Tag Archives: Vandana Singh

Pixel Scroll 6/14/22 Colonel Pixel, With The Godstalk, In The Scrollatory

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A very abbreviated Scroll due to the rest of the day having been spent accompanying my mother to a routine medical appointment and related errands.

(1) UNDERSTANDING HORROR FICTION. Anne Marble’s “What Knife?! 6 Things You May Not Know About Horror Novels” on Medium sheds some light on the genre.

Horror novels often get a bad name. Misperceptions abound. Assumptions are made. Fingers are pointed — at reader and fan alike. As if the world needed more finger-pointing.

Horror can be spooky. It can be gross. Or sad. Or funny. Or all of the above. Just like any other genre….

The middle of Anne’s post takes up an important controversy about horror fiction.

3) Not All Horror Novels Are Gross and Gory. But Some Are, and That’s OK!

Many horror writers rely on atmosphere and unease rather than gore to make their stories scary. Even most authors who use graphic violence will use it sparingly — just to make your imagination work and make the book even more terrifying.

For Medium, Anita Durairaj listed 5 Terrifying Books Without the Gore. There are always posts asking for recommendations for non-gory horror on Reddit.

If you do want gory reads, check out the extreme horror and splatterpunk genres. On the Fangoria website, check out Splatterpunk for Dummies, Or Defining the Genre For Those Who Love Horror Fiction by acclaimed reviewer “Mother Horror” Sadie Hartmann (co-owner of the Night Worms subscription box company).

But look out! The best splatterpunk and extreme horror books aren’t just about gore. They’re about people. So they can still break your heart. Just ask people who have read Jack Ketchum’s influential novel The Girl Next Door. The Lineup includes it in its article 9 Extreme Horror Books with Heart.

Many authors known for gory books write more than just that. One example is Brian Keene, who has gory books like The Rising and Ghoul (which is also a coming-of-age story) but also metafiction like The Girl on the Glider.

(2) SQUID IN REALITY. The Hollywood Reporter says: “‘Squid Game’ Reality Series Coming to Netflix With Biggest Cash Prize in TV History”.

Netflix is staging a real-life Squid Game series that’s billed as “the biggest reality competition ever.”

The streamer announced a reality TV production based on its global dystopian smash at the Banff World Media Festival on Tuesday.

While the stakes won’t be life or death (presumably), Squid Game: The Challenge will have 456 players competing in a series of games for the chance to win $4.56 million. Netflix claims the payout is the largest lump-sum cash prize in TV history (though Fox’s X Factor has previously given out recording contracts worth $5 million), and that the show likewise also sports the largest competition series cast ever assembled.

… The reality competition will consist of 10 episodes (one more than the first season of the dramatic series) and also released a teaser video….

The show is casting participants through this website: “Squid Game: The Challenge Casting”.

You’ve seen the drama, now it’s your chance to take part in Netflix’s biggest ever social experiment! This supersized unscripted show turns the scripted world of the drama into reality. Real-life players will be immersed in the iconic Squid Game universe and will never know what’s coming next. Here they’ll compete in a series of heart-stopping games in order to become the sole survivor* and walk away with a life-changing cash prize.

With a fortune up for grabs, who will be an ally, who will you trust, and who will you betray in this ultimate test of character?

*Please note: Win or lose, all players will leave unscathed. But if you win, you win big!

(3) TERMINATE RUSSIAN OIL. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Ex-Governator Schwarzenegger has laid down the law to his fellow Austrians… The Telegram channel of the Kyiv Independent reports: “Schwarzenegger denounces Europe for buying Russian fuel. Hollywood star and ex-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna that “we have blood on our hands because we are financing the war.” The European Union has imposed a partial oil embargo on Russia but refused to impose an embargo on Russian gas….”

Schwarzenegger posted the video to his YouTube channel with this introduction:

This morning, I spoke at my annual environmental summit I co-host with my dear friend, President Van der Bellen, the president of Austria. I spoke about the unbelievable power of technology transforming the clean energy crusade. 7 million people die every year from pollution. The Russian missiles launched into Ukraine are funded by our addiction to fossil fuels. There is blood on our hands. We have a moral obligation to use the technology available to us to create a clean energy future.

Schwarzenegger‘s talk is primarily about clean energy/climate change/pollution. His remarks about the war in Ukraine and funding same through purchasing Russian oil begin just before minute 11 and continue (to some degree) through the end of his talk a few minutes later.

(4) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1947 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Tom & Jerry cartoon, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse (1947). The Hanna-Barbera cartoons were considered by many cartoon fans to be quite inferior to the Warner Bros. cartoons which were regarded as the gold standard of the animation done during the Forties and Fifties. I’m not making that judgement here as I really liked the Tom & Jerry cartoons and particularly the ones done in the Forties. 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse is a one-reel, as they were called, cartoon and is the thirtieth Tom and Jerry short which is seventy five years old this day. It directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera who wrote the script as well. It was produced by Fred Quimby. It has animation by Ed Barge, Michael Lah, Pete Burness, Ray Patterson, Kenneth Muse and Al Grandmain. That’s a lot of animators for such a short undertaking! (Some are not credited on the cartoon itself.) 

Surely I don’t a need SPOILER ALERT on this cartoon? Seriously?  You want one? Well here it is just in case you haven’t seen it.

The story is the Tom, our ever annoyed feline, is quite pissed that Jerry, our smarter mouse, keeps drinking his milk so he poisons it with a mix of, well, everything toxic that he can find including mothballs. Does it do that? No, it doesn’t. Instead it turns Tom into an incredibly strong mouse. Much cartoon violence happens.  END SPOILER ALERT

It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1947, but lost to Warner Bros.‘ Tweetie Pie. 

This short was shown in the 1983 movie, The Hunger.

Please don’t offer a link to online copies of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse as they are all bootlegs as it’s still under copyright. Hanna and Barbera passed respectively in 2001 and 2006 in the ages of ninety-six and ninety-one, bless them. 

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 14, 1908 — Stephen Tall. The pseudonym of Compton Crook. His first published work was “The Lights on Precipice Peak“ in Galaxy, October 1955. Not a prolific writer, he’d do about twenty stories over the next quarter of a century and two novels as well, The Ramsgate Paradox and The People Beyond the Wall. “The Bear with the Knot on His Tail” was nominated for a Hugo at the first L.A. Con. He has not yet made into the digital realm other than “The Lights on Precipice Peak” being available at the usual suspects. In 1983, the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award for best first science fiction novel in a given year was established by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society in his name. (Died 1981.)
  • Born June 14, 1914 — Ruthven Todd. He’s here for his delightful children’s illustrated trio of Space Cat books — Space Cat Visits Venus, Space Cat Meets Mars and Space Cat and the Kittens. I’m pleased to say they’re available at all the usual digital suspects and yes I’ve read them. He also wrote Over the Mountain and The Lost Traveller which are respectively a lost world novel and a dystopian novel.  Side note: he was an editor of the works of William Blake which must have a really interesting undertaking! (Died 1978.)
  • Born June 14, 1919 — Gene Barry. His first genre role was in The War of the Worlds as Dr. Clayton Forrester. He’d have a number of later genre appearances on Science Fiction Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Devil and Miss Sarah, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite, plus multiple appearances on Fantasy Island and The Twilight Zone. He’d appear in the ‘05 War of The Worlds credited simply as “Grandfather”. (Died 2009.)
  • Born June 14, 1921 — William Hamling. Author and editor who was active as an sf fan in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His first story “War with Jupiter”, written with Mark Reinsberg, appeared in Amazing Stories in May 1939. He’d write only short stories, some nineteen of them, over the next twenty years. Genre adjacent, his Shadow of the Sphinx is a horror novel about an ancient Egyptian sorceress. He would be the Editor of two genre zines, Imagination for most of the Fifties, and Imaginative Tales during the Fifties as well. He published four issues of the Stardust fanzine in 1940, and contributed to the 1940 Worldcon program. He was best known for publishing adult magazines and books, which led to First Amendment litigation, and also a criminal prosecution that resulted in a jail term. (Died 2017.)
  • Born June 14, 1939 — Penelope Farmer, 83. English writer of children’s fantasy novels, best-known for the novel Charlotte Sometimes, a boarding-school story that features a multiple time slip. There’s two more novels in this, the Emma / Charlotte series, The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter. Another children’s fantasy by her, A Castle of Bone, concerns a portal in a magic shop. 
  • Born June 14, 1949 — Harry Turtledove, 73. I wouldn’t know where to begin with him considering how many series he’s done. I’m fairly sure I first read novels in his Agent of Byzantium series and I know his Crosstime Traffic series was definitely fun reading. He’s won two Sidewise Awards for How Few Remain and Ruled Britannia, and a Prometheus for The Gladiator. Hugos? Well there was one.  ConAdian saw him win for his “Down in the Bottomlands” novella, and his “Must and Shall” novelette picked up a nomination at L.A. Con III, and Chicon 2000 where he was Toastmaster saw his “Forty, Counting Down” honored with a nomination. 
  • Born June 14, 1958 — James Gurney, 64. Artist and author best known for his illustrated Dinotopia book series. He won a Hugo for Best Original Artwork at L.A. Con III for Dinotopia: The World Beneath, and was twice nominated for a Hugo for Best Professional Artist. The dinosaur Torvosaurus gurneyi was named in honor of him.

(6) HEAR FROM VANDANA SINGH. In October 2021, as part of the TED Countdown climate summit in Edinburgh, Vandana Singh, who is one of our Climate Imagination Fellows, gave a talk that is really a performance of a short speculative fiction story. Here is a link to the video. The story is hopeful, and focuses on the fundamental interconnectedness of humans with nonhuman beings and Earth systems.

Vandana’s books include Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories and The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories. She’s also a physicist and a researcher and educator on the climate crisis.

“The world is a living tapestry … As the weave of life is torn apart in one place, the threads unravel in another,” says author and physics professor Vandana Singh, acknowledging humanity’s interconnectedness with the planet — and the uncertain future we face if we don’t protect it. Reading an excerpt from her latest work of speculative fiction, Singh shares a hopeful vision for Earth’s renewal.

(7) A MAKER OF HISTORY. The Hugonauts podcast interviewed David Brin.

This week we talk with David Brin about his writing, what it was like seeing his book adapted into a movie, the future of sci-fi, how aliens would be welcomed in Los Angeles, and what it was like to study writing under Ursula K. Le Guin with Kim Stanley Robinson! David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international best-selling novels include The Postman, Startide Rising, and the Uplift War. He consults for NASA, companies, agencies, and nonprofits about the onrushing future. His first nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award. His newest book is Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Daniel Dern, Joey Eschrich, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ingvar.]

Boskone 56: Fun, Plus Adding Foothills To My Mount To-Be-Read

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Boskone 56 Pocket Program

By Daniel Dern: Boskone 56, held Friday, February 15 through Sunday, February 17, 2019 at Boston’s Westin Waterfront Hotel, was a fun con — good guests, fun interesting sessions, good readings… and good (for Boston winter) weather — bearably cold, and no snow or rain coming down or on the streets or walkways.

(Some of us still have memories of 2015’s Boskone when the MBTA (locally aka “the T”) pre-emptively announced, mid-Saturday, that due to the impending blizzard, they were shutting down the T starting 7PM Saturday, through Sunday.)

GoH’s for Boskone 56 were:

  • Guest of Honor: Elizabeth Hand
  • Special Guest: Christopher Golden
  • Official Artist: Jim Burns
  • Young Adult Fiction Guest: Cindy Pon
  • Hal Clement Science Speaker: Vandana Singh

(Burns, unfortunately, was unable to make it, due to a last-minute emergency; however, his art was still on display.)

Burns art, from Boskone 56 main web page

Boskone always gets a good bunch of writers, artists, editors and other sf pros. This year’s 150+ program participants included (drawing mostly on people I know/names I recognize) Ellen Asher, James Cambias, John Chu,  Brenda W. Clough, John Clute, Br. Guy Consolmagno, C. S. E. Cooney, Bruce Coville, Vincent Docherty, Sarah Beth Durst, Kate Elliot, Greer Gillman, KJ Kabza,  James Patrick Kelly, Justin Key, Dan Kimmel, Mur Lafferty, Patrick & Teresa  Nielsen Hayden, Errick Nunnally, Suzanne Palmer, Julia Rios, Erin Roberts, Michael Swanwick,  Catherynne M. Valente, Jane Yolen, and Brianna Wu.

(Side note: I just came back from the library with the 2018 “Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy” edited by Rich Horton – and there’s a good handful of authors whose names might not have recognized a week ago, but, thanks to Boskone, I recognize many more names and know I saw several panelize/read.)

Headcount of as 11AM Sunday, according to the con’s Helmuth newsletter, came in at 1,382 total members, 1,061 “warm body count,” and 270 “at-the-door” registrations — pretty consistent with the past few years’ numbers.

There was, as always, no shortage of things to do.

Program items spanned classic through current sf/fantasy people, titles and topics, from the serious through silly, plus a range of media-oriented discussions including comics, Star Wars, and Star Trek, along with a number of sessions aimed at new authors and artists. Plus readings, kaffeeklatsches, and a room for movies/anime and other videos, also filking, board-gaming, the Art Show, the Dealers Room, noshing in the Con Suite area (which was, sadly, due to new hotel regulations, limited only to individual-portion-packaged, no-refrigeration-needed snacks’n’such). And a few evening parties, plus NESFA’s Saturday evening chocoholics-delight schmorgasbord.

And the non-program items like “meet new people, schmooze with friends” and “be a volunteer.”

Boskone’s Friday afternoon sessions were free — a nice way to help let potential first-timers get a sense of the con (particularly, I suspect, for people who have never attended a con). (ReaderCon has been doing this, too, for the past several years, with its Thursday evening programming.) Free-to-public panel topics included “The new Dr. Who,” gaming tournament demos/rules/Q&A, “Welcome to Boskone,” “Laundering Your Fairy Tales,” along with media/TV-themed sessions, and useful panels for new writers.

The art show had good stuff to look at (I’ve used up my quota of wall space, so I’m just looking, these days), although it seemed slightly smaller than last year.

Art-show-wise, of particular interest: this year’s ~40-piece Special Exhibit: From the Collection of Joe Siclari and Edie Stern which included art by Hannes Bok, Chesley Bonestell, Margaret Brundage, Vincent Di Fate, Leo and Diane Dillon, and Ed Emsh.

Art collage from Boskone 56 website.

The Dealers Room was mostly booksellers, including publishers and groups like Broad Universe, along with a handful of single-author tables. (My bookshelf space is, like my wall space, mostly full, although I did buy a few books… plus snarfing up about a foot of read-and-pass-on magazines and books from the Free Books table.)

Still, between books and magazines, I had no trouble spending thirty or forty bucks on additions to my Mount To-Be-Read (referring, of course, to that pile of books, often near the bed). Of course, by the end of the con, I had a vision of foothills forming around my Mount TBR of yet more books and authors to pursue, hopefully as library borrows.

(The late Morris Keesan once remarked (possibly at one of the monthly RISFA-North sf fan gatherings), when somebody mentioned to him their stack of TBR’s, he responded, more or less, “Stack? I’ve got a bookshelf.”)

Everyone I chatted with was having fun — schmoozing with friends, going to sessions, getting autographs, more schmoozing, etc.

Me, I had fun.

  • One of the things I did this year was go to more readings, including well-known’s like Jane Yolen, John Chu, Fran Wilder and Bruce Coville, as well as some newer and lesser-known authors and groups of authors. All were good, and helped add to my “authors and books to look for” list.
  • Also, kaffeeklatsches, in particular, Jane Yolen and (her son) Adam Stemple), and Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. (I still wish Boskone could find a less noisy space for the ‘klatches rather than the public area in between the Art Show and the “Con Suite” space.)
  • I got a Press ribbon, to point at as I was taking pictures.
  • I wasn’t originally on the program (not a complaint, I’ve had my “turn at bat” at Boskone plenty of times, in main and DragonsLair programming), but while I was buying my membership, I inquired at Program Ops, and was given an empty-as-of-then slot in the Readings track. (I had come prepared with a handful of my short-short stories.)
  • Equally nice, when I went to see if there were any open slots for the Flash Fiction Slam competition — with points deducted if you run over three minutes — I discovered I was already signed up! So I read my newest shortie, “Vampire, T.Rex Bite Robot, Chomp! Gnash! Ouch!”

One of my favorite Boskone Program Items is Mark & Priscilla Olson’s “Trivia For Chocolate” contest — SF trivia, of course, from way back when through current stuff, where speed matters as much as correctness, with the green-rectangle chocolate Thin Mints used as point counters totaled up at the end (emptied wrappers don’t count).

This year, I tied with Bob Devney for 4th place, with 23 points. Karen von Haam thirded with 30 points, Kimball Rudeen came in second with 35, and Rich Horton ate all our lunches with 60 points.

A quick browse through past Helmuths (“Helmith”?) confirms my sense that Devney and I often place in the top five, e.g.:

  • Boskone 55: Bob Devney 52, Daniel Dern 44, Tim Liebe 27. Peter Turi 23.
  • Boskone 54: Kim Rudeen 65, Tom Galloway 45, Jordin Kare 45, Bob Devney 32, Daniel Dern 29.
  • (Boskone 53: I wasn’t there.)
  • Boskone 52: Kimball Rudeen 51, Karen Von Hamm 44, Bob Devney 16, Naomi Hinchen 15, Daniel Dern 12.
  • Boskone 50: Bob Devney 54, Athena Martin 30, Zev Sero & Peter Trei: 16
  • Boskone 49: Jordin Kare 69, Bob Devney 48, Christopher Davis 40, Daniel Dern 35, Team of Burton, Klein-Burton, Wall & Moore 30.

Plus, schmoozing.

Like I said, a fun weekend.

Daniel’s photos of Boskone 56 follow the jump.

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