Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund administrators will accept nominations beginning November 11 for the 2025 race to choose a delegate to travel from Europe to North America and attend the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle.
Sandra Bond, European TAFF administrator, says that nominations will close on December 20, 2024. Then the ballot forms will then be circulated throughout fandom around the start of the new year.
To stand for TAFF a fan needs to do the following:
Get three nominators from North America, and two nominators from Europe;
Submit a bond of (UK) £10 or (EU) €12;
Provide a platform to go on the ballot, of 100 max, saying why folks should vote for you.
Send those things to a TAFF Administrator by email or post.
(1) DETECTING AI-GENERATED TEXT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The rise of large language model AI provides not only boons in tidying up text (of particular benefit to some users such as those with English as a second language or those suffering from, say, dyslexia) but comes with issues when used nefariously by those wishing to pass off AI generated text as their own creativity. Manual checks on text come with the risk of relatively high false positives as well as false negatives. Mandatory archiving all AI generated text comes with both compliance and privacy issues, so this leaves digital watermarking.
AI-generated text (and images) is already causing problems in science with fake paper submissions and also in science fiction where magazine editors have been receiving AI-generated works causing some bodies to come up with rules to govern their use, or banning, AI, one recent body doing so is the Horror Writers Association.
The latest issue of Nature has as its cover story (and an accompanying editorial such is this subject’s importance) on a new digital watermarking system developed by researchers at Google DeepMind in London. Their system is called SynthID-Text. File770 readers interested in this should check the original, open access, paper (I am not a computer scientist and this is definitely outside my comfort zone) but the way it works is to generate ‘tokens’ which are synonym words generated from the text’s context. A number of tokens are needed for the system to work.
Both the researchers and Nature say that this research is an important step in establishing an effective watermarking system, but both the researchers and Nature also clearly note that there are still many hurdles to overcome. For example, it is possible to wash out such digital watermarks by simply running through the AI-generated text through another large-language-model AI.
Currently, both the US and EU are considering legislation and respective bodies to oversee AI. China has already made digital watermarking mandatory and in the US the state of California is thinking of doing the same.
Meanwhile, DeepMind has made SynthID-Text free and open access. Yet, as said, the hurdles are great and there is still a long way to go. As the Nature editorial makes plain, ‘we need to grow up fast’.
…We have a role to play. We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement. This was the position taken by countless authors against South Africa; it was their contribution to the struggle against apartheid there.
Therefore: we will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians. We will not cooperate with Israeli institutions including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that:
Are complicit in violating Palestinian rights, including through discriminatory policies and practices or by whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid or genocide, or
Have never publicly recognized the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law.
(3) CHANGING OF THE TAFF GUARD. Michael J. “Orange Mike” Lowrey imparts the latest Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund news:
Sarah Gulde has returned home “after many days” and has as of today taken over North American TAFF admin duties, allowing Mike Lowrey to retire.
Sarah Gulde, of course, was the 2024 TAFF winner and went to the Worldcon in Glasgow.
(4) THE WITCHING HOUR GOES HIGHBROW. Midnight book release events began to market Harry Potter, and initially most (but not all) subsequent ones were for genre works. Not anymore. Publishers Weekly points out that Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and Haruki Murakami’s The City and its Uncertain Walls, translated by Philip Gabriel have or will get the midnight treatment this year: “Literary Publishers Embraces the Midnight Release Party”.
The midnight book release party, which sees patrons descending on bookstores at 12 midnight to get their copy of a buzzy new book, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Still, it has evolved considerably in its short lifespan. The rise of the midnight release in the book business can be traced back to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which debuted in the U.S. in 1998. But it was the strict embargo put on the fourth book in the series, before its publication in 2000, that helped popularize the late-night bookstore gatherings.
While this trend began with books for younger readers—Stephanie Meyers’s Twilight series and the final installment of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games series also got the midnight release treatment—it hasn’t stayed that way. In the years since, bookstores have held midnight release events for the likes of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, and Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments….
(5) ARCHIPELACON 2. The week after Midsummer will be the highlight of the European sci-fi summer of 2025! This will be when the 2025 Eurocon, or Archipelacon 2, comes to Mariehamn in the Åland Islands of Finland.
Date and venue: June 26–29, Culture and Congress Center Alandica (Strandgatan 33, Mariehamn).
“We wanted to organise a second Archipelacon because the first one was so great that people still get dewy-eyed remembering it. Mariehamn is exactly the right place for this type of event. It is a place where land and sea, Finland and Sweden, small town idyll and world history all come together,” says Karo Leikomaa, chairperson of Archipelacon 2.
Guests of Honour:
Ann VanderMeer (USA): editor, anthologist, acquiring editor for Tor.com and Weird Fiction Review, and Editor-in-Residence for Shared Worlds.
Jeff VanderMeer (USA): writer, environmental activist, and friend of many baby raccoons. Has recently published Absolution, the fourth part of the award-winning Southern Reach Trilogy. The New York Times calls it “his strangest novel yet”.
Mats Strandberg (Sweden): purveyor of fine Swedish horror, set in the most mundane of environments: conference centres, care homes and the very weird world that exists on board the massive passenger ferries between Finland and Sweden. His book Blood Cruise (Färjan) will be made into a TV series by the Swedish public service broadcaster SVT, set to be broadcast in late 2025.
Emmi Itäranta (Finland) writes her books in both Finnish and English. Her debut, The Memory of Water (Teemestarin kirja), was produced as a feature film in 2022 and set the tone for her work, which often explores environmental themes. She has since published two more novels, The Weaver (Kudottujen kujien kaupunki), and The Moonday Letters (Kuunpäivän kirjeet). Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.
“Being selected as the 2025 Eurocon is a great honour, and also recognition of the work that the Finnish and Nordic fandom has done. The first Archipelacon proved that large international conventions can be organised in Finland, and Worldcon 75 in Helsinki in 2017 demonstrated what Finnish, Nordic and international fandom can achieve together,” says Leikomaa.
Archipelacon 2 memberships are on sale on the con’s website.
Memberships are capped at 1,000. By the beginning of October, well over half of the memberships had already been sold.
Adult membership costs 40 euros, for 13–26-year-olds the membership fee is 20 euros, and for children 5 euros. The price will remain the same all the way.
The Martian Trilogy’s release will be delayed and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s introduction to that book has been removed from the contents.
This follows the release of serious allegations made against Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki of “unethical behavior and bad faith dealings” by Erin Lindi Cairns, a South African author, which has since been supported by statements from others, including a detailed statement by Jason Sandford.
This is a huge blow to the team that worked on this book, to John P. Moore’s legacy, and to the science fiction community at large, as this will delay the release of what is considered to be an important chapter in the history of Black science fiction and its contributions to the genre…
They are now looking at a mid-2025 release date.
(7) GABINO IGLESIAS REVIEWS. Yesterday we had the link to the September column, which is why we are able to come back so soon with the link for Gabino Iglesias’ next New York Times column “New Horror for Readers Who Want to Be Completely Terrified” (behind a paywall). In October he reviewed Yvonne Battle-Felton’s new novel, Curdle Creek (Holt, 292 pp., $27.99), Kevin J. Anderson’s Nether Station (Blackstone, 308 pp., $27.99), Nick Cutter’s The Queen (Gallery, 374 pp., $28.99), and Del Sandeen’s debut, This Cursed House (Berkley, 374 pp., $29).
… In an announcement this afternoon at Raleigh Studios, the Governor will reveal that he aims to boost the state’s tax credits from their present level of $330 million a year to around $750 million annually, I’ve learned
The whooping increase will not take place immediately, and is subject to approval by the Democratic majority legislature in the Golden State’s 2025-2026 budget. However, in this election year of close down ticket races, Sunday’s announcement is intended to swell confidence locally for an industry and a workforce that has seen production in L.A. and across the state dramatically shrink and jobs dry up over the last year or so, sources say….
… Also, besides the more than doubling of California’s credits, which were established in their current form in 2014, the increase will make the Golden State the top capped source for production tax incentives in the nation — at least on paper. Presently, with a $280 million expansion last year, New York state offers about $700 million in capped incentives. However, that number is augmented by a patchwork quilt of other offsets and exemptions available to productions in various specific jurisdictions in the Empire State.
While states like New Jersey, Nevada, and Utah have been putting more tax credit money on the table, Louisiana and Georgia still remain among the top rivals to California. Coming out of the shutdown of production during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and industry wide layoffs and cost-cutting measures, the Peach State, like California, hasn’t anywhere near fully rebounded. Having said that, while California has more production than anywhere else overall, Georgia, especially Atlanta, still attracts more big budget productions on average that anywhere else in the U.S.A.
It doesn’t hurt that costs in Georgia are generally much lower than on the West Coast, and that the state has an uncapped incentive program that ranges from around $900 million to $1.2 billion per annum. Movies or TV shows that shoot in the Southern state receive a 20% base transferable tax credit. As accounting execs at Disney, Netflix and everyone else in town will tell you with no small sense of disbelief, productions also easily receive a 10% Georgia Entertainment Promotion “uplift” if they include the state logo in their credits for five seconds or, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, an “alternative marketing promotion.”
This new increase recommended Sunday by Gov. Newsom will certainly shake up the tax credit status quo….
A sea of 20-something boys, with a mix of defined jawlines, hazel eyes and mops of curly hair congregated at New York City’s Washington Square Park on Sunday afternoon to take part in a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest. But in a surprise twist, around 30 minutes after the contest kicked off, the real-life Chalamet made a surprise appearance in the middle of the crowd.
Chalamet snuck his way through the packed mob, hiding behind a black mask and baseball hat, before sneaking up on two doppelgangers posing for photos. Once he got to the middle, he took off his mask for the big reveal as shrieks quickly erupted across the park….
… The lookalike contest was promoted the past few weeks through flyers posted across the city, in addition to a public Partiful invitation promising a $50 cash prize for the winner. By Sunday morning, the event had more than 2,500 RSVPs.
Chalamet pulled up behind one of the more popular lookalikes, 22 year-old Spencer DeLorenzo who spent much the afternoon posting for photos. At one point, he was even hoisted on a chair as the crowd cheered him on…
(10) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Media Anniversary: It Came From Outer Space film (1953)
Seventy-one years ago It Came From Outer Space premiered, the first in the 3D films that would released from Universal-International. It was from a story written by Ray Bradbury. The script was by Harry Essex.
Billed by the studio as science fiction horror — and I’ll get to why in the SPOILERS section — it was directed by Henry Arnold who would soon be responsible for two genre classics, Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man, the latter of which as you might remember won a Hugo at Solacon in 1958.
HORROR, ERRR, SPOILERS, ARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN. BEWARE!
Amateur sky watcher (as played by Richard Carlson) and schoolteacher Ellen Fields (as played Barbara Rush) see a large meteorite crash near the small town in Arizona. Being curious and not at cautious (who is in these films?), they investigate.
Putnam sees the object and knows it is a spacecraft but everyone else laughs at him. People start disappearing. (Cue chilling music.) The sheriff opts for a violent answer, but Putnam wants a peaceful resolution.
In the end, a Bradburyan solution happens, atypical of these Fifties pulp SF films and the aliens get what they need to leave without anyone, human or alien, dying.
YOU CAN COME BACK NOW FROM UNDER THE TABLE.
The screenplay by Harry Essex, with extensive input by the director Jack Arnold, was based on an original and quite lengthy screen treatment by Bradbury off the fore mentioned story by him. It is said that Bradbury wrote the screenplay and Harry Essex merely changed the dialogue and took the credit. There is no actual written documentation of this though, so it may or may not be true. You know how such stories get their beginning.
It made back twice its eight hundred thousand budget in the first year.
Many, many critics took to be an anti-communist film about an invasion of America. However, Bradbury pointed out that “I wanted to treat the invaders as beings who were not dangerous, and that was very unusual.”
Twenty years ago, Gauntlet Press published a collection of essays about It Came from Outer Space. Bradbury contributed an introductory essay plus a number of other pieces. There’s also the four screen treatments Bradbury wrote before the final screenplay along with photos, original ads, marketing posters, reviews and quite a bit more.
Final note: It Came from Outer Space is one of the classic films mentioned in the opening theme (“Science Fiction/Double Feature”) of The Rocky Horror Show theatre performance and the film.
It Came From Outer Space is streaming on Peacock and Prime.
(12) WITNESS THE SCOPE OF MARVEL’S NEW ULTIMATE UNIVERSE. An epic connecting cover by Josemaria Casanovas will run across every Ultimate series over the next few months, starting with this week’s Ultimate X-Men #8.
The second year of Marvel Comics’ new Ultimate Universe is on the horizon. To celebrate, a special connecting cover by acclaimed artist Josemaria Casanovas will run on upcoming issues of each current Ultimate title—Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man, Bryan Hill and Stefano Caselli’s Ultimate Black Panther, Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men, Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s Ultimates, and the just announced fifth ongoing Ultimate series, Chris Condon and Alessandro Cappuccio’s Ultimate Wolverine. An homage to Jim Lee’s iconic X-Men #1 cover, the breathtaking 6-part piece teases upcoming storylines and characters from future issues—including the long-awaited return of the creator of this exciting universe, the Maker.
Check out the full piece below. For more information, visit Marvel.com. [Click for larger image.]
(13) MOOMIN IN THE MUSEUM. [Item by Steven French.] Ahead of next year’s 80th anniversary of the Moomin stories, the Helsinki Art Museum is putting on an exhibition of Tove Jansson’s paintings, including a number of large murals (and if you look closely at Party in the City, from 1947, you can see a certain big nosed, pot bellied figure, hidden away beside a vase on the edge of the festivities!). “Tove Jansson murals, with hidden Moomins, seen for first time in Helsinki show” in the Guardian.
The exhibition, entitled Paradise, at the Helsinki Art Museum focuses for the first time on the murals and frescoes Jansson was commissioned to paint on the walls of factory canteens, hospitals, nurseries and even churches – long before Moominmania conquered the world and the adventures of Snufkin, Snork Maiden and Little My became a Finnish secular religion.
“By the end of her life, Tove was most famous as a writer,” said the artist and author’s niece, Sophia Jansson, now president of the board of the company that manages her copyright. “But she always saw herself first and foremost [as] a painter. It was only later that her reputation as the ‘Moomin woman’ overtook her.”
… The Starfleet Gazette will not be endorsing a candidate in the upcoming election for president of the United Federation of Planets. This decision was not made lightly, but neither of the two candidates—decorated Starship Voyager Captain Kathryn Janeway or The Borg—has shown us a real path to endorsement, and we must stay true to our priorities: journalistic integrity and not pissing off The Borg….
Scientists are still trying to understand the toll that spaceflight takes on the human body.
With SpaceX’s civilian Polar Dawn mission, which lasted five days and wrapped up last month, we’re getting an opportunity to observe the effects on more or less average humans — rather than the elite, highly trained government astronauts who are normally the ones that spend so much time in orbit.
Some of what they’re reporting sounds a little worrying. At the top of the list: inexplicably malfunctioning eyeballs.
“My vision acuity started to deteriorate those first few days,” Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former US Air Force pilot who served as pilot of the mission, told CNN of the journey.
… As it turns out, Poteet’s faltering vision wasn’t the end of the crew’s optic oddities. Jared Isaacman, the mission’s commander and a billionaire entrepreneur, told CNN he saw “sparkles or lights” when he closed his eyes, a mysterious symptom related to space radiation that other astronauts have reported…
… What caused Poteet’s vision to deteriorate is likely a condition known as spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS. This is believed to be the result of a microgravity environment, which causes the optic nerve to swell, and fluids in the eye and brain to shift.
SANS is still poorly understood. All four crew members wore high-tech, cyberpunk-looking contact lenses to measure intraocular pressure throughout the mission, in the hopes of teasing out its causes.
Poteet said his vision quickly returned to normal once he was back on Earth. But as SpaceX engineer and the mission’s medical officer Anna Menon told CNN, the effects — if unaddressed — could be disastrous in the long term….
(16) TOP SF BOOKS – MAYBE? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] BookPilled has just re-ranked his top 15 SF books. Like or dislike his ratings, the titles are interesting. I’m guessing that most of you will have nearly all the books in his top chart, and even if you haven’t you will probably know of them. Personally, it was good to see a Bob Shaw in the mix. Alas, poor old Alan Dean Foster… There are one or two authors in Pilled’s list I have not read, but that might be a Brit-N.America divide thing (?). Anyway, see if you agree with him… “Ranking All the Books from Every Top 15 Sci-Fi List”.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Michael J. “Orange Mike” Lowrey, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]
(1) THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS SPOTTED IN THE WILD. Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Visions exists! It has started arriving in customers’ mailboxes. Although the book’s official release date is October 1, Jon C. Manzo told the Harlan Ellison Facebook Fan Club his copy came on Friday.
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out…
(2) COVID CONCERN. John Wiswell has canceled plans to attend World Fantasy Con next month over dissatisfaction with the convention’s Covid policy, an announcement that elicited responses in social media from several other writers who have made the same decision about WFC.
Sad to say I'm cancelling my trip to World Fantasy. They asked me to be on disability panels, but ignored months of my pleas for a real COVID policy. Every recent major con has been a spreader.
Many disabled attendees wrote to WFC with concern.
I won’t almost call it historic — I will call it historic. Because it’s the only episode since this podcast began during which you’ll hear me chat with a creator while we eat a flavor of ice cream inspired by their latest book — in this case, Sarah Pinsker’s Haunt Sweet Home — created by the Baltimore ice cream experts at The Charmery.
… The flavor launched on Friday the 13th, and we met at The Charmery yesterday for a taste of that book-inspired ice cream, where we discussed the sculpture she saw at the American Visionary Art Museum which planted a seed for Haunt Sweet Home, the origin of the ice cream collaboration, how she knew her idea was meant to be a novella and not a novel, why she prefers writing books without a contract, how multiple ideas coalesced into one, the narrative purpose of telling a story via multiple formats, how to know a character who doesn’t know themselves, why you can’t tell from the end product whether a piece of fiction was plotted or pantsed, Kelly Robson’s theory about the Han Solo/Luke Skywalker dichotomy and what it means for creating interesting characters, why she’s a fan of making promises in the early paragraphs of her stories, whether our families understand what we’re writing about when we write about families, and much more.
The other week, author George R.R. Martin did something surprising: writing on his Not a Blog, he publicly criticized HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, which is based on his book Fire & Blood. He dinged the show for changing things from the source material in a way that weakened the story, and warned that there were bigger, “more toxic” changes being contemplated for future seasons of the show.
Martin never did anything like this during the nine years that Game of Thrones (which is based on his book series A Song of Ice and Fire) was running on HBO, so the changes that House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal made from his book obviously upset him. We the fans had inklings that something was bothering Martin before he went public, but I certainly wasn’t expecting him to be so up front about it….
(5) JOURNEY PLANET CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS. Sarah Gulde and Chuck Serface are co-editing an upcoming issue of Journey Planet about friendships in science fiction and fantasy. You could approach this topic in several ways:
Famous friendships from science-fiction and fantasy literature, comics, films, or television. Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamjee, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Spock and James T. Kirk, Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman (or She-Hulk), Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, and Katniss Everdeen and Rue come to mind.
Friendships among writers, artists, and other professionals within the genre. The Inklings and other writing or artistic fellowships would fit here.
Friendships between fans. Who are your favorite people to see at conventions? Dare I mention the Futurians or the Greater New York Science Fiction Club? What about your local clubs or associations?
Friendships take many forms, so we accept broad interpretations expressed in fiction, personal essays, art, reviews, whatever we can publish in a fanzine format. Please send your submissions to Sarah Gulde at sarahmiyoko@gmail.com or Chuck Serface at ceserface@gmail.com by November 15, 2024.
One Sunday night in September 1984, between championship darts and the news with Jan Leeming, the BBC broadcast one of its bravest, most devastating commissions. This was Threads, a two-hour documentary-style drama exploring a hypothetical event deeply feared at the time and also somehow unthinkable: what would happen if a nuclear bomb dropped on a British city….
…The BBC has shown Threads only three times to date: in 1984; in August of the following year, to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and as part of a cold war special on BBC Four in 2003. Another – timely – showing is planned for October. When I watched the film at the end of the 20th century, Threads felt like a piece of history. Today, in a world of conflict in Russia, China and the Middle East, and expanding nuclear capabilities, it no longer does….
… For Jackson, the message of Threads comes down to something very simple: trusting people with the truth. “That’s what I wanted to get across,” he says. “That there’s no going back, that this happens. You can’t go back and press replay.”
But with a film you can. This month, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov hinted at his country’s intention to change its stance on the use of nuclear weapons “connected with the escalation course of our western adversaries”. The UK and the US recently enhanced their nuclear cooperation pact. Threads airs on BBC Four next month. Be brave for two hours, and then continue the conversation.
(7) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Anniversary: September 15, 1991: Eerie, Indiana
You remember Joe Dante, who has served us such treats as the Gremlin films, a segment of the Twilight Zone: The Movie (“It’s A Good Life”) and, errr, Looney Tunes: Back in Action? (I’ll forgive him for that because he’s a consultant on HBO Max prequel series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai. Anyone seen the latter?)
Dante also was the creative consultant and director on a weird little horror SF series thirty-three years ago on NBC called Eerie, Indiana. Yes, delightfully weird. It was created by José Rivera and Karl Schaefer. For both it would be their first genre undertaking, though they would have a starry future, their work including Eureka, that a favorite of mine until the debacle of the last season, Goosebumps, The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story and Strange Luck to name but a few genre series that they’d work on in a major capacity.
SPOILER ALERT! REALLY I’M SERIOUS, GO AWAY
Hardly anyone there is normal. Or even possibly of this time and space. We have super intelligent canines bent on global domination, a man who might be the Ahab, and, in this reality, Elvis never died, and Bigfoot is fond of the forest around this small town.
There’s even an actor doomed to keep playing the same role over and over and over again, that of a mummy. They break the fourth wall and get him into a much happier film. Tony Jay played this actor.
Yes, they broke the fourth wall. That would happen again in a major way that I won’t detail here.
END SPOILER ALERT. YOU CAN COME BACK NOW.
It lasted but nineteen episodes as ratings were very poor.
Critics loved it. I’m quoting only one due to its length: “Scripted by Karl Schaefer and José Rivera with smart, sharp insights; slyly directed by feature film helmsman Joe Dante; and given edgy life by the show’s winning cast, Eerie, Indiana shapes up as one of the fall season’s standouts, a newcomer that has the fresh, bracing look of Edward Scissorhands and scores as a clever, wry presentation well worth watching.”
It won’t surprise you that at Rotten Tomatoes, that audience reviewers give it a rating of ninety-two percent. It is streaming on Amazon Prime, Disney+ and legally on YouTube. Yes, legally on the latter.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
Alley-Oop demonstrates when not to ask about the worst thing that can happen.
Shortly after winning her third Olympic gold medal at the Paris Games last month, out New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart (or “Stewie,” as she is affectionately known by WNBA fans) announced a new signature shoe. The Stewie 3, created in partnership with Puma, is inspired by the Harry Potter films and features design details, like the “Deathly Hallows” symbol, that reference the Potter-verse. Almost immediately, the comments sections of official social media posts promoting the shoe were filled with fans voicing their disappointment that Stewart, one of the league’s highest-profile players and an outspoken trans ally, would be tied to one of the world’s most vocal antagonists of trans people.
The timing of the shoe drop has particularly upset Stewie’s queer and trans fans, considering it comes on the heels of Rowling being named in a cyberbullying lawsuit filed by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who alleges that the Harry Potter author, Elon Musk, and other public figures took part in a “massive” harassment campaign that labeled her a “biological male.”
While fanbacklashes to Harry Potter products are almost de rigueur at this point, this particular Potter collab hits harder because of who Stewart is and what the league means to its many LGBTQ+ enthusiasts. The WNBA itself is considered one of the safest and most affirming leagues for queer and trans crowds. Over 25% of the players in the league, including Stewart, are out as LGBTQ+ and the WNBA was the first professional league in the U.S. to officially recognize Pride….
…One of the questions fans like McKenzie want answers to is how a product celebrating Harry Potter and benefiting J.K. Rowling makes sense as a collaboration between an out pro-trans athlete and a company that has demonstrated support for LGBTQ+ people. (Neither Puma nor representatives for Stewart responded to multiple requests for comment.)…
(10) THEY’VE GOT THE GOODS. If you’re interested in Star Wars figure collecting, there’s a large photo gallery of the offerings unveiled here: “Hasbro Pulse Con 2024 – Star Wars Panel Recap” at The Toyark.
The Star Wars panel just wrapped up over on Hasbro Pulse Con 2024. New figures were shown for The Vintage Collection and Black Series from multiple eras. A couple that stood out to me was a refresh of Black Series A New Hope Luke and Leia, which have all new sculpts and no soft goods. Read on to check out details and pics from the stream. Pre-Orders for most go live at 5 PM for the general public!
(11) STAR TREK, 1-YEAR BARGAIN MISSION. [Item by Daniel Dern.] ParamountPlus.com (lotsa Star Trek, if nothing else)(also Daily Show and Stephen Colbert, of course) is offering a year for half price (so $29.99 for with-ads, or $59.99 with “No ads except live TV & a few shows, and SHOWTIME originals & movies”).
Coupon name/ID (in case you need it): Coupon: fall50 (for “50% off”)
You can’t do this as a “renew” — at least not thru the web site, possibly via their phone people.
Our similarly-priced sale year just ended yesterday, so (having deliberately cancelled a few days ago so it didn’t autorenew at full price), I just signed up (for the cheapskate-with-ads, dunno if it’s too late to call and splurge the upgrade).
(Note: If you already have a ParamountPlus account, you don’t have to create a new account; your existing account persists if/when your subscription ends.)
A SpaceX capsule carrying four private citizens splashed down off Florida at 3:36 a.m. ET Sunday, ending a historic mission that included the world’s first all-civilian spacewalk.
Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon returned to Earth in a Crew Dragon capsule, splashing down off Dry Tortugas, Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico….
…It was also the company’s [SpaceX’s] most ambitious expedition, as the crew members and their spacecraft executed several risky maneuvers.
Chief among them was the all-civilian spacewalk Thursday. Isaacman and Gillis exited the Dragon capsule on a tether, each spending around 10 minutes out in the vacuum of space. The duo spent the spacewalk conducting mobility tests in their newly designed spacesuits.
The outing was a risky undertaking, because the Dragon capsule does not have a pressurized airlock. That meant that all four members of the Polaris Dawn mission wore spacesuits during the spacewalk and that the entire capsule was depressurized to vacuum conditions….
…In an interview, David Newell, who played deliveryman Mr. McFeely on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, went into more detail about what Michael Keaton did on the show. According to Newell, Keaton worked on the floor crew. Because of this job, Keaton ran the trolley that went through Mr. Rogers’ living room. If you’re watching any mid to late ’70s episodes, and you see the trolley come through the hole in the wall, that’s the man who would become Beetlejuice flipping the switch to make the trolley move. Keaton also helped build the sets and take them down before and after shooting an episode….
Marine fossils dating back to as early as 8.7m years ago have been uncovered beneath a south Los Angeles high school.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that researchers had discovered two sites on the campus of San Pedro high school under which fossils including those of a saber-toothed salmon and a megalodon, the gigantic prehistoric shark, were buried.
According to the outlet, the two sites where the fossils were found include an 8.7m-year-old bone bed from the Miocene era and a 120,000-year-old shell bed from the Pleistocene era.
The discoveries were made between June 2022 and July 2024, LAist reports….
(15) WOLVES OF YELLOWSTONE. [Item by Jeffrey Smith.] Balanced Ecology — not particularly sfnal, but certainly adjacent. What happened to Yellowstone National Park when (a) wolves were removed and (b) when they were returned. Very instructive as to what one change can make to an ecosystem. A fascinating read. “Friday Night Soother – Digby’s Hullabaloo” at Digby’s Blog.
…In 1995, something really exciting happened in the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone. 41 wild wolves are reintroduced here by scientists. After 100 years of being hunted, wolves could once again call this place home.
The wolves thrived, but something else very surprising happened. Their return had a spectacular effect on the landscape, an effect that spread wider than anyone thought possible. So how did this all happen?…
(16) AUTUMN CONCATENATION NOW ONLINE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The SF² Concatenation has just posted its northern hemisphere academic autumnal issue. The contents are:
v34(5) 2024.4.15 — New Columns & Articles for the Summer 2024
How common are exo-Earths with water? – Jonathan Cowie Is the lack of watery, inner rocky planets an early Fermi filter? New science sheds possible light.
Ten years ago exactly. One from the archives: My 25 years of Eurocons & ESFS – Roberto Quaglia After a decade as the European SF Society’s Vice-Chair, Roberto reflects on a quarter of a century of Eurocons.
Twenty years ago exactly. One from the archives: Robert Sheckley interviewed The SFWA Author Emeritus reveals his influences, format preferences, idea sources and comments on working collaboratively.
And scrolling further down there are loads of fiction as well as a few non-fiction SF and pop science book reviews. Accessible at www.concatenation.org.
Splundig.
[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Jeffrey Smith, Chuck Serface, Daniel Dern, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
(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.
In a 1968 interview, the BBC spoke to author JRR Tolkien about his experiences during World War One, how they had a profound effect and influenced his epic fantasy novel, Lord of the Rings.
“Stories – frankly, human stories are always about one thing – death. The inevitability of death,” The Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien told a BBC documentary in 1968, as he tried to explain what his fantasy magnum opus was really about.
The novel, the first volume of which was published 70 years ago this week, has enthralled readers ever since it hit the shelves in 1954. The Lord of the Rings, with its intricate world-building and detailed histories of lands populated with elves, hobbits and wizards, threatened by the malevolent Sauron, had, by the time of the interview, already become a bestseller and a cornerstone of the fantasy genre.
To better explain what he meant by the story being about death, Tolkien reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet, which contained a newspaper clipping. He then read aloud from that article, which quoted from Simone de Beauvoir’s A Very Easy Death, her moving 1964 account of her mother’s desire to cling to life during her dying days….
…This new deal marks another long-term commitment by Tor Publishing Group and Tor UK to the works of John Scalzi, with the first book of this new contract tentatively scheduled for 2029.
John Scalzi said of the deal, “It’s rare in publishing to get anything close to continuity—authors go from one publishing house to the next. So I’m especially proud that this contract not only extends my two-decade association with Tor Books, but gives us both an opportunity to build on what’s come before, and make what comes next even better. We have so much planned in the years ahead. I can’t wait for you all to read it.”
Patrick Nielsen Hayden commented, “It’s fantastic to know that we’ll be in the John Scalzi business for even more years to come. He’s a remarkable writer and I can’t wait to see what he does next.”…
(3) TAFF WINNER’S ITINERARY. Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund administrator Sandra Bond today issued Taffluorescence 5, containing news of 2024 delegate Sarah Gulde’s movements and other hot news from TAFF. Gulde’s visit to the UK will take her to:
…FX is going all out for “Shadows” at Comic-Con this year for their “farewell tour.” The acclaimed mockumentary comedy series — which earned eight Emmy nominations earlier this month — has announced that its upcoming sixth season will be its last. The Bayfront’s exterior is draped in a gigantic “Shadows” promotional poster, and just below the hotel is an activation area that features one designed to look like the show’s vampire mansion.
Before their panel presentation, the cast and creatives head to an area where they are greeted by fans in full cosplay despite the sweltering heat. The “Shadows” team is then shuttled to the convention center, where it listens in backstage as a packed Hall H receives a sneak peek at the Season 6 premiere. (Berry and Newacheck share a thumbs up when they hear the audience erupt in laughter after a Laszlo moment.) And after their Hall H presentation, they and the rest of their group will be chatting up fans — some in cosplay, some with “Shadows”-themed paraphernalia, all with enthusiasm — as they sign autographs and pose for selfies. As for Season 6, Simms says, “It’s exactly what we wanted to do.”
“We wanted to make a last season that was not sentimental or trying to tie up every loose end,” he says. “Just make [a season] that is super funny and at the end has a good ending, which we’re not going to tell you.”
(5) R-R-R-R MATEY! Deadpool & Wolverine made a lot of money this weekend, its $205 million domestic box office ranking as the eighth biggest opening of all time among any film and by far the biggest launch for an R-rated film, not adjusted for inflation. The first Deadpool was the previous record-holder at $133.7 million. “Box Office: ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Sets Record With $205 Million Debut” at Variety.
…Disney’s superhero sequel has collected $205 million in its opening weekend, ranking as the eighth-best debut of all time ahead of 2018’s “Black Panther” ($202 million) and behind 2015’s “Jurassic World” ($208 million) and 2012’s “The Avengers” ($207 million). Only nine films in Hollywood history have crossed the $200 million milestone in their opening weekends. Ticket sales also easily surpassed 2016’s “Deadpool” ($132 million) to set the record for the biggest R-rated opening weekend ever. The 2018 sequel, “Deadpool 2,” now stands as the third-biggest R-rated debut with $125 million. Among the newest installment’s many benchmarks, “Deadpool & Wolverine” landed by far the biggest start of the year, overtaking Disney’s Pixar sequel “Inside Out 2” ($155 million debut).
Internationally, “Deadpool & Wolverine” captured $233.3 million for a staggering global tally of $438 million. After three days of release, the film, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, is already the sixth-highest grossing of 2024. Disney spent about $200 million to produce and roughly another $100 million to promote the movie.
In the six decades since the publication of the original Dune novel in 1965, the science fiction franchise has gone through many different typographic identities. Notable examples include the use of Giorgio for the British paperbacks by NEL (c. 1968) and Albertus for David Lynch’s movie adaptation (1984). But another typeface has even stronger ties to Dune and its author. It appeared on the covers of dozens of books, including the classic Dune trilogy and its sequels, and also on other titles by – or about – Frank Herbert, from various imprints. Strangely enough, the name of this typeface is barely known even among die-hard fans….
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
July 29, 1941 – David Warner. (Died 2022.) Let’s consider David Warner. Where shall we start? I say with his role in Time Bandits where Warner plays Evil Genius, a malevolent being capable of twisting and warping reality. He needs the map to be able to escape the Fortress of Darkness, where he’s been imprisoned. Evil is also different because He understands technology, and in his clawed hands “The world will be different. Because I have understanding.” What’s that he has an understanding of? Digital watches. “And soon I shall have an understanding of cassette recorders and car telephones.” A truly excellent role for him.
David Warner as Evil Genius
Next up in my estimation would be his performance as John Leslie Stevenson and Jack the Ripper in Nicholas Mayer’s exemplary Time after Time which has Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells.
As Warner as Jack offhandedly says to Wells, “Ninety years ago, I was a freak. Here, I’m an amateur.” Warner does a bang on the ear of making Jack revel in the violent nature of the present such as the ease in which one can purchase firearms and how killing has become much more efficient because of them.
Jack says, “We don’t belong here? On the contrary, Herbert. I belong here completely and utterly. I’m home.”
Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells.
So what next? That’d have to be Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the chancellor of the Klingon High Council who hopes to forge a peace between his people and the Federation.
Memory Alpha notes “Jack Palance was Nick Meyer’s original choice for the role. (Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 141) However, Palance proved to be extremely costly to hire as well as slightly hesitant to accept the part.” They need a performer who fitted the script’s description of Gorkon as “savagely tall” and Warner was six feet, two inches tall.
David Warner recognized that the role was not a particularly large one, saying, “I just sat there for one scene and then got killed! Which is fine – I don’t have a problem with that. It’s exposition, setting it all up.” (From Star Trek Magazine issue 153, p. 47) . He did a lot with what little time had do you agree?
David Warner as Chancellor Gorkon.
Those are the three performances that I think he’s most memorable in. Did he have other roles which I should note?
He voiced in the Batman: The Animated Series a character named Ra’s al Ghul, a very long live criminal mastermind. He voices him to utter perfection as one who both respects and disdains Batman.
That he’s a man of many roles is beyond dispute as he’s played Doctor Von Frankenstein and The Creature, Reinhard Heydrich who I can only describe as the souless monster that was responsible for the Holocaust; Bob Cratchit, a Professor Summerlee, Lord Mountbatten, The Doctor, Houdini and Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
I’m sure that I missed some interesting performances he did, so feel free to tell me that I overlooked them as you always do.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
Jumpstart jumped to the wrong conclusion (started last week).
(9) REYNOLDS RAP. The Hollywood Reporter gives reasons for ranking these as the “13 Best Ryan Reynolds Movies”. For example, you probably already forgot this one:
11. Detective Pikachu (2019)
The first thing you think of when you consider that famous yellow cutie that the Pokémon brand was built from probably isn’t Ryan Reynolds. His initial casting as Pikachu, for which he lent his voice and face via motion capture, was initially met with understandable confusion and a share of derision. But somehow, against all odds, it works. A gumshoe Pikachu with missing memories, teaming up with a failed Pokémon trainer, Tim Goodman (Justice Smith), and a cub reporter, Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton), to uncover a city-wide conspiracy is the kind of clever, special effects heavy take on the neo-noir that makes the film appealing for more than just Pokémon fans.
I couldn’t count the names of Pokémon characters I know on one hand, and I didn’t go into this movie as a fan. Yet, I found Rob Letterman’s film to be an engaging fantasy-mystery, and Reynolds’ performance to be a breezy and grounding element in a film entirely set in a lore-heavy fictional reality. As far as video game adaptations go, Detective Pikachu is one of the best, and it doesn’t get overly caught up in minutiae, instead allowing the cast and audience to simply focus on delivering a good time within the framework of a silly, but no less endearing, concept. And as for a bit of film trivia, before Reynolds accepted the role, Hugh Jackman was on WB’s shortlist to voice Pikachu — but he wasn’t quite ready to don the yellow just yet.
… During San Diego Comic-Con 2024 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds showrunner Alex Kurtzman and Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies came together for a joint event titled Intergalactic Friendship Panel: Star Trek X Doctor Who. This raised some eyebrows, and the anticipation only grew after Saturday’s Star Trek panel. During the panel, Kurtzman was asked about a Doctor Who crossover, and his answer pointed to the crossover panel. “I think you should come to the panel later today and ask the same question,” Kurtzman teased.
Now, we know what that tease was referring to – a crossover between the Doctor Who: Lost in Time and Star Trek Lower Decks: The Badges Directive mobile games. It’s perhaps not the crossover fans were hoping for – we were kind of crossing out fingers for a live-action meetup, but at least one of the panelists has hope that that may happen someday. …
(11) BACK TO THE SILO. Shelf Awareness picked up this Silo news at Comic-Con.
During San Diego Comic-Con, Apple TV+ announced that the second season of the hit series Silo, which is based on Hugh Howey’s sci-fi stories–including the novellas Wool, Shift, and Dust–will premiere November 15 with the first episode, followed by one new episode every Friday through January 17, 2025.
Steve Zahn (The White Lotus, Treme) is joining the season 2 cast..
(12) THE CTHULHU IN THE HAT? H.P. Lovecraft’s Dagon for Beginning Readers by R.J. Ivankovic is a droll, Seuss-inspired parody. (No, I don’t know if the Seuss corporate lawyers have heard of it yet.)
So a warning to all, for what it is worth: when the monsters arise they will conquer the earth.
The famous H.P. Lovecraft story Dagon is gracefully retold in anapestic tetrameter and illustrated in a darkly whimsical style by genius poet-artist R.J. Ivankovic.
A sailor escapes in a lifeboat after his ship is attacked by a German raider during World War I. He soon finds himself in more bizarre peril, stranded in a dark, stinking mire on the edge of a mammoth pit. Venturing into the pit, he discovers a monolith covered in weird hieroglyphics and something stranger still that crawls from the slime a creature that may be the vanguard of a vast and monstrous invading army from the depths of the sea.
Join us on a pawsome journey as we unveil our beloved feline friends who aren’t just curled up in a cozy corner; they’re out there, backpacking across continents, camping under the stars, floating in cosmic space, time-traveling to study with art masters, seeking enlightenment on pilgrimages, commanding the seven seas and skies, and even hustling in the Big Apple!
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Sandra Bond, Bill, Jim Janney, 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 Jon Meltzer.]
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: This second reprint from Journey Planet’s “Be the Change” issue, searches for specific redress the Worldcon community can offer to the people who were mistreated by how the Chengdu Worldcon handled last year’s Hugo Awards.
By Sarah Gulde: Other articles in this issue are discussing how to reform the Hugo Awards going forward so that this debacle never happens again. What I want to talk about is the folks already harmed, and how we as a community can make amends.
Merriam-Webster defines “amends” as “compensation for a loss or injury.”
At the time of writing, those who were wrongfully disqualified from the Hugo Awards have been identified, acknowledged, and offered spots on panels in Glasgow. Xiran Jay Zhao also received an extension of eligibility for the Astounding Award.
Is this really “amends”? While Zhao may or may not feel compensated for missing out in 2023, it seems to me that being a panelist is something the other disqualified nominees would be welcomed for anyways. I’ve been a Worldcon panelist several times myself, and it never had anything to do with being a Hugo nominee.
So if we truly want to make amends, what can we do?
Many have pointed out that a revote, were it logistically possible, would be unduly influenced by sympathy for those who were unfairly excluded the first time around. I agree with that, but I don’t agree with what seems to be the general consensus: if the nuclear option isn’t available, then we’re off the hook.While we can’t undo what has happened, there is so much more we could be doing as a community to show our remorse.
Some are quite simple. How about an invitation to the Losers Party in Glasgow? That’s something special that they may have missed out on in Chengdu, and something that the Glasgow concom could rather easily make happen.
Or how about Worldcon membership for life? I imagine this would involve some sort of resolution passed by the Business Meeting to make it official, but it’s something that the next few concoms could put into action on their own.
Or, as suggested by Ash Charlton, how about an actual Hugo? “Rather than take anything away from the Hugo Winners of 2023, who, you never know, may have won in any case, I think a special award should be created for the writers who missed out. I don’t like the phrase ‘Honorary Hugo’ as it sounds like it’s not a real one, but something like an ‘Amends Hugo’, or ‘Special 2023 Hugo’ means it could still go on this writer’s resume and would recognise the injustice done. We definitely owe them something, and this would go some way to making restitution.”
The Worldcon convention committee does have the option to award a “Special Committee Award”, sometimes informally referred to as “Special Hugos” as they are not official Hugos.
Perhaps Sara Felix could be commissioned to create special tiaras? Or George R. R. Martin could be convinced to award another round of “Alfies”?
If you like one or more of these ideas, or have one of your own, please contact Journey Planet at journeyplanetsubmissions@gmail.com or comment on this article on File 770. If there seems to be enough support, I will personally contact and work with the entity who can make things happen. I would love it if something more can be done for these folks in our community who were treated so outrageously.
Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund co-administrator Mike Lowrey announced today that Sarah Gulde has been elected as TAFF delegate to the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon in Scotland.
Further details about her upcoming trip will be released as they come.
Voting results:
58 votes for Sarah Gulde
31 votes for Vanessa Applegate
4 votes for Hold Over Funds
Lowrey writes, “Both candidates fulfilled the 20% rule. Therefore Sarah wins on the first round. They have both been notified.”
Ballots must reach the administrators by 11:59 p.m. British/Irish time (UTC+1; 3:59 p.m. Pacific, UTC-7) on Tuesday April 2, 2024.
The two candidates are Vanessa Applegate and Sarah Gulde. The winner will travel to the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon in Scotland. Here are their platforms:
Vanessa Applegate
Vanessa Applegate has been around fandom for more than twenty years, mostly attending and occasionally running logistics for cons in Northern California. Mostly, she arts, has had art in various zines, co-edited The Drink Tank for a year, was nominated for the Hugo for her work on Journey Planet, and has been known to throw on a costume from time to time. Vanessa lives among the redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her husband, a pair of clingy cats, and two miniature fans-in-training. You will know her by her hair flowers!
European nominators: John Coxon, Alyssa Wales North American nominators: Francesca Myman, Dave O’Neill, Chuck Serface
Sarah Gulde
This isn’t my first time standing for TAFF … maybe the third time’s the charm? But the nice thing about throwing your hat in the TAFF ring is that even when you lose, you make some great new friends along the way! (Hi friends I made along the way!)
I’m a two-time Hugo Finalist, and 2024 will be the 10th anniversary of my first Worldcon (Loncon 3). I’ve kept in touch with folks I met there, but I would love to attend Glasgow 2024 as the TAFF delegate and make even more fannish friends across the pond!
European nominators: Johan Anglemark, James Bacon North American nominators: Chris Garcia, Seanan McGuire, Kevin Roche
The administrators’ latest newsletter is also out today. Download it here: Taffluorescence 2.
With rave reviews for his performance as Levee, a blues trumpeter in 1920s Chicago, in the film adaptation of the August Wilson play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—and now with a Screen Actors Guild nomination to go along with the Golden Globes nod he received on Wednesday—Chadwick Boseman may be inching ahead of his competitors in this year’s Oscars race for best actor.
Many award prognosticators are already predicting that Boseman, who died of cancer in August at the age of 43, could become the third actor—following Peter Finch in Network and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight—to win a posthumous Oscar for his performance. (At this point, his chief rival appears to be Riz Ahmed, who plays a punk-metal drummer beginning to go deaf in Sound of Metal. Ahmed has won several critics’ awards as well as the best-actor citation from the National Board of Review.)…
(2) MURDER, HE WROTE. Mark Lawrence took a poll. The result, he says, is that “7.4% of you are monsters”.
Concerning the practice of reading the last page of a book first.
3: I understand the urge to murder people better than I understand the urge to do this.
(3) O TEMPORA, O MORES! How the classics are neglected. The Washington Post needed to add this correction to the end of an article today —
Correction: A previous version of this story implied that a planet blows up in “The Empire Strikes Back.” No planets blow up in that particular Star Wars film. This story has been updated.
(4) ARGUMENT CLINIC. David Gerrold offered a new service on Facebook. This could be the coming thing.
At the suggestion of a friend, I am now charging $50 for 30 minutes of online argument.
Subject must be agreed on beforehand. (I reserve the right to decline.) Sources of data must also be agreed on before. (Fox News and other farce right sources will not be accepted. In return, I will forego CNN, NYT, Huffpost, Washington Post, and MSNBC)
Cerulean, azure, navy, royal … Much has been written about the color blue, the first human-made pigment. “Because blue contracts, retreats, it is the color of transcendence, leading us away in pursuit of the infinite,” wrote William Gass in his book On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry. Wassily Kandinsky once mused: “The power of profound meaning is found in blue, and first in its physical movements of retreat from the spectator, of turning in upon its own center […] Blue is the typical heavenly color.”
And now, for the first time in two centuries, a new chemically-made pigment of the celebrated color is available for artists — YInMn Blue. It’s named after its components — Yttrium, Indium, and Manganese — and its luminous, vivid pigment never fades, even if mixed with oil and water.
Like all good discoveries, the new inorganic pigment was identified by coincidence….
…. “My step-grandmother, Dame Jean Conan Doyle, tried hard to stop the world doing what it liked with her father’s fictional characters. In the end she realised this was a fruitless exercise,” says Richard Pooley, director of the Conan Doyle estate and step- great-grandson of the author. “Instead she focused on giving her approval to those Holmes pastiches which were well-written and did not stray too far from Doyle’s characterisation. We have tried to do the same.”
The estate has authorised Horowitz’s sequels and Lane’s stories, but most Holmes adaptations come without the estate’s stamp of approval – not that that appears to put readers off. Pooley says that its approval comes down to the quality of the writing, and if the writer stays “true to Doyle’s depiction of Holmes’s and Watson’s characters” – meaning they don’t mind if Cumberbatch’s Holmes lives in modern London, or if Holmes and Watson are women, as in HBO Asia’s Miss Sherlock….
George will be in conversation with Los Angeles artist Connie Samaras, an avid admirer of Butler’s prose which served as the inspiration for her 2019 project “The Past is Another Planet”, an illustrious depiction of the Huntington Library, home to Butler’s archive.
(8) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
February 4, 1983 — Videodrome premiered. It was written and directed by David Cronenberg, with a cast of James Woods, Sonja Smits, and Debbie Harry. It was the first film by Cronenberg to get Hollywood backing and it bombed earning back only two million dollars of its nearly six million budget. In spite of that, critics and audience goers alike found it to a good film. Today it is considered his best film by many, and it holds a sterling seventy-eight percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born February 4, 1889 – Dorothea Faulkner. Two short stories, half a dozen poems, in If and Slant (there’s a range for you) and like that, under variations of “Rory Faulkner”, “Rory Magill”, “Dorothea M. Faulkner”. Active in the LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society), serving a term as Secretary, and the Outlanders, also the N3F (Nat’l Fantasy Fan Fed’n). Often seen in Now & Then. With that and Slant you won’t be surprised to hear she attended Loncon I the 15th Worldcon (at age 68) and was made a Knight of St. Fantony. (Died 1999) [JH]
Born February 4, 1915 – Harry Whittington. For us, one Man from U.N.C.L.E. novel and four novellas, and an essay on Fredric Brown for this collection; outside our field, note first HW’s One Deadly Dawn was published as an Ace Double with Tucker’s Hired Target; HW wrote two hundred novels – fourscore in one twelve-year span – under a score of names; quite possibly King of the Pulps; see here. (Died 1989) [JH]
Born February 4, 1938 – Ted White, age 83. Perhaps our most been-everywhere-done-everything fan alive. A dozen novels, thirty shorter stories; assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, then edited Amazing and Fantastic (concurrently!), Stardate; columnist for Algol and Thrust; “Uffish Thots” and “The Trenchant Bludgeon” in SF Review; active beyond measure there, in Izzard, New Frontiers, Raucous Caucus, Riverside Quarterly, Yandro, and indeed File 770. Interviewed by Schweitzer in SF Voices. One Hugo (as Best Fanwriter; often a finalist as a pro), three FAAn (Fan Activity Achievement) Awards. Chaired Lunacon 11-13. Organized FanHistoricon 9 but couldn’t attend. Variously Pro and Fan Guest of Honor at Bubonicon 4, DeepSouthCon 18, RavenCon 11, Aussiecon Two the 43rd Worldcon. Also musician and music critic (plays keyboards, saxophone). British Fantasy Award for Heavy Metal. Acidulous, enthusiastic, skeptical, strong; it would be a miracle not to think him sometimes wrong. [JH]
Born February 4, 1940 — John Schuck, 81. My favorite SF role by him is as the second Draal, Keeper of the Great Machine, on the Babylon 5 series. I know it was only two episodes but it was a fun role. He’s also played the role of Klingon ambassador Kamarag in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He guest starred in Deep Space Nine as Legate Parn In “The Maquis: Part II”, on Star Trek: Voyager as Chorus #3 in the “Muse” episode, and on Enterprise as Antaak in the “Divergence” and “Affliction” episodes. Oh, and he was Herman Munster in The Munsters Today. Now that was a silly role! Did you know his makeup was the Universal International Frankenstein-monster makeup format whose copyright NBCUniversal still owns? (CE)
Born February 4, 1940 — George A. Romero. Is horror genre or genre adjacent? Either way, he’s got an impressive listing form the Dead films, I count seven of them, to Knightriders, which is truly genre adjacent at best, and one of my favorites of him, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie. Oh, and he wasn’t quite as ubiquitous as Stan Lee, but he did show up in at least seven of his films. (Died 2017.) (CE)
Born February 4, 1941 — Stephen J. Cannell. Creator of The Greatest American Hero. That gets him Birthday Honors. The only other genre series he was involved with was The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage which I never heard of, but you can see the premiere episode here. (Died 2010.) (CE)
Born February 4, 1959 — Pamelyn Ferdin, 62. She was in the “And the Children Shall Lead” episode of Trek. She’ll show up in The Flying Nun (as two different characters), voicing a role in The Cat in The Hat short, Night Gallery, Sealab 2020 (another voice acting gig), Shazam! and Project UFO. She’d have a main role in Space Academy, the Jonathan Harris failed series as well. (CE)
Born February 4, 1961 — Neal Asher, 60. I’m been reading and enjoying his Polity series since he started it nearly twenty years ago. Listing all of his works here would drive OGH to a nervous tick as I think there’s now close to thirty works in total. I last listened to The Line War and it’s typically filled with a mix of outrageous SF concepts (Dyson spheres in the middle of hundred thousand year construction cycles) and humans who might not be human (Ian Cormac is back again). (CE)
Born February 4, 1962 — Thomas Scott Winnett. Locus magazine editorial assistant and reviewer from 1989 to 1994. He worked on Locus looks at books and Books received as well. In addition, he wrote well over a hundred review reviews for Locus. He died of AIDS related pneumonia. (Died 2004.) (CE)
Born February 4, 1968 – Neve Maslakovic, Ph.D., age 53. From Belgrade to Stanford’s STAR Lab (Space, Telecommunications, And Radioscience) to writing fiction. Four novels, another due next month. Likes the Twin Cities winters. Has read Time and Again, A History of [Greek letter “pi”], Three Men in a Boat, nine by Wodehouse, five by Sayers, a Complete Sherlock Holmes, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. [JH]
Born February 4, 1968 – David Speakman, age 53. Until recently very active in the N3F, serving as Chair of the Directorate, editor of The Nat’l Fantasy Fan and Tightbeam; two Franson Awards, Kaymar Award, awarded a Life Membership. As to “recently”, he explains here. [JH]
Born February 4, 1990 – Zach King, age 31. Actor, author, digital-video illusionist. Three novels for us. Two London Film Festival first-place awards. A video of him apparently flying on a broomstick had two billion views in four days. “They rejected my application to Hogwarts but I still found a way to be a wizard.” Does he do it all with mirrors? Website. [JH]
(10) FANZINE SPOTLIGHT. The newest installment of Cora Buhlert’s Fanzine Spotlight series is a Q&A with Star Trek Quarterly editor Sarah Gulde: “Fanzine Spotlight: Star Trek Quarterly”.
Why did you decide to start your site or zine?
I’ve been a Trekkie since TNG started in 1987, so when Chris Garcia and James Bacon asked me to guest edit an issue of Journey Planet, I did a whole Star Trek-themed issue. I reached out to people I know in the Trek community and asked them to write about how Star Trek had impacted their lives. I ended up receiving some really impactful stories, from a friend who had immigrated to the US finding a family, to another friend finding the courage to come out of the closet, all through Star Trek.
It was a game-changing experience for me to edit other people’s stories. Everyone has a story to tell, but everyone is at a different writing level. Some pieces I didn’t have to touch, while I spent hours editing others. I loved helping people tell their stories, and making sure those stories were heard.
I loved it so much I didn’t want to stop with one issue! After some careful thought, I decided to create my own Star Trek-themed fanzine. Monthly was too much for me to take on by myself, so I went with quarterly. I asked Women At Warp, a feminist Trek podcast, to write a regular column. (Since then I’ve joined the show as a co-host.) I passed out flyers at the big annual convention in Las Vegas soliciting submissions for the first issue. And I posted to various Star Trek Facebook groups looking for more….
…The Mandalorian Egg-Shaped Magic Hot Chocolate Melt from Galerie Candy is very similar to a hot cocoa bomb—but without the hot chocolate mix. Made of milk chocolate, it’s meant to be dissolved in a cup of hot milk to reveal the green Baby Yoda marshmallow inside. While it’s intended use is to make hot chocolate, you can easily eat the Baby Yoda treat as is.
David Grigg and Perry Middlemiss talk about the books they’ve been reading lately, ranging in length from novellas to a nine-volume, almost million-word opus written entirely in the form of letters. And a rather damp theme emerges…
(13) LIGHTEN UP. Frostbeard Studio adds a brand new bookish scent every month to its line of Book Lovers’ Soy Candles and Bookish Goods.
Follow your nose through the woods to a mysterious lamppost where you’ll embark on a magical adventure into wintry realms. You might be cozied up with blankets and a book, but you’ll feel like you’re being whisked away to a snowy, enchanted forest in another world.
(14) GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR. Camestros Felapton recommends this adaptation of a comic: “Review: Sweet Home”.
…The monsters feel like a cross between The Thing and Attack on Titan but that weirdness aside, the story gradually drifts into a more conventional zombie-apocalypse survival narrative. The small number of survivors trapped on the ground floor of the Green Home apartment bloc, must find ways to band together to protect themselves from the surrounding nightmare. In later episodes they have to deal with an intruding human gang, as well as the secret agenda of the army which (as per usual) knows more about the plague than they are letting on. Luckily, by this point the viewer is more invested in the fate of the ensemble of characters who range from shop keepers to an improbable combination of people with bad-ass backstories.
… Some of the DC villains and antiheroes called out in the synopsis include Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and “everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn.” Part of the Suicide Squad’s mission will see them dropped off “on theremote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese.”
[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cora Buhlert, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ingvar.]
Need help deciding who to vote for in the 2019 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund race? Help is on the way! TAFF News Redux #2 [PDF file] is available on the TAFF Website with the candidates’ answers to a questionnaire.
Find out what Teresa Cochran, Sarah Gulde , Michael Lowrey, Geri Sullivan had to say when they were asked these probative fannish questions —
1) Tell us something about yourself and fandom: where did it begin for you and when.
2) Are there any specific subgenres of Science Fiction & Fantasy you prefer? e.g., hard science, alternative history, steampunk, etc.
3) Describe your fannish activity: clubs you’ve been in, official roles (club president, or whatever), cons you’ve attended/worked on, and fanzines you’ve produced, and so forth.
4) What was the craziest or most fun thing you have ever done or experienced in fandom?
5) If you win, what will your TAFF trip look like? Just Ireland and the UK or other parts of Europe (which?) too? How many weeks do you think you will be able to set aside for it?
TAFF voting to pick
a North American delegate to send to the Dublin 2019 Worldcon is open until
midnight EST of April 22, 2019. Get the ballot and voting information on the
TAFF website.
