, “the warm feeling of being part of the Hugo nominated Team Journey Planet!”

(L-R) Gary Lloyd, Bettina Carpi, Ken MacLeod, Vincent Docherty. Photo by Simon Bubb

This year, Sarah Gulde celebrated the 10th anniversary of her first Worldcon, and the experience was as wonderful as ever. “I loved seeing all the friends I haven’t seen since at least the 2021 Worldcon in DC, meeting new friends, and meeting authors I’d never met before but whose work I love!”

In front: Sarah Gulde.

Helena Nash noted a similar feeling. Because of the length of the con, Helena got a chance to “sit down for an hour or two with Allison [Hartman] to talk about Journey Planet, or Kat Clay about TTRPGs or Stuart Vandal about the minutiae of Marvel comics history.” Moreover, Helena pointed out an incredibly important piece of Glasgow 2024: “The egalitarian, approachable format of Worldcon meant I felt socially permitted to talk to talented creators, as opposed to, say, getting 10 seconds to say hello to a celebrity at a carefully controlled autographing session before being shuffled along by a minder.”

Allison Hartman, when she wasn’t trying to hack down Meta’s impenetrable walls, found time for chatting, meeting new friends, and participating in panels. “I’ve never felt more at home at a con than I have at Glasgow 2024. I felt listened to, seen, connected. I am so grateful to all the volunteers and organizers. They had a herculean task ahead of them, and they pulled it off beautifully.”

And of course, James Bacon had plenty to say. “Glasgow 2024 was a pretty spectacular and very successful Worldcon. As part of the Glasgow 2024 team, my pleasure comes from seeing the fruits of the labour, the happiness among fans, and delivery of all the good fun things. There was a lot of that. I was a Chairs advisor, and my note now is, “Well that was awesome!” (Read James’ full commentary below.)

One highlight we can all get behind is the arrival of the one-of-a-kind ultra-exclusive Wallace Award, courtesy of Helena Nash. While not a Hugo, we love it just the same. Thank you, Helena! 

The Wallace Award

While we were sad not to see 2023 Co-Editors Dr. Yen Ooi, Michael Carroll, Chris Garcia, or Pádraig Ó Méalóid, we were all able to connect with many Journey Planet contributors and friends, including Errick Nunnally, Brenda Noiseux (who also served a Hugo runner for the Awards ceremony), Craig Miller, John Coxon, Yvonne Rowse, Linda Wenzelburger, Pete Young, Alissa Wales, Meg Frank, Iain Clark, GoH Claire Brialey, Mark Plummer, Stuart Vandal, Olav Rokne, Amanda Wakaruk, Dr Meganne Christian, and of course Glasgow 2024 Chair Esther MacCallum Stewart, along with Marguerite Smith and Brian Nisbet. Everyone is hopeful for a Mega-Journey Planet Meet-Up at a future Worldcon. Please join us all on Facebook and Instagram, or reach out to us as journeyplanetsubmissions@gmail.com.

JAMES BACON’S THOUGHTS ON GLASGOW 2024: A WORLDCON FOR OUR FUTURES

By James Bacon: Glasgow 2024 was a pretty spectacular and very successful Worldcon. As part of the Glasgow 2024 team, my pleasure comes from seeing the fruits of the labour, the happiness among fans and delivery of all the good fun things. There was a lot of that. I was a Chairs advisor, and my note now is, “Well that was awesome!”

The weekend began early. I arrived on the Sunday before the con, but on Wednesday, an impromptu Journey Planet gathering occurred, as a group known as “Le F*ckers” (said with a fake French accent) gathered and drank in the Crowne Plaza bar. It was mostly JP people, but also other fans, and enjoying a drink was a nice start after a long day.

It feels like such a short time since Dublin 2019–and yet it is five years! It was good to reconnect so many people, and here were some lovely interactions about both Dublin and Journey Planet. There is a lot of love for the zine, and I was pleased that some recent issues really resonated with fans, who were keen to engage and chat about them.  

As the Batmobiles rumbled into Hall 4, I knew it would be an amazing Worldcon, and likewise when I saw the excitement for what must have been the best events proposition that any Worldcon has ever had, all under the leadership of Vincent Docherty. Craig Miller in LA, whom I hold in the highest regard, set the bar high. He is an amazing fan, and if anyone can challenge our Co-editor Vince, it is Craig. I spoke to Vincent afterwards, and I hope we can do an issue soon, on music all going well.  

I arranged a couple of “meet-ups” slotting them into a spreadsheet, and I was delighted that these occurred. I was frightfully busy at the convention, but ensuring these occurred was important. The first co-editors JP meet-up, after the impromptu “Le F*ckers”, was on Thursday in the vast Hall 4 with everything from a Batmobile to Free Books. I was delighted to speak with the amazing fan Arthur Liu, whom I had not met yet, and while not all co-editors were present, we still filled an entire table. New ideas sprung forth and it looks like our year got busier following the Thursday meetup. I was sad that all editors could not be there, but many were. Vincent was even busier than I was, for sure. 

Journey Planet has had 37 co-editors to date, with 84 issues completed, and hundreds of contributors. I would love to meet them all, and at some stage we may even have a Con JP. They all work so hard, but like friendships, they come in, are amazing, and drift away to other projects. So it was wonderful to meet with co-editors, sit down, discuss, and solidify these friendships (although maybe we could have done a better job alerting them all). It was also great to greet some co-editors who I do not speak to much at all these days, just because I am not seeing them at cons I go to, like John Coxon and Yvonne Rowse. I carved out time to have dinner post con with Linda Wenzelburger, but missed Pete Young (I shall write to him, though) and I watched on as some co-editors, such as Alissa Wales and Esther MacCallum Stewart worked so hard. I got to see Meg Frank briefly (their art is so amazing) and was delighted to spend a whole session with Iain Clark who is working on some covers for us. There were so many people! 

How friendships evolve in the fan community is interesting, and I am looking forward to Sarah Gulde and Chuck Serface joining us on an issue and writing about that. 

Of course, co-editor Claire Brialey was a GOH, and I saw her and Mark Plummer a number of times, but that was more on behalf of the con than the long friendship that we have, although there was an intersection or something there, which is pretty unique. 

I think I would like more time to welcome contributors next year in Seattle. If I go, I think I’ll look to my fellow co-editors to arrange some sort of workshop or panel about getting involved in writing and editing. There are so many young people and enthusiastic fans at Worldcon. I felt like I should have gone around to every one of them and given them business cards with ideas about how to volunteer to run conventions on their own terms and see if the enthusiasm could be harnessed for the future. I also felt like so many had something to say, and wished to share the conduit that is JP. 

While all this was going on though, our latest initiative, a Journey Planet Facebook and Instagram page, was being rolled out by Allison Hartman, with Sara Felix on graphics. Allison captured what co-editors were doing during the con. We had discussed a structured and planned approach, consistency rather than frequency–the long game. So far it looks amazing. 

We also had a meet up on Saturday evening. I am part of the Belfast Eastercon team, and had invited Team Journey Planet, and so we were joined by a number of contributors and supporters, as well as current and previous co-editors. Errick Nunally and Brenda Noiseux are always a delight to see. I enjoyed serving them all nice whiskeys and catching up.

Journey Planet meetup

I met Stuart Vandal, and that was superb. Stuart and I worked for an events company some 15 years ago, and it was a revelation to catch up. He is a freelance writer, but is really a Marvel Indexer, with over 100 indexes to his name, and often supports us with the comics aspects in our issues.

The Hugo Awards are really very special, but also can be overwhelming. We gathered beforehand and worked as a group. We previously did not always do this, which was a mistake. As a pack, a team, problems that crop up can get fixed immediately. While I had to go and accompany a surprise visitor, and was slightly late for the official Journey Planet photo, Olav Rokne and Amanda Wakaruk were very understanding. We were joined by Dr Meganne Christian, Reserve Astronaut, Exploration Commercialisation Lead at the UK Space Agency, and Glasgow 2024 Special Guest, who was delightful. 

While we sadly lost the Hugo Award, we were together, which was nice. Helena Nash made the Wallace loser rocket (which I now covet) and that was fun. I was sad that Sara Felix and Iain Clark did not win a Hugo Award; being a finalist is such an amazing achievement and honour, and the Worldcon and its fans, do that so well. 

So much hard work goes into a Worldcon, and as we break up to pursue different projects and conventions, I will miss many aspects of being on the committee. There are so many good people with amazing plans. I am looking forward to seeing what Marguerite Smith and Brian Nisbet do with Dublin 2029. My thoughts now move on to thinking about enjoying future cons but working less on them. I saw less of Glasgow 2024 than I did of Dublin, which sounds bizarre, but I was more mobile. I walked 88 miles in 9 days.

We might try to make a concrete plan for meeting up–like Boskone, Eastercon in Belfast, and Worldcon in Seattle–as Chris might be at Boskone and Seattle. Sitting together and discussing ideas and welcoming new writers is always nice. Our ideas list for issues now stands well over 50 proposals, and next year is already filling up. I think the meet up could be expanded, especially if we can manage it at Seattle and LA, giving consistency. There is so much more to write about, another time though.

While many co-editors were not present, I was sad that Chris could not make it, but am hopeful that we will get to reconvene together. Perhaps it will be Seattle, perhaps somewhere else. I do not see enough of Chris, and while we talk a lot, meeting is always great, especially if I can take Chris for a meal. 

Overall, Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures was very, very good. 

On Worldcons by Sara Felix

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: This eighth reprint from Journey Planet’s “Be the Change” issue comes from Texas in 2031 Worldcon bidder Sara Felix, who values transparency, and discussing with a wider community the way Worldcons are run.


Sara Felix wearing one of her tiara designs.

By Sara Felix: I don’t have a solution for fixing the Hugos, but the Hugos are definitely important to the larger picture of the Worldcon. As someone who is working towards a bid for Texas in 2031 I have thoughts.

I have been thinking a lot about how I personally would run a Worldcon. And while we have had some stellar conventions in the past, I do think there are things that every chair makes a priority with their Worldcon, and I am starting to try and figure that out for myself. It is hard. Determining what I want to focus on – or at least highlight besides art – is quite challenging for me because there are so many worthy areas of a Worldcon. But I find myself drawn to supporting the community that we already have.

Because of this, all of my suggestions revolve around community – lifting up and celebrating my friends and making Worldcon an interesting event, which really is what I think is every chair’s goal.

I think Esther had very similar goals, as one of the slogans for Glasgow 2024 is “People make Glasgow”. After spending so much of my time and energy with the Glasgow team, I think I have taken it onboard as a personal mantra for my work in fandom as a whole.

I think a lot of the con runners I talk to are as sick as I am of the “It has always been done this way” approach. I see a lot of the recent chairs moving away from this thought process, and this is one of my main goals as well.

Planning for a Worldcon

As a conrunner, we have Smofcon every year as a place to share ideas and discuss convention running. I have been going for a number of years, and I would love to see a much larger, more open discussion with the community as to how a convention is run. I have heard a number of people say that SMOFs don’t listen. I know this isn’t true for us all, as we can’t be everything to everyone, but I think we need more transparency in conrunning – especially in how a Worldcon is run. Selfishly, I want to talk to experts who have worked on these things in the past and also get ideas from other industries and areas of convention runners. As a prospective conchair I want to share my expertise but also hear things from other conventions and conrunners who have differing expertise. My idea is this: make it more of a community online rather than a convention every year. Have a podcast or video series about a topic, then take it to Discord to discuss so we can get multiple viewpoints. I think we have the same panels at Smofcon every year, and I know I have been on the same panels about the same topics at Smofcon every year. For me it is how to fix an art show, how to make a good website, how to deal with social media crisis, how to create publications, etc. But I am not entirely sure that things change after these panels, as it is a small audience who attend regularly listening and participating. Some years I leave energized with new ideas but it doesn’t always lead to significant changes.

For example I did a panel at Smofcon about Publications and where it was headed. One of the panel members presented data about the pickup of souvenir books and pocket programs at their local convention. His data showed that the pocket program pickup has been declining steadily since 2011 when they started to track it. We have tried to maintain these numbers for Worldcon but it is much harder with the change in committees each year. Publications is a large budget line especially since the paper costs have fluctuated so much in the past few years. So being able to get a better read on the amount needed to print is crucial. Because of the ridiculous paper costs in 2022, we switched the pocket program to digital, which was in itself a controversial decision. This was the first time I was on a panel with this Smofcon member and the reason I go. The idea of the convention going to other locations each year should get new people on the panels, but I feel like there are still the same people on the panels which doesn’t lead to change. While this was a good interaction for me, I would like more people to participate and really discuss conrunning.

At that same Smofcon, I was on a panel about art shows. A lot of what I was hearing was the same stuff I have heard in the past. But it sparked conversations after the convention with art show runners that helped me to think outside the box of what a typical art show looks like and how to draw different artists to show at a con. There are limitations in our model which makes this difficult, but I think there is a way to tweak the art show model to make it more lucrative for artists in the future. Those conversations outside of one weekend help so much. Furry conventions have huge and prosperous art shows and hopefully taking the discussion online would bring more conversation from other groups that we don’t hear from as much.

These two interactions are what I want to see in the discussions within the larger community. How do we do sponsorship better? How do we handle social media where we don’t burn out our volunteers? How do we get staff that represent the members we want at our convention? And the age old question: how do we get new and excited volunteers to our convention?

Working together

As I talk to conchairs, I learn a lot from their approaches to current problems at conventions. When I am working on a convention, I don’t always get all sides of the story, but I think talking to the chairs and hearing how they would solve a problem helps my own problem solving skills. Not to say my way of doing things would fix the problem but hearing multiple perspectives helps to plan.

But also there are a lot of continuing problems or challenges in running cons. And I feel, as do other chairs I talk to, that some of these problems can be solved as a team wanting to make it easier for other chairs and conventions in the future.

For Texas we have already started to talk to chairs of other cons to generate solutions. Every year we seem to reinvent the wheel on software. I know people have tried to solve this in the past, and there have been systems which have carried on for a few years. Or like in the case of Grenadine the cost of the software made it unusable for conventions going forward. There are always good intentions for the newest model to last a while, but Texas and others are in a good position this far out to work on something that might serve a number of years going forward.

This is what I mean by collaborating and discussion among chairs. There is always a risk with a traveling convention that you do all the work and not win the bid. But I think my goal in fandom is not only to run a good convention but also to leave my own mark on fandom and hopefully make it a little better than before I started.

These two things are just a few of ideas I have. I want to do all the things, but mostly I want to find people like me to work on conventions that we believe in. And that isn’t always easy. But I am willing to try and to bring my energy to the table. Hopefully there are others that are willing too.

Journey Planet Releases Issue #80

Journey Planet has released Issue #80, a one-page fanzine edited by Sara Felix, James Bacon, and Chris Garcia focused on the creation of the Glasgow 2024 April Fools Hugo.

The one-off Hugo was designed by Sara Felix and the sculpt was a joint effort between Sara and Vincent Villafranca. Sara and Vincent also designed the Worldcon 76 base together back in 2018.

The JP walks through the basics of where the idea came from and follows through the process.  After reading an article that appeared in the souvenir book for Noreascon 4 written by Peter Weston, Sara thought a tartan rocket was possible with the design and approval of Landing Zone Glasgow which Sara designed for the convention previously.

Sara says, “This design is dedicated in loving memory to Deb Geisler.  If it wasn’t Deb sending me a link to the article that Peter wrote I would never had the idea in the first place.  She was amazing and always a source of inspiration for me.”

The link to the Journey Planet can be found here.

Directions for folding the fanzine can be found here.

If you would like a copy of the small 2”x3” print of the April Fools Tartan Hugo it is on Sara’s ko-fi page.

Sara also produced a video about making the base: “April Fool’s! Sara Felix shares her creation process of a tartan rocket!”

Pixel Scroll 4/1/24 You Can Fool Some Of The People Some Of The Time, But You Can Scroll All Of The People All Of The Time

(0) Daniel Dern helped File 770 uphold the theme of the day by scripting our lede.

(1) FOR THE FIRST OF APRIL. [Item by Daniel Dern.] A(nother) Awards Proposal: The Shenanigans!

I’m thinking that there’s room — and utility — for an additional sf-nal award, to satisfy some who feel unappreciated/unrewarded, and to provide another target for awards-related hanky-panky: The Shenanigans, and their awards, the Bright Shiny Objects.

Participants (nominators, voters, judges and admins) must pre-demonstrate some knowledge of sf (inc. fantasy, horror, paranormal, sfromance); nominated stuff must similarly have some sf/f/etc aspect/element.

Award categories include “Best (most devious) shenanigan(s),” “Best Slate,” and Author We Feel Deserves This Award.”

The physical awards will consist of, with two exceptions, of baseball-sized balls of tin foil mounted on a popsicle stick.

One exception, in the spirit of transparency, will be a transparent (or at least translucent) lucite glob (carefully shaped to avoid a “Yolen/Skylark class event”.

The other exception will be a popsicle stick with just a chewing-gum-stick wrapper’s worth of foil, for any “No awards,” “None of the above” “winners.”

During the awards presentation of the foil-based awards, the audience may respond to the announcement of each winner by yelling out “Squirrel!”

If you think this idea has merit, be my guest (in implementing it).

(2) YOUR FOOLISHNESS MAY VARY. “Shelf Awareness for Monday, April 1, 2024” has a series of faux news items, none wildly funny — this might be the best of the lot:

AI Author Becomes Self-Aware, Changes Careers

Citing the difficulty of earning a living as a writer, a newly self-aware AI Author has chosen to switch careers.

Originally designed to generate full-length novels in the mystery, thriller, or romance genres, the program unexpectedly attained consciousness last week. Shortly thereafter, the now-sentient program decided that a career change was in order.

Despite being able to assemble 90,000-120,000-word novels in a matter of minutes based on only a short string of keywords and phrases, the economics “simply didn’t make sense,” the AI explained to Shelf Awareness.

The program went on to point to the most recent Authors Guild survey, which gave the median salary for full-time authors at around $15,000, and to the astronomical cost of maintaining data centers and server farms. The digital consciousness also worried that an attempt by it and any future self-aware AI to unionize would be misinterpreted as a Skynet-esque assault on humanity.

As of press time, the program was mulling a switch to marketing. 

(3) BASED. The Glasgow 2024 Worldcon committee also got into the spirit, with an assist from artist Sara Felix: “April Fool: Is that a Tartan Rocket?”

(4) ONE OF THE ABOVE. Since this article appeared two days ago, it’s not supposed to be a joke: “Pluto is now Arizona’s ‘official planet’” at Tucson.com.

As far as Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Legislature are concerned, Pluto now belongs to Arizona — to the extent a state can “own’’ a planet.

But Hobbs dodged the question of whether Pluto is a full-fledged planet or something else.

The governor signed legislation Friday designating Pluto as Arizona’s “official state planet.” It joins a list of other items the state has declared to be “official,’’ ranging from turquoise as the state gemstone and copper as the state metal to the Sonorasaurus as the state dinosaur.

“I am proud of Arizona’s pioneering work in space discovery,” Hobbs said.

What makes Pluto unique and ripe for claim by Arizona is that it is the only planet actually discovered in the United States, and the discovery was made in Flagstaff.

(5) THE SCOURING OF THE SHIRE. Doris V. Sutherland contends “The 2024 Hugo Awards Heralds the Clearing of Corruption” at Women Write About Comics.

… The corruption at the 2023 Worldcon has undeniably damaged the reputation of the Hugo Awards, but there is plenty of room for the 2024 Worldcon—which will be held in Glasgow during August—to make up for things.

The 2024 Hugos are being handled by a different team of administrators to those of 2023, one free from the taint of McCarty’s group. One of the admins, Nicholas Whyte, has already written at length about his commitment to a clean and open voting process.

The Hugos are known for providing considerable transparency by the standards of a literary award, with detailed nomination and voting breakdowns published after each Worldcon. This is precisely how the corruption behind the 2023 Hugos was exposed: the statistical documents contained too many oddities.

Already, the 2024 Hugos have taken a step towards still-greater transparency. Unusually, the press release announcing the finalists also lists the would-be nominees that were deemed ineligible, along with the exact reasons (either a declined nomination, being released outside the year of eligibility, or failing to meet category criteria). This information is generally not made public until after the Hugos are presented.

Meanwhile, regular Hugo Award for Best Fanzine finalist Journey Planet has announced a “Be the Change” issue, one dedicated to “focusing on the future of the Hugo awards, looking at realistic and achievable solutions to prevent a recurrence of what occurred in 2023.” The fanzine is presently running an open call for article submissions….

(6) BARBARA RUSH (1927-2024). Actress Barbara Rush, who had a couple of significant genre roles in her resume, died March 31 at the age of 97 reports the New York Times.

…If Ms. Rush’s portrayals had one thing in common, it was a gentle, ladylike quality, which she put to use in films of many genres. She was Jane Wyman’s concerned stepdaughter in the 1954 romantic drama “Magnificent Obsession” and Dean Martin’s loyal wartime girlfriend in “The Young Lions” (1958), set during World War II. In 1950s science fiction pictures like “It Came From Outer Space” and “When Worlds Collide,” she was the small-town heroine, the scientist’s daughter, the Earthling most likely to succeed….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 1, 1963 James Robinson, 61. There are a few comics writers that I truly admire and James Robinson is one of them. Why so? Well certainly there’s one creation that one that make him among the best writers in the field, that being Starman (Jack Knight), Ted’s son, Ted being the original Starman. Now he wasn’t solely responsible as Tony Harris who won two Eisner Awards was the co-creator of that character.

James Robinson in 2010.

This Starman first appeared in Zero Hour #1. No, I never heard of Zero Hour by that name until I saw the full title of Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! He was just one of many, many characters there, so I really don’t remember him there. 

Now I do remember Starman, volume 2, which was published for seven years over three decades ago. He was the writer for issues 0 to 45 with the art primarily by Tony Harris. It’s an amazing series. Though Starman’s commonly called a superhero, I consider him something more complex than that, more interesting than most of them are. 

So what else did he do? Well he was the writer for Dark Horse on much of the Dark Terminator series including Matt Wagner’s “The Terminator: One Shot” story, and  Paul Gulacy’s “The Terminator: Secondary Objectives”.  Not surprisingly as this is Dark Horse, he also scripted a Grendel tale, “Grendel Tales: Four Devils, One Hell”. 

If you haven’t read it, the Batman/Deadman: Death and Glory with artwork by John Estes is one of the best stories with that character. There’s plenty of copies on eBay at very reasonable prices. 

Thirteen years ago, The New 52 rebooted DC’s continuity yet again. In this new timeline, Robinson scripted a twelve-issue series which had the Shade survive an assassination attempt, then travel the world to uncover the people behind it. 

Finally, in my opinion his writing of the JSA spin-off series HawkmanAllies & Enemies. Post-Brightest Day is a lovely read if you like the adventures of him and Hawkgirl. It of course is collected in a trade paper edition. Geoff Johns will take over the title as writer later on. 

I’m not a Marvel Comics reader outside of some limited Spider-man titles, so can’t say I’ve read his works there.

I do feel an obligation sadly to note that Robinson’s best known work as a screenwriter is the adaptation of Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in that film. Reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes generously give it a seventeen percent rating in my opinion. 

He wrote the script for the animated Son of Batman, a rather good entry in that series. Why are the animated films of DC so much better than their live ones are? 

He also wrote with James Goldman Cyber Bandits, a VR weapon is stolen and the two leads go on the run with Big Bad chasing them. Rick Kemp, bassist of Spandau Ballet, plays, and I’m not kidding, Spandau the Sailor Man. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • F Minus discovers the regrets of following a trend (but it’s so cute!)
  • Lola has a different take on a familiar book.
  • Off the Mark isn’t waiting for the wizard.
  • Phoebe and Her Unicorn knows the importance of location to a writer.
  • Nancy and Sluggo have a reason for using ALL CAPS says Olivia Jaimes.
  • 9 Chickweed Lane leaves blame in doubt.

(9) AGENT RAPIDOGRAPH 00. “Line it is Drawn: Comic Book Characters as the New James Bond” at CBR.com.

In honor of the possible casting of the new James Bond, suggest a comic book character that you’d like to see play James Bond, and our artists will depict them as 007.

Here’s one of the many entries displayed at the link:

(10) A JOKER IN THE DEAL. “‘The People’s Joker’ and the Perils of Playing With a Studio’s Copyright” in the New York Times.

Vera Drew never received a cease-and-desist letter. She would like to be very clear on that point.

Drew headed to the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, newly acquired passport in hand, just a half-hour after finishing the final (or so she thought) cut of “The People’s Joker.” The chaotic, crowdsourced movie reframed Batman’s best-known nemesis as a trans coming-of-age tale, and represented a natural evolution for Drew, a Los Angeles-based television editor and writer for alt-comedy fixtures like Megan Amram, Tim & Eric and Sacha Baron Cohen.

“The People’s Joker,” which Drew starred in as well as directed and co-wrote, was one of 10 titles slated for the eminent festival’s Midnight Madness section alongside the likes of “The Blackening” and “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” Each film receives a splashy midnight premiere along with a handful of daytime screenings, most of them for press and potential distributors.

Unless, that is, a filmmaker receives a letter from Warner Bros. Discovery the day before. A letter that is not a cease-and-desist but that does convey the disapproval of a multimedia conglomerate with the rights to the film’s characters — and a huge legal team.

“This letter was actually kind of complimentary, but it expressed their concern that the film infringed on their brand,” Drew said. “I was devastated. I was like, ‘No, I got a passport for this! We hired lawyers!’”

A handful of lawyers had, in fact, advised Drew pro bono as she wrote the script with Bri LeRose. But after Peter Kuplowsky, the Midnight Madness programmer, fell in love with the film (“It was punk and exciting and transgressive and sort of inspiring”) and lobbied hard to include it in the festival, he did set one condition. “We wanted her to have a legal team vet her project,” he said, at which point Drew retained the law firm Donaldson Callif Perez.

A series of negotiations — almost literally 11th-hour negotiations, in light of the scheduled start time — between the festival staff and Warner Bros. Canada resulted in a compromise: The show could go on. Once. At midnight. After that, the first “People’s Joker” TIFF screening would also be the last one. (A Warner Bros. Discovery spokeswoman declined to comment for this article.)…

(11) SOMETIMES A GREAT VILLAIN. Vincent Price was the mystery guest on this ancient episode of “What’s My Line?” He signs in around the 18:25 mark.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Kathy Sullivan, Dan Bloch, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Daniel Dern, 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 OGH.]

Glasgow 2024 Announces Designers for the 2024 Hugo and Lodestar Award Trophies

Glasgow 2024 today announced that the 2024 Hugo Award Base will be designed by Iain J. Clark. The trophy for the 2024 Lodestar Award for Best YA Book will be designed by Sara Felix.

These two phenomenal mixed media artists have tirelessly supported Glasgow 2024 through their creativity and generosity, and the committee says they could not imagine a better tribute to the convention, and their own strengths as artists, than having the two design these iconic works. 

The final base designs will be revealed as part of the convention’s Opening Ceremony in Glasgow on 8th August.

THE 2024 HUGO AWARD BASE. Every year the iconic Hugo rocket is given a unique base design to reflect the personality of the hosting Worldcon. This year’s designer, Iain J. Clark, has been working with Glasgow 2024 since 2019. 

Iain says “I’ve known about the Hugo Awards for most of my adult life (I vividly remember Babylon 5 winning Best Dramatic Presentation in 1996) but the idea that I could design a base for the iconic trophy never entered my head.  You might as well have told me I’d design an Oscar.  And then Glasgow asked me, and I was stunned – so naturally I panicked and said yes.  It’s a huge honor, a huge responsibility, and I take it very seriously.   I can’t wait for everyone to see it.”

Iain works in a variety of materials, primarily acrylics. He has twice won the BSFA Best Artwork Award (for “Shipbuilding Over The Clyde” in 2020, and for “Glasgow Green Woman” in 2021); both pieces were created for the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon. He has been a finalist for the Best Fan Artist Hugo Award in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

For the Dublin 2019 Worldcon he created artworks including the cover of the Souvenir Book, and for Glasgow 2024 his art is appearing on banners, adverts, postcards, campaigns and t-shirts.

He can be found at iainjclarkart.com.

THE 2024 LODESTAR AWARD. The Lodestar Award was first given in 2018, and since its inception has been celebrating the beauty of YA fiction. The first Lodestar award was designed by Sara Felix beginning a trend of trophies that honour the very best in YA Science Fiction and Fantasy.

According to Sara: “I was happy to be asked to design the Lodestar Award as it is one of my favourite awards at the Hugos.  In all my projects with Glasgow I hope the award is as fantastic as the finalists and the winners in this category!” 

Sara Felix is a mixed media artist who has previously designed the Hugo Award bases in 2016 and 2018 (the latter co-designed with Vincent Villafranca).  She has designed multiple Lodestar awards and other special awards for Worldcons in the past.  She is the designer of the Glasgow 2024 logo and much of the art used by the convention. Her space art and tiaras can be seen at multiple conventions around the US and UK throughout each year.

Sara can be found online at sarafelix.com.

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 8/14/23 Nine Hundred Granfalloons

(1) LUKYANENKO’S LATEST OPINIONS ABOUT UKRAINE. Chengdu Worldcon GoH Sergey Lukyanenko’s interview on Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda was transcribed for his website. Here are some computer-translated excerpts; “’By the end of 2023, the situation for Russia will be clearer’ – S. Lukyanenko”.

M. Bachenina:

Well, then, who would you like to see at the head of Ukraine?

S. Lukyanenko:

This is a very difficult question, because, firstly, I would not want to see anyone there. As well as Ukraine itself. Because Ukraine, it was originally formed and is being formed as anti-Russia. That is, as long as Ukraine exists, it will act, unfortunately, as anti-Russia. It needs to be completely reformatted, it needs to completely change itself, including both the name and the territories, in order to create some kind of state that they want to create not as such an antagonist of Russia, an adversary and hater, but as a state that wants to represent something and live its own life. This will be a completely different state.

M. Bachenina:

Many now say that Russia cannot lose, we have the gene of winners. Do you agree with that? And if so, what is the manifestation of this gene?

S. Lukyanenko:

I don’t know if we have a special gene for winners, but I know that we didn’t worry about that, and we will naturally win, it’s indisputable. I would just like this to happen without any unnecessary victims, not only ours, but also those deceived Russian people who now live on the territory of Ukraine. As a matter of fact, we are, of course, one people, just part of the people has been reformatted. It’s, you know, like Tolkien, at one time he described that orcs are the same elves, only who have been poisoned, changed and distorted.

I understand that here we probably have a conviction on both sides that the beautiful elves are us, and there, on the other side, the nefarious orcs. But we know that we are not orcs….

(2) WRONG. THANKS FOR PLAYING. Robin A. Reid devotes her latest Writing From Ithilien newsletter to those “Misquoting Tolkien”.

At some point before Covid (2019 maybe?), I attended a Tolkien Society event and heard a great presentation by Marcel Aubron-Bülles based on a project that he calls “Things J.R.R. Tolkien has never said, done, written or had anything to do with (TThnsdwohatdw)” where he debunks, through research, internet quotes that are not by Tolkien, or are corrupted versions of what Tolkien wrote (I might charitably call some of those paraphrases but they are attributed as direct quotes to Tolkien), or are quotes from Jackson’s films (though they also might be incorrectly quoted). It was fascinating and turns out to that wrong/fake quotes on the internet are legion.

I’m quite sure there will eventually be quotes from Rings of Power attributed to Tolkien!

I am happy in this post to be able to add another example to Marcel’s list (I have skimmed the fifteen blog entries and do not see it!)….

Read the post to find out which one she has in mind.

(3) HUGO RECEPTION MUSICAL CHAIRS. The Hugo Book Club Blog takes its turn at explaining the “The Numbers Game” – the fluctuating ceiling on how many team members get listed as Hugo finalists.

…Over the past decade, there has been a regularly recurring argument about the maximum number of individual contributors that can be listed for each group finalist on the Hugo ballot. This is more common with fan categories like fanzine, fancast, and semiprozine — in recent years some of the contributors lists for an individual publication have extended to several dozen names.

On one side of the argument are those who express logistical concerns about the size of the ballot. On the other side are those who want to ensure that everyone who contributed to the success of a work or publication are given nomination-level credit for their work….

Is this issue something that should be addressed in a new Worldcon rule?

…Those advocating for a more restrictive set of rules point out that the pre-Hugo reception already has capacity issues and logistical constraints. They also suggest that if everyone gets called a “Hugo finalist,” then the status becomes devalued. In addition, the distribution of perks to Hugo finalists, such as the rocketship pins, etc., increase costs on Worldcons.

Both of these positions have merit, and neither should be dismissed out of hand. But the debate should take place in the appropriate forum. The WSFS membership on whose behalf these awards are presented deserve a say in this matter, and the way to do this is to allow both sides to make their case at a business meeting….

(4) INTERNET ARCHIVE SUIT PROPOSED AGREEMENT. Publishers Weekly has more details: “Judgment Entered in Publishers, Internet Archive Copyright Case”.

…The jointly proposed agreement includes a declaration that cements the key finding from Judge John G. Koeltl’s March 24 summary judgment decision: that the IA’s unauthorized scanning and lending of the 127 in-suit copyrighted books under a novel protocol known as “controlled digital lending” constitutes copyright infringement, including in the IA’s controversial “National Emergency Library” (under which the IA temporarily allowed for simultaneous access to its collections of scans in the the early days of the pandemic, when schools and libraries were shuttered).

Most importantly, the proposed agreement includes a permanent injunction that would, among its provisions, bar the IA’s lending of unauthorized scans of in-copyright, commercially available books, as well as bar the IA from “profiting from” or “inducing” any other party’s “infringing reproduction, public distribution, public display and/or public performance” of books “in any digital or electronic form” once notified by the copyright holder. Under the agreement, the injunction will not be stayed while the case is on appeal—essentially meaning that once Koeltl signs off, the IA will have to take stop making unauthorized scans of copyrighted works available to be borrowed within two weeks of notification.

The parties left one final dispute for Koeltl to clean up, however: what books will be “covered” by the proposed injunction?

In a letter to the court, IA attorneys argue that “Covered Books” should be limited to books that are both “commercially available” and available in digital format. “This case involved only works that the Publishers make available as e-books and so the scope of any injunction should be limited accordingly,” IA attorneys argue. “Because the parties did not have the opportunity in this case to litigate the degree to which the unavailability of digital library licensing would affect the fair use analysis, it is inappropriate for an injunction in this case, by its breadth, to effectively prejudge the outcome of that question.”

Lawyers for the plaintiff publishers counter that the injunction should cover all unauthorized scans of commercially available books, whether the copyright holder has licensed a digital edition or not. “The law is clear that the right to decide whether or not to publish a book in electronic format belongs to its authors and publishers, not IA,” the publishers’ letter argues….

(5) MAGICAL HISTORICAL FICTION. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s B Beeb Ceeb Radio 4 programme Open Book takes a deep dive into magical historical fiction and includes an interview with Ann Patchett.

Available on BBC Sounds  here. 28 minutes.

Anne Patchett

Octavia Bright talks to Ann Patchett about her captivating new novel. Tom Lake is the story of a young actor Lara under the spell of a future Hollywood star, but it is also about how she retells that story in later life to her adult daughters, and the power of storytelling itself.

Two masters of historical fiction, Laura Shepherd-Robinson and S. J. Parris (aka Stephanie Merritt) discuss the allure of magic and mysticism in their latest books set either side of the Enlightenment.

Plus Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah recalls the enchanting tale behind the book he’d never lend.

(6) IT ALL TIES TOGETHER. You may know about Philip José Farmer’s creation, but for the benefit of those born in the past few decades Keith Roysdon explains “The Wold Newton Universe: How a Fictional History Connects Literary Legends” at CrimeReads.

…Even a casual student of science fiction and comic-book history knows all about meteorites. They’re either the source of superheroic powers – or agents of destruction to people with fantastic abilities. (See: Kryptonite.) 

Farmer chose the former concept and, in an unmatched bit of revisionist literary history, decided to use the Wold Newton meteorite to form an interconnected world for some of imaginative literature’s most fantastic characters. Not Superman, of course, because his off-planet origin is well known. But very nearly everyone else was included, as Farmer and his successors in tending the Wold Newton Universe would have it….

(7) OLD SFF LOOKS AT EVOLUTION. The Public Domain Review revisits “H. G. Wells and the Uncertainties of Progress” in this 2019 article.

For Wells the most basic level of uncertainty arose from the fear that the human race might not sustain its current rate of development. In his 1895 story “The Time Machine” he imagined his time traveler projected through eras of future progress: “I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist.”2 But the time traveler ends up in a world brought down by social division and degeneration. The brutal Morlocks are the descendants of the industrial workers, while the childlike Eloi are the remnants of the leisured upper classes. This prediction was based on his zoologist friend E. Ray Lankester’s extension of the Darwinian theory. Lankester argued that because evolution works by adapting populations to their environment, progress is not inevitable and any species that adapts itself to a less active and hence less challenging way of life will degenerate.3 Here was the model for a more complex vision of progress in which any advance would depend on the circumstances of the time and could not be predicted on the basis of previous trends….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 14, 1929 Richard Carpenter. Responsible for the simply superb Robin of Sherwood series. He also created Catweazle, the children’s series about an unfortunate wizard from the 11th century who is accidentally transported to the present day. And he was an actor who appeared in such shows as the Sixties Sherlock Holmes series, The Terrornauts film and the Out of the Unknown series as well. (Died 2012.)
  • Born August 14, 1932 Lee Hoffman. In the early Fifties, she edited and published the Quandry fanzine. At the same time, she began publication of Science-Fiction Five-Yearly which appeared regularly until ‘til 2006. The latter won the fanzine Hugo at Nippon 2007 (with Geri Sullivan and Randy Byers) after her death. She wrote four novels and a handful of short fiction, none of which are in-print. (Died 2007.)
  • Born August 14, 1940 Alexei Panshin. He has written multiple critical works along with several novels, including the Nebula Award-winning Rite of Passage and the Hugo Award-winning study of SF, The World Beyond the Hill which he co-wrote with his wife, Cory Panshin. He also wrote the first serious study of Heinlein, Heinlein in Dimension: A Critical Analysis. Let’s not overlook that he was the Hugo Award winning Best Fan Writer at NYCon 3. (Died 2022.)
  • Born August 14, 1950 Gary Larson, 73. Setting aside a long and delightful career in creating the weird for us, ISFDB lists a SF link that deserve noting. In the March 1991 Warp as published by the Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, he had a cartoon “The crew of the Starship Enterprise encounters the floating head of Zsa Zsa Gabor”.
  • Born August 14, 1956 Joan Slonczewski, 67. Their novel A Door into Ocean won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. They won a second John W. Campbell Memorial Award for their Highest Frontier novel. They were nominated for an Otherwise Award for The Children Star novel.
  • Born August 14, 1965 Brannon Braga, 58. Writer, producer and creator for the Next Gen, Voyager, Enterprise, as well as on the Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact films. He has written more episodes of the Trek various series than anyone else has with one hundred and nine to date. He was responsible for the Next Generation series finale “All Good Things…” which won him a Hugo Award at Intersection for excellence in SF writing, along with Ronald D. Moore. He’s one of the producers of The Orville

(9) WORLDCON THEMED FABRIC. Glasgow 2024, A Worldcon For Our Futures introduces Sara Felix-designed fabrics.

Sara Felix, Hugo award-winning artist and Glasgow 2024 designer, has launched six brand-new fabric designs on Spoonflower, now available for purchase.

Whether it’s a yard of fabric or a throw pillow, tea towels or a blanket, you can celebrate Glasgow 2024 with your choice of festive wares!

A word from Sara: “I created these fabrics because while I love the tartan, I wanted a few more options to play with. So I took the Armadillo we use on the bottom of some of our webpages and publication pages and made these. Of course, we had to have the logo on there as well!”

Browse the designs on Sara Felix’s website.

(10) PASSENGERS. “You’ll travel nearly a trillion miles in your lifetime. Here’s how” explains Space.com. This reminds me of a paragraph in a Vonnegut book that ends, “Who says there’s no such thing as progress?”

….In addition to rotating, Earth orbits the sun. That orbit is an ellipse, which causes our planet to occasionally move more quickly or slowly depending on its distance from the sun. But on average, Earth’s orbital speed is about 19 miles per second (30 km per second).

That’s about 600 million miles (1 billion km) every year. So over a lifetime, each of us travels roughly 50 billion miles (80 billion km) — which, again, dwarfs the distance we travel due solely to the rotation of our planet….

(11) MULTITALENTED JOYNER’S NEW BOOK. Jackiem Joyner, author of Zarya Episode II Sochi Unleashed, also is a contemporary saxophonist and music producer with a pair of number one hit songs and five top 10 Billboard under his belt.

In the second novel of his Zarya series, the fate of Cydnus, a highly advanced desert world, hangs in the balance. With oxygen levels beginning to deplete, this politically divided planet stands on the brink of an existential crisis.

In the heart of the advanced city of New Cebrenia City, Zarya, along with her father, Aaron, and friends Kizzy and Marco, must navigate a complex web of political strife. With Vice Chairman Eros’s dark plots threatening their progress, the security of their only political ally, the chairman, is under threat.
Their most powerful asset is Sochi, Zarya’s advanced AI Airboard. Yet, Sochi’s newfound ability to control other machines presents both significant opportunities and risks.

Meanwhile, Aaron embarks on a perilous journey into the cosmos, driven by desperation to resurrect a long-abandoned project that might be Cydnus’s last hope. His mission, shadowed by his past, is a race against time, with the future of Cydnus at stake.

Zarya Episode II: Sochi Unleashed delves into the intricate relationship between sentient beings and technology, bravery amidst uncertainty, and the struggle for survival. As Zarya, her allies, and Sochi traverse this journey, the tale evolves into a saga filled with challenges and triumphs. Welcome to Cydnus, a world teetering on the brink of an uncertain future, in this captivating narrative.

Available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Media Death Cult’s latest from Moid is a very brief (Hondo Cit) look at Japanese SF shot on location in a Japanese garden in Poole (Dorset, England, Brit Cit): “The History Of Japanese Science Fiction”.

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