The winners of the 2023 Ursa Major Awards, presented annually for “excellence in the furry arts”, were announced May 25 in a YouTube video. (Note: The video refers to them as the 2023 awards, while the Ursa Major Awards website calls them the 2022 awards. Please yourself.)
Best Motion Picture Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
Best Comic Strip Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
• The Whiteboard, by Doc N. (Internet, January 4 to December 23)
Best Magazine Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
• Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch Packrat. (Internet; January 12 to September 30)
Best Illustration Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, T-shirts, coffee-table portfolios.
Best Game Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
• Cult of the Lamb (Developer: Massive Monster, Publisher: Devolver Digital; Aug 11)
Best Website Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
(1) BOASE AWARD. The UK’s Branford Boase Award honors debut efforts in children’s books and the editors as well as authors behind them. There are three works on The Branford Boase Award 2023 Shortlist of genre interest:
…First awarded in 2017, the Republic of Consciousness prize is given to the best literary novel published by a small press in the UK and Ireland with fewer than five employees. Over the past seven years the prize has awarded almost £100,000 to more than 25 small presses and writers….
Dead Ink Books has won the Republic of Consciousness prize for small presses for Missouri Williams’s “astonishing” debut novel The Doloriad. Yet while Dead Ink and Williams will get the prestige of winning, the entire shortlist will receive the same reward. Each of the five books wins £1,000, split 70:30 between publisher and author, on top of the £300 awarded to the 10 longlisted titles, which was paid to the presses only.
Prague-based Williams’s novel is set in the imagined wake of a mysterious disaster that has wiped out most of humanity. One family, descended from incest, remains, ruled by a merciless woman known only as the Matriarch. When the Matriarch believes there might be more survivors she sends one of her daughters, the legless Dolores, as a marriage offering….
“Earning out” means that the amount you’ve “earned” in royalties from copies sold (across all formats) equals or exceeds your advance payment.
(4) CON OR BUST AUCTION RETURNS. Dream Foundry’s Con or Bust program makes direct cash grants to creators or fans of color to assist with travel, food, registration, and other expenses associated with attending industry events. They are bringing back The Con or Bust Auction to raise money for their grants and are looking for donors for items of interest to potential auction buyers. “Think special experiences (like author Q&As), art, limited and/or special edition copies of books, ARCs for anticipated releases, etc.”
They want to have donations in by the end of June for inclusion this year. See full information on the program and how to contact them about donations here. Dream Foundry is a recognized non-profit and any donations given to us are tax deductible.
Furious Heaven, being a sequel to Unconquerable Sun, is a middle book in a series. How has the writing of this been the same, and different than other series that you have done?
My goal with each of the three books of this trilogy has been, and continues to be, to shape each individual volume as if it is a standalone. Unconquerable Sun completes several of its major plot threads and, I believe, ends at a satisfying point. If I’ve done my job right, the reader will feel they’ve read a complete story and ALSO wish to read more.
Middle volumes are peculiarly hard. It’s important, in my opinion, to avoid “adding more beads onto the string” — that is, just to add more incident without complicating or expanding on the original elements of the story. A middle volume can add layers, unexpected twists and outcomes; it can deepen the characters and guide the reader into new landscapes and unknown dangers only hinted at in book one. That’s how I worked with (for example) Shadow Gate (Crossroads), Cold Fire (Spiritwalker), and Poisoned Blade (Court of Fives), which are all second volumes in trilogies that make the story bigger and show the reader new places and new conflicts.
With Furious Heaven I specifically wanted to do my best to make the story readable by someone who hadn’t read book one, while also having it build on what had come before….
If you want to know where Dune: Part Two will begin, just look to the ending of the 2021 original. Director Denis Villeneuve wants to make it clear that his new movie, set for release November 3, is not so much another film as a continuation of the first. “It’s important—it’s not a sequel, it’s a second part. There’s a difference,” Villeneuve tells Vanity Fair for this exclusive first look. “I wanted the movie to really open just where we left the characters. There’s no time jump. I wanted dramatic continuity with part one.”…
….Although the first part of Dune became one of the first post-pandemic blockbusters and was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning six, the filmmaker himself still fixates on what he feels he could have done better. “You have to accept your failures as an artist,” he says. “It’s a task that was almost impossible, for me to be absolutely faithful to what those childhood dreams were. But what brings a lot of peace in my heart is that I brought a lot of them to the screen, a lot of them are close to what I had imagined.”
For now, Villeneuve is keeping his head down, staying focused on his work. “I’m deep into sound design and the visual effects, and it’s a race against time,” he says. Even discussing the film for this story was taxing for him. “I’ll be very blunt, okay?” he says with a smile, deploying the most Canadian analogy imaginable. “It’s very difficult for me to start to talk about a movie when I’m doing it. It’s like asking a hockey player to describe how he will score as he is skating toward the net.”
(7) URSA MAJOR AWARDS. The group that runs the Ursa Major Awards for anthropomorphic works is asking for financial support. Contact them at the Ursa Major Awards website.
— Ursa Major Awards???????? (@UrsaMajorAwards) April 26, 2023
(8) MEMORY LANE.
2003 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
One of my very favorite authors is Emma Bull (she and Will are on the chocolate gifting list) and Finder: A Novel of The Borderland is a novel that I’ve read at least a half dozen times to date.
Without stating any spoilers, I think it’s safe to say that Emma created truly believable characters, from the primary ones to the ones that just exist to enhance out the story, the setting of the city itself, and a story that makes the most of the setting that Bull has fleshed out from what Terri Windling created originally in this series.
The novel is available readily for quite reasonable prices in various editions, print and digital.
And here’s the Beginning straight from the Border…
“My father he rides with your sheriffs
And I know he would never mean harm…
— Richard Thompson, “Genesis Hall”
Chapter 1. Falling Out of Paradise
I remember where I was and what I was doing when Bonnie Prince Charlie was killed. Not that I knew it at the time, of course. But while Charlie was traveling the distance from the Pigeon Cloisters belfry to High Street with all the dispatch that gravity can muster, I was sunbathing.
If the weather had held, I’d have been on the roof of my building the next day, too, spread out like a drying sweater. But it promised rain. (If the forecast had been different, would the past be, too? Would a lot of people still be here? This town is strange and has weather to match, but I never imagined it was a matter of life and death.)
So when Tick-Tick pounded on the frame of my open front door, I was in and washing dishes. She poked her head in and shouted, “I am the queen’s daughter, I come from Twelfth and Flynn, in search of Young Orient, pray God I find him!”
I lifted my hands dripping from the suds, took the herbal cigarette out of the corner of my mouth, and said, “Excuse me?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking,” said the Ticker placidly. She stalked in, the picture of elven self-possession, and picked a saucer out of the dishpan with thumb and forefinger. “Mab’s grace. So low as you’ve fallen, my precious boy.”
“I’m out of cups. Nothing else would have driven me to it.” The water had killed my cigarette. I sighed and flicked it out the window.
She dropped into my upholstered chair and swung her long legs over the arm. Her concession to summer’s heat, I noticed, was to tear the sleeves off her favorite pair of gray mechanic’s coveralls and roll the legs up to mid-calf. And still she did look rather like a queen’s daughter; but the elves usually look like royalty. When they’re trying not to, they only look like royalty in a cheap plastic disguise. Tick-Tick had a face like the bust of Nefertiti, only more daunting, and her eyes were huge and long and the gray of January ice.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 27, 1899 — Walter Lantz. Cartoonist, animator, producer and director who founded Walter Lantz Productions. He created the Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy characters among others. He received an Academy Award “for bringing joy and laughter to every part of the world through his unique animated motion pictures”. (Died 1994.)
Born April 27, 1901 — Frank Belknap Long. John Hertz says that Long should be singled out for the “To Follow Knowledge” novelette which he lovingly discuses here. I only add that Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. (Died 1994.)
Born April 27, 1920 — Doris Baumgardt.Well-known and loved fan, illustrator and writer. She was a member of the Futurians, and a founding member of FAPA. She was also a member of the CPASF and the Science Fictioneers. She was one of five members of the Futurians allowed into the first World Science Fiction Convention by Sam Moskowitz — the other four were Isaac Asimov, David Kyle, Jack Robinson and Richard Wilson. She wrote three pieces of short fiction that were published in the Forties and Fifties; she contributed artwork to fanzines. (JJ) (Died 1970.)
Born April 27, 1958 — Caroline Spector, 65. She was an Associate Editor at Amazing Stories for several years, but her main genre connection is her fiction in George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series where she has seven stories. She also a Shadowrun novel, Worlds Without End. (Now that was an interesting RPG!) she also has an essay, “Power and Feminism in Westeros” in James Lowder’s Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, From A “Game of Thrones” to “A Dance with Dragons
Born April 27, 1962 — Rachel Caine. She had two ongoing endeavors, the Weather Warden series which is most excellent and the superb Great Library series. I can’t speak to the Morganville Vampires series as I don’t do vampires really. And yes, I know she’s got a number of other series, far more than can detailed be here. (Died 2020.)
Born April 27, 1963 — Russell T. Davies, 60. Responsible for the 2005 revival on BBC One of Doctor Who. (A Whovian since the very beginning, he thinks “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” has the best dialogue in the entire series, an opinion I concur with.) Of course he’s also responsible for Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures as well. (Need I note that the The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot was his idea?) Davies returned as the showrunner in October 2022 after the departure of Chris Chibnall; the first episodes of his second tenure will be the show’s sixtieth anniversary specials in 2023.
Born April 27, 1986 — Catherine Webb, 37. She’s writes under a number of names but I only know her under her Kate Griffin name where she wrote the extraordinary London set Matthew Swift series which one of the best urban fantasy series I ever read. I’ve not read any of her fiction written as Claire North which is major other name, so if you have, do tell me how it is. As North, her book The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August won the Clarke Award and Campbell Memorial Award, and The Sudden Appearance of Hope won a World Fantasy Award. Now go read the Matthew Swift series!
Four years ago, Amazon pulled the plug on its plans to build a headquarters in New York City, amid left-wing outrage over a $3 billion public subsidy package. But New York has hardly cut the company off: Amazon’s film and TV arm has received more than $108 million in state tax credits since then, and the left has raised nary a peep.
The handout is part of a state program that provides hundreds of millions of dollars each year in tax incentives to producers across the film and television industry, including Amazon — helping fuel a rapid expansion of studios in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County.
Now, Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing to expand the program by nearly 70 percent, using the proposed state budget to shower as much as $7.7 billion in tax credits on the industry over the next 11 years. As it now stands, the subsidy is the most generous of any offered by the state, according to an analysis by Reinvent Albany, a watchdog group.
The proposed expansion to $700 million a year from $420 million has drawn stern rebukes from a range of critics who argue the decades-old program has consistently been a bad deal for taxpayers. But its likely success shows what is possible when powerful political and economic forces align in Albany, and states are increasingly pitted against each other for prestige jobs.
Ms. Hochul’s team is most concerned about neighboring New Jersey, which, along with Georgia and Canada, offers its own buffet of sweeteners that threatens to siphon film projects from New York.
During World War II, a clutch of whimsical children’s books were published in the Netherlands under a pen name, El Pintor. One book shows children flying on the backs of sparrows. In another, they float, attached to balloons. There is a pop-up book with people and animals nestled in trees and an activity book with paper cutouts.
The books sold thousands of copies, and were popular not only in the Netherlands, which was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940, but in Germany as well.
The books did more than entertain children during the grim days of war. Behind the pseudonym El Pintor was a Jewish couple, Galinka Ehrenfest and Jacob Kloot. They used the name El Pintor to obscure their heritage, and funneled the proceeds from their picture books to fund Dutch resistance efforts and to help Jews who were hiding from the Nazi regime.
They did so at great risk, said Linda Horn, who wrote a book published in the Netherlands about Ehrenfest’s life.
“Secrecy was very important, people couldn’t write down what they were doing,” said Horn of those who worked in the Dutch resistance. “There are barely any sources.”…
(12) TODAY’S DAY. It’s World Hyena Day today. Which is important if you’re into furry fiction.
Are you… KEEN on YEENS? In honour of the upcoming World Hyena Day (April 27), I'm offering a coupon code for 15% off a physical copy of my book 'Rafts'! Survival! Romance! Gnolls! Love! Feels! Language difficulties! Gay stuff! Please retweet! 🙂https://t.co/2fxVzBerk9pic.twitter.com/sE3UlyE3L0
(13) HISTORY-MAKING AMATEUR FILM CLUB. [Item by Ahrvid Enghom.] UK fan Jim Walker suddenly appears in the new documentary “A Bunch of Amateurs” (eg 37h30m in, but also later and in the credits), a film about the world’s perhaps oldest amateur film club, the Bradford Movie Makers founded in 1932.
Available here for UK viewers (Geo-blocking may be overcome by VPN or something, if you know how.) I’ve seen the film, which has been on our local SVT.
John Coxon, Alison Scott and Liz Batty talk about their Hugo Award nominations. You have about four days to vote, so get your skates on! Read and watch everything we recommend! Do it now!
(15) APEX ACQUIRES KEENE BOOK. Apex Book Company has acquired first North America English trade paperback rights to the novel Island Of The Dead by Brian Keene in a deal brokered by the author.
Island Of The Dead is a horror/sword and sorcery novel in which an enslaved barbarian plots his escape from a war galley transporting soldiers and a mysterious biological weapon. But when a storm at sea leaves them shipwrecked on a mysterious island, friend and foe alike must band together against a ravenous, steadily growing horde of the undead.
Through Apex Books, Keene has written the Lost Level series of dark fantasy novels and co-authored the Rogan Chronicles series with Steven Shrewsbury.
Brian Keene is the author of over fifty books, mostly in the horror, crime, fantasy, and non-fiction genres. His 2003 novel, The Rising, is credited (along with Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later film) with inspiring pop culture’s recurrent interest in zombies.
A mysterious Russian satellite and a confidential US military satellite appear to be engaged in a cat-and-mouse chase through space.
The Russian spacecraft, called Kosmos-2558, was launched into the same orbital plane as the US satellite, called USA-326, in August 2022 and has regularly passed close to the American spacecraft ever since.
The behavior of Kosmos-2558, and the lack of a formal explanation from Russia, has led space observers to believe that the probe is stalking USA-326. It’s at least the third satellite Russia has launched that appears to be an “inspector” — a spacecraft aiming to gather up-close data on another satellite….
[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Ahrvid Engholm, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]
The nominations for the 2022 Ursa Major Awards have been finalized. The Ursa Major Award is presented annually for “excellence in the furry arts.” Anyone may nominate and vote for candidates for the Awards. The 2022 Ursa Major Awards final ballot will be open for voting from March 1 to March 31 on the UMA website.
THE 2022 NOMINEES
Best Motion Picture Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
• Bluey (Created by Joe Brumm; Season 3 (Part 2)) • Helluva Boss (Directed by Vivienne “VivziePop” Medrano; Season 2, episodes 1-10) • The Owl House (Created by Dana Terrace; season 2 episode 11 to season 3 episode 1) • Tuca & Bertie (Created by Lisa Hanawalt; Season 3) Mature Audiences. • Zootopia+ (Directed by Trent Correy and Josie Trinidad, Season 1)
Best Novel Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.
• A FurryFaux Paw, by Jessica Kara. (Page Street Kids; July 26) • Brothers At Arms by R.A. Meenan. (Starcrest Fox Press; February 14) • Mouse Cage, by Malcolm F. Cross. (Fenris Publishing; July 13) • Scars of the Golden Dancer, by NightEyes DaySpring. (Dancing Jackal Books; March 4) Mature Audiences • Toledot (Post-Self #2), by Madison Scott-Clary. (Self; January 21)
Best Short Fiction Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short Written works.
Best General Literary Work Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
• Circles: Volume 4, by Steve Domanski and Andrew French. (Fenris Publishing, collection, Febuary 21) • ROAR: Volume 11, Edited by Ian Madison Keller. (Bad Dog Books, anthology, July 1) • Usagi Yojimbo Origins, by Stan Sakai. (IDW Publishing, trade paperback collection; volume 2 to 4) • Usagi Yojimbo (Trade Paperback), by Stan Sakai. (IDW Publishing, trade paperback collection; Tengu War to Crossroads) • When the World Was Young: A Prehistoric Anthology, edited by Madison Scott-Clary. (The Furry Historical Fiction Society,anthology, December 1
Best Graphic Story Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
• Slightly Damned, by Chu. (Internet, pages 1038 to 1081) • Sonic the Hedgehog, written by Evan Stanley and Ian Flynn, art by Aaron Hammerstrom, Evan Stanley and Adam Bryce Thomas. (IDW; issues 48 to 55) • Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai. (IDW Publishing; issues 25 to 31) • Usagi Yojimbo: Lone Goat & Kid, by Stan Sakai. (IDW Publishing; issues 1 to 6) • The Whiteboard: Sherlock Holmes, by Doc N. (Internet, October 3 to December 23)
Best Comic Strip Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
• Carry On, by Kathy Garrison Kellogg (Internet, January 4 to December 30) • Duncan & Eddie, by Chevril. (Twitter; January 1 to December 26) • Foxes In Lovel, @foxesinlove. (Twitter; January 1 to December 21) • Part Time Dragons, by Part Time Dragons. (Internet; Dragon Bite Meat to The Disturbing Side Effects of Immortality) • The Whiteboard, by Doc N. (Internet, January 4 to December 23)
Best Magazine Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
• Deep Sky Anchor, edited by Mary E. Lowd. (Internet; May to December) • Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch Packrat. (Internet; January 12 to September 30) • Flayrah, edited by GreenReaper, Sonious, and Dronon (Internet; January 1 to December 29) • InFurNation, edited by Rod O’Riley. (Internet; January 1 to December 30) • Zooscape, edited by Mary E. Lowd (Internet; Issue 14 to 16)
Best Illustration Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, T-shirts, coffee-table portfolios.
Best Game Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
• Cult of the Lamb (Developer: Massive Monster, Publisher: Devolver Digital; Aug 11) • Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (Developer: Monkey Craft, Publisher: Bandai Namco; July 8) • Lookouts (Developer: ParanoidHawk and ColDoggo, Publisher: itch.io; March 31) • Stray (Developer: BlueTwelve Studio, Publisher: Annapurna Interactive; July 19) • Tunic (Developer: Andrew Shouldice, Publisher: Finji; March 16)
Best Website Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
• e621, Art archive • Fluffle, reverse image search for the furry community • Fur Affinity, Furry art and stories • Kemono Café, Furry webcomic hosting • Wikifur, Furry wiki
(1) THE FUR IS FLYING. Flayrah’s Tantroo McNally suspects the number of furry fandom’s Ursa Major awards voters who make a dispassionate assessment of quality is being overwhelmed by devoted fans of specific popular franchises and creators that campaign for the award. McNally regards this as a problem, therefore is in search of a solution: “Ursa’s Major Issue – Confident self-promotion vs humble passionate skill, and a voting system’s favoritism”.
Ursa, we may have a problem. Or at least so it may seem. Over the past few years the number of people voting in the furry fandom’s popular choice awards appears to be dwindling once again, despite continual growth and booming attendance at our conventions – COVID aside – revealing the growing audience and community beneath this stagnation.
But if less people in proportion are voting, is there a reason for this? One option may be that the system may be lead to some strange victors based on popularity of a franchise or personality rather than other considerations. But is this just a coincidence or could it be how the system was inadvertently crafted?
This article’s goal is to highlight why the current system is so sensitive to favoring artists who self-promote or whose fans rally on their behalf, at the expense of voters that weigh more toward judging the quality of the pieces nominated without authorship considerations. It will then propose a small change to make it more fair to both types of voters and creators, without stifling out those who show up with a passion for their artist.
(2) OUSTED FROM THE MOUSE. Kenan Thompson was today’s guest on Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me and one of his questions was about how Harlan Ellison got fired from Disney. And Kenan blew the question, spectacularly! “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! — Kenan Thompson”.
Kenan Thompson, the longest-tenured cast member of Saturday Night Live, plays our game about people who only lasted one day on the job. He is joined by panelists Luke Burbank, Negin Farsad and Hari Kondabolu.
(3) SPOCK TO BE REMOVED FROM CANADIAN FIVE DOLLAR BILL. Well, technically he’s never been on it, however quite a few years ago, Lloyd Penney was the first person to show me how easy it is to turn the fellow on Canada’s $5 bill into a likeness of Spock.
…As of now, the reveal trailer is all that we have as far as footage for Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and while it has next to nothing in terms of gameplay, we can still learn a lot about what this game will be.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns will be a more supernatural-focused take on the superhero genre and is something like a more magical-focused version of the Avengers, although we obviously see some of the big names from that team here as well, including Iron Man, Dr. Strange, and Captain America. The plotline will be notably darker than other Marvel media, with the main antagonistic force being the spawn of the underworld. Hydra has awoken the Mother of Demons, Lilith, from her long slumber, and she has begun her own quest to summon an even greater evil known as Chthon.
The Avengers turn to the titular team known as the Midnight Suns, made up of heroes with their own supernatural talents, to combat this occult threat. Their first act is to bring out a secret weapon of their own, Lilith’s own child, known as the Hunter, who is the only one to have ever managed to defeat Lilith in the past. It looks, at least from the small bits we’ve seen, to be a fresh perspective for this franchise, and we’re excited to see if it can stick the landing….
(5) ATTENTION, PLEASE. Lisa Tuttle’s latest book recommendations came out in yesterday’s Guardian: “The best recent science fiction and fantasy – review roundup”. Reviews of Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro; In the Heart of Hidden Things by Kit Whitfield; The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter Murray; The Splendid City by Karen Heuler; and Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada.
It’s 1992, and the solar system’s first space hotel is about to open. A woman is running for president. The United States, the Soviet Union and a private corporation are in a three-way race to land astronauts on Mars.
At least, that’s what’s happening in the 1992 of Apple TV+’s stunning “For All Mankind” (returning Friday, streaming weekly streaming Fridays; ★★★★ out of four) an alternate history drama that imagines the 1960s space race between the U.S. and the USSR never ended. Now in its third season, the series rockets to a Mars-centric version of the 1990s where the timeline is different but still feels a bit like the ’90s we know.
“Mankind” is the rare series that’s exciting, emotional, tense, dramatic, heartbreaking, elating and infuriating all at once. Some TV shows are good, some are great, and still others remind me why I became a critic in the first place. And in the endless barrage of mediocre series pushed out weekly, “Mankind” stands out, a shining star (or moon or planet) among the replaceable rest….
(7) BEGIN HERE. The Best of Edward M. Lerner was released in May. “A physicist and computer engineer, Edward M. Lerner toiled in the vineyards of high tech for thirty years, as everything from engineer to senior vice president. Then, suitably intoxicated, he began writing full time.”
While you probably know Ed from his SF novels, including the InterstellarNet series and the epic Fleet of Worlds series with Larry Niven, Ed is also a prolific author of acclaimed short fiction. This collection showcases his finest and favorite shorter works.
Faced with the common question of which of his books should someone read first, he has carefully selected these stories to cover his wide range. Now he can answer, “This one!”
Alternate history. Parallel worlds. Future crime. Alien invasion. Alien castaways. Time travel. Quantum intelligence (just don’t call him artificial). A sort-of haunted robot. Deco punk. In this book, you’ll find these—and more—together with Ed’s reminiscences about each selection and its relationship to other stories, novels, and even series that span his writing career.
These are the best, as determined by awards, award nominations, and the selective tastes of eight top editors and choosy Analog readers.
Each excellent story stands alone—you won’t need to have read anything prior—but you’ll surely want to read more of Ed’s books afterwards.
1993 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Twenty-nine years ago on this day saw Spielberg taking on Nazis, errr, wrong film. No, this time it was Really Big Reptiles. Jurassic Park premiered launching the beginning of a very, very lucrative franchise. It would indeed be honored with a Hugo at ConAdian the next year suggesting that it a very popular film among y’all.
It’s based on a screenplay by Michael Crichton as co-written by David Koepp off his novel of the same name. It was produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen, both of which had long histories with Spielberg. The human cast was extended, so I’ll just single out Richard Attenborough, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Neill and BD Wong here.
Now about those Really Big Reptiles. They were created with a combination of imagery from Industrial Light & Magic and with life-sized animatronic dinosaurs built by Stan Winston’s team. Yes they were life-size! These were Really Big Reptiles. I thought they looked lifelike when I watched it in the theater and I know why they were! Scary looking bastards they were.
Despite the impressive look of the film, it was actually cheap to produce costing around sixty million dollars. Crichton was smart as he only took a one point five million fee and instead got a guaranteed percentage of the gross, a gross which was over a billion in the end.
Did the critics like it? Yes for the most part though I thought they rightfully note almost all of them that the human characters came off as, errr, lacking in being real. Peter Travers of the Rolling Stone said that it was a “colossal entertainment—the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year” and Roger Ebert in his Chicago Sun-Times review noted that though it’s a great SF film: “the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values.”
May I ask do we really need strong human characters when you’ve got Really Big Reptiles? I think not.
It went to create quite a franchise. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was next followed by Jurassic Park III, Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and A sixth film, Jurassic World Dominion, came out this month. Films four and five each grossed over a billion dollars with the other sequels doing well over a half billion.
It currently holds a ninety-two rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 11, 1927 — Kit Pedler. In the Sixties, he became the unofficial scientific adviser to the Doctor Who production team. One of his creations was the Cybermen. He also wrote three scripts — “The Tenth Planet” (co-written with Gerry Davis), “The Moonbase” and “The Tomb of the Cybermen“. Pedler and Davis went on to create and co-write the Doomwatch series. He wrote a number of genre novel including Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters (co-written with Gerry Davis) and Doomwatch: The World in Danger. Another one who died much too young, by heart attack. (Died 1981.)
Born June 11, 1929 — Charles Beaumont. He is remembered as a writer of Twilight Zone episodes such as “Miniature”, “Person or Persons Unknown”, “Printer’s Devil” and “The Howling Man” but also wrote the screenplays for several films such as Burn, Witch, Burn which was nominated for a Hugo at Discon I (no Award was given that year), 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and The Masque of the Red Death. He also wrote a lot of short stories, so let’s see if there’s digital collections available. Yes, I’m pleased to say, including several by legit publishers. Yea! (Died 1967.)
Born June 11, 1933 — Gene Wilder. The first role I saw him play was The Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles. Of course he has more genre roles than that starting out with Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory followed by the already noted Blazing Saddles and then Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein which won a Hugo at the first AussieCon. He was Sigerson Holmes in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, a brilliantly weird film whose cast also included Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Roy Kinnear and Leo McKern! I’ve also got him playing Lord Ravensbane/The Scarecrow in The Scarecrow, a 1972 TV film based based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Feathertop”. (Died 2016.)
Born June 11, 1945 — Adrienne Barbeau, 77. Swamp Thing with her is quite pulpy. She’s also in the Carnivale series, a very weird affair that never got wrapped up properly. She provided the voice of Catwoman on Batman: The Animated Series. And she was in both Creepshow and The Fog. Oh and ISFDB lists her as writing two novels, Vampyres of Hollywood (with Michael Scott) and presumably another vampire novel, Love Bites. Anyone here read these?
Born June 11, 1959 — Hugh Laurie, 63. Best known as House to most folks whose series is streaming on Peacock right now and I really should rewatch it. His most recent genre role was as Mycroft Holmes in that wretched Holmes and Watson film. He’s had past genre roles in The Borrowers, the Stuart Little franchise, Tomorrowland, Blackadder: Back & Forth and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased).
Born June 11, 1968 — Justina Robson, 54. Author of the excellent Quantum Gravity series which I loved. I’ve not started her Natural History series but have not added it to my digital To Be Read list, so would be interested in hearing from anyone here who has. I was surprised that she hasn’t picked up any Hugo nominations so far, although her work has been up for other awards 18 times.
Born June 11, 1971 — P. Djèlí Clark, 51. I’m very much enjoying A Master of Djinn which made my Hugo nominations list this year. It follows his “The Haunting of Tram Car 015” novella and “The Angel of Khan el-Khalili” and “A Dead Djinn in Cairo”, short stories, all set in his Dead Djinn universe. I’ve not read his “Black Drums” novella which garnered a Hugo nomination at Dublin 2019, nor the “Ring Shout” novella which got a Hugo nomination at DisCon III, so I welcome opinions on them. And I see his “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” short story also got a 2019 Hugo nomination. CoNZealand saw “The Haunting of Tram Car 015” pick up a nomination.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
Crankshaft gets another superpet joke out of the setup we linked to the other day.
Sony Pictures announced that “Spider-Man: No Way Home — The More Fun Stuff Version,” a cut of the December 2021 Marvel film with added and extended scenes, will hit theaters over Labor Day Weekend.
The news came Friday evening in celebration of 60 years of the Spider-Man comic book character and 20 years of Spider-Man films, along with a teaser featuring a clip from the movie where Tom Holland and previous “Spider-Man” actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield unite.
“This is so cool. We should do this again,” says Garfield’s Peter Parker.
“You got it,” Maguire’s Peter replies….
You wanted more Spidey and you got it! ???????????? #SpiderManNoWayHome: The More Fun Stuff Version swings into movie theaters in the US and Canada September 2! More countries to be announced soon! pic.twitter.com/4Ux3AwdpfO
— Spider-Man: No Way Home (@SpiderManMovie) June 11, 2022
It’s a scene that every child of the ’80s knows by heart: Riding through the California wilderness with his extra-terrestrial pal, E.T., riding shotgun — or, more accurately, riding shot-basket — young Elliott’s bicycle lifts off from the forest floor and ascends into the sky until the two are silhouetted against the full moon. That image didn’t just define Steven Spielberg’s 1982 blockbuster — it also became the signature logo for his production company, Amblin Entertainment, gracing hundreds of beloved films and TV series. While that scene defines movie magic for audiences in the theater, for the film’s young star, Henry Thomas, it was just another day on the job….
Jurassic World: Dominion is not a good movie. Let’s get that out of the way up top. Given how terrible the firsttwoJurassic World movies were, I wasn’t expecting it to be, and yet I felt the need to see it anyway, just to make sure. Possibly this coloured my perception of it from the outset, but generally speaking, I’m not a person who purposefully sets out to hatewatch things, as I’d much rather be pleasantly surprised by an okayish film than proven right by a dud. I will, however, spitefinish an aggravating film in order to justify writing about it afterwards, and having sat through all 146 minutes of Dominion – unlike my mother, who walked out of our session and went home after the first five minutes because it was so goddamn loud – I feel the need to save others the time and money of doing likewise….
(14) IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL GET DRUNK. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] I do not want Shoeless Joe crushing the grapes for me. Especially after a full nine innings. “The baseball field in a wine vineyard” at MLB.com.
…It’s there because, well, a guy and his team needed a place to play baseball.
“The field was built in 2002,” Green said. “It was proposed by our vineyard operations manager, Manuel Vallejo, who’s worked for the Ballettos for more than 30 years. Manuel asked [founder] John [Balletto] if they could plow about four acres for a baseball field. He was playing in a community league and his team was having a really hard time finding places to practice.”
During that time, the Balletto family was in the middle of transitioning from a vegetable farm to a winery — so they were already razing old fields and planting new ones. John also thought it would be a good idea, a perk for employees and a fun addition to the property. So, the founder bought his baseball-loving employees the materials needed for construction and then Vallejo and his coworkers began building their vision. It took about a year to finish, and they proudly maintain it to this day. Vallejos’ team is fittingly called Los Uveros or, The Grapers, and they play other community teams on Sundays with practices a couple times per week. Their jerseys are also as cool as you’d imagine….
…”Yeah, all of the sections are marked. Left into center field, we’re growing Pinot Gris,” Green told me. “Right field is Chardonnay. Left field, like foul ground, is mostly Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and there is a little bit of Pinot Noir out there.”…
(15) NORWEGIAN WOOD. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] If they do three Troll movies, will that be a Trollogy?
Deep inside the mountain of Dovre, something gigantic awakens after being trapped for a thousand years. Destroying everything in its path, the creature is fast approaching the capital of Norway. But how do you stop something you thought only existed in Norwegian folklore?
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, N., Bonnie McDaniel, Jennifer Hawthorne, John A Arkansawyer, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jim Janney.]
The winners of the 2022 Ursa Major Awards, presented annually for “excellence in the furry arts”, were announced May 15 in a YouTube video. (Note: The video refers to them as the 2022 awards, while the Ursa Major Awards website and another major furry news site call them the 2021 awards. Suit yourself.)
Best Motion Picture Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
Raya and the Last Dragon (Directed by Don Hall, Carlos Lopez Estrada, Paul Briggs and John Ripa; March 5)
Best Dramatic Short Work One-shots, advertisements or short videos.
Nobody Does It Better, Musical interlude by Princess Katre (Video production by Frank Berhring, artwork and concept by K. Garrison; from the comic strip Carry On. December 26)
Best Dramatic Series TV or YouTube series videos.
Helluva Boss (Created by Vivienne Medrano; Season 1 episode 3 to episode 6) Mature Audiences.
Best Novel Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.
The Captain’s Oath, by Rick Griffin. (Self; February 20)
Best Short Fiction Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short Written works.
Where Have All The Mousies Gone, by Mary E. Lowd. (In Daily Science Fiction; December 14)
Best Other Literary Work Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
Awoo!: Volume 1, by AC Stuart. (Fenris Publishing, comic strip collection; November)
Non-Fiction Work
This furry scientist won’t let Twitter’s COVID pessimists kill her vibe, by Chris Stokel-Walker. (Input, article; June 2)
Best Graphic Story Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
Shine, by Babystar (Fur Affinity, January 1 to December 24) adult material
Best Comic Strip Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
Carry On, by Kathy Garrison Kellogg (Internet, January 1 to December 31)
Best Magazine Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch Packrat. (Internet; January 21 to December 22) (Monthly publication of the FWG, sponsors of the COYOTL awards)
Best Published Illustration Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, coffee-table portfolios.
Best Game Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
Deltarune: Chapter 2 (Developer/Publisher: Toby Fox; September 17)
Best Website Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
The nominations for the 2021 Ursa Major Awards have been finalized. The Ursa Major Award is presented annually for “excellence in the furry arts.” Anyone may nominate and vote for candidates for the Awards. The 2021 Ursa Major Awards final ballot will be open for voting from March 1 to March 31 on the UMA website.
2021 NOMINEES
Best Motion Picture Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
Luca (Directed by Enrico Casarosa; June 18)
My Little Pony: A New Generation (Directed by Robert Cullen and Jose Ucha; September 24)
Raya and the Last Dragon (Directed by Don Hall, Carlos Lopez Estrada, Paul Briggs and John Ripa; March 5)
Sing 2 (Directed by Garth Jennings; December 22)
Wish Dragon (Directed by Chris Appelhans; January 15)
Best Dramatic Short Work One-shots, advertisements or short videos.
Fossils (Directed by Piti Yindee; June 3)
Fuelled (Directed by Michelle Hao and Fawn Chan; December 1)
Katrina the Fuzzy Princess (Directed by Charles Brubaker; September 9)
Nobody Does It Better, Musical interlude by Princess Katre (Video production by Frank Berhring, artwork and concept by K. Garrison; from the comic strip Carry On. December 26)
The Mandrake (Directed by Quincy Baltes; August 8)
Best Dramatic Series TV or YouTube series videos.
Beastars, Season 2 (Directed by Shinichi Matsumi; January 7 to March 25)
Centaurworld (Created by Megan Nicole Dong; July 30 to December 7)
Chikn Nuggit (by Chikn Nuggit; videos January 1 to December 31)
Helluva Boss (Created by Vivienne Medrano; Season 1 episode 3 to episode 6) Mature Audiences.
Odd Taxi (Directed by Mugi Kinoshita; episode 1 to 13, April 6 to June 29)
Best Novel Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.
Interesting Times, by George Cole and N.C. Shapero. (Jarlidium Press; March)
Starwhal in Flight (The Entangled Universe, Book 3), by Mary E. Lowd. (Aethon Books; February)
The Bee’s Waltz: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel, by Mary E. Lowd. (Shadow Spinners Press; November)
The Captain’s Oath, by Rick Griffin. (Self; February 20)
The Entropy Fountain (The Entangled Universe, Book 2), by Mary E. Lowd. (Aethon Books; January)
Best Short Fiction Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short Written works.
Crystal Fusion, by Mary E. Lowd. (In The Voice of Dog; August 16 & 20)
Dance of Wood and Grace, by Marie Croke. (In Zooscape; issue 10)
The Arsenal of Obsolescence, by Mary E. Lowd. (In The Voice of Dog; June 7 & 10)
Too Cuddly, by Mary E. Lowd. (In Daily Science Fiction; May 18)
Where Have All The Mousies Gone, by Mary E. Lowd. (In Daily Science Fiction; December 14)
Best Other Literary Work Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
Awoo!: Volume 1, by AC Stuart. (Fenris Publishing, comic strip collection; November)
Beasts of Burden: Occupied Territory, by Evan Dorkin illustrated by Benjamin Dewey. (Dark Horse, trade paperback collection; November 16)
Difursity Vol. 2, edited by Weasel. (Thurston Howl Publications, short story/article collection; October)
Sam Digger: Beaver Detective, by Ian Madison Keller. (Rainbow Dog Press, anthology; March 18)
Shark Week: An Ocean Anthology, edited by Ian Madison Keller (Rainbow Dog Press, anthology; June 30)
Non-Fiction Work
Furry Fiction Is Everywhere: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Anthropomorphic Characters, by Ian Madison Keller & Mary E. Lowd. (Rainbow Dog Books, writing guide; September 10)
How Furries Are Making Virtual Reality Worth Visiting, by Matt Baume. (Input, article; July 27)
The otter who became an accidental VTuber star, by Patricia Hernandez (Polygon, article; February 18)
The Zoo Files, by Toad McKinley. (Youtube, video; January 12)
This furry scientist won’t let Twitter’s COVID pessimists kill her vibe, by Chris Stokel-Walker. (Input, article; June 2)
Best Graphic Story Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
24/7, by Hladilnik. (Twitter; October 31)
Blades of Furry, by Deya Muniz and Emily Erdos. (Webtoons; Episode 5 to 45)
Found Retake, by Toddlergirl (Fur Affinity, January 2 to December 28)
Isla Aukate, by Foxena (January 1 to December 31)
Shine, by Babystar (Fur Affinity, January 1 to December 24) adult material
Best Comic Strip Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
Carry On, by Kathy Garrison Kellogg (Internet, January 1 to December 31)
Foxes in Love, by @foxes_in_love. (Twitter; January 2 to December 22)
Freefall, by Mark Stanley (Internet, January 1 to December 31)
Friends You Are Stuck With, by Gabe Bold (Internet, January 8 to December 25)
The Whiteboard, by Doc N. (Internet, January 4 to December 24)
Best Magazine Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
#ohmurr!, edited by Izzy Torres, AKA Weasel. (Internet; Issues (7) from Spring to Winter 2021) Mature Audiences.
Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch Packrat. (Internet; January 21 to December 22) (Monthly publication of the FWG, sponsors of the COYOTL awards)
Flayrah, edited by GreenReaper, Sonious, and Dronon (Internet; January 2 to December 31)
InFurNation, edited by Rod O’Riley. (Internet; January 2 to December 30)
Zooscape, edited by Mary E. Lowd (Internet; Issue 10 to 13)
Best Published Illustration Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, coffee-table portfolios.
Best Game Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
Death’s Door (Developer: Acid Nerve, Publisher: Devolver Digital; July 20)
Deltarune: Chapter 2 (Developer/Publisher: Toby Fox; September 17)
Doodle Champion Island Games (Developer/Publisher: Google; July 23)
F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch (Developer: TiGames, Publisher: Bilibili; September 7)
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Developer/Publisher: Insomniac Games; June 11)
Best Website Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
e621, Furry art
Fur Affinity, Furry art and stories
Fuzznet Music, World’s biggest furry-centered professional music distribution collective.
Wikifur, Furry wiki
Zootopia News Network, All things Zootopia.
Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)
Armored Lizardman, Maker: Treasure Court, Owner: xinghejieZLS, Displayed on Twitter January 27.
Bash the Piñata, Maker: Kemonokapi, Owner: @TransformARTive/@BashThePinata, Displayed on Twitter January 20.
Fifel, Makers: feathersOkapi and ZettaNova, Owner: GlacierClear, Displayed on Twitter August 14.
David Doering also reports, “Spencer [Wolverton] called me to say his dad’s service will be this coming Friday, January 21, at 11 a.m. MST in St. George, Utah. There will be a link posted broadcasting the event for those who cannot attend.”
(2) URSA MAJOR. Nominations for the Ursa Major Awards are open and will continue until February 12.
You may choose up to five nominees for each category:
Nominations may be made for the following categories:
Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Series Best Anthropomorphic Novel Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work Best Anthropomorphic Non-Fiction Work Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip Best Anthropomorphic Magazine Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration Best Anthropomorphic Game Best Anthropomorphic Website Best Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)
(3) REH AWARDS. Nominations for the 2022 Robert E. Howard Awards are open and will continue through January 31. You do not have to currently be a member of the Robert E. Howard Foundation to send in nominees at this stage of the process. However, the Final ballot will only be sent out to current Robert E. Howard Foundation members (members who have paid dues for the year 2022). That ballot will be released on February 15. See the link for the complete guidelines.
(4) HOWARD’S HOME ON THE RANGE. For more Robert E. Howard related content, The Cromcast has put a whole bunch of videos of the 2021 Howard Days in Cross Plains, Texas, on their YouTube channel here.
(5) CAUCUS RACE. On the third day, they squeed again: Simon McNeil picks up the baton with “Notes on Squeecore”.
…Now here I want to pause on one of the points the Rite Gud podcast were clear on here that, within their Squeecore definition it was not sufficient that a work be discursive so much as that a work must insist that its discursive element be seen and I think this is where Redshirts becomes a valuable point of discussion. Absolutely nobody is suggesting that the idea of disposable, red-shirted, extras on Star Trek was somehow unexplored prior to 2012. However Redshirts did a lot to foreground this through its fourth-wall-breaking conclusion. Now me? I like a fourth-wall break when it’s well executed and I think it was well executed in Redshirts. This essay should not be seen as an attempt to bury John Scalzi. But regardless of where we stand on matters of taste regarding the literary device or where we stand on the quality of execution of the device in this case, it still holds that this execution, in this story, served to underline the discursive elements of Redshirts such that it insisted the audience engage with them. It wasn’t sufficient to construct a funhouse mirror reflection of the Gothic as Peake did in his Gormenghast books, nor to interrogate the cultural assumptions of a genre as Pratchett did with classic British fantasy in his early Discworld novels – both of these were deconstructive works but neither, especially not Peake, felt much need to insist that the audience acknowledge that a deconstruction was in progress. But Scalzi had his characters literally escape from their work of fiction to plead for consideration from their own fictive creators. This is not a subtle work of deconstruction….
(6) SPSFC INSIDER. Alex Hormann of Boundary’s Edge shares what it’s like to be a Self-Published Science Fiction Competition judge so far: “SPSFC At Boundary’s Edge: Personal Thoughts”.
Thought #2: The 20% Rule
Generally speaking, I don’t DNF books. Even if I’m not enjoying a book, I push through to the end in the hopes of salvaging something from my investment. With the SPSFC, we had to read the opening 20% and decide if we should continue. This was a very different experience for me, and I’m still not sure if it was helpful. On the one hand, you can get a pretty good idea of what a book will be like from that sample. But on the other, you’re essentially reading an introduction with none of the payoff. There were some books that I knew within the first couple of pages that I wasn’t going to enjoy, almost always for stylistic or formatting reasons. Others proved to be strong enough in the opening chapters that they progressed further, only to lose my interest further on. I can’t help but wonder if those books I voted not to continue became something wonderful later on. And there was a book that made it through with a very strong start that completely lost me with its final chapters. This was also the stage of the competition where a book needed a majority vote to progress further. With only three judges, only two Yes votes were required, meaning we ended up with eleven books meeting the criteria. I don’t think letting an extra book slip through the cuts phase did any real harm to our allocation, but it did mean a little extra work in the next phase. Of the eleven that made it through, I had voted to continue with seven of them, and had voted for two more that ultimately failed to make the cut.
1. Ava DuVernay, the acclaimed director of Selma, became the first Black woman to direct a live action feature with over a $100,000,000 budget with which 2018 film, an adaptation of a beloved Newbery Award winner?
Answer: A Wrinkle in Time
(8) SEE GERMANY’S BIGGEST SFF LIBRARY. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] German SFF writer Maja Ilisch reports about a visit to the Phantastische Bibliothek in Wetzlar, Germany’s biggest SFF specialty library. The post is in German, but there are photos: “Allein unter Büchern”.
(9) BILL WRIGHT (1937-2022). Australian fan Bill Wright died January 16. Bill was a founding member of both ANZAPA and the Nova Mob. He served as awards administrator for the Australian Science Fiction Foundation. He was secretary for the first Aussiecon in 1975 and helped organize the Bring Bruce Bayside Fan Fund in 2004. Bill was a Life Member of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. One of his fanzines with an international following was Interstellar Ramjet Scoop.
In 2013 at the age of 76 he was voted the Down Under Fan Fund delegate. Bill was honored with the A. Bertram Chandler Award in 2017.
(And I was always in Bill’s debt for introducing me to Foster’s Lager when he and Robin Johnson were at L.A.Con I to promote the first Australian Worldcon bid.)
(10) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
1995 — [Item by Cat Eldridge.] “Coffee – the finest organic suspension ever devised. It’s got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it.” — Captain Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager’s “Hunters”.
On this evening twenty-seven years ago on UPN, Star Trek: Voyager premiered. The fourth spinoff from the original series after the animated series, the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, it featured the first female commander in the form of Captain Kathryn Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew.
It was created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor. Berman served as head executive producer, assisted by a series of executive proucers — Piller, Taylor, Brannon Braga and Kenneth Biller. Of those, Braga is still the most active with work on The Orville.
It ran for seven seasons and one seventy-two episodes. Four episodes, “Caretaker”, “Dark Frontier”, “Flesh and Blood” and “Endgame” originally aired as ninety minute episodes.
Of the series, and not at all surprisingly, Voyager gets the highest Bechdel test rating. Oh, and that quote I start this piece with in 2015, was tweeted by astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti International Space Station when they were having a coffee delivery. She was wearing a Trek uniform when she did so.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 16, 1887 — John Hamilton. He’s no doubt remembered best for his role as Perry White in the Fifties Adventures of Superman series. He also was in the Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe serial as Professor Gordon, and I see he played G.F. Hillman in the Forties Captain America serial film. (Died 1958.)
Born January 16, 1903 — Harold A. Davis. Notable as another writer of the Doc Savage novels under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson. He was the first ghostwriter to fill in for Lester Dent on Doc Savage. Davis would create the character of Ham’s pet ape Chemistry in Dust of Death. (Died 1955.)
Born January 16, 1905 — Festus Pragnell. Ok he’s here not because he had all that a distinguished a career as a writer or illustrator, but because of the charming story one fan left us of his encounter with him which you can read here. Festus himself wrote but three novels (The Green Man of Kilsona, The Green Man of Graypec and The Terror from Timorkal), plus he wrote a series of stories about Don Hargreaves’ adventures on Mars. Be prepared to pay dearly if you want to read him as he’s not made it into the digital age and exists mostly only in the original Amazing Stories only. (Died 1977.)
Born January 16, 1943 — Michael Atwell. He appeared in Doctor Who twice, first in a Second Doctor story, “The Ice Warriors”, and later in the in the Sixth Doctor story, “Attack of the Cybermen “. He also voiced Goblin in the Labyrinth film, and had a recurring role in Dinotopia. (Died 2006.)
Born January 16, 1948 — John Carpenter, 74. My favorite films by him? Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York. His films include the Halloween franchise, The Thing, Starman (simply wonderful), The Philadelphia Experiment, Ghosts of Mars and many other films. What do you consider him to done that you like, or don’t like for that matter? I’m not fond of Escape from L.A. as I keep comparing to the stellar popcorn film that the previous Escape film is.
Born January 16, 1970 — Garth Ennis, 52. Comic writer who’s no doubt best known for Preacher which he did with illustrator Steve Dillon, and his stellar nine-year run on the Punisher franchise. I’m very fond of his work on Judge Dredd which is extensive, and his time spent scripting Etrigan the Demon For DC back in the mid Nineties. What by him should I be reading?
Born January 16, 1974 — Kate Moss, 48. Yes, she’s done SF. To be precise Black Adder which we discussed a bit earlier. She played Maid Marian in “Blackadder Back & Forth” in which as IMDB puts it “At a New Millennium Eve party, Blackadder and Baldrick test their new time machine and ping pong through history encountering famous characters and changing events rather alarmingly.” You can watch it here.
Born January 16, 1976 — Eva Habermann, 36. She is best known for playing the role of Zev Bellringer on Lexx. She was succeeded in her role by Xenia Seeberg. Ok I’ll confess that I’ve never seen the series which I know exists in both R and not so R versions. Who here has seen it in either form? She was also Ens. Johanna Pressler in Star Command, a pilot that wasn’t to be a series that was written by Melinda Snodgrass. And she had a role in the Code Name: Eternity series as Dr. Rosalind Steiner.
…A 2018 report by the Association of Research Libraries found that archivists are “frustrated and deeply concerned” regarding copyright policies related to software, and they charge the current legal environment of “imperiling the future of digital memory.” The obstacles archivists face range from legal restrictions around intellectual property to the technological challenges of obtaining or re-creating versions of the various consoles, computers and servers required to play various titles published over the years. Not only must the games be preserved, they also need to be playable, a quandary akin to needing a record player to listen to a rare vinyl album.
However, the legal hurdle to their research — chiefly, risking infringing on the copyrights of multibillion-dollar companies — remains the biggest for preservationists seeking access to games for academic research….
…Writing abouit supernatural doings in Southern California is nothing new for Powers, but this novel felt and reads distinctly different than his previous novels set in Southern California and wrapping around supernatural doings, but not always to its benefit. A Tim Powers novel for me is one with magic beneath the surface of our ordinary world that a few people can access. This often ties into a Secret History of events that we think we know, but we really don’t know the full story until Powers comes along. Characters with hidden motivations that make sense only in the denouement.. Lush use of setting and place. Tricks with time, character and perspective. Tim Powers work isn’t as byzantine as, say, Gene Wolfe, but paying attention and reading closely are absolute musts to figure out what is going on.
Alternate Routes has some of these but not as many as one might expect from a Tim Powers novel. For lack of a better phrase, Alternate Routes reads in a much more straightforward fashion, plot wise, than the typical Powers novel….
…Velocity Weapon tells a twisty story where Sanda is lied to and tricked by an AI on an enemy warship, and Biran desperately seeks political power for, primarily, finding out what has happened to his sister. The novel was particularly potent for a “Wham! moment” where Sanda’s understanding of what was happening to her, and why, turned out to be far far different than she knew.
Now, with a solar system seething with potential conflict, Sanda free of her captivity, and Biran in a position of power within the Keepers, Chaos Vector continues the story of these two siblings as revelations and conflicts from the first novel start to manifest…as well as new mysteries, and yes, new wham moments!
(17) VOX PLONKS HIS MAGIC TWANGER. Brian Z. asks, “Is it official puppy news when Scott Adams calls VD his mascot?” Oh, no – he’s going to sing!
The Game Awards Game of the Year winner, It Takes Two, asks two players to come together to repair an ailing marriage. In many relationships, poor communication causes the initial bond between partners to break down. Therein lies the crux of the conflict with It Takes Two. Cody and May, fed-up with their relationship, cause their daughter Rose much distress. Rose consults Dr. Hakim’s Book of Love to help bring them back together. With her tears, she binds her parent’s souls into two wooden dolls. Now it’s up to the players to help the protagonists get out of this mess and back to their bodies….
S.Z.: Reading your book it feels like you have an almost philosophical belief that people should overhaul what they think about how humans are created. If synthetic biology can deliver on some of these promises — if it removes any age restriction on egg fertilization, say, or if embryos can be gestated outside a human body — what do these changes do to us as a society? Do they alter it fundamentally?
A.W.: The thing is we never stopped and asked how we got to this point. Until now a baby was a man and a woman and having the structures to be in place for that to happen. And now synthetic biology is giving us other options. Forty years into the future, I think it may be the case that there are many parents to one child, or that a 70-year-old and their 60-year old spouse decide to have a baby. Why would we close ourselves off to those possibilities?
(20) THERPEUTIC CREDENTIALS. [Item by Michael Toman.] Be sure to check out the link on the fur color of your cat and the supernatural! “Research Shows That Owning Cats Can, Indeed, Heal You” reports MSN.com. Hope that all in your household, including the unmasked four-pawed mammals, are staying Safe and Well.
1. Owning a cat can actually reduce your risk of having a heart attack.
According to an impressive 10-year study of more than 4,000 Americans, cat owners showed a 30 percent lower risk of death by heart attack than those who didn’t have a feline companion.
Participants had a lower heart rate, lower stress levels, and lower blood pressure.
Dr Adnan Qureshi, senior author of the study, said, “For years we have known that psychological stress and anxiety are related to cardiovascular events, particularly heart attacks.”
Some of the oldest remains of modern humans in the world are much older than scientists thought.
The remains, known as Omo I, were found in southwest Ethiopia in the late 1960s. The bone and skull fragments researchers discovered were some of the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens.
Initial research suggested they were nearly 200,000 years old, but new research shows the remains are at least 230,000 years old. The peer-reviewed research was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
(22) PROLIFERATING PRESIDENTS.[Item by Mike Kennedy.] Last night Saturday Night Live began with a cold open in which President Biden blamed the Omicron outbreak on people buying tickets to Spider-Man and we found out that we actually don’t live in the real universe but rather one started as a joke by having the Cubs win the World Series. You know, that last bit makes some sense.
[Thanks to JJ, Chris Barkley, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Cora Buhlert, Brian Z., Jeffrey Smith, Bill, David Doering, John A. Arkansawyer, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cora Buhlert.]
The Ursa Major Award is presented annually for “excellence in the furry arts.”
The recipients were decided by a public vote for 1,047 fans – complete voting statistics are at the link.
The wonderfully animated presentation video can be viewed at the end of the post.
The 2020 Winners
Best Motion Picture — Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
• Wolfwalkers (Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart; October 26)
Best Dramatic Short Work — One-shots, advertisements or short videos.
• Zoophobia – “Bad Luck Jack” (Directed by Vivienne Medrano; September 30)
Best Dramatic Series — TV or YouTube series videos.
• Beastars (Directed by Shinichi Matsumi ;Season 1 Epsiode 1 to 12 USA Release English Dub)
Best Novel — Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.
• The City That Barks and Roars, by J.T. Bird (9781838047917, August 1)
Best Short Fiction — Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short Written works.
• What Makes a Witch, by Linnea Capps (Weasel Press, August 18)
Best Other Literary Work — Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
• Difursity: Stories by Furries of Color, edited by Weasel (Thurston Howl productions, anthology, August 10)
Non-Fiction Work
• The Fandom: A Furry Documentary, directed by Ash Kreis & Eric Risher (You Tube, video, July 3)
Best Graphic Story — Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
• Beastars, by Paru Itagaki (Viz Media and Weekly Shonen Champion, Volume 4 to 8)
Best Comic Strip — Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
• Housepets!, by Rick Griffin (Internet, January 1 to December 30)
Best Magazine — Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
• Pocari Roo, YouTube videos (January 11 to December 25)
Best Published Illustration — Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, coffee-table portfolios.
• Lofi, Cheers (Furaffinity, January 24)
Best Game — Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Developer and Publisher: Nintendo; March 20)
Best Website — Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
• Fur Affinity, Furry art and stories
Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)
• Zigc the Khajiit, Maker: Inerri Creatures, Owner/Wearer: Zigc The Khagiit, Displayed online July 3.
The nominations for the 2020 Ursa Major Awards have been finalized. The Ursa Major Award is presented annually for “excellence in the furry arts.” Anyone may nominate and vote for candidates for the Awards. The 2020 Ursa Major Awards final ballot will be open for voting from March 1 to March 31 on the UMA website.
The 2020 Nominees
Best Motion Picture Live-action or animated feature-length movies.
• Hayop Ka! (You Animal!) (Directed by Avid Liongoren, October 29) Mature Audiences. • Onward (Directed by Dan Scanlon, March 6) • Sonic the Hedgehog (Directed by Jeff Fowler; January 25) • Soul (Directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers; December 25) • Wolfwalkers (Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart; October 26)
Best Dramatic Short Work One-shots, advertisements or short videos.
• Burrow (Directed by Madeline Sharafian; December 25) • Mystery Skulls Animated – The Future (Directed by Ben Mangum; October 31) • The Humiliation of Jinjur Maiham by The Home Guardsmen (Created by K Garrison; December 30) • Trick Moon (Directed/Storyboarded by Geneva Hodgson, July 21) • Zoophobia – “Bad Luck Jack” (Directed by Vivienne Medrano; September 30)
Best Dramatic Series TV or YouTube series videos.
• Aggretsuko (Directed by Rarecho, Season 3 episode 1, August 27) • Beastars (Directed by Shinichi Matsumi ;Season 1 Epsiode 1 to 12 USA Release English Dub) • BNA – Brand New Animal (Directed by Yoh Yoshinari; Season 1 Episode 1 to 12) • Helluva Boss (Directed by Vivienne Medrano; Episodes “Murder Family” and “Loo Loo Land”, Oct 31 – Dec 9) • Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts (Created by Radford Sechrist; January 14 – October 12)
Best Novel Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.
• Disbanded, by Frances Pauli. (Goal Publications; February 2020) • Entanglement Bound, (The Entangled Universe Book 1) by Mary E. Lowd (Aethon Books, December) • On The Mark, by Bernard Doove and Jeff Hartt (Self; October 23) • Spin the Bottle, by Dajan Tafari (Fenris Publishing) Strong adult material • The City That Barks and Roars, by J.T. Bird (9781838047917, August 1)
Best Short Fiction Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short Written works.
• Familiar, by Linnea Capps (in Dog Pile, Bound Tales Press) • Summer Strawberries, by Mary E. Lowd (in The Voice of Dog, April 23 ) • The Glow, by Linnea Capps (in The Electric Sewer, Bound Tales Press) • Tittilating Trivia, by Linnea Capps (in Sensory De-tails, Bound Tales Press) • What Makes a Witch, by Linnea Capps (Weasel Press, August 18)
Best Other Literary Work Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.
• Blacksad: The Collected Stories, by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido (Dark Horse, graphic collection, July 14) • Bush Heroes, by Bush Heroes (many artists). (SFW Sexy Firefighters, art album, March 1) • Difursity: Stories by Furries of Color, edited by Weasel (Thurston Howl productions, anthology, August 10) • Selections of Anthropomorphic Regalements, Vol. 1, edited by KC Alpinus (Goal Publications, anthology, August 31) • Tales of Hayven Celestia, edited by Rick Griffin and Gre7g Luterman (Self, anthology, January 4)
Non-Fiction Work
• From Paw To Print: Essays About Writing in the Furry Fandom, compiled by Thurston Howl. (Thurston Howl productions, essay compilation, June 1) • Furries Among Us 3, compiled by Thurston Howl. (Thurston Howl Publications, furry essays, 2020) • The BEST and WORST Anthro Movies Tier List, by Saberspark (YouTube, video, June 26) • The Fandom: A Furry Documentary, directed by Ash Kreis & Eric Risher (You Tube, video, July 3) • The Last Bronycon: A Fandom Autopsy, by Jenny Nicholson (YouTube, video, July 21)
Best Graphic Story Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.
• A&H Club, by Rick Griffin (Internet, January 24 to December 12) • Beastars, by Paru Itagaki (Viz Media and Weekly Shonen Champion, Volume 4 to 8) • Found, by Toddlergirl (Fur Affinity, September 18 to December 30) • Oren’s Forge, by Tegan Gavet (Tapas, pages 112 to 161) • Shine, by Babystar (Fur Affinity, January 4 to December 28) adult material
Best Comic Strip Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.
• Carry On, by Kathy Garrison Kellogg (Internet, January 1 to December 31) • Doc Rat, by Jenner (Internet, January 6 to December 31) • Freefall, by Mark Stanley (Internet, January 1 to December 30) • Housepets!, by Rick Griffin (Internet, January 1 to December 30) • The Whiteboard, by Doc N. (Internet, January 1 to December 24)
Best Magazine Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.
• Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch Packrat (January 6 to December 31) • Flayrah, edited by GreenReaper, Sonious, and Dronon (Internet; January 1 to December 31) • Furry Writers’ Guild, edited by Literalgrill. (Internet, January to December ) (Monthly publication of the FWG, sponsors of the COYOTL awards) • Pocari Roo, YouTube videos (January 11 to December 25) • Zooscape, edited by Mary E. Lowd (Internet; Issue 6 – 9)
Best Published Illustration Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, coffee-table portfolios.
• A_Blue_Deer, A Night At The Fair (FurAffinity, October 10) • Ashley A Adams, Sir Monty, The Good Boy (Artstation, August 11) • Bubblewolf, Paintwork (Furaffinity, August 4) • Foxer421, “TAKE OFF YOUR HEADSET!!” (Twitter, November 28) • Lofi, Cheers (Furaffinity, January 24)
Best Game Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Developer and Publisher: Nintendo; March 20) • Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time (Developer: Toys for Bob, Publisher: Activision; October 2) • Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Developer and Publisher: Moon Studios; March 11) • Spiritfarer (Developer and Publisher: Thunder Lotus Games; August 17) • Them’s Fightin’ Herds (Developer: Mane6, Publisher: Humble Games; April 30)
Best Website Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.
• Fur Affinity, Furry art and stories • Furry Life Online, Furry online community • Loona Moonlight_howling_666, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss character. • SoFurry, Furry art • Stolas daddy_hoothoot, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss character.
Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)
• Cassidy Civet, Maker: Blue Wolf Studios, Owner/Wearer: Cassidy Civet, Photographed at VancouFur 2020, March 7. • Inutami Luki the Saluki, Maker: Kotoori Works, Owner/Wearer: Inutami Luki, Displayed Online August 7. • Toriel, Maker/Owner/Wearer: Nautilus2000, Displayed online on September 12. • Xif, Maker/Owner/Wearer: lutamesta, Displayed on the Japan Fursuit Creators runway August 28. • Zigc the Khajiit, Maker: Inerri Creatures, Owner/Wearer: Zigc The Khagiit, Displayed online July 3.
…But in the hands of an author like Ursula Le Guin, science fiction ‘isn’t really about the future’, as she put it in The Last Interview. ‘It’s about the present.’ It changes one or two structuring facts about the world as it is and asks: ‘What would humans do if this and this were true?’ The questions Le Guin asked were big, and her answers to them were subtle. Half a century ago she wondered: ‘What if people were gender-neutral most of the time, but changed between male and female at random when they came on heat, so that you could write sentences like “The King was pregnant”?’ (as in her Left Hand of Darkness). Or, ‘what if a capitalist planet had a moon on which there was a society with no laws and no private ownership?’ (as in her Dispossessed). Alongside these large questions her fiction also poses less visible challenges to its readers. Are you so unconsciously racist that you didn’t notice this woman or this wizard was brown-skinned? Didn’t you realise that the person you thought was an alien is actually from Earth?
For Le Guin these questions almost always led back to one core idea about people. They get stuff wrong even when they want to get it right, and the more they think they’re in control the worse the mistakes they’re likely to make. In The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (first published in 1988 and now reissued with a thoughtful introduction by Donna Haraway), she described her writing as a ‘great heavy sack of stuff, my carrier bag full of wimps and klutzes … full of beginnings without ends … full of space ships that get stuck, missions that fail and people who don’t understand’. Her modesty downplays how deeply her fiction gets inside the darker parts of the human mind….
Amazon.com and the “Big Five” publishers – Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster – have been accused of colluding to fix ebook prices, in a class action filed by the law firm that successfully sued Apple and the Big Five on the same charge 10 years ago.
The lawsuit, filed in district court in New York on Thursday by Seattle firm Hagens Berman, on behalf of consumers in several US states, names the retail giant as the sole defendant but labels the publishers “co-conspirators”. It alleges Amazon and the publishers use a clause known as “Most Favored Nations” (MFN) to keep ebook prices artificially high, by agreeing to price restraints that force consumers to pay more for ebooks purchased on retail platforms that are not Amazon.com.
The lawsuit claims that almost 90% of all ebooks sold in the US are sold on Amazon, in addition to over 50% of all print books. The suit alleges that ebook prices dropped in 2013 and 2014 after Apple and major publishers were successfully sued for conspiring to set ebook prices, but rose again after Amazon renegotiated their contracts in 2015….
(3) URSA MAJOR AWARDS. [Item by N.] The furries are at it again. No virus can hold them down. I mean this as a positive. Nominations for the 2020 Ursa Major Awards have opened and will continue until February 13. Click here to participate.
…We are primed for an genre mash-up of superheroes, sit-com pastiche and surreal horror. On the one hand, that is a bold move and on the other hand what we have is essentially a kind of “holodeck episode” in which familiar characters are placed in a contrasting genre for sci-fi or fantasy reasons. Your tolerance for holodeck episodes may vary but they can be fun — the bold choice here is making it the premise of the series and centring two characters who have limited time to develop their characters in the movie…
At some point in time we are going to either recast or totally CGI parts of actors if you ever want to see them younger or a prequel of a movie they were in or unfortunately great actors we have lost, maybe to ever see them again. In this specific video everyone voted to see who would play a good Princess Leia Organa in a possibly TV series/prequel in the Star Wars universe and you all picked Millie Bobby Brown from “Stranger Things” fame as well as being in “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and other things. What do you all think of her as playing the part?
Tread carefully with torch in hand, because there’s a new Dungeons & Dragons TV series reportedly around the corner — and it’s coming from a creative mind with a whiplash action pedigree.
John Wick creator and screenwriter Derek Kolstad is reportedly rolling the 20-sided dice as the newly-recruited writer for a live-action D&D series from Hasbro & eOne, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Kolstad, who helped propel Keanu Reeves to new levels of action stardom as the mind behind John Wick’s fast-paced brand of slick secret-society infighting, will reportedly write and develop a pitch for the as-yet unnamed D&D series.
(7) MISSING INGREDIENT. Don’t hold your breath expecting it to happen, but Tim Allen would still like to do the film. “Tim Allen Offers Update on Galaxy Quest 2” at ComicBook.com.
…”It’s a fabulous script,” Allen said in an interview with EW, “but it had a hiccup because the wonderful Alan Rickman passed. So it all got very sad and dark because [the script] was all about [Lazrus] and Taggart. It was all about their story. It doesn’t mean they can’t reboot the idea, and the underlying story was hysterical and fun….I haven’t reached out to anybody in the last week, but we talk about it all the time. There is constantly a little flicker of a butane torch that we could reboot it with. Without giving too much away, a member of Alan’s Galaxy Quest family could step in and the idea would still work.”
Allen also maintained that the years between the film and now, or five years from now, wouldn’t have any huge effect on their ability to make the sequel either, adding: “[The sequel] could happen now or in five years and it doesn’t matter at all because when you travel at light speed, when you come back it can be like only 20 minutes, but 20 years have passed, right? That part is wonderful for the sci-fi freak in me. But right now it’s in a holding pattern.”
(8) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.
2001 — Twenty years ago, Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio wins the Nebula Award and would also win the Endeavour Award. It was nominated for the Locus and Campbell Awards as well the same year. It was followed by a sequel, Darwin’s Children which would receive nominations for the Arthur C. Clarke, Locus, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
January 16, 1895 – Nat Schachner. Chemist, lawyer, author. President of American Rocket Society. Director of public relations, Nat’l Council of Jewish Women. History and historical fiction e.g. The Mediaeval Universities, biographies of Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, The Wanderer about Dante and Beatrice. For us two novels, a hundred shorter stories. (Died 1955) [JH]
Born January 16, 1905 — Festus Pragnell. Ok, he’s here not because he had all that a distinguished a career as a writer or illustrator, but because of the charming story one fan left us of his encounter with him which you can read here. Festus himself wrote but three novels (The Green Man of Kilsona, The Green Man of Graypec, and The Terror from Timorkal), plus he wrote a series of stories about Don Hargreaves’ adventures on Mars. Be prepared to pay dearly if you want to read him as he’s not made it into the digital age and exists mostly in the original Amazing Stories only. (Died 1977.) (CE)
Born January 16, 1943 — Michael Atwell. He appeared in Doctor Who twice, first in a Second Doctor story, “The Ice Warriors”, and later in the in the Sixth Doctor story, “Attack of the Cybermen.” He also voiced Goblin in the Labyrinth film, and had a recurring role in Dinotopia. (Died 2006.) (CE)
Born January 16, 1945 – Russell Letson, age 76. Journalist and technical writer. Plays acoustic guitar, wrote about Hawaiian slack-key (Aloha Guitar, 2014). Taught English awhile. Book reviewer for Locus since 1990. Introduced the Gregg Press edition of Leiber’s Wanderer. Filer. [JH]
Born January 16, 1946 – Mike Horvat, age 75. Printer by trade. Co-founder of Slanapa (the Slanderous Amateur Press Ass’n). Donated his fanzine collection to Univ. Iowa, see here. Active in apas outside our field, a decades-longer tradition; founded the American Private Press Ass’n, was its Librarian until 2005. Also amateur radio, postage stamps. [JH]
Born January 16, 1948 — John Carpenter, 73. My favorite films by him? Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York. His gems include the Halloween franchise, The Thing, Starman (simply wonderful), The Philadelphia Experiment, Ghosts of Mars and many other films. What do you consider him to done that you like, or don’t like for that matter? I’m not fond of Escape from L.A. as I keep comparing to the stellar popcorn film that the previous Escape film is. (CE)
Born January 16, 1952 – Cy Chauvin, age 69. Fan Guest of Honor at Fan Fair III, at Lunacon 27, see here. Edited the Wayne Third Foundation’s clubzine. Co-founded MISHAP. Stippler. Reviewed for Amazing. Anthologies A Multitude of Visions (criticism), The Tale That Wags the God (Blish’s only). Letters, essays, fanart, in Algol, Janus, Matrix, NY Rev SF, Riverside Quarterly, SF Commentary, Vector. [JH]
Born January 16, 1958 – Marla Frazee, age 63. Illustrated It Takes a Village, three dozen more including eight Borrowers, wrote some of them. Two Caldecott Honors, Boston Globe – Horn Book Award. “Study the genre and the best books of the time. Read all the time. Read everything you can. Be passionate and honest about what you are doing and why you are doing it.” Has a little Free Library in her front yard. Here is The Planetoid of Amazement. Here is Bed-Knob and Broomstick. Here is The Farmer and the Monkey. [JH]
Born January 16, 1961 – Karen McQuestion, age 60. Eight novels for us, a dozen others, sold a million copies. “I believe in almost everything, which makes the world seem both miraculous & terrifying.” Her home-office has a mahogany desk, a recliner, bookcases, framed prints from one of her illustrators, and an electric fireplace “which some of my family think is tacky, but I don’t care.” [JH]
Born January 16, 1968 – Rebecca Stead, age 53. Lawyer, married another; spent a few years as a public defender. Vassar woman (as was my grandmother). Newbery Medal; The Guardian prize (first winner outside the Commonwealth). For us, four novels including both of those prizewinners, one shorter story. [JH]
Born January 16, 1970 — Garth Ennis, 51. Comic writer who’s no doubt best known for Preacher which he did with illustrator Steve Dillon, and his stellar nine-year run on the Punisher franchise. I’m very fond of his work on Judge Dredd which is extensive, and his time spent scripting Etrigan the Demon For DC back in the mid Nineties. What by him should I be reading? (CE)
Born January 16, 1974 — Kate Moss, 47. Yes, she’s done SF. To be precise Black Adder which we discussed a bit earlier. She played Maid Marian in “Blackadder Back & Forth” in which as IMDB puts it “At a New Millennium Eve party, Blackadder and Baldrick test their new time machine and ping pong through history encountering famous characters and changing events rather alarmingly.” You can watch it here. (CE)
Born January 16, 1976 — Eva Habermann, 45. She is best known for playing the role of Zev Bellringer on Lexx. She was succeeded in her role by Xenia Seeberg. Ok, I’ll confess that I’ve never seen the series which I know exists in both R and not so R versions. Who here has seen it in either form? She was also Ens. Johanna Pressler in Star Command, a pilot that wasn’t to be a series that was written by Melinda Snodgrass. And she had a role in the Code Name: Eternity series as Dr. Rosalind Steiner. (CE)
Editor’s note: This advisory was updated Jan. 16 to update the window for the hot fire test, as well as start time for NASA TV coverage. Because test preparation is running ahead of schedule, NASA TV coverage will begin at 3:20 p.m. EST for a test start time of 4 p.m.
NASA is targeting a two-hour test window that opens at 4 p.m. EST Saturday, Jan. 16, for the hot fire test of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stage at the agency’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Live coverage will begin at 3:20 p.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website, followed by a post-test briefing approximately two hours after the test concludes.
(11) JEOPARDY! John King Tarpinian proudly snapped this while watching Jeopardy! on Friday night.
(12) LOCAL CHOW. BBC Sounds has audio of The Food Chain episode “The arctic eating adventure”. Andrew Porter urges everyone to listen to the show and watch the linked video.
When the only road into her town was blocked by a landslide, documentary filmmaker Suzanne Crocker was shocked by how quickly supermarket shelves went bare. It set her mind racing; would her remote Canadian town – just 300km from the Arctic circle – be capable of sustaining itself? She decided to undertake a radical experiment: an entire year of eating 100% local.
Emily Thomas hears how she grew, hunted, foraged and negotiated her way through the seasons with a cupboard bare of salt, sugar and caffeine. How did she persuade three hungry teenagers to come on board, and what did a year of eating local do to family dynamics?
Suzanne’s film about the experience is available on FirstWeEat.ca until February 1.
Rob Wolf: The book opens with a heat wave in the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh. We see it unfold through the eyes of a Western aid worker, Frank May. Could you talk about what happens, what this disaster is and how it sets the story in motion?
Kim Stanley Robinson: I began to read about wet-bulb temperatures, which is a heat index that combines heat and humidity. Everybody who watches weather channels is already familiar with heat indexes, and everybody who lives in humid areas knows about the heat and humidity in combination. There’s been discussion amongst a certain portion of the people trying to think about climate change that maybe we just have to adapt to higher global average temperatures. They aren’t so worried about crossing the 2-degree centigrade Celsius rise in global average temperature and all that. We’ll go to three. We’ll go to four. We’ll just adapt.
But the problem is this wet-bulb 35 is only about 95 degrees Fahrenheit, plus 100 percent humidity, and human bodies can’t deal. They die. You would have to be in air conditioning. And in heat waves like that, power systems and grids often fail, in which case there would be mass deaths. There’s been a wet-bulb 34s all over the tropics and even in the Chicago area, and a few wet-bulb 35s have already been seen for an hour or two across the globe. They’re going to be more and more common.
What it suggested to me was that we can’t actually adapt to a three- or four-degree average rise because we’ll be getting these heat waves that will be deadly and power grids will fail and millions will die. So I thought, well, okay, let’s follow that thought into a novel where one of these happens and everything gets radicalized, everything goes crazy. What would that look like? And can I start from that and actually thirty years later come to a better place?
(14) TROLL BRIDGE ‘CAUSE WE’RE COMIN’ TO A TOWN. Snowgum Films has posted their 2019 Pratchett tribute Troll Bridge: The Moving Pictureon YouTube.
Cohen the Barbarian was angry. Angry that he never died in battle, angry that the world had forgotten him, and angry that his knees were starting to play up in the cold. He was also angry that his faithful mount had been gifted the ability of magical speech. The horse was insisting that they had made a wrong turn back at Slice. He was also angry that the horse was probably right. This was not how it was supposed to end for the barbarian. This was not how the Discworld’s greatest hero imagined it at all.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Godzilla–The Soul of Japan” on YouTube, Kaptain Kristian says the original Japanese version of Godzilla was a powerful anti-nuclear allegory (Godzilla’s head is shaped like a mushroom cloud, and he has no scales so his skin looks like radiation burns) but the film was re-shot and censored for its substantially different American release.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, N., Danny Sichel, Nina Shepardson, John Hertz, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]
