(1) YOUR MIDDLE-EARTH CANDIDATES. At McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Sam Woods admits “I’m an Undecided Hobbit, Torn Between a Dark Lord Who Promises an Age of Chaos and an Elf Queen Whom I Just Wish I Knew More About”.
I’m a well-informed Hobbit—a Boffin from Overhill, thank you very much—who is in a kerfuffle about whom to throw my Hobbit-sized support behind. For some, the choice is clear, but for a little guy like me, I’m feeling awfully torn up, like a tear-and-share cheese bread during Winter Solstice! I simply can’t seem to decide between the Dark Lord determined to return to power and stay there until shadows drown all of Arda, or the Elf Galadriel, who seems to be great and exceedingly normal, but I just wish I knew more about her….
(2) NEW WALLACE & GROMIT MOVIE NEXT YEAR. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will be coming to Netflix on January 3, 2025.
The world’s best boss – Feathers McGraw is back with a vengeance. A brand new epic Wallace & Gromit family adventure, the first full length feature film in 19 years since BAFTA and Academy Award-winning The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
From the brilliant Aardman and four-time Academy Award®-winning director Nick Park and Emmy Award-nominated Merlin Crossingham comes Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. In this next installment, Gromit’s concern that Wallace is becoming too dependent on his inventions proves justified, when Wallace invents a “smart” gnome that seems to develop a mind of its own. When it emerges that a vengeful figure from the past might be masterminding things, it falls to Gromit to battle sinister forces and save his master… or Wallace may never be able to invent again!
(3) DUNE: PROPHECY TRAILER. The new HBO Original Series Dune: Prophecy premieres November 17 on Max. According to Deadline:
…The series takes place 10,000 years before the ascension of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides in the Denis Villeneuve-directed movies. It follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit. They’re Jedi-like sisters types in the Frank Herbert novels to you Star Wars folks out there….
(4) FUN WHILE IT LASTED. “Peter Capaldi: ‘Being Doctor Who was more fun than being me’”, so he tells Radio Times.
…While he’s been open about the fact that he wouldn’t return to the role, he clearly looks back fondly on it, exclusively telling RadioTimes.com: “It was just an incredible experience. Suddenly, you’re in the middle of this fantastical world, surrounded by people who love Doctor Who.
“I was watching Tom Baker talking about something, and he said that when he was Doctor Who he would do tons and tons of publicity and stuff, because being Doctor Who was much more fun than being Tom Baker, and I would say the same, probably, being Doctor Who is much more fun than being me.”…
(5) GODZILLA WILL TIP THE SCALES. More to love! “Godzilla Minus One Returning to Theaters With New Bonus Content” announces CBR.com.
…Per AMC, Takashi Yamazaki’s Academy Award-winning film is making its way back to AMC theaters starting on Nov. 1, 2024, with 13 extra minutes of content. The film’s return to the big screen is part of the Godzilla franchise’s 70th anniversary celebrations. In the fall of 1954, Ishirō Honda’s original film premiered, creating a cultural phenomenon that has lasted throughout generations. The franchise has been reinvented multiple times, and it has transcended cultural boundaries. Still, Godzilla Minus One feels like a particularly good homage to the original, having risen to become the best-selling Japanese Godzilla film of all time….
(6) FREE READ. Grist has shared an original Imagine 2200 short story, from Nebula and Aurora award-winning author and scientist Premee Mohamed: “Who Walks With You”.
Mohamed imagines a world in which many have adapted to extreme weather by moving into mobile pods, designed to relocate towns away from disasters:
“After the weather started going wild, after the cities emptied out, much of humanity discovered somewhat to their surprise that what they had done initially out of panicked necessity — uprooting, becoming mobile — suited most folks rather well. Now a relaxed nomadicism has become ingrained, life as normal. No more did you have to stay in one place and wait for the big one, whatever that might be, to hit you; now you could walk away with all your friends and family, and eat heirloom popcorn while watching the news about the big one hitting the place you had just left.”
But when independent, logic-minded Ysolt finds herself in a broken pod at the bottom of a ravine after a freak storm, will technology and willpower be enough to save her?
(7) YOU LOOK WILLING TO PAY. “Kroger’s Plan to Use Facial Recognition Raises Concerns About Surge Pricing”. Gizmodo asks, “How soon will the Minority Report-style supermarket arrive?”
Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib recently sent a letter to Kroger over the grocery giant’s purported plan to introduce digital price tags that could be changed in an instant to raise or lower prices for shoppers based on the time of day, the weather, or any other number of factors. But one particular detail in Kroger’s plan is raising the most eyebrows: The company intends to put cameras in stores that would be used for facial recognition.
…“Studies have shown that facial recognition technology is flawed and can lead to discrimination in predominantly Black and brown communities,” Tlaib said in her letter. “The racial biases of facial recognition technology are well-documented and should not be extended into our grocery stores.”
Kroger is the largest grocery store chain in the U.S. by revenue and owns a number of different brands, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Pick’n Save, Food 4 Less, and Dillions, among a host of others. Tlaib is worried that ESLs will allow Kroger’s stores to “use customer data to build personalized profiles of each customer” in such a way that it will be able to “determine the maximum price of goods customers are willing to pay.”…
(8) LOONEY TUNES MOVIE. “’The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie’ Release Date Set” – Deadline tells us when.
… The movie will make its North American premiere Friday at the Animation Is Film festival, where it will qualify for the Best Animated Feature Oscar race.
The pic was directed by Pete Browngardt and follows Porky Pig and Daffy Duck teaming up again, this time faced with the threat of an alien invasion….
…Unlike Coyote vs. Acme, which was pulled from theatrical release by Warner Bros amid a swath of cost cutting, the great news is that The Day the Earth Blew Up is seeing the light of day. Sales were launched at the American Film Market by GFM Animation.
(9) JODIE OFFUTT (1934-2022). It has just become generally known that longtime Southern fan (and File 770 contributor) Jodie Offutt passed away in November 2022. The family’s memorial page is here: “Mary Joe Offutt Obituary – Coleman Funeral Home”.
Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Jodie Offutt, 87, passed away of natural causes in Oxford, Mississippi. She was the daughter of John Jerome (Jack) McCabe and Mary Joe (Josie) McCarney. She was preceded in death by her husband of 56 years, Andrew J. Offutt.
Jodie is survived by her four children, Chris Offutt, Jeff Offutt, Scotty Hyde, and Melissa Offutt. She is also survived by her sister, Phoebe McCabe Tanedo, five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Jodie grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and lived in Morehead and Haldeman, Kentucky. She graduated from Morehead State University with a B.A in Philosophy and a M.A in English. She worked as a teacher and an administrative assistant to lawyers. After the death of her husband, Jodie retired to Oxford, where she embraced the local community.
Her Fancyclopedia 3 entry recalls that she was a convention guest of honor at Rivercon II and BYOB-Con 6 (1976), Artkane 2 (1977), MidSouthCon 5 (1986), Transcendental ConFusion (1993), and LibertyCon 9 (1995). And in the early years of File 770 she was wonderfully supportive, frequently sending news and letters of comment.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born October 17, 1934 – Alan Garner, 90.
So these are my favorite works by Alan Garner on his ninetieth birthday.
Let’s start off with what Boneland, a novel I dearly like as it’s very much unlike most of his other works. Despite sharing a primary character with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, beloved children’s novels known as The Alderley Tales that were published in the late Fifties and Sixties, nearly 60 years before this work, as this is very much an adult novel not intended for the pleasure of children whatsoever.
Indeed, its tone is more akin to what the late Robert Holdstock did in his Ryhope Wood series than anything else Alan Garner has done excepting Thursbitch and Strandloper, again adult works. This story can be disturbing and very odd in places. I can’t tell what is happening here but it doesn’t read like fantasy as all.
The Owl Service I’ve read and then later listened to a number of times. Garner bases his story on Blodeuwedd, a woman created from flowers by a Welsh sorcerer. She betrays her husband, Lleu, in favor of another, Gronw, and is turned into an owl as punishment for inducing Gronw to kill Lleu.
In Garner’s telling of this story, three teenagers find themselves tragically reenacting the story as they first awaken the legend by finding a dinner service with an owl pattern on the plates.
The Naxos audiobook is told by Wayne Forester, who handles both the narration and voicing of each character amazingly well, I’m impressed by his ability to handle both Welsh accents and the Welsh language, given the difficulty of that tongue, which make Gaelic look easy to pronounce by comparison.
My final pick is The Stone Book Quartet which is series of four interconnected stories, telling Alan Garner’s personal and family history as fiction. It’s set in Manchester, England, where Garner’s family is from. It is important to note that, unlike John Berger’s Into Their Labours, in which Berger, an Englishman, moved to a remote French village where that series is based, Garner’s tale reflects his deep roots in the culture, a theme that has become stronger in his fiction over the decade before this was written.
Simply put, each tale is, like the peasants in Into Their Labours, a marvelous play of language, of the labouring class in their daily lives, the cycle of the seasons, and the continuity that comes of living for generations in a community.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal shows why this park stays in business.
- The Other Coast has an attraction problem.
- Lola spies a Stone Age crossover.
- Moderately Confused reveals a Poe sequel you didn’t know about (nor did he.)
- Off the Mark has something to make vampiric parents happy.
- Candorville picks the perfect gift. And pays for it, too.
- Loose Parts cures an art problem.
(12) TUNING UP. “Minnesota Opera producing first-ever operatic adaptation of a comic book and Stephen King” – Bring Me The News has the story.
In what BOOM Studios and the Minnesota Opera are calling “the first ever deal to create an operatic adaptation of a comic book or graphic novel,” the companies are developing an adaptation of the comic book series The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.
The series, written by Ram V and drawn by Filipe Andrade, was repeatedly heralded as one of the best series of the year when it was released by BOOM Comics in 2021, eventually earning four Eisner nominations, including Best Limited Series….
(13) THEY’LL BE BACK. “’Rick and Morty’ Renewed Through Season 12 at Adult Swim” reports Variety.
“Rick and Morty” has been renewed for two more seasons at Adult Swim, propelling television’s favorite mad scientist and grandson duo through Season 12.
As Season 8 is slated for 2025, and the Season 10 renewal was announced in 2023, the Season 12 greenlight pushes the Emmy-winning animated series through at least 2029…
(14) NEW SHEPARD PICKS RETIREMENT HOME. “Blue Origin donates New Shepard space hardware to Smithsonian” – GeekWire says it wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has donated a New Shepard rocket booster, plus a New Shepard capsule, to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
The history-making hardware will go on display at the museum’s main building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in renovated galleries due to open in 2026.
“There is no better final landing pad for New Shepard than the Smithsonian,” Bezos said in a statement. “We are honored and grateful.”
The reusable booster, known as Propulsion Module 4-2, was employed for five uncrewed flights — ranging from the New Shepard program’s first successful booster landing in 2015 to an escape system test that could have destroyed the propulsion module in 2016.
Before that final outing for the booster, Bezos said it would be put on display if it survived. “We’d really like to retire it after this test and put it in a museum,” he said at the time. “Sadly, that’s not likely. This test will probably destroy the booster.”
Fortunately for the Smithsonian, Bezos’ prediction was wrong. The scorched but intact booster was exhibited at a variety of events, including the 2017 Space Symposium in Colorado, and most recently was on display at Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket factory in Florida….
(15) MICROREACTORS. TechRadar says “Micro nuclear reactors are being built that can deliver 5MW of power for up to 100 months, producing a staggering 1.2 petawatt-hours of energy”.
…Now, details have surfaced about Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactor, after the company revealed it had submitted its Preliminary Safety Design Report (PSDR) to the Department of Energy’s National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) and in doing so is the first reactor developer to reach this milestone.
“The completion of the PSDR for the eVinci test reactor is an important step toward enabling a micro reactor developer to perform a test in our DOME facility,” said Brad Tomer, acting director of NRIC.
“As a national DOE program and part of INL, the nation’s nuclear energy research laboratory, NRIC is committed to working with private companies such as Westinghouse to perform testing and accelerate the development of advanced nuclear technologies that will provide clean energy solutions for the US.”
NRIC, a key initiative under the DOE, is dedicated to fast-tracking the development and deployment of advanced nuclear technologies like the eVinci microreactor. Its mission includes establishing four new experimental facilities and two large-scale reactor test beds by 2028, with plans to complete two advanced technology experiments by 2030….
(16) STAR TREK FROGS CHIRPING BOLDLY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Researchers have discovered seven new species of tree frog in Madagascar. They make chirps and noises a bit like the sound-effects from Star Trek and so the researchers have named the species after Kirk, Picard, Sissko, Janeway, Pike et al…
We here name and describe the seven new species in honor of fictional captains of starships, namely B.kirki sp. nov.,B.picardi sp. nov., B.siskoi sp. nov., B.janewayae sp. nov., B.archeri sp. nov., B.pikei sp. nov., and B.burnhamae sp. nov.
Primary research: Vences, M. et al (2024) Communicator whistles: A Trek through the taxonomyof the Boophis marojezensis complex reveals seven new, morphologically cryptic tree frogs from Madagascar (Amphibia: Anura: Mantellidae). Vertebrate Zoology, vol. 74, p643–681.
(17) SPACE TRASH SOLUTION. Popular Science says, “ISS astronauts to test trash compactor that’s basically WALL-E”. How can I resist a clickbait headline like that?
NASA will test a state-of-the-art trash compactor aboard the International Space Station—and yes, it resembles a certain Pixar character tasked with the same job responsibilities. If all goes well, Sierra Space’s Trash Compaction and Processing System (TCPS) will be operational for ISS astronauts to use by the end of 2026.
(18) NEMO: IN THE MINOR LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. SCIFI Radio introduces us to “Nautilus”, a Prime Video series that launches the first of its ten episodes on October 25.
…This mini-series focuses on the early days of Nemo’s career, before the events portrayed in the beloved 1954 Disney movie. Nemo is still the genius who designed the Nautilus, but he did not build her for himself….
…Nemo leads a prisoner escape, stealing his own ship to do so. Naturally the East India Company is not happy about this, and pursue him with all the means at their command. If you remember the British Raj in the days when Rudyard Kipling was a young writer, you’ll remember they had considerable means. If you’re not a Kipling fan, think of The Far Pavilions….
(19) SPACE IS COOL. Tom Cardy, an Australian comedian, musician, songwriter, and actor, has dropped an animated music video of his 2023 single “H.S” – because whether or not it’s a planet, Pluto still knows it is “hot shit”!
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, N., Joel Zakem, Mlex, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]