(1) GAIMAN MOVES FOR DISMISSAL. Neil Gaiman’s attorney’s today filed a motion in US federal court in Wisconsin to dismiss the sexual assault and trafficking complaint recently brought by former live-in nanny Scarlett Pavlovich. The Wrap has the story: “Neil Gaiman Says Texts With Rape Accuser Show ‘Enthusiastic,’ Consensual Relationship: ‘She Is a Fantasist’”.
Neil Gaiman answered sexual assault and trafficking allegations made by former live-in nanny Scarlett Pavlovich on Tuesday, filing a motion for dismissal that included text messages he says show they engaged in an “enthusiastic” and consensual sexual relationship.
“None of Pavlovich’s claims are true,” Gaiman wrote in the motion filed in a Wisconsin federal court. “She is a fantasist who has fabricated a tale of abuse against me and Ms. Palmer.”
Gaiman provided screenshots from a number of WhatsApp messages in hopes of furthering his point. The first was from February 2022 – shortly after the pair’s first interaction in a bathtub in New Zealand.
“Thank you for a lovely lovely night – wow x,” Pavlovich said.
She followed up a couple days later saying, ““Let me know If you want me to run a bath… I am consumed by thoughts of you, the things you will do to me. I’m so hungry.”
Pavlovich filed a complaint against Gaiman and Amanda Palmer on Feb. 3, accusing his now-estranged wife of “procuring and presenting Plaintiff to Gaiman for such abuse,” including physical harm, emotional distress and disturbing non-consensual sex acts, pushing her to become suicidal.
“The Defendants knowingly recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, and/or obtained Scarlett for labor or services while knowing she would be forced to engage in sexual acts as a condition of receiving the pay and housing they promised her,” the suit stated. Pavlovich “endured those acts because she would lose her job, housing, and promised future career support if she did not.”
Gaiman’s filing Tuesday also included messages where he initially confronted Pavlovich about her rape accusations and plans to “MeToo” him.
“Oh my God. Neil! I never said that,” she wrote. “But I’m horrified by your message – me too you? Rape? WHAT? This is the first I have heard of this. Wow. I need a moment to digest your message… I have never used the word rape, I’m just so shocked, I honestly don’t know what to say.”
Later texts show Gaiman expressing concern he was being painted as a “monster” when he assumed their relationship was consenting. Pavlovich’s responses seemed to provide reassurances she thought the same.
“This is beyond out of control and as I said I only have fondness and kindness for you,” she wrote. “It was consensual – how many times do I have to f–king tell everyone.”
Five women initially accused Gaiman of sexual misconduct as part of the podcast series “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.” Four more women later shared their experiences with with New York Magazine…
Deadline’s story adds that everything claimed to have happened occurred in New Zealand and argues therefore a US court lacks jurisdiction over the complaint. “Neil Gaiman Says Texts Prove Rape Claims Are ’False’”.
…“In no uncertain terms, Pavlovich’s accusations are false,” a brief in support of motion to dismiss filed Tuesday in federal court in Wisconsin proclaims in language similar to blog post reactions he issued to such allegations last year. “The sexual scenarios she describes deliberately in graphic detail are invented. Any sexual conduct that occurred was in all ways consensual. Law enforcement authorities in New Zealand thoroughly investigated the same claims Plaintiff makes here, found no merit, and declined to file any charges against Gaiman. There was no credible evidence of wrongdoing.”
…“No matter what Plaintiff says happened, it all happened in New Zealand between a New Zealand citizen and a New Zealand permanent resident,” the brief asserts. “There is no legal authority to adjudicate her lawsuit in federal court in Wisconsin, or in other federal courts around the United States,” the filing adds, with a declaration from Gaiman listing over a dozen people in NZ and the USA who will back his version of events. “Pavlovich’s claims are false, but there is no dispute that all of the conduct alleged in the Complaint occurred in New Zealand, the proper forum, if any, for this lawsuit.”…
(2) BALATRO HIT A BIG BUMP IN THE ROAD. The Guardian presents a case study about what happens “When video game age ratings go wrong”.
Over the last few months, the makers of a popular card game have been wrestling with the byzantine process that surrounds video game age classifications. Age ratings are intended to help parents determine whether or not a game is appropriate for their children. But in practice, an erroneous label doesn’t just mislead consumers – it can be the difference between success or failure.
Balatro is an award-winning poker game made by an anonymous game developer known as LocalThunk, in which the only guiding principle is chaos. In each match the player must divine the best possible poker hand out of a randomised draw, but the conditions fluctuate constantly. In one round, the game might prevent you from using an entire suit or junk all your face cards, while the next round might challenge you to achieve an eyebrow-raising score with only a single hand. As the game progresses, players accrue jokers for their deck that add yet more wild rules.
It’s an ingenious premise that has allowed a game that began as a small side-project to sell millions of copies since its release in February 2024. Though players win in-game money to buy new cards between rounds, Balatro’s version of poker is fictional, and only bears a faint resemblance to the classic card game. Yet shortly after launching, Balatro hit a snag: it was classified as a gambling game.
At first, Balatro went on sale with a classification that deemed it appropriate for audiences ages three and up. But then, the classification was revised to an adults-only 18 rating. The reasoning? The Pan-European Game Information (Pegi), the organisation that determines age classifications, claimed that Balatro “contains prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling”.
Without warning, Balatro was pulled from sale on some digital storefronts in Europe and Asia.
“This was obviously a crucial moment and we had two options,” says Wout van Halderen, the communications director at PlayStack, Balatro’s publisher. “Be de-listed, or take the 18+ rating and get back in the store Asap. We opted for the second and started preparing an appeal to have the rating changed.”
The appeal was initially declined – and issues began to snowball. In Korea, the rating outright barred Balatro from being sold. In December, when Balatro won Game of the Year at The Game awards, the team was also ramping up for a physical release. Another appeal was filed by that version’s distributor, Fireshine. It is only now, a year later and after a handful of updates, that the dust has settled and Balatro has been bumped down to a 12+ rating by Pegi.
… Pegi, for its part, reiterated that it seeks to apply a fair criteria for ratings in a press release, and that any game that teaches or glamorises gambling will automatically lead to an 18+ rating. The board that oversaw the appeal also ceded that Pegi is a system that “continuously evolves in line with cultural expectations and the guidance of independent experts who support our assessment process”. To that end, Balatro’s dilemma has led Pegi to create a more granular classification system for games that depict gambling. The 18+ rating will now only apply to games that simulate the type of poker people play at actual casinos….
(3) THREE NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASES OUT IN MARCH. The SFWA anthology team, led by Editor Stephen Kotowych, will have three more Nebula Awards Showcase editions ready for launch on Tuesday, March 25.
Nebula Awards Showcases 57, 58, and 59 span work published in 2021, 2022, and 2023, which then became celebrated as Nebula-finalist and award-winning materials in 2022, 2023, and 2024. The prestigious Nebula Awards anthology series has published reprints of winning and nominated works annually since 1966, as voted on by SFWA members, and we’re deeply thankful to return to that strong tradition this year. It is a great privilege to celebrate the work of these authors, and we hope you’ll join us in honoring their achievement when these volumes launch as one.
Going forward, our new workflow will also allow us to celebrate Nebula Awards Showcase 60 at this year’s Nebula Awards in Kansas City, Missouri.
(4) MORE MAGAZINE HISTORY. [Item by Steven French.] There’s a strong dose of nostalgia here! “Typewriters, stinky carpets and crazy press trips: what it was like working on video game mags in the 1980s” – the Guardian’s Keith Stuart remembers.
In the summer of 1985, I made the long pilgrimage from my home in Cheadle Hulme to London’s glamorous Hammersmith Novotel for the Commodore computer show. As a 14-year-old gamer, this was a chance to play the latest titles and see some cool new joysticks, but I was also desperate to visit one particular exhibitor: the publisher Newsfield, home of the wildly popular games mags Crash and Zzap!64. By the time I arrived there was already a long queue of kids at the small stand and most of them were waiting to have their show programmes signed by reigning arcade game champion and Zzap reviewer, Julian Rignall. As an ardent subscriber, I can still remember the thrill of standing in that line, the latest copy of the mag clutched in my sweaty hands. I wouldn’t feel this starstruck again until I met Sigourney Weaver a quarter of a century later.
It turns out I’m not the only one who remembers that day. In his wonderful new book, The Games of a Lifetime, Rignall himself recalls the shock of being swamped by fans. “We just didn’t expect anything like that,” he writes. “I had no idea readers would be so interested in us. But I loved it.”
I’m not sure he should have been so surprised, though. Back in the mid-80s, the boom era of the C64 and ZX Spectrum home computers, magazines such as Crash, Zzap and Computer & Video Games were the only sources of news and opinion about new games. At the time, information about game developers was scarce, so magazine reviewers, with their photos plastered in every issue, were the stars of the industry, the social media influencers of the era….
(5) IS REMORSE A DESIRABLE GAME FEATURE? The New York Times discusses a video game where players are “Slaying Monsters With Swords and Sympathy”. (Behind a paywall.)
Gigantic reptiles are lounging on warm rocks as yellow grass sways in a gentle breeze.
You may be a monster hunter, feller of beasts with a razor-sharp sword, yet a companion has encouraged you to first stop and observe this flora and fauna. Press a button to gaze intensely at these lustrous creatures, learning that it is a gaggle of females gathered around a spiked, larger male. As the camera zooms in, tiny critters scuttle past your feet toward their next meal, a carcass in the distance.
The majestic scale and teeming ecological detail in Monster Hunter Wilds can make it feel as if you are playing a fantastical version of a David Attenborough documentary.
But there is no ignoring the title of this celebrated Japanese series: These are foremost monster-slaying games that have cultivated bloodlust for more than 20 years. The franchise’s inherent tension is that the allure of battling prehistoric behemoths and exploring their detailed, entwined habitats leaves a sour aftertaste when you are carving up the remaining cadavers for loot.
“There is a bizarre feeling at the center of Monster Hunter,” said Jacob Geller, a critic and YouTube video game essayist. “Unlike most other video games, it’s made pretty clear that the creatures you’re killing are not evil, and so it does feel undeniably bad hunting them.”
More than any other entry in the series, Monster Hunter Wilds, which was released for the PC, PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X|S on Friday, reckons with the interplay between the exceptional beauty of these animals, the ecosystems they are part of, and the player’s core task of dispatching them….
(6) FIRST BRUSH WITH FAME. Artist Michael Whelan’s autobiographical post takes us back to his professional beginnings: “1976: Year in Review (Part One)”
Staking everything on a letter from Donald Wollheim, bolstered by recent success selling his work at conventions, Michael packed his VW Beetle and with trailer in tow headed to New York City to pursue illustration in 1975.
His parents may not have been happy about his career choice, but by that time they lived in New Jersey, and he was able to stay with them for a short time while he scoured bookstores, studying science fiction and fantasy book covers. He spent 18 hours a day polishing a portfolio that he felt compared favorably to what he saw on the shelves.
His first professional sale was to Marvel Comics, who bought pieces right out of his portfolio and hired him for more cover work. Like many young New York area artists, Michael worked out of Neal Adams Studio. That was only a brief stop as the fast turnaround and revolving deadlines of comics didn’t appeal to him.
Fortunately Donald Wollheim came through on his offer and gave Michael his first book cover assignment. Regular work with DAW Books would follow.
At the same time, Neal Adams kindly arranged an interview with Ace Books, who also hired Michael to do cover work. With a second client secured, Michael was never without an assignment after that….
(7) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Robert Bloch’s “That Hell-Bound Train”
So let’s talk about Robert Bloch’s “That Hell-Bound Train” which many decades after reading it remains my favorite piece of fiction by him. I read it at least once a year.
It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in September of 1958. That issue also has the second part of three of Heinlein’s Have Space Suit – Will Travel (and which is the story shown on the cover).
I’d stick a spoiler alert in here but surely every Filer here knows the story of Martin, a hobo, who one dark night has a large black train pulls up beside him. The conductor says Martin can have anything he wants in exchange for which he will ride that “Hell-Bound Train” when he dies. He hands Martin a watch which he tells him will stop time when Martin reaches he perceives to be the absolute perfect moment in his life.
Y’all know what that moment turns out to be…
It would win the Hugo Award at Detention in a field of other nominees which was rather large as here they are with nominated works: They’ve Been Working On …” by Anton Lee Baker, “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” by Alfred Bester, “Triggerman” by J. F. Bone, “The Edge of the Sea” by Algis Budrys, “The Advent on Channel Twelve” by C. M. Kornbluth, “Theory of Rocketry” by C. M. Kornbluth, “Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee” by Fritz Leiber, “Space to Swing a Cat” by Stanley Mullen and “Nine Yards of Other Cloth” by Manly Wade Wellman.
What an amazing selection of reading that is! The only author that I do not recognize is Stanley Mullen. For the purpose of this piece I am not going to look him up on ISFDB and instead I’m going to ask y’all to tell me about him.
I love every word of the story from what Martin does with his life until he finally stops time, it is truly an extraordinary story. Yes.
William Tenn says in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, volume 1, that he helped shape the story while at the magazine as it was “an absolutely fine piece of work that just didn’t have a usable ending”. He had come to the magazine after Boucher retired.
I know there’s at least three audio versions that have been done, so it’s possible that one might actually does this story justice, but I wouldn’t know as so far I’ve not tracked any of them down. Anyone heard any of them?
Now to my surprise, though I should not have been as it is great source material for one, it became an opera staged in (at least) workshop form at the University of Texas.
It’s available from the usual suspects in Tim Pratt’s excellent anthology Sympathy for the Devil. It was included a number of times in another anthologies before that, but that’s near as I can tell the only one in print right now, either from the usual suspects or in the old-fashioned paper version.
I wondering did anyone wrote a filk off of it?
So here’s the first words to savor…
When Martin was a little boy, his daddy was a Railroad Man. Daddy never rode the high iron, but he walked the tracks for the CB&Q, and he was proud of his job. And every night when he got drunk, he sang this old song about That Hell-Bound Train.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
- Carpe Diem evolves technologically.
- Cornered has the latest in overseers.
- Dinosaur Comics chronicles the artificial sweetening of language.
- Tom Gauld is a fan of danger.
- Tom Gauld also brings us an example of the repression inherent in the system.
(9) DISNEY ANIMATION BAILS ON LONGFORM STREAMING CONTENT. “Disney Cancels ‘Tiana’ Animated Series and Jumps Ship on Longform Streaming Toons” reports Animation Magazine.
The Walt Disney Animation Studios are no longer cooking up longform streaming content, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The first title to be culled from the lineup is Tiana, the Disney+ series based on the 2009 movie The Princess and the Frog, which introduce the studio’s first Black Disney Princess.
A source revealed that WDAS was also shelving an unannounced feature project destined for Disney+, and confirmed that there will be layoffs at Disney’s Vancouver animation studio. This shift follows Pixar’s announcement last year that it will not be prioritizing longform episodic content after launching the Inside Out spinoff Dream Productions and recent original Win or Lose on Disney+
A short-form special set in the world of The Princess and the Frog is reportedly still in development. Tiana‘s Joyce Sherrí (staff writer on Midnight Mass) and Steven Anderson will be directing….
(10) HERZOG LAUNCHES ANIMATION FEATURE PROJECT. “Werner Herzog Announces First Animated Feature ‘The Twilight World’ with Psyop & Sun Creature” – Animation Magazine has the story.
The acclaimed German writer, producer and filmmaker, Werner Herzog, behind celebrated work such as Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, The Wrath of God, announces his first animated film, The Twilight World. Herzog will direct the narrative feature, with animation and production support from renowned animation studio, Psyop, in partnership with Sun Creature Studio, producers of the Bafta- and triple Oscar-nominated film, Flee.
Sun Creature will also be providing animation services for the film out of its Bordeaux-based studio, and has brokered discussions with several potential French animation directors to collaborate with Herzog on the project.
Adapted from Herzog’s best selling novel of the same name, The Twilight World tells the true story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese intelligence officer who refused to believe that World War II was over, and continued to fight a personal, fictitious war in the jungles of the Philippines for 30 years. Part fictionalized history, part war drama and part dream log, the film is a meditation on the nature of reality, the illusion of time, and the conflict between the external world and our inner lives.
Herzog worked closely with writers Michael Arias (Tekkonkinkreet, The Animatrix) and Luca Vitale on the screenplay adaptation of the book. He will also narrate the film…
(11) HAIR APPARENT. “Scientists aiming to bring back woolly mammoth create woolly mice” reports the Guardian.
A plan to revive the mammoth is on track, scientists have said after creating a new species: the woolly mouse.
Scientists at the US biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences plan to “de-extinct” the prehistoric pachyderms by genetically modifying Asian elephants to give them woolly mammoth traits. They hope the first calf will be born by the end of 2028.
Ben Lamm, co-founder and chief executive of Colossal, said the team had been studying ancient mammoth genomes and comparing them with those of Asian elephants to understand how they differ and had already begun genome-editing cells of the latter.
Now the team say they have fresh support for their approach after creating healthy, genetically modified mice that have traits geared towards cold tolerance, including woolly hair. “It does not accelerate anything but it’s a massive validating point,” Lamm said….
(12) MR. SCI-FI ON SF FILMS. Marc Scott Zicree – Mr. Sci-Fi – brings us “Mr. Sci-Fi’s History of Science Fiction Films — The 2000s Part One!” No film clips – it’s entirely a talking head presentation.
(13) SF WORLD. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] “Are we Living In a Science Fiction World?” the question Moid asks over at Media Death Cult…
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]