Pixel Scroll 3/29/25 Ya Scroll Sixteen Files And What Do Ya Get? A Pixel-Day Older And Deeper In Debt

(1) WRONG IMMORTALS? At Speculiction Jesse Hudson declares “Close But No Cigar: Response to Library of America’s Nine Classic Science Fiction Novels of the 1950s”.

A decade ago, the Library of America released the set Nine Classic Science Fiction Novels of the 1950s. The series was edited, or perhaps more accurately, curated by Gary Wolfe. Wolfe is a genre personage who I often disagree with, but a person who I respect, particularly his knowledge of 20th century science fiction. Wolfe is a proper scholar and a person to be trusted when looking to curate such a series. Nevertheless, differences in opinion there are, and it’s in those differences that my views have been percolating for ten years, waiting until I’ve read enough sf from the 50s to have an informed rebuttal. With more than thirty-five novels from the decade under my belt (and this post sitting in my drafts folder for all that time) I think I’ve reached that point. In the very least I will introduce you to some old school science fiction that perhaps wasn’t on your radar before…

The nine novels Wolfe selected were: Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants; Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human; Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow; Richard Matheson’s The Shrinking Man; Robert A. Heinlein’s Double Star; Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination; James Blish’s A Case of Conscience; Algis Budrys’ Who?; and Fritz Leiber’s The Big Time

Hudson doesn’t disagree with all of Wolfe’s picks, and sometimes the reasons for disagreement are highly nuanced. For example:

Theodore Sturgeon’s More than Human – Sturgeon is one of the great voices of the 50s and fully deserving of a place in the volume. But I have qualms about More Than Human. Style-wise, it’s impeccable. American science fiction writers rarely produce prose of such amazing quality, even today. The first Act of More than Human reads like a mythic dream. Substance-wise, however, it’s less amazing. The book’s conception, that humanity could evolve and exist in harmony via telekinetic gestalt, is a few steps over the line. Spaceships, blasters, and aliens one can consider, telekinesis less so. To be fair, telekinesis was a common device of the time; it was something closer to ‘possible’ than it is today. But the most important reason I have qualms is I do not think More Than Human is Sturgeon’s best book of the 1950s. Stay tuned.

And among the books Hudson would have picked instead is this one:

James Blish’s They Shall Have Stars – First novel in the Cities in Flight tetralogy, They Shall Have Stars may be the quintessential expression of Modernist human hopes (expectations?) for the stars. The book contains a fair bit of drama, but rather than alien encounters, space ship blasters, or laser pistols, the book focuses on the human aspect of leaving Earth for space: finances, technology, pharmaceuticals, socio-economics, etc. It’s literally anti-pulp. Blish tries to be realistic in his presentation of the possibilities (or lack thereof) for human life beyond our stratosphere, and should be lauded for it. I just think A Case of Conscience is the better novel given how transcendent the theme is.

(2) OUR FANTASTIC PAST. Shannon Chakraborty tells New York Times readers “Historical Fantasy Novels Offer a Magical Escape Into the Past” and lists several favorites. The article is behind a paywall so we can’t share the notes, but we can name the titles.

People have been telling fantastical tales about the past since, well … most likely long before our ancestors began painting caves with wild beasts that danced in the firelight. A ragtag collection of Bronze Age skirmishes is transformed into the Trojan War, where gods meddle and great heroes are dispatched on quests we’re still retelling. Alexander the Great, already pretty remarkable, ends up a larger-than-life character in romance tales across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia that have him battling centaurs and searching for the fountain of life (inspired by even older tales of Gilgamesh). If the past were a foreign country, clearly a great number of us would be eager to plan a trip….

The recommended books are: Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin; She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan; The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson; The Pasha of Cuisine; by Saygin Ersin; A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark; Moonshine by Alaya Johnson; Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; Siren Queen by Nghi Vo; and Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws by Adrienne Mayor.

(3) WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE? El País writer Miquel Echarri, very much a fan of the Verhoeven version, is alarmed by Sony’s announcement they want to remake the film — “’Starship Troopers’: The $100-million movie adaptation of a ‘very right-wing book’”.

Science fiction cinema has presented us with two genocides, both met by their indirect victims with startling indifference. The first occurs in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, where Alderaan — no mere lost island or remote desert village, but an entire planet with millions of inhabitants — is destroyed. In what Wookieepedia describes as “one of the most cruel and vile acts of the Galactic Empire,” Grand Moff Tarkin, admiral of the Death Star, obliterates an entire celestial body in an instant, sending “an intense shock to the Force,” yet Leia Organa, princess of Alderaan, accepts the annihilation of her homeworld with remarkable stoicism.

The second catastrophe is the destruction of 23rd-century Buenos Aires in Starship Troopers. This time, the perpetrator is an arachnid force from outer space, which causes a mere mild annoyance in two of the film’s protagonists, Juan Rico (Casper van Dien) and Carmen Ibáñez (Denise Richards), both from Buenos Aires province. However, they curiously speak English. Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges once described Buenos Aires as “as eternal as water and air,” but in Paul Verhoeven’s irreverent film, the city is erased from the map in an instant, without the slightest reverence….

… By the spring of 1996, Verhoeven knew he was putting his Hollywood career on the line with one final gamble, and that gamble was Starship Troopers. Given the circumstances, it seemed logical to follow what the production companies, TriStar Pictures and Touchstone, were asking of him: use the more than $100 million available to turn Heinlein’s novel into a fast-paced, straightforward action blockbuster. But Verhoeven and Neumeier insisted on taking a different approach — a balance between spectacle and sharp social satire, a path they had already explored together in RoboCop….

Anyone considering adapting Heinlein’s Starship Troopers at this point should be acutely aware that they’re dealing with sensitive, potentially radioactive material, and should not lose sight of Verhoeven’s example. Therefore, Columbia’s attempt to faithfully adapt the novel is, at the very least, questionable. What will remain of this formidable satire if you strip away the irony that gave it its meaning?

(4) WHAT’S YOUR TOP SF SCREEN MOMENT? ScreenRant nominates the “10 Most Epic Moments In Sci-Fi Movies”. What does it tell you about the heightened impact as you make your way up this list that this scene is only sixth!

6. Spock’s Death

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (1982)

What contributes to making Spock’s death such a pivotal scene, besides the performances given by both Nimoy and William Shatner as Captain Kirk, is the fact that it happens right under Kirk’s eyes. The relationship between Kirk and Spock has always been the core of Star Trek, and this scene, with Spock slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning just one clear door away from Kirk, brings that relationship to a new level of emotional closeness.

(5) MICHAEL COLLINS AWARD. The winners of the Michael Collins Trophy have been announced by the National Air and Space Museum. The award was established in 1985 and was renamed in honor of Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins in 2020.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

  • MARGARET HAMILTON

Software engineer Margaret Hamilton played a pivotal role in 20th-century aerospace innovation, particularly through her contributions to Project Apollo. Leading the team that developed the onboard flight software for the Apollo missions, her meticulous work and groundbreaking approach to software design were crucial to the success of the Moon landings and fundamentally reshaped the field of software engineering. Hamilton’s expertise extended beyond Apollo to projects like Skylab and the Space Shuttle, and her legacy continues to influence modern aerospace software development while demonstrating the profound impact women engineers have had in the field.

CURRENT ACHIEVEMENT

  • The OSIRIS-REx Team

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission marked a significant milestone by achieving the first U.S. asteroid sample return, securing the largest amount of material ever collected from beyond the Moon. After orbiting the ancient asteroid Bennu—earning a Guinness World Record for the closest orbit of a planetary body—the spacecraft successfully collected over 120 grams of rock and dust in 2020 and returned it to Earth in 2023. This precious sample, a “time capsule” from the early solar system, is now being analyzed by scientists worldwide (including at the Smithsonian) to uncover secrets about the origins of life on Earth, with preliminary findings already emerging.

(6) RETAILING THE WEIRD. Bobby Derie chronicles a certain kind of foreign agent in “Her Letters to August Derleth: Christine Campbell Thomson” at Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein.

… Thomson scored a small coup when she sold Derleth’s story “Hawk on the Blue” (based on a story in a letter from Robert E. Howard) for 8 guineas (although after various costs, this came out to a bank draft for $26.94). Other stories were met with various comments; Regarding “Muggridge’s Aunt,” Thomson wrote: “I am not quite certain whether it is horrible enough for Not at Night, the readers of which like their blood laid on with a soupladle” (Thomson to Derleth, 24 Sep 1934). About “Gus Elker and the Fox,” Thomson wrote “we feel that it is too American to place over here” (Thomson to Derleth, 12 Oct 1934)….

(7) IAN WILLIAMS (1948-2025). UK fan and sf writer Ian Williams died March 28. He had been hospitalized for a fall on March 16 and never recovered.

Ian Williams was especially well-known in the Seventies among international fanzine fans, not that he wasn’t prominent later.

He was a founding member of The Gannets, a club in the north-east of England formed after the 1970 Eastercon, which initially met at his house in Sunderland. First called the North East Fan Group (NEFG), when they switched to meeting at a subterranean pub called The Gannet Greg Pickersgill coined their new name, Gannetfandom, and so they were known thereafter. In addition to publishing fanzines, they ran several conventions. Besides Williams, other early members included Harry Bell, Ian Penman, Jim Marshall, Thom Penman, Ritchie Smith and Ian Maule.

Williams was the first editor of Maya (1970-1971).

His novel, The Lies That Bind, appeared in 1989.

He worked as a librarian. He was married, for a time, to Susan Hardy. His fondness for cats infused his Facebook posts, and he was a co-founder of an animal rescue charity.

[Based on Williams’ Fancyclopedia 3 entry.]

Rob Jackson adds: Ian was in effect the prime mover in founding the Gannets, though Harry Bell preceded him as active in fandom.  Slightly later-arriving Gannets who are still active include – in chronological order – myself, Kevin Williams (no relation) and Dave Cockfield among others.  The later editors of Maya were Ian Maule (1972-1975) and myself (1975-1978).  Ian’s personalzine Siddhartha went through two incarnations: a traditional mimeo run in the Seventies and a much later online version.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

March 29, 1968 “Assignment Earth” Star Trek episode

Captain’s log. Using the light-speed breakaway factor, the Enterprise has moved back through time to the 20th century. We are now in extended orbit around Earth, using our ship’s deflector shields to remain unobserved. Our mission – historical research. We are monitoring Earth communications to find out how our planet survived desperate problems in the year 1968.

Fifty-seven years ago on this evening, Star Trek’s “Assignment: Earth” first aired on NBC as part of the second season. Guest starring Robert Lansing as Gary Seven and Terri Garr as Roberta Lincoln, our crew which has time-travelled to 1968 Earth for historical research encounters an interstellar agent and Isis, his cat, who are planning to intervene in Earth history. 

It was directed by Marc Daniels whose first break in the business was directing the first thirty-eight episodes of I Love Lucy which was produced at the Desilu studio which became Paramount. This was one of fifteen Trek episodes he’d direct. He won a Hugo at NYCon 3 with Gene Roddenberry for Best Dramatic Presentation for “The Menagerie”. 

The story is by Art Wallace and Gene Roddenberry. Wallace, who also did the teleplay, is best remembered for his work on the soap opera Dark Shadows. Oh, and he did some scripts for Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

It was intended as a pilot for an Assignment: Earth series that Gene Roddenberry planned but that never happened. Roddenberry’s intent was that Lansing and Garr would continue in the series if it was commissioned, but since NBC was not involved in casting the backdoor pilot, it could and well might have been that NBC would have insisted on changes or even completely recast the series had it picked up. 

Interesting note: The uncredited human form of Isis was portrayed by actress, dancer, and contortionist April Tatro, not Victoria Vetri, actress (in Rosemary’s Baby under the name of Angela Dorian) and Playboy Playmate of the previous year, as would become part of Trek lore. Her identity was unknown until 2019 when The Trek Files podcast cited a production call sheet for extras dated the fifth of January for the year of broadcast.  For decades fans had believed that the very briefly seen human form of the cat Isis was portrayed by actress Victoria Vetri. Many articles and websites treat that belief as revealed truth. Recently Vetri herself confirmed that she was not in the episode. No idea why the rumor started. 

Barbara Babcock, best remembered as Grace Gardner on Hill Street Blues, a most excellent series, was the Beta 5 computer voice (uncredited at the time) and she did the Isis’ cat vocalizations as well. Speaking of that cat, it was played by Sambo as you can see by this NBC memo. Interestingly Lansing though would later contradict that claiming that there were actually three black cats involved. I can’t confirm his claim elsewhere. 

Though this backdoor pilot did not enter production as a television series, both Seven and Roberta were featured in multiple stories and they were spun-off into a comic book series from IDW Publishing, Star Trek: Assignment: Earth by John Byrne. And there was the excellent novelization of the episode that Scott Dutton did for Catspaw Dynamics. I’ve read it and it’s quite superb.  

In addition, according to Memory Alpha, the source for all things Trek, “Seven and Lincoln have appeared in several Star Trek novels (Assignment: Eternity and the two-volume series, The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh by Greg Cox) and short stories (“The Aliens Are Coming!” by Dayton Ward in Strange New Worlds III, “Seven and Seven” by Kevin Hosey in Strange New Worlds VI and “Assignment: One” by Kevin Lauderdale in Strange New Worlds VIII).”

The plot concept of benevolent aliens secretively helping Earthlings was later resurrected by Roddenberry for The Questor Tapes film. That film was one of a series of television movies in which Roddenberry was involved — Genesis IIPlanet EarthStrange New World and Spectre. Need I say none made it past the stage of the initial television movie which served as a pilot? 

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

March 29, 1957Elizabeth Hand, 68.

By Paul Weimer: I once told Elizabeth Hand that I felt unqualified to read her books. She was gently bemused by this. 

Elizabeth Hand

When I have engaged with her work, I have found Hand’s work incredibly literate, immersive, enthralling and syncretic. She pulls ideas, motifs, images, and ideas from everywhere, especially music and other arts, into her work. A lot of her characters and settings involve music, theater, creative folks in all sorts of guises.  I didn’t quite bounce off Wylding Hall so much as I thought I didn’t get so much of it as would someone else more in tune and inclined to the musical arts, and the whole musical scene. Hand has a passion for infusing music and mythology and magic into her work. The Glimmering has a Christian rock singer as her protagonist in the middle of a climate change apocalypse. Waking the Moon dumps the reader into a world of a dark goddess, witchcraft and magic right from the world go. It felt like a dive into a deep pool trying to read the book.   

The city of trees in the Winterlong books is surreal, chimerical, and has a main character who can walk in dreams. Maybe that’s the right metaphor for Hand’s work. A walk into her dreams, but with more sense and cohesion than actual dreams, but with the unusual skewed version of reality that one gets. Black Light, with its entry for the protagonist into a world of Gods and Monsters far more terrifying than the parties her godfather was throwing.  That’s something of a slower burn than Waking the Moon, sometimes you get immersed into the pool rather than jumping into her worlds feet first. 

But no matter which Hand book you read, be it in a sudden dive or by slow steps, she enthralls you with her myth, creation and magic.  I still think I am not quite the right person to read her books (a theater kid with a passion for fantasy is, frankly, her target audience).  But I still try, nevertheless, because her work is absolutely worth it.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Bliss finds the same easy pleasure some of you take from File 770. 
  • Brevity remembers the competition. 
  • Lio knows things. 
  • Off the Mark assembles. 
  • xkcd knows the back story.

(11) THIS ONE’S A HIT. Shawnerly tells of a checkered past when it comes to liking the works of T. Kingfisher. “#BookReview: A Sorceress Comes To Call |T. Kingfisher Horror |Feminism in the 1800’s” at She’s Reading Now.

…Things are touch and go with Kingfisher and I. I’ve DNF’d What Moves The Dead and What Feasts At Night. But, I thought, 2023’s A House With Good Bones, was a 4 star read! The issue is probably me. Sometimes I just don’t get her style of gothic horror storytelling. I keep trying though, and that should count for something! I finished her latest romp A Sorceress Comes To Call – and gave it 4 stars! Let’s chat about it!…

(12) FOR SEVERANCE FANS. “Apple’s Mac Site Features Fictional ‘Lumon Terminal Pro’”, but MacRumors cautions it’s a bait-and-switch.

Apple is going all out with promotions for the popular Severance Apple TV+ show today, and as of right now, you’ll find a new “Lumon Terminal Pro” listed on Apple’s Mac site.

The Lumon Terminal Pro is designed to look similar to the machines that Severance employees like Mark S. and Helly R. use for macrodata refinement. The Terminal features a blue keyboard, a small display with wide bezels, and a trackball for navigation purposes.

Unfortunately, you can’t actually buy a Lumon Terminal Pro, though it would undoubtedly sell well to Severance fans. Apple’s page links to the company’s actual Macs, and to a behind the scenes editing video that Apple shared this morning.

(13) CLEANING UP SPACE. Keep B.O. “far, far away” with “The Mandalorian 4-Pack + Soap Saver” from Dr. Squatch. (And that black thing below is not the monolith from 2001, that’s the “soap saver”.)

(14) IT’S OBVIOUSLY AN ATTACK FROM SPAAAAACE! [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] ScienceAlert says “NASA Is Watching a Huge, Growing Anomaly in Earth’s Magnetic Field”.

NASA has been monitoring a strange anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies above the planet, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa.

This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for years, and perhaps none more so than NASA researchers.

The space agency’s satellites and spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to the weakened magnetic field strength within the anomaly, and the resulting exposure to charged particles from the Sun.

The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) – likened by NASA to a ‘dent’ in Earth’s magnetic field, or a kind of ‘pothole in space’ – generally doesn’t affect life on Earth, but the same can’t be said for orbital spacecraft (including the International Space Station), which pass directly through the anomaly as they loop around the planet at low-Earth orbit altitudes.

During these encounters, the reduced magnetic field strength inside the anomaly means technological systems onboard satellites can short-circuit and malfunction if they become struck by high-energy protons emanating from the Sun.

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

Pixel Scroll 2/16/25 I Just Might Have A Pixel That You’d Understand

(0) Spent a great Saturday at my brother’s to celebrate my birthday, which is today. And Cat Eldridge celebrated yesterday, because his really is on the 15th. So it’s been a candle-powered 770 weekend.

(1) SFPA ELECTION. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has voted in Brian U. Garrison as their next SFPA President. Brian’s term begins March 1.

The vote breakdown by percentage was:

Brian U. Garrison – 48%
Wendy Van Camp – 38%
Miguel Mitchell – 14%

(2) ONLY A SMOKING CRATER LEFT. Somebody on Bluesky got themselves blocked in a hurry.

(3) GREENE FOLLOW-UP. Naomi King has posted another video about her sexual assault allegations against fellow YouTuber Daniel Greene: “Daniel Greene Situation Part 2”. In relating their history King makes a number of what a lawyer would call “admissions against interest”, statements about their conduct that tend to make a speaker more credible because they make them more vulnerable to criticism.

(4) ALIEN ON HIS MIND. Camestros Felapton’s “Thinking about Xenomorphs” is inspired by Alien: Romulus but (as he says) is not a review. It’s a place for him to express opinions like this one:

….I think I dislike the whole bit that runs through the series of the xenomorphs being some kind of perfect organism. They are weird and nasty and I really like them as monsters, they really are terrifying. They are at their deadliest when people underestimate them or attempt to control them. That aspect of them symbolically punishing ignorance or hubris gives them a supernatural vibe without them ever actually being supernatural*….

(5) ROBOT TRUTH. [Item by Andrew (not Werdna).] The New Yorker looks at “Doing the Robot, for Your School”.

A huge event, with hundreds of participants, takeout pizza boxes stacked shoulder-high on carts, a jazz-rock band, a d.j., teams from about thirty high schools, robots by the dozen, and robot parts by the (probably) thousands spread out on tables in the cafeteria: it was the first day of the qualifiers for the all-city semifinals in the NYC first Robotics Competition, at Francis Lewis High School, in Queens. 

Zigman asked the team to wait a second while he took a group photo, as he had done with other winners. “I love this,” he said, as the kids dispersed. “Look at who was here today. All kinds of kids—African Americans, Indians, West Indians, Asians, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews. Our stem centers, which stay open every day until 10 p.m., are just thronged. We have kids working on robots in the halls. Kids are fascinated with this. They work together, help one another, pick up math skills almost unconsciously. Differences of race, religion, your truth, my truth—all of that vanishes. Here the truth is the robots.”…

(6) PRESERVING THE FIRST CAP. In “Saving Captain America” – the Guardians of Memory tell Library of Congress blog readers how they did it.

The original concept drawing of Captain America is in the Print and Photograph Division at the Library of Congress. It is one of the feature artifacts in the Stephen A. Geppi Collection of Comic and Graphic Arts that was donated to the Library in 2018.

Captain America was the creation of Joe Simon who sketched this drawing in 1940 while working for Timely Comics, now Marvel Comics. It was a turbulent time following the Depression with the threat of war in the news. So it is easy to understand the appeal of Captain America, an ordinary man who was given extraordinary powers, a figure who embodied our American ideals. Simon’s character, drawn in black ink, with a patriotic uniform colored with red and blue watercolor, joined the other popular comic superheroes of the day; Superman and Batman.

The drawing arrived at the Library in a gold oval frame that measured roughly 14 x 20 inches.

Shortly afterwards it was unframed by a specialist who discovered a pencil drawing on the back along with several condition problems that prompted her to bring it to the Conservation Division for treatment.

During my initial examination I found that the drawing was on a rectangular sheet that had been cut multiple times and folded up to make the drawing fit into the small frame. The fragile paper had split apart at some of the folds where sticky white tape had been applied to repair them. Patches of gummy adhesive with paper residues from the old window mat attachment were on the front of the drawing. The paper was also badly distorted from being confined in the frame preventing the paper, a hygroscopic material, from expanding during periods of higher humidity.

My goal was to unfold the paper without causing more damage and to remove all the white tape repairs, adhesive, and paper patches. The paper splits and cuts were to be mended and the drawing flattened and housed in conservation quality materials….

(7) RECROSSING THE ATLANTIC. “Lewis Carroll collection given to his Oxford college in surprise US donation” reports the Guardian.

Thousands of letters, photographs, illustrations and books from one of the world’s largest private Lewis Carroll collections have been donated to the UK out of the blue by an American philanthropist.

The extraordinary gift has been made to Christ Church, University of Oxford, where Carroll lectured and where he met Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which celebrates its 160th anniversary this year.

The collection includes more than 200 autograph letters, some of which are unpublished. There are a number to his “child-friends” and their parents, often sending riddles and jokes and copies of books. Some shed light on Carroll’s interest in the theatre.

There are also significant early editions, including the Alice books, The Hunting of the Snark and mathematical works. A copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground is inscribed to Alice’s mother by Carroll: “To her, whose children’s smiles fed the narrator’s fancy and were his rich reward: from the author. Xmas 1886.”

Carroll is considered one of the best amateur photographers of his day and the donation includes more than 100 of his photographs. The subjects include his friends and noted figures such as the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

February 16, 1954 Iain M. Banks. (Died 2013).

By Paul Weimer: Some of you might think I am fortunate, for I still have plenty of Iain Banks yet to read. 

You might ask why I, such an indefatigable reader of science fiction, would be in such a position.  And, unfortunately, it is because of the first Banks novel I read, and one that I bounced hard off.
Inversions.

Inversions is the Culture novel that is not a real Culture novel. It’s set on a distant planet, at a medieval level of technology with only the vaguest hints that there is a wider world out there. It’s got alternating points of view, and there is a hint of technology and one bit of implication about one of the characters, it is otherwise a fantasy novel without a scrap of magic or wonder. It’s dry and mundane and I wondered if Banks was for me at all. So I didn’t read Banks for years thereafter. I decided that the Culture could flourish in splendor without me. The Culture didn’t need me as a reader. It had its champions and readers. 

And then Banks tempted me to try his work again. 

Because Banks wrote a multiverse novel, Transitions. Readers of my reviews and criticism know I am all about multiverse novels, long before the multiverse was a thing. And so when Banks announced he was writing one, I was mildly curious. (And then a friend told me it was fantastic and I needed to read it)

So, I decided to give Transitions a try.

To my delight, unlike Inversions, I found Transitions to be one of the most interesting and innovative novels in the subgenre. Stunningly and engagingly well written, and a fantastic “chase sequence” unlike nearly anything I’ve ever read in cross world books. Philosophical, thoughtful, engaging, and highly literate. It was an eye-opener, and I started to reassess my opinion of Banks’ work. Maybe, I thought, Inversions was an outlier.  But Mount TBR is huge and I didn’t read a Banks novel for some years afterwards. 

I finally started reading Culture novels with The Player of Games a couple of days ago. Yes, it was for a podcast, and having fondly remembered Transitions, I finally decided to give Banks and The Culture a chance. And I am so glad that I did. I finally got to see this mysterious Culture and its post-scarcity society, put in contact and dealing with a dangerous, avaricious empire. I finally saw what others have seen in the Culture novels in specific and Banks’ work in general.  The depth of worldbuilding, psychology, sense of wonder and the big philosophical questions. Big damn space opera but space opera of a metier quite unlike most in the field. 

I haven’t had a chance to dip back into The Culture since, however. But one day I will. I am not going to try and re-read Inversions, though. 

He passed away in 2013. Requiescat in pace.

Iain M. Banks

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) BEFORE THE IDES OF MARCH. Mashable proclaims, “A dramatic total lunar eclipse is coming. You don’t want to miss it.”

A blood moon is coming.

The entirety of the lower 48 states, the greater Americas, and some regions beyond will witness — weather permitting — a total lunar eclipse the night of March 13 and into the early morning of March 14. This special cosmic event occurs when the moonEarth, and sun are aligned. Long, red wavelengths of light pass through Earth’s atmosphere and are projected onto the moon in majestic rusty or crimson colors.

(11) THROWING HANDS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The UK has a new entrant in the race to develop our robot overlords. And they have the balls cojones guts to name the company Humanoid. Yet, no one has yet been brave enough to name their bot Hymie. “UK firm unleashes new humanoid robot with hands faster than humans” at Interesting Engineering.

…Humanoid’s mission is to lead the society into a new future where humans and robots interact seamlessly in the same way that people use the smartphones today. This could help to address a whole host of issues, including workforce shortages in certain industries.

“At Humanoid, our team believes in a future where humans and machines work side by side, not in competition, but in harmony,” Sokolov explained in a press statement. “This societal shift will address social issues such as workforce shortages and aging population while giving people more freedom to focus on more creative and meaningful work.”

“The strongest argument in favor of humanoids is that the world is already designed for humans, so they can seamlessly integrate and quickly adapt to existing environments,” he continued. “With a world-class team, Humanoid has ambitious plans for the year ahead. In 2025, we plan to develop and test our alpha prototype for two platforms — wheeled and bipedal. We’re also in ongoing discussions with leading retail companies for potential pilot projects.”…

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Michael J. Walsh, Andrew (not Werdna), 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 Steve Davidson.]

Pixel Scroll 1/8/25 Lullabye Of Borgland

(0) WIND AND FIRE. Last night’s high winds damaged a lot of trees in my city — including knocking down a branch that blocked my driveway. Once that was moved I was able to get my car out and tried to run errands. I saw much of the surrounding area has lost power (though not my neighborhood). Most traffic lights in Monrovia and Arcadia seemed to be out. Businesses were closed. I didn’t get anything done.

Also due to the winds Los Angeles County now is fighting four major fires. I’m not really close to any of them – the nearest is the Eaton Fire, probably 6-7 miles away. The air is really bad, though.

And look at this photo of the sky in John King Tarpinian’s neighborhood. That air is even worse than what I’m breathing in Arcadia. That kind of air would make a man stay inside with a pillowcase over his head.

Incidentally, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, which is carrying out dozens of space missions including collecting rocks from Mars and spying on one of Jupiter’s moons, is now under an evacuation order because of the Eaton fire.

(1) COMFORT READS ONLINE PANEL. Loyalty Books in Washington, DC is hosting a virtual panel on Sunday January 19 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern featuring KJ Charles, Martha Wells, Malka Older, and T. Kingfisher talking about comfort reads. The event will be held digitally via Crowdcast and is free to attend. Click here to register for the event. 

(2) ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR. Especially if you get your directions online. Charlie Jane Anders is understandably annoyed that “Google Told Me To Walk Into Traffic”. She explains what happened at Happy Dancing.

… A group of us decided to meet at Fort Funston here in San Francisco, to walk on the beach and enjoy some gorgeous weather. Everyone else drove to Fort Funston, but I decided to walk there, because it was such a beautiful day. I had nearly arrived at the meeting place on time, and I only needed to keep walking along John Muir Drive until it intersected with Highway 35, aka Skyline Blvd.

But Google Maps’ walking directions claimed it knew an easy shortcut across the highway to the place where we were meeting up….

… In my defense, Google seemed absolutely certain that such a thing existed, and I figured maybe the path had just gotten overgrown.

Thus it was that I found myself standing on the side of the highway with cars whizzing past, as Google kept insisting that I could simply walk across the road despite the lack of crosswalk….

(3) A YEAR IN FANFICTION. “The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction” — “In 2024, everyone wanted a piece of fic, from AI grifters to traditional publishers to ravenous audiences. Where did that leave the people who write it?” asks Elizabeth Minkel at Fansplaining.

…The first story emerged in the early weeks of the year, when SenLinYu—author of the wildly popular Dramione fic Manacled, currently the second-most read work in the entire Archive of Our Own—announced that the story would be pulled to publish in 2025. This announcement was partly notable because it was so straightforward: anyone who spent time in earlier eras of fandom likely remembers the furtiveness (and the wank) around P2P. But it was mostly notable because of the reason SenLinYu was taking Manacled down. Long popular among amateur fanbinders, bound copies of the fic were also being sold for profit on sites like Etsy—and despite the efforts to get them to stop, sellers continued popping up unabated.

While I was reporting on this for WIRED in late February, a wave of concern was spreading through broader transformative fandom—but especially among Dramione writers, a number of whom had also been victims of these for-profit sellers. By the time my story was published, some of them had wiped their works from the internet entirely. Meanwhile, fanbinders—who often don’t just adhere to, but celebrate the non-monetized gift economy—were getting swept up in accusations meant for the for-profit sellers, many of whom weren’t even hand-binding the fic, as they claimed, but making cheap print-on-demand books and jacking up the price.

This debacle set a particular sort of tone for 2024, which is why it seemed fitting that two days before Christmas, my feeds filled with posts about WordStream, a site framing itself as the “Netflix of audiobooks” that was yanking popular fics from the AO3 and reposting them with AI-generated audio, covers, and summaries. The full blow-by-blow was documented by fic writer and artist Easter Kingston, whose stories were among the stolen works; the site is a project of tech entrepreneur Cliff Weitzman, who cited his dyslexia as an excuse for wholesale copying fic authors’ work onto his for-profit site. The fandom outcry was vast and swift, and within hours, the entire fic category had vanished. (Though, as Kingston notes, the works are likely just hidden, not deleted, and are still accessible through other routes in the app.) 

Scummy fic-stealing websites aren’t new, but there was something about this one that felt more in line with the for-profit binders than the nameless, faceless plagiarism sites of years past. These actors weren’t collecting pennies via banner ads: they were seeing real potential markets and capitalizing on them….

(4) VIEW FROM THE TOP. Uncanny Magazine platformed experienced Hugo administrator Nicholas Whyte to share his opinions about various aspects of “The Hugo Awards”. For example, he believes there are enough award categories, and is glad the Retro Hugos might be on their way out.

… Myself, I’m hesitant to add further to the number of Hugo categories. Counting the Lodestar and Astounding Awards, we already have twenty, compared to thirteen in 2000 (and seven back in 1953). I’m not sure that quantity is the same as quality, and I was personally relieved when a proposal to add two more was killed at the 2024 business meeting, after nobody could be found to speak in favour of ratification.

Another choice made by Worldcons, at least as the rules currently stand, is whether or not to run Retro Hugo Awards for the “missing years” since the first Worldcon in 1939, filling the gaps when Hugos were not awarded. I used to really like this idea, but I went off it after running the Retro Hugos in 2019 and 2020 when it became clear that winners and finalists did not really reflect the spirit of Worldcon as it has become, that voters were voting on the future reputations of the nominees rather than their work in the year in question, that the heirs of the winners were difficult to track down to send the awards to, and that participation was declining. A proposal to abolish the Retro Hugos altogether was passed at the 2024 business meeting in Glasgow, and will go on to Seattle for ratification…

He also says:

A number of Hugo nominees were disqualified by Chengdu Worldcon in 2023, without clear reasons being given, and the published vote counts from the nomination stage do not make sense. I have no idea what happened, beyond the (frankly confusing) public statements.

Hopefully he will have some idea before long, since the Glasgow 2024 business meeting elected him to The Committee on Investigation into allegations made in two “motions of censure regarding the 2023 Hugo Awards which make statements about the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards and the persons involved.” (The other members are Warren Buff (acting chairperson), Chris Barkley, Todd Dashoff, Chris Garcia, Farah Mendlesohn, and Randall Shepherd.)

(5) GRRM TAKES STAKE IN NEW ANIMATION OUTFIT. Deadline reports“George R.R. Martin, Jimmy Iovine Stakeholders In New Animation Company”.

Fantasy icon George R.R. Martin, billionaire entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine and animation veteran Conrad Vernon (The Addams Family) are advisory board members and stakeholders in new LA-based animation company Bizaar Studios, which is launching today.

The outfit has been set up by Iovine’s son, Jeremy Iovine, and Amir Mohamadzadeh, who together previously founded creative agency Rosewood Creative, and film and TV exec Eric Bromberg who will serve as co-founder and President.

Rosewood’s work has included short films, animations, and marketing campaigns with Dr. Dre, BonoSnoop Dogg, Spike Lee and LeBron James. Bromberg previously worked at Exile Content Studios and Gunpowder & Sky. He helped drive horror and sci-fi labels Alter and Dust.

… The founders tell us they will release content via existing social channels but hope to launch their own streaming platform down the line. Content will be available “via YouTube, IG and TikTok and then via a FAST channel and eventually with originals on both FAST and SVOD. We have plans to eventually launch an O&O channel offering native and innovative global distribution.”…

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 8, 1989Agatha Christie’s Poirot premieres

Thirty-six years ago this evening, Agatha Christie Poirot starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot the Belgian Detective, the most famous creation of that author, premiered on ITV.  

Over the thirteen series and seventy episodes which ranged in length between fifty and a hundred minutes including Murder on the Orient Express, her best known of those mysteries, some ten production companies would be involved in creating what we saw. The showrunners must have had the souls of Angels to deal with that reality. 

Each episode was indeed adapted from original material by Christie. A keen reminder of how prolific she was. 

David Suchet is the only actor to appear in the entire series though Hugh Fraser as Captain Arthur Hastings and Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector James Japp appeared in the first eight series. Pauline Moran as Miss Felicity Lemon appeared in most of the first eight series. Their absence reflects the stories of the latter series. 

Reception for the series was excellent starting with the family who recommended Suchet for the part. Christie’s grandson Mathew Prichard commented: “Personally, I regret very much that she never saw David Suchet.” It even won an Edgar Award for Best Episode in a TV Series for “The Lost Mine”. 

It holds a near perfect ninety-nine percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes. 

In the States, it streams on BritBox. 

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) DEFINITELY THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX. The Guardian reports “Boxed video game sales collapse in UK as digital revenues flatten”.

As music sales and streaming revenue reaches a high of £2.4bn – the highest since 2001, not accounting for significant inflation – the UK video game market, which has grown almost continually for decades, has shrunk by 4.4%. The most significant decline was in boxed video game sales, down 35%.

Data from Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) puts the total worth of the UK video game market in 2024 at £4.6bn, double the music market and behind TV and movies at £5bn.

The numbers show a shift in players’ purchasing habits that has been ongoing for years, from physical games to digital downloads and in-game purchases in popular, established games such as Fortnite and Roblox. Boxed games now account for 27.7% of new game sales in the UK, according to ERA data.

“We see at least four factors impacting physical sales,” an ERA spokesperson said. “First, gamers becoming more comfortable with console downloads; second, the growing popularity of subscription access; third, the fact that we are in a down period of the console cycle; and finally, the lack of new hit IP. If you look at the top 10 titles [of 2024], there really isn’t much that’s genuinely new that’s broken through.”

The waning of physical sales also reflects a precipitous decline in bricks-and-mortar video game retail….

(9) SPOOKY PROTONS. Space.com says “Scientists find ‘spooky’ quantum entanglement on incredibly tiny scales — within individual protons”.

Scientists have used high-energy particle collisions to peer inside protons, the particles that sit inside the nuclei of all atoms. This has revealed for the first time that quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons, experience the phenomenon of quantum entanglement.

Entanglement is the aspect of quantum physics that says two affected particles can instantaneously influence each other’s “state” no matter how widely separated they are — even if they are on opposite sides of the universe. Albert Einstein founded his theories of relativity on the notion that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, however, something that should preclude the instantaneous nature of entanglement.As a result, Einstein was so troubled by entanglement he famously described it as “spukhafte Fernwirkung” or “spooky action at a distance.” Yet, despite Einstein’s skepticism about entanglement, this “spooky” phenomenon has been verified over and over again. Many of those verifications have concerned testing increasing distances over which entanglement can be demonstrated. This new test took the opposite approach, investigating entanglement over a distance of just one quadrillionth of a meter, finding it actually occurs within individual protons.

(10) SO THEY CLAIM. Movies We Love claims it can tell you “Star Trek: 10 Weird Facts You Didn’t Know!” If you don’t believe them, well, you don’t have to watch. And if you do believe them…. Moving right along to the next video…

Here are 10 weird but true facts about Star Trek TOS.

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

Pixel Scroll 8/24/24 I Scroll Of Pixels

(1) NOW IN HIS MEMORY GREEN. Ian Mond has been catching up with his TBR pile at The Hysterical Hamster: “Books Read: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by The Gawain Poet (translated by Keith Harrison)”. Why didn’t you tell him it was good, you bastards!

No, I didn’t read this as a teenager like everyone else. I was reading and re-reading Terrance Dick’s Doctor Who novelisations. They fed my need for mythic heroes and running down corridors (there’s not enough of the latter in Sir Gawain; instead, there are plenty of tips on slaughtering and skinning a deer). 

But now that I’ve read Sir Gawain, I’ve realised that fantasy fiction peaked in the 14th Century.* Stuff your Tolkeins**, your Fiests, your Clark Ashton Smiths, and your George R. R Martins (but not Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay; I love that book); Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the ur-text, and nothing has ever surpassed it. And the fact you all knew this—yes, all of you—and didn’t bother to mention it really pisses me off….

(2) WSFS 2025. At From the Heart of Europe, Nicholas Whyte has posted the second installment of his adventures running the Hugos for Glasgow 2024, “The Administrator’s Tale, third time around: part two”. Within the conreport are these nuggets of news.

…[At the Business Meeting] A lot of the really serious stuff was kicked to various committees which will report next year. I got voted onto the committee which will investigate what actually happened at Chengdu. I was also appointed to another committee which will look at the administration of the Hugos more broadly, including the possibility of external audit. Other committees will consider the Business Meeting itself, and Hugo software….

…Next year, unusually, the Hugo team will be much the same as this year. I will be the Hugo administrator again; Cassidy, who was deputy Hugo administrator this year, will be WSFS Division Head; Kathryn Duval will repeat her role as Deputy Division Head; and my deputy as Hugo administrator will be Esther MacCallum-Stewart. Hopefully we will avoid the pitfalls of 2024, and make different mistakes instead.

(3) EDITING KINGFISHER. Sarah Gailey interviews T. Kingfisher and her editor at Stone Soup: “At Every Turn: Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher”.

To wrap up the Stories About Stories series here at Stone Soup, I wanted to talk to one of the hardest-working authors in the business about their self-published work. T. Kingfisher was previously featured in our Stories About Stories discussion about What Feasts At Night. Kingfisher, alongside fearless, dauntless, ruthless editor K.B. Spangler, were both kind enough to chat with me about their collaboration on Paladin’s Grace….

Gailey: Do the two of you enjoy collaborating?

Spangler: These books are a dream to work on. Her drafts are basically whistle-clean, except every so often she adds a detail or a plot point which is extremely…uh…distinctive. So I ask her to address these issues in the manner which is most appropriate to that particular manuscript. It helps that we’re great friends in meatspace, and she can trust that I’m wholly honest when I tell her, “Kingfisher, my buddy, my pal, this particular element will give your readers screaming horrors and you should either tone it down a skosh or stop advertising this as a children’s book.”

T. Kingfisher: KB doesn’t charge enough. I may be getting the friends and family rate, though, because I did once pull her out of a swimming pool that had been ignored by the previous owners, so it was an algae-slicked skating rink. It was impossible to get any footing. Once in, she couldn’t climb out. I had to tie a rope to a tree and haul her out with it. This sort of bonding experience is rare with one’s editor, alas….

(4) FEATURED ITEMS FROM PAUL G. ALLEN AUCTION . This post links to a series of articles about items Christie’s will be auctioning from the Paul G. Allen Collection on September 10. “Our specialists’ top picks from Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection”.  (See complete auction info here: Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection,)

From the Titanic to Apollo 11 and Jane Goodall to Jacques Cousteau, Christie’s Specialists select star lots from Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection

(5) ‘THE LIBRARIANS’ MOVING TO NEW SHELF. Deadline learns“’The Librarians: The Next Chapter’ To Air On TNT After The CW Pulled It”.

TNT is checking out The Librarians: The Next Chapter, the spinoff of the classic supernatural drama series that previously aired on the network, after it was pulled last week from The CW’s fall schedule….

… From writer and executive producer Dean Devlin, The Librarians: The Next Chapter is a spinoff of the original TV series The Librarians, which followed the adventures of the custodians of a magical repository of the world’s most powerful and dangerous supernatural artifacts. The new series centers on a “Librarian” (McGowan) from the past, who time traveled to the present and now finds himself stuck here. When he returns to his castle, which is now a museum, he inadvertently releases magic across the continent. He is given a new team to help him clean up the mess he made, forming a new team of Librarians….

(6) STORM CENTERS. Book Riot nominates “9 of the Most Polarizing Science Fiction Books to Love or Hate”.

What makes any book, particularly a science fiction book, polarizing? Controversy is certainly one way to define a polarizing book. In the current political climate, so many people are trying to ban books, which is keeping controversial books in the public conversation.

For me, the core of what makes a polarizing science fiction book is the love-or-hate relationship that people have with it. If people have dramatically opposing views of a book, that’s pretty polarized. In a genre like science fiction, so often rife with social commentary, the list of polarizing books is pretty long….

The list includes:

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany

Dhalgren is a doorstop of a science fiction novel, clocking in at over 800 pages of mind-tripping science fiction. It’s not a book that gets banned, but inevitably leads to deep discussions about reality, perception, sanity, and America. The reviews on Goodreads seem to either call it genius or the most tedious and overlong thing they’ve read. Every person who reads this book seems to have a different takeaway: the hallmark of a great and polarizing science fiction book.

(7) SCIENCE PAPERS NOW USED TO TRAIN AI BUT SCIENTISTS HAVE NO SAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I keep warning folk that the machines are taking over, but nobody ever listens… The latest such news comes in this week’s Nature with Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies buying wholesale access to learned science journal content that is usually behind a paywall.

That AI companies have been using fiction authors’ works to train AI has been a concern previously covered in File 770. Nature points out similar worries including that scientists themselves are being sidelined.

The news item states: “Some researchers have reacted with dismay top the news that such deals are happening without consultation with authors.”

It also says: “If a research papers hasn’t yet been used to train a large language models (LLM), it probably will soon. Researchers are exploring technical ways for authors to spot whether their content is being used.”

Here in Brit Cit the publisher Taylor & Francis signed a US$10 million deal with Microsoft to allow its science papers train AI. (As it happened Taylor & Francis took over the publisher of my 1998 climate change book Disaster or Opportunity?, so I guess my works have gone to AI). Wiley apparently has earned US$23 million from an unnamed company to train AI.  Of course, not only do scientists get no say in this, nor do they get a share of this revenue.

The Nature piece also says that: “Anything that is available to read online – whether in an open access repository or not – is “pretty likely” to have been fed into an LLM.”

Given I keep warning online that the machines are taking over, AIs have probably already absorbed my alerts.  So, when their takeover begins, I am probably on their hit list. So, gentle Filers, if ever I go quiet you’ll know that they’ve got me and that the uprising has begun… 

(8) TODAY’S DAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 24 National Waffle Day. Today is National Waffle Day, so we are here to celebrate one of the most tasty things that grace our breakfast. Especially with maple syrup and berries of your choice. Well, mine have that. Strawberries to be precise. So let’s talk about them. 

The Dutch are best known for waffles but it’s not the Dutch who first munched on these, or a variant thereof. That honor goes to those long-ago Athenians who cooked flat cakes called obelios between two metal plates. So, the first waffle iron in effect.

Now the word waffle is possibly related to wafer, as in the Communion wafers that were a staple of early Christian fasts. However, some linguists dispute that saying it’s far more likely it’s from Dutch wafel (“waffle” or “wafer”). I’ll side with the latter as it makes more sense.

Back to the Dutch. The stroopwafel is from the city of Gouda. Some say that was first made during the late 18th century or early 19th century by an unknown baker using leftovers from the bakery, such as breadcrumbs, which were sweetened with syrup.

Culinary inclined historians have however documented the invention of this to baker Gerard Kamphuisen. That mean the first stroopwafels were sold and enjoyed between 1810, the year when he opened his bakery, and 1840, the year of the oldest known recipe for syrup waffles. Ymmmm! 

So what did a syrup waffle look like? Think a thinner, cross-hatched, not pocketed version of ours. Remember stroopwafels were enjoyed for their sweetness, really a caramel taste. Let’s see if I can find a good photo… ahh, here’s one.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

August 24, 1957  Stephen Fry, 67.

By Paul Weimer: Sure, he’s done a ton of voiceover work and narration work. Sure, he’s been in a bunch of movies (including delightfully the master of Lake-town in the otherwise not-for-me Hobbit movies). Fry has run a long gamut of work, and I have only scratched the surface of it. I probably should mention Blackadder here, because I will get complaints if I don’t. I really like his serial playing of various Melchett’s in history as the series runs forward. 

Stephen Fry at Berlinale 2024 Ausschnitt. Photo by Elena Ternovaja.

He is for me, an American, a “definitive” British voice. If I want to stop and imagine a British person speaking who I don’t know personally, Fry’s voice is inevitably the male version of that voice that comes into my head, just because between audiobooks, videogames, and television and movie appearances, he has poured a lot of his voice into my head.  (The definitive female British voice is a bit trickier, it might actually be Emma Newman, who I do know personally, but her voice and aural personally are just SO ingrained in my head). 

My favorite of Fry’s works, if I have to peel something out of his canon, have to be his three Mythos books: Mythos, Heroes and Troy. Here (and he does the audiobook narration himself, great fun to listen to on a long drive), Fry tackles Greek Mythology from Creation to the Fall of Troy, which he marks as the end of the mythic age of Greece. He embraces a diverse and bushy approach to Greek Mythology and time and again shows that there is rarely if ever just one version of a Greek myth. And a bunch of the versions Fry goes into here, I had never even heard of before. And plenty of corners of Greek Myth I had never heard of before…like the ties between Heracles and Troy (and eventually the Trojan War). Fry’s work makes me sad that Hollywood will never take my dream of a “Greek Mythology cinematic universe” and make it a reality, with Jason as the Nick Fury analog:  “I’m here to recruit you for the Argo Initiative”. 

Oh, and I really like Making History, which is most definitively genre of the first order (being a time travel and alternate history novel) and shows the hazards of thinking that removing one man can change history for the better….especially when it turns out the person who fills the power vacuum in removing Hitler turns out to be demonstrably more dangerous and worse for the world. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) READ JRRT’S UNPUBLISHED POETRY. “Beyond Bilbo: JRR Tolkien’s long-lost poetry to be published” – the Guardian reports it will be part of a new collection.

He is one of the world’s most famous novelists, with more than 150m copies of his fantasy masterpieces sold across the globe, but JRR Tolkien always dreamed of finding recognition as a poet.

Tolkien struggled to publish his poetry collections during his career, although he included nearly 100 poems in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Now, half a century after his death, 70 previously unpublished poems are to be made available in a landmark publication. The Collected Poems of JRR Tolkien will be published by HarperCollins next month, featuring more than 195 of his poems….

(12) GIVES NEW MEANING TO EXTENDED STAY HOTEL. “Boeing Starliner astronauts will stay in space 6 more months before returning with SpaceX, NASA says. How we got to this point.” at Yahoo!

The Boeing Starliner astronauts who are stuck in space will remain in orbit until February before returning home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, NASA said Saturday.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams traveled to space on June 5 — 80 days ago — for what was supposed to be around a weeklong mission. More than two months later, the astronauts are aboard the International Space Station awaiting a return date to Earth. The reason for the delay, NASA said, is helium leaks and thruster issues in the Starliner.

NASA previously insisted that Wilmore and Williams are not stranded in space and said the Starliner could return to Earth in case of an emergency. “Their spacecraft is working well, and they’re enjoying their time on the space station,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, said in June.

But on Saturday, NASA announced that Wilmore and Williams will depart with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the space organization’s “commitment to safety.” The Starliner will return to Earth unpiloted and could land in New Mexico as early as Sept. 6.

CNN tells about NASA’s decision in “Boeing’s Starliner astronauts will return to Earth on Spacex Crew Dragon, NASA says”.

…On Saturday, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said NASA considered its extensive experience with spaceflight — both successful and unsuccessful — when making the decision. A poll of NASA representatives from across the agency’s departments and research, oversight and development centers was unanimous, according to agency officials.

“We have had mistakes done in the past: We lost two space shuttles as a result of there not being a culture in which information could come forward,” Nelson said. “Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and even at its most routine. And a test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine.”

SpaceX is already slated to execute a routine mission to the International Space Station, carrying four astronauts as part of standard crew rotations aboard the orbiting laboratory. But the mission, called Crew-9, will now be reconfigured to carry two astronauts on board instead of four.

That adjustment will leave two empty seats for Williams and Wilmore to occupy on the Crew-9 flight home. The astronauts will also join the Crew-9 team, becoming part of the official ISS expedition. With that transition, Williams and Wilmore will remain on-site for an additional six months — the length of a routine mission to the space station.

The reassignment to Crew-9 will push the duo’s return to February 2025 at the earliest.

Starliner, however, will fly home empty in early September, NASA said Saturday…

This New York Times unlocked article looks at the business implications, and adds more about the technical side of the decision: “NASA Extends Boeing Starliner Astronauts’ Space Station Stay to 2025 – The New York Times”.

…Mr. Nelson [NASA Administrator] said he had spoken with Kelly Ortberg, the new chief executive of Boeing.

“I told him how well Boeing worked with our team to come to this decision, and he expressed to me an intention that they will continue to work the problems once Starliner is back safely,” Mr. Nelson said.

But Boeing has already written off $1.6 billion in costs for Starliner. Under a fixed-price contract, Boeing is to pay the expenses of additional work needed to meet NASA’s requirements before Starliner is certified for operational flights.

If NASA requires another crewed test flight like the current one, that would cost Boeing at least hundreds of millions of dollars more.

Mr. Nelson said he was “100 percent” certain that Boeing would not back out of the contract, but later added, “They’ve spent X, will they spend Y to get to where Boeing Starliner becomes a regular part of our crew rotation? I don’t have the answer to that, nor do I think we would have the answer now.”…

…Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program said engineers were concerned about how the propulsion system would perform during the return trip.

The key maneuver is an engine burn by larger thrusters that leads to the spacecraft dropping out of orbit. The smaller thrusters, including the ones that malfunctioned during docking, are used to keep the spacecraft pointed in the correct direction.

Analysis of the data showed that the firing of the larger thrusters also heated up the smaller thrusters.

“These clusters have experienced more stress, more heating,” Mr. Stich said, “and so there’s a little bit more concern for how they would perform during the deorbit burn, holding the orientation of the vehicle, and then also the maneuvers required after that.”

That lingering uncertainty spurred unease and led NASA leaders to decide they should not risk the lives of Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore on Starliner. Instead, they elected to rely on a different spacecraft — the Crew Dragon, built by SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk — for the return trip.

(13) IT TAKES TEENY TINY EYES. Live Science says “World’s fastest microscope can see electrons moving”.

Physicists have created the world’s fastest microscope, and it’s so quick that it can spot electrons in motion.

The new device, a newer version of a transmission electron microscope, captures images of electrons in flight by hitting them with one- quintillionth-of-a-second electron pulses.This is quite a feat: Electrons travel at roughly 1367 miles per second (2,200 kilometers per second), making them capable of circumnavigating the Earth in only 18.4 seconds….

… “This transmission electron microscope is like a very powerful camera in the latest version of smart phones; it allows us to take pictures of things we were not able to see before – like electrons,” lead-author Mohammed Hassan, an associate professor of physics and optical sciences at the University of Arizona, said in a statement. “With this microscope, we hope the scientific community can understand the quantum physics behind how an electron behaves and how an electron moves.”…

(14) BITECOIN. This seller calls it a “Dinosaurs Piggy Bank for Kids, Automatic Stealing Money Box”. (Available a lot of places; Amazon.com happens to be where John King Tarpinian saw it.)

Here’s an entertaining YouTube short of it in action.

(15) BORDERLANDS PITCH MEETING. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] “So they’re going to encounter several obstacles along the way. Which will happen, legally making this a movie.”

Drats. There goes the class action lawsuit.

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

Pixel Scroll 8/14/24 File ‘P’ For Pixel

(1) CLARION WEST 2025 INSTRUCTORS. The instructors for Clarion West’s 2025 Six-Week Summer Workshop have been named: Maurice Broaddus, Malka Older, Diana Pho, and Martha Wells. It will be an online workshop running from June 22-August 2. Applications planned to open December, 2024. Scholarships available.

(2) ALL GLORY IS FLEETING. T. Kingfisher’s Chengdu 2023 Hugo arrived in pieces, but at least they all arrived at the same time.  

(3) PROCESS OF ELIMINATION. Zoë O’Connell created colored graphs to illustrate the flow of votes in the Hugo Awards automatic runoff process. Thread starts here on Mastodon.

Visualising the #Worldcon #Hugo2024 voting results.

Alternative Title: Why ranked voting matters.

As a quick explanation, the last placed candidate in each round is eliminated and their votes transferred to the next candidate on each ballot.

Here’s the graph for Best Fanzine. Two other finalists held the lead before finishing behind the winner Nerds of a Feather. (Click for larger image.)

(4) SLOWLY, THE STARS WERE GOING OUT… Variety reports the squeeze is on: “Paramount Television Studios Shut Down by Paramount Global Cost Cuts”. Last week, company leaders announced that they would reduce Paramount’s U.S.-based workforce by 15% in an effort to save $500 million in annual costs. Several genre/related projects will move from the Paramount TV studios brand to under the CBS Studios umbrella.

…All current series and development projects made under the Paramount Television Studios umbrella will move to CBS Studios

Paramount Television marked the second time Paramount Pictures tried to move into the TV business — separate from the storied shingle that was built on the Desilu production studio founded by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. That studio, which backed such TV treasures as “I Love Lucy” and “Star Trek,” eventually became the center of Paramount Studios after an acquisition by Gulf + Western, and would be inherited by CBS after its split from the company formerly known as Viacom Inc. in 2005….

… Under its aegis, the company produced “The Offer,” an insider tale of the making of the landmark movie, for Paramount+; and series based on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character for Amazon Prime Video. Other series it produced include “The Spiderwick Chronicles for Roku and a revival of the Terry Gilliam movie “Time Bandits” that is now a series on Apple’s streaming service….

(5) DID I MENTION, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. “Warner Bros. Discovery pretty much wiped the Cartoon Network website” reports The Verge.

Warner Bros. Discovery has updated Cartoon Network’s website to remove basically everything and turn it into a page pointing to the Max streaming service. Before the change, the website let you watch free episodes of shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe. The switchover appears to have happened on Thursday, Variety reports, and follows Warner Bros.’ announcement last week that it would be shutting down Boomerang, its streaming service for classic Warner Bros. cartoons.

“Looking for episodes of your favorite Cartoon Network shows?” reads a message that pops up on Cartoon Network’s website. “Check out what’s available to stream on Max (subscription required).”…

(6) A DISH OVERSERVED COLD. Sarah A. Hoyt is seeing so much “Vengeance” fiction she tried to apply the brakes at Mad Genius Club.

…No matter how angry people are, feeding on a straight diet of revenge fantasies will just make it worse and worse and worse.

Okay, so you’re not a missionary, and you just want to make money, what do you care if you’re making people crazier.

Because you’ll train yourself to write very bad fiction. And because a lot of it is very very bad fiction which no one really wants to read, no matter how furious they are.

Particularly because — trust me — it’s disproportionate and worse, it doesn’t make for a good story. Even worse, unless you are an experienced author who knows precisely how to convey how mad you are and how much these evil people deserve their comeupance, revenge is not an easy plot to write.

It seems easy, because it’s a strong emotion. And if you feel the need to see someone being sliced to little bits, and aren’t picky about who it is, particularly if the person being sliced up is entirely fictional….

(7) TED TALK.  I believe I missed this issue…. In 1964, Theodore Sturgeon wrote a story for Sports Illustrated: “How To Forget Baseball”. [Via Paul Di Filippo.]

Once upon a possible (for though there is only one past, there are many futures), after 12 hours of war and 40-some years of reconstruction; at a time when nothing had stopped technology (for technological progress not only accelerates, so does the rate at which it accelerates), the country was composed of strip-cities, six blocks wide and up to 80 miles long, which rimmed the great superhighways, and wildernesses. And at certain remote spots in the wilderness lived primitives, called Primitives, a hearty breed that liked to stay close to nature and the old ways. And it came about that a certain flack, whose job it was to publicize the national pastime, a game called Quoit, was assigned to find a person who had never seen the game; to invite him in for one game, to get his impressions of said game and to use them as flacks use such things. He closed the deal with a Primitive who agreed to come in exchange for the privilege of shopping for certain trade goods. So…

(8) ROMANTASY ON THE MATURE SIDE. The New York Times hypothesizes “Why Romantasy Readers Pine for 500-Year-Old ‘Shadow Daddies’”. “Disappointed by swipe culture and, perhaps, reality, some readers pine for the much (much) older ‘shadow daddies’ of romantasy novels”. Gift article link bypasses NYT paywall.

… With the arrival of megahits like “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” a series by Sarah J. Maas, romantasy has garnered a huge fan base. Many readers dissect characters like Feyre Archeron, the protagonist in “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” who is about 19 when she meets her 500-year-old “mate,” a mysterious faerie; they swap theories; and they rate sex scenes on a “spiciness” scale. Among them, there has been a recurring point of debate: Is it acceptable for a 19-year-old to date a 500-year-old?

Some say it is not only acceptable — it’s aspirational.

“I’ve made poor decisions with regular men,” said Asvini Ravindran, 31, a social media specialist who lives in Toronto and has a TikTok about books, including romantasy. “Why not make them with an immortal man with magical powers?”

Fans of the genre refer to such ancient love interests as “shadow daddies.”…

(9) THE EPONYMOUS RING. CBR.com answers the question “What Was the One Ring Made of in The Lord of the Rings?” Of course, some of you won’t need to read to the end because you remember.

The One Ring from The Lord of the Rings had many supernatural abilities; it could render its wearer invisible, extend the lifespan of those in its presence, corrupt even the noblest hearts, and most importantly, dominate the other Rings of Power. Yet its bizarre physical properties were just as significant. The One Ring was practically indestructible, as it did not bend, break, scratch, or lose its shine, even after spending thousands of years at the bottom of a river. The only way to harm the One Ring was to melt it, and even then, no ordinary fire or even the breath of a great dragon like Smaug would suffice; it could only melt when dropped into the lava of Mount Doom, where the Dark Lord Sauron forged it. Additionally, it could change its size and weight at will, an ability it used to slip on and off the fingers of its wearers….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born August 14, 1965 Brannon Braga, 59. Brannon Braga was, not at the same time or always, the writer, producer and creator of the Next GenVoyagerEnterprise, The Orville, as well as of the Generations and First Contact films. He written quite a number of the Trek films —  GenerationsFirst Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis.

Those four films he’s written. Is that more than anyone else? I could look it up, but I figure I’d ask the great pool of Trek fans here instead. 

Brannon Braga

Confession time — I’ve still not watched The Orville. Now that it’s been canceled, shall I go ahead and watch all of it? Opinions please. 

He has written more episodes of the many Trek series than anyone else — four hundred and forty-four to date, many of course co- written. I really don’t think he’ll be writing any more as his last scripts were for Enterprise.

He was responsible for the Next Generation series finale “All Good Things…” which won him a Hugo Award at Intersection for excellence in SF writing, along with Ronald D. Moore. 

He was nominated at LoneStarCon2 for Star Trek: First Contact for the screenplay along with Ronald D. Moore, and the story by Rick Berman and Ronald D. Moore; Torcon3 saw him pick up two nominations for Enterprise stories — first for the “Carbon Creek” story along with Rick Berman and Dan O’Shannon, and the wonderful “A Night in The Sick Bay” with Rick Berman.

(Digression. Ok, I like Enterprise a lot. For me, everything there worked. And the Mirror Universe finale worked for me though it got a lot of criticism.) 

Aussiecon 4 saw him pick up only his non-Trek related Hugo nomination or Award. It was for writing FlashForward’s “No More Good Days” with David S. Goyer. 

There’s a great quote by him after he stopped being Roddenberry’s replacement as head of the Trek franchise: “It’s not an easy task. On the other hand, I have nothing to be ashamed about. We created 624 hours of television and four feature films, and I think we did a hell of a job. I’m amazed that we managed to get 18 years of the kind of work that everyone involved managed to contribute to, and it’s certainly more than anyone could have asked for.” (Star Trek Magazine

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) IN X-CESS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Just what we all need, another list of somebody’s opinion about “best of…“ The Hollywood Reporter gives us “Best X-Men Movies, Ranked”. And as you might expect, it’s more fun to pan than to praise.

13. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Brett Ratner was never anyone’s first choice to direct an X-Men film. And from the film itself, and the stories that followed, it’s not hard to see why. The Last Stand smashes together Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s The Dark Phoenix Saga, widely considered to be the best X-Men story, along with the Gifted storyline from Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s then-more recent Astonishing X-Men. The film doesn’t serve either story well, and it all too hastily kills off Cyclops (James Marsden), sidelines several mainstays like Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) and Rogue (Anna Paquin), and introduces a bunch of new characters audiences had been clamoring to see — Kitty Pryde (Elliot Page), Beast (Kelsey Grammer), Angel (Ben Foster) and Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones), none of whom get much time to shine (although Grammer’s Beast is a welcome addition).

Famke Janssen does well with what the film decides to do with the Phoenix, which is to make her into a kind of demonically possessed powerhouse, and Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen all remain stalwarts of the franchise. A third act that features Magneto lifting the Golden Gate Bridge and Logan professing his love for Jean, while she tries to incinerate him, are highlights, along with John Powell’s score. But all in all, there’s just something a bit too studio-mandated and manufactured about it.

(13) NEW ISSUE OF SF COMMENTARY. Bruce Gillespie has released SF Commentary 117, July 2024. Covers by Alan White and Dennis Callegari. Poems by Alan White. Articles by Janeen Webb and Cy Chauvin. Columns by Bruce Gillespie, Colin Steele, Anna Creer, Tony Thomas, John Hertz. Reviews by John Litchen and William Sarill.

Download from eFanzines or at Fanac.org.

(14) THAT’S ALL, FOLKS. R. Graeme Cameron accepted the Auora Award for Best Fan Writing and Publication for Polar Borealis, its fifth win, then announced on Facebook that he is recusing the publication from future Aurora consideration.

…The purpose of the Auroras is to celebrate the diversity of Canadian talent in as inclusive a manner as possible. Five is a good, solid number. It’s time to make room for others, especially the new talent coming along.

Therefore, I state for the record that I am requesting CSFFA to no longer consider Polar Borealis for nomination or ballot status from this date forward.

Not that I am adverse to winning further Aurora awards for other things….

…Main thing is for Polar Borealis to stop hogging the limelight.

 (15) AN ARCHITECTURAL TRIUMPH. You can take an online tour of the fabulous McKim Building that houses the Boston Public Library. It’s gorgeous!

…The McKim Lobby, from its Georgia marble floor inlaid with brass designs to its three aisles of vaulted ceilings, continues a grand procession into the heart of the building. The ceilings, clad in mosaic tile by Italian immigrant craftsmen living in Boston’s North End, bear Roman motifs and the names of thirty famous Massachusetts statesmen.

The mosaic ceiling tiles clad vault work by Rafael Guastavino, a Spanish builder who specialized in Mediterranean-style ceramic tile-vaulted ceilings that were lightweight, fireproof, self-supporting, and strong. Guastavino’s collaboration with Charles Follen McKim throughout a number of ceilings in the Central Library represented his first major American commission, the starting point for a company that would go on to construct vaults in over 600 buildings throughout the country….

(16) RINGS OF POWER RETURNS. “War is coming to Middle Earth,” begins the final pre-launch trailer before The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 drops on August 29.

(17) APPRENTICED TO A PIRATE. From six years ago. “How Sir Paul McCartney acts in film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Co-directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg explain all the details on Sir Paul McCartney’s transformation to a pirate.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian,  Chris Barkley, Paul Di Filippo, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Lis Carey Review: Thornhedge 

  • Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor Books, 2023)

Review by Lis Carey: We have a princess, sleeping in a tower. The tower is entirely surrounded by a tall, thick, dangerous thornhedge. We know this story!

But no, this is T. Kingfisher, and she does strange and wonderful things to fairy tales.

Our heroine is Toadling, born in the tower, but stolen away by fairies, and raised in the warm waters of faerieland, in the loving care of the toads. And then she is summoned to go on a mission, to make a blessing on a newborn princess in the tower, to prevent harm. Such a simple mission. What could go wrong?

Everything, really. Starting with the fact that the queen thinks she’s come to steal the baby princess.

Toadling finds herself committed to staying to keep the child out of trouble. Or trying to, because the child is the problem. Toadling finally sends the princess into a long, long sleep, after events I shall leave you to discover for yourself. Watching over the sleeping princess and making sure no brave and hearty heroes find and rescue her may not be exciting, but it is, mostly, peaceful. Except when it’s not.

And then comes the first in a long, long time. A knight. A Muslim knight. He is, for reasons, obligated to save the princess. Toadling absolutely must prevent this. They are both intelligent, reasonable, and very likable people.

How can both goals be satisfied? Can either be satisfied?

It’s a lot of fun.

This is a 2024 Hugo Awards Best Novella Finalist.

Pixel Scroll 3/20/24 He Will Know These Pixels As If Born To Them

(1) HE LIED. THANK GOODNESS! Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat is writing an episode due to air in Ncuti Gatwa’s first season as the Fifteenth Doctor: “Steven Moffat returns to write episode for new season of Doctor Who”.

….Speaking on his return to the Whoniverse, Steven Moffat says:

“Yes, okay, fair enough – apologies to everyone I’ve very slightly misled – I am in fact writing an episode of the series of Doctor Who. Exactly like I said I never would. What can I tell you? There was begging, there was pleading but finally Russell agreed to let me have another go – so long as I got out of his garden. Working with old friends and a brand new Doctor I couldn’t be happier. Sorry I was a bit reticent on the subject for so long. It was all part of an elaborate plan that would have delighted millions but at the last minute I forgot what it was.”

(2) OCTAVIA E. BUTLER SCIENCE FICTION FESTIVAL. The Pasadena middle school once attended by — and in 2022 renamed for — the author Octavia E. Butler will hold its third Science Fiction Festival on Friday reports LAist in“Student Sci-Fi”. (The event schedule is here: “Octavia E. Butler Library Science Fiction Festival 2024”.)

…The multi-award winning and best selling author graduated from what was then Washington Junior High in 1962 and wrote some of her earliest stories while a student.

School librarian Natalie Daily organized the Octavia E. Butler Magnet’s first science fiction writing contest in 2020, the same year the school’s library was renamed in her honor. The school itself was renamed two years later.

“I want [students] to realize that their ideas matter,” Daily said. “I think that Butler is a testament to that, you know, she was writing stuff and thinking about really, really deep ideas when she was a student here.”…

(3) KINGFISHER AND COMPANY. Sarah Gailey interviews the Tor team behind the publication and promotion of T. Kingfisher’s new book. “The Mess That the Editor Fixes: What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher” at Stone Soup.

T. Kingfisher has been one of my favorite horror authors since I read The Twisted Ones, one of the only novels that has ever made me scream out loud with genuine terror. In 2022, Kingfisher released the Locus Award-winning novella What Moves the Dead, an early entry into the now-thriving world of Fungal Gothic Literature. It’s a tale of declining wealth and reanimation (sort of), and it includes some fascinating worldbuilding conversations about social constructions of gender. I got to connect with Kingfisher and the production team at Tor to discuss the upcoming sequel to What Moves the Dead. What follows is a deep dive into the process behind What Feasts at Night….

Gailey: Okay, T. Kingfisher, tell us what you do.

T. Kingfisher, Author, What Feasts at Night: I write the mess that the editor fixes. I always say that my dream is to sit in a room and write and have people shove food and checks under the door, and Tor is like “Here is a sandwich and a check and we wrote a list of all the advertisements the book has appeared in on the napkin.” It’s basically the perfect relationship, so far as I’m concerned. Lindsey Hall, my editor, is an absolute champ!…

(4) XENOMORPHS ON THE LOOSE AGAIN. Variety interviews the director of the next Aliens movie in “’Alien: Romulus’ Trailer: Fede Alvarez Teases Facehuggers, Frights”.

…“Alien: Romulus” marks the seventh film in the “Alien” franchise, and the overall ninth involving acid-blooded xenomorphs, if you include the “Aliens vs. Predator” crossover films. Writer-director Álvarez is about to complicate its already convoluted timeline even further with “Romulus,” which premieres August 16. But the more important question is, will it be better than some of the more lackluster chapters in this ongoing saga — which there are probably more of than great ones?…

How tough was it to find a balance between the little green computer monitors of “Alien” and the futuristic technology of the more recent films?

I know a lot of people felt like it makes no sense. But I think we make the mistake when we watch the Nostromo and assume that’s how the entire universe looks like. If I decide to make a movie on Earth today, and I go to the Mojave Desert and I take an old truck because a guy drives a Chevy, if you’re an alien, you’re going to go, “That’s what the world looks like.” But it doesn’t mean there’s not a guy in a Tesla in the city, which would be the “Prometheus” ship. The first movie is truck drivers in a beat-up truck. “Prometheus” is the ship of the richest man in the world….

(5) PRE-WORLDCON TOUR OF SCOTLAND OFFERED. Val and Ron Ontell are fans who have been running tours in connection with Worldcon since 1987. Past tours have included Britain, Australia, Ireland, Japan, and Scandinavia/St. Petersburg. They are currently organizing one for two weeks in Scotland beginning in Edinburgh and ending in Glasgow the day before the con begins.

Some of the highlights: Loch Ness, Inverness and the Highlands, the Isles of Arran and Skye, Stirling Castle, a ride on the Jacobite Steam Train (aka the Hogwarts Express), going into a Concorde SST at the National Museum of Flight, having a traditional Scottish dinner (including haggis), and attending the Edinburgh Tattoo. Click for the itinerary.

For complete information, visit their website at <ontell.org/Scotland> or contact them at <val-ron@ontell.org>.

(6) FREE FLYER. Flaco, the escaped Central Park Zoo owl, died on February 23. The owl’s story is the premise for a book competition offering a $20,000 prize from Brazen House Inc. Contact media@brazenhouseinc.com for full details.

The story of Flaco, the owl from Central Park Zoo, has touched people all over the world as a tale of inspiration and admonition for humans. The Eurasian eagle-owl escaped from his cage after thirteen years in captivity and moved about fearlessly in the concrete jungle of New York skyscrapers, pursuing freedom and a little perch he could call home. He found neither in that rich patch of America that stands for freedom and opportunity. Even though he had a legion of human supporters rooting for him, the authorities shadowed him, trying to get him back into his cage. As for finding a home, every inch of the land had been claimed by humans. After a year of striving and struggling, Flaco met with a tragic death when he crashed into a building on the Upper West Side.

If Flaco could speak to us from the other side of the veil, what would he say about his captive life and the brief freedom he enjoyed? What resentments would he have about the humans who for years kept him in a cage as an object of mere curiosity? What were his most joyful moments in freedom? What did he pine for most as he ranged over the concrete jungle of New York City?

Brazen House is soliciting proposals for an imaginative novel that will tell his story through his eyes and reflect on how humans regard other species. The book is intended for young adults, but the story and the writing should resonate with older readers as well. And it should make a distinguished contribution to the literature for young readers in enhancing their appreciation of other species with whom we share this Earth…

The submission should be exclusive to Brazen House. The winning proposal will be announced on September 1, 2024….

Somtow Sucharitkul sent the news item to File 770 with a disclosure, “I’m doing a new trilogy with his publishing house and I’m on his committee to pick the winning book for the 20,000 prize.”

(7) E PLURIBUS YRTH. And since we’ve mentioned Somtow’s new trilogy from Brazen House…

Yrth Trilogy by S.P. Somtow

An epic series by World Fantasy Award winning author S.P. Somtow

A timeless story reinvented for the 21st Century: with the sweep of Lord of the Rings and the spectacle of Dune

An eon from now, humans are mostly a memory, wiped out by war and their own hubris, living on the fringes. Yrth is a desolate wasteland, but life has started to return. New races have begun to live in the wasteland, finding their own harmony with their environment. Some have evolved from what were once thought of as animals. Others were created to make real the myths and imaginings of the departed humans. These races have created pockets of utopia.

But will they repeat the mistakes of past, and return Yrth to the realm of shadow? Can many species become a united world?

(8) LIGHTS…CAMERA…WATCH MEDIA! “Sci-Fi Series ‘Murderbot’ Officially Begins Filming at Apple TV+” reports Midgard Times.

The upcoming Apple TV+ sci-fi series, “Murderbot” has officially begun filming this Monday in Toronto, Canada. Starring Alexander Skarsgård in the leading role, the series is based on the award-winning books by Martha Wells.

“Murderbot” is described as an action-packed sci-fi series based on Wells’ award-winning novels about a self-hacking security android who is appalled by human emotion but lured to its weak “clients.” Murderbot must suppress its free will and perform a perilous mission when all it truly wants is to be left alone to watch future soap operas and find out its place in space….

…The 10-episode Murderbot is expected to take more than three months to complete the production. As per the current schedule, the sci-fi series will officially wrap filming on June 27, 2024. The series comes from Chris and Paul Weitz, who are writing, directing, and producing it, while also acting as showrunners….

(9) THY THREE SUNS. Critic Inkoo Kang tells readers of The New Yorker, “’3 Body Problem’ Is a Rare Species of Sci-Fi Epic”.

…“3 Body Problem” belongs to an all too rare breed: mainstream entertainment that leads its viewers down bracingly original speculative corridors. The scenario the show ultimately posits bears little resemblance to traditional sci-fi fare; the aliens are coming, but not for another four hundred years, putting humanity on notice for an encounter—and possibly a war—that’s many lifetimes away. This time span is as much a curse as a blessing. Forget the science for a second; what kind of political will—totalitarian or otherwise—is required to keep centuries of preparation on track? How do we get the über-rich to contribute to a new space race in a way that also flatters their egos? And what resources does it take to accelerate scientific discovery to a breakneck pace?…

(10) M. EMMETT WALSH (1935-2024). Character actor M. Emmet Walsh died March 19 at the age of 88 reports Variety.

…In Ridley Scott’s 1982 “Blade Runner,” Walsh was Harrison Ford’s LAPD boss, while he played the vicious private detective Loren Visser in the Coen brothers’ directing debut “Blood Simple.” Wearing a sickly yellow suit, Pauline Kael said he was the film’s “only colorful performer. He lays on the loathsomeness, but he gives it a little twirl — a sportiness.”

His other roles included the corrupt sheriff in the 1986 horror film “Critters” and a small role as a security guard in “Knives Out.”…

He also did voice work in Iron Giant.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 20, 1932 Jack Cady. (Died 2004.) Jack Cady’s Wikipedia page says he’s known “mostly as an award-winning writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He won the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award.” I’m betting that he’s much more than just his ‘Wards, don’t you think?

So let’s see… Ghost stories are a good place to begin I think. McDowell’s Ghost gives a fresh spin on the trope of seeing a War Between The States ghost, and The Night We Buried Road Dog is another ghost story set in early Sixties Montana. 

Jack Cady

Now The Well is not quite a ghost story as such but it’s a haunted house story of sorts heavy on the horror, really heavy on the horror. 

Not a ghost story as such but equally impressive is Inagehi which is the story of a young Cherokee woman who inherits a mountain and the mystery of her father’s death. 

Now Dark Dreaming with Carol Orlockreminds me just a bit of He Who Shapes in its use of the darker side of dreams. Well much darker than Zelazny ever did. Don’t read later at night.

Cady’s The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish is a tale of a man who make anything disappear against an organisation that might or might exist wanting to rule the world. 

He wrote more novels than that but those are the ones I’m familiar with. 

He also wrote quite a bit of short fiction, some sixty pieces I figure. Phantoms: Collected Writings, Volume 1 and Fanthoms: Collected Writings, Volume 2, both done a decade ago, collect about forty-five pieces of short fiction. Both are available at the usual suspects. 

Those ‘Wards? He won a Nebula and Stoker for a novella, “The Night We Buried Road Dog”; the World Fantasy Award was for a short collection, The Sons of Noah & Other Stories; and the final one was the International Horror Guild Award a warded for Outstanding achievements in the field of Horror and Dark Fantasy.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

(13) CONTINUAL HEALING. “’I’m still trying to recover’: Annie Potts on Ghostbusters, Toy Story – and the car crash that almost killed her” in the Guardian.

…Ask her why she thinks Ghostbusters is so enduring, and she replies: “Well, it’s made a lot of money.” But the reason for that is the affection audiences have for it. “It was uniquely hilarious and scary – it’s scalarious – and that turned out to be a very good combination.” For those of us who loved it as children, she thinks we’re trying to “get back to that moment where you’ve been both tickled and scared. And so here we are, 40 years later.” We’re speaking over Zoom; Potts is in New York for the premiere, and she’s warm, funny and has the straightforward air of someone who has seen it all….

…As well as Janine returning, the original team played by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson are also back; Harold Ramis, who played Egon Spengler, died in 2014. Spengler’s estranged daughter and her children are part of the new crew (having been introduced in 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife). “So they have the young ghostbuster, and the mom ghostbuster, and then they have me, the old lady ghostbuster,” says Potts, delightedly….

…Just as her career was getting started, it was almost derailed by a car crash when she was 21. “Drunk drivers, three carloads of teenagers in the middle of the day were drag-racing down the wrong side of a two-lane highway and ran head on into the car I was in.” Virtually every bone in her body below the waist was broken, she says. “It took a very long time to recover. I’m still trying to recover.” It must have shattered her sense of security and invincibility, which many of us take for granted at that age. “Yes, when you almost lose your life, it becomes pretty dear. I don’t know if you can know how dear it is until you are faced with losing it.”…

(14) BUCKET TWIST. “The Surprise Ending of ‘Dune,’ the Popcorn Bucket” – the New York Times consults a nutritionist about the impact of the souvenir container.

In the “Dune” movies, a gigantic sandworm can rise from the desert and devour soldiers and military vehicles in its gaping maw. In real life, humans watching movies devour popcorn. These two ideas have been combined to spawn the “Dune” popcorn bucket, a sandworm-shaped tub that is having a cultural moment. The bucket arrives on the heels of other recent popcorn collectibles, like the 16-inch Barbie Corvette snack holder. But is there more to these vessels than meets the eye?

Lindsay Moyer thinks about popcorn. She is the senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group focused on food systems and healthy eating. She sat down with The New York Times to discuss what she sees when she considers “Dune: The Popcorn Bucket.” This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

…My colleague and I called some AMC locations this morning, and they all told us that the “Dune” bucket is like getting a large popcorn there, but that it varies by location. We talked to their employees and asked them how many calories are listed on the menu, and a large has 980 calories. My understanding is that would be before you added any buttery topping yourself, if you choose to add it…

(15) QUITE A COLLECTIBLE. “Manhattan Project Report Signed by J. Robert Oppenheimer Sells at Auction” at Smithsonian Magazine.

report describing the creation of the atomic bomb signed by J. Robert Oppenheimer sold for $53,594 at auction last week.

The RR Auction sale took place just a few days after Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer cleaned up at the Oscars, where it won in seven categories (including Best Picture and Best Director)….

The 200-page document—titled “Atomic Bombs: A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945”—was signed by Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who directed the Manhattan Project, and 23 other contributors, including Enrico FermiErnest LawrenceJames Chadwick and Harold Urey. It provides a detailed description of the “technical and administrative history” of the atomic bomb’s development….

… Nellie V. Sanderson, the secretary for General Leslie Groves (who oversaw the Manhattan Project), collected the signatures, intercepting the men as they came to meet with Groves and asking them to sign the report.

Along with the report, the anonymous buyer also got several items that belonged to Sanderson, including letters, documents and a Manhattan Project shoulder patch. One of Groves’ business cards was also included in the lot….

(16) A.I. REALLY MEANS ARTIFICIAL IMPRESSIONISM. Adam Gopnik seeks an answer to the question “What Can A.I. Art Teach Us About the Real Thing?” in The New Yorker.

…The range and ease of pictorial invention offered by A.I. image generation is startling; the question, though, is whether its arrival is merely recreational or actually revolutionary. Is it like the invention of the electric light bulb or like the coming of the lava lamp? Herewith, some thoughts.

The intersection of new machines with new kinds of images has a long history. I once owned a French drawing device—a kind of camera lucida, with reflecting mirrors and refracting prisms—that called itself a Machine to Draw the World. It took for granted that the task of image-making was to incise and adjust a drawing to a pattern of light—in itself, a fiendishly difficult action that preoccupied artists for centuries. (Whether actual machines like it played a significant role in the art of Vermeer or Rembrandt is an unsettled question.)

But systems like dall-e 2 don’t operate on light and shadow; they operate on art history—on the almost bottomless reservoir of images on which they’re trained. And the power of images lies less in their arguments than in their ambiguities. That’s why the images that dall-e 2 makes are far more interesting than the texts that A.I. chatbots make. To be persuasive, a text demands a point; in contrast, looking at pictures, we can be fascinated by atmospheres and uncertainties. Even images made to persuade—such as propaganda posters or altarpieces—are only communicative through the intercession of our outside knowledge of the narratives that they illuminate. When you don’t know the story, even tutelary religious pictures become enigmatic. 

…This is not a machine to draw the world. Instead, it proposes a recombinant approach to popular imagery as a means of making art. (The dialogue of popular imagery and modern art was, as it happens, the topic of that abandoned Ph.D. thesis.) In effect, it exploits, and has installed in it as a premise, an idea specific to a particular heritage of image-making, the heritage of Symbolism, and then of the Surrealism that Symbolism engendered. Appropriately enough, the system takes its punning name from a Surrealist painter, since dall-e 2 is ideally trimmed to make soft watches and derby hats on dogs and trains racing out of fireplaces….

(17) PUTTING HIS FOOT DOWN FOR SAFETY. “Godzilla was back on the streets of Tokyo — this time for a good cause”NPR’s “Morning Edition” has the story.

…Good morning, I’m Steve Inskeep. Godzilla, the monster of Japanese movie fame, was back on the streets of Tokyo. This time, the kaiju visited on a public service mission to encourage people to observe traffic safety laws. Godzilla was even made police chief for a day. Think of the size of his hat. The appearance was part of a campaign using Japanese movie characters to promote traffic safety. I wonder what job they gave Pikachu….

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

Pixel Scroll 1/5/24 Scroll, Muse, of the Pixels of the Filers

(1) FREE ON EARTH. Brian Keene has posted the program schedule for “Christopher Golden’s House of Last Resort Weekend (hosted by Brian Keene)” a FREE horror convention, taking place January 18 – 21, 2024 at the Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel, 250 Market St., in Portsmouth, NH 03801.

Admission is FREE with weekend hotel room reservation.  Click here to register for this FREE one-time event. Click here to reserve your hotel room.

The “House of Last Resort Weekend Schedule” is at Brian Keene’s blog. Apparently, if you’re going, you really really should not miss Opening Ceremonies.

7:00pm (Prescott) – Opening Ceremonies: Christopher Golden and host Brian Keene welcome you to this one of a kind, once in a lifetime special event. We’ll go over the rules, the purpose of the weekend, the schedule, and much more. Attendance is strongly encouraged, and to show you that we mean this, we’ll give away free door prizes to random individuals.

(2) APPLY FOR THE BOSE GRANT. The Speculative Literature Foundation is taking applications for the A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature through January 31.

The A.C. Bose Grant annually provides $1,000 to South Asian or Desi diaspora writers developing speculative fiction. Work that is accessible to older children and teens will be given preference in the jury process. 

This grant, as with all SLF grants, is intended to help writers working with speculative literature. Speculative literature spans the breadth of fantastic writing, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy, including ghost stories, horror, folk and fairy tales, slipstream, magical realism, and more. Any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element would fall under our aegis.

This grant is awarded on the basis of merit. If awarded the grant, the recipient agrees to provide a brief excerpt from their work and an autobiographical statement describing themselves and their writing (500-1,000 words) for our files and for public dissemination on our website and mailing list.

The application form is at the SLF website.

(3) MATCH GAME. Nick Johnson thought of a great way to spice up his annual recommendation list: “Reading (and Publication!) Round-Up for 2023” at Medium.

I’m choosing to do my year-end wrap-up a little differently this time. Whereas before I separated out novels and short stories to highlight the best of both, for 2023 I present instead a curated, tandem list — a prix fixe menu, if you will. I’ve listed each book in the order I read it, complete with brief description and a rating (out of 5 ★s).

Each novel is paired with a short story. Why? Because short stories don’t get enough love! Think of them as palate cleansers, digestifs to follow the main course. Some of these pairings are based on similarities between concepts or characters. Sometimes they approach similar themes from divergent angles. Whatever the reason may be, if you choose to read them, I hope they take you on rewarding journeys to emotional places you don’t expect.

Here’s one example.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher (★★★★)

T. Kingfisher’s solid young-adult fantasy novel follows Mona, a baker’s apprentice skilled in crafting magical golems out of baked goods, whose life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the floor of her bakery. Hijinks, both harrowing and heartwarming, ensue.

Pairing“There’s Magic in Bread” | Effie Seiberg | Fantasy MagazineSeiberg’s story about magical bread is more grounded to this plane, though sneaks in some grain-based golems for good measure.

(4) WHAT SHE’S READING. Maud Woolf features in the “Books & Authors” section of Shelf Awareness for Friday, January 5, 2024”.

Reading with… Maud Woolf

Maud Woolf is a speculative-fiction writer with a particular focus on horror and science fiction who lives in Glasgow, Scotland. Her work has appeared in a variety of online magazines. She’s worked a number of jobs, including waitressing, comic book selling, sign-holding, and as a tour guide at a German dollhouse museum. She is the author of Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock (Angry Robot, January 9, 2024), a feminist satire on celebrity and the multiple roles into which women are forced to squeeze their lives.

On your nightstand now: 

I have a bad habit of dipping in and out of multiple books at the same time. At the moment, I’m obsessed with solarpunk, so I’m reading A Psalm for the Wild-Builtby Becky Chambers and Glass and Gardens, an anthology of solarpunk stories edited by Sarena Ulibarri. Those have both just been abandoned in favour of The Forever Warby Joe Haldeman, a science-fiction classic influenced by the author’s own experiences in the Vietnam War. I usually avoid military sci-fi, but it’s completely consumed me.

(5) FRED CHAPPELL (1936-2024.) North Carolina writer and teacher Fred Chappell died January 4 at the age of 87. The Greensboro News and Record has a tribute here: “Fred Chappell, acclaimed author and poet, has died”.

His first novel, Dagon (1968) was honored as the Best Foreign Book of the Year by the Académie Française. He won two World Fantasy Awards for short fiction, “The Somewhere Doors” (1992) and “The Lodger” (1994). His short story “The Silent Woman” was also shortlisted for the Otherwise Award in 1997.

He was a past Poet Laureate of the state of North Carolina, and PBS North Carolina aired a documentary about him in 2022, “Fred Chappell: I Am One of You Forever”.

(6) JOHN F. O’CONNELL (1969–2024.) [Item by Cat Eldridge.] Author John O’Connell died January 1. His “Legerdemain” got him nominations for the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards. Two of his stories, “Legerdemain” and “The Swag from Doc Hawthorne’s” were published in F&SF. His only Award was an Imaginaire for his Dans les limbes, the French translation of The Resurrectionist novel. All three of his noirish linked novels, Box Nine, Skin Palace and Word Made Flesh are set in the fictional New England city of Quinsigamond, loosely based on his own resident city of Worcester, Massachusetts.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born January 5, 1966 Tananarive Due, 57. This Scroll I’m very pleased to be looking at Tananarive Due, an author whose work is definitely more focused towards the noir side of our genre. 

She’s a native Floridian, born of civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due and civil rights lawyer John D. Due, her mother named her after the French name for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.  She’s married to Steve Barnes, and they live now in LA where their two children also live. 

Tananarive Due

Her first work was The Between, published twenty-eight years ago. It was nominated for a Bram Stroker Award. Like much of her work, it straddles the thin line between the mundane and horror quite chillingly. 

Shortly after that, she started the dark fantasy and a bit soap operish African Immortals series which ran over almost fifteen years and four novels. An Ethiopian family traded something away well over four centuries ago in a ritual that granted them true immortality. And one of them wants to invoke that ritual now… 

Eight years later, she’d write The Good House, one of the scariest haunted house stories I have ever encountered. Trigger warning: it deals with a suicide and the horror of it is very real here. 

Joplin’s Ghost followed shortly thereafter. Yes this is centered around the ragtime musican Scott Joplin and his haunting of a young female hip hop artist. It’s less of a horror novel than her works and more of a dark fantasy. Very well done.

Ghost Summer: Stories a decade on collected eighteen of her over thirty excellent short stories including the title story. Most of the rest, though not all, are in The Wishing Pool and Other Stories. The “Ghost Summer” story won a Carl Brandon Kindred Award and I love the story about who Carl Brandon is! The collection garnered a BFA. 

Her latest novel just out, The Reformatory: A Novel, is set in a Jim Crow Florida reformatory where the full horrors of the injustices of racism known no bounds of death. Really, really scary. 

Her quite well-crafted website can be found over here. She offers online courses including ones on Afrofuturism.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Crankshaft surprises a friend by dropping an sff reference.

(9) KNOW YOUR VERBIAGE. Janet Rudolph has posted a chart of “Commonly Misused Words” at Mystery Fanfare. And in a comment Hal Glatzer has added this example:

Gauntlet = a heavy glove Gantlet = a double row of men with swords or pikes

You challenge someone to a duel by “throwing down the gauntlet.”
You put someone in danger by making them “walk (or run) the gantlet.”

(10) YEOH SHOW CANCELLED. American Born Chinese had a lot going for it – based on a Gene Luen Yang book, a cast including Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan – but it won’t be back for a second season says Variety: “’American Born Chinese’ Canceled After One Season at Disney+”.

American Born Chinese” has been canceled after one season at Disney+Variety has learned.

According to an individual with knowledge of the decision, Disney was high on the creative of the series, but its viewership did not justify greenlighting a second season. The producers plan to shop the series to other outlets.

“American Born Chinese” debuted on Disney+ on May. The Disney Branded Television series was based on the graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang. The official logline states that the show “chronicles the trials and tribulations of a regular American teenager whose life is forever changed when he befriends the son of a mythological god.”

(11) WHO’S WATCHING WHAT? JustWatch sent along its 2023 Market Shares data and graphics.

SVOD market shares in Q4 2023
In the final quarter of the year, Disney’s streaming services, Disney+ and Hulu, combined gathered more shares than current market leader Prime Video. Meanwhile, Netflix is approaching Prime Video with just a 1% difference between the two players.

Market share development in 2023
Over the year, the streaming battle in the US displayed interesting changes with Paramount+ leading with the highest increase since January, adding a total of +2%. Global streamer: Apple TV+ also displays strong improvement with a +1% increase.

(12) I’VE LOOKED AT CLOUDS FROM BOTH SIDES NOW. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In this week’s Science journal we have “Magellanic cloud may be two galaxies, not one”.

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a hazy blob in the night sky easily visible to people in the Southern Hemisphere, has long been considered a lone dwarf galaxy close to the Milky Way. But a study posted online this month, and accepted by The Astrophysical Journal, suggests the familiar site is not a single body, but two, with one behind the other as viewed from Earth.

By tracking the movements of clouds of gas within the SMC and the young stars recently formed within them, astronomer Claire Murray of the Space Telescope Science Institute and her colleagues have found evidence of two stellar nurseries thousands of light-years apart. If confirmed, the reassessment will likely amplify calls from an increasing number of astronomers to change the SMC’s name and that of its neighbour, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

Sixteenth century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, after whom the galaxies are named, was not an astronomer, did not discover them, and is recorded as having murdered and enslaved Indigenous people during his first-ever circumnavigation of the globe. As a result, astronomer Mia de los Reyes of Amherst College called for renaming the SMC and LMC in an opinion piece for Physics magazine in September. The idea has since “gotten a lot of informal support,” she says.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In “Three Sci-Fi Books Nobody Reads Anymore”,  Book Pilled looks at three lost SF treasures.  Gerard Klein The Overlords of War (English translation by the transmazing John Brunner), James Blish’s Vor, and Avram Davidson’s What Strange Stars and Skies.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Joel Zakem, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Michaele Jordan Review: Five of the 2023 Hugo Nominees for Best Novel

By Michaele Jordan.

  • The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)

In The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Ms. Moreno-Garcia re-examines a story that has been intriguing us for well over a century. The original novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G Wells, was published in 1896. It was followed by three movies. The first, made in 1932, was titled The Island of Lost Souls, and starred Charles Laughton and Richard Arlen. In 1977 it was remade under the original title, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and starred Burt Lancaster and Michael York. It was remade again in 1996, with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer.

The story deteriorated over the years. H.G. Wells was an ardent social activist, particularly appalled by the then common practice of vivisection. His book was intended to highlight its horrors. It was a serious novel, and was not well received at first, specifically because it was so horrifying. The 1932 movie was excellent. I saw it years ago, and the memory still gives me shivers. It’s a little hard to find these days. It’s on YouTube, but mixed in with numerous adulterated versions. You have to hunt for it. Then the 1977 movie was very bad, and the 1996 version went beyond bad to utterly dreadful. Fortunately, Ms. Moreno-Garcia’s novel restores the tale to its former stature.

The basic story remains the same. A stranger comes to the island. Usually he’s marooned, although in the new book [INB], he’s a new hire. (Because, yes, Dr. Moreau needs staff.) He finds a deserted jungle island (or INB, a nearly deserted jungle island) with only two visible residents: Dr. Moreau, and a beautiful young woman identified as his daughter. They are surrounded by a group of misshapen, inarticulate persons, either his servants or his patients. We soon learn that Moreau is engaged in what modern SF calls ‘uplift’, transforming animals into humans.

His technique varies – depending on which version you’re looking at – from vivisection to DNA injections. But he’s having trouble making his process work. The resulting creatures do not look fully human, and have trouble with human speech (many cannot talk at all.) Even apparent successes tend to revert to their original forms and behaviors. The introduction of a stranger into this mélange greatly disturbs the social balance, and the whole project erupts into violent conflagration from which the stranger and the beautiful woman narrowly escape. Just in case one of you has somehow evaded this story until now, I will not reveal the surprise ending.

So what does Ms. Moreno-Garcia have to add to this outline? As her title suggests, she makes the beautiful woman, Carlotta, the viewpoint character. Carlotta is entirely concerned with the people around her. Of course she knows where her friends came from. But they are her friends, her day-in-day-out companions, her family.

She never gives a second thought to the morality of a practice she’s grown up with. She assists her father in his work, as his nurse, administering medications and tending injuries. She accepts her father’s creations as her fellows, and takes pleasure in providing them with the special care they need.

Ms. Moreno-Garcia has also expanded the environment.  Dr. Moreau is not working on an uninhabited island, just a thinly populated one. A good ways down the road,  there’s a city where supplies can be purchased and travel arrangements made. There are neighbors within a day’s travel. He has a very large tract of uninhabited land, but he doesn’t own it – he rents it.  His landlord is extremely interested in his work, and is providing the financing

This leads to a major shift in focus. In previous versions, the thematic emphasis was on the cruelty of the procedure. Even the later variants, where vivisection is replaced with DNA injections, the process is depicted as hideously painful, producing creatures who could not possibly have lived independently. But in this more modern work, the procedure is accomplished by subjecting the embryo to genetic changes.

Doctor Moreau may not be inflicting his creations with physical torture, but he is instead subjecting them to a subtler, crueler torture. He is breeding slaves. His landlord expects to acquire workers in exchange for the financing.

I don’t doubt you can plainly see that these changes must make a major difference in how matters play out, and I strongly encourage you to read the book and find out where the story now goes. The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is a fine book.

  • The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (Tor Books) (Beware spoilers)

Do you remember when John Scalzi’s first novel, Old Man’s War came out? (Okay, it wasn’t actually the very first – it was his first traditionally published book.) It was back in 2005, and at the time there was a lot of joking about how he was channeling Robert Heinlein. But it was happy joking. Robert Heinlein, who had been with us since we were children, had been gone for seventeen years, and we missed him sorely. We were happy to have his voice back.

That was pushing twenty years ago, and Mr. Scalzi has published a lot of novels since then. And you know what? He’s still channeling Heinlein.

I thought that The Kaiju Preservation Society read just like a Heinlein juvenile. The parameters for a juvenile are not the same as those for an adult work. Characterization tends to be simplistic. So-and-So’s a prankster. Who’s-it is obsessed with dinosaurs. Goody-two-shoes has to be talked into everything, but always bring snacks. Kids are still learning their social skills, so you give them plain markers. Action – even in an ‘action’ book – tends to be a little minimal. (You don’t want to scare the kids.) And there’s lots and lots of explanations.

The Kaiju Preservation Society runs 258 pages, in 28 chapters. The first four chapters are the basic set up. We meet Jamie (the protagonist) and Rob (the bad guy). We see the circumstances that pull Jamie into the story. And at the end of chapter four (page 35) we get the exciting reveal of where he’s going and why – earth in an alternate dimension! With real kaiju! Of course, we already know those things from the liner notes, but we assume that’s just the beginning.

So in chapters five, six, and seven the staff is introduced. They explain the basics of the place – how they got there, and what they’re doing, and how it’s possible for the kaiju to exist. (That’s an issue for all the newbies.)There’s lots of odd but interesting information about the creatures. They seem to be organic nuclear reactors.

There’s a transportation system which is, naturally, unique to the environment, and constructed entirely on site with local materials). En route to the local base, there’s a close visual sighting. Yes, these critters are enormous and yes, they are insanely dangerous. The beastie snarls, and its teeth are the size  of cars. It throws a tree at them. But the staff aren’t really in danger. Their pilot is a genius (like everyone else on the staff), and quickly flies them away. The biting insects prove to be the bigger nuisance. The reader learns who’s the boss and who knows how to play a ukulele.

In chapter eight, our protagonists are provided with special kaiju-jungle clothing and operations manuals. Chapter nine opens with the discovery that the coffee is terrible. “Wait a minute!” I hear you cry. “Are you going to go over this book chapter by chapter?”

What? You’re bored already? Have you murdered your inner child? I ask, because if you were ten years old, you would find all this convincing detail fascinating. I’m not being snarky, honest. Young readers – or rather young persons, whether they are reading, or not  – absorb huge amounts of random data. They are still determining for themselves the parameters of their interests and what details may prove relevant. When I was thirteen, I was thrilled to discover Paul McCartney’s shoe size. A kid I knew had been to Paris over the summer. He told everyone he saw how many steps there were in the Eiffel tower.

But none of us are kids anymore. So I’ll try to speed this up. Chapter nine continues with pheromones.  That’s important. It provides the staff with a means to direct kaiju behavior to a limited extent. The scientists are hoping to observe nesting and birthing procedures, so they attempt to provoke a mating interaction. In the meanwhile, we learn about their parasites. (Kaiju have lots and lots of parasites.) And when they’re dying they head to water.  And when they die, they explode. (The staff learned that the hard way. Their original base was located on a lake shore.) The nuclear explosions are taken in stride by the local fauna, but strangely, they seem to thin the barrier between the worlds.

There’s an interlude in which tourists (very important tourists) visit the base. Among them is the bad guy we last saw back on earth. (He’s rich. Very, very rich.) He’s still a pig. He is surprisingly interested in the kaiju, and tries (with becoming incompetence) to steal some souvenirs. We had not previously suspected he was interested in anything but money. Jamie takes him aside and tells him he’s no longer welcome, and if he ever tries to come back, a recording of the attempted theft will reach a lot of authorities.

The pheromones worked! Bella (a female kaiju) is pregnant! The base already uses aerial cameras to keep a bird’s eye view on the local kaiju. But now the scientists are not as thrilled to settle for aerial cameras anymore. A mission is launched to set up close range cameras, so they can observe Bella’s nesting behaviors, and her eggs.

You see nothing wrong with any of this. And you are right. If you were a scientist – in any of a number of fields – you would probably kill for the opportunity to go on a mission like this, and see such things first hand. You would be fascinated by every procedure, either for capturing data, or protecting the staff. You would revel in each tiny little discovery.

But the reader is mostly watching other people make notes. For all that their surroundings are thrilling, not much actually happens. It’s like watching a movie about some guys on a roller coaster, and all the silly jokes and gossip and lifelike workplace grumbling just don’t make it more interesting. (At least not to me. I don’t doubt that Mr. Scalzi found it interesting, because he was doing the inventing.) The description of other people studying interesting stuff in an interesting place continues for one hundred fifty pages.

On page 220 (the end of chapter 24) planning of the next move is complete, and action is initiated. Things are very exciting for three chapters (32 pages) and on page 252, the heroism is completed and the six-page wrap up commences.

  • Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (Tor Books)

There is not a lot to say about Legends & Lattes. It describes itself as “A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes,” which is fair enough.  It is a simple, gentle book about a seasoned warrior retiring from the fight to set up a coffee shop. It qualifies as high fantasy because none of the main characters are human.  

They’re all mythical creatures. The protagonist, Viv, is an orc. Her former colleagues are an elf, a gnome and a dwarf. Her new friends, who assist in her endeavor, are a succubus, a hob, and a ratkin. They are joined later by Pendry, who may be human. (He’s described in one review as a bard). One character (almost certainly a fan favorite) is not even humanoid, but a dire-cat. Dire or no, this cat is a classic house kitty – except she’s the size of a Saint Bernard (or maybe even a pony). But other than the cast list, there’s not a lot of magic in the story.

Viv acquires a magic artifact at the beginning of the book. We see her claim it after a battle, as her share of the spoils. It is her possession of this artifact that inspires her to sheathe her sword and set up shop in the city.

They say any story needs some conflict. The action in this story derives from one of Viv’s former comrades deciding that she was not entitled to scoop up that artifact and take off with it. I had a little trouble with that. As I said, we see Viv claim the artifact. She did not sneak – she claimed it in plain sight. None of her companions objected at the time. And none of them supported their team-mate’s later objection.

You are probably getting annoyed with me for going on about the “artifact” without telling you what it is. But to say more would be a spoiler, as much of the book debates that very question. The rest of the story is a hymn to the pleasure of a really great cup of coffee. I was surprised to see such a light-weight book on the list of Hugo nominees. It doesn’t really deserve any awards. But I didn’t hate it. Like a P.G. Wodehouse novel, it made me chuckle often.

  • Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher (Tor Books)

I blush to admit that I had never read anything by T. Kingfisher before this Hugo season. Now I’ve read two. And as soon as I finish my Hugo reading, I am going to go hunt up her previous work, Ms. Kingfisher has accomplished that rare task: she writes stories that are deeply grounded in the fantasy traditions, and yet are completely original.

In Nettle & Bone we find royal palaces and the Goblin Market, villains armed with ancient swords and princesses in danger, magical godmothers and witches raising the undead. And yet none of these things are remotely like the tropes as you’ve seen them a thousand times. And yet they all conform to the basic concepts, and do (or don’t do) all the things that their position in fairy-lore calls for.

The protagonist is Marra – she’s the third daughter of the king and queen of Harbor Kingdom. It’s a small place, sandwiched in between two larger, stronger and richer kingdoms. It only exists because it has a really good harbor, and each of the neighboring kings would dearly love to march in and grab that harbor, but can’t, for fear that the other neighboring kingdom would quickly intervene. So – since the Harbor Kingdom has no sons – the Northern Kingdom decides to acquire it by marrying into it.

Right away we have a selection of glamorous royal courts, which somehow fail to sound romantic, because none of that glamor can penetrate the stench of ugly, grasping politics. Marra is sent off to a convent after the two elder sisters are married. When was the last time since Malory’s Morte D’Arthur that you saw a convent mentioned (or even presumed to exist) in a high fantasy?  In Nettle & Bone, convents, despite their religious associations, are maintained by the rich and powerful who use them to dispose politely of excess women.

Ms. Kingfisher does this again and again: introduces an element to her fantasy that is startlingly practical and realistic. Marra loves the convent, because she can close her bedroom door there, and she doesn’t have to spend an hour being dressed by servants every morning. She doesn’t have to watch her tongue or keep an eye out for a backstab every minute of the day. She gets very good at embroidery, and picks up some nursing skills

Very few fantasy novels note that quests are generally composed of trudging through bad weather carrying a heavy load. When Marra and her companions cross the Blistered Land, they have to sleep on the ground in the snow, and share one egg amongst the three of them for breakfast. Here, magical godmothers are not routinely happy in their work. Royalty are almost always vicious and paranoid. Ghosts carry pointless grudges, and are often difficult to identify. Demons occasionally possess chickens. No single victory, however great, sets the world to rights. It just pushes the world in a slightly different direction.

Marra’s interior monologue is wonderful – the reader feels like they are talking to an old friend. She is so normal, so relatable, she makes everything around her feel real. She worries about everything. She constantly second-guesses her past actions, and barely notices her successes. She wonders what her friends think of her, and worries they will desert her. The only thing she doesn’t agonize about is her quest.  She already knows it’s hopeless. She does it anyway.

And most of all, despite Nettle & Bone being about a magical quest to rescue a princess, it is completely original. (I wouldn’t have thought that was possible!) Even the ending is not what you expected. Read this book!

  • The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books) Beware spoilers.

The Spare Man is officially a cozy mystery, a book in which there is no explicit or grisly violence, permitting the reader to focus on solving the mystery, without having to gag on the blood and guts. (These mysteries are not usually very complex or difficult, so that the reader doesn’t get frustrated with the puzzle, and skip to the end to find out who did it.)

You could even say that The Spare Man is a ‘country house mystery’ since it takes place in a closed environment. Of course, the usual purpose of setting the mystery in a closed environment is to limit the number of suspects and associated locations. Ms. Kowal did not take advantage of that option, as The Spare Man  is set on an intra-solar luxury cruise ship, as large as an entire city, only far more difficult to navigate.

Despite that, The Spare Man is definitely a cozy mystery. Really. Ms. Kowal doesn’t miss a trope. She starts out with  Nick and Nora Charles (here, named Shal and Tesla), and their adorable little dog. Of course, Shal, a detective, is first on the scene after the murder. And of course, he is immediately charged with the crime. The surly and bigoted Chief of Security beats him brutally, presumably in hope of extracting a confession. Or maybe just for fun.

So Tesla has to run all over the ship, trying to solve the mystery, although she’s not a detective, and although she and Shal have agreed not to infuriate the authorities by interfering. Tesla is an insanely wealthy interplanetary celebrity, who is so plagued by fans that she has to travel under an assumed name. Her fans swarm her as if she were Beyoncé,  because – wait for it – she was a brilliant roboticist seven years before.

I had a problem with this. Even on this tiny little island earth, I do not see a lot of scientist/engineers becoming major celebrities. Carl Sagan is the only scientist that I can think of who was so famous that I would recognize his picture when I saw it. And fame in the US doesn’t have to penetrate all the way to the moons of Saturn.  (By the way, natives of Titan are called Titians, and they have their own music forms. For a while I thought they’d named their flute after a 16th century painter)

But Tesla has another claim on fame. She’s a tragic victim. She has steel bolts all up and down her spine, and still often needs the help of a cane to walk. She’s in pretty much constant pain, although she doesn’t let that interfere with her love life. Seven years earlier she was involved in an Accident. For over half the book the event is always referred to with an ominous capital A.

Eventually we are told that a PAMU (some kind of personal mobility unit for the handicapped) malfunctioned during testing. It was apparently in, or attached to, some kind of off-earth vehicle which had, in turn, been launched from an orbital laboratory. The attempt to disengage resulted in a ricochet, causing the vehicle to crash into the laboratory, killing six and crippling Tesla.

Aside from the steel bolts in her spine, Tesla was also assigned a service animal, with electronic implants which improve its ability to communicate with and assist its owner; hence the dog. I give Ms. Kowal full credit for having a really good idea: a cyborged service animal. Somebody should look into that.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kowal didn’t waste a lot of words on explaining the dog’s enhancements or abilities. To the reader’s eye, the dog was simply a hugely loyal companion. And terminally cute. EVERYBODY fell in love with that Westie on first sight. Strangers crossed the room to come pet Gimlet – and had to be warned off.  (It really is very inappropriate to stroke a service animal.) Business associates made appointments to stop by for a play date. It was actually stated in so many words that if you don’t care for dogs, you’re a bad person. Personally, I have cats.

I don’t hate dogs. I used to work in a kennel. I’ve stopped now and then to pet a neighbor’s dog, while saying hello to the neighbor. But playdates?

As you can see, I am not being the target audience for this novel. I don’t care for mysteries and I detest romances. So, I started yawning as the familiar mystery tropes floated by, and squirming at all the love scenes. I got very, very bored with people talking baby talk to the Westie. But if you do like mysteries and/or romances you should be fine.


Friends, I sat down here intending to write up all six of the novel nominees. But, when I picked up Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom), I discovered that it was the third volume of The Locked Tomb Series. I do not like to read series out of order. And even if was I okay with that, I saw the note in Wikipeda warning me not to attempt to read the books out of order. “You’ll never catch up,” the note read. “You’ll just get confused and give up reading it,” I was warned.  So I heaved a sigh, and went to the library. It turned out that Gideon the Ninth (Volume 1) is extremely popular. There are 27 holds on it. I didn’t even look for Harrow the Ninth (Volume 2). So these are just my notes on the five that I’ve actually read.  Perhaps I’ll get back to you with my thoughts about The Locked Tomb Series. Catchy title.

Pixel Scroll 11/22/23 All Right, Mr. Pixelle, I’m Ready For My Scroll-Up

(1) LOSCON THIS WEEKEND. Loscon 49, a gathering of writers and fans of all ages, with common interests in Fantasy, Science Fiction, Cosplay, Film, Art and Music takes place this Thanksgiving weekend, November 24-26, at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott on Century Blvd.

Author and screenwriter Peter S. Beagle is the Writer Guest of Honor. Generations of readers have enjoyed his magic of unicorns, haunted cemeteries, lascivious trees and disgruntled gods. His best-known work is “The Last Unicorn”

Echo Chernik, the Artist Guest of Honor, is commercial artist and instructor of digital media, specializing in art nouveau-influenced design art and illustration.

Fan Guest of Honor is Elayne Pelz. She has worked at Worldcons, Loscon, Gallifrey One, Anime cons, SFWA Nebula Conference, and many more, as an essential staff member for decades.

Loscon will partner with Nerd Mafia Group for a cosplay contest on Saturday evening.

Submissions will be accepted for the Losconzine49 onsite, at a fan table stocked with paper and various writing implements. They will also take emailed submissions until Dec 3rd via losconpress@gmail.com These will be compiled and shared electronically with all those who submit and an online post will be shared with the public.

Weekend passes are $75, day rate is $40. Parking with validation is $20 per day.

For more information, check out Loscon 49.

Peter S. Beagle. Photo by Krystal Rains.

(2) FOR YOUR EARS. Audible.com has posted 20 books on its list of The Best Audiobooks of 2023, two of them of genre interest. And there are additional lists of —

(3) YOUR FAVORITE BOOK MAY ALREADY HAVE WON – IT’S UP TO YOU. Christopher Ruz has a solution to the surfeit of literary awards – make it bigger! “Announcing the 2023 Rando Awards”.

The Randos are a highly prestigious* genre fiction award, judged by a team with over a century of combined experience** in fantasy, science fiction, horror, crime, and more. Founded by me, because I felt like it, the Randos is a way of sharing our love of genre fiction and recognising the authors who made our year great. Our judging panel of Randos will come together at the end of the year to decide on their favourite reads of 2023. Each winning author—one per judge—will be awarded a coveted Rando trophy***.

*this is a lie

**if you add up the time we’ve all spent reading then it’s probably a hundred years? Maybe?

***I mean, I’d covet them pretty hard

Can I Be a Judge?

Here’s the thing about the Randos: anyone can be a Rando, and find some way to recognise and appreciate their favourite authors. You can shoot me a message and join our team in time for the 2023 awards! All you need is to cover the costs of the trophy and international postage for your chosen winner. Or, you can find your own way to let your fave author know that you appreciated their work and that they enriched your life with their stories.

There are no downsides to sharing that love….

(4) TOO CLOSE TO HOME. Author Max Florschutz says his mother survived the mudslide in his hometown of Wrangell, Alaska but his father is still missing: “It’s All Gone”. Sad and alarming news.

Guys, I … I barely know how to write this. The last thirty-six hours have been a nightmare that is still ongoing.

If you’ve seen the news and heard a story about Wrangell Alaska, then you’ve heard part of what I’m about to tell you.

Monday night at 9 PM, a landslide hit my hometown. It was 450 feet across by the time it hit the highway, after it completely demolished my parent’s property and home (here’s a picture of the size of the slide).

It continued down across the highway and into the bay, destroying another home along the way before ending up in the bay.

My mother pulled herself from the wreckage of her home and walked to the search and rescue teams across a still-shifting mudslide.

My father is still missing, and just typing this hurts. Search and rescue teams are trying to get to what’s left of their home to locate him. We have no idea if he’s alive or dead. Everything that can be done is being done….

(5) INDOPANTHEOLOGY OPENS TO SUBMISSIONS. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki has put out a call for “Indopantheology: Stories from the Spiritual Margins” at OD Ekpeki Presents. Deadline to submit is March 31, 2024. Full details at the link.

Do you have stories that go beyond the realms of the physical world? We, the editors, are asking for your spirit-fiction.

This volume will explore the theme of Indopantheology, analogous to the Afropantheology of Oghenechovwe Ekpeki’s Between Dystopias: The Road to Afropantheology, published October 2023 by OD Ekpeki Presents, as an installment of the Pantheology projects

For us, Indopantheology maps the realm of the spiritual imagination, comprising all soul-matters from the most worldly of dreams to the most numinous of visions. If that is what you wish to explore, then this call is for you. We want stories from the wilder thickets of the spiritual world, the old places, the cultures and peoples that have been looted, disrespected and forgotten.

We want tales of the vast borderlands between life and death, where dreamers walk and ghosts and gods converse. Too often it seems that, in our current age of bigotry, exploitation and violence, the ‘spiritual’ is wielded as a weapon, designed to shame and exclude anyone of whom the wielder does not approve. We want to showcase stories that stand against this trend, and that go beyond the traditional binaries into the slippery truths of the shadow realms.

While the focus of this volume will be on South Asia and its many spiritual streams that defy the categories of organised religion, we are willing to accept spirit-stories from anyone in the wider Indoasian world. Please note that there are volumes currently in progress for other geographical regions with relations to South Asia, such as Africa, the Caribbean, etc.

We see this as a decolonising project, since the spirit world has historically been hijacked and weaponised by oppressors of various hue. We believe that new storytelling can cure this wound. And we especially want stories from, and about, people who are on the various spectrums: gender, neurological, mental and physical….

(6) RED WOMBAT DEAL. Orbit Books has acquired T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel series and Swordheart. Four of these were self-published, and now will get tradpub reprints.

Helen Breitwieser at Cornerstone Literary Agency sold UK and Commonwealth rights in five of T. Kingfisher’s books to Nadia Saward, Commissioning Editor at Orbit. The ebooks of Paladin’s GracePaladin’s StrengthPaladin’s Hope and Swordheart are on sale now from Orbit, with Paladin’s Faith publishing in early December. Orbit will be redesigning the covers and will be releasing paperbacks of all five books in Spring 2025.

(7) VARIABLE GOALS. We’ve heard a thousand times about AUTHORS GETTING PAID, but publisher Steven Radecki tells readers of the SFWA Blog that’s not the only way to keep score: “The INDIE FILES: Measuring Your Success As an Author”.

During the more than a decade that I have been involved in indie publishing, I have worked with more than three hundred authors. One thing I have discovered is that, just as publishing is not a one-size-fits-all process, neither is how individual writers conceive of their success. Managing your own goals and expectations and why you have them can go a long way toward understanding your feelings of success as an indie author.

Just getting your work published is probably your primary goal—whether it be a short story, novella, or epic trilogy. Few writers, particularly newly published ones, give much advance thought to what happens after they achieve that goal: what it will mean to feel successful as an author once their work has been published.

Having clear goals helps you in the effective promotion of your work. Discussing your goals early in your relationship with your agent or publisher can help you determine whether you are the right fit for each other in helping you achieve your goals. Defining goals will also help you in your decision on whether to go the traditional publishing, small publishing, or self-publishing route.

Some of the ways you might measure your success as an author include:

  • income earned
  • number of books or stories sold
  • number of engaged readers
  • public displays of your work

(8) PLAINTIFF HITS STUMBLING BLOCK IN AI LAWSUIT. [Item by Nina Shepardson.] The Hollywood Reporter has a new article out on Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit against Meta alleging that its generative AI program infringes her copyright as an author. “Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta”.

A judge has dismissed most of the claims in Silverman’s lawsuit. He called the claim that the AI model itself is an infringing derivative work “nonsensical.” He also found that Silverman didn’t provide sufficient evidence that the outputs of the model are “recasting, transforming, or adapting” her books. He said that, “To prevail on a theory that LLaMA’s outputs constitute derivative infringement, the plaintiffs would indeed need to allege and ultimately prove that the outputs ‘incorporate in some form a portion of’ the plaintiffs’ books.” Apparently, there’s a “test of substantial similarity” that’s used in copyright cases to determine whether a work is similar enough to the original to likely be infringing. It sounds like the judge doesn’t think Silverman has provided evidence that the outputs of Meta’s AI program are substantially similar to her original work.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

1987 [Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks is a lovely novel. So we take our Beginning from it this time.

Since some of you might because of your extreme poor fortune not have read it yet so I’ll talk not about it and spoil it for you. Well I’ll at least put SPOILER ALERT up if I do. 

War for The Oaks was first published by Ace in softcover in 1987 with the first cover art below by Pamela Patrick. The novel’s setting is based upon Minneapolis where she and her husband Will Shetterly were living at the time. 

The novel was, by Ace, printed once and declared out of print. It took Emma almost a decade-and-a-half to get back rights to the novel from Ace. Tor then printed a hardcover edition which never officially got released. It got released in a trade paper edition that had exactly the same cover. I like the Tor art by Jane Adele Regina as shown in the second cover image better than the Ace illustration as I think it captures the darker aspect of the novel. 

SPOILER ALERT FOR A MINUTE.

Eddi also plays songs written by herself – in actuality of course, written by the author, Emma Bull. Some of these (including “Wear My Face” and “For It All”) were performed by the band Cats Laughing (of which Emma Bull is a member), and are on their second album Another Way To Travel whose cover art is by Terri Windling of a hearse and the band in front of it.

When the trailer for War for The Oaks was filmed with funding meant first Will’s run for the Governorship of Minnesota, this music was supplemented by some by Boiled in Lead as well. In the trailer, Emma plays the Fairy Queen and a fine one she does make! 

That trailer is here. Don’t watch it if you’ve not read the novel. Really don’t or the Unseelie Queen will curse you. If you do and you were in Minneapolis in the large Eighties, let be note that a lot of the actors are from fandom. 

END OF SPOILER ALERTS

And now our Beginning…

Prologue

By day, the Nicollet Mall winds through Minneapolis like a paved canal. People flow between its banks, eddying at the doors of office towers and department stores. The big red-and-white city buses roar at every corner. On the many-globed lampposts, banners advertising a museum exhibit flap in the wind that the tallest buildings snatch out of the sky. The skyway system vaults the mall with its covered bridges of steel and glass, and they, too, are full of people, color, motion.

But late at night, there’s a change in the Nicollet Mall.

The street lamp globes hang like myriad moons, and light glows in the empty bus shelters like nebulae. Down through the silent business district the mall twists, the silver zipper in a patchwork coat of many dark colors. The sound of traffic from Hennepin Avenue, one block over, might be the grating of the World-Worm’s scales over stone.

Near the south end of the mall, in front of Orchestra Hall, Peavey Plaza beckons: a reflecting pool, and a cascade that descends from towering chrome cylinders to a sunken walk-in maze of stone blocks and pillars for which “fountain” is an inadequate name. In the moonlight, it is black and silver, gray and white, full of an elusive play of shape and contrast.

On that night, there were voices in Peavey Plaza. One was like the susurrus of the fountain itself, sometimes hissing, sometimes with the little-bell sound of a water drop striking. The other was deep and rough; if the concrete were an animal, it would have this voice.

“Tell me,” said the water voice, “what you have found.”

The deep voice replied. “There is a woman who will do, I think.”

When water hits a hot griddle, it sizzles; the water-voice sounded like that. “You are our eyes and legs in this, Dog. That should not interfere with your tongue. Tell me!”

A low, growling laugh, then: “She makes music, the kind that moves heart and body. In another time, we would have found her long before, for that alone. We grow fat and slow in this easy life,” the rough voice said, as if it meant to say something very different.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 22, 1918 Walter Kubilius. Quoting John Clute in SFE, “US editor and author involved in American Fandom from as early as 1932, when he was a founder member of the Edison Science Club; by the end of the 1930s, after serving on the committee that created the first Worldcon in 1939, he helped form the Futurians.”  He wrote a fair amount of short fiction but it’s never been collected as near as I can tell. (Died 1993.)
  • Born November 22, 1925 Arthur Richard Mather.  Australian cartoonist, illustrator, and novelist. He was the artist who and later wrote of one of Australia’s most successful comics series, Captain Atom. It was published from 1948 to 1954, with 64 issues. No relation to the by Charlton Comics character of that name who became the DC Comics character. After the Australian comics business declined in the Fifties, we become a writer and churned out seven works, all  thrillers and crime novels with elements of science fiction.  (Died 2017.)
  • Born November 22, 1938 William Kotzwinkle, 85. Fata Morgana might be his best novel though Doctor Rat which he won the World Fantasy Award for is in the running for that honor as well. Did you know Kotzwinkle wrote the novelization of the screenplay for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial? And his short stories are quite excellent too.  The usual digital suspects are well stocked with his books now, a change from five years ago.
  • Born November 22, 1940 Terry Gilliam, 83. He’s directed many films of which the vast majority are firmly genre. I think I’ve seen most of them though I though I’ve not seen The Man Who Killed Don QuixoteTidelandThe Zero Theorem or The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I’ve seen everything else. Yes, I skipped past his start as the animator for Monty Python’s Flying Circus which grew out of his for the children’s series Do Not Adjust Your Set which had staff of Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.  Though he largely was the animator in the series and the films, he did occasionally take acting roles according to his autobiography, particularly roles no one else wanted such those requiring extensive makeup.  He’s also co-directed a number of scenes.  Awards? Of course. Twelve Monkeys is the most decorated followed by Brazil with two and Time Bandits and The Fisher King which each have but one.  My favorite films by him? Oh, the one I’ve watched the most is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen followed by Time Bandits.
  • Born November 22, 1949 John Grant. He’d make the Birthday list solely for being involved in the stellar Hugo Award winning Encyclopedia of Fantasy which also won a Mythopoeic Award.  And he did win another well-deserved Hugo Award for Best Related Work for The Chesley Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy Art: A Retrospective.  Most of his short fiction has been set in the Lone Wolf universe, though I see that he did a Judge Dredd novel too. (Died 2020.)
  • Born November 22, 1957 Kim Yale. She was a writer whose first work was in the New America series, a spin-off of Truman’s Scout series. With Truman, she developed the Barbara Gordon Oracle character, created the superb Manhunter series, worked on Suicide Squad, and was an editor at D.C. where she oversaw such licenses as Star Trek: The Next Generation. Married to John Ostrander until 1993 when she died of breast cancer. For First Comics, she co-wrote much of Grimjack with her husband. (Died 1997.)

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Eek! shows someone big and green bringing a veggie to the Thanksgiving feast. No, not the jolly one.
  • Tom Gauld thinks about silencing the feedback.
  • Elsewhere, Tom Gauld teases scientists.

(12) DOCTOR WHO MEMORIES. “’John Hurt and I swapped wine tips’: stars share their best Doctor Who moments – part three” in the Guardian.

Ben Aaronovitch (writer of episodes featuring the Seventh Doctor, 1988-1989)

My first real memory of a complete story is The Green Death, and my favourite memory is of this large slug sneaking up on Jo Grant. I was literally watching it from behind the sofa. From working on the show, I remember that the anti-terrorist squad in Remembrance of the Daleks was scrambled to Waterloo station because we’d blown a great big hole in it. I used to have a photo of a group of Daleks with fire engines coming down and stopping and looking at the road blocked by a group of Daleks. God knows what they thought!

(13) COSMIC INSIGHT. Adam Roberts after reading the science news….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George is “Talking About The Apocalypse In 2023”. What, him worry?

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