(1) STURGEON’S LAW APPLIED TO KID LIT. The National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature has teed off a lot of adults by saying there’s a lot of crud out there: “Children’s Book Community Responds in Outrage to Mac Barnett Comments” in Publishers Weekly.

Children’s authors and educators are up in arms after words by National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Mac Barnett, from his new essay collection for adults, Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children (Little, Brown), cast aspersions on the vast majority of work published for young readers.

Barnett’s remark comes in a chapter about the literary quality of books in general. “People start to get the idea that it’s easy to write a children’s book, when really, it’s just easy to write a bad one,” he writes in Make Believe, saying that “too many books” for children “make incursions into children’s imaginations in order to reinforce adult control.” Referring to Theodore Sturgeon’s opinion from a late-1950s issue of Venture Science Fiction magazine (“Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That’s because 90% of everything is crud”), Barnett continues, “I have a nagging fear that children’s literature suffers from a slightly higher crud percentage than literature as a whole. So I now offer Barnett’s Addendum to Sturgeon’s Law: Maybe more like 94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud.”

Barnett’s remark was decontextualized on social media, with his fabricated statistic—94.7%—replacing any larger argument. And coming from the Library of Congress’s 2025–2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, this sentiment about “crud” and lack of value stung the kid-lit community hard. Outcry was immediate, and a petition to the Library of Congress and Every Child a Reader circulated on May 6 and 7 garnered scores of signatures….

(2) DOGE DEFEATED. “Judge Rules Termination of NEH Grants Was Unconstitutional” reports Publishers Lunch.

In a lengthy, detailed and often incredulous 143-page opinion, District Court Judge Colleen McMahon found in summary judgement that the mass termination of over 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants in April 2025 by DOGE “was unlawful because it was undertaken in violation of the First Amendment, in violation of the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment, and without statutory authority.” Additionally, “DOGE officials lacked statutory authority to identify, select, or direct the termination of NEH grants” and “the resulting terminations were ultra vires[Latin for beyond the powers].”

The two cases were brought by the Authors Guild and a group of individual NEH grantees, as well as a coalition of the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association of America.

Judge McMahon issued a permanent injunction blocking the government from “enforcing or giving effect to the Mass Termination of NEH grants at issue in this action. Defendants shall rescind the termination notices issued pursuant to the Mass Termination and shall treat those notices as without legal effect. Defendants shall not reallocate, obligate, or otherwise dispose of funds associated with those awards.”

Comprehensive as it sounds, the ruling is only the first step for the affected parties, since “nothing in this injunction…requires the immediate payment of grant funds [or] adjudicates any contractual entitlement to money.”

Simply put, Judge McMahon wrote, “DOGE had no statutory authority to terminate NEH grants…. It is not that DOGE misconstrued a statutory provision conferring authority on it; it is that Congress conferred no authority on DOGE at all with respect to the awarding, continuation, or termination of NEH grants.”

The case was what legal scholars would call a “slam dunk” in challenging the executive overreach of the Trump Administration: “The Executive Branch is not allowed to ignore, and treat as disqualifying, Congress’s statutory directives.” The NEH and its grant-making process and authority was specifically established by Congress. “They do not authorize anyone, let alone DOGE, to revisit already awarded NEH grants en masse based on ideological criteria found nowhere in the statute.”….

(3) LOC DRAMATIZES RESEARCH. Ron Charles calls it “The Most Exciting Room in Washington”.

…Tomorrow, the world’s largest library will open a dazzling exhibit to introduce young people to the power of research.

The Source: Where Curiosity Sparks Discovery encourages kids ages 8 to 15 to dig into the Library’s vast collection of texts, images, sounds, and films. This is the first time the 226-year-old Library has offered a permanent, experiential learning space designed in consultation with and for children and teens.

The 4,000-square-foot gallery — seven years in the making — is like nothing I’ve seen before: an audacious effort to yank library research from the dank stacks of the public imagination and show kids how exciting and rewarding the quest for information can be.

At the start, visitors come upon an enormous circular card catalog. Pull out some of the drawers and you’ll see drafts of Spider-Man, Mickey Mouse, and the Gettysburg Address. Motion-activated sensors launch enchanting light shows on the cabinet. Other drawers hold an early copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and an LP of Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

It’s an homage to the old card catalog, transformed into a dynamic introduction to the Library’s 180 million items.

Walk farther into the exhibit under a ceiling dancing with posters, books, and musical instruments, and you’ll find video kiosks where researchers explain their work on basketball, cartoons, and WWII.

In the other room, kids are encouraged to roll up their sleeves, sharpen their curiosity, and dig into the collection just like real researchers.

In four cleverly demarcated zones, visitors can find and handle replicas of presidential papers, historical newspapers, maps, and posters.

Throughout, electronically tagged records and reels let children call up broadcasts by Amelia Earhart, recordings of baseball games, films of historic elections, and much more. Antique typewriters, stereoscopes, cameras, phonographs, and microfilm machines showcase what technology came before today’s research tools….

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to join Paul McAuley for a Birmingham balti in Episode 281 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

One of the first things I did after deciding to attend this year’s Eastercon in Birmingham was research the city’s culinary specialties, which is how I learned about the Birmingham balti, so famous the city has even applied for cultural heritage protection for the cuisine. On the first night of the con, award-winning writer Paul McAuley and I headed over to Shababs — which reportedly serves up the best — to check some out.

McAuley has published twenty-five novels — the most recent of which, Loss Protocol, was released in February — as well as more than a hundred short stories. A twenty-sixth novel, Heaven’s Grand Design, will follow. His fiction has resulted in five nominations and a win for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, seven nominations and a win for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, two nominations apiece for the Philip K. Dick Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, winning each of those once, as well as multiple nominations for the  British SF Association Award and British Fantasy Award.

He’s also co-edited an anthology, In Dreams, with Kim Newman, and published a Doctor Who novella and a BFI Film Classic on Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. He wrote a regular book review column in Interzone magazine back in the 1990s, and since then has written book and film reviews and pieces of journalism for a variety of publications, including the Guardian and Independent newspapers, Crime Time, Arc magazine, New Scientist, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

We discussed his fascination with James Joyce and how it played out (or didn’t) in his own writing, why he’s thrilled the first short story he sold to a pro market was never published, the reasons he loves Los Angeles, what he learned as a scientist which helped him write better science fiction, why he compared his writing style to Raymond Chandler’s, the way his world-building takes place during writing and not before, whether or not his new novel should be considered science fiction, what I feel that hovel has in common with Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, our shared love of the ambiguous ending, what he learned by rereading his short fiction to assemble a career-spanning collection, and much more.

(5) CHANGES TO OSCARS RULES TARGETS AI. Entertainment Weekly reports “New Oscars rules battle rise of AI, shocking change in acting categories”.

The Academy has announced a red-hot roster of new Oscars rules for next year.

In a move that a source tells Entertainment Weekly reflects the Academy’s dedication to “listening to the global filmmaking community” and is in line with its standards that “have always evolved alongside technology,” the Academy revealed Friday new rules that aim to battle the rise of artificial intelligence in Hollywood.

The acting branch is now permitted to nominate “only roles credited in the film’s legal billing and demonstrably performed by humans with their consent,” while the writing branch’s rules now stipulate that “screenplays must be human-authored to be eligible” for a nomination for either Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay.

On the note of AI, the Academy announced an advisory to all potential contenders.

“Under Eligibility (Rule Two) regarding Generative Artificial Intelligence, the Academy reserves the right to request more information about the nature of the use and human authorship,” it states.

Another new, shocking shift in the acting categories includes the dissolution of the Academy’s decades-old rule the prevented actors from receiving more than one nomination in the same category in a single year.

The new rule says actors may now “be nominated for multiple performances in the same category if those performances place in the top five votes, which aligns with achievements in other award categories.”…

(6) BRING ON THE EAGLES. One of the featured items in Heritage Auction’s “2026 May 15 – 17 The Art of Anime – Vol. VIII Signature® Auction #7481” is “The Hobbit Rare Gandalf Production Cel with Key Master Background | Lot #16001”. (Click for larger image.)

The Hobbit Rare Gandalf Production Cel with Key Master Background and Original Storyboard Drawing (Rankin-Bass, 1977). Gandalf calls upon the eagles for aid in this magnificent hand-painted original production cel from the ambitious Rankin-Bass animated film The Hobbit, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved novel of the same name. An exceptionally rare find, this cel from the acclaimed adaptation is displayed on its original Key Master production background, rendered in gouache on board. The Hobbit was famously animated by the prolific Topcraft studio in Japan, which would eventually split into Pacific Animation and the renowned Studio Ghibli in 1985. Backgrounds of The Hobbit are credited to Hidetoshi Kaneko and Minoru Nishida. Key Master setups from the film hardly ever come to market. In addition, this lot includes the matching original storyboard drawings for the scene, rendered masterfully in ink and artist marker on 14″ x 10″ bond paper by the great anime director Takashi Hisaoka (Queen Millennia, Mazinger Z). Showcasing the power of storyboarding for translating text to a visual medium, this Key Master setup perfectly matches the image seen in the storyboard drawings. A highly coveted matching set featuring the development artwork and final artwork of the film, this lot is a must-have for any fan of animation and the imaginative fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. The Key Master setup has been trimmed to 10″ x 8″, and otherwise shows minor handling and edge wear with some surface scuffing and tape on edges. The storyboard art shows minor handling and edge wear with light age-related toning. The condition overall is Very Good.

(7) LIGHTSABER DUELING. “Experience: I am the best lightsaber fighter in Europe” – or so he tells the Guardian. Mark Roth-Whitworth adds, “Note that unlike the movies, these lightsabers apparently meet OSHA standards — you can see the guard on his.”

…I considered options like the canne de combat, a martial art in which people fight each other with a wooden cane. But then I listened to a podcast that mentioned plans to create a fighting sport using lightsabers. I thought: I’m a geek. I like Star Wars. I’ve done fencing. Let’s try it.

That was 10 years ago. Since then, I’ve never stopped. In 2019, the French Fencing Federation registered “lightsaber duelling” as an official sport, so now there are lightsaber clubs in most big cities. Our Paris club has about 150 members….

…For a lot of people, it’s a chance to do some fighting, but in a more relaxed way. For combat sports, like boxing, you need strength to win. But in our sport, you are only meant to touch, not overpower, your opponent.

It’s more a precision sport. It’s mixed gender and there isn’t a masculinity or aggression to it. Also, aggression is not a good strategy. You need to defend yourself before being able to attack. When you duel, you lose points when you are touched with your opponent’s lightsaber. It’s very strategic.

Some people like to show off a bit, wear elaborate colourful masks and clothes, and spin their lightsabers like they do in the movies. Though, in reality, if you fight theatrically like that you will lose. If you turn your back to your opponent, you will take a strike. Unfortunately, we don’t have “the force” like in the films.

People use different lightsabers; you can buy them from dedicated stores. The blade is made of polycarbonate. There are rules about the length and weight, but you can shape the blade however you want. Some people have ones modelled after the lightsabers in the films, but mine are more shaped for performance – I’ve made them from a custom 3D print with specialist grips to have better control of my moves….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE (1822 – 1915)

I grant he’s not even genre adjacent, but I’ll give you a tale in a minute that makes it relevant to us. Harry Flashman appears in a series of twelve George MacDonald Fraser’s books collectively known as The Flashman Papers. If Flashman had a birthday, the author says it would have been earlier this week, May 5. 

The first novel, Flashman, was published in 1969 and many readers here in the States thought it was a work of non-fiction. He’s certainly not the only fictional that readers have assumed was real. Or wished was so. Who would you would want to be? 

The books center on the exploits of Harry Flashman. He is a cowardly British soldier, rake and just generally disreputable character who is placed in a series of real historical incidents between 1839 and 1894. It must be noted that despite his cowardice and his attempts to flee danger whenever possible, he becomes a decorated war hero and rises to the rank of brigadier-general. 

There is a Chumbawamba  song, “Hanging on the Old Barb Wire”, which has the lyric 

If you want to find the general
I know where he is
He’s pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him, I saw him
Pinning another medal on his chest
Pinning another medal on his chest

(It’s a variant of a Great War song of the same name. As the band notes on their English Rebel Songs 1381–1914 LP, “Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire was written by soldiers in the trenches in the first world war. Designed to be sung whilst marching the song is one of many showing the dissent and disgust at the way war perpetuates the inequalities of rich and poor—those with the money give the orders, those without money face the guns.”

Royal Flash, the 1975 British film, is based upon the second Flashman novel of the same name. It stars a thirty-two year old Malcolm McDowell as Flashman. It was not well received as The Observer noted it left them “breathless not so much with enchantment as with boredom”. However audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a rating of sixty-four percent which isn’t bad at all. 

Here’s the trailer with a really funny narrator. As always, the standard warming about linking to copies of the film which is up on YouTube apply. You really don’t want to be defenestrated, do you? It can be rather painful or worse. 

Now for that genre connection that mentioned much earlier. No, I didn’t forget… 

Kage Baker didn’t actually write a Flashman novel, though we talked several times about her doing so, but the bones of one appeared in one of her novels as her sister Kathleen told me here: “Most of her notes she used in her last novel, Not Less Than Gods, which she wrote while she was sick, and that was published as she was dying. As far as I can tell, Kage and I were the only people in the world who liked it. A lot of it was panned because the reviewers didn’t get most of the satire, or hated Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, or both. Anyway, even if you personally disliked the book, I think you can see the bones of a Flashman novel there.” 

Now the Green Man reviewer also liked it though he had a lump in his throat as Kage had just died as he wrote his review.

I’m pleased to say the entire series is available in hardcover, trade paperback, epub and audiobook.   As audiobooks, the narration as done by David Chase captures the character extraordinarily well. 

[And Mike Glyer invites you to read his Heinlein/Flashman parody here in File 770, “Flashman at Klendathu”.]

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• xkcd notes the beginning of divination.
• Carpe Diem has a different origin tale.
• Cornered depicts less known cave art.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal poses a Bat-dilemma.
• Speed Bump acquires a pet.
• The Argyle Sweater invents new soft drinks.
• Wondermark says these shows require another level of analysis.

(10) BONUS GENE WOLFE PHOTOS. Following Paul Weimer’s recent celebration of Gene Wolfe, Andrew Porter has shared two photos he took of Wolfe in years gone by.

(11) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 159 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Taking a Stand” —

We finally get around to talking about Eastercon! This is a bumper episode, where we recap parts of Iridescence and talk about the bids for 2028, 2029, and beyond. We promise we’ll do letters of comment again next week.

While the con was on, John Coxon ran the Games Room, Alison Scott ran the Newsletter, and Liz Batty was on holiday.

An uncorrected transcript can be read here.

(12) 3-BODY TV NEWS. More Bodies are on the way reports Movieweb: “Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ Season 3 Gets Major Production Update”.

One of Netflix‘s most popular sci-fi shows is finally taking significant strides forward to return to screens in the very near future. 3 Body Problem premiered in March 2024 to widespread critical acclaim, with the eight-episode first season quickly topping the streamer’s TV charts. The big-budget series adapted from Liu Cixin’s bestselling novel trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past, was renewed for a second and third season shortly after its initial release. The sophomore run wrapped filming earlier this year, and now the final installment has received a major production update that fans of the epic saga have been desperately waiting for.

Despite more than two years having lapsed between the first season ending and its continuation, which is expected to debut later this year, it seems that the team behind 3 Body Problem are committed to concluding the story as they have now locked in a production start date for Season 3. The third season is scheduled to begin filming in June in Hungary and will continue through the end of the year, per What’s on Netflix, meaning there has only been a brief break between the cameras rolling on Seasons 2 and 3, with the second season having wrapped its shoot in February. The third season is reportedly aiming for a 2027 release….

(13) A LITTLE LIST. “David Attenborough Has Inspired Countless Scientists. To Mark His 100th Birthday, Here Are Ten Living Things They’ve Named After Him” in Smithsonian Magazine.

…This famous portion of an episode of BBC’s “Planet Earth” came out in 2006 and changed the trajectory of mycologist João Araújo’s career. Attenborough “was the most influential person to inspire me to switch from mushrooms to Cordyceps,” says Araújo, of the Natural History Museum of Denmark.

In part because of this connection, Araújo and his colleagues decided to name a fungus that zombifies cave spiders after the naturalist, dubbing it Gibellula attenboroughii in a paper published last year.

G. attenboroughii is one of the latest of about 50 organisms—including plants, beetles and birds—to gain an eponym that honors Attenborough, one of the most famous broadcasters and naturalists of all time. Scientists across the globe recognize his voice, after he took them on journeys through the TV screen that inspired them to explore and conserve the natural world….

(14) TRAILER PARK. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] OK, so not many Filers will make Sci-Fi London but a few will including yours truly. Nonetheless, it is worth noting the films screened as many will shortly be available on DVD so it is worth checking out the film fests’ trailers.

ReLive is a time-wimey thriller. The world is experiencing temporal anomalies: never a good sign when that happens (this morning my alarm clock went off and strangely it did that at the same time the day before – spooky or what?). Anyway, back at ReLive’s plot…

The world is experiencing temporal anomalies, and when Priscilla’s son is suddenly ripped from her life, grief nearly destroys her. Then comes an offer she can’t refuse: go back. Stop the man responsible before he ever invents the technology that unravels time itself.

Thrust back into her 21-year-old body, Priscilla has only four hours on a sun-drenched college hiking trail to complete her mission. Her target hasn’t committed any crime yet, but she has to hunt him anyway.

Tense, emotional, and relentlessly paced, ReLive is a high-concept time-travel thriller that asks: what would you sacrifice for a chance to undo your greatest loss?

ReLive is having its World Premiere at Sci-Fi London… Which kind of implies that it premieres differently on other worlds… You can see the trailer below

[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, and Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]