25 The Demolished Hobbit

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) TERRY BROOKS ANNOUNCES SEMI-RETIREMENT. Shannara series author Terry Brooks is stepping back. Delilah S. Dawson will be producing future installments. “Easy Come, Easy Go” at Terry Brooks Online.

Let’s start with a few life facts that I have come to accept and just recently decided to address. I am now eighty-one years old. I have been writing in the Shannara series since 1968 – which is more than fifty years. I have written steadily with no breaks save for vacations and illnesses. I have a total count of just under fifty books to my name as of today. In all that time, I have been writing at least one book or often two at the same time.

I am still writing regularly, but I noticed recently that my physical and mental abilities have diminished. Not that I am derailed in any measurable way from what I was, but my endurance, concentration, attention span and memory are not what they once were. All this is a function of what aging involves and living requires of us at one point or another. I knew this was coming, but I did not expect it when it arrived and have spent my eightieth year coming to terms with its presence. Whatever happens, I do not want to be one of those writers who is remembered for going on a bit too long than his or her faculties could tolerate and thereby produce books that are less than my best work.

Accordingly, I have decided to step back from my intense writing lifestyle and settle down into a form or semi-retirement. This was a hard choice to make. I hate to admit that I don’t have the abilities I once had. But better to face up to your diminishments than pretend they don’t exist. Better to make some adjustments to account for the onset of those diminishments before the readers you rely on to support your efforts begin to point them out.

Beginning immediately, with the publishing of my new book GALAPHILE, I am stepping back in my author role and engaging help from another writer in steering the series in the proper direction with the necessary amount of care. I will no longer be doing the primary writing. My new co-author will take on that task. Instead, I will offer what help I can with providing storyline ideas, revisionary plot suggestions and a thorough overview that will help my co-author to continue to give you the kind of book you would expect of me. I know her well and have been friends with her for years. Both my editor and I have agreed that she is the right choice to take on the task of continuing SHANNARA. That she can provide the skills and inventiveness that is needed to accomplish this is something of which I am sure. She is every bit as professionally capable and committed as I am. What help and support I can give her, I will. That she will give you what you want and expect is something I am certain she will do.

Her name is Delilah Dawson, and she is a skilled professional writer and a delightful person. If you haven’t read any of her work to date, I encourage you to do so now….

(2) WORLDS OF IF #178. Justin T. O’Conor Sloane, Editor-in-Chief of the Starship Sloane Publishing Company, has announced that the second issue of Worlds of IF, the relaunched classic science fiction magazine, is available to order: Buy Worlds of IF: Science Fiction #178. Click here to see the Table of Contents.

The cover art is by Rodney Matthews (front) and Marianne Plumridge (back).

(3) SCIENCE WRITERS CONFERENCE CANCELLED. [Item by John A Arkansawyer.] Carnegie Mellon and Pitt were trading hosting duties. Now they’re not, thanks in part to budget cuts: “Pitt, CMU pull out of hosting conference for science writers” from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Citing federal funding cuts, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have pulled out of a prior commitment to host a science conference that would have brought around 1,000 visitors to the city.

The ScienceWriters conference, put on by the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, has been an annual mainstay for science journalists and communicators for years. Pitt and CMU had agreed on Nov. 6 to host and fund the conference and act as the hosting city, which rotates each year, per a Wednesday statement from the association.

“On Feb. 13, 2025, representatives of both universities informed CASW that they were withdrawing their commitment, including the financial support, for the conference,” per the statement. “Despite our efforts, subsequent discussions have not led to a resolution.”

Both Pitt and CMU said the decision to step away from the conference was directly related to federal cuts to research funding, saying those cuts cinched resources that would have otherwise made the hosting doable….

(4) SEVERAL TOP NASA STAFF CHOPPED. “NASA Eliminates Chief Scientist and Other Jobs at Its Headquarters” reports the New York Times.

NASA is eliminating its chief scientist and other roles as part of efforts by the Trump administration to pare back staff at the agency’s Washington headquarters.

The cuts affect about 20 employees at NASA, including Katherine Calvin, the chief scientist and a climate science expert. The last day of work for Dr. Calvin and the other staff members will be April 10.

That could be a harbinger of deeper cuts to NASA’s science missions and a greater emphasis on human spaceflight, especially to Mars. During President Trump’s address to Congress last week, he said, “We are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond.”

Mr. Trump did not give a timeline for astronauts to reach the red planet, and during an interview on Fox News on Sunday, he said it was not a top priority. “Is it No. 1 on my hit list?” he said. “No. It’s not really.”

He added, “It’d be a great achievement.”

The administration sent notice to Congress on Monday that NASA was abolishing the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy….

(5) FANS REACT TO NEW YASSIFIED SHREK. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Hey, sometimes an ogre of a certain age just needs a bit of, shall we say, touch-up, to feel and look their best. “Did Shrek Get a Nose Job?” asks New York Magazine.

Shrek might live in Far Far Away, but he looks like he just came back from somewhere even Farther Away: Turkey. In a newly released trailer for the highly anticipated Shrek 5, Shrek, Fiona, and their daughter (voiced by Zendaya), and Donkey all gather to scroll through ogre-thirst-trap memes with mister Mirror Mirror on the Wall. There’s no time to discuss how on the nose this is, because Shrek and Fiona have visibly undergone radical, off-putting facial reconstruction. I don’t care that these ogres are a mere amalgamation of zeros and ones inside some DreamWorks animator’s computer. This is serious.

Donkey somehow looks the same level of goofy as before, but Shrek’s and Fiona’s new faces are … jarring. Their noses are shaped differently, their philtrums are less pronounced and longer, their lips and smiles curve in odd ways, and both of them have seemingly larger eyes. It’s like they both got processed through Alix Earle’s favorite TikTok smoothing filter, or as one user on X wrote: “rhinoplasty, lip filler, cheek implants, jaw shave, chin reduction, face lift, blepharoplasty, buccal fat removal, botox, eye lift, cheek filler.”…

(6) DOCUMENTARY TRACKS THE LAST OF STAN LEE. [Item by N.] The framing here seems similar to Abraham Riesman’s nonfiction book True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee (nominated for Related Work in 2022). Will this bring the situation to a wider audience? “Stan Lee Doc Alleges Exploitation in Final Years of His Life” at IndieWire.

A new documentary on Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee claims that Lee was mistreated and exploited by some of those in his inner circle during the last few years of his life.

Jon Bolerjack, a comic book artist and a former assistant to Lee during the last four years of Lee’s life, filmed the documentary and on Tuesday launched a Kickstarter campaign looking for funding to complete the film, titled “Stan Lee: The Final Chapter.” In a trailer for the movie, Bolerjack says Lee spent “his final years enduring mistreatment, manipulation, and betrayal at the hands of a few very bad actors.”

At this writing, the Kickstarter has raised $29,079 of its $300,000 goal.

Bolerjack says the film includes interviews with other witnesses close to Lee and with comic book creators like Rob Liefeld and Roy Thomas. It also concludes with a string of interviews with other comic book artists who have seen an early cut of the footage discussing what they say are some of the shocking details.

“Seeing Stan in that situation, being taken advantage of, was really hard to watch,” artist Tyler Kirkham says in the trailer.

“I had no idea how badly he had been exploited, and that’s a message people need to hear,” comic book writer Mark Waid added.

Lee, who passed away in 2018 at age 95, was the subject of an investigation from THR shortly before his death in which it was claimed that he was the victim of elder abuse and had other individuals improperly influencing his family members and worked to gain control of his assets and money. Lee’s estate in 2023 lost an elder abuse lawsuit on a technicality against a former attorney, but Bolerjack’s documentary claims to explore other aspects of Lee’s exploitation.

The trailer for the documentary does not name any individuals specifically, but it has several sequences involving Max Anderson, Lee’s former road manager for many of his convention appearances. Anderson was named in THR’s 2018 investigation, though he has denied wrongdoing…

(7) WHEN THE WICKED WITCH LANDED ON SESAME STREET. The Wikipedia explains why you probably haven’t seen “Episode 847”.

Episode 847 (commonly known as the “Wicked Witch episode“) is the 52nd episode from the seventh season of the American educational children’s television series Sesame Street. It was directed by Robert Myhrum and written by Joseph A. Bailey, Judy Freudberg and Emily Kingsley, it originally aired on PBS on February 10, 1976. The episode involves the Wicked Witch of the West, from the film The Wizard of Oz (1939), losing her broomstick over Sesame Street and causing havoc as she attempts to recover it. Margaret Hamilton, who portrayed the witch in the film, reprises her role in the episode. Produced as the 52nd episode of the series’ seventh season, the episode was created to teach children how to overcome their fears.

Shortly after its premiere, the creators of the series and Children’s Television Workshop received numerous letters from angry parents, who said that the Wicked Witch had frightened their children. Due to this, the episode was pulled from rebroadcast and was not seen by the public again until 2019, when clips of the episode were shown during a “Lost and Found” event celebrating Sesame Street’s 50th anniversary and the full episode was archived in the Library of Congress. It was then only available for private viewing until June 2022, when it was leaked online by an unknown individual.

Scribbles To Screen is one of the YouTubers who have analyzed the episode: “Wicked Witch Sesame Street Episode Found”.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

March 11, 1952 – Douglas Adams. (Died 2001.)

By Paul Weimer: Douglas Adams is an author who competes with the equally late Terry Pratchett as the greatest humorist in science fiction and fantasy history.

I think of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as a sort of ever being re-written palimpsest. You have surely heard the stories that Adams was writing some of the original radio scripts right before the actual BBC broadcast. While this shows his ability to produce on the cutting edge of a deadline, it does mean that the polish wasn’t there. But the genius, secret of Adams was that he could write, and rewrite his work, changing it, tweaking it, altering it, reflecting it.

The core story is always there. An ordinary human (or at least he starts ordinary), Arthur Dent, winds up on an adventure in time and space when his house, and then his planet are scheduled for demolition. The details change from iteration to iteration, from radio plays, to novels, to the TV series, to the video game (one of the hardest Infocom games! That damned Babel fish!) to the movie. But the main throughline is the same. A humorous irrepressible set of characters, situations and ideas that he continually and enthusiastically refined and refined. Just like Greek Mythology is not a monolith, neither is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A person who hated and despised me in High School had exactly one thing in common with me–we were perhaps the only two people in the entire school who knew what a Vogon was. I had seen the TV show first, then read the novel, then played the game, and then only some years later when they came available on the internet, actually got to listen to the versions of the radio plays and learned the real story. I remember being upset at the changes, but have mellowed and come to see the genius of his endless reinvention and updating of the material.

And then there was Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, which is such a weird and unusual bird of an idea, and it was born, as it were, from the unfinished Doctor Who episode “Shada” that he wrote. (Yes, he wrote two of my favorite DW episodes, “The Pirate Planet” and “City of Death”. “Shada” would have been his second). Ghosts, time travel, changing history, and wry British humor. And of course, in Adams fashion, there are TV and audio adaptations of Dirk Gently, where, again, the work is changed, refined, and the palimpsest nature of his writing and humor and creations comes to light again.

Thinking of his work, in any of its iterations, always brings to me a smile. He died in 2001. Requiescat in pace. I raise a Pangalactic gargle blaster to you, good sir.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Speed Bump tests serums
Strange Brew looks beyond the lone prairie.
Thatababy must have borrowed some of that serum.
A New Yorker cartoon introduces a bummed out time travler.
Bizarro shows a rescue.

(10) DAVID EHRLICH TAKEDOWN. “’The Electric State’ Review: Another Lifeless Netflix Mockbuster” accuses IndieWire’s critic David Ehrlich.

Whatever your expectations for a (supposedly) $320 million Russo brothers Netflix movie starring Chris Pratt as a Chris Pratt type, Millie Bobby Brown as a wannabe Edward Furlong, and Woody Harrelson as the voice of an animatronic Mr. Peanut, I would recommend that you lower them.

A derivative, self-impressed, and seriously confused adventure set in the aftermath of a global war between humans and the talking robots that were “invented” by Walt Disney to amuse tourists at his theme parks (suck it, William Grey Walter!), “The Electric State” is essentially a feature-length adaptation of the argument its directors have been making in the press since “Avengers: Endgame,” the scale and success of which seemed to convince them it was the ultimate film in every sense of the word, and thus inspired them to proselytize about how cinema as we know it is about to be replaced by AI holograms of Tom Cruise or whatever. …

… Truth be told, there isn’t a single laugh — or even a knowing smile — to be found in this relentlessly stale ordeal, which does for sci-fi adventure comedies what “The Gray Man” did for action thrillers: absolutely nothing….

(11) GRRM CAMEO. Did you catch these George R. R. Martin and Robert Redford cameos in the Season 3 premiere of Dark Winds? “High Stakes Chess feat. George R. R. Martin and Robert Redford!” New episodes premiere Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on AMC and AMC+.

Dark Winds is an American psychological thriller television series created by Graham Roland. Based on the Leaphorn & Chee novel series by Tony Hillerman… Executive producers include Roland, McClarnon, George R. R. Martin and Robert Redford.

(12) ON THE ROAD. And Michael Cassutt, in a “Not-A-Blog Guest Post” tells what he’s doing for GRRM.

This is not your occasional message from George or the minions of Fevre River, but a new addition to the team – I’m Michael Cassutt, writer of fiction, non-fiction, lots of television (TWILIGHT ZONE, MAX HEADROOM, EERIE INDIANA, more recently THE DEAD ZONE and Z-NATION). Since October I’ve been working with George as his “creative director,” helping to shape and advance non-HBO TV, film and game projects and even some publishing. (No, I’m not “helping” George with his writing.)

Last spring and early summer I directed a short film titled THE SUMMER MACHINE, based on a lost TWILIGHT ZONE TV concept by George, from my script. We shot for eight days in Alamagordo and Las Cruces, New Mexico, with a cast led by Lina Esco, Charles Martin Smith and Matt Frewer, and just recently finalized the cut.

This is the fifth film that George has produced, following four adaptations of stories by his great friend Howard Waldrop: NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, HEIRS OF THE PERISPHERE, MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER and THE UGLY CHICKENS. Four are complete.

So what do you do with a short film? Theatrical exhibition is always a goal, but difficult for even feature-length projects these days.

Streaming? Yes, but you have a short film, under 40 minutes in length. Where does it fit on Netflix, Amazon, Apple+ etc.? Almost nowhere.

But you want your film seen, so . . . .

You hit the festival circuit….

(13) STEVE VERTLIEB Q&A. Interfleet Broadcasting brings viewers “75 Years Of Cherished Reflections And Memories From A Nearly 80 Year Old ‘Monster Kid’”. Steve’s segment begins 48 minutes into the video. Originally aired on Leap Day last year.

Join us for an interview with actor writer and Film Journalist Steve Vertlieb. He has spent most of his life around film makers!. John 1 hosts with the Tipsy Toaster since NY Pete is exploring and trying to find his way. Tiny Bean is also on Deck that is if those pesky internet people fix the lines after an Arcta class storm.” I was both honored and humbled on February 29th, 2024 to do a ninety-minute interview with the folks at Interfleet Broadcasting that I hope you’ll find interesting. We discuss Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Films and Literature, as well as Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury, “King Kong,” Boris Karloff, Robert Bloch, Peter Cushing, Buster Crabbe, Frank Sinatra, the early years of television, and the history of Music for the Movies, with such composers as Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa, and John Williams. I’d like to thank the hosts of the program for their most gracious kindness toward me. You’ll find the interview some forty-eight minutes into the broadcast.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, N., Steve Vertlieb, John A Arkansawyer, Justin T. O’Conor Sloane, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “Good, Bester, Best!” Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 12/28/24 A Credential, A Houyhnhnm, And A Gor Priest-King Walk Into Barsoom

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) ’69 IS DIVINE. Galactic Journey delivers kudos to the finest sff of 55 years ago: “[December 26, 1969] A Wreath of Stars (the best science fiction of 1969!)”

… Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered. Anything on this list is worth reading/watching. Just peruse the Journey library, settle into your coziest chair, and enjoy the week before New Year’s!…

For example, 1969 was a terrific year for novels:

Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The story of an American POW during World War 2, culminating in the Dresden firebombing. Vaguely SFnal, such trappings are really there so the author could approach the traumatic material at a distance. Big for a reason.

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin

An unique setting and an unique problem; a message piece for today aimed at the sexists of tomorrow.

Ubik, by Philip K. Dick

One of Dick’s less comprehensible and yet somehow more compelling works, combining a grab-bag of innovations, commentaries on commercialism, and questionings of reality.

The Jagged Orbit, by John Brunner

A novel of worsening race relations in the early 21st Century, told in Brunner’s inimitable avante garde style.

The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton

A “scientific thriller” about a mystery plague, and the efforts of five scientists to understand its origin and impact.

Honorable Mention

Isle of the Dead, by Roger Zelazny
The Face in the Frost, by John Bellairs
Operation Changeling, by Poul Anderson
Heiros Gamos, by Josephine Saxton
A Sweet Sweet Summer, by Jane Gaskell
Seahorse in the Sky, by Edmund Cooper
The Unicorn Girl, by Kurland, Michael
Macroscope, by Piers Anthony

—

We’ve got it all: fantasy, science fiction, satire, psychedelia. And more sex than ever. There’s nothing really “conventional” or “traditional” here. Even the Anderson is more outré than usual.

(2) MORE FOWL, LESS JOY ON UK TV AT CHRISTMAS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl was the second most-viewed TV programme in Brit Cit over Christmas 2024.

In fact, the top ten most watched programmes in the UK were all BBC including Doctor Who Christmas episode “Joy to the World”.

At 4.11 million viewers, it was not as popular as the King’s Christmas broadcast at 6.82 million.

Details at the BBC: “Christmas TV: Gavin and Stacey finale tops ratings”.

(3) FX WITH HUMAN FINGERPRINTS. “A Grand Return: A Cracking Set Visit to ‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’” — Animation Magazine scored a look behind the scenes.

On a recent visit to Aardman’s Bristol studio, the design of the project — from the puppetry to the set pieces — revealed (as one would expect) a healthy mix of Ealing comedy and Hollywood homage, with the impeccable artistry taking place one frame at a time!…

…With the task of managing large crews, and given the time and effort involved in making a feature-length stop-motion film, Park usually shares directorial duties — with Peter Lord on the first Chicken Run and Steve Box on The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This time he partnered with Crossingham, who for the last 10 years has been creative director of the Wallace & Gromit brand. “Merlin was always one of the top animators on all our projects,” recalls Park, “but he also seemed to get things really quickly and has done some of the best bits in the Wallace & Gromit films of late. Also, he’s good at directing and good at humor. So, when it came [time] for me to think about whom I would share the journey with, a fellow visionary, the choice wasn’t difficult really.”

At the studio, we were shown initial artwork before we saw the puppets, which are the perfect amalgamation of craft and engineering. Each detail and iteration of the designs are approved by Park and Crossingham before scans are produced for the 3D-printed molds that are used for both hard and softer materials to build onto the characters’ armatures. Over time, the techniques have evolved as more animators have worked on productions. For instance: Wallace’s jumper was originally clay and is now foam latex. Depending on what a character is doing, only heads and hands are clay, or, depending on articulation, silicone appendages are used, which is easier to maintain….

… A human-made look and feel is a vital part of Aardman animation, but the studio is not averse to technology, something Park reflects on further. “The tactile quality is the spirit of it all, really. But we work with technology a lot. It’s funny, when Toy Story came out we were asking: ‘How long have we got left?’ But there has been a genuine resurgence of stop motion, and we’ve contributed to that.”…

(4) SILENT NEVERLAND. Well, except for the organ music. “The First ‘Peter Pan’ Blockbuster Turns 100 but Hasn’t Grown Up” – learn its history from the New York Times (link bypasses the paywall).

… But another version predates all of those: “Peter Pan,” a silent film released 100 years ago this month, becoming a blockbuster in its day.

The 1924 film, which The New York Times called “a pictorial masterpiece,” was considered a pioneer in selling movie-related merchandise. But it fell out of sight after talkies replaced silent films and Walt Disney bought the film rights to make his own “Peter Pan.” Many feared it lost until it was rediscovered in the 1940s by a film preservationist who found a copy at a theater in upstate New York that had trained organists to play along with silent movies….

… Some elements of the film would have been familiar to people who had seen the play written by Barrie and first performed in 1904. The Darling children fly with the help of wires, and their canine nurse, Nana, is played by a man in a dog suit (George Ali, reprising his stage role). But its director, Herbert Brenon, also sprinkled cinematic pixie dust on the story: Captain Hook’s ship flies out of the water, Peter Pan sweeps away tiny fairies with a broom and there are close-ups of a minuscule Tinker Bell, who is usually depicted on stage as a light….

(5) THE VALUE OF DELAYING THE INEVITABLE. Doris V. Sutherland analyzes “How Naomi Kritzer’s Science Fiction Strips Away Cyberspace” at Women Write About Comics.

We have entered an era of AI slop. Periodicals are struggling with floods of submissions cooked up by ChatGPT rather than human imaginations, while readers downloading ebooks from Amazon are faced with the possibility of their latest purchase being the churned-out product of AI masquerading as actual creativity or scholarship.

While science fiction is no more affected by this than any other genre, its duty to predict the future (albeit often through an escapist lens) puts it in a unique position. SF has always had an ambivalent relationship with the real world’s scientific and technological advances; never before, though, has the genre been faced with a development that offers such a direct existential threat. So, as publishers are faced with deluges of machine-generated hackwork and technology actively strips itself of romance, what futures are SF authors dreaming up?

There are many works that can serve as answers to this question, and when the Hugo Awards were presented earlier this year, they pointed out two particularly relevant examples: namely, the pair of contrasting yet thematically overlapping stories by Naomi Kritzer which won the Best Short Story and Best Novelette categories. Even though neither addresses ChatGPT or other pseudo-creative AI directly, both stand as strong-minded retorts to our era of ever-encroaching digitisation….

(6) SUDDENLY THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. Curtis Evans helps readers climb an author’s twisted family tree in “Fredric Brown: Chronicler of Con Artists, Clowns, and Capitalist Excess” at CrimeReads.

…In the early 1890s Karl Brown forsook the Edenic little world of Oxford [Ohio] and moved to hustling and bustling Cincinnati, then a burgeoning metropolis of some 300,000 people (about the same size as it is today). There in 1894 he married Emma Graham, daughter of a railroad mail clerk, when he was twenty-two and she was twenty. After a dozen years of marriage—quite a long delay—Emma bore the couple’s only child, whom they named “Fredric” without the second “e” and the “k,” like actor Fredric March….

(7) DEAR FUTURE. Upworthy listens in as “Benedict Cumberbatch reads Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘frighteningly accurate’ letter to people living in 2088”. Includes a link to the speech.

…To work with “Nature’s stern but reasonable surrender terms,” Vonnegut advised the following:

1. Reduce and stabilize your population.

2. Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.

3. Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.

4. Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.

5. Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.

6. Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.

7. And so on. Or else.

(8) RIPPED SHIRT AND JODHPURS. You can own this iconic pulp fashion statement: “Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze One:12 Collective Doc Savage (Deluxe Edition) Action Figure”, offered at Big Bad Toy Store. (Click for larger images.)

Doc Savage – The Man of Bronze, leaps off the pages of pulp fiction and into the One:12 Collective!

The One:12 Collective Doc Savage is decked out in his iconic rugged safari shirt, jodhpurs and high-boots with secret compartments. Also included are a ripped shirt option, his trusted utility vest and two wristband options. The Man of Bronze features four interchangeable head portraits, including one with side-parted hair from the pulp era, and the others showcasing his buzzcut with a widow’s peak as seen in pocket novels and comics.

Fully equipped and ready for action, Doc Savage carries an array of weapons and gadgets, including night vision goggles, a gas mask, an infrared lantern, a bowie knife, a mini periscope, a folding grapple hook, multiple grenades, and his Super Machine Pistol paired with ammo rounds and blaster FXs.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born December 28, 1932 – Nichelle Nichols. (Died 2022.)

By Paul Weimer: A woman of color on the bridge of the USS Enterprise. Unpossible.

Possible, and Nichelle Nichols made it happen.

Even watching The Original Series in reruns in the late 70’s and early 1980’s, I could see how revolutionary, iconic and important her role as Lt. Uhura really was. Like Koenig’s Chekov and Takei’s Sulu, her presence helped solidify that the future of space and the world was not exclusively the province of white men doing white manly things.

Certainly, she was often underserved by scripts and reduced usually to a glorified telephone operator, but when she did get the chance to shine, did she shine. “Mirror, Mirror”, particularly, she is essential to helping keep the Mirror Universe crew off balance and allowing them all a chance to get home.

And of course, there was that kiss in “Plato’s Stepchildren” with Kirk, the kiss that drew the ire of the conservatives of the American South. Reportedly, the plan was to film the scene with and without the kiss, but Nichols conspired with Shatner to mess up every non-kiss take, and so the scene had to be included.

Even so, she nearly left the series early, but Dr. Martin Luther King asked her to stay on the series, emphasizing the importance of her place on the bridge. She did, and I am very glad that she did.

But my favorite Nichelle Nichols Uhura moment wasn’t in the original series, or the first two movies. No, it comes in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Kirk has to managed to steal the Enterprise to go after Spock, whose soul is lodged in Dr. McCoy (and none too happy about it). Uhura is crucial to the plan to getting control of the transporter and allowing Kirk and the others to get onto the Enterprise and steal it. “Mr Adventure” (the bored transporter officer bowled over by Nichols’ Uhura) never knew what hit him. Like in “Mirror, Mirror”, you underestimate Nichols’ Uhura at your peril. Subsequent depictions of the character have taken Nichols’ direction and lead in this regard and run with it.

Outside of Star Trek, her work with NASA helped recruit numerous people to the astronaut program, particularly women and people of color. I figure it was a way of her paying things forward.

She died in 2022. Requiscat in pace.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY, TOO.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born December 28, 1922 – Stan Lee. (Died 2018.)

By Paul Weimer: The ultimate comic book fan and creator.

I’ve mentioned in other essays that I am a Marvel over a DC fan when it comes to comics as well as the movies. This was true long before Iron Man started the MCU, this goes back to my first comic reading in the 1980’s. I didn’t start my comic reading in DC, I started with Marvel.

And the man who made that all possible was Stan Lee. His characters, his worlds, his ideas appealed to me more. Yes, I am talking about Spiderman, the ultimate misunderstood young man, co-created by Lee and Steve Ditko. So it was thanks to Lee’s co-creation of Spiderman that I started reading comics, and those comics were Marvel. And while Superfriends the cartoon was fun enough…it was Spiderman and his Amazing Friends that was the cartoon that I liked even more.

My first actual comic book was a Spiderman and a Wasp issue. I didn’t have issues before or after, and I am not sure how I got it. I just remember it involved the mercenary superhero Paladin, who had an American Express card in the name of his superhero name.

Finally, I enjoyed the many cameos that Lee managed in the Marvel movies, from Iron Man all the way to Guardians of the Galaxy. For his creation or co-creation of so many characters and aspects of the Marvel verse, it amused me for Lee in so many faces to show up again, and again, and yet again. He was the creator of the Marvel verse…and its biggest fan at the same time. Like a Hitchcock film, spotting Stan Lee in a Marvel movie was a spectator spot for me.

Stan Lee, alas, died in 2016.

Excelsior, good sir.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro admires sartorial splendor.
Cornered changes one letter.
Reality Check narrows it down.
Thatababy borrows a witch’s minion.

(12) THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Contingent Magazine would like you to know about “The ‘Tooth’ Behind Star Trek”.

…During the 1960s, Air Force lieutenant colonel Jack L. Hartley served at Brooks Air Force Base, where he studied the problem of what to do if an astronaut got a toothache while in space. As a result, Hartley developed the science of astrostomatology (space dentistry), along with a portable astronaut dental kit for the Aerospace Medical Division of the Air Force Systems Command.

Hartley published numerous papers about his research, which got him noticed by the media. He also promoted astrostomatology and his astronaut dental kit through appearances on television shows like What’s My Line, To Tell the Truth, and The Tonight Show. When he presented Johnny Carson with a real human skull, to show how to give injections to the upper and lower jaws to make them numb, Carson couldn’t resist holding up the skull and intoning: “Alas, poor Yorick!”

I was able to track down Hartley’s daughter, Patricia, a retired archivist who worked at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Patricia explained her late father’s role in the creation of Star Trek: “He collaborated a fair amount with Roddenberry. He [Roddenberry] was really very good about trying to get things right, in spite of the fact that he had a very limited budget. And he didn’t have a lot of tools to show. But he created a whole lot of things. And Dad was just one of the ones that he was talking to help him design this stuff.” …

(13) INSPIRATION. “Gregory Maguire reveals the movie line that inspired ‘Wicked’” at Upworthy. (It’s not “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”)

… Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter’s farm in Cumbria, England, and thinking about “The Wizard of Oz,” which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

“I thought ‘alright, what do we know about ‘The Wizard of Oz’ from our memories,'” he said. “We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

“There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, ‘I might have known you’d be behind this, Glinda!’ This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda’s first name? They have known each other. Maybe they’ve known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together.”…

(14) WICKED DELETED SCENES. Several are available on YouTube. USA Today devotes an article to one of them: “’Wicked’ deleted scene shows Ariana Grande’s Galinda hit with news”. (Click here to see the scene.)

…Start spreading the news — charming Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) is leaving today to go to Shiz University in this deleted scene from the blockbuster musical “Wicked.”

Most popular Shiz student Galinda (Ariana Grande) literally gets hit with the news as The Shiz Gazette, proclaiming Prince Fiyero’s arrival, flies into her beautiful face.

The dazzling scene that follows the floating newspaper around the buzzing university didn’t make it into director Jon M. Chu’s adaption of the beloved Broadway musical, which clocked in at 2 hours and 40 minutes (and it was only the first of two parts).

However, the moment and other deleted scenes will be featured on the “Wicked” digital release, due Dec. 31…

(15) BLINDED BY THE LIGHT. [Item by Steven French.] Those of us who have to drive around in low winter sun (like right now, here in the North of England!) will certainly sympathise with future astronauts: “Astronauts face unique visual challenges at lunar south pole”.

Humans are returning to the moon—this time, to stay. Because our presence will be more permanent, NASA has selected a location that maximizes line-of-sight communication with Earth, solar visibility, and access to water ice: the Lunar South Pole (LSP).

While the sun is in the lunar sky more consistently at the poles, it never rises more than a few degrees above the horizon; in the target landing regions, the highest possible elevation is 7°. This presents a harsh lighting environment never experienced during the Apollo missions, or in fact, in any human spaceflight experience.

The ambient lighting will severely affect the crews’ ability to see hazards and to perform simple work. This is because the human vision system—which, despite having a high-dynamic range—cannot see well in bright light and cannot adapt quickly from bright to dark or vice versa.

(16) LUCKIER THAN ICARUS. “NASA’s Parker Solar Probe phones home after surviving historic close sun flyby. It’s alive!” – Space.com says, “The spacecraft flew within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the solar surface to ‘touch the sun’ on Christmas Eve.”

Two days after a historic Christmas Eve sun flyby that flew closer to the star than any spacecraft in history — taking the car-sized spacecraft nearly a tenth as close to the sun than Mercury — the Parker Solar Probe phoned home for the first time since its solar encounter. The space probe sent a simple yet highly-anticipated beacon tone to Earth just before midnight late Thursday (Dec. 26).

Scientists on Earth were out of contact with the Parker Solar Probe since Dec. 20, when the spaceraft began its automated flyby of the sun, so the signal is a crucial confirmation that the spacecraft survived, and is in “good health and operating normally,” NASA shared in an update early Friday (Dec. 27).

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

Pixel Scroll 12/16/24 Baby Yoda Is Three

Posted on December 16, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) SOLVING FOR UNKNOWNS. Alec Nevala-Lee is editing a new bimonthly puzzle feature for Analog, called “Unknowns,” that will run original puzzles in every issue of the magazine. The inaugural installment features contributions from veteran puzzle constructors Scott Kim and Patrick Berry. Future issues will include crosswords, picture puzzles, math puzzles, and more. As Nevala-Lee writes in an editor’s note:

“If you’re a fan of Analog, there’s a good chance that you also like puzzles. At its best, hard science fiction—which often hinges on a clever idea that still plays by the rules of physics—appeals to the same part of the brain. With that in mind, we’re introducing a new feature, ‘Unknowns,’ that will offer a unique puzzle in every issue. (Our model is the puzzle column that the legendary Martin Gardner wrote for our sister magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction, from 1977 through 1986.)”

(2) FATE OF THE SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB? The Science Fiction Book Club (owned by Bookspan), has put up this notice:

“Tell me that 50 years of finding new SF every month is not coming to an end,” pleads Maria Markham Thompson, CPA, Treasurer of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. “Some of my best months, back under Doubleday, were when I didn’t send a reply and a book I hadn’t ordered introduced a new author. This is a sad day in fandom. Please find out what has happened. What is happening?”

Unfortunately, File 770 isn’t been able to answer Maria’s question. Perhaps one of our readers knows more?

Thompson says, “I went on the site, where it’s business as usual to sign up new members, and read the agreement – my best guess is that my back credits will die, so all I can do is just get busy ordering books. Someone has found a way to joy out of even that activity!”

(3) WHY NOT SAY WHAT HAPPENED? Episode 11 of Scott Edelman’s Why Not Say What Happened? podcast tackles “Stan Lee’s Problem with Iron Man’s Nose”.

Rummaging though a stack of mid-’70s memos has me remembering the time I attempted to convince Stan Lee to adapt Joseph Heller’s novel Something Happened, who was responsible for mutilating the contents of Marvel’s 1975 line of Giant-Size Annuals, how I repurposed a Winnie Winkle comic strip to resign from my staff job in the Bullpen, the day comic book fans ran a Baskin-Robbins out of ice cream, the meeting in which Stan Lee had a problem with Iron Man’s nose, Gerry Conway’s complaint to the Comics Code Authority about an Inhumans innuendo, and much more.

(4) IT’S A THEORY. CinemaBlend’s Dirk Libbey says, “I Just Found Out The Wild Reason Warner Bros. Reportedly Made That Anime Lord Of The Rings Film, And I Did Not See It Coming”.

It was a strange weekend at the box office considering that Moana 2 and Wicked continued to dominate theaters even though movies attached to major franchises like Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings debuted. Kraven The Hunter and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, both bombed, which was not unexpected. For the former film, it reportedly spells the end of Sony’s Spider-Verse adjacent franchise. But it’s reportedly not a big deal for the anime-inspired Lord of the Rings movie.

You’d be forgiven for not even realizing that this past weekend saw an animated Lord of the Rings film release, set two centuries before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic. The movie wasn’t broadly promoted, and it only cost $30 million to make, a drop in the bucket when your average Disney or Pixar endeavor costs around $200 million. It’s claimed even the studio is only hoping the movie might break even. It feels like Warner Bros. didn’t care if anybody saw this movie, and actually, that may be the case….

…Peter Jackson is working on a pair of new live-action movies, with Andy Serkis set to star in and direct Lord of the Rings: The Hunt For Gollum. However, most deals between IP holders and studios have time limits and require that the IP be used regularly, or the rights revert to the original owner.

It’s been a decade since The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies opened in theaters and the new Gollum movie is at least two years away, likely more. While we don’t know exactly what the rights deal with WB is, it’s certainly possible that the time limit is close. Without a plan for more movies back when the anime movie was given the green light, one could see how a studio might spend a few million to get something out to have the opportunity to make millions, or billions, on something better later….

(5) STRIPES. “29 Years Later, Star Trek Just Fixed Its Most Insulting Oversight” huffs Inverse.

Throughout the entire seven-season run of Star Trek: Voyager, Ensign Harry Kim remained at the same rank. Yes in the alternate future of Endgame, Harry Kim was a captain, but that moment of ranking up is the exception that proves the rule; though he was a brave and innovative officer, Janeway (and the Voyager writers) never thought to give Kim a promotion beyond the basest of Star Trek ranks. And if Kim was given more overt authority on the show, it would sometimes be thanks to an alternate timeline.

And now, as Star Trek crosses the multiverse in the penultimate episode of Lower Decks with a slew of legacy character cameos, the most prominent returning character is none other than Harry Kim. And this time, one version of him is a full lieutenant.

“It is a bit of an apology,” Garrett Wang tells Inverse. “It’s a long time coming!”…

… In Lower Decks’ “Fissure Quest,” we quickly learn that Boimler’s covert multiverse ship, the Anaximander, is staffed by mostly alternate versions of Harry Kim, which they all refer to as “the Kim crew.” But when one Harry Kim arrives who has been promoted to lieutenant, the other Kims are totally freaked out. This leads to the basic conflict of the episode: The Harry Kim who has been promoted is suddenly mad with power, to the point where he nearly destroys everything. For Wang, this was a chance to do something that he almost never got to do on Voyager — go big with a certain kind of performance.

“In the beginning, we were told that as all the human characters, you need to stay as military, as two dimensional,” Wang says of the early days of Voyager. “The idea was that if we had flat line delivery, it would make the alien characters look more realistic. But in reality, when you’re that flat and that monotone, it just looks like you’re a bad actor! So, it’s nice to do something like Lower Decks where I felt free.”…

(6) HEROES WITH FEET OF CLAY. In “From hacked ‘smart gnomes’ to the revenge of Feathers McGraw: inside Wallace & Gromit’s joyous return”, the Guardian’s Tim Jonze chronicles his visit to Aardman’s studios.

…Aardman’s studios are a hive of productivity – down every corridor are little rooms in which people tinker away on replica canal boats or fiddle with tiny clay arms. I have to promise to be on my best behaviour. Apparently on one previous set visit a French journalist picked up a figure in a live scene meaning the whole thing had to be shot again from the start. “That was very upsetting,” says my guide.

… I’m whisked off to the art department, where “everything you see on screen that’s not puppets” is made. For Vengeance Most Fowl that means a scenic waterway designed for a high speed canal chase and an impressively ramshackle submarine made out of stolen garden items: bath planters, rakes, drain pipes for periscopes and so on. Part of the challenge is not to make anything too snazzy. “It shouldn’t distract from the characters,” says Matt Perry, the film’s production designer. When they first made the submarine it looked a little too fabulous for something supposedly compiled from garden detritus. So one member of the team got to work smacking dents into it, which alarmed passing visitors. “Weathering is also important,” adds Perry. “The police station’s desk has to have the right amount of rust for a desk of that era.”

As with all Wallace & Gromit films, eagle-eyed viewers are rewarded with all kinds of smart references. The submarine is a nod to Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s vehicle in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Seas. Elsewhere, lead graphic artist Gavin Lines entertains himself with all sorts of gags that might only flash on the screen for a second or two (Gromit’s record collection this time around contains Walkies on the Wildside). These days he follows strict rules – it has to be family friendly and it has to be legal. “I did get into trouble before,” he admits. Whereas Smeg have apparently always seen the funny side of their fridges being rebranded as Smug, Bosch were less than happy about Gromit using a “Botch” tool in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. “We weren’t allowed to use it on any promotional material,” says a chastened Lines…

(7) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born December 16, 1928 – Philip K. Dick. (Died 1982.)

By Paul Weimer: If any SF writers could have been said to have predicted our moment here in the 21st century, in all of its absurdity and weirdness, I’d pick two. The first would be John Brunner, whose novels like Stand on Zanzibar seem to all too well describe the madness of the second decade of the 21st century.

The other author is Philip K. Dick. Not the Philip K. Dick of The Man in the High Castle, the first PKD I read (because, well, alternate history). That might be his most accessible, his best work. It’s the one where he has his full powers, the energy and vibrance of his early novels, and not yet the spiraling into his ultimately tragic end.

But it is those later novels, and some of the earlier ones, that describe the worlds as it is today. A word of old technology and new, of people who you never thought in a rational world could or would occupy the White House, a world where technology seemingly has a half-mind of its own. Can anyone deny that Chat GPT or Generative AI feel like some of the strange and out of control technologies from Dick’s work? Or the creepiness of the panopticon that our modern world is as reflected in A Scanner Darkly?

This makes Dick’s work sometimes not comfortable, especially the later novels, where he becomes less and less coherent. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is at best disorienting and at worst, incomprehensible even to a deep reader of his work. There was a period where I was reading a PKD novel or story every month for over a year…and I still don’t “get” the Exegesis. Maybe it’s a metaphor for our modern world after all–confused, strange, contradictory and ultimately incomprehensible.

His early short novels and stories show is endless invention. If there is anyone who embodies the idea of a pulp SF writer, it was 1950’s era Philip K Dick. It was a time and place where an idea could get you 90% of the way to a sale…and Dick achieved that again and again and again with his mutants, psionics, aliens, time travel stories, and so much more. He did try to become a mimetic fiction writer, and I read the posthumously published Puttering About in a Small Land. It feels like a SF novelist trying to “go straight” and being frustrated by the effort.

So it seems that he may have lost his true power…somewhere in the early 1970’s. He was not the writer that he was. It is notable that Roger Zelazny co-wrote a novel with Dick, partly to help him out, called Deus Irae. That one does not entirely work as a story, but it is a novel with a fascinating end thesis, that may rather disturb readers if you think about it, and its relation to modern religions, too hard.

But I hate to leave out this note, so I will tell you about my favorite Dick work. It’s not Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, as brilliant as Blade Runner is (Blade Runner deserves a whole piece on its own, quite frankly but a few words here. The novel is not the movie. The movie is not the novel. The movie may be better than the novel in some ways (since we are dealing with late Dick here, this not surprising).

My favorite PKD would “Faith of Our Fathers”. It’s a world where communism won, but our protagonist, moving slowly toward the center of power, finds out there is something very strange and very odd about the ruling party. The revelation of just what is going on, and the ending of the story is strange, weird…and entirely everything that you want in a Philip K. Dick story. It’s perfect, perhaps even more so than The Man in the High Castle. And I think, in general, shorter PKD works are better than his novels.

Philip K. Dick. Photo by Anne Dick from his official website.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Carpe Diem asks the dino question everyone is thinking.
Eek! needs some good excuses.
Loose Parts is on the lookout.
Macanudo refuses to be reassured.
Off the Mark’s Christmas tree lacks nothing.
Red and Rover know the season’s classic tunes.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal knows every weakness hides a strength.

(10) THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT. Charlie Jane Anders’ “A Basket Full of Mini Rants!” at Happy Dancing includes this praise for cheap-looking productions.

It’s time for low-budget, DIY movies and TV

I just watched the first episode of a TV show called Davey and Jonesie’s Locker on Hulu, which I’ve been meaning to check out for ages. It’s an extremely silly comedy about female friendship and having an interdimensional portal in your high-school locker. It seriously looks like it was made for a tiny fraction of what an episode of House of the Dragon costs.

Lately, I just really crave TV and movies that look cheap. Bonus points if they’re silly and kind of outrageous. On the TV side, I’ve talked a lot about my love of Extraordinary and the Brazilian show Back to 15, and there are a handful of other low budget, goofy TV shows that I’ve loved lately. On the movie side, my two favorite films of the year are Hundreds of Beavers and The People’s Joker: they don’t have much in common, other than looking like they were made with sofa-cushion money and being completely off-the-chain. They both use virtual backgrounds that look amateurish as heck, and feature physical comedy in a surreal void.

Why do I love DIY-looking TV and movies? Part of it is just a reaction to the fact that most Hollywood entertainment these days looks ridiculously expensive and lavish, which a lot of people are starting to get tired of. With high budgets often comes a certain blandness. But also, this defiantly indie/cheap aesthetic feels subversive in this age of corporate domination: it’s the equivalent of those direct-to-VHS movies that I obsessively watched as a youngster. I predict that the next few years will see a flowering of micro-budget, maximally-ambitious, utterly ridiculous entertainment. And I am here for it.

(11) UP ALL NIGHT. The Guardian shares “Galaxies, auroras and a cosmic bat: Southern Sky astrophotography exhibition 2024 – in pictures”. Photo gallery at the link.

The Southern Sky Astrophotography 2024 exhibition displays the top entries from the 20th David Malin awards for Australian astronomers and photographers. The images are on display at the Sydney observatory until 1 February.

(12) CAPTAIN AMERICA IN BRITISH TRANSLATION? Marvel has dropped a trailer for Captain America: Brave New World. According to Gizmodo, the US and UK trailers differ slightly. Below is the UK version.

For whatever reason, Marvel UK has a longer, trailer-length version of the Brave New World video. We’ll got it here for you, and its key difference is a brief look at Sidewinder attacking Sam and no stinger teasing Joaquin becoming the Falcon, like in the shorter US version.

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

Pixel Scroll 10/18/24 G-L-O-R-I-A Road

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(0) TODAY’S TITLE INSPIRATION. Daniel says he found retroactive inspiration in the fact that the group Them which performed “G-L-O-R-I-A” included Van Morrison.

(1) WEIRD NATURE. “The author has no problem embracing the inscrutable and uncanny; it’s what fuels his fiction” says Publishers Weekly: “Jeff VanderMeer Journeys into the Unknown”.

…The fantastical petri dish of Area X springs largely from VanderMeer’s experiences with nature and wild spaces. His parents were Peace Corps volunteers in Fiji when he was a boy. “It was pretty much what you’d expect from a tropical paradise,” he says. He would marvel at the eels and frogs at the local botanical gardens, and his father, an entomologist, would take him out to see the rhinoceros beetles on the region’s outer islands. He learned at an early age to experience a certain awe of the natural world. But he also suffered from serious asthma attacks and allergies.

“There was this weird contrast between things being so beautiful and also sometimes feeling very physically miserable,” he says. “That was a juxtaposition that I think comes through in the work, where you have really beautiful things, and then things that are disturbing or unsettling at the same time.”…

(2) GOOD OMENS SCUTTLEBUTT. Social media outlets are echoing this basic story today: “According to various sources but still pending official confirmation, the last instalment of Good Omens could take the form of a TV movie….” at Good Omens News on Instagram.

The Sun took the same scanty information and turned it into this headline – “Huge TV show with two A-list Hollywood star lead ‘axed’ after creator is ‘cancelled’ over scandal” – however, in the body of the article it also said the project may be converted to a TV movie.

Behind a paywall, UK Production News has posted this information:

(3) TEN DEEP CUTS. At Bluesky, Bobby Derie of Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein shares “Ten facts about Lovecraft that might need more explanation.” Thread starts here

The first item is:

1) "The Dunwich Horror" may have been inspired by a horror novel from the author of THE VELVETEEN RABBIT.deepcuts.blog/2022/04/09/t…
— Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein (@deepcuts.bsky.social) 2024-10-18T12:16:44.158Z

(4) ELLIPTICAL THOUGHTS. [Item by Steven French.] Here’s Kate Gardner’s review of Samantha Harvey’s Booker & Ursula LeGuin Prize nominated novel Orbital in Physics World: “Around the world in 16 orbits: a day in the life of the International Space Station”.

The ISS is almost a time capsule, hearkening back to the end of the Cold War. It now looks likely that Russia will pull out – or be ejected – from the mission before its projected end date of 2030.

Viewed from the ISS, no borders are visible, and the crew joke comfortably about their national differences. However, their lives are nevertheless dictated by strict and sometimes petty rules governing, for example, which toilet and which exercise equipment to use. These regulations are just one more banal reality of life on the ISS, like muscle atrophy, blocked sinuses or packing up waste to go in the next resupply craft….

…Harvey manages to convey that these details are quotidian. But she also imbues them with beauty. During one conversation in Orbital, a character sheds four tears. He and a crew mate then chase down each floating water droplet because loose liquids must be avoided. It’s a small moment that says so much with few words.

Orbital has been shortlisted for both the 2024 Booker Prize (winner to be announced on 12 November) and the 2024 Ursula K Le Guin Prize for Fiction (the winner of which will be announced on 21 October). The recognition reflects the book’s combination of literary prose and unusual globe-spanning (indeed, beyond global) perspective. Harvey’s writing has been compared to Virginia Woolf – a comparison that is well warranted. And yet Orbital is as accessible and educational as the best of popular science. It’s a feat almost as astonishing as the existence of the ISS….

(5) NO JOKE. “Why did Joker 2 lose so much money? And how on earth did it cost so much in the first place?” The Guardian sets out to find the answers.

To quote Heath Ledger’s version of the clown prince of crime, maybe some wag should be scrawling “Why so serious?” on glass-fronted offices at Warner Bros Discovery this week, as executives there contemplate the box-office implosion of Joker: Folie à Deux. A catastrophic $37.7m opening weekend, the largest second-weekend drop for a DC film (81%), a worldwide take currently standing at a piddling $165m … how has the studio gone from the 2019 original, a billion-grosser that was then the highest earning R-rated film, to this?

If nothing else, the Joker is proving true to his reputation as an agent of chaos. But he is also the most beloved of comic-book villains from a storied franchise; a draw almost on par with Batman himself, making the disaster all the more unthinkable. With bubonic word of mouth, Joker: Folie à Deux is now projected to lose $125m-200m, depending on whose budget estimate you believe. If it’s the $300m figure being generally touted for production and marketing, then this is clearly what has hobbled the film; it would leave it needing as much as $475m to break even. Risky reinventions of hallowed pop-cultural icons are a lot more feasible on the first film’s sensible $60m budget.

… But chastising the fanbase so openly is tantamount to box office self-harm (probably why the director refused to test-screen Joker: Folie à Deux). The impunity of a $300m budget seems to have led Phillips to mistake this for an auteur film, and shooting during a period of regime change at both Warner and DC reportedly allowed him to operate with weak oversight. According to Variety, he refused to liaise with new DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran, saying: “With all due respect to them, this is kind of a Warner Bros movie.” But he also pushed back on new Warner president David Zaslav’s suggestions for lowering the budget, including moving the shoot to London rather than Los Angeles….

(6) DON’T CHANGE THAT CHANNEL. The 2026 Worldcon has a mascot: “Introducing Fuzzy: The LAcon V Channel Island Fox Mascot”.

The Channel Island fox is pure California: an animal unique to the coastal islands in the southern part of the state, whose habitat, once threatened to the point of extinction, is now thriving due to conservation. Fuzzy, the playful Channel Island fox depicted at right, exemplifies the spirit of California and joins us on our expedition to LAcon V in 2026 as our official convention mascot.

Artist Teddy Harvia has captured Fuzzy’s likeness so elegantly, yet so playfully, through many illustrations yet to be revealed by LAcon V. Fuzzy will join us throughout the next two years on all our adventures, all hand-drawn by Teddy.

Fuzzy has been named in honor of our friend and colleague, Marilyn “Fuzzy Pink” Niven, a long-time participant in Southern California and American science fiction fandom and the wife of celebrated author Larry Niven. Fuzzy Pink Niven passed away in December 2023, leaving behind a legacy of friendship and service to fandom that can never be replaced. We could think of no greater tribute to her than to bring her spirit along with us on our adventure, and we are very grateful to Larry for his blessing….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by John Hertz, Laura Molesworth and Mike Glyer.]

Born October 18, 1924 — Voltaire Molesworth. (Died 1964.) Vol Molesworth was an Australian fan historian and small press publisher. In 1939 he co-founded the Futurian Society of Sydney – which suffered endless keruffles, like so many fan groups — and started the fanzine Luna. The next year he also published Cosmos.

Being a diabetic, Vol (as he was known) was ineligible for service in World War II but during these years he gained his wide experience in all aspects of journalism. He also wrote fiction. By the time he was 20 Vol had written a number of short novels published in paperback, the most widely known being his science fiction novel The Stratosphere Patrol.

He led a revival of the Sydney Futurians in 1947, becoming one of the leading Australian fans in the 1950s. He played a major role in the three Australian Natcons held in Sydney during the ’50s. He founded and operated the Futurian Press.

Molesworth wrote A History of Australian Science Fiction Fandom 1935-1963 and the earlier An Outline History of Australian Fandom I.

Outside of fandom, he was a mathematician and amateur radio operator and managed the University of New South Wales’ radio station. He was married to Laura Molesworth.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary — Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars (2005)

Once upon a time, a beloved SF series got cancelled, and yes there is absolutely nothing unusual in that happening, it happens more often than it should. What is extremely unusual is that it got a second chance to have a proper ending in the Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, seventeen years ago.

So let’s tell the tale of how that happened. Farscape arrived here twenty-three ago when Deep Space Nine was just wrapping up and Voyager was well into its seven-year-run. It started fine and ratings were strong until the fourth season and that, combined with regime change here in the States on who was picking up the tab for the two million dollars per episode led an abrupt end.

Fans being fans weren’t going to let things end that way, nor should we. (Yes, I loved the show. Deeply, unreservedly. I think it was one of the best series ever made, if not the best.) A massive campaign was undertaken with of course emails, letters, phone calls, and phone calls pleading with the network to reverse the cancellation.

Even Bill Amend who created the Fox Trot series had his Jason Fox character direct his ire at SciFi and demand that they change their mind.

Well, they did, sort of. A fifth season didn’t happen after all. What did happen in some ways I think was even better though I know that isn’t a popular opinion among those who wanted a full season.

What we got was the two episode, one hundred-and eighty-minute Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars which I thought splendidly wrapped things up. Every single storyline that wasn’t dealt with during the series was during this film.

SPOLER ALERT HERE.

We got a baby too. Yes, our Peacekeeper gives birth in a fountain in the middle of a firefight, insists she’s married while in labor, carries her baby unscathed through a battle. I assume that the baby was a puppet from the Henson labs. It was terribly cute.

END OF SPOILERS

I’ve watched it at least a half dozen times, probably more, in the last fifteen years. The Suck Fairy in her steel toed boots is obviously scared of those Aussie actors (and the non-Aussie one as well) as she slinks away to harass someone else.

Just looked at Rotten Tomatoes — not at all surprisingly, it carries a ninety-two percent rating among audience reviewers there. It’s streaming at Amazon Prime and Peacock. .

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Off the Mark offers some old celebrity head shots.
Bizarro says in another reality this guy is delusional.
Mother Goose and Grimm has a super problem.

(10) ANOTHER STAN LEE CAMEO. “DOT announces limited sale of commemorative ‘Stan Lee Way’ street signs to honor Bronx-born comic book legend” reports the Bronx Times.

The New York City Department of Transportation announced it is selling a limited number of “Stan Lee Way” commemorative street signs through the Department of Citywide Administrative Services’ CityStore. The master comic book writer grew up in the Bronx, attending DeWitt Clinton High School.

“A cultural icon, Stan Lee, has gifted the world with stories that captivate, inspire, and make us believe in the heart of a hero,” said NYC DCAS Commissioner Louis A. Molina. “With this sign release, you have a chance to gift yourself or the superhero in your life a piece of history.”

In 2021, the city co-named a portion of University Avenue between Brandt Place and West 176th Street where he lived, “Stan Lee Way”. The Bronx native revolutionized the comic book world by developing complex characters with relatable flaws and layered plot lines.

(11) BIRD WORDS. The Hollywood Reporter is there when “The Penguin’s Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti Tease Episode 5 at NYCC”.

The Penguin star and executive producer Colin Farrell was joined on Thursday at New York Comic Con for a mid-season discussion by showrunner and fellow EP Lauren LeFranc, as well as co-stars Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Deirdre O’Connell, Michael Kelly, and Clancy Brown, where they debuted two sneak peaks for the crowd for episode five, before going in-depth on what’s motivating the characters.

In the first clip, Oz (Farrell) and Victor (Feliz) share a sentimental moment where they discuss their relationship loyalty, while Oz’s car burns in the background. “It’s you and me now, kid until the end,” Oz says, before he and his henchman make a surprise visit to rough up Sal’s (Brown) son, before paying him and his wife a visit in prison to set up an exchange…

(12) MILLIE BOBBY BROWN SFF. “’The Electric State’ trailer is all Millie Bobby Brown and robots in an alternate sci-fi ’90s” – Mashable sets the scene.

Robots are in exile and Millie Bobby Brown is on the road to revenge in Netflix’s star-studded sci-fi adventure, set in the apparently “retro” ’90s (fml).

Based on Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel and directed by the MCU’s Anthony and Joe Russo, The Electric State sees Brown in the lead as Michelle, a teen without a family who meets a robot called Cosmo. But surprise, Cosmo is controlled by a human — her long lost brother no less! He’s across the country somewhere, and there’s sinister circumstances afoot, so Michelle and Cosmo hit the road to find him….

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

Pixel Scroll 9/28/24 Owner Of A Pixel Scroll

Posted on September 28, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) COURT STRIKES DOWN MARVEL, DC ‘SUPER HERO’ TRADEMARK. Bleeding Cool tells how it happened: “US Court States Marvel And DC Have Lost Their Super Hero Trademark”.

The law firm of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg (RJLF) has announced a landmark victory in its trademark case against comics publishers Marvel and DC Comics. They have obtained an order from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cancelling Marvel and DC Comics’ joint trademark for the word “Super Hero” and thus allowing their clients, S.J. Richold and Superbabies Limited, to freely use the term.

This was granted after Marvel and DC failed to respond to court requests.

RJLF challenged the exclusivity of the SUPER HERO trademarks after DC attempted to block Richold’s efforts to promote The Super Babies—a team of superpowered superhero babies. In its cancellation petition, RJLF charted the history of the superhero trademarks and showed how Marvel and DC used the marks to stifle competition and oust small and independent comic creators.

In 1977, DC Comics and Marvel Comics’ legal departments co-operated over the registration of the trademark “superhero” which they decided to share. It was granted by US authorities in 1979/1980. And it is a trademark that they have successfully defended with their legal departments ever since, disputing numerous challenges in many countries, until today….

(2) READ AND REREAD. Here are the “Science-Fiction Books Scientific American’s Staff Love” from Scientific American. It’s really a collection of lists divided into “Top-Shelf Recommendations”, “Series and Short Stories”, “Ghastly Thrillers”, “Dastardly Dystopias”, “All’s Fair in Love and War and Time Travel”, and “Fantastical Space Operas”. How many of these have you read?

There are few things as memorable to a young reader as the first spaceship they wanted to be onboard or the first fantastical world they wished to inhabit. If you’ve ever discussed the mechanics of warp speed, the anatomy of a shai-hulud or the ethics of a Vulcan mind meld, you know one thing for certain: science fiction is a way of life. Giants of the genre such as Mary Shelley and Isaac Asimov showed readers the horror, the excitement and the gargantuan consequences that arise from combining our scientific knowledge with the expanse of our imagination. What does it feel like to live forever, to breathe something other than air or to love someone from another planet? How will science inspire fiction next? What fiction will inspire new science?

The staff at Scientific American ask questions such as these across lunch tables and whisper book recommendations in hallways. We examine new science every day and read exceptional books each night….

(3) ANOTHER SNOUT IN HOGWARTS TROUGH. “Comcast Sues Warner Bros. Over Refusal to Partner on Harry Potter Series” – The Hollywood Reporter briefed its readers.

A legal brawl has broken out between Comcast‘s Sky and Warner Bros. Discovery, with the European media giant suing over breaches to a 2019 deal for exclusive rights to shows.

Sky, in a lawsuit filed Friday in New York federal court, says Warners is obligated to offer the opportunity to partner on at least four shows per year, including the upcoming Harry Potter series, but “fell far short of that mark” for nearly the entire duration of the contract.

Instead, Warners has “largely disregarded the parties’ agreement and sought to keep the Harry Potter content for itself so that” it can be used as the “cornerstone of the launch of its Max streaming service in Europe,” the complaint states. Sky seeks a court order that would force the David Zaslav-led company to bring it on as a co-producer on the production….

(4) DREAM DESTINATIONS. Nnedi Okorafor pointed out on Facebook:

The airport in Austin, TX has a gate for “Interimaginary Departures” and, Oomza Uni from the Binti Trilogy is on there! How cool!

For those who don’t know, Oomza Uni is the finest university in the galaxy. It’s an entire planet that is a university and only 2% of its students are human (no human faculty).

(Click for larger image.)

(5) EATON COLLECTION GAINS DONATION. Phoenix Alexander, Klein Librarian for Science Fiction & Fantasy at UC Riverside, has a big announcement.

Huge library news! I’m delighted to share that Steven Barnes and @TananariveDue have completed their first donations of archival materials to the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, where their archives will be housed and continue to grow in the coming months!
— Phoenix Alexander (@dracopoullos.bsky.social) 2024-09-27T19:32:26.553Z

(6) GROWTH OF SFF IN CHINA. In “The Dark Shadow of the Chinese Dream”, the Los Angeles Review of Books gives an overview of Chinese sff while reviewing three books, including Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction by Mingwei Song.

…Celebrity author Liu Cixin not only became the first Chinese writer to win a Hugo in 2015 for the first book in his Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, but also has gone on to become the best-selling Chinese author of all time in international markets. He has become a household name globally, a unique feat in the Sinophone fiction writer community. His name is certainly far more recognizable than those of Nobel laureates Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan, and his fame exceeds that of writers of earlier generations such as Eileen Chang and Lu Xun. Liu has cemented Chinese science fiction’s status as part and parcel of world literature.

This hypervisibility, however, is not evenly distributed. Liu defended the Chinese state’s mass internment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang in a 2019 New Yorker profile and has been embraced and heavily promoted by the state. Han Song, by contrast, a writer of the same generation whose works repeatedly satirize Xi Jinping’s public admonitions to “tell the good China story” (or “tell the China story well,” as if there is just one acceptable basic narrative), has struggled to get his writing published in China. The 2023 Hugos further amplified this entwinement between visibility and the “right” kind of politics. A retroactive investigation revealed that the Canadian and American organizers, seeking to abide by local laws, disqualified numerous titles by Chinese and Chinese American authors that were deemed politically sensitive, a form of preemptive self-censorship. Behind every blockbuster spectacle with crossover appeal—such as the 2019 film The Wandering Earth, and its prequel, both based on Liu stories—a darker, more ambiguous strain of speculative fiction struggles to make it into the light.

In his 2023 study Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction, which won the Science Fiction Research Association’s Book Award, Mingwei Song attempts to make sense of these contradictions….

(7) HE’S PAVING THE WAY. Batman’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled on September 26: “Batman is the first superhero to get a Hollywood Walk of Fame star” reports CBS News Los Angeles.

A caped crusader who’s been around for more than 85 years got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday.

Batman is the first superhero to get a Hollywood star, with neighboring sidewalk stars belonging to television’s Batman, Adam West and the co-creator of Batman, Bob Kane.

Created for DC Comics by Kane with Bill Finger, Batman first appeared in 1939’s “Detective Comics #27” and since then the Dark Knight has stood as a symbol of determination, courage, and justice.

“Zock,” “Pow,” and “Whap!” Batman made it into the Saturday morning cartoon lineup in 1968, with Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s “Batman: The Animated Series.” The series also won acclaim with an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program, the first cartoon based on a comic book to do so…

A man dressed as Batman swings his cape after receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first such honor for a superhero character, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

(8) NOT A SPRINT BUT A MARATHON. Samit Basu will lead Clarion West’s nine-month “Online Novel Writing Workshop”.

Are you a science fiction, horror or fantasy writer with a partially written novel but are feeling stalled out on where to go next? Do you have early chapters and a sense of the overall arc of your book, but can’t see a way through to the final pages? Are you bogged down in the Mushy Middle with no momentum to reach ‘The End’?

There’s no one way to complete a novel – the journey is about discovering what works for you, your writing style, and the story you want to tell. Whether you’ve outlined extensively or are navigating by instinct, Clarion West’s nine month virtual workshop is designed to guide you from conception to completion of your novel.

Led by author and six week workshop instructor Samit Basu, with the support of the Clarion West team, this program is built around finding your unique process.

This workshop offers:

Weekly classes (6-months of the 9-month period) on craft, genre, and process, starting with your existing draft or outline.
Monthly one-on-one meetings with Samit Basu to help fine-tune your approach and keep you on track.
Guest lectures from industry professionals to expand your understanding of the speculative fiction landscape.
Author-centered workshop models that prioritize your goals to help you gain clarity and confidence in your writing process.
Community and critique partners that will help keep you on track.

At the end of nine months, you’ll have a complete draft, or a solid roadmap for completing your manuscript. From the initial spark to a finished draft, we’re here to support your journey.

(9) DUELING WP’S. “The messy WordPress drama, explained” by The Verge.

WordPress is essentially internet infrastructure. It’s widely used, generally stable, and doesn’t tend to generate many splashy headlines as a result.

But over the last week, the WordPress community has swept up into a battle over the ethos of the platform. Last week, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg came out with a harsh attack on WP Engine, a major WordPress hosting provider, calling the company a “cancer” to the community. The statement has cracked open a public debate surrounding how profit-driven companies can and can’t use open-source software — and if they’re obligated to contribute something to the projects they use in return.

The conflict has escalated in the days since with a barrage of legal threats and has left swaths of website operators caught in the crossfire of a conflict beyond their control. WP Engine customers were cut off from accessing WordPress.org’s servers, preventing them from easily updating or installing plugins and themes. And while they’ve been granted a temporary reprieve, WP Engine is now facing a deadline to resolve the conflict or have its customers’ access fall apart once again.

WP Engine is a third-party hosting company that uses the free, open-source WordPress software to create and sell its own prepackaged WordPress hosting service. Founded in 2010, WP Engine has grown to become a rival to WordPress.com, with more than 200,000 websites using the service to power their online presence…

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[By Cat Eldridge.]

Born September 28, 1946 — Joe Dante, 78. He started off as one as us as he wrote columns and articles for fanzines and APAs.

Now let’s look at what he’s done that I find interesting.

The first would be his collaboration with John Sayles when they completely rewrote the first draft of Gary Brandner’s The Howling novel for that film. Brandner was said to extremely angry with the film that was produced.

Because of The Howling, Speilberg offered up Gremlins, one of my all-time favorite films, to him. I’ve watched it more times than I can count and I enjoyed it each time. Gremlins II, not so much.

Spielberg also brought him on as one of the directors on John Landis’ Twilight Zone: The Movie. Dante’s segment, a remake of the original Twilight Zone “It’s a Good Life” episode as written by Serling. That story was based off a Jerome Bixby story published in 1953 in the Star Science Fiction Stories anthology series, edited by Frederik Pohl.

Ahhh, Innerspace with Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, and Meg Ryan. The Studio hated it, Dante made the film he wanted to despite the Studio and audiences stayed home. I thought it was sweet.

I hadn’t realized til now that Dante was responsible for Small Soldiers, an interesting film. Not a great film but it did have a possibility of being something. Not sure what that something would have been though I kind of liked it. Dante says that there were twelve writers involved in writing the script. Ouch.

So, Dante directed Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Moving on. Once seeing was way, way more than enough.

Finally, Dante came back to Gremlins by serving as a consultant on the Max Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai prequel series. Don’t get too excited as this is an animated series.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

FurBabies explains some clichés.
Jerry King initiates a new saying.
Wannabe points out a problem with some books.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal uses King Arthur to point out the problem with cultural appropriation.
Tom Gauld gets his nuts in an uproar.

My cartoon for this week’s @GuardianBooks pic.twitter.com/8heqpTutpZ
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) September 28, 2024

(12) THE INVISIBLE SUPERMAN. “Stan Lee Used To Roast DC For Clark Kent Taking Off His Glasses And Suddenly Becoming Unrecognizable As Superman” at CinemaBlend.

In the history of comic book superheroes, the two biggest names have always been Marvel and DC. While many, especially in recent years, have downplayed the “war” between the two major comic companies, it can’t be denied that there is competition between them. So it should come as no surprise that Stan Lee used to throw shade at Superman, even if he ultimately still loved the character.

An old clip has recently resurfaced showing Larry King interviewing Stan Lee and King asks about his favorite DC character. Lee says that Superman is his favorite because the character launched superhero comics in general. That doesn’t mean he can’t have some sun at Supes’ expense, as Lee pokes fun at Clark Kent’s disguise and the fact that nobody recognized Clark as Superman because of a pair of glasses. Lee said…

“I have joked about that. I say, ‘Hello. My name is Stan Lee.’ [removes sunglasses]. Oh, where did Stan go? Who’s this fella now?’ I know it’s ridiculous.”…

(13) REALLY UNSUSPECTED. Here’s somebody who’s doing a better job of concealing his secret identity. Not that he makes it easy on himself.

literally all the time. mostly it is accompanied by the question: 'why are there so many chuck tingle books and advanced reader copies stacked in your garage' https://t.co/SCzrQG3VJi
— Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) September 28, 2024

(14) V.E. SCHWAB Q&A. CBS News finds out in an interview “How author V.E. Schwab is redefining the fantasy genre”.

Author V.E. Schwab has written nearly two dozen books since making her debut in 2011. Her novels feature modern characters and twisty plots, and are helping redefine the fantasy genre. Dana Jacobson has more.

(15) NOW THAT THE HURRICANE HAS PASSED. “SpaceX launches mission that will bring home Starliner astronauts” reports CNN. So it’s not quite like the movie Marooned, but I’ll just drop that thought here….

A SpaceX mission due to unite the Boeing Starliner astronauts with the spacecraft that will bring them home has taken flight. NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have now been on the International Space Station more than 100 days longer than expected.

The SpaceX mission, called Crew-9, took off at 1:17 p.m. ET Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

NASA previously delayed the launch attempt from Thursday, rolling the spacecraft back into its hangar as Hurricane Helene threatened Florida and other parts of the southeastern United States. Mission teams reset everything at the launchpad Friday after the danger had passed.

Unlike other routine trips ferrying astronauts to and from the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program — of which SpaceX has already launched eight — the outbound leg of this mission is carrying only two crew members instead of four: NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

Two other seats are flying empty, reserved for Williams and Wilmore to occupy on the spacecraft’s return flight in 2025. The configuration is part of an ad hoc plan that NASA chose to implement in late August after the space agency deemed the Starliner capsule too risky to return with crew.

Williams and Wilmore rode the Starliner to the International Space Station in early June for what was expected to be about a weeklong test flight….

(16) VOCAL POWER. Here’s is a video compilation of “James Earl Jones’ Comedy Highlights” from the The Late Show with David Letterman.

(17) FROM A LIST LONG, LONG AGO. Going down the same rabbit hole: “Top Ten Things Never Before Said By A ‘Star Wars’ Character”.

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

Pixel Scroll 9/12/24 Please Don’t Eat The Vacuum Flowers

Posted on September 12, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) GEN CON WRITER’S SYMPOSIUM BLOWUP.

E.D.E. Bell, part of the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium leadership, hasn’t been retained after the 2024 event and brought public attention to the issue in “Gen Con Writers’ Symposium Dismissal”, a long, thorough discussion. Here are excerpts:

On 10 September, our leadership met with Gen Con to present our report including requests and improvements for next year. Gen Con listened to the report and asked questions for the full hour, and then said quickly, right before ending the call, that the show went “really well” and all our work was appreciated, and also no one on the current committee will be invited back next year.

This is extremely distressing to me. The loss to the community is significant but there are also huge emotional, practical, and financial losses for my family. We were investing, a whole community was investing in a long-term plan for inclusion. You don’t turn these things fully around in a couple years. It also sends the message that a pro-inclusion committee can be mistreated and then dismissed without consequence….

… I am also hearing from many people that my removal from Origins Game Fair also over issues related to inclusion (they write “race” as if they aren’t ready to believe me) is evidence that I must be a problem. I do not have energy to defend my integrity or the existence of documentation. And no, it means that cons are working very hard to discredit someone who is in and doing the work. Origins Game Fair has a reputation for being a con very comfortable in whiteness. Gen Con Writers’ Symposium used to have a reputation for being unfriendly to BIPOC and many other writing communities. The last two years, that changed. I’m discouraged but not surprised that in 2024, the reaction is still – two places can’t be fighting inclusion – you must be the issue….

… Everything started when we invited Mikki Kendall as a Special Guest. Marian McBride reached out and said her boss (Derek Guder) had “concerns” about Mikki, that she did not have draw or broad appeal. I heard the dogwhistles, but still explained why she was a good fit. The entire committee agreed disinviting her at this late point after she’d already accepted and for this reason would be inappropriate and harmful on multiple levels. We were told not to announce the guests, and were asked to an “emergency meeting” whose title was something like “Concerns regarding Special Guest Mikki Kendall”. Specifically, the whole committee was asked to be there.

I thought, oh good, we can explain our inclusion plans and why Mikki is an awesome choice.

The summary of that meeting was:

It was an ambush, stated to be a necessary dressing-down of the committee by someone who had no knowledge of what we did.
I was looked at in the eye and told, “I need you to realize that what you did was bad.” and also “You invited two Special Guests with no draw and no broad appeal. Isn’t that correct?”
We were repeatedly accused of funneling GCWS money for personal use.
At no point was I actually allowed to explain anything to Derek; he would not let me speak….

… I am asking Gen Con and/or the 2025 GCWS Committee for a specific reason why they will not work with “Chris and Emily Bell” and I think I deserve that answer. Hopefully I’ll get at least that much respect from the community.

And one final thought: you really don’t have to have the argument about me in any way. Derek Guder is on the record saying that neither Linda D. Addison nor Mikki Kendall have draw or broad appeal at the same time he said he did not know them and refused to find out. He is also using this “four not two” Guests thing like it’s a gotcha, but he wouldn’t allow anyone on the committee to explain verbally why we did that, why it was coordinated Marian in December, or why it did not violate their intent in any way – and he refused to read anything submitted in writing. Please evaluate those actions on their own….

Eric Scott de Bie comes down on the side of GenCon in his equally long “The Writer’s Symposium Kerfuffle, September 2024” at Worldswalker. Excerpts:

…Note that Derek reiterates that his concerns are focused upon how many guests the leadership team invited, and about how the issues were communicated and coordinated.

At this point, per my interview with Derek, GenCon accepted there was nothing to be done for 2024. It was too late to make any radical changes to the Symposium, the guest list, or any of it, and so they let it ride for 2024.

After a successful Symposium (the leadership team did an excellent job putting on the Con, and that should be noted), GenCon informed them at their debrief meeting that they would not be working with the present leadership team again. What exactly was said at the end of the meeting, I am still researching, but as Emily frames it, they said something to the effect of “no one on the current committee will be invited back next year.”

What does this all mean?

So GenCon does not want to work with the Bells again. They didn’t “disinvite” anyone–they just won’t work with the Bells again. Even the other members of the Bells’ leadership team (some of whom signed onto the ultimatum), GenCon is ok with talking with them to sort this out. And yes, I have confirmed that with Derek….

… Per my research, GenCon’s decision had nothing to do with racism, and neither did Origins, or ConFusion, who have also cut ties with the Bells under similar circumstances. The Cons in question DO support diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. As far as I know, their decisions are based on her actions as a leader: poor communication, acting unilaterally, and not consulting them….

(2) TODAY’S SCROLL TITLE DECIPHERED. [Item by Daniel Dern.] The source for this title probably, ahem, weeds out many Boomers and most post-Boomers; per Wikipedia, “…Please Don’t Eat the Daisies is a best-selling collection of humorous essays by American humorist and playwright Jean Kerr.” (And, I see, turned into a movie starring Doris Day and David Niven.)

(Similar to some extent, possibly (I haven’t read Daisies), Shirley Jackson’s ‘domestic memoirs’ Life Among The Savages and Raising Demons.)

(3) TOLKIEN POETRY COLLECTION RELEASED. The Collected Poems of J. R. R. Tolkien edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond was released by Harper Collins today.

…The earliest work in this collection, written for his beloved, is dated to 1910, when Tolkien was eighteen. More poems would follow during his years at Oxford, some of them very elaborate and eccentric. Those he composed during the First World War, in which he served in France, tend to be concerned not with trenches and battle, but with life, loss, faith, and friendship, his longing for England, and the wife he left behind. Beginning in 1914, elements of his legendarium, ‘The Silmarillion’, began to appear, and the ‘Matter of Middle-earth’ would inspire much of Tolkien’s verse for the rest of his life….

A reviewer at Tolkien Collectors’ Guide took up the challenge of counting the poems in the volume. It’s not as simple as one would expect.

When this collection was announced, the editors were somewhat coy about exactly how many poems there are in total, and how many of those were unpublished, and reading through these three volumes one begins to understand why.

Entry 1 has two titles noted in the contents, ‘Morning’ and ‘Morning Song’, so one would expect two poems, but we are offered four versions, with notes to a further two or three variants, plus the fascinating commentary. This approach continues throughout, with many entries containing more poems, or versions of them than are noted in the contents. The editors describe there being 195 entries which would contain approximately 240 “discreet poems”.

Our count suggests there are roughly 550+ poems (inc. variant versions, which the editors described as instances in private correspondence) addressed directly, with many more in the notes and mentioned throughout the fantastic commentary. We have not tried to count all of these but it is an incredible number….

(4) KGB. Photos of last night’s Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series here on Flickr. Ellen Datlow adds, “Not as many photos as usual as I could get neither my camera nor my phone camera to work properly.”

(5) BRISBANE 28 TAKING PRESUPPORTS. The bid to hold the 2028 Worldcon in Brisbane, Australia has announced they can now take presupports: Support | Brisbane in 28.

We now have pre-support available to those wanting to help us succeed!

You can throw us a lobster or a pineapple, or be a real mate and buy your attending membership in advance.

All pre-support helps us get to more events, and do more things so we can make this the best Worldcon we can make it.

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Item by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary: Young Hercules series (1998)

I know that a lot of you have seen Hercules and Xena, but I am guessing that a lot less of you saw Young Hercules which came out on this date, twenty-six years ago. It won’t surprise you at all that it was created by Sam Raimi who, of course, created the other two series.

The series follows Hercules (played Ryan Gosling) as he attends Cheiron’s Academy to train in the arts of the warrior under the wise headmaster Cheiron the Centaur (as performed by Nathaniel Lees under a most excellent costume). Other primary cast members are the future king of Corinth, Prince Jason (Chris Conrad), a thief who was a former member of a bandit group, Iolaus (Dean O’Gorman) who is here instead of in prison, and the academy’s first female cadet, Lilith (Jodie Rimmer). Need I say they’re all very handsome, or in her case, cute? They really are.

Not at all surprisingly Rob Tapert who had his hand in the other two series is involved in this series. Here he is one of the writers and executive producer. This series came to be just two years before he executive produced both Jack of All Trades and Cleoprata 2525.

Needless to say, it was produced in New Zealand — no not by Peter Jackson. Renaissance Pictures produced this one which makes sense as it was founded by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell to produce The Evil Dead along with the two sequels and yes, the company produced Xena and Hercules as well, and the Darkman films.

Ryan Gosling made a fine young, Hercules here. Actually, he was more believable as a character than, ahem, a certain other character that played the older one was. Just my opinion, I think this was because both he and adventures being geared towards a young adult audience were in lighter in tone. Also being, 20 minutes long, meant there was no filler, something that is important in telling your story sometimes.

All the live filming took place in NewZealand, but the visual effects were done in LA as was the music. Weta, yes, that company that would later be involved in The Lord of the Rings, was responsible for the special visual visual effects here. They lost most of that team very fast because of the overlap with the filming of The Fellowship of the Ring.

I like this series every bit as much as I do Xena and I like both of these series far, far more than I ever liked Hercules. It ran for fifty twenty-minute episodes which aired technically in one season though I saw it broken up into three seasons later on.

It’s not streaming anywhere right now though you can purchase it on DVD.

The image below has the main cast with Gosling on the left, Dean next to him with Chris just behind Jodie.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal recognizes signs of life.
The Flying McCoys gets upstaged.
The Argyle Sweater looks over the shoulder of a curious dough boy.
Rubes gives last words.

(8) SHOCKED, I TELL YOU, SHOCKED. Bleeding Cool reports: “A New Book Called ‘Stan Lee Lied’, Claims That Stan Lee… Lied”.

Chaz Gower has written a new book called Stan Lee Lied. Full title, Stan Lee Lied: Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in The Origins of Marvel Comics. And it does exactly what it says on the tin. …it takes the Stan Lee-authored Origins Of Marvel Comics for its fiftieth anniversary, and systematically attempts to disprove as many of the statements in that book as possible, using recorded facts and archives, testimonies and memories of others. This is a case for the prosecution; there is no attempt to be even-handed, and anything that doesn’t challenge the tenet that Stan Lee didn’t co-create or write the comic books he claimed to have and was credited for is either not included or dismissed with a hand wave.

That 1974 volume Origins Of Marvel Comics is itself getting a deluxe hardcover printed from Gallery Editions next month for its fiftieth anniversary, so this is clearly well-timed. Maybe you could read them together? Here is just one small example to let you know where this is going…

“Stan Lee: “At the moment, the trend is monster stories… Jack and I were having a ball turning out monster stories with such imperishable titles as ‘Xom, the Creature Who Swallowed Earth’, ‘Grottu, the Giant Ant-Eater’… ‘Fin Fang Foom’….”

“Stan Lee signed almost everything he ever did from… at least 1950 on. Most likely from Day One, but for SURE from 1950 on. He signed pin-up pages if he wrote even the smallest of dialogue on it, and paper doll pages in Patsy Walker comics… he rarely if ever missed an opportunity to sign his name to something, to get the credit and of course, the PAY. BUT… He never signed a single Jack Kirby monster story from those presuperhero years at Marvel Comics. Which means he didn’t write ANY of them. Not ONE SINGLE STORY. He signed NONE OF THEM. Which means he didn’t write ANY of them.”

(9) SPLASH! “650-Foot High Megatsunami in Greenland Sends Seismic Waves Worldwide” – SciTechDaily has details.

…In September 2023, a massive tsunami in remote eastern Greenland triggered seismic waves that captured the attention of researchers worldwide.

The event created a week-long oscillating wave in Dickson Fjord, according to a new report in The Seismic Record.

Angela Carrillo-Ponce of GFZ German Research Centre for Geoscience and her colleagues identified two distinct signals in the seismic data from the event: one high-energy signal caused by the massive rockslide that generated the tsunami, and one very long-period (VLP) signal that lasted over a week.

Their analysis of the VLP signal—which was detected as far as 5000 kilometers (3100 miles) away—suggests that the landslide and resulting tsunami created a seiche, or a standing wave that oscillates in a body of water. In this case, the seiche was churning for days between the shores of Dickson Fjord….

(10) OPEN THE POD BAY DOOR, ELON. “Tech billionaire pulls off first private spacewalk high above Earth” reports Yahoo!

A tech billionaire popped out from a SpaceX capsule hundreds of miles above Earth and performed the first private spacewalk Thursday, a high-risk endeavor once reserved for professional astronauts.

Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to test the company’s brand new spacesuits on his chartered flight. The daring feat also saw SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis going out once Isaacman was safely back inside.

This spacewalk was simple and quick — the hatch was open barely a half hour — compared with the drawn-out affairs conducted by NASA. Astronauts at the International Space Station often need to move across the sprawling complex for repairs, always traveling in pairs and lugging gear. Station spacewalks can last seven to eight hours; this one clocked in at less than two hours….

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

Pixel Scroll 7/27/24 The Roads Must Scroll

Posted on July 27, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) MONTELEONE’S NEW SUBSTACK REPEATS OLD MESSAGE. Author Thomas F. Monteleone, who early in 2023 was ousted from the Horror Writers Association for violating its Code of Conduct, today launched a Substack newsletter with “Allow Me To Introduce Myself”, which rehearses many of the views that he was expressing on Facebook and in video interviews when HWA removed him from membership.

Sheena Forsberg also has screencaps of the newsletter in a thread on X.com: “Oh.. JFC. Tom Monteleone’s back.. I suspect this wasn’t what your friends and colleagues meant when they urged you to go the substack route.”.

(2) CASHING IN ON FANHISTORY. [Item by Chris Barkley.] A copy of the pamphlet that triggered the Exclusion Act at the first Worldcon in 1939, which yesterday’s Scroll reported was up for auction, went for $750 reports Stellar Books & Ephemera.

(3) 1929: THE GENRE GETS A NAME. Jim Emerson’s year-by-year history Futures Past will reach 1929 in the latest volume due in August.

FUTURES PAST is dedicated to all those amazing people who helped to shape our modern world by giving us a sense of wonder, by showing us possible futures and addressing social issues long before they touched the mainstream, and by simply daring to ask, “what if…” Our goal is to keep alive the people, works and memories of a great genre and introduce them to a whole new generation of readers, thinkers and dreamers.

You can download an excerpt: “The Stirrings of a New Genre”

…One of the feature articles for 1929 is an extensive look at the evolution of the term “science fiction” which was not called that until this year. In fact, the word “science” was not coined until the early 1800s, and that is where this article begins….

(4) STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES Q&A. In the New York Times: “Stephen Graham Jones, Author of ‘I Was a Teenage Slasher’, on His Reading Life”. (Gift link bypasses Times paywall.)

How do you sign books for your fans?

I cross my name out then write it for real. I can’t use markers on grabby paper. That raspy sound makes me crawl out of my skin like Mr. Krabs, molting….

What do your English department colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder make of your horror writing?

Lot of them read it, and talk to me about it. It’s nice to work with faculty without that inbuilt prejudice against genre. Or, I’m a little bit tall, so it’s tricky to look down your nose at me. Unless you lean just way back….

(5) SHARING EXPERTISE. “Show up, love the process, don’t follow trends: insider tips on how to write a book” – the Guardian publicizes a creative writing podcast.

The novelist and podcaster Elizabeth Day, host of the How to Fail series, has created a “podclass” to answer those questions and more, hosted by three publishing pros: novelist Sara Collins, agent Nelle Andrew and publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove. Here, the four share their key advice for getting a book out into the world.

One of Sara Collins’ tips is:

3. Pay attention

Writing is a way of filtering the world. The best writers are the ones who make an art of paying attention, who find joy in being curious. Curate a notebook (to be honest, in my case it’s mostly in the notes app on my phone). Make a note of anything that strikes you. One of the best feelings about being in the midst of a project is how you can become a tuning fork, alive to the material that wants to find its way in. Everything is copy, as Nora Ephron said.

Episode 1 of How To… Write A Book is available at Apple Podcasts and many other places.

Sara Collins is the bestselling novelist and screenwriter currently serving as a judge for the 2024 Booker Prize. Her debut novel, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, won the Costa book awards in 2019 and she later wrote the TV screenplay. Nelle Andrew is a literary agent and former Agent of the Year at the

British Book Awards, and Sharmaine Lovegrove is the co-founder and managing director of Dialogue Books, an inclusive imprint at a major publishing house. Each of them is an expert in one stage of the publishing journey…. and all are literary nerds (in the best possible way).

(6) SMOKED PENGUIN WILL NOT BE ON THE MENU. “’The Penguin’ Comic-Con Activation Evacuated After Fire Breaks Out” reports Variety.

A fire broke out in the building hosting the San Diego Comic-Con activation for the HBO series ”The Penguin,” causing the venue to be evacuated on Friday evening. The alarm was sounded in the midst of the press preview for the activation. Members of the media, including reporters from Variety, were escorted outside by officials at roughly 7:30 PM. Update: The activation is now back up and running. There were no injuries.

A representative for the San Diego Police Department confirms that a three-alarm fire was reported at the venue on 5th Avenue and E Street in the city’s downtown area. The fire began in a Brazilian steakhouse that was also in the building….

… The multi-level installation for “The Penguin” involved an elaborate, immersive experience that put attendees inside the seedy and cavernous criminal hang-out dive known as the Iceberg Lounge, first seen in the 2022 film “The Batman.” The HBO crime series is a spin-off of the Matt Reeves-directed blockbuster, with Colin Farrell reprising his role as the villainous gangster Oswald Cobblepot. The Comic-Con activation represents the most lavish promotional push yet for the DC Comics series….

(7) STAR WARS AUCTION ITEMS GO FOR UP TO SEVEN FIGURES. Variety listens to the cash register chime as “’Star Wars’ Y-Wing Miniature, Princess Leia Bikini Sold at Auction”.

A filming miniature of a Y-Wing Starfighter helmed by Gold Leader, who aided Luke Skywalker in destroying the Death Star in 1977’s “Star Wars: A New Hope,” sold for a whopping $1.55 million Friday at Heritage’s July Entertainment Auction.

Another highlight of the collection was a Princess Leia gold bikini costume from Jabba the Hutt’s scenes in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” which sold for $175,000. The ensemble includes seven pieces from Industrial Light & Magic chief sculptor Richard Miller’s collection–a bikini brassiere, bikini plates, hip rings, an armlet and bracelet….

… Other items featured at the Heritage auction included final movie poster artwork for “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” by Bob Peak, which sold for $106,250. Paramount’s 1986 sci-fi film was directed by Leonard Nimoy, who also played Spock. Additionally, a piece of John Alvin’s concept art for his 1982 “Blade Runner” movie poster fetched $100,000….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 27, 1968 — Farah Mendlesohn, 56.

By Paul Weimer: I would not say that Farah Mendlesohn is twice the science fiction reviewer and critic that I am. I would say that she is perhaps three or four times the science fiction reviewer and critic that I am. Mendlesohn has a strength and depth to her analysis and writing that I can’t even approach even on the best of days. She remains and will probably always remain the lightspeed barrier of criticism that I will never ever reach, but I will still try.

Farah Mendelsohn. Photo by Scott Edelman

Her best work, her deepest and perhaps her most essential work is her book on the work of Robert Heinlein, The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein. Although many on the far right hate it for not being hagiographic enough about Heinlein and his work, I have found her views instructive, interesting, and more than one occasion has caused me to reassess what I had just read myself. I got into a pattern over on the SFF Audio podcast where we were doing Heinleins regularly. Each time, I dipped into the Pleasant Profession to see what Farah had to say, and each time, I came away with a new perspective and new point of view, even with books such as Farnham’s Freehold. The Pleasant Profession is a mandatory read if you want to dig deeper into any Heinlein title that you are thinking of reading or re-reading. It amazes me that it had to be crowdfunded to come into existence, Mendlesohn has done plenty of other publications, of course, including the Cambridge Guide to Science Fiction, works on Diana Wynne Jones, A short history of fantasy and plenty more. I think of her work as my gateway (and perhaps yours, reader) into the academic side of science fiction, a country I will never enter, but perhaps can wave at from not far from the border.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Off the Mark stacks the deck.
The Argyle Sweater needs another button.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal attempts to update archeology.
The Guardian’s First Dog in the Moon cartoon (from Australia) has the return of Doctor Who Christmas Specials as a reason to be cheerful in an otherwise grim world (and it’s generally well worth reading on a regular basis!): “Goodness me cheer up! Here are some things Guardian readers think are getting better”.
Tom Gauld’s vacation is coming up:

How many books should I take on holiday with me? (For @GuardianBooks ). pic.twitter.com/jll5V8YbfK
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) July 27, 2024

(10) BRINGING UP BABY. A snippet of fascinating comics history in “The Strafford – 777 West End Avenue” at Daytonian in Manhattan.

…Iancu Urn Liber was born in Eastern Romania where he suffered intense antisemitism. Upon immigrating to America, he changed his name to Jack Lieber. In the spring of 1920, Jack married Celia Solomon and they moved into The Strafford. Two years later, on December 28, 1922, they welcomed their first son, Stanley Martin Lieber. Like his father had done, Stanley would change his name, becoming Stan Lee–the creative leader of Marvel comic books….

The same article includes an unrelated bit of interesting Titanic history.

(11) STAR TREK NEWS. Variety was at Comic-Con when they unveiled “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Section 31, Lower Decks First Looks”.

The “Star Trek” Universe uncloaked a litany of first looks during its epic panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday, including panels for the third season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” the fifth and final season of “Star Trek: Lower Decks” and the first television feature film in the franchise, “Star Trek: Section 31.”

(12) CREATURE COMMANDOS. “Creature Commandos Teaser Unveiled, New DC Studios Logo” – Deadline sets the frame.

James Gunn beamed in from the Superman set Friday at Comic-Con to show off the new teaser for Max’s animated series Creature Commandos, which he wrote all seven episodes on. Premiere date is December.

In the footage… Viola Davis reprises her role as Amanda Waller. She walks Captain Flag down to inner prison areas where we’re introduced to a bunch that’s crazier than the Suicide Squad: Weasel, The Bride, G.I. Robot, Dr. Phosphorus, Frankenstein and Nina Mazursky.

“These assholes aren’t human,” Waller tells Rick Flag. G.I. Robot later pops up, “It’s been oh., so long since G.I. Robot sent Nazis back to hell!”…

(13) SDCC’S SIMPSONS PANEL FEATURES VIDEO OF KAMALA HARRIS QUOTING LINE FROM SHOW. It’s not a new video, as you can learn from reading beyond the clickbait headline. “Kamala Harris Surprises ‘Simpsons’ Fans With Message at Comic-Con” in The Hollywood Reporter.

The Simpsons panel at San Diego Comic-Con saved a final surprise for last, as the event ended with a resurfaced video message from Vice President Kamala Harris.

After introducing the final clip as coming from a “super fan,” Matt Groening — who created the animated Fox series that is soon to launch its 36th season — set up footage of a laughing Harris delivering a well-known line from a previous “Treehouse of Horror” episode. The clip was recorded years ago by a group of University of Chicago students who were tasked with getting an elected official to recite the Simpsons quote.

“We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom,” Harris said in the clip. It led to big cheers from the crowd, who appeared to assume that the moment was filmed for the panel, given that no context was given about the clip.

The quote is from season eight’s “Treehouse of Horror VII” that aired Oct. 27, 1996, just ahead of that year’s presidential election between then-President Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. The episode’s segment features aliens Kang and Kodos impersonating the two candidates, with the Clinton imposter delivering the muddled message during a public event….

(14) KEPLER’S LEGACY. Phys.org explains how “Kepler’s 1607 pioneering sunspot sketches solve solar mysteries 400 years later”.

“Kepler’s legacy extends beyond his observational prowess; it informs ongoing debates about the transition from regular solar cycles to the Maunder Minimum, a period of extremely reduced solar activity and anomalous hemispheric asymmetry between 1645 and 1715,” Hayakawa explained.

“By situating Kepler’s findings within broader solar activity reconstructions, scientists gain crucial context for interpreting changes in solar behavior in this pivotal period marking a transition from regular solar cycles to the grand solar minimum.”

“Kepler contributed many historical benchmarks in astronomy and physics in the 17th century, leaving his legacy even in the space age,” said Hayakawa.

“Here, we add to that by showing that Kepler’s sunspot records predate the existing telescopic sunspot records from 1610 by several years. His sunspot sketches serve as a testament to his scientific acumen and perseverance in the face of technological constraints.”

Sabrina Bechet, a researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, added, “As one of my colleagues told me, it is fascinating to see historical figures’ legacy records convey crucial scientific implications to modern scientists even centuries later.

“I doubt if they could have imagined their records would benefit the scientific community much later, well after their deaths. We still have a lot to learn from these historical figures, apart from the history of science itself. In the case of Kepler, we are standing on the shoulders of a scientific giant.”

(15) THAT EYE GUY. “’Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Season 2 Trailer: More Sauron” is Deadline’s simple verdict.

Amazon Prime, once again, spared no expense in banging the drums –literally– for its hit series, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power at Comic-Con. Today’s Hall H panel fired up with composer Bear McCreary leading a big drum percussion and choir with themes from Season 2 of the hit series.

That’s not all — an orc stormed on stage screaming his support of Adar. Also, you know it’s a special moment in Hall H when they open up the massive wrap-around 180-degree-plus screens.

Last night, Amazon celebrated the Aug. 29 launch of Season 2 with a cast and showrunner reception decked out ala Lord of the Rings with a golden flowers and dark forests theme at Venue 808 last night before stirring up a 6,500-strong filled Hall H with the new trailer….

As for the trailer – the YouTube blurb says:

About The Rings of Power Season 2: Sauron has returned. Cast out by Galadriel, without army or ally, the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation of the Rings of Power, which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will. Building on Season 1’s epic scope and ambition, Season 2 of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power plunges even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness, challenging each to find their place in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity. Elves and dwarves, orcs and men, wizards and Harfoots… as friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture, the forces of good will struggle ever more valiantly to hold on to what matters to them most of all… each other.

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

Pixel Scroll 9/14/23 There Are Some Things Money Can’t Buy; For Everything Else, There’s Pixel Scroll

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) TOP PEOPLE. Writer Ted Chiang, filmmaker Lilly Wachowski, manga creator Rootport, and artist Kelly McKernan are some of the recognizable names who are not CEOs or scientists on TIME’s list of “The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023”.

(2) COLLATERAL DAMAGE OF LISTS. “Here we go again. Another badly skewed list of fantasy books recommended for newcomers” – Juliet E. McKenna tees off. Which list? I don’t know, but they keep coming along.

Must be a day with a Y in it. Yes, well-informed readers are pushing back against this particular dated, limited and male-dominated list, and no, I’m not going to link to it and argue the toss over every title. There’s a wider point to be made.

Women SF&F writers don’t take these best-of lists, these recommended-for-award-nominations and shortlists, these articles and review columns that erase us ‘personally’. We object because they damage us professionally. The same is true for every under-represented group excluded from these lists. And yes, the male authors writing the progressive, informed and thought-provoking SF&F which is being ignored have a right to feel aggrieved as well.

When newcomers to fantasy fiction see the most easily-found review coverage and online discussion is all about grimdark books from big publishers, with stories about blokes in cloaks, written by authors like Macho McHackenslay, that’s what they will buy. Or they will be completely put off and go elsewhere in search of fiction where they see themselves and their concerns represented. They will never know what they’re looking for can be found in SF&F.

Either way, six months down the line, the big publisher’s accountants at head office look at the sales figures and see Macho McHackenslay is one of their bestsellers. The order goes out to ask literary agents for more of the same. Because big publishing is a numbers game, and it skews towards repeating successes rather than promoting innovation.

Meantime, an editor will be arguing the case to give another contract to P.D.Kickassgrrl. He insists the body count and hardcore ethics of P.D.Kickassgrrl’s excellent work will surely appeal to Macho McHackenslay fans, as well as whole lot of other readers. Unfortunately her sales aren’t nearly as good, because her books get far fewer reviews and other mentions. Genre magazines and blogs can have a similar skew towards established successes, arguing they have to review the books people are actually buying, because those are the writers readers are clearly interested in. The self-referential and self-reinforcing circle is complete….

(3) NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTS ROLLING OUT. The 2023 National Book Award Longlist for Translated Literature includes one work of genre interest – Bora Chung’s collection Cursed Bunny.

Translated Literature

Devil of the Provinces by Juan Cárdenas and translated from the Spanish by Lizzie Davis (Coffee House)
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung and translated from the Korean by Anton Hur (Algonquin)
Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop and translated from the French by Sam Taylor (FSG)
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck and translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (New Directions)
The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel and translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato (New Vessel)
No One Prayed Over Their Graves by Khaled Khalifa and translated from the Arabic by Leri Price (FSG)
This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor and translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes (New Directions)
Abyss by Pilar Quintana and translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman (World Editions)
On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer and tanslated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott (Two Lines)
The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr and translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud (Other Press)

(4) STURGEON SYMPOSIUM. The full schedule for the 2nd Annual Sturgeon Symposium has been posted at the link. Shows the in-person and several virtual program items. Optional registration available.

(5) HWA’S NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Maxwell I. Gold has been installed as Executive Director of the Horror Writers Association, replacing Brad Hodson who served the HWA for ten years as Administrator.

…The HWA Hiring Committee saw a robust pool of twenty applicants and conducted six interviews in the organization’s first executive search. As HWA President and member of the hiring committee, John Lawson noted:

“This Executive Director search was a first for the HWA, and while I expected interest in the job opening, I had no idea we’d garner the attention of such strong applicants, including those outside the HWA community. Having worked closely with Maxwell, both as Treasurer and as Interim Executive Director, I’ve witnessed firsthand his creative problem-solving and know our membership—and volunteers—will benefit from his efforts. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the outcome of this process and am proud to serve alongside Maxwell.”

Gold has served on the Board of Trustees for two years as Treasurer and will remain a non-voting member of the Board in his new role as Executive Director. Effective immediately, Michael Knost, currently running unopposed, will assume the role and responsibility of the Office of Treasurer for the Horror Writers Association….

(6) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA PICKET LINE. You’re invited to drop by on September 21.

(7) THAT SINKING FEELING. [Item by Danny Sichel.] Mickey Ralph, the lead designer for Good Omens, posted to Twitter about some logistical problems that resulted from there being a second season. Thread starts here.

In ep2 of S1 we see it for a BREIF few seconds with Gabriel and Sandalphon. It was gorgeous. Hand-painted tiles all inset into the dark wood setting and original porcelain sink. Bronwyn (our Set Dec) found it at a market and at the end of S1 it burned with the rest of the shop ???? pic.twitter.com/FahuYFuPiY
— ???????????????????????? ???????????????? (@mickeyralph) September 13, 2023

So, we bought the closest sink dupe we could find, some blank porcelain tiles and some porcelain paint and little old me had the absolute pleasure of doing her darnedest to hand paint a set of replica antique tiles for the corner of the bookshop. pic.twitter.com/7pEh1D293R
— ???????????????????????? ???????????????? (@mickeyralph) September 13, 2023

(8) FOR ALL MANKIND SEASON 4. Collider unpacks “’For All Mankind’ Season 4 Teaser”. The show returns November 10 on Apple TV+.

In previous seasons, For All Mankind explored space exploration’s impact on political and cultural landscapes in different eras, from the 1970s Moon mission to the 1980s Cold War competition for lunar resources. Season 3 saw a race to conquer Mars, leading to a climactic finale.

Launching into the new millennium, Happy Valley has made remarkable strides over the past eight years since Season 3. It has rapidly expanded its presence on Mars, transforming former adversaries into valuable partners. Fast forward to 2003, and the primary focus of this space program has shifted towards capturing and mining extraordinarily precious, mineral-rich asteroids that have the potential to reshape the destinies of both Earth and Mars. However, underlying tensions among the inhabitants of the sprawling international base now jeopardize everything they have worked so diligently to achieve.

Here’s a clip of the show’s “Helios Recruitment” commercial.

Rocketing into the new millennium in the eight years since Season 3, Happy Valley has rapidly expanded its footprint on Mars by turning former foes into partners. Now 2003, the focus of the space program has turned to the capture and mining of extremely valuable, mineral-rich asteroids that could change the future of both Earth and Mars. But simmering tensions between the residents of the now-sprawling international base threaten to undo everything they are working towards.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born September 14, 1919 — Claire P. Beck. He was a reclusive fan known as the Hermit of Lakeport, California was active in the 1930s. Editor of the Science Fiction Critic fanzine which published in four issues the first work of criticism devoted to American SF: “Hammer and Tongs,” written by his brother, Clyde F. Beck. Their publishing house was Futile Press. (Died 1999.)
Born September 14, 1927 — Martin Caidin. His best-known novel is Cyborg which was the basis for The Six Million Dollar Man franchise. He wrote two novels in the Indiana Jones franchise and one in the Buck Rogers one as well. He wrote myriad other sf novels as well. Marooned was nominated for a Hugo at Heicon ’70 but TV coverage of Apollo XI won that year. The Six Million Dollar Man film was a finalist for Best Dramatic Presentation at Discon II which Woody Allen’s Sleeper won. (Died 1997.)
Born September 14, 1944 — Rowena Morrill. Well-known for her genre art, she is one of the first female artists to impact paperback cover illustration. Her notable works include The Fantastic Art of Rowena, Imagine (French publication only), Imagination (German publication only), and The Art of Rowena. Though nominated for the Hugo four times, she never won, but garnered the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. She also did the three covers you see here for the Recorded Books edition of The Lord of The Rings. OGH’s obituary for her is here. (Died 2021.)

Born September 14, 1950 — Michael Reaves. A scriptwriter and story editor to a number of Eighties and Nineties animated television series, including Batman: The Animated Series, Disney’s Gargoyles He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Smurfs, Space Sentinels, Star Wars: Droids and The Transformers. Live action wise, he worked on Next Generation, Sliders, Swamp Thing, original Flash and Young Hercules. He also worked on two of my favorite animated Batman films, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman. (Died 2023.)
Born September 14, 1961 — Justin Richards, 62. Clute at ESF says “Richards is fast and competent.” Well I can certain say he’s fast as he’s turned out thirty-five Doctor Who novels which Clute thinks are for the YA market between 1994 and 2016. And he has other series going as well! Another nineteen novels written, and then there’s the Doctor Who non-fiction which runs to over a half dozen works. He writes mainly Doctor Who novels with thirteen, so from the Eighth through the Thirteenth Doctor so far, and Creative Consultant for the BBC Books range of Doctor Who novels. He’s written novels with Professor Bernice Summerfield as the protagonist as well. And written more SF that aren’t Whovian than I could possibly list here. One such series is, as EoSF notes, “the Invisible Detective sequence, beginning with The Paranormal Puppet Show (2003; vt Double Life 2004), consists in each case of two stories: one set in the 1930s, where the four young protagonists solve sf and fantasy mysteries; the other set in the contemporary world, where a parallel tale is told.”
Born September 14, 1972 — Jenny T. Colgan, 51. Prolific writer of short stories in the Whovian universe with a baker’s dozen to date with several centered on River Song. She novelized “The Christmas Invasion”, the first full Tenth Doctor story. She has two genre novels, Resistance Is Futile and Spandex and the City.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Wrong Hands mashes up kids’ programming with a famous horror story.
Wrong Hands also shows the varieties in the “film school of fish”.

(11) EMBROIDERED WORLDS KICKSTARTER PURSUES STRETCH GOALS. The Kickstarter for the “Embroidered Worlds” English translation of Ukrainian SFF is now funded as far as all stories are concerned, but now they’re working on stretch goals for illustrations and other features. Donors who support this for as little as $1 which will receive a copy of the ebook. There are just over two weeks left in the Kickstarter that will benefit not only Ukrainian writers but, it is hoped, Ukrainian illustrators.

There are several guest blogs for the Kickstarter, including this one by Michael Burianyk on “Why do we need Ukrainian stories?”.

… Because the origins of Ukraine’s cultural and political capital Kyiv are lost in the shades of unrecorded time, they are fought over by competing storytellers. To this day, historians speculate and argue and create their own legends about who and when and why. And Kyiv was for a large part of its story a post-apocalyptic city: It lay in ruins, its spectacular architecture burnt and rotting, its population ravaged and scattered — a perfect breeding ground for ghosts and angst.

Ukraine was a place of conflict, in many ways still unresolved, between the Pagan and the Christian. Priests of the new god ensured that the old, some might say more interesting, beliefs were not written down. Prince Volodymyr, the Red Sun of legend, had the wooden idol of Perun flogged and dragged into the Dnipro to drown, and one imagines that his ghost still wanders the hills of the city along with his divine siblings, Dazhbog, Stribog, and Simargl, who still haunt the wooded ravines and forests of the country — as do many other fantastic and terrible beings.

The country saw, through the centuries, hordes and armies and emperors and commissars — not so different and no more understandable than demons and invading space invaders. Ukraine saw fire and sword wielded by abominable aliens; destruction visited over terrified generations and without warning. The Ukrainian people created their own interesting champions through these times. Stories of its protectors: Volodymyr of legend again and other bogatyry, were told for consolation. Legends of the Kozaks were examples of the spirit of independence of the people and their need for liberty that permeates their souls to this day….

(12) WHERE TO SEE THE CHINESE SERIES THREE-BODY PROBLEM. Seattle PBS station KCTS 9 is going to be running the Chinese-language version of the Three-Body Problem TV series (with English subtitles). Members can stream the first episode now, and the full series starting September 23. Will it be shown on any other PBS stations? My search on the main PBS website didn’t find it, nor another search on LA PBS station KCET. Let me know if it shows up anywhere else. But you could always become a member of the Seattle station and get access to it.

(13) MISSED THE WINDOW. “Stan Lee’s Estate Loses Yearslong Elder Abuse Lawsuit Against Former Attorney on a Technicality” — The Hollywood Reporter has the story.

A messy legal battle initiated by Stan Lee’s estate involving accusations of exploitation and elder abuse by the comic book legend’s inner circle has concluded, with an arbitrator siding with Lee’s former attorney that the lawsuit against him was brought too late.

The five-year legal saga was sparked by The Hollywood Reporter’s investigation into Lee’s estate, which chronicled allegations that people introduced into his life by his daughter, J.C., stole millions of dollars from him. This included Jerardo Olivarez, Lee’s ex-business manager who was given power of attorney. Olivarez allegedly insisted that Lee retain Uri Litvak as his attorney for business dealings, but he didn’t disclose a conflict of interest stemming from Litvak representing him in personal matters. A year after Olivarez was sued, Lee also named Litvak in the lawsuit calling the pair “unscrupulous businessmen, sycophants and opportunists” seeking to take advantage of him following the death of his wife.

A procedural defect in the lawsuit, however, led to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Epstein on Tuesday entering judgment in favor of Litvak after an arbitrator found in February that the statute of limitations to sue him had expired. Lee had a one-year window starting on April 12, 2018, when the complaint against Olivarez was filed, to also name Litvak in the lawsuit. Litvak was sued on April 18, 2018, five days passed the maximum allowable time to initiate legal proceedings….

(14) KGB READINGS. Ellen Datlow shared her photos from the September 13 Fantastic Fiction at KGB readings with Josh Rountree and Benjamin Percy.

(15) DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING. It was supposed to be a tautology until it wasn’t.

Me no wear pants.
— Cookie Monster (@MeCookieMonster) September 12, 2023

(16) SF2 CONCATENATION RELEASES AUTUMN ISSUE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The N. hemisphere’s academic, autumnal edition of SF2 Concatenation is now up. Its contents are:

v33(5) 2023.9.15 — New Columns & Articles for the Autumn 2023

Newscast for the Autumn 2023. This includes within it many key sections. See also the master newscast link index that connects to all its SF/F genre and science news sub-sections.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny… A close look reveals… – Arthur Chappell
When did the first human evolve? A SETI approach illuminates – Jonathan Cowie
Conversation – The 2023 British Eastercon – Arthur Chappell
The Sci-Fi London 2023 Film Fest – Jonathan Cowie
Pemmi-Con – The 15th North American Science Fiction Convention – Sue Burke
18 Years Ago – One from the archive: Glasgow – for visiting SF folk (This is very dated and we hope to have an update for 2024)

v33(5) 2023.9.15 — Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Reviews

v33(5) 2023.9.15 — Non-Fiction SF & Science Fact Book Reviews

Distrust: Big data, data torturing and the assault on science – Garry Smith

Forthcoming: In November SF2 Concatenation will have the third of its four ‘Best of Nature “Futures” short stories‘ of the year, and in December a pre-Christmas final one. If you are new to the site, these are short, one-page, SF stories. They’re rather fun and well worth sitting down with a mug of tea/coffee for a few minutes read. (The Best of Nature “Futures” short stories link is to the SF2 Concatenation archive of past ‘Best of’ stories, so feel free to have a browse. Enjoy.)

(17) FUTURAMA TEASER. Animation World Network shares “Exclusive Clip: ‘Futurama: The Prince and The Product’”.

… Hulu has shared with AWN an exclusive clip from Futurama: The Prince and The Product, streaming Monday, September 18 – one of three mini-episodes slated this season that reimagine the series in a different style….

…In the new episode “The Prince and The Product,” the crew members, reborn as toys, find themselves in life-and-death situations and, in our exclusive sneak peek clip, “Zoidberg Gets Left Behind” a plan is made to go to Saturn and the group decides to… you guessed it! Leave Zoidberg behind….

(18) REVISION QUEST. [Item by Andrew (not Werdna).] Rebecca Watson’s video “The Long History Behind the Latest TikTok ‘No Glasses’ Scam” is about a recent Tik-Tok quack who is reviving the old Bates method – a bogus method to improve eyesight that turns up in Heinlein, Van Vogt and Pohl (and perhaps others).

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew (not Werdna), Bruce D. Arthurs, Linda Deneroff, Michael Burianyk, Danny Sichel, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

Pixel Scroll 6/26/23 This Is Not A Scroll Pixel Title

Posted on June 26, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) GIVE ME A SIGN! Almost 16,000 people have signed the petition to “Save Star Trek Prodigy!” at Change.org. Here’s the text of the appeal:

Paramount+ have announced the cancellation of Star Trek Prodigy and have stated it will be removed from their streaming platform in the coming days. Their reasoning? It’s a tax write-off.

In a statement to TrekCore.com, Paramount stated that, “Star Trek: Prodigy will not be returning for the previously announced second season. On behalf of everyone at Paramount+, Nickelodeon and CBS Studios, we want to thank Kevin and Dan Hageman, Ben Hibon, Alex Kurtzman and the Secret Hideout team, along with the fantastic cast and crew for all their hard work and dedication bringing the series to life.”

That’s right. Not only are they not moving forward with the show and removing the first season from their platform, but the second season (due to be completed) will not air unless picked up by another buyer.

Paramount have long mistreated the loyalty and generosity of Trek fans, but this feels like a gut punch; the final nail in the coffin of goodwill.

Money talks, but so do fans and we can’t let this beautiful show go without a fight!

And CinemaBlend pointed to this tweet: “Star Trek: Prodigy Petition Hits Milestone As Anson Mount Joins Fans In Supporting The Canceled Series”.

???? https://t.co/6LqvYJb7gb
— Anson Mount ???? (@ansonmount) June 24, 2023

(2) A MILESTONE IN HORROR. The New York Times commemorates Shirley Jackson’s story in “75 Years After ‘The Lottery’ Was Published, the Chills Linger”. Stephen King, Carmen Maria Machado, Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay and others tell how this classic first got under their skin.

Paul Tremblay

Author, “The Pallbearers Club”

I’ve reread “The Lottery” many times and remain haunted by the possibilities and ambiguity in the final line uttered by the doomed Mrs. Hutchinson: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.” Is she simply the victim of blind chance? Did she believe the lottery was fixed so that her name would come up? Was it supposed to have been fixed for her name not to be chosen? Is she decrying the entire lottery, the social/political system and its ugly inherent injustices? Is it existence itself that is unfair and not right? All great stories wrestle with that last question.

(3) DEATH BY ONE STARS. The New York Times investigates “How Review-Bombing Can Tank a Book Before It’s Published”.

Cecilia Rabess figured her debut novel, “Everything’s Fine,” would spark criticism: The story centers on a young Black woman working at Goldman Sachs who falls in love with a conservative white co-worker with bigoted views.

But she didn’t expect a backlash to strike six months before the book was published.

In January, after a Goodreads user who had received an advanced copy posted a plot summary that went viral on Twitter, the review site was flooded with negative comments and one-star reviews, with many calling the book anti-Black and racist. Some of the comments were left by users who said they had never read the book, but objected to its premise.

“It may look like a bunch of one-star reviews on Goodreads, but these are broader campaigns of harassment,” Rabess said. “People were very keen not just to attack the work, but to attack me as well.”

In an era when reaching readers online has become a near-existential problem for publishers, Goodreads has become an essential avenue for building an audience. As a cross between a social media platform and a review site like Yelp, the site has been a boon for publishers hoping to generate excitement for books.

But the same features that get users talking about books and authors can also backfire. Reviews can be weaponized, in some cases derailing a book’s publication long before its release.

“It can be incredibly hurtful, and it’s frustrating that people are allowed to review books this way if they haven’t read them,” said Roxane Gay, an author and editor who also posts reviews on Goodreads. “Worse, they’re allowed to review books that haven’t even been written. I have books on there being reviewed that I’m not finished with yet.”…

(4) FRAZETTA IS BIG BUSINESS. [Item by Arnie Fenner.] Frazetta’s cover painting for Karl Edward Wagner’s 1976 novel Dark Crusade set a new record, selling for $6m at Heritage. It became better known when Ellie Frazetta licensed it in 1979 to Molly Hatchet to use as the album jacket for Flirtin’ With Disaster.” “Frank Frazetta’s ‘Dark Kingdom’ Sells For $6 Million to Rule the Record Books at Heritage Auctions”.

Also, you’ll find this fun: Frazetta’s daughter Holly and granddaughter Sara under their Frazetta Girls imprint have released a light-up Death Dealer keychain.

(5) FROM A POE FAMILY. Publishers Weekly’s Mark Dawidziak says these are the “10 Essential Edgar Allan Poe Short Stories”. First on the list:

1. “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Is it a crime story? A horror tale? It’s both, of course, and it’s also a chilling masterpiece that finds Poe brilliantly prowling the murky boundary between obsession and madness. As the author’s “dreadfully nervous” narrator tells us how an old man’s filmy “pale blue eye” drives him to murder, Poe gives us a master class in establishing mood, building suspense, and maintaining pace, all while expertly employing wonderfully specific gradations of light and sound. Not just a remarkably constructed model for the short story form, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a near-perfect monologue, with Poe, the son of actors, displaying his ever-keen sense of the dramatic. He tells us just what we need to know, leaving enough unexplained that we continue to speculate about the characters long after the histrionic “tear up the planks” climax. Small wonder this chilling 1843 tale has remained a classroom favorite and a popular performance piece.

(6) HE’S AN AWFUL ISTANBULLY. Gizmodo is pleased that “1973’s ‘Turkish Spider-Man’ Film Now Has an HD Documentary”.

Film historian Ed Glaser, who previously found the last 35mm print of The Man Who Saves the World (aka, “the Turkish Star Wars”) has released another mini-documentary for his “Deja View” series. This one focuses on the interestingly named 3 Dev Adam—alternatively known as either 3 Giant Men or Captain America & Santo vs. Spider-Man. The big claim to fame for this movie is that it’s “the world’s first comic book crossover film,” well before the MCU or any imitators came onto the scene. Its other big boast is that its version of Spider-Man lives up to everything J. Jonah Jameson’s ever said about him, because he’s a menace and genuine villain who requires two heroes to team up and bring him down….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

2014 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Eugie Foster had a phenomenal life before it was tragically cut short when she died at Emory University Hospital on September 27, 2014 from respiratory failure, a complication of treatments for large B-cell lymphoma, with which she was diagnosed on October 15, 2013. So now I’m depressed, and you should be too.

She was the managing editor for The Fix and Tangent Online, two online short fiction review magazines. She was also a director for Dragon Con and edited the Daily Dragon, their onsite newsletter.

She’s here because of her amazing short stories which were nominated for a lot of Awards including “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” which nominated for an Hugo at Aussiecon 4. It did win a Nebula and was nominated for a BSFA as well.

And that brings us to our Beginning take from her short story , “When it Ends, He Catches Her by” which was nominated for a Nebula and a Sturgeon. It was first published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2014.

And now for the Beginning…

The dim shadows were kinder to the theater’s dilapidation. A single candle to aid the dirty sheen of the moon through the rent beams of the ancient roof, easier to overlook the worn and warped floorboards, the tattered curtains, the mildew-ridden walls. Easier as well to overlook the dingy skirt with its hem all ragged, once purest white and fine, and her shoes, almost fallen to pieces, the toes cracked and painstakingly re-wrapped with hoarded strips of linen. Once, not long ago, Aisa wouldn’t have given this place a first glance, would never have deigned to be seen here in this most ruinous of venues. But times changed. Everything changed.

Aisa pirouetted on one long leg, arms circling her body like gently folded wings. Her muscles gathered and uncoiled in a graceful leap, suspending her in the air with limbs outflung, until gravity summoned her back down. The stained, wooden boards creaked beneath her, but she didn’t hear them. She heard only the music in her head, the familiar stanzas from countless rehearsals and performances of Snowbird’s Lament. She could hum the complex orchestral score by rote, just as she knew every step by heart.

Act II, scene III: the finale. It was supposed to be a duet, her as Makira, the warlord’s cursed daughter, and Balege as Ono, her doomed lover, in a frenzied last dance of tragedy undone, hope restored, rebirth. But when the Magistrate had closed down the last theaters, Balege had disappeared in the resultant riots and protests.

So Aisa danced the duet as a solo, the way she’d had to in rehearsal sometimes, marking the steps where Balege should have been. Her muscles burned, her breath coming faster. She loved this feeling, her body perfectly attuned to her desire, the obedient instrument of her will. It was only these moments that she felt properly herself, properly alive. The dreary, horrible daytime with its humiliations and ceaseless hunger became the dream. This dance, here and now, was real. She wished it would never end.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born June 26, 1929 — Wally Weber, 94. Cry of the Nameless co-editor when it won Best Fanzine; next year chaired the 19th Worldcon (called “Seacon”, being in Seattle; the 37th was “Seacon ’79” being by the sea; not my fault). In SAPS and the N3F (edited one ish of Tightbeam). TAFF delegate 1963. W.W.W. collection published by Burnett Toskey 1975 (hello, Orange Mike). Has been seen, or at least photographed, in a propeller beanie. (John Hertz)
Born June 26, 1950 — Tom DeFalco, 73. Comic book writer and editor, mainly known for his Marvel Comics and in particular for his work with the Spider-Man line. He designed the Spider-Girl character which was his last work at Marvel as he thought he was being typecast as just a Spider-Man line writer. He’s since been working at DC and Archie Comics.
Born June 26, 1954 — James Van Pelt, 69. Here for the phenomenal number of nominations that he has had though no Awards have accrued. I count 26 nominations so far including a Sturgeon, a Nebula and, perhaps the longest named Award in existence, John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer / Astounding Award for the Best New Science Fiction Writer. He has but two novels to date, Summer of the Apocalypse and Pandora’s Gun, but a really lot of short fiction, I think over a hundred pieces, and two poems.
Born June 26, 1965 — Daryl Gregory, 58. He won a Crawford Award for his Pandemonium novel. And his novella, We Are All Completely Fine, won the World Fantasy Award and a Shirley Jackson Award as well. It was also a finalist for the Sturgeon Award. I’m also fond of his writing on the Planet of The Apes series that IDW published.
Born June 26, 1969 — Austin Grossman, 54. Twin brother of Lev. And no, he’s not here just because he’s Lev’s twin brother. He’s the author of Soon I Will Be Invincible which is decidedly SF as well as You: A Novel (also called YOU) which was heavily influenced for better or worse by TRON and Crooked, a novel involving the supernatural and Nixon. He’s also a video games designed, some of which such as Clive Barker’s Undying and Tomb Raider: Legend are definitely genre.
Born June 26, 1969 — Lev Grossman, 54. Most notable as the author of The Magicians Trilogy which is The Magicians, The Magician King and The Magician’s Land. Perennial bestsellers at the local indie bookshops. Understand it was made into a series which is yet another series that I’ve not seen. Opinions on the latter, y’all?
Born June 26, 1980 — Jason Schwartzman, 43. He first shows up in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s personal brain care specialist. (Uncredited initially.) He was Ritchie in Bewitched, and voiced Simon Lee in Scott Pilgrim vs. the Animation. He co-wrote Isle of Dogs alongwith Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, and Kunichi Nomura. I think his best work was voicing Ash Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Born June 26, 1984 — Aubrey Plaza, 39. April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation which at least one Filer has insisted is genre. She voiced Eska in recurring role on The Legend of Korra which is a sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. She was in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as Julie Powers, and was Lenny Busker on Legion.

(9) CREDIT CHECK. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Roy Thomas, Stan Lee’s successor as editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, has waded into the dustup surrounding the latest Lee documentary. Here he is with an editorial at The Hollywood Reporter. “Roy Thomas, Former Marvel Editor, Addresses Debate Over New Stan Lee Doc (Guest Column)”.

… The real question, I suppose, is whether he deserved his status as the major creator of the so-called Marvel Universe.

Gelb’s documentary wisely lets Stan himself narrate his story from start to finish. Virtually the only voice we hear during its 1½-hour length that speaks more than one or two sentences in a row is Stan’s, in extended sound bites harvested from a host of TV appearances, comics convention Q&A sessions, award ceremonies, previous documentaries, and radio guest shots — enlivened by the occasional deathless line of dialogue from one of his many late-life movie cameos.

This is a refreshing way to encounter Stan the Man, and Gelb and his producers (which include Marvel Studios) are to be congratulated for letting him tell his own tale his way. By and large, the effort is successful and entertaining … and, so far as I can tell from my long association with him (which includes writing a humongous “career biography” of him for Taschen Books in the 2010s), it presents a reasonably accurate portrait of the man as he saw himself, and as the world came to see him:

As arguably the most important comicbook writer since Jerry Siegel scribed his first “Superman” story back in the 1930s…

As the creator (or at the very least the co-creator) of a host of colorful super-heroes and related comics characters…

…And as the creator (or at least the major overseer and guiding light) of a four-color phenomenon that became known as the Marvel Universe, and which formed the underlying bulwark of the now-even-more-famous Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most successful series of interconnected motion pictures in the history of that medium.

But of course he didn’t do it alone … and that’s where all the mostly ill-considered criticisms of Stan Lee’s life and work begin to kick in.

As recorded in the film, simply because he often (not always, but often) fails to credit the artists he worked with, Stan often seems to be claiming full credit for milestones, be they the powerful Hate Monger yarn in Fantastic Four No. 21 or such concepts as the Hulk and the X-Men. This is partly just a verbal shorthand, yet it is also in accordance with his expressed belief that “the person who has the idea is the creator,” and that the artist he then chooses to illustrate that concept is not. In L.A. in the 1980s (admittedly, at a time when I was not working for him), I argued that very point with him one day over lunch, maintaining that an artist who rendered and inevitably expanded that original idea was definitely a co-creator. I made no headway with my past and future employer. And clearly, when he wrote his celebrated letter, quoted in the doc, that he had “always considered Steve Ditko to be the co-creator of Spider-Man,” he was doing so only to try to mollify Steve and those who might agree with him. Later, he admitted as much….

(10) IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE. [Item by Dann.] Kids from a certain era…here I go dating myself again…will recall the jungle gyms that populated American playgrounds and schoolyards. These were fabrications of steel pipes set perpendicularly to create cubes of space for kids to climb and explore. The “jungle gym” was originally patented by Sebastian Hinton.

Sebastian got the idea from his father, Charles Howard Hinton. Charles was a British mathematician. He also was an author of science fiction. His interest was primarily in the so-called fourth dimension.

Charles constructed an early jungle gym out of bamboo for young Sebastian and his friends to use. Charles apparently thought that allowing children to play on three-dimensional equipment might enable them to develop the ability to perceive the fourth dimension. Spoiler – they didn’t.

(11) LAST GASPS. Live Science learned that “Dying stars build humongous ‘cocoons’ that shake the fabric of space-time”.

Since the first direct detection of the space-time ripples known as gravitational waves was announced in 2016, astronomers regularly listen for the ringing of black holes across the universe. Projects like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (better known as LIGO) have detected almost 100 collisions between black holes (and sometimes neutron stars), which shake up the fabric of the cosmos and send invisible waves rippling through space.

But new research shows that LIGO might soon hear another kind of shake-up in space: cocoons of roiling gas spewed from dying stars. Researchers at Northwestern University used cutting-edge computer simulations of massive stars to show how these cocoons may produce “impossible to ignore” gravitational waves, according to research presented this week at the 242nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Studying these ripples in real life could provide valuable insight into the violent deaths of giant stars….

(12) DISCUSSIONS ON FILM MUSIC BY COMPOSERS/ORCHESTRATORS/ AND WRITERS. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] This remarkable roundtable of composers and orchestrators assembled ten years ago for a sequence in the unfinished feature length motion picture documentary The Man Who “Saved” The Movies.

Pictured from left to right are acclaimed motion picture orchestrator Patrick Russ, Erwin Vertlieb, Emmy winning film and television composer/conductor Lee Holdridge, writer/film score musicologist Steve Vertlieb, and one of the most brilliant composers working in film today, the marvelous Mark McKenzie.

(13) PRESENTING THE BILL. “William Shatner Sings To George Lucas”.

William Shatner opens the 2005 AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to George Lucas with a song performed the way only Shatner can perform it. Complete with backup Stormtrooper dancers and a cameos by Chewbacca!

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Arnie Fenner, Dann, John Hertz, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Rob Thornton.]

Pixel Scroll 6/20/23 We Don’t Need No Pixelation, We Just Want Some Scroll Control

Posted on June 20, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) SETI CONNECTION TO MISSING SUBMERSIBLE. An international effort has been launched to find a submersible with five people on board that went missing Sunday on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic. According to CNN, a prominent Pakistani father and son are on board the missing sub, which turns out to be of genre interest.

…While the names of those on board have not been released by the authorities, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet have been confirmed to be on board the craft.

The fifth person on board is Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of the company leading the voyage, Ocean Gate, according to a source with knowledge of the mission plan. Ocean Gate did not respond to CNN’s request for comment…

Shahzada Dawood is on the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute, an organization whose scientists “are looking for proof – not merely of life elsewhere – but of intelligent beings in other star systems.”

(2) SFWA SILENT AUCTION INCLUDES JAMES E. GUNN COLLECTION. SFWA’s 3rd Silent Auction, which opened yesterday, includes an “Exclusive James E. Gunn collection”.

July 12, 2023, marks the start of James E. Gunn’s centenary. He died December 23, 2020 – one week after finishing his final story, which sold his final day.

Jim was a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, SF Hall of Fame inductee, first (with Jack Williamson) to offer SF courses in academia, former President of SFWA and SFRA, and “Science Fiction’s Dad” to the generations of authors, editors, and educators he mentored. Jim’s devotion to “Saving the world through science fiction” inspired us to reach higher, grow deeper, and become ever-more humane. His tireless dedication to what SF does was the essence of his magic, and why so many called him Dad. Our world is richer because of him.

For auction is a collection of Jim’s works, unread NOS.

Hardcovers of Transcendental, Transformation, and Transgalactic – his only trilogy, and his final books; two Easton Press leather editions: Gift from the Stars (signed first edition), and Kampus; his Hugo-winning illustrated SF history, Alternate Worlds (new, updated edition); volumes 1-4 of his essential anthologies-as-history, The Road to Science Fiction, with teaching guide; hardcovers collections Human Voices and Some Dreams Are Nightmares; new trade paper and early paperback of Jim’s classic collab with Jack Williamson, Star Bridge; hardcover and early paperback of The Dreamers; new trade paper of his best-selling The Listeners, which inspired Carl Sagan to write Contact and others to form SETI; plus a 1983 business card for his (first of its kind) Center for the Study of SF, SFWA Grand Masters trading card, and Transcendental bookmark.

Donated by the Ad Astra Institute for Science Fiction and the Speculative Imagination, spiritual successor of Jim’s original Center, run by his protégés Chris McKitterick and Kij Johnson.

(3) TRIVIA CONNECTIONS. [Item by Nickpheas.] Given the regular notes of Jeopardy! questions, here’s one from the long running BBC radio 4 show Round Britain Quiz.

Q8 (from Nigel Choyce) Which of these is the leader and how many are missing: A cosmetic company that might come calling; a Victorian actress who travelled in the Tardis; a school of Buddhism emphasising the value of meditation; the Baker Street detective aided by a Tinker?

The question can be heard at about 22.30 through the episode.

(4) READ BAEN MEMORIAL AWARD STORY. Brad Zeiger’s 2023 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award winning story “The Insomniac” is now available as a free read on the Baen Books website.

(5) “I KNOW.” NO, YOU DON’T. Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie devote episode 30 of the Science Fiction 101 podcast to “The Secrets George Lucas Kept From Leigh Brackett”.

Phil and Colin dig into “Star Wars Sequel”, the unfilmed 1978 script by science fiction legend Leigh Brackett which became Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. We look at what made it into the finished film and what got junked, and consider whether Star Wars creator George Lucas was keeping his screenwriter in the dark!

If you’ve never read Brackett’s script, you can find two versions of it online. There’s a PDF scan of the original typescript, which shows all of her hand-corrections and notes – fascinating for its details, if you can make them out. Or there’s this transcript, which is a lot easier to read but loses some of the fun.

For a fascinating, in-depth discussion of how “Star Wars Sequel” developed into The Empire Strikes Back, sit back and watch this interview with screenwriter Larry Kasdan, who wrote the final draft of the film’s script.

(6) FATHOMING COPYRIGHT WHERE AI IS INVOLVED. Michael Capobianco has a post about “Copyright, Contracts, and AI-Generated Material” at Writer Beware.

On March 16, 2023, the United States Copyright Office issued a publication: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence. The full text can be found here.

The Copyright Office’s Guidance does not have the force of law and will change as the situation evolves, especially as legal precedents are created under US law, but, as of the time of this post, it is effectively the policy in force in the United States.

The main takeaway from the Guidance can be summarized thus: the only parts of a work that are copyrightable are the human-contributed ones, and the work is not copyrightable if an AI technology determines the expressive elements of the work and the creativity is not the product of human authorship. In cases where there are both AI-generated and human-authored elements, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of ” and do “not affect” the copyright status of the AI-generated material…..

(7) U.F.O.S SOUND LIKE A N.I.C.E. IDEA. Ross Douthat tells New York Times readers that “This C.S. Lewis Novel Helps Explain the Weirdness of 2023”.

Recently I reread C.S. Lewis’s 1945 novel, “That Hideous Strength,” the last book in his Space Trilogy, and since I wrote about aliens last weekend it seems like a good week to talk a little bit about the novel’s contemporary relevance….

…The story introduces a near-future Britain falling under the sway of a scientistic technocracy, the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), which looks like the World State from Huxley’s “Brave New World” in embryo. But as one of the characters is drawn closer to N.I.C.E.’s inner ring, he discovers that the most powerful technocrats are supernaturalists, endeavoring to raise the dead, to contact dark supernatural entities and even to revive a slumbering Merlin to aid them in their plans.

I’ll say no more about the plot mechanics except to observe that they boldly operate in the risky zone between the sublime and the ridiculous. But just from that sketch I’ll draw out a couple of points about the book’s interest for our own times.

First, the idea that technological ambition and occult magic can have a closer-than-expected relationship feels quite relevant to the strange era we’ve entered recently — where Silicon Valley rationalists are turning “postrationalist,” where hallucinogen-mediated spiritual experiences are being touted as self-care for the cognoscenti, where U.F.O. sightings and alien encounters are back on the cultural menu, where people talk about innovations in A.I. the way they might talk about a golem or a djinn.

The idea that deep in the core of, say, some important digital-age enterprise there might be a group of people trying to commune with the spirit world doesn’t seem particularly fanciful at this point. (For a small example of what I mean, just read this 2021 account of life inside one of the stranger tech-associated research institutes.) Although like some of the characters in “That Hideous Strength,” these spiritualists would probably be telling themselves that they’re just doing high-level science, maybe puncturing an alternate dimension or unlocking the hidden potential of the human mind.

Then, too, the book’s totalitarian dystopia is interesting for being incomplete, contested and plagued by inner rivalries and contradictions. Unlike in “Brave New World” and “1984,” we don’t see a one-party regime holding absolute sway; in Lewis’s story, we see a still-disguised tyranny taking shape but still falling prey to various all-too-human problems, blunders and failures that contrast with the smooth dominance of Orwell’s O’Brien or Huxley’s Mustapha Mond….

The novel’s emphasis on the limitations of any attempted secret government, finally, connects specifically to our peculiar U.F.O. discourse, where we suddenly have a government whistle-blower claiming knowledge of a 90-year conspiracy and, apparently, a chorus of anonymous sources encouraging belief.

I wrote a Twitter thread after my column, explaining why even independent of the likelihood of alien visitors or interdimensional encounters, I find it hard to imagine the kind of long conspiracy depicted by the whistle-blower: The secrets involved would be too big not to tempt would-be heroes of disclosure, the breadth of infrastructure would be too hard to hide, the political complexity and turmoil of the world would create too many opportunities for revelations (because you would need China, Russia and other powers to be in on it as well) and so on.

If there were an alien cover-up, though, I would imagine it would look more like the secrets held by N.I.C.E. in “That Hideous Strength.” …

(8) TAX-EXEMPT AT LAST. The Science Fiction Poetry Association informed members today that they have received the official confirmation from the IRS of SFPA’s 501(c)(3) status, which secures the organization’s federal tax exempt standing.

(9) RUSHDIE’S LATEST HONOR. Winner of “The 2023 German Book Trade’s Peace Prize: Salman Rushdie” reports Publishing Perspectives.

The board of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade has announced today (June 19) that Salman Rushdie is the winner of this year’s honor, “for his indomitable spirit, for his affirmation of life, and for enriching our world with his love of storytelling.”

…As is this award’s tradition, the honor will be conferred in a ceremony on the closing day of Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 18 to 22), at the Paulskirche, a program to be broadcast live on German public television (SDF) at 11 a.m. The award carries a purse of €25,000 (US$27,302).

(10) MICHAEL A. BANKS (1951-2023). Writer and editor Michael A. Banks (Alan Gould), a longtime member of the Cincinnati Fantasy Group, died June 19 of cancer. He was 72.

In the SF field, he is perhaps best known for nonfiction works about the genre (including Understanding Science Fiction, 1980) and his collaborations with Mack Reynolds. His first published story was “Lost and Found” (1978) with George Wagner. Banks wrote several novels to his credit, including The Odysseus Solution, with Dean R. Lambe. He also worked as an acquisitions editor for publishers, including Baen Books and Harlequin. He wrote dozens of nonfiction books.

(11) MEMORY LANE.

2016 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

So the Beginning this Scroll is from Claudia Casper’s The Mercy Journals.

She’s a Canadian writer who’s best known for The Reconstruction, about a woman who constructs a life-sized model of the hominid Lucy for a museum.

And now for our Beginning…

On October 15, 2072, two Moleskine journals were found wrapped in shredded plastic inside a yellow dry box in a clearing on the east coast of Vancouver Island near Desolation Sound. They were watermarked, mildewed, and ragged but legible, though the script was wildly erratic. Human remains of an adult male were unearthed nearby along with a shovel and a 9mm pistol. Also found with the human remains were those of a cougar. The journals are reproduced in their entirety here, with only minor copy-editing changes for ease of reading.

March 9, 2047 | My name is Allen Levy Quincy. Age 58. Born May 6, 1989. Resident of Canton Number 3, formerly Seattle, Administrative Department of Cascadia. This document, which may replace any will and testament I have made in the past, is the only intentional act of memory I have committed since the year 2029. I do not write because I am ill or because I leave much behind. I own a hot plate, three goldfish, my mobile, my Callebaut light, my Beretta M9, the furniture in this apartment, and a small library of eleven books.

March 10 | I sit at my kitchenette island in this quasi-medieval, wired-by-ration, post nation-state world, my Beretta on my left, bottle of R & R whiskey on my right, speaking to the transcription program on my mobile.

I was sober for so long. Eighteen years. I was sober through what seems to have been the worst of the die-off. Three and a half to four billion people, dead of starvation, thirst, illness, and war, all because of a change in the weather. The military called it a “threat multiplier.

You break it, you own it—the old shopkeeper’s rule. We broke our planet, so now we owned it, but the manual was only half written and way too complicated for anyone to understand. The winds, the floods, the droughts, the fires, the rising oceans, food shortages, new viruses, tanking economies, shrinking resources, wars, genocide—each problem spawned a hundred new ones. We finally managed to get an international agreement with stringent carbon emissions rules and a coordinated plan to implement carbon capture technologies, but right from the beginning the technologies either weren’t effective enough or caused new problems, each of which led to a network of others. Within a year, the signatories to the agreement, already under intense economic and political pressure, were disputing who was following the rules, who wasn’t, and who had the ultimate authority to determine non-compliance and enforcement.

Despite disagreements, the international body made headway controlling the big things—coal generators, fossil fuel extraction, airplane emissions, reforestation, ocean acidification—but the small things got away from them—plankton, bacteria, viruses, soil nutrients, minute bio-chemical processes in the food chain. Banks and insurance companies failed almost daily, countries went bankrupt, treaties and trade agreements broke down, refugees flooded borders, war and genocide increased. Violent conflict broke out inside borders, yet most military forces refused to kill civilians. Nation-states collapsed almost as fast as species became extinct. Eventually the international agreement on climate change collapsed completely, and the superpowers retreated behind their borders and bunkered down. The situation was way past ten fingers, eleven holes; it was the chaos that ensues after people miss three meals and realize there’s no promise of a meal in the future.

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born June 20, 1947 — Candy Clark, 76. Mary Lou in The Man Who Fell to Earth which of course featured Bowie. She also was in Amityville 3-D, Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye and The Blob in the role of Francine Hewitt. That’s the remake obviously, not the original. Oh, and she’s Buffy’s mom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Wiki being Wiki lists that as non-canon which makes absolutely no sense, does it?
Born June 20, 1951 — Tress MacNeille, 72. Voice artist extraordinaire. Favorite roles? Dot Warner on The Animaniacs, herself as the angry anchorwoman in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Babs Bunny on Tiny Toons and Hello Nurse on Pinky and The Brain.
Born June 20, 1952 — John Goodman, 71. Some may know him as the TV husband of a certain obnoxious comedienne but I’ve never watched that show. So I picture him as Fred Flintstone in The Flintstones, a role perfect for him. Mind you he’s had a lot of genre roles: voicing James P. “Sulley” Sullivan in the Monsters franchise, a cop in the diner in C.H.U.D., and he’ll even be the voice of Spike in the Tom and Jerry due out two years hence. And he’s in Argo, which is a thriller, but one in which the development of a fake sf movie is crucial.
Born June 20, 1956 — Ed Lynskey, 67. Mainly a mystery writer with five series comprising forty novels underway but he has written one genre novel, The Quetzal Motel, a handful of genre short fiction (uncollected) that appeared in Full Unit Hookup, Aoife’s Kiss, Maelstrom, and Three-Lobed Burning Eyed (fascinating titles, eh?) and somewhat more genre poetry.
Born June 20, 1967 — Nicole Kidman, 56. Batman Forever was her first foray into the genre but she has done a number of genre films down the years: Practical Magic, The Stepford Wives, Bewitched (I liked it), The Invasion (never heard of it), The Golden Compass (not nearly as good as the novel was), Paddington, and as Queen Atlanna in the rather good Aquaman.
Born June 20, 1968 — Robert Rodriguez, 55. I’ll single out the vastly different Sin City and Spy Kids franchises as his best work, though the From Dusk till Dawn has considerable charms as well. ISFDB notes that he’s written two novels with Chris Roberson riffing off his The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D film, The Day Dreamer and Return to Planet Droll.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro has a (bizarre, of course) police lineup.

(14) STAN LEE WILL RING THE BELL. An animated Stan Lee will ring the opening bell of the NYSE on June 26. The event will stream live on Kartoon Channel. “Genius Brands Moves to NYSE, Renames as Kartoon Studios” at Animation World Network.

Genius Brands International, Inc. announced a name change to Kartoon Studios and plans to transfer its listing from the Nasdaq Capital Market (Nasdaq) to the NYSE American exchange (NYSE American). Under its new name, the company expects to start trading on the NYSE American exchange when markets open on Monday, June 26, 2023. That day the company’s common stock will begin trading under a new trading symbol, “TOON,” and a new CUSIP number, 37229T 509. It will continue to trade on Nasdaq under its current trading symbol, “GNUS” until the close of market on Friday, June 23, 2023.

An animated Stan Lee will ring the opening bell of the NYSE on June 26, an indication of the company’s plans to expand on its Stan Lee IP under its new moniker. The event will stream live on Kartoon Channel!

The company controls the post-Marvel IP of Stan Lee, which was initially brought to market with a 20-year license to Marvel and the Walt Disney Company, and brand initiative commemorating Stan’s 100th anniversary at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2023….

(15) THE PICTURES MOVE, THE CAR DOESN’T. Smithsonian Magazine brings us “The History of the Drive-In Movie Theater”.

On June 6, 2008 the flag flying over the U.S. Capitol commemorated the 75th birthday of a distinctive slice of Americana: the drive-in movie theater.

It was on that day in 1933 that Richard Hollingshead opened the first theater for the auto-bound in Camden, N.J. People paid 25 cents per car as well as per person to see the British comedy Wives Beware under the stars.

…He first conceived the drive-in as the answer to a problem. “His mother was—how shall I say it?—rather large for indoor theater seats,” said Jim Kopp of the United Drive-in Theatre Owners Association. “So he stuck her in a car and put a 1928 projector on the hood of the car, and tied two sheets to trees in his yard.”…

(16) UKRAINE/STAR WARS AGAIN. [Item by Susan de Guardiola.] Continuing the Star Wars spotting in the war: check out the chest patch General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, is sporting here:

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi. May the force be with you! pic.twitter.com/Xs1IzROLhC
— Inna Sovsun (@InnaSovsun) June 20, 2023

Tolkien and Star Wars, over and over in this war.

(17) NO AIR THERE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] It may be that the red dwarf star has blown away the closely orbiting planet’s atmosphere. See open access pre-print Zieba, S. et al (2023) “No thick carbon dioxide atmosphere on the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c”, Nature.

Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that a second world in a seven-planet system lacks an atmosphere.

For the second time, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has looked for and failed to find a thick atmosphere on an exoplanet in on one of the most exciting planetary systems known. Astronomers report1 today that there is probably no tantalising atmosphere on the planet TRAPPIST-1 c, just as they reported months ago for its neighbour TRAPPIST-1 b.

SF² Concatenation previously reported on the innermost planet not having an atmosphere.

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Not strictly TV as it was never broadcast but here’s Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who in a corporate film circa 1981. There’s a surprising … err … twist at the end.”

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Jason Sanford, Nickpheas, Susan de Guardiola, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ken Richards.]

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