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

Posted on April 5, 2025 by Mike Glyer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The three basic books are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(10) COMICS SECTION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now Available: The SFWA “Take No Prisoners” StoryBundle

Posted on July 26, 2023 by Mike Glyer

*PLEASE NOTE* The StoryBundle release has been delayed by one day to MIDNIGHT July 27 Eastern Time.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has released its newest fantasy StoryBundle, “Take No Prisoners,” for a limited time only, July 26–August 17, 2023. This StoryBundle offers a large selection of ebooks from independent and small press fantasy authors, and can be purchased at https://storybundle.com/sfwa.

The “Take No Prisoners”StoryBundle features 13 novels with plenty of adventure, magic, unlikely heroes, and otherworldly creatures to keep you immersed in different worlds for days. Highlights include The Stones of Resurrection, Book 1 in Tameri Etherton’s Song of the Swords romantic fantasy series, Nebula Award-nominated Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams, and She’s the One Who Thinks Too Much by fantasy powerhouse S.R. Cronin.

SFWA StoryBundles are collections of ebooks offered at a discounted price and curated by the SFWA Independent Authors Committee. The committee had the pleasure of sorting through a hundred excellent books as they narrowed the selection down to these thirteen special stories.

Readers decide what price they want to pay. For $5 (or more, if they’re feeling generous), they’ll get the core bundle of four books in any ebook format available—WORLDWIDE!

Shadows of Insurrection by Vanessa McClaren-Wray
The Ring and the Flag by William L. Hahn
She’s the One Who Thinks Too Much by S.R. Cronin
Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn by Danielle Ackley-McPhail & Day Al-Mohamed

If they’re willing to spend $20, they get all four of the core books, plus these NINE additional books, for a total of thirteen.

A Lonely Magic by S.J. Wynde
Duster by Adam Stemple
In Veritas by C.J. Lavigne
Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams
No Demons But Us by A.S. Etaski
Sasharia en Garde by Sherwood Smith
The Runemaster Homicide by Dan Jolley
The Stones of Resurrection by Tameri Etherton
Thorfinn and the Witch’s Curse by Jay Veleso Batista

Once August 17 passes, this particular collection will never be available again. Readers will gain a rich collection of fantasy and can opt to donate part of their purchase price to support SFWA’s ongoing work to promote and support speculative fiction genres and writers across the globe.

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 4/19/23 Tick, Tock, Said The Pixel, Just Keep Scrolling

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) F&SF. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction’s May-June 2023 cover art is by Maurizio Manzieri.

(2) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE. The International Booker Prize 2023 Shortlist of 6 works was released on April 18. The one longlisted item of genre interest has survived to make the shortlist, Cheon Myeong-Kwan’s Whale. The winner will be announced May 23. Publishing Perspectives breaks down the amount of the prize.

…The focus of this Booker is translation, and its £50,000 prize (US$60,734) is to be split into £25,000 (US$30,367) for the author and £25,000 for the translator—or divided equally between multiple translators. There also is a purse of £5,000 (US$6,072) for each of the shortlisted titles: £2,500 (US$3,036) for the author and £2,500 for the translator or, again, divided equally between multiple translators….

(3) DIGGING OUT FROM THE MUDSLIDE. Yesterday Larry Correia posted “A Letter To Epic Fantasy Readers: I Know Rothfuss And Martin Hurt You, But It’s Time To Get Over It And Move On” [Internet Archive], a cruel rant blaming a couple of well-known fantasy writers for allegedly crushing the nascent careers of other fantasy novelists by failing to finish their series and creating reader resistance to new writers’ series. (Then, finding he had mud left over, he deposited some on a third author who has an unfinished sf series.)

Today Mark Lawrence decided a few things needed to be said in response in a blog post, “Faith and blame”, which concludes:

…In short:

i) Authors who delay a book in a series, be it for 10 years, or 50, or forever, are not lazy sacks of shit.

ii) The high profile authors who have delayed may be cited in some cases as a reason for readers not picking up a newly published book 1 — but I feel the reasons behind that reluctance are far deeper and considerably wider than two or three writers, however well known. Some portion of the reason (I do not say blame) may reside with them, but I think this would be happening even if book 3, 4, & 6 had turned up a year or two after their predecessors.

iii) It’s easy to give the reason for this problem a face – someone to call an apathetic sack of shit. It’s human nature to want a simple answer and a person to blame. But it’s more complicated than that.

Readers – have faith in your writers, that faith will be overwhelmingly rewarded. And when it’s not – the only thing that author has done is disappointed you, not tanked the entire publishing industry.

(4) DON’T LOOK FOR THIS BOOK ON THE RIVER. “Lydia Davis refuses to sell her next book on Amazon” – the author explains why to the Guardian.

Prize-winning author Lydia Davis’ new collection of short stories will not be sold on Amazon, with the author saying she does not “believe corporations should have as much control over our lives as they do”.

Our Strangers will be published by Canongate on 5 October, and is the seventh collection of fiction from Davis, who won the Man Booker international prize in 2013, when the award chose a winner based on a body of work, rather than a single book.

Due to be published just before Bookshop Day on 7 October, Our Strangers will only be sold in physical bookshops, Bookshop.org and selected online independent retailers.

Davis said: “We value small businesses, yet we give too much of our business to the large and the powerful – and often, increasingly, we have hardly any choice.

“I am all the more pleased, now, that Canongate, with its long history of independence and its high standards, will be publishing Our Strangers and doing so in a way that puts my book on the shelves of booksellers who are so much more likely to care about it.”…

(5) GROWING PROSPECT OF WRITERS STRIKE. Leaders of the Writers Guild of America secured a strong showing of support from members. “Writers strike looms after members vote to shut down film and TV production” reports CNN Business.

…The vote announced Monday afternoon showed 97.9% of participating union members voting to approve a potential strike.

If a strike happens, it would be the first in the industry since 2007, and it would bring production on many shows and films to a halt. The 2007 strike lasted 100 days.

The Writers Guild of America, the union that represents the writers, says it needs to make substantial changes to the way that writers are compensated because of the shift to streaming services from traditional films and cable and broadcast networks….

(6) AFRICANFUTURISM. Nnedi Okorafor did her own cover reveal yesterday. Preorder here.

????Cover Reveal:
THE DESERT MAGICIAN’S DUOLOGY
Book 1: SHADOW SPEAKER (@dawbooks, Sept 26, 2023). Drawn by @GregRuth.

Deep mysticism, a new type of desert, spontaneous forests, polyandry, fast cars, the power of Gerewol, this novel has many lives. #Africanfuturism #Africanjujuism pic.twitter.com/0JqtS5pDUd
— Nnedi Okorafor, PhD????? (@Nnedi) April 17, 2023

(7) PICARD. NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour” panelists respond as “’Picard’ boldly goes into the history books”. Beware spoilers.

[ERIC] DEGGANS: Well, you know, I wrote a review before the show debuted. I love, love, love this. And the reason I love this is because I’ve always felt that Paramount Plus’ new “Trek” series have erred by being so careful about trying to blaze their own path and tone down the references to past “Trek” stuff. And I understand that, especially with “Discovery,” the very first series to step out, they wanted to blaze a new trail. But there is a reason why this franchise has survived for nearly 60 years.

To have – especially “Star Trek: Picard,” in its first two seasons, really suffered from not being willing to look back and acknowledge the reason why people love Jean-Luc Picard in the first place. So it is just so great to see this series emerge as this love letter to not just “The Next Generation” but all those Trek series that kind of debuted in that 1990s, early 2000s era. So “The Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager” – there’s all kinds of Easter eggs and references that, if you don’t know the shows, you don’t need to worry about. But if you do know the shows, it is just so much fun and so much extra pleasure to watch this unfold.

(8) GET READY FOR “MRS. DAVIS”. “Mrs. Davis Co-Creator Tara Hernandez On Crafting Peacock’s Wild New Sci-Fi Series” at Slashfilm.

One might not imagine that one of the writers of “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon” would be behind one of 2023’s most anticipated, high-concept sci-fi shows, but that’s exactly the situation we find ourselves in. Hailing from Tara Hernandez, “Mrs. Davis” debuts on Peacock later this month, with Damon Lindelof, of “Lost” and “The Leftovers” fame, serving as co-creator on the series alongside her….

I’ve not seen a ton of the show, admittedly, but this feels like the kind of thing where, especially because I know Damon got into some of this with “Lost” years ago where they just were chasing their tails, so how long would you ideally see this going? Is this a one season show? Is it a four season show? Do you have a rough idea of where you guys would like it to go?

Yeah, I think we really, and just my personal tastes, I really love a great season of television. I love a story that’s introduced. I love a nice conclusion on it. I think we had to know where we were ending up. We pitched the show, when we pitched it, it was very important to have the landing place.

That is nice to hear.

Yes. It has a landing place. We had to know what the North Star was, especially in a show that can feel like, “Is this going to go off the rails? Are they just going to be chasing their tails?” Just my personal preference about storytelling, whether that comes from really loving feature films or just loving a hero’s journey that’s a really closed-loop narrative, I think the world of “Mrs. Davis” is such that it has legs, but I think it is a great eight episodes. If that’s what it is, it’s just a really nice story. And people will be satisfied.

(9) GET YOUR RED HOT CAT BOOKS. Kristine Kathryn Rusch has curated The 2023 Cattitude Bundle for StoryBundle and it’s available for the next three weeks.

My cats have gotten out of control. During the lockdown, I promoted a series of projects using my co-workers as a hook. The only co-workers I had at the time were the the cats who boss me around: The Mighty Cheeps, and his buddy Gavin, a.k.a The Boys.

I’d post a picture of them on Facebook, write a funny or wry bit about their terrible office behavior, and end with a bit of promotion.

Little did I realize that the demand for the antics of the staff at Promotion Central would become the highlight of my Facebook page. I’ve learned if I don’t include a photo of the Boys, or our new(ish) third cat, Angel, no one reads the posts. Those cats are more popular than I am.

It shouldn’t surprise me. Cats and the internet go together like chocolate and peanut butter. You can live with either one, but once someone combined them, well, there’s no separating them. Ever.

Of course, we’re going to take advantage of that. Cats and the internet becomes cats in ebooks. Since cats in books have always gone hand in glove (have you ever met a bookstore dog?), it seems only natural to put cat books into a StoryBundle.

The best thing about cat books? It’s easy to find good ones because all of the best writers live with cats….

Here’s the deal:

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in .epub format—WORLDWIDE.

Too Big to Miss by Sue Ann Jaffarian
Familiarity – A Winston & Ruby Collection by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
A Cat of a Different Color by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith
October Snow by Bonnie Elizabeth

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $20, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more books for a total of 10!

The Captain’s Cat by Stefon Mears (StoryBundle Exclusive)
Haunted Witch by T. Thorn Coyle
The Intergalactic Veterinarian of the Year! by Ron Collins & Jeff Collins (StoryBundle Exclusive)
Death by Polka by Robert Jeschonek
Single Witch’s Survival Guide by Mindy Klasky
Road of No Return by Annie Reed (StoryBundle Exclusive)

(10) NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER. “Oh please, no. Just no. And you may quote me,” says Cat Eldridge. The Hollywood Reporter says “Galaxy Quest TV Series in the Works at Paramount+”. The article also chronicles several failed attempts to adapt it for TV in the previous decade.

Galaxy Quest is going from a fictional series to an actual TV series.

Paramount+ is teaming with its studio counterpart, Paramount Television Studios, for a live-action adaptation of the 1999 cult favorite sci-fi spoof. Sources say the project is in the early development stages and a search is underway for a writer to pair with Mark Johnson, the Breaking Bad alum who exec produced the film and is returning for the scripted update. Johnson and his Gran Via Productions banner are the only execs currently attached to the project….

Ars Technica’s Jennifer Ouelette also has doubts that this is a good idea: “That Galaxy Quest TV series might finally be happening and we have mixed feelings”.

… Honestly, I have mixed feelings about a spinoff series from one of my all-time favorite movies. On the one hand, I love and cherish every character and every line of dialogue in Galaxy Quest. On the other, how do you improve on perfection? As Enrico Colantoni, who played Thermion leader Mathesar, told io9 in 2014, “To make something up, just because we love those characters, and turn it into a sequel—then it becomes the awful sequel.”…

(11) MEMORY LANE.

2015 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

I’m trying to remember what the first work of Holly Black’s that I read, so I went to ISFDB and researched her work. It appears it’s Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale which I read some twenty years ago. Fascinating novel.

Now, without doing the no-no of spoilers, The Darkest Part of The Forest is the work of a much more mature writer. Her grasp of what makes a character worth our time to be invested in is really improved a lot as has her ability to actually write an interesting story.

The Darkest Part of The Forest was published by Little, Brown eight years ago. It was nominated for a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.

The Darkest Part of The Forest is, I think, deliciously dark as you can see in The Beginning which you can read here. Beware apparently young boys with pointed ears in glass coffins…

Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.

As far as Hazel Evans knew, from what her parents said to her and from what their parents said to them, he’d always been there. And no matter what anyone did, he never, ever woke up.

He didn’t wake up during the long summers, when Hazel and her brother, Ben, stretched out on the full length of the coffin, staring down through the crystalline panes, fogging them up with their breath, and scheming glorious schemes. He didn’t wake up when tourists came to gape or debunkers came to swear he wasn’t real. He didn’t wake up on autumn weekends, when girls danced right on top of him, gyrating to the tinny sounds coming from nearby iPod speakers, didn’t notice when Leonie Wallace lifted her beer high over her head, as if she were saluting the whole haunted forest. He didn’t so much as stir when Ben’s best friend, Jack Gordon, wrote IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS in Sharpie along one side—or when Lloyd Lindblad took a sledgehammer and actually tried. No matter how many parties had been held around the horned boy—generations of parties, so that the grass sparkled with decades of broken bottles in green and amber, so that the bushes shone with crushed aluminum cans in silver and gold and rust—and no matter what happened at those parties, nothing could wake the boy inside the glass coffin.

When they were little, Ben and Hazel made him flower crowns and told him stories about how they would rescue him. Back then, they were going to save everyone who needed saving in Fairfold. Once Hazel got older, though, she mostly visited the coffin only at night, in crowds, but she still felt something tighten in her chest when she looked down at the boy’s strange and beautiful face.

She hadn’t saved him, and she hadn’t saved Fairfold, either. “Hey, Hazel,” Leonie called, dancing to one side to make room in case Hazel wanted to join her atop the horned boy’s casket. Doris Alvaro was already up there, still in her cheerleader outfit from the game their school lost earlier that night, shining chestnut ponytail whipping through the air. They both looked flushed with alcohol and good cheer.

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 19, 1907 — Alan Wheatley. Best remembered for being the Sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood, with Richard Greene playing Robin Hood. In 1951, he had played Sherlock Holmes in the first TV series about him, but no recordings of it are known to exist. And he was in Two First Doctor stories as Temmosus, “The Escape” and “The Ambush” where he was the person killed on screen by Daleks. (Died 1991.)
Born April 19, 1925 — Hugh O’Brian. He was Harry Chamberlain in Rocketship X-M. (It was nominated in the 1951 Retro Hugo Awards given at The Millennium Philcon but lost out to Destination Moon.) He would later play Hugh Lockwood in Probe, not the Asimov Probe, the pilot for the sf TV series Search. His only other genre appearance I think was playing five different roles on Fantasy Island. Though I’m absolutely sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong (smile). (Died 2016.)
Born April 19, 1935 — Herman Zimmerman, 88. He was the art director and production designer who worked between 1987 and 2005 for the Trek franchise. Excepting Voyager, in that era he worked on all other live-action productions including the first season of Next Gen, the entire runs of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise, as well as six Trek films. As Memory Alpha notes, “Together with Rick Sternbach he designed the space station Deep Space 9, with John Eaves the USS Enterprise-B and the USS Enterprise-E. His most recognizable work though, have been his (co-)designs for nearly all of the standing sets, those of the bridge, Main Engineering (co-designed with Andrew Probert) and Ten Forward for the USS Enterprise-D in particular.” Not surprisingly, he co-wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual with Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler.
Born April 19, 1936 — Tom Purdom, 87. There’s very little on him on the web, so I’ll let Michael Swanwick speak for him in the introduction to his Lovers & Fighters, Starships & Dragons collection: “How highly do I regard Tom’s fiction? So highly that I wrote the introduction to the collection — and I hate writing introductions. They’re a lot of work. But these stories deserve enormous praise, so I was glad to do it.” He’s written five novels and has either one or two collections of his stories. He’s deeply stocked at the usual digital suspects.
Born April 19, 1946 — Tim Curry, 77. Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, of course, but it’s not his first genre appearance. He’d appeared a year earlier at the Scottish Opera in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Puck. And yes, I know that he appeared in the live show which was at the Chelsea Classic Cinema and other venues before the film was done. Other genre appearances include playing Darkness in Legend, an outstanding Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, a most excellent genre film, Farley Claymore in The Shadow (great role), another superb performance playing Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as The Player, Gomez Addams in Addams Family Reunion, and Trymon in TV’s Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Darkness. And others too numerous to list.
Born April 19, 1952 — Mark Rogers. He’s probably best known for writing and illustrating the Adventures of Samurai Cat series, a most excellent affair. His debut fantasy novel Zorachus was followed by The Nightmare of God sequel. His novella “The Runestone” was adapted as a film of the same name. And his art is collected in Nothing But a Smile: The Pinup Art of Mark Rogers and The Art of Fantasy. (Died 2014.)
Born April 19, 1967 — Steven H Silver, 56. Fan and publisher, author, and editor. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer twelve times and Best Fanzine seven times. In 1995 he founded the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and has served as a judge ever since. He has published the fanzine, Argentus, edited several issues of the Hugo-nominated Journey Planet. His debut novel After Hastings came out in 2020.
Born April 19, 1978 — K. Tempest Bradford, 45. She was a non-fiction and managing editor with Fantasy Magazine for several years, and has edited fiction for Fortean Bureau, Peridot Books and Sybil’s Garage. She’s written a lot of short fiction and her first YA novel, Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion. She was a finalist for three Ignyte Awards, the Ember Award for unsung contributions to genre, and twice for the Community Award for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre. With Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward she shared a 2020 Locus Special Award to Writing the Other for Inclusivity and Representation Education.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit is appropriate for today …and tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that and…
Lise Andreasen provided this translation of the caption on Danish publication Politiken’s cartoon “Dagens tegning: Fremtiden var bedre i gamle dage”:

The future used to be better.

The future before.

The future now.

(14) BIG GREEN NUMBERS. Book Riot wants to discuss “The Bestselling Comics of All Time” – however, they don’t want the answer to be too easy.

But what is the bestselling comic of all time? Well, that depends on how you define comic.

Are we talking about single issues, or “floppies?” And if so, are we talking about the sales of one issue, or the series as a whole? Does that include collected editions and reprints? How do you account for changes in the retail market, from newsstands to specialty shops to digital, and the different reporting (or lack thereof) of each? How do you take into account the cultural changes since the ’40s, when over 90% of children read comics, compared to today’s globalized, media-saturated world? Should you account for the differences in population between America (331.9 million potential readers) versus Japan (125.7 million) versus, say, Finland (5.5 million)? Isn’t it apples and oranges to compare One Piece to X-Men to Peanuts, anyway?…

When it comes to the best selling single issue, the list begins at number five –

5. BATMAN: THE 10 CENT ADVENTURE BY GREG RUCKA AND RICK BURCHETT (MARCH 2002)

Most of the comics on this list are stunts of some sort, and selling a comic for literally just a dime in 2002 absolutely qualifies (most comics were $2.25 then). It’s actually a good story, kicking off the excellent Bruce Wayne: Murderer? plot line, but it was that nostalgic price point that sold 702,126 copies.

(15) BROWSING FOR DOLLARS. Untapped New York ranks the “10 Most Surprising Finds at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair”. The treasures include Billie Holiday’s bar tab, and something a bit closer to being of genre interest —

9. A 17th-Century Celestial Atlas

Along with books, maps are a popular item to find at the antiquarian book fair. The book featured above is one of the most sought-after celestial atlases in existence. Produced by Dutch cartographer Andreas Cellarius in 1661, Harmonia Macrocosmica is priced at a whopping $395,000.

Considered Cellarius’s magnum opus, this map was made to illustrate competing theories of celestial mechanics, or how the solar system worked. The universe’s heavenly bodies are depicted in vibrant colors throughout 29 extremely detailed, hand-colored, double-page engraved plates in the book. The images take theories put forth by great thinkers and scientists like Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Nicolaus Copernicus, as well as lesser-known figures such as Aratus of Soli, and present them in an accessible way through images.

(16) BOOKSTORE SLEEPOVER. Zoos and museums have hosted them – now a downtown LA bookstore: “I spent the night at the Last Bookstore. Things got spooky” in the LA Times. The owner tried to make it a bit of a paranormal experience.

…Soon enough, Powell was recalling the spookiest things he’d seen in his years at the store. He described coworkers who’d heard or glimpsed figures moving around the corners, and instances where people watched books fly off shelves for seemingly no reason.

“That corner is where books fall off sometimes, in sci-fi, for some reason,” he said.

As we passed the portal, a hidden nook where my partner and I had signed up to sleep, we realized it was both secluded in the back corner of the store with books on U.S. history and located closest to the “haunted” shelves that books fall off of. We quickly decided we wouldn’t be sleeping there….

(17) THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Deep in a disused mind in Sardinia, scientists are assembling an experiment to find out just how much nothing weighs. Using an exquisitely sensitive balance beam and interferometric techniques cribbed from gravity wave detectors, they plan to switch on and off the Casimir effect using small temperature variations and measure the resulting change in the number of virtual particles that can exist between metal plates. If all goes well, they will have established a tight constraint on the energy of the vacuum. “How Much Does ‘Nothing’ Weigh?” at Scientific American.

It does something to you when you drive in here for the first time,” Enrico Calloni says as our car bumps down into the tunnel of a mine on the Italian island of Sardinia. After the intense heat aboveground, the contrast is stark. Within seconds, damp, cool air enters the car as it makes its way into the depths. “I hope you’re not claustrophobic.” This narrow tunnel, which leads us in almost complete darkness to a depth of 110 meters underground, isn’t for everyone. But it’s the ideal site for the project we are about to see—the Archimedes experiment, named after a phenomenon first described by the ancient Greek scientist, which aims to weigh “nothing.”…

…Geologically, Sardinia is one of the quietest places in Europe. The island, along with its neighbor Corsica, is located on a particularly secure block of Earth’s crust that is among the most stable areas of the Mediterranean, with very few earthquakes in its entire recorded history and only one (offshore) event that ever reached the relatively mild category of magnitude 5. Physicists chose this geologically uneventful place because the Archimedes experiment requires extreme isolation from the outside environment. It involves a high-precision experimental setup designed to investigate the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics—the amount of energy in the empty space that fills the universe….

… Researchers can calculate the energy of the vacuum in two ways. From a cosmological perspective, they can use Albert Einstein’s equations of general relativity to calculate how much energy is needed to explain the fact that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate. They can also work from the bottom up, using quantum field theory to predict the value based on the masses of all the “virtual particles” that can briefly arise and then disappear in “empty” space (more on this later). These two methods produce numbers that differ by more than 120 orders of magnitude (1 followed by 120 zeros). It’s an embarrassingly absurd discrepancy that has important implications for our understanding of the expansion of the universe—and even its ultimate fate. To figure out where the error lies, scientists are hauling a two-meter-tall cylindrical vacuum chamber and other equipment down into an old Sardinian mine where they will attempt to create their own vacuum and weigh the nothing inside….

(18) NOBODY SURVIVES THE FLAME TRENCH. [Item by Mike Kennedy.]On this past Monday’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Josh Groban talked about his visit to NASA, where, among other things, he received a tour of the “flame trench.”

Fellow space enthusiasts Stephen Colbert and Josh Groban geek out over the details of Groban’s trip to NASA’s Artemis mission launch pad. Check out Groban’s latest role as the lead in “Sweeney Todd,” playing now at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Gordon Van Gelder, Rich Lynch, Lise Andreasen, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 3/23/23 MurderChatBotGPT-124C41+

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) NO DOGS^H^H^H^H BOOKS ALLOWED. “Book ban attempts hit record high in 2022, library org says” – AP News has the story.

Attempted book bans and restrictions at school and public libraries continue to surge, setting a record in 2022, according to a new report from the American Library Association released Thursday.

More than 1,200 challenges were compiled by the association in 2022, nearly double the then-record total from 2021 and by far the most since the ALA began keeping data 20 years ago.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who directs the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “The last two years have been exhausting, frightening, outrage inducing.”

Thursday’s report not only documents the growing number of challenges, but also their changing nature. A few years ago, complaints usually arose with parents and other community members and referred to an individual book. Now, the requests are often for multiple removals, and organized by national groups such as the conservative Moms for Liberty, which has a mission of “unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”

Last year, more than 2,500 different books were objected to, compared to 1,858 in 2021 and just 566 in 2019. In numerous cases, hundreds of books were challenged in a single complaint. The ALA bases its findings on media accounts and voluntary reporting from libraries and acknowledges that the numbers might be far higher….

(2) LET THERE BE LIGHTS. Cora Buhlert has posted a new “Semiprozine Spotlight” about “Hexagon Speculative Fiction Magazine” edited by J. W. Stebner.

… Science fiction, fantasy and horror were born in the pulps and short fiction has long been the beating heart of the genre. However, the focus of attention is increasingly moving towards novels and series. So why do you think SFF short fiction is important and worthy of attention?

I think that the reason SFF short fiction is so important is that it is constantly evolving and keeping up with what is happening in the world. Short fiction can be written, edited, and published long before a novel outline is finished. There is something immediate and satisfying about short fiction that does not exist in longer works of SFF. A great short story can be devoured in a single sitting, giving the reader a complete narrative arc in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. Whole worlds can be created, inhabited, and destroyed on a single bus ride. There’s something about that that always attracted me to short fiction….

She also has a new “Fancast Spotlight” about the “Chrononauts” podcast hosted by JM, Gretchen, and Nate.

Tell us about your podcast or channel.

JM: Chrononauts is a podcast that delves into the history of science fiction literature, and seeks to discuss more obscure works in tandem with or in relation to more well-known stories and writers. In the beginning, I don’t think we had a very precise vision of what we wanted to do, besides: “Hey, let’s talk about some cool sci-fi books! And maybe we can proceed sort of chronologically through the genre’s history!” As time has gone on I think we’ve gotten a more firm handle on this, but also adopted a somewhat relaxed approach, so that while we are still, roughly speaking, moving forward chronologically, we are also taking many tangential side-steps, and are open to including newer works “out of sequence” as it were, particularly if they match up thematically with something from the past. Since I’ve always been into hunting down obscure treasures, I think one of my goals, from the beginning, was always to highlight things that were lesser-known, either because they simply didn’t get as much promotion or, in some cases, had no exposure in the English-speaking world….

(3) WORLD BUNDLE. The 2023 World SF StoryBundle curated by Lavie Tidhar is available for another three weeks. Full information at the link.

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in .epub format—WORLDWIDE.

Unto the Godless What Little Remains by Mário Coelho
Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Ion Curtain by Anya Ow
Hadithi & the State of Black Speculative Fiction by Eugen Bacon and Milton Davis

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $20, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more books for a total of 10!

Nova Hellas: Stories from Future Greece edited by Francesca T Barbini and Francesco Verso
The Love Machine & Other Contraptions by Nir Yaniv
& This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda
And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed
Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette de Bodard
HebrewPunk by Lavie Tidhar (StoryBundle Exclusive)

(4) SHE SAYS SCREENS AREN’T TO BLAME. The Atlantic’s Katherine Marsh thinks she knows the real reason “Why Kids Aren’t Falling in Love With Reading”.

…What I remember most about reading in childhood was falling in love with characters and stories; I adored Judy Blume’s Margaret and Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse. In New York, where I was in public elementary school in the early ’80s, we did have state assessments that tested reading level and comprehension, but the focus was on reading as many books as possible and engaging emotionally with them as a way to develop the requisite skills. Now the focus on reading analytically seems to be squashing that organic enjoyment. Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information, much of it unreliable or deceptive. But this hyperfocus on analysis comes at a steep price: The love of books and storytelling is being lost.

This disregard for story starts as early as elementary school. Take this requirement from the third-grade English-language-arts Common Core standard, used widely across the U.S.: “Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.” There is a fun, easy way to introduce this concept: reading Peggy Parish’s classic, Amelia Bedelia, in which the eponymous maid follows commands such as “Draw the drapes when the sun comes in” by drawing a picture of the curtains. But here’s how one educator experienced in writing Common Core–aligned curricula proposes this be taught: First, teachers introduce the concepts of nonliteral and figurative language. Then, kids read a single paragraph from Amelia Bedelia and answer written questions.

For anyone who knows children, this is the opposite of engaging: The best way to present an abstract idea to kids is by hooking them on a story. “Nonliteral language” becomes a whole lot more interesting and comprehensible, especially to an 8-year-old, when they’ve gotten to laugh at Amelia’s antics first. The process of meeting a character and following them through a series of conflicts is the fun part of reading. Jumping into a paragraph in the middle of a book is about as appealing for most kids as cleaning their room….

(5) POT WALLOPER. “Stamp honoring ‘Strega Nona’ author Tomie dePaola gets release date” reports CBS Boston.

Fans of beloved children’s writer and illustrator Tomie dePaola will be able to get stamps honoring the “Strega Nona” author in just a few weeks.

The U.S. Postal Service said the stamps will be released on May 5. dePaola, a longtime New Hampshire resident whose books sold nearly 25 million copies, died in 2020 at 85 years old.

The Forever stamp shows the titular grandmother with her magic pasta pot. “Strega Nona,” published in 1975, is a Caldecott Honor book and was voted one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” by the School Library Journal.

(6) IN PASSING. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Three deaths in the sff field to report.

Eric Brown, science fiction, mystery and children’s book writer as well as the Guardian’s SFF reviewer, has died aged 62. The Guardian’s tribute is at the link.

Paul Grant, a British actor who played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi and also appeared in Legend, Labyrinth and the Harry Potter movies, has died: “Star Wars and Harry Potter actor Paul Grant dies aged 56” in the Guardian.

Norwegian cartoonist Dina Norlund has died aged 27. Her best known work outside Norway is The Snowcat Prince: “Cartoonist Dina Norlund has died of cancer” at Comics Beat.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1968 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

So the Beginning this Scroll is not one of the more upbeat ones we’ve done to date as it of Keith Roberts’ Pavane.

The ending of this novel, yes the ending, a novellette, “Pavane: The Signaller”, came out in Impulse: The New Science Fantasy in their March 1966 issue. The complete stories that are Pavane would first be printed by Hart-Davis in 1968. Why the ending first? I’ve no idea, but perhaps one of you knows why.

So I’ll just say that Pavane is a brilliant telling of an alternative England that mercifully never happened. So without further commentary, here’s the perfect Beginning that the author gave it…

PROLOGUE

On a warm July evening of the year 1588, in the royal palace of Greenwich, London, a woman lay dying, an assassin’s bullets lodged in abdomen and chest. Her face was lined, her teeth blackened, and death lent her no dignity; but her last breath started echoes that ran out to shake a hemisphere. For the Faery Queen, Elizabeth the First, paramount ruler of England, was no more …

The rage of the English knew no bounds. A word, a whisper was enough; a half-wit youth, torn by the mob, calling on the blessing of the Pope. … The English Catholics, bled white by fines, still mourning the Queen of Scots, still remembering the gory Rising of the North, were faced with fresh pogroms. Unwillingly, in self-defence, they took up arms against their countrymen as the flame lit by the Walsingham massacres ran across the land, mingling with the light of warning beacons the sullen glare of the auto-da-fé.

The news spread; To Paris, to Rome, to the strange fastness of the Escorial, where Philip II still brooded on his Enterprise of England. The word of a land torn and divided against itself reached the great ships of the Armada, threshing up past the Lizard to link with Parma’s army of invasion on the Flemish coast. For a day while Medina-Sidonia paced the decks of the San Martin, the fate of half the world hung in balance. Then his decision was made; and one by one the galleons and carracks, the galleys and the lumbering urcas turned north toward the land. Toward Hastings and the ancient battleground of Santlache, where history had been made once centuries before. The turmoil that ensued saw Philip ensconced as ruler of England; in France the followers of Guise, heartened by the victories across the Channel, finally deposed the weakened House of Valois. The War of the Three Henrys ended with the Holy League triumphant, and the Church restored once more to her ancient power.

To the victor, the spoils. With the authority of the Catholic Church assured, the rising nation of Great Britain deployed her forces in the service of the Popes, smashing the Protestants of the Netherlands, destroying the power of the German city-states in the long-drawn-out Lutheran Wars. The Newworlders of the North American continent remained under the rule of Spain; Cook planted in Australasia the cobalt flag of the Throne of Peter.

In England herself, across a land half ancient and half modern, split as in primitive times by barriers of language, class, and race, the castles of mediaevalism still glowered; mile on mile of unfelled woodland harboured creatures of another age. To some the years that passed were years of fulfillment, of the final flowering of God’s Design; to others they were a new Dark Age, haunted by things dead and others best forgotten; bears and catamounts, dire wolves and Fairies.

Over all, the long arm of the Popes reached out to punish and reward; the Church Militant remained supreme. But by the middle of the twentieth century widespread mutterings were making themselves heard. Rebellion was once more in the air…

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 23, 1904 — H. Beam Piper. I am reasonably sure that the first thing I read and enjoyed by him was Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen followed by Little Fuzzy and related works which are damn fun reading. Has anyone here read Scalzi’s Fuzzy novel? And how’s his Federation series? Not a Hugo to be had by Piper, amazingly, but Little Fuzzy was nominated at the first Discon when The Man in the High Castle won. (Died 1964.)
Born March 23, 1934 — Neil Barron. Certainly best known for Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction which actually is still a damn fine read which is unusual for this sort of material. If memory thirty years on serves me right, his Fantasy Literature and Horror Literature guides were quite good too. (Died 2010.)
Born March 23, 1937 — Carl Yoke, 86. One of those academics that I stumbled upon when I was looking for information on Zelazny. His 1979 study of him, Roger Zelazny, is quite excellent, as is his essay, “Roger Zelazny’s Bold New Mythologies” which is in Tom Staicar’s Critical Encounters II: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction. He also wrote “What a Piece of Work is a Man: Mechanical Gods in the Fiction of Roger Zelazny” which you’ll find in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Yoke does have four genre stories to his credit.
Born March 23, 1947 — Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, 76. Though her only award was a Nebula for The Healer’s War, I remember her best for a three book series called The Songkiller Saga which was wonderful and the Acorna series that she did with Anne McCaffrey which they co-wrote all but two as the first two were written by McCaffrey and Margaret Ball. She wrote a tribute to McCaffrey, “The Dragon Lady’s Songs”, that appeared in Dragonwriter.
Born March 23, 1952 — Kim Stanley Robinson, 71. If the Mars Trilogy was the only work that he’d written, he’d rank among the best genre writers ever. But then he went and wrote the outstanding Three Californias Trilogy. I won’t say everything he writes I consider top-flight, the Science in the Capital series just didn’t appeal to me. His best one-off novels I think are without argument (ha!) The Years of Rice and Salt and New York 2140. I should note he has won myriad Awards including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, BSFA Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. And the Heinlein Society gave him their Robert A. Heinlein Award for his entire body of work!
Born March 23, 1959 — Maureen Kincaid Speller. British reviewer and essayist who has been nominated for Hugos for Best Semiprozine and Best Fan Writer. She had an extensive career with her writing showing up in Matrix, Steam Engine Time, The Gate and Vector (all of which she either edited or co-edited), Barbed Wire Kisses, Fire & Hemlock, Local Fanomena, Red Shift, Interzone and The BSFA Review. A brief collection by BSFA, And Another Thing … A Collection of Reviews and Criticism by Maureen Kincaid Speller, leave room for an additional collection. OGH’s obituary writeup is here. (Died 2022.)
Born March 23, 1958 — John Whitbourn, 65. Writer of a number novels and short stories focusing on an alternative history set in a Catholic universe. It reminds me a bit of Keith Robert’s Pavane but much more detailed. A Dangerous Energy in which Elizabeth I never ascends the throne leads off his series. If that’s not to your taste, Frankenstein’s Legion’s is a sheer delight of Steampunk riffing off Mary Shelley‘s tale. He’s available at the usual digital suspects.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Adam@Home wants an exotic pet.

(10) HAMILTON, YOLEN Q&A’S. Grimdark Magazine landed interviews with two distinguished writers.

LAURELL K. HAMILTON: “An Interview With Laurell K. Hamilton”

[GdM] The expression of characters’ sexuality is something you have always written about that feels open and honest. Has the way you approached sex scenes and sensuality changed between the first novel and now, and if so, how?

Answer: When I started writing the series my plan was to have every kiss, every caress so amazing that we wouldn’t need to ever complete the act. What actually happened was that I built up the anticipation higher and higher so when it came to the point where Anita was finally ready to have full blown sex I had to live up to all the amazing foreplay. I was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of doing it on paper, but I’d written crime scenes and fight scenes with extreme violence in them and not hesitated. The fact that sex between two people that cared about each other bothered me more than writing violent murder made me question my priorities. Was sex really worse than violence? No, no it wasn’t, but in America we’re conditioned that it is, and once I realized where the bias came from I was determined not to be trapped by it. I promised myself that every sex scene would be as well written and unflinching as my murder scenes had been. I think I’ve kept that promise to myself and to my readers.

JANE YOLEN: “An Interview With Jane Yolen”.

Are you still sending your subscribers a poem a day? To produce the poem a day, are you influenced by the news, world happenings, or something beautiful you saw while about in your daily life?

JY: All of the above, plus lines from favorite poems, newspaper clippings, something someone asked, or watching out my window and seeing squirrels and foxes and bobcats and bears and….it’s an old New England farmhouse with a lot of out buildings and farmland! Lots happening there every day.

(11) WHAT CAN REPLACE A (HU)MAN? Brian Murphy turns the tables in the ongoing AI debate: “Why (Human Generated) Sword-and-Sorcery?” at DMR Books.

… Sword-and-sorcery is a subgenre of influence, to varying degrees. The various “Clonans”—Brak, Thongor, Kothar, and their ilk—bear the obvious influence of Robert E. Howard’s famous creation. Michael Moorcock read and was influenced by Howard, but with Elric created a protagonist wholly different than Conan or Kull—civilized, decadent, his strength dependent on a cocktail of drugs.

We also consume and enjoy derivative products. I like my Kothar books—they’re fun (no, they’re not, they’re terrible—DMR), and sometimes they’re just what I need (no, they’re not, they’re terrible!—DMR). The Clonans sold, but creatively arrested the subgenre in the ‘60s and ‘70s. S&S became so narrowly focused and artistically stultified that it suffered a collapse in the early 1980s.

It’s important we recognize true innovators and mavericks. And offer venues and support creators that strive for originality.

Today the issue of originality vs. derivative work has risen to greater prominence and debate with the rise of AI. Now our art is threatened not by derivative authors, but by machines capable of turning it out in choking quantities….

(12) BEAGLE VISITS GLENDALE. Here’s a beautiful photo of author Peter S. Beagle, taken by Krystal Rains, while Beagle was signing at the LA Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale on Sunday.

Peter S. Beagle. Photo by Krystal Rains.

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Daniel Dern, Krystal Rains, Cora Buhlert, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern – folding more references together than the ingredients in a Scalzi burrito.]

SFWA Releases New SciFi StoryBundle

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Mike Glyer

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has released its newest StoryBundle, “Space is Big. Really Big.,” for a limited time only, March 1–March 23, 2023. This StoryBundle offers a large selection of ebooks from independent and small press science fiction authors, and can be purchased at https://storybundle.com/space.

The “Space is Big. Really Big.” StoryBundle features 15 novels set in the vastness of space. Join us for tales of rogue AIs, pirates, ship-to-ship battles, and galactic politics all set in the biggest of tableaus: space. Perhaps the only thing bigger are the stories that take place within it.

SFWA StoryBundles are collections of ebooks offered at a discounted price and curated by the SFWA Indie Authors Committee. The committee sorted through nearly a hundred excellent submissions for this bundle, and the competition was very tough.

Readers decide what price they want to pay. For $5 (or more, if they’re feeling generous), they get the core bundle of four books in any ebook format available—WORLDWIDE!

Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper
The Empyrean by Katherine Franklin
Shadows of Mars by I.O. Adler
Hometown Space Pirate by C. G. Harris

If they pay at least $20, they get all 4 of the core books, plus 11 more, for a total of 15. As a bonus, 2 of the books are newly packaged with their entire series, bringing your total number of books to 18 for the same low price!

Redshift Rendezvous by John E. Stith
Redspace Rising by Brian Trent
Memory and Metaphor by Andrea Monticue
The Signal Out of Space by Mike Jack Stoumbos
Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro
Rattle Man by E.H. Gaskins
The Sounding Dark by Jo Graham
Brain for Rent (Hardly Used) by D.M Pruden
The Venusian Job by Ryan McFadden
Skylark in the Fog by Helyna L. Clove
Goodbye to the Sun by Jonathan Nevair

Once March 23 passes,this particular collection will never be available again. Readers will gain a rich collection of science fiction and can opt to donate part of their purchase price to support SFWA’s ongoing work to promote and support speculative fiction genres and writers.

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 11/15/22 One Scroll, Furnished In Early Pixelry

Posted on November 15, 2022 by Mike Glyer

(1) LOCUS OPENS CROWDFUNDING APPEAL. At Tor.com LP Kindred declares “Locus Magazine Is Essential to the SFF Community” which is why you should support its Indiegogo appeal. Donors have responded by giving $17,064 of the $75,000 flexible goal on the first day.

… After 54 years of speculative fiction journalism, we are in danger of losing Locus Magazine. With the rising costs of physical publishing, the mass exodus toward digital, and the rising costs of living, the margins at Locus narrow from month to month. And if no one takes action, we could lose this resource in less than a year.

Contributing reviewers return to publishing reviews for free. The six full-time staff members lose their salaries and benefits. Our community loses the Locus Awards and the honor of the Recommended Reading List. We lose a breadth of speculative journalism including short story and book reviews, spotlights, interviews, acquisition announcements, cover reveals, press releases, articles, essays for, by, and about people in speculative fiction.

I won’t pretend I had a Locus subscription when I got this news. To the contrary, I thought I had time. I thought that was something you acquired when you were farther along in your career. But it’s become clear that if we don’t start contributing to speculative fiction institutions, they might not be here when we think we’re ready for them and they definitely won’t be around for the generations of writers behind mine.

The brass at Locus is dreaming up new ways to be of service to the community at the same time that it’s searching for ways to sustain. By the time you’re reading this, the Indiegogo campaign will be live. There’s a subscription drive in the offing as well as an auction.

In the same way that readership and fundraising are the lifeblood of so many magazines we aspire to and love to read as fiction readers and writers, this journalistic institution needs you and I to help it keep its pages open. It is an archive of science fiction past and present, and Locus needs us to help it carry us into the future.

(2) BACK TO THE FUTURE. Martin Wisse says he is ready to march “Into the glorious future of blogging made possible by Elon Musk – Wis[s]e Words (cloggie.org) at Wis[s]e Words.

Due to the glorious future Twitter is being dragged kicking and screaming into thanks to the inspired leadership of Elon Musk, suupergenius, UI thought it was time to give the ol’ blog a bit of attention again. Not that I haven’t been blogging semi-regularly, but whereas a decade ago I’d hit a post a day fairly regularly, the past couple of years I’ve lucky to get into double digits in a given month. Mostly focused on anime too, as for political and other writing Twitter was just too handy. But if Twitter is going away, will blogs make a comeback?…

(3) SFWA STORYBUNDLE. The SFWA Magical Mysteries StoryBundle of novels with characters that ask “What Am I Doing Here?” is available for through November 30.

The Magical Mysteries StoryBundle features ten fantasy books that have protagonists shaking their heads and wondering how the heck they got into this, whether “this” is discovering a dragon in a coal mine or that they’ve found themselves in a nightmarish game of chess. Join us for tales of burgeoning magic, portal fantasies, strange creatures and … you guessed it: characters who have no idea what’s going on.

SFWA StoryBundles are collections of ebooks curated by the SFWA Indie Authors Committee and offered at a discounted price. Readers decide what price they want to pay. For $5 (or more, if they’re feeling generous), they get the core bundle of four books in any ebook format available—WORLDWIDE!

The Dragon’s Playlist by Laura Bickle
Jester by Geoff Hart
Dragon Dreams by Chris A. Jackson
Ritual of the Ancients by Roan Rosser

If they pay at least $20, they get all four of the core books, plus six more books, for a total of ten!

The Sister Paradox by Jack Campbell
Sorrow and Joy by D.R. Perry
Revise The World by Brenda W. Clough
The Year’s Midnight by Rachel Neumeier
Pawn’s Gambit by Darin Kennedy
Spindled by Shanna Swendson

Readers will gain a rich library of fantasy ebooks and can opt to donate part of their purchase price to support SFWA’s ongoing work to promote and support speculative fiction genres and writers.

(4) SKEPTICISM. The Guardian’s Ismene Ormonde asks “Inspirational passion or paid-for promotion: can BookTok be taken on face value?”

BookTok, the nickname for TikTok videos in which books are discussed, analysed, cried about and turned into “aesthetic” moodboards, began as a small group of the app’s users who wanted a place to talk about books. It has since grown into a hugely influential community that has the power to pluck authors out of relative obscurity and propel them into the bestsellers charts.

Earlier this month it was named FutureBook Person of the Year, an accolade which recognises digital innovation and excellence across the book trade. According to James Stafford, Head of Partnerships and Community at TikTok, BookTok is a community of “creative people around the world with a shared passion for literature”. Publishers, creators and writers have generally agreed that this corner of the platform has had an overwhelmingly positive effect, having led to huge increases in book sales and the discovery of new writers. The Bookseller even recently called it “the last safe place on the internet”….

(5) IMAGINARY PAPERS. The ASU Center for Science and the Imagination has published the latest issue of Imaginary Papers, their quarterly newsletter on science fiction worldbuilding, futures thinking, and imagination.

The issue features an essay by the artist, researcher, and critic Zoyander Street on the 2017 BBC utopian film Carnage, and another on Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1940 novel The Invention of Morel, by writer, podcaster, and lawyer Jason Tashea, who works on the future of criminal justice. There’s also a brief writeup of Vice Motherboard’s anthology Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn.

Carnage (2017)

The year is 2067. A diverse polycule of androgynous young people, wearing what appears to be glittering eye makeup, walk hand in hand through a sunny field, glass pyramids shining on the horizon. Comedian Simon Amstell narrates: “Though we rarely think about it, Britain is now raising the most peaceful and happy humans ever. Violence has been defeated with compassion, depression cured with intimacy.”

Carnage is a feature-length mockumentary written and directed by Amstell, and published on the BBC’s iPlayer in March 2017. In its utopian future, British people now live in harmony with nature and do not eat meat or animal products. Audiences are invited to reflect on Britain’s history of “carnism,” a term adopted to refer to the archaic practice of eating animals and animal-derived products. Their history is our present, so the film is a darkly comic appraisal of intergenerational trauma in the making. Characters represent the perspectives of different generations: millennial seniors undergo group therapy to process their shame at having participated in a system of abuse, while the generation reaching adulthood in the 2060s tries to make sense of the atrocities committed by their parents and grandparents….

(6) MEMORY LANE.

1951 — [By Cat Eldridge.] Strangers on a Train

Seventy-one years ago, Strangers on a Train premiered. It’s a classic film noir which was produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

It was based on the Strangers on a Train novel by Patricia Highsmith that she had written just the previous year. Hitchcock secured the rights to the novel for only $7,500 since it was her first novel. As per his practice, he kept his name out of the negotiations to keep the purchase price low. Naturally she was quite angry when she later discovered who bought the rights for such a pitiful amount.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE SPOILERS, MAY I SUGGEST YOU GO TO THE BAR NOW?

On a train, two strangers meet and swap the idea of murders — Bruno, who is actually a psychopath, suggests he kill Guy’s wife Miriam and Guy kill Bruno’s hated father. Each will murder a stranger, with no apparent motive, so neither will be suspected. The perfect murders. Or so they think oh so smugly.

Apparently they vary out the murders, or do they? Miriam shows up alive, Guy actually has no attention of killing Bruno’s father which leads to, of all things a fight between them on carnival wheel that mortally wounds .Bruno

I’ve no idea why the psychopath didn’t kill his victim, nor does Hitchcock give us a clue.

Sometime later, another stranger on a train attempts to strike up conversation with Guy in the same way as had Bruno with Guy, about Anne, the daughter of the US Senator he wants to marry (which is why he wants to kill his still alive wife — don’t think about that too long) but Guy turns and walks away from him.

ENJOY YOUR DRINK IN THE BAR? COME ON BACK.

Hitchcock hated the leads, Farley Granger as Guy Haines, Ruth Roman as Anne Morton and Robert Walker as Bruno, as the Studio which paid for the production would be the one that choose the performers. He openly scorned Ruth Roman throughout the production saying she was “lacking in sex appeal”.

(Warner Bros. wanted their own stars, already under contract, cast wherever possible. All studios did this because it was considerably cheaper than hiring freelancers. Hitchcock of course thought money was no object and bitterly complained.)

Though critics at the time were at best lukewarm, audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes are giving it a ninety eight percent rating. And it did great at the box office — the production costs were just one point six million dollars and it made seven million in its initial run. Very impressive.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born November 15, 1877 — William Hope Hodgson. By far, his best known character is Thomas Carnacki, featured in several of his most famous stories and at least partly based upon Algernon Blackwood’s occult detective John Silence. (Simon R. Green will make use of him in his Ghost Finders series.) Two of his later novels, The House on the Borderland and The Night Land would be lavishly praised by H.P. Lovecraft. While serving as a Lieutenant in the army, he was killed by the direct impact of an artillery shell at the Fourth Battle of Ypres in April 1918. (Died 1918.)
Born November 15, 1879 — Lewis Stone. He was Lord John Roxton in The Lost World which premiered here in 1925 making it one of the earliest cinematic adaptations of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel. If you define Treasure Island as genre, that’s his only other genre role where he’s Captain Smollett. (Died 1953.)
Born November 15, 1929 — Ed Asner. Genre work includes roles on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Invaders, The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, Shelley Duvall’s Tall Tales & Legends, Batman: The Animated Series and I’ll stop there as the list goes on for quite awhile. (Died 2021.)
Born November 15, 1933 — Theodore Roszak. Winner of the Tiptree Award for The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein (1995), and the rather excellent Flicker which is well worth reading. Flicker is available at the usual suspects, and his only other available fiction is his Japanese folktales. Odd. (Died 2011.)
Born November 15, 1934 — Joanna Barnes. Genre work includes roles on Planet of the Apes TV series and Fantasy Island. (Died 2022.)
Born November 15, 1942 — Ruth Berman, 80. She’s a writer of mostly speculative poetry. In 2003, she won the Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem for “Potherb Gardening”, and in 2016 for “Time Travel Vocabulary Problems”. She was the winner of the 2006 Dwarf Stars Award for her poem “Knowledge Of”. She’s also written one YA fantasy novel, Bradamant’s quest. In 1973, she was a finalist for the first Astounding Award for Best New Writer. She edited the Dunkiton Press genre zine for a decade or so. She was nominated for Best Fan Writer Hugo at Baycon (1968). Impressive indeed.
Born November 15, 1972 — Jonny Lee Miller, 50. British actor and director who played Sherlock Holmes on the exemplary Elementary series, but his first genre role was as a nine year-old with the Fifth Doctor story, “Kinda”. While he’s had a fairly steady stage, film, and TV career across the pond since then, it’s only in the last decade that he’s become well-known in the States – unless, like JJ, you remember that twenty-three years ago he appeared in a technothriller called Hackers, with another unknown young actor named Angelina Jolie (to whom he ended up married, until they separated eighteen months months later). Other genre appearances include a trio of vampire films, Dracula 2000, Dark Shadows, and Byzantium, the live-action Æon Flux movie, and the lead in the pseudo-fantasy TV series Eli Stone. (JJ)

(8) NO NEWS MAY BE GOOD NEWS. J. Michael Straczyski told Twitter “’Babylon 5′ reboot could still happen, if we’re patient” reports SYFY Wire.

It’s been a little more than a year since news of a potential reboot of Babylon 5 surfaced over at The CW. Since then things have stalled in a big way, and remained stalled as The CW goes through major changes after its purchase by Nexstar Media Group. So, what does all that upheaval mean for our chances at more B5? According to creator J. Michael Straczynski, it means we wait, and it’s as simple as that….

— and when it does I'll get it out as soon as possible or at minimum let you know that something has been decided. Through 30+ years of rumors and online nonsense I've always dealt straight with the B5 fan community. Waiting is hard, but wait we must until *something* is decided
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) November 13, 2022

(9) THE UPSIDE DOWN. If you’re in LA and have a few extra bucks, you can enter into “Stranger Things: The Experience”.

EVER WANTED TO BE THE PROTAGONIST OF A STRANGER THINGS ADVENTURE?

Your chance has arrived. Stranger Things: The Experience throws you headfirst into your favorite show —join Eleven, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Max, and Will for a very special episode starring… you! Venture inside Hawkins Lab for a 45 mins. immersive experience featuring a brand-new Stranger Things storyline, then explore an 80’s-themed Mix-Tape medley with food & drinks, special merchandise, photo ops, and much more.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stranger Things Experience (@strangerthings.experience)

(10) THEIR COPYEDITOR MUST BE MY COUSIN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] From a tech PR email pitch:

Subject: Hackers using stenography for malware attacks – expert source

Daniel Dern adds, “They did get the term correct within the text – ‘steganography’ – and their response to my politely noting the hiccup, was as I expected, ‘Damn autocorrect!’”

(11) A GAME THAT TEACHES BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION. Nature Kin is a collaborative card game to help young people and families cultivate ecological literacy. The game puts players in charge of an open space where they and their friends race to find a home for 28 different native plants, animals, and insects.

Patrick Coleman (assistant director, Clarke Center) created the game with the help of his two young daughters, who adore the abundant nature we have in San Diego County: one of the top ten biodiversity hotspots in the country.

They have launched an Indiegogo campaign to help bring that game to the world and as of today it has raised $783 of the $1500 flexible goal.

Also, for every set purchased during the Indiegogo campaign, they will donate one set to a young person through a school or community outreach program, doubling your impact, and donate $5 to Project Wildlife (part of the San Diego Humane Society), a wildlife rehabilitation program that gives injured, orphaned, and sick wild animals a second chance at life.

(12) LOCAL STONES. Here’s a flyby comparison of all the moons of Uranus and Neptune – except the flyby is set above a familiar cityscape for real impact. I never knew how many moons look more like potatoes than billiard balls.

All known moons of the planets Uranus and Neptune, arranged in order of size. Uranus has 27 moons discovered so far and Neptune has 14. Some moons are known with Triton, Miranda or Titania, but there are many more smaller moons that are little known.

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Joey Eschrich, Rich Lynch, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 10/10/22 I Demand Satisfaction. Pixels At Dawn

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Mike Glyer

(1) ASKING ABOUT BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES IN SF. Prof. Brendan Allison has a question, and File 770 has volunteered to try and crowdsource the answer:

I am an academic researcher in the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). I’m writing a book chapter about BCIs in science fiction, called BCI-fi. Among other academic pursuits, I’m looking for the first reference to an artificial brain interface. It must involve a device. I’m just writing you as a way to research this question.
The earliest reference so far was the first X-Men comic in 1963. Professor X can “interface” with psychic power – which doesn’t count – but also uses a brain interface to bolster that ability. Frankenstein does use a device to stimulate the brain, but that’s arguably not an interface.

Prof. Allison also sent links to recordings of two recent workshops about BCI-fi where one of the participants was Andy Weir. (“BCI Thursdays Next Generations: BCI-fi Part 1” and “BCI Thursdays Next Generations: BCI-fi Part 2”.)

In this two-part event, we will have prominent speakers within the BCI-fi community to discuss their contributions to BCI-fi, their favorite examples of BCI-fi including movies, books, and podcasts, and next steps to develop, foster, or publicize “good” BCI-fi. We will be joined by Dr. Brendan Allison (UCSD), Andy Weir (author of The Martian), Dr. Eric Leuthardt (Washington University in St. Louis), Stephen Hou (host of Neurratives podcast), Dr. Richard Ramchurn (University of Nottingham), Dr. Jane Huggins (University of Michigan) and Dr. Robert Hampson (Wake Forest University).

(2) IS THERE AN IDEAL LENGTH? “Novels versus novellas in Speculative Fiction” are debated at A Deep Look by Dave Hook.

Many argue that the perfect length for speculative fiction is the novella, or short novel. Some believe that this is long enough to tell a successful story while not longer than needed. It is said that this length allows for character development and change, and perhaps multiple plot lines, while short enough to be taut and not meander or bog down.
I don’t know if it’s true that the novella is the perfect length for speculative fiction, but it is certainly true that many great works of speculative fiction are novella length, whether works such as “The Times Machine” by H. G. Wells right up to modern fiction such as “A Spindle Splintered” by Alix E. Harrow….

(3) SFWA SF STORYBUNDLE SUBMISSION CALL. The Independent Authors Committee of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is open for submissions for their science fiction StoryBundle to be released next spring. Submissions will be accepted through October 31, 2022, at 11:59pm Eastern Time. The theme for the call is Space is Big. Really Big. They are looking for space opera and “other books that span large swaths of space.” Full guidelines for this submission call can be found here.

StoryBundles are curated collections of books offered at a discounted price. Proceeds go to the participating authors and StoryBundle, and a small cut is donated to SFWA.

This is a great chance for independent and small press authors to gain more exposure and sell more books! Submissions of indie and traditionally published novels will be accepted, though publishers must give permission in writing. You do not need to be a SFWA member to apply!
We welcome full-length science fiction novels of over 40,000 words. We ask that authors submit only one novel, and do not submit a novel that has appeared in any previous StoryBundle (SFWA or otherwise.) Please only submit novels that will be for sale by March 1, 2023. You must have full rights to enter your novel in the StoryBundle, and the novel must not be in Amazon’s KDP Select at the time that the StoryBundle is offered. Participants will be notified by December 1, 2022, so that any books enrolled in KDP will have time to be brought out of exclusivity before the bundle is released on or about March 1, 2023.
Questions may be directed to storybundle@sfwa.org.

(4) FUNDRAISING FOR THE THOMASES. The Gofundme for “Lynne and Michael Thomas”, who are facing the loss of their 19-year-old daughter Caitlin to medical complications from Aicardi Syndrome, had raised $58,486 when checked earlier today. Jim C. Hines, who set up the appeal, explained what it’s for:

…I’ve spoken a bit with Michael. It sounds like the medical costs of Caitlin’s treatment are covered. End-of-life costs are another matter.
The goal of this fundraiser is to cover those end-of-life expenses, and to hopefully provide a financial cushion to allow the Thomases to spend their remaining time with Caitlin – and when the time comes, to grieve – without also having to worry about money. All donations will go directly to Michael and Lynne (with the exception of GoFundMe’s processing fee)….

(5) EKPEKI CROWDFUNDING. The Gofundme to “Send Oghenechovwe Ekpeki World Fantasy Con” has brought in $2,000 of its $4,000 goal as of this afternoon. Jason Sanford outlined why it’s needed:

…A successful previous fundraiser brought Ekpeki to this year’s Worldcon, where he was a finalist for two Hugo Awards. However, his gruesome battle with the US embassy in Nigeria for a visa and exorbitant fees and repeated payments resulting from that (including last-minute changes to his international flights) resulted in costs far exceeding what that fundraiser brought in. So this new fundraiser would also mop up those expenses as well….

(6) NEVERTHELESS, A BRADBURY AND ASIMOV FAN. “Temple Grandin Is a Visual Thinker Who Hates Graphic Novels” according to a headline in the New York Times. Here’s an excerpt from their interview with Grandin.

What kind of a reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you?
I was not able to read until I was age 8. Mother tutored me with phonics, and I quickly went from no reading to reading above my age level. My favorite books when I was in fourth grade were “Black Beauty,” “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and a children’s book about famous inventors. I really related to Black Beauty’s pain when he was forced to pull a heavy carriage with his head held up by a bearing rein. The inventor book appealed to me because I loved to tinker with my kites to make them fly better.
What genres do you especially enjoy reading and which do you avoid?
I avoid romance novels. The books I really enjoy are either about animals or science fiction. I loved “Merle’s Door,” by Ted Kerasote. Many dogs today live really restricted lives and they have no normal dog social life. Another favorite is “The Soul of the Octopus,” by Sy Montgomery. It really made me think about consciousness. When I received a review copy of “A Dog’s Purpose,” by W. Bruce Cameron, I could not put it down. In the science fiction genre, I am a fan of Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.

(7) PICK SIX. How long has this variation been around? A spinoff from Nerds of a Feather’s “Six Books” interview series is “6 Games With Aidan Moher”.

1. What game are you currently playing?

Appropriately, I’m splitting my time between a couple of JRPGs—one current, one retro.

On the big screen downstairs I’m about 60 hours into Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and still mildly obsessed. I really love a lot of creator Tetsuya Takahashi’s older games—especially Xenogears, which I just finished replaying—but bounced hard off Xenoblade Chronicles 2, so I was a little hesitant when they announced the third game. It’s exceeded all of my expectations, though, and is probably my favourite game in the series now—an improvement on the second game in pretty much every way. Vast world, memorable characters, and Takahashi’s typical zany JRPG plot is a drool-worth combination.

Upstairs in my CRT corner, I’m playing Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64 for the first time. I’ve enjoyed many other games in the series—including Sticker Star, which has a bad reputation—but the original slipped past me for a variety of reasons. It’s wild to go back to the very beginning and see all of the series’s trademarks right there, fully formed, polished, and perfectly enjoyable 20 years later. It’s genuinely funny, the combat is simple but engaging thanks to its timing-based mechanics, and it’s got some of the best graphics on the system.

(8) WAS THE ZODIAC KILLER A FAN? [Item by Susan de Guardiola.] There’s a new theory that the Zodiac killer was a fan, Paul Doerr.

The news reports on this are the first time I’ve ever seen fanzines, filk, D&D, SCA, Renfaires, etc. paired with a Zodiac killer theory.

The evidence is circumstantial, but there’s an awful lot of it.

Los Angeles Magazine devoted an article to the question “Has The Zodiac Killer Mystery Been Solved (Again)”, discussing author Jarrett Kobek’s books Motor Spirit, about the misbegotten hunt for Zodiac, and How to Find Zodiac, about Paul Doerr.

… As he studied Zodiac’s cryptic letters, Kobek brought a writerly attention to bear. He zeroed in on the killer’s habit of quoting forgotten bits of cultural ephemera (the well-known call-outs to The Mikado and to the 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” as well as a telling reference to an obscure 1950s comic book, identified by an anonymous online researcher, Tahoe27, several years back). Running other apparent quotations through Google Books and the Internet Archive, Kobek formed a picture of the killer as a fan of pulp novels, comics, and other nerdy touchstones. Kobek knew a bit about the early years of the sci-fi and fantasy fandoms, how these nascent communities had begun taking shape around an array of obscure self-published zines. On a hunch, he did a quick web search of “fanzines” and “Vallejo.”…

Paul Haynes has published a long Twitter thread about Kobek’s evidence, now collected in three parts at Threadreader: Part I; Part II; Part III.

I don’t know if anyone who knew Paul Doerr is still around.

(9) THE CORFLU AUCTION IS NOW LIVE! The catalog for the Corflu Pangloss auction is now online at Corflu.org and eFanzines.com. Anyone can bid on those 80 lots, including non-members – the catalog has instruction on how to bid. See the Pangloss Fanzine Auction Catalog and Bid Sheet at the links.

Corflu has a long tradition of raising funds to support the convention by selling and auctioning off vintage science fiction fanzines before, during and sometimes after the convention. As Corflu is a convention devoted to fanzines and the fans who create them, it has always been a natural place to buy, sell or trade zines, and the live auction has often raised very impressive sums.
For the 39th issue of the convention, taking place October 21st to 23rd, 2022 in Vancouver, British Columbia, we have taken a new approach… By creating this catalog of auction items and publishing it some weeks in advance of the convention, we hope to allow fans not attending Corflu Pangloss to participate. Anyone interested in buying is invited to send their bids by email to fanmailaph@aol.com by midnight, Pacific daylight time on October 22nd, 2022.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

1992 – [By Cat Eldridge.] “Relics” was the one hundred and thirtieth episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I found it to be one of the more fascinating episodes that series did and I’ll tell why in a minute, but first let’s talk about the usual details.

Ronald Dowl Moore was the writer of this episode and he was best known fleshing out the Klingons. He also wrote the series finale here, “All Good Things…” which won the Hugo Award at Intersection. And yes, he’s done a lot more Great Things than that but I have an understanding with OGH that I’ll try to keep things reasonably brief.

So why do I like it? Look there’s a Dyson Sphere being depicted as far as I know for the very first time on a video series! Y’all know what that is so you know why I’m so excited by this.

And then there’s the matter of the idea of the Enterprise in responding to a distress signal having the singular honor of rescuing Capt. Montgomery Scott!

So how do the two connect?

Well, the Enterprise, responding to a distress call discovers a Dyson sphere where they the distress call to the USS Jenolan, a Federation transport ship that has been missing for seventy-five years, which they find crashed on the sphere’s outer shell. And in the transporter buffer field, jury rigged to keep working, are two signals, two patterns, one degraded to be saved, the other that of Doohan.

He bonds with Geordie which is fortunate as together they need to figure out how to get the Enterprise out of that damn Sphere. Afterwards he’s feeling like a relic but Picard cheers him up. As the Enterprise returns to its mission, the crew of the ship give Scott a shuttlecraft “on extended loan” to do whatever he wanted.

I thought the writers did a nice job of making him a believable character, much more to be honest than the original series often did. And critics agreed as they’ve consistently voted this to be one of the best episodes of the series.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born October 10, 1927 — Dana Elcar. Most of you will remember him as Peter Thornton on MacGyver, but he has a long genre history including Russ in Condorman which was inspired by Robert Sheckley’s The Game of X. He also played Sheriff George Paterson in Dark Shadows, and showed up in 2010 as Dimitri Moisevitch. (Died 2005.)

Born October 10, 1924 — Edward Wood Jr. Though known for Plan 9 from Outer Space, he did a lot of other bad genre films including Night of the Monster and Bride of The Ghouls. (Died 1978.)

Born October 10, 1929 — Robin Hardy. Wicker Man is the film he’s known for though he followed that up with The Wicker Tree, an adaptation of his Cowboys for Christ novel. Anyone seen it? (Died 2016.)

Born October 10, 1931 — Victor Pemberton. Writer of the script for the “Fury from the Deep”, a Second Doctor story in which he created the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. He had appeared as an actor in the series, in a non-speaking role as a scientist in “The Moonbase” story. In 1976, he wrote the BBC audio drama Doctor Who and the Pescatons which I remember hearing. Quite good it was. (Died 2017.)

Born October 10, 1931 — Jack Jardine. A long-time L.A. fan who was present at many West Coast cons and who shared the dais on panels with some of the major names in SF. Under the pen name Larry Maddock he wrote science fiction and mystery stories in the Fifties and Sixties. File 770 has more here. (Died 2009.)

Born October 10, 1941 — Peter Coyote, 81. He actually did two genre films in 1982 with the first being Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann in which he appeared as Porter Reese and the second being E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial which he’s Keys, the Agent hunting E.T. down. Sphere in which he’s Captain Harold C. Barnes is his next SF outing followed by The 4400 and FlashForward series being his next major genre involvements.

Born October 10, 1947 — Laura Brodian Freas Beraha, 75. While married to Kelly Freas, she wrote Frank Kelly Freas: As He Sees It with him along with quite a few essays such as “On the Painting of Beautiful Women or Ayesha, She Who Must Be Obeyed” and “Some of My Best Critics are Friends – or Vice Versa“. She’s credited solely for the cover art for the 1993 Easton Press interior art for The Left Hand of Darkness according to ISFDB.

Born October 10, 1966 — Bai Ling, 56. She’s Miss West in Wild West West and the Mysterious Woman in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, she has a major role as Guanyin in The Monkey King which aired on Syfy.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Annie has turned the “little orphan” into a time traveler!
Off the Mark shows “parts is parts” isn’t true if you’re Frankenstein.

(13) DRESSED FOR EXCESS. SYFY Wire shares a load of photos in the NYCC 2022 – Final Day Cosplay Gallery.

New York Comic Con saved some of its coolest news for the weekend this year, as studios dropped loads of fun facts and features surrounding The Winchesters, Marvel’s Moon Knight, The Walking Dead, and Back to the Future — just to name a few.
But the stage wasn’t the only place catching fans’ attention as the four-day event rolled on at the Javitz Convention Center: Down on the ground, the guests themselves kept the cosplay fit tight, lining the halls with creatively killer takes on Mysterio, Red Skull, Buzz Lightyear, Predator, and tons more….

(14) CRILLY Q&A. Stone Soup questions the writer about a new novel: “Exclusive Interview with Brandon Crilly: Catalyst”.

Catalyst features an incredible cast of characters with complicated, overlapping histories. One of these characters is a stage magician who performs illusory tricks in a world where “real” magic is very present. What made you decide to bring these two contrasting approaches to magic central to this character’s identity?
Thank you for that compliment! Catalyst actually went through several serious revision drafts, and originally Mavrin (my street magician) was much more skeptical and almost willfully dismissive of “real” magic. When I added magic-bestowing squid gods (the Aspects) literally in orbit around Aelda, that level of skepticism didn’t make as much sense – so instead, it became obstinance. Mavrin has a lot of issues with the Aspects and their worshippers, so becoming an illusionist is part of how he distances himself from both. “I can make my own magic, I don’t need you!” is probably percolating in his subconscious somewhere (even though he’s fifty and not, like fifteen). But thankfully, he can only stay obstinate and grumpy for so long….

(15) A MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Nerds of a Feather’s Arturo Serrano, in “Review: Wolf at the Door by Joel McKay”, says the book does one thing well.

There’s danger in hosting a big social gathering. People you haven’t seen in years can still make your throat tighten. Various combinations of acquaintances can be in good terms with you but be mortal enemies to each other. You dread the thought of who may knock at the door next. Your pulse quickens and your survival instinct rings alarms urging you to flee. Once the tension reaches critical mass, too much honesty will rip someone’s heart. The exchange of bitter words becomes a series of rounds of mutual eviscerations. Arguments get heated until someone loses their head. A friend’s careless remark under too much alcohol may lead to you never seeing them again. At any moment, the air can get so heavy that some of those present will suddenly depart from your life.
In Wolf at the Door, by Canadian author Joel McKay, these emotions that tear people to pieces are materialized into tooth and claw….

(16) SOLAR POWER. “‘Eye of Sauron’: The Dazzling Solar Tower in the Israeli Desert” – the New York Times sees both sides.

…This is the great solar tower of Ashalim, one of the tallest structures in Israel and, until recently, the tallest solar power plant in the world.
“It’s like a sun,” said Eli Baliti, a shopkeeper in the nearest village. “A second sun.”
To backers, the tower is an impressive feat of engineering, testament to Israeli solar innovation. To critics, it is an expensive folly, dependent on technology that had become outmoded by the time it was operational.
…The tower is more than 800 feet high, one of the tallest structures in Israel. It’s visible even from space.
To some, it’s reminiscent of something out of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”
“It’s the eye of Sauron,” said Uriya Suued, an engineer who lived in Ashalim until September.
Other times, the tower seems more like a gawky, gentle giant, awkwardly standing on the edge of a group photo. You can even forget it’s there — until you spot it hovering, almost comically, behind a garden wall or incongruously, even apologetically, over the swimmers in the village’s outdoor pool.
“A lighthouse without the sea,” said Ben Malka, who runs the pool….

(17) DEMONIC IMPRESSION. Netflix dropped a trailer for Wendell & Wild, the new film written by Henry Selick and Jordan Peele and directed by Henry Selick.

(18) GIBSON ADAPTATION. This trailer for The Peripheral Season 1 on Prime Video was unveiled at New York Comic Con. “On October 21, the future holds the key to saving the past.”

(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Pitch Meeting: Don’t Worry Darling,” Ryan George, in a spoiler-packed episode, explains that Don’t Worry Darling “feels like a “go to the theatre film” and not something you stay home and stream. But it’s “a string of random occurrences for about 90 minutes with little or no information revealed.” And then in the third act we learn the film is “like The Matrix with 10,000 times less kung fu.”

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, SFWA, Jerry Kaufman, Susan de Guardiola, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]

SFWA Releases Renegades of Tomorrow StoryBundle

Posted on August 24, 2022 by Mike Glyer

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has released its newest StoryBundle, Renegades of Tomorrow, for a limited time only, from August 24 to September 14, 2022. This StoryBundle offers a large selection of ebooks from independent and small press fantasy writers, and can be purchased at https://storybundle.com/scifi.

The Renegades of Tomorrow StoryBundle features thirteen reluctant heroes of all types as they face an unjust system and find they can’t leave well enough alone. There are tales of steampunk adventure, sci-fi espionage, underworld intrigue, and entire galaxies standing on the brink of war in this exciting and varied look at the difference one person can make when they dare to say, “Not on my watch.”

SFWA StoryBundles are collections of ebooks curated by the SFWA Indie Authors Committee and offered at a steeply discounted price. Readers decide what price they want to pay. For $5 (or more, if they’re feeling generous), they get the core bundle of four books in any ebook format available—WORLDWIDE!

ACHE by Kelvin Myers
Petra by Matthew S. Rotundo
The Diamond Device by M. H. Thaung
Glitch Rain by Alex Livingston with two related bonus short stories!

If they pay at least $20, they get all four of the core books, plus NINE more books, for a total of thirteen!

The Paradise Factory by Jim Keen
The Hands We’re Given by O. E. Tearmann
Ardulum: First Don by J.S. Fields
Double Edged by Jessie Kwak
Centricity by Nathaniel Henderson
Situation Normal by Leonard Richardson
The Ascension Machine by Rob Edwards
Blue On Black by Carole Cummings
Ternary by Kristin L. Stamper

Once September 14 passes, this particular collection will never be available again. Readers will gain a rich collection of science fiction and can opt to donate part of their purchase price to support SFWA’s ongoing work to promote and support speculative fiction genres and writers.

[Based on a press release.]

Fantasy StoryBundle Submissions Call Open Through 5/30

Posted on May 11, 2022 by Mike Glyer

SFWA’s Independent Authors Committee is open for submissions for their next fantasy StoryBundle to be released this fall. Submissions will be accepted through May 30, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

The committee cites this as a chance for independent and small press authors to gain more exposure and sell more books. They welcome submissions of indie and traditionally published novels, from SFWA members and nonmembers, as well as from small press publishers, if the publishers give permission in writing. Full guidelines for this submission call can be found here.

The overarching theme for the call is “What Am I Doing Here?” The SFWA Independent Authors Committee seeks fantasy stories of characters lost, stranded, abandoned, shipwrecked, or stuck on the wrong side of a portal. As always, the Committee is open to unique interpretations of the theme, such as tales of lost memories or of being lost in time. This StoryBundle will be offered in November 2022.

The Independent Authors Committee will select participants from the entries they receive, and “the exact composition and titles of any individual SFWA StoryBundle is subject to adjustment as we accommodate the best selections. Therefore, we encourage authors not to self-reject if their novel has any fit at all with our theme.”

StoryBundles are curated collections of books offered at a discounted price. Readers select what price they’d like to pay for an initial four books and can unlock the entire collection by contributing $20. Proceeds go to the participating authors and StoryBundle, and a small cut is donated to SFWA.

Welcome are full-length fantasy novels of over 40,000 words that are either clearly stand-alone stories or the first in a series. Authors are asked to submit only one novel, and do not submit a novel that has appeared in any previous StoryBundle (SFWA or otherwise.) Only submit novels that will be for sale by October 2022. The author must have full rights to enter their novel in the StoryBundle, and the novel must not be in Amazon’s KDP Select at the time that the StoryBundle is offered.

The full submission guidelines, including instructions on how to submit, are here.

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 4/6/22 This Is The Hour When Moonstruck Faneds Know What Pixels Scroll In Yuggoth

Posted on April 6, 2022 by Mike Glyer

(1) PRESSING ON. Apex Book Company is seeking $6,200 to publish a print compilation anthology of all the original genre short fiction that appeared in their digital publication, Apex Magazine, during the 2021 calendar year. Their Kickstarter project, “Apex Magazine 2021 Compilation Anthology by Apex Publications”, at this writing has raised $2,376. The appeal runs through April 22.

Apex Magazine had an exceptional 2021. Seven of the zine’s stories made the Locus Magazine Suggested Reading List. The zine placed a story on the Nebula finalist list and won a Stabby Award. In October 2021, we published an issue dedicated to Indigenous authors. In December 2021, we dedicated an issue to international authors.
The anthology will include 48 stories from a diverse group of new and established writers and will feature the Apex Magazine Readers’ Choice Award-winning artwork “Entropic Garden” by Marcela Bolívar on the cover.

(2) SFWA STORYBUNDLE. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has released its newest StoryBundle, Magic Awakens, for a limited time only, from April 6 to April 28. This StoryBundle offers a large selection of ebooks from independent and small press fantasy writers, and can be purchased at https://storybundle.com/fantasy.

If a smooth sea never made a skilled mariner, then a tranquil world never forged a powerful hero: Meet fourteen budding sorceresses, wizards, and magic wielders of all ages and types as they face horrible threats that force them to confront their nascent abilities and to strengthen their powers and themselves. Then join each character on their own thrilling adventure once the Magic Awakens!
SFWA StoryBundles are curated collections of ebooks offered at a steeply discounted price. Readers who purchase Magic Awakens will gain a rich collection of fantasy fiction and can opt to donate part of their purchase price to support SFWA’s ongoing work to promote and support speculative fiction genres and writers.
Readers may choose what price they want to pay for the initial four books, starting at $5. Spending $20 unlocks ten more books that they can receive with their purchase. Once April 28 passes, this particular collection will never be available again! Further details about how StoryBundle operates are available at https://storybundle.com/faq.

(3) CSI SPARKLE SALON. The second episode of the Science Fiction Sparkle Salon has been released by the Center for Science and the Imagination. It features sff authors Malka Older, Annalee Newitz, Arkady Martine, Amal El-Mohtar, and Karen Lord, and scientist Katie Mack, discussing a wide range of topics

(4) IN OUR OWN WORDS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s episode of Word of Mouth on BBC Radio 4 discusses the lexicography of SF and SF fandom. Being interviewed is not Jeff Prucher, of the stonkingly brilliant Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, but Jesse Sheidlower of the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction. You can access the programme on BBC Sounds – “Word of Mouth – The Language of Sci-Fi”.

(5) PRESENTING THE BILL. “Canada Introduces Bill Requiring Online Giants to Share Revenues With Publishers” reports the New York Times.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government introduced legislation on Tuesday that would require companies like the parents of Google and Facebook to pay Canadian media outlets for allowing links to news content on their platforms.
Canadian publishers, many of which are struggling financially, have long pushed the government for such a measure, arguing that the advertising revenue that previously was the foundation of their businesses has overwhelmingly migrated to global online giants.
That pressure increased after Australia passed a similar measure in 2021 and Europe revised its copyright laws to compensate publishers.
“The news sector in Canada is in crisis,” Pablo Rodriguez, the minister of Canadian heritage, said at a news conference. “This contributes to the heightened public mistrust and the rise of harmful disinformation in our society.”
Mr. Rodriguez said that 450 media outlets in Canada closed between 2008 and last year….

(6) ASHCANS TO AUCTION. Heritage Auction’s Intelligent Collector give the background as “Historic DC Comics Prototypes Soar to Auction”. (Images at the link.)

Thirty-seven years ago, Gary Colabuono saw his first ashcan. “And I did not know what they were,” he says now, decades after he began collecting, preserving and promoting these cheaply made, stapled-together black-and-white mock-ups made to secure a comic book title’s trademark and meant to be tossed into the trash.
In time, Colabuono became the expert on these lost rarities from the earliest days of the comic-book industry. Now, four of his ashcans – including one of two surviving Superman Comics ashcans from 1939 – head to market for the first time during Heritage Auctions’ history-making April 7-10 Comics & Comic Art Signature^® Auction….

(7) THE MASTER’S VOICE. Alan Moore gives an introduction to a BBC writing course which seems the British equivalent of a Masterclass course. “Introducing – Alan Moore – Storytelling – BBC Maestro”.

Step into the world of Alan Moore’s incredible imagination and learn from the mastermind behind comics like From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Swamp Thing, and novels including the modern literary classic Jerusalem. Learn about Alan Moore’s writing process and how he combines character, story, language and world-building to create the tales that have won him fans the world over. Ideal for aspiring fiction writers, this online course includes downloadable course notes to guide you on your own creative journey.

(8) AT BREAK OF DON. Eleanor Morton does hilarious impressions of the two Inklings in “JRR Tolkien tells CS Lewis about his new character”.

(9) NEHEMIAH PERSOFF (1919-2022). A prolific actor with over 200 screen and TV credits, Nehemiah Persoff died April 5 at the age of 102.

His first genre role was playing Ali Baba in an episode of Shirley Temple’s Storybook (1958). He worked constantly, with many appearances in other sff TV series: The Twilight Zone (“Judgment Night”; 1959), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Off to See the Wizard (voice), The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, Land of the Giants, The Magical World of Disney, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Invisible Man, Wonder Woman, Logan’s Run, The Bionic Woman, Supertrain, Battlestar Galactica, Fantasy Island, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he voiced Papa Mousekewitz in 1986’s An American Tail and two video sequels.

Steve Vertlieb wrote about his visit with Persoff in 2019 for File 770.

(10) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1922 — [Item by Cat Eldridge.]

To John Vine Milne

My dear Father,
Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective
stories, and feel that there are not enough of them. So, after
all that you have done for me, the least that I can do for you
is to write you one. Here it is: with more gratitude and
affection than I can well put down here.

— A. A. Milne in his preface to The Red House Mystery

A century ago today, A.A. Milne’s The Red House Mystery was published by Methuen in the United Kingdom. This is his only mystery and it’s a most splendid Manor House mystery, one of the best ever written if I must so myself which I will. Milne tells the story of the mysterious death of Robert Ablett inside the house of his brother, Mark Ablett, while there was a party taking place. It’s a whodunit that’s wonderfully told.

That was written prior to Winnie the Pooh and was an immediate success with the reading public and critics alike. Alexander Woollcott of the New Yorker at the time called it “one of the three best mystery stories of all time” though he himself would later be judged harshly by Raymond Chandler who also disliked British mysteries in general. (Ahhh feuds among critics. Lovely things they are.) It has stood nicely the test of time and is still considered a splendid mystery.

It is now in the public domain so you can find it at the usual suspects for free though there are also copies being sold by publishers as well. Audible has four versions of the novel including a full cast production. I really should listen to that version.

If you interested in acquiring a first British edition, dig deep into your bank account as that will set you back, assuming that edition is on the market, at least thirteen thousand dollars currently.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 6, 1926 — Gil Kane. Artist who created the modern look and feel of Green Lantern and the Atom for DC, and co-created Iron Fist with Roy Thomas for Marvel. I’m going to single him out for his work on the House of Mystery and the House of Secrets in the Sixties and Seventies which you can find on the revamped and stripped-down DC Universe app. (Died 2000.)
Born April 6, 1935 — Douglas Hill. Canadian author, editor and reviewer. For a year, he was assistant editor of Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds magazine. I’m going to admit that I know more of him as a decidedly and to be admired Leftist reviewer than I do as writer, indeed he held the same post of Literary Editor at the socialist weekly Tribune as Orwell earlier did. Who here is familiar with fiction? He was quite prolific indeed. (Died 2007.)
Born April 6, 1937 — Billy Dee Williams, 85. He is best known for his role as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise, first appearing in The Empire Strikes Back. Other genre appearances include being Harvey Dent in Batman and voicing Two Face In The Lego Batman Movie. He also co-wrote with Rob MacGregor two SF novels, PSI/Net and Just/In Time which are available from the usual suspects.
Born April 6, 1938 — Roy Thinnes, 84. Best remembered for his role of David Vincent in The Invaders. He was also in The Horror at 37,000 Feet, The Norliss Tapes, Satan’s School for Girls, Battlestar Galactica, Dark Shadows (recurring role as Roger Colins) and Poltergeist: The Legacy.
Born April 6, 1942 — Anita Pallenberg. It’s not a long genre resume but she was in Barbarella as, I kid you not, Black Queen, Great Tyrant of Sogo, the chief villainess. Over forty years later, she had a minor role as Diana in a Grade B film 4:44 Last Day on Earth. Now I’m going to expand this Birthday by crediting her as the muse of the Rolling Stones which is surely genre adjacent, isn’t it? She was the lover of Brian Jones, and later, from 1967 to 1980, the partner of Keith Richards, with whom she had three children. Of course she appeared in that documentary about the Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil. (Died 2017.)
Born April 6, 1944 — Judith McConnell, 78. Here for being in Star Trek’s “Wolf in the Fold” as Yeoman Tankris. Need I say what happened to her? Well you’d be wrong as she survived. (I looked it up to be sure as the body count was high.) She also during this time appeared on Get Smart in “The King Lives” as Princess Marta, and she’d much later be in Sliders for several episodes.
Born April 6, 1977 — Karin Tidbeck, 45. Their first work in English, Jagannath, a short story collection, made the shortlist for the Otherwise Award and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. The short story “Augusta Prima”, originally written in Swedish, was translated by the author into English and won a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award in the Short Form category.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro really should be more impressed with The Mildly Surprising Spider-Man.

(13) SHINY. Could these be “The 15 Greatest Covers In All Of Comics”? Buzzfeed thinks so.

Mainly featuring heroes and villains in colorful costumes, comic book covers have succeeded in catching readers’ attention, but these covers are truly the best of the best. These are the 15 Greatest Covers in All of Comics.

(14) SKILL TREE. The latest episode of CSI Skill Tree series on video games, storytelling, worldbuiding, and futures thinking is now live, with SF author Ken Liu and video game designer Liz Fiacco discussing the 2020 game Cloud Gardens, a 2020 game about using plants to overgrow and transform abandoned post-industrial landscapes. This episode is presented in collaboration with Orion Magazine, a quarterly publication working at the convergence of ecology, art, and social justice. All nine Skill Tree episodes are available to view at this playlist.

(15) MOUNTAINTOP EXPERIENCES. NPR advocates for George O’Connor’s version of the Greek gods: “A graphic novel series for kids that doesn’t leave out gender fluidity”.

…Dionysos: The New God is the last of O’Connor’s Olympians, a series of graphic novels he’s been writing and illustrating for the last 12 years. Each book retells the ancient Greek myths through the lens of one of the gods or goddesses, from Athena, goddess of wisdom, to Hephaistos, god of the forge.
O’Connor’s illustrations are bursting with action, humor and lots of details. He researched the ancient myths in order to get as close as possible to the original stories. That means his gods and goddesses are fierce, but also voluptuous, mischievous and even snarky. To him, the Olympians are a family of distinct individuals. “There’s certain personality traits that come to the fore,” he said….

(16) WILSON HONORED AT BOOKFEST. Author and musician Shane Wilson won two book awards at The BookFest this past weekend for his novel, The Smoke in His Eyes. The book placed second in Contemporary Fiction and third in Coming-of-Age Literary Fiction.

The Bookfest Awards honors authors who create outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction. Books are judged in categories based on genre, theme, and aesthetics. Books published in the past five years are eligible. Entries will be vetted by an initial team, then the final places will be determined by an elite team of experts in the literary and entertainment world.

Here’s what The Smoke in His Eyes is about:

When TJ—a musical prodigy—witnesses a traumatic event as a child, his senses are overrun with intense hallucinations. Over the years, his visions increase in frequency and intensity, but he hides them from those he is closest to, including his best friend and musical partner, Lila, who challenges TJ to reject formulaic creation in order to create something beautiful and unique. But when Lila signs a record deal, TJ feels left behind and alone with his art and his visions.

That’s when TJ meets an artist named Muna. In his eyes and visions, Muna is made of smoke, and as this magical woman helps him learn how to manage his visions and how to translate what he sees and hears into music and lyrics, she begins to disappear. His journey into Muna’s past is a journey to discover where inspiration originates and what happens to an artist when that inspiration is gone.

Available at Amazon.com.

(17) FOR TEN YEARS WE’VE BEEN ON OUR OWN. Paul Weimer praises a sequel in “Microreview [book]: Azura Ghost by Essa Hansen” at Nerds of a Feather.

….Now, ten years later, Caiden and the Azura are legends, a one man, one ship, and one young Nophek crew doing good across the multiverse, staying ahead of the forces of Unity led by Abriss Centre, and dreading what will happen if her equally dangerous brother escapes his imprisonment. It’s getting harder for Caiden to escape Abriss’ traps, especially when Abriss has a trump card up her sleeve, one guaranteed to slow down Caiden enough to capture him and his remarkable ship…his long lost sister.
Welcome to Azura Ghost, the second Graven book from Essa Hansen….

(18) NAVIGATING THE BLOAT. Meanwhile, Arturo Serrano says the sequel he read suffers from a common series-book problem: “Review: Until the Last of Me by Sylvain Neuvel” at Nerds of a Feather.

In the first novel of this series, A History of What Comes Next (which I reviewed for this blog last year), we learned that the progress of science on this planet has always been secretly guided by the Kibsu, a humanlike species of superstrong, supersmart aliens whose genetic line split at some point in antiquity, with the female line dedicated to developing mathematics and teaching it to humans, and the male line sworn to hunting down their female counterparts as punishment for some supposed treason no one remembers anymore. For centuries, these aliens have been spreading both knowledge and death as each lineage pursues their mission while hiding in plain sight among us. The title of the series is Take them to the stars, but in that first novel the full meaning is revealed as Take them to the stars before we come and kill them all.
The newly released continuation, Until the Last of Me, displays the hallmark signs of Middle Book Syndrome: the plot gets a bit repetitive in the early chapters, feels a bit directionless toward the middle, and is suddenly hijacked at the end by the need to put all the pieces in position for the upcoming final confrontation….

(19) FOCUS ON WOMEN CHARACTERS. Minnesota author J. Lynn Else told an Authority Magazine interviewer this week:

Gowing up in the 80s and 90s, while a big fan of sci fi and fantasy, there weren’t a lot of female characters to identify with. The females typically lacked depth, didn’t have a lot of agency, or simply were there as a romantic interest. As I started developing my fantasy trilogy, I wanted to create a cast of female characters who were all different. They made jokes, made mistakes, got angry, got frustrated, weren’t always the ‘bookish smart’ one. I wrote because I wanted greater depth of characters for young girls reading these genres so that they could picture themselves in these worlds without having to be ultrasmart or beautiful or aggressively assertive…

Now through Inklings Publishing, she’s authored Descendants of Avalon (2018), Lost Daughters of Avalon (2019), and Prophecy of Avalon (2021). Her short story “The Girl from the Haunted Woods,” won second place in the “Journey into the Fantastical” Anthology contest.

Here’s the précis about Lost Daughters of Avalon (Awakenings Book 2):

After not hearing anything from their knights in Avalon for weeks, the horrible Questing Beast breaks through into the world and attacks Genie, Beth, Mei, and Whit. Their magic stirs to stop the monster, but Beth’s attempts fail. Help from Avalon arrives just in time to remove the curse and reveal a woman inside the beast who claims to be Genie’s biological mother.The four friends learn their knights had gone missing, along with one of Avalon’s queens, Viviane. An ancient evil runs amok in Avalon and the people blame the four friends, claiming they released Merlin to destroy their world. To clear their name and rescue their knights, the four friends must once again risk the dangers of Avalon. Genie, Beth, Mei, and Whit must pull together and learn to combine their powers of air, water, earth, and fire to rebalance the world they might have thrown into chaos. If they fail, the worlds of Avalon and Earth could destabilize and end life as they know it.

Available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Game Trailers: Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin,” Fandom Games says that in this Final Fantasy spinoff you play Jack, “a character so edgy that he makes Jared Leto’s Joker seem like a birthday clown.” Jack’s the sort of character who responds to a demon saying, “I am” and interrupts him to say, “I don’t care who you are,” and starts punching the creature out. In fact, this game is so edgy that “it’s like a Monster energy drink come to life.”

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Joey Eschrich, Jason Sizemore, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Tom Becker.]

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Tag Archives: StoryBundle

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