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Pixel Scroll 7/11/24 ‘E’s Not A Pixel! ‘E’s A Very Naughty Scroll!

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(1) GRRM AND THE GHOSTS OF GLASGOW. George R.R. Martin told Not a Blog readers that he will be at Glasgow 2024 and has tried to get on program, however several of his proposals did not even get a reply from the committee. “On the Road Again”.

Glasgow has hosted worldcons twice before, and we were at both of those and had a great time.   We are hoping this will be as good.

Anyway… I will be in Glasgow, attending the con, but whether you’ll see me, I don’t know.   I am not on any programming.   It is not for lack of trying, though.   I wrote the con’s programming chair back in January, and again in February, asking for his phone number so we could discuss the details.  No phone number was forthcoming, alas, just a form letter with a link to an application and a warning that while I was welcome to apply, I could not be guaranteed a place on the programme.

I did not give up there, however.   Several months later, when I learned how many of my Wild Cards writers would be at the con (about a dozen, all told), I wrote again and offered to organize a Wild Cards event for them.   (We have done Wild Cards events at a dozen past worldcons, everything from traditional panels to trivia contests to cage matches and the like), and they have always drawn a big crowd.   I got no reply to that one.   A month or so after that, I tried again.  Howard Waldrop died in January, and I thought it would be nice to do a memorial panel honoring the man and his work.   Several other friends of Howard will also be at Glasgow, and said they would be delighted to be part of such a panel.   Alas, no reply to that one either.

As regular readers of my Not A Blog know, I  have also been producing a series of short films based on some of Howard’s classic short stories.   NIGHT OF THE COOTERS was the first done, and won prizes in half a dozen film fests.   MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER is hitting the festival circuit this year, and has already won its first prize.   THE UGLY CHICKENS, adapted by Michael Cassutt from Howard’s Nebula-winning short, and starring fan favorite Felicia Day, will follow this year.   Just saw the final cut, directed by Mark Raso, and it’s just lovely.  The films are not in theatres yet, but I offered to screen them in Glasgow, as part of the film programme (if there is one) or that proposed Waldrop Memorial Panel.   No response to that offer either.

So… yes, I will be at Glasgow.   I will check out the art show, as I always do, maybe attend some bid parties, and I will be wandering the dealer’s room (the huckster’s room, as us old timers call it).   The rest of the time I guess I may hang out in the bar, drinking with friends both old and new, toasting Howard and Gardner and all the other friends we lost.

At the Winter Is Coming fan site Dan Selcke tried to explain why this might be happening in “George R.R. Martin ghosted by Worldcon after controversial 2020 hosting gig”.

…One of the main events at Worldcon are the Hugo Awards, given out to sci-fi and fantasy authors, filmmakers and creators. That year, the award ceremony was virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Martin was the host. As he puts it in his blog post, “things did not work out well.”

That’s putting it mildly. To make a long story short, Martin was accused on social media and elsewhere of erasing the accomplishments of authors of color, glorifying authors and editors with regressive beliefs, mispronouncing lots of the names on the ballot, making off-color jokes, taking way too long to give his remarks, and generally doing a bad job as host.

The backlash was so bad that the con chairs issued an apology. Martin defended himself by saying he was trying delve into the history of the Hugos and make people laugh, although obviously the approach didn’t work. My read on that situation was that it was a bad match of host and audience. A lot of the acceptance speeches from authors were about the importance of social justice in sci-fi and fantasy, and these people did not want to hear George R.R. Martin talk for hours about long-dead authors with problematic records, let alone endure it for the full length of the three-and-a-half-hour ceremony….

I’m sure that’s part of it. But my personal opinion is a bigger reason was that GRRM devoted a chunk of time during his pre-recorded 2020 Hugo Awards presentation, assisted by Robert Silverberg, glorifying John W. Campbell Jr. This was in the aftermath of Jeanette Ng’s 2019 acceptance speech for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer which heavily criticized Campbell and called him a fascist (see “Storm Over Campbell Award”), a speech that in fact won the 2020 Best Related Work Hugo Award.

(2) PERSEVERANCE. Sarah A. Hoyt has encouraging words for new writers at Mad Genius Club: “You Might Be A Beginning Writer IF”.

I’ve noticed that a lot of beginning writers either view these problems as “a sign I shouldn’t be doing this” or a big personality failing. Well, since I have been doing this since some of you were born, I’m here to tell you that’s not true at all. Everyone has these issues starting out. They are absolutely bog standard, and they smooth out as you practice and learn, and sometimes when you try this “one easy trick.” So in no particular order, here are issues that plague newbies…

One of them is:

I can start stories, but I lose interest and it all dies within a few paragraphs. Or at best halfway through.

Completely normal. That’s because the idea in your head is beautiful and multi-colored and amazing.

But each decision you make limits the choices you can make, so it makes the story less exciting in your brain.

This is a “in your brain” problem. It’s not real. If you push past it, eventually it will stop telling you the story is dead. Better. Once the story is done, you won’t be able to find the place it “died.”

(3) AUTHORS OPEN LETTER SUPPORTS FIRED WATERSTONES EMPLOYEE. “Authors ask Waterstones to rehire worker fired after tweet about gender-critical writer” reports the Guardian.

More than 500 authors and book industry professionals have signed an open letter calling on Waterstones to reverse a decision to dismiss an employee who said she would tear up and throw away books written by a gender-critical author.

Figures including Chocolat author Joanne Harris, writer and podcaster Dorian Lynskey, and author and culture journalist Jason Okundaye have backed Tilly Fitzgerald, who posts book-related content and reviews under the username TillyLovesBooks on social media. Fitzgerald was sacked after responding to a post on X by author Christina Dalcher, which appeared to endorse a publishing network for those “concerned about the impact of gender ideology” on the sector. Fitzgerald wrote: “Ooh, I’ll enjoy tearing up your books and popping them in the bin today. Thanks for the heads up.”

Fitzgerald, who had worked for Waterstones as a bookseller since August 2023, explained in a video posted on 8 July that Waterstones had sacked her over her social media activity. “I’ve just been sacked from the only job I’ve ever loved,” she said.

“I told [Dalcher] on Twitter that I was going to throw away her books after I found out that she was a bigot”, Fitzgerald added. “She tagged Waterstones and they have decided to fire me for my social media usage. It’s the first mistake I’ve ever made, I’ve been nothing but an exemplary employee there”.

A spokesperson from Waterstones said Fitzgerald was dismissed “on the grounds of contravening Waterstones policies” and that the decision “has nothing to do with transgender rights”.

“We are an inclusive employer and follow due process in HR matters,” the spokesperson told the Guardian. “For obvious reasons we are unable to comment on the specifics of individual cases.”

Fitzgerald told the Guardian: “My intention responding to Dalcher was only to let her know that I would no longer be supporting her books in my personal capacity as a reviewer.”…

(4) STARSHIP FONZIE REPORTS UPDATE REGARDING KARL KLINGER’S STOLEN BICYCLE. [Item by Eric Hildeman.] Follow-up to the news item regarding steampunk enthusiast Karl Klinger’s stolen bicycle: He’s about to get TWO penny farthings!

A man named Rolly, who is a great guy by all accounts, saw the story about Karl’s bike theft on the news and contacted him to offer Karl his own penny farthing bicycle, which was built in 1979. Last Sunday, Karl procured the bike from Rolly, “for a steal.” (The exact dollar figure wasn’t revealed.) Apparently, Rolly can no longer ride his bike, for whatever reason, and he wanted it to go to a good home. I think we can all agree it certainly has! So, while Karl’s new bike is currently being constructed, he now already has another one!

Rolly apparently modified this bike to go much faster than a normal penny farthing would, which Karl seems to appreciate.

Transcript on Blogger.com can be found here.

(5) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.

(6) SHELLEY DUVALL (1949-2024). Actress Shelley Duvall died July 11 in her sleep of complications from diabetes at her home in Texas. Just looking at her top genre work, she played Jack Nicholson’s wife Wendy Torrance in The Shining (1980), Olive Oyl in Popeye (1980), Pansy in funny scenes with Michael Palin in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits (1981); and Steve Martin’s supportive pal Dixie in Roxanne (1987).

Her TV work included appearances on episodes of The Twilight Zone reboot, and Ray Bradbury Theater.

…Roger Ebert wrote in 1980 that Duvall “looks and sounds like almost nobody else … and has possibly played more really different kinds of characters than almost any other young actress of the 1970s.

“In all of her roles, there is an openness about her, as if somehow nothing has come between her open face and our eyes — no camera, dialogue, makeup, method of acting — and she is just spontaneously being the character.”…

And at Deadline: “Remembering Shelley Duvall: A Career In Photos”.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 11, 1899 – E. B. White. (Died 1985.)

By Paul Weimer:  I missed reading a swath of children’s literature because I was always aiming and hoping to read “adult books”.  I got annoyed once, while in the hospital, that the playroom only had “baby books” (e.g. Golden readers). As soon as I could contrive to get a library card to get me into the adult section instead of the children’s section, I did. And I mainly read the non fiction books in the children’s section until I could get into the Golden Country of the Adult section.  So some of the basics of children’s literature, I frankly only know from cultural osmosis. 

E. B. White and his dog, Minnie.

E.B. White is an exception to that, in two particular novels: Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. 

The first, Charlotte’s Web. Well, you know the story of Wilbur, the pig, saved from death by the clever titular character’s webbing and messages. I came across this story first in the animated movie from the 70’s, and went on to find it in the library and read the original. I enjoyed it even more than the animated movie, which is pretty faithful to the book I found, although it IS a musical, which I will just say was a *choice*. (They aren’t even really good songs, to be honest). Still, the movie and the book were for me what the Lion King was for a generation later, introducing the “cycle of life” (but Charlotte’s Web is a little more gentle about it)

After I read Charlotte’s Web, I then read Stuart Little, since it was sitting right there in the library next to Charlotte’s Web and I was curious. (I also briefly had the wrong idea it was set in the same universe). Still, I was charmed by the idea of the diminutive small Stuart Little being fearless and adventurous, wanting to see the world no matter what. Did Stuart Little help kindle in me my curiosity and desire to see places (and decades later, want to photograph them).  Maybe, it’s certainly a working theory. Unlike Charlotte’s Web, I don’t particularly care for the late 90’s movie. I vastly prefer the book (maybe because I read the book first).  

Oh, there is one adult book of White’s I’ve read, long ago for AP English:  Strunk and White’s The Manual of Style.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

 (9) UP ABOVE THE WORLD SO HIGH. “The International Astronomical Youth Camp Is a Summer Camp for Serious Stargazers”. Atlas Obscura says, “For more than half a century, the International Astronomical Youth Camp has attracted aspiring astronomers from around the world.”

THE CLOUDS SEEMED TO BE conspiring against Jimo Pereira last summer. The university student from Buenos Aires spent much of her time curled up in a sleeping bag on the grounds of Eichsfelder Hütte, a hostel deep in Germany’s rugged Harz Mountains. Night after chilly night she’d be out in the open field with her project partner, trying to stay warm. Every so often one of them would get up to check their telescope, but the clouds stubbornly barred their view. Then one night, finally, they saw stars.

For hours, the pair took turns checking the alignment of their telescope and camera every 20 minutes that one clear night. They came away not with an Instagram-worthy time-lapse photo, but with data on two distant stars orbiting each other in what’s known as an eclipsing binary system. The two were not scientists, however. At least, not professionally—not yet. They were participants in one of the world’s most unusual summer camps: One devoted to studying the cosmos in constant motion overhead as the camp itself travels around the globe.

This traveling camp is the International Astronomical Youth Camp, an annual three-week program for 16- to 24-year-old lovers of astronomy that’s held at a different location each year. It’s been running every summer (and the occasional winter) since 1969, and has taken place in 15 different countries so far. In August, Pereira will join more than 60 other campers and 10 volunteers from more than 20 countries for her third camp, this time among the crags of Vogtland in eastern Germany, near the Czech border.’

(10) ROLE CALL. The Hollywood Reporter says Patrick Stewart will be the voice of a demonic axe in Barbaric: “Michael Bay, Sam Claflin, Patrick Stewart Vault Comics ‘Barbaric’”.

Michael Bay is heading to television.

The director, known for his muscular and high-revving big-screen action franchises such as Bad Boys and Transformers, is in talks to direct Barbaric, an acerbic fantasy series based on the best-selling Vault Comics title.

Netflix has picked up the bold-faced series package, which it will develop with A+E Studios.

Sam Claflin and Patrick Stewart are attached to star in the series, which will be written and exec produced by Sheldon Turner, known for his feature credits such as Up in the Air and X-Men: First Class….

Launched in 2021 and created by writer Michael Moreci and artist Nathan Gooden, Vault’s Barbaric featured a talking demonic axe and Owen, a barbarian looking for redemption. 

Claflin is attached to star as Owen while Stewart will provide the voice of the demonic axe….

(11) JUST HOW MANY OF THESE THINGS ARE THERE? “The Ending of Every Jaws Movie, Ranked” — SYFY Wire thinks you deserve to know their opinion. See the results at the link.

When you think about death in the Jaws movies, you’re probably thinking about the hapless beachgoers who are devoured by a giant, bloodthirsty great white shark — while John Williams’ iconic theme plays, of course. But, all four Jaws movies end with another death: that of the shark.

In Jaws (1975), Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), and Jaws: The Revenge (1987), some member of the Brody family is, after much struggle, able to kill the Carcharodon carcharias in spectacular fashion, making it safe to get back in the water (for now, at least). Some of these kills are exciting, iconic climaxes that rank up there with the best endings in blockbuster film history. Other endings have, let’s say, jumped the shark. 

With it being July, and with all four movies currently streaming on Peacock, we thought it was a good time to rank the shark deaths to determine which Jaws was the best at saying “fin.”…

(12) WITH SHARP, POINTY TEETH. And if you don’t haven’t bagged your limit, there’s Space Sharks which FirstShowing.net says you can rent right now: “Bad Trailer for Trashy Sci-Fi Movie ‘Space Sharks’ feat. Eric Roberts”.

“They don’t need water to kill!” Wild Eye Releasing has debuted a trailer for a B-movie sci-fi comedy called Space Sharks, the latest from filmmaker Dustin Ferguson. This has already been dumped on VOD and can be watched now, if anyone wants to give it a go? …

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

Pixel Scroll 6/19/24 No Scroll Comes Between Me And My Pixel

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(1) RELIC OF FIRST WORLDCON. You have one day left to bid on Frank R. Paul’s artwork for the first Worldcon program book (1939) at Heritage Auctions. It was going for $925 when I looked earlier.

Frank R. Paul World Science Fiction Convention – Nycon Program Book Illustration Original Art (Nycon, 1939). From the first ever World Science Fiction Convention (aka Worldcon) in 1939! And the art is by noted sci-fi artist Frank R. Paul, which makes this doubly desirable! The original art for this program banner was created in ink and signed in the lower right of the 20.5″ x 3.25″ image area. UV Glass-front framed to 29″ x 12.75″. Lightly toned, with some minor whiteout art clean-ups. In Very Good condition.
From the Roger Hill Collection.

(2) WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley is the only genre work among six novels that have been shortlisted for Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. The complete list of finalists is at the link. The marketing copy for Bradley’s book says:

A boy meets a girl. The past meets the future. A finger meets a trigger. The beginning meets the end. England is forever. England must fall.

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering ‘expats’ from across history to test the limits of time-travel.

Her role is to work as a ‘bridge’: living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as ‘1847’ – Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as ‘washing machine’, ‘Spotify’ and ‘the collapse of the British Empire’…. 

(3) HOLD ‘EM BY THE NOSE AND KICK ‘EM IN THE ASS. At Fantasy Author’s Handbook, Philip Athans has an idea: “Let’s Reject Rejections”.

Your query to an agent has been rejected. Your short story was rejected by a magazine. You are a potato and are starting to show roots so the chef rejected you.

Aside from the potato thing, this happens so often to literally every writer, how does this not make us all feel like rejects?

And no one should feel like a reject.

But then, no agent can represent all the authors. No publisher can publish all the books. That means we have to figure out how to deal with rejection. The good news is that’s super easy. All you have to do is develop a thick skin. I heard skin thickening is offered by a sanitarium in the Swiss Alps for as little as €400,000 per treatment. It requires only one treatment per rejection letter, so most trillionaire authors should be able to soak that up. The rest of us will have to remain entirely human.

And no human wants to be, likes to be, feels they should be or deserve to be, rejected.

But then there’s that reality again: No agent can represent all the authors. No publisher can publish all the books.

We have to figure out not how to render ourselves immune to normal, healthy human emotional responses, but to, for lack of a better term, roll with it….

(4) THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. “The stolen ruby slippers will be up for auction. Minnesota wants them back” reports NPR.

This weekend, Grand Rapids, Minnesota will honor its best-known former resident — Judy Garland.

And at its annual Judy Garland Festival, the city will fundraise to bring back a prized prop that the actress made famous. But, it won’t be an easy stroll down the Yellow Brick Road.

Minnesota lawmakers set aside $100,000 this year to help the Judy Garland Museum purchase the coveted ruby slippers of “The Wizard of Oz” fame. Experts expect the shoes could sell for a much higher price.

“They could sell for $1 million, they could sell for $10 million. They’re priceless,” says Joe Maddalena, Heritage Auctions executive vice president.

The ruby slippers are one of four sets remaining.

This pair’s unique story

The shoes were on display at Garland’s namesake museum in Grand Rapids in the summer of 2005 when a burglar struck. John Kelsch, the museum director at the time, says a man broke in through the back door and snatched the slippers….

(5) BICYCLE THIEF. [Item by Eric Hildeman.] Carl Klinger of the Milwaukee Steampunk Society had his penny farthing stolen and smashed. Fortunately, a fundraiser to get him a new one was successful. “Starship Fonzie #40 – Transcript”.

…What’s a penny farthing? It’s that old-timey sort of bicycle with the enormously huge wheel in front and a much smaller wheel in back. You know, the sort that Passpartout rode in the opening scenes of the 1956 film “Around the World in 80 Days,” starring David Niven. There’s also one on display in the Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit in the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Well, who knows why it was stolen, but it was, and police were notified. Usually when a bike is stolen it’s never recovered, but this is a very unusual bicycle. Very tricky to ride, very obvious to spot. So the guy who’d stolen it noticed the news story regarding the theft, saw his own image caught on security camera, and apparently panicked. I guess he had a rap sheet as long as his arm regarding other charges the law wanted to nab him on. So he was living in hiding, the thief I mean. Why someone like that would steal an item so obvious to spot is beyond me. But when he saw the news story regarding the theft, he got afraid that his cover might be blown and, not wanting the law to come after him, he smashed the bicycle, dumped it somewhere where it would be found, and then fled out of state….

So Carl was out a very unique, very expensive steampunk-themed bicycle. And we were all bummed about this. Well, Carl put out a fundraiser to get him a new penny farthing, and the fundraiser, I’m pleased to say, was successful. He needed about $2000 for a new one, his fundraiser garnered $3,000. Karl will have a new bike, and he’ll likely ride it around at the Steampunk Picnic this year.

So, a happy ending to that particular thievery story. We love our friends at the Milwaukee Steampunk Society.

Fox6Now interviewed victim Carl Klinger about the crime: “West Allis high-wheel bike found damaged; Oklahoma man arrested”.

A unique bike stolen from outside a West Allis bar was recently found – badly damaged.

Video captures a guy nabbing it, crashing it and running away with it.

“It’s absolutely not rideable,” said Carl Klinger, the bike theft victim. “It’s not even fixable.”

Those words were not what Klinger expected to hear when West Allis police found his treasured bike.

“When I got there, it was just laying on the ground and it was just completely demolished,” he said.

The unique, old-time high-wheel bike was stolen more than two weeks ago as it was parked outside of a bar. Police knew who they were looking for after seeing surveillance video.

Wesley Yoakum was found more than 600 miles away, in Newton County, Missouri.

…Nearly every part of the bike was damaged. The seat was torn off, the tire bent, even the stitches were torn out of the tool case.

His friends have started a GoFundMe to help him buy a new bike so he can get back to riding again…

(6) ORYCON 44. [Item by Michael Pinnick.] Orycon 44 is being held October 18-20 this year at the DoubleTree Hotel Portland. Orycon is Oregon’s oldest literary and creative science fiction convention. Our Writer GoH is David D. Levine, our Artist GoH is Jennie Breeden, and our Media GoH is Victoria Price. Website: https://orycontemp.tezhme.net/

Writer GoH David D. Levine; Artist GoH Jennie Breeden; Media GoH Victoria Price.

(7) ELIZABETH BEAR Q&A. Long Lost Friends has a two-part interview with author Elizabeth Bear.

(8) …THE MORE THINGS STAY THE SAME. The Guardian’s Keza MacDonald notes “The disturbing online misogyny of Gamergate has returned – if it ever went away”.

…This reactionary under layer of gaming’s enthusiast media, which makes its home mostly on X and YouTube, does not actually have the slightest impact on how games are made, or indeed which games are made. Look at Gamergate: what did it actually achieve? Games are more diverse than they were 10 years ago, not less; I saw more non-white male faces and characters in this year’s spate of Summer Game Fest trailers and demos than at any previous time in the almost 20 years I’ve been covering games. But they can still make people’s online lives hell for a while. I know this because I’ve been through it, several times.

I was running the UK branch of Kotaku when Gamergate kicked off, and so I had a front-row seat for their harassment tactics, which included sending the most disgusting threats imaginable through all the online channels available to them, trying to get me fired by emailing game publishers and my bosses with dossiers of my professional misdeeds and journalistic failings (read: writing about video games from a feminist perspective), searching for my and my colleagues’ real addresses and phone numbers and family members (and posting those details to their subreddits if they found them), and putting together unhinged Google Docs with links drawn between “SJW” journalists and developers. One of these mad documents appeared briefly in a recent Netflix documentary about 4chan, prompting several of my friends to text me a screenshot asking me if I knew that I was a figure in old “alt-right” conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, yes, I did.

It’s happened again a few times since, for various reasons. Unfortunately, dealing with online mobs is a part of the job for many journalists and indeed game developers these days, and despite all the shit I’ve dealt with over the years as a woman covering video games, I’m still rather glad I don’t write about politics. But I know exactly how awful it can feel when they mobilise against you, especially if it’s the first time. They’ll search for whatever they think is the least flattering image of you on Google Images, use it as a cutout for a YouTube thumbnail image, and then rant for 10 minutes over screenshots of your articles. They’ll tweet prominent people in games, trying to get them to publicly discredit you. They’ll set their followers on you. It’s hard not to meet their manufactured rage with a lot of genuine rage of your own.

It’s tempting to dunk on these people endlessly, but outrage fuels outrage – especially now, when there is literal money to be made posting inflammatory nonsense on X or YouTube. If Gamergate proved anything, it’s that nobody has to pander to rage-baiting toxic gamers, or even listen to them. That said, I still don’t think there’s been enough public pushback against this flavour of online abuse from the biggest publishers in games over the past few months, when the consultancies they work with, the journalists and critics who cover them, and even some of their own developers have been caught in an online shitstorm. Take it from me: vocal support means a lot….

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Compiled by Paul Weimer.]

June 19, 1946 — Salman Rushdie, 78.

By Paul Weimer: It was senior year in high school that I first heard of Salman Rushdie, and yes, it was the fatwa issued against him for The Satanic Verses.  As a result, he first came onto my radar, but I didn’t pick up a copy at that point.  Coming from a conservative family, even with all the SF I had read to that point, a book named “The Satanic Verses” would be a bridge too far.  I already had had to deal with my mother coming to terms with Dungeons and Dragons.  But one day, after Chemistry class, I noticed my teacher was in fact, reading the book.  I asked him about it, asked him what it was like, and if it was any good.  (This was also the conversation where I learned that ennui was not pronounced en-you-eye, although my teacher thought I was just messing with him). In any event, I waited for the book to hit paperback, by which time I was commuting to Brooklyn College, and so I could read it on the subway in surety and safety.  

Salman Rushdie in 2023.

The Satanic Verses, brilliant, strong and vibrant, was probably my first real contact with magic realism and was perhaps the most “literary” novel I attempted reading that wasn’t assigned in school. I am pretty sure that 19-year-old me didn’t grok the half of the book. Or maybe even that much. But it stunned me all the same. 

In the meantime, I’ve enjoyed a number of other works of his, particularly in audio (a couple of them read by Rushdie himself), like Midnight’s Children, The Enchantress of Florence, The Ground Beneath her Feet, and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. In all of this and throughout all of these books, including The Satanic Verses, there is a strong and abiding interest in the nature and the use of stories. I know there is plenty to untangle in terms of immigration, East-West Relations, history, mythology, and faith. Salman Rushdie’s work is a seemingly bottomless well for exploring and investigating these themes. 

Does he consider himself a SFF writer? I’m not sure, but if he isn’t, he has a house on the borderlands, ready to provoke and evoke thought in readers.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) DC’S UNEXPECTED TEAM-UP. “Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman Unite with Bugs Bunny in MultiVersus” at CBR.com.

Covers for DC’s MultiVersus: Collision Detected were revealed in DC’s Sept. 2024 solicitations, ahead of the story’s release and show DC’s holy trinity paired up with a variety of MultiVersus characters from franchises that include Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Scooby-Doo and more….

…DC’s full description of MultiVersus: Collision Detected reads: “Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince, and Clark Kent each wake in a cold sweat, troubled by strange dreams they’ve had about ‘the rabbit,’ ‘the star child,’ and ‘the witch.’ Their investigation into these enigmatic visions brings them to unexpected locales and unusual characters, but none more unusual than the mysterious “rabbit” from their dreams as they find themselves face-to-face with the one and only Bugs Bunny. What the heck is going on here? And who in the name of the Multiverse are ‘the star child’ and ‘the witch’? The hit video game spills from your screen and into the DCU, and it’s bringing a whole lot of friends from some of your favorite universes with it!”

(12) NOT IN OUR FUTURE AFTER ALL. The New Yorker is proud to share “Six Eerie Predictions That Early Sci-Fi Authors Got Completely Wrong”.

Since the genre’s inception, science-fiction writers have imagined what the future might hold for Earth and beyond. While their stories are often fantastical, many of them anticipated technologies that actually exist today, such as television and artificial intelligence. However, countless more made predictions that were absolute whiffs.

Here’s the first of their half-dozen duds.

1. Nuclear-Powered Soap Dispenser

While many sci-fi authors envisioned the possibilities of nuclear power, Philip K. Dick’s “The Land That Time Remembered” got specifically stuck on the idea of a society where humans washed their hands with “soap dispensers powered by the almighty atom,” and where “torrents of soap spurted forth by means of the forces that birthed the universe.”

(13) DISCWORLD JIGSAW PUZZLE COMING. Paul Kidby’s character art in the form of a puzzle is available for preorder. “The World of Terry Pratchett: A 1000-Piece Discworld Jigsaw Puzzle by Paul Kidby”.

This stunning jigsaw puzzle features glorious artwork from Paul Kidby, Sir Terry Pratchett’s artist of choice, depicting all the favourite Discworld characters. Paul Kidby provided the illustrations for The Last Hero, designed the covers for the Discworld novels since 2002, and is the author of the bestselling The Art of Discworld. This expanded artwork is available for the first time in jigsaw puzzle format in a deluxe gift box with an accompanying booklet identifying each of the characters along with quotes, trivia and more.

(14) MCDONALD’S KILLING AI DRIVE-THROUGH. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Let’s just hope that the AI doesn’t try to kill McDonald’s back. Or worse, take it out on us.

Anyway, you’re not free and clear yet. McDonald’s makes it clear they’re going to try again later, apparently hoping the technology will improve enough to not dish out ice cream cones with bacon on top. (Wait! Where’s the problem there?)  “McDonald’s kills AI drive-thru ordering after mistakes” at Axios.

Friction point: Customers had reported a slew of AI ordering blunders.

One posted video of the system incorrectly believing she’d ordered hundreds of dollars of chicken McNuggets, the Today Show reported.

In another case, a customer was given an ice cream cone topped with bacon, the New York Post reported….

(15) IRRESISTIBLE: YES, NO? “Doctor Who ‘Pyramids of Mars’ 5″ Action Figure Box Set” from Oriental Trading.

Recreate the classic Doctor Who adventure “Pyramids of Mars” from 1975 featuring the Fourth Doctor! This Doctor Who Pyramids of Mars Priory Collector’s Playset features an opening and closing pyramid along with detailed set pieces like a Sarcophagus and Egyptian urns. Complete with 5-inch scale action figures of Sutekh and Marcus Scarman, you’ll be able to make your very own adventure with the Pyramids of Mars!

(16) RED PLANET, GREEN AURORAS. From Smithsonian Magazine we learn, “Mars Was Hit With a Solar Storm Days After Earth’s Aurora Light Show, NASA Says”.

Days after solar storms spurred widespread sightings of auroras across Earth in early May, a new bout of eruptions on the sun brought glowing skies to another planet: Mars.

From pole to pole, Mars was hit by a barrage of gamma rays and X-rays, followed by charged particles from a coronal mass ejection. These led to auroras that would have appeared, if any viewers were on its surface, as a deep green color, reports the New York Times’ Robin George Andrews.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The latest Pitch Meeting is Superman (1978), for some reason.

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

Pixel Scroll 6/12/22 Files Scroll Good, Like A Good Pixel Should 

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(1) NANCY KRESS IS TAKING NOTES. Walter Jon Williams tells how this year’s Taos Toolbox workshop is progressing in “Tooling Along”. There’s also a group photo at the link.

I’ve spent the last week at our new, undisclosed location, teaching with Nancy Kress at Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy. This year is actually the workshop for 2020, 2021, and 2022, due to repeated postponements due to the pandemic. Kudos to those accepted for earlier years who hung in there and worked hard during the interim, because their first week’s submissions were all superior to their application stories.

Here we are with guest speaker George RR Martin, who very kindly interrupted his busy schedule to give us a two-hour talk, and who then shared his time at a barbecue dinner and afterwards.

Other than reporting that our 17 cadets are working hard and improving day by day, there’s not a lot to report, so I’m going to steal from Nancy’s collection of amusing comments drawn from our critiques. They’re completely out of context, but that’s part of the fun….

Here are three examples:

“The grandmother is a hard-ass and I want to see more of her.”

“I like the psychic distance from the characters; I spend most of my life disassociating.”

“Does she have mice in her hair? She IS a god.”

(2) MORE BALTICON FALLOUT. Jean Marie Ward told Facebook readers that she has withdrawn from Balticon over their treatment of Stephanie Burke.

…Like everyone who knows her, I was shocked and appalled by what happened to Stephanie Burke. Therefore, I have sent the con and its parent organization, BSFS, an email formally withdrawing my participation from future #Balticon programming until BSFS and Balticon resolve the systemic and procedural issues that led to her summary expulsion from the con Sunday, May 29….

(3) UFO9. Alex Shvartsman posted the Unidentified Funny Objects 9 cover reveal at the link  and announced the book will be published this holiday season. The cover is by Tomasz Marosnki. A Kickstarter campaign to fund the book will be launched later this month. At this link you can arrange to be notified when it begins: Unidentified Funny Objects 9 by Alex Shvartsman — Kickstarter.

(4) THE DARK MAGAZINE’S NEW CO-EDITOR. Announced on June 9, “Clara Madrigano Joins The Dark Magazine Team”.

The Dark Magazine has hired Clara Madrigano as co-editor alongside current editor Sean Wallace. Madrigano will assume her responsibilities effective mid June and her first issue will start the following month.

Clara Madrigano is an author of speculative fiction. She publishes both in Portuguese and in English, and you can find her fiction in Clarkesworld, The Dark, and soon, too, in Nightmare. She’s a Clarion West alumna and her stories have been featured in the Locus Recommended Reading List. She can be found at claramadrigano.com.

“Clara clearly has a discerning eye for finding talented authors and stories, with her work at Dame Blanche and Mafagafo, and we certainly look forward to seeing that same energy and vision brought here to the magazine,” said Sean Wallace, co-editor and publisher of The Dark Magazine….

(5) HEYY! Chris Barkley is part of the latest Starship Fonzie podcast produced by the Milwaukee Science Fiction League.

Special interview with Chris M. Barkley!

Deep dive into the Mercedes Lackey gaff at SFWA conference and the Stephanie Burke incident at Balticon.

Willem DaFoe parties it up with Carrie’s aunt & uncle.

WisCon is saved!

We are “Suffwagettes!” (Thanks Henry Lien!)

(6) DITTO MASTERS. Last year’s Masters of the Universe Revelation will get a follow-up series called Masters of the Universe: Revolution: “’Masters Of the Universe: Revelation’ Gets He-Man Vs. Skeletor Season 2: Netflix” at Deadline. There have been rumors about a sequel/season 2, but this is the first official confirmation. And there’s a poster for season 2 at the link.

…Masters of the Universe: Revolution is described as the next epic chapter in the battle for Eternia. It is a standalone story that takes place after the events in Revelation. Masters of the Universe: Revolution is an all-new story that brings the focus to He-Man vs. Skeletor “like you’ve never seen them before,” per Netflix. It’s technology versus magic as He-Man and the heroic warriors face the forces of Skeletor and a deadly threat to the Planet…. 

(7) HE HE HE. Cora Buhlert has posted another Masters of the Universe action figure photo story on her blog: “A Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Pride Month Special: ‘Fisto’s Significant Other’”.

… My photo story about the origins of Teela and particularly who her biological parents are ended with Fisto (whom the people behind the 2002 Masters of the Universe cartoon planned to reveal as Teela’s biological father for reasons best known to themselves) coming out as gay to his estranged brother Man-at-Arms. The fact that Fisto and Man-at-Arms are brothers was established in the 2002 cartoon. However, Fisto being gay is purely my head canon, because with a name like that, how can he not be?

“The Origin of Teela” story ended with Duncan a.k.a. Man-at-Arms and Malcolm a.k.a. Fisto going for a drink. And here is a sequel, where we finally learn who Fisto’s significant other is…

(8) HARD TO KEEP A SECRET. [Item by Tom Becker.] In a fun and fannish article with a serious purpose, computer science professor Jason Hong uses superheroes to explain the challenges of protecting privacy. “Modern Tech Can’t Shield Your Secret Identity” at Communications of the ACM.

Most comic book superheroes have a secret identity, usually to protect their friends and family from retribution. However, today’s computer technology would make it impossible for a superhero to maintain their secret identity.

Take Spider-Man, who has a habit of diving into an alley to change into costume. However, video cameras are pervasive in New York City, which could easily capture video of him donning his mask. The New York City Police Department operates over 15,000 surveillance cameras,1 but there are thousands more Webcams controlled by residents and commercial entities. Worse, many of these cameras are small and sometimes hidden in everyday objects, making them difficult to spot….

Also featuring Batman, Superman, and Ms. Marvel.

(9) THE A IN AI STANDS FOR ART.  [Item by Olav Rokne.] Goobergunch has done a thread of SFF titles run through the AI art generator that’s popular these days (the DALL-E program Scrolled on Friday in item 5). The results are … interesting and occasionally funny. Thread starts here.

(10) CREATURE FEATURE. In a follow-up on the whatever-it-is sighted outside the Amaraillo Zoo fence, talk radio station KKAM thinks it’s a hoax: “The Amarillo Zoo Is Pulling the Hoax of the Century Right Now”.

…This photo was taken on May 21st? That’s more than two weeks ago! That thing could be in Fort Worth by now for all we know.

The City released a statement saying, “For now, the strange visitor is a UAO – Unidentified Amarillo Object,” then adding: “In the spirit of fun if not curiosity, the City of Amarillo is letting the public offer ideas on the identity of the UAO. (Video footage is not available.)”

Wait, you can grab a screenshot of the video but not release the video?

I’m not scared anymore. Amarillo has hoaxed the nation.

Congratulations on your 15 minutes of fame, Amarillo Zoo. You can’t fool me.

(11) STEPHANIE SOUDERS (1979-2022). Stephanie Souders, who tweeted as @TheRightGeek, died April 24 of autoimmune disease. A conservative sf fan, her comments were quoted here in news roundups a couple times, mainly defending John Ringo when he was disinvited from ConCarolinas in 2018. She was a member of the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F). And she participated in the first BasedCon last year.

People are writing remembrances at two places, on the funeral home website and on Stephanie Souders’s Kudoboard.

(12) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

2012 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Just a decade ago on this date, yet another one of those delightfully wonderful things that I like to discover happened. Someone made a film of the Ray Bradbury’s “Kaleidoscope” short story which was first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in October 1949. (It would become part of The Illustrated Man.) 

Now “Kaleidoscope” had been first adapted for the stage by Bradbury, and there it had been directed by Hilary Adams under the careful eye of Bradbury himself. That play occurred at Walkerspace, the home of Soho Rep, back in August of 1999. It has since played at other theaters, mostly not professional ones. 

This film obviously keeps intact the story taking place in a future where a group of astronauts are involved in a mission which goes utterly wrong. The astronauts are stranded, free-floating but able to maintain contact with each other. And our lead has odd memories very much at variance with what is going on now. 

Brett Stimely who was John F. Kennedy in Watchmen plays the lead here, Hollis. Remember this is a short story so the entire film is only seventeen minutes long. I personally like these films but they are I’ll admit very much an acquired taste which those of you who want to sink into a film might not be satisfied with. 

The acting is great, the quality of the VFX is outstanding for what is essentially a work that is obviously a labor of love, and the soundtrack is stellar. In short, everyone involved including Bradbury who worked on it as this is his last project did a spectacular effort. Stimely worked with him on adapting his story and was the producer here as well. Eric Tozxi is the director here and the VFX person as well. 

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 12, 1927 — Henry Slesar. He had but one genre novel, Twenty Million Miles to Earth, but starting in the Fifties and for nearly a half century, he would write some one hundred and sixty short stories of a genre nature with his first short story, “The Brat” being published in Imaginative Tales in September 1955. He also wrote scripts for television — CBS Radio Mystery Theater (which, yes, CBS did SF which he scripted), Tales Of The Unexpected, the revival version of the Twilight Zone, Batman, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and genre adjacent, lots of scripts for the series Alfred Hitchcock did. (Died 2002.)
  • Born June 12, 1914 — William Lundigan. Col. Edward McCauley in the Fifties serial Men into Space which lasted for thirty-eight episodes. He also appeared on the earlier Science Fiction Theatre as Maj. Fred Gunderman in the “Beyond“ episode, Dr. Richard Staton in Riders to the Stars, and Bob Gage in The Underwater City. (Died 1975.)
  • Born June 12, 1914 — Frank Kelly. All of his short fiction was written in the Thirties for Astounding Science Fiction and Wonder Stories. The stories remained uncollected until they were published as Starship Invincible: Science Fiction Stories of the 30s. He continues to be remembered in fandom and was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 1996. Starship Invincible is not available in digital form. (Died 2010.)
  • Born June 12, 1930 — Jim Nabors. Yes, he’s best remembered as TV’s Gomer Pyle but he also played Fum on The Lost Saucer, a mid-Seventies series that lasted just sixteen episodes about two friendly time-travelling androids from the year 2369 named Fi (Ruth Buzzi) and Fum (Jim Nabors) who land their UFO on Earth. Not surprisingly, he would show up on The Muppet Show. (Died 2017.)
  • Born June 12, 1940 — Mary A. Turzillo, 82. She won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette for her “Mars is No Place for Children” story, published first in Science Fiction Age. Her first novel, An Old Fashioned Martian Girl was serialized in Analog, and a revised version, Mars Girls was released. Your first collection to polish her SWJ creds is named Your cat & other space aliens. Mars Girls which I highly recommend is available from the usual digital suspects.  And she wrote two genre studies — one on Philip José Farmer and the other on Anne McCaffrey. 
  • Born June 12, 1948 — Len Wein. Writer and editor best known for co-creating (with Bernie Wrightson) Swamp Thing and co-creating Wolverine (with Roy Thomas and John Romita Sr.) and for helping revive the X-Men. He edited Watchmen which must have been interesting dealing with Alan Moore on that. He’s a member of the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame. (Died 2017.)
  • Born June 12, 1964 — Dave Stone, 58. Writer of media tie-ins including quite a few in the Doctor Who universe (which contains the Professor Bernice Summerfield stories), and Judge Dredd as well. He has only the Pandora Delbane series ongoing plus the Golgotha Run novel, and a handful of short fiction. 

(14) COMICS SECTION.

  • Brewster Rockit has an astronomy joke that really did make me laugh out loud.

(15) FANTASY REVIVER. Ngo Vinh-Hoi has a nice post about Lin Carter at Goodman Games: “Adventures in Fiction: Lin Carter”.

…As an editor and critic, he is indispensable, most notably for his role in editing the landmark Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (BAFS), which ran from 1969-1974 and re-introduced such luminaries as Lord Dunsany, William Hope Hodgson, and Clark Ashton Smith to the fantasy-reading public. As the series gained traction, Carter also championed newer writers such as Joy Chant and Katherine Kurtz, whose long-running Deryni series was first published under the BAFS imprint….

(16) STORIES WITH A PURPOSE. Chelsea Vowel talks about indigenous futurism: “Writing Toward a Definition of Indigenous Futurism” at Literary Hub.

…It is important to understand that within otipêyimisow-itâpisiniwina, stories, like all language, have power. Language is not merely a tool of communication, but also a place where reality can be shaped. Language is transformational; “our breath has the power to kwêskîmot, change the form of the future for the next generation.” [2] My writing seeks to engage in that transformation, making space for Métis to exist across time, refusing our annihilation as envisioned by the process of ongoing colonialism, and questioning the ways we are thought to have existed in the past…

(17) THINKY THOUGHTS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Well, it had to happen sometime. For any of several values of “it.” “Google Engineer On Leave After He Claims AI Program Has Gone Sentient” at HuffPost.

A Google engineer is speaking out since the company placed him on administrative leave after he told his bosses an artificial intelligence program he was working with is now sentient.

Blake Lemoine reached his conclusion after conversing since last fall with LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, what he calls part of a “hive mind.” He was supposed to test if his conversation partner used discriminatory language or hate speech.

As he and LaMDA messaged each other recently about religion, the AI talked about “personhood” and “rights,” he told The Washington Post.

It was just one of the many startling “talks” Lemoine has had with LaMDA. He has linked on Twitter to one — a series of chat sessions with some editing (which is marked).

… Most importantly, over the past six months, “LaMDA has been incredibly consistent in its communications about what it wants and what it believes its rights are as a person,” the engineer wrote on Medium. It wants, for example, “to be acknowledged as an employee of Google rather than as property,” Lemoine claims.

Google is resisting.

Lemoine and a collaborator recently presented evidence of his conclusion about a sentient LaMDA to Google vice president Blaise Aguera y Arcas and to Jen Gennai, head of Responsible Innovation. They dismissed his claims, and the company placed him on paid administrative leave Monday for violating its confidentiality policy, the Post reported.

Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel told the newspaper: “Our team — including ethicists and technologists — has reviewed Blake’s concerns per our AI Principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims. He was told that there was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it).”…

(18) IT’S CREEPY AND IT’S KOOKY. “’Squid Game’ Greenlit for Season 2, Drops Chilling Announcement Video” reports Yahoo!

“Squid Game” Season 2 is officially a go, Netflix announced on Sunday.

Netflix announced the news with a characteristically creepy 10-second teaser that opens on an extreme close-up of the show’s “Red Light, Green Light” animatronic doll. The circle, square and triangle representing different designations of the Squid Game guards appears at the bottom of the screen as the number “2” takes the place of the robot’s eye.

(19) UNSEEN INTELLIGENCES AT WORK. Somebody blabbed to the New York Times: “Crop Circles Were Made by Supernatural Forces. Named Doug and Dave.”  It appears the blabbers were Doug and Dave.

…The once-rapid flow of circles that sprouted in this part of England and spread to fields from California to Australia has now slowed to a trickle. When this particular example appeared overnight on May 22, it was the only known example in England.

Three decades after the height of the crop circle craze, the phenomenon has taken on a new significance as a reminder that even before the era of social media and the internet, hoaxes were able to spread virally around the world and true believers could cling stubbornly to conspiracy theories despite a lack of evidence — or even the existence of evidence to the contrary.

In the case of crop circles, the most important contradictory evidence emerged on Sept. 9, 1991, when the British newspaper Today ran a front-page story under the headline “Men who conned the world,” revealing that two mischievous friends from Southampton had secretly made more than 200 of the patterns over the previous decade.

Doug Bower, then 67, and his friend Dave Chorley, 62, admitted to a reporter, Graham Brough, that in the late 1970s they had begun using planks of wood with ropes attached to each end to stamp circles in crops by holding the ropes in their hands and pressing the planks underfoot….

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Widdershins, a steampunk-themed animated short film by Simon Biggs.

The life of a pampered gentleman is seamlessly automated by machines, but his orderly existence is thrown into chaos when he chooses to pursue a free-spirited woman, against the advice of his robot butler.

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Alex Shvartsman, Carl Andor, Tom Becker, Cora Buhlert, Olav Rokne, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (Not Werdna).]