Tag Archives: Cliff

Pixel Scroll 6/14/25 Kids, Grow Your Own Bestiary Of Sub-Atomic Particles In Your Basement!

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(1) STAR WARS FIRST CONTACT. Congratulations to Filer Cliff whose reminiscence made this Guardian collection of memories: “’It was simply mind-blowing’: readers remember seeing Star Wars for the first time”.

Like many readers, Cliff Ramshaw’s anticipation for the film had been fuelled by its merchandising. By the time it came out in the UK, Ramshaw, now 58, had already read the novelisation and part of the Marvel comic book adaptation, and had decorated his school haversack with drawings of X-wings and Tie fighters. Unfortunately, his father did not share his enthusiasm for the film when he took him and his younger brother to see it in Sunderland in 1978.

“We arrived early and Dad, not wanting to hang around, took us in straight away [to an earlier screening],” he recalled. “We sat down just in time to see the attack on the Death Star. After the movie ended we remained seated while the audience left and a new crowd arrived. We saw the beginning and middle of the movie and then, when the attack on the Death Star was about to start, Dad took us out of the cinema and drove us home!”

Ramshaw, who now lives in the Cotswolds, didn’t get to see the film the whole way through until it was aired on British TV four years later. But his unusual viewing experience did not dampen his love for Star Wars, and he later became a software engineer at George Lucas’s visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic….

Click on the link and you can see a photo of Cliff with his daughter, too!

(2) GAMING CON HELD IN KIEV. This YouTube video about recent Kiev Fancon, via Borys Sydiuk, shows SF activities re-starting in Ukraine. The narrative is in Ukranian. The title is “Fancon 2025 — 40 000 геймерів під одним дахом!!!” — “40,000 gamers under one roof”. The introduction says —

Fancon 2025 impressed with both its scale and quality.

For a festival held in a warring country, the event exceeded all expectations. The number of visitors, partners, and celebrities was off the charts.

Cosplayers gave it their all. We still can’t shake off the emotions. This is the best festival of popular culture not only in Ukraine, but we are sure it would become one for many European countries!

(3) NEW BRITISH FANTASY EVENT. “Hodderscape and Lucy’s Book Club launch fantasy event series” reports The Bookseller (behind a paywall).

Hodderscape, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, has announced a new collaboration with Lucy’s Book Club to launch a series of intimate, community-led events celebrating the best in fantasy fiction.

Designed as a cosy, connected space for readers to meet new friends, swap books and get lost in their favourite magical worlds, the events will be held in collaboration with independent bookshops.

Each event will centre around a different fantasy title, promising signature cocktails inspired by the books, games designed to help readers meet their next bookish best friend, and an unfiltered, joyful discussion about their favourite fantasy reads.

The first event will take place on Wednesday 2nd July at Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings, and will spotlight the romantasy book of the moment: Quicksilver by Callie Hart. Tickets for the first event will go on sale on Tuesday 17th June….

(4) ACCEPTABLE DUD? From the Guardian’s “Week in Geek” column: “Heroic indifference: was Thunderbolts* always doomed at the box office?”

There’s no such thing as a sure thing in Hollywood. Just ask Marvel Studios – once the box office equivalent of a cashpoint duct-taped to a golden goose, now resembling a busted slot machine in Skegness. Reports this week suggest that Thunderbolts*, the studio’s latest attempt to turn supervillain also-rans into marquee gold, has officially faceplanted at the box office despite strong reviews, a cast stacked with rising stars and indie darlings, and enough emotional baggage to ground a Sundance drama….

…In many ways, Thunderbolts* was something of a free hit for the studio. Had comic book movie fans warmed to it, Marvel might have had a completely new team of colourful miscreants to spin off into the glorious synergised future, just as they did with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. But if fans aren’t feeling the new team, it’s really not a big issue, because Red Guardian, Ghost and US Agent are surely destined to be torpedoed by the real Avengers when they eventually trampoline in from whatever pocket dimension Robert Downey Jr is cryogenically stored in….

…Maybe Thunderbolts* was never meant to save the MCU – just stall for time while the A-listers finished renegotiating their contracts….

(5) DOOGIEPOOL. “Ryan Reynolds reacts to Neil Patrick Harris stealing his Deadpool role” – Harris will play Deadpool in a VR game. So Reynolds parodies Harris’ old Doogie Houser show.

“Today, I learned a lesson about buttholes they don’t teach you in medical school,” Reynolds narrates. “People who steal your signature role are the biggest buttholes of all.”

Spoofing the journal entries that Doogie often made on the show, Reynolds continued, “No, I don’t blame Meta Quest. Neil Patrick Harris is an amazing actor with the nurturing voice of an angel, but even though I haven’t hit puberty yet, I still know when you’re getting totally screwed.”

Reynolds is then interrupted by the appearance of Robyn Lively, who played a love interest to Harris in Doogie Howser M.D. “House call,” she announces…

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

June 14, 1949 — Harry Turtledove, 76.

By Paul Weimer: Harry Turtledove, The Avtokrator.

That one is not my invention, that would be Steven Silver, who is the most knowledgeable person I know about the work of Harry Turtledove. I was delighted, back in the day, to encounter Steven’s website about Harry’s work, and he made it very easy to catch up and figure out my gaps in my reading.

I discovered Turtledove in my first big alternate history phase in the late Eighties. I had started reading a (now unreadable, thanks a lot Theodore Beale) anthology series edited by Jerry Pournelle called There Will Be War. I was also into military science fiction of the time at the time. In any event in one of those volumes was a story called “The Long Drum Roll” which was an early version/excerpt from the novel that would become The Guns of the South, his classic “Time traveling South Africans help the Confederacy win the civil war with AK-47s”. I devoured that novel, too, and then started reading his work.

Although Turtledove wrote a lot of fantasy I liked (such as King of the North, The Case of the Toxic-Spell Dump, Between the Rivers) and more, Imagine my squee of delight when I discovered Videssos. Videssos was the story of a Roman Legion transported in space to a fantasy world that was extremely similar to Byzantium (so in a sense, they “time travelled” as well ). Lots of the setup, incidents and characters in the Videssos novels are based on real Byzantine history. 

The Avtokrator has written a lot since. There’s straight up alternate history (How Few Remain) as well as science fiction alternate history (e,g, Worldwar), and of course fantasy novels here and there as well. Turtledove doesn’t always write a form of alternate history, he has written straight up fantasy and SF novels, but alternate history, or secondary worlds that resonate strongly with history, really are the center of his oeuvre. 

And he is prolific. He has several books this year this year alone, and much of his older stuff is being reissued, particularly in ebook, and including stuff he originally wrote under pen names. 

The Avtokrator’s realm is large, and there is always more to read. 

Happy birthday, good sir!

Harry Turtledove

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU WANT. [Item by Steven French.]  The British Library is to symbolically reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader pass, 130 years after its trustees cancelled it following his conviction for gross indecency reports the Guardian.

A contemporary pass bearing the name of the Irish author and playwright will be officially presented to his grandson, Merlin Holland, at an event in October, it will be announced on Sunday.

Rupert Everett, who wrote, directed and starred as Wilde in The Happy Prince – the acclaimed 2018 film about the writer’s tragic final years in exile – will play a part in the ceremony.

Holland is an expert on Wilde whose publications include The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. Asked how his grandfather might have reacted to the pass being reinstated, he said: “He’d probably say ‘about time too’.”

(9) SQUID FINALE. JoBlo introduces us to the“Squid Game season 3 final trailer released by Netflix”.

The official logline reads: “The third and final season of Squid Game follows Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) after losing his best friend in the game and being driven to utter despair by The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who was hiding his true identity to infiltrate the game. Gi-hun persists with his goal to put an end to the game, while the Front Man continues onto his next move and the surviving players’ choices will lead to graver consequences with each round. The world eagerly awaits to see the grand finale written and directed by Director Hwang Dong-hyuk, who has vowed to bring the epic story to its deserved closure. Can we hope for humanity in the cruelest of realities? Fans all over the world are counting the days until the final answer is revealed.”

(10) NEVER? WELL, HARDLY EVER. The New York Times takes readers “Inside Universal’s Big Bet on ‘How to Train Your Dragon’”. (Behind a paywall.)

In 2020, Dean DeBlois publicly blasted live-action remakes of animated films as “lazy” studio endeavors.

The director who, along with Chris Sanders, had made the 2002 Disney animated “Lilo & Stitch” and the 2010 DreamWorks Animation release “How to Train Your Dragon,” said that he viewed such remakes as “a missed opportunity to put something original into the world.”

Then, two years later, DeBlois received a call from the Universal Pictures president, Peter Cramer, asking if he’d be interested in directing a live-action version of “How to Train Your Dragon.”

“At the expense of seeming like a hypocrite, I thought, well, I’m either going to sit here and pout and watch somebody else do it,” DeBlois said in a video interview with The Times, “or I could jump in and shoulder the blame or help to change the narrative.”

Now, as the live-action “Dragon” arrives in theaters on Friday, DeBlois is enthusiastically attached to the type of movie he formerly criticized.

(11) ARE WE MISSING LAYERS OF REALITY…? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I sometimes wonder if I am in the same world as everyone else?  Not only do I keep warning that the machines are taking over, but successive Worldcons in recent years have trampled on the WSFS constitution with impunity, but no-one ever listens…  And then at cons, I wake up and wonder, did that really happen last night, as I see a black leather, toad body harness languidly lying on the floor…? (Don’t ask — I never do…) And so we come to the question the ever-interesting Matt O’Dowd at PBS Space Time  who is asking this week…  Are there missing layers (note the plural) to reality…? “The Crisis In Physics: Are We Missing 17 Layers of Reality?”

Big things are made of smaller things, and those smaller things are made of smaller things still. That’s reductionism in a nutshell, and digging our way to the smallest layer has been one of the primary goals of physics for ever. But what if, just before we reach the bottom, we find out that reductionism fails?

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, 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 Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 12/27/20 The Right To Scroll Pixels Is The Right To Be Filed

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(1) EVADING DUTIES. Richard Garriott’s announcement that he secretly hid some of James Doohan’s ashes on the ISS inspired Steven H Silver’s post “A Brief History of Space Smuggling” for Amazing Stories.

…The first mission to orbit the moon was the Apollo 8 mission on December 24 and 25, 1968. Knowing that the crew would be in orbit around the Moon on Christmas, NASA wanted to make sure that they had an appropriate Christmas dinner and provided dehydrated versions of the appropriate foods. Deke Slayton went a step further, and despite an official no-alcohol policy, he slipped in three mini bottles of Coronet Brandy for the crew to enjoy. William Borman, however, confiscated the bottles explaining that if there was any subsequent problem with the space craft, it would be blamed on the men drinking the brandy. In a 2019 article, space writer Jeffrey Kluger claimed that all three men (it is the only Apollo crew with all its members still alive) still have their unopened bottle of brandy….

(2) JP: COLLECT ‘EM ALL. [Item by James Bacon.] Journey Planet: Collector’s Edition is all about collectors, collections, and collecting! Our contributors share their treasure troves, which range from Prince records to nerdy paintings to Leia merchandise. What makes their collections special to them? Why did they start collecting them in the first place? Where do they keep all that stuff?

There’s also a very special interview with Seanan McGuire, My Little Pony collector extraordinaire! Take a tour of her “Pony Room”, meet her favorite Ponies, and hear why collecting them brings her so much joy. We hope that reading her story and the others breathes new life into your enjoyment of your own collection, whatever that may be.”

Co-edited by Sarah Gulde the issue can be found free to download here.

(3) THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND BOOKS. “Library of 1000 Believes You’ve Read Less Than 10 of These Books”. The Library may have a thousand, but there are only 150 titles in this challenge. Cliff submitted the link along with a confession: “I scored two. I could maybe give myself half a point for Raymond Feist’s Magician, but it was so terrible I couldn’t bring myself to finish it.” Whereas I scored 5 — big whoopee!

(4) WW BUT WHAT YEAR? “’Wonder Woman 3′ in the Works With Director Patty Jenkins” SAYS Variety. It would be a wonder if it wasn’t, right?

(5) ACROSS THE POND. The UK bookstore chain Waterstones has listed its favorite science fiction and fantasy books of 2020: “The Best Books of 2020: Science Fiction & Fantasy”.

The Science Fiction universe saw the return of two seminal modern series this year, as Ernest Cline finally followed up his pop-culture packed cult favourite Ready Player One and Suzanne Collins took us all back to Panem and the backstory of the future President Snow in her prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy. Meanwhile, the realms of Fantasy saw the contemporary fiction debuts of Young Adult titans, Sarah J. Maas and Veronica Roth. Elsewhere, we defended a future New York with N.K. Jemisin, traded our souls for immortality with V.E. Schwab and learned to live side by side with bunnies thanks to Jasper Fforde. Where will we boldly go in 2021?

(6) ROADS LESS TRAVELLED. Book Riot’s Margaret Kingsbury writes interesting takes about her picks in “10 of the Best 2020 Under the Radar SFF Books”.

PHOENIX EXTRAVAGANT BY YOON HA LEE

This unique standalone is set in a fantasy world reminiscent of Korea during the Japanese occupation of the early 1900s. The Ministry of Armour hires nonbinary artist Jebi to paint magic sigils onto masks for the government’s automata. Their sister hates the conquering government, but Jebi, who doesn’t consider themself political, needs the cash and doesn’t see another way of acquiring it. Jebi is oblivious to anything that isn’t art. At the armory, Jebi befriends a pacifist dragon automata, and their political reluctance slowly begins to shift. As their friendship strengthens and Jebi sees more of the inner workings of The Ministry of Armour, they decide they’ll do whatever it takes to keep the dragon from becoming a weapon. I loved the way queerness is normalized in the social structure of the world Yoon Ha Lee builds, as well as the focus on art and pacifism, and Jebi’s slow character arc. Phoenix Extravagant is a fantastic standalone.

(7) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • December 27, 1904 —  J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan ; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up premiered at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London. Nina Boucicault, daughter of playwright Dion Boucicault, was the title role. Barrie continued to revise the play for years after its debut until publication of the play script in 1928.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born December 27, 1888 — Thea von Harbou. She penned the novel Metropolis based upon her uncredited screenplay for husband Fritz Lang on that film.  She also collaborated with him on other projects, none of which save her Phantom and Dr. Mabuse the Gambler screenplays appear to be genre. (Died 1954.) (CE)
  • Born December 27, 1917 – Ken Slater.  Fan and bookseller.  Ran Operation Fantast, then eventually Fantast (Medway) Ltd.  “Something to Read” six years in Nebula.  Founding member of BSFA (British SF Ass’n).  Fan Guest of Honour at Eastercon 10; with wife Joyce, at Conspiracy ’87 the 45th Worldcon.  Co-founded OMPA; in FAPA too.  When Forry Ackerman won the “No. 1 Fan Personality” Hugo – the only time we’ve given it – he left it onstage saying it should have gone to KS.  Doc Weir Award (U.K., service), Big Heart (our highest service award).  Note by Our Gracious Host here.  (Died 2008) [JH]
  • Born December 27, 1931 – Perdita Boardman.  Long-time hostess of the Lunarians (New York); ran the Hospitality Suite at their annual Lunacon; Fan Guest of Honor with husband John Boardman at Lunacon 41.  Made a WSFS banner (but not this one).  Earlier married to Ray Nelson inspiring poetry, hello Ray.  (Died 2017) [JH]
  • Born December 27, 1943 – Diane Stanley, age 77.  A dozen novels, three covers for us; sixty books all told; particularly applauded for children’s biographies, many illustrated by herself, e.g. Cleopatra; Charles Dickens, the Man Who Had Great Expectations (CD wrote Great Expectations and was a social reformer); Joan of Arc; Mozart the Wonder Child, a Puppet Play in Three Acts; Saladin, Noble Prince of Islam; Shaka, King of the Zulus.  With an M.A. in medical illustration she has done that too; graphic designer for Dell; art director for Putnam’s.  Shaka was a NY Times Best Illustrated Book.  Orbis Pictus Award.  Boston Globe – Hornbook Award and Golden Kite Award, twice each.  Washington Post – Children’s Book Guild Award for body of work.  Here is her cover for the May 88 Cricket.  Here is Lost Magic.  Here is The Silver Bowl.  Here is an interior for Cleopatra.  [JH]
  • Born December 27, 1945 – Fred Lerner, Ph.D., age 75.  Doctorate in library science, Modern SF and the American Literary Community based on his dissertation.  Co-founded the Beaker People Libation Front.  NESFA (New England SF Ass’n) Press published A Bookman’s Fantasy, essays; put his “Silverlock” Companion in its ed’n of Silverlock; also for NESFA Press he edited Jack Speer’s memoir Fancestral Voices.  Special Guest at Boskone 32 (which has no Fan Guest of Honor).  His Lofgeornost (last word of Beowulf, “desirous of fame or renown”) for FAPA circulates widely, won a FAAn (Fan Activity Achievement) Award last year.  [JH]
  • Born December 27, 1951 — Charles Band, 69. Exploitation film maker whose here because some of his source material is SFF in origin. Arena was scripted off the Fredric Brown “Arena” short story which first ran in the June 1944 Astounding, and From Beyond which was based on H P Lovecraft’s short story of the same name which was first published in June 1934 issue of The Fantasy Fan. (CE) 
  • Born December 27, 1960 — Maryam d’Abo, 60. She’s best known as Kara Milovy in The Living Daylights. Her first genre role was her screen debut in the very low-budget SF horror film Xtro, an Alien rip-off. She was Ta’Ra in Something Is Out There, a miniseries that was well received and but got piss poor ratings. Did you know there was a live Mowgli: The New Adventures of the Jungle Book? I didn’t. She was Elaine Bendel, a recurring role in it. (CE)
  • Born December 27, 1969 — Sarah Jane Vowell, 51. She’s a author, journalist, essayist, historian, podcaster,  social commentator and actress. Impressive, isn’t she? Ahhh but she gets Birthday Honors for being the voice of Violet Parr in the Incredibles franchise. I say franchise as I’ve no doubt that a third film is already bring scripted given how successful the first two were.  (CE) 
  • Born December 27, 1972 – Igor Posavec, age 48.  Covers for Perry Rhodan 2436-39: here is The Immaterial City (in German); here is People for Stardust (in German).  Note that P Rhodan, co-created by our own Walter Ernsting, has appeared weekly since 1961; its first billion of worldwide sales came in 1986.  More recently IP has been doing digitals; here is Do Machines Dream of Electric Sheep? (with Sven Sauer; I haven’t seen the untranslated title so don’t know if this is a deliberate variation on P.K. Dick’s Do Androids…).  Website.  [JH]
  • Born December 27, 1977 — Sinead Keenan, 42. She’s in the Eleventh Doctor story, “The End of Time” as Addams but her full face make-up guarantees that you won’t recognize her. If you want to see her, she’s a Who fan in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. Her final Who work is a Big Finish audio drama, Iterations of I, a Fifth Doctor story. And she played Nina Pickering, a werewolf, in Being Human for quite a long time. (CE) 
  • Born December 27, 1986 – Mirelle Ortega, age 34.  As she says, “Illustrator for kidlit and animation”.  Animation! prize at Ideatoon.  Three covers for Linda Chapman’s Mermaids Rock stories; here is The Ice Giant.  Here is A Dash of Trouble from Love Sugar Magic.  MO’s Website is full of swell images; someone better with Electronicland than I may be able to tell which have been used and which merely proposed.  [JH]
  • Born December 27, 1987 — Lily Cole, 33. Been awhile since I found a Who performer and so let’s have another one now. She played The Siren in the Eleventh Doctor story, “The Curse of The Black Spot”. She’s also in some obscure film called Star Wars: The Last Jedi as a character named Lovey. And she shows up in the important role of Valentina in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Not mention she’s in Snow White and The Huntsman as Greta, a great film indeed. (CE)

(9) FEAST FOR THE EYES. Artnet News says “A New Book Makes the Case That Fantasy Art Is America’s Least Understood Fine-Art Form—See the Wild Images Here” See sixteen great and vividly-colored examples from Masterpieces of Fantasy Art at the link.

Dragons, sexy maidens, and epic sword fights are getting the fine-art treatment in Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, Taschen’s new 532-page illustrated tome celebrating the genre.

Lest you think fantasy art is nothing more than a lightweight endeavor, the massive volume weighs a hefty 16 pounds. Tracing the evolution of the genre from 1400 to the present, it showcases the works of Old Masters Jan Van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch as well as contemporary heavy-hitters like H.R. Giger, Frank Frazetta, and Boris Vallejo.

“Since fantasy art is largely created as work for hire, no matter how talented the artist,” author Dian Hanson writes, “it has always been accessible, displayed prominently on the newsstand, to its advantage and curse.” The genre’s predilection for provocative, sexualized scenes has also hurt its credibility among the art-world cognoscenti—not to mention that the mass-produced fantasy books were literally printed on cheap pulp paper in the 20th century.

Hanson amassed more than 100 superlative examples of this oft-misunderstood form for the book. The compilation speaks to the genre’s considerable appeal—which has also translated into impressive art-market success. Original Frazetta oil paintings have sold for as much as $5.4 million. The book’s cover image, Frazetta’s Princess of Mars (197), fetched $1.2 million at Dallas’s Heritage Auctions in September….

(10) MEME MUTATION. Forget about stainless steel — “Ephemeral edible: gingerbread monolith appears on San Francisco hilltop, then collapses” – photos in The Guardian.

Like the other monoliths that have mysteriously appeared across America and the world in the waning weeks of 2020, the one that popped up on a California hilltop on Christmas Day seemed to come out of nowhere.

Also like the others, it was tall, three-sided and it rapidly attracted crowds of curious visitors before an untimely destruction.

Unlike the others, this monolith was made of … gingerbread.

(11) 2020 ENVISIONED. NASA’s video shows that in space the year was not wasted – “NASA Discoveries, R&D, Moon to Mars Exploration Persevere in 2020”.

In 2020, NASA made significant progress on America’s Moon to Mars exploration strategy, met mission objectives for the Artemis program, achieved significant scientific advancements to benefit humanity, and returned human spaceflight capabilities to the United States, all while agency teams acted quickly to assist the national COVID-19 response.

(12) SKY’S THE LIMIT. Leonard Maltin reviewed George Clooney’s sf film The Midnight Sky. He didn’t like it. “The Midnight Sky: Been There, Done That”.

George Clooney stars in this space parable that starts out well, then goes adrift. Set in the stereotypically bleak near-future, the story focuses on a defeated scientist who chooses to stay behind in the Antarctic, knowing his days are numbered, while his colleagues get the hell out of there. But when he discovers that he has company—a silent 7-year-old girl—his priorities shift completely…

(13) HUSTLING TO EARTH. The New York Times fills in the late arrivers to Tevis fandom: “Walter Tevis Was a Novelist. You Might Know His Books (Much) Better as Movies”.

The wildly popular Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” has done for chess what Julia Child once did for French cooking. Chess set sales have skyrocketed; enrollment in online chess classes has surged. The series has been the subject of hundreds of articles and interviews. The novel that inspired the show, first published in 1983, has been on The New York Times’s trade paperback best-seller list for five weeks.

Yet little attention has been paid to Walter Tevis, the author whose creation has stirred all the commotion.

…Born in 1928, Tevis wrote six novels, a surprising number of which made high-profile leaps to the screen: “The Hustler,” about a young pool shark played by Paul Newman; “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” starring David Bowie as a lonesome alien; and “The Color of Money,” a follow-up to “The Hustler,” which won Mr. Newman his first Oscar. Tevis’s 1980 science fiction book, “Mockingbird,” a commentary on humanity’s dwindling interest in reading, has long had a modest cult following.

(14) BODY OF KNOWLEDGE. “The next The Crown or The Queen’s Gambit? Netflix’s Chinese sci-fi series The Three-Body Problem is sparking hype – and controversy – already”: a roundup of what is known, in the South China Morning Post.

The show’s release date is still unconfirmed

Despite the hype – good and bad – surrounding Netflix’s announced adaptation and the impressive list of names who will feature on the creative team, the production of The Three-Body Problem is still in its early days. Writers and producers might be signed up, but there have been no casting reveals yet and, crucially, no release date announced. The Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly delayed progress, but fans of the books might expect further details next year.

(15) DROPPING THE OTHER. Mental Floss coached viewers about “’A Christmas Story’: Fun Mistakes, Anachronisms, and Other Things to Look For”. It’s only poetic justice that a movie featuring a leg lamp would have missing footage.

25. FLASH GORDON GETS CREDIT, TOO.

Keep watching the end credits roll and you’ll see Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless among the names that scroll by. Though it never made the final cut, the credits for an additional fantasy sequence in which Ralphie and his trusty firearm help Flash Gordon face off against Ming remain.

Michael Toman sent the link with this enthusiastic intro: “Am sure that I’m not the only Filer who would appreciate the opportunity to see ‘an additional sequence in which Ralphie and his trusty firearm help Flash Gordon face off against Ming.’ Has anyone considered adapting this movie as a Graphic Novel?”

(16) HO HO IO. Io9’s Julie Muncyinvites everyone to “Relax With This Classic Addams Family Christmas Short” posted on YouTube by MGM.

…And of course, even they adore Santa Claus. I love it. What a perfect family.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Michael Toman, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, John Hertz, James Bacon, Cliff, Contrarius, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 4/27/20 Abbot And Cos-Scroll-O Meet The Pixel Monster

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(1) LATEST COMICS BARGAIN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “ComiXology Now Offering 60-Day Free Trial of Their Unlimited Service” reports The Inventory. ComiXology’s $5.99/month Unlimited gives you access to “over 25,000 digital comics, graphic novels, and manga from DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, and more!”

At free, this is a deal you can’t beat. (Assuming you’ve got a reasonable viewing device, in terms of screen size.) The regular price isn’t shabby, either, as long as you find stuff you like. (I did, but after a year-ish of binging, had found most/enough.)

Aside from DC and Marvel — a smaller and sometimes different selection than what you’d find on their own unlimited sites — there’s Dynamite, IDG, Fantagraphics, etc. IIRC, there’s Saga, Trees, ERB/Barsoom stuff, and some original-from-ComiXology titles (none of which grab me, but your jauntage may vary).

If you’ve already started exploring ComiXology’s FREE offerings, you’ll find more in many of those titles to keep going with.

BTW, if you haven’t already gotten a free Hoopla (hoopladigital.com) account through your library, do that! You can’t read as much, but the price is right.

And you can find many of Hoopla’s offerings on ComiXology, which in turn will let you make more use of your Hoopla monthly limit.

(See my “All In Color For A Zorkmid” post for more on all this.)

Here’s my question for Filers: What device are you using to read your digital comics on? In particular, is anybody using a tablet/2-in-1 other than an iPad Pro 12.9 where the screen is big enough to let you read it in the printed-comic-equivalent full size? E.g., on a Chromebook that supports that ComiXology Android app? Let me know (via a comment).

‘Nuff read!

(2) CONTEST WINDOW OPENS. “B&N Launches National Children’s Short Story Contest” – a chance for some, details at Publishers Weekly.

During these unprecedented times when families are hunkered down at home together due to the Covid-19 virus, Barnes & Noble is giving aspiring young authors a chance to showcase their creativity—and become published. Between April 27 and May 29, contestants can submit written or graphic short stories to be considered for inclusion in an anthology that the company will release in time for this year’s holiday season.

(3) COUGH IT UP MARVEL. Emily Asher-Perrin is right! “Avengers: Endgame Never Showed Us Its Greatest Scene”.

But I would like to register a complaint: You see, the most interesting arc of the film is nowhere to be found on screen. And I request that Marvel produce the deleted footage of this arc, otherwise I’m not really sure why this movie was made at all.

I’m speaking, of course, about how Doctor Stephen Strange stage managed an entire apocalypse solely for Maximum Dramatic Effect.

(4) EMPTY THE MAGAZINE. Good eReader says “Barnes and Noble will stop selling new magazines”.

Barnes and Noble has shuttered over 500 of their 600 bookstores in the United States and the bookseller has announced they are no longer going to be ordering new magazines and will cease carrying them altogether.

“It will probably be a bigger deal for smaller publishers who count on the money they get upfront from B&N,” said one industry veteran, who noted that big newsstand titles, like Hearst’s Cosmopolitan and Meredith’s People, are far more reliant on other retailers.

(5) COVID COSPLAY. In the Washington Post, Maura Judkis says that cosplayers took the mandatory mask-wearing requirements to dress up as characters. “We regret to inform you that your inflatable T. rex costume is not virus-proof”.

Hence the Spider-Man in the canned food aisle.  The dinosaur roaming the deli section. The unicorn walking a dog. These sightings, though not nearly as common as surgical masks and gloves, have accented our lockdown landscapes with flecks of whimsy: A couple visited their relatives wearing costume spacesuits. In China, one woman picked up medication dressed as a giraffe. In Italy, a man was reportedly arrested after breaking quarantine to go outside in a T-rex suit.

(6) MOVIE MAKING. Filer Cliff sent this link to “RenderMan: An Advanced Path-Tracing Architecture for Movie Rendering”, a paper describing a project he’s been working on. He says, “This is the software used for all Pixar movies, the Star Wars movies (and pretty much all of ILM’s output), Lord Of The Rings (but not The Hobbit) and is the oldest and one of the most widely used renderer in movie production. This was the software that Hanrahan and Catmull originated and which earned them the Turing Award you mentioned a few weeks ago.” The article begins —

Pixar’s RenderMan renderer is used to render all of Pixar’s films and by many film studios to render visual effects for live-action movies. RenderMan started as a scanline renderer based on the Reyes algorithm, and it was extended over the years with ray tracing and several global illumination algorithms.

This article describes the modern version of RenderMan, a new architecture for an extensible and programmable path tracer with many features that are essential to handle the fiercely complex scenes in movie production. 

(7) ROCKET OWNER. The person who won the auction of the prop Hugos from the set of Knives Out.

(8) TALK TO THE ANIMALS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] The Washington Post has two articles about the video game Animal Crossing.  Michael Andor Brodeur interviews Animal Crossing’s composer, Kazumi Totaka, and says his music is “a blissful 24-hour lullaby that’s helping countless players weather countless hours of forced downtime.”  “The Animal Crossing soundtrack is an unlikely lullaby for a nervous world”.

Right now, millions of households and headphones around the globe are filled with the music of one of the world’s most popular and influential composers.

Over the past month, homebound listeners have spent hundreds of hours immersed in his latest work — a suite of never-ending melodies — but most of them don’t even know his name. They consume his music the same way one breathes air, with an unceasing and unconscious appetite.

Elise Favis says the the latest Animal Crossing, “Animal Crossing:  New Horizons,” gives players more control over the environment in the game and more opportunities to customize the game to make it more of a form of personal expression. “Everything you need to know about the Animal Crossing: New Horizons major update”.

…Upon booting up your recently-updated game, you’ll notice your mailbox has two messages, one from Bank of Nook and the other from Nintendo. The bank notifies you of a reduced interest rate for your account (this is likely to curb the all-too-quick road to wealth many players have taken) and attaches a gift of a rug shaped like a bag of bells. As for Nintendo, their message thanks you for downloading the update and gives you a decorative world map to hang on the wall.

Outside of slashing your interest rate (it’s unclear how much the rate has changed), these freebies are welcome.

(9) ANDRUS OBIT. Longtime fanzine fan Reed Andrus died April 25. He was interested in all things associated with the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery genres. He once said Richard E. Geis’ Science Fiction Review was his gateway into fandom. He also contributed to the National Fantasy Fan Federation’s Yesterday and Today (1974), co-edited Laughing Osiris (1974-1978), and published Bull of the Seven Battles which Brian Earl Brown’s Whole Fanzine Catalog (1979) jokingly described as “a personalzine so confident of its limited appeal and exclusive audience that it doesn’t list the address in the zine itself…”

Andrus said in a comment here at File 770 he was a cancer survivor who underwent surgery in 2007.

For more than three decades his work appeared in print and online, from the Charlotte Austin Review, and Mystery News to The Thunder Child. He studied for a Ph.D in US history at the University of North Texas.

Andrus found a fannish home in the Classic Horror Film Board discussion forums. Known there as “oldmanster,”  he left over 6,800 comments between 2005 and 2014.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • April 27, 1955 — The Devil Girl From Mars premiered. It was produced by Edward J. Danziger and Harry Lee Danziger as directed by David MacDonald. It was written by James Eastwood and John C. Maher  It starred Patricia Laffan, Hugh McDermott, Adrienne Corri and Hazel Court. Critics in general called it a delightfully bad film with the Monthly Film  Bulletin saying it was “Everything, in its way, is quite perfect.” The audience reviewers over at Rotten Tomatoes apparently don’t agreed as they give it a 22% rating. You can decide for yourself as you can see it here as it’s in the public domain.
  • April 27, 1963 — The Day of the Triffids premiered in the USA. It was produced by George Pitcher and Philip Yordan, as directed by Steve Sekely.  It’s rather loosely based on the 1951 novel of the same name by John Wyndham (who was toastmaster at Loncon 1) as scripted by Bernard Gordon and Philip Yordan. It starred Howard Keel, Nicole Maurey, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore and  Mervyn Johns. Critics who were familiar with the novel weren’t terribly happy with the film. It currently rates a 52% rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.  Yes, it’s in the public domain, so you can watch it here.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 27, 1901 — Frank Belknap Long. John Hertz say that Long should be singled out for the “To Follow Knowledge” novelette which he lovingly discuses here. I only add as John didn’t note it, that he received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. (Died 1994.)
  • Born April 27, 1920 — Doris Baumgardt. Well-known and loved fan, illustrator and writer. She was a member of the Futurians, and a founding member of FAPA. She was also a member of the CPASF and the Science Fictioneers. She was one of five members of the Futurians allowed into the first World Science Fiction Convention by Sam Moskowitz — the other four were Isaac Asimov, David Kyle, Jack Robinson and Richard Wilson. She wrote three pieces of short fiction that were published in the Forties and Fifties; she contributed artwork to fanzines. (Died 1970.)
  • Born April 27, 1922 — Jack Klugman. He was in an amazing four Twilight Zone episodes (“A Passage for Trumpet,“ “A Game of Pool,” “Death Ship” and “In Praise of Pip,” plus one-offs on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Outer Limits. Does Around the World in Eighty Days count as genre adjacent? If so, he was in the Eighties ministries. (Died 2012.)
  • Born April 27, 1957 — Rachel Caine, 63. She has two ongoing endeavors, the Weather Warden series which is most excellent and the superb Great Library series. I can’t speak to the Morganville Vampires series as I don’t do vampires really. And yes, I know she’s got a number of other series, far more than can detailed be here. 
  • Born April 27, 1958 — Caroline Spector, 62. She was an Associate Editor at Amazing Stories for several years, but her main genre connection is her fiction in George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series where she has seven stories. She also a Shadowrun novel, Worlds Without End. (Now that was an interesting RPG!) she also has an essay, “Power and Feminism in Westeros” in James Lowder’s Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, From A “Game of Thrones” to “A Dance with Dragons
  • Born April 27, 1958 — Jon Cassar,  62. Producer, The Orville. Not my cup tea but I many y’all love it. His director and producer genre credits are extensive and include Person of Interest, Touch, Continium, Terra Nova, Fringe, Human Target, Forever Knight and that’s not an inclusive list by any means. 
  • Born April 27, 1963 — Russell T Davies, 57. Responsible for the 2005 revival of the BBC One of Doctor Who. (A Whovian since the very beginning, he thinks “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” has the best dialogue in the entire series.) Of course he’s also responsible for Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures as well. (Need I note that the The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot was his idea?) Oh, and a few years back, he produced A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
  • Born April 27, 1967 — Erik Thomson, 53. Scottish actor who’s best remembered  for being Hades on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Young Hercules and  Xena: Warrior Princess. His first acting role was as an unnamed young man in the “By The Numbers” episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater. 
  • Born April 27, 1986 — Jenna Coleman, 34. Clara Oswald, Companion to the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors.   She remains the longest serving companion since the series was revived. Genre wise, she was also Connie in Captain America: The First Avenger, and did voice voice work on the animated reboot of Thunderbirds Are Go. And yes, she showed up in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

  • Lio discovers the challenges for vampires during the Covid-19 crisis.
  • Marmaduke demonstrates how to achieve orbit.

(13) COMIC BOOK DIAGNOSIS. “‘This is beyond the Great Depression’: will comic books survive coronavirus?” – The Guardian goes looking for the answer.

…The comics world is now split between many have-nots and two very prominent have-alls: DC Comics and Marvel Comics, subdivisions of massive publicly traded corporations Disney (Marvel) and AT&T (DC), worth $192bn and $224bn respectively. Though Marvel and DC have taken a hit from the pandemic, they’re still so big that professionals and retailers look to them not just for guidance, but also for relief. DC has donated $250,000 to a charity for bookshops, and, for the first time since the 1970s, is allowing retailers to return unsold comics. A spokeswoman said the company was also assessing new ways to distribute comics to shops for mail-order and kerbside pickup programmes. The Guardian has also seen an email from DC sent to shops last week, saying it will start distributing comics through three new companies – two of which are reportedly run by retailers that directly compete with the shops themselves.

And Marvel has cut its editorial staff by half, according to a source familiar with the situation. A Marvel spokesman said the company would not confirm numbers, but that all the cut staff were furloughed, not laid off, and the firm would continue providing health insurance “for the duration of the furlough period”. Bleeding Cool also reports that Marvel has stopped work on at least 20% of its forthcoming books. However, it is offering some discounts to publishers

(14) SOCIAL DISTANCE MUSIC. “Hands Off: A 100th Anniversary Guide to Theremin Music” at Bandcamp.

The year is 1920. At a government-run think tank in Petrograd, a brilliant young Soviet scientist harnesses the power of something called the “heterodyne beat frequency” to create a mysterious-looking, antennaed box that creates a high-pitched wail, which intensifies when his hands come closer to it. This might sound like the plot of some sci-fi film noir, but it’s the real-life origin story of the device that bears Professor Léon Theremin’s name. An electronic instrument that you play without touching would seem like the quintessential axe of the virtual era, but 2020 actually marks the theremin’s 100th birthday.

“It’s an extremely simple concept,” says Steven M. Martin, director of Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, the 1993 documentary that helped precipitate a renaissance for the enormously influential instrument. “The circuitry is very elegant. That was the basis for all electronic music up until the digital era. All [analog] synthesizers…were based on the same principle that Theremin pioneered.”

Originally, the theremin was seen as a sort of space-age violin, far more difficult to master than old-school instruments due to the lack of a physical reference point…. 

(15) EVERYBODY CHIP IN! The BBC reports “Belgians urged to eat more chips by lockdown-hit potato growers”.

Belgians are well known for loving chips (frites), often with a big dollop of mayonnaise, but hard-up farmers now want them to eat chips twice a week.

Romain Cools of the potato growers’ union Belgapom presented it as a matter of survival, as a major export sector fears ruin in the coronavirus crisis.

About 750,000 tonnes of potatoes are piled up in Belgian warehouses, as the lockdown has sent orders plummeting.

“Let’s all eat chips twice a week, instead of just once,” Mr Cools urged.

Since mid-March, restaurants in Belgium and many other markets for potato growers have closed. The cancellation of Belgium’s many spring and summer festivals has added to their woes.

Moreover, the international trade in potatoes has been hit. Belgium is one of the world’s top exporters of potato products, including frozen chips. It sends more than 1.5m tonnes annually to more than 100 countries.

One small bright spot in this story is that Belgapom will now deliver 25 tonnes of potatoes a week to food banks in Flanders – produce that will otherwise simply rot, Belgian media report.

(16) PINNING DOWN THE STORY. “HBO Makes ‘Hellraiser’ Series Development Deal; ‘Halloween’s David Gordon Green To Direct Early Eps” reports Deadline.

HBO has made a deal to develop a series from the classic horror franchise Hellraiser, with Halloween helmer David Gordon Green set to direct the pilot and several more initial episodes that brings to the small screen for the first time Pinhead, the iconic pincushion-domed villain who heads a group of pasty-faced villains sent from hell, known as the Cenobites.

(17) GRIM WONDERLAND. In “Book Review: Looking Glass by Christina Henry”, The BiblioSanctum’s Mogsy praises a collection of short fiction.

Novellas and anthologies? Typically not my thing. But since this collection was not only written by Christina Henry but is also part of her incredible Chronicles of Alice world, I knew I would make an exception. Looking Glass features four new stories set in the same universe as Alice and Red Queen, which reimagines Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland through dark horror lens. It is not a sequel per se, but seeing as this grim quartet of interlinked short tales serves as a continuation of the saga, it would be helpful to have read the previous novels.

(18) CLIPPING SERVICE. David Doering found this 1966 newspaper photo of one of my relatives using a remote banking terminal, arguably a forerunner of the ATM. Dr. Richard Glyer had a practice in Mountain View, CA. I think I met him, or for certain, his widow. She was a painter and my father had one of her landscapes.

(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Man 2020” on Vimeo, Steve Cutts explains why plants and animals are happy that humans are staying home.

[Thanks to Daniel Dern, N., Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Darrah Chavey, Francis Hamit, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day The Other Nigel.]