Tag Archives: Xena

Pixel Scroll 9/4/24 Oh Mr Pixel, Send Me A Scroll

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(1) PUFNSTUF FOR BREAKFAST. [Item by John King Tarpinian.] The ninety-nine-year-old Los Angeles Breakfast Club hosted a breakfast for Sid Krofft today.  At age ninety-five Sid was very gregarious, and still does a Sunday podcast.  Special guests included H.R. Pufnstuf and Johnny Whittaker. 

Sid talked about his career as a puppeteer, starting at age 15 in Burlesque. People that crossed his path, from Mae West and Liberace to Jim Nabors and the Queen of England. We forget that along with his psychedelic kids show he and his brother also produced Donnie & Marie.

The Pufnstuf costume was made by a cosplayer, a young lady. [Click for larger images.]

H.R. Pufnstuf banner
Sid Krofft.
H.R. with John King Tarpinian and Silvia Mancini
John King Tarpinian, Johnnie Whittaker, and Sylvia Mancini. Whittaker’s credits include Krofft’s “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” series.

(2) BEWARE ‘HOUSE OF THE DRAGON’ SPOILER. Like, stop before you read this Variety headline!! “George R.R. Martin Calls Out ‘House of the Dragon’ Changes, Maelor Cut”. Martin wrote – then deleted – a Not A Blog post titled “Beware the Butterflies” detailing his criticism of a change to his story made by the House of Dragons series. The Google cache file is still available.

…It is a bloody, brutal scene, no doubt.  How not?  An innocent child is being butchered in front of his mother.

I still believe the scene in the book is stronger.  The readers have the right of that.   The two killers are crueler in the book.  I thought the actors who played the killers on the show were excellent… but the characters are crueler, harder, and more frightening in FIRE & BLOOD.   In the show, Blood is a gold cloak.   In the book, he is a former gold cloak, stripped of his office for beating a woman to death.    Book Blood is the sort of man who might think making a woman choose which of her sons should die is amusing, especially when they double down on the wanton cruelty by murdering the boy she tries to save.    Book Cheese is worse too; he does not kick a dog, true, but he does not have a dog, and he’s the one who tells Maelor that his mom wants him head.   I would also suggest that Helaena shows more courage, more strength in the book, by offering her own own life to save her son.   Offering a piece of jewelry is just not  the same.

As I saw it, the “Sophie’s Choice” aspect was the strongest part of the sequence, the darkest, the most visceral.   I hated to lose that.   And judging from the comments on line, most of the fans seemed to agree.

When Ryan Condal first told me what he meant to do, ages ago (back in 2022, might be) I argued against it, for all these reasons.    I did not argue long, or with much heat, however.   The change weakened the sequence, I felt, but only a bit.   And Ryan had what seemed to be practical reasons for it; they did not want to deal with casting another child, especially a two-year old toddler.  Kids that young will inevitably slow down production, and there would be budget implications.   Budget was already an issue on HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, it made sense to save money wherever we could.   Moreover, Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him.   Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season three, presumably after getting with child late in season two.   That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change.

I still love the episode, and the Blood and Cheese sequence overall.   Losing the “Helaena’s Choice” beat did weaken the scene, but not to any great degree.  Only the book readers would even notice its absence; viewers who had never read FIRE & BLOOD would still find the scenes heart-rending.   Maelor did not actually DO anything in the scene, after all.   How could he?  He was only two years old.

There is another aspect to the removal of the young princeling, however.

Those of you who hate spoilers should STOP READING HERE.

(3) RUSHDIE’S LATEST AWARD. “Iceland: Salman Rushdie Wins Halldór Laxness Literary Prize” reports Publishing Perspectives.

Iceland’s biennial Halldór Laxness International Literary Prize is to be awarded to Salman Rushdie on September 13.

This is a €15,000 prize (US$16,598) designed to highlight internationally recognized authors whose work contributes to “narrative art, echoing the rationale of the Swedish Academy when Halldór Laxness received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955.”…

…In its rationale for the selection of Rushdie as the awards fourth recipient, the jury writes that the author’s books are “captivating, philosophical, and enlightening stories for readers willing to explore new worlds.

“For readers around the world, Rushdie’s image—having continued to write his novels despite the fatwa issued by the Iranian clerical regime following the publication of The Satanic Verses and the assassination attempt he faced in the United States two years ago—has become a symbol of courage and unyielding will.”…

(4) APPLY FOR SLF WORKING CLASS WRITERS GRANT. The Speculative Literature Foundation will be accepting applications for the 2024 Working Class Writers Grant from September 1 through September 30, 2024. Full information at the SLF website.

Since 2013, the $1,000 Working Class Writers Grant has been awarded annually to speculative fiction writers who are working class, blue-collar, financially disadvantaged, or homeless, who have been historically underrepresented in speculative fiction due to financial barriers which make it hard to access the writing world. Such lack of access might include an inability to purchase a computer, books, and tuition, or to attend conventions or workshops. Often, these writers, many of whom work more than one job, have less time to write. The SLF seeks to bring more of these marginalized voices into speculative fiction.

Grant applications are open to all: you do not need to be a member of SLF to apply for or receive a grant.

(5) SCRIBES BACK HOTEL BOYCOTT. “Hollywood Writers Join Union Boycott of Beverly Hills Hotels” – The Hollywood Reporter tells why.

Around 40 Hollywood writers have joined a hotel union boycott of two Los Angeles hotels, the Cameo Beverly Hills by Hilton and the Beverly Hills Marriott.

The Good Place creator Mike Schur, Emily in Paris writer and co-executive producer Grant Sloss, The Simpsons writer and executive producer Ian Maxtone-Graham and Abbott Elementary supervising producer and writer Brittani Nichols are among the scribes that joined the campaign, spearheaded by the major Los Angeles-area hospitality union Unite Here Local 11. One Day at a Time co-showrunner Mike Royce, Halt and Catch Fire writer and executive producer Angelina Burnett and Two Sentence Horror Stories writer Liz Alper also joined the boycott on Labor Day weekend.

Unite Here Local 11 initiated the campaign against the two Remington Hospitality-operated properties last month after the Cameo’s existing union contract expired and the union and employer were unable to come to an agreement. (The Cameo was formerly the Mr. C Beverly Hills.) In early August the union also filed a wage theft complaint with the California Labor Commission, alleging that housekeepers were performing unpaid work prior to their shifts starting and that workers were not able to take mandated rest breaks due to the volume of work….

(6) VISITORS TO A SMALL PLANET. [Item by Steven French.] Tony Milligan of King’s College University of London, summarizes his recent paper on alien visitations: “Belief in alien visits to Earth is spiralling out of control – here’s why that’s so dangerous” at The Conversation.

The idea that aliens may have visited the Earth is becoming increasingly popular. Around a fifth of UK citizens believe Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials, and an estimated 7% believe that they have seen a UFO.

The figures are even higher in the US – and rising. The number of people who believe UFO sightings offer likely proof of alien life increased from 20% in 1996 to 34% in 2022. Some 24% of Americans say they’ve seen a UFO.

This belief is slightly paradoxical as we have zero evidence that aliens even exist. What’s more, given the vast distances between star systems, it seems odd we’d only learn about them from a visit. Evidence for aliens is more likely to come from signals from faraway planets.

In a paper accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, I argue that the belief in alien visitors is no longer a quirk, but a widespread societal problem….

… All this is ultimately encouraging conspiracy theories, which could undermine trust in democratic institutions. There have been humorous calls to storm Area 51. And after the storming of the Capitol in 2021, this now looks like an increasingly dangerous possibility.

Too much background noise about UFOs and UAPs can also get in the way of legitimate science communication about the possibility of finding microbial extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology, the science dealing with such matters, has a far less effective publicity machine than UFOlogy….

(7) IMAGINARY PAPERS. [Item by Steven French.] Some interesting essays on futures, world building and the imagination: Imaginary Papers, Issue 19, a quarterly newsletter from Arizona State University Center for Science and the Imagination. Philipp Kürten discusses For All Mankind. Chinelo Onwualu recalls pop culture’s “Reality Crisis in the 1990s”. Christopher Cokinos describes taking part in a simulated Moon mission.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary: Xena: Warrior Princess (1995)

Twenty-nine years ago Xena: Warrior Princess first aired in syndication by MCA TV (which did it for the first two years of this followed by Universal Television Enterprises doing so for a year and Studios USA Television Distribution doing so for the rest of the run).  Before ending its six years run, there would be one hundred and thirty-four roughly forty-eight minute episodes.

It was created by John Schulian and Robert Tapert. Schulian’s previous genre credits included writing for Tremors. Tapert, of course, created Hercules: The Legendary Journeys that same year, along with Christian Williams. Busy year for New Zealand series production, eh? 

The executive producers were R.J. Stewart and Sam Raimi. The former, other than co-creating Xena, just created Cleopatra 2525; Raimi of course has a long list including directing the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy and the Evil Dead franchise. 

The real reason watching was and is now if you catch it on the streaming services now, Xena as performed in that amazing leather outfit by Lucy Lawless, and companion Gabrielle as played by Renee O’Connor. Their adventures episode in and episode out were always worth watching. 

A number of fascinating secondary cast were here as well. Bruce Campbell, Karl Urban, Kevin Smith, Alexandra Tydings — all these performers were fun.

NBC announced a reboot, but the Gods were merciful, and it got cancelled. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) REUBEN AWARDS. The winners of the National Cartoonists Society’s 78th Annual Reuben Awards were announced on August 24.

Reuben Award for 2023 NCS Cartoonist of the Year

  • Hilary B. Price

2023 Divisional Reuben Award-Winners

  • Advertising/Product Illustration – Chuck Dillon
  • Book Illustration – Tom Richmond
  • Comic Book – Jay Stephens
  • Editorial – Michael De Adder
  • Gag Cartoon – Dan Misdea
  • Graphic Novel – Sarah Bollinger
  • Magazine/Newspaper Illustration – Nick Galifianakis
  • Newspaper Comic Strip – Tauhid Bondia
  • Newspaper Panel – Wayno
  • Online Comic Long Form – Evan Dahm
  • Online Comic Short Form –  Sarah Andersen
  • Variety Entertainment – Chuck Dillon

(11) LEGENDARY REVIVAL Boing Boing has learned “A ‘long lost’ 70s superhero comic is finally being published”.

As the name suggests, The Legendary Lynx is the stuff of legends—a 70s feminist superhero classic whose pages were long believed to be lost in a labyrinthine conspiracy of murder, drugs, and intellectual property theft.

Or at least, that’s how the fictional comic book is framed in the pages of Secret Identity, Alex Segura’s pulpy crime thriller about the 70s comic book industry. The book’s twisty noir plot centers around a queer Latina woman working as a secretary at a comic book company who has to hide her identity to order to get recognized as an actual writer with her book, The Legendary Lynx. But a few behind-the-scenes betrayals cause more complications for poor Carmen Valdez, leaving her comic pages and identity unknown for years (in the story’s world, anyway.)

Real-life author Alex Segura has teamed up with artist Sandy Jarrell to create a metafictional “reprint” of the “long lost” issues of The Legendary Lynx from within the world of Secret Identity. 

“…THE LEGENDARY LYNX was created by writer Harvey Stern and artist Doug Detmer, two creators who died under mysterious circumstances before and shortly after the series was first published. Though originally credited solely to Stern as the writer, diligent research has uncovered that Stern co-created the script and story to the Lynx’s seminal debut by renowned novelist and writer Carmen Valdez. For the first time ever, she is given proper credit in this volume.

“(But in reality, ‘The Legendary Lynx’ is no reprint. Crafted by LA Times Book Prize-winning novelist Alex Segura in his 2022 work, ‘Secret Identity’ – a story that continues in the follow-up, ‘Alter Ego,’ – and brought to life by artist Sandy Jarrell’s masterful artwork, this series blurs the lines between fiction and reality in the best way possible – the remastered pages of this forgotten gem, restored to its former glory and presented anew for readers hungry for adventure.)…”

(12) MCMURTRIE Q&A. Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, September 4, 2024 “Reading with… John McMurtrie”:

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. In my childhood brain, little had as much magical allure as the wardrobe through which four young siblings travel in these stories. And I can still conjure the taste of my own version of Turkish Delight; I didn’t know that the stuff actually existed until years later, and its flavor was far more disappointing than what my mind had imagined.

Book you’ve faked reading:

Any Harry Potter book. Easier than admitting the truth and having fellow parents at bygone kiddie parties look at me aghast, shocked that I was not a member of the J.K. Rowling cognoscenti.

Book you’re afraid to read again for fear that it’d be a letdown:

Dune by Frank Herbert. As a child, I was taken in by the sandworms and magical spice and political intrigue–the earnest gloom and doom of it all. Perhaps best left undisturbed, frozen as a memory from long ago.

(13) FUNGAL BOOGIE. This isn’t exactly the “Mushroom Dance” from Fantasia. “Engineers Gave a Mushroom a Robot Body And Let It Run Wild” at ScienceAlert.

Nobody knows what sleeping mushrooms dream of when their vast mycelial networks flicker and pulse with electrochemical responses akin to those of our own brain cells.

But given a chance, what might this web of impulses do if granted a moment of freedom?

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Cornell University in the US and the University of Florence in Italy took steps to find out, putting a culture of the edible mushroom species Pleurotus eryngii (also known as the king oyster mushroom) in control of a pair of vehicles, which can twitch and roll across a flat surface.

Through a series of experiments, the researchers showed it was possible to use the mushroom’s electrophysiological activity as a means of translating environmental cues into directives, which could, in turn, be used to drive a mechanical device’s movements.

“By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment,” says senior researcher Rob Shepherd, a materials scientist at Cornell….

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

Pixel Scroll 7/4/24 Trigger Scrollfile – Pixelman

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(1) JULY 4, 1939: Julius Schwartz ditched the last day of the first World Science Fiction Convention and went with Mort Weisinger and Otto Binder to see a ballgame at Yankee Stadium. Here’s what happened next: “On This Day In History 7/4”.

Three AWOL Worldcon members were in Yankee Stadium when this picture was taken.

(2) ORAL HISTORY OF XENA. The Guardian talks to the people who made the show: “’I was attacked by a bloody rabbit’: how we made Xena: Warrior Princess”.

… Steven L Sears, writer and co-executive producer: …People called Xena a sword and sorcery show, even though our universe had swords but no magic. There were mythological creatures and entities with powers, but those powers had restrictions. Most of the gods echoed the pettiness of mankind, with all their egos and desires.

Back then, the studio was very hesitant about suggesting Xena and Gabrielle were in a romantic relationship. They even objected to a moment in the title sequence where Xena is seen walking seductively towards the warlord Draco, because he was shot from the back and had long hair, so could be mistaken for a woman. But as time went on, they decided to look the other way and just let us get on with it. Somebody once asked me if Xena and Gabrielle ever had sex. I said: “It’s none of my damn business. They do social and domestic duties together, they have fought for each other and died for each other. If you’re defining the relationship just on sex, you’re really missing the whole point.”…

(3) IN AND OUT OF DISGUISE. “Superman, Frodo and Star Wars: the stunning life of Kiran Shah – the world’s smallest stuntman” in the Guardian.

It was 1976 when Kiran Shah saw the advert that would change his life. “It was a sci-fi film looking for a little guy,” he says. Shah turned up at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire and was introduced to a nervous young man named George Lucas. “He said: ‘Can you get in that dustbin thing?’ I was a bit too tall for it but I got in, they put the lid on, and he said: ‘Can you look left, look right?’” Shah didn’t realise he was auditioning for the role of R2-D2 in Star Wars. He didn’t get the job – it went to Kenny Baker – but Lucas’s casting director liked Shah, and got him an agent, which set him on the path of an almost 50-year career as “the world’s shortest stuntman”…

There are very few blockbusters Shah has not been in. You might not recognise him – he is often doubling for another character or he’s disguised under prosthetics as a mythical creature. But he has played more Star Wars characters than he can count, doubled for every hobbit in The Lord of the Rings movies, did Christopher Reeve’s stunts in the Superman movies, and played every single child in Titanic (which is even more impressive given that he can’t swim)….

(4) THREE-BODY EFFECTS. “Imagine Engine Shares ‘3 Body Problem’ VFX Breakdown Reel” at Animation World Network.

Image Engine shared a VFX breakdown reel and case study for its work contributing 137 shots to Netflix’s sci-fi drama, 3 Body Problem. The studio’s attention to detail, from replicating the vastness of the Neutrino Observatory to breathing life into a photoreal chimpanzee animation, resulted in a world of remarkable visuals.

Beginning with the first episode, the studio’s craft is on display, when scientist Dr. Vera Ye enters the Cherenkov tank, walks out onto a platform, and jumps into a shallow pool of water below.

Compositing supervisor Matt Yeoman explained, “Vera’s plate element of her walking along a suspended walkway needed to be integrated into the Neutrino Observatory, which was a full CG environment render. The main objective of this shot was to create a sense of scale for her very unique and mysterious surroundings.”…

(5) OCTOTHORPE. In Episode 113 of Octothorpe, “I Realised Too Late What I Had Done” John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty discuss a variety of things, “including but not limited to: the country of Sweden; haggises; the processing of peaches; listener statistics; the way that Los Angeles is gearing up for the Olympics; and Scrabble. We also discuss something called a ‘Worldcon’, in a first for us.” An uncorrected transcript is available here.

Three stick figures run from Godzilla, who is depicted in the style of Godzilla Minus One. The words “Octothorpe 113” used to be at the top of the art, but Godzilla has knocked off the letters “O C T O”, is holding “H”, and is trying to eat “T”.

(6) DOCTOR WHO WILL TREAD THE BOARDS. Collider says watch the London stage in September: “Paul McGann’s ‘Doctor Who’ Is Making a Comeback — But Not the Way You’re Expecting”

Doctor Who is making its way to the stage for the first time in over 20 years. Last performed live in 1989, the Doctor will be appearing in front of a live audience in celebration of 25 years of audio adventures by Big Finish Productions. The live show will see Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor in a new live-recorded audio drama, titled “The Stuff of Legend,” written by Robert Valentine and directed by Barnaby Edwards. McGann will star alongside India Fisher as his companion Charley Pollard, who’s been around since the beginning of Big Finish’s Doctor Who dramas, in this exciting new venture for the Whoniverse. McGann and Fisher will be joined on stage by Alex Macqueen as the Master — who featured in the Eighth Doctor Adventures series Dark Eyes — and Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Daleks.

The drama will be performed live to audiences for one night only, at London’s Cadogan Hall on Saturday, September 14, 2024, with a studio version of the same story releasing on the same day. Although this is not the first time that Doctor Who has been performed to a live audience, it is the very first time that one of the show’s audio plays will be performed on stage. The announcement comes just weeks after the end of Season 1 of Doctor Who’s Disney revamp, which saw Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor and Millie Gibson’s companion Ruby Sunday face off against classic Who villain Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf)….

(7) THE TARDIS RETURNS THE FAVOR. And Playbill lists “Thespians Turned Whovians: All the Broadway Stars in Disney’s Regeneration of Doctor Who”. Spoilers at the link.

Whovians and theatre fans, did you spot some familiar faces in this season of Doctor Who? The 14th season of Doctor Who has just concluded on Disney+, and a few Broadway stars made guest appearances. The BBC staple, which has been running for over 60 years, has always had a rich relationship with the stage. 

Many stars and guest stars of Doctor Who have connections to the theatre, including The First Doctor, William Hartnel, who was a prolific Shakespearean actor before ever stepping into the TARDIS. The 10th (and 14th) Doctor (played by David Tennant, who has been in countless theatrical productions) once landed his TARDIS inside The Globe to fight off witches with Shakespeare himself. That episode was filmed at Shakespeare’s Globe in London—where the current 15th Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, starred as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2016….

(8) COMPREHENDING PKD. David Agranoff has written a highly interesting review of “Postcards from a Dying World: Philip K. Dick: Essays of the Here and Now David Sandner (Editor), Series Editors: Donald E. Palumbo, C.W. Sullivan III”. Here’s his comment about one of the articles.

…Umberto Rossi’s ‘From Soft Totalitarianism to TV: Philip Kindred Dick and The Tube,’ was of course an enlightening read. I am aware that David Gill believes Rossi’s writing on PKD to be some of, if not the most important analysis of the work. I admit I am late to get to his work, but this is an excellent piece.  I also had the weird experience of reading Rossi writing about the bible hypertext in The Divine Invasion while a woman on the plane (I was taking to the PKD fest) was reading the bible on her phone….

(9) ROBERT TOWNE (1935-2024). Best known for his Oscar-winning Chinatown screenplay, Robert Towne died July 1 at the age of 89. There’s some genre work among the credits listed in Deadline’s tribute.

…Towne also earned BAFTA, Golden Globe and WGA awards for Chinatown, the L.A.-set 1974 thriller starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. It was one of three Writers Guild Awards he won during his career, along with Shampoo and the drama series Mad Men, on which he was a consulting producer during the final seventh season. He also was nominated for The Last Detail (1973) and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1985). He was honored with the guild’s Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement in 1997.

Born on November 23, 1934, Towne got his start with his screenplay for 1960’s Last Woman on Earth before writing for … early-’60s TV series The Outer Limits, [and] The Man from U.N.C.L.E. He went on to work with Roger Corman on films including The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)… 

During the 1970s, Towne also did script-doctor work on Beatty’s directorial debut Heaven Can Wait.

Towne … wrote the screenplay for the 1984 Tarzan tale Greystoke, starring Christopher Lambert, with an eye to direct. But the poor financial showing of Personal Best led Warner Bros to hand the helming reins to Hugh Hudson, who was hot off Best Picture Oscar winner Chariots of Fire.

Towne was angered by the move and had his name taken off the Greystoke screenplay — opting instead to credit the script to P.H. Vazak, his sheepdog. It went on to score an Adapted Screenplay Oscar nom for Vazak, making him the only canine ever to be so honored. It also was the first Academy Award nom for any Tarzan film….

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

July 4, 1996 — Independence Day film. We’re celebrating Independence Day tonight. Now not that one, but the film of that name which premiered twenty-eight years ago this coming weekend, but I thought it should be written up on this day. (Indeed, sites think it premiered today with more than a few individuals remember seeing it today.) 

So let’s talk about Independence Day. It came out twenty-eight years ago. Now it’s a franchise as Independence Day Resurgence would come twenty years later. Well, a franchise unlikely to see a third film, as Independence Day Resurgence was financial failure unlike Independence Day which, well, I’ll note later.

It was directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Now if you think that you know Emmerich and Devlin, that’s not at all surprising as both had a major success in a genre film as Emmerich directed Stargate and Devlin co-wrote that script with Emmerich. 

Ok, any Filer who has not seen should, well, skip to the rest of of the Scroll as I cannot avoid spoilers. I really can’t. SPOILERS. INCREDIBLY LARGE SPOILERS HERE.

Emmerich wanted to write an alien invasion on a massive scale rather than on the personal scale of the Fifties films, wreaking destruction those didn’t, and having the aliens hidden until they get revealed late in the film. 

Each ship is fifteen miles across! And he had those ships destroy entire cities, be it New York or London, though the destruction of the White House is one of my favorite scenes in the film. President Thomas J. Whitmore, the former fighter pilot and Gulf War veteran, as played Bill Pullman, is one of the best secondary characters here.

The primary cast is Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller, a Marine F/A-18 pilot: Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson, an all-around technological expert; and Judd Hirsch as Julius Levinson, David Levinson’s father (the character was based on one of Dean Devlin’s uncles). All are stellar in their roles. Same applies to the many other characters such as Randy Quaid as Russell Casse, an, alcoholic former fighter pilot and Vietnam War veteran insists that he was abducted by the aliens, and Brent Spiner as Dr. Brackish Okun, the scientist in charge of research at Area 51.

Now let’s talk about creating the look at the film. I can’t possible cover everything that made this film look fantastic, and one might assume that since shows like Babylon 5 were made intensively using CGI that most of this film was likewise. There over five thousand special effects shots required to make this film but and over ninety-five percent were practical in nature. That’s a lot of models, a massive number, many of which are now in collectors hands. And they fetched very nice prices. 

So they built an actual White House, as Vogel Engel, effects supervisor, said in an interview, “Our pyrotechnician, the late Joe Viskocil, and our miniature supervisor Mike Joyce did a fantastic job in preparing a 15-feet wide and 5-feet high miniature of the building — basically a plaster shell attached to a metal body, with individual floors and a lot of furniture and other details on the inside.”  And then they blew it up in the desert outside Vegas with the press looking on with only one chance to get it right. And they absolutely did.

A outstanding script, a fantastic cast and special effects that are still considered cutting edge according to be among the best ever done. 

Next let’s talk what the critics thought. They mostly really liked it and Duane Bryge of the Hollywood Reporter is typical: “20th Century Fox’s Independence Day is a blast — a sci-fi disaster film about an alien force that attacks Earth on Fourth of July weekend. A generic juggernaut, as well as a story of appealing human dimension, Independence Day should set off box-office fireworks worldwide.”

So, want to know about well it did? Well, it didn’t cost that much to make back then, just seventy-five million. Oh, that was a good investment considering that it would go in to gross eight hundred and seventeen million. One knows that it went well over a billion with a secondary run, cassette and DVD sales, television and streaming fees. 

The sequel made as I note above half as much and Emmerich blamed that largely on the absence of Will Smith who declined to take part. Emmerich stated in an interview with Collider magazine that his originally intended script in which Steven Hiller was alive during the film was “much better” and that Smith’s absence from the film forced him to use an alternative script.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Close to Home shows zombies who love a party.
  • F Minus has a strange idea about faithfulness.
  • The Argyle Sweater knows what happened to a premature invention.
  • Tom Gauld would hate to interrupt:

(12) HOW MANY HOLES DOES IT TAKE TO FILL THE ALBERT HALL. “Researchers Make Breakthrough in Study of Mysterious 2000-Year-Old Computer Found in Shipwreck” – Futurism has an update about the Antikythera mechanism.

Well over a century after its discovery, researchers at the University of Glasgow say they’ve used statistical modeling techniques, originally designed to analyze gravitational waves — ripples in spacetime caused by major celestial events such as two black holes merging — to suggest that the Antikythera mechanism was likely used to track the Greek lunar year.

In short, it’s a fascinating collision between modern-day science and the mysteries of an ancient artifact.

In a 2021 paper, researchers found that previously discovered and regularly spaced holes in a “calendar ring” were marked to describe the “motions of the sun, Moon, and all five planets known in antiquity and how they were displayed at the front as an ancient Greek cosmos.”

Now, in a new study published in the Oficial Journal of the British Horological Institute, University of Glasgow gravitational wave researcher Graham Woan and research associate Joseph Bayley suggest that the ring was likely perforated with 354 holes, which happens to be the number of days in a lunar year.

The researchers ruled out the possibility of it measuring a solar year.

“A ring of 360 holes is strongly disfavoured, and one of 365 holes is not plausible, given our model assumptions,” their paper reads….

(13) CLIFF NOTES. A commenter on the Daytonian in Manhattan’s post“The Cliff Dwelling – 240-243 Riverside Drive” tells us: “L. Ron Hubbard lived here 1939–40, writing — with a radically customized, continuous-feed typewriter beneath a low-glare blue lightbulb — several of his most celebrated stories before moving to Washington, DC.”

…According to The New York Times columnist Christopher Gray…, [the building’s designer Herman Lee] Meader “was intensely interested in Mayan and Aztec architecture and made regular expeditions to Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán and other sites.”  Meader’s fascination with South America melded with Palmer’s terra cotta interests to create a unique design.  Completed in 1914, the Cliff Dwelling was 12 stories tall and faced in orange brick.  Meader lavished his Arts & Crafts style structure with Western motifs like cattle skulls, spears, and mountain lions, and Aztec- or Mayan-inspired designs….

(14) SO, YOU WRITE SF. DO YOU GET WRITERS BLOCK? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] “Twelve Scientist-Endorsed Tips To Get Over Writer’s Block” in Nature gives tips to scientists facing writing block. Some of these may be transferable to fiction writers (?)….

  • Know thy enemy
  • Create routines
  • Clarify the message
  • Plan first
  • Eliminate the blank page
  • Visualise
  • Write out of order
  • Give yourself extra time
  • Embrace collaboration
  • Take the pressure off
  • It might get easier, but don’t expect it to get easy
  • Know you are not alone

(15) LOOKING FOR SOMEWHERE TO PARK. For those of you who feel your place needs more clutter, we recommend the “Optimus Prime Human-Size Statue” from the Spec Fiction Shop. Only $18,549!

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Michael J. Walsh, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ingvar.]

Media Birthday Bonus for September 4

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By Cat Eldridge:

THE SHADOW’S “BLACK BUDDHA”

  • On this evening in 1938, The Shadow’s “Black Buddha” first aired on Mutual Radio. It starred Orson Welles as The Shadow (Lamont Cranston) and Margot Stevenson as Margot Lane. “A shop owner will kill anyone to regain a statue from the Far East, beginning with the lawyer to whom the statue was sold by mistake.” It was sponsored by BF Goodrich Tires. You can listen to it here.

X MINUS ONE’S TUNNEL UNDER THE WORLD

  • On this date in 1956, X Minus One’s “Tunnel Under the World” first aired. It’s based on the short story by Frederik Pohl that was first published in the January 1955 issue of Galaxy. The story is that June 15th keeps repeating each day with a very slight change each day. George Lefferts wrote the script.  Cast was Norman Rose, Dean L. Olmquist, Amy Sedell,  Elaine Ross, Bob Hastings, Ken Raffitte and Larry Haines. You can listen to the broadcast here.

ROLLERBALL

  • On this date in 1975, Rollerball premiered in the United Kingdom. It was directed and produced by Norman Jewison. The screenplay was written by William Harrison from his “Roller Ball Murder” story which had first been published  in the September 1973 issue of Esquire. It stars James Caan, John Houseman, Maud Adams, John Beck, Moses Gunn and Ralph Richardson. Critics on the whole were unimpressed but it did well at box office, and audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it an excellent 67% which is decidedly better than the 14% rating the twenty-five-year-later remake receives. 

XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS

  • On this date in 1995, Xena: Warrior Princess first aired in first-run syndication. It was created by John Schulian and Robert Tapert with development work by R.J. Stewart and Sam Raimi.  It was executive produced by Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi. It starred Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor. It would run for six seasons and one hundred and thirty-four episodes. An animated film, Hercules and Xena – The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus, myriad novels and even comics followed. The late Josepha Sherman ghost wrote XENA: All I Need to Know I Learned From the Warrior Princess. A reboot was planned five years ago but canceled. 

Pixel Scroll 11/3/18 If You Tick The Box I’m On You Will Know When Posts Are Done

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(1) MARTIAN SAVINGS TIME. If you’re tempted to complain about having to reset your clock, think about these folks at JPL: “When flying to Mars is your day job”.

When the spacecraft is sleeping at night, we work. So we get all the data down, look at it and tell the spacecraft: “Hey InSight, tomorrow these are the tasks I want you to do!”

And then we uplink it, right before it wakes up in the morning. Then we go to bed and the spacecraft does its work.

But because the Mars day shifts every day, we also have to shift our schedule by an hour every day. So the first day we’ll start at 6am, and then [the next] will be 7am… 8am… 9am… and then we take a day off.

(2) THE BIG BUCKS. The Bank of England is taking nominations — “Think science for the new £50 note”.

You can nominate as many people as you like. But anyone who appears on the new £50 note must:

  • have contributed to the field of science
  • be real – so no fictional characters please
  • not be alive – Her Majesty the Queen is the only exception
  • have shaped thought, innovation, leadership or values in the UK
  • inspire people, not divide them

Or write to: Think Science, Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AH.

You’ve got until Friday 14 December 2018. We’ll announce the chosen character in 2019.

 

(3) FANTASY CHOW. Atlas Obscura readers filled out their menus with “The Fictional Foods We Wish Were Real”.

What fictional foods make you as excited as a hobbit in a pantry?

Sure, you can buy a Wonka Bar at any candy store. You can drink a sugary Butterbeer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction in Orlando. And you can find a recipe for Lembas Bread on about a million Lord of the Rings fan sites. But none of these initially fictional foods could ever live up to how we imagined they would taste when we first saw or read about them….

Recently, we asked Atlas Obscura readers to tell us which fictional food had sparked their imaginations more than any other….

We’ve collected our favorite responses below. Next time you encounter a mouth-watering food that doesn’t exist, try and decide for yourself what incredible, impossible flavors it might actually have….

Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

What might it taste like?
“A cataclysm of citrus with an effervescent apocalypse. Anything that would make you simultaneously evolve and devolve seems like an interesting way to not die.” — Ian Maxwell, Denver, Colorado USA

A Shmoo from the Lil’ Abner Comics

What might it taste like?
“It says it can taste like steak, chicken or oysters… They are genial playmates for children and then will jump into your frying pan and become dinner. I’ve always remembered the shmoo.” — Roseann Milano, Tucson, Arizona…

Roast Porg from The Last Jedi

What might it taste like?
“Teriyaki chicken. Chewbacca wanted to cook one in The Last Jedi. Might be succulent and savory.” — Leon Easter, Stockton, California

(4) CORDWAINER SMITH’S ALTER EGO. Paul DiFilippo has reproduced Paul M.A. Linebarger’s 1951 article for Nation’s Business, “Hotfoot for Stalin” at theinferior4.

(5) A HORSE, OF COURSE. William Shatner told a LA Times interviewer his fitness secrets: “How horses and e-bikes help William Shatner stay fit and creative at 87”

Horseback riding? How does that keep you fit?

My business manager once said: “Don’t buy anything that eats while you sleep.” Thankfully, I ignored that advice. My wife, Elizabeth, and I have horses in Kentucky and in Moorpark. I’ll ride two, three hours every morning that I’m not working — two or three days a week. People don’t realize it, but you’re not just passively sitting there on a horse. Riding is a stretching and strengthening exercise. It requires balance, expertise, finesse and strength.

(6) SWOFFORD OBIT. Actor Ken Swofford died November 1. He mostly played authority figures —

… On the big screen, Swofford had roles in Robert Wise’s The Andromeda Strain (1971), Stanley Kramer’s The Domino Killings (1977), Blake Edwards’ S.O.B. (1981), John Huston’s Annie (1982) and Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise (1991).

…Swofford provided the voice of the title character in the 2018 short film Happy the Angry Polar Bear, written and directed by his grandson.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]

  • November 3, 1925 – Monica Hughes, Writer from England who emigrated to Canada, and became known as known as one of Canada’s best writers for children and young adults, especially science fiction. She is best known for the Isis Trilogy, about the descendants of Earth colonists on a far-flung planet, which won the Phoenix Award from the Children’s Literature Association. Invitation to the Game, a hard science fiction dystopian novel which features robots and has been translated into numerous languages, won the Hal Clement Young Adult Award.
  • November 3, 1928 – Tezuka Osamu, Artist, Animator, and Producer who is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, a major inspiration during his formative years. His manga series, all of which have had English language translations,  include Astro Boy, Black Jack,  Kimba the White Lion, and Phoenix, all of which won several awards including four Eisner Awards.
  • November 3, 1933  – John Barry Prendergast, Oscar-winning Composer who wrote the scores for more than 120 films, including the genre works Moonraker (and 10 other Bond films), Starcrash, Mercury Rising, Howard the Duck, The Black Hole (for which he received a Saturn nomination), the 1976 King Kong, and the 1972 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. However, he is best known for his pièce de résistance: the haunting, emotive soundtrack for Somewhere in Time – the Saturn-winning film adaptation of SFF author Richard Matheson’s novel Bid Time Return – for which he also won a Saturn Award. Rather than taking a set fee upfront, he had presciently agreed to a percentage of sales. The soundtrack became one of the most popular movie soundtracks of all time, eventually selling more than a million copies, and continues to sell well to this day.
  • November 3, 1950 – Massimo Mongai, Writer from Italy who produced Memorie di un Cuoco d’Astronave (Memories Of A Spaceship Cook), an apparent merging of space opera and cooking manual which won Italy’s Urania Award. I’m really, really hoping someone has read this in the original language as I’d love to know what it’s about!
  • November 3, 1952 – Jim Cummings, 66, Voice Actor and Singer who has hundreds of voice credits in animated features and TV shows, including Aladdin, The Lion King, Shrek, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (as a bullet), The Addams Family, Batman: The Animated Series, Duck Dodgers, The Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Gargoyles (one of my favorite shows), at least three of the animated Star Wars series, and dozens of videogames. He has won two Annie Awards, which are given to recognize outstanding work in the animation industry.
  • November 3, 1952 – Eileen Wilks, 66, Writer whose principal genre series is the World of Lupi, a FBI procedural intertwined with shapeshifters, dragons and a multiverse. Highly entertaining, sometimes considered romance novels, though I don’t consider them so. The audiobooks are amazing!
  • November 3, 1963 – Brian Henson, 55, Actor, Puppeteer, Director, and Producer who, as the son of Jim and Jane Henson, now runs the Jim Henson Company along with his sister Lisa. He voiced the character of Hoggle in the original Hugo and Saturn Award-nominated Labyrinth, and is in the process of producing a remake of that movie. He has provided other voice and puppet characters in many films, including Little Shop of Horrors, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Muppets from Space, and The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz.. He was a producer for the awesome Farscape series, but the less said about his venture The Happytime Murders, the better.
  • November 3, 1964 – Marjean Holden, 54, Actor who has had recurring roles in the genre TV series Crusade, the short-lived spinoff from Babylon 5, and in the Beastmaster series. She’s also appeared in Philadelphia Experiment II, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Babylon 5: A Call to Arms, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Dr. Caligari, and Nemesis, and had guest parts on episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Tales from the Crypt.
  • November 3, 1964 – Brendan Fraser, 50, Actor and Producer whose genre work includes The Mummy films, which I dearly love, but also Monkeybone, based on Kaja Blackley’s graphic novel Dark Town, the Bedazzled remake, Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Encino Man, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and voicing Robotman on the Titans series that airs on DC Universe.

(8) GET ON BOARD. Advertising for The Grinch movie, which opens November 9, has popped up all over LA — “Essay: The LA Grinch Billboards Are Savage And Spot-On”.

The Grinch is also lobbing localized insults at other cities, like New York and Chicago.

As much as we resent viral marketing schemes, we have to tip our hats when they’re this good.

I mean, are they even a joke? Or are they just extra L.A.?

https://twitter.com/chelseadevantez/status/1055650941473447937

This one’s my favorite –

(9) FRENCH DELICACIES. Snapped at Utopiales 2018 in Nantes, France (where reported attendance is 90,000.)

  • Jim C. Hines, Robert J. Bennett and Kij Johnson.

  • John Scalzi

(10) STROSS. Camestros Felapton found something to praise — “Review: The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross”.

Good grief, nine books into the Laundry Files and Stross is still creating these weird, tense thrillers without really ever repeating himself. The novels have gradually shifted from clever pastiche to exploring their own premise….

(11) OUTLAWED CANDY. Let Atlas Obscura tell you about “Marabou M Peanut”.

M&M’s are known and enjoyed worldwide as movie snacks or general goodies. However, since 2016, this has not been true for Sweden, where the sweets have been banned due to a trademark dispute with a local candy company’s M Peanut.

Marabou’s M Peanut is very similar in taste and appearance to Peanut M&M’s: Both are chocolate-covered peanuts with lowercase m’s on their packaging. They’re so similar that one might think Marabou is an imitation brand. However, in Sweden, M&M’s are seen as the imitator, as Marabou’s candy had been sold in its native country for 50 years before M&M’s arrived.

(12) XENA PREBOOT SCRIPT. The 2016 attempt to reboot Xena never made it off the ground, but now a draft of the pilot script is available online for anyone to read (io9/Gizmodo: “Check Out the Script For the Pilot of the Canned Xena Reboot”). Now I’m wondering when the first dramatic reading will take place at a con.

Xena, brilliant warrior, princess, hero, and one more cancelled reboot.

But now, thanks to Xena Movie Campaign, a Facebook fan group, with the blessing of Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who wrote it, the unused script for the pilot episode of an attempted 2016 reboot of Xena is now available to read online.

(13) GOT WORMS? BBC discusses “Why some computer viruses refuse to die”.

One of the most active zombie viruses is Conficker, which first struck in November 2008. At its height, the worm is believed to have infected up to 15 million Windows PCs.

The French navy, UK warships, Greater Manchester Police and many others were all caught out by Conficker, which targeted the Windows XP operating system.

The malware caused so much trouble that Microsoft put up a bounty of $250,000 (£193,000) for any information that would lead to the capture of Conficker’s creators.

That bounty was still live and, Microsoft told the BBC, remained unclaimed to this day.

(14) WATCHING THE RADIO. They’re tuning in to the music of the spheres in 1963, and Galactic Journey is there — “[November 3, 1963] Listening To The Stars (the new Arecibo Observatory)”

But what is a radio telescope? How can we observe space through radio? Does Jupiter sing? Are the bodies of the solar system harmonising in a heavenly chorus?

Well, that’s not far off the mark. If you have the right equipment, you can even listen to Jupiter’s emissions yourself! You’ll need a shortwave radio (Jupiter radiates strongest at 22Mhz), and you’ll have to build yourself a large dipole antenna. What you’ll hear is an eerie, aggressive static, a lot like waves crashing on the beach. These are the radio emissions produced by charged particles racing through Jupiter’s magnetic field.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Mr. Death” from Norwegian director Andreas J. Riiser is a short film on Vimeo that imagines what Death would be like if he was a chain-smoking Norwegian who has a buzz cut and loves Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, ULTRAGOTHA, Mike Kennedy, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Chip Hitchcock, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]

Pixel Scroll 12/3 The God Stalk De-Steams The Gnocchi

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(1) SPELLING BEE. Blake Hennon has the answers in “Is it Wookie or Wookiee? The Times’ definitive ‘Star Wars’ style guide” at the Los Angeles Times.

When most people think of “Star Wars” style, Princess Leia’s side-buns hairdo and white robe or Darth Vader’s fearsome black helmet and cape probably come to mind. For copy editors, it’s more likely how to punctuate a jumble of words such as Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope or whether to spell Chewbacca’s species as Wookie or Wookiee.

With the venerable space opera about to start bringing new stories to the big screen at the planned rate of one per year — and the upcoming fleet’s worth of Times stories that will cover all the developments and details of the on- and off-screen “Star Wars” saga — The Times’ copy desk decided it would help in editing to have an organized guide to facts, names and terms that might appear in our coverage.

I volunteered to put it together, and relied on the films; Lucasfilm’s publicly available databank; the Academy Awards’ database; images of officially licensed products; and Times precedence, stories, style rules and tendencies (which sometimes override other groups’ preferences). To answer the questions above: “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope”; Wookiee.

(2) MORE STYLE. In the same spirit, but by a different creator as far as I can tell —

(3) FAN SERVICE. Mark Hamill goes undercover as a stormtrooper (one word) on Hollywood Blvd. to raise awareness for the Omaze charity that’s giving away a chance to win two tickets to the Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiere in exchange for a $10 donation. The contest ends in less than two days.

(4) FROM HEADCANON TO THE SCREEN. “7 fan theories so good they actually came true” at RadioTimes.

  1. The Doctor’s Tardis is supposed to have 6 pilots

Considering he’s a centuries-old genius and Time Lord, the Doctor always did seem to have a bit of trouble piloting his Tardis – but fans had a solution for why that could be (apart from it being an obsolete Type 40, of course).

Given the time machine’s central console was hexagonal (and all the controls therefore couldn’t be reached at any one time), could it be that the Tardis was intended for not one, but six pilots?

This fun idea circled around for a while and made some appearance Doctor Who spin-off media before it was finally embraced by the main series in 2008, with David Tennant’s Doctor enlisting all his friends to help pilot the time machine in series 4 finale Journey’s End.

(5) THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT. “It’s what’s on Mark Watney’s smartphone,” says Will R.

Through a new service (“IFTTT Blog – Houston, we have liftoff”) you can get things like a notification when the season changes on Mars.

(6) BE YOUR OWN ANT FARM. Becky Chambers remembers playing an ancient PC game: “Extended Memory: SimAnt”.

Despite the complexities, my task was clear: recruit as many followers as I could, then march into enemy territory. “Oh my god,” a distant voice in my head said. “This is a Zerg rush…with ants.” I do not know what this voice meant. As an ant, I am ignorant of such things.

(7) SUBCONTINENTAL COMICS. Henry Jenkins “In Search of Indian Comics (Part Three): I Mean, Really, Where Are They?”

So, here’s the bottom line: India has a new generation of gifted graphic storytellers, who are doing comics that speak in direct and powerful ways to the country’s politics, comics that experiment with new visual languages for comics, often drawn from the country’s rich and diverse folk traditions. These artists are slowly but surely producing work that people should be paying attention to. But, you can’t really find them in Indian bookstores when you go looking and they are not making their way into comics specialty shops in the United States. If you want to find India comics, you have to look online.

(8) KEG BUST. Andrew Porter says, “This almost (not really) makes up for HPL’s bust no longer being the World Fantasy Award….”  Lovecraft Reanimator Helles Lager from Narragansett Beer.

The History: HP Lovecraft’s ‘Herbert West—Reanimator’ and the 1985 film adaptation, Re-Animator, are horror fan favorites. In the story, Dr. West and his accomplice experiments with human reanimation by injecting fresh corpses with a serum meant to bring the dead back to life. We wanted to create a serum to resurrect one of our own; our beloved Bock beer.

 

Reanimator beer

(9) TOR PICKS 2015 BEST. “Tor.com Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2015” picked by Jared Shurin, Alyx Dellamonica, Liz Bourke, Nial Alexander, Mavesh Murad, Amal El-Mohtar, Alex Brown, Caitlyn Paxson, Stefan Raets, Theresa DeLucci, and The G. (Naomi Novik’s Uprooted is prominently mentioned by several contributors.)

Liz Bourke

…I know what my two absolute favourites of the year are, though. Elizabeth Bear’s Karen Memory (Tor) and Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Mercy (Orbit) tie for first place in my heart. One is an adventure story in a steampunk-influenced city on the American Pacific coast in the late 19th-century, whose eponymous protagonist finds herself running headfirst into all kinds of peril—including international espionage plots—while falling in love with another young woman. The other is the capstone of a fantastic trilogy about power and personhood, and what you do with what’s done to you: it brings all its threads together, and ties them up in a conclusion that’s as perfect as it is unexpected. If you’re only going to read two novels published this year, my recommend is read them.

(10) T-SHIRT TNG. Have you been there, done that? Now own the t-shirt!

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

(11) HOLD MORE MEETINGS. At Open Culture,“Read the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless, Kafkaesque Guide to Subverting Any Organization with ‘Purposeful Stupidity’ (1944)”

Will R. demurs, “I have no comment on whether this applies to anything currently under discussion in the world of science fiction.”

(12) OBITUARY. SF Site News reports artist Jon Arfstrom died on December 2. Arfstrom is believed to have been the last of the classic Weird Tales cover artists to be alive.

(13) GEEK PARENT MUCH? The MarySue has you covered with “Baby’s First Con: A Geek Parent Survival Guide”

Lesson 3: Prepare Line Distractions

Lines and waiting are a fact of life with cons. This is easy when you’re child-free and have access to your phone/book/daydreams/whatever. But with a baby, wait times are an event in themselves. Most parents—and hopefully that includes you—have some tricks that can be parsed out over time to try and keep the baby occupied. A good idea is to prep for the con like you would for a long road trip: have new toys/books to spring forward, and use whatever tricks you have up your sleeve. For example, our daughter is fantastic when getting hand-fed small snacks (Cheerio’s, Yums, etc.). We made sure we had an inventory of these and used them as our first go-to when she started to get impatient, albeit at about half the speed we’d normally feed them. We also got lucky in that our baby recognized some of the characters we’ve introduced her to thanks to the cosplayers, so we could point out Batman and catch her interest for a few minutes.

(14) DON’T TELL BRAD TORGERSEN. Cracked.com lists “6 Depressing Realities Of Writing Young Adult Fiction”. First up: Oh noes! You can’t tell a YA book by its cover!

#6. Covers And Titles Are Often Shameless Lies

There’s an old saying about judging a book by its cover; we’re not sure how it goes, but it doesn’t matter because titles and covers both appear to be generated completely at random. At least, in the world of Young Adult novels. Jack named his latest book The Librarian. At the publishers’ request, it became Double Agent. A little editing later, and the title was Escape From Besmar. A little more, and that was subbed out in favor of the catchier Springheel. At one point, the title was Black Sheep. Then Three Bags Full. Then Three Bombs Full. Then, at last, they settled on a title that pleased everyone: Switchblade.

The book is currently available under the title The Cut Out….

(15) XENA. Lucy Lawless on the “Xena” revival, her new show and seizing life with both hands at Women in the World.

But with the apparent revival of Xena in the wings, fans and media want to know, will she return as the legendary character she brought to life two decades ago?

…So the question of Lucy Lawless’s age, 47, is central to the Xena reboot, raising obvious retorts: Harrison Ford, 73, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 68, and Bruce Campbell, 57, are all reprising action hero roles they played in their youth without any criticism or complaints being raised about their age.

Lawless won’t go on a rant about it. She shrugs it off, half kidding: “They’ll give the Xena role to a 27-year-old.’’

It’s been 20 years since Xena: Warrior Princess was launched and became the top-rated syndicated TV program in the United States and a highly popular franchise across 108 countries. The character of Xena emerges from a dark past to defend the oppressed, fighting gods, warlords and kings, and living outside the conventional definitions of masculine and feminine. The series ended after six years, in 2001, with the brutal death of Xena, her head cut off, her body turned to ashes. Outraged fans have since cried out for a resurrection and, obliging, NBC plans to reboot Xena and has tapped Rob Tapert to re-develop it.

Problem is, Lawless knows nothing about it. She was blindsided when the news about a Xena revival leaked. A woman with The Hollywood Reporter asked her about the reboot plans, but Lawless denied it. “I thought she was misinformed,’’ she says now. “It was I who was misinformed.’’

(16) GoT TEASER? The Game of Thrones Season 6 teaser. I can confidently say I didn’t understand it. But io9 seems to. Maybe you will, also.

(17) CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME. Cards Against Humanity went offline on Black Friday and offered customers the ability to buy nothing for $5. They got nearly $72.000… most of which they spent on themselves!

11,248 people gave us $5, and 1,199 people gave us more than $5 by filling out the form more than once. One enthusiastic fan gave us $100. In the end, we made a windfall profit of $71,145.

Cards Against Humanity is known for our charitable fundraising – since 2012 we’ve raised nearly $4 million for organizations we love like Worldbuilders, the Sunlight Foundation, the EFF, DonorsChoose.org, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Chicago Design Museum. We even started a $500,000 full-ride scholarship for women getting degrees in science.

There’s been a lot of speculation about how we would spend the money from Black Friday, and we’re happy to announce that this time, we kept it all. Here’s what we bought….

(18) ROLLING STONE. Star Wars fatigue is probably setting in already, but Rolling Stone has good interviews with several major cast members (plus a few spoilers, of course) in “’Star Wars’ Strikes Back: Behind the Scenes of the Biggest Movie of the Year”.

“The world is so horrible,” says Mark Hamill, Luke’s closest earthly representative, sitting in the shadow of swaying trees in his rather pleasant Malibu yard. At 64, Hamill is older than Alec Guinness was in the first Star Wars, and is in the process of regrowing a distinctly Obi-Wan-ish beard. “Between the Middle East and gun violence and global warming and racism, it’s just horrible. And people need this. It’s therapeutic.”

The “this” in question is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, out on December 18th and directed by geek hero J.J. Abrams, fresh from rebooting the Star Trek franchise.

(19) ANCIENT SPECIAL. And if you weren’t fatigued before, well, just watch the elusive Star Wars Christmas Special from that bygone era….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4CtXcjib4o

(20) MUSICAL INTERLUDE. I remember hearing the song on Doctor Demento but the video is news to me: The Firm – “Star Trekkin'”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZS2-4-iUJ4

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Hampus Eckerman, Will R., Mark-kitteh, James H. Burns, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]