Tag Archives: Writing Excuses

Pixel Scroll 9/22/18 I’ll Scroll You Nine-O, Bright Glow The Pixels, Oh

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(1) KBOARDS RIGHTS GRAB. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] KBoards is a forum for e-reader owners which eventually developed a vibrant self-publishing subforum. The owner died approximately a year ago, and now his widow has sold the forum to a company called VerticalScope, which first plastered the forum with problematic ads and then tried to sneak in a Terms of Service with a massive rights grab. The self-published authors are up in arms, an employee of VerticalScope made things worse and now the forum is imploding.

There is a post about the issue at the publishing blog The Passive Voice: “Dumpster Fire at Kboards?” It quotes from the new Terms of Service –

…PG hasn’t had a chance to comb through this document in detail, but a quick scan revealed the following interesting (at least to PG) provisions. VerticalScope doesn’t include paragraph numbers, so if you want to see any of this in context, you’ll need to do a word search. Other than the section headings, emphasis is PG’s:

…You agree to grant to KBOARDS.COM a non exclusive, royalty free, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual license to reproduce, distribute, transmit, sublicense, create derivative works of, publicly display, publish and perform any materials and other information you submit to any public areas, chat rooms, bulletin boards, newsgroups or forums of KBOARDS.COM or which you provide by email or any other means to KBOARDS.COM and in any media now known or hereafter developed. Further, you grant to KBOARDS.COM the right to use your name and or user name in connection with the submitted materials and other information as well as in connection with all advertising, marketing and promotional material related thereto, together with use on any other VerticalScope Inc. web sites. You agree that you shall have no recourse against VerticalScope Inc. for any alleged or actual infringement or misappropriation of any proprietary right in your communications to KBOARDS.COM….

Here is a post from Julie Ann Dawson, horror writer and editor of Bards and Sages Quarterly: “VerticalScope’s Overreaching TOS”

For over nine years, I have been a member of a site called Kboards.com. Many of you, in fact, may recall me directing folks to the site, particularly the Writer’s Café, for support and guidance on all things indie publishing. Over the years, the site has attracted some of the smartest, most successful indie authors in the industry. And I have always been happy to be a part of it.

Until now. In August, the site was sold to a company called VerticalScope. It was recently discovered that the new owners made significant changes to the site’s terms of service without notifying members….

Here is more from Julie Ann Dawson: “Selling Forum Users: What the VerticalScope TOS Allows”

… My first instinct was that really wasn’t my concern, and I started explaining to him my concerns regarding the use of my name and such.

“Julie, stop thinking like a writer and start thinking like a black hatter.”

He then told me about an incident on a graphic designer forum he used to frequent. The site was sold (he didn’t remember to who and I’m not saying it was VerticalScope), but with the exception of more ads nothing really changed. It wasn’t until one day he was Googling a topic that had been discussed on the forum that he came across a post of his on a different forum. At first, he thought maybe someone had quoted him and that the topic was being discussed on this other forum, but when he read the link he found several posts that were verbatim from topics on the graphic designer forum. Apparently, a bot had lifted the comments from the forum he frequented and other forums and reposted them on a new forum under a new username.

See, apparently you can buy forum posters, just like you can buy Twitter or Facebook followers….

Here is a post from paranormal romance author Marilyn Vix: “The Death of Kboards.Com: My Indie Publishing Home Implodes”

… IT IS A SCARY SITUATION for CREATIVES! I have never seen anything like this. There are many people that have visited the board, including top Indie authors, like Hugh Howey and Jasinda Wilder, that have made Kboards.com home in the past. So, the legal repercussions are astounding. Plus, many EU citizens on the board are already exerting their GDPR rights, but many Canadian, US and Australian citizens are left trying to figure how to sort through this downward spiral of our online home.

I cannot even put into words how I am feeling–almost. Because there is one word coming to mind awfully clearly–betrayed. More comes to mind like trying to say the sale date of the board was in May, but the announcement was made in August this year. The new owners and their scathing disregard for the intelligence and knowledge of the Kboard users, and the utter jumping of ship of many of my good friends I’ve known for years is the reality of what has happened. The shock is disappearing, and the dust is settling. Writers are leaving Kboards and the Writer’s I in troves. And this makes me ultimately sad….

(2) NEBULA READING LIST. SFWA members have added a large number of titles to the “Nebula Reading List”.

The Nebula Awards Suggested Reading List is produced through the collaborative effort of SFWA’s 1800+ members, with new listings appearing as members make recommendations. For this reason, works are occasionally introduced in error and may later be corrected or removed from the list if deemed ineligible by the Nebula Awards Commissioner. The list is provided to the public as a service in finding the year’s most noteworthy fantasy and science fiction works.

Please note this list is not the preliminary ballot or nomination tally and does not affect the Nebula Award nominations or final results in any way.

(3) HELP FOR WRITERS. SFWA’s Information Center is open to all. Sixteen linked articles on the main post alone!

(4) ANOTHER TRADEMARK NOPE. The Cockybot is on the job…

(5) TITLE SEARCH. Ursula Vernon received helpful suggestions in response to this tweet, whether she really wanted them or not….

(6) WRITING EXCUSES BY LAND AND SEA. Amal El-Mohtar and her mother planned to fly together to attend the Writing Excuses cruise until TSA created a problem. Thread starts here.

The Writing Excuses crew had a workaround ready. Thread starts here.

(7) GETTING READY FOR SPACE. In “The Next Great Leap” in the Financial Times, Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees suggests that humans preparing to explore space will have to have substantial genetic and biological modifications if they are going to survive. (No link because it’s behind a paywall.)

The space environment is inherently hostile for humans.  So because they will be ill-adapted to their new habitat, the pioneer explorers will have a more compelling inventive than those of us on Earth to redesign themselves.  They’ll have to harness the super-powerful genetic and cyborg technologies that will be developed in coming decades.  Those techniques will, one hopes, be heavily regulated on Earth, on prudential and ethical grounds, but ‘settlers’ on Mars will be far beyond the clutches of the regulators.  We should wish them good luck in modifying their progeny to adapt to alien environments.  This might be the first step for divergence into a new species.  Genetic modification would be supplemented by cyborg technology–indeed there may be a transition to fully inorganic intelligences.  So it is these spacefaring adventurers, not those of us comfortably adapted to life on Earth, who will spearhead the post-human era.

(8) CRUISE NIGHT. In this clip from Colbert’s show, Stephen and Neil deGrasse Tyson take NASA’s Mars Rover for a ride around Midtown Manhattan.

(9) TODAY’S DAY.

  • September 22  — Hobbit Day, sponsored by the American Tolkien Society.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • September 22, 1973 – The Harlan Ellison conceived, Canadian-produced, sci-fi series The Starlost aired its first episode.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]

  • Born September 22, 1971 – Elizabeth Bear, 47, Writer. Her first series was a superb trilogy, which might be considered cyberpunk, centered on a character named Jenny Casey. She’s a very prolific writer;  I’m fond of her Promethean Age, New Amsterdam and Karen Memory series.  She won a John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, a Hugo Award for Best Short Story for “Tideline”, and a Hugo Award for Best Novelette for “Shoggoths in Bloom”. One of only five writers to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer! Very impressive indeed! It is worth noting that she was one of the regular panelists on now sadly defunct podcast SF Squeecast, which won the 2012 and 2013 Hugo Awards for “Best Fancast”.
  • Born September 22, 1946 – John Woo, 72, Director. His genre films include Mission Impossible II, Face/Off, and the Philip K. Dick-written Paycheck (which JJ loved, even if no one else did).
  • Born September 22, 1952 – Paul Kincaid, 66, Writer, Editor, and Critic. He was the chair of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for 20 years, helping to transform it into a respected genre award. In addition to being a former editor of Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association, his critical work has appeared in numerous scholarly, genre, and mainstream publications. He won the 2018 BSFA for Best Non-Fiction book for Modern Masters of Science Fiction: Iain M. Banks, which was also a Hugo and Locus finalist.
  • Born September 22, 1982 – Billie Piper, 36, Actor. Known to Doctor Who fans as the Companion of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, she also played Lily Frankenstein in the TV series Penny Dreadful, and the titular character in the Sally Lockhart mystery series based on the novel quadrilogy written by His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman.
  • Born September 22, 1985 – Tatiana Maslany, 33, Actor. Best known for her superb versatility in playing more than a dozen different clones in the TV series Orphan Black, for which she received a Best Actress Emmy and more than two dozen other nominations and awards.
  • Born September 22, 1987 – Tom Felton, 31, Actor. Played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, followed by a role in the TV series The Flash.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

  • You have to know Wonder Woman to get the joke in this installment of Half Full – fortunately, you probably do!
  • The kids in Baby Blues explain why they just can’t believe the ending of The Wizard of Oz.

(13) THE BELLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC. SYFY Wire is on top of the story: “William Shatner tweets Jingle Bells track from his new album ‘Shatner Claus’”. The tweet contains a link to the song on SoundCloud.

(14) THE FAMILY BUSINESS. The Guardian reports “Liam McIlvanney wins Scottish crime fiction award named after his father”:

…Two years after the award for the best Scottish crime novel was renamed in honour of the “godfather of tartan noir” William McIlvanney, his son and fellow crime writer Liam McIlvanney has landed the prize.

William McIlvanney, who died in 2015, was the author of the acclaimed DI Jack Laidlaw series, set in Glasgow. In 2016, the Bloody Scotland international crime writing festival renamed its prize, citing McIlvanney as “the man who, more than anyone, established the tradition of Scottish detective fiction”.

Liam, an academic at a New Zealand university as well as an author, won ahead of shortlisted writers including former winners Chris Brookmyre and Charles Cumming, and Lin Anderson, one of the festival’s co-founders.

Liam took the £1,000 McIlvanney award for The Quaker….

(15) SUPERHERO. Adri Joy concludes this book is “enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore” – “Microreview [Book]: Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang” at Nerds of a Feather.

Though it’s new to print this year, Zero Sum Game was already on my radar in its previous, ebook only self-published incarnation, although it never made the leap from the ever-growing collection of Kindle Samples I keep around to inform potential purchases onto my actual TBR. This new version, published by Tor, has been revisited and polished up, and is now being released much more widely as part of the publisher’s #Fearlesswomen initiative, bringing this unconventional superhero thriller to a bigger audience, and also to me.

(16) GAME DEVELOPERS SUDDENLY OUT OF WORK. According to The Verge, these employees were told to start walking, too – “The Walking Dead developer Telltale hit with devastating layoffs as part of a ‘majority studio closure’”.

Telltale Games, creators of episodic adventure games like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Batman: The Enemy Within, laid off approximately 250 employees today as part of what the company is calling a “majority studio closure.” According to multiple sources The Verge spoke with, employees were let go with no severance.

“Today Telltale Games made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges,” the company said in a statement. “A majority of the company’s employees were dismissed earlier this morning.” The company will retain a small team of 25. These remaining employees will stay on “to fulfill the company’s obligations to its board and partners,” according to Telltale.

The final season of Telltale’s award-winning series, The Walking Dead, kicked off last month. The second episode is slated to launch next week. Staff were informed of the layoffs today and were given roughly 30 minutes to leave the building, according to one source.

(17) ON THE MOVE. BBC reports “Japan’s rovers send pictures from asteroid”.

The two small “rovers”, which were despatched from the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on Friday, will move around the 1km-wide space rock known as Ryugu.

The asteroid’s low gravity means they can hop across it, capturing temperatures and images of the surface.

“Both rovers are in good condition,” the agency confirmed on Saturday.

(18) BABY NAMES. In England and Wales “Game of Thrones baby names still proving popular” – though interestingly, 76 girls called Khaleesi and only 3 called Daenerys….

But if baby-naming is a reliable indicator, Game of Thrones’ most popular character appears to be Arya, with 343 newborns given the same name as Maisie Williams’ sword-wielding Stark.

That’s a big increase on 302, the number of Aryas named in 2016.

Eleven baby boys, the same number as in 2016, ended up being called Tyrion, almost certainly in tribute to Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister – perhaps the show’s most intelligent character.

(19) PACIFICON 1946. [Item by David Doering.] More choice quotes from the Pacificon 1 (1946 Worldcon) progress report.

BADGES–NONE GENUINE WITHOUT AN OFFICIAL NAME-PLATE

These Badges will be cellophane with a safety pin attachment so they can easily be worn at all times.

They have a place in which can be inserted your name and home city, and the name of your local club if you belong to one.

Interesting that we still use such badges (name plates??) at smaller events! (I kind of like the “club name” space, if only to describe which branch(es) of fandom you are keen on. Current badges don’t give you a clue.)

The con was held at the Park View Manor, an event space at 2200 W 7th Street. According to the LA Building Permits records, it looks like the same building remains there, although as offices. The con thought this an ideal location:

Nothing small about the Pacificon Hall — It will hold up to 750 persons!

I think the Pacificon was in fact somewhat smaller than this.

There are double rooms available at $3.00 and $3.85 each, per day, which would be but $1.50-1.93 per day for each occupant,

Oh, to find anything at a con hotel today–even soda–for under $2! Amazingly enough, the two con hotels, the Mayfair and the Commodore, are still extant! The Mayfair in fact remains a hotel (you might book a room now where a famous fan stayed even!) while the Commodore is condos.

We will do our level best to help you find a room if your reservation reaches us after the 20th of June – but we cannot promise you anything definite. However, we do have some nice parks here in LA, with the most comfortable benches in the country – one of them is right across the street from the official Convention Hall.

Given that the Denvention progress report provided instructions on how to “ride the rails” to get to Denver, I can’t be sure they were kidding about using these “comfortable benches” in the park across the street.

(20) ANIME VIBE. Io9’s James Whitbrook, in “Star Wars: A New Hope, But as a Classic ‘80s Anime”, praises this short video to the skies –

… this delightful fan trailer by YouTuber Dmitry Grozov takes Star Wars as we know it—in the form of A New Hope—and transforms it into an old-school anime style cartoon, evoking the likes of Macross or Mobile Suit Gundam, complete with Japanese voice acting.

Alan Baumler comments, “I liked how they made Obi-wan sound like Toshiro Mifune.”

[Thanks to Cora Buhlert, John King Tarpinian, JJ, David Doering, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, Alan Baumler, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day John Hertz.]

Pixel Scroll 1/22/17 How Do We Tell If A Scroll is Made of Pixels?

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By JJ:

(1) MOVING FORWARD. ScreenRant broke the news that Wonder Woman 2 will be the first film to adopt the Anti-Sexual Harassment Guidelines announced on Friday by the Producers Guild of America, prior to their annual awards gala.

As reported by Variety, the PGA’s board of directors voted unanimously to ratify the new guidelines, which were then issued to the organization’s 8,200 members. PGA presidents Gary Lucchesi and Lori McCreary said of the guidelines:

Sexual harassment can no longer be tolerated in our industry or within the ranks of the Producers Guild membership. We provide key leadership in creating and sustaining work environments built on mutual respect, so it is our obligation to change our culture and eradicate this abuse. While the PGA is a voluntary membership organization, the PGA’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Guidelines are sanctioned as best practices for our members.

The Wonder Woman sequel being the first film to officially adopt these guidelines certainly makes sense considering the character’s position as a role model for girls and women everywhere (though that might not necessarily be why it will be the first to adopt the guidelines). Additionally, Jenkins’ Wonder Woman broke records for movies directed by women, solidifying it as a major step forward for gender representation in terms of Hollywood directors. Further, it was reported last year while Jenkins and Gadot were negotiating their deals for the sequel that the actress refused to sign on for Wonder Woman 2 unless Warner Bros. cut ties with Brett Ratner’s production company RatPac for the film. (Ratner was accused of sexual misconduct by a number of women, including X-Men: The Last Stand’s Ellen Page.)

(2) THE WRITING BOAT IS OPEN FOR BOARDING: Dan Wells from the Writing Excuses podcast announced that applications are open for their 2018 Writing Excuses Retreat Scholarship:

The sixth annual Writing Excuses Workshop and Retreat makes a triumphant return to the Caribbean Sea! We begin in Houston, TX, on September 22; we’ll visit Roatan, Belize City, and Cozumel; and then we’ll end up back in Houston again on September 30. You can find all the other info, including our incredible guest list, here.

We are also delighted to report that we are offering more scholarships in 2018 than ever before: five! One of these is sponsored by the hosts of Writing Excuses, one by our amazing patrons on Patreon, and three (3) by our incredibly awesome alumni. They’ve been on the retreat (sometimes more than once), they love it, and they want to share it with as many people as possible.

As always, our scholarships come in two categories: three Out of Excuses Scholarships, awarded to those in financial need, and two Carl Brandon Society Scholarships, awarded to writers of color. Both categories have introduced us to some incredible writers in the past, and we can’t wait to see who we get to meet this year. Share this post with everyone you know, read the rules carefully, and apply!

Workshop presenters announced thus far include Amal El-Mohtar, Piper Drake, Maurice Broaddus, Kathy Chung, K Tempest Bradford, Valynne E Maetani, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler.

(3) I SEE YOU SHIVER WITH ANTICI

(4) FURY STILL TO BE UNLEASHED. On an update to the Kickstarter for the Hath No Fury anthology of fantasy, science fiction, and urban fantasy tales featuring lead characters inspired by women from literature, history, and film, editor Melanie R. Meadors announced that Outland Entertainment has committed to complete the anthology after the original publisher, Ragnarok Publications, shut down:

The good news is that Outland Entertainment has absorbed all the rights to Ragnarok’s anthologies. The books will continue to be in print, and Hath No Fury will be published as well. The files for the books are currently being processed so that they have the copyright and logo info updated, and Hath No Fury is being sent to the printer. There has been a super long delay with that, and Outland wants you to know they are really sorry about that. The money Ragnarok received for this Kickstarter had been used for other business expenses by Ragnarok, and so Outland had to figure things out in order to get backer rewards paid for out of their own pocket. The money to pay for all printing expenses and shipping, etc for the Kickstarter backers is now earmarked and ready to go, however, and the only delay right now is with printing – in order for printing to be done as efficiently as possible, Outland is doing a batch printing order with another project, and they just had to wait for that to finish up in order to submit the job.

I know you folks have been itching to get your hands on the books, and communications have been sparse. I apologize for that. Outland wanted to be sure to try to get accurate information out there instead of giving a lot of false starts and dates based on hopes. I don’t have an exact date yet (the head of the other project’s mother just passed away, so as soon as he’s back to work, I can get more details on that), but it WILL be this spring, and the money for the printing and processing IS earmarked and will not be going anywhere. I’m really grateful to Outland for helping to make all this happen, especially for absorbing such a huge cost to them for fulfilling the Kickstarter. More details are forthcoming as far as what is shipping when, and when folks can expect to get surveys. Again, I apologize for the delays and the gaps in communication, but going forward we should see some real progress.

The Kickstarter had more than doubled its $14,500 goal, receiving $32,047 in pledges.

(5) KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY MAUSOLEUM. Tina Romero, daughter of the grand master of zombie horror George A. Romero, will be directing zombie movie Queens Of The Dead, according to ScienceFiction.com:

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as it now looks like Tina Romero is going to be directing a new feature film titled Queens of the Dead. With George A. Romero creating the modern zombie and his son Cameron busy at work with Rise of the Living Dead, it seems like the undead are becoming a family affair. Tina had previously announced that she was working on a new horror web-series with Tom Savini but now that partnership will also have a new movie as well.

There is no news if this movie will be part of the Night of the Living Dead universe or set in her own world and will just be paying tribute to her father’s work with the title.

As to what the movie will be about and what inspired her to do it?

“Queens of the Dead is a fusion of two huge parts of my world: zombies and Gay nightlife. It’s a tribute to my father as well as my entrée into the genre he grandfathered. I can’t say too much yet, but what I can tell you is that this film will have all the hallmarks of a George A. Romero classic: farce, politics, heroes, assholes, and most importantly, herds of silly and slow-moving walkers that you can’t help but love. But I’m doing it Tina-style, and bringing the glitter, choreography, queers & queens.”

Basically, it boils down to showing us “the zombie apocalypse, seen through the eyes of the patrons at a drag nightclub.” Now, that is an idea which hasn’t been done before and could prove to be full of humor and heart.

(6) DARKNESS FALLS. All 1,225 Episodes of vintage TV series Dark Shadows have been released on Amazon Prime Streaming, says Bloody Disgusting:

Depicting the lives, loves, trials and tribulations of the wealthy Collins family of Collinsport, Maine, where a number of supernatural occurrences take place, the American gothic television series “Dark Shadows” aired from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971 on ABC. The show ran for five years, delivering a staggering 1,225 episodes.

As of this week, you can stream EVERY episode through Amazon Prime US & UK!

The Wikipedia entry for the cult series offers this description:

The series became hugely popular when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) appeared ten months into its run. Dark Shadows also featured ghosts, werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe. A small company of actors each played many roles; as actors came and went, some characters were played by more than one actor.

Dark Shadows was distinguished by its vividly melodramatic performances, atmospheric interiors, memorable storylines, numerous dramatic plot twists, adventurous music score, broad cosmos of characters and heroic adventures.

(7) SETTING PRIORITIES. The NASA History Office came up with this gem right before they turned out the lights:

(8) GOODNIGHT EARTH. In a lengthy piece, “What Happens to Astronauts During a Government Shutdown?“, The Atlantic verifies that the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) won’t be completely abandoned:

As the wheels of the U.S. government ground to a halt Friday at midnight, thousands of federal employees prepared to face days or weeks without work or pay until their offices reopened.

Some employees will continue working through the government shutdown, however, including the three with the longest commute: NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Joseph Acaba, and Scott Tingle. Despite the political tussle that closed most of the government on Saturday, the American part of the International Space Station remains open for business. Mission-control staff, considered “essential” personnel, will keep working, too, to support the astronauts.

Phew. And, well, obviously! After all, NASA can’t exactly press pause on the work of keeping humans alive in microgravity 200 miles above Earth, even if Congress missed the deadline for the government running out of money.

“To protect the life of the crew as well as the assets themselves, we would continue to support planned operations of the ISS during any funding hiatus,” states a NASA plan, published in November, that outlines protocols for a potential government shutdown.

(9) HOUSTON, CAN YOU READ ME? Former ISS Commander Chris Hadfield reminisces about the last time the lights went out:

(10) QUICK, WHILE THEY’RE NOT LOOKING.

(11) SAY, ARE YOU RELATED TO…? Author and Filer Laura Resnick posted a diary of an unnamed convention where she was a guest, exposing the sordid truth concealed behind the glamorous myths about a midlist writer’s life. Here’s a spine-tingling excerpt:

At dinner, am required to sit at assigned table and be available to interested attendees.

Overhear attendees say, “All the good seats are taken, I guess we’ll have to sit here,” a moment before they sit down at my table.

Table gradually fills up with disappointed attendees who had hoped to sit with someone better than me at this meal.

No one at table sits next to me. The chairs are empty on either side of me. I suggest someone might like to sit closer to me. No response.

Nearest person on left asks me, “Are you any relation to Mike Resnick, the science fiction writer?”

I respond, “Yes, he’s my dad.”

Ten minutes later, nearest person on right asks me, “Are you any relation to Mike Resnick?”

(Old man will enjoy this. Must make sure he never finds out.)

Otherwise, not much said to me throughout meal.

(12) A FUTURE INFORMED BY BLACKNESS. Mic, a digital news media site, discusses revolutionary Afrofuturistic elements in “Black Panther isn’t just another Marvel movie – it’s a vision of a future led by blackness.”

Wakanda is more than just a fun spectacle; it represents something much more magnificent and powerful – a version of Africa unaffected by the external world, one that was allowed to pursue its own march toward spectacular progress.

When the most recent trailer for the movie was released in October, people weren’t just excited, they were jubilant. Now, it’s an event pretty much every time there’s a new Marvel movie but – no disrespect to Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, etc. – those blockbusters don’t normally have an entire culture of people impatiently awaiting their release. So what makes Black Panther especially noteworthy?

The secret sauce of Marvel’s Black Panther is Afrofuturism – an arts form that combines science fiction with black culture to create a future informed by blackness. On its face, Black Panther masquerades as Marvel’s latest superhero flick. Dig deeper and you’ll find the movie’s true identity: an Africa-set, Afrofuturist film – made for black people, by black people – powered by a Disney budget.

(13) CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. New York native Frederick Joseph’s GoFundMe campaign to set up screening of Black Panther for children has gone viral, says ABC News.

Joseph knew he wanted to give back to his community in some way and with the highly-anticipated Black Panther hitting theaters next month, he decided to try and raise funds to send a few hundred kids from the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem for free.

But what has happened over the last few days since his GoFundMe page launched is something straight out of the pages of Marvel Comics.

Joseph’s original goal of $10,000 has been well surpassed and now stands at around $25,000 and climbing. More than 500 people have donated. The campaign also boasts support from Chelsea Clinton, J.J. Abrams and ESPN’s Jamele Hill.

After seeing his goals exceeded so quickly and enthusiastically, Josephs issued the #BlackPantherChallenge:

… start a @gofundme to buy tickets for kids in your city to see Black Panther. If you’re a teacher, buy tickets for your entire classroom. If you’re a coach, take your team. If you’re a community leader, do some organizing and get the kids and parents in your community to the theater. 10 campaigns that answer the #BlackPantherChallenge will receive a $100 donation from GoFundMe.

Comicbook.com reports that rapper Snoop Dogg has announced that he will fund one of the NYC screenings and a screening for kids in Los Angeles, as well as donating funds to Joseph’s GoFundMe campaign.

Joseph’s GoFundMe now stands at $42,642 of $10,000 goal.

(14) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

(15) FINALLY NAMING NAMES. Compulsive list-maker and Filer James Davis Nicoll has made the first in a new series of posts over at Tor.com, Fighting Erasure: Women SF Writers of the 1970s, A Through F.

You may have been annoyed by recurrent comments from a certain surprisingly flammable Waterloo-region reviewer. He complains about the erasure from SF memory of women writing SF back in the 1970s – but has that reviewer ever bother to name names? Suggest books? I think not. It is time to confront the erasure directly. Forward! Excelsior!

In an attempt to keep this list to a manageable length, I will focus on women authors who first published in the 1970s. That means skipping some significant authors who were already active at the time. I also reserve the right to cheat a bit by including a few works published after the 1970s. I am also going to break this list into several installments, beginning with A through F. Which should tell you just how many women have been erased. Whole binders full of women.

(16) SO THAT’S WHAT’S UNDER THERE. In a comment on File770, RedWombat (aka Ursula Vernon) says:

I went through what I called an “objectified Scotsman” phase about two months ago. A very specific, very silly genre, mostly tied to kilts, existence thereof, and what may or may not be worn underneath them.

You have to be absolutely in it for the romance, there is no comedy of manners, and they run INTENSELY formulaic (and I say this as one who respects romance enormously as a genre, couldn’t write it, and believe it deserves an immense amount of respect) but they are hella fun for comfort reads.

Structure goes as follows:

Act One: Arranged Marriage
HIM: I hate the English.
HER: Goddamn.

Act Two: Love
HIM: I still hate the English, but this one’s mine.
HER: Hot damn!

Act Three: The Clans Go To War
HIM: Let’s kill those other English!
HER: Oh, damn.

(17) THE TOR BOYCOTT HAS SUCCEEDED.

(18) NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT. Angered by what he apparently perceived to be too many “girl cooties” ruining his childhood in The Last Jedi, a Mens’ Rights Activist released last week a version of the 152-minute movie called “The Last Jedi De-Feminized Fanedit”, with the female characters almost completely excised. The resulting movie is (wait for it…) 46 minutes long. Dorkly’s Tristan Cooper takes one for the team and reports on the result.

I know. Part of you kind of wants to see this tragic, insecure shitshow. Don’t worry, you don’t have to scrub through the sketchier side of the internet just to satisfy your morbid curiosity – I’ve already done that for you. I watched the De-Feminized Fanedit of The Last Jedi, and I can tell you with authority that it’s even worse than you think…

In response, Twitter user Logan James released his own gender-edited films:

https://twitter.com/LoganJames/status/953750374804021250

https://twitter.com/LoganJames/status/954134191062601729

(19) MOTOR CITY COMIC MADNESS. SFF Author Saladin Ahmed has a new comic book, Abbott, debuting on January 24, set in 1972 Detroit. The Detroit Free Press gives us the lowdown:

Whether she’s arriving at a crime scene, standing up to her boss or just listening at home to John Coltrane albums, Elena Abbott is cool.

So cool that the fictional newspaper reporter is the title character of a new comic book series set in 1972’s “two Detroits: one white, one black” – a place where “the former would rather leave the city than truly share it with the latter.”

(20) BUT WAIT UNTIL AFTER THEIR BEDTIME. I’m Going to Outer Space by Timothy Young is a picture book for your little SF lover – and for the adults who will delight in spotting the Enterprise, a Space:1999 Eagle, and the Jupiter-Two among the spacecraft in the illustrations, and Bender, Robby, “the Robot”, Daleks, Maria, and many other old friends among the robots in the illustrations. An Amazon reviewer describes it as “the Where’s Waldo? for science fiction fans”.

(21) THAT’LL TAKE THE WIND OUT OF YOUR CAPE.

(22) FOLLOWING IN HIS FATHER’S STARSTEPS. Director Duncan Jones, whose film Moon won a Hugo Award in 2010, has produced another science-fiction movie Mute, which will debut on Netflix on February 23. Jones is better known in some quarters as the son of The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie.

 [Thanks to Andrew, Bonnie McDaniel, Chris M., Cora Buhlert, Hampus Eckerman, James Davis Nicoll, lauowolf, Laura Resnick, Lee Billings, Mark-kitteh, Paul Weimer, RedWombat, Robin A. Reid, and ULTRAGOTHA for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 Contributing Editor of the Day JJ.]

Pixel Scroll 8/5/17 Nine Pinterests In Amber

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(1) I KNOW, YOU’RE FROM THE SIXTIES! Somebody may be slipping drugs into the coffee at the Arizona Opera Company. Coming in October is their production of Hercules vs Vampires.

Hold on tight for an out of this world event! Hercules vs Vampires combines operatic singing and 1960s pop culture, synchronizing live music with the 1961 cult classic film, Hercules in the Haunted World. Watch as the original film, starring bodybuilder Reg Park and horror legend Christopher Lee, is projected above a live orchestra and singers performing the music to a new, original score. You’ll thrill as the mighty hero Hercules journeys through the underworld, battling fiendish monsters to rescue his beloved! Action packed, outlandish, and fun for the whole family, Hercules vs Vampires offers a fresh take on this gorgeously campy Technicolor world.

(2) BATMAN REMEMBERED. Adam West Day will be celebrated in the actor’s hometown — Walla Walla, Washington — on September 19.

He said proceeds will go to Camp Rainbow, a free camp in Idaho for children who have survived or are undergoing treatment for cancer and blood-related disease or disorders. West, who had a home in Idaho, was a vocal supporter of the camp.

Grant plans to wear his own Batman costume to the screening and is urging others to join him.

“This is bigger than just one fan,” Grant said. “This is a community getting together and doing something that should have been done long ago to honor someone that they love, and that they’re very proud of.”

They will also host a bat-signal lighting ceremony, similar to the one done in Los Angeles.

(3) 2017 HUGO VOTE TOTAL. I don’t remember reporting this when it came out, so just in case:

(4) FINNISH WEIRD. This Is Finland continues its Worldcon coverage: “Proud to be weird at Worldcon”.

[Maria] Turtschaninoff, who won the Finlandia Junior prize, is one of the most popular authors in Finnish literature today. She has had her book rights sold to over twenty countries and a movie has even been optioned. The first two books in her Red Abbey Chronicles series, Maresi and Naondel, have been called “feminist fantasy” by impressed reviewers.

“I’m not very interested in labels. I’m not that interested in messages either,” she says. “But I am a feminist, and an environmentalist, and a humanist, and all my values are reflected in what I write. And the mere fact that I am a woman who gets to write and who writes about women is inarguably a feminist action.”

Worldcon attendee Turtschaninoff says she is proud of the diversity in Finnish Weird, and says for such a small country Finnish writers have done quite well.

“From what I have seen, we in Finland are somewhat freed of the commercial expectations authors in, for instance, the Anglo-Saxon world face,” she continues. “This gives us some room to experiment, to go beyond what is expected. I believe Finland is fertile ground for bold, different and new voices and stories.”

(5) MEME OF THE DAY. A couple of SJW credentials have their own ideas about packing for the Worldcon.

(6) AN EXCUSE IN EVERY PORT. Writing Excuses cruise “WXR 2017 in the Baltic Sea” docked today. Follow the #WXR17 hashtag to see tweets sent during the voyage:

https://twitter.com/halleluyang/status/893886360033079296

https://twitter.com/TJaneBerry/status/892250825984278529

https://twitter.com/PiperJDrake/status/891987801314668548

https://twitter.com/CarmenCapiti/status/892033129132818436

(7) 9W. Lots happening at Nine Worlds this weekend. One small example:

(8) ALPHABET MALES. The Nameless Digest’s “A to Z: Influential Science Fiction Authors” has photos of 26 authors in alphabetical order – including a rare one of a clean-shaven Larry Niven.

Unfortunately, no women included at all.

(9) OWNING LITERATURE. One never thinks of these numinous scenes as being associated with a real place that a person could buy: “E.B. White’s former Maine farm, where Charlotte spun her web, goes up for sale”.

White, who wrote the children’s classics “Charlotte’s Web” and “Stuart Little,” bought the 44-acre property overlooking Blue Hill Bay with his wife, Katharine, in 1933. He lived there until his death in 1985.

The Gallants, who also own a home in South Carolina, purchased it shortly after White’s death, and have lived half of each year there ever since. They are now in their 80s and plan to live full time in their single-level home in South Carolina.

The couple has tried to be respectful of White’s memory – and the history of the house – by updating the kitchen and refinishing the floors but otherwise leaving its character alone.

“They have not gentrified it,” said Martha Dischinger of Downeast Properties in Blue Hill. “They’ve not gone in and done weird things. They have made all the right improvements.”

The barn that was the setting for “Charlotte’s Web,” the beloved children’s book about a pig named Wilbur and his friendship with Charlotte the spider, is still there, including the famous rope swing whose motion was mimicked in White’s writing.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • August 5, 1960 – William Castle’s 13 Ghosts brings “Illusion-O” to moviegoers.
  • August 5, 1988 — The Blob remake oozes into theaters.
  • August 5, 2011 – Rise of the Planet of the Apes premiered on this day.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY MOONWALKER

  • Born August 5, 1930  — Neil Armstrong

(12) WHAT, HE WORRY? Kyle Smith at National Review Online has a piece called “Confederate and the Dunces Who Assume It’s Pro-Slavery” where he argues that people who assume that ‘Confederate’ is going to promote slavery will have nothing to worry about.

Race these days is a kind of mental high-voltage power surge that is short-circuiting people’s minds. Do these writers really lack the imagination to see what creative direction Confederate is going to take? Every character, scene, and line of dialogue is going to be scrutinized, double-checked, and triple-checked to make sure it sends the message that white supremacy is evil. The primary creative risk for Confederate is not, as many commenters fear, that it will amount to alt-right white-supremacy porn but that it’ll be so focused on being the opposite of that it will keep pounding the same chords over and over. It’ll be so single-mindedly determined to prove it is on the morally correct side that it might be didactic and repetitive. A creative project that is principally concerned with selling the audience a political message (even one as unexceptionable as opposition to racism) risks being more of a sermon than a story.

(13) PERSON OF INTEREST. Chip Hitchcock theorizes: “It looks likely that the authorities have again gotten the wrong angle on a computer crime: Bail of $30,000 set for UK cyber expert Marcus Hutchins. To those of us who remember the mess the Secret Service tried to make of Steve Jackson Games, this sounds way too familiar.”

Ms Lobo said Mr Hutchins denied he was the author of the malware and said he would plead not guilty to all of the charges, which date between July 2014 and July 2015.

“He has dedicated his life to researching malware, not trying to harm people,” she said. “Use the internet for good is what he has done.

“He was completely shocked, this isn’t’ something he anticipated. He came here for a work-related conference and he was fully anticipating to go back home and had no reason to be fearful of coming or going from the United States.”

Mr Hutchins came to prominence in May this year after finding a “kill switch” to stop the WannaCry ransomeware attack that hit the NHS, as well as other organisations in 150 countries.

Also known as “MalwareTech” online, Mr Hutchins was hailed as an “accidental hero” after registering a domain name to track the spread of the virus, which actually ended up halting it.

Mr Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based computer security firm Kryptos Logi, had been in Las Vegas to attend the Black Hat and Def Con cyber-security conferences.

He was arrested at Las Vegas airport minutes before he was due to fly home.

(14) THE SHIRT OFF THEIR BACK. Pulp Coming Attractions runs a weekly roundup about publications and products of interest to pulp collectors and fans. That’s where I spotted these magazine logo t-shirts —

Famous Fantastic Mysteries T-Shirt This is the authentic logo used for this classic pulp magazine from the 1940s. Note: red fabric only. $22.95

(15) STAR WARS WEATHER. You may also appreciate Snorgtees’ “Alderaan 5-Day Forecast”…

(16) AND MATCHING SHOES. Yahoo! Movies’ Marcus Errico recommends these “‘Star Wars’ Shoes: Put the Force on Your Feet For 40th Anniversary”

As the 40th anniversary celebration for A New Hope, rolls on, a new line of canvas footwear inspired by George Lucas‘s original 1977 space opera is ready to launch from shoemaker Sperry, which released a popular Jaws-themed collection last year. Arriving Aug. 10, the Star Wars x Sperry collection features five styles that run the gamut from the light side to the dark side with seminal designs, images, and iconography from the film

For example —

Cloud Slip-On Droids: Now you can walk a mile in C-3PO and R2-D2‘s shoes.

(17) MEMO FROM THE EMPEROR. Charlie Lee Jackson II’s Empire of Entertainment has released two new digital books this week, both space operas.

Planet Patrol is about a small ship on which a Space Princess (like a circuit-riding judge of the Old west) travels the Solar System.

Dreadnought of Space is set centuries later, on one of those gigantic ships travelling to another star system to dispense justice. They represent the first books of a new series, “Star Service”.

(18) PARK EFFECT. When you wish upon a star…. “MouseMingle helps Disney fans find their happily-ever-after”.

Tavres, who scored six dates on MouseMingle, quit his full-time job as a technical program manager to work on the site. He’s close to finishing a mobile app and site redesign…..

MouseMingle is not just about finding love. Subscribers can also find friends and park pals.

“It’s not just about Disneyland, and it’s not specific,” Tavres said. “Everybody is welcome. I want people just to connect.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I learned couples were getting married from this site that I started,” said Tavres, who noted that Disney contacted and applauded him but added that he stress the website was an unofficial fan site unaffiliated with the Walt Disney Co. “I’m so happy for all of them.”

Tavres learned of the Guy wedding when Atwood-Knudson sent him an email thanking him for his creation.

Their wedding bands were set in three diamonds in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head and the character’s silhouette was featured in tabletop topiaries and as a cake topper.

The bride walked down the aisle to “Married Life” from “Up.” The new husband and wife left the ceremony to an orchestral version of “You’re Welcome” from “Moana,” shared their first dance to “Ma Belle Evangeline” from “The Princess and the Frog” and selected “Baby Mine” from “Dumbo” for the father-daughter number.

(19) FRANKENSTEIN LOVED GUACAMOLE. Do you find news like this anywhere else? Of course you don’t.

(20) BEETLEJUICE ANNIVERSARY COMING. Documentary for the Recently Deceased is an independent documentary about Tim Burton’s movie Beetlejuice. It will be available in 2018 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the film. Here’s a trailer —

[Thanks to Bruce D. Arthurs, JJ, Andrew Porter, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Charles Lee Jackson II, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]