The 2024 Sir Julius Vogel Award finalists were announced April 17. The awards recognize excellence in science fiction, fantasy, or horror works created by New Zealanders and New Zealand residents.
The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) of the United Kingdom announced the shortlist for the 2024 CWA Dagger Awards on May 10.
The winners will be presented on July 4.
GOLD DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality.
Over My Dead Body by Maz Evans, (Headline)
The Secret Hours, by Mick Herron (Baskerville, John Murray)
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (Abacus, Little Brown)
Tell me What I Am, by Una Mannion (Faber & Faber)
Black River, by Nilanjana Roy (Pushkin Vertigo)
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Sutanto (HQ ,Harper Collins)
IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
All the Sinners Bleed, by S A Cosby (Headline, Hachette)
Ozark Dogs, by Eli Cranor (Headline Hachette)
Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Faber & Faber)
The Mantis by Kotaro Isaka, (Harvill Secker, Penguin Random House)
Gaslight by Femi Kayode (Raven Books, Bloomsbury)
Drowning, by T J Newman (Simon & Schuster)
ILP JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality.
In The Blink of An Eye, by Jo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster UK)
The Golden Gate by Amy Chua, (Corvus, Atlantic Books)
The Maiden, by Kate Foster (Mantle Pan Macmillan)
West Heart Kill, by Dann McDorman (Raven Books)
Go Seek by Michelle Teahan (Headline)
The Tumbling Girl by Bridget Walsh, (Gallic Books)
HISTORICAL DAGGER
This award is for the best historical crime novel, set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made.
Clara & Olivia, by Lucy Ashe (Magpie, Oneworld Publications)
Harlem After Midnight by Louise Hare (HQ, HarperCollins)
A Bitter Remedy by Alis Hawkins (Canelo)
Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar (No Exit Press)
Scarlet Town by Leonora Nattrass (Viper, Profile Books)
Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry (Canongate Books)
CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER
This award is for a crime novel not originally written in English and which has been translated into English for UK publication.
Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado, (translated by Nick Caistor,) Macmillan
The Sins Of Our Fathers by Asa Larsson (translated by Frank Perry), Maclehose Press
Nothing Is Lost, by Cloé Mehdi (translated by Howard Curtis), Europa Editions UK
The Consultant, by Im Seong-sun (translated by An Seong Jae,) Raven Books
The Prey by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (translated by Victoria Cribb), Hodder & Stoughton
My Husband by Maud Ventura (translated by Emma Ramadan,) Hutchinson Heinemann
ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
This award is for any non-fiction work on a crime-related theme by an author of any nationality.
The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel (Simon & Schuster)
No Ordinary Day by Matt Johnson with John Murray (Ad Lib Publishers)
Devil’s Coin by Jennifer McAdam with Douglas Thompson (Ad Lib Publishers Ltd)
Seventy Times Seven by Alex Mar (Bedford Square Publishers)
How Many More Women? By Jennifer Robinson & Keina Yoshida (Endeavour)
Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare, (Vintage)
SHORT STORY DAGGER
This award is for any crime short story first published in the UK in English in a publication that pays for contributions, or broadcast in the UK in return for payment.
Safe Enough by Lee Child from An Unnecessary Assassin, edited by Lorraine Stevens, (Rivertree)
The Last Best Thing by Mia Dalia from Bang!:An Anthology of Modern Noir Fiction, edited by Andrew Hook, (Head Shot Press)
The Also-Rans by Benedict J Jones from Bang!:An Anthology of Modern Noir Fiction edited by Andrew Hook, (Head Shot Press)
The Divide by Sanjida Kay from The Book of Bristol edited by Joe Melia and Heather Marks, (Comma Press)
The Spendthrift and the Swallow, by Ambrose Parry (Canongate Books)
Best Served Cold by FD Quinn from An Unnecessary Assassin edited by Lorraine Stevens, (Rivertree)
DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY
The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by an established crime writer who has long been popular with borrowers from libraries, and who has supported libraries and their users.
(1) SCAM TARGETING WESTERN AUTHORS PURPORTS TO BE FROM SCIENCE FICTION WORLD. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] On Saturday May 11th, the Weibo account of Science Fiction World magazine issued a statement about fraudulent emails addressed to authors. The emails claimed that SFW had decided to no longer publish work by the author that had previously been acquired, but would retain the copyright, and offered the author the chance to pay to reclaim their copyright. The post did include an image showing part of the (English language) email that one affected author did receive, but redacted their name. A Weibo post a day or so earlier identified at least one such affected author, but at time of writing, that author hasn’t posted about it on Twitter or Bluesky, so I’ve not included their name here.
A Google Translate rendition of the statement, with minor manual edits, follows.
Dear readers, authors and partners,
Recently, we have received feedback from foreign science fiction writers that we work with. Some criminals are using impersonation techniques to launch carefully planned email fraud incidents targeting those foreign writers.
This fraudulent email uses the email address “[email protected]“, purporting to be from an editor at our company. It falsely informs the author that their work will not be published due to so-called “commercial evaluation” or other reasons, and illegally claims to retain the copyright of the author’s work, proposing that the author should pay a fee to redeem their copyright.
We strongly condemn such illegal behavior and have taken corresponding measures to cooperate with law enforcement agencies and actively investigate the matter. In order to protect the rights and interests of all authors, readers and partners, we hereby issue the following anti-fraud guidelines. Please be vigilant and jointly prevent such fraud as follows:
1. Get confirmation through official channels: Our company will formally notify you through official channels (the official contact channels are indicated on the copyright pages of “Science Fiction World” and its journals) for any decisions regarding the publication status of the work, copyright transfer, or financial transactions. . When receiving similar emails, please do not reply directly to the email, but verify through official channels.
2. Be wary of fake email addresses: Scammers often use addresses that are very similar to official email addresses to send emails. When receiving similar emails, please carefully check the sender’s email address and pay attention to identifying subtle differences, such as adding or replacing characters, using different top-level domain names, etc.
3. Understand the formal processes: Our company has complete and strict business processes. For major matters such as copyright and contract changes, our company will implement a strict and formal process and will never make a hasty decision through just one email.
4. Direct communication verification: If you receive such an email, the most direct and effective way is to contact us through the official contact method you know to verify the situation. Never use the contact number or return address provided in the email for verification.
5. Improve information security awareness: Keep personal information and communications safe, and do not click on unknown links or attachments in emails to prevent personal information from being leaked or being attacked by malware.
We are fully aware of the importance of each author’s work and the hard work behind it.
We will fight resolutely to the end against any behavior that undermines the rights of authors. At the same time, we also encourage authors or other individuals who receive similar emails to report them to us and local law enforcement agencies in a timely manner, so as to jointly maintain a good creative and publishing environment.
Here, we reiterate our commitment to all partners: we will continue to strengthen information security protection and ensure that the rights and interests of every author who works with us are respected and protected to the greatest extent. The general public is requested to remain vigilant and work together to build a safe space for literary exchange.
We are pleased (delighted, ecstatic) to announce that one further lost story by Terry Pratchett has been found.
A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories, published in 2023, collected 20 rediscovered tales from when Terry wrote under a pseudonym back in the 1970s and 1980s. It was, at the time, believed to be the last stories of his. But, we were wrong.
One final published tale has been found, that was missed from this collection: Arnold, the Bominable Snowman, which brings us to some more news.
This new story will appear in the paperback edition of A Stroke of the Pen, which will publish in September 2024. Furthermore, the story itself will be published online – for free – by Penguin Books, so that those who bought the hardback do not miss out on this tale. More information on the paperback edition, and where to read the story online, will be made available at a later date….
(3) FANFICTION GOT THERE FIRST. In case you thought the title sounded familiar, The Hollywood Reporter says there’s a reason: “’The Hunt for Gollum’ LOTR Movie Already Exists”. And for a moment, Warner Bros.’ lawyers were trying to pitch the video into Mount Doom.
There’s a 2009 fan-made film titled The Hunt for Gollum that you can watch below. The film, directed by Chris Bouchard, is rather ambitious. The Hunt for Gollum spans 39 minutes and has received plenty of praise from fans upon its release.
Following WB’s announcement, the film was taken offline for many hours and YouTube put up a notice saying Warner Bros. had filed a copyright claim against the fan movie and blocked it. LOTR fans reacted quite negatively to the takedown online and, early Friday, the film was restored to YouTube….
The fan-made Hunt for Gollum is set during opening act of The Fellowship of the Ring and fills in a quest that was only briefly discussed in Jackson’s 2001 film: Gandalf (played by Patrick O’Connor in the short) meets with Aragorn (Adrian Webster) and asks him to hunt for Gollum to find out more about Frodo’s magic ring. Aragorn has a series of adventures, traps and loses Gollum and gets attacked by orcs and Ringwraiths. Gollum is recaptured by the Elves of Mirkwood, and he’s interrogated by Gandalf….
With my terrible hearing I can’t say whether the audio is in English – but the closed captioning is in Spanish.
(4) SPFBOX. Mark Lawrence’s tenth Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (“SPFBOX”) immediately filled its 300-entry quota on May 10 and has moved on to “SPFBOX phase 1”.
This is the VERY prelimary allocation of books to blogs.
What now follows will be swapping from blog to blog for books that meet the contest rules but have authors who are friends with someone in the blog they’ve been allocated to.
And elimination of books that don’t meet the rules, followed by their replacement with books that didn’t get selected in the original 300.
In “Space Babies,” the debut episode of the newly relaunched 2024Doctor Who “Season 1” (or Season 14, or Season 40, depending on how you count) the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) have a quick discussion about how beaming works in the universe of Star Trek. When the Doctor makes one small quip, fans of both venerable sci-fi franchises might wonder if travel between the Final Frontier and the Whoinverse, is, indeed possible in some kind of mega-geek-multiverse….
At the start of “Space Babies,” Ruby asks the Doctor if they were just beamed somewhere, saying “Is that like a matter transporter? Like in Star Trek?” The Doctor grins broadly and says, “We gotta visit them one day.” This is not the first time Doctor Who has referenced Star Trek (or that Trek has referenced Who) but, it does seem to be the biggest indication to date — at least on screen — that the canon of Trek could exist in an adjacent dimension, rather than just as fiction.
Throughout all of post-2005 Doctor Who, there have been multiple references to characters and ideas from the Star Trek franchise. Rose called the 9th Doctor “Spock,” in the Season 1 episode “The Empty Child,” the 10th Doctor flashed the Vulcan “live long and prosper” hand symbol in the Season 2 episode “Fear Her,” while the 12th Doctor evoked the famous opening lines “Space… the final frontier,” in the Season 10 episode “Oxygen.” And that’s just a small sampling of Trek Easter eggs in Who!
(6) CHALLENGING HERSELF. “Brush and Ink” at Colleen Doran’s Funny Business, is illustrated with examples based on Gaiman’s Sandman series.
I used to get a lot of ribbing for having an elaborate, decorative style. The word was, artists who choose to add decoration and complex rendering are probably hiding drawing deficiencies.
While I agree that this is sometimes the case (and I can think of a few artists who make my hair go the wrong way with endless rendering and very weak underdrawing,) not all of us are covering up poor structure with frou frou.
I always start with a simple, solid drawing before adding the stylization. If the drawing isn’t solid, I don’t proceed until it is.
Awhile ago I decided to challenge my skill set with a series of minimalist brush and ink pieces. I limited the time cost of each drawing to 10 minutes or less. And I tried to stick to no underdrawing, if possible.
That is, one and done, no prelim. Ink only, nothing else.
While I’ve shown some of these drawings before, you folks on Substack probably haven’t seen most of them.
Most of the original exploratory sketches were based on characters from Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN series, like this group of sketches of Death….
Nicki Lynch, left, and Sheila Strickland, right, at the Southern Fandom Press Alliance party during Worldcon 76 in San Jose. Photo by Kay McCutcheon.
(7) R.I.P. SHEILA STRICKLAND. Longtime File 770 subscriber Sheila Strickland died May 9. The Louisiana fan said in her zine for the Southern Fandom Press Alliance a few months back that her doctors had detected cancer and it had spread to her intestine and liver. She went into hospice just a few days ago. Rich Lynch says, “She was a great lady, always looking toward the future. And now she’s very much missed.”
Guy H. Lillian III says Sheila’s sister told her Facebook friends that the family obituary will be in the New Orleans Advocate this week and the funeral on May 16 at the Greenoaks Funeral Home and Memorial Park in Baton Rouge at noon.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born May 11, 1918 — Richard P. Feynman. (Died 1988.) I’ll admit that I don’t begin to understand what most of the work Richard P. Feynman did as a theoretical physicist. I seriously doubt most of you do.
While at Princeton, Feynman was recruited for the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project, the very, very secret U.S. Army laboratory set up in Los Alamos, for the purpose of developing the atomic bomb. He was present at the first detonation of an atomic bomb.
Richard P. Feynman. (Caltech Archives)
In 1965, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. The three each created new mathematical tools for a theory called quantum electrodynamics, which describes how subatomic particles interact with light.
Now there is the matter his influence on the genre. Although as I said was his work in theoretical physics, Feynman was largely pioneered the field of quantum computing and was solely responsible for the concept of nanotechnology. So yes, two widely used SF concepts are from him.
By the late Fifties, he was already popularizing his love of physics through books and lectures including lectures on nanotechnology called There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, and a multi volume publication of his undergraduate lectures, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Yes, these are available from the usual suspects.
He also became known through his autobiographical works Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?. Naturally there would be books written about him. The biography by James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman is the one I’ll single out as being the best.
It’s worth noting last is that he was selected to be a member the Presidential Rogers Commission that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Lis notes that during the Challenger explosion hearings, Feynman demonstrated on camera that an O-ring dropped into ice water lost all the resilience critical to its function on the shuttle solid rocket fuel tanks.
(9) ROBERT BLOCH WEBSITE UPDATE. Eight vintage photos of Robert Bloch with such friends/family as Bob Tucker, Dean A. Grennell, Fritz Leiber, Marion Bloch, and others have been added to the RobertBloch.net gallery.
…As reported by Uproxx, during a virtual Pride month panel at Swansea University, Davies described the queer representation in the MCU show [Loki] as being a “feeble gesture”. As you may recall, Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief became the first openly queer lead character in MCU canon thanks to a reference to the character’s love life in the first season, but at the time Davies wasn’t impressed by the inclusion: “Loki makes one reference to being bisexual once, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh my god, it’s like a pansexual show.’ It’s like one word. He said the word ‘prince’ and we’re meant to go, ‘Thank you, Disney! Aren’t you marvelous?’ It’s a ridiculous, craven, feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.”
…Reflecting on that statement now, Davies admits that his comments were a mistake, explaining that he reached out to Herron immediately to apologize. Little did he know that they would continue chatting, striking up a friendship, which would then result in working together on Doctor Who….
… For the upcoming season, Herron and her co-writer Briony Redman have penned episode 6 which is titled ‘Rogue’. Of course, since the Doctor Who team like to keep their cards close to their chests, little has been revealed about the episode, but we do know that it is set in the Regency era and will feature Mindhunter star Jonathan Groff.
This action followed the New York Times’ 2022 article “Disney, Built on Fairy Tales and Fantasy, Confronts the Real World” which said the company’s Disney Stories Matter team “was marked for caution because she is ‘body conscious’ and jealous of Peter Pan’s attention, according to the executives…”
The Street’s May 7 report says:
…[The] Disney’s Stories Matter team was developed to spot and correct “negative depictions of people and cultures” in Disney’s products.
“We are reviewing our offerings beyond the screen, which include products, books, music and experiences,” reads the Stories Matter homepage on Disney’s website. “While advisories for negative depictions of people and cultures may be added to some offerings, others will be reimagined. We are also investing in new ways to better reflect the rich diversity of stories in our world. This work is ongoing and will evolve as we strive toward a more inclusive tomorrow.”…
The PlanDisney website, answering the question “Why does Tinkerbell no longer have a meet and greet and are their plans to bring her back?” says that currently the only location where Tink does meet visitors is at Pixie Hollow at the Disneyland Resort in California.
Minnesota officially unfurled its new state flag atop the capitol for the first time Saturday on statehood day.
The new flag and accompanying state seal were adopted to replace an old design that Native Americans said reminded them of painful memories of conquest and displacement.
The new symbols eliminate an old state seal that featured the image of a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plows his field with a rifle at the ready. The seal was a key feature of the old flag. That’s why there was pressure to change both.
Officials didn’t pick any of the most popular designs submitted online that included options like a loon — the state bird — with lasers for eyes….
The new flagThe loon with lasers for eyes
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Ersatz Culture, Lise Andreasen, Danny Sichel, Rich Lynch, Teddy Harvia, 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 Kaboobie.]
Review by Cat Eldridge: I spotted this Lady Thor (aka Jane Foster in Marvel Comics) figure in a local comics shop that happens to carry a wide selection of the Funko figures. Now no one locally carries them all, as there are thousands, and the ones I’m interested in are not the big headed ones that most fans collect. I’ve got the masked Spider-Gwen, Captain Marvel and the Thirteenth Doctor, all Funko products in this scale.
Neither is close to the complexity of Lady Thor, though each is spot-on to her character. Her costuming rivals of much more expensive action figures – she cost just ten dollars — as she looks damn good from her boots and leg wrappings to her winged helmet. Even her face, what we can see of it is fairly realistic with a nice set of eyes and quite cute lips.
The blue eye design is, by the way, something that carries across most of the female Funko Rock Candy figures, and all of the ones I have share it. No, they’re certainly realistic and they certainly give the female figures a distinct design motif.
Keep in mind that’s she’s only five-and-a-half inches tall. That cape is remarkably good-looking considering that it is solid plastic and doesn’t move at all save the head. Her costume is spot on to what Jane Foster wore during her run in Thor. Just look at her helmet — perfectly detailed. As is Mjölnir, Thor’s Hammer.
(1) STAR TREK WINS PEABODY AWARD. The Star Trek franchise was among the Peabody Award winners announced today. Given to television, radio, and other media, the Peabody honors “stories that powerfully reflect the pressing social issues and the vibrant emerging voices of our day.”
… This is actually Trek’s second Peabody. In 1987 the Next Generation episode “The Big Goodbye” won the Entertainment, Children’s & Youth Award. The first season of Star Trek: Discovery was also nominated for the same award.
Here is the full text of the announcement for Star Trek…
The Institutional Award – Star Trek
The original Star Trek television series aired on NBC for only three seasons, from September 1966 to June 1969. It was fresh, prescient, and so ahead of its time that it couldn’t quite capture the mainstream audience required for hits during a particularly insipid time in television. But fast forward nearly 60 years, and creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision is alive and well, having spawned a media franchise of 13 feature films, 11 television series, and numerous books and comics, with a legendary fan following. Today Star Trek is more vibrant, imaginative, funny, entertaining, and progressive than ever. And these days, we’ve got the special effects to make it look stellar.
The original science-fiction series was set aboard a starship, Enterprise, whose mostly human crew encountered alien life as they traversed the stars, led by the iconic Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). It was groundbreaking for its diverse cast and for its unapologetically progressive values—exploration over colonialism, cooperation over violence. Its fandom grew over time, and the successors to the original series have updated the franchise without losing its moral core—the dream of a future free from human destruction, poverty, and bigotry. Subsequent captains have served as models of ethical and diverse leadership: The Next Generation’s Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Deep Space Nine’s Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), and Voyager’s Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) among them.
With every passing decade, new versions have proliferated, attracting new generations of fans. Film reboots directed by J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin revived Kirk and his crew with new, young actors, zippier dialogue, and vastly improved effects in the 2000s and 2010s. The Streaming Era has brought a raft of reimaginings with a variety of sensibilities, from the dark and complicated Star Trek: Discovery to the crowd-pleasing prequel Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (featuring a young Spock!) to the hilariously meta cartoon Star Trek: Lower Decks. As the latest versions of Star Trek invite in a new generation of viewers, the interstellar travelers still encounter danger and difficulty, of course. But the Starfleet crew always comes out on top— and without sacrificing essential values that seem quintessentially human: valor, self-sacrifice, curiosity, compassion, broadmindedness.
“From a groundbreaking television series to an expansive collection of films, novels, comic books and so much more, Star Trek has been delivering joy, wonder, and thought-provoking stories since the 1960s,” said Jones. “With powerful anti-war and anti-discrimination messages, it has blazed trails for all science fiction franchises while winning over passionate fans across the globe. We’re proud to honor Star Trek with Peabody’s Institutional Award.”
Bluey (Disney+) Creator Joe Brumm’s endearing family of animated Australian dogs have captivated both children and adults for years in episodes equally delightful and heartrending. Very little feels off the table, as Bluey fearlessly tackles topics from death to infertility to fleeting friendships, all while maintaining a sense of innocence and exuberance for the children, and affinity and understanding for the parents, who are allowed to be dynamic, imperfect beings on their own growth journey. Ludo Studio, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Studios
ENTERTAINMENT
The Last of Us (HBO | Max) In HBO’s post-apocalyptic The Last of Us, a faithful adaptation of the critically-acclaimed Naughty Dog video game, the road trip odyssey of Joel and Ellie (played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey) functions as a recursive meditation on love and loss—and how love is capable of changing people, for good and for ill. In the hands of showrunner Craig Mazin, who worked in collaboration with Neil Druckmann, a co-director on the original game, this adaptation extracts new layers from the text that expand its meaning—imagining what a life of love and fulfillment, and survival, can look like at the end of the world. HBO in association with Sony Pictures Television Studios, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog.
(2) MINNESOTA BOOK AWARDS. The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library announced the Minnesota Book Awards winners. The complete list is at the link.
Emma Törzs’ fantasy novel Ink Blood Sister Scribe is the winner of the Genre Fiction category.
For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements—books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.
All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they’ll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries . . .
…For Wells’s contemporaries, Gleick notes, “technology had a special persuasive power.” For us, now a quarter of the way through the 21st century, things have grown complicated. Technology governs everything we do, but rather than enhancing our lives, our gadgets seem to exploit us, isolate us, box us in. Moreover, the technology itself has moved beyond our understanding, leaving us dependent on the two or three corporate entities producing it. The World of Tomorrow never arrived; no matter how much technology has progressed, it is still frustratingly Today.
Instead of holding out for a future that will solve our problems, contemporary readers now look into the past to address the wrongs inflicted on the less powerful, so what makes a convincing time-travel story in the 21st century isn’t the verisimilitude of the science but rather the morality of the characters’ intentions. In her book on ’80s movies, Life Moves Pretty Fast, Hadley Freeman notes that in Back to the Future, “Marty’s meddling in the past results in his parents living in a nice house, with chicer furnishings, posher breakfast dishes, and even domestic help in the form of Biff Tannen in 1985. Marty’s triumph is to lift his family up to middle-class status.” If Hollywood rebooted the franchise today, Freeman writes, “Marty’s challenge would be to save the world.” I still think a remake would keep Marty’s adventures confined to his personal bubble; it’s just that instead of reuniting his parents to ensure his existence, his mission would instruct him to meddle in his parents’ past because, down the line, this will save the world. Nowadays, to exploit time travel for personal gain—and indeed to tell a story in which such actions are uncritically celebrated—is unacceptable, as is returning to our discriminatory, segregated, slavery-filled history without seriously grappling with those realities. It’s no longer technology but rather moral conviction that now has a special persuasive power on us….
(4) A RARE HEINLEIN CONNECTION. Dave Hook has done fascinating research into a forgotten Heinlein collaborator: “Who is Elma ‘Miller’ Wentz?”
I know I’ve read this story in “Beyond the End of Time” at least once, but I remember nothing about it or even that it existed until seeing this. I found this very interesting for several reasons:
To my knowledge, this is the only fiction published by Heinlein with a co-author during his lifetime.
Heinlein clearly was not fond of it, as he never allowed this and two of his other early stories published as by “Lyle Monroe” to be reissued in a Heinlein collection during his lifetime (per Wikipedia).
I had no idea who “Elma Wentz” was.
…Sometime in the early 1930s, she moved to Los Angeles. Her family did also, although it’s not clear if they moved at the same time or not.
William H. Patterson, Jr.’s “Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1: 1907-1948: Learning Curve” (“Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue…”), 2010 Tor, noted that Elma was working for Upton Sinclair on Sinclair’s California 1934 governor’s campaign as his personal secretary. Patterson also notes that she and her husband to be, Roby Wentz, met Robert A. Heinlein when Heinlein joined Sinclair’s related “End Poverty in California” (EPIC) movement in early 1935. The EPIC movement overlapped substantially with Sinclair’s run for governor. This resulted in her and Roby becomes friends with Robert A. Heinlein and his first wife Leslyn (MacDonald) Heinlein, and with journalist (and future SF writer) Cleve Cartmill….
(5) GUARDIAN REVIEW ROUNDUP. Lisa Tuttle’s “The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup” for the Guardian encompasses The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard; A View from the Stars by Cixin Liu; Flowers from the Void by Gianni Washington; The Dark Side of the Sky by Francesco Dimitri; The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams; and To the Stars and Back by various writers.
… There are dozens of similar accounts of so-called dark watchers by hikers in the Santa Lucia Mountains near Big Sur, California. The stories often share details: The figure stands seven to 10 feet tall and has a walking stick and hat, for example. No one has ever been able to interact with the looming figures—they always disappear once the hiker acknowledges them…
…Despite their ephemeral nature—and claims that they only appear to hikers with low-tech, old-school gear—stories of these cryptids go back hundreds if not thousands of years. Some people trace the legend to the pre-colonial oral stories of the Chumash, Indigenous peoples that have lived along the Central Coast of California and the Channel Islands for 13,000 years. But while there are many Chumash accounts of various creatures in December’s Child by Thomas Blackburn—the most complete written record of Chumash stories—it’s unclear whether any describe the dark watchers.
“These entities—whatever they are—have not just influenced the local people,” says Offutt. “They influenced some pretty famous people, too.” The earliest written accounts of dark watchers go back to the 1700s, when Spanish colonists gave the mysterious beings their name: los vigilantes oscuros. Since then, sightings have continued, and in 1937, the creatures made their literary debut….
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born May 10, 1969 — John Scalzi, 55. This is not full accounting of everything that the rather prolific John Scalzi has done, nor is it limited to his fiction. Now that I’ve got that out of the way let’s start…
I was trying to remember what I first read by him and I think it was actually Old Man’s War whereas I expect you know the characters of Old Man’s War are senior citizens who leave Earth to have their brains transplanted into cyborg bodies and sent off to be fight in an interstellar war. Scalzi has said the series was in homage in Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.
John Scalzi in 2019.
I only read further in the series through the “Questions for a Soldier” short story, The Ghost Brigades and the Zoe’s Tale. The latter broke my heart really it. Damn, I so like the main character here, and spoiler alert, what happened to her really did severely distressed me. Effing hell.
So who here has read and liked The Android’s Dream novels? I liked everything I read by Scalzi save this. Maybe it was the premise itself, maybe the weirdness of the sheep hybrid which I’ll not discuss lest somebody be here who’s keen to read it still, maybe there there was too much Philip K. Dick in it. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. So tell me why I should have.
Space opera, I knew he had it in him. And theInterdependencyseriescertainly proved that amply. Lovely premise of an Empire, spoiler alert again so go drink Romulan blood wine, as the portals connecting the worlds of their Empire are apparently collapsing. The titles of the final novel in the trilogy sums up the trilogy up nicely, The Last Emperox.
And then there’s the Hugo winning Redshirts. Obviously off the Trek’s infamous oh my he’s a red shirt and will die a horrible death meme, it allowed Scalzi to play around with that delicious premise. No, I’m not saying a word more, so no spoiler alert needed. It’s a great story told well. There’s even something that Scalzi might well have borrowed from the Clue film here.
The last novel I want to talk about involves Fuzzies. Fuzzy Nation, authorized by the estate of H. Beam Piper, was not intended to be a sequel to Little Fuzzy, the Piper novel which was nominated for a Hugo. Scalzi wrote it first and then got permission from the Estate to publish it. It doesn’t feel like something the Piper would have written, but it’s worth reading none the less.
Now let’s note Whatever, no doubt the most entertaining blog done by any writer, genre or otherwise. Is this what he won a Fan Writer Hugo for? If so, great choice. It’s something I very much look forward to reading every day. I see his Hugo for Best Related Book was related to his blog, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever 1998–2008.
Ok, that’s what I like by him. No, it’s not everything but I did say it would be. As always, I know you’ll give copious comments about what I didn’t mention.
One of the most iconic movie weapons ever created, lightsabers need little introduction. The mythical weapons of both the legendary Jedi order and the insidious Sith, these blazing hot swords of pure light can slice through nearly anything in the Star Wars universe, barring specialty-made materials like Durasteel. Not only that, but they’re also capable of deflecting bolts from energy-based blaster weapons, making them an impressive source of offense as well as defense. In the lore of the franchise, the lightsabers are powered by the mysterious Kyber crystals.
The lightsabers operate on different laws of physics than those in reality. Creating a powerful enough beam of light to cut through solid metal would result in a much longer, unwieldy weapon, not limited in its projection to a mere three feet. Even ignoring the issues regarding the lightsabers’ power source, which would easily need to be connected to some kind of power-generating backpack with today’s available technology, the ability of the weapons to physically clash with one another disobeys the properties of light. In reality, crossing lightsabers would simply pass through one another.
While filming episode one of “Doctor Who” season 14, entitled “Space Babies,” Millie Gibson had to do the impossible: keep the attention of 20 infants at once. Although she was bearing her soul in a speech integral to her character’s backstory, the babies kept dozing off and losing their attention to the flashing lights of the space-age set. So, to keep their little eyes focused on her, she delivered her lines while a nursery rhyme played on her phone just out of camera view.
“It was so hard honestly,” recalled Gibson. “It was the most bizarre thing but it will stay in my mind forever.”
…“They were such divas,” Gatwa joked about his toddler co-stars. “They had so many demands.”…
…That’s right: Truff—the brand behind the decadent truffle-infused hot sauces Oprah has named to her Favorite Things list for the last three years—just dropped a new hot sauce with some serious Star Wars flair. Truff’s Star Wars Dark Side Hot Sauce is nothing to play with, given it’s now the brand’s spiciest sauce, featuring the hot-as-Hades ghost pepper.
Yes, the ghost pepper is certainly quite hot, topping out at over 1 million Scoville Units. That said, it isn’t the hottest. That title only recently belongs to Pepper X, which reaches more than double the ghost pepper’s 1+ million Scoville Units. According to Britannica, though, less than 20 years ago, the ghost pepper actually was the fieriest, most fearsome of them all. But just because there’s one hotter out there now doesn’t mean ghost peppers aren’t still fierce, as you’ll find out when you crack open this hot sauce….
… American drag queen Jinkx Monsoon, who plays the new nemesis, tells BBC Newsbeat her “dreams have been granted in a wonderful way”.
Jinkx is known as the “Queen of Queens” after winning a regular and All Star season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
And she says moving to the world’s longest-running science fiction show felt like a natural progression for a self-described trans queer actor.
“Sci-fi has always been queer. Anyone who tells you otherwise is delusional,” she says.
“There are prominent writers, directors, producers who are queer in these fields. And it just hasn’t really been able to be talked about and a lot of them nowadays are done being silent.”
She adds there has been “so much queer progress” in society, but feels in the entertainment industry “there’s still been this thing of queer people behind the cameras”.
“And only certain palatable society-approved queer people get to be in front of the camera.
“What I really love about this Doctor Who season is it saying: ‘To hell with that’.”
(13) HOLY SH!T! Aka the video of the day — Hell and Back by Scott Base. A short film based on original Bad Space comic. Mark sent the link with a warning, “I’m not sure I’d want to see a whole movie…”
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Lise Andreasen, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Michael J. Walsh, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, 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 Brian Z.]
Professor Philip Drake will become the new director of The Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction (CSSF) at the University of Kansas it was announced today.
The center was founded in 1982 by James Gunn (1923-2020), a SFWA Grandmaster. KU Professor Christopher McKitterick superseded him as Director of the CSSF in 2010. KU Professor of English Giselle Anatol replaced McKitterick in 2021, however, for the past year she also has served as Interim Director of the University of Kansas’ Hall Center of the Humanities, an appointment that now has been made permanent.
According to the press release, Professor Drake has a long-time interest in science fiction and speculative fiction. He brings that interest together with his scholarship and teaching in science and technology studies, animal studies, and environmental humanities.
GRANT TO BE CREATED. The Gunn CSSF also reported progress on the establishment of a new grant:
Last year, the Advisory Board gave input on a proposed grant for visiting KU’s considerable SFF collections that are housed in the Spencer Research Library, Watson Library, and the Gunn Center itself. We decided that it would be best to wait to launch that grant until the Gunn Center’s collections are fully catalogued. Our archivist, Mike Johnson, has been working on this project in conjunction with the Open Language Resource Center. We anticipate being able to launch the grant in the 2024-25 academic year.
VIRTUAL BOOK CLUB. The Gunn CSSF also will continue their Virtual Book Clubfor 2024-25. In order to broaden the audience and increase attendance and engagement, they’re asking for feedback. People are invited to fill out this survey whether or not they’ve attended a session.
STURGEON SYMPOSIUM. The 3rd annual Sturgeon Symposium will take place October 24-25 and focus on the work of Samuel Delany, who is planning to attend. Proposals for papers are due May 31. The call for papers and other information is here.
It’s official! Asteroids, Myst, Resident Evil, SimCity, and Ultima are the 10th class of inductees to join the World Video Game Hall of Fame. The inductees were announced at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, on May 9, where they are on permanent view on the museum’s second floor.
These five games—which have significantly influenced popular culture and the video game industry—emerged from a field of finalists that also included Elite, Guitar Hero, Metroid, Neopets, Tokimeki Memorial, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and You Don’t Know Jack. The games are enshrined in the museum’s World Video Game Hall of Fame rotunda, part of the ESL Digital Worlds exhibit.
About the Inductees:
Asteroids
Myst
Resident Evil
SimCity
Ultima
Asteroids: Released in 1979, Atari’s Asteroids offered players challenging gameplay, glowing graphics, and intense sound effects in an action-packed space setting. The game quickly supplanted the popular Space Invaders in many arcades and sold more than 70,000 arcade units, becoming Atari’s bestselling coin-operated game. The home version of the game—made available on the Atari 2600—took the game’s popularity to new heights, bringing it into millions of living rooms.
Says Jeremy Saucier, assistant vice president for interpretation and electronic games, “Through endless variants and remakes across dozens of arcade, home, handheld, and mobile platforms, Asteroids made a simple, yet challenging game about blasting rocks into one of the most widely played and influential video games of all time.”
Myst: Released by Broderbund in 1993, Myst welcomed players to a mesmerizing world of mysterious puzzles and haunting vistas. The game harnessed early CD-ROM technology—which offered high storage capacity but slow loading times. The discs paired well with the slow-paced, contemplative style of the game, though, and allowed the creation of an immersive world. Myst became the best-selling computer game in the 1990s, selling more than six million copies.
Says Kristy Hisert, collections manager, “Few other games can match Myst’s ability to open imaginative worlds. It was a work of artistic genius that captured the imagination of an entire generation of computer game players, and its influence can be seen in many of today’s open-world games.”
Resident Evil: Although it wasn’t the first horror video game, Resident Evil (or Biohazard as it was known in Japan) was the first game to popularize the “survival horror” genre. Created by game director Shinji Mikami and released by Capcom in 1996, Resident Evil spawned a billion-dollar media franchise while it helped demonstrate that video games could offer mature entertainment for older teenagers and adults. As of 2022, films based on the Resident Evil franchise have collective grossed more than $1.2 billion.
Says Lindsey Kurano, video game curator, “Resident Evil’s combination of cheesy B-movie dialogue, engrossing gameplay, and chilling suspense made it a favorite of gamers searching for more mature video games, and it helped establish one of gaming’s most enduring franchises.”
SimCity: Released by Maxis in 1989, SimCity helped expand the audience for video games by offering a city building simulator that appealed to adults as much as children. Drawing from real-life principles of urban design, it allowed players to build their own city and respond to ever-changing problems. The game spawned numerous sequels and offshoots—such as World Video Game Hall of Fame inductee The Sims—and influenced the development of many city-building simulation games and even real-time strategy games, like Command and Conquer and Age of Empires.
Says Aryol Prater, research specialist for Black play and culture, “Simulations are some of the oldest forms of video games, but few have had the popularity, influence, or staying power of SimCity. At a time when many people thought of video games in terms of arcade shooters or console platformers, SimCity appealed to players who wanted intellectually stimulating fun on their newly bought personal computers.”
Ultima: Ultima: The First Age of Darkness helped define the computer role-playing genre. Designed by Richard Garriott and released in 1981, Ultima combined role-playing mechanics, a massive fictional world, and fantasy and science fiction themes. Ultima’s innovative gameplay laid the foundation for one of the most enduring and influential gaming franchises of all time (with eight sequels). Many top game designers credit it with inspiring their later role-playing games, such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.
Says Andrew Borman, director of digital preservation, “Ultima helped define the computer role-playing game genre. Although it may not be a household name, the game, and the series it spawned, are legendary among role-playing game fans and game developers around the world.”
About the World Video Game Hall of Fame: The World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong was established in 2015 to recognize individual electronic games of all types—arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile—that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general.
Anyone may nominate a game to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Final selections are made on the advice of journalists, scholars, and other individuals familiar with the history of video games and their role in society.
Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, announced the finalists for the 2024 Anthony Awards on Facebook today. Winners will be revealed at the event, being held in Nashville from August 28 – September
BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
Time’s Undoing by Cheryl A. Head
Face of Greed by James L’Etoile
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
BEST PAPERBACK NOVEL
No Home for Killers by E.A. Aymar
Hide by Tracy Clark
Because the Night by James D.F. Hannah
The Taken Ones by Jess Lourey
Magic City Blues by Bobby Matthews
Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak
BEST FIRST NOVEL
The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry
Play the Fool by Lina Chern
Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy
Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita
BEST CHILDREN’S/YA
Finney and the Secret Tunnel by Jamie Lane Barber
Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity by Elizabeth C. Bunch
The Sasquatch of Hawthorne Elementary by K.B. Jackson
The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle by Taryn Souders
Enola Holmes and the Mark of the Mongoose by Nancy Springer
BEST CRITICAL/NONFICTION
Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction by Anjili Babbar
Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan
Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Robert Morgan
Agatha Christie, She Watched: One Woman’s Plot to Watch 201 Christie Adaptations Without Murdering the Director, Screenwriter, Cast, or Her Husband by Teresa Peschel
Love Me Fierce In Danger – The Life of James Ellroy by Steven Powell
BEST ANTHOLOGY/COLLECTION
School of Hard Knox, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor
Here in the Dark: Stories by Meagan Luca
Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of The Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter
The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions by Art Taylor
Killin’ Time in San Diego: Bouchercon Anthology 2023, edited by Holly West
BEST SHORT STORY
“Real Courage” by Barb Goffman
“Knock” by James D.F. Hannah
“Green and California Bound” by Curtis Ippolito
“Ticket to Ride” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski
The dystopian spot, titled “Crush,” shows several instruments, including a guitar and piano, being crushed by a hydraulic press. Also among the items being smashed flat are balls that look like emojis and an Angry Birds statue….
Apple CEO Tim Cook posted the spot on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday (it also was posted on YouTube). His post and the YouTube video are still up, but the spot won’t run on TV, according to Ad Age.
“Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Cook wrote….
[One of the many negative comments was,] “Crushing symbols of human creativity and cultural achievements to appeal to pro creators, nice. Maybe for the next Apple Watch Pro you should crush sports equipment, show a robot running faster than a man, then turn to the camera and say, ‘God is dead and we have killed him.’”
Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG
(2) KGB. Ellen Datlow has posted photos from Wednesday night’s Fantastic Fiction at KGB session where John Wiswell and Anya Johanna DeNiro read from their recent novels.
In this episode, she shares her experiences and insights on convention attendance, from choosing the right ones to the art of mingling without the cringe. Plus, she tackles the ever-present concern of COVID safety in crowded spaces.
Whether you’re a cosplayer or a casual attendee, Mur advises on how to present yourself professionally, connect with industry pros, and enjoy the con experience while staying true to your comfort level. And for those not ready to dive back into the physical con scene, she discusses the merits of virtual conventions and how they can be a great alternative.
Warner Bros. will release the first of its new batch of live-action “The Lord of the Rings” films in 2026, which will focus on Andy Serkis’ Gollum.
Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.
The project is currently in the early stages of script development from writers Walsh and Boyens, along with Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, and will “explore storylines yet to be told,” Zaslav said.
In a press release from Warner Bros. later Thursday morning, the studio revealed that the working title for the film is “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” and it will be directed by and star Serkis in his iconic titular role….
…A separate, animated Middle-earth movie, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” is due on Dec. 13 via Warner Bros. and director Kenji Kamiyama. That movie is set 200 years before the events of “The Hobbit.”…
(6) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 109 of the Octothorpe podcast, “But Also a Worrying One”, John Coxon is middle, Alison Scott is even sadder, and Liz Batty is sorry.
We have a bumper mailbag in Octothorpe 109, and we continue our discussion about accessibility in Eastercon before segueing into a discussion of money and privilege with respect to conventions. We also mention the latest news out of Chengdu. Massive thanks to Ulrika O’Brien for the gorgeous cover art this week!
…Not long after he returned from the war in 1946, Serling attended Antioch College on the G.I. bill. There, in his early 20s, he penned “First Squad, First Platoon,” a short story which is being published for the first time Thursday in The Strand. It was one of his earliest stories, starting a writing career that Serling once said helped him get the war “out of his gut.”
“It was like an exercise for him to deal with the demons of war and fear,” said his daughter, Jodi Serling. “And he sort of turned it into fiction, although there was a lot of truth to it.”
The story is set on Leyte Island in “heavy jungle foliage” and a “hostile rain that caked mud on weapons, uniforms, equipment.” Each of the five chapters in the 11,000-word story is about a different soldier and how they died….
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born May 9, 1936 — Albert Finney. (Died 2019.) I’m very, very fond of British performers and among them is Albert Finney. So let’s look at the career of this most talent actor.
His first genre performance is as Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge. Scrooge is my favorite Albert Finney film and it is benefitted immensely by the many extraordinary strong performances by actors like him. To give a good sense of him in that role, I feel obligated to show him in his full Victorian regalia.
That’s followed by being Dewey Wilson in Wolfen, a deeply disturbing film. Wolfen to me is the perfect werewolf film as it is a police procedural firmly within the horror genre. His character here Detective Dewey Wilson along with Diane Venora as Detective Rebecca Neff unraveled the grisly murders that turn-out to be based in First Folk reality.
He plays Edward Bloom, Sr. Big Fish in the wonderful Big Fish. He’s central character here. He is a story-teller but his only son, Will, doesn’t enjoy them because he believes they are simply not true. Of course, they are, but they’re just exaggerated. Or are they being so?
He voices Finis Everglot in Corpse Bride. Now I’d love to tell how he was in that role but I’ll confess and say that I’ve not see that film as I am not a big fan of Tim Burton’s animated work at all.
He was Kincade in Skyfall. He’s the gamekeeper of Skyfall Lodge and the ancestral Bond family estate in Scotland. He’s got a major role in that film.
He was Maurice Allington in The Green Man based on Kingsley Amis’ novel of the same name. He’s the somewhat inebriated owner and landlord of The Green Man, an inn that he says is haunted by ghosts. He tells tales of these to scare guests as it amuses, or trying to seduce them to no avail as he’s not at all handsome. But it may be that The Green Man is truly haunted and those ghosts are happy with him… it’s a great role for him and he play it quite well.
Lastly, I’ll wrap up with Murder on the Orient Express, the 1974 version. I have that poster, an original, not a reproduction, framed and hanging here as I truly love this film. Christie, who lived just long enough to see the film get released and be a box office success, said that Murder on the Orient Express and Witness for the Prosecution were the only movie versions of her books that she liked although she expressed disappointment with Poirot’s moustache as depicted here was far from the creation she had detailed in her mysteries.
She’s misremembering her detailing of that moustache which I confirmed checking the many such novels I have on hand in Apple Books. Most novels have no detailed description at all, and this in The Mysterious Affair at Styles being typical: “Poirot seized his hat, gave a ferocious twist to his moustache, and, carefully brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve, motioned me to precede him down the stairs; there we joined the detectives and set out for Styles.”
Finney made a most excellent Poirot though many later critics compared him to David Souchet who they consider the definitive version of the character. I always wondered what Dame Christie would have thought of Souchet.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
Free Range might not be teaching what the student wants to learn.
Carpe Diem has an unexpected Egyptian traffic sign.
Heathcliff’s latest in a week-long series of guest appearances comes from Star Wars.
(10) GLIMPSE THE NEXT CHAPTER OF NEIL GAIMAN AND MARK BUCKINGHAM’S GROUNDBREAKING MIRACLEMAN SAGA. Miracleman By Gaiman & Buckingham: The Silver Age #1-7 is now available as a complete collection. Catch a glimpse of the action in the new trailer, featuring artwork from all seven issues.
In THE SILVER AGE, Miracleman has created a utopia on Earth where gods walk among men and men have become gods. But when his long-dead friend Young Miracleman is resurrected, Miracleman finds that not everyone is ready for his brave new world! The story that ensues fractures the Miracleman Family and sends Young Miracleman on a stirring quest to understand this world — and himself. It’s a touching exploration of the hero’s journey that ranges from the top of the Himalayas to the realm of the towering Black Warpsmiths — and into the secret past of the Miracleman Family!
(11) X-MEN ONE-DAY SPECIAL ON LEARNEDLEAGUE. [Item by David Goldfarb.] LearnedLeague just had a One-Day Special quiz about the X-Men. It focused more on the comic books than the various adaptations, which suited me just fine. I’m currently scored at 11/12, but I’ve submitted an appeal on the one answer where I was marked wrong. We’ll see if that goes through.
You can find the questions behind this link, although nearly all of them have pictures that people who aren’t LL members won’t be able to see. None of the pictures are absolutely necessary, but at least a couple of them have valuable clues.
“Harold Halibut” is a new sci-fi video game set in an underwater space colony. But it’s got a novel look; all of the characters and sets in the game were made by hand, then 3D scanned and animated digitally….
… “The aim was to get a high resolution view of this most mysterious piece of biology that each of us carries around on our shoulders,” said Jeff Lichtman, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard. “The reason we haven’t done it before is that it is damn challenging. It really was enormously hard to do this.”
Having sliced the tissue into wafers less than 1,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair, the researchers took electron microscope images of each to capture details of brain structure down to the nanoscale, or thousandths of a millimetre. A machine-learning algorithm then traced the paths of neurons and other cells through the individual sections, a painstaking process that would have taken humans years. The images comprised 1.4 petabytes of data, equivalent to 14,000 full length, 4k resolution movies.
“We found many things in this dataset that are not in the textbooks,” said Lichtman. “We don’t understand those things, but I can tell you they suggest there’s a chasm between what we already know and what we need to know.”
In one baffling observation, so-called pyramidal neurons, which have large branches called dendrites protruding from their bases, displayed a curious symmetry, with some facing forwards and others backwards. Other images revealed tight whorls of axons, the thin fibres that carry signals from one brain cell to another, as if they had become stuck on a roundabout before identifying the right exit and proceeding on their way…
(14) INSULIN PUMP ISSUE. “FDA Warns on Insulin Pump Problem” at MedPage Today. “This has been a plot point in several movies and tv shows lately,” says Chris Barkley.
A mobile app used with an insulin pump that led to 224 injuries was recalled by Tandem Diabetes Care, the FDA announced today.
The recall is for the 2.7 version of the Apple iOS t:connect mobile app, used in conjunction with t:slim X2 insulin pump with Control-IQ technology, the agency said.
The FDA identified the action as a Class I recall, the most serious type. The recall is a correction, not a product removal, and was prompted by a software glitch that may cause the pump battery to drain sooner than expected. Users are being urged to update the app to the latest software….
During the production of Star Wars: Ahsoka, Adam Savage visited the miniatures filming stage set up at Lucasfilm to watch the practical model of Ahsoka’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle being filmed. Modelmaker John Goodson and machinist Dan Patrascu spent four months building the 30-inch model of that T-6 ship for the show–an incredible hero ship model not only equipped with lights, but was fully mechanized with a rotating wing!
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Lise Andreasen, David Goldfarb, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
The Locus Science Fiction Foundation today announced the top ten finalists in each category of the 2024 Locus Awards, chosen by voting on an open public ballot.
The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 22, 2024, during the in-person Locus Awards Ceremony in Oakland, California with MC Henry Lien and special guest Connie Willis.
The top ten finalists in each category are:
SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, Samit Basu (Tordotcom)
A Fire Born of Exile, Aliette de Bodard (Gollancz; JAB Books)
Red Team Blues, Cory Doctorow (Tor; Ad Astra)
Furious Heaven, Kate Elliott (Ad Astra; Tor)
Translation State, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz (Tor; Orbit UK)
Starter Villain, John Scalzi (Tor; Tor UK)
Lords of Uncreation, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US; Tor UK)
System Collapse, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
The Road to Roswell, Connie Willis (Del Rey)
FANTASY NOVEL
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 7, Neil Clarke, ed. (Night Shade)
Christmas and Other Horrors, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Titan UK)
The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2022), Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki & Eugen Bacon & Milton Davis, eds. (Caezic)
Never Whistle at Night, Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., eds. (Vintage)
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023, R.F. Kuang & John Joseph Adams, eds. (Mariner)
Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams, eds. (Random House; Picador)
New Suns 2, Nisi Shawl, ed. (Solaris UK)
The Book of Witches, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology, Wole Talabi, ed. (Android)
The Best of World SF: Volume 3, Lavie Tidhar, ed. (Ad Astra)
COLLECTION
The Essential Peter S. Beagle, Volumes 1 & 2, Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon)
Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance and Other Stories, Tobias S. Buckell (Apex)
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories, Tananarive Due (Akashic)
White Cat, Black Dog, Kelly Link (Random House; Ad Astra)
No One Will Come Back For Us, Premee Mohamed (Undertow)
Jackal, Jackal, Tobi Ogundiran (Undertow)
Skin Thief, Suzan Palumbo (Neon Hemlock)
Lost Places, Sarah Pinsker (Small Beer)
The Best of Michael Swanwick, Volume Two, Michael Swanwick (Subterranean)
The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
MAGAZINE
Analog
Asimov’s
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Clarkesworld
F&SF
FIYAH
khōréō
Strange Horizons
Tor.com
Uncanny
PUBLISHER
Angry Robot
DAW
Gollancz
Neon Hemlock
Orbit
Small Beer
Subterranean
Tachyon
Tor
Tordotcom
EDITOR
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
Arley Sorg & Christie Yant
Jonathan Strahan
Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
Sheree Renée Thomas
E. Catherine Tobler
Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
Sheila Williams
ARTIST
Brom
Rovina Cai
Kinuko Y. Craft
Julie Dillon
Bob Eggleton
Abigail Larson
John Picacio
Charles Vess
Michael Whelan
Alyssa Winans
NON-FICTION
The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Alternate History, Jack Dann (Bloomsbury Academic)
42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams, Kevin Jon Davies, ed. (Unbound UK)
Wish I Was Here: An Anti-Memoir, M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail; Saga 2024)
All These Worlds, Niall Harrison (Briardene)
101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered, Sadie Hartmann (Page Street Publishing)
Space Crone, Ursula K. Le Guin (Silver)
Ex Marginalia: Essays on Writing Speculative Fiction by Persons of Color, Chinelo Onwualu, ed. (Hydra House Books)
A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller, Maureen Kincaid Speller (Academia Lunare)
Owning the Unknown: A Science Fiction Writer Explores Atheism, Agnosticism, and the Idea of God, Robert Charles Wilson (Pitchstone)
Being Michael Swanwick, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro (Fairwood)
ILLUSTRATED AND ART BOOK
The Culture: The Drawings, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Home to Stay! The Complete Ray Bradbury EC Stories, Ray Bradbury, adapted by Al Feldstein, art by Jack Davis, Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Wallace Wood, et al. (Fantagraphics)
The Pen & Ink Drawings of Tony DiTerlizzi, Tony DiTerlizzi (self-published)
