Requirements: Nonfiction work (print or digital), minimum 30,000 words, substantively devoted to the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year.
Willard M. Oliver, Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author, Univ. of North Texas Press, 2025.
THE VALUSIAN—OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT, ANTHOLOGY/COLLECTION
Requirements: Nonfiction anthology or collection of essays (print or digital), nonfiction, minimum 30,000 words, substantively devoted to the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year.
Fred Blosser – The Solomon Kane Companion: An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard’s Dark Avenger
THE HYRKANIAN—OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT, ESSAY
Requirements: Scholarly Nonfiction essays (print or digital), no minimum word count, substantively focused on the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year.
Jeff Shanks, “Shadows of the Serpent: Howard, Kull and the Birth of Sword and Sorcery” in Conan: Scourge of the Serpent #1-4
THE VENARIUM—EMERGING SCHOLAR
Requirements: Candidates must have recently begun making significant contributions to Howard scholarship through publications and/or presentations over the past few years.
Dan Yergert, The Conan Chronology – YouTube
ART AWARDS
THE BLACK LOTUS—OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT, WEB-BASED
Requirements: Web-based content (i.e. digital magazine, journals, websites, blogs, podcasts, audiovisual/multimedia presentations, internet sites, etc.), substantively focused on the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, new content must have been published in the last calendar year.
Ståle Gismervik – The World of Robert E. Howard (Website)
THE COSTIGAN—LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT
Awarded for original creative writing that carries on the spirit and tradition of Robert E. Howard, to better recognize and celebrate his influence on future generations of writers.
Requirements: Fiction (i.e. short fiction, novels, poetry, etc.), in the spirit and tradition of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year. No comic books or graphic novels are allowed.
Scott Oden, Old Gods and Other Tales
THE RANKIN—ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT
Requirements: Visual media (painting, comic books, graphic novels, film, audio adaptations, etc.), directly related to the depiction of Robert E. Howard’s life, stories and poetry, characters, or fictional worlds; published in the last calendar year. Comic media must be nominated for a specific issue or self-contained story arc, not as a series or collection.
Patrick Zircher (writer/artist/colorist), Pete Pantazis (Colorist), Richard Starkings & Tyler Smith (Letterers): Solomon Kane: The Serpent’s Ring (limited series)
SPECIAL AWARDS
THE BLACK RIVER—SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT
Requirements: Candidates will have produced or contributed something special that doesn’t fit into any other category, e.g. scholarly presentations, biographical discoveries, etc.
Ståle Gismervik for creating and running the REHF website, formatting and establishing the REHF Press Ultimate Edition books
THE CROM AWARD
Lee Breakiron. Breakiron (1948-2026) was for many years the editor of The Robert E. Howard Foundation Newsletter and a member of REHupa (the Robert E. Howard United Press Association). This award recognizes his decades of contributions to Robert E. Howard studies.
THE BLACK CIRCLE—SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT
The Black Circle is the most prestigious award the Foundation gives. Nominees must have a minimum of 20 years in promoting Robert E. Howard, his works, and his legacy.
(1) WHELAN PUTS ON HIS GAME FACE. “Pinball Wizard” by Michael Whelan and Michael Everett tells about Whelan’s unexpected encounter with a pinball machine that featured his likeness, and how he finally tracked discovered the history behind it.
In 1980, Audrey and I returned to my home state for a vacation in Monterey, CA. We were enjoying ice cream together while out on a stroll when we dropped into the arcade next door. That’s where we discovered a most unusual pinball game.
I’ve run into unauthorized bootlegs of my art on occasion, and while it’s disappointing to see anything printed without my permission, it’s hardly a surprise. But what I found in the arcade that day was different. The pinball machine didn’t crib my work; it stole my face. It absolutely blew my mind to see me staring out from under that glass….
… My initial suspicion was that someone on the design team had picked up a copy of Sorcerers. Published in 1978, that art book enjoyed wide distribution through Ballantine, and it featured several of my paintings alongside a posed picture of me.
Likely long forgotten by now, Sorcerers was a hot title then, which included other notable artists, including Steve Hickman, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, and others. I was certain the designers took inspiration from what they found in those pages….
…As it turned out, Time Warp became a famous table—it even has a Wikipedia page! Interestingly, it made multiple appearances on the big screen, including in Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 and an Italian film titled “Troppo Forte,” which featured a passion for pinball that you have to see to believe….
The guests of honor are Sarah Langan, Brian Evenson, and Tim Powers. It also features the launch of a brand new Pink Beam Press featuring 7 new novellas by Langan, Evenson, and many others.
(3) THAT WOULD BE WRONG. “Wrong Genre Covers” is a series at Night Beats Extended Universe. Today the creator has rendered Jordan S. Carroll’s “Speculative Whiteness as a Golden Age pulp sci-fi cover”. See the image at the link.
With tickets now on sale for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, AMC Theatres, Regal Cinemas, and Cinemark have unveiled a web of exclusive collectibles inspired by the upcoming Marvel film….
Well, this one looks moderately hideous!
Spider-Man Combo Container
This novelty combo container is shaped like Spider-Man’s hand shooting a web. The translucent web serves as the popcorn holder while the wrist section functions as the drink container.
It’s easier for me to imagine using another of these choices.
Wall Crawler Popcorn Tin
Regal’s signature collectible is a popcorn tin designed to look like a New York City apartment building. Fire escapes line the sides of the building while a small Spider-Man figure appears to be scaling the exterior wall.
(5) BEAR BOUND FOR BROADWAY. The New York Times says “The ‘Paddington’ Musical Is a Hit in London. Next Stop: Broadway.” (Behind a paywall.) “The show, which revisits the story of a marmalade-loving bear, plans to open next April at the Hirschfeld Theater in New York.”
The musical is a retelling of the cherished, enduring and quintessentially British stories about a kind, courteous and marmalade-loving Peruvian bear who is taken in by a family that discovers him at a train station shortly after his arrival in London. The character was the subject of children’s books written by Michael Bond, the first of which was published in 1958; Paddington has also been the subject of three recent movie adaptations.
The stage adaptation, a family-friendly adventure story, was named the best new musical at this year’s Olivier Awards — London’s equivalent of the Tony Awards; British critics were also won over….
…The Broadway production is scheduled to start previews on March 30, 2027, and to open April 18 at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, whose current occupant, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” is set to close on Aug. 30. It is directed by Luke Sheppard (“& Juliet”), and features songs by Tom Fletcher and a book by Jessica Swale….
(6) SALLY WOEHRLE (1942-2026). Chair of Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, Sally Woehrle died June 12. William Sadorus announced her passing on Facebook.
It’s with a heavy heart that write this. I’m sad to announce that Sally Woehrle passed away last Friday. I believe her death was from congestive heart failure due to a fib made worse by complications from Alzheimer’s. She was my friend, my soulmate.
Initially, Woehrle and Bobbie DuFault were co-chairs of Sasquan, but DuFault died two weeks after the bid was won.
Woehrle also chaired Westercon 73, Westercon 50, and ConComCon 23. She was a member of the unsuccessful Seattle in 2002 bid committee, and of SWOC (the Seattle Westercon Organizing Committee), had been a member of the Northwest Convention League. She worked on innumerable conventions.
My wife Anita passed away quietly in her sleep during the night. I will post the funeral arrangements when I have them.
Anita Feller was a past President of the Middle Tennessee Science Fiction Club.
(8) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
June 17, 1960 — Twilight Zone’s “The Mighty Casey”
What you’re looking at is a ghost, once alive but now deceased. Once upon a time, it was a baseball stadium that housed a major league ball club known as the Hoboken Zephyrs. Now it houses nothing but memories and a wind that stirs in the high grass of what was once an outfield, a wind that sometimes bears a faint, ghostly resemblance to the roar of a crowd that once sat here. We’re back in time now, when the Hoboken Zephyrs were still a part of the National League, and this mausoleum of memories was an honest-to-Pete stadium. But since this is strictly a story of make believe, it has to start this way: once upon a time, in Hoboken, New Jersey, it was tryout day. And though he’s not yet on the field, you’re about to meet a most unusual fella, a left-handed pitcher named Casey — opening narration of “The Mighty Casey”.
Before you ask, yes, I really do like this series. I think it’s the best fantasy genre series ever done bar none. And when an episode is stellar, it is among the best genre fiction done, period. So it is with “The Mighty Casey” which first aired on CBS sixty-six years ago this evening.
Obviously the episode title is in homage to the “Casey at the Bat” baseball poem.
A really bad baseball team somehow acquires a robotic pitcher (really don’t ask how as it makes no sense) but the League says Casey is not human and cannot play. So Casey is, sort of Wizard of Oz-ish, given a human heart, which makes eligible Casey to play.
Unfortunately the human heart makes him realize that he shouldn’t be throwing those really fast balls. Oh well.
With the team sure to fold soon without its star robotic pitcher, the creator of that robot gives the manager Casey’s blueprints as a souvenir. Looking at them, McGarry suddenly has a brilliant idea, as he runs off after Dr. Stillman to tell him his idea so as he and the scientist so they can engineer an entire pitching staff of Casey robots.
Rumors later surface suggesting rather strongly that the manager has used the blueprints to build a world-champion pitching staff of Casey robots. Did he? This is the Twilight Zone so who knows? Ask our narrator as he closes out our story…I
Once upon a time, there was a major league baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs, who, during the last year of their existence, wound up in last place and shortly thererafter wound up in oblivion. There’s a rumor, unsubstantiated, of course, that a manager named McGarry took them to the West Coast and wound up with several pennants and a couple of world championships. This team had a pitching staff that made history. Of course, none of them smiled very much, but it happens to be a fact that they pitched like nothing human. And if you’re interested as to where these gentlemen came from, you might check under ‘B’ for Baseball. — Closing narration
The entire production was originally filmed with Paul Douglas in the manager role. (Douglas previously played a baseball team manager in the Fifties film Angels in the Outfield.) He died right after it was filmed and Serling decided that it needed to be done again with a new actor. CBS being cheap wouldn’t pay for it, so he paid for the entire shoot.
It was filmed at Wrigley Field, a ballpark in Los Angeles that hosted minor league baseball teams for more than thirty years. (In addition to being a baseball venue, many Hollywood productions were shot there.) The Wrigley footage, with the stands empty, was supplemented by brief clips of stock-footage crowd scenes, from the Polo Grounds and Fenway Park.
DC today announced that it will return readers to the first days of the Man of Tomorrow with Superman: The Stranger, a new six-issue DC Black Label comic book series launching in September, written and illustrated by Wes Craig. Set in an Art Deco-inspired 1938 Metropolis, the series reimagines Superman’s earliest adventures through a modern storytelling lens while drawing heavily from the visual language of DC’s Golden Age of comic books and the Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons….
…In Superman: The Stranger, readers will follow Superman at the very beginning of his journey. During the day, Clark Kent does what he can to make ends meet in the bustling city of Metropolis, but when the sun goes down, he leaps into action to keep the city streets safe. As Superman, Clark fights for a better tomorrow, but he feels like he’s not affecting change. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor struggle to survive. Can Superman truly save the downtrodden?
Superman: The Stranger, a six-issue DC Black Label comic book series written and illustrated by Wes Craig with colors by Jason Wordie and lettering by Tom Napolitano, will feature variant covers by Dave Johnson, Goran Parlov, and Ethan Young on the debut issue. Superman: The Stranger #1 arrives wherever comic books are sold on September 2, 2026, with all covers printed on cardstock for $4.99 US, and will carry DC’s Ages 17+ content descriptor for mature readers.
Saying a courtesy call would have been nice even if nothing ever came of it, E.T. told reporters Monday he was shocked at not being contacted by director Steven Spielberg for a cameo in his new sci-fi movie Disclosure Day….
Bumblebees can use tools to solve a problem, according to experiments that demonstrate their remarkably advanced cognitive abilities.
The bees were given an adapted version of an experiment that, 100 years ago, first demonstrated chimpanzees could work out how to retrieve an out-of-reach banana by stacking boxes. Since then, various other primates, elephants and crows have joined an elite cohort of species known to be capable of this level of insight and spontaneous problem solving.
In the latest research, bees were shown to be able to roll a polystyrene ball to a specific location and climb on to it in order to access an artificial flower on a low ceiling. The findings challenge the longstanding assumption that insects operate purely on instinct and mindless trial-and-error learning.
“Most people think insects are reflex-based machines,” said Dr Olli Loukola, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Oulu, Finland, and senior author. “That they can’t have any emotional states or feel pain. Some people don’t even realise that they have brains. I hope that these results change the worldview about that.”
“Burgie is brewed for refreshing people, Burgie is crisp and cool and bright!” Burgie and his Burgermeister beer are showcased in this out-of-this-world exceedingly rare 4ft tall store display designed by Paul Stanley (d. c. 1980s) for the Burgermeister Brewing Corporation….
…The character Burgie was used extensively in the brewery’s marketing and merchandising even appearing in animated commercials throughout the mid-century, while his Stanley flying saucer display has occasionally reappeared in the pop culture zeitgeist being used (sans beer cans) in the opening of the Spice Girls music video for “Say You’ll Be There” (1996) and more recently seen in the “Pinball Jack” episode of the antiques/collectibles reality series American Pickers (2022)….
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Heather Cleary, Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern — who says his inspiration came via the song, “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”.]
By Steve Vertlieb: Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day is the celebrated director’s most significant work in twenty-five years, a spiritually-based exploration of the derivation of both mortal and extra-terrestrial existence and their theological repercussions and consequences. The political realities of discovery are particularly disturbing to a smug military establishment and reigning hierarchy threatened by the powerful premise that advanced intelligent life beyond earthly conceit may entirely decimate our concepts of imagined world dominance and moral supremacy. Rumors, sightings and conspiracy theories concerning alien visitations have abounded since the late 1940s when the theories of secret installations housing either dead or imprisoned visitors from other worlds began circulating across the country and, indeed, the world. Secluded militaristic establishments housing the troubling remnants of crashed ships from beyond This Island Earth were spoken of in guarded whispers in order to protect national security and the prefabricated semblance of normality. Irrational fears of intellectual as well as technological dominance beyond the stars might, after all, sire panic across the globe and threaten international economic stability.
Steve Vertlieb at a showing of Disclosure Day
Now Steven Spielberg has addressed and taken on these fears and concerns through a natural progression of cinematic journeys and philosophic explorations of first contact. Beginning with his landmark science fiction epic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 to the childlike benevolence of E.T., The Extraterrestrial in 1982, these “strangers in a strange land” have dominated the imaginative screen conceptualizations of the director’s youthful, imaginative mind. Born in the 1940s and raised during the Roswell-inspired cinematic science fiction craze of the 1950s, Spielberg’s progression of intergalactic obsessions has at last led him to and culminated in the realization of his defining epic. The acknowledgement that we are truly not alone in the universe and that “the truth is out there” if only we choose to watch and “listen” is brought vividly to life within the frames and visual excitation of Disclosure Day.
The director’s cerebral and philosophical screen dissertations have their roots in films of the postwar aftermath and generational rebirth of the 1950s with such inspirational cinematic journeys and hope-filled encounters as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) from director Robert Wise in which a Christlike ambassador from the stars comes to Earth to advise humanity that their petty fears and insecurities have led them down a path to eventual oblivion and that only kindness and compassion will allow humanity to endure. “The choice,” he warns, “is yours.”
Disclosure Day, the final installment in Steven Spielberg’s inspirational trilogy of peace filled, futuristic yearnings is more deliberately fact based and realistic than his two previous journeys of faith in that the dictatorial, small-minded fears and jealousies proliferated by conspiratorial lies and fabrications have led us to a precarious point of no return from which only spiritual inclusion and redemption can save the Earth from cosmic depravity and dissolution. Like Klaatu’s prophetic warning to humanity at the climactic crossroads of The Day the Earth Stood Still … “The Decision Rests with You.”
The protagonists in Disclosure Day have either chosen or been imbued by a spiritual calling to reveal to the world that “We are not alone.” Their dangerously subversive mission has exposed them to very real threats of captivity and death. Fear of exposure has led governmental martinets to suppress at all costs the knowledge that “The truth is out there.” The dominant purveyors of imagined supremacy and dictatorial power, once exposed, will do anything to protect and preserve their heinous control and power over the crumbling structure of their prefabricated society and corrupted civilization.
The dangers to society are real within the fictional fabric of the screenplay and story by David Koepp and Steven Spielberg, as are the unexpected theological threats and insecurities voiced in outrage by religious communities in impassioned protest to the concept that God may have limited or superfluous regional dominance over the vastness of the universe and infinity. The film has the courage to voice often intellectually precarious questions regarding both God and man’s place within and beyond the stars.
Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor share the screen as those chosen either by conscious determination, by fate or by the subliminal recollection of a shared traumatic childhood experience, somehow predetermined to disclose the truth, while Colman Domingo is a mysterious rogue agent bringing Blunt back to forgotten memories and vaguely celestial origins. Colin Firth is the avenging “angel” determined at all costs to protect society and its emperor without clothes from exposure to a cataclysmic truth. However, the film belongs to Emily Blunt whose eloquent, emotionally shattering performance as a seemingly unwitting participant in the dissolution of structured society lays the revelatory groundwork for the devastating finale.
Steven Spielberg, while seventy-nine years of age at the time of this momentous film’s release, remains among the most influential, “youthful” directorial voices of both the Twentieth and Twenty-first centuries. His contributions to popular culture, optimism, humanity and the arts cannot be over-stated. Of exceptional significance to this superb film are the intense and exhilarating visual thrill rides created by veteran cinematographer Janusz Kaminsky and editor Sarah Broshar, their most palpably delicious collaboration culminating in an unimaginably frightening chase sequence aboard a speeding train.
In the film’s emotionally shattering final moments the significance of our spiritual meaning and place in the progression of evolving spirits and intellects is revelatory and deeply humbling, a cosmic image of the vastness and purpose of a profoundly poetic, ever evolving universe in which the unimaginable beauty of existence is tantalizingly realized. It remains a haunting reflection of our inheritance, purpose and destiny as a species, prophetic and viscerally stunning.
Perhaps the most miraculous element of this profoundly beautiful cinematic excursion is the symphonic power and eloquence of its rapturous musical score composed by John Williams who, at age ninety-four, wrote and conducted a solid hour of haunting, ethereal, original and sublimely unforgettable music, virtually incomparable in these days of sadly saccharine, blandly forgettable melodies and themes. In their thirtieth screen collaboration as composer and storyteller, Steven Spielberg and John Williams have created a profound and superbly moving legacy amongst the stars.
Steven Spielberg and John WilliamsSteve Vertlieb and John Williams
In the end and semi-final analysis, Disclosure Day will be remembered as an ethereal look at endless possibilities posed by a limitless expanse and infinite universe in which anything is possible … if only we let down our defenses and choose to “Listen.”
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Journey Planet Goes Mecha! Deadline: September 15, 2026
The Hugo Award-winning fanzine Journey Planet is gearing up for an exciting new issue dedicated to the world of mecha robots—and we want your contributions.
From classic anime like Robotech to giant robot epics across global fandom, this upcoming issue will celebrate the towering machines, the creators who produced them, and the fans who keep the genre alive. Whether your passion is nostalgic, critical, artistic or wildly imaginative, Journey Planet invites creators of all kinds to contribute.
We are seeking:
Essays and articles (analysis, history, personal reflections and photos to go along with these if available)
Micro fiction or poetry featuring mecha themes
Artwork, illustrations, multimedia-inspired pieces (traditional or digital)
Cosplay photography and build showcases
If it involves giant robots, we want to see it.
This issue aims to highlight not just iconic franchises, but also the creativity and diversity of fandom itself. Submissions from first-time contributors and seasoned creators alike are welcome.
Pitch ideas and ask questions:[email protected] (please reach out ASAP with pitch ideas and any questions on format and guidelines)
Whether you’re a writer with something to say, an artist with a bold vision, or a cosplayer bringing steel giants to life, Journey Planet offers a platform to share your work with an enthusiastic, global audience. Help us build an issue that’s as impactful as the world of mecha robots!
X.com machine translation’s rendition of that text:
Chinese renowned science fiction writer Hao Jingfang, who won the Hugo Award for “Folding Beijing,” has confessed that 50% of the writing in the new installment of her children’s science fiction novel series “Galactic Academy” (apparently being called the Chinese version of Harry Potter) was done by AI.
The Chinese blog/news post image from that tweet is shown below, along with a Google Translate rendition, the text of which is as follows (minor pronoun fixes by me):
Hugo Award-winning author’s new book sparks controversy! She admits that half of the writing is AI-generated – Artificial Intelligence
Daily news excerpts
June 16, 11:13
Recently, renowned science fiction writer and Hugo Award winner Hao Jingfang revealed in a media interview that in her latest children’s science fiction series, “Galaxy Academy,” published this year, the proportion of content written using artificial intelligence has reached as high as 50%. This public statement immediately caused a huge stir online and quickly spread across major social media platforms.
Ironically, Hao Jingfang also revealed that the publisher’s editors had previously praised the book’s quality, even repeatedly commending her for writing well this year. She also admitted that once the book is published and enters the market, ordinary readers simply cannot distinguish which parts were written by AI.
(2) ROLLACRIT WILL LAUNCH A KICKSTARTER FOR A NEW CON BAG OF HOLDING! [Item by Daniel Dern.] Rollacrit, which in 2024 brought out an updated, improved version of the original Thinkgeek Messenger Bag of Holding (see my File770 Scroll on this) (Rollacrit’s staff includes some ThinkGeek alums), has just announced their new Con Bag of Holding (improving on the ThinkGeek Con Survival Bag of Holding), more specifically that they will be launching a Kickstarter for it in Fall 2026. (I’m ready to order two!) Scroll with more deets (I’ve got a few questions to ask ‘em) to follow, ideally within a day or two.
…Soon after the release of 1982’s The Dark Crystal, director, animator and puppeteer Henson was keen to follow up with a film that combined human actors with quirky puppets. Terry Jones of Monty Python fame was hired to write the script, while George Lucas served as executive producer.
Brian Froud, conceptual designer and costume design: We’d just had a showing of The Dark Crystal in San Francisco. In the back of the limousine, Jim said: “Should we do another one?” I said: “What about goblins?” Jim’s eyes lit up. Then into my head came a labyrinth and I had a vision of a baby surrounded by goblins. He said: “That’s great” – and that was it….
…[Brian Froud]: A few days before we started the film, I met David in his dressing room and gave him a little flute as a present. He took it, leapt up on to the counter in front of the mirror and played it. It was astonishing. I thought: “Oh, this is gonna really work.”
[Brian Henson]: David was a crazy workaholic, just like my dad. They were both people who were used to being creative every waking moment of their life. So for David, doing Labyrinth was like being on vacation. He was a really wonderful spark of a person.
[Karen Prell]: He was really fascinated by the process with the puppets. He would also hang around the puppet workshop and just see how things were built and performed. He was very down to earth and game for anything. He would go and have a pint in the studio pub with the crew….
By definition, utopia cannot exist. In 1516, educated readers of Thomas More’s Utopia would have appreciated a tension between two possible derivations of this novel word: the Greek “eu-topos”, meaning good place, and “ou-topos”, meaning not a place at all. It might have been a compact warning that one should never attempt to turn utopias into reality. Those who have tried usually witnessed the model societies they founded devolving into grungily dysfunctional communes, weird sex cults, or both.
In this richly diverting intellectual history of the idea, we begin, as we must, with Plato, and the zany prescriptions of his Republic (“we should neutralise the poets’ influence on mothers”). Passing in silence over the potentially utopian aspects of Jesus’s thinking, we arrive at More’s utopia, where “nothing is private”, and so “the common affairs be earnestly looked upon”. The great Renaissance scientist Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis portrays a utopia of rational scientific experimentation – which, Wren suggests ingeniously, might have inspired Wakanda in the Marvel Black Panther films. The 17th-century duchess Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World imagines the author as a goddess elected by a world of human-animal hybrids who like science. In the 18th century, Sarah Scott’s Millenium [sic] Hall imagined an ideal society of women without men, as did Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland during the first world war.
Some patterns emerge: many utopias employ a framing device in which the narrator is accidentally or fantastically transported to a new land, and then subjected to reams of expository monologue about how it all works. Families are often abolished, with children raised in common. And in Edward Bellamy’s 1888 fantasy Looking Backward, Wren explains straightfacedly, “there are no law schools or lawyers, abolished here as in most utopias”….
(5) SHELDON COOPER WAS WRONG: WHETHER TO TRY NEW DISHES HAS A BENEFIT AND A MATHEMATICAL SOLUTION! [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Sheldon Copper of The Big Bang Theory has a strict rota for his weekly meals: he never tries new ones. However, in the real world we regularly do decide when going to a restaurant whether or not to strict to a tried-and-tested dish or to try something new off of the menu. Scott Edelman and his guests must come across this a lot in his Eating the Fantastic podcast. (Though visitors to Brit Cit arguably might want to make a point of firmly avoiding Nandos. Seriously.)
This ‘problem’ was made famous by Richard Feynman. In the late 1970s, the physicist Richard Feynman sat down for lunch with his friend Ralph Leighton at a Thai restaurant called Indra in Glendale, California. Leighton was trying to decide whether to order his running favourite (the ginger chicken), or try something new that had a chance of being even better. Feynman turned the dilemma into a math problem – and solved it. Unfortunately, Feynman never published the detail of how he came to his analysis but we do have his equation and how he derived that.
The optimal policy specifies decreasing thresholds for switching from exploring new dishes to exploiting the best, with thresholds varying based on the distribution of the quality of dishes.
Which brings us to today and British and US researchers have decipher the problem and solution from Feynman’s notes, and prove that Feynman’s solution is optimal. They generalised his result and find closed-form solutions for other distributions, and then turn to ask the question of how humans actually solve such decision-making problems. In a preregistered experiment with 2,520 participants, we find definitive evidence that humans use a decision threshold that decreases linearly with the proportion of trials remaining, achieving performance remarkably close to the optimal solution found by Feynman.
When in Brit Cit, stick with Sheldon and arguably avoid Nandos.
The Phoenix magazine, seen by some as Ireland’s version of Private Eye, is to cease operations after 43 years.
Irish broadcaster RTÉ reports the magazine’s publisher, Penfield, is believed to be entering voluntary liquidation.
The last edition of the magazine was published on 5 June.
The magazine is no longer taking new subscriptions, with a message on the phoenix.ie website saying it is “unable to offer” online or print subscriptions “at this time”.
Edited by Paddy Prendiville, the magazine had been published every two weeks.
It was founded in 1983 by the late journalist and publisher John Mulcahy and peaked in term of sales in the early 1990s.
The magazine combined humour, satire and political and business coverage.
Fresh off of last month’s victory against pirate web site Anna’s Archive, 13 publishers across all segments of the industry have allied to sue yet another pirate site, WeLib, for copyright infringement.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges that the operators of WeLib “ copied the source code and most of the contents of” Anna’s Archive.”
The plaintiffs include the Big Five, Cengage, Elsevier, McGraw Hill, Pearson, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley.
“Defendants boast that they have reproduced ‘an endless collection of literature, research papers, and education materials,’ none of which they own or have licensed,” the complaint alleges.
According to its website and repeated in the lawsuit, WeLib hosts over 43 million books and 98 million papers, and its stolen collection of literary works has purportedly attracted over 80,000 active monthly users. According to the website, WeLib’s users have illegally accessed over 51 million books in the last month alone, or an average of over 1.7 million books per day.
Although the owners of WeLib claim to be a library of sorts, publishers say that they have created a mechanism to cash in on the pirated content.
According to the complaint, download speeds for free users are typically very slow, but in exchange for a “donation,” users receive “fast downloads” and avoid waitlists. …
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
June 16, 1896 — Murray Leinster. (Died 1975.)
By Paul Weimer: Murray Leinster. Not many people get an award named after one of their stories, but Murray Leinster managed that feat.
Murray Leinster
I read his “Sidewise in Time” (for which the Sidewise Award for Alternate History is named) decades ago. I read it as part of my first full on dunking into Alternate Histories back in the 1980s, when I was trying to read every bit of AH I could get my paws on. Unlike a lot of those stories and worlds, Murray Leinster instead gives us a sort of a multiverse of worlds, The sheer variety of worlds crammed into the story, a story where temporary conjunctions of parallel worlds throws a bevy of people into alternate worlds, and things from those worlds into our own, showed the pulp sensibilities of Leinster in full. When I would later read Frederik Pohl’s “The Coming of the Quantum Cats”, I saw the homage to Leinster’s “Sidewise in Time” straightaway.
Alternate history is hardly Leinster’s only badge of honor of prediction, or as a forerunner in the science fiction field. “A Logic Named Joe”, in a time when computers were in their infancy, depicted a world with an internet. In these days with AI and the perils of information on the internet, the story and its plot seems more relevant than ever. But as off kilter as the logics go in that story, even Leinster didn’t predict an internet that, tainted by AI, would offer recipes for pizza that involve glue.
“The Runaway Skyscraper”, one of his earliest stories (and written before “Sidewise in Time” by over a decade) didn’t invent the time travel story. However, it helped give it a form in a 20th Century vein. For reasons beyond understanding, a skyscraper slips several thousand years in the past, and the building occupants must come together to figure out how to survive…and how to return to their modern day, if they can.
Leinster is a writer who started in the pulps and kept writing into the 1950’s and 1960’s, managing a transition that very few writers of his era were able to accomplish. His staying power isn’t super dense characterization, it’s his vivid imagination and ideas that he scatters like candy throughout his work. Take his story “Exploration Team” which has an amazing wild alien planet for the protagonist to cross…accompanied by his animal companions, including uplifted bears!
Oh, and the spaceship in the opening scenes of Starcrash is named the Murray Leinster.
There is a lot of back and forth in Rabiroff’s reporting, but the shorter version is that although Dark Horse management was planning layoffs prior to the unionization, layoffs must now be part of the arbitration process between the union and the company.
Based on many conversations with past and present Dark Horse employees over the years, they all expressed the opinion that Dark Horse has a huge staff, much larger than publishers who put out a similar number of books. Some of those workers were involved with the retail end of the company, including both the shuttered TFAW.com and the soon-to-close brick and mortar Things from Another World stores.
I’ve been told many times that as Dark Horse parent Embracer Group underwent layoffs in most of their units, it was only a matter of time until the budget cuts hit Dark Horse. There were a handful of layoffs last year, but nothing sweeping.
However, with Mike Richardson no longer in the picture, everyone expected more layoffs to hit; the unionization effort, which took five years to organize, has may goals, but making sweeping staff cuts a lot harder to implement must have been one of them.
“The firmest conclusion we can say is that if infections spawn more frequently than 1 in 100,000 galaxies, then 99.9% of the universe would be infected for a 0.1c infection wave speed. If we take it as a given that this is inconsistent with observation/experience, then this requires that less than 1 in 10 quadrillion star systems have ever spawned an infection. That’s a staggeringly tight observational constraint on alien behavior; it’s by far the strongest statistical statement we can make in all of SETI.”
There are possible explanations for this that don’t involve the nonexistence of intelligent life beyond Earth, as Kipping notes. For what Sagan described as “contact optimists,” a natural explanation would be that despite there being a large population of ETCs in our universe, the odds of them ever spawning an infection, i.e., sending out probes or ships, are astronomically small. However, this is difficult to consider if one rejects the idea of uniformity in behavior and motivation. As David Brin argued in his 1983 paper, “The “Great Silence’: the Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life,” it only takes one species to break the pattern for a proposed resolution to become untenable.
In contrast, the contact pessimist has a much easier job explaining the apparent lack of evidence for ETCs, either by stating that they don’t exist or employing the Great Filter argument. But as Kipping stated, this explanation is also difficult to maintain: “If the filter is behind us, then where? Life started so early that it strongly indicates abiogenesis is a rapid and easy process. Perhaps some evolutionary steps are hard and very rarely transpire, but evolutionary biologists have argued against this recently. Or perhaps it’s ahead of us, and we won’t last another century needed to develop infection technologies.
“But then it’s hard to imagine how such a future Great Filter is so potent that it can suppress the odds at the level needed here. We can imagine many ways in which humanity continues, so surely someone, somewhere, especially those civilizations with greater wisdom than our own, would sail past the challenges we face today without annihilation.”
Consider “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” the famous science fiction tale that chronicles the collapse of human civilization, its rebirth and, spoilers, its imminent collapse again toward the end. Or Foundation, where the collapse of the Galactic Empire (à la The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) is inevitable, but is not a permanent condition. In short, the data support no conclusions, something that Kipping acknowledges.
“Frankly, I don’t have a good answer for this,” he tells us. “I suspect I will be wrestling with this question for the rest of my life in frustration and wonder.” The same may apply to the rest of us, and humanity as a whole….
The future of Star Trek on TV isn’t terribly optimistic, but the new season of Strange New Worlds—its fourth, ahead of a shortened fifth and final outing—looks stuffed full of excitement and wonder. Paramount just shared the latest trailer ahead of the show’s return in July, featuring a meaningful chat between future dynamic duo Spock (Ethan Peck) and Captain Kirk (Paul Wesley).
…Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season four begins July 23 on Paramount+. It runs weekly, with new episodes arriving Thursdays through September 24.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Paul Weimer, Daniel Dern, Ersatz Culture, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
The 2025 nominees for the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were announced on June 16. The winners will be revealed at LAcon V, taking place in Anaheim, California the weekend of August 27-31, 2026.
The Sidewise Awards have been presented annually since 1995 to recognize excellence in alternate historical fiction.
This year’s panel of judges was made up of Matt Mitrovich, Arturo Serrano, Kurt Sidaway, and Steven H Silver. Andrea Horbinski and Alana Phelan will join the judges’ panel for next year’s awards.
SHORT FORM
Lee Allred, “Two If By Seekrieg,” Thin Red Tales, edited by James Young, April 2025
Kelli Fitzpatrick, “The Leavitt Space Telescope,” Twisting, Turning Timeshifts, edited by D.J. Stevenson, June 2025
Alan Smale, “Caesar at Sea,” Skull X Bones, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua Palmatier, ZNB Books, December 2025
Alan Smale, “Darwin’s Rocket,” Sunday Morning Transport, edited by Julian Yap & Fran Wilde, October 19, 2025
LONG FORM
James Alistair Henry, Pagans, Moonflower, February 2025
R.A. Moss, Tobacco Republic, Beck and Branch, August 2025
Vaishnavi Patel, Ten Incarnations of Rebellion, Ballantine, June 2025
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were conceived in late 1995 to honor the best allohistorical genre publications of the year. The first awards were announced in summer 1996 and honored works from 1995. The award takes its name from Murray Leinster’s 1934 short story “Sidewise in Time,” in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with their analogs from other timelines.
This is the first nomination for Kelli Fitzpatrick, James Alistair Henry, R.A. Moss, and Vaishnavi Patel. Lee Allred was previously nominated in 1997 and Alan Smale has three previous nominations and two wins.
By James Bacon: Cosmic Circus obviously captured the imagination of the Eastercon crowd — the large programme room filled up, Dr Emma and Dr Pepper directed late comers in, and so the show began.
The performance opened with the two doctors, immediately deploying humour, then getting the tech crew to create added atmosphere with lighting and sound effects, and so started a story. With a lovely hint of parody, and good timing, the audience were soon laughing. We see a humble hotel cleaner working, and then a flying saucer with flashing lights arrives, an Alien lowers down and the mundane problem of parking the spaceship immediately becomes the issue!
We then meet Quindor, Herald of the Dark Nebula, Guardian of the Quantum Rift, Emissary of the Planetary network. Japes, physical movement, acrobatics and much energeticness occur across the stage, entertaining the audience, as Quindor learns about Earth, and then the fourth wall is broken to great effect, with some light audience participation. At one point a space leopard invades the stage!
The concept of Space Travel, and the opportunity to visit exoplanets around the galaxy, is discussed. The curious question of “what has space exploration ever done for us?” is explored Monty-Python style, and the list of things that Quindor shares gets more detailed, exploring serious science but in a light-hearted way, and there is laughter as the question is repeated and the list of things lengthens. The final agreement is that space exploration has been useful!
There is some lovely sharing of information about the planets in our solar system as part of the ongoing story, covering some astronomy and how to see the planet Jupiter. There is a nice subtlety to the script, as Quindor shares information with the cleaner and the audience as the story develops. Then the cleaner pretends to be a star, and there is discussion about how to determine details about exoplanets from Earth. We learn about planets, and gravity, an excuse for some further circus acts including poi and exciting Aerial activities, and humour as different levels of ability are demonstrated. The audience appreciated the humour and loved it with applause.
Poi, acrobatics, aerial, all combine to entertain in a circus way, and woven through all this are pieces of humour and a considerable amount of science.
It would be fair to say that there is a long history of humorous performances at Eastercons and indeed, Bob Shaw’s serious science talks were hugely popular, and loaded with subtle humour, so this is a warm audience, but also they have high expectations, both being very aware of science and a taste for humour.
Dr Emma and Dr Pepper mixed up circus arts with science fiction and the science of space exploration in this playful performance, it was terrific fun, a fusion of curious science, physical comedy and moments of wonder.
At the end of the show, Dr Emma explained her aim to develop it into a show suitable for school audiences to inspire and excite, using science fiction and circus as a medium to explore serious science topics, and a need for funding was accompanied with a plea for feedback to help with funding applications.
The audience clearly enjoyed the performance, and of course, there were some wonderful moments that resonated.
Emuh Ruh – Baku Chan – Masumura Jushichi (Glacier Bay Books)
Also announced, this year’s Manga Publishing Hall of Fame award will go to Chigusa Ogino, Advisor and former Executive Director in the Board of Directors for Tuttle-Mori Agency.
(1) FAIRY TALES AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY. [Item by Steven French.] If any Filers happen to be in London this summer, this exhibition is on at the British Library until August 23: “Fairy Tales”.
Take your family on a magical adventure in a new interactive exhibition! Explore enchanted lands, magical creatures, iconic characters and timeless tales, brought to life through books, theatre costumes, puppets, pop-ups, artwork and illustrations.
From the deep dark forest to the royal palace, set off on a journey through a fairy tale world. Sit down at the Three Bears’ breakfast table, tell the genie your wish, smell the wicked witch’s potions and discover lots more.
With interactive displays, theatrical design, story sharing spaces, costumes, activities, and plenty of surprises, families can dive into the stories they love and find some new favourites. And if you think you know fairy tales, think again! From the three little wolves and the witch with a heart of gold to the princess who wouldn’t go to the ball, discover how these tales have been transformed.
Throughout the exhibition, beautiful books and artwork from some of the UK’s most beloved writers and illustrators offer a glimpse of the tales that have captured imaginations for generations.
Pack your magic beans and make sure to not leave your glass slippers behind: an adventure awaits.
“The Waitlist, or Today is a Good Day to Die” by Ai Jiang. With music by Oneirothopter. Read by Jean-Paul Garnier
“The Twain Shall Meet” by Brent A. Harris. With music by Phog Masheeen. Read by Jenna Hanchey.
Theme music by Dain Luscombe
Simultaneous Times science fiction podcast began in March of 2018 and has since produced 100 episodes featuring 206 stories and 10 poems by 108 authors from over 20 countries. In this time, we have produced collaboration episodes with Apex Magazine, Radon Journal, Hexagon, Sci-Fi Lampoon, Shacklebound Books, Worlds of IF, and Utopia SF Magazine. We also produced three paperback anthologies, and one ebook anthology, of stories and authors from the podcast.
During the nine-year run of Simultaneous Times we have won the Laureate Award, been a finalist for the Fiyah, BSFA, and British Fantasy Awards, and been long-listed for the Hugo Award three times.
As of episode 100 we will no longer be producing episodes on a monthly basis but will rather move to a “when we feel like it” schedule, most likely creating two to four episodes a year. We will be redirecting our efforts (and finances) to publishing more books and our new magazine Electronic Brain.
A huge thank you to all of our authors, composers, narrators, and to our listeners!
(3) EARLIEST AFROFUTURISM. Lisa Yaszek told Facebook readers that Mothership Rising will be released on February 16, 2027. Pre-order here: Mothership Rising.
What if Afrofuturism didn’t begin in the 1960s… but decades earlier?
I’m thrilled to share that Mothership Rising: Afrofuturism in the Radium Age is now available for preorder!
This anthology recovers groundbreaking Black speculative fiction from the early 20th century—stories of space travel, alien encounters, high-tech revolution, AI: ancestral intelligence, and radical possibility that helped lay the foundations for Afrofuturism long before the term existed.
Turns out Black writers were making space from the very beginning.
I’m especially honored that the brilliant Nisi Shawl wrote the introduction, bringing their own visionary perspective to this project.
Science Fantasy Bulletin, number 13, March 1953. Twenty cents. It’s a fanzine, mimeographed and hand-stapled, and the kid who edited and published it was Harlan Ellison. He was eighteen, running it out of Cleveland under his own Fanvariety Enterprises banner after a falling-out with the local club, whose bulletin he’d taken over and renamed as his own.
The contributor list is almost funny when you look at it. L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, Bob Silverberg, and an early Marion Z. Bradley a full decade before Darkover. The cover, “That Big Blue Entity,” is by Richard Bergeron, who’d later edit Warhoon. An eighteen-year-old talked all of them onto the pages of a hand-cranked zine.
Here’s the part that gets me. This issue came out two months before Ellison gathered a handful of young fans in his apartment and tried to will “Seventh Fandom” into existence, kicking off one of the loudest fan feuds of the decade. So this isn’t just early Ellison. It’s Ellison right at the moment he became the guy who starts the fight, and it’s three years before his first story ever sold. The temperament is already all over it.
It turned up in a box from a Chicago shop that closed, no telling how long it had been buried back there.
I worked for the Encylopaedia Britannica from 1980 to 1982. I was originally hired to write about spies. He was not one of them. My initial assignment as a writer/researcher was 13 short articles. Belle Boyd was one of them and I ended up writing a novel about her, The Shenandoah Spy. Bruce Felknor, the Managing Editor for revisions, then gave me the many intelligence agencies. Not just ours, but every Big Power nation’s. That led me to MI5 and MI6 whose combined roots reach back to the early English Secret Service of Sir Francis Walsingham and the discovery of a letter from the Privy Counsel to Cambridge University ordering them to give Christopher Marlowe his Master of Theology degree.
Marlowe had gone to France and was suspected of converting to Catholicism. This was the Great Power struggle of the day. Marlowe passed himself off as a Catholic for months at the renegade English Abbey at Rheims. He’d infiltrated the Jesuits, the other international spy service of that era. I could imagine the strain. I did some undercover work myself in Iowa City against drug dealers in 1966 and 67. (See my memoir “A Perfect Spy”). I thought Marlowe’s story would make a great play….
Steven Spielberg’s alien conspiracy thriller “Disclosure Day” collected a leading $48.9 million from 73 territories in its international box office debut.
Overseas audiences will be key in the theatrical longevity of “Disclosure Day,” which Universal spent $115 million to produce and $80 million to market. Since about half of revenues go to theater owners, the movie needs to generate roughly $300 million globally to justify its price tag. Along with $44 million in North America, “Disclosure Day” has generated $92.9 million after three days of release. Reviews are positive, but audience reactions have been mixed, so a bigger question is how the film will endure on the big screen….
(7) BBC ON FAN FICTION. BBC’s The Conversation has an episode about “Fan fiction: a writer’s playground”. (Subscription required for listeners outside the UK.)
National Kiss a Wookiee Day is a playful celebration of Star Wars’ most huggable hero. Chewbacca and his fellow Wookiees take the spotlight, giving fans a chance to show some love.
Whether through stuffed animals, costumes, or clever posts, the focus stays fun and lighthearted. People lean into the humor, pretending to smooch their favorite shaggy sidekick.
The mood? Pure joy. Think big bear hugs, fuzzy feelings, and a good laugh shared among fans of all ages.
Wookiees represent loyalty, courage, and kindness—so the day isn’t just about silliness. It’s also a sweet way to highlight those same traits in real life…
…National Kiss a Wookiee Day began in 2005 as a fun, fan-created celebration. It honors Chewbacca and other Wookiees from the Star Wars universe. Early internet users and pop culture calendars helped it grow.
The idea didn’t come from movie studios or official merchandise. Instead, fans with creative usernames and blogs pushed it forward. One group called “A Girl and Her Wookiee Adventures” played a big part in spreading the joy….
(9) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
This Island Earth (1955)
Seventy-one years ago This Island Earth went into general circulation in the United States, five days after it premiered in New York.
It was produced by William Alland, and directed by Joseph M. Newman and Jack Arnold. It was written by Franklin Coen and Edward G. O’Callaghan as based on the novel by Raymond F. Jones, first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories as three separate novelettes, “The Alien Machine” in the June 1949 issue, “The Shroud of Secrecy” in the December 1949 issue, and “The Greater Conflict” in the February 1950 issue.
The primary cast was Jeff Morrow as Exeter Faith, Domergue as Ruth Adams, Rex Reason as Cal Meacham, Lance Fuller as Brack and Russell Johnson as Steve Carlson. The last of course will be will known later as the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.
It was made at a cost of around eight hundred thousand and made at least one point eight million in its first run.
Critics in general loved it, it did very well at the box office but currently the audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a not so great forty-four percent rating.
It’s a great film? By no means is it a great film, but it’s a fun film to watch and in the end that’s all that matters, isn’t it? I’ve seen it three or four times down the years and it holds up well for what is one of the invasion films of that period.
Nominees for the 42nd TCA Awards were announced Friday. The awards are presented by the Television Critics Association, which includes more than 220 professional TV journalists from the U.S. and Canada. Winners will be announced this summer via TCA’s social media feeds.
The 2026 awards introduce two new categories: Best International Series and Best Achievement in Animation, which offers a dedicated alternative to the inclusive Family Programming and Children’s Programming races which are often dominated by toons, and highlights the growing appeal of adult-targeted animated series….
A cat decided it was the main character during the final scene of a Romeo and Juliet performance by the Imperial Russian Ballet Company in Izmir, Turkey. The cat had a lie down, licked itself and played with Romeo’s hair as the performers kept going with their performance undeterred while onlookers chuckled in the background….
Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers may have found a supernova remnant in an intriguing neighborhood in the middle of our galaxy. A paper describing these new findings published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Supernova remnants are the expanding remains of exploded stars and provide elements – like iron, oxygen, and silicon – that are critical for the formation of planets and for life as we know it to form and flourish.
This new supernova remnant, if confirmed, would be one of the closest ever discovered to the supermassive black hole at the central region of the Milky Way galaxy, an exotic region crammed with massive stars, long threads of magnetic fields and dense clouds of gas orbiting rapidly around the Galactic Center….
…A new composite image of this region contains X-rays from Chandra and ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton mission (shown in blue) as well as radio data from the MeerKAT telescope (shown in red) in South Africa. These have been combined with an optical image from the Pan-STARRS telescopes in Hawaii (red, green, and blue). The plane of the galaxy runs horizontally from left to right in the image, and the central black hole is off to the left of the image.
The evidence for the new supernova remnant, located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, comes from X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton. The X-ray data reveals a “blob” of X-ray emission that may come from the remains of a massive star that self-destructed as a supernova, buried within the larger cloud of expanding gas.
The location of this suspected supernova remnant in the image is labeled with a circle….
(14) WHY MOID STOPPED COLLECTING SF BOOKS! [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.]Moid Moidelhoff over at the Media Death Cult YouTube channel has just posted a click-bait titled, 15-minute video on why he has stopped collecting SF books.
Now, I have to say I have been following Moid for about half a decade, and as a commentator on SF books I do find him ‘interesting’. So, when he announces that he is stopping collecting books I had to find out why.
I have to say that myself I have over 150 feet of SF bookshelf space and that’s not counting the 2000AD-related collection or the science library (though for the past decade that has been almost entirely digital – I have several thousand academic papers from the 1970s to 2000s, but as I am currently accruing papers at the rate of well over a thousand a year, digital is the way to go and keeping them in digital topic folders and titling the files in a search-friendly way makes it easier to find them when needed.), let alone my mundane library. Of course, I suspect that this will be positively low for some Filers, but I do find my collection of value. Every week I find myself hunting for a book in the collection to check something out, so my library is very much a working reference one: these are not books boxed up getting dusty in the attic. The other thing (as I wrote in the journal Biologist before it became decades later a magazine) having bookshelves of books lining your walls has a certain environmental sustainability value: books store carbon (in my case for decades) so there is a greenhouse gas sequestration value to having a shelved library; they also store heat and so provide a thermal buffer, and then there is their heat insulation value.
Anyway, Moid has a different take and different concerns. I should say though that the title of his video is precise: Moid is stopping collecting SF books as he has been; he is not giving up reading them.
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, John A Arkansawyer, Francis Hamit, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
