25 Shattered Like A Glass Scroll

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) COSTUME-CON 43 CANCELED. Costume-Con 43 chair Henry Osier announced on Facebook today that the 2025 convention has been canceled reports Eric Hildeman of Starship Fonzie. The event was to have been held in Milwaukee this April.

Due to lack of pre-convention funds Costume-Con 43 has been canceled.

We regret having to make this decision. We wanted to create a truly unique and memorable convention for everyone and with insufficient funds this will not be possible. We had hoped to help educate costumers of all experience levels and backgrounds, as well as help people connect with other people interested in costuming from across the continent.

We are informing you at this time so that you may cancel your hotel reservations and travel plans.

If you have already paid for a membership/ticket you will be reimbursed….

(2) THE CLOCK OF THE LONG NOW. “It’s been an idea for over three decades. How did the clock that will run for 10,000 years become a reality?” Alec Nevala-Lee looks for the answer in “Chimes at Midnight” at Asterisk. The clock, designed to keep accurate time without human intervention for 10,000 years, is currently nearing completion on Jeff Bezos’s property in Texas.

…[Danny Hillis] had been dreaming about the clock for years, but he first set it down in detail in an essay — later published in Wired — dated February 15, 1995. Noting that society had trouble picturing the far future, he proposed a symbolic object to encourage long-term thinking: “I want to build a clock that ticks once a year. The century hand advances once every one hundred years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium.” It would keep accurate time for ten millennia, or roughly as long as human civilization had already existed. The musician Brian Eno, who later developed the chimes, named it the Clock of the Long Now.

Hillis initially explored the idea in an unlikely setting. He joined a Disney fellowship program, created expressly for him, as a vice president of research and development, although what he really wanted was to work on his clock. The Imagineers made their machine shops and staff available at cost, as long as the company retained the right to build a clock of its own, and he spoke long afterward as though he were designing a theme park attraction: “Time is a ride, and you are on it.”

Independently of Disney, he built two prototypes of the clock, but his efforts to invent a corresponding narrative — or myth — sometimes led to confusion. “A lot of people who hear about the clocks think it is just a story,” Hillis wrote earlier this year. “They are surprised to find out there are actual clocks.” In his Wired essay, he shared a provocative suggestion from the magician Teller: “The important thing is to make a very convincing documentary about building the clock and hiding it. Don’t actually build one. That would spoil the myth if it was ever found.”…

(3) LUMIÈRES AWARDS. “’Flow’ Wins Animation Award at Lumières”. Animation Magazine also reports the non-genre film Emilia Pérez won the most awards — five, including Best Film and Best Director.

One of this year’s awards season frontrunner, Gints Zilbalodis’ indie animated feature Flow has captured another prize. The critically acclaimed Latvian contender has been awarded Best Animated Feature at the 30th Lumières.

The Lumières are considered France’s version of the Golden Globes, as the winners are judged by members of the international press based in the country. This year, representatives of 38 countries voted on the category winners, which were announced in Paris on Monday.

Flow was nominated alongside Into the Wonderwoods (directed by Vincent Parannaud and Alexis Ducord); The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius); Maya, Give Me a Title (Michel Gondry); and Savages (Claude Barras)….

(4) BOOK APP’S BIGOTED MESSAGES. The New York Times reports “Fable, a Book App, Makes Changes After Offensive A.I. Messages” – you can just imagine what that program was trained on.

…In an Instagram post this week, Chris Gallello, the head of product at Fable, addressed the problem of A.I.-generated summaries on the app, saying that Fable began receiving complaints about “very bigoted racist language, and that was shocking to us.”

He gave no examples, but he was apparently referring to at least one Fable reader’s summary posted as a screenshot on Threads, which rounded up the book choices the reader, Tiana Trammell, had made, saying: “Your journey dives deep into the heart of Black narratives and transformative tales, leaving mainstream stories gasping for air. Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, okay?”

Fable replied in a comment under the post, saying that a team would work to resolve the problem. In his longer statement on Instagram, Mr. Gallello said that the company would introduce safeguards. These included disclosures that summaries were generated by artificial intelligence, the ability to opt out of them and a thumbs-down button that would alert the app to a potential problem.

Ms. Trammell, who lives in Detroit, downloaded Fable in October to track her reading. Around Christmas, she had read books that prompted summaries related to the holiday. But just before the new year, she finished three books by Black authors.

On Dec. 29, when Ms. Trammell saw her Fable summary, she was stunned. “I thought: ‘This cannot be what I am seeing. I am clearly missing something here,’” she said in an interview on Friday. She shared the summary with fellow book club members and on Fable, where others shared offensive summaries that they, too, had received or seen.

One person who read books about people with disabilities was told her choices “could earn an eye-roll from a sloth.” Another said a reader’s books were “making me wonder if you’re ever in the mood for a straight, cis white man’s perspective.”…

(5) COVER NEWS. DAW has shared the new US cover for John Wiswell’s Wearing the Lion, which will be released June 17.

Wiswell brings a humanizing, redemptive touch to the story of Heracles and his complicated relationship with the goddess Hera saying, “Wearing the Lion is an epic fantasy about the things that make us feel monstrous, and about how facing monsters can make us feel whole. It’s about traditional family, found family, and growing when people say there’s nothing left for you.”

(6) STATUS OF BUTLER GRAVE. Gizmodo reassures readers “Beloved Sci-Fi Author Octavia Butler’s Gravesite Survived Los Angeles Fire”.

…The Afrofuturist’s grave rests in Altadena, which was hit hard amid the recent fires that left thousands of Californians without their homes. But her burial site survived: the AP shared an image of the location and reported that it received “minimal damage,” citing a statement on the Altadena Mountain View cemetery’s web site. Butler passed in 2006 and her footstone reads “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you,” a quote from Parable of the Sower.…

However, what the Associated Press specifically reported is:

…A spokesperson at the Mountain View cemetery confirmed the accuracy of the website’s announcement to The Associated Press, but would not comment on the status of individual markers….

(7) JULES FEIFFER (1929-2025). Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer died January 17. NPR pays tribute: “Jules Feiffer, cartoonist and playwright, dies at 95”.

… It wasn’t just on the page that he hurled himself so intrepidly into the unknown. In life, too, he continually aimed for unseen horizons. When he died Jan. 17 of congestive heart failure at his home in Richfield Springs, N.Y., he left an abundant legacy across a range of artistic media. The history of graphic art, literature, film and the theater bear the imprint of his ever-distinctive, ever-wayward pen….

…. Straight out of high school, he looked up Will Eisner in the phone book and buttonholed the legendary comics mastermind in his downtown office. Eisner “couldn’t have been more pleasant until he looked at my work, and then he told me that the work was s***,” Feiffer told the Voice in 2018. Even so, Eisner allowed the boy to contribute bits and pieces to the studio’s comics. Feiffer filled in black-ink areas and ruled panel borders. More importantly, he talked to Eisner about the form. Eventually Feiffer graduated to writing stories for The Spirit, continuing until he was drafted in 1951. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps until 1953….

…The assassination of John F. Kennedy prompted him to pen his first full-fledged play, 1967’s Little Murders. (Though its Broadway debut was a flop, an Off-Broadway production won an Obie award in 1969.)…Perhaps most memorably, he penned the screenplay for 1971’s Carnal Knowledge, directed by Mike Nichols…

…For the younger set he was the magical artist behind 1961’s The Phantom Tollbooth….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

January 21, 1923 — Judith Merril. (Died 1997.)

By Paul Weimer: Judith Merril, to me, has always been a science fiction editor, writer, and activist whose work, and life, has invariably and inexorably been tied to her fearlessly progressive politics.

I came across various stories of Merril in my early reading of a lot of the early stories of the field in the 1980s. “That Only a Mother”. That story, with a mother with a mutant baby but unable to or unwilling to see that her baby IS in fact, severely deformed. Even from the beginning here, Merril showed her interest in the psychology and personality of her characters as the main drivers of her plots. And yeah, the ending of that story left a mark.

Or perhaps “The Tomorrow People”, with its deep psychological look at a group of people in space after a disastrous trip to Mars. In a way, that story always felt like to me as a forerunner to Frederik Pohl’s Gateway (but not its sequels!). Both could be considered forerunners of the New Wave movement.

Beyond her writing, she’s probably known even better for being an editor, having edited volumes of Canadian SF (the Tesseract series) as well as many Best of Science Fiction volumes. Her point of view and her editorial choices and viewpoint helped move science fiction away from the pulp era and into the aforementioned New Wave movement. Merill is one of the people who helped prove that science fiction (or at least a significant segment of it) could be a full-on high literary genre.

But it is her politics that I know her work best. She was a signatory to the infamous anti-Vietnam War ad that ran in Galaxy. Not long after that ad ran, she moved to Canada and became very active in the Canadian SF movement, from hosting episodes of Doctor Who, to endowing science fiction collections and the aforementioned editing of Canadian SF. She never stopped speaking her mind and heart about politics, especially her views on war and the military and eventually became a Canadian citizen.

A veritable force of nature in the science fiction field.

Judith Merril Staying in the home of Michael Moorcock

(9) TOMORROW’S BREAKFAST.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Rex Stout’s Omelet

Rex Stout’s recipe for his perfect omelet in And Be a Villain (British title, More Deaths Than One), the Nero Wolfe novel that was first published by the Viking Press here in 1948.

It’s also in The Nero Wolfe Cookbook which was published by Viking Press in 1973 where the Viking editors then credit it to Wolfe a quarter of a century later. Why it’s not credited in the actual novel is a bit odd.

If you decide to purchase this cookbook, do not buy the 1981 paperback as it has but a sampling of the 1973 recipes. Boo, hiss! The problem is that the first printing not unexpectedly has become quite pricey running as well over a hundred and fifty dollars!

And now, here’s Stout’s perfect omelet recipe.

It is better to make two small omelets than a large one. Beat four eggs in a bowl, adding two Tbsps. of milk or cream if you wish; I don’t. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Heat one scant Tbsp. butter in a skillet over a hot fire. When the butter is hot but before it smokes, add the eggs all at once. Quickly, with a fork, pull the edges of the egg mass toward the center as they thicken. The liquid part will immediately fill the vacant spaces. Repeat until there is no more liquid but thei eggs are still very soft. Gently press the handle of the skillet downward and let the omelet slide toward it. When 1/3 of the omelet has slid up the edge of the pan, fold it toward the center with a spatula. Raise the handle to slide the omelet in the opposite direction, and when 1/3 is up the far edge hold a dish (heated) under it. As the rim of the omelet touches the dish, raise the handle until the skillet is upside down. The result should be an oval-shaped light-brown omelet.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Charlie Chan in Paris (1935)

Ninety years ago, Charlie Chan in Paris, the seventh in that series, premiered. It was directed by Lewis Seiler as written by the trio of Earl Derr Biggers, Philip MacDonald and Stuart Anthony. All the films featured Warner Oland, a Swedish-American actor who had also played Fu Manchu. Oland would play this role sixteen times.

Honolulu Police detective Lieutenant Chan was created by Biggers who wrote six novels in which he appears. The House Without a Key is the first one. It’s available from the usual suspects for ninety-nine cents.

Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana and was intended to be the opposite of Fu Manchu. The real detective actually solved very few murder cases as he worked mostly on opium cases, opium being a major problem then.

Over the years eleven different actors would portray him including Peter Ustinov and Ross Martin.

This film was considered lost for decades until a print was discovered in Czechoslovakia with a collector in the seventies. After a number of showings in various revival cinemas throughout the States, it was released on DVD as part of a collection. All of the films are in the public domain so you can watch it here.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Curses looks at reader approval.
Dinosaur Comics explains flashbacks.
Pardon My Planet has a horrible explanation for a Star Trek icon.
Speed Bump – is this speed reading or a book critic at work?
Strange Brew knows you can talk to the animals but they won’t all listen.

(12) LEGEND OR MYTH – YOU DECIDE. “30 years later, Fallout creator Tim Cain is searching for a legendary D&D player who cheesed an entire competitive dungeon with a lightning-fast Monk build” reports GamesRadar+.

… In a recent YouTube video, Cain explores the legend of the ‘1 million XP dungeon’, a first-edition D&D competition he says he heard about in 1993 at a gaming convention in California. In the competition, players had to run through a complex, multi-layered dungeon and become the first to reach the goal at its end. To do so, however, they were each given one million XP with which to craft a character.

XP could be used to level up, or it could be converted into gold coins at a ratio of one XP to one gold, with that gold used to buy magical items based on their assigned value in the rules. Cain explains that that meant some players would max out on levels, while others might rely on a bevy of magical items to get them through the dungeon. Most sat somewhere between those extremes, but the eventual winner was a player who pushed the rules to their limit.

The prize was claimed, Cain believes, by a level 11 human Monk. A class often defined by unarmed attacks and no armor, Monks might have seemed a risky pick, but Cain explains how this character had a strong armor class, several useful resistances and immunities, and the ability to shrug off damage on most saving throws. On top of that, at level 11, Monks have a move speed of 25 – double the base speed of pretty much any other character, and faster than both horses and players under the effect of haste spells. Clearly, the strategy was to go very fast, but the Monk faced one major hindrance – their class was limited to just three magical items. With 700,000XP given over to leveling, they risked not being able to get the most out of their build.

The items they opted for included a Cloak of Protection +5 to enhance their already strong armor class and give a +5 to their already-enhanced saving throws, which they boosted even further with a Scarab of Protection. The real cherry on top, however, was the Ring of Air Elemental Command – as well as some extra bonuses like the Gust of Wind spell, that ring offered unlimited flight and visibility.

Players entering the competition were matched up with a DM in groups of three to five, with the first person to reach the final goal out of all the entrants winning the contest. To hear Cain tell it, the Monk in question lined up with their fellow players, went invisible, and took off running. Moving twice as fast as everyone else, able to fly over any traps and remain invisible to any enemies, it sounds as though there was no contest whatsoever. The Monk reached their goal on the final floor of the dungeon before most other players had even made it off the first floor – several players were yet to even get into the castle….

(13) PLONK YOUR MAGIC TWANGER. SF Gate visits “The Bay Area shop that sends rent checks to George Lucas”.

Beautifully restored banjos and 18th-century violins line the walls of Amazing Grace, a San Anselmo music store that has faced more threats than Luke Skywalker in “The Empire Strikes Back.” In fact, the shop wouldn’t exist if George Lucas, the “Star Wars” franchise creator and longtime San Anselmo resident, hadn’t stepped in to rescue it in 2004.

There are other Lucas connections too. One of Lucas’ children took guitar lessons at the shop. And many employees at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic, the Marin County special-effects company founded by Lucas, have stopped by the store for decades to buy instruments for movie props, repair their own gear or just to chat with the mom-and-pop owners who have run Amazing Grace since 1983.

Amazing Grace has been at the heart of the thriving Marin music scene throughout its incarnations in three buildings and with three pairs of owners (all local musician couples) since its founding in 1970. But by 2004, during every Marin storm, rainwater leaked through the roof and a back door of the dilapidated 1936 building, a former commuter train depot near the San Rafael-San Anselmo border.

“We thought we’d have to jump ship and start repairing instruments in our garage,” says shop co-owner, master luthier (string instrument-maker) and old-time string band musician John Pedersen. “But then George’s property manager convinced him to buy the land and build a new and bigger shop. I’d met George a few times when my band played at his Fourth of July parties at the [Lucasfilm Skywalker] ranch, and I understand that he liked the idea of supporting a mom-and-pop business.”

Lucas has also built a park in downtown San Anselmo, where Yoda and Indiana Jones statues are a hit, and rescued at least one other local business. “We see him around town, but we don’t bother him,” Pedersen says. “We just send him a rent check each month.”…

(14) GIGO. “AI-Generated Junk Science Is a Big Problem on Google Scholar, Research Suggests” – Gizmodo has the story.

AI-generated scientific research is polluting the online academic information ecosystem, according to a worrying report published in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Misinformation Review.

A team of researchers investigated the prevalence of research articles with evidence of artificially generated text on Google Scholar, an academic search engine that makes it easy to search for research published historically in a wealth of academic journals.

The team specifically interrogated misuse of generative pre-trained transformers (or GPTs), a type of large language model (LLM) that includes now-familiar software such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. These models are able to rapidly interpret text inputs and rapidly generate responses, in the form of figures, images, and long lines of text.

In the research, the team analyzed a sample of scientific papers found on Google Scholar with signs of GPT-use. The selected papers contained one or two common phrases that conversational agents (commonly, chatbots) undergirded by LLMs use. The researchers then investigated the extent to which those questionable papers were distributed and hosted across the internet.

“The risk of what we call ‘evidence hacking’ increases significantly when AI-generated research is spread in search engines,” said Björn Ekström, a researcher at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, and co-author of the paper, in a University of Borås release. “This can have tangible consequences as incorrect results can seep further into society and possibly also into more and more domains.”

The way Google Scholar pulls research from around the internet, according to the recent team, does not screen out papers whose authors lack a scientific affiliation or peer-review; the engine will pull academic bycatch—student papers, reports, preprints, and more—along with the research that has passed a higher bar of scrutiny.

The team found that two-thirds of the papers they studied were at least in part produced through undisclosed use of GPTs. Of the GPT-fabricated papers, the researchers found that 14.5% pertained to health, 19.5% pertained to the environment, and 23% pertained to computing….

(15) YOUTHFUL ZITS OF THE UNIVERSE. “Webb’s Stunning Discovery: Could These Mysterious ‘Little Red Dots’ Be the Universe’s Earliest Black Holes?” asks Sci Tech Daily.

Shortly after NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope began its science operations, astronomers encountered an unexpected discovery in the data: small, red objects scattered across the distant, early universe. These intriguing phenomena, now referred to as “little red dots” (LRDs), remain poorly understood, raising fresh questions and inspiring new theories about the processes shaping the universe’s infancy.

By analyzing publicly available Webb data, a team of astronomers recently compiled one of the largest samples of LRDs to date. Nearly all of these objects are believed to have existed within the first 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The researchers concluded that a significant portion of the LRDs are likely galaxies hosting growing black holes at their centers….

(16) BAKER CAKE. Tom Baker celebrated his 91st birthday yesterday and a photo of him posing with his cake has been shared online.

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

Pixel Scroll 1/20/25 File Long And Throw Pixels

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) THEY “FORGOT”. On Reddit’s /r/printSF group, a poster asks what had happened to Mark Hodder’s A Dark and Subtle Light, which had been scheduled to be published back in October 2024.

Another poster replied with text from the book’s Goodreads page:

“UPDATE: I contacted Mark Hodder on BlueSky and he was kind enough to give me the low-down. In summary: -“The publisher purchased it as “work for hire” … meaning they owned the character and concept of the brief. The idea was that it would be the first of a series with other authors working on subsequent novels featuring the same main character” -“They set an Oct ’24 date for publication. However, the editor who had suggested the idea left the company. They decided to put the project on hold, forgot to tell me & forgot to remove the scheduled pub. date from Amazon.”

They . . . “forgot” to tell the author they cancelled publication of his book. That is brutal.

But, there is still a possibility that we’ll see this book in some form in the future, so I’m leaving it on my TBR list. “

And this was followed up by a reply from the author themselves:

I’m afraid Rebellion (I’m now naming and shaming) have not only taken the novel off their schedule but they are also refusing to give it (or even sell it) back to me. Their stance is that I got paid so I don’t really have anything to complain about. A fucking atrocious attitude. Not only does it ignore the fact that a) the novel would earn me royalties, and b) whenever I have a new novel published there’s a spike in sales for my other work and my audience grows, but it also presumes that I write for money rather than to entertain. No author writes for money. Publishers pay a pittance.

To put it into perspective, Rebellion paid me £7000 for the novel with royalties set to kick in (after that £7000 had earned out) at a rate of 7% of the recommended retail price up to 14,999 copies; rising to 8% on 15,000 to 29,000 copies; rising to 10% on 30,000 copies onwards.

I’ll get none of that. The novel took a year to write and all I have to show for it is the initial £7000. The MINIMUM annual wage in the UK is £21000.

So, yes, financially, Rebellion has fucked me over. But the real issue is that I consider it one of the best novels I have written and I am royally PISSED OFF that no one will get to read it.

(2) CREATING BLAKE’S 7. “’When Star Wars came out, one of our directors was close to tears’: how we made Blake’s 7” — a “How We Made” oral history at the Guardian.

Michael E Briant, director, series one

I got the impression Blake’s 7 was just going to be “space opera” and, having worked as a director on Doctor Who, I wanted to move on and do other things, but the script for the first episode won me over. It was 1977, before the mass surveillance we have today, so the idea of everyone being watched by cameras, as that opening episode had it, seemed striking. It had shades of Nineteen Eighty-Four and felt very adult and relevant.

The series had been pitched by Terry Nation, who created Doctor Who’s Daleks. He saw it as The Dirty Dozen in Space, but that idea disappeared early on. It ended up having more in common with Robin Hood, following Blake and his rebels in their struggle against the totalitarian Federation. The BBC had commissioned Blake’s 7 as a replacement for its police series Softly, Softly: Task Force and we inherited its budget. The largest expenditure on Softly had been one character’s gabardine raincoat. Blake’s 7 was far more demanding, with futuristic costumes, props and locations. Star Wars had come out in the UK just before our first episode aired. One of the show’s other directors, Pennant Roberts, went to see it. The next morning, I found him in his office – close to tears.

The design of the rebels’ Liberator spaceship was by Roger Murray-Leach. It was marvellous, but the interior wasn’t quite what I’d envisaged. I thought a highly advanced vessel should be operated via thought alone, whereas the set we ended up with had joysticks and controls. The ship’s computer, Zen, was closer to what I’d imagined. Peter Tuddenham did Zen’s voice, hidden away in the corner with headphones and a mic. When a second computer called Orac joined the crew, Peter did it too, switching between the two voices.

Whenever we had a problem making something work electronically, this guy called Mitch Mitchell would solve it. One of his jobs was doing the dissolving body special effect whenever crew members teleported down to alien planets. He’d be sitting in the corner with an electronic pen, drawing the white outlines that appeared before they materialised….

I don’t think the show would have been the success it was without Gareth Thomas as Roj Blake. He was a truthful, clever actor and his performance lifted everyone. Sally Knyvette also brought a sense of sobriety and realism to Jenna, one of Blake’s followers, while Paul Darrow and Michael Keating brought more and more depth to the characters of Avon and Vila respectively. Watching it again now, I’m surprised how good some of it is….

(3) REMEMBERING HOWARD ANDREW JONES. Bob Byrne pays tribute in “An Important Life – Howard Andrew Jones (1968 – 2025)” at Black Gate. He begins by quoting his Facebook post.

…My buddy Howard Andrew Jones has passed away from brain cancer. You’re going to see a LOT of people singing his praises in the coming weeks. All of it deserved. If I can stop crying long enough, my Monday morning post will be on Howard.

But you’re gonna see a common thread in the talk about Howard. The impact he had on other people’s lives. Especially in encouraging and helping writers – mostly in the sword and sorcery field.

Measured by impact, Howard’s may well be the most important life in the past three-plus decades in the genre. He was relentless in being kind, helpful, encouraging, engaging – just fucking NICE – in an era when nice isn’t all that common anymore.

My favorite memories of Howard are our phone talks about hardboiled private eye fiction: not what you’d guess of one of the brightest lights in the sword and sorcery genre.

But as you read the posts about Howard here on FB, just keep noting how many people thank him for helping them. For impacting their lives and careers….

(4) ON THE FRONT. John Coulthart discusses the cover art on various editions of William Lindsay Gresham’s “Nightmare Alleys”. For example —

First edition, USA, 1946.

The first edition isn’t a great design but it happens to be faithful to the core storyline, more so than many of the covers that follow. In the film we’re left to guess what the “nightmare alley” of the title might be but in the novel this is a symbol that recurs throughout the story, a literal nightmare of Carlisle’s in which he dreams he’s being chased down a dark alleyway towards a light that remains continually out of reach. The dream weighs enough on Carlisle’s mind for him to regard it as a symbol of the human condition, or at least his soured perception of the same. The cover of the first edition combines this image with the Tarot trump of The Hanged Man which Carlisle turns up in a reading as a signifier of his destiny. Tarot scholars may quibble with this detail—The Hanged Man isn’t as doom-laden or negative as the novel suggests—but Gresham makes good use of Tarot as a structural element, with each chapter named after one of the trump cards, and with elements of the story reflecting the Tarot imagery. Given all this you’d expect cover artists to use Tarot symbolism much more than they do.

(5) FOCUS ON ANIMATION AWARD NOMINEES. “Online Film Critics Society Awards Nominated 5 Animated Features” reports Animation Magazine.

Nominations have been announced for the Online Film Critics Society Awards, which this year has put five films up for its animated feature category. Artful animated contenders also appear in other categories. Also of note, the VFX-fueled sci fi fantasy Dune: Part Two is the most-nominated project for this edition, with nine nods including Best Picture and Best Directing for Denis Villeneuve.

As awards season rolls on, the Best Animated Feature race holds no surprises for toon watchers. Up in the category are Gints Zilbalodis’ Golden Globe winner Flow, Pixar’s box office record smasher Inside Out 2, Oscar winner Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail, Aardman’s charming Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and the critically acclaimed DreamWorks feat The Wild Robot.

Outside the main toon race, The Wild Robot is nominated for Best Original Score (composer: Kris Bowers), and Flow is up for Best Film Not in the English Language….

(6) A HISTORY OF RESENTMENT. “Oscar buzz and genre snubs: will the Academy finally give sci-fi, fantasy and horror their due?” asks the Guardian.

Ah, the Oscars. That perennial exercise in Hollywood patting itself on the back with all the subtlety of a fireworks display, while the rest of us squint at our screens and wonder how many of these movies we’ve actually seen.

At least two years ago there was something for genre fans to crow about: Everything Everywhere All at Once drove all before it, making and resurrecting careers while smartly satirising Marvel’s multiverse saga before the latter even had the chance to collapse under the weight of its own convoluted timelines.

And those of us of an older vintage will always have 2004, when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King stormed the Oscars like a hobbit on second breakfast, sweeping up 11 statuettes and proving that a fantasy epic, when executed with enough heart, grandeur and bloody-minded ambition, could leave the Academy no choice but to hand over every prize in sight.

At other times it’s been easy to despair at the Academy’s unwillingness to reward fantasy fare. Genre films often dominate the technical gongs but struggle to crack the “prestige” barriers of best picture, director or acting nominations. Animated films, no matter how innovative, rarely break out of their category. The remarkable Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, for example, won best animated film in 2019 but didn’t get a nod in any of the more celebrated categories…

(7) LIFE-CHANGING BOOKS. Shelf Awareness brings us “Reading with… Samantha Sotto Yambao”.

Book you’re an evangelist for:

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It’s required reading before departing this planet. Completely and utterly depressing, but also beautiful and beyond perfection. And did I mention that it was depressing?

Book you hid from your parents:

The Sleeping Beauty series by Anne Rice. Explaining how this was not the Disney fairytale version would have been very awkward.

Book that changed your life:

I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to break the rules and choose two books. The Belgariad series by David Eddings (I know, I know. It’s a series, not a book. I’m a rebel.) and The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Minutes into a date that wasn’t a date, my now husband of 25 years and I geeked out over The Belgariad and our love for Aunt Pol’s bacon and realized that we had met our person. So yeah, I’d say The Belgariad pretty much set the course of my life from that night forward.

The Time Traveler’s Wife, meanwhile, gave me the worst book hangover. I felt so bad about Henry’s death that I swore if I ever wrote a book, my main character would never die. And so I did. And it became my debut novel, Before Ever After.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 20, 1959 — One Step Beyond series

Sixty-six years ago this evening, a new genre anthology series called Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond first aired on ABC where it would run for three years. (If you saw it in syndication, it was called just One Step Beyond.) It was created by Merwin Gerard who previously had done nothing at all of a genre nature. He was associate producer here with it actually being produced by Collier Young.

Unlike other anthology programs of the time, this series was presented in the form of docudramas. Mind you, the stories depicted hewed close to known urban legends or were remakes of let’s call them horror films on the light side. Ninety-six half-hour episodes would be filmed during its run. When it was cancelled, it was replaced by The Next Step Beyond which ran for one season of twenty-five episodes, fourteen of which were remakes of the first series.

John Newland, the original series host, and Gerard were involved in an attempt in the late Seventies to revive it. It failed miserably lasting but twenty-five episodes. As Newland stated later, “The remakes were a bad idea, we thought we could fool the audience, and we soon learned we couldn’t.”

They are legally available on YouTube now so you can see the first episode, “The Bride Possessed” here if you desire.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

January 20, 1934 — Tom Baker, 91.

By Paul Weimer: My first Doctor Who, and still the person I first bring to mind when I hear the phrase. It was PBS in the late 70’s, maybe 1980. I was starting to read science fiction, as I have detailed elsewhere. I was watching Cosmos, as I have also detailed elsewhere. And then there was Doctor Who to help seal me into the world of SFF. This was the time when Doctor Who came across the pond, and they started with the Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes. (They would eventually get them all, but they started with the fourth and then went back to the 1st and ran forward)

So, thus, Tom Baker became my first Doctor. The first Doctor Who episode I remember, and what hooked me from the get-go, was “Pyramid of Mars”. You know the one, especially since it’s recently relevant. Sutekh the Destroyer seeks to escape his Martian prison. The Doctor and Sarah Jane have to do their best with strange logic puzzles, dangerous robot mummies, and of course Sutekh himself, a being powerful enough to enslave the Doctor with his will and mind. It was a bit of science fantasy mythology, and I was hooked immediately. (And imagine my surprise when Sutekh returned in the current series. What an unexpected call back!). I eventually did get to see his entire oeuvre, from “Robot” to “Logopolis”, and his run taught me the Doctor could have modes and moods within a Doctor’s run, something not always picked up in the current incarnation of Doctor Who. The Fourth Doctor has a definite, swinging character arc that Baker brought to the role.

Besides “Pyramids of Mars”, my favorite Baker Doctor Who episode is probably “City of Death”, with a twisty plot, and perhaps the best second Romana-Doctor chemistry. I could believe why the two actors briefly married, because the second Romana and Baker’s Doctor feel like a comfortable married couple in love’s bloom and flourish, in “The City of Lights”. Although I admit the Doctor being rooked in “The Invasion of Time” and not seeing the Sontaran gambit was pretty good–it showed the Doctor could be, however briefly, outfoxed.

Tom Baker, as it turned out, wound up being more than (by some measurements) the longest running Doctor in Doctor Who. (And if the Curator is a future incarnation of the Doctor, only one of two actors to play two incarnations of the Doctor.) He had a fantastic small role in the terrible 2000 Dungeons and Dragons movie, playing an elderly elf cleric with a twinkle in his eye. He’s the narrator of Enemy Mine (previously discussed on a previous scroll) as well as doing other voice work as well in video games and elsewhere. He’s also the evil magician in the Golden Voyage of Sinbad.

Happy Ninety-first Birthday!

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Rubes illustrates how prophecies can be misunderstood
Thatababy tries to preserve the work.
Waynovision struggles with large numbers of followers.
Wizard of Id works magic with leftovers.
Brewster Rockit learns the secret invasion plan.

(11) WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. “Skeleton Crew’s Finale Almost Had a Jedi Flashback”. Gizmodo says, “Had things gone differently, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew would’ve featured a new Jedi that played a pivotal role in Jod Nawood’s development.”

The recent finale for Star Wars: Skeleton Crew finally shed some light on Jude Law’s mysterious Force user, Jod Na Nawood. Growing up as a poor kid, he was taken in by a Jedi and trained in the ways of the Force. He’s been on the run ever since he watched her die, and it turns out we would’ve met her during the sequence.

On Instagram, actor Yasmine Al Massri (who you’ve heard as Morana on Castlevania) posted photos of herself as Jod’s master, Jedi robes and doing some brief lightsaber training that would’ve presumably been her putting up a fight before her death….

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Yasmine Al Massri (@jazmasri)

(12) ANDOR BUDGET. “Star Wars: Disney Reveals the Record-Breaking Budget for the Andor Series” – Belles and Gals recites the figures.

…When it comes to expanding the Star Wars saga, Disney has not held back. The Andor series, a prequel to the acclaimed film Rogue One, has reportedly been produced with a colossal budget of $645 million for its first two seasons. This investment covers a total of 24 episodes, bringing the average cost per episode to nearly $27 million. This figure places Andor as the most expensive Star Wars series ever produced by Disney+, surpassing previous projects in both scale and financial commitment.

Tony Gilroy, the creator of Andor, expressed his enthusiasm about the series’ future prospects. “The substantial investment underscores Disney’s commitment to delivering high-quality storytelling within the Star Wars universe,” he stated. This dedication is evident in the intricate production values and compelling narratives that Andor promises to offer its audience….

(13) PAUL & PAL. [Item by Cat Eldridge.] “Dune: Part Two – Paul Atreides (Ultimate Bonus) 1/3 Scale Statue” at the Spec Fiction Shop goes for the special price of — $1,935. But wait, there’s more! Check out the desert mouse which looks suspiciously like a rabbit

(14) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. Phys.org is “Turning the Hubble tension into a crisis: New measurement confirms universe is expanding too fast for current models”.

The universe really seems to be expanding fast. Too fast, even. A new measurement confirms what previous—and highly debated—results had shown: The universe is expanding faster than predicted by theoretical models, and faster than can be explained by our current understanding of physics.

This discrepancy between model and data became known as the Hubble tension. Now, results published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters provide even stronger support for the faster rate of expansion….

…Measuring the universe requires a cosmic ladder, which is a succession of methods used to measure the distances to celestial objects, with each method, or “rung,” relying on the previous for calibration.

The ladder used by Scolnic was created by a separate team using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which is observing more than 100,000 galaxies every night from its vantage point at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Scolnic recognized that this ladder could be anchored closer to Earth with a more precise distance to the Coma Cluster, one of the galaxy clusters nearest to us.

“The DESI collaboration did the really hard part, their ladder was missing the first rung,” said Scolnic. “I knew how to get it, and I knew that that would give us one of the most precise measurements of the Hubble constant we could get, so when their paper came out, I dropped absolutely everything and worked on this non-stop.”

To get a precise distance to the Coma cluster, Scolnic and his collaborators used the light curves from 12 Type Ia supernovae within the cluster. Just like candles lighting a dark path, Type Ia supernovae have a predictable luminosity that correlates to their distance, making them reliable objects for distance calculations.

The team arrived at a distance of about 320 million light-years, nearly in the center of the range of distances reported across 40 years of previous studies—a reassuring sign of its accuracy.

“This measurement isn’t biased by how we think the Hubble tension story will end,” said Scolnic. “This cluster is in our backyard, it has been measured long before anyone knew how important it was going to be.”…

(15) EARLY SPECIAL EFFECTS LORE. Superheroes “flying” suspended from wires is just one of the “Early TV and Movie Superhero Special Effects” revealed by TVCrazyman.

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Paul Weimer, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, 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 Mark Roth-Whitworth.]

Doctor Who’s Tom Baker on New Year Honours List 2025

Posted on December 30, 2024 by Mike Glyer

More than 1,200 people have been honoured in the UK’s New Year Honours List 2025. Some of those who have done notable genre work are listed below.

The Order of the Companions of Honour

Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, O.B.E., Author and Screenwriter. For services to Literature.

Ishiguro won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature. Many of his works have fantastic elements. The Companions of Honour are a select group which is limited to 65 people at any one time.

Knights Bachelor

Stephen John Fry, President, Mind and Vice-President, Fauna & Flora International. For services to Mental Health Awareness, the Environment and to Charity.

His acting career includes many productions of genre interest, including Blackadder and the films V for Vendetta and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)

Dr. Anthony Freeman, Scientist and Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA. For services to UK/US Relations in Space and Earth Science.

Member of the Order of the British Empire

Thomas Stewart BAKER, Actor and Writer. For services to Television

He played the Fourth Doctor in the Doctor Who series.

Anne Reid MBE. Actor. For services to Drama. (London, Greater London)

Reid’s notable film roles include the voice of Wendolene Ramsbottom in Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave (1995).

Anne-Marie Duff. Actor. For services to Drama. (London, Greater London)

Ma Costa in the series His Dark Materials (2019)

Edward Maurice Charles Marsan. Actor. For services to Drama. (London, Greater London)

Voiced the Manticore in the Merlin episode “Love in the Time of Dragons”. Appeared as the practical magician Gilbert Norrell in the BBC period drama Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Played the main villain in the 2008 superhero film Hancock. Was Inspector Lestrade in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes.

Pixel Scroll 12/30/24 Look My Friend, I Happen To Know This Is The Pixel Express

Posted on December 30, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) DOCTOR WHO ACTOR ON HONOURS LIST. The King’s New Year Honours 2025 list includes several major figures of genre interest:

The Order of the Companions of Honour

Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, O.B.E., Author and Screenwriter. For services to Literature.

Ishiguro won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature, and many of his works have fantastic elements.

Knights Bachelor

Stephen John Fry, President, Mind and Vice-President, Fauna & Flora International. For services to Mental Health Awareness, the Environment and to Charity.

His varied acting career includes such productions of genre interest as TV’s Blackadder and the films V for Vendetta and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Member of the Order of the British Empire

Thomas Stewart BAKER, Actor and Writer. For services to Television

He played the Fourth Doctor in the Doctor Who series.

(2) F IS FOR FAKE. Silvia Moreno-Garcia today sent this warning to her newsletter readers:

I was going to try to show a newspaper for proof of life, but who gets newspapers these days? Anyway, it’s December 30, 2024 and there has been a scammer going around Facebook pretending to be me and trying to join writer groups. So this is a reminder:

1. All my official social media channels are listed via my website.
2. I do not direct message people, nor do I read or respond to direct messages.
3. I do not conduct business via social media or without my agent.
4. I do not offer personal advice via social media.

Don’t accept any messages from suspicious accounts! Stay safe!

(3) GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. Cora Buhlert has revealed the winner (?) of “The 2024 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents”.

…I’m thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2024 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents is…

Drumroll

Fire Lord Ozai

As voiced by Mark Hamill in the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and played by Daniel Dae Kim in the eponymous live action series, Fire Lord Ozai is the supreme ruler of the Fire Nation and a genocidal tyrant. His grandfather already wiped out the Air Nomads, while his father Fire Lord Azulon set his sights on the Earth Kingdom and Northern and Southern Water Tribes. Fire Lord Ozai, meanwhile, continues his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and tries to conquer or wipe out all other nations. He succeeds, too, and – granted near unlimited power by a passing comet – crowns himself the Phoenix King, ruler of his entire world.

After another Fire Lord accepts on his behalf –

…Scattered applause can be heard around the auditorium from those audience members who accepted the award on behalf of their parents. Hans Beimer is about to boo again, but Luke Skywalker, who’s sitting in the front row in full Jedi robes, uses a mild Force choke on him, just enough to shut him up.

At the bar in the back, Tyrion Lannister, who’s already quite drunk, calls out, “Well spoken, lad. You tell ’em, kid.”

(4) WEIRD AND WILD SCIENCE. Ian Tregillis has revealed that the “Wild Cards” universe is the basis of forthcoming article co-credited with George R.R. Martin. As he told readers of the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society newsletter:

…My last several blog posts for the Wild Cards website documented the step-by-step development of silly, yet increasingly sophisticated mathematical models for distilling the fundamental premise of Wild Cards into a concise, self-consistent physics framework. (Laying aside the unanswerable question of how any virus, extraterrestrial or otherwise, could imbue people with a panoply of physics-abusing powers.)

The work eventually reached a level where instead of writing another stupid blog post, it was worth attempting to turn the whole thing into a serious physics research article. I pitched this notion to George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass back in March.

“Ergodic Lagrangian Dynamics in a Superhero Universe”, by I. L. Tregillis & George R. R. Martin, will appear in the American Journal of Physics in early 2025.

Tregillis has previously used these thoughts to put together a whimsical (math-light, meme-heavy) hour-long presentation that takes a lay-audience through the development of this model, from first principles to the final result. To date he’s presented “The Math (& Physics) of Wild Cards” to the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society (November, 2023) and at Bubonicon 55 (August, 2024).

(5) IN PIECES. This is pretty ridiculous. The new Superman trailer redone in Lego: “Official Superman Teaser Trailer – in LEGO”.

(6) ON DISPLAY IN LA. Lauren Salerno tells readers of The Mary Sue “Science fiction has always been a space for queer expression”.

…Star Wars may be playing catch-up on representation, but science fiction fandom has been a safe space for queer expression since its modern beginnings. At the USC Fisher Museum of Art, an exhibition titled “Sci-Fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation” explores queer history in sci-fi, starting from the 1930s through to the 1960s. Art, literature, and other ephemera have been carefully curated by ONE Archives, the largest repository of LGBTQ+ materials in the world. According to Alexis Bard Johnson, the Curator at the ONE Archives and USC Libraries, the starting point for the exhibition came from noticing the sheer volume of science fiction material in the archive. Many of the items on display come from the collections of Lisa Ben and Jim Kepner. Both were queer activists who were heavily into sci-fi fandom and members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society.

It’s important to note that there are two ways of looking at the word queer. One way is a person of one gender who has attraction and desire for someone of the same gender. Another definition of queer is someone who exists outside of the mainstream. In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, people with queer identities could inhabit both of those definitions. In this way, it became a space to fit in a little more comfortably when it was not very safe to be out.

The other factor that made sci-fi fandom a haven at the time was the proliferation of fanzines. Lisa Ben and Jim Kepner learned how to produce fanzines during their time in the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. The club even had printing machinery for members to use. Lisa Ben published the first lesbian publication in the U.S., Vice Versa. Jim Kepner had his own zine called Toward Tomorrow. Having a means of production for outsider ideas along with the community built through a love for science fiction was an incredibly powerful way for queer people to find each other….

(7) IN MEMORY YET GREEN. Gizmodo has posted a genre-based in memoriam list: “Honoring the Inspiring Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy Luminaries Lost in 2024”.

In io9’s annual “in memoriam” post, we pay tribute to actors, directors, artists, composers, writers, creators, and other icons in the realms of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy that have passed. Their inspiring work has impacted the lives of so many and will live on through their legacies in the worlds of genre entertainment….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

One Million B.C. (Raquel Welch version)

By Paul Weimer: Or, WPIX strikes again.

I’ve mentioned WPIX, an independent station in NYC (channel 11) was responsible for me first seeing this movie¹. It was around when I was first watching Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, so it was around 1980 or so.

The movie is sheer nonsense. I had cause to rewatch it a couple of years ago, randomly during the height of the pandemic (big mood) when I tried to, and failed, to work from home due to technological limitations. I wanted to have something mindless on. And of all the things I could have picked, I delved into my youth and went with One Million B.C. I wound up watching more of the movie than I intended, as my laptop and my internet connection glacially struggled and my work production was minimal. (I would soon go back to the office, and in an office of 120 people, be one of ten in the building for weeks on end.)

So while I remembered a lot about this movie (and not just Raquel Welch in the famous fur bikini), there was a lot that I didn’t remember so much and got to see on the refresher. I remembered there was a big climatic battle between the two factions, for example, but the volcano erupting in the middle of it in a deus ex volcana was not something I had actively recalled. But the Triceratops fight against the small meat-eating dinosaur? I think that made a big impression on me back in the day and is why the trike is in my top three dinosaurs.

And sure, humans and dinosaurs never co-existed together, ever. But I do wonder if Stirling’s The Sky People, which is set in a universe with a habitable Venus and Mars wasn’t inspired by this film. While his Mars is all ancient civilizations, his Venus is jungles…with dinosaurs…and, cavemen (and beautiful cave women, too as it so “coincidentally” happens).

Fun fact: Apparently there is an earlier 1940 version in black and white. No fur bikinis in that one. Not only because of the mores of the 1940’s…but bikinis themselves had not yet been invented yet! I’ve never seen it. I wonder if any Filer has?

Anyway, the remake is mindless fun, still.

¹ The luxury of pre-cable TV in New York was in retrospect incredible: CBS (2), NBC (4) ABC (7). Independent stations on 5 (later, Fox) 9 (later the CW), and WPIX 11 the biggest of the independents (later WB). 13 was PBS, and then there were other PBS stations including 21, and 50 (50 showing the Doctor Who “movies” I’ve mentioned before). So the Independents really could specialize and WPIX specialized in movies. They called themselves “New York’s Movie Station” and meant it.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

The Argyle Sweater skipped the requirements.
Dinosaur Comics rewrites Sherlock.
Frank and Ernest might need more popcorn.
Off the Mark has a very thorough cat.
Rubes demonstrates an unusually powerful insect spray.

(10) D&D UPDATE BRINGS CONFLICT. The New York Times explores how “D&D Rule Changes Involving Race and Identity Divide Players”. (Link bypasses the paywall.)

While solving quests in Dungeons & Dragons, the gamers who role-play as elves, orcs and halflings rely on the abilities and personalities of their custom-made characters, whose innate charisma and strength are as crucial to success as the rolls of 20-sided dice.

That is why the game’s first significant rule changes in a decade, which became official this fall as it celebrated its 50th anniversary, reverberated through the Dungeons & Dragons community and beyond. They prompted praise and disdain at game tables everywhere, along with YouTube harangues and irritated social media posts from Elon Musk.

“Races” are now “species.” Some character traits have been divorced from biological identity; a mountain dwarf is no longer inherently brawny and durable, a high elf no longer intelligent and dexterous by definition. And Wizards of the Coast, the Dungeons & Dragons publisher owned by Hasbro, has endorsed a trend throughout role-playing games in which players are empowered to halt the proceedings if they ever feel uncomfortable.

“What they’re trying to do here is put up a signal flare, to not only current players but potential future players, that this game is a safe, inclusive, thoughtful and sensitive approach to fantasy storytelling,” said Ryan Lessard, a writer and frequent Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master.

The changes have exposed a rift among Dungeons & Dragons players, a group as passionate as its pursuit is esoteric, becoming part of the broader cultural debate about how to balance principles like inclusivity and accessibility with history and tradition.

Robert J. Kuntz, an award-winning game designer who frequently collaborated with Gary Gygax, a co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, said he disliked Wizards of the Coast’s efforts to legislate from above rather than provide room for dungeon masters — the game’s ringleaders and referees — to tailor their individual campaigns.

“It’s an unnecessary thing,” he said. “It attempts to play into something that I’m not sure is even worthy of addressing, as if the word ‘race’ is bad.”…

(11) BY GEORGE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Ryan George took Christmas week off, so to speak, but strung together his 10 favorite episodes from 2024 in a one-hour Pitch Meeting compilation. “Pitch Meeting: Ryan George’s Picks For 2024”.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George takes us inside the “Kraven the Hunter Pitch Meeting”.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Daniel Dern, 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 Jim Janney.]

Pixel Scroll 11/7/24 I Came Upon A Scroll Of God, He Was Pixeling Down The Road

Posted on November 7, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) LUKYANENKO ON PROGRAM AT “INVENTING THE FUTURE” IN MOSCOW. Monday 4th through Wednesday 6th saw the staging of the “Inventing the Future” (aka “Creating the Future” in some English language coverage) event in Moscow. Although billed on its website as an “International Science Fiction Symposium”, neither its stated mission nor agenda made any mention of science fiction:

MISSION

To rekindle society’s interest in designing the future.

AGENDA

The Symposium is a unique space for dialogue among nations about the future of the world. The event is initiated by Russia. Government and business representatives, scientists and engineers, futurists and forecasters, public figures, and representatives of creative industries from BRICS, SCO, CIS countries, and other foreign states, that share the idea of a multipolar world are invited to join the event.

Looking at the schedule, SF writers were on several panels, but seemingly never more than one per panel. The writers on these panels were mostly Russian, but there were also Italian, Serbian and Chinese authors involved. The impression given was that science fiction was of far less relevance than the interests of the Russian state, perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was a speaker, and at least one point, the image of Vladimir Putin was shown on the video wall behind the stage. Another speaker apparently compared Steve Jobs to Hitler.

The highest profile SF figure in attendance was Chengdu Worldcon GoH Sergey Lukyanenko, who was on three panels on Tuesday. A member of staff of the Chengdu SF Museum was also on a panel about museums, and played back a promo video which included clips from their Worldcon.

Sergey Lukyanenko (second from left) on a panel; Source: event’s website

Panel discussing museums; Source: event’s website

A 5-minute “news” item from Russia Today hosted on the right-wing Rumble video platform can be viewed here. (Note: Russia Today is banned on most Western platforms now.) In one shot an image of Cixin Liu can be seen on a rotating video display behind the reporter for a couple of seconds – which may not be enough reason to look….

(2) THREE MOVIES STILL FAR, FAR AWAY. Variety has revealed a “Star Wars New Movie Trilogy: Simon Kinberg Writing”. It’s in early development and the production timeline is still unknown.

“X-Men” alum Simon Kinberg is preparing to visit a galaxy far, far away.

Lucasfilm is developing a new “Star Wars” trilogy with Kinberg set to write and produce the three films with studio chief Kathleen Kennedy. This will begin a new series with new characters after “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac, concluded the original nine-chapter “Skywalker Saga” in 2019. Though plot details haven’t been revealed, Lucasfilm has disputed the notion, first suggested by Deadline in their initial report of the forthcoming trilogy, that Kinberg’s movies will continue the story that George Lucas began with 1977’s “A New Hope,” introducing Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Han Solo and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia….

(3) 2025 WORLDCON ISSUES CALL FOR ACADEMIC PARTICIPANTS. Seattle Worldcon 2025 has issued a “World Science Fiction Convention Academic Track Call for Participants”. Queries, proposals, and any other correspondence may be directed to: Dr. Douglas A. Van Belle at doug.vanbelle@vuw.ac.nz or doug.vanbelle@seattlein2025.org. [Click for larger image.]

(4) WHAT DYSTOPIAS AND HOTCAKES HAVE IN COMMON TODAY. “Sales surge for dystopian books after Trump election victory” – the Guardian has some figures.

Books about democracy, dystopia, tyranny, feminism and far-right politics rapidly climbed bestseller charts in the wake of Donald Trump winning the US presidential election.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, set in a totalitarian society in which women are forced to reproduce, moved up more than 400 places, and is currently third in the US Amazon Best Sellers chart.

On Tyranny by historian Timothy Snyder now sits at spot eight, after climbing hundreds of places over the past day. Readers are also turning to George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four, which has moved up to 16th place.

Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick is near the top of the Movers and Shakers chart – which ranks the books with the largest sales increases over the past 24 hours – after the book saw a more than 30,000% boost in sales.

Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me is also among the biggest gainers, having climbed more than 40,000 places over the past day. The 2014 collection of feminist essays now sits in the mid-300s on the bestseller chart.

(5) CANCELLING THE U.S. Steve Davidson would like to be the first to announce the United States is no longer a suitable country to host the Worldcon. Your mileage may vary. He wrote on Facebook today:

…You know all of those discussions that were had prior to the Chengdu Worldcon, where I and others were protesting the hosting of a Worldcon in an Authoritarian country whose social values were not reflective of Fandom’s own?

I suggested at the time that WSFS adopt some kind of rule that took into account the human rights/democracy/freedom status of a potential hosting country, and not allow bids from those countries that did not meet minimal criteria?

At the time, a fairly common push-back was that I’d not apply those same criteria to the United States. That I was being “elitist” and “gatekeeping” by making such a statement.

Well, I’m making it now. For at least the next four years the United States will not be a suitable country for hosting Worldcon. It will not be a country that is generally reflective of Fannish values.

It may very well become a country that is hostile to those values.

Now, we can’t do anything about Seattle in 2025 or LA in 2026 – they’re largely set in stone by a different example of the democratic process, and Quebec is bidding for 2027 and Brisbane for 2028, so we may not have to worry about this for a few years.

On the other hand, the US may not be a safe place for many planning on attending Seattle and LA by the time they roll around. I think both committees should be taking that into consideration as they plan their events….

(6) SOAKING UP BRADBURY STORIES. I think this is more like what I am in the mood for today: “Timothy Reads ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’” at Camestros Felapton.

…As the old nursery rhyme goes: “Rain, rain, go away, stop inspiring Rain Brad-baray”. Surprisingly, Rain Bradbury was from Los Angeles and not Manchester but if you think about that it makes sense because it probably doesn’t rain much in Los Angeles, so he was probably always thinking “I wish it would rain”. Now if he was from Manchester, he’d have ended up writing miserable songs about being miserable and the world already has Morrissey to do that….

… What I need you all to do is concentrate really hard. Make the kind of face that I make on the litter box. Somewhere between screwing your features into a ball and yet looking like you are staring into the soul of the universe. Excellent. Now take yourself into the mind of young Rain Bradbury….

(7) PRAISE FOR THE FOURTH DOCTOR. Radio Times hears from Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies as “Doctor Who showrunners celebrate Tom Baker’s ‘miraculous’, ‘genius’ era”.

…[Steven Moffat] added that he loves the fact that Tom Baker’s Doctor “knows he’s on TV”, referencing how he even talks to the camera on a couple of occasions.

“We’ve never quite stopped that,” he continued. “There’s an awareness about it all that means it simply doesn’t matter that the giant rat [in Talons] is a bit silly, because have you noticed Li H’sen Chang?!

“And it doesn’t matter that Li H’sen Chang’s a bit silly, because have you noticed how c**p his plan is?

“It just doesn’t matter, because the show is thoroughly enjoying riffing on those horror tropes, and you’re not meant to take things like giant rats and mummies and Frankenstein’s monster seriously – unless there’s something genuinely wrong with you.”…

(8) OCTOTHORPE. In Episode 122 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Topical Pumpkin” —

We discuss letters of comment, hybrid conventions, awards and the recent news about Oghenochovwe Donald Ekpeki. Pumpkin carved by our very own Alison Scott.

An uncorrected transcript of the episode is available here.

A pumpkin carved with an image of Beetlejuice, with the words “Episode 122” at the top of the image and “Octothorpe, Octothorpe, Octothorpe” at the bottom.

(9) KAZUO UMEZU (1936-2024). “Legendary ‘god of horror’ manga artist Kazuo Umezu dies at 88” – GamesRadar+ pays tribute.

…His work on classics like The Drifting Classroom, My Name is Shingo, Cat Eyed Boy, and God’s Left Hand, Devil’s Right Hand is widely beloved by manga readers, while also being regarded as hugely influential on a wide range of other artists, including the likes of Junji Ito, Minetarō Mochizuki, and Urusei Yatsura creator Rumiko Takahashi, who worked as his assistant for a short time….

…Umezu moved to Tokyo in 1963 and really began to hone his style – a distinctive combination of shōjo aesthetics and horror imagery – with stories usually about children facing overwhelming supernatural forces. Nekome no Shōjo and Reptilia, the latter about a monstrous snake woman, were both published in manga magazine Shōjo Friend and proved hugely popular with readers.

As the ’60s came to an end, Umezu began to publish in shonen magazines. His epic story The Drifting Classroom – about a classroom of school children transported into a terrifying post-apocalyptic future – ran between 1972 and 1974 in Weekly Shōnen Sunday and left an eerie mark on the imagination of a generation of manga readers thanks to its terrifying nuclear themes….

…While horror is the genre that Umezu is best known for, he was a very versatile artist, also drawing comedy and science fiction manga, such as the goofy Makoto-chan and My Name is Shingo for Big Comic Spirits from 1982 to 1986, which proved to be another hit and one that was later honored at the prestigious Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2016….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born November 7, 1960 — Linda Nagata, 64.

By Paul Weimer: I am an old school fan of Nagata’s work, going back to her “first iteration” as a space opera/far future/cyberpunk author with the Nanotech Succession novels beginning with The Bohr Maker. The combination of space opera, post-humanity, and thriller was a winning combination for me, and I read the remaining books in that series eagerly.

Nagata went quiet in SFF circles for a while. I enjoyed her forays into fantasy, but kept hoping that she would “Return” to the good stuff, posthumans and high tech in space. She did eventually (see below) but before she got there, she burst back on the SF scene with a near future story of AI, soldiers and the costs of continual war and violence, THE RED. The Red was notable in being a rare (if perhaps the first, maybe) self-published book that got a Nebula nomination. This was the Nagata whose work I remembered, and it knocked my socks off and brought me “back” to her reading fold, as did its sequels.

The Inverted Frontier series, however, is her best work yet. Set in the same world as the Nanotech Succession novels but centuries later (and featuring a couple of the characters and places of that series), the Blade books are a bold stamp on future post-human high tech SF of a kind that is relatively uncommon these days (Marina Lostetter’s Noumenon series comes to mind). The Blade series has an episodic and pyramid building format, as a group of post humans, almost in BSG style are headed toward a shining beacon known as…Earth. Actually, they don’t know what has happened to Earth but they have decided to find out. Between other post humans acting as Gods, strange aliens, very dangerous reality-shaping technology and much more. The last, and final book, as of this writing is to come, and I am very curious to see where Nagata takes this series. I don’t think you need to read the Nanotech Succession books to read the Inverted Frontier novels, but it does help a bit with context.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit shows how it’s really going to be.
Crabgrass shows you can check out (the book) any time you want, but you can never leave (the series).
The Argyle Sweater serves unwanted drinks.
Wizard of Id decides it pays to advertise.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal knows credentials.

(12) A BIG DEAL. Episode 6 of Scott Edelman’s Why Not Say What Happened? podcast features “A Highly Redacted 1978 DC Comics Poker Game”.

With the future seeming bleak, I felt the need to gaze into the past instead, sharing about the day in 1970 I met Jim Steranko, the reason I continually cause archivists to cry, my day trip to see Steve Ditko’s pre-Marvel sketch of Dr. Strange, my night at a highly redacted 1978 DC Comics poker game, which writing of mine Barry Malzberg immediately suggested I burn, the thickness of time at the 1979 Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop, why, when, and where I intend to destroy fifty years of journals, and more.

(13) CENTENARIAN POOH. “How Does It Feel to Turn 100? Ask Winnie-the-Pooh” – an imagined chat in the New York Times. (Regrettably, behind a paywall.)

“Pooh,” I said, “your stories have a Distinctive and Irresistible Manner.”

“Do they?” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

“Oh yes,” I said, “it’s practically contagious. Have you heard of the Walt Disney Company? They make versions of your stories. They aren’t very interesting versions, but they’ve made the company extremely rich.”

“That is a fine thing for them,” said Pooh. “If you are Extremely Rich, you can have as much honey as you want.”

“Certainly you may. You could probably fill a lake with honey.”

“I can’t imagine that would be very helpful,” said Pooh, “for the Fish.”

“No indeed. It’s unfortunate in some ways. But still, you must enjoy being so famous.”…

(14) OZ ICONS WILL GO ON THE BLOCK. “Hollywood/Entertainment Signature® Auction Featuring the Ruby Slippers” on December 7. The Wicked Witch of the West’s hat will also be up for bidding.

The Ruby Slippers are much more than a Hollywood artifact—they represent the essence of innocence and imagination, captivating millions who stand in awe before them each year at The Smithsonian. This extraordinary pair, known as Michael Shaw’s Ruby Slippers, is one of only four remaining from the original MGM production of The Wizard of Oz. Separated from their Smithsonian counterparts in 1970, these slippers have toured the country and were displayed at the Judy Garland Museum before their infamous theft and dramatic FBI recovery in 2018.

Handcrafted by the Innes Shoe Co., these slippers are richly detailed with sequined silk georgette, white leather linings, and rhinestone-bedecked bows, bearing Judy Garland’s name written inside in block letters. Forensically verified as screen-worn in scenes like the iconic heel-tap, they offer unmatched authenticity and historical value. With exquisite burgundy hues preserved by careful storage, these Ruby Slippers are primed to become the centerpiece of any world-class collection.

The Wicked Witch of the West’s hat from The Wizard of Oz stands alongside the Ruby Slippers as one of the most iconic Hollywood artifacts of all time. This vintage, screen-worn hat, designed by Adrian and originally acquired by renowned collector Michael Shaw in 1970, embodies cinematic history. For the first time since the infamous 2005 theft of Shaw’s Ruby Slippers—now recovered and also up for auction—this Wicked Witch hat reunites with its legendary counterpart.

Constructed of black wool bunting, with a 20-inch elastic chinstrap used during Margaret Hamilton’s flying scenes, the hat features an MGM Studio label inside the rim, handwritten “M. Hamilton.” Its authenticity is further reinforced by its inclusion in The Wizardry of Oz and expert matching to the Munchkinland introduction scene where Hamilton’s menacing character looms over Oz. Complete with a custom display head capturing Hamilton’s terrifying expression, this hat’s cultural significance transcends generations, symbolizing the dark allure of Hollywood’s greatest villain.

(15) BUY THE TARDIS. Meanwhile, at a Propstore auction, “Doctor Who fans have chance to bid for Jodie Whittaker’s actual TARDIS”; Radio Times has details.

Doctor Who fans have a chance to buy Jodie Whittaker’s TARDIS from Eve of the Daleks in an upcoming auction to benefit BBC Children in Need.

The episode finds the Thirteenth Doctor (Whittaker) and her companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) as they attempt to escape a time loop on New Year’s Eve – while also avoiding a Dalek trapped there with them.

The auction starts on Friday 15th November at 5pm and goes on until the same time on Saturday 23rd November, with the coveted item expected to reach between £10,000 and £20,000 for the annual fundraiser. Propstore is handling the sale.

(16) YOUR NATIONAL MEMORY HOLE AT WORK. ArtNet has learned “The National Archives Museum Is Under Fire for Allegedly Scrubbing Difficult Historical Events”.

…The National Archives Museum, under the leadership of U.S. Archivist Colleen Shogan and her top advisers at the National Archives and Records Administration, has allegedly modified planned and existing exhibits involving subjects like the government’s treatment of Native Americans and the history of birth control medication in favor of more anodyne subjects, according to numerous anonymous staffers speaking to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story.

The museum is planning a $40 million overhaul ahead of the 2026 anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

“Visitors shouldn’t feel confronted, they should feel welcomed,” a senior official told employees according to the Journal.

Shogan and her advisors reportedly were concerned that planned exhibits might anger Republicans, who have partial oversight over the museum’s budgets, or a potential second Trump administration….

… In a reply to the Wall Street Journal published on the organization’s blog, Shogan criticized the paper’s “misinformed perspective” but did not refute any of the acts alleged in its reporting. Asked by Artnet News to refute individual allegations by staffers, a press rep instead offered a website including renderings and descriptions of the planned galleries.

One exhibit at the museum involves a photo booth in which visitors can have their own image superimposed next to images of historic figures. Reportedly removed from this display were images of civil rights crusader Martin Luther King Jr., labor union activist Dolores Huerta, and the first Native American woman to join the Marine Corps, Minnie Spotted-Wolf. Senior aides to Shogan ordered these images removed and replaced with non-controversial shots of Republican presidents, including Richard Nixon greeting Elvis Presley, and Ronald Reagan with baseball star Cal Ripken Jr., according to the Journal….

(17) WILL THEY SLICE THE ICE? “Antarctica: is coldest continent heading for chaos?” asks The Week.

For over 60 years Antarctica has been a “veritable Shangri-La”, said The Economist, “untouched by war, unspoilt by humans, where all nationalities are welcome”.

While Britain, Argentina, Australia, Norway, France, New Zealand and Chile have long held territorial claims over the vast continent, since 1961 it has been governed by the Antarctic Treaty which guaranteed its use for peaceful purposes and scientific research.

The treaty has “endured and expanded” for so long “due partly to its wisdom and partly because defying it, in practical terms, is hard to do”, wrote former Royal Navy icebreaker captain Tom Sharpe in The Telegraph. There has been the sense though that “as soon as Antarctica’s vast resources become economically worth the risk of exploiting, this would change….

… For decades The Antarctic Treaty was “widely regarded as a model of effective global co-operation”, said The Economist. It froze any future territorial claims, effectively removing it from the Cold War geopolitical struggle waged elsewhere around the world between the capitalist West and the Soviet Union.

“But now this model is falling apart” as China, Russia, and other emerging nations threaten a new scramble for control of the resource-rich continent.

The US still has the largest footprint on the continent, but China’s is growing the fastest. It recently completed its fifth base “for scientific purposes” and as it strengthens its presence has been accused of “teaming up with Russia to up-end governance in this critical polar region”, The Maritime Executive reported….

(18) A GORN FOOTPRINT? Geological news: “TMU Students Discover First Mammalian Footprint Fossil At Vasquez Rocks”. Does this photo bring back memories? That’s the inspiration for the title.

In September, TMU students and alumni presented seven research abstracts to the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Anaheim, California. GSA is an international academic conference representing the earth sciences.

However, one presentation garnered more attention. “Doggy Go Walkies” was a TMU research project on a fossil footprint found at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area.

“I took students out to Vasquez Rocks for an Essentials of Geology lab. A couple of students were pointing at mud cracks and we looked down and there was a tiny footprint. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was the first fossil footprint ever found in the park,” said Dr. Matthew McLain, Dean of the School of Science, Math, Technology & Health and associate professor of biology and geology, in an article for TMU.

According to Dr. McLain, footprints were from a hesperocyontine, a small carnivore that is now extinct but distantly related to North American canines.

“It’s cool to know, of course, what kind of animals were walking around here in the past. We’ve got a few tracks on the same surface, and so that’s exciting to learn a little bit about what animals were doing in the past out here, and we’re hoping to go and find some more tracks in that area, because there should be animals like camels walking around. There’s some other things you would expect to find. And so it’s just giving us a window into the past world that California had,” Dr. McLain said….

(19) YOU’VE GOT SYMPATHY CARDS. “Voice of AOL’s Iconic ‘You’ve Got Mail’ Alert Dies at 74” reports Gizmodo.

Millennials, pour one out. TMZ reports that Elwood Edwards, the voice behind AOL’s iconic “You’ve Got Mail” audio message, has died at age 74. His former employer, WKYC-TV Studios in Cleveland, confirmed that Edwards died of an unknown illness.

Elwood is said to have worked at WKYC-TV in Ohio for years operating cameras and working graphics, among other roles. In 1989 he was paid $200 to record four different lines for AOL, then a burgeoning provider of dial-up internet and a web portal: “Welcome,” “You’ve Got Mail,” “Files Done,” and “Goodbye.” Sometimes AOL would trigger the “You’ve Got Mail” message even if you didn’t have mail, which would always get the heart pumping in those adolescent courtship days.

AOL was an internet pioneer back in the ’90s, bringing many people online for the first time. It introduced the public to new forms of communication, like instant messaging and chat rooms. Portals were a big idea back then — Prodigy and CompuServe also offered a broad range of online services like email, for a fee….

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, 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 Jon Meltzer.]

Pixel Scroll 12/26/23 Warning – Spindizzy Recall! Your City May Auto-Return Abruptly!

Posted on December 26, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) TO THE NASFIC AND BEYOND. A chapter of Sandra Bond’s Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund trip saga appears in the new issue of Geri Sullivan’s fanzine Idea 13. Says S&ra, “It contains my report on Pemmi-Con with detailed thoughts on What Went Wrong With It And Why.”

Day thirteen of TAFF, unlucky for some. Sandra Bond – already befuddled by her travels and overwhelmed by the generosity of North American fans – has left Minneapolis and has hitched a lift with Minnesota fans Curt Gibson and Alice Ableman in Curt’s mom’s SUV, riding north for NASFiC. No, you haven’t missed any previous instalments; they will be published elsewhere, in due course, and eventually a complete version will follow. I’m starting with this chapter, partly because Geri is publishing it and chapter 1 will largely be about her as my first host, and partly in order to air some issues arising from Pemmi-Con while the iron, so to speak, is hot….

Here’s a taste of those hot iron issues. Think of it as what the 2023 Worldcon experience would have looked like if Chengdu had not wrested it away from Winnipeg.

… (The programme as a whole showed every sign of having been thrown together by robots with no human eyes; for instance, the registration field had a space for you to enter your “organization.” I had put “TAFF”, which was fine, but Tanya Huff had foolishly essayed a little joke by putting “I am not at all organized” in that field, and was rewarded by having that phrase appended to her name on every single programme item featuring her. Others were flagged as variations on “n/a” or “–”, or found themselves billed as representing the organisation of “Myself” (Rich Horton) or “Julie E. Czerneda” (go on, guess). And Nisi Shawl – a fucking guest of honor, and consequently on many programme items – was accompanied on every occasion by the tag “I believe you already have my bio and photo.” Apparently they didn’t, since her “photo” was the generic one used for people who hadn’t supplied any.)…

(2) WHEN NEEDS MUST. The BBC interviewed a fan who remembers “When Tom Baker popped in to watch Doctor Who”. The experience wasn’t quite like when Dustin Hoffman needed to see “Wapner” in Rain Man, but was not entirely unlike it, either.

The time is November 1976, and the space is the Nuneaton branch of Radio Rentals, the old TV stockist that was once a familiar high street fixture. Pauline Bennett remembers being on shift there when a “very smart chap” walks in with a strange request.

“He came in about five o’clock and said he and Tom Baker needed to watch the Doctor Who episode that was going to be on shortly,” she said.

Titular star Baker had been travelling back from the show’s exhibition in Blackpool with BBC manager Terry Sampson when the pair were delayed by fog.

They had turned off the motorway heading for the town, hoping to persuade someone to let them watch the show, the first to feature filming at an outside location, she explained….

(3) FREE AT LAST. Jennifer Jenkins, Director, Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, tells us what we can look forward to on “Public Domain Day 2024” at the Duke University School of Law blog.

On January 1, 2024, thousands of copyrighted works from 1928 will enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1923. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. This year’s highlights include Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht, Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman and Cole Porter’s Let’s Do It, and a trove of sound recordings from 1923. And, of course, 2024 marks the long-awaited arrival of Steamboat Willie – featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse – into the public domain. That story is so fascinating, so rich in irony, so rife with misinformation about what you will be able to do with Mickey and Minnie now that they are in the public domain that it deserved its own article, “Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: a 95-year Love Triangle.” Why is it a love triangle? What rights does Disney still have? How is trademark law involved? Read all about it here. …

(4) NO WAITING FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN HERE. In “’Gale: Stay Away From Oz’ Offers a Horror Take on ‘The Wizard of Oz’”, The Mary Sue reminds everyone this 30-minute short already was released in September.

…In 2023, The Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum entered the public domain. That means anyone can take those characters or the world of Oz and reimagine them in brand-new stories. The independent short horror film Gale: Stay Away From Oz does just that. According to IMDB, Gale‘s official summary is “Long gone are the days of emerald cities and yellow brick roads. In this dark re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale is now an elderly woman, broken by years of paranormal entanglement with a mystical realm.” Emily Gale, the granddaughter of Dorothy, reconnects with her grandmother and the mystical realm that haunts her.

Unlike Winnie the Pooh, which also got the horror treatment, the original stories of Dorothy already lend themselves to the horror genre. Who hasn’t watched Return to Oz and felt terrified? With Gale: Stay Away From Oz, it seems like the curse of Oz haunts any of Dorothy’s descendants, which makes for an even creepier connection. So when is Gale: Stay Away From Oz coming out and where can you watch it?…

(5) AT THE NIMOY. “Mr. Spock’s Widow Puts on a Show” – and The New Yorker profiles her.

The other day, Susan Bay Nimoy—actress, writer, director, philanthropist, and widow of Leonard—stood at the entrance of a historic Art Deco theatre in Westwood, which she had helped to restore and convert to a live-performance space. On the marquee, lit bulbs spelled out the theatre’s new name: the Nimoy.

“There’s a lot of history,” Bay Nimoy, an exuberant eighty-year-old, said. “I called Jane Fonda and asked if she would come to the press opening, because her mother, Frances, funded the theatre.” More history: during the Second World War, newsreels played at the theatre; “Dr. Strangelove” had its first L.A. screening there, in 1964. Two decades later, when Disney managed the theatre, “Three Men and a Baby” was the opening film. Leonard was the director; Bay Nimoy accompanied him to the première. “It was certainly in the eighties, because I wore a black suit with big shoulder pads, with a lot of jewelled things on them,” she said….

… “Leonard and I came from very poor backgrounds. His father was a barber. My dad was an accountant,” Bay Nimoy said. The couple invested their Hollywood earnings in California real estate and contemporary art. “Leonard was not a fancy person,” she went on. When they met, she said, “I was driving a Honda.” Their goal was to give their children—he had two, she had one—a buffer, and no more. “They will not be gabillionaires, but they have a leg up,” she said. “And the rest we’re giving away.” They built a Jewish day school (their rabbi asked them to), a new theatre at Griffith Observatory (Leonard loved outer space), and a theatre for Symphony Space, in New York (where Leonard used to perform short stories)….

(6) NOTHING YOU HAVEN’T THOUGHT OF YOURSELF. Maris Kreizman tells New York Times Readers “Let’s Rescue Book Lovers From This Online Hellscape”.

… In an ideal world — one in which it wasn’t owned by Amazon — Goodreads would have the functionality of a site like Letterboxd, the social network for movie fans. Letterboxd has called itself “Goodreads for movies” but it has far surpassed that initial tag line, having figured out how to create a smooth and intuitive user experience, provide a pleasant and inviting community and earn revenue from both optional paid memberships and advertisers, including studios that produce the films being discussed. Meanwhile, publishers still rely on Goodreads to find potential readers, but targeted advertising has grown both less affordable and less effective.

So how to fix it? It starts with people: Goodreads desperately needs more human moderation to monitor the goings-on. Obviously, part of any healthy discussion is the ability to express displeasure — those one-star reviews, ideally accompanied by well-argued rationales, are sacrosanct — but Goodreads has enabled the weaponization of displeasure.

It’s not just fledgling authors being pummeled. Earlier this year, Elizabeth Gilbert, the best-selling author of “Eat, Pray, Love,” decided to withdraw a forthcoming novel, “The Snow Forest,” after Goodreads users bombarded its page with one-star reviews objecting primarily to the fact that the novel (which no one had yet read) was set in Russia and would be published at a time when Russia and Ukraine were at war. There is most likely no way to eliminate personal attacks entirely from the site — or from the internet, for that matter — but having more human beings on hand to mitigate the damage would certainly improve the experience.

Fortifying the guard rails wouldn’t be that difficult. Currently Goodreads uses volunteer librarians who add new books to the site’s database in their free time. Hiring these people (and scores more like them) and paying them a living wage would empower Goodreads’s representatives to communicate with publishers, large and small, to facilitate posting books to the site when, and only when, a book has actually been written and edited and is ready to be shared with the world….

(7) CURING YOUR WHO HANGOVER. In the unlikely event that you need somebody to explain the Doctor Who Christmas Special to you, The Hollywood Reporter has volunteered. “’Doctor Who’ Christmas Special “The Church on Ruby Road,” Explained”. For everyone else, beware spoilers. The following excerpt is a little spoilery though not prohibitively so, I thought.

…Initially, Mrs. Flood would appear to be just a normal neighbor. Nothing unusual about her, until we see her sitting down to enjoy the TARDIS dematerializing. Something that most humans would balk at.

However, not for Mrs. Flood. In fact, at the end of the episode, she says to her understandably shocked neighbor (who also witnessed The Doctor’s ship disappearing), “Never seen a TARDIS before?”

And, if this wasn’t enough, she looks directly down the camera and winks. Mrs. Flood is clearly someone to be reckoned with, and undoubtedly will make a return. But is she a familiar character in the Whoniverse? (Time Lords change their appearance quite regularly.) Or, is this a new friend/foe for The Doctor? Names have often hinted at deeper connections and meanings in Doctor Who (see Melody Pond and River Song, for example) — is there a clue here?

Mrs. Flood is played by Anita Dobson, who will be known to many in the U.K. as she made a name for herself as alcoholic landlady Angie Watts in the BBC’s long-running soap, Eastenders. An accomplished stage actress, Dobson is also married to Brian May, guitarist for rock outfit Queen (who’ve had a number of songs feature memorably in Doctor Who, such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Don’t Stop Me Now”)….

(8) IT ONLY GETS WORSE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Did you get new clothes for Christmas? Then beware Jólakötturinn, the gigantic Yule Cat, which will chase you down and eat you if you don’t wear those clothes! “Meet the Yule Cat, an Icelandic folklore beast who eats children” on NPR.

… That’s right. A child’s worst nightmare — new clothes under the tree — could only be outdone by a somehow worse nightmare, being devoured by a ferocious feline that hunts down children caught not wearing their new clothes.

The tale of Jólakötturinn, which translates to Yule Cat, is an Icelandic Christmas classic dating back to at least 1932, according to the Icelandic Folklore website, a research project managed by the University of Iceland….

(9) THE COMPUTER SAYS ‘CHEESE!’ “A.I. Is the Future of Photography. Does That Mean Photography Is Dead?” wonders Gideon Jacobs in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

John Szarkowski, the legendary curator at the MoMA, once described photography as “the act of pointing.” And for the nearly 200 years since its inception, photography has consisted of capturing a visual perspective from the physical world using light — first with light-sensitive plates, then film, then digital sensors. When digital cameras became widely available, many photographers lamented the move away from analog technology but basically Szarkowski’s definition still held: Photography consists of pointing, as a reaction to something that exists in the world.

With advent of A.I. image generators, however, this definition feels obsolete.

Generative A.I. tools can produce photorealistic images, typically in response to written prompts. These images are available for purchase from major stock photography agencies, alongside traditional photos. They routinely go viral before being debunked. They even occasionally win prestigious photography prizes. All if which has reignited a two-centuries-old debate: What exactly qualifies as a photograph?

… Artists, writers and theorists have long remarked on our very human tendency to project slippery ideas about truth onto two dimensional surfaces. In 1921, Franz Kafka was told about a miraculous machine that could automatically take one’s portrait, a “mechanical Know-Thyself.” He offered up his own name for the apparatus: “The Mistake-Thyself.” Kafka was ahead of his time — in Susan Sontag’s 1977 essay “In Plato’s Cave,” she wrote, “Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.” Each photograph, she argued, is inevitably the product of countless decisions informed, consciously or not, by the photographer’s predilections and biases, as well as the limits and parameters of the technology.

So when I hear some people calling the arrival of A.I. an extinction-level event for photography, I often think of the French painter Paul Delaroche who, legend has it, declared painting “dead” after seeing a daguerreotype, one of the first photographic inventions. Painting did not die; it just evolved into a different kind of artistry, freed from the obligations of verisimilitude….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born December 26, — Elisha Cook, Jr. (Died 1995.) His first major role was the psychopathic killer Wilmer Cook in the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon. Yeah there are two versions, I’ve never seen the earlier version. Anyone here seen it?

Now as for genre roles, his first was a Boris Korloff film, Voodoo Island, in which he was Martin Schuyler. Adam West is here in his first film role, uncredited.

His next horror film with Vincent Price, House on Haunted Hill, in which he was Watson Pritchard, is interesting because exterior shots of the house were filmed at the historic Ennis House in Los Feliz, California, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1924.

Here’s a curious one for you. The Haunted Palace is a horror film starring Vincent Price Lon Chaney Jr. in which he’s Micah Smith / Peter Smith. The film was marketed as based on a Poe title but only the title is from him – the plot is from Lovecraft’s “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” novella.

I saw Rosemary’s Baby once in which he played Mr. Nicklas. That was more than enough, thank you. Hey, he’s in the original The Night Stalker movie as Mickey Crawford. Neat. And next up is being Gordon “Weasel” Phillips in Salem’s Lot, a scary film indeed.

Most memorable series appearance? As Samuel T. Cogley, Esq in Star Trek’s “Court Martial” episode of course. He also made a Wild, Wild West appearance as Gideon McCoy in “The Night of the Bars of Hell”, the new Twilight Zone in “Welcome to Winfield” as Weldon, The Bionic Woman in “Once a Thief” as Inky and in ALF in “We’re So Sorry, Uncle Albert” as Uncle Albert. Oh, and his first television appearance was on the Adventures of Superman in “Semi-Private Eye” as Homer Garrity.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Frank and Ernest are forced to think outside the box.
Thatababy makes sure there are enough bumps in your Christmas.

(12) EJECT! Arturo Serrano declares “Rebel Moon is the most Snyder that Snyder has ever been” at Nerds of a Feather. And that’s not a good thing.

One could summarize Rebel Moon as “the Zack Snyder of Star Wars,” which would sound mean-spirited if it weren’t its literal description. Conceived originally as Snyder’s pitch for Lucasfilm and eventually rescued by Netflix, Rebel Moon files off the Star Wars serial numbers just enough to prevent lawsuits from the Mouse. As you would expect, it tells the story of a loosely assembled team of impromptu freedom fighters who rise up against a brutal interstellar empire. A tale as old as time, and one that Lucasfilm has kept profitable for nine movies and I forget how many TV shows. But Snyder’s version of this formula, stripped of its identifiable markers for legal reasons, becomes a nameless, featureless collection of plot beats and cool poses. If there was ever a time when the infamous itch for canceling everything at Netflix could be used for good, it’s now. There’s no need for a Rebel Moon Part 2, or for all the multimedia spinoffs Snyder is reportedly preparing. This is not the galaxy you’re looking for….

(13) TO HELL AND MAYBE BACK. Disney+ has started airing the new series based on Rick Riordan’s YA fictionalization of Greek myth: “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Quest Begins in New Clip” from Comicbook.com.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is gearing up to kick off its quest. The serialized adaptation of Rick Riordan‘s best-selling novels made its surprise debut on December 19th, dropping its first two episodes six hours ahead of schedule in the Tuesday primetime slot. This came with the announcement that all future episodes of Percy Jackson would get the primetime treatment, as the rest of Season 1 will premiere at 9 PM ET. The last fans saw, Percy (Walker Scobell) was officially claimed by his father, Poseidon, and given the news that he must lead a cross-country quest to retrieve Zeus’s (Lance Reddick) stolen master bolt. The belief is that Hades (Jay Duplass) stole it out of jealousy and is keeping it in the Underworld….

(14) STRANGE NEW WORLDS. We hear from the Guardian “How the James Webb telescope is ‘set to find strange and bizarre worlds’”.

There is a distant world where quartz crystals float above a searing hot, puffy atmosphere. Vaporised sand grains, not water droplets, form the clouds that fill the sky on Wasp-107b, a planet 1,300 light years from Earth.

Then there is GJ1214, the sauna planet. With a mass eight times that of Earth, it orbits its parent star at a distance that is one-seventieth of the gap between Earth and the sun and seems to be coated in a thick dense atmosphere containing vast amounts of steam.

Or there are the giant, Jupiter-sized planets of the Orion Nebula which have been discovered free-floating in space, rogue worlds that appear to be unconnected to any parent star – to the bafflement of astronomers….

(15) A YEAR’S WORTH OF SCREEN TIME. Gizmodo picks out the “40 Most Memorable Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Movie Moments of 2023”. Here’s one example:

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Jarnathan Arrives

This is the moment you knew Honor Among Thieves absolutely got Dungeons & Dragons. It’s an incredible set-up to a gag that builds over the opening scenes, establishing the roguish humor of our heroes, throwing a loving curveball to an esoteric D&D race, and of course giving us the most perfect ass-pull of a character name that feels like a Dungeon Master made it up for an NPC on the spot mid-improv. Oh Jarnathan, indeed.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Our Pros bring Wednesday Addams to the Strictly Ballroom” from the BBC.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Daniel Dern, Jeff Warner, 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 Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 8/21/21 Marvel’s Pixels Of S.C.R.O.L.L.

Posted on August 21, 2021 by Mike Glyer

(1) NEW SOLUTION FOR X. Louisiana convention CONtraflow X has been cancelled for 2021 due to the pandemic, and been rescheduled to 2022.

Some unfortunate news to pass on- CONtraflow Faithful, Friends, and Fen- with the recent Delta-Variant COVID-19 surge not yet peaking in our region and after working with/looking at all of our options with our host hotel and city/parish/state leadership, the board of directors of CONtraflow has come to the following conclusion. We must once again postpone/reschedule CONtraflow X. Pandemic conditions and restrictions, as they currently are and will be for the foreseeable future, make it next to impossible to host the convention in even a close approximation to what you all expect from a CONtraflow. Our only responsible, reasonable, and possible choice is to reschedule CONtraflow X….

(2) UK PROZINE LAUNCHES. ParSec Digital Magazine – Issue 1 has been released by PS Publishing, which announced plans for the new title after failing to acquire Interzone. See the table of contents at the link.

(3) FOURTH DOCTOR CONFESSES. “Tom Baker: ‘I didn’t know what to do with Doctor Who’” he tells Radio Times.

Tom Baker first played the Doctor almost 50 years ago – and to hear the acting legend tell it, he’s never really stopped.
“I got it right out of the blue,” he tells RadioTimes.com of his 1974 casting as Jon Pertwee’s Doctor Who replacement. “There we were, and I thought… I didn’t know what to do with it. And I still don’t know what to do with it! Because of course, the problem is it’s not really an acting part. In fact, I don’t really do acting parts, because they just embarrass me.
“I try to inhabit these kind of crackpot people who I play, and find a crackpot niche in my crackpot brain… I slot them in and off we go!”
…From storytelling structure to music and sound design, these new stories – adapted from Hinchcliffe’s initial ideas by writer Marc Platt – seek to recapture the flavour and feel of Doctor Who’s Hammer Horror-influenced TV outings from the 1970s. Recapturing his performance wasn’t a problem for Baker, chiefly because he claims playing the Doctor wasn’t for him a performance at all.

(4) HORROR POET. “Life Between This World and the Next: An Interview with Poet Corrine De Winter” at the Horror Writers Association Blog.

On the latest HWA Horror Poetry Blog, Bram Stoker winning author Corrine De Winter shares thoughts on the craft of poetry, being mentored by William Packard and discusses an upcoming new volume of verse “Awakening Persephone.”

(5) ON THE RADIO. A short audio SF play that filers might like, recommended by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie: BBC Radio 4 – Angst!, Gaia

Gaia. It’s a job, cleaning the fusty man’s laboratory.
But a job that could hold the fate of humanity in the balance….
In today’s ‘zeit’, the ‘geist’ is everywhere – environmental catastrophe, conspiracy theories, populism, fake news, the age of the algorithm, nationalism, racism, social exclusion. Not to mention pandemics.
As the world teeters on the edge of various self-made apocalypses, Angst! takes a satirical sideways look at our own naked fears. Five separate but connected half-hour ‘what if?’ stories all told under the watchful eye of the enigmatic Timor Greer.
What if the planet is, in reality, a single sentient organism, intent on ridding itself of the poisonous human parasites living on its surface? And what if a way is found to communicate with this ‘intelligence’? And what if the person put in charge of negotiations is a refugee cleaner from Darfur?

(6) TORRID TOURISM. [Item by Darrah Chavey.] Clearly an SF poster, and should have been a book cover! This really was produced by NASA, but I had no idea they had an “Exoplanet Travel Bureau”. “55 Cancri e: Skies Sparkle Above a Never-Ending Ocean of Lava”. This poster from the NASA Exoplanets Exploration Program’s Exoplanet Travel Bureau was recently Wikipedia’s Picture of the Day.

A global ocean of lava under sparkling, silicate skies reflecting the lava below: what better choice for an extreme vacation? Planet Janssen, or 55 Cancri e, orbits a star called Copernicus only 41 light years away. The molten surface is completely uninhabitable, but you’ll ride safely above, taking in breathtaking views: the burning horizon, Janssen’s sister planet Galileo hanging in a dark sky, and curtains of glowing particles as you glide across the terminator to Janssen’s dark side. Book your travel now to the hottest vacation spot in the galaxy, 55 Cancri e.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1982 – Thirty-nine years ago, the animated film Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All premiered on NBC as produced by Filmation who did The New Adventures of Superman and Star Trek: The Animated Series. It was written by Samuel A. Peeples whose first season script, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, was actually the one that sold Paramount on that series. It was produced by Don R. Christensen who did illustrations for such comic book titles as Donald Duck, Magnus, Robot Fighter, and Uncle Scrooge. Critics consider this movie one of the most faithful adaptations of the original Flash Gordon material. IMDB reviewers give an excellent seventy seven percent rating. Oddly there’s no rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born August 21, 1872 — Aubrey Beardsley. Best remembered for his often highly erotic art, ISFDB lists him as having a genre novel, The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser, which bear one of the longest subtitles I’ve encountered (“The story of Venus and Tannhäuser in which is set forth an exact account of the manner of State held by Madam Venus, Goddess and Meretrix under the famous Hörselberg, and containing the Adventures of Tannhäuser in that Place, his Repentance, his Journeying to Rome, and Return to the Loving Mountain”). He has two genre novellas as well, “Catullus: Carmen Cl.“ and “Under the Hill”. And yes, he was just twenty-five when he died of tuberculosis. (Died 1898.)
Born August 21, 1888 — Miriam Allen deFord. Almost all of her genre fiction was published at Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under the editorship of Anthony Boucher. It can be found in two collections, Xenogenesis and Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow. Her “A Death in the Family” story was adapted in Night Gallery‘s second season. Other than scattered short stories, nothing’s available at the usual suspects. (Died 1975.)
Born August 21, 1911 — Anthony Boucher. Rocket to the Morgue is of course a really great read. If you can find a copy, The Compleat Boucher: The Complete Short Science Fiction and Fantasy of Anthony Boucher is a most excellent read. Fortunately The Compleat Werewolf and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction is available at the usual suspects and it’s quite delicious. Award-wise, he would win Hugos at Solacon (1958) and the next year at Detention for Best Professional Magazine for his editing of F&SF. (Died 1968.)
Born August 21, 1943 — Lucius Shepard. Astounding Award for a Best New Writer winner of 1985. His Life During Wartime is one seriously weird novel. And his World Fantasy Award winning The Jaguar Hunter is freaking amazing as are all his short collections. I don’t remember reading “Barnacle Bill the Spacer” which won a Best Novella Hugo at ConFrancisco. (Died 2014.)
Born August 21, 1953 — Rev Ivan Stang, 68. Best known as the author and publisher of the first writings of the Church of the SubGenius. He’s credited with founding the Church with friend Philo Drummond in 1979. ISFDB only lists “The Scepter of Praetorious” as genre but really isn’t the entire Church genre? (Ducks really quickly to avoid anything thrown at him.)
Born August 21, 1956 — Kim Cattrall, 65. Gracie Law in John Carpenter’s amazing Big Trouble in Little China. She also played Justine de Winter in The Return of the Musketeers, Paige Katz in Wild Palms, Lieutenant Valeris in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Linday Isley in Good v. Evil. Series wise, she was one offs in Tales of the Gold Monkey, Logan’s Run, The Incredible Hulk and The Outer Limits.
Born August 21, 1968 — Carrie-Anne Moss, 53. I first saw her as Tara McDonald in the Dark Justice series. Not genre, just her first video I think. She later played Monica Howard in the “Feeding the Beast” episode of Forever Knight as her first genre role. Oddly enough her next role was as Liz Teel in the Canadian series called Matrix which has nothing to do with the Matrix film franchise where she’s Trinity. Her latest genre role was playing Jeryn Hogarth in the now defunct Netflix based Marvel Universe, most notably Jessica Jones. She reprising her Trinity role in the forthcoming Matrix 4 film.
Born August 21, 1975 — Alicia Witt, 46. Her first role was at age eight as Alia Atreides in David Lynch’s Dune. She next, genre wise at least, voices Caitlin Fairchild in the animated Gen¹³ film which I’ve not seen but want to. She has series one-offs in Twilight Zone, Person of Interest, Elementary, The Mentalist, Walking Dead, Supernatural and The Librarians. She showed up in an episode of the original Twin Peaks and reprised that role nearly thirty years later in Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series. She had a recurring role in The Exorcist series as Nikki Kim.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Wrong Hands shelves books this way —

at the oxymoron library https://t.co/8ZYxoUfqaG via @wordpressdotcom #oxymorons #bookhumor #wordplay
— Wrong Hands (@WrongHands1) August 13, 2021

(10) THE CAPTAIN WHO FELL TO EARTH. “Capt. Janeway” is joining the cast of the remake of The Man Who Fell to Earth. No, she will not be playing the David Bowie role. Gizmodo has the story.

…Mulgrew is just the latest in an increasingly impressive list of additions to the cast of the adaptation of Walter Tevis novel and inspired by the iconic 1976 film adaptation by Nicolas Roeg. The movie starred the legendary and dearly missed David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien being who comes to Earth from his devastated homeworld, Anthea, in search of water supplies that could save the planet from a deadly drought. Mulgrew joins Chiwetel Ejiofor, who will play the new alien being who has fallen to earth in a time of great upheaval for humanity, and Naomie Harris in the main cast, alongside Sonya Cassidy, Clarke Peters, and Jimmi Simpson. All this goes a long way to saying we’re not quite sure it can live up to Bowie’s turn, but even then, it’s clear Showtime’s taking a big swing at attempting to follow up on Roeg’s and the music icon’s take on Tevis’ work….

(11) METAVERSE TRAITOR! Alexandra Petri thinks it’s a bad idea to tell office workers they’re characters in the metaverse! “Do you ever think … that Facebook’s virtual-reality office is stupid?” in the Washington Post.

… “Do you ever think …” a voice said from what sounded like Greg’s right. Greg turned his cartoon avatar to look in the direction of the voice, “ … that maybe the Metaverse is a stupid waste of everyone’s time?”
The voice was coming from a cartoon avatar of a bald man in small, 2000s-era sunglasses and a trench coat, although the trench coat only extended to his waist because everyone’s avatars stopped there, so it looked more like a trench jacket….

(12) ‘SHIPS AHOY. Sarah Z does a very thorough investigation of the “Proshippers” and “Antishippers” in a wide variety of fandoms:

…All of these is an undercurrent of something… more. Something beyond just the basic aspect of pairing two characters together. Because no matter how simple a fictional character pairing may seem, the truth is that it is almost never that simple. There is almost always going to be discourse of some kind, be it because people find the ship offensive, because they find it unappealing, or because they don’t like the people doing the ship itself. And soon what happens is that the very basic concept of shipping two characters becomes the breeding ground for something deeper and darker and messier. It brings you into the world of proshippers and antis….

(13) BOMBADIL AWAY! And an older vid of Dominic Noble’s:”The coolest character in LOTR that didn’t make it into the movies” — and it’s not Tom Bombadil.

The Lord of the Rings adaptations were amazing, but no film can include EVERY character from the book. In this video we take a look at five creations of J. R. R. Tolkien that didn’t make the cut, including the coolest one of all.

(14) TIME DILATION. “Vacation Warp Speed, Mr. Sulu!” “Let’s Get the Hell Out of Here!” In “Why Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds Up as We Age, and Gets Warped on Vacation” we revisit a 2013 Brain Pickings post. (Just how old does that feel to you?)

…Among the most intriguing illustrations of “mind time” is the incredible elasticity of how we experience time. (“Where is it, this present?,” William James famously wondered. “It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.”) For instance, Hammond points out, we slow time down when gripped by mortal fear — the cliche about the slow-motion car crash is, in fact, a cognitive reality. This plays out even in situations that aren’t life-or-death per se but are still associated with strong feelings of fear. Hammond points to a study in which people with arachnophobia were asked to look at spiders — the very object of their intense fear — for 45 seconds and they overestimated the elapsed time. The same pattern was observed in novice skydivers, who estimated the duration of their peers’ falls as short, whereas their own, from the same altitude, were deemed longer.
Inversely, time seems to speed up as we get older — a phenomenon of which competing theories have attempted to make light. One, known as the “proportionality theory,” uses pure mathematics, holding that a year feels faster when you’re 40 than when you’re 8 because it only constitutes one fortieth of your life rather than a whole eighth. Among its famous proponents are Vladimir Nabokov and William James. But Hammond remains unconvinced…

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “The Stunt Man Tutorial” at Screen Rant, written by Ryan George. Samuel Brisson plays stunt man Chuck Fluster, who’s trying to be Tom Cruise’s stunt double and knows he’ll hear from Tom soon because whoever runs tomcruise at gmail.com asked for his Social Security number! And if you need a stunt man to wrestle in a Planet of the Apes movie, Chuck’s ready!

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

Pixel Scroll 8/12/21 Make The Scene On The Mezzanine, But Don’t Scroll In The Pixels

Posted on August 12, 2021 by Mike Glyer

(1) FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. August 14 is Free Comic Book Day. Here are Marvel’s contributions to the event.

Readers can stop by their local comic shop for Free Comic Book Day 2021: Avengers/Hulk and Free Comic Book Day 2021: Spider-Man/Venom, featuring new stories that kick off the upcoming eras of fan-favorite heroes and lay the groundwork for major new storylines.
The new creative team behind Amazing Spider-Man is about to take the Spider-Man mythos beyond your wildest expectations! Get a first look at Ben Reilly as the new Spider-Man in a story by writer Zeb Wells and artist Patrick Gleason. Then, see what’s in store for Venom when Ram V., Al Ewing, and Bryan Hitch take over in a glimpse that will show you just how twisted their upcoming run will be!

(2) BLOGGER’S VERDICT ON VOX DAY. Blogger has elevated the threat level to Defcon 2. Yesterday this was the message users were getting when they tried to reach Vox Popoli: “This blog is under review due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations and is open to authors only.” Today Blogger says flat out —

(3) LEM 100. In “A Century in Stanislaw Lem’s Cosmos”, the New York Times salutes those who are celebrating the author’s centenary.

In “The Eighth Voyage,” a short story by Stanislaw Lem, aliens from across the universe convene at the General Assembly of the United Planets. Lem’s hero, the space traveler Ijon Tichy, watches as an uninformed but overconfident creature steps forward and makes the case to admit Earth to the organization’s ranks. The planet — which he mispronounces as “Arrth” — is home to “elegant, amiable mammals” with “a deep faith in jergundery, though not devoid of ambifribbis,” the alien tells the delegates.
His sentimental appeal is well-received, until a second extraterrestrial stands up and begins to list humanity’s wrongdoings, which include meat-eating, war and genocide. Tichy listens as the aliens belittle us and label us misguided and corrupt, our planet a blip on their intergalactic radar.
This cosmic perspective — mischievous yet melancholy, and far beyond a human point of view — is a signature with Lem, an icon of science fiction best known to English-speaking readers as the author of the 1961 novel “Solaris.” Throughout a career spanning six decades that produced more translated works than any other Polish writer, he adopted the viewpoints of aliens, robots, a conscious supercomputer and a sentient planet, using these voices to reckon with philosophical quandaries….

(4) BRIEF REMINDER. Readercon 31, online only, takes place this weekend, August 13–15, 2021, with Guests of Honor: Jeffrey Ford & Ursula Vernon. Also “Memorial Guest of Honor” Vonda N. McIntyre. As they say:

Although Readercon is modeled on “science fiction conventions,” we have no art show, no costumes, no gaming, and almost no media. Instead, Readercon features a near-total focus on the written word.

Registration is $25, and “grants you access to the Discord server and recordings of all program items for six full months following the convention. After that time is up, most recordings will be made public, but some may be taken down.”

(5) ALTERNATE WHO. Radio Times says the Doctor Who “archeologists” have found more material: “Doctor Who’s Tom Baker to return for audio adaptation of lost scripts”.

Tom Baker is set to reprise his role as the Fourth Doctor in Big Finish’s upcoming adaptations of lost Doctor Who episodes.
The two episodes – Doctor Who and the Ark and Daleks! Genesis of Terror – were written by screenwriter John Lucarotti and Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, respectively and are set for release in March 2023.
Big Finish recently rediscovered the episodes’ original scripts and initial story outlines and will be adapting them into audio adventures as part of their series, Doctor Who – The Lost Stories.
… producer Simon Guerrier said in a statement.
“The Ark in Space and Genesis of the Daleks are among the best-loved TV stories ever. We’ve uncovered first draft scripts by John Lucarotti and Terry Nation that are exciting, surprising and very different.”

(6) AUREALIS AWARDS JUDGES WANTED. The Aurealis Awards have put out a call for judges. The positions are open to Australian residents only. See complete guidelines at the link.

Judges are volunteers and are drawn from the Australian speculative fiction community, from diverse professions and backgrounds, including academics, booksellers, librarians, published authors, publishing industry professionals, reviewers and enthusiasts.

The only qualification necessary is a demonstrated knowledge of and interest in their chosen category (good time management skills and an ability to work in a team in an online environment are also essential).

(7) TRAILER TIME. This clip explains why vampires shouldn’t learn about chain letters – from What We Do in the Shadows.

(8) LORNA TOOLIS (1952-2021). Lorna Toolis, retired collection head of the Toronto Public Library’s Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, died of cancer on August 11. Toolis, notes Robert J. Sawyer in his tribute was also a 2017 inductee into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Earlier in life she was a member of ESFCAS, the Edmonton Science Fiction and Comic Arts Society. Toolis is survived by her husband, the Aurora Award-winning writer Michael Skeet, with whom she co-edited Tesseracts 4: Canadian Science Fiction published in 1992.

Toolis was interviewed last year by the Toronto Public Library blog for “Merril Collection at 50: Stories from the Spaced Out Library” (the latter was the collection’s original name). Among her memories —

The Merril Collection has hosted so many prominent authors/editors/scholars in the world of Speculative Fiction. Have you ever been starstruck?
Lorna: I counted myself amazingly fortunate. Over the years, I had lunch with Margaret Atwood and dinner with Gene Wolfe. Neil Gaiman was our guest three times, as was Cory Doctorow. John Scalzi was a huge hit with the audience and returned to speak several times by request. When Lois Bujold was our guest, her kids were having trouble with their grammar, and I gave her my personal copy of The Transitive Vampire. Robert Jordan was a guest and he was an absolute sweetheart.

(9) NEAL CONAN OBIT. Retired radio host Neal Conan died August 10 at the age of 71. Jim Freund recalled Conan’s science fiction connections from early in his career at WBAI in New York.

…My favorite regular program Bai’ did was “Of Unicorns and Universes,” which he co-produced and was often hosted by Neal Conan. Neal, while primarily a producer of some of our best Public Affairs programming, (at the same time Paul Fischer was our News Director,) was quite the sf fan. He worked with Samuel Delany on the 2-hour adaptation of “The Star Pit,” and some years later, when I was co-host on Thursday and Fridays of Hour of the Wolf with Margot Adler, he was an occasional co-host on Mondays. (I usually engineered.) I was quite surprised at how much of a Heinlein fan he was….

Conan would be hired by NPR and spend 36 years at the network. Robert Siegel paid tribute to his work there in “Neal Conan, Former Host Of NPR’s ‘Talk Of The Nation,’ Has Died”.

…Later at NPR, he held an astonishing variety of jobs. He was at various times the line producer and the executive producer of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Back in 1987, he ran NPR News for a year. He was a reporter.
… In 1991, while reporting from southern Iraq on the war to liberate Kuwait, Neal was taken captive by the Iraqi Republican Guard, along with New York Times reporter Chris Hedges. It took diplomatic efforts to get them released….
[SIEGEL]: Neal Conan’s most prominent role at NPR was hosting Talk Of The Nation. …He tried out for that job the week that began on Monday, September 10, 2001. Sept. 11 was Neal’s Day 2….

The New York Times has also published an obituary.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

1991 – Thirty years ago at Chicon V at which Marta Randall was the Toastmaster, Edward Scissorhands wins the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. Other nominated works for the Con for this Award were Total Recall, Ghost, Back to the Future III and The Witches.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born August 12, 1894 — Dick Calkins. He’s best remembered for being the first artist to draw the Buck Rogers comic strip. He also wrote scripts for the Buck Rogers radio program. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Complete Newspaper Dailies in eight volumes on Hermes Press collects these strips. They’re one hundred fifty dollars a volume. (Died 1962.)
Born August 12, 1929 — John Bluthal. He was Von Neidel in The Mouse on the Moon which sounds silly and fun. He’s in Casino Royale as both a Casino Doorman and a MI5 Man. (Why pay the Union salaries?) He had roles in films best forgotten such as Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World. (Really. Don’t ask.) And he did play a blind beggar in The Return of the Pink Panther as well, and his last genre role was as Professor Pacoli in the beloved Fifth Element. Lest I forget he voiced Commander Wilbur Zero, Jock Campbell and other characters in Fireball XL5. (Died 2018.)
Born August 12, 1931 — William Goldman. Writer of The Princess Bride which he adapted for the film. Wrote the original Stepford Wives script and King’s Hearts in Atlantis and Misery as well. He was hired to adapt “Flowers for Algernon“ as a screenplay but the story goes that Cliff Robertson intensely disliked his screenplay and it was discarded for one by Stirling Silliphant that became Charly. (Died 2018.)
Born August 12, 1947 — John Nathan-Turner. He produced Doctor Who from 1980 until it was cancelled in 1989. He finished as the longest-serving Doctor Who producer. He cast Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy as the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors. Other than Who, he had a single production credit, the K-9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend film. He wrote two books, Doctor Who – The TARDIS Inside Out and Doctor Who: The Companions. He would die of a massive infection just a year before the announcement the show was being revived. (Died 2002.)
Born August 12, 1954 — Sam J. Jones, 67. Flash Gordon in the 1980 version of that story. Very, very campy. A few years later, he played the lead role in a TV adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit which I’ve not seen and am now very curious about as the audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes don’t have good things to say about it. He also had the lead in The Highwayman (name of his character there) which is described as a mix of Mad Max and Knight Rider. It lasted nine episodes in the late Eighties. Anyone seen it?
Born August 12, 1960 — Brenda Cooper, 61. Best known for her YA Silver Ship series of which The Silver Ship and the Sea won an Endeavour Award, and her Edge of Dark novel won another such Award. Due co-authored Building Harlequin’s Moon with Larry Niven, and a fair amount of short fiction with him. She has a lot of short fiction, much collected in Beyond the WaterFall Door: Stories of the High Hills and Cracking the Sky. She’s well-stocked at the usual suspects.
Born August 12, 1966 — Brian Evenson, 55. I consider him a horror writer (go ahead, disagree) and his Song for the Unraveling of the World collection did win a Shirley Jackson Award though it also won a World Fantasy Award. He’s also won an International Horror Guild Award for his Wavering Knife collection. He even co-authored a novel with Rob Zombie, The Lords of Salem.
Born August 12, 1992 — Cara Jocelyn Delevingne, 29. Her first genre role was as a mermaid in Pan. She then shows up in James Gunn’s Suicide Squad as June Moone / Enchantress, in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets as Laureline. She was in Carnival Row as Vignette Stonemoss. It was a fantasy noir series on Amazon Prime.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Frank and Ernest discover the instructions for Excalibur.

(13) I TALK FOR THE TREES. NPR’s Elizabeth Blair says “Dr. Seuss Warned Us 50 Years Ago, But We Didn’t Listen To ‘The Lorax’”.

Call it fate or an unfortunate coincidence that Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax celebrates its 50th anniversary the same week the United Nations releases an urgent report on the dire consequences of human-induced climate change. The conflict between the industrious, polluting Once-ler and the feisty Lorax, who “speaks for the trees,” feels more prescient than ever.
“Once-ler!” he cried with a cruffulous croak.
“Once-ler! You’re making such smogulous smoke!
My poor Swomee-Swans…why, they can’t sing a note!
No one can sing who has smog in his throat.

(14) DON’T SCRY FOR ME ARGENTINA. Romina Garber, in conversation with Dhonielle Clayton, will discuss her new book Cazadora on Thursday, August 19 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Register here.

Werewolves. Witches. Romance. Resistance. Enter a world straight out of Argentine folklore…
Following the events of Lobizona, Manu and her friends cross the mystical border into Kerana–a cursed realm in Argentina–searching for allies and a hiding place. As they chase down leads about the Coven–a mythical resistance manada that might not even exist–the Cazadores chase down leads about Manu, setting up traps to capture and arrest her.
Just as it seems the Cazadores have Manu and her friends cornered, the Coven answers their call for help. As Manu catches her breath among these non-conforming Septimus, she discovers they need a revolution as much as she does.

(15) THE LOTTERY. Did you plan to live forever? Don’t. “NASA Says an Asteroid Will Have a Close Brush With Earth. But Not Until the 2100s” says the New York Times.

An asteroid the size of the Empire State Building has a slight chance of hitting Earth.
Don’t worry. You’ll long be dead before that has any chance of happening. So will your children. Probably all of your grandchildren, too.
At a news conference on Wednesday, NASA scientists said there was a 1-in-1,750 chance that an asteroid named Bennu, which is a bit wider than the Empire State Building is tall, could collide with Earth between now and 2300.
That is actually slightly higher than an earlier estimate of 1 in 2,700 over a shorter period, between now and 2200….

(16) MARK YOUR CALENDAR. On the other hand, if you are going to be around for at least another century, Gizmodo has a suggestion for your bucket list: “John Malkovich and Robert Rodriguez Have Made A Movie No One Will See For 100 Years”.

Think the secrecy around the biggest Hollywood blockbusters is crazy? They don’t come close to what John Malkovich and Robert Rodriguez are doing. The pair has collaborated for a film that no one will see for 100 years. Literally.
This isn’t some joke. They’ve made a film, called 100 Years, which is being placed in a special time-locked safe that won’t open again until November 18, 2115. Why? Well, because it’s promotion for Louis XIII Cognac, an ultra-luxury liquor that is aged 100 years. Bottles currently on shelves were made in 1915 so they decided a piece of art that speaks to their commitment to quality was something worth doing….

Gizmodo links to three teasers: 100 Years: The Movie You’ll Never See Nature Teaser”, “100 Years: The Movie You’ll Never See Retro Teaser”, and “100 Years: The Movie You’ll Never See Future Teaser”.

(17) FILL IN THE BLANC. Gabriel Iglesias was on Colbert last night to talk about Space Jam 2.

Comedian Gabriel Iglesias is the voice of Speedy Gonzales in “Space Jam 2” and he was very excited to get the role without even auditioning.

(18) MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Nerdist says you will finally have a chance to see it: “Cult Sci-Fi Favorite BLAKE’S 7 Is Coming to BritBox”. Get your money ready.

For fans of classic British science fiction, there are a few names that always pop up. Doctor Who, naturally, stands head and shoulders above everything else. Other favorites like Sapphire & Steel, The Prisoner, and the shows of Gerry Anderson pop up as well. But for a certain age of fan, the cream of the crop is Blake’s 7. The show was the BBC’s direct attempt to capitalize on the success of Star Wars. Blake’s 7 ran for four seasons from 1978 to 1981 and has been pretty hard to find in North America lately. That is, until now. The entire series will debut on BritBox beginning August 13….

(19) TOSSED IN SPACE. The latest issue of Nature warns: “World must work to avoid a catastrophic space collision”.

Governments and companies urgently need to share data on the mounting volume of satellites and debris orbiting Earth.
There’s an awful lot of stuff orbiting Earth, with more arriving all the time. More than 29,000 satellites, pieces of rockets and other bits of debris large enough to track from the ground are circling the planet. Smaller items number in the millions. The Californian company SpaceX alone has launched some 1,700 satellites over the past 2 years as part of its Starlink network, which provides broadband Internet, with thousands more planned. Other companies are also planning such megaconstellations, and more and
more nations are launching or plan to launch satellites. This growing congestion is drastically increasing the risk of collisions in space….

(20) SHORT SUIT. In the Washington Post, Christian Davenport says NASA’s Artemis mission to the Moon could be delayed because the program to design a new spacesuit has spent $1 billion but delays have meant they will only have two flight-ready spacesuits prepared by fiscal year 2025. “NASA IG says 2024 moon landing won’t happen, blames space suit delays”.

Ever since the White House directed NASA to return astronauts to the moon by 2024 as part of its Artemis program, there have been all sorts of daunting challenges: The rocket the space agency would use has suffered setbacks and delays; the spacecraft that would land astronauts on the surface is not yet completed and was held up by the losing bidders; and Congress hasn’t come through with the funding NASA says is necessary.But another reason the 2024 goal may not be met is that the spacesuits needed by the astronauts to walk on the lunar surface won’t be ready in time and the total development program, which ultimately will produce just two flight-ready suits, could cost more than $1 billion…

(21) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [By Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Trailers: Loki” on YouTube, the Screen Junkies say that Loki “has a Comic-Con’s worth of alternate Lokis” including Richard E Grant, who “can make you love anything he does, even if he’s dressed like Kermit The Frog and talks nonsense for 30 minutes straight.” Bonus: they send up Tom Hiddleston’s Chinese vitamin commercial!

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

Pixel Scroll 7/24/21 Scrollship Pixel, Stranded 77000 Light Years From Earth In The Delta Variant

Posted on July 24, 2021 by Mike Glyer

(1) OMENANA. The new issue of Omenana Speculative Fiction Magazine is available to read online. The tri-monthly magazine takes submissions from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora.

Omenana is the Igbo word for divinity – it also loosely translates as “culture” – and embodies our attempt to recover our wildest stories. We are looking for well-written speculative fiction that bridges the gap between past, present and future through imagination and shakes us out of the corner we have pushed ourselves into.

(2) WINNIPEG WORLDCON BID. The Winnipeg in 2023 Worldcon bid will hold a “Question Time” Zoom session on Sunday, July 25, at 1:00pm CDT. The session will also be streamed live on their YouTube channel.

We will start off with standard questions and then take submitted questions. Questions may be submitted via our social media accounts , Discord server and our “Contact Form“. During the session, questions may be submitted through Zoom and YouTube chat. As with all “Question Time”, moderation will be applied.

(3) SUMMIT MEETING. There’s a photo on the Chicago Worldcon Facebook page showing that Chicon 8 Chair, Helen Montgomery, and DisCon III Chair, Mary Robinette Kowal, “met up in DC yesterday for convention strategizing. They have Plans with a capital P for their attendees!”

(4) A SECOND BLACK SUPERMAN IN DEVELOPMENT. Collider reports, “Michael B. Jordan Developing His Own Black Superman Project for HBO Max”.

Sources say that Outlier Society has hired a writer who is currently working on the script, though we were unable to ascertain their identity. Though it was initially unclear whether the Val-Zod project would be a movie or a limited series, sources have since reached out to clarify that as of right now, it is, in fact, being written as a limited series that Jordan will produce and possibly even star in, though he has yet to officially commit on the latter front.
As previously reported, J.J. Abrams and his company Bad Robot are set to produce a Black Superman movie for Warner Bros. that is expected to follow the Kal-El/Clark Kent version of the character. Though Clark Kent is traditionally depicted as white in the DC comics, the character will be played by a Black actor in the Bad Robot movie, which will likely be directed by a Black filmmaker, as Abrams is simply expected to produce. Author and cultural critic Ta-Nehisi Coates is already hard at work on the script for that project.
While Jordan did work with Warner Bros. on developing a Black Superman movie at one point, he recently shot down rumors that he would star in Abrams’ new film, saying “I’m flattered that people have me in that conversation. It’s definitely a compliment, but I’m just watching on this one.”
The question is, why?
A recent editorial penned by Jamie Broadnax for Black Girl Nerds provides some context and prompted Collider to do some digging, as Broadnax’s sources told her that “Jordan has not wanted to engage in conversations about racebending Kal-El for the same reasons many of the fans are pushing back on the current Warner Bros. re-imagined version of Clark Kent, but that he would be interested in engaging on a Black Superman project centering on the Val-Zod storyline.”

(5) CANADIAN SFF HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES. Stan Hyde, the late Monica Hughes, and Jean-Louis Trudel are the 2021 inductees into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame reports Robert J. Sawyer. He and Carolyn Clink, along with fellow jurors Clint Budd, Marcie Tentchoff, and Chris Sturges, made the selections. Here are excerpts from the citations (full text at the link).

Stan Hyde is an exemplar of passionate, lifelong devotion to SF&F fandom and fan activity, specifically in the areas of club organization, writing, film media, and model kit making, painting, and collecting.
Stan is also noted for the numerous articles he has written for G-Fest, a magazine devoted to the topic of Godzilla, about whom Stan is a world-renowned expert and recognized as such by Toho Studios where he is always welcome. (He visits once every two years on average.)
Monica Hughes (1925-2003), an Officer of the Order of Canada, wrote about 40 books including more than 20 that ISFDB covers as speculative fiction novels. Although she spent a large part of her life writing, she was almost fifty when her first book was published (Gold-Fever Trail: A Klondike Adventure, a Canadian historical novel.) …Invitation to the Game (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1990) won the Hal Clement Award as the year’s best science fiction novel for young adults.
Jean-Louis Trudel holds degrees in physics, astronomy, and the history and philosophy of science. Since 1994, he has authored (alone or in collaboration with Yves Meynard as Laurent McAllister) three science fiction novels published in France, four fiction collections, and twenty-six young adult books published in Canada…. He has received several literary distinctions, including the “Grand Prix de la Science-Fiction et du Fantastique québécois” in 2001 and several Prix Aurora Awards.

(6) WELCOME TO THE THE TAR TAR PITS. SYFY Wire tells about “La Brea: Trailer for NBC sci-fi series strands Los Angeles family in time”. “When a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, those who fall find themselves in a strange world.” At the risk of being a party pooper, I can see this show lasting about one week.

Can anyone explain how there’s a hole in the Earth — the kind that supernaturally swallows up hapless Los Angeles residents and spits them out in the frightening primeval past? That’s just the first mystery launching with NBC’s La Brea, the highly awaited sci-fi series that’s set to make its TV debut this fall….
On the other side of the time warp are Gavin’s wife and son, all while a “disparate group of strangers” work alongside the family’s stranded half to “uncover the mystery of where they are and if there is a way back home,” according to NBC’s earlier series description. Are all these stuck strangers merely the random victims of fate, or might they be connected by something deeper?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAgquTNK7hg

(7) NOW STARRING. “John Barrowman sparks backlash after tagging M Night Shyamalan in criticism about his new film Old” – The Independent has the story.

Torchwood star John Barrowman has attracted criticism for a negative social media post about M Night Shyamalan’s new film, Old.
The actor repeatedly called the film “s****”, and claimed that he had received a refund after seeing it in a cinema, in a message which tagged Shyamalan himself.
Old is directed by Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) and tells the story of an island where people age extremely rapidly….

(8) A QUOTATION. “There is no trick or cunning, no art or recipe, by which you can have in your writing that which you do not possess in yourself.” —Walt Whitman

(9) BACK TO THE ORIGINAL FUTURE. The Hollywood Reporter says “’Back to the Future’ Writer Asks Universal to Destroy Censored Version of Sequel”. Like they say, it’s the cover-up that gets people in trouble.

Bob Gale is asking fans not to be too hard on Netflix for a censored version of Back to the Future: Part II, which was streaming for a short while.
Fans of the series were irate when they discovered a tiny portion of the 1989 sequel was changed, poorly. It has since been replaced with the standard version. The alteration happened when Marty (Michael J. Fox) finds the Oh La La magazine within the sports almanac dustcover. The moment was cut short, with the cover of the magazine edited out.
Gale, the screenwriter of the beloved trilogy, explained what happened and why it was not Netflix’s fault.

(10) PATRICIA KENNEALY-MORRISON (1946-2021). Author Patricia Kennealy-Morrison died a few days ago reported Liz Williams on Facebook. She wrote eight books and a collection of short stories in her genre series The Keltiad. She also wrote the Rennie Stride mystery series. She was a widely-read rock journalist, and widow of the late Jim Morrison of The Doors.

(11) MEMORY LANE.

2003 – Eighteen years ago at Torcon 3, Neil Gaiman wins a Hugo Novella for Coraline. (Other nominated works were “Bronte’s Egg” by Richard Chwedyk, “Breathmoss” by Ian R. MacLeod, “A Year in the Linear City” by Paul Di Filippo, “The Political Officer” by Charles Coleman Finlay and “In Spirit” by Pat Forde.) It also won a Nebula, a Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book and a BSFA Award for Short Fiction, along with a Stoker for Superior Achievement in a Work for Young Readers. It would become an animated film written and directed by Henry Selick, and both musicals and operas were based off it.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman (Chinese edition), art by Sija Hong

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born July 24, 1878 — Lord Dunsany whose full name and title was a jaw dropping Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. So ISFDB lists him as genre for the Jorkens body of work among works. H’h. Gary Turner, who some of you will recognize from Golden Gryphon Press and elsewhere, reviewed The Collected Jorkens: Volumes One, Two, and Three for Green Man, so I’ve linked to the review here. They also list The King of Elfland’s Daughter which I’m going to link to another review on Green Man as it’s a audio recording with a very special guest appearance by Christopher Lee. (Died 1957.)
Born July 24, 1916 — John D. MacDonald. Though better known for the Travis McGee series which I really like, he wrote three genre novels of which I think the best by far is The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything. He also wrote some sixty genre short stories, many of them collected in End of The Tiger which is available from the usual digital suspects. (Died 1986.)
Born July 24, 1936 — Mark Goddard, 85. Major Don West, the adversary of Dr. Zachary Smith, on Lost in Space. Other genre appearances were scant. He played an unnamed Detective in the early Eighties Strange Invaders and he showed up on an episode of The Next Step Beyond which investigated supposed hauntings as Larry Hollis in “Sins of Omission”. Oh and he was an unnamed General in the Lost in Space film.
Born July 24, 1951 — Robert Hood, 70. Australian horror writer who won a William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism or Review for “Weight of Water: Vengeance from Beyond the Grave?” and another Atheling for “Divided Kingdom: King Kong Versus Godzilla”. The latter is included in David Brin and Leah Wilson’s King Kong Is Back! An Unauthorized Look at One Humongous Ape. He won a Ditmar for his Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales collection, and an Australian Shadows Award for his Peripheral Visions: The Collected Ghost Stories.
Born July 24, 1951 — Lynda Carter, 70. Wonder Woman of course. But also Principal Powers, the headmistress of a school for superheroes in Sky High; Colonel Jessica Weaver in the vampire film Slayer; Moira Sullivan, Chloe Sullivan’s Kryptonite-empowered mother in the “Prodigy” episode of Smallville; and President Olivia Marsdin In Supergirl. She has a mid credit appearance in Wonder Woman 1984 as Asteria.
Born July 24, 1964 — Colleen Doran, 57. Comics artist and writer. The work she’s done includes Warren Ellis’ Orbiter graphic novel, Wonder Woman, Legion of Superheroes, Teen Titans, the “Troll Bridge” by Neil Gaiman and her space opera series, A Distant Soil. She also did portions of The Sandman, the “Dream Country” and “A Game of You”. She’s tuckerized Into Sandman as the character Thessaly.
Born July 24, 1971 — Patty Jenkins, 50. Director of Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984, she appears in Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics as herself in ‘The Truth About Wonder Woman’ episode. She’s the director and producer of the forthcoming Star Wars film, Rogue Squadron. She’ll also be directing Gal Gadot in Cleopatra.
Born July 24, 1981 — Summer Glau, 40. An impressive run in genre roles as she’s was River Tam in the Firefly series and of course the Serenity film, followed by these performances: Tess Doerner in The 4400, as Cameron in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Bennett Halverson in Dollhouse (is this worth seeing seeing?), Skylar Adams in Alphas, and Isabel Rochev who is The Ravager in Arrow. Her latest role is Miss Jones (The Water Wu) on The Wu Assassins series.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

Speed Bump introduces a familiar character whose phone asks a well-known question.

(14) PEELE’S NEXT. “’Nope’: Jordan Peele Unveils Title of 2022 Horror Movie” in The Hollywood Reporter. I guess that’s clear enough.

(15) EYECATCHERS. See the ads for sff books that appeared in the New York Times back in the day: “Advertisements for the Otherworldy”. Includes Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury.

Science Fiction was extraordinarily popular in the 1940s and 1950s — and so were books about U.F.O.s. Coverage of mysterious objects in the night sky was plentiful in The Times, too. On July 6, 1947, the front page featured an article headlined “Flying Saucers Mystify Experts; May Be Prank of Nature.” Two days later, a follow-up appeared, also on the front page, with a more provocative headline: “‘Disks’ Soar Over New York, Now Seen Aloft in All Colors.” It should perhaps come as no surprise that those years saw the Book Review filled with ads looking to sate this interest in the extraterrestrial and dystopian.

(16) LOOKS FAMILIAR. [Item by David Doering.] Surely this design is no accident! Whoever designed this high school in PA deserves a medal. (Or at least a Hugo.) I wonder if the school mascot is the Falcon??

(17) NOLAN APPRECIATION. Mr. Sci-Fi, Marc Scott Zicree, in “Logan’s Run Writer Passes Away”, remembers the help William F. Nolan gave him when Zicree was researching his Twilight Zone book.

…And he was an astonishing man. He was basically — the great thing about Bill Nolan was not only was he very articulate and very enthusiastic but he had kept notes on everything and recordings on everything and so he knew an enormous amount about Charles Beaumont and Ray Bradbury and all of these characters who were central to what i was working on but also central to science fiction…

(18) TALK TO THE DOCTOR. Louis Moorhouse, a blind fan who’s been raising money for Living Paintings, to make a set of Touch to See books about Doctor Who, interviews Tom Baker in this YouTube video.

Blind Doctor Who super fan meets one of his heroes, Tom Baker, thanks to inspirational fundraising campaign. Louis,19, from Bradford, has been blind since he was 18 months old. A few weeks ago, Louis launched a fundraising campaign on Crowd Funder in an attempt to raise £15,000 to make it possible for a charity, Living Paintings, to make a set of Touch to See books which will bring him and other blind and partially sighted people closer to the incredible world of Doctor Who. Having blasted through his first fundraising target Louis is now looking to raise an incredible total £25,000 to support the charity that has helped him since he was two years old. Louis says of his motivation to carry on with the campaign:“Living Paintings has had such a hugely positive impact on my life, from the first time I received a book and found out what Thomas the Tank Engine looks like (until then I had no idea what a train with a face could possibly mean), to helping me learn to read and express myself. I wouldn’t be who I am today without this wonderful charity and I hope people continue to support me on this journey so I can help other children facing the struggles I overcame with their help.” Louis and Living Paintings have been overwhelmed by the support shown by the Doctor Who community and this week he met one of his favourite ever Doctors on Zoom, the wonderful Tom Baker.

(19) MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. This is a NASA video that dropped on July 14 about June flybys of Jupiter and Ganymede.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Jannie Shea, David K.M. Klaus, David Doering, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Tom Becker.]

Pixel Scroll 11/8/20 I Know This Defies The Law Of Pixel Scrolling, But I Never Studied Law

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Mike Glyer

(1) GETTING PAID. Joby Dorr advises his fellow artists, “You Should Probably Be Charging More For Your Art”.

The truth is that a huge population of artists are severely undercharging for their work
Even as the discussion surrounding wealth inequality and fair pay reaches a cultural tipping point, a huge number of independent artists are allowing their services to be hired out at starvation wages.
At some point in your journey, every independent artist should write out the following simple equation:
What goes into the equation is your net income over a year, divided by the number of hours spent on producing and marketing your art.
What should come out of the other side of this equation is a per hour rate greater than minimum wage.
If you’ve never written out this equation for yourself, or you have and your per hour rate is below minimum wage, then please keep reading on. …

(2) CLASSIC SERIES REVIVED. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] A sword and sorcery magazine called Tales from the Magician’s Skull has announced that they will be publishing new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories authorized by the estate of Fritz Leiber: I’m not sure how I feel about this, considering I’m a big fan of the originals. “All-New Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Stories to be Published in Tales From The Magician’s Skull”.

… The first story in this new series will appear in issue #6 of Tales From The Magician’s Skull. Author Nathan Long has written a new short story starring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. This entertaining tale finds the twain engaged in somewhat honest employment in the theatre trade, in order to pursue somewhat dishonest aims involving the sorcerer’s guild, with a somewhat incomplete plan that only Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser could devise.

(3) QUANTUM UNLEAPED. Australian Geoff Allshorn “ponder[s] the nature of ‘queer science fictions’ and our place as creators, audiences, and participants” in “From Queer to Eternity”.

… My background in science fiction demonstrates my own intersections of the personal with the political. In 1999, as the founder of a Melbourne-based LGBTI science fiction club called Spaced Out, I authored the club’s draft charter. Its goals included a recognition of diversity and a challenge to our science fictional friends and peers:
“We recognise that science fiction is a fun and popular medium and we no longer wish to be excluded from its fiction, art, cyberworlds or other creative forms…” Spaced Out, 1999.
I recall the energy and enthusiasm of the club’s early days: we published a number of newsletters and two fanzines, and our website won an Australian science fiction ‘Ditmar’ award. A professional author and other local luminaries became guests at our meetings while we, in turn, hosted panels at a Worldcon (Aussiecon 3). Our very existence, as both geeks and queers, identified us as a minority grouping within both communities; it was fun to confront double prejudice and it was interesting to see who supported us in either context.
…The irony of how life can come full-circle was emphasised to me in 2012, when the Australian Broadcasting Corporation commissioned a six-part series entitled, Outland, telling the story of an imaginary ‘gay science fiction fan club’ that was curiously located within the Australian city which really did have such a club. The series was advertised as being an exploration of inclusion but it excluded its real-life counterparts: its generic disclaimer dissociated its fictional characters from any real-life role models, and its fictional ‘otherness’ was further emphasised by its predominantly white male characters displaying very little real diversity. To me, its stories lacked the excitement of our real-life exploits in Spaced Out, where we had taken ‘one small step’ into groundbreaking territory and attempted to ‘boldly go where no fan had gone before’. Ultimately, Outland inverted media science fiction subtext: whereas LGBTQIA+ SF fans had traditionally sought to interpret ‘otherness’ as metaphoric queerness; we could now interpret our queerness as comprising metaphoric ‘otherness’.

(4) RIBBON BLOCK. “Medal by medal, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s ‘stolen valor’ is laid bare” at The Underground Bunker.

…A 20-year military veteran, PickAnotherID was frustrated not only by Hubbard’s “stolen valor,” but also the incomplete and incorrect criticisms of the medals and ribbons that the Church of Scientology claimed were earned by the Scientology founder.
In the first part, Pick went over the Navy marksmanship awards, which have caused a lot of confusion over the years. And now, he’s on to the medals and ribbons that Scientology claimed for Hubbard when it delivered a photo of them to New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright for his 2011 feature story, “The Apostate.”
Bronzen Kruis
(Bronze Cross – Netherlands)
The Bronze Cross of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was instituted on 11 June 1940 by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands while residing in London during the German occupation of the Netherlands. The Bronze Cross is the third highest military decoration still being awarded by the Netherlands for bravery.
The medal itself is not shown in the picture provided by Scientology. It only includes the ribbon at position ‘R4’ of the ribbon block.
The Bronze Cross is a special award for military who behaved courageously or meritoriously in facing the enemy in service for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It may also be awarded to civilians or foreign military who acted in special interest for the safety of the Netherlands. The cross, which corresponds to the British D.S.C., M.C., D.S.M., and M.M., can be given for a single outstanding act, as well as for bravery and enterprise in action over a period of time. It is received after a Royal Decree that is controlled by the Commissie Dapperheidonderscheidingen van het Ministerie van Defensie (Special Committee of the Ministry of Defence) which advises the Minister of Defence and the Dutch Queen. A number of American, Canadian, British and Polish ground and air military personnel have been awarded the Bronzen Kruis for service during WWII. The majority of those awarded to Americans were for actions during the failed Operation Market-Garden, 17-25 September 1944. Several members of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment involved in this operation received the Bronzen Kruis. A few were also awarded to Americans, as well as other nationalities, for actions during the the later liberation of the Netherlands.
Hubbard never participated in Market-Garden, or the liberation of the Netherlands. The Commissie Dapperheidonderscheidingen van het Ministerie van Defensie has not included his name among those who have received this award.
Verdict: Stolen Valor

(5) SMALL BUT MIGHTY. Plagiarism Today sorts out conflicting claims in “Hero Forge and the Controversy Over Miniature Copyright”.

…One site, Sky Castle Studios’ Hero Forge, allows users to design and perfect their own custom heroes (using pre-made assets provided by Hero Forge) and then either have Hero Forge send them a physical version of it or, if they prefer, they can download a digital version for printing on their own 3D printer.
However, with this new service came a new controversy: Copyright
The Hero Forge terms of service led many to believe that the site was laying claim to any and all creativity the user brought to the site. However, it’s something of a tempest in a teapot as Hero Forge’s terms of service really only impact a small subset of users and those would-be users likely came to the site with questionable intentions to start with.

(6) YOU DROOGS ARE WARNED. “‘Don’t read Clockwork Orange – it’s a foul farrago,’ wrote Burgess” – The Guardian previews a book of Anthony Burgess’ poetry, some appearing in print for the first time.

Previously unpublished love poems written by Anthony Burgess to each of his two wives have been discovered, along with a verse in which he dismissed A Clockwork Orange, the savage satire for which he is best known, as “a foul farrago”, urging people to read Shakespeare and Shelley instead.
They are among dozens of unknown poems that have been found, the majority in his vast archive held by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, an educational charity in Manchester, where the writer was born in 1917.
One poem was found tucked into a book in Burgess’s library, others were on scraps of paper or card, including cigar-boxes and matchbooks. The discoveries will be included in a 450-page book to be published in December, entitled Anthony Burgess: Collected Poems, which brings together around 350 verses, of which a fifth are unpublished.
… Biswell said: “Most of his other books are non-violent and not about teenage boys. But, thanks to the popularity of the film, people were always asking him about A Clockwork Orange.” The previously unpublished poetry includes A Sonnet for the Emery Collegiate Institute, a verse letter urging students not to read that novel: “Advice: don’t read/ A Clockwork Orange – it’s a foul farrago/ Of made-up words that bite and bash and bleed./ I’ve written better books… So have other men, indeed./ Read Hamlet, Shelley, Keats, Doctor Zhivago.”

(7) A TIMELORD IN RETIREMENT. In The Guardian: “Tom Baker: ‘Being loved pleases me very much indeed'”. Registration required to read full interview.

“I miss Waitrose terribly,” Tom Baker says in those unmistakable tones. “And Boots, and the places I used to go without realising how dependent I was on them.”
The year of coronavirus is treating the veteran actor well on the whole, he explains, “because I live in the country and have a garden and some woodland and a cat and a wife”. But there is a melancholy and a reminder of his own mortality when he does venture out. “When my wife and I go for a spin, I drive to Tenterden [in Kent] and – we don’t sob exactly – but it gets solemn as we catch a glimpse of the hardware store, and Boots, and Waitrose, and then we turn round and come home again. Then I go down to the paradise of my woods and think: ‘Well, eventually it will pass.’ Another voice, of course, says: ‘Yes, but by then you’ll be gone.’”

The cause of death was not immediately announced. Trebek revealed in March 2019 he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, triggering an outpouring of support and well wishes at the time.

While Trebek did make a few minor genre acting appearances (like, delivering one line as a Man in Black on an X-Files episode), he was far more profoundly connected to sff through the many fans who competed on his game show over the years. For example, here is a link to Part I of Steven H Silver’s “A Fan in Jeopardy!“ from File 770 #134 (March 2000).

(9) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.

1975 – Forty-five years ago this weekend, the pilot film for the Wonder Woman series (The New Adventures of Wonder Woman after the first season) aired to quite splendid ratings.. It was called The New Original Wonder Woman and starred Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman/Diana Prince, Lyle Waggoner as in the roles of Steve Trevor Sr. & Steve Trevor Jr., and Debra Winger as Drusilla/Wonder Girl. It was the second Wonder Woman film as Cathy Lee Crosby had been her in one a year earlier that did poorly in the ratings. This series would last for three seasons with the first being on ABC and the last two on CBS. In all, sixty episodes including the film were produced.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

Born November 8, 1847 – Bram Stoker. Famous for Dracula, which however accurately or inaccurately based on legend has itself become legendary. Four other novels, forty shorter stories. Outside our field, assistant to Sir Henry Irving; theater manager. (Died 1912) [JH]
Born November 8, 1898 — Katharine Mary Briggs. British folklorist and author who wrote A Dictionary of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures , and the four-volume Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language, and the Kate Crackernuts novel. Her The Anatomy of Puck: An Examination of Fairy Beliefs among Shakespeare’s Contemporaries and Successors is fascinating read. (Died 1980.) (CE)
Born November 8, 1914 — Norman Lloyd, 106. Yes, he’s really that old. His best remembered genre role was as Dr. Isaac Mentnor on the Seven Days series. He’s been on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Get Smart! in the form of the Nude Bomb filmand The Twilight Zone, and in a fair of horror films from The Dark Secret of Harvest Home to The Scare. (CE)
Born November 8, 1922 – Sol Dember. A score of covers. Here is the Mar 58 Galaxy. Here is the Jul 61 If. Here is the Aug 63 Worlds of Tomorrow. Here is the Nov 68 Galaxy. (Died 2011) [JH]
Born November 8, 1932 — Ben Bova, 88. He’s the author of more than one hundred twenty fiction and nonfiction books. He won six Hugo Awards as editor of Analog, along with once being editorial director at Omni. Hell, he even had the thankless job of SFWA President. (Just kidding. I think.) I couldn’t hope to summarize his literary history so I’ll single out his Grand Tour series that though it’s uneven as overall it’s splendid hard sf, as well as his Best of Bova short story collections put out recently in three volumes on Baen. What’s your favorite works by him? (CE)
Born November 8, 1936 – Edward Gibson, Ph.D., 84. Science pilot of Skylab 4. Two novels. Edited The Great Adventure, nonfiction by astronauts, cosmonauts. Humboldt Foundation prize. Two honorary doctorates. U.S. Astronauts Hall of Fame. [JH]
Born November 8, 1952 — Alfre Woodard, 68. I remember her best from Star Trek: First Contact where she was Lily Sloane, Zefram Cochrane’s assistant. She was also Grace Cooley in Scrooged, and polishing her SJW creds, she once voiced Maisie the Cat in The Brave Little Toaster Goes to School. And yes, I know she’s portrayed a character in Marvel Universe. I just like the obscure roles. (CE)
Born November 8, 1954 – Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, 66. Author, jazz composer. Three novels for us; five others, nine shorter stories, five screenplays, a dozen songs (with Jim Tomlinson). Holtby, Whitbread, Booker Prizes. Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Letters. Nobel Prize in Literature. Order of the Rising Sun. [JH]
Born November 8, 1955 — Jeffrey Ford, 65. Winner of seven World Fantasy Awards including for The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant and Other Stories, an excellent collection, and The Shadow Year which in turn is an expansion of “The Botch Town”, a novella that also won a WFA. His Nebula winning novelette, “The Empire of Ice Cream”, can be heard here. Did you know that he has written over one hundred and thirty short stories? A wide selection of his writing are available at the usual digital suspects. (CE)
Born November 8, 1956 — Richard Curtis, 64. One of Britain’s most successful comedy screenwriters, he’s making the Birthday List for writing “Vincent and the Doctor”, a most excellent Eleventh Doctor story. He was also the writer of Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot which isn’t really genre but it’s Roald Dahl which sort of make it genre adjacent. And he directed Blackadder which certainly should count as genre.(CE)
Born November 8, 1978 – Kali Wallace, Ph.D., 42. Four novels, a dozen shorter stories. Interviewed in Lightspeed. Photographer, though she depreciates her ability. “I now live in southern California. I do miss having seasons.” [JH]
Born November 8, 1982 – Lauren Oliver, 38. A dozen novels, four novellas. Phi Beta Kappa at Univ. Chicago. Wrote her first book on a BlackBerry during subway trips. NY Times Best Seller. Has read Austen, Brontë, Hemingway, Huxley, James, Joyce, and thirty Agatha Christie novels. [JH]

(11) COMICS SECTION.

The Far Side shows the police report after a well-known cartoon hero has left the scene.
The River of Lost Souls by Isabel Greenberg is a Guardian Graphic Story from 2013.

(12) COMICS IN THE DAYS OF THE TWO GERMANIES. Cora Buhlert has an article about East and West German comics at Galactic Journey: “[October 28, 1965] Knights, Adventurers And Anthropomorphic Animals: Comics In East And West Germany”.

…Inspired by the success of the Disney comics, in 1953 West German artist Rolf Kauka created his own comic magazine called Till Eulenspiegel, named after a popular trickster character from German legend. However, a pair of clever foxes named Fix and Foxi quickly became the most popular characters and in 1955, the magazine was retitled as Fix und Foxi. The two foxes quickly adopted a whole menagerie of animal friends such as the wolf Lupo and his cousin Lupinchen, the mole Pauli and the sister Paulinchen, the raven Knox, the hare Hops, the hedgehog Stops and the mouse Mausi. Other characters to appear in the magazine are “Tom and Klein Biberherz” (Little Beaverheart), a cowboy character and his indigenous friend, and “Mischa im Weltraum” (Mischa in Outer Space), a humorous science fiction comic. Those who have read the Archie comics will find that Mischa looks very familiar.

(13) WAR AND FANTASY. Paul Weimer serves up “Microreview: Legacy of Ash by Matthew Ward” at Nerds of a Feather.

…Expanding on that, the physical conflicts, battles and otherwise, is where a lot of the story strength is spent and spent well. With the theme of a impending invasion by the neighboting, dominant Empire and the internal conflict within the Republic, complete with insurgency, and the very violent, Renaissance level world means that there are action sequences that run from duels in a street all the way to set piece battles. The latter is particularly well done, showing the ebb and flow of war and its fortunes, flaws and follies. The pulse pounding roar of physical action is where the narrative kicks into overdrive, and all of the point of view characters (and in at least one case very unexpectedly) get their turns to shine, or at least get dunked in the experience. War is hell, and this book makes no bones about it and secondary characters often have a shockingly short but realistic life expectancy.

(14) POWERED BY A TARDIGRADE? No, but it should be: “Scientists 3D print microscopic Star Trek spaceship that moves on its own” — CNN has a picture.

…The miniature Voyager, which measures 15 micrometers (0.015 millimeters) long, is part of a project researchers at Leiden University conducted to understand how shape affects the motion and interactions of microswimmers.
Microswimmers are small particles that can move through liquid on their own by interacting with their environment through chemical reactions. The platinum coating on the microswimmers reacts to a hydrogen peroxide solution they are placed in, and that propels them through the liquid.
“By studying synthetic microswimmers, we would like to understand biological microswimmers,” Samia Ouhajji, one of the study’s authors, told CNN. “This understanding could aid in developing new drug delivery vehicles; for example, microrobots that swim autonomously and deliver drugs at the desired location in the human body.”

(15) THE FINISHED LINE. Adri Joy gives Nerds of a Feather readers her assessment in “Microreview [book]: Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston”.

Master of Poisons took me approximately forever to read. Very little of that is the book’s fault: while Andrea Hairston’s writing style does require more attention than some, packing a great deal of worldbuilding and information into deceptively simple but poetic prose, its certainly no more than I would expect to give to an author of this calibre. It’s not like Master of Poisons doesn’t open with some super intriguing stuff: right off the bat, we’ve got poison deserts, scheming advisors, a deceptively confident first protagonist and a plucky young second one all conspiring to draw me in….

(16) WAYS INDIE BOOKSTORES ARE SURVIVING. On the CBS Sunday Morning news today: “Independent booksellers write a new chapter during COVID-19”.

The Strand Book Store is a New York institution, with four floors of books, and 93 years of tradition. But while it survived a Great Depression, World War II, 9/11 and Amazon, it has struggled during the era of COVID-19. New Yorker contributor Kelefa Sanneh talks with the Strand’s owners, and with the owners of EyeSeeMe, an African-American children’s bookstore in St. Louis, about how independent booksellers are finding ways to cope during the coronavirus pandemic, and about the community of readers that wants them to survive.

(17) MORE TO COME. Clarion West is hosting several more online workshops before the end of 2020, ranging in price from free to $325.

Thursday, November 12 at 4:00 p.m. PDT: Submission Tools with Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
You’ve written, finished, and edited your short story. What now? Join prolific submitter and rejection expert Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam for a two-hour seminar on the submissions process: formatting, finding markets, writing cover letters, tracking submissions, managing acceptances and rejections, and exploring reprints.

Saturday, November 14 at 10:00 a.m. PST: Interactive Fiction with E. Lily Yu
Award-winning author and narrative designer E. Lily Yu discusses the intricacies, opportunities, complications, and markets for interactive fiction and other branching narratives. How do we bring playfulness? What are the types of nonlinear narrative, and how do we use them? During this class, you’ll outline, implement, and workshop your own Twine game. Basic technical knowledge of how to edit Twine or a Wikipedia article required.
Saturday, November 14 at 12:00 p.m. PDT : Fix It, Jesus! With LP Kindred
Repurposing the Self, Clichés, Tropes, and Unexamined Bias for New Story – LP Kindred walks you through how to fix these biases in an interactive workshop!
Sunday, November 15 at 12:00 p.m. PDT: Intro to Freelance Video Game Writing with Whitney “Strix” Beltrán
Acquiring and creating your first pieces of freelance work: what does that entail? This course focuses on the creative and logistical aspects of freelance game work. Fee structures and appropriate pay will be taught in a later workshop.
Friday, November 20 – Sunday, November 22: Writing the Other Weekend Intensive: Quick & Clean with Nisi Shawl and Tempest Bradford
Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford lead this weekend-long workshop on creating more compelling, well-rounded characters whose identities and cultural experiences are unlike the author’s own, from gender to ethnicity, sexuality to socioeconomic class. Avoid pitfalls of tokenism and appropriation while building your confidence to write the lives of characters with respect and panache.
Sunday, Nov 29, 10:00 a.m. Pacific: Negritude in the 6th Dimension: An Afrofuturist Excursion
A panelshop in partnership with Voodoonauts
The Voodoonauts (Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, Shingai Njeri Kagunda, LP Kindred, and Hugh “H.D.” Hunter) host a panel and break-out workshop sessions to explore time and craft through a Black Indigenous lens.

(18) SECOND FOUNDATION OF THE WEB. “How Discord (somewhat accidentally) invented the future of the internet” at Protocol.

…Eventually, a lot of those gamers realized something. They wanted to talk to their gaming friends even when they weren’t in a game, and they wanted to talk about things other than games. Their gaming friends were their real friends. As luck would have it, in early 2015, a new tool called Discord showed up on the market. Its tagline was not subtle: “It’s time to ditch Skype and TeamSpeak.” It had text chat, which was cool, but mostly it did voice chat better than anybody else.
Early users set up private servers for their friends to play together, and a few enterprising ones set up public ones, looking for new gamer buds. “I don’t have a lot of IRL friends that play games,” one Discord user, who goes by Mikeyy on the platform, told me. “So when I played Overwatch, I started my first community … to play games with anyone on the internet. You’d play a couple of games with someone, and then you’re like, ‘Hey, cool, what’s your Discord?'”
Fast-forward a few years, and Discord is at the center of the gaming universe. It has more than 100 million monthly active users, in millions of communities for every game and player imaginable. Its largest servers have millions of members. Discord’s slowly building a business around all that popularity, too, and is now undergoing a big pivot: It’s pushing to turn the platform into a communication tool not just for gamers, but for everyone from study groups to sneakerheads to gardening enthusiasts. Five years in, Discord’s just now realizing it may have stumbled into something like the future of the internet. Almost by accident….

(19) DEEP PURPLE STATE. In the Washington Post, Steven Zeitchik says that some in Hollywood have decided that with the pandemic and the election we need soothing entertainment, so Barney the dinosaur is coming back in a remake! “Hollywood wants to put you to sleep”

… For much of this entertainment century, Hollywood has had a clear objective: work viewers into as much of a lather as possible. The highest-grossing movies of all time are “Avengers: Endgame” and “Avatar. The most-watched pay-cable show of this era is “Game of Thrones.” All three offer tense standoffs, climactic battle scenes and other high-burn elements. They try to make us sweat.
Such content, researchers have found, can leave a deep mark. A study from Linder College in Oregon revealed that clips from “aggressive” movies activate mental aggression, while research conducted by University College London indicated that action movies can even take a toll on the cardiac muscle.
So modern entertainment leaders have tried another way. Executives at ViacomCBS streaming service Pluto TV licensed a well of content from Ross, the ultimate soothe-meister, and created a channel devoted to him. If you want to see happy little trees spring up everywhere — all 380 episodes of them — they are now available on the platform.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, John Hertz, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Contrarius, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to Fiel 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

File 770

Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom

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