25 All Around The Scrollberry Bush, The Monkey Chased The Pixel

Posted on May 10, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) GUARDIAN BOOK REVIEWS. Past Best Fan Writer Hugo winner Abigail Nussbaum, and author of 2025 BSFA Award winner Track Changes penned the Guardian’s latest “The best science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup”. Nussbaum cover The Devils by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz, £25), The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Orbit, £20), Land of Hope by Cate Baum (Indigo Press, £12.99), and A Line You Have Traced by Roisin Dunnett (Magpie, £16.99).

(2) MEETING DEATH SCIENTIFICALLY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The BBC’s World Service has a nifty weekly science programme Unexplained Elements. This week’s programme was topical with this week’s news of the Pope popping off and the pomp and circumstance ceremony that garnered international attention. It was a topic in which the late Terry Pratchett would have been interested.

It addressed questions such as when did humans first start burying their dead? The answer seems to be over 100,000 years ago, but this is for anatomically modern humans. Apparently some proto-human species (whose brain capacity was a third of modern humans) may have buried their dead, though the research (currently in peer review) is debatable. Apparently, the pre-print has been amended to take criticisms into account and while one critic has been convinced, others remain sceptical.

Another topic was that of the biology of graveyards. Because its ground remains largely untilled, and because of gravestones and the like, there are many micro-environments, and both these factors lead church graveyards have a higher local area biodiversity.

Then there is the issue of a dead person’s digital rights to their social media and online accounts. The European Union’s GDPR is the world’s most robust data protection regulation, though that does not seem to stop firms like Facebook or EventBrite failing to strictly follow it (just look as the small print when you sign up) or even Worldcons who arguably (it would be interesting to test this in court and I could write an essay on this) fail to strictly adhere to its provisions. Nonetheless, despite GDPR being the world’s gold standard in data protection, the dead have no rights whatsoever under GDPR!

Talking of a dead person’s digital rights (or lack thereof), what of mobile (cell) phones and smartphones, what happens to them when they ‘die’? Well, fans of Red Dwarf might say that they go to silicon heaven. The reality, however, is for most of them landfill! Here there are multiple environmental sustainability issues. All those heavy metals and rare earth elements leech out in landfill causing threats to water tables and other ecotoxicology issues. And then there is the loss of these elements (which include silver and gold – many kilograms per tonne of mobile phones disposed) to the economy necessitating the mining of replacement elements and the environmental damage that this does. So the next time a Worldcon tells you that they are ditching recyclable paper from sustainably managed forests (look for the kite mark when buying the paper for publications) don’t accept the Worldcon’s word for it: more greenwash!

It was a fascinating programme. You can access it here.

First up, we delve into the thorny issue of when early humans started to carry out funerary rituals, before turning our attention to graveyards and the life that thrives within these sacred environments.

Next, we are joined Carl Öhman from Uppsala University in Sweden, who reveals what happens to our data when we die and why we should care about it.

Plus, we discuss the precious materials hiding in our old devices, and find out whether animals mourn.

(3) DODGE THE SCAMS. Victoria Strauss points out “Two to Avoid: Book Order Scams and Fake Reviews”. Full details at Writer Beware.

Here are two newish frauds that appear to be on the rise. As with most writing scams these days, they target self-published authors.

The Book Order Scam

I’ve written before about book order scams, in the context of scammers impersonating bookstores such as Barnes & Noble with out-of-the-blue emails promising bulk purchases and big royalties. All the author has to do is pony up thousands of dollars or pounds to cover printing and/or shipping costs (the relevant note here: bookstores do not print the books they sell, and they typically order from the publisher or publishing platform, rather than from the author).

This newer version of the book order scam is somewhat different, arriving not from a bookstore impersonator, but from the self-publishing service provider the writer has hired to publish and/or market their book. That provider isn’t a true self-publishing company, though, but rather one of the many ghostwriting scams that waylay would-be indie authors in order to defraud them….

Fake Reviews

Fake reviews–sometimes just a few lines, sometimes elaborate essays with stars and number rankings–arrive unasked-for, attached to a complimentary email claiming that a book has been “discovered” by book scouts or book evaluators. Or they’re included as part of a pitch for a package of publishing and marketing services, to show how much the service provider believes in the author’s book.

Undoubtedly produced by feeding book blurbs and other info into chatbots, they are essentially bait: affirmation and flattery designed to induce the author to reply, so they can be subjected to aggressive sales pitches for whatever the “reviewer” is selling.

Here are a couple of examples, both sent out by scammers on this list. They’re not just book reviews–they’re PROFESSIONAL book reviews! So much better than just the regular kind….

(4) CHERRYH ANNOUNCEMENT. CJ Cherryh told Facebook followers yesterday she and Jane Fancher won’t be at the Seattle Worldcon – but it’s not the result of any controversy.

Jane and I will not be attending WorldCon despite it being in our state (which some people might want to know)—no controversy, just the expense and the physical buffeting of crowds. While Jane’s got more go-juice than I do, the crowd pressure and distances involved would be pretty exhausting, leaving us sadly low-energy. We’ll still go to friendly ‘little’ cons in driving range, note well, if we know about them!!! and be our brilliant selves, but we’re not up to a full-on WorldCon.

(5) ABOUT THE FEMALE MAN. Farah Mendlesohn’s book Considering The Female Man by Joanna Russ, or, As the Bear Swore is available for preorder from Luna Press Publishing. It will be released in Summer 2026.

Joanna Russ’s writing career was relatively short, running from 1968 to 1987, with a number of essay collections published in the years after that. Her fiction career consists of just six novels and four collections, but each of the novels she published challenged engrained conventions of the genre.

The Female Man was received with shock, horror and vituperation when it was published in 1975. Its fractured narrative, and its direct attack on patriarchy and the straight-jacket of performative femininity, were described as shrill and man-hating. Over the years it emerged as a classic of feminist science fiction, a novel that continues to excite and resonate, and a touchstone for proudly militant feminists.

This exploration of The Female Man offers a close reading of the text, focussing on how the book works, its structures, arguments, humour, and brilliant anger

(6) COMPENSATING FACTORS. “My School Visit was Cancelled. I Fought Back and Won” writers Erica S. Perl in School Library Journal.

As a children’s book author, I love a good mystery. Which is why, last month, after a Virginia elementary school principal abruptly cancelled my visit by email, with no explanation or interest in rescheduling or paying me, I decided to investigate.

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what had happened: a parent had complained because of a social media video I had made celebrating Pride month. In it, I mention that Snail, a character in my Whale, Quail, Snail early reader series (illustrated by Sam Ailey), is nonbinary. Most snails are. “It’s a fiction series,” I add, “but that’s a fact.”…

… I wish I could tell you that my story ended amicably with the return of my visit to the school’s calendar. That’s not what happened.

Instead, after I asked for my fee, the principal turned the matter over to the district’s lawyers. The principal then informed the school librarian, who booked my visit, that she might have to pay me out of her own pocket. I told her I would not take her money, no matter what happened. I was extra-outraged that the principal was threatening to make her pay for the “crime” of setting up an author visit.

But my story doesn’t end there. I’m not just a children’s book author. I’m also a former trial lawyer. So instead of walking away muttering about injustice, I spent some quality time with my contract.

That’s right, my author contract. Whenever I am invited to visit a school, my booking agent draws up a contract—and this visit was no exception. According to one clause, if an appearance is cancelled with less than 30 days notice, the school is required to pay my entire fee plus any non-refundable travel expenses. The principal had cancelled on me 28 days before my visit.

And finally, my contract specifies that the contract is governed by the law of the state where I live, not the law of the state where the school is located. So if I wanted to sue for breach of contract, I could simply file papers in my local courthouse (no legal expertise or degree required!).

So, I did. Which is how I got to a different kind of happy ending: the school paid me my fee.

It’s not the win I wanted, because that would have had me standing in front of a gymnasium full of elementary school students. But it is a victory, as I see it, for all authors, especially in this current climate….

(7) KILLER ROBOTS NO LONGER SCIENCE FICTION. [Item by Francis Hamit.] “Unmanned Systems Are Not Revolutionary (But Could Be)” says a post on War Room, hosted by the U.S. Army War College.

Rather than revolutionizing warfare, unmanned systems have emerged as evolutions within the larger information revolution; advancements to be sure, but failing to render conventional militaries obsolete or dramatically reshaping force structures….

(8) PLONK YOUR MAGIC TWANGER. The one answer Smithsonian Magazine knows for sure is the price: “Who Created This Peculiar Painting of a Drooling Dragon? Nobody Knows—but a Museum Just Bought It for $20 Million”. Steven French adds, “Actually the ‘drooling dragon’ looks more like our Patterdale Terrier after he’s spotted the postman!”

Emma Capron, a curator at the museum who was responsible for the acquisition, describes the altarpiece as “wildly inventive” and “full of iconographical oddities,” per the Art Newspaper.

Start with the dragon and its bizarre dog-like face, exaggerated fangs and dripping drool. According to tradition, Satan, disguised as a dragon, swallowed St. Margaret whole. His stomach rejected her and there she appears in the painting, kneeling in prayer, totally unfazed by the event.Next to Margaret, one of the two angels holds a book of song, once thought to be a hymn by the English composer Walter Frye but now identified as musical gibberish. The other angel plucks her mouth harp, “a sound hardly associated with celestial harmony,” as the National Gallery says in the statement….

(9) PEACEMAKER IS BACK. “Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer: John Cena’s DC Superhero Returns” – Variety sets the frame.

… John Cena‘s very R-rated DC superhero has returned in the first trailer for “Peacemaker” Season 2, created by DC Studios co-chief James Gunn. The sophomore season takes place in the rebooted DC Universe, which officially kicked off with Gunn’s animated series “Creature Commando” and continues with his summer tentpole “Superman.” Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl cameo in the trailer and will appear in “Superman.”…

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 10, 1969 — John Scalzi, 56.

By Paul Weimer: I’d read John Scalzi’s blog for years before his fiction.

I got onto the Scalzi train with his entry in Metatropolis. His story involving a high tech pig farmer had all of the bones of a Scalzi story, from its “I think I know everything” protagonist, to its often snarky sense of humor. While I didn’t fall deeply in love with his work, then or since, I kept reading his work. Redshirts, of course, which still may be my favorite of his novels and stories, helped expand in my mind the metafictional opportunities in science fiction. Lock In is a solid piece of science fictional speculation on how a society might come together and respond to the consequences of a pandemic. Given that it was written long before Covid…I wonder if Scalzi or, aged fifty six yearswould have reconsidered the novel after the worldwide reaction to the aftermath of the Covid Pandemic.

Of course the Old Man’s War series is the one that he gets grief for, because it should appeal to the Sad and Rabid Puppies…but it is, in the parlance of today, “too woke”. It’s possible that the existence of such books helped motivate Torgersen and Beale, an irritant to their ideology and worldview (and a counterexample to the idea that Mil-SF must be conservative). Again, I do wonder how Scalzi would write it today, given all that has happened.

So this is a long way of saying that although it is on my Kindle, I have not yet read When The Moon Hits Your Eye, which seems to have as triggering an idea (the moon turns into cheese. Seriously?) as one can possibly make in the field. But it shows that in the end, Scalzi likes to have fun when writing. He never takes it too seriously, even if he keeps it as rigorous and locked down as the story needs. He’s just telling stories and doing his thing and having the time of his life, and haters can go hang.

The first time I actually met him in person, he didn’t remember it. He was extremely jet lagged, sitting in a hotel lobby and apparently remembered little from the entire weekend. Due to circumstance (although Scalzi is an excellent DJ, I am told, I am not a dance party goer), I only finally, finally actually got to talk to him at the Glasgow Worldcon. Being part of the photography team did let me meet and photograph everyone who would hold still. But did he know who I was? I’m still convinced that he didn’t, and that’s all right.

John Scalzi’s fiction, too…that’s all right.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

xkcd offers another science fact.
Baldo has help coming up with an excuse.
Brewster Rockit creates fan fiction.
Lio finds something waiting.
Reality Check tries a pun.

(12) AMAZING STORIES COLLECTION. Amazing Stories: Best of 2024,a collection of science fiction short stories published by the magazine over the past year, is now available.

Edited by Lloyd Penney, this collection continues Amazing’s nearly century-long tradition of exploring the strange, the speculative, and the sublime.

From lunar labor revolutions to delicate alien diplomacy, these stories represent the vanguard of speculative fiction. Readers will encounter futures both dystopian and dazzling, technologies that reshape identity and time, and characters grappling with the emotional and ethical consequences of scientific progress. Highlights include:

“A Short-Lived History of the Stockpiling of Time, in Post-Mono-Heliocentric Space-Times” by K.V.K. Kvas, a mind-bending tale of interstellar economics, identity, and revolt.
“Return from Venus” by C.B. Droege, a quiet and touching story about cross-species friendship and the longing for home.
“Best Case Scenario” by Susan Oke, a suspenseful diplomatic mission where what you offer—and what you misunderstand—could mean the difference between peace and peril.

With cover art by Hugo Award-winning artist Bob Eggleton and a lineup of diverse voices offering everything from hard science speculation to lyrical philosophical fiction, Amazing Stories: Best of 2024 is a must-have for any SF fan’s collection.

“Amazing Stories has always been a home for bold, boundary-pushing science fiction,” says Editor-in-Chief Lloyd Penney. “This year’s stories continue that proud legacy—with some of the most challenging, beautiful, and entertaining tales we’ve ever published.”

It is available online at amazingstories.com and in paperback and eBook editions at indie and major retailers worldwide or at this link.

(13) MONSTROUSLY COOL. That’s what your drinks become with an assist from the “Godzilla Ice Mold”.

(14) DAISY RIDLEY’S ZOMBIE ENCOUNTER. JustWatch quotes Daisy Ridley in its Why to Watch feature about her role in the zombie thriller “We Bury the Dead streaming: where to watch online?”

We Bury the Dead is a gripping, emotional thriller set in a world transformed by the undead. In a unique take on the zombie genre, the film follows Ava—a woman tormented by loss—who volunteers with a corpse retrieval unit to search for her missing husband. Set against a surreal yet intimate apocalypse, the story explores love, grief, and the fragile boundaries of what makes us human.

Daisy Ridley says:

The script is beautiful. It’s about grief and watching someone desperately trying to find an answer, even though she doesn’t know what that answer is going to be. The backdrop of the zombies represents this moment for [my character] Ava because she’s neither here nor there emotionally. Ava’s sole purpose is to find her husband. As a means to get to him, she joins the body retrieval unit which volunteers to find people and notify families. The zombies look like our friends and family, so it’s close enough to reality but in a way that doesn’t feel too close. It feels horribly human.

(15) HONEY, I’M HOME! “Soviet-era spacecraft Kosmos 482 plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit” reports AP News.

A Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half-century after its failed launch to Venus.

Its uncontrolled entry was confirmed by both the Russian Space Agency and European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking. The Russians indicated it came down over the Indian Ocean, but some experts were not so sure of the precise location. The European Space Agency’s space debris office also tracked the spacecraft’s doom after it failed to appear over a German radar station.

It was not immediately known how much, if any, of the half-ton spacecraft survived the fiery descent from orbit. Experts said ahead of time that some if not all of it might come crashing down, given it was built to withstand a landing on Venus, the solar system’s hottest planet.

The chances of anyone getting clobbered by spacecraft debris were exceedingly low, scientists said….

…Any surviving wreckage will belong to Russia under a United Nations treaty….

…After so much anticipation, some observers were disappointed by the lingering uncertainty over the exact whereabouts of the spacecraft’s grave….

A Russian press release says it fell in the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta.

(16) YOUR ALIEN NATION. The BBC explains, “More than half your body is not human”.

More than half of your body is not human, say scientists.

Human cells make up only 43% of the body’s total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists.

Understanding this hidden half of ourselves – our microbiome – is rapidly transforming understanding of diseases from allergy to Parkinson’s.

The field is even asking questions of what it means to be “human” and is leading to new innovative treatments as a result.

“They are essential to your health,” says Prof Ruth Ley, the director of the department of microbiome science at the Max Planck Institute, “your body isn’t just you”….

… But genetically we’re even more outgunned.

The human genome – the full set of genetic instructions for a human being – is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes.

But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out between two and 20 million microbial genes.

Prof Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist from Caltech, argues: “We don’t have just one genome, the genes of our microbiome present essentially a second genome which augment the activity of our own…

(17) SCIENCE PAPERS WITH UNDISCLOSED AI USE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is controversial to some, in no small part due to large language models (LLMs) and other A.I. (such as image-generating A.I.) using people’s intellectual property (their written or art works) for A.I. and LLM training without permission or recompense. This is exemplified by the recent debate over the Seattle’s Worldcon use of A.I. (for example, see (1) in the Scroll here).

Similarly, the use of A.I. has controversies in science. Indeed, a number of leading science journals, such as Nature, frown on the use of A.I. and/or at least ask science authors to declare any use of A.I. in their submissions. The latest news here comes from a news item in this week’s Nature that hundreds of papers have used A.I without disclosure!

Generative A.I. tools such as ChatGPT have quickly transformed academic publishing. Scientists are increasingly using them to prepare and review manuscripts, and publishers have scrambled to create guidelines for their ethical us. Although policies vary, many publishers require authors to disclose their use of A.I….

But science sleuths have identified hundreds of cases in which A.I. tools seem to have been used without disclosure…

…Publishers need to act quickly to resolve issues of dishonest A.I. use.

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

Pixel Scroll 5/7/25 The Compleat Pixeller In Scroll

Posted on May 7, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) NEW SEATTLE WORLDCON 2025 DEVELOPMENTS. Last night Seattle Worldcon 2025 chair Kathy Bond and Program Division Head SunnyJim Morgan published their promised statement detailing how ChatGPT was used in the program panelist selection process. (See File 770’s coverage here: “Seattle Worldcon 2025 Tells How ChatGPT Was Used in Panelist Selection Process”.)

Some public announcements by departing program participants have been spotted:

Leah Ning of Apex Books has written a two-page “public record” of the reasons for withdrawing as a Seattle Worldcon 2025 program participant. Read it at Bluesky.
Philip Athans has also dropped out of the program – announcement on Bluesky.

Cora Buhlert has written a link compilation post, “Robot Hallucinations”, that also features a long exposition about what ChatGPT returned when she ran her own name through the prompt. The notorious prompt namechecks this blog, about which Cora says, “File 770 is a good resource, but it’s not the only SFF news site nor is it free of bias. So privileging File 770 as a source means that any bias it has is reproduced.” Which is true as far as it goes, however, I believe the reason Seattle included 770 was to corral news about code of conduct violations.

Frank Catalano recommends this Bluesky thread by Simon Bisson as “what appears to be a good analysis of the Seattle Worldcon AI prompt from a well-regarded and experienced tech journalist.” It begins here: “So I looked at the ‘query’ that Worldcon used, and as someone who has written at least two books on enterprise AI and many many developer columns on how to build AI apps, and, well, the slim hope that I’d had that they may have done things right has been dashed.” (Coincidentally, Bisson was once a frequent commenter here.)

(2) A LOT OF THAT GOING AROUND. Publisher’s Lunch reported today that the Mystery Writers of America apologized in a Bluesky post for using AI-generated animations of Humphrey Bogart and Edgar Allan Poe in a video shown at the Edgar awards ceremony on May 1

(3) AFUA RICHARDSON GOFUNDME. A GoFundMe – “Aid Afua’s Path to Recovery” – has been started to fund medical expenses of comics creator Afua Richardson, a featured artist at Dublin 2019.

Like most artists, she is not insured and has to come out of pocket for medical expenses after her major surgery. Please help her on her path to recovery.

Afua Richardson is known for her work on Genius and World of Wakanda. Other stories she has drawn for include X-Men, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and the Mighty Avengers for Marvel Comics; and Wonder Woman Warbringer and All-Star Batman for DC Comics; and Mad Max. She also worked with U.S. Representative and civil rights leader John Lewis to illustrate Run, a volume in his autobiographical comic series co-written with Andrew Aydin. She won the 2011 Nina Simone Award for Artistic Achievement for her trailblazing work in comics.

(4) PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION HALTS CUTS TO IMLS. “R.I. District Court Grants Preliminary Injunction in IMLS Case” reports Publishers Weekly.

In welcome news for the Institute of Museum and Library Services and two more federal agencies targeted for dismantling by a presidential executive order, the District Court of Rhode Island has granted 21 states’ attorneys general the preliminary injunction they sought in Rhode Island v. Trump. In response to the evidence and to an April 18 motion hearing, chief judge John J. McConnell Jr. granted the states’ motion, agreeing with the plaintiffs that the executive order violates the Administrative Procedures Act, separation of powers principle, and the Take Care clause of the U.S. Constitution.

From the first paragraph of his order, Judge McConnell upheld that Congress controls the agencies and appropriates funding, and he referred to “the arbitrary and capricious way” the March 14 order was implemented at the IMLS, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). He determined that the EO “disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated.”

Notably, the order’s timing closely coincided with FY25 congressional appropriations. On March 15, the day after issuing the EO, President Donald Trump—a named defendant in the case—approved the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, mandating FY2024-level funding for IMLS and other agencies through September 25, 2025. In 2024, IMLS was appropriated $294,800,000, so the same amount was approved for FY25.

In some cases, IMLS is issuing checks, fulfilling its statutory obligation…

(5) TONY AWARD NOMINEES. File 770 lists the many “2025 Tony Award Nominees” of genre interest at the link.

(6) RACE MATHEWS (1935-2025). Charles Race Thorson Mathews, a founding member of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club in 1952, and holder of its membership number 1, died May 5. Race suffered a broken pelvis from a fall three weeks ago, and had been going downhill since. He died May 5 at the age of 90.

Fancyclopedia 3 recalls he sold off his collection to fund the courtship of his wife, and mostly gafiated in 1956 following his marriage.

He subsequently went into politics. He opened Aussiecon 1 in 1975, while he was a member of federal parliament. By 1985 he was Minister for the Police and Emergency Services for the State of Victoria and at Aussiecon 2 gave the opening address. Mathews was kind enough to let File 770 publish his speech, which was rich in fanhistorical anecdote. (It can be found at File 770 57, p. 16 (part 1) and File 770 58, p. 2 p15 (part 2).)

Mathews was the author or editor of numerous books on politics, cooperatives and economics.

He is the subject of a biography, Race Mathews: A Life in Politics by Iola Mathews, Monash University Press, 2024.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 7, 1931 — Gene Wolfe. (Died 2019)

By Paul Weimer: Were I to do this birthday properly and proud, I’d do a Gene Wolfe piece that had unreliable narration, used a prodigious and positively unwonted vocabulary, possibly footnoted, and definitely something to be re-read, re-examined and thought over for years.

Unfortunately I am not Gene Wolfe, and frankly, few other others in the SFF genresphere have ever dared to try and approach him. His is the kind of work that like few others, you can read and re-read over a lifetime, and get not just nuggets but whole veins of new and exciting ideas. His ideas have influenced my RPG scenarios and ideas for years.

Jack Vance may have invented the Dying Earth, but Gene Wolfe codified it and made it a whole subgenre of his own with the New Sun books, which is where i began his work. I did begin a bit in the deep end, but a friend (and at the time one of the players in my TTRPG) said that I just had to read Gene Wolfe. And so I did. Did I understand my first read through of Severian’s story? Not as much as I thought I did. Read number two went much better, and I keep thinking I need a read number three–I’ve made a couple of abortive attempts at it but the siren song and responsibility of new work keeps me from doing so.

After Beyond the New Sun, I went to the Long Sun (generation ships for the win!) and then moved on. I loved the Wizard Knight series with its Yggdrasil like setup of worlds (you all know how much I enjoy worldbuilding, even as I sometimes mistype Discworld for Ringworld and my editor misses it 😉 ). I think the Fifth Head of Cerberus might be his most accessible work, an entry point if you want to try Wolfe without going for some of the more elusive works. I think The Land Across is also a good entry point as well, and feels timely and relevant with its capricious rules in the government of the country our narrator visits (also makes me think of Miéville’s The City and the City).

I’ve not read all of his oeuvre, but I’ve tried most of it. I’m weakest on his short stories and need to catch up on those (I’ve read Castle of Days of course, and found out recently a friend found a copy of the Castle of the Otter for a bargain price in a used bookstore. What a rare find!)

My favorite Wolfe are probably the Latro books (Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete and Soldier of Sidon). These books are almost as if Gene Wolfe decided. “Paul Weimer needs books just for him). Latro is a Roman mercenary, circa 470s BC serving as he will in the Mediterranean as a soldier. He’s had a head injury and so cannot remember events of the previous day (50 First Dates, anyone?). However, he can see the various supernatural beings that populate the landscape that no one else can. The books are masterpieces of information holding and withholding as we, the reader can piece together things that Latro clearly misses, all in one of the best all time favorite set of settings. Sure, you’ve got to work hard to really get these books, but that’s the secret of all of Wolfe’s work. If you want to read it, be prepared to do the home work. Sure, this series and much of Wolfe’s work is not a casual read (and I’ve tried audio and audio and Wolfe do not work for me), but Wolfe was Umberto Eco in full SFF guise. If that is what you are ready for, or in the mood for, Wolfe’s works await you.

I never got to meet him in person, alas. Requiescat in pace.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Bliss meets a jerk at an author signing.
Dinosaur Comics tries an expanded universe story.
Eek! will lose more than a job.
FurBabies has both bot and laser trouble.
Off the Mark asks, does your cat cuss?
The Barn continues its ST:TNG visit.

(9) WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE. “Hugo 2025: Flow” is another compelling review of a Hugo finalist by Camestros Felapton.

…Simple plot. The characters are a cat who is a cat. A labrador who is very much a labrador. A lemur that is a bit obsessed with stuff. A capybara that is a bit stoical. A secretary bird who possibly is a transcendental messenger of cosmic forces whose role is to usher the cat into a meeting with the divine to maybe save the world or maybe that’s a dream. So straight forward stuff.

Of course, I’m being intentionally obtuse. The film uses simple parts to tell a complex story with many thought provoking aspects, an intentionally unresolved mystery and a strong religious themes without any overt religion or religious messaging….

(10) FALLING ON HIS SWORD A SPECIALTY. Gary Farber reminds File 770 “I’m still willing to make sacrifices for fandom.” He wanted to be sure we didn’t miss his offer on Facebook —

Now I’m thinking I could volunteer to a Worldcon so they could have another body they could offer up to resign to take the blame for whatever Inevitable Embarrassing Scandal is happening in that half of that year before the con.

I wouldn’t need any actual skills. I could just have a title, and then be duly fired/resign when someone needs to be fired/resign in order to take the blame.

Future Worldcon Committees, I’M AVAILABLE!

Sandra Bond suggests his title should be, “Gary Farber, Omelas Fan.”

(11) MYERS-BRIGGS-SKYWALKER. “Woman wins £30,000 compensation for being compared to Darth Vader” – the Guardian has the story.

Comparing someone at work to the Star Wars villain Darth Vader is “insulting” and “upsetting”, an employment tribunal has ruled.

A judge concluded that being told you have the same personality type as the infamous sci-fi baddie is a workplace “detriment” – a legal term meaning harm or negative impact experienced by a person.

“Darth Vader is a legendary villain of the Star Wars series, and being aligned with his personality is insulting,” the employment judge Kathryn Ramsden said.

The tribunal’s ruling came in the case of an NHS blood donation worker Lorna Rooke, who has won almost £30,000 after her co-worker took a Star Wars-themed psychological test on her behalf and told colleagues Rooke fell into the Sith Lord’s category….

… In August 2021, members of Rooke’s team took a Star Wars themed Myers-Briggs questionnaire as a team-building exercise.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator sorts people into 16 categories based on how introverted they are, level of intuition, if they are led by thoughts or feelings and how they judge or perceive the world around them….

…Rooke did not participate as she had to take a personal phone call but when she returned a colleague, Amanda Harber, had filled it out on her behalf and announced that she had the same personality type as Vader – real name Anakin Skywalker.

The supervisor told the tribunal this outcome made her feel unpopular and was one of the reasons for her resignation the following month….

(12) FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. [Item by Cliff.] When truth is stranger than science fiction….. “AI of dead Arizona road rage victim addresses killer in court” – the Guardian tells how it was done.

Chris Pelkey was killed in a road rage shooting in Chandler, Arizona, in 2021.

Three and a half years later, Pelkey appeared in an Arizona court to address his killer. Sort of.

“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” says a video recording of Pelkey. “In another life, we probably could have been friends.

“I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have, and I still do,” Pelkey continues, wearing a grey baseball cap and sporting the same thick red and brown beard he wore in life.

Pelkey was 37 years old, devoutly religious and an army combat veteran. Horcasitas shot Pelkey at a red light in 2021 after Pelkey exited his vehicle and walked back towards Horcasitas’s car.

Pelkey’s appearance from beyond the grave was made possible by artificial intelligence in what could be the first use of AI to deliver a victim impact statement. Stacey Wales, Pelkey’s sister, told local outlet ABC-15 that she had a recurring thought when gathering more than 40 impact statements from Chris’s family and friends.

“All I kept coming back to was, what would Chris say?” Wales said….

…Wales and her husband fed an AI model videos and audio of Pelkey to try to come up with a rendering that would match the sentiments and thoughts of a still-alive Pelkey, something that Wales compared with a “Frankenstein of love” to local outlet Fox 10.

Judge Todd Lang responded positively to the AI usage. Lang ultimately sentenced Horcasitas to 10 and a half years in prison on manslaughter charges…

(13) TRAILER PARK. Dropped today — The Long Walk (2025) Official Trailer.

From the highly anticipated adaptation of master storyteller Stephen King’s first-written novel, and Francis Lawrence, the visionary director of The Hunger Games franchise films (Catching Fire, Mocking Jay – Pts. 1&2 , and The Ballad of the Songbirds & Snakes), comes THE LONG WALK, an intense, chilling, and emotional thriller that challenges audiences to confront a haunting question: how far could you go?

[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, N., Paul Weimer, Ersatz Culture, Joyce Scrivner, Cliff, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, 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 Joe H.]

Seattle Worldcon 2025 Tells How ChatGPT Was Used in Panelist Selection Process

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Mike Glyer

Seattle Worldcon 2025 chair Kathy Bond and Program Division Head SunnyJim Morgan tonight published their promised statement detailing how ChatGPT was used in the program panelist selection process. The complete statement appears at the end of this post.

Bond says ChatGPT was not used in deciding who to invite as a panelist, it was used “in the discovery of material to review after panelist selection had occurred.”

Morgan adds, “This process has only been used for panelists appearing on site in Seattle; panelists for our Virtual program have not yet been selected.”

Bond stresses that “ChatGPT was used only for one tailored task that was then followed by a human review and evaluation of the information,” and that “no selected panelist was excluded based on information obtained through AI without human review and no selected panelist was chosen by AI.”

As part of their remediation, the Seattle committee is redoing the part of the program process that used ChatGPT, with that work being performed by new volunteers from outside their current team.

Morgan also makes her own apology (the chair published her own several days ago).

I want to apologize specifically for our use of ChatGPT in the final vetting of selected panelists as explained below. OpenAI, as a company, has produced its tool by stealing from artists and writers in a way that is certainly immoral, and maybe outright illegal. When it was called to my attention that the vetting team was using this tool, it seemed they had found a solution to a large problem. I should have re-directed them to a different process. Using that tool was a mistake. I approved it, and I am sorry. As will be explained later, we are embarking on the process of re-doing the vetting stage for every invited panelist, completely without the use of generative AI tools.

And Morgan has provided the text of the ChatGPT query that was used in the vetting process.

The committee will be making their next update about the subject on May 13.

The full statement follows the jump.

Continue reading →

Pixel Scroll 5/6/25 All I Need To Know, I Learned From Pixel Scrolls

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) MORE SEATTLE WORLDCON 2025 COVERAGE. Two of the more widely-read pop culture sites have picked up the story – and heavily cite File 770, for which I thank them.

Gizmodo: “Hugo Administrators Resign in Wake of ChatGPT Controversy”
Slashdot: “Hugo Administrators Resign in Wake of ChatGPT Controversy”

Jason Sanford’s new Genre Grapevine is also devoted to the “2025 Seattle Worldcon AI Fallout”.

Yesterday Elizabeth Bear and Fran Wilde withdrew from the Worldcon program:

(2) BALTIMORE BOOK EVENT FAILS. “Broken promises, Fyre Festival vibes: A Million Lives Book Festival was a disaster” reports The Baltimore Banner.

In February, Philadelphia-area author Hannah Levin found out she’d been accepted to participate in A Million Lives Book Festival, a convention of fantasy authors, narrators and influencers to be held the first weekend of May at the Baltimore Convention Center. As a new author whose debut novel, “The Treasured One,” was published by Aethon Books in 2024, she was excited about the event. “We thought it would be a big thing for us,” she said.

It was a big thing, but not in the way anyone expected. The festival, organized by Baltimore-based author Grace Willows’ Archer Fantasy Events, was supposed to provide an opportunity for writers to network and an audience of at least 500 to 600 paid ticket holders. What participants got, they said, was a disappointing weekend of dashed expectations, unfulfilled promises, lost money and more questions than answers.

“I think ‘debacle’ is the word for it,” Levin said of the event that was quickly dubbed online as the Fyre Festival of literary festivals.

The 11 authors, vendors and influencers I interviewed by email and phone spent between $300 and $2,000 to attend A Million Lives depending on their travel arrangements and other factors. They said they were promised special badges that designated them as official participants, a creator’s lounge, cosplay events and a VIP swag bag for the top two ticketing levels.

That didn’t happen.

“There was a huge financial loss for authors, vendors and narrators attending,” wrote a book influencer known as Azthia, who spent about $300 on a plane ticket but crashed with other participants when her hotel stay was not paid for as promised. “They were told 600 tickets and in the end there were more authors than attendees.”…

(3) ACTOR/ACTRESS AWARDS? “’The Last Of Us’ Star Bella Ramsey Defends Gendered Emmy Categories” at Deadline.

Bella Ramsey has a decent shot at Emmy success this year — and won’t quibble if competing in the Lead Actress category.

The British star of HBO hit The Last of Us identifies as non-binary and prefers the they/them pronouns, but said it was fine for people to “call me how you see me.”

Speaking on Spotify’s The Louis Theroux Podcast about gendered award categories, Ramsey said it was important “recognition for women in the industry is preserved.”

“I don’t have the answer and I wish that there was something that was an easy way around it, but I think that it is really important that we have a female category and a male category,” Ramsey added.

The former Game of Thrones star said they had thought hard about how to represent non-binary individuals in award categories, but did not have a solution.

One idea was to name the category “best performance in a female character,” but Ramsey said this creates issues for those portraying non-binary characters on screen.

One thing Ramsey is certain of is that being called an “actress” feels uneasy. “I have a guttural, ‘That’s not quite right,’ instinct to it,” Ramsey said. “But I just don’t take it too seriously … it doesn’t feel like an attack on my identity.”…

(4) ROWLING ON HARRY POTTER ACTOR’S SUPPORT OF TRANS RIGHTS. “’I don’t have the power’: JK Rowling won’t sack Paapa Essiedu from Harry Potter TV show over trans rights views” reports the Guardian.

JK Rowling has said she will not fire actor Paapa Essiedu from the forthcoming Harry Potter TV series over his support for transgender rights.

Essiedu has been cast as key character Severus Snape in the HBO drama, which is designed to run for more than a decade and will be one of the most expensively produced television shows of all time.

In a post on X, Rowling wrote: “I don’t have the power to sack an actor from the series and I wouldn’t exercise it if I did. I don’t believe in taking away people’s jobs or livelihoods because they hold legally protected beliefs that differ from mine.”

Last week, Essiedu, along with more than 1,500 figures from film and TV, signed an open letter condemning the UK supreme court ruling, which judged that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer only to a biological woman and to biological sex….

(5) CIVILIZATION ENDS: FILM AT ELEVEN. “Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?” from The Atlantic (Archive.ph link).

Last year, i visited the music historian Ted Gioia to talk about the death of civilization.

He welcomed me into his suburban-Texas home and showed me to a sunlit library. At the center of the room, arranged neatly on a countertop, stood 41 books. These, he said, were the books I needed to read.

The display included all seven volumes of Edward Gibbon’s 18th-century opus, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ; both volumes of Oswald Spengler’s World War I–era tract, The Decline of the West ; and a 2,500-year-old account of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, who “was the first historian to look at his own culture, Greece, and say, I’m going to tell you the story of how stupid we were,” Gioia explained….

…He’s not alone in fearing that we’ve entered a cultural dark age. According to a recent YouGov poll, Americans rate the 2020s as the worst decade in a century for music, movies, fashion, TV, and sports. A 2023 story in The New York Times Magazine declared that we’re in the “least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.” An art critic for The Guardian recently proclaimed that “the avant garde is dead.”

What’s so jarring about these declarations of malaise is that we should, logically, be in a renaissance. The internet has caused a Cambrian explosion of creative expression by allowing artists to execute and distribute their visions with unprecedented ease. …

…in 312 c.e., the Roman Senate ordered the construction of a gaudy monument called the Arch of Constantine. It incorporated pieces from older monuments, built in more glorious times for the empire, which had begun its centuries-long decline.

The Arch is one of Gioia’s favorite metaphors for modern culture. The TV and film industry is enamored of reboots, spin-offs, and formulaic genre fare. Broadway theaters subsist on stunt-cast revivals of old warhorses; book publishers rely disproportionately on backlist sales. Entertainment companies have long understood the power of giving people more of what they already like, but recommendation algorithms take that logic to a new extreme, keeping us swiping endlessly for slight variations on our favorite things. In every sector of society, Gioia told me, “we’re facing powerful forces that want to impose stagnation on us.”

The problem is particularly acute in music. In 2024, new releases accounted for a little more than a quarter of the albums consumed in the U.S.; every year, a greater and greater percentage of the albums streamed online is “catalog music,” meaning it is at least 18 months old. Hoping to remonetize the classics, record labels and private-equity firms have spent billions of dollars to acquire artists’ publishing rights. The reemergence of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022, 37 years after its release, seemed to signal that this was a good bet. A brief placement in a popular TV show (Netflix’s Stranger Things, itself a pastiche of 1980s movie tropes) could, it turned out, cause an old hit to outcompete most of the newer songs in the world….

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 6, 1969 — Annalee Newitz, 56.

By Paul Weimer: I first encountered Annalee Newitz’ nonfiction, first, as a columnist, as a non fiction writer, as a podcaster with their partner Charlie Jane Anders. Four Lost Cities is an amazingly researched book looking at the rise and fall of four cities and what we can learn about the challenges they faced. I learned an amazing amount I never know about, for example, Angkor Wat. I think it is their strongest work and if you asked me “what one book of theirs should I read?”, Four Lost Cities is the one I’d put into your hands.

Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction was a surprisingly hopeful book, given its title and content.

Although they have been writing fiction, too for a while, I finally got into their fiction with The Future of Another Timeline, with rival powers fighting for control of a timeline just catnip for me. Given the political changes lately in the United States, it feels even more relevant than it once did. And once again, I learned a lot about some historical events I hadn’t even heard of, thanks to the jumping around the timeline by the protagonists. But even with that, the changes to the timeline are not shown in some grand manner, but how they affect people. People matter to Newitz’s work.

Newitz’ work is bright, well researched, deep, and thought provoking, with a mind like an engineer and the language and diction of an English professor. I am pretty sure that as good as Future was, I prefer Newitz’ nonfiction more, but I am primed for whatever they decide to turn their prodigious powers on, next. (In the meantime, of course, there is always Our Opinions are Correct).

[Note: ISFDB and the Science Fiction Encyclopedia say Newitz’ birthday is today, Wikipedia says tomorrow. Happy birthday whichever is the case!)

(7) COMICS SECTION.

Herman is aboard that trebuchet we so often hear about.
Off the Mark is deceived.
Reality Check misses the point.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal discusses villain motivation.
Wallace the Brave finds comics writing is easy.
xkcd needs a break from dark matter research.

(8) HUGO VIEWING. In “Hugo 2025: The Wild Robot”, Camestros Felapton rates another finalist.

…As I said in the intro, the film has more bite than you might imagine. It’s not a nature documentary and their are kid-friendly fantasy elements to how the animals of the island live but aside from that the animals are presented naturalistically. There is a repeated emphasis on death as a common occurrence and the film is clear that animals kill and eat other animals. Fink the fox (the almost ubiquitous Pedro Pascal) is a key supporting character but when he first turns up he is trying to catch and eat Bright Bill, Roz’s adopted baby goose child.

The idea of juxtaposing robots with nature is not a new one but it is an under-explored one….

(9) VINTAGE PROPS. “Where Would Hollywood Find Its Guillotines or Pay Phones Without Them?” asks the New York Times. (Article is behind a paywall.)

When the Netflix series “Wednesday” needed a guillotine recently, it did not have to venture far. A North Hollywood prop house called History for Hire had one available, standing more than eight feet high with a suitably menacing blade. (The business offers pillories too, but the show wasn’t in the market for any.)

The company’s 33,000-square-foot warehouse is like the film and television industry’s treasure-filled attic, crammed with hundreds of thousands of items that help bring the past to life. It has a guitar Timothée Chalamet used in “A Complete Unknown,” luggage from “Titanic,” a black baby carriage from “The Addams Family.”

Looking for period detail? You can find different iterations of Wheaties boxes going back to the ’40s, enormous television cameras with rotating lenses from the ’50s, a hair dyer with a long hose that connects to a plastic bonnet from the ’60s, a pay phone from the ’70s and a yellow waterproof Sony Walkman from the ’80s….

… History for Hire, which Jim and Pam Elyea have owned for almost four decades, is part of the crucial but often unseen infrastructure that keeps Hollywood churning, and helps make it one of the best places in the world to make film and television.

“People just don’t realize how valuable a business like that is to help support the look of a film,” said Nancy Haigh, a set decorator who found everything from a retro can of pork and beans to a one-ton studio crane there for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which she won an Oscar for. “But it’s because people like them exist that your moviegoing experience has such life to it.”…

… “I don’t know what we would do without them,” said Pascale, who has won an Oscar for “Mank.”

No one likes entertaining that idea. But with fewer movies and television shows being shot in Los Angeles these days, and History for Hire getting less business, the Elyeas fear they may not be able to afford to renew their lease for five more years. If they close, Los Angeles will lose another piece of the vibrant ecosystem that has kept it attractive to filmmakers, even as states like Georgia and New Mexico lure productions with lucrative tax credits. Some Angelenos fear a vicious cycle: If the city continues to lose local talent and resources, even more productions will flee….

(10) SPEAKEASY. “AI-Dubbed Swedish Film ‘Watch the Skies’ Opening in Theaters” – Variety listens in.

When XYZ Films‘ “Watch the Skies” has its U.S. theatrical release on Friday, Hollywood will also get a glimpse at the state-of-the-art in AI-driven “visual dubbing” and its potential for Hollywood.

“Watch the Skies” is a sci-fi adventure filmed in Swedish (under the name “UFO Sweden”), but, uniquely, the actors will appear to be speaking English through the use of TrueSync, an AI visual dubbing tool from startup Flawless, which effectively syncs new (in this case, English language) dialogue with the actors’ mouth movements. The original actors recorded their lines in English as an ADR process, before the Flawless AI tech was applied to the movie….

(11) LEFT BEHIND. “Andor Leaves Out a Key Part of Star Wars Mythology, and I Think It’s Brilliant” says CBR.com.

While Andor enjoys effusive praise from critics and Star Wars fans, both usually fail to mention a key reason the series is so unique. The two-season Disney+ series is the first, and thus far only, story in the expansive saga aimed specifically at adult viewers. How Cassian Andor finds his way to the Rebellion meticulously examines the Star Wars political philosophy, which only works because it ignores an important aspect of the mythology: the Force. As a fan of both the political and spiritual allegory in this universe, I believe ignoring the latter makes the series absolutely brilliant….

(12) GETTING WITH THE TIMES. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki reminds readers:

(13) KEEPING THE AI IN SETI. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I spotted this article pre-print on the Nature website. “AI scientist ‘team’ joins the search for extraterrestrial life”.

The collaborative system generated more than 100 hypotheses relating to the origins of life in the Universe.

Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have created a system that can perform autonomous research in astrobiology, the study of the origins of life in the Universe.

AstroAgents comprises eight ‘AI agents’ that analyse data and generate scientific hypotheses. It joins a suite of other AI tools that aim to automate the process of science, from reading the literature to coming up with hypotheses and even writing papers….

…The result was 101 hypotheses from Gemini and 48 from Claude. One hypothesis posits that certain molecules found on Earth would make “reliable biomarkers” indicating the presence of life. Another suggests that a cluster of the organic molecules found in two meteorites might have formed through the same series of chemical reactions.

Buckner scored each hypothesis. She deemed 36 of the Gemini hypotheses to be plausible and 24 novel. By contrast, none of the Claude-generated hypotheses was original — but they were overall less error-prone and clearer than Gemini’s.

Primary research pre-print: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.23170

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

Seattle Worldcon 2025 Hugo Administrators and WSFS Division Head Resign

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Mike Glyer

The Seattle Worldcon 2025’s WSFS Division Head Cassidy, Hugo Administrator Nicholas Whyte, and Deputy Hugo Administrator Esther MacCallum-Stewart today announced their resignations from the committee in the following statement:

Effective immediately, Cassidy (WSFS DH), Nicholas Whyte (Hugo Administrator) and Esther MacCallum-Stewart (Deputy Hugo Administrator) resign from their respective roles from the Seattle 2025 Worldcon. We do not see a path forward that enables us to make further contributions at this stage.

We want to reaffirm that no LLMs or generative AI have been used in the Hugo Awards process at any stage. Our nomination software NomNom is well-documented on GitHub for anyone to be able to review. We firmly believe in transparency for the awards process and for the Finalists who have been nominated. We believe that the Hugo Awards exist to celebrate our community which is filled with artists, authors, and fans who adore the works of our creative SFF community. Our belief in the mission of the Hugo Awards, and Worldcon in general has guided our actions in the administration of these awards, and now guides our actions in leaving the Seattle Worldcon.

Cassidy

Nicholas Whyte

Esther MacCallum-Stewart

The Seattle Worldcon’s WSFS Division administers the Hugo Awards, Business Meeting, and Site Selection. The committee’s remaining WSFS Division leadership includes Deputy Division Heads Kathryn Duval and Rosemary Parks (who is also Site Selection Coordinator).

Once before Nicholas Whyte was part of a group resignation from a Worldcon WSFS Division, in June 2021 when he was DisCon III’s WSFS Division Head (see “Another DisCon III Hugo Administration Team Resigns”).

See additional coverage here: “Responding to Controversy, Seattle Worldcon Defends Using ChatGPT to Vet Program Participants”, “Seattle 2025 Chair Apologizes for Use of ChatGPT to Vet Program Participants”, “Seattle Worldcon 2025 ChatGPT Controversy Roundup”, and “Seattle Worldcon 2025 Cancels WSFS Business Meeting Town Hall 1”.

Seattle Worldcon 2025 Cancels WSFS Business Meeting Town Hall 1

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Mike Glyer

The Seattle Worldcon 2025 committee has cancelled the first WSFS Business Meeting Town Hall which had been scheduled for May 4. No explanation was given.

Those who had registered for the online event received notifications from Eventbrite, and the announcement was posted in social media.

The town halls are designed for members to ask questions about the business meeting process. The fate of the second town hall announced for May 25 is unknown.

The cancellation comes in the wake of the revelation that the committee used ChatGPT to vet program participants (see “Responding to Controversy, Seattle Worldcon Defends Using ChatGPT to Vet Program Participants”, “Seattle Worldcon 2025 ChatGPT Controversy Roundup”, and “Seattle 2025 Chair Apologizes for Use of ChatGPT to Vet Program Participants”.)

Pixel Scroll 4/5/25 Oh, Scroll Us The Way To The Next Pixel Bar, Oh Don’t Ask Why

Posted on April 5, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS. The 2025 Hugo finalists won’t be publicly announced until tomorrow at Noon, but Escape Pod has already posted their 2025 Award Voter Packet.

(2) NON-SCIENCE AND WORLDCON IMPLICATIONS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The Seattle Worldcon has expressed concern as to what the stricter US border controls will mean for fans and authors attending from overseas. As a result it is giving advice and also plans for an enhanced, virtual, on-line attendance experience. In science there are similar concerns. This week’s issue of Nature has a number of articles and news items on the new US presidency’s border policy impact on the nation’s science.

From the off an editorial spells out the problem of Trump’s funding cuts to science. Nature conducted a poll of over 1,600 US-based scientists and 1,200 said that they were considering leaving! Nature notes that this might not present an accurate picture of the feelings of all US-based scientists but it does, they say, provide a strong indication of the “despair” many feel. Those leaving gave Europe and Canada as their preferred destinations. Meanwhile, the EU is doubling the absolute maximum of two million Euros (US$2.2 million) relocation grant per applicant! (I understand that this is for senior scientists seeking permanent relocation, so don’t get your hopes up for some easy dosh.)

Then there is an article on the detention of visiting scientists at the US border which notes that researchers whose mobile smartphones have a record negative social media posts on them regarding US science policy have been barred from entry. Since 2019 visitor visa applicants to the US have had to provide details of their social media accounts and user names but these have rarely been used to bar anyone from entry. (I guess if I applied for a visa I’d be met with disbelief in not filling out those sections as I don’t have a home internet connection or smartphone – all my (by choice) limited online is done at local library and learned scientific society cybercafés.) LGBTQAI+ scientists are also actively reconsidering travelling to the US for symposia, conferences and field trips. Meanwhile, several US universities have warned foreign students against unnecessary travel outside the US in case they have difficulty getting back in. Advice for visitors is to arrive in the US with a clean burner phone and/or a lap-top pad that has already been wiped of unnecessary files and social media history.

Elsewhere in this week’s Nature there is an article on the cuts to CoVID and climate change research. The past month some 400 National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention research grants have been cut. Apparently, there was discussion in the NIH on potentially cancelling LGBTQAI+, gender diversity, equity and inclusion research. Meanwhile, the CDC is cutting US$11.4 billion in pandemic response science…! Yup, we have just had a global pandemic that has killed more than 7 million globally (a sure under-estimate as cause-of-death recording in less-developed nations is not that good) and 1.2 million in the US alone, so it might just be a bit of an idea to invest in ensuring lessons are learned and strategies are developed for use when the next pandemic comes… And it really is a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’…

Finally, there is piece on international food aid cuts. Here it is not just the US, which is dismantling its US Agency for International Development (USAID), but aid budgets in Britain (cut by 40%), France (37%), Netherlands (30%) and Belgium (25%) as money is diverted into military spend and support for Ukraine. Globally, severe malnutrition is responsible for up to 20% of deaths among the under five-year-olds.

Together, these articles from just one issue of the journal, paint a bleak, almost Orwellian, picture. Goodness knows what forthcoming editions will hold?

Turning back to SF, there has been some discussion in certain fannish quarters as to whether the US should host the Worldcon under such a socio-political regimen? While such a move may, for some, be controversial, it would not be impossible as in the coming years there are a number of serious bids from outside the US, plus few others. Montreal, Canada, is bidding for 2027. Brisbane, Australia is going for 2028. There is only one bid for 2029 and that’s Dublin, Ireland provided folk can all squeeze in (?). However, so far there are only US bids for 2030 and 2031. This may very well change.

If all this happens, it will see a massive – would ‘seismic’ be OTT? – change to the Worldcon. My first Worldcon was Brighton 1979. That was a great con with plenty of talks, a load of seasoned SF authors on the programme who’d been round the block several times and who had tales of their own encounters with other SF giants, and there was a solid film programme; a far cry from Glasgow and its mindless planorama computer package sifted, panel-led programme with few prepared talks and zero films (this last being a first for a British Worldcon). Back in 1979 I recall a bemused Christopher (Superman) Reeve astonishment at the cheer in the hall for Hugo-shortlisted Hitch-hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy: Superman won such was the N. America dominated Hugo-voting constituency as Hitch-hikers had yet to make it to the States. That Worldcon spawned a four-part BBC documentary on Science Fiction with interviews of authors at that Worldcon: true heritage value. Throughout the subsequent 1980s all but two (Melbourne 1985 and Brighton 1987) were held in the US! Since then the Worldcon has become more mobile but US-venued Worldcons still dominate. This could well end (for a while at least). The question is that in such times as these, what would a US venued Worldcon look and feel like? Almost certainly, there may well be fewer fans and pros from outside the US attending and if so might it be more like a NASFic than a Worldcon? I don’t know, but we will see.

You can see the 1979 Worldcon part of the four-part documentary series below…

(3) GROWING UP SFF. [Item by Steven French.] Author Oisin Fagan on his teenage reading material: “Novelist Oisín Fagan: ‘I was at the altar of literature and had its fire in me’” in the Guardian.

As a teenager I read fantasy. Growing up in rural Ireland, I’d see an oak tree on a hill and think: my God, this is Robin Hobb, JRR Tolkien, Ursula K Le Guin. It gives you back these parts of your life and allows you to recognise them as magical. Then at 14, I was like: time to read Ulysses! At that age you’re always reading above your capabilities. Dostoevsky might resonate deeply, but you fundamentally don’t know what’s happening. You read Notes from Underground thinking: “Yes, he’s totally right! Finally someone understands!” Then you reread it: “Oh, this is a comedy?”…

(4) JUSTICE IN FANTASY. “Power and Punishment: Using the Language of Fantasy to Subvert Real-Life Oppression” at CrimeReads.

Power lies at the heart of all fantasy, written or imagined. To craft a novel of the genre is to visualize an expression of power and assign it to factions that will then weave and warp over the course of the story. Yet, our ability to conjure is naturally shackled by the limits of what we have seen, what we believe, and what we hope is possible. It is little wonder then, that fantasy gives us worlds that are altered, yet familiar—inversions, allegories, and warnings. With these carefully constructed societies come equally detailed punishment, for there can be no law without consequences for breaking it. And it is in this interplay between power, its exercise, and its fettering that the fantasy genre’s subversive nature shines.

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is a more conservative example of this subversion. The books center in great part around a schism in magic along biological sex. All who channel magic draw it from the One Power, the driving force of all creation that’s split into male and female halves. The male half was corrupted by the Dark One in an ancient battle that has since resulted in male channelers being driven to madness over the course of using their power. It isn’t a taint of their causing, but one that makes them extremely dangerous. Naturally, it falls to female channelers of an authoritative magical organization, known as the Aes Sedai, to hunt and gentle men—essentially castrating them of magic to such severe degree that it often results in their suicide.

It seems a little on the nose when stripped down to bare bones and certainly is conservative in its rigid adherence to a biological binary. Yet, the matriarchal Aes Sedai isn’t a giant middle finger aimed at men, but a cautionary tale to all social groups seeking power that maintaining it can require great evil. And while readers, especially women and those who have been societally designated as other, are encouraged to empathize with the plight of male channelers in this world, they are also shown the danger these men pose, in part because they have the literal power to threaten a millennia-old hierarchy as much as because of their tendency to destructive violence due to it. The Wheel of Time’s subversive beauty doesn’t lie in its inversion of the modern patriarchy, but the means it employs to examine two pertinent questions of every age—is the potential for destruction enough cause for punishment before crime? What happens when a faction is downtrodden for too long?…

(5) DAVID THOMAS MOORE Q&A. The Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog hosts an “Interview with Rebellion Editor David Thomas Moore”.

UHBCB:
Do you have any thoughts on the state of modern SFF?

Moore:
It’s great, to be honest! There’s such a richness and plurality of identities and voices now; when I started fifteen years ago stories by marginalised authors were marketed on that, because they were exceptional, but now it’s scarcely worth mentioning. And that’s reflected in the stories themselves — when most writers looked like me, most of the stories were the types of stories I’d tell, but now I get to read and work with stories, characters, language and structures that are completely out of my safety zone and I love it.

We’re challenging genre conventions (and mashing them up). We’re pushing the boundary between “literary” and “genre.” We’re trying new things out, questioning assumptions and experimenting. And we’re having fun — the younger crop of writers approach their work with such joy and love, it’s wonderful.

(6) A BIT OF CONVENTION LORE. Why you would want to know the history of The Gross-Out Contest? But if you do, Brian Keene has summed it all up in “Jack Ketchum, Jay Wilburn, and The Gross-Out Contest”, an unlocked Patreon post.

…The Gross Out Contest is purposely profane, purposely over-the-top, and purposely counter culture. It is intended to be shocking. It is intended — for those who’s sense of humor leans toward such things — to be hilarious….

(7) WORLD SF STORYBUNDLE. There are five days left to buy the 2025 World SF StoryBundle curated by Lavie Tidhar.

Join me for a trip around the world, from China to Nigeria, Luxembourg to the outer reaches of space. Hello – and welcome to the eighth annual World SF bundle! Can you believe we’re still here?

Things are definitely looking bleak everywhere you turn, which is why literature matters more than ever. What better way is there to reach across languages and cultures then to experience the stories people tell? The language of science fiction and fantasy is universal, and here I tried to bring together a group of remarkable writers from all corners of the world.

Support awesome authors by paying however much you think their work is worth!

The three basic books are:

The Bright Mirror: Women of Global Solarpunk by Future Fiction
The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed
Sinophagia by Xueting C. Ni

Pay at least $20 to unlock another 7 bonus books, for a total of 10!

Ecolution: Solarpunk Narratives to Transform Reality by Francesco Verso
Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic by Tobi Ogundiran
Breakable Things by Cassandra Khaw
The Golem of Deneb Seven by Alex Shvartsman
The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar
The Good Soldier by Nir Yaniv
The Pleasure of Drowning by Jean Bürlesk

(8) TOTAL ECLIPSE OF A STAR. “How Rutger Hauer Made Harrison Ford ‘Disappear’ in Blade Runner” — Inverse tells all about it.

In 2019, the legendary Dutch actor Rutger Hauer passed away. For cinephiles, his legacy was immense, ranging from films like Nighthawks to The Osterman Weekend, to Eureka, in which Hauer starred alongside the late Gene Hackman. And before his Hollywood breakthrough in Nighthawks, Hauer’s work in Dutch and German films was extensive. But, for science fiction and fantasy fans, his stardom is almost exclusively defined by his performance as the rogue replicant Roy Batty in the 1982 classic Blade Runner. Yes, fantasy fans and Ready Player One ‘80s completists will argue that Hauer’s turn in Ladyhawke is just as iconic, but history has proven that if there’s one role that truly became his legacy, it’s that of the baddie in Blade Runner.

Appropriately, a new documentary about the life of Rutger Hauer takes its title from a line from the movie, a line that Hauer himself helped craft. The documentary is called Like Tears in Rain, and it’s directed by Hauer’s goddaughter, Sanna Fabery de Jonge, who narrates the opening moments of the movie to give the documentary historical context. Naturally, this documentary isn’t only about Blade Runner or science fiction. And yet, the revelations and observations about how Hauer was eerily connected to Blade Runner are a huge part of the movie and, certainly, a must-see for any serious student of sci-fi cinema….

…But, just as the movie takes its title from Blade Runner, the discussions of that film and how Hauer changed it forever are central to what makes the documentary crucial for all future discussions about Blade Runner.

“He really turned that into a role for the ages,” Robert Rodriguez says in the movie. Meanwhile, Mickey Rourke asserts that, “He made Harrison Ford disappear. I’m sorry. No disrespect to Harrison Ford, but you couldn’t wait for the bad guy to come on the film.”…

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

April 5, 1917 — Robert Bloch. (Died 1994.)

By Paul Weimer: Psycho, and so so much more.

Psycho, the movie adaptation of his novel, is where I first got onto the Robert Bloch train, although I didn’t know I was doing so at the time (I thought I was on a Hitchcock train, I didn’t realize it was a shared train line). I was stunned by the movie, in a good way. It’s a bank robbery that turns into something far far darker. Sure you have seen the memes, but if you haven’t seen the original movie yet (don’t bother with the remakes). Do.

Bloch’s oeuvre and repertoire was usually crime and horror more than fantasy. He wrote Cosmic horror and cosmic horror adjacent work. I remember Nyarlathotep being in a number of his stories, he made good use of the Black Pharaoh. You might say that he punched his ticket in his early career.

Later on, Bloch’s screenplay writing was the major way he got from stop to stop on the trainline of life and wrote for a wide variety of shows. “Wolf in the Fold” (the Jack the Ripper one) is the one that I vividly remember as being unusually putting us into the head of Scotty and the other members of the crew. It turns out the Ripper was a recurring theme, and Bloch made stop after stop at that particular station in his writing.

I haven’t read all that much of his crime fiction, except for an occasional story here and there (especially for a podcast). But his vivid pulp-fueled writing made every word on the page memorable and sometimes visceral on the rails of his plots and characters. His mastery of the psychology of his victims and antagonists alike is what really set him apart from other similar writers. He got into the heads of his characters, and so his words got into the head of me, right along the old straight track of fears and doubts.

But why all these train metaphors. My favorite Bloch piece is “That Hell-Bound Train”, his Hugo award-winning short story. Our protagonist, Martin, is a drifter with a love of trains. He makes a deal with the devil, to stop time when he is happiest. The devil knows the essential indecision of a person means he will never do it, and thus he will claim Martin’s soul when he dies. But in a classic and amazing ending, Martin finally makes his choice to stop time…while on the train to hell itself. His eternity will be on a perpetual train ride, a fitting fate for a lover of trains.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro demonstrates when autocorrect goes too far.
Close to Home shows a Captain’s previous work.
Dark Side of the Horse fulfills the adage.
Dog Eat Doug returns to DnD.
Frank and Ernest reenact the first call.
Robbie and Bobby check a new game.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal finds the real solution to the Fermi Paradox.
Tom Gauld has his own ideas about horror.

(11) TRON IS ON. “’Tron: Ares’ Trailer: First Look at Disney’s Sci-Fi Sequel” – Variety introduces the clip. Movie arrives in theaters October 10.

“Tron” is back, more than 40 years after the original sci-fi movie hit theaters.

Disney has released the first trailer for “Tron: Ares,” the third film in the “Tron” franchise after the 1982 original and the 2010 sequel “Tron: Legacy.”

Jared Leto leads the film, which includes original star Jeff Bridges back as Kevin Flynn. Leto plays Ares, one of the programs from the digital universe who is tasked to enter the real world….

(12) JURASSIC HOMAGE – OR PERHAPS FROMAGE. “The film fans who remade Jurassic Park: how an Australian town got behind a $3,000 ‘mockbuster’” from the Guardian’s Australian edition.

This morning’s location: a field outside Castlemaine, Victoria. The air is thick with flies, attracted to the cow dung but ignoring the nearby dinosaur poo, sturdily constructed from papier-mache.

“Oh god,” Sam Neill groans – though these words aren’t actually uttered by Neill but local builder Ian Flavell, who has taken on Neill’s role as palaeontologist Alan Grant – and drops to his knees in front of an ailing triceratops.

This is Jurassic Park: Castlemaine Redux, a shot-for-shot remake (if you squint) of Jurassic Park, the 1993 blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg. This film’s director is John Roebuck, the man with the vision and the $3,000 budget. Right now, he’s hunched over a monitor: some sheep walked into the last shot and screwed up the continuity….

…To Roebuck’s surprise, support for his project quickly grew, which meant he only wound up spending $3,000 of his own money – mainly on venue hire and catering. Jurassic Park Motor Pool Australia – a club for owners and enthusiasts of replica Jurassic Park vehicles – supplied some wheels and props. Local cameraman Kristian Bruce brought his professional gear, retiring the DSLR Roebuck had been using. A man in Texas saw the trailer and offered his VFX services. Castlemaine itself – a town that embraces sublimely ridiculous ideas, such as Castlemaine Idyll (a raucous take on Australian Idol) and the community dance-off Hot Moves No Pressure – leapt on tickets to the “world premiere”. There are four screenings of Jurassic Park: Castlemaine Redux at the Theatre Royal between 11 and 13 April….

(13) ROBOVALET. The New York Times prepares readers for the “Invasion of the Home Humanoid Robots” – link bypasses the paywall.

On a recent morning, I knocked on the front door of a handsome two-story home in Redwood City, Calif. Within seconds, the door was opened by a faceless robot dressed in a beige bodysuit that clung tight to its trim waist and long legs.

This svelte humanoid greeted me with what seemed to be a Scandinavian accent, and I offered to shake hands. As our palms met, it said: “I have a firm grip.”

When the home’s owner, a Norwegian engineer named Bernt Børnich, asked for some bottled water, the robot turned, walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator with one hand.

Artificial intelligence is already driving cars, writing essays and even writing computer code. Now, humanoids, machines built to look like humans and powered by A.I., are poised to move into our homes so they can help with the daily chores. Mr. Børnich is chief executive and founder of a start-up called 1X. Before the end of the year, his company hopes to put his robot, Neo, into more than 100 homes in Silicon Valley and elsewhere….

(14) ANCIENT SPACE MARINER. “Vanguard 1 is the oldest satellite orbiting Earth. Scientists want to bring it home after 67 years” – Space tells how they want to do it.

Decades ago during the heady space race rivalry between the former Soviet Union and the United States, the entire world experienced the Sputnik moment when the first artificial satellite orbited the Earth.

Sputnik 1‘s liftoff on Oct. 4, 1957 sparked worries in the U.S., made all the more vexing by the embarrassing and humiliating failure later that year of America’s first satellite launch when the U.S. Navy’s Vanguard rocket went “kaputnik” as the booster toppled over and exploded.An emotional rescue for America came via the first U.S. artificial satellite. Explorer 1 was boosted into space by the Army on Jan. 31, 1958. Nevertheless, despite setbacks, Vanguard 1 did reach orbit on March 17, 1958 as the second U.S. satellite.

And guess what? While Explorer 1 reentered Earth’s atmosphere in 1970, the Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Vanguard 1 microsatellite is still up there. It just celebrated 67 years of circuiting our planet….

…A team that includes aerospace engineers, historians and writers recently proposed “how-to” options for an up-close look and possible retrieval of Vanguard 1….

Vanguard 1 could be placed into a lower orbit for retrieval, for instance, or taken to the International Space Station to be repackaged for a ride to Earth. After study, this veteran of space and time would make for a nifty exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum….

…But there’s a major challenge of snuggling up close to the three pound (1.46-kilogram) Vanguard 1. It is a small-sized satellite, a 15-centimeter aluminum sphere with a 91-centimeter antenna span. It would be a delicate, ‘handle with care’ state of affairs.

As suggested by the study group, perhaps a private funder with historical or philanthropic interests could foot the retrieval bill….

(15) THE EARTH ONCE HAD RINGS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Everyone knows that Saturn has rings, but the Earth might have had them too.

Once – before the dinosaurs (whom I have never really forgiven for what they did to Raquel Welch) – the Earth may itself have had rings!

There is evidence of heavy meteorite showers half a billion years ago and, some scientists think, this may have been the remains of ancient rings orbiting our planet….

Matt O’Dowd, over at PBS Space Time looks at a paper that came out at the end of last year that runs with this idea….

Planet Earth is the jewel of the solar system—the shimmery blue oceans, the verdant green forests, the wispy whimsical cloud formations. Saturn is the only competitor for most gorgeous planet with that giant ring system. Hmm… what if we could put the jewel of the Earth in its own ring? Then no contest. Well, there’s an extremely good chance that Earth once DID have a ring system. At least, that’s the proposal by a recent study that has evidence that a mysterious burst in meteor activity nearly half a billion years ago was actually caused by that ancient ring system collapsing onto the Earth. And, you know, if we had a ring once maybe we can have one again.

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

Pixel Scroll 10/20/24 Pixel Rain

Posted on October 20, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) SEATTLE WORLDCON 2025 ROOM BLOCK WILL OPEN 10/24. The 2025 Worldcon has announced their room block will open for reservations at 12:00 p.m. Pacific on Thursday, October 24.

Our room block will open at 12pm PDT on Thursday, Oct. 24!

For more information about the hotels we're using, check the hotels and accommodations page on our website: https://t.co/o1am2Yfgfb
— Seattle2025 (@seattle2025) October 19, 2024

(2) WORLD FANTASY AWARDS. The 2024 World Fantasy Awards were presented today in Niagara Falls, NY.

(3) ENDEAVOUR AWARD. The winner was announced this weekend at OryCon: “Margaret Owen Wins 2023 Endeavour Award” — for Painted Devils (Henry Holt).

(4) BACK IN PRINT. “Books So Bad They’re Good: The Return of John M. Ford (fall rewind)” at Daily Kos.

…John M. Ford was part of a gifted group of SF/fantasy writers that came along in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s and included luminaries like Diane Duane, Charles de Lint, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Guy Gavriel Kay. An immensely talented poet and even better novelist/short story writer, Ford began writing for Asimov’s before he was out of college, and by 1980 he’d published several beautifully crafted short stories, a slew of game reviews, and proto-cyberpunk novel Web of Angels. Soon came his best-known work, The Dragon Waiting, and the next two decades saw a steady stream of finely written poems, novels, gaming supplements, and contributions to the Liavek shared-world series.

Not all was writing — like so many authors, Ford had to take day jobs as an editor, computer consultant, and even hospital orderly to pay the bills — but by the time Ford died unexpectedly in the mid-000’s he’d won several major awards, become a fannish celebrity thanks to his long-running “Ask Dr. Mike” routine, and acquired a reputation as “writer’s writer” who had never achieved great success despite immense talent. His place in science fiction and fantasy seemed assured, and most fans thought it was only a matter of time until a small press began reissuing his works.

Except that this didn’t happen.

Just why is still in dispute. The late Tor editor David Hartwell claimed that Ford, who died intestate, had been estranged from his SF-hating family who thought science fiction and fantasy were immoral and refused to let the books be reprinted on religious grounds. Ford’s life partner claimed that he’d planned to revise his will to cut his family out and appoint her as his executrix, but since the version he left was never witnessed it wasn’t legally binding, plus they had never actually married beyond a self-penned Klingon ceremony. No one knew how to contact his heirs, and if Hartwell was to be believed, Ford’s family hadn’t approved of his work, his personal relationships, or pretty much anything he’d done as an adult, so why even bother?

It wasn’t until 2018, when Slate’s Isaac Butler began digging into the story, that the truth came out. Ford’s family, far from disapproving of his work, had repeatedly written to his agent inquiring about republication. They had not known that his life partner was more than a friend, nor that the agent, overwhelmed by personal problems and grief-stricken by Ford’s death, had basically withdrawn from the industry completely. They were not happy with the rumors that had circulated about them deliberately withholding Ford’s works from publication, and it took nearly a year of negotiations by Tor Books’ editor Beth Meacham for them to change their mind….

(5) BREVITY. Bill Ryan considers Ramsey Campbell and the power of the short story in horror writing in “Horror in Brief” at The Bulwark.

ONCE, YEARS AGO, I POSTED something on the internet about my disappointment in a novel by the revered, almost superhumanly prolific, Liverpudlian horror writer Ramsey Campbell. The details of what I said then are not relevant here; what is relevant is that someone responded to what I wrote by recommending that I read a particular short story by Campbell called “The Companion.” As it happened, I owned a collection of Campbell’s short fiction that contained the story, so, with some skepticism, I read it. “The Companion” instantly became one of the best horror stories I had ever read, and it remains so to this day.

I shouldn’t have been all that surprised at the sharp contrast between what I felt about the novel by Campbell and my intense admiration for that short story. I’ve long maintained that horror fiction thrives in the short form, and that horror novels can often stretch an idea beyond its breaking point.

(6) JEFF VANDERMEER Q&A. “Jeff VanderMeer Talks About His New ‘Southern Reach’ Novel” — link bypasses New York Times paywall:

A lot of readers wanted to learn what happens after the end of the trilogy, when the situation is pretty dire: Area X is spreading uncontrollably and looks like it will colonize the planet. Why did you decide to go back into the past instead?

To describe what happens after “Acceptance,” when Area X takes over, would be almost impossible. It would be so alien or removed that it felt like a perspective I couldn’t really write. But this book is kind of like a prequel, contiguous with the prior few books, and it’s also sneakily a sequel. So it kind of allowed me to do what I didn’t feel like I could do directly, and that was exciting.

Why do you think you and so many of your readers are still thinking about Area X?

I think because it did come so deeply out of my subconscious. The fact that I was sick when I wrote it, recovering from dental surgery, and the fact that I was still unpacking its meaning in my mind after it was written, and then it took on so many different meanings from other people. There have been so many different interpretations, because of the ambiguity in the books. So people can see a lot of different things in the books, and then when they reflect it back at me, it makes me think about the books differently as well…

(7) IN THE DAYS OF THE DEROS. No science fiction fan’s education is complete without having learned about The Shaver Mystery. Bobby Derie brings readers up to speed with “H. P. Lovecraft & The Shaver Mystery” at Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein.

What follows is an extended deep-dive into the history of one of the most contentious affairs in pulp science fiction in the 1940s, the Shaver Mystery, and its interactions with H. P. Lovecraft’s Mythos, which was also beginning to coalesce in the same period. The ramifications of their interactions would spill over into science fiction fandom, conspiracy circles, and occult literature, with long-lasting effects on popular culture….

(8) BLOCH ON THE AIR. The Robert Bloch Official Website has added new radio episodes scripted by the author. Listen in at “Radio”.

Bloch spent little time working within the medium of radio. Aside from penning radio scripts resulting from participation in Milwaukee political candidate Carl Zeidler’s 1940 bid for mayor and for a few local shows in the Milwaukee area, Bloch’s only commercial foray into radio broadcasting came in 1945, with the debut of Stay Tuned for Terror. A program devoted to horror and the supernatural in the same vein as Lights Out, Terror’s initial, and only season, featured 39, 15-minute radio plays. The scripts, all written by Bloch, consisted of eight originals, with the remainder adapted from his own stories, primarily from Weird Tales, who promoted the radio show within their pages. Sadly, this radio program is for the most part “lost,” apart from, to date, four episodes that have only recently been discovered…

(9) I’M JUST A POE BOY. “The Ghost Of Edgar Allen Poe And Other Strange True Facts About The Master Of The Macabre” – the Idolator begins its collection of oddities with this —

His Obituary Was Full Of Lies

Just two days after Edgar Allan Poe’s death, the New York Daily Tribune posted an obituary about him written by a man who called himself “Ludwig.” This wasn’t the kind of loving obituary most people might see in the newspaper. Ludwig made comments such as, “He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses,” among other claims.

As it turns out, Ludwig was a fake name used by Poe’s rival Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an enemy Poe had made during his time as a critic. Griswold would later write a biographical article on Poe titled “Memoir of the Author” which made further false statements or spread half-truths to taint Poe’s image.

(10) NYCC COSPLAY. “SEE IT! New York Comic Con brings out amazing cosplayers and pop culture icons” in amNewYork. Twenty-three photos at the link.

The 2024 Comic Con wrapped up Sunday after four days that saw thousands of pop culture lovers travel to the Big Apple from all across the country.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born October 20, 1882 — Bela Lugosi. (Died 1956.)

By Paul Weimer: I’ve mentioned in this space before watching movies on WPIX in New York as a formative experience. I got to see lots of old movies that way and be exposed to a wide range of films. It is no wonder that the work of Bela Lugosi came to mind. I (except for his first appearance ifor me) seemed to always be seeing him in movies with Boris Karloff, just like I saw endless movies with Christopher Lee paired with Peter Cushing. Lugosi was Dracula, of course, his most iconic role, but I didn’t see him there first.

The first time I saw him (and heck, the first time I saw Dracula period) was, don’t laugh, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.

Yes, by the vicissitudes of chance, I got to see Lugosi play Dracula in a comedic variation and derivation of his original role, as well as seeing a number of the Universal monsters at the same time. WPIX would later give me the aforementioned Lugosi/Karloff movies and I began to understand what the comedy was making fun of. Lugosi’s Dracula is chilling, sui generis and the template that every other Dracula performer has to measure up against, since.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

B.C. has an unexpected crash.
Frazz discusses the length of a day.
Jumpstart introduces a new superhero.
The Argyle Sweater lists things that are seldom seen.
Carpe Diem cleans up.
Tom Gauld shows why there’s little time left for doing science:

My latest cartoon for @newscientist pic.twitter.com/lcMSiMY7Pg
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) October 20, 2024

(13) WHO TELLS YOUR STORY. “Mass shooting survivors turn to an unlikely place for justice – copyright law” — the Guardian’s tagline: “The approach aims to ‘avoid rewarding’ assailants and prevent trauma reliving. Could it be a viable solution?”

In a Nashville courtroom in early July, survivors of the 2023 Covenant school shooting celebrated an unusual legal victory. Citing copyright law, Judge l’Ashea Myles ruled that the assailant’s writings and other creative property could not be released to the public.

After months of hearings, the decision came down against conservative lawmakers, journalists and advocates who had sued for access to the writings, claiming officials had no right to keep them from the public. But since parents of the assailant – who killed six people at the private Christian elementary school, including three nine-year-old children – signed legal ownership of the shooter’s journals over to the families of surviving students last year, Myles said releasing the materials would violate the federal Copyright Act….

… But the approach is also a response to the frustration that survivors and victims’ families feel. The ways shooters have historically been portrayed in the media, they say, has been damaging; oversight over the distribution of harmful materials online – including video footage of deadly shootings – has been virtually nonexistent; and free rein over shooters’ names and intellectual property has enabled outside actors to profit from their reproduction.

Together, these elements speak to the need for greater care over how the stories of mass shootings are retold, survivors and advocates say, so that victims – rather than their killers – are remembered….

(14) PROBLEM OR SOLUTION? “’It’s quite galling’: children’s authors frustrated by rise in celebrity-penned titles” reports the Guardian.

A modern classic by Keira Knightley” reads the provisional cover of the actor’s debut children’s book, I Love You Just the Same. Set to be published next October, the 80-page volume, written and illustrated by Knightley, is about a girl navigating the changing dynamics that come with the arrival of a sibling.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star is the latest in a long list of celebrities to have turned to writing children’s books. McFly’s Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter have been hovering at the top of the bestseller chart since the publication last month of their latest book The Dinosaur that Pooped Halloween!. Earlier in the year, David Walliams dominated with his newest book Astrochimp. The entertainer has sold 25m copies of his children’s titles in the UK alone, according to Nielsen BookData.

… “These celebrities do not need any more money or exposure, but plenty of genuine writers do,” says the author, poet and performer Joshua Seigal.

When news broke of Knightley’s book deal, authors expressed frustrations online; in one viral tweet, the writer Charlotte Levin joked about deciding to become a film star….

… Some argue that celebrity-backed titles help keep the industry healthy. “Attention paid to any children’s book creates a rising tide that lifts the entire publishing industry,” says the author Howard Pearlstein.

Books written by celebrities can also help increase representation in children’s fiction. “Celebrity fiction has been one of the key ways to get Black and brown characters on shelves in recent years,” says Jasmine Richards, a former ghostwriter of celebrity fiction and founder of StoryMix, which develops fiction with inclusive casts of characters to sell to publishers….

(15) A SERIOUS CASE OF LUPINE. “Wolf Man Official Trailer: Watch Now” advises SYFY Wire.

Watch out, Brundlefly! You might just meet your match in writer-director Leigh Whannell’s take on lupine monsters in the upcoming Wolf Man.

The film’s official trailer, which dropped during the Blumhouse panel at New York Comic Con Friday, gives off some serious Cronenberg vibes, teasing a werewolf infection akin to a deteriorative disease that eats away at the body and turns the mind into primal mush….

(16) ATTRACTIVE NUISANCE? [Item by Steven French.] Don’t go near this if you’ve got any metal in your body! “China builds record-breaking magnet — but it comes with a cost” according to Nature.

China is now home to the world’s most powerful resistive magnet, which produced a magnetic field that was more than 800,000 times stronger than Earth’s.

On 22 September, the magnet, at the Steady High Magnetic Field Facility (SHMFF) at the Chinese Academy of Science’s Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, sustained a steady magnetic field of 42.02 tesla. This milestone narrowly surpasses the 41.4-tesla record set in 2017 by a resistive magnet at the US National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) in Tallahassee, Florida. Resistive magnets are made of coiled metal wires and are widely used in magnet facilities across the world.

China’s record-breaker lays the groundwork for building reliable magnets that can sustain ever-stronger magnetic fields, which would help researchers to discover surprising new physics, says Joachim Wosnitza, a physicist at the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Germany.

The resistive magnet — which is open to international users — is the country’s second major contribution to the global quest to produce ever-higher magnetic fields. In 2022, the SHMFF’s hybrid magnet, which combines a resistive magnet with a superconducting one, produced a field of 45.22 tesla, making it the most powerful working steady-state magnet in the world….

(17) THE ORIGINAL SPACE JUNK. [Item by Steven French.] “Most meteorites traced to three space crackups” says Science.

The bombardment never stops. Each day, up to 50 meteors survive the fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere and reach the surface as meteorites. Researchers and collectors have recovered more than 50,000 of these rocks, which are prized in part for the mystery of where they came from.

Now, researchers have eliminated some of the mystery. They have traced most meteorites to just three Solar System bodies that shattered to form families of asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, plus countless smaller fragments that sometimes reach Earth.

Until now, a source was known for only 6% of meteorites; now, more than 70% have a known origin, says Miroslav Brož, an astrophysicist at Charles University who led one of three related studies published recently in Nature and Astronomy & Astrophysics. “It feels like a lifetime discovery.”…

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Ryan George chops it up with a “Guy Who Is Definitely Not Cursed”. ((HINT: Yes he is.))

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

Pixel Scroll 10/15/24 Like Scrolls Thru The Hourglass, So Are The Pixels Of Our Lives

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) SEATTLE 2025 CONSIDERING ARTISTS TO DESIGN HUGO BASE. The 2024 Worldcon committee announced on Facebook:

Seattle Worldcon 2025 is currently accepting information from artists interested in designing the 2025 Hugo Base. Have an idea that builds yesterday’s future for everyone?

If, after reading the information listed at the link below, you are interested, please fill out the form. Our Hugo Base Subcommittee will be reviewing submissions until November 15, 2024. After that point, we will contact you to either move forward with further discussions or with a heartfelt thanks for sharing your interest.

There’s a Google Doc link in the post that takes readers to the complete guidelines. They say in part:

Our Hugo Base sub-committee will be reviewing submissions based on the following criteria:

Ability to produce an initial order of 45 bases;
Ability to possibly produce more bases upon request in the 3 months after our convention;
Concept that fits with the theme of our Worldcon (https://seattlein2025.org/about/our-theme/); and,
Ability to have the initial order delivered to us by July 24, 2025;

(2) ALSO KNOWN AS. Dave Hook discusses “My Favorite Speculative Fiction Pen Names” at A Deep Look by Dave Hook.

….Historically, it was not that hard for an author in pulp or genre fiction to publish under a name different than their legal name. Many works of fiction were submitted to editors in the mail, perhaps with a cover letter and address or post office box. Correspondence and payment could go back to that address, with someone ultimately cashing the check. Especially before the internet, it was not hard to do this. I assume the editors often knew there was a pen name, or even requested one be used.

With today’s copyright laws and the internet, it is my suspicion that using a pseudonym without anyone other than your agent, editor or publisher knowing it is you is a good deal harder than it might have been in the past….

… Cordwainer Bird was used by Harlan Ellison for “material he was partially disclaiming”, to quote SFE. This was substantially scripts for TV, including “The Price of Doom” (1964) episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, “You Can’t Get There from Here” (1968) episode of The Flying Nun; and “Voyage of Discovery” (1973) episode of The Starlost. Harlan Ellison’s first published story was “Glow Worm“, a short story, Infinity Science Fiction, February 1956. He wrote under many pseudonyms especially early in his career. For those not familiar with his broad work in speculative fiction including SF, fantasy, and horror and combinations thereof, you would not go wrong with the recent collection Greatest Hits, J. Michael Straczynski editor, 2024 Union Square & Co. (see my review).

Cordwainer Bird was also used as a pseudonym by Philip José Farmer with permission of Harlan Ellison for the “The Impotency of Bad Karma“, a short story, Popular Culture June 1977. His first published work was “The Lovers“, a novella, Startling Stories August 1952. 1952, rather revolutionary and still important. Farmer went through what he called his “fictional author phase” from 1974 to 1978, when he used pseudonyms that were often the names of fictional writers in works by others or by him. My own favorite in terms of pseudonym used by Farmer is “Venus on the Half-Shell“, a novella, F&SF December 1974, as by Kilgore Trout, who first appeared in Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, 1965 Holt, Rinehart and Winston….

My fave did not make his list – “Tak Hallus”, a Steven Robinett pseud that supposedly is Persian for “pen name”.

(3) SFWA UPDATE. SFWA’s Interim President Anthony W. Eichenlaub today sent a message to members that said in part:

…Recent resignations prove to us how much we’ve come to depend on our staff while also highlighting flaws in the structure of our organization. SFWA must change as it rebuilds. To help guide us in this, we are bringing in Russell Davis in a transitional leadership position. He knows SFWA well, understands corporate structure, and is already getting up to speed.

At last week’s Board meeting we discussed new formats for the Nebula Conference that will allow us to serve both members and non-members without burning out volunteers or staff. Our yearly event has taken many forms throughout the years, and we want to focus this year on a celebration of everything SFWA has accomplished over these past sixty years. None of the details are nailed down yet, but it will likely be a significant change from the Nebulas of recent years. We’re focusing on the Midwest and we’ll have more to share as soon as possible.

We also now have a finalized confidentiality policy. It’s back from the lawyer, and the next step is to vote both this and the corresponding OPPM changes in so that we can start rolling it out. My hope is that we can make this the start of a cultural shift toward transparency for the organization. Change is easier when it happens in the light of day….

(4) SIFTING AND SIEVING. Uncanny Magazine coeditor Michael Damian Thomas today expanded on his previous comments about an AI-inspired surge in submissions.

2- We haven't banned any submitters yet for AI use. We would probably need something like "I totally used AI for this story, you suckers!!" for that to happen.
— Uncanny Magazine (@UncannyMagazine) October 14, 2024

4- AI submissions aren't anywhere near Uncanny's biggest problems. Those remain the financial impact of Am*zon changes and the disintegration of social media.
— Uncanny Magazine (@UncannyMagazine) October 14, 2024

(5) LIVE FROM BROOKLYN. The Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival is now live through October 20.

We kick off the 5th annual Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival by making over 200 films available to stream online and upvote for recognition.

(6) A NICE PAYCHECK, TOO. Variety hears the actor say — “Harrison Ford: Rejecting Marvel Roles Is ‘Silly’ When Audiences Love It” – and you can quote him.

Harrison Ford is no stranger to blockbuster Hollywood franchises, having played Han Solo and Indiana Jones across decades. And now, the 82-year-old actor is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross / Red Hulk in next year’s “Captain America: Brave New World.” Speaking to GQ magazine, Ford said it would be “silly” to avoid Marvel when it’s something moviegoers have clearly responded to for years now.

“I mean, this is the Marvel universe and I’m just there on a weekend pass. I’m a sailor new to this town,” Ford said about his MCU debut. “I understand the appeal of other kinds of films besides the kind we made in the ’80s and ’90s. I don’t have anything general to say about it. It’s the condition our condition is in, and things change and morph and go on. We’re silly if we sit around regretting the change and don’t participate. I’m participating in a new part of the business that, for me at least, I think is really producing some good experiences for an audience. I enjoy that.”…

(7) WARD CHRISTENSEN (1945-2024). Ars Technica pays tribute to “Ward Christensen, BBS inventor and architect of our online age” who died October 11:

Ward Christensen, co-inventor of the computer bulletin board system (BBS), has died at age 78 in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. He was found deceased at his home on Friday after friends requested a wellness check. Christensen, along with Randy Suess, created the first BBS in Chicago in 1978, leading to an important cultural era of digital community-building that presaged much of our online world today.

In the 1980s and 1990s, BBSes introduced many home computer users to multiplayer online gaming, message boards, and online community building in an era before the Internet became widely available to people outside of science and academia. It also gave rise to the shareware gaming scene that led to companies like Epic Games today….

…Christensen and Suess came up with the idea for the first computer bulletin board system during the Great Blizzard of 1978 when they wanted to keep up with their computer club, the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists’ Exchange (CACHE), when physical travel was difficult. Beginning in January of that year, Suess assembled the hardware, and Christensen wrote the software, called CBBS.

“They finished the bulletin board in two weeks but they called it four because they didn’t want people to feel that it was rushed and that it was made up,” Scott told Ars. They canonically “finished” the project on February 16, 1978, and later wrote about their achievement in a November 1978 issue of Byte magazine.

Their new system allowed personal computer owners with modems to dial up a dedicated machine and leave messages that others would see later….

Tom Becker also notes, “There is some indication that he was active in Chicago fandom. He has a mention on Fancyclopedia as one of the founders of the Build-A-Blinkie organization.” — “Ward Christensen”.

… Dale Sulak, Dwayne Forsyth and Ward Christensen created the Build-a-Blinkie organization. Build-a-Blinkie is a 501(c)3 dedicated to the teaching of STEM. They run learn-to-solder events in the Great Lakes area. Build-a-Blinkie has the world’s largest mobile soldering stations and participates at numerous Maker Faires, libraries, universities, Maker Spaces, and Chicago-area sf conventions….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY?

Born October 15 [allegedly], 1953 – Walter Jon Williams, 71. [The Science Fiction Encyclopedia says he was born October 2, 1953. The Internet Science Fiction Database says his birthday is October 15, and so does IMDb. His blog (“Geezer Test”) celebrates October 28 as does the Wikipedia. We’re celebrating the ISFDB’s choice this year.]

By Paul Weimer: I mentioned Walter Jon Williams before in my remembrance of the work of John Ford. And I stand by what I said there: he is one of the most widely writing people in SFF today. The sheer breath of the type of work he writes, from the post singularity(?) Metropolitan, to the sword and singularity of Implied Spaces, the Drake Majestal future space opera crime capers, and so much more. The impossibility to pin him and his work down, I think is part of the reason why his work isn’t better known–he doesn’t stick to a line long enough to get complete traction in it so that he attracts a critical mass of readers.

And that is a shame.

His work is clever, erudite, witty, and bears up to multiple readings. The intensity and subtlety of the Dread Empire’s Fall series, one of the best space opera series out there, is criminally underappreciated. Or his Quillifer series, which feels like early Renaissance with magic and Gods sort of world, as Quillifer is the “Most Interesting Man” made flesh–but that doesn’t help him get out of his latest schemes and problems. He has to work hard with cleverness, boldness and ingenuity to continue his rise. (Quillifer is a favorite of mine, and it feels resonant with the work of K J Parker).

And he’s also written a solid Star Wars novel, The New Jedi Order: Destiny’s Way.

He’s also written outside of genre, from historicals to near future thrillers to a straight up disaster novel (The Rift— really good!) He always seems ready to invent and try something new. .

Williams also runs the Taos Toolbox workshop in New Mexico every year.

I got to meet him in Helsinki, where he was GOH for the 2017 Worldcon, but he doesn’t remember me. Alas!

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Bliss thinks some will remain lost who want to be found.
Off the Mark prefers large treats.
The Flying McCoys illustrates a super toss.
The Argyle Sweater starts a rival series.
Speckticles receives an unsubtle gift.

(10) ATWOOD ON THE RADIO. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s BBC Radio 4’s The Verb programme had as one of its two guests the SF grandmaster Margaret Atwood, firmly in poetry mode of course.

Ian McMillan talks to Margaret Atwood and Alice Oswald about how we write poetry, and their own process, the natural world, time, and the possibilities of myth…

You can download the 42-minute programme here.

(11) ROCKY HORROR. Buzzfeed shares a collection of “Rocky Horror Picture Show Behind The Scenes Facts”. Lucky thirteen is —

13. Rocky is wearing a prosthetic plug to cover his belly button. Because Frank-N-Furter created him, he wouldn’t have had an umbilical cord.

(12) KEVIN SMITH NEWS. [Item by Danny Sichel.] Kevin Smith has finally regained the rights to his 1999 religious fantasy DOGMA, which were being controlled by Harvey Weinstein. Yes, that Harvey Weinstein.

Smith is planning to rerelease the movie on home video format as well as streaming; he’s also mentioned the possibility of sequels and associated TV material, now that Weinstein will no longer be getting any of the profit. “Kevin Smith Regains Control of Dogma, Coming to Streaming” at Consequence Film.

Kevin Smith’s celebrated 1999 comedy, Dogma, will soon be re-released in theaters and made available on streaming for the first time, now that the director has finally secured the rights to the film after its one-time owner, Harvey Weinstein, held it “hostage” for years.

Smith confirmed the acquisition during a recent interview on The Hashtag Show, explaining that the rights had been bought off Weinstein recently, which allowed him to finally regain them. “The movie had been bought away from the guy that had it for years,” he said. “The company that bought it, we met with them a couple months ago. They were like, ‘Would you be interested in re-releasing it and touring it like you do with your movies?’ I said, ‘100 percent, are you kidding me? Touring a movie that I know people like, and it’s sentimental and nostalgic? We’ll clean up.’”

(13) RED PLANET AGRICULTURE. In Nature, “Rebeca Gonçalves explains how plant food could be grown on the red planet”: “Planning for life on Mars”.

The day this photo was taken, in November 2021, I got the best of presents. One hundred kilograms of material designed to simulate Mars regolith, the dense, soil-like deposits present on the planet’s surface, arrived from Austin, Texas, at the Wageningen University laboratory in the Netherlands, where I was then working. Mars has no nutrients or organic matter, so there’s no real soil in its regolith. The simulant I received had been developed by NASA researchers on the basis of data retrieved and analysed by rovers that have visited the red planet.

Over the next few months, my colleagues and I started to explore what we could grow in the material. We found that tomatoes, peas and carrots all took to the soil and grew well. But could these plants realistically survive on Mars?

The planet does have water, but most of it is frozen at its poles or buried deep underground. So for plants to live, water would need to be pumped up to the surface. Mars has almost no atmosphere and no magnetic field, so plants would have to be housed in colonies, with greenhouse-like structures to protect them. In these, an internal ecosystem with a controlled atmosphere could help the plants to retrieve oxygen through hydrolysis.

In modern agriculture, those techniques are already used to protect crops. And research to understand how to help food grow in harsh conditions won’t be wasted if it doesn’t get to Mars. That’s because restoring infertile, degraded soil that’s been damaged by climate change, or events such as flash flooding and droughts, will become more and more important in the future.

I’d love to visit Mars, but preferably when some kind of life-support system is in place. Our research might represent a step in that direction….

(14) CASH OFFENDS NO ONE. The Hollywood Reporter says the litigation is over: “Microsoft Settles Antitrust Suit Seeking Divestiture From Activision”.

Microsoft has settled an antitrust lawsuit brought by gamers challenging the tech giant’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The two sides on Monday notified the court of a deal to dismiss the lawsuit “with prejudice,” meaning it can’t be refiled. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed. “Each party shall bear their own costs and fees,” agreed the lawyers in a court filing.

The lawsuit, filed in California federal court in 2022 by gamers across multiple states, stressed that the merger will create among the largest video game companies in the world, with the ability to raise prices, limit output and reduce consumer choice. One example cited in the complaint was the possibility that Microsoft makes certain titles exclusive to Xbox. It was filed less than two weeks after the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal….

(15) IN TIMES TO COME. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Should someone check to make sure these are not plutonium-producing breeder reactors? “Google inks nuclear deal for next-generation reactors” reports The Verge.

Google plans to buy electricity from next-generation nuclear reactors. It announced the deal yesterday, which it says is the world’s first corporate agreement to purchase electricity from advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) that are still under development.

Google inked the deal with engineering company Kairos Power, which plans to get its first SMR up and running by 2030. Google agreed to purchase electricity from “multiple” reactors that would be built through 2035.

Google needs a lot more clean energy to meet its climate goals while pursuing its AI ambitions. New nuclear technologies are still unproven at scale, but the hope is that they can provide carbon pollution-free electricity while solving some of the problems that come with traditional nuclear power plants…

(16) PRIMARY APPEAL. “Rainbow Brite: New TV Show and Theatrical Movie in the Works” – Variety covers the spectrum.

Rainbow Brite is getting a remix from Crayola Studios and Hallmark, which are teaming to develop a new TV series and feature film inspired by the 1980s children’s franchise.

The theatrical movie is in the works from “Fast & Furious” and “Sonic the Hedgehog” producers Neal H. Moritz and Toby Ascher, while Cake Entertainment is developing a series with “contemporary appeal” based on the themes of “friendship, teamwork and the power of color and optimism to overcome darkness and negativity.”

Per the series logline, “Rainbow Brite, a friend, hero, role model and creative inspiration who brings all the colors of the rainbow to the universe, is transported to a dark and gloomy place with a mission to bring color, light and happiness to the world.”…

(17) IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF BEING RIPPED OFF. [Item by N.] “Elon Musk, Tesla Mocked for Copying ‘I, Robot’ Designs” – The Hollywood Reporter tells why.

At Tesla‘s big Cybercab Robotaxi presentation last week at the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, the company also showed off the latest iteration of the Tesla Bot, dubbed Optimus, as well as a Robovan. The initial reveal of the trio of robot products caused great excitement on social media, but, very quickly, praise turned to mockery as the designs were scrutinized with a host of people accusing Elon Musk‘s company of ripping off the designs found in the 2004 sci-fi film I, Robot starring Will Smith.

Tesla had dubbed the event “We, Robot,” which plays into the title of Isaac Asimov’s 1950 short-story collection on which the film is based, so there was some recognition of the cross-pollination of ideas. However, many on social media called out the uncanny resemblance that all three of Tesla’s planned robot offerings have to similar products in Alex Proyas‘ film, which is set in 2035 Chicago….

I Robot vs We Robot #Tesla pic.twitter.com/vpcwoc4FnH
— TheTeslaLife (@TheTeslaLife) October 12, 2024

Optimus, a general-purpose robotic humanoid Tesla is currently developing that takes its name from the Transformers character, does bear similarities to the NS5 robots found in I, Robot. But it was the fact that the Robovan (a self-driving people mover that looks like the robot delivery vehicle in the film) and Robotaxi (a self-driving taxi that looks like the Audi RSQ in the film) also aped similar vehicles found in I, Robot that really inspired the relentless mockery on social media and even a response from Proyas.

Hey Elon, Can I have my designs back please? #ElonMusk #Elon_Musk pic.twitter.com/WPgxHevr6E
— Alex Proyas (@alex_proyas) October 13, 2024

Alex Proyas also directed the 1998 film Dark City.

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

Pixel Scroll 10/14/24 Pixelling Pigeons In The Scroll

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) SEATTLE WORLDCON 2025 SHORT STORY CONTEST. The Seattle Worldcon 2025 today announced a short story writing contest with adult and young adult entry categories. The winners in each category will be recognized at the convention, receive free memberships to the convention, and have their stories published in an upcoming anthology by Grim Oak Press. Full details at the link: “Writing Contest – Seattle Worldcon 2025”.

Stories must draw inspiration from the Worldcon theme: Building Yesterday’s Future–For Everyone. This theme was selected to invoke nostalgia for the hopeful science-fictional era of the early 1960s, when Seattle held its first (and until now, only) Worldcon, followed up by the Century 21 Exposition (a.k.a. 1962 World’s Fair), showing the world a vision of its technological future, complete with freshly built Monorail and Space Needle.

(2) WHEN BAD NEWS IS BIG NEWS. Charlie Jane Anders answers the question “Why Are Toxic ‘Superfans’ Such a Nightmare for Hollywood?”

…But even if @Fanboy3997 is not a king-maker, he can do a certain amount of damage to a franchise. This is at least partly a reflection of the fact that the internet, like so many other media before it, does a better job of boosting negativity and hate than spreading anything positive. (“If it bleeds, it leads.”)

Disgruntled fans can help to shape the narrative about a project in various ways.

1) They can drown out the people who actually like it.

2) They can even harass anybody who expresses enthusiasm for a project they don’t like.

3) They can do the aforementioned review bombing, and harass actors and creators.

4) They can create the appearance of a major backlash, even if it’s really just five people and an swarm of bots.

5) And, though journalists will never admit it, a angry fans have a major ally in the journalistic profession, which will assist in blowing their complaints way out of proportion and creating a fake controversy in order to manufacture drama that in turn will lead to eyeballs on news sites.

To some extent, this is what happened with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a movie that was a massive financial success and one of the most successful movies of all time, with an “A” on Cinemascore (signifying that audiences in theaters overwhelmingly loved it.) What I’m convinced were a relatively small number of fans had a meltdown, which probably would’ve had a limited impact if journalists hadn’t chosen to run with it and create a news cycle around the backlash. That, in turn, led to the notion that

(3) IDENTIFYING DANGER. “INTERVIEW: J. Michael Straczynski” at Grimdark Magazine asks JMS in the context of his work on Last Dangerous Visions.

[GdM] Can you explain your perspective, and, by extension, Ellison’s, on what makes a story “dangerous” in speculative fiction?

[JMS] The distinction you draw is correct, in terms of how this relates to speculative or science fiction. There has been a lot of hard-edged, socially challenging writing in other forms and genres. Alan Ginsberg’s Howl, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the raw emotionalism of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind, JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye…all of them pushed the frontiers of writing, and many of them got banned or ended up in court on obscenity charges. But they kept on writing, because it was necessary to take a stand for literary freedom.

The SF genre was (and to a degree still is) fairly conservative and, seeing what happened to the writers noted above, tended to steer clear of controversy. This persisted up until the time of Harlan’s first Dangerous Visions anthology and the slow birth of New Wave Science Fiction (with writers like Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Leguin, Samuel R. Delany and others poking at the walls of conservatism) which DV codified from individual efforts into a movement.

What makes a story dangerous in speculative fiction? Anyone who is willing to risk controversy, to speak to the flaws of society, to sexual and political issues even though they might get in trouble as a result. Harlan once wrote that “the chief commodity a writer has to sell is their courage,” and for me, that’s what a dangerous vision is all about: a story that requires a modicum of courage to tell it.

(4) FIRST FANDOM ANNUAL 2024. Editors John L. Coker III and Jon D. Swartz invite fans to order the First Fandom Annual 2024, devoted to a “History of the Sam Moskowitz Award”.

Sam Moskowitz, I-Con XIV (1995), Long Island, NY. Photo by John L. Coker III

Remembering Sam Moskowitz
The Sam Moskowitz Archive Award
The Sam Moskowitz Collection

Articles by Sam, photographs With Hal W. Hall, David A. Kyle, Robert A. Madle, Julius Schwartz, Jon D. Swartz, Ph.D., Joseph Wrzos

Fifty-six pages, 28# paper, heavy gloss color covers, printed endpapers, face-trimmed, saddle-stitched, B&W interiors, with color illustrations throughout.

Limited to (26) copies, available for $35. each (includes packaging, Priority Mail, insurance). Please send check or money order for $35 (payable to John L. Coker III) at 4813 Lighthouse Road, Orlando, FL – 32808.

(5) ALTERNATE BATMAN. [Item by Danny Sichel.] Paul Dini found some notes in his car on which he had long ago written alternate ideas for the resolution to Batman Beyond.

Huh. The things one finds jotted down on old legal pads deep in the trunk of one's car. pic.twitter.com/OtqYy1xdr5
— Paul_Dini (@Paul_Dini) October 13, 2024

(6) ART HENDERSON (1942-2024). Virginia fan Art Henderson died October 12 at the age of 82. He is survived by his wife, Becky.

Art and Becky Henderson at the 1974 Worldcon. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Mike Glyer.]

Born October 14, 1952 – Charlie Williams. (Died 2021.) Fan artist Charlie Williams first came to prominence as a regular contributor to Chat, the Chattanooga clubzine published by Rich and Nicki Lynch. He also later appeared in all 30 issues of their Hugo-winning genzine Mimosa.

Williams was a member of the Knoxville Science-Fantasy Federation and in the 1970s, he owned a comics store in Knoxville and taught cartoon illustration at the University of Tennessee. At one time he was a member of the Spectator Amateur Press Association. He was guest of honor at Imagincon ’81 (1981), Con*Stellation II (1983), and Roc*Kon 8 (1983).

Williams loved to draw complex, inventive scenes several of which are displayed below, including a cover for an issue of File 770 from the Eighties.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit discovers the reason for a recent space event.
Eek! obviously thinks it’s “threat or treat”.
Lio has a classic reference.
The Argyle Sweater missed an update.
Macanudo underrates genre reading.
Tom Gauld knows about speed reading.

My cartoon for this week’s @GuardianBooks pic.twitter.com/gxkh0nilCA
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) October 12, 2024

And he’s had better days.

My latest cartoon for @newscientist pic.twitter.com/Ds5vn6jdr9
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) October 14, 2024

(9) POLITICAL COMICS. The makers of the “Stop Project 2025 Comic” website say:

We’re a group of comic book writers & artists who are furious about Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s plan to consolidate power under authoritarian rule. So we made a bunch of comics to explain their agenda and move you to vote against it.

(10) VIDEO GAME WITH NUANCE. “Metaphor: ReFantazio is the rare fantasy game that goes beyond racism 101” declares The Verge’s reviewer.

…But Metaphor is more than just a stylish, dynamic RPG — it’s also the rare fantasy story that tackles discrimination with nuance.

In a lot of fantasy, I’m annoyed by the storytelling conceit of using discrimination against fantasy races as an allegory for real-world racism. Stories featuring this trope usually stop at the “racism is bad” surface level, demonstrating that with ugly over-the-top displays of violence (hey there, Dragon Age) while ignoring the subtleties that make racism so heinous and pervasive. Metaphor manages to incorporate and tackle both aspects of this reality.

There’s a moment when you’re reading a fantasy book with a companion, and they mention that realizing their goal of a world where everyone is treated equally won’t be enough. “Equal competition doesn’t mean equal footing,” Heismay says. It’s the first time I’ve seen a video game acknowledge that simply stopping the big bad evil racist won’t magically make up for the countless generations of oppression. The game does the same with class and wealth. There’s a character vying for the throne who wishes to essentially “eat the rich” and redistribute their wealth at the point of a guillotine. But by virtue of her extremely low status, she sees everybody with more than a few coins to rub together as her ideological enemy. It’s just like when people in poverty lash out at other people a little bit less in poverty when their real enemies are the wealthy powerholders who exploit that animosity. It’s awesome that the game calls that out….

(11) SPACE DETECTIVE WORK. NASA’s JPL announces “First Greenhouse Gas Plumes Detected With NASA-Designed Instrument”.

The imaging spectrometer aboard the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s Tanager-1 satellite identified methane and carbon dioxide plumes in the United States and internationally.

Using data from an instrument designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the nonprofit Carbon Mapper has released the first methane and carbon dioxide detections from the Tanager-1 satellite. The detections highlight methane plumes in Pakistan and Texas, as well as a carbon dioxide plume in South Africa.

The data contributes to Carbon Mapper’s goal to identify and measure greenhouse gas point-source emissions on a global scale and make that information accessible and actionable.

(12) ANNUAL APPARITION. “It’s Spirit Halloween season. How does the retailer stay afloat year-round?” NPR tried to find the answer.

SELYUKH: It is unusual. To be clear, it is a private company – Spirit Halloween – so we don’t know for sure, all of the under-the-hood stuff. They do skip the most expensive parts of being a retailer. That’s kind of how they save a lot of money on rent, utilities, workers. If you think about it, their stores – most of them are not permanent. Most of the store workers are temporary. Much of the year, Spirit Halloween mainly pays a big team to scout real estate locations, looking for empty store fronts. Then in late summer, the hustle starts for new stores to materialize. They’ve built over 1,000 of them.

RASCOE: That has to be a really big operation, like, turning all of these empty spaces into stores.

SELYUKH: It is, and it is very fast, too. You know, last year, I talked to a woman who worked at a mall where Spirit Halloween took over shuttered Sears, and she was describing an insane speed, like a matter of days. And I should say, I have tried a few times to get a tour of how Spirit Halloween works in an empty store or at least an interview with some official, and they don’t do interviews.

RASCOE: So you got ghosted. You see what I did there….

(13) EUROPA CLIPPER LAUNCHES. “NASA spacecraft rockets toward Jupiter’s moon Europa” and AP News wishes it bon voyage.

A NASA spacecraft rocketed away Monday on a quest to explore Jupiter’s tantalizing moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean might hold the keys to life.

It will take Europa Clipper 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter, where it will slip into orbit around the giant gas planet and sneak close to Europa during dozens of radiation-drenched flybys.

Scientists are almost certain a deep, global ocean exists beneath Europa’s icy crust. And where there is water, there could be life, making the moon one of the most promising places out there to hunt for it.

Europa Clipper won’t look for life; it has no life detectors. Instead, the spacecraft will zero in on the ingredients necessary to sustain life, searching for organic compounds and other clues as it peers beneath the ice for suitable conditions…

(14) COMET A3 FROM THE DC SUBURBS OF MARYLAND. [Item by Rich Lynch.] An iPhone photo…I just held the phone as steady as I could and hoped for the best. I’m actually amazed that it worked!

For those wanting to see the comet, this evening it’s located halfway between Venus and Arcturus, and remains visible for probably a couple of hours after the sun has set.

(15) TAKE INSPIRATION FOR YOUR HALLOWEEN BAKING. “Swedish chef making a pumpkin pie” – a Muppets excerpt.

(16) IN NO TIME AT ALL. Boing Boing says “’Skip Danger vs the Space-Time Continuum’ is a hilarious anti-time travel movie”.

…A wonderfully self-aware homage to Back to the Future and Hot Tub Time Machine — minus, perhaps, the actual time machine.

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

File 770

Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom

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