Tag Archives: SFF in Translation

Interview with Hugo Finalists Gu Shi and Translator Emily Xueni Jin

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Gu Shi 顾适
Emily Xueni Jin 金雪妮

INTRODUCTION: Eight Light Minutes(8LM) Culture of Chengdu has given permission for File 770 to reprint the series of interviews with Chinese science fiction writers which they have been running this week on Facebook. The fifth in the series is a question and answer session with Gu Shi, author of 2024 Hugo-finalist novelette “Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition”, and Emily Xueni Jin, who translated it to English for publication in Clarkesworld.

SUPPORTING CHINESE WRITERS SERIES:  2024 HUGO AWARD NOMINATION INTERVIEW WITH GU SHI AND EMILY JIN

Translated by Joseph Brant.

Part 1

  • “I had a responsibility to write about the women I meet.”
Gu Shi 顾适

Gu Shi is a Science Fiction writer, a senior urban planner, and a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association. She has published more than 300,000 words of sci-fi in magazines such as Science Fiction World, Beijing Literature, and Shanghai Literature since 2011, as well as in her own collection, Möbius Time and Space. She has won several major awards, including the China’s Galaxy Award, the Chinese Science Fiction Nebula Award, the Science Fiction Planet Award for Literature, and the Fishing Fortress Science Fiction Award. Her work “Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition” is shortlisted for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Much of her work has been translated into English, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Russian, among other languages.

Q1｜Hello, Ms. Gu Shi, first of all, I would like to congratulate you on the shortlisting of “2181 Overture” for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Some readers may not have read this work, so could you please give us a brief introduction to this piece?

Gu Shi: Do you find the full title “Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition” interesting? It has several layers — “2181” sets the story in the future, “Overture”, suggests the story takes place before the future, and “Introduction” and “Second Edition “, shows that it uses a non-fiction style for a non-fiction book. Using this non-fiction style allows me to create a “pseudo-preface” to a book that doesn’t exist. The pseudo-preface condenses six stories, with 16 different characters, and ties it all together with a common trope of science fiction: Cryogenic technology. In this story, I try to explore how far the idea of “hibernation” may go, and I ask a lot of questions about it: if Cryogenics could be realised, what kind of legal issues would its application bring? How would it change our way of life and the thoughts of humanity? Would it create new illustrious billionaires? Would those unable to catch up with the technologic advances become the “left-behinds”? Will people accept cryogenics when it comes to deep space exploration? After answering these questions with five “documentary” stories, Dong Lu, the “author” of the introduction, finally reveals that she is the mother of the book’s “author”, Fang Miao, and explains the background of the creation of the “book”: Fang Miao developed cancer when she was studying at university, and cryogenic technology was her way of cheating in the race against death. The scientist who perfected the freezing was none other than her own mother, Dong Lu. The story originally debuted in 2020 in my collection Möbius Time and Space, and was translated into English by Emily Jin, and published in Clarkesworld Magazine in 2023. It is that English version of the story that was shortlisted for this year’s Hugo Award.

The Chinese version of Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition first published in Gu Shi’s first sci-fi short story collection Möbius Time and Space by Eight Light Minutes Culture, New Star Press.

Q2｜In the “Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition”, all 16 characters are women, which is quite unique, and in your upcoming collection, titled 2181 Overture, almost all the stories are told from a female perspective. What is it that drives you to write in this way?

Gu Shi: Until 2018, most of the Sci-fi I wrote had male protagonists, but in my newer work, I’ve almost exclusively used women. The thing that made me change was translation. In 2017, when my work started to reach an international arena, Readers began to ask me “Why are all your protagonists male? Why don’t they feature China?”. These questions made me think about how I, a Chinese Female writer, could better reflect my life experiences, unique from foreign writers, and was surprised to find that the brilliant, positive, calm, and intelligent women present in my everyday life were almost invisible in both Western and Chinese Science Fiction. I had a responsibility to write about the women I meet. In the “Introduction To 2181 Overture”, The women are scientists, businesspeople, lawyers… They could be the ones who take on the responsibilities of their families, or the ones who abandon their families to become the forerunners of interplanetary travel.

Q3｜So how do you define “Women’s Sci-fi”?

Gu Shi: I have resisted that concept of “Women’s Sci-fi”, or of “Female Writer”. If there’s such a thing of “Women’s Sci-fi”, why not “Men’s Sci-fi”. Once you single out a gender as a label, it’s as if you are naturally placing it in a lesser position, though in the past few years I’ve realised that it’s not gender per se that I’m resisting, but the gender stereotyping that comes with “Women Writers” and “Women’s Writing”.

What is it we expect when we open a volume of “Women’s Science Fiction”? A more emotional perspective? A more literary tone? Or maybe just a more domestic setting?

Women’s Sci-fi isn’t there to prove that women can write as well as a male writer, just as Chinese Sci-fi isn’t there to prove we can write as well as a Colombian (or any other Country’s authors). What makes Women’s science fiction unique is the writer’s ability to confront the future through speculative fiction. The process lets the writer confront the dilemmas they face or imagine more egalitarian views of gender in a possible, positive future, and that second route is the one I’m taking.

Q4｜Your early works, published in things like Super Nice Magazine were very standard genre stories, very fast paced, with twist endings, whilst more recent works, like “Choosing The City”, “Introduction To 2181 Overture” and “Magic Mirror Algorithm” are more literary, with deeper explorations of social issues, such as the aging population, and city planning. What led to this change in style?

Gu Shi: First of all, It’s really about selecting the topic and style that match the publication. Super Nice is very genre-based, and the Editors’ notes to me were very effective, but now, I have access to a much wider range of platforms and magazines, so I can experiment with different styles and subjects, and submit them to the most suitable outlets. I’ve always been interested in the subject of aging, because associated topics kept making their way into my early work, like The Memory Of Time, where a male celebrity relied on virtual reality recordings to relive his past experiences as he grew old and infirm.

Other topics, I had wanted to approach earlier, but it’s only recently that I gained editorial control and could decide to write about urban planning and construction in “Choosing The City”, which is a little like doing a thematic study of my day job, so was actually a very difficult writing process. Fiction is more of a hobby for me, so I hope to always try new things, and explore more challenging content, in both the subject and technique, as well as the style.

When I finished “Introduction To 2181 Overture”, I hit a block, and found it hard to start a new genre piece that would surpass anything I’d already written. This coincided with an opportunity to read through a lot of purely literary fiction from the past few years, and from them, I learned a great deal of literary possibilities I hadn’t previously been aware of.

Gu Shi’s first sci-fi short story collection Möbius Time and Space by Eight Light Minutes Culture, New Star Press.

Q5 | “Introduction To 2181 Overture” focuses on cryogenic hibernation. There are many sci-fi novels depicting cryogenics, but most of them focus on the sleepers, while this story has the alternative focus of those who do not hibernate, who cannot cross the seas of time, and who are left behind. If the technology of cryogenics is actually realised one day, would you be willing to try it? Or would it feel like an escape from reality?

Gu Shi: We’re all strive for ideals, innovation and efficiency, but sometimes we have to admit that some people, even if they are working to exhaustion, are going to get left behind by the future. The origin of the concept of “left behind” is closely associated with “leftover”, specifically “leftover women”, and when I was labeled as such, I was shocked to look at exactly where it was I had been left behind, and whether it was really necessary for me to try to ‘catch up’ with the others, but ultimately I decided I wanted to live my life at my own pace, and I wish everyone had the courage to do the same. If cryogenics was actually realised one day…… I don’t think I’d feel compelled to try it. Our reality is something that needs to be faced head on, and running away from it doesn’t help. Whilst I’m not sure I would try for my own sake, if I was “summoned” by a someone like “Man Ge” from the story… I think I would.

Q6｜Throughout your years as a science fiction writer, which stories have you been most satisfied with?

Gu Shi: So hard to choose! “Chimeras”, “Introduction To 2181 Overture” and “Mothership” are all works I’m very happy with, but If I had to choose just one that I’m most pleased with, out of all the stories I’ve published, I would have probably say “Magic Mirror Algorithm”. When I was writing it, I tried so hard to put aside all the technical skills I’d already honed, and just let the characters, plot, and sincerity drive the story, and I loved the final result. If you include the unpublished work too, it’s probably a fantasy novella I wrote in middle school called “The Godkiller”. It was a very indulgent story that I wrote without restraint. I happened to be chatting to Ken Liu at the time, and he said that when he signed books for his readers, he always added “May you get to tell the story you want to tell, always”. Even as I started writing “Godkiller”, I knew it was not the story I wanted to write for any publisher, but it was exactly the story I wanted to write for me. I’m glad I finished it, and I look forward to hearing what readers think of it.

Q7｜I hear you are currently working on a full length science fiction novel. What do you think is the main difficulty in transitioning from a short story to a full-length one?

Gu Shi: Long and short form fiction have such different requirements for their authors, from the state of mind, the technical skills to the rhythm and pacing. They all need to be fine tuned. Perhaps it’s most like the difference between a marathon and a sprint. When I first started writing, it was online romance novels, all long form. I mean, not compared to what we see online these days, which can be 100,000 to 200,000 characters, but still, I’ve always considered myself a long form writer, and the greatest pleasures I’ve found in writing, are the ensemble scene plotting, the character arcs, and the sense of fatalism, which can only really be explored in longer stories. I’ve been working on longer pieces for the last few years, but various things have meant I’ve had to stop half way through, sealing up projects of 100,000 characters. If you look at the difficulties faced, on one hand it is that investment of time and energy, but on the other, It’s my own desire to finish a story, that I’ve developed further with short story writing. Short stories can be brought to a high level of completed state with a sufficient number of revisions, but with novels… I often kept changing them as I write, and once they were half way done, I gave up.

Q8｜Please say a few words to the Sci-fi fans who are currently considering the Hugo Awards

Gu Shi: I’m very happy that “Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition” has been shortlisted for the Hugo Awards. A few months ago, the Hugo committee sent out reading packs of the shortlisted works, and the best thing for me about this whole process is that all the sci-fi fans preparing to attend Worldcon in Glasgow will be able to read this story in those packs. I believe Science Fiction is a bridge that can span this messy, fragmented reality, and connect us all with the future. I hope that Sci-fi will also help all its fans define their own futures.

Part 2

  • “I see fragments of myself, and my own potential future in them.”
Emily Xueni Jin 金雪妮

Emily Xueni Jin is a PhD student in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at Yale University. As a young student, she translates from both English-to-Chinese, and Chinese-to-English, and her works include The Search for Philip K. Dick, the Kingdom Of Clockwork series, and Chlorine. Her translations have appeared in Clarkesworld and other genre fiction publications, as well as the first collection of Chinese sci-fi and fantasy written and translated by female and non-binary writers, The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, AI2041, jointly written by Chen Qiufan and Dr Kaifu Li and Liu Cixin’s anthology A View From The Stars.

Q1｜Hello Ms Jin, you’re the translator of the English version of “Introduction To 2181 Overture”. What are your thoughts on this story?

Emily Xueni Jin: It’s hard for me to talk lightly about “2181 Overture” just as a story, because it is clearly a magnificent epic of women’s future. Gu Shi, who I know is a big fan of operas and musicals, will probably get this: reading this story is like sitting dead centre in the middle of a great ancient amphitheatre, where centuries rush by, and countless female voices form this…a sublime Greek Chorus, each singing softly or richly their own part, using their voice to write their unique personal chapter. Everyone is independent and vivid, but in the end, they converge into this symphony of colourful intertwining, telling the destiny of all women.

As a translator, the experience of bringing this story into English was definitely very special. It was like… traveling through an “instantaneous multiverse” singing all the parts for each of the women on the page, subtlety transposing the Chinese scales to an English one, with the same rhythm and cadence working in this very different language system, and ways of emphasising the words. Most importantly, each voice has its own personality and narrative style, which I had to present in English. I needed to empathise with each of them, recreating those individuals in English, but also constantly keeping my mind turned to the macroscopic structure, and the overall narrator that dominates the story, a scientist who is writing a scholarly work on a period of history, meaning that I too had to detach myself from these individuals at the right time, so I could, like the author, become a master of the story world.

The story’s uniqueness, for me, really comes from its three-stranded intertwining structure. As the translator, I have to really sync with the author. As the narrative perspective switches, I need to attune to each new voice. As a woman, I am part of the history of each of the millions of women from this future, in each of whom I see fragments of myself, and my own potential future.

“Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition” really provides a new paradigm for the future of women’s sci-fi. It’s not necessarily emphasising gender specificity throughout, but it’s certainly integrating gender perspectives throughout, in its settings, in every line. What’s female is human, that’s all.

Q2｜In previous interviews, you’ve shown a great interest in Chinese science fiction. When you translate these works, how do you break those cultural barriers so that English readers can better appreciate the charm of Chinese sci-fi?

Emily Xueni Jin: For me, I really started just to challenge myself, and to challenge that innate orientalist stereotyping caused by a colonialist mindset. It’s frustrating that without an in-depth understanding of the base culture, it’s so easy for a Chinese story translated into English to just become a dose of orientalism. Or the Chinese elements to be reduced to decorative elements to attract attention, which shifts the reader away from their presence in the story itself. So, I have to remain very conscious of the fact I need to counterbalance that, and I’m very particular in the words I use in my translation. Compared to sci-fi based on the familiar, and near-future settings, it’s definitely more demanding to translate a story that references traditional culture, mythology, and history, because I don’t have that set of English commonplaces I can just ‘plug and play’. I have to build my translations on the fact that an English reader will have no concept of these elements, so I put a lot of effort into researching them, and sometimes almost ‘reverse engineer’ the reference material for that concept of culture, independent of the story.

Moving forward, we’re only going to see more science fiction growing out of Eastern traditions, and as someone in a fortunate position of being able to navigate both cultures, The work I’m doing now to slowly build up that body of references, will make it easier for future translators moving forwards. It’s just starting to lay the groundwork, I suppose.

Q3｜Apart from translating sci-fi stories, you’ve also translated titles like In Search of Philip K. Dick. Is there a big difference between translating fiction and non-fiction? What do you feel are the main differences?

Emily Xueni Jin: In general, translating non-fiction requires lot more cross-referencing, and the narratives tend to be more linear and straightforward. I try to suppress my personality, and remain objective. Sometimes, it’s like the process of preparing material for when I teach a class at university. The translator needs to have a good understanding of the content to be translated, and then explain that back to a reader using a completely different language. In Search of Philip K. Dick was not quite the same as other non-fiction. Being both a biography, and coming from Dick’s Ex-wife, Anne, it could be said that the book was a culmination of poetic narrative, private correspondence, and objective reporting. I needed to be able to switch between that passive voice (translated in a straightforward tone), discussing his life and work (with references, reviews, and an unexpected deep dive into Californian hippie culture), and a lyrical voice (aligning with Anne, and measuring my words against her thoughts and love language).

Anne Williams Rubenstein’s In Search Of Philip K. Dick, Translated by Emily Xueni Jin, published by Eight Light Minutes Culture, New Star Press.

Q4｜Besides Translating, do you have any plans to write your own works?

Emily Xueni Jin: Between the ages of about eight and my early 20s, I was really interested in creative writing, and quite prolific. I wrote a lot of Sci-fi and Fantasy stories, as well as fanfic. I was a dedicated user of AO3 and Lofter. When I was sixteen or so, I uploaded a full length YA novel I’d written when I was fourteen. It was a Sci-fi /Fantasy /Procedural drama, but since it was pretty mediocre, we just consider that a dark time that we don’t talk about. (It was still dug out by the sci-fi critic Sanfeng. His research skills are scary!)

At university, I started to write a long series with my own worldbuilding. It was a Seafaring /Steampunk/ Female led Fantasy story, but before I finished it, I found my interest in writing fading, and I found more enjoyment in translation, and academic writing, so I stowed it away. However, after the last couple of years, I feel I’m ready to return to my old ways, and with the encouragement of a couple of friends, I hope I can go back and finish the first volume. In the next year or so.

With that said, I want to address the relationship between translation and creativity. Honestly, I find most people have this notion that creative writing is just naturally superior to translation. Writers get all the accolades and respect, and if there’s a multilingual author who then goes on to translate, that’s just considered the icing on the cake, whilst a translator can put their entire talent to bringing work into the global sphere and be asked “Are you just doing this because you can’t write your own work?”. I’ve been asked that by more than one person, as though translation is a second class job. However, the reason I shifted my focus to translation, was I happened to read Ken Liu’s translation of Three Body Problem before graduating, and became interested in the art of translation, which appealed far more than mere writing. The ability to translate well was a remarkable skill to me. It’s a very different set of challenges, and whilst a translator with no creative experience could still produce an excellent translation, not every skilled writer will make a good translator.

As a writer turned translator, the greatest challenge I faced was letting go of my subjectivity. I had to avoid making every translation feel like my own voice, but instead, become as pliable as possible, soaking up the writer’s text like a sponge and then transform that into another language, even if my ‘authorial voice’ is constantly screaming from backlash during the process. For me, it’s the same sword in my hand, so writing is conquering and translating is protecting.

It’s true however, that the experiences to gain through translating can then be transferred back into creative writing. For example, when I’m translating, rather than just reading a piece, I’ll develop a much deeper understanding of the different author’s creative techniques, or approaches, as both a bystander, and an insider, in ways that then allow me to use them in my own writer’s toolbox. This bidirectionality lets me switch perspective far more easily when it comes to my own work. When I think about “How would I translate this piece”, I tend to see my own characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. On the other hand, the mastery of words and consideration that’s developed over time from my author’s mindset also helps in the translation process. In the end, both avenues are about exploration of both oneself, and the frontiers of creativity.

Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem, translated by Ken Liu.

Q5｜There is a debate in the field of translation between those who feel the text must be preserved in the most faithful manner, whilst others see the translation as its own stand alone creation. Which of those best represents your viewpoint?

Emily Xueni Jin: On the D&D alignment chart, my translation are firmly in the “Chaotic Good” camp, meaning I’m faithful to the original text, but abstract in my approach. My definition of faithfulness does not stop at the level of each word, rather I use my own cultural understanding, and creative imagination to absorb the story as a whole, and release it in another language. As long as it’s true to the story that the author wants to tell, the emotions it induces, and the concepts it conveys are all intact. Then I think that it is reasonable to use any tool of translation to secure that. That’s why I feel it’s important to have a rapport with the author and develop a level of trust. Any translator, passed a certain threshold of lingual skill can produce a competent translation, but unless there is a real connection with the the author (If they are still with us), where the translation can be nurtured in this new language like a child, can the translation truly shine. Of course, it’s common that a translator may have a limited understanding of the original author’s text, and the power in that writing; and there are rare occasions when the translation is heralded as “better than the original”, and becomes very popular. This could be the product of the translator putting themselves above the work, displaying their skills and whilst it may be a good story, it may not be a good translation.

With each language and culture being based thousands of miles apart, and no correspondence being perfect, translating a piece word by word may not work well. For example, if you translate a Chinese word into English, strictly looking for some kind of English equivalent, that translation will probably only be about 60% accurate, but if you are flexible, and you add, subtract, reduce, and transpose your way around the original work, that accuracy is more likely to reach above 90%. With “2181 Overture”, Gu Shi asked for me by name, whilst I was trying my best to secure the role of translator. It was a two-way street. I was touched by her absolute trust and recognition. It felt like I’d met my soulmate.

“Introduction To 2181 Overture, Second Edition”, published in Clarkesworld, Issue 197, February 2023, translated by Emily Xueni Jin.

Q6｜You’re currently studying for your doctorate in the US, and have access to the cutting edge of developments in Science Fiction. What state do you feel American sci-fi is in today?

Emily Xueni Jin: The Anglophone world has always had softer divisions between sci-fi and other Fantasy genres, as can be seen in the Hugo Award nominations through the years. On one hand, some fans think this has negatively affected the genre’s development, and we’re departing from “Golden Age” sci-fi, with its grand worldbuilding, and high tech settings, whilst others think it’s broadened the possibilities of fantasy, because, honestly, our relationship with technology is developing with the times, and with its ever-presence in our daily life, perhaps the focus should be on making life better, rather than creating a sense of wonder. In this way, both magic and technology become metaphors for human civilisation, and the future we want for it.

In contrast to the extremes of exploration it’s known for, the main focus of American Sci-fi seems to have shifted to introspection. More examination of the self, cultural identity, and private feelings, questioning and challenging the ingrained sci-fi aesthetic laid down by White male writers over the past 100 years. Despite many of the biggest hits being criticised for “Pandering to the Woke agenda”, I believe that, when viewed over a longer timescale, these explorations and attempts are similar to those made at every transitional period of a megatrend. Any form of representation and inclusion of diversity can only be a good thing, making Science Fiction more dynamic. Similar to American sci-fi, I feel maybe we have also reached the crossroads with Chinese sci-fi, where we are questioning the definition of sci-fi, and remoulding our “selves” in science fiction, not only do we need to consider China’s own Science Fiction tradition and goals, refer to the world, faithfulness to the self and an open mentality are both key parts of this process.

Q7｜Please say a few words to the Sci-fi fans who are currently considering the Hugo Awards

Emily Xueni Jin: It is my great honour, and pleasure to put this beloved work before so many more readers, as a translator. I have to say, that the criteria for judging the excellence of Science Fiction is still being shaped predominantly by the Anglophone world, and European, and American pop culture, but in recent years, there have been numerous novels and stories from East Asia and Africa, as well as work by Northern Europeans, Native Americans, and so on, which have, between them, been broadening the definition of sci-fi, along with our own endeavours. Although it seems we still need to translate everything into English before they can reach the “World” stage, I hope that in time, we will see the furthermore decentralisation of Science Fiction.

The Hugo Awards are really an honour and recognition, but most importantly, its essential roles are entertaining and connecting. If more readers read this novelette and are moved by it, because of the nomination, then all the better. My motto is “since you’re already here”, happy reading!

Pixel Scroll 5/26/24 How Can You Have Any Pixels If You Won’t Scroll Your File?

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(1) HIGHEST QUALITY DUMPS. Dorothy Grant points writers at “Excellent info on infodumping well” at Mad Genius Club.

I used to think I hated infodumps. I’ve come to realize, with careful line-by-line analysis of works I love and works I find mediocre, that I hate poorly-done infodumps.

What is the difference?

Relevancy, and timeliness.

Here’s an excerpt from Grant’s advice about relevancy:

Relevancy:
“Who is my audience and what specific question does it need answered?”

If my audience are current and prior military looking for a thriller, then that affects how I present the answer, as opposed to if my audience are civilian women over 40 looking for a light romance read that will not tax them by forcing them to think.

…But even in thrillers, where the audience enjoys the deep dive into the specs on the submarine, or the loadout someone’s carrying, they only enjoy it if it’s useful to the story.

(2) ARKS LOST AND FOUND. Julien*s Auctions has an array of highly recognizable props in its “Hollywood Legends: Danger, Disaster & Disco” auction happening June 12-14.

From beloved blockbusters to side-splitting comedies, cult classics, and even thought-provoking art films, this auction is a treasure trove for movie enthusiasts. Brace yourself as The Big Lebowski, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial take center stage, alongside the electrifying disco inferno of Saturday Night Fever. Marvel and DC fans, prepare to unleash your inner superhero as this auction proudly showcases astounding treasures from the beloved comic book universes.

An original production-used Ark of the Covenant prop as used during the making of the action-adventure Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark (Lucasfilm Ltd., 1981). 

This ark prop is composed of wood, plastic trophy figures (missing arms), hot glue, and gold-tone paint. The back side of the ark is unfinished and is painted black. The Ark is uniquely constructed from layers of picture frames and hot glue, placed together to form an ornate design. The top of the Ark features a hinged lid and a “battleship gray” painted interior. A cut-out portion of the interior of the lid may have been used to mount the trophy figures and frames on the surface of the lid, or may have served a purpose during pyro experimentation.

An original hero large-scale filming miniature of the USOS Seaview submarine from the Irwin Allen science fiction film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (20th Century Fox, 1961) and the television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (20th Century Fox Television, 1964 – 1968). 

(3) FANZINE NEWS. Chinese fan RiverFlow discusses plans for an English language edition in time for the Worldcon.

(4) CORFLU FIFTY WINNERS FOR 2025. The Corflu Fifty guests at next year’s Corflu – Corflu 42 in Newbury, UK – will be Nic and Jennifer Farey. 

The Corflu Fifty are a group of fans who jointly pay for some worthy person to attend the convention. Rich Coad is the US Administrator and Rob Jackson the UK Administrator.

Rob Jackson sent the news with this comment: “Donations over and above the standard contributions by the C50 members are always welcome, of course; but we are being ambitious in supporting a couple for a Transatlantic trip this year.  Fandom – especially fanzine fandom – will be doing its best to support them, of course.”

(5) AMENDED HUGO BALLOT. Xueting C. Ni, translator of a Hugo finalist, asks Glasgow to add their credit:

(6) GARFIELD MAKES MAX MADDER. According to the New York Times, “‘Furiosa’ Is a Box Office Dud, Adding to Hollywood Woes”.

Hollywood expected “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” to scorch the box office over the holiday weekend. Instead, the big-budget Warner Bros. prequel iced it over.

“Furiosa,” which cost $168 million to make, not including tens of millions of dollars in marketing costs, collected an estimated $25.6 million in the United States and Canada from Thursday night to Sunday. Box office analysts expected the film to take in about $5.4 million on Monday, for a holiday-weekend total of $31 million….

…Hollywood had high expectations for “Furiosa,” which Warner Bros. premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; the movie received exceptional reviews. On Sunday, however, it was unclear whether “Furiosa” would manage even first place at the box office. Analysts said the poorly reviewed “Garfield” (Sony), which cost $60 million to make, could inch ahead. It could also be a tie….

(7) ELUSIVE MEMORY. Phil Foglio sent a note about yesterday’s birthday celebrant, Ian McKellen:

Hardly anybody remembers this one, and it’s a damn shame: The best film version of the Scarlet Pimpernel. (1982) McKellen is the romantic villain, Paul Chauvelin. He is hilarious, heart-breaking, and ice-cold terrifying, and his is not even the best performance in the movie.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

May 26, 1923 — James Arness. (Died 2011.) We are here tonight to discuss Marshall Matt Dillion, errr, I mean James Arness. Though he’s certainly best remembered for playing that role on Gunsmoke. It premiered on September 10, 1955 and would run until March 31, 1975, on CBS, with six hundred and thirty-five episodes. 

James Arness in 1970. Photo by Steve Mays.

The first two seasons were not called Gunsmoke, but rather were Marshall Dillon.  I’m not much of a Western fan but what I saw of the few seasons I really liked.

After cancellation, there would be four Gunsmoke films about ten to twenty years later. Not going to comment on how old that made the actors who were still with us at that point… 

So, his genre-related films. 

Well, he did save Mike’s city from giant ants in Them where he played FBI agent Robert Graham. With others, he discovers that all the incidents plaguing Mike’s city are due to giant ants that have been mutated by atomic radiation.

In The Thing from Another World, mostly called The Thing, he played, errrr, The Thing. Cast in the role because of being six feet seven inches tall, he made a most splendid monster. Of course, you know that The Thing is based on the “Who Goes There?” which was written by John W. Campbell.

Arness as the Thing.

Lastly, he was Kirk Hamilton in Two Lost Worlds which was a really low budget Fifties film that had dinosaurs and pirates in it. How low budget? The dinosaurs appear 58 minutes into the film. They were taken from footage recycled from the One Million B.C. Film that had ended up in the bin. Yeah, they were considered that bad. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Broom Hilda avoids the second novel problem.
  • Frazz ponders the difference between rereads and sequels.
  • Free Range introduces a needed superhero.
  • Shoe says an actor’s roles point to an inescapable conclusion.
  • Thatababy explains brain freeze. Can you name the characters?
  • The Argyle Sweater updates a fairy tale.

(10) ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER. “Daniel Radcliffe not expecting to return for Harry Potter TV show”, so he tells Entertainment Weekly.

When it comes to the upcoming Harry Potter TV series, don’t expecto patronum Daniel Radcliffe to make an appearance.

The actor, who of course played the Boy Who Lived in all eight of the blockbuster Harry Potter movies, recently told E! News that he didn’t think a role or cameo in the upcoming entry into the Wizarding World was in the cards for him.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think they very wisely want to [have] a clean break. And I don’t know if it would work to have us do anything in it.”

And that’s perfectly all right with the 34-year-old actor, who added he is “very happy to just watch along with everyone else.”

Radcliffe remained coy when asked what his response would be should the Max production team actually conjure up an opportunity for him to return, though. “I’m gonna be a politician about this,” he said, “and not deal in hypotheticals.”…

(11) REPLICANT CHOW. [Item by Steven French.] This is a bit of a tangential genre allusion but I love Jay Rayner’s restaurant reviews in The Observer and I just couldn’t resist bringing this passage from his latest to the Collective Attention: “Sam’s Montpellier, Cheltenham: ‘Dishes that deserve our attention’ – restaurant review” in the Guardian:

…She smiles broadly. “Here at Sam’s, we have…” Pause. “A small plates concept. A bit like tapas.” You do? Oh, you marvellous, dear, young person. And if that sounds like I’m being patronising all I can say is, how clever of you to notice. In this job you see things. Granted, restaurant reviewing isn’t all attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, and C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, but it can be challenging. So when someone threatens profound difference, sweaty-palmed trepidation is reasonable. And when that difference turns out to be something achingly familiar, so is relief….

(12) WILL YOU FAIL TO PROVE YOU’RE NOT A ROBOT? NPR agrees, “It’s not your imagination. CAPTCHA tests are getting harder”. Weekend Edition host Scott Simon interviews cybersecurity expert Amanda Fennell.

… SIMON: What are some of the hardest CAPTCHA tests out there that you’ve seen?

FENNELL: Well, I actually am one of those people who’s challenged by them. There’s a percentage of the human population, about 3%, actually, that have a literal issue whenever they see these kind of stimulant tests. And so, for me, personally, they’re horrible. And it doesn’t matter if I do the audio or the visual. I have a high probability of failing it.

SIMON: And you’re a cybersecurity expert.

FENNELL: I know. That’s what they say. Yeah. But there are some better alternatives to what they’ve been using for CAPTCHA, the version 1, 2, 3, ReCAPTCHA with Google. There are better ideas that are coming out in more recent years.

SIMON: And they are coming out, right? There are things on the horizon?

FENNELL: You may have seen some of them. My personal favorite is actually gamification. It’s, you know, some kind of an image that’ll say, can you plant a garden? And you have to move the images that make sense. Simple questions, you know, what’s one plus one? Things like that. Sliders, which all of us Apple users love to see when we see a slider across the screen. But a lot of things are actually happening behind the scenes. This is actually concerning. And I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but this…

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George checks out “What Facebook Is Like Now” – and it’s worse than any horror movie you can see in a theater, that’s for damn sure.

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

Pixel Scroll 5/7/23 East Is East And West Is West, And The Wrong One I Have Chose, Let’s Go Where They Keep On Wearin’, Those Files And Fifthers And Pixels And Scrolls

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(1) CLARKESWORLD AGAIN DELUGED WITH AI MSS. Neil Clarke told Facebook readers today his magazine Clarkesworld has been inundated with another round of AI-produced submissions.

After a bit of a reprieve, we started getting hit hard with generated submissions/spam again this month. We’re approaching 300 for the month. This morning, I finally figured out where they were coming from. Took some effort to track down since the video (and its copycats) aren’t in English. Another make quick money scam, but this time targeting us specifically. The person behind it shows our website and even lingers around the “No ChatGPT” statements in the guidelines and submission form, before going to ChatGPT, generating, and submitting. He was previously banned for this, so he knows it won’t work. Have filed a complaint with YouTube, but I doubt they’ll do anything about it.

I’m not looking to start another round of the AI argument. It’s just our policy, like word count limits and genre restrictions.

I have upped our settings on my home-grown spam filter, so if you are submitting and use a proxy or VPN, you might find yourself with a slower response time.

(2) MEANWHILE, A CLARKESWORLD SUCCESS. Neil Clarke’s May Clarkesworld editorial says that when it comes to one of his sf-in-translation projects, “Something Went Mostly Right”.

…Finally, in early 2023, we were in a position to launch our pilot project. From January 15th through February 15th, we held our first open call for submissions written in Spanish, but never published in English.

The key element for this project was having a strong team that was well-aligned with our tastes and goals. I want to express my deepest gratitude to Nelly Geraldine Garcia-Rosas, Cristina Jurado, and Loreto ML for their time and work as part of the fiction team. They handled all of the first reading for the 1124 submissions we received, providing me with detailed summaries and personal assessments. From there, we narrowed the pile down to thirty-three works. Those endured a much more in-depth second round of consideration that ultimately led to the acceptance of eight stories that we will translate and publish over the course of next year.

In the interest of transparency, I want to explain how the second round evaluation process was carried out. Each of the thirty-three works was read by the entire team. In my case, that required the use of machine translation. These tools are horribly unreliable, but understanding that, I placed more emphasis on the reader’s description and team members’ individual feedback. Those bad translations often prompted me to ask more questions, which led to a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each story. Just as with our English language submissions, there were strong works that were ultimately rejected because they didn’t fit our publication. (If there was a trend among those, it might have been that they drifted a bit further into horror than I typically like.)…

(3) WINNIPEG NASFIC WILL RAISE MEMBERSHIP RATES. Pemmi-Con, the 15th North American Science Fiction Convention, announced that membership rates will increase May 15. Full details at the link.

The convention is happening July 20-23 at the Delta Hotels Winnipeg and the RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg.

(4) WAIT, ARE WALLACE AND GROMIT JEDI NOW? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Empire tells “How Aardman Took On Star Wars: The Making Of ‘I Am Your Mother’”.

Like all good Star Wars stories, it began with a vital transmission. Except, this one wasn’t from Princess Leia, nor was it delivered in the memory unit of an R2 droid.

It was, simply, a phone call to the offices of Aardman Animations – beamed from Skywalker Ranch, home of the legendary Lucasfilm, to the Bristol-based HQ of Britain’s most beloved animation studio, back in March 2021. It was, says Aardman’s Executive Creative Director Sarah Cox, “a mysterious call”. And like Leia’s message, it came with a mission: for the quintessentially British stop-motion studio behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run to create its very own short for animated anthology Star Wars: Visions, with an open remit for what that might entail. The possibilities were vast. But for the studio that once delivered a definitive answer on whether the moon is made of cheese (it is, as we now know, similar to Wensleydale) Cox had one big question: “Can we be funny?”

Comedy has rarely been at the forefront of Star Wars’ mind. Thankfully, pushing the boundaries of what Star Wars can be is Visions’ entire raison d’être. Volume 1, released in September 2021, was a thrilling visual and narrative experiment, letting seven Japanese anime studios loose on the iconography of the galaxy far, far away to interpret as they pleased – resulting in everything from black-and-white samurai showdowns, to vibrant rock band rhapsodies. For all the wildness, it remained rooted in the Japanese traditions that George Lucas drew from when first creating Star Wars – a cyclical cultural exchange. In Volume 2, streaming from today on Disney+, the series goes worldwide, featuring shorts from countries including India, Ireland, South Africa, Chile, France – and, yes, the UK. “I always framed it as, ‘Think of it like the Street Fighter map’,” laughs Lucasfilm’s James Waugh. “The cultural element of Volume 1 was so unique, that we felt that could happen in Volume 2 with multiple perspectives. There was an opportunity here to really showcase all of those incredible voices.”…

(5) BRUCE MCCALL (1935-2023.) Humorist and illustrator Bruce McCall died May 5. The New York Times obituary discussed his memorable satires.

Bruce McCall, whose satirical illustrations for National Lampoon and The New Yorker conjured up a plutocratic dream world of luxury zeppelin travel, indoor golf courses and cars like the Bulgemobile Airdreme, died on Friday in the Bronx. He was 87.

His wife, Polly McCall, said his death, at Calvary Hospital, was caused by Parkinson’s disease.

Borrowing from the advertising style seen in magazines like Life, Look and Collier’s in the 1930s and ’40s, Mr. McCall depicted a luminous fantasyland filled with airplanes, cars and luxury liners of his own creation. It was a world populated by carefree millionaires who expected caviar to be served in the stations of the fictional Fifth Avenue Subway and carwashes to spray their limousines with champagne…

…A wider audience knew Mr. McCall through the collections “Bruce McCall’s Zany Afternoons” (1982), “The Last Dream-o-Rama: The Cars Detroit Forgot to Build, 1950-1960” (2001), and “All Meat Looks Like South America: The World of Bruce McCall” (2003).

He was “our country’s greatest unacknowledged design visionary,” the critic and graphic designer Michael Bierut wrote in Design Observer in 2005, “the visual poet of American gigantism.”…

(6) MEMORY LANE.

2013 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Today’s Beginning is from Esther Friesner who has written a lot of fiction that I’ve read. Her humorous style of writing can be a bit much sometimes but I like it when I’m in the right mood.  

She has won no Hugos but did garner two Nebulas for short stories, “Death and the Librarian” and “A Birthday”.  (The latter got her a Hugo nomination at L.A. Con III.) She also got a much deserved Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction. 

I decided upon E. Godz which was co-written by Esther Friesner and Robert Asprin.  It was published by Bean Books a decade ago. The cover was illustrated by Gary Ruddell. 

This being Baen Books, it is not available from the usual suspects but only from Bean Books. Surely you’re not surprised, are you?

So here’s our Beginning. I think it’s quite interesting…

On a lovely spring morning in the hyperborean wilderness of Poughkeepsie, New York, Edwina Godz decided that she had better die. She did not make that decision lightly, but in exactly the manner that such a (literally) life-altering choice should, ought, and must be made. That is to say, after a nice cup of tea. 

It wasn’t as if she was about to kill herself. Just die. 

She reached the aforementioned decision almost by accident, while pondering the sorry state of her domestic situation and seeking a cure for the combination of headache, tummy trouble, and spiritual upheaval she always experienced every time she thought about her family. Under similar circumstances, most women would head right for the medicine cabinet, but Edwina Godz was a firm believer in the healing power of herbs. Better living through chemistry was all very well and good, yet when it came down to cases that involved the aches, pains, and collywobbles of day-to-day living, you couldn’t beat natural remedies with a stick.

Especially if the stick in question was a willow branch. Surprising how few people realized that good old reliable aspirin was derived from willow bark. 

Edwina realized this, all right. In fact, she was a walking encyclopedia of herbal therapy lore. It was partly a hobby, partly a survival mechanism. You didn’t get to be the head of a multicultural conglomerate like E. Godz, Inc. without making a few very . . . creative enemies. When you grew your own medicines, you didn’t have to worry about the FDA falling down on the job when it came to safeguarding the purity of whatever remedy the ailment of the moment demanded. Perhaps it was a holdover from her chosen self-reliant life-style all the way back in the dinosaur days of the ’60s, but Edwina Godz was willing to live by the wisdom that if you wanted to live life to the fullest, without the pesky interference of the Man, you should definitely grow your own.

No question about it, Edwina had grown her own, and it didn’t stop at herbs for all occasions. However, at the moment, herbs were the subject under consideration. 

Specifically: which one to take to fix Edwina’s present malaise? It wasn’t going to be an easy choice, not by a long shot. Peppermint tea was good for an upset tummy, though ginger was better, but valerian was calming and chamomile was the ticket if you were having trouble getting to sleep. Then again, green tea was rich in antioxidants, which were simply unsurpassed when it came to maintaining one’s overall health, and ginseng was a marvelous source of all sorts of energy, while gingko biloba—

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 7, 1912 — Clyde Beck. Fan and critic who wrote what Clute says in EoSF is the first work of criticism devoted to American SF: Hammer and Tongs which was published in 1937 by Futile Press. It was assembled from four essays and the reviews Beck wrote for The Science Fiction Critic, a fanzine by his brother Claire P. Beck with a newly written author’s preface by Clyde. He wrote four pieces of genre fiction between the Thirties and Fifties. None of what he wrote is in-print. (Died 1986.)
  • Born May 7, 1918 — Walt Liebscher.  His fanzine Chanticleer was a finalist for the 1946 Retro-Hugo; Harry Warner said “Liebscher did incredible things with typewriter art.  He specialized in little faces with subtle expressions…. the contents page was frequently a dazzling display of inventive borders and separating lines.”  His later pro writing was collected in Alien Carnival (1974).  He was given the Big Heart, our highest service award, in 1981. (Died 1985.) (JJ)
  • Born May 7, 1922 — Darren McGavin. Carl Kolchak on Kolchak: The Night Stalker — How many times have I seen it? I’ve lost count long, long ago. Yes, it was corny, yes, the monsters were low rent, but it was damn fun. And no, I did not watch a minute of the reboot. By the way, I’m reasonably sure that his first genre role was in the Tales of Tomorrow series as Bruce Calvin in “The Duplicates” episode. (Died 2006.)
  • Born May 7, 1931 — Gene Wolfe. He’s best known for his Book of the New Sun series. My list of recommended novels would include Pirate Freedom, The Sorcerer’s House and the Book of the New Sun series. He’s won the BFA, Nebula, Skylark, BSFA and World Fantasy Awards but to my surprise has never won a Hugo though he has been nominated quite a few times. He has been honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. (Died 2019.)
  • Born May 7, 1940 — Angela Carter. Another one taken far too young by the damn Reaper. She’s best remembered for The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories where she took fairy tales and made them very, very adult in tone. And I’d also recommend The Curious Room as it contains her original screenplays for the BSFA-winning The Company of Wolves which starred Angela Lansbury, and The Magic Toyshop films, both of which were based on her own original stories. Though not even genre adjacent, her Wise Children is a brilliant and quite unsettling look at the theatre world. I’ve done several essays on her so far and no doubt will do more.  A smattering of her works are available at the usual suspects. (Died 1992.)
  • Born May 7, 1951 — John Fleck, 72. One of those performers the Trek casting staff really like as he’s appeared in Next Generation, Deep Space Nine in three different roles, Voyager and finally on Enterprise in the recurring role of Silik. And like so many Trek alumni, he shows up on The Orville.
  • Born May 7, 1951 — Gary Westfahl, 72. SF reviewer for the LA Times, Internet Review of Science Fiction and Locus Online. Editor of The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders; author of Immortal Engines: Life Extension and Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy (with George Slusser) and A Sense-of-Wonderful Century: Explorations of Science Fiction and Fantasy Films.

(8) LAYOFFS AT IDW. “IDW to Slash Workforce by 39%, Delist from NYSE” reports Publishers Weekly.

IDW Media will lay off 39% of its staff and delist from the New York Stock Exchange in what the company called “cost-cutting measures” taken in “response to operational challenges.”

Among the staff affected by layoffs are the entire marketing and PR departments and half of the editorial department, including publisher Nachie Marsham, who has served in the role since September 2020. In all, 28 employees are being let go and IDW has budgeted $900,000 to cover severance costs.

IDW has also announced several changes to senior management in light of the staff reduction and NYSE delisting. CEO Allan Grafman will be replaced by Davidi Jonas, who most recently served as IDW’s chief strategy officer, and is the son of IDW chairman Howard Jonas. Grafman had served as CEO since August 2022. Additionally, CFO Brooke Feinstein has been let go, and Amber Huerta, previously senior v-p of people and organizational development, has been promoted to COO.

IDW operates in two groups—its publishing division, which publishes comic books and graphic novels and includes the Top Shelf imprint, and its entertainment division, which produces and distributes multimedia content based on the publishing group’s original book content….

(9) MAURICE HORN (1931-2022). Comics historian, author, editor and curator Maurice C. Horn passed away on December 30, 2022, at the age of 91. The Comics Journal profiles his achievements and controversies.

… The success of the encyclopedias gave Horn the financial stability and clout to write about other comics-related topics. Books such as Comics of the American West (Winchester Press, 1977), Women in the Comics (Chelsea House, 1977), Burne Hogarth’s The Golden Age of Tarzan, 1939-1942 (Chelsea House, 1977), and Sex in the Comics (Chelsea House, 1985) proved commercially successful enough to warrant multiple printings and new editions over the course of several decades, but none had the lasting impact of The World Encyclopedia of Comics. Marshall laments that too many of Horn’s later works “essentially were rehashes of his pioneering books, brought out in multi-volume editions to enhance library-sale profits, or justified by anniversaries of the business.”

100 Years of American Newspaper Comics, published by Gramercy in 1996, was Horn’s final major publication.Horn returned to his roots in 1996 with 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics, an illustrated encyclopedia published by Gramercy in belated celebration of the centennial of the Yellow Kid. The 414-page volume, with its tighter focus, less-rushed publication schedule and dedicated team of writers and researchers who benefited from the nearly decades of comics scholarship that followed the publication of The World Encyclopedia of Comics, is considered by many historians to be Horn’s most accurate and comprehensive work….

(10) LOOKING AHEAD. At Instant Future, John Shirley interviews Rudy Rucker. “Flash Forward: An Interview with Rudy Rucker!”

Q. What do you think of the “science fiction future”, in re the fiction out there?

A. It seems about the same as ever, although way more diverse. And there’s more emphasis on social issues and the environment. Not as much wild science as I’d like to see, but that stuff is hard to invent. As ever, a good procedure is to glom onto some standard SF trope and work it into a transreal novel about your own life. Transreal? That’s a word I invented in 1983 to describe my process of writing SF novels in which characters are based either on me or on people I know. See my “Transrealist Manifesto.” 

Transrealism is kind of a beatnik thing, writing novels about your own life. And of course Phil Dick and Kurt Vonnegut and Kim Stanley Robinson did it too…

(11) CHAT CHIMPANZEE. The Library of America’s “Story of the Week” is Charles Portis’ “The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth”.

In Portis’s final story, a local reporter investigates a billionaire-funded project in which armies of monkeys generate massive volumes of text to supersede the “old elitist notion of writing as some sort of algebra.”

. . . Is the musty old prophecy at last being fulfilled? We now have millions of monkeys pecking away more or less at random, day and night, on millions of personal computer keyboards. We have “word processors,” the Internet, e-mail, and “the information explosion.” Futurists at our leading universities tell us the day is at hand when, out of this maelstrom of words, a glorious literature must emerge, and indeed flourish.

So far, however, as of today, Tuesday, September 14, late afternoon, the tally still seems to be fixed at:

Shakespeare: 198, Monkeys: 0

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Just for fun, here’s Amaury Guichon sculpting a Stormtrooper helmet out of chocolate. Jennifer Hawthorne says, “His chocolate creations are amazing but this is the first time I’m aware of that he’s done something of the SFF genre.  Maybe a campaign could be organized to request that he do the NCC-1701, or a chocolate Balrog!”

I have created this wearable chocolate helmet in preparation of May the 4th! It was a lot of fun crafting it without the use of any molds. What do you think of the final result?

 [Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Paul Di Filippo, Jennifer Hawthorne, Murray Moore, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

A Bibliography of Jules Verne Translations

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By Jeffrey Smith: I’ve always enjoyed making lists of books, though with the internet and its copious bibliographies I don’t do near as many as I used to. I love my recent, handwritten Agatha Christie reading order one; I keep thinking I should type it up, except I like the handwritten one so much, with its arrows shifting the positions of books around.

Thinking about Jules Verne, with the new TV version of Around the World in Eighty Days about to start, I just bought the Wesleyan edition of Five Weeks in a Balloon, translated by Frederick Paul Walter – after researching what the good modern translations of Verne are. Verne has been abysmally translated into English over the years, but there’s been a push to correct that.

In the back of this edition, there is a bibliography of Verne’s work that includes lists of good translations and bad translations for each novel. I typed up a simplified version of just the recommended editions of the Voyages Extraordinaires for my own use, and then decided to share it here. This bibliography is from 2015, so reasonably up to date, though there might have been a few good translations since then.

If the recommended ones are old, I’ve marked them “best available” instead of “recommended,” figuring they still aren’t as good as a modern translation. And while my initial thought was that all the ones from the 1960s on were probably good, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Also, anything translated by I.O. Evans is an automatic don’t-buy; although he loved Verne’s work and thought he was providing a service by translating so many of his novels, and some of them might not be bad, they are spectacularly unreliable. Many of the later novels have no recommended versions at all.

[The list begins after the break.]

Continue reading →

Pixel Scroll 11/21/21 Tom Swift And His Scrolling Pixel

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(1) SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME TRAILER. Initially shown this week in theaters with Ghostbusters: Afterlife – now everyone can see it.  

For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighborhood hero’s identity is revealed, bringing his Super Hero responsibilities into conflict with his normal life and putting those he cares about most at risk. When he enlists Doctor Strange’s help to restore his secret, the spell tears a hole in their world, releasing the most powerful villains who’ve ever fought a Spider-Man in any universe. Now, Peter will have to overcome his greatest challenge yet, which will not only forever alter his own future but the future of the Multiverse.

(2) NEEDS MORE INGREDIENTS. Lise Andreasen got a look at this headline and replied:

(3) RADICAL SCIENCE FICTION. Joachim Boaz posted the introduction to PM Press’s Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985 (2021),edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre on his website Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations!  “The Introduction to Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985, ed. Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre (2021)”.

Boaz’ review says:

…It is a must buy for any SF fan of the era interested in exploring the larger world behind the texts. Considering the focus of my website and most of my reading adventures over the last decade, I can unabashedly proclaim myself a fan of the New Wave SF movement–and this edited volume is the perfect compliment to my collection and interests….

The first paragraph of the authors’ introduction begins –

The “long sixties,” an era which began in the late 1950s and extended into the 1970s, has become shorthand for a period of trenchant social change, most explicitly demonstrated through a host of liberatory and resistance movements focused on class, racial, gender, sexual, and other inequalities. These were as much about cultural expression and social recognition as economic redistribution and formal politics. While the degree to which often youthful insurgents achieved their goals varied greatly, the global challenge they presented was a major shock to the status quo.,,,

(4) BEAGLE ADAPTATION REMEMBERED. “Why The Last Unicorn Is the Best Animated Movie You’ve Never Seen” – Paste Magazine’s Lacy Baugher Milas makes her case.

Though the animated film The Last Unicorn will turn 40 years old in 2022, it’s still largely considered a cult classic. The sort of movie that a certain kind of nerdy Gen-Xer or elder millennial will enthusiastically yell about with strangers whenever it happens to come up in casual conversation, but that most average moviegoers almost completely missed out on. Part of the reason for that is that 1980s animated films were generally more interested in making money than being art, and the Disney renaissance spearheaded by critical and commercial hit The Little Mermaid was still several years off.

But it’s also because The Last Unicorn is simply unlike anything else that existed at the time. From the stacked voice cast that included everyone from Mia Farrow and Alan Arkin to Angela Lansbury and Christopher Lee, to the earnestly twee soundtrack by the band America and its general refusal to fit into neat narrative boxes, it is a film that consistently makes surprising and unexpected choices of the deeply risky sort we still don’t often see today.

(5) ON BOARD THE BEBOP. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Washington Post, Christina Lee uses the example of Cowboy Bebop to explain that different races often see anime characters as being of their own race. “Netflix’s ‘Cowboy Bebop’ reignites a debate: Is Jet Black a Black anime character?”

Actor Mustafa Shakir sounds starry-eyed when he explains why he said yes to playing Jet Black, one of the central characters of Netflix’s new “Cowboy Bebop.” Shakir had become a devotee of the anime show, which originally aired in Japan in the late ’90s and then helped launch Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block in the fall of 2001. “My thought was, this is like a gateway drug into anime,” he says, which was the case for many U.S. viewers who had yet to understand that not all anime is kiddie fare.Shakir, best known for playing Bushmaster on “Luke Cage,” was particularly intrigued by the way this anime paid loving tribute to American jazz, most explicitly through the character of Jet, an ex-cop and the paternal leader of an interstellar bounty-hunting crew, who named his spaceship — what else? — the Bebop.

But translating “Cowboy Bebop” to live action and satisfying the sky-high fan expectations around this beloved space-western was an imposing endeavor. The most persistent question on set was, “Is this Bebop-y enough?” (“That’s a real term, you know?” Shakir deadpans.) …“Cowboy Bebop” adds yet another layer to that debate: What happens when a production studio tries to assign race to a pop culture artifact where race is hinted at but not always made explicit? The race and appearance of all the main characters have been debated on Twitter, Reddit and TikTok, but incensed online commentators went as far as smearing Shakir’s casting as “blackwashing” — a play on “whitewashing” and an accusation often lobbed at Black anime fandom in cosplay and fan art.

The original “Cowboy Bebop” does feature explicitly dark-skinned characters the Netflix version made sure to include. And in the accompanying art book, “The Jazz Messengers,” series creator Shinichiro Watanabe said that when developing the anime, he “paid a lot of attention to skin color.” But the original anime never mentions or discusses race; it stands to reason that in a near future where Earth was all but obliterated, its ideas about race would have vanished along with it.

(6) SFF IN TRANSLATION. “How Do You Say ‘Quidditch’ in Yiddish?” – Tablet Magazine has “The inside story of how ‘Harry Potter’ was translated into Yiddish.” (From 2020.)

… This tension has proved productive for Viswanath and his sisters, all of whom are involved today in various Yiddish projects—which is how Arun came to the idea of translating Harry Potter. What better way to pass on the legacy of Yiddish to another generation, he thought, than to translate one of the most popular works of children’s literature of all time? Seized with this inspiration, Viswanath began spending evenings away from his job at a tech startup translating the first book of the series, not knowing if he’d ever be permitted to publish it.

As it turned out, though, he wasn’t the only one.

When Rowling’s agent Blair connected Viswanath with Olniansky, the Swedish publisher found himself with what he described as “a pleasant problem”: He’d already been contacted by another Yiddish translator who had also begun translating the first Harry Potter novel. Given the significance of the project, Olniansky did not feel qualified to personally decide between the manuscripts, and so he submitted samples of both translations to two expert reviewers—Jean Hessel, the Swedish government’s official for Yiddish at the Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore, and Mikhoel Felsenbaum, the noted Yiddish postmodern novelist living in Israel.

“Both of them picked Arun’s translation,” Olniansky told me, “so that’s the way we went.”…

(7) LOST AND FAUN. The Lesser-Known Writers blog introduces us to “Arthur MacArthur”:

…He published very little. One short story is known, “Told in the Mid-Watch,” in Sea Stories Magazine, 20 December 1922. (He claimed he gave up short story writing because it was too restrictive.) And he published only one novel, After the Afternoon (New York: D. Appleton-Century, [October] 1941), though  it was retitled Aphrodite’s Lover and given a racy cover when it was reprinted in paperback in 1953. 

After the Afternoon tells the story of the faun Lykos in Crete, who, after a tryst with Aphrodite, becomes a human being, endowed with immortality and able to enter the human body, male or female, of his choice. He passes through various incarnations, one at the bizarre court of an Egyptian king…. 

(8) REMEMBERING THE FOUNDER. The other day members celebrated the birthday of Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association founder Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) by giving a reading of her poetry.

Poems by Suzette Haden Elgin read by SFPA board members Rocky Road to Hoe – read by Richard Magahiz No Contact – Read by Diane Severson Mori As for the Universal Translator – read by Jean-Paul L. Garnier

(9) RYAN OBIT. Voice actor and past ASIFA president Will Ryan died November 19 at the age of 72 reports Deadline. Ryan had a vast resume of genre credits, beginning with the pteranodon Petrie from Universal’s animated classic, The Land Before Time.

He’d go on to amass more than 100 screen credits in his nearly four-decade career…

Ryan voiced Willie the Giant for The Walt Disney Company in numerous projects over a 35-year period, last doing so in 2020. He voiced Peg-Leg Pete in the Oscar-nominated animated short Mickey’s Christmas Carol, reprising the role 30 years later in the Mickey Mouse short, Get a Horse!, which was also nominated for an Oscar. He also voiced the latter character, among others, in the beloved Disney Afternoon series DuckTales, and portrayed several, including a herd of Ogres, in Adventure of the Gummi Bears, which was the first animated series from Walt Disney Television. Ryan also had the opportunity to portray Tigger and Rabbit, and to provide the singing voice of Eeyore, for the long-running Disney Channel series Welcome to Pooh Corner, which aired twice a day for 17 years.

Throughout his career, Ryan also lent his voice to such classic animated films as The Little Mermaid, An American Tail, Thumbelina and A Troll in Central Park, along with multiple G.I. Joe series, the 1986 animated series Teen Wolf, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Family Guy and many more projects.

He also “wrote over 100 songs for Disney and the Jim Henson Company, seeing his songs get recorded by Mickey, Donald, Goofy and the gang; Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and the gang; The Cat-In-The-Hat, Horton the Elephant, the Grinch and the gang; the Pointer Sisters, the Saguaro Sisters, Patti LaBelle, and more.”

(10) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1973 — Forty-eight years ago, the film that launched the Westworld franchise premiered. Westworld was created by Michael Crichton wrote the screenplay and directed the film. It was produced by Paul N. Lazarus III. It starred Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin and James Brolin in the three primary roles. You may have noticed Majel Barrett as Miss Carrie, The Madame of the Westworld bordello. 

Reception by critics was generally superb with Variety saying it had “superbly intelligent serio-comic story values.”  And the Los Angeles Times called it “a clever sci-fi fantasy.” The New York Times which I swear doesn’t like SF films was the lone dissenting major newspaper as regards this film.  Box office was great making almost eight million against a budget of just a million and a quarter. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it an excellent rating of seventy percent. It was nominated for a Hugo at DisCon II, the year Sleeper won.

It was followed by a sequel, Futureworld which got nominated for a Hugo at Suncon, and a really short-lived CBS series, Beyond Westworld (five episodes). The HBO Westworld TV series is now in its third season with a fourth in production. The present series has not been nominated for a Hugo yet. 

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 21, 1851 — T. O’Conor Sloane. Editor of the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, from 1929 to 1938. And earlier on, Scientific American, from 1886 to 1896. (Died 1940.)
  • Born November 21, 1924 — Christopher Tolkien. He drew the original maps for the LoTR. He provided much of the feedback on both the Hobbit and LoTR and his father invited him  to join the Inklings when he was just twenty-one years old, making him the youngest member of that group. Suffice it to say that the list is long of his father’s unfinished works that he has edited and brought to published form. I’ll leave to this august group to discuss their merit as I’ve got mixed feelings on them. (Died 2020.) 
  • Born November 21, 1942 — Al Matthews. Performer, best known for his appearance as Gunnery Sergeant Apone in Aliens. Other genre films were Omen III: The Final Conflict, The Sender, Superman III, The Fifth Element and Tomorrow Never Dies.  He stated on his website that he was the first black Marine in the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam to be meritoriously promoted to the rank of sergeant, quite an honor indeed. (Died 2018.)
  • Born November 21, 1944 — Harold Ramis. Actor, Writer, and Producer, best-known to genre fans for his role as Egon Spengler in the Saturn-winning, Oscar- and Hugo-nominated Ghostbusters and its lesser sibling Ghostbusters II (the scripts for both of which he co-wrote with Dan Aykroyd). He had voice roles in Heavy Metal and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, and a cameo in Groundhog Day, for which he received Saturn nominations for writing and directing. He was also director and producer of Multiplicity. (Died 2014.)
  • Born November 21, 1945 — Vincent Di Fate, 76. Artist and Illustrator who has done many SFF book covers and interior illustrations since his work first appeared in the pages of Analog in 1965. He was one of the founders of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA), and is a past president. In addition to his Chesley Award trophy and 7 nominations, he has been a finalist for the Professional Artist Hugo 11 times, winning once at Seacon ‘79; two collections of his artwork, Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art and Di Fate’s Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware, have been Hugo finalists as well. He was Artist Guest of Honor at the 1992 Worldcon, for which he organized their Art Retrospective exhibit. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2011. You can see galleries of his works at his website.
  • Born November 21, 1953 — Lisa Goldstein, 68. Writer, Fan, and Filer whose debut novel, The Red Magician, was so strong that she was a finalist for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer two years in a row. Her short fiction has garnered an array of Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award nominations, as well as a Sidewise Award. The short story “Cassandra’s Photographs” was a Hugo nominee at Nolacon II and Nebula finalist as well, and “Alfred” was a World Fantasy and Nebula finalist; both can be found in her collection Travellers in Magic. The quite excellent Uncertain Places won a Mythopoeic Award. You can read about her work in progress, her reviews of others’ stories, and other thoughts at her blog which is one of the better ones I’ve read: https://lisa-goldstein.dreamwidth.org/
  • Born November 21, 1965 — Björk, 56. Who bears the lovely full name of Björk Guðmundsdóttir. I like Icelandic things. And I’ve got boots of her band somewhere around here I’m sure. She’s here for The Juniper Tree which is a 1990 Icelandic film directed and written by Nietzchka Keene which is based on “The Juniper Tree” tale that was collected by the Brothers Grimm. She’s one of five performers in it. Oh, and because her last album Utopia explored that concept even using cryptocurrency as part of the purchase process.
  • Born November 21, 1982 — Ryan Carnes, 39. He was in two Tenth Doctor stories, “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks” in which he played Laszlo. He played Kit Walker / The Phantom in the miniseries of the same name which I’ve never even heard of until now, and has the lead as Chris Norton in Beyond the Sky, an alien abductee film. 

(12) COMICS SECTION.

  • In the Bleachers shows some golfers who don’t seem to have their priorities in order.
  • Tom Gauld on supply chain problems faced by the magical realism industry.

(13) BABY YODA ON SNL. Last night on Saturday Night Live Baby Yoda showed off his new tattoos and talked about all the fun he was going to have in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

(14) ATTENTION MAMMOTH ENTHUSIASTS. Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist, will do a live presentation: “Nat Geo Live: How to Clone a Mammoth” on The Broad Stage in Los Angeles on January 27-28, 2022. Tickets are available at the link.

Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? National Geographic Emerging Explorer Beth Shapiro is one of the scientists investigating this intriguing possibility. From deciding which species should be restored to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild,the technical challenges and ethical considerations of de-extinction are substantial. Join Shapiro for a vivid exploration into the extraordinary cutting-edge—and controversial—science that is being used today to resurrect the past.

(15) HOWDY STRANGER. In the Washington Post, Ashley Spencer profiles Finn Wolfhard, who is interviewed because of his performance in Ghostbusters:  Afterlife but became “one of the most recognizable young actors in the world: for his work on “Stranger Things.” “Finn Wolfhard, star of ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife,’ doesn’t really want to be famous”.

… Talking to Wolfhard now, the candidness remains. His answers, even the ones that hint of rehearsed, PR-approved sound bites, lack the disquietingly poised delivery that many young stars learn to perfect. Instead, Wolfhard uses “like” with reckless teenage abandon and meanders off course with details and anecdotes that excite him. There’s a lengthy tale about a tipsy Rami Malek imparting advice at a 2016 Critics Choice Awards after-party — “Did you really have fun tonight?” the older star implored of Wolfhard. “Because if you’re doing any of this stuff and you’re not having fun, you need to stop it immediately” — and an apologetic f-bomb as Wolfhard marveled at how “crazy” it is that he will potentially be the same age in “Stranger Things 5” as his older co-stars Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton were when they started the show.

Wolfhard shares “a lot” of scenes with Heaton in “Stranger Things 4,” which was delayed by covid and is finally due to arrive next summer, and said they became “incredibly close” during filming. In fact, he found a new appreciation for most of his castmates over the chaotic past two years. “When you start a show that young, there’s drama and there’s rivalries because it’s like school. And then you become older, and you stop caring,” he said. “I think it’s actually such an incredible thing to come back to each other and be like, ‘Wow, I really understand you. We’re all going through this thing together. I love you.’?”…

(16) BEST CAPTURE. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] This video from the Royal Ocean Film Society argues that Spielberg’s 2011 The Adventures of Tintin was the best of the motion capture animated films of 2005-10 and the only one still worth watching today.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Tex Avery predicts the Internet in his 1949 cartoon “The Home of Tomorrow.”

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Ben Bird Person, Lise Andreasen, Joel Zakem, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]

Nyabola Prize Shortlist

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The shortlist for the inaugural Nyabola Prize in Science and Speculative Fiction in Kiswahili, given in partnership with the Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature, was announced November 17.

The prize, founded by writer and political analyst, Nanjala Nyabola, is designed to promote and popularize a Kiswahili vocabulary for technology and digital rights, in order to empower citizens in Kiswahili-speaking communities to participate in broader conversations on the issues.

Writers between the ages of 18 and 35 were invited to submit science and speculative fiction in the Kiswahili language. Over 140 million people speak Kiswahili in Eastern and Southern Africa and it is the most widely spoken African language in the world.

The first place winner will receive $1,000, with $500 and $250 going to the second and third place winners. The top ten stories will be published in an anthology.

Nyabola has said, “Science fiction and speculative fiction, including sub-genres like African Futurism, inspire young people to break the boundaries of imagination and imagine better futures. Science fiction and speculative fiction has inspired actual innovations in AI (Artificial Intelligence), tech ethics and political ethics, as well as spurred healthy critiques of political trajectories, for instance Isaac Asimov’s Three Rules of Robotics, and George Orwell’s exploration of the surveillance state in 1984.”

An earlier press release also explained: “Although there is a long history of cultural production in Kiswahili, and popular poets and writers also write in Kiswahili, there has been some delay in both translating and popularizing the grammar and lexicon of technology in Kiswahili, similar to many languages other than English. Yet without such a popular lexicon, developments in technology continue to leave African communities at the margins: speaking about and for them but not with them. Kiswahili is an established world language with tremendous symbolic and practical applications, and it is important to encourage initiatives that keep Kiswahili speakers apace with the rapid developments that are happening in technology.”

The final prize winners will be announced January 28, 2022.

Pixel Scroll 10/16/21 Escape From Pixel Scroll

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(1) SUPERMAN MOTTO CHANGED.  The motto associated with Forties radio Superman, and the George Reeves TV show, and sporadically used since then, has been swapped for something else. The Daily Beast has the story: “DC Comics Changes Superman Motto, Swaps ‘American Way’ With ‘Better Tomorrow’”. Normally one would say “something new”, except this sounds like it was lifted from old GE advertising.

After more than 50 years of upholding “truth, justice, and the American way,” Superman is changing his motto.

The superhero will now stand for “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow,” DC Comics announced during its DC FanDome event Saturday. In a press release, the company said the motto will “better reflect the global storylines that we are telling across DC.”

“Superman has long been a symbol of hope who inspires people from around the world, and it is that optimism and hope that powers him forward with this new mission statement,” Jim Lee, the company’s publisher and chief creative officer, said….

Hard as it is to believe, alt-right Bounding Into Comics does not yet have a post up about the change.

(2) HOLLYWOOD AGREEMENT AVERTS STRIKE. AP reports “Strike dodged with deal between film and TV crews, studios”. Details of the new contracts were not immediately revealed.

An 11th-hour deal was reached Saturday, averting a strike of film and television crews that would have seen some 60,000 behind-the-scenes workers walk off their jobs and would have frozen productions in Hollywood and across the U.S.

After days of marathon negotiations, representatives from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and from the studios and entertainment companies who employ them reached the three-year contract agreement before a Monday strike deadline, avoiding a serious setback for an industry that had just gotten back to work after long pandemic shutdowns.

Jarryd Gonzales, spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios and other entertainment companies in negotiations, confirmed the agreement to The Associated Press.

The union’s members still must vote to approve the tentative agreement….

(3) THE JURY IS IN. In the “2021 Hugo Short Story Panel of Awesomeness”, Hugos There podcaster Seth Heasley is joined by Cora Buhlert, Ivor Watkins, Alan Bailey, Lise Andreasen, Sarah Elkins, JW Wartick, Lori Anderson, Haley Zapal, and Amy Salley to discuss the 2021 nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story. (The podcast version is here.)

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to join the marvelous Sam Maggs for drinks on episode 156 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Sam Maggs

This time around, you’ll get to eavesdrop on my chat with Sam Maggs, a writer with whom I share an artistic bond, even though we’re from entirely different generations of comic book creators.

That’s because Sam wrote the adventures of the she/her Captain Marvel in 2019 — 42 years after I wrote about he/him Captain Marvel in 1977. She’s also written comics about Jem and the Holograms, Rick & Morty, My Little Pony, Transformers, and Invader Zim. She’s published pure prose as well, including her first book The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the young adult novel The Unstoppable Wasp: Built on Hope. Her games writing includes Spider-Man: The City that Never Sleeps, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and many others.

We discussed the Stargate SG-1 convention that was her gateway drug for fandom, why her debut comic book story turned out to be a Star Trek tale, the way the arcs of our careers ran in completely opposite directions, what it was like releasing six books during a pandemic, how The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy was born though complete serendipity, the audition that got her the gig to write an Unstoppable Wasp novel, how she dreamed up her pitch for Captain Marvel, and much more.

(5) OFFICE IN THE OBSERVATORY. Brother Guy Consolmagno appears this week in Nature’s “Where I work” feature, including a photo of him peering through an antique telescope.

SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie sent the link, proud to remember Brother Guy is someone with whom he’d in the past (years ago) appeared with on a Worldcon panel:

Paul McAuley, Jonathan Cowie, Br. Guy Consolmagno

(6) RUN THE NEBULA CONFERENCE. SFWA says “We Need You! SFWA is Hiring a Nebula Conference Manager!”. Full guidelines at the link.

The SFWA Nebula CPM would be responsible for all project management activities associated with the annual SFWA Nebula Conference. In 2022, the organization will be offering a hybrid model of the conference, with both an online component and in-person event. The CPM would be leading the entire 2022 Conference, supervising and working closely with the online conference project manager. 

(7) NO HOLDING BACK. Tim Kirk shared Harlan Ellison’s special coffee recipe in a public post on the Harlan Ellison Facebook Fan Club page.

Back in the 1970s I made numerous trips up to Ellison Wonderland. Harlan had asked me to illustrate “The Last Dangerous Visions,” and I spent many Saturdays reading manuscripts in his living room; and I drank many cups of a delicious coffee mixture Harlan had concocted himself: “Cafe’ Ellison Diabolique.” This recipe was published in Anne McCaffrey’s very entertaining collection of recipes by SF and fantasy authors, “Cooking Out of This World” (Ballantine Books 1973). Harlan left out one Mystery Ingredient, which he later revealed to me: Ovaltine. Pictured here is the official Little Orphan Annie Ovaltine Mug that Harlan gave me….

(8) SPEAKEASY. In the Washington Post, Steven Zeitchik says that AI has advanced to the point that instantaneous translation of films is possible leading to a future without dubbing and subtitles. “Every movie and TV show could soon be dubbed into any language you want”.

… Traditional dubbing often works like this. A studio or local distributor, having decided it wants a local-language release, pays to translate a script, hire a set of voice actors to play the characters, rent out engineering equipment, put the actors through numerous voice takes, record them and then splice their readings back into the original video — a mighty grapple to achieve a smooth final product. The whole process can take months.

Auto-dubbing can work like this. The original actor records five minutes of random text in their own language. Then the machines take over: A neural network learns the actor’s voice, a program digests that vocal information and applies it to a digital translation of the script, then the AI spits out perfectly timed lines from the film in the foreign language and drops them into the action. The whole process could take weeks…

(9) RECLASSIFIED? [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] The first argument I’ve seen that Dhalgren is a horror novel. Andy Marino in “Under Your Skin: The Horror of the Inexplicable” on CrimeReads.

Consider the moment you wake from a nap into disorientation so pure, the first thing you see when you open your eyes—a lamp, a windowsill—is distorted and unfamiliar. You glitch. Draw a blank.

Imagine a distillation of this perception as an elusive high. I’d argue that the kind of fiction that bottles up this feeling and pours it down your throat is more terrifying than any haunted house, vengeful ghost, or Little Kid Who Sees Things.

That’s not to say that the time-honored elements of horror can’t be used to great and satisfying effect, or reconfigured into something wholly fresh. I’m not one to mess with the staples that make up so much of the horror I love. But it’s the off-kilter portrayal of the mundane, where reality comes unstitched in a vaguely sickening way, that really gets under your fingernails and lays its quivering eggs….

(10) MOUDRY OBIT. Southern fan Joe Moudry died October 15 reports Guy H. Lillian III. Moudry was a member of many amateur press associations (apas) over the years – the Southern Fandom Press Alliance (SFPA, where he once served as Official Editor), PAAPA, the Hyborian Legion, PEAPS, and was a member of the Esoteric Order of Dagon and its Official Editor in 1981.

(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • 1950 – Seventy-one years on this day, C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was  first published in the United Kingdom by Geoffrey Bles who would publish the first five of this series.  It is the first published and best known of seven novels in The Chronicles of Narnia. Among all the author’s books, it is also the most widely held in American and British libraries. It would be illustrated by Pauline Baynes who would later do the artwork for some of Tolkien’s work.  It was extremely popular, despite the fears of the publisher that it wouldn’t be, from the moment it was published, and has remained so to this day. The movie of sixteen years vintage also enjoys an equally popular reception with a box office just behind Revenge of the Sith, and audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently giving it an eighty percent rating. 

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born October 16, 1854 — Oscar Wilde. Writer, Journalist, Playwright, and Poet from Ireland whose only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, has been translated into more than a dozen languages, made into countless radio plays, musicals, TV films and movies — the 1945 version of which was awarded a Retro Hugo at CoNZealand — and had enduring influence on modern popular culture as an examination of morality. His long list of short fiction credits includes some fairy tales and genre stories, of which the best known is “The Canterville Ghost”, which has likewise undergone a copious number of translations and adaptations into various media. (Died 1900.)
  • Born October 16, 1925 — Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury, 96. She first shows up in a genre work as Sibyl Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray. A few years later, she’s Queen Anne of France in The Three Musketeers. Somewhat later, she’s Miss Eglantine Price in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. She voices Mommy Fortuna in The Last Unicorn, and is Granny in A Company of Wolves which won the  BSFA Award for Best Film and it’s based off Angela Carter’s A Company of Wolves. And yes she’s in Mary Poppins Returns as The Balloon Lady. And I’ll toss in the stage production of The King and I where she was Anna Leonowens as that was at least genre adjacent.
  • Born October 16, 1940 — Barry Corbin, 81. Actor whose face will be familiar from his many character roles — frequently as gruff military officers or crusty eccentrics — including those in genre movies WarGames, My Science Project, Ghost Dad, Race to Space, Dawn of the Crescent Moon, Curdled, Critters 2, and Timequest, which appears to be an uncredited version of Greg Benford’s Timescape (which provided the name for the Pocket Books line of science fiction novels helmed by David G. Hartwell in the early 1980s). He narrated Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon, based on the book by Mercury Seven astronaut Alan Shepard.
  • Born October 16, 1956 — Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, 65. Aside from appearing on Xena: Warrior Princess, Star Trek: Voyager, and Quantum Leap, she’s lent her voice acting to The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Naruto, X-Men, and Bleach to name but a few of her roles. She was a Guest of Honor at Anime Expo 2007, Long Beach.
  • Born October 16, 1963 — Glenn Glazer, 58. Conrunner and Fan who has been on the concoms for many Worldcons and regional conventions, chaired a Smofcon and a Westercon, and was one of three vice-chairs for Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon. He has been involved in a number of APAs, including SWAPA, Mutations, The Calling, LASFAPA, APA-69, and APA-FNORD.
  • Born October 16, 1971 — Lawrence Schimel, 50. Writer, Editor, Poet, and Translator. He is a founding member of The Publishing Triangle, an organization promoting fiction by LGBTQ authors and/or with LGBTQ themes, which inform many of his short fiction works. He has edited, mostly in collaboration with Martin H. Greenberg, at least 10 anthologies. His solo anthology, Things Invisible to See, and one of his short fiction collections were both recognized with Lambda Award nominations, and his speculative poetry has garnered a Rhysling Award nomination and a win. 
  • Born October 16, 1917 — Claire Necker. This might be going a little astray from genre birthdays but I think not, given most of us have SJW creds. A librarian by trade, she wrote a number of feline related academic works including The Natural History of Cats, Supernatural Cats: An Anthology which includes writers such as Fritz Lieber and H.P. Lovecraft , Four Centuries of Cat Books and Cat’s Got Our Tongue which is are feline cantered proverbs. She unfortunately has not made into the digital realm. (Died 2010.)
  • Born October 16, 1973 — Eva Röse, 48. Most likely best known for her role as the android Niska in Season 1 of the Swedish Äkta människor  (Real Humans) upon which AMC’s Humans was based. She also was one of the voice cast for the animated Creepschool series, and was Jasmie on The Befallen, a supernatural series that lasted one season there. 

(13) COMICS SECTION.

  • Speed Bump shows a famous monster with a terrible problem.

(14) GACHAPON. “A Tiny Gas Meter? The More Mundane the Better for Japan’s Capsule Toys” says the New York Times.

… Isolated in their plastic spheres, the tiny reproductions feel like a metaphor for Covid-era life. On social media, users — as gachapon designers insist on calling their customers — arrange their purchases in wistful tableaus of life outside the bubble, Zen rock gardens for the 21st century. Some have faithfully recreated drab offices, outfitted with whiteboards and paper shredders, others business hotel rooms complete with a pants press.

For Mr. Yamanishi, whose company, Toys Cabin, is based in Shizuoka, not far from Tokyo, success is “not about whether it sells or not.”

“You want people to ask themselves, ‘Who in the world would buy this?’” he said.

It’s a rhetorical question, but in recent years, the answer is young women. They make up more than 70 percent of the market, and have been especially active in promoting the toys on social media, said Katsuhiko Onoo, head of the Japan Gachagacha Association. (Gachagacha is an alternative term for the toys.)…

The products are not particularly profitable for most makers, but they offer designers a creative outlet and find a ready customer base in a country that has always had a taste for whimsy, said Hiroaki Omatsu, who writes a weekly column about the toys for a website run by the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper.

“Creating gachapon for adults is all about devoting yourself to making something that’s worthless,” he said. “‘This is ridiculous’ is the highest form of praise.”

(15) TODAY’S TIME TRAVEL FAQ. Courtesy of Keaton Patti.

I was going to have to revoke the previous joke til I confirmed he wasn’t talking about Gene Wolfe in this tweet —

(16) ZERO SUM GAME. Eater reports on how a “Robot Cafe Considers Itself Pro-Worker by Not Hiring Any Workers”.

Despite fully automated luxury communism sounding pretty sweet, Western workers have mostly felt haunted the specter of our jobs being taken by robots. Take RC Coffee, Canada’s first “robotic cafe,” aka an “unattended espresso machine,” which is basically a glorified version of whatever spat sludge and foam into a cup for five quarters in your college dorm’s lounge. But it is probably aware of that association, and the fear that kiosks like it could actually replace a barista, so it’s trying a new tactic; robots as pro-worker….

(17) FESS UP. They’d still like to get it back. “Rock. Paper. Pranksters.” At University of Oregon’s “Around the O.”

OK, mystery pranksters. It’s been 43 years since the Great Halloween Meteorite Caper of ’78. Your identities have never become widely known. Time to come forward.

Halloween night that year, a group calling itself the Meteorite Cleaning Service staged a distraction at Prince Lucien Campbell Hall. “A strangling man appeared to be hanging from a window of PLC. Campus security went to investigate only to discover the man was in fact a balloon, a shirt, and some pants,” student reporter Jock Hatfield wrote in the Oregon Daily Emerald.

While campus security responded to PLC, the pranksters headed to the Museum of Natural History, then located in what is now Pacific Hall. Their target was on display out front: a life-size, plaster-and-chicken-wire replica of the sixth-largest meteorite found on Earth, the Willamette Meteorite or “Tomanowos,” as named by the Clackamas people.

The next day, “it was immediately evident the meteorite replica was gone,” remembers Alice Parman, then the museum director. Eight hundred pounds of mock rock, 12 feet wide and 6 feet tall, gone, leaving nothing but questions: Why? How? And who?…

(18) CHINA SENDS CREW TO THEIR SPACE STATION. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] “China launches 6-month crewed mission as it cements position as global space power” reports CNN. Crew includes Wang Yaping, first female taikonaut on the station and first scheduled to do a spacewalk.

China launched a three-person crew into space in the early hours of Saturday — a major step for the country’s young space program, which is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most advanced.

The three astronauts lifted off on the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft just past midnight local time, launched by a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, located in Inner Mongolia.

They will dock at China’s new space station, Tiangong (which means Heavenly Palace), six and a half hours after launch. They will live and work at the station for 183 days, or just about six months — the country’s longest mission yet….

(19) WOOF, WOOF, BANG, BANG. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] While they look like cousins, don’t confuse this robodog with Boston Dynamics’ Spot. The much-less-aptly-named canid-like bot Vision 60 is made by Ghost Robotics out of Philly. A version of Vision has been demonstrated carrying a sniper rifle, albeit one that is aimed and fired by a remote operator. Unarmed versions of Vision 60 have been used in military exercises. The article doesn’t address whether Ghost Robotics has any customers for the armed version. “Welp, Now We Have Robo-Dogs With Sniper Rifles” at Popular Mechanics.

Science fiction has seeped into science reality this week, as a robotics company showed off its sniper rifle-equipped robo-dog at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual convention in Washington, D.C.

Sure, the quadruped robot might resemble a good boy, but it’s packing a built-in sniper rifle capable of engaging targets from three-quarters of a mile away. The service could operate this robotic weapon system remotely. Importantly, it would only engage targets with permission from a human being….

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Extent” is an sff short film distributed by DUST.

Time stands still as two old friends attempt to grapple with a question that defines their very existence. If you could live forever, would you?

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Rich Lynch, Cora Buhlert, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Jeffrey Smith, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Rob Thornton.]

Pixel Scroll 10/10/21 The Lone And Level Pixels Stretch Far Away

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(1) SAINT OF STEEL CONTINUES. Oor Wombat has a third Paladin book out today, written in her guise as T. Kingfisher.

Piper is a lich-doctor, a physician who works among the dead, determining causes of death for the city guard’s investigations. It’s a peaceful, if solitary profession…until the day when he’s called to the river to examine the latest in a series of mysterious bodies, mangled by some unknown force.

Galen is a paladin of a dead god, lost to holiness and no longer entirely sane. He has long since given up on any hope of love. But when the two men and a brave gnole constable are drawn into the maze of the mysterious killer, it’s Galen’s job to protect Piper from the traps that await them.

He’s just not sure if he can protect Piper from the most dangerous threat of all…

Here are some early returns from the readers on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/skulleigh/status/1447310957982724105

(2) BARRELLING OVER LEVIATHAN FALLS. In “The Expanse Saga Takes Its Final Space Flight”, Publishers Weekly interviews authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck about how they created the story arc.

…Their aspirations were extremely modest initially. “The original concept for this was we would write Leviathan Wakes and sell it for pizza money,” Abraham said.

Franck added, “We didn’t have high expectations for it being a big new title or anything. And that’s what Daniel means by pizza money—you know, you could sell it for a few thousand bucks, and high-five each other, and that’d be the end of it.”

They did have a firm idea of where their story could continue after that first novel, however. “When we sent it out, we wrote one-paragraph outlines of what the next two books would be,” Franck said. “We sent that to the publisher too. And they bought three books based on one complete book and two one-paragraph blurbs. It was when we started writing the second book that we actually sat down and said, ‘Let’s have a good plan for this. Let’s figure this out.’ And that was when we really started to plan out what the longer story would be.”

The plan, inevitably, changed a bit. While the authors once contemplated writing 12 books, they cut out three after realizing their ideas for what would have followed the sixth book, 2016’s Babylon’s Ashes, were just a “boring rehash.” Instead, the seventh book, 2017’s Persepolis Rising, featured a dramatic time jump that allowed the authors to give the solar system time to stabilize after the events of the prior book.

Not much else changed, though. Franck said he had pitched “the last scene and the last line of the last scene” of Levithan Falls to his colleague around 2012.

The Expanse has sold a total of four million copies in North American and has been translated into 21 languages, according to Orbit, its publisher. Interest in the series has continually grown and Levithan Falls has a first printing of 125,000 copies….

(3) SUPERSAVER. “How ‘Adventures of Superman’ star Jack Larson saved a piece of Charlie Chaplin history and met Seinfeld” – Decades has a memory about the actor who played Jimmy Olsen.

… [In 1955] Chaplin had sent for his films and memorabilia to be shipped to Europe.

But Chaplin only kept certain costumes and props. Other props lying around Chaplin Studios were being tossed in the trash. One prop that was about to end up in the garbage can was a rubber wrench that Chaplin used to great effect in the classic film Modern Times.

While working on Superman, Larson saw this cinematic crime about to happen and couldn’t sit still. He begged them to let him have it. They thought he was nuts for asking for this piece of rubber….

(4) TRANSLATING TOLKIEN. The virtual Tolkien Society Autumn Seminar with the theme “Translating and Illustrating Tolkien will take place November 6. It is free, sign up at the link.

Tolkien’s appeal has led to his fiction and non-fiction being translated into over fifty languages. The art of translation is immensely complex and when discussing the Dutch translation of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien himself saw the task as “formidable”, offering his own supportive intervention to achieve a satisfactory result. The author’s invented names and languages prompt the question of how the translator should approach Tolkien’s immense mythology. Recent scholarship has emphasised the need for a wider range of Tolkien’s work to be translated in order for readers to gain a fuller understanding of Arda and the author’s development. But with a wealth of translated texts existing already, this seminar hopes to spark new interpretations about old texts and for unacknowledged translations to be brought to light and examined….

(5) TAFF REPORT AVAILABLE. Anna Raftery’s report of her TAFF trip to MidAmeriCon II (the 74th Worldcon) in 2016, Cuttlefish and Cake, can now be acquired for a donation of £5 at the link. Purchase will give you access to the PDF and MP3 versions of the report. All proceeds will go to TAFF.

(6) NEWS, GOOD AND OTHERWISE. David Brin has rounded up a bunch of interesting science links “Gravitational waves, Snowball Earth … and more science!” at Contrary Brin.

…A fascinating paper dives into the SFnal question of “what-if” – specifically if we had been as stupid about the Ozone Layer as we are re climate change. The paper paints a dramatic vision of a scorched planet Earth without the Montreal Protocol, what they call the “World Avoided”. This study draws a new stark link between two major environmental concerns – the hole in the ozone layer and global warming – and how the Montreal Accords seem very likely to have saved us from a ruined Earth.

Going way, way back, the Mother of Modern Gaia Thought – after whom I modeled a major character in Earth – the late Lynn Margulis, has a reprinted riff in The Edge – “Gaia is a Tough Bitch” – offering insights into the kinds of rough negotiations between individuals and between species that must have led to us. Did eukaryotes arise when a large cell tried and failed to eat a bacterium? Or when a bacterium entering a large cell to be a parasite settled down instead to tend our ancestor like a milk cow? The latter seems slightly more likely!

Not long after that, (in galactic years) some eukaryotes joined to form the first animals – sponges – and now there are signs this may have happened 250M years earlier that previously thought, about 890 Mya, before the Earth’s atmosphere was oxygenated and surviving through the Great Glaciation “Snowball Earth” events of the Kirschvink Epoch….

(7) EXPANSE REACHES ITS LIMIT. The Expanse’s sixth and final season arrives December 10 on Amazon Prime.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

  • 2008 – Thirteen years ago this October, G. Willow Wilson’s most excellent Air series would see its first issue on Vertigo, an imprint of DC comics, published. It’s illustrated by Turkish artist M. K. Perker, and it tells the story of Blythe, an acrophobic flight attendant, who gets involved with a terrorist from a country that doesn’t exist. Amelia Earhart and Quetzalcoatl are crucial characters. Reception was sharply divided with folks within our community such as Neil Gaiman and Gail Simone loving it but with mainstream critics pretty much dismissing it for both for the story and the artwork. It would last but twenty four issues before being cancelled due to low sales. It’s not available digitally but is easily had in the four trade paper collections for reasonable prices at online sellers. Oddly enough, it’s not listed on ISFDB even though it’s clearly fantasy, but then neither is her graphic novel Cairo which is also quite excellent.  Does ISFDB have a bias against graphic novels? 

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born October 10, 1924 — Ed Wood Jr. Though best remembered for Plan 9 from Outer Space which inexplicably has a sixty-eight percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes, he did a lot of terribly bad genre films including Night of the Monster and Bride of The Ghouls. (Died 1978.)
  • Born October 10, 1927 — Dana Elcar. Most of you will remember him as Peter Thornton on MacGyver, but he has a long genre history including Russ in Condorman which was inspired by Robert Sheckley’s The Game of X. He also played Sheriff George Paterson in Dark Shadows, and showed up in 2010 as Dimitri Moisevitch. (Died 2005.)
  • Born October 10, 1929 — Robin Hardy. Wicker Man is the film he’s known for though he followed that up with The Wicker Tree, an adaptation of his Cowboys for Christ novel. Anyone seen it? The Bulldance is at least genre adjacent. (Died 2016.)
  • Born October 10, 1931 — Victor Pemberton. Writer of the script for the “Fury from the Deep”, a Second Doctor story in which he created the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. He had appeared as an actor in the series, in a non-speaking role as a scientist in “The Moonbase”, a Second Doctor story. In the Seventies, he wrote the BBC Doctor Who and the Pescatons audio drama which I remember hearing. It was quite excellent. (Died 2007.)
  • Born October 10, 1941 — Peter Coyote, 70. He actually did two genre films in 1982 with the first being Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann in which he appeared as Porter Reese and the second being E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial which he’s Keys, the Agent hunting E.T. down. (Not so named in the film but in the novelization.)  Sphere in which he’s Captain Harold C. Barnes is his next SF outing followed by The 4400 and FlashForward series being his next major genre involvements.
  • Born October 10, 1966 — Bai Ling, 55. She’s Miss West in that wretched Wild West West and the Mysterious Women in the exemplary Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, she has a major role as Guanyin in The Monkey King which aired on Syfy. Nope, not seen that one. Her last genre role was Zillia in Conjuring: The Book of the Dead, a horror film riffing off Alastair Crowley. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) NEVERENDING STORY. Read the first chapter of Douglas Wolk’s All of the Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told at Entertainment Weekly.

The twenty-seven thousand or so superhero comic books that Marvel Comics has published since 1961 are the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages to date, and growing. Thousands of writers and artists have contributed to it. Every week, about twenty slim pamphlets of twenty or thirty pages apiece are added to the body of its single enormous story. By design, any of its episodes can build on the events of any that came before it, and they’re all (more or less) consistent with one another….

(12) BEFORE AND BEHIND THE CAMERA. A profile of Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the October 2 Financial Times notes she is involved in two franchises: she co-wrote No Time To Die and is an actor in Indiana Jones 5. (I had to take a three-question survey about underwear brands to get free access to the article – make sure your drawers are in order.) “Phoebe Waller-Bridge: the writer making James Bond ‘a little bit twisted’”.

…The marriage between quirky creativity and mega budgets can be fraught. Waller-Bridge, who stars opposite Harrison Ford in the fifth instalment of Indiana Jones, has been coy about her contributions to the latest Bond film. Those hoping to find Fleabag will be disappointed. The secret agent retains some of his old cheesiness. Yet the central speech by sinister villain Lyutsifer Safin contained a reminder of Waller-Bridge’s protagonist: “I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life?.?.?. because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong.”…

(13) TRIPPING. Victoria Silverwolf finds a clever lead for a review of the latest (in 1966) issue of Worlds of Tomorrow at Galactic Journey: “[October 10, 1966] Let’s Take A Trip (November 1966 Worlds of Tomorrow)”.

… Until this month, this hallucinogenic drug [LSD] was legal everywhere in the USA. On October 6, it became illegal in the state of California. In response to the new law, on the same day thousands of people showed up for a so-called Love Pageant Rally in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. They enjoyed music from local artists, and many took doses of LSD in defiance of the law….

Even if you live in California, you can enjoy a trip deep into your imagination in a perfectly legal manner, simply by opening the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. Fittingly, almost all the fiction takes place in the far reaches of interstellar space….

(14) INSIDE TZ. Marc Scott Zicree is doing full episode commentaries on over 100 Twilight Zone episodes that will supplement those he did for the official disc set. To find out how to buy them, look at Twilight Zone Commentaries.

The official Twilight Zone BluRay set contained 54 full-length detailed, informative, and entertaining commentaries by Marc Scott Zicree. And now, Marc continues where that left off, with commentaries of the remaining 102 Twilight Zone episodes delivered in a convenient app on your phone, tablet, laptop, SmartTV, or other device.

(15) FOUNDATION GARMENT. You’ve read the series – now buy the shirt that looks as old as it is — Foundation unisex book t-shirt from Out of Print.

The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov received the 1966 Hugo Award for Best All-Time series, beating out the Lord of the Rings. Foundation is the first book in that trilogy.

Each purchase helps to fund literacy programs and book donations to communities in need.

(16) ASTRO’S COUSINS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Also in the Financial Times, columnist John Gapper, in a column about the Amazon Astro, made a Doctor Who reference that was news to me.

There is a well-known Punch cartoon of some Daleks from Dr Who at the foot of a staircase, cursing that their plans to conquer the universe are ruined.  This machine (the Astro) suffers from similar limitations:  It can navigate apartments but would be stymied by a two-storey house.

(17) READY FOR EVERY EMERGENCY. “Star Trek: Prodigy Gives Extended Look at Captain Janeway Hologram” at CBR.com.

… At Prodigy‘s panel at New York City Comic-Con, the show debuted a minute-long clip from the show’s pilot episode. In it, the hologram introduces herself to the ragtag group of young aliens, announcing she is the Emergency Training Hologram for the USS Protostar. Little does she know that everything is far from routine on this ship.

After making her introductions, Tellurite Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas) criticizes her looks, prompting a snippy response to show that Janeway’s snark made its way into the programming. The crew does no better job after that first impression to show that they have any idea what they’re doing. Shy Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui) doesn’t even know what a Federation is.….

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, John Coxon, Lise Andreasen, Daniel Dern, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Paul Weimer.]

Pixel Scroll 9/10/21 It Was A Pixel Scroll Of Rare Device

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(1) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman offers listeners a chance to feast on Indian food with Veronica Schanoes in episode 153 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Veronica Schanoes

Award-winning writer Veronica Schanoes and I shared Indian food though there were hundreds of miles between us — hers from Brooklyn, New York’s Masala Grill, me from Hagerstown, Maryland’s Sitar of India.

Veronica Schanoes has published fiction in the magazines Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Sybil’s Garage, and Fantasy; the anthologies The Doll Collection, Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction; and online at Strange Horizons and Tor.com. Her novella “Burning Girls” was nominated for the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award, and won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novella in 2013. Her first scholarly monograph, Fairy Tales, Myth, and Psychoanalytic Theory: Feminism and Re-telling the Tale, was published by Ashgate in 2014. Her collection Burning Girls and Other Stories was published earlier this year.

We discussed what it’s been like trying to write her first novel during a pandemic, why she can only read Jane Yolen’s intro to her new collection half a page at a time, how she makes sure her fairy tale-inspired fiction works even for those who don’t catch the allusions, the joy which comes from putting the right words in the right order, how Kelly Link convinced her she should take herself seriously as a writer, whether research inspires stories or stories inspire research (and how writers make sure they don’t force readers to suffer for that research), the way fairy tales take place “outside of historical space-time,” the importance of Joe Strummer and the Clash, and much more.

(2) MODERN THOUGHT. S.E. Lindberg interviews pulp scholar and sword-and-sorcery author and editor Jason Ray Carney at Black Gate. “Sublime, Cruel Beauty: An Interview with Jason Ray Carney”.

What is this concept of Modernity, and why did it haunt/inspire you to write a thesis on it?

Modernity is one of those concepts with a rich intellectual history, and people spill a lot of ink over it, but it is not very complicated (in my opinion): sometimes around the 1780s, the world changed. Feudalism gave way to democracy. New technologies upset how human economies and cities were organized. Religious belief waned and changed. We stopped believing (for the most part) in the supernatural. Let me cite Max Weber again: with modernity, the world became “disenchanted.” This, of course, is only part of the story. Though this story is myopic in its Eurocentrism, it is not less valid for its narrow purview. The story of modernization outside of Europe can be told, but it will be different, with maze-like branching conversations that posit multiple “modernities.” Anyway, modernity really intrigues me.

(3) VINDICATION. In “confirmation”, former Hugo Awards administrator David Bratman tells how he once found himself at loggerheads with Locus’ Charles N. Brown.  

When I was administrator for the Hugo Awards in 1996, one of the Best Novel finalists* was Remake by Connie Willis. By that time, SF novels were tending very long, but Remake was short. Though published as a standalone volume, it made a small one.

Charles Brown of Locus,** the newsletter of the SF field, insisted to me that Remake was under 40 thousand words and thus, by Hugo rules (which were shared in this respect by most other awards in the field), it fell in the Novella category, not Novel. And indeed, in the Locus awards it was put in the Novella category, which it won (not surprisingly, being one of the longest in the category as well as being by Connie Willis)….

The rest of the analysis is at the link.

(4) FICTION IN TRANSLATION. Jennifer Croft argues “Why translators should be named on book covers” in The Guardian.

“Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.” This quote, attributed to Israeli author Etgar Keret, proliferates in memes, and who doesn’t love a pithy quote involving ninjas? Yet this idea – that a literary translator might make, at any moment, a surprise attack, and that at every moment we are deceiving the reader as part of an elaborate mercenary plot – is among the most toxic in world literature.

The reality of the international circulation of texts is that in their new contexts, it is up to their translators to choose every word they will contain. When you read Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights in English, the words are all mine. Translators aren’t like ninjas, but words are human, which means that they’re unique and have no direct equivalents. You can see this in English: “cool” is not identical to “chilly”, although it’s similar. “Frosty” has other connotations, other usages; so does “frigid”. Selecting one of these options on its own doesn’t make sense; it must be weighed in the balance of the sentence, the paragraph, the whole, and it is the translator who is responsible, from start to finish, for building a flourishing lexical community that is both self-contained and in profound relation with its model….

(5) MARTIN ON MALTIN. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] I listened to this 2018 podcast Leonard and Jessie Maltin did with Floyd Norman, a pioneering Black animator and cartoonist (Maltin on Movies: Floyd Norman).

Norman started working for Walt Disney in the mid-1950s, and remembers being at Disneyland during its opening week (but not opening day, a legendary disaster). He recalls what it was like producing feature-length animation before computers and how everyone involved in animated film “worked like Marines” until the job was done, although Walt Disney insisted everyone leave the studio at 9 to spend some time with their families. People who remember the “string of pearls” sequence in Mary Poppins should realize that was a sequence that stressed out the animators.

Norman talked about how he was hired and quit Disney several times, and was involved in developing the stories for PIxar’s Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc.  He also self-published his own books of cartoons, including one entirely devoted to making fun of Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who Norman thinks a major egotist.  Norman says Eisner didn’t mind the criticism, “as long as the book was about him.”

This may be too DIsney-centric for some but I enjoyed this episode.

(6) CHECK IT OUT. The New Yorker’s Daniel A. Gross analyzes “The Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books”.

The sudden shift to e-books had enormous practical and financial implications, not only for OverDrive but for public libraries across the country. Libraries can buy print books in bulk from any seller that they choose, and, thanks to a legal principle called the first-sale doctrine, they have the right to lend those books to any number of readers free of charge. But the first-sale doctrine does not apply to digital content. For the most part, publishers do not sell their e-books or audiobooks to libraries—they sell digital distribution rights to third-party venders, such as OverDrive, and people like Steve Potash sell lending rights to libraries. These rights often have an expiration date, and they make library e-books “a lot more expensive, in general, than print books,” Michelle Jeske, who oversees Denver’s public-library system, told me. Digital content gives publishers more power over prices, because it allows them to treat libraries differently than they treat other kinds of buyers. Last year, the Denver Public Library increased its digital checkouts by more than sixty per cent, to 2.3 million, and spent about a third of its collections budget on digital content, up from twenty per cent the year before….

(7) UP ALL NIGHT. It so happens the only time I ever watched Adult Swim was sitting in a hospital waiting room after driving someone to ER — but that’s not a knock, what I saw was pretty amusing. The New York Times celebrated the program block’s 20th anniversary with an oral history: “Adult Swim: How an Animation Experiment Conquered Late-Night TV”.

By all accounts, it was a minor miracle that Adult Swim ever made it off the drawing board 20 years ago. Money was next to nonexistent. The editor of Cartoon Network’s first original series worked from a closet. A celebrity guest on that series, unaware of the weirdness he had signed up for, walked out mid-taping.

In retrospect, it seems right that one of modern TV’s most consistent generators of bizarro humor — and cult followings — had origins that were, themselves, pretty freewheeling.

…WILLIS The idea for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” started with a [expletive] fast food restaurant that tried to use all the scraps of meat they weren’t allowed by the F.D.A. to put into a hamburger, wadded together. We saw Meatwad as this poor, neglected creature — I think his line in his first script was like [in Meatwad voice], “Please, God, kill me.” I did the voice, and I can’t tell you how many times people said, “I don’t understand what he’s saying; you need to recast him.” But we stuck to our guns. I always thought of it like Willie Nelson, who sings real quietly, and so everyone is on the edge of their seat trying to listen to what he’s saying. As a result, you’re more into it. At least, that was my excuse! [Laughs.]

(8) LIFE OF LEWIS. A trailer dropped for the C.S. Lewis biopic titled The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story Of C.S. Lewis that arrives in theaters November 3.

(9) TIME HAS BEEN BROKEN. So they tell us. The new season of Star Trek: Picard premieres February 2022 on Paramount+.

(10) BUCKS AND BUCK ROGERS. Think of it as the military-industrial-entertainment complex: “The making of an Enterprise: How NASA, the Smithsonian and the aerospace industry helped create Star Trek” in The Space Review.

…At the end of WWII, 60–70% of the American aerospace industry was based in Southern California. The good climate and open land that helped draw aviation to the region also helped lure the motion picture industry. When Roddenberry began developing Star Trek, 15 of the 25 largest aerospace companies were located in the greater Los Angeles area. Many were situated close to Paramount’s Desilu Studios where the series was made.

Roddenberry drew upon the most current spaceflight technology then available to incorporate into Star Trek. He read, wrote, phoned and even dumpster-dived to get material for his new series.

A direct example of how the aerospace industry influenced Star Trek appears in the episode “The Trouble With Tribbles.” In this episode furry little creatures that “coo” and have a tremendous desire for eating and breeding overrun the Federation’s K-7 space station.

The principal elements of the K-7 as it is shown in the episode first appeared in a report done by Douglas Aircraft. The 1959 study outlined the operational requirements of an extendable orbiting space station. Constructed on Earth then launched atop a “Saturn-type missile,” the station was designed to automatically unfold in space into a donut-shape with a conical reentry vehicle at its center.[3]

Richard Datin, a model maker who helped build the original production model Enterprise, described how the K-7 design materialized. “I was told upon viewing the original model, and maybe by Roddenberry, that he obtained it [the Douglas space station model] from Douglas Aircraft whose main office was in nearby Santa Monica. Apparently, Gene had a following from people in the space industry, particularly Caltech in Pasadena.”

(11) MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS (1966-2021). Actor Michael K. Williams died September 6 at the age of 54 reports the New York Times.  While famous for his work in cop and crime series including The Wire and Boardwalk Empire, sff fans knew him as the lead in Lovecraft Country, and saw him in the 2014 RoboCop remake, The Purge: Anarchy (2014), and Ghostbusters (2016).

(12) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • 1977 – Forty-four years ago this evening on CBS, Space Academy, a Filmation children’s series, first aired. (Jason of Star Command would come out of it.) It was created by Allen Ducovny who previously only done such animated shows as The New Adventures of Superman and Aquaman. The program starred Jonathan Harris in the lead role; co-starring were Pamelyn Ferdin, Ric Carrott, Maggie Cooper, Brian Tochi, Ty Henderson, and Eric Greene. There was a cute robot as well named Peepo. Would I kid you?  It would last for just fifteen half-hour episodes. 

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 10, 1914 — Robert Wise. Film director, producer, and editor. Among his accomplishments are directing The Curse of The Cat People, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Haunting, The Andromeda Strain and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Though not at all genre, he also directed West Side Story and edited Citizen Kane,  two exemplary accomplishments indeed. (Died 2005.)
  • Born September 10, 1937 — Spencer Milligan, 84. He’s best known for playing Rick Marshall, the father of Will and Holly Marshall, on the first two seasons of Land of the Lost. (He left because he didn’t get a cut of the merch sales.) Genre wise, he’d previously been in Woody Allen’s Sleeper as Jeb Hrmthmg, and later appeared in an episode of The Bionic Woman. That’s it.
  • Born September 10, 1952 — Gerry Conway, 69. He’s  known for co-creating  the Punisher (with artists John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru) as well as the first Ms. Marvel and scripting the death of the character Gwen Stacy during his run on The Amazing Spider-Man. He shares the story credit for Conan the Destroyer with Roy Thomas. At DC, he created a number of characters including Firestorm, Count Vertigo and Killer Croc. Not genre at all, but he wrote a lot of scripts for Law and Order: Criminal Intent, one of my favorite series.
  • Born September 10, 1953 — Stuart Milligan, 68. He first shows up as Walters on the Sean Connery-led Outland and a few years later we see him as a Police Sergeant on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. He’ll play Richard Nixon in Doctor Who for two Eleventh Doctor stories, “The Impossible Astronuat” and “Day of The Moon”. His latest genre role is in Wonder Woman 1984 as the U.S. President.
  • Born September 10, 1953 — Pat Cadigan, 68. Tea from an Empty Cup and Dervish is Digital are both amazing works. And I’m fascinated that she has co-written with Paul Dini, creator of Batman: The Animated Series, a DCU novel called Harley Quinn: Mad Love. Her only Hugo win was at LoneStarCon 3 for the “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” novelette.  Her latest work is the novelization of the first-draft Alien 3 screenplay by William Gibson. She’s well stocked at the usual suspects. 
  • Born September 10, 1955 — Victoria Strauss, 66. Author of the Burning Land two novel series, and she should be praised unto high for being founder along with AC Crispin of the Committee on Writing Scams. She maintains the Writer Beware website and blog. 
  • Born September 10, 1959 — Nancy A. Collins, 62. Author of the Sonja Blue vampire novels, some of the best of that genre I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. She had a long run on Swamp Thing from issues 110 to 138, and it is generally considered a very good period in that narrative.  She also wrote  Vampirella, the Forrest J Ackerman and Trina Robbins creation, for awhile. 
  • Born September 10, 1968 — Guy Ritchie, 53. Director of Sherlock Holmes and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, both of each I rather liked, and the live-action Aladdin. He did also directed / wrote / produced the rebooted The Man from U.N.C.L.E. which got rather nice reviews to my surprise as well as King Arthur: Legend of the Sword which apparently is quite excellent as audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a seventy percent rating. 

(14) FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD RECORD-SETTER. The Hollywood Reporter knows it’s worth a headline when “First Spider-Man Comic Book Sets Record for Biggest Sale Ever”.

The sale of Amazing Fantasy no. 15, featuring the first appearance of Spider-Man, has set the record for the most expensive comic ever sold.

The comic sold Thursday for $3.6 million as part of Heritage Auction’s Signature Comics & Comic Art auction being held Sept. 8 to 12.

The senses-shattering sale beat out the previous record, Action Comics no. 1, published in 1938 and featuring the first appearance of Superman, which sold privately for $3.25 million earlier this year.

(15) A SLEIGHLOAD TO ADD TO YOUR MT. TBR. SF² Concatenation has posted its list of “Forthcoming SF books in the run-up to Christmas UK SF book releases September – 31st December 2021” from the major UK imprints (available/or on order elsewhere from specialist bookshops). This is an advance posting (6th September) of the ‘forthcoming books’ sections’ of SF² Concatenation’s autumnal news page whose full edition will be posted September 15. 

With just 90, or thereabouts, shopping days to Christmas, time to see what SF will be published. The SF² Concatenation seasonal news page’s forthcoming books listings are an amalgamation of the titles in the catalogues sent by major UK publishers. 

As they these titles already in the catalogues, they can be ordered, or advance-ordered, now either from the publisher directly or – if you are outside the UK – from specialist SF bookshops and their related retail websites.

The books are listed alphabetically by author.

(16) SPEAKER FOR THE READ. The next episode of Essence of Wonder with Gadi Evron is “You’re Not Ender Wiggins, and That’s Okay – A Show on Strategy, Leadership, and Modern Conflict by Way of Scifi.” Streams Saturday, September 11 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern via YouTube, Facebook Live, and Twitch.

Steven Leonard, Max Brooks, Major General Mick Ryan, and Jon Klug, join us to discuss strategy, leadership, and modern conflict from the perspective of science fiction.

One of the chapters in the book is called “You’re Not Ender Wiggins, and That’s Okay” (by Will Meddings). Be still, my heart.

(17) HUGE NEWS. A T-Rex might have made a nice snack for one of these: “Researchers Identify Dinosaur Species 5 Times Larger Than the T-Rex: ‘This Is Very Exciting’” – Yahoo! News has the story.

Researchers have discovered a new species of dinosaur that loomed over Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The Calgary Herald reports that University of Calgary scientists helped identify the massive new species named Ulughbegasaurus, which roamed the earth as an apex predator 90 million years ago.

Researchers were able to identify the new species — which was five times bigger than the fearsome T-Rex — through the dinosaur’s fossilized jaw, which was likely first found by a Russian paleontologist during a dig in the 1980s.

…The researchers found that the dinosaur was between 7.5 to eight meters (24 to 26 feet) in length and likely weighed over 1,000 kilograms (2,204 lbs). At the time Ulughbegasaurus roamed the earth, the T-Rex wasn’t fully evolved and was much smaller in comparison, weighing less than 200 kilograms (440 lbs).

Comparing the two species, Zelenitsky said Ulughbegasaurus “was like a grizzly bear” if T-Rex had been a coyote….

(18) CUBE ROOTS. The New York Times shares scientists’ curiosity about a relic that lends itself to alternate history: “Did Nazis Produce These Uranium Cubes? Researchers Look for an Answer.”

The failure of Nazi Germany’s nuclear program is well established in the historical record. What is less documented is how a handful of uranium cubes, possibly produced by the Nazis, ended up at laboratories in the United States.

Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland are working to determine whether three uranium cubes they have in their possession were produced by Germany’s failed nuclear program during World War II.

The answer could lead to more questions, such as whether the Nazis might have had enough uranium to create a critical reaction. And, if the Nazis had been successful in building an atomic bomb, what would that have meant for the war?

Researchers at the laboratory believe they may know the origins of the cubes by the end of October. For the moment, the main evidence is anecdotal, in the form of stories passed down from other scientists, according to Jon Schwantes, the project’s principal investigator.

The lab does not have scientific evidence or documentation that would confirm that Nazi Germany produced the black cubes, which measure about two inches on each side. The Nazis produced 1,000 to 1,200 cubes, about half of which were confiscated by the Allied forces, he said.

“The whereabouts of most all of those cubes is unknown today,” Dr. Schwantes said, adding that “most likely those cubes were folded into our weapons stockpile.”…

(19) THE TRUTH MAY BE OUT THERE, IT’S NOT HERE. Samantha Bee of Full Frontal shares“Sam Bee’s Not-Solved Mysteriez: UFOs” on YouTube.

Sam once again dons her trench coat to take one small step for man and one giant leap for a late night television host with an “Unsolved Mysteries” obsession. That’s right…she’s trying to figure out WTF is up with UFOs!

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cora Buhlert, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Jayn.]

2021 Prix Imaginales Finalists

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The 2021 Prix Imaginales finalists were announced on April 29.  

The Prix Imaginales recognize the best works of fantasy of the year published in France in six categories, with a prize of 1,000 euros for the first five categories and 500 euros for the last two.

The winners will be announced in May, and the awards presented on October at the Imaginales festival in Epinal, France.

 [NOTE: The Prix Imaginales is a different award than the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.]

Catégorie roman francophone / French novel

  • Le Chant des cavalières, de Jeanne Mariem CORREZE, éd. Les Moutons Électriques
  • Les Chats des neiges ne sont plus blancs en hiver, de Noëmie WIOREK, éd. L’Homme Sans Nom
  • Les Chevaliers du Tintamarre, de Raphaël BARDAS, éd. Mnémos
  • Thecel, de Léo HENRY, éd. Folio SF
  • Un long voyage, de Claire DUVIVIER, éd. Aux Forges de Vulcain

Catégorie roman étranger traduit / Foreign Novel translated into French

  • Kra, de John CROWLEY, Patrick COUTON (traducteur), éd. L’Atalante
  • La Mer sans étoiles, d’Erin MORGENSTERN, Julie SIBONY (traductrice), éd. Sonatine
  • La Guerre du pavot, de Rebecca F. KUANG, Yannis URANO (traducteur),éd. Actes Sud
  • La Fileuse d’argent, de Naomi NOVIK, Thibaud ELIROFF (traducteur), éd. Pygmalion
  • Cochrane vs Cthulhu, de Gilberto VILLARROEL, Jacques FUENTEALBA (traducteur), éd. Aux Forges de Vulcain

Catégorie jeunesse / Youth category

  • Starfell, tome 1 : Violette Dupin et le jour perdu, de Dominique VALENTE, éd. Casterman
  • Akata Witch, de Nnedi OKORAFOR, Anne COHEN-BEUCHER (traductrice), éd. L’École des Loisirs
  • Ordo, d’Anthony COMBREXELLE, éd. 404 éditions
  • La Belle sauvage – La trilogie de la poussière, de Philip PULLMAN, Jean Esch (traducteur), éd. Gallimard Jeunesse
  • Bordeterre, de Julia THÉVENOT, éd. Sarbacane

Catégorie illustration / Illustration

  • Cahier de croquis du Hobbit, Alan Lee, (illustrateur),éd. Christian Bourgois
  • L’Hypothèse du lézard, de Cindy CANÉVET (illustratrice), éd. ActuSF
  • Les Archives d’Ankh-Morpok : une anthologie du Disque-monde, volume 1, de Paul KIDBY (illustrateur), éd. l’Atalante
  • Le Flocon, de Laurent GAPAILLARD (illustrateur), éd. Gallimard jeunesse

Catégorie nouvelle / Short Story

  • La Fille feu follet et autres textes, d’Ursula LE GUIN, Nardjès BENKHADDA (traductrice), Goater éditions
  • L’Hypothèse du lézard, d’Alan MOORE (auteur), Patrick MARCEL (traducteur), éd. ActuSF
  • Les Secrets du premier coffre, de Fabien CERUTTI, éd. Mnémos
  • Bienvenue à Sturkeyville, de Bob LEMAN, Nathalie SERVAL (traductrice), éd. Scylla

Catégorie prix spécial du Jury / Special Jury Award

  • Les Enfants de l’imaginaire, anges ou démons, de Jean MARIGNY, éd. Terre de Brume
  • La grande aventure du jeu de rôle, toute l’histoire des origines à nos jours, de Julien PIROU, Ynnis éditions
  • Codex des 7 couronnes, bréviaire illustré de la saga Game of Thrones, de Mathieu DEMAURE (auteur), Aurélien BAUDINAT (illustration), Ynnis éditions
  • Une histoire de feu et de sang : le Moyen Age de Game of Thrones, de Florian BESSON et Justine BRETON, éd. Presses Universitaires de France
  • Le Territoire des monstres, de Christine LUCE, éd. aux Moutons électrique
  • Merveilleux scientifique, de Jean-Luc BOUTEL, éd. aux Moutons électrique
  • Les Chats enchantés, de Christine LUCE, éd. aux Moutons électrique

Catégorie album / Album Category

  • Nuit, d’Anna GRIOT (illustratrice) et Nancy GUILBERT (autrice), éd. Courtes et longues
  • Balbuzar, de Frédéric PILLOT (illustrateur) et Gérard MONCOMBLE (auteur), éd. Daniel Maghen
  • La Famille Passiflore, Pirouette et Nymphéas, de Loïc JOUANNIGOT (auteur et illustrateur), éd. Daniel Maghen
  • Sous les palmes d’Odilon, de Jean-Charles BATY (illustrateur) et Julie BILLAULT (autrice), éd. Courtes et longues
  • Le Flocon, de Laurent GAPAILLARD (illustrateur) et Bertrand SANTINI (auteur), éd. Gallimard jeunesse

A jury composed of critics, journalists and specialists selected the literary nominees: Jacques Grasser (President), Stéphane Wieser (Director of the Festival), Victor Battaggion, deputy editor of Historia, Lloyd Chéry, Christophe de Jerphanion, Frédérique Roussel, and Natacha Vas-Deyres.

Prix Imaginales de la bande dessinée / Comics

  • Aldobrando, éd. Casterman / CRITONE Luigi (dessin), Gipi (scénario)
  • Renaissance, éd. Dargaud / EMEN (dessin), Fred Duval (scénario)
  • Terre le vieux monde, éd. Maghen / DUBOIS Christophe (dessin), Rodolphe (scénario)
  • Peau d’homme, éd. Glénat / HUBERT (dessin), ZAMZIM (scénario)
  • Carbone & Silicium, éd. Ankama / BABLET Mathieu
  • Première Née (Les Ogres-Dieux, t.4), by Hubert and Bertrand Gatignol

The jury for the Comics prize is: Jacques Grasser (President, Deputy Mayor of the Town of Épinal), Élisa Amblard (Izneo marketing manager), Frédéric Bosser (Director of DBD Magazine), Hubert Prolongeau, (Télérama), Olivier Souillé (Galerie Daniel Maghen), Laurent Vissière (Historia Bd), and Stéphane Wieser (Director of Imaginales).