Tag Archives: David Bratman

Pixel Scroll 12/17/25 This Starship Is Bound For Glory, Every Pixel On Her Must Be Scrolly

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(1) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for December 2025 is “Bonum Certamen,” by Andrés Martinez. It’s being published a bit earlier this month, to avoid the winter holiday break/crush. The story is about English football, AI, and the interplay of on-field performance and strategy with sporting values like fair play.

The response essay  “Can an AI Manage the ‘Beautiful Game’?” is by the fantastic speculative fiction author Deji Bryce Olukotun, who also works for the sound technology company Sonos and has a background in digital rights law.

(2) JOANNA RUSS, AGE 16. A photo of Joanna Russ when she was a finalist in the “Science Talent Search 1953” has been making the rounds. You can view it at the link.

(3) GERROLD GOFUNDME UPDATE. As of today, “David Gerrold’s Health and Leukemia Fundraiser” has raised over $45,000 of its new $50,000 target.

(4) TOLKIEN STUDIES NEWS. David Bratman has announced his retirement as co-editor of Tolkien Studies., and the name of his successor.

Though thirteen years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits, I regret to announce that, as of this year, I am retiring from the co-editorship of the journal Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review.

Health concerns are the proximate cause for my retirement. But I will continue to be associated with and do work for the journal as availability permits.

My co-editors, Michael D.C. Drout and Yvette Kisor, have appointed as the new co-editor of the journal, with my enthusiastic approval, Kristine Larsen, noted and prolific Tolkien scholar, sometime contributor to TS, and professor at Central Connecticut State University.

They are hoping to send the next issue, Tolkien Studies 22, to press with our courteous publisher, West Virginia University Press, sometime in the spring of 2026.

– David Bratman, former co-editor, Tolkien Studies

(5) COLLATERAL DAMAGE. “Google AI summaries are ruining the livelihoods of recipe writers: ‘It’s an extinction event’” reports the Guardian.

This past March, when Google began rolling out its AI Mode search capability, it began offering AI-generated recipes. The recipes were not all that intelligent. The AI had taken elements of similar recipes from multiple creators and Frankensteined them into something barely recognizable. In one memorable case, the Google AI failed to distinguish comments on a Reddit thread from legitimate recipe sites and advised users to cook with non-toxic glue.

Over the past few years, bloggers who have not secured their sites behind a paywall have seen their carefully developed and tested recipes show up, often without attribution and in a bastardized form, in ChatGPT replies. They have seen dumbed-down versions of their recipes in AI-assembled cookbooks available for digital downloads on Etsy or on AI-built websites that bear a superficial resemblance to an old-school human-written blog. Their photos and videos, meanwhile, are repurposed in Facebook posts and Pinterest pins that link back to this digital slop.

Recipe writers have no legal recourse because recipes generally are not copyrightable. Although copyright protects published or recorded work, they do not cover sets of instructions (although it can apply to the particular wording of those instructions).

Without this essential IP, many food bloggers earn their living by offering their work for free while using ads to make money. But now they fear that casual users who rely on search engines or social media to find a recipe for dinner will conflate their work with AI slop and stop trusting online recipe sites altogether….

(6) MORE THUMBS FOR AVATAR. Two more reviews – one positive, one negative.

Deadline likes it: “‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ Review: James Cameron’s Thrilling Third Trip To The Pandora Universe Is A War Epic For The Ages”.

…Cameron knows how to do spectacle better than anyone, and this Avatar builds out its worlds to such a high degree I would dare to say you could put the first two films together and it still wouldn’t add up to the fierce levels and magnitude of the fight in this one. Compared to The Way of Water, this version has far more land action although rest assured, the fan-favorite Tolkuns seafaring whales are back in action when you need them most.

This is what they used to call in Hollywood a true epic, taking place in the sky, water and land in a visual knockout like you rarely see on this level these days. Its secret sauce however is our emotional connection through the Sully family. They are again the hook, and Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver know you have to deliver a compelling family story to keep this all from drowning in too much fire and water. It is a credit to the actors, most having to do performance capture and somehow making us feel for them throughout. Led by exceptional turns again from Worthington and Saldaña, along with standouts Dalton and Champion, plus of course Weaver (convincing even as a 14 year old), there is also room for greater character development than before from Lang, who masters the villainry of Colonel Quaritch in his new guise, but also manages a three-dimensional relationship with Spider that feels authentic. Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement and Giovanni Ribisi also get their moments on the human side of things….

The Guardian doesn’t: “Avatar: Fire and Ash review – witchy new sex interest can’t save this gigantically dull hunk of nonsense”.

…On and on and on it goes. The planet-sized movie franchise of Avatar continues to spin massively in the cosmos – yet without affecting the tides in any other world. Maybe Avatar is the cosmos and its originator James Cameron is the new L Ron Hubbard; the creator, or rather prophet, of a new belief system involving big blue creatures with pointy ears that flap and twitch when they talk, to whom we will all one day be required to bow down when they float past. And while the rest of the cinema industry has quietly abandoned 3D without ever quite admitting it, theatres showing James Cameron’s giant new three-hour hunk of nonsense are still handing out the 3D specs to the customers….

…As ever, the look of this film is impressive and yet strange. Billions upon billions of pixels have been crunched to create its huge, infinitesimally detailed digital world. Like Middle-earth, it is probably the key to the franchise’s great success but, presented as it is in motion-smoothed high-definition, it looks to me like a “making of” featurette projected on to the white cliffs of Dover. And when ordinary human faces appear, they seem bizarrely out of context, as if Photoshopped in, like seeing American movie stars’ faces on a poster advertising a panto. Edie Falco again plays the general, her face set in an unvarying expression of pop-eyed annoyance at everything that presents itself to her senses. As an actor, she probably thinks it’s the only way to get through this. Jemaine Clement has a cameo that oddly humanises the film.

What we are heading for is yet another mighty struggle between the Na’vi and the evil human invaders, the “pink-skins”, and (as ever) it needs to be conveniently resolved by calling on the assistance of huge undersea creatures whose presence certainly levels the playing field….

(7) GIL GERARD (1943-2025). Actor Gil Gerard died December 16. He was best known for playing the title character in the Buck Rogers movie that was retooled into the opening episode of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century TV series. It ran on NBC from 1979 to 1981. The New York Times obituary, “Gil Gerard, Star of ‘Buck Rogers,’ Dies at 82” (behind a paywall), shares his memory of that role:

“I thought the character had a sense of reality about him,” Mr. Gerard said of the part in 2017. “He wasn’t a stiff kind of a guy. He was a guy who could solve problems on his feet, and he wasn’t a superhero.”

Despite only running for two seasons, the show was well-received among television viewers and for years has been remembered fondly by fans.

And another sff series was noted among his other credits by the Times:

Mr. Gerard went on to produce the 1983 Broadway musical “Amen Corner” by James Baldwin, and continued acting, with roles in the 1990s on the CBS series “E.A.R.T.H. Force” and on the NBC soap opera “Days of Our Lives.”

(8) BOB BURNS III (1935-2025). Archivist and actorBob Burns III, a well-known historian of props, costumes, and other paraphernalia from sff/h movies, died December 16 at the age of 90. Here’s some key memories from his profile at Eve’s Obits: “Bob Burns III, 1935 – 2025”:

…Burns acted in 40-some movies and TV series, often as a gorilla, mummy, or other monster (Invasion of the Saucer Men, Capt. America vs. the Mutant, The Lucy Show, My Three Sons, The Ghost Busters—the 1970s TV series—The Vampire Hunters Club). His “Bob’s Basement” contained tons of props, costumes, and other memorabilia, which he frequently loaned out to production companies, and assisted with makeup and special effects. Burns was the subject of the 2012 documentary Beast Wishes….

Burns and Paul Blaisdell also co-published a monster magazine together in the early 1960s called Fantastic Monsters of the Films.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

December 17, 1944 — Jack Chalker. (Died 2005.)

By Paul Weimer: Jack Chalker may have had a “bit”, but he worked that bit rather well.

Jack Chalker

His bit was transformation. I have a friend, he’s not much into reading SFF books. He loves SFF movies, though and he loves physical transformations. Give him a werewolf transformation or something else, and he is there for it.  If he ever decided to try science fiction or fantasy, I would hand him a Jack Chalker novel and let him go to town on it.

Because Jack Chalker and his works were all about transformation. 

This is most evident in his most popular series, the Well World novels. The Well World itself, shorn of the transformational aspects, is one of the most interesting concepts for a SF novel or series.  A supercomputer that, in effect, stabilizes and controls our universe, posing as a planet that is cut up into 1500 hexagons. If you use one of the gates from our universe (available in old ruins on various worlds) to enter a hex of the Well World, you are usually automatically transformed into a form appropriate for that hex — because normal oxygen-nitrogen land hexes are not the only hexes to be had.  The partial maps of the Well World show all sorts of intriguing things such as the “Sea of Chlorine”, “Sea of Storms” and other intriguing bits. 

Even more intriguing is that given the reality warping available to the computer in the well world, the hexes can and do enforce levels of technology that work in a hex. It’s an amazing setting (but the RPG made from it was terrible).  This all puts Chalker’s Well World firmly in the realm of science fantasy. 

The real comp for that would be Farmer’s World of Tiers, which has plenty of gates and artificial worlds…but without the transformational elements therein. 

Much of the rest of Chalker’s oeuvre is more science fictional than science fantasy, but as noted before, people winding up in new bodies (long before things like Altered Carbon, sorry Richard Morgan) were de rigueur in Chalker’s books. Although he did not do as much with it as some might like, winding up in a body of a being of different gender (or genders) was par for the course for Chalker. Unfortunately, I can think of multiple times where women (and it seemed to be frequently women) who wound up in new bodies of lesser intelligence and usually higher sex appeal in combination (you don’t need a further picture than that). That wasn’t so great. 

Chalker grew more enthusiastic with his world the longer he wrote, right up to his unfortunate passing. Midnight at the World of Souls is a lean and mean book, the books grew longer and longer as that series went on, and he went to other books.  But I think that first novel still holds up, especially if you don’t know the answer to the question of who or what Nathan Brazil really is. I think the revelation of that deflates the works, just a little bit. But still, in the end, Chalker had his bit and he worked his bit to a fine edge. If transformation is your thing, Chalker is here for you.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) THE YEAR’S FEEL-GOOD SCIENCE STORIES. [Item by Steven French.] The recovery of the ampurta in Australia and the further shrinking of the Antarctic ozone hole – just a couple of the feel good science stories that we all need: “Seven feel-good science stories to restore your faith in 2025” in Nature.

…Our recent Nature’s 10 package includes many good news stories — and there were many more. From gene-editing firsts to rapid disease containment and policy victories, Nature takes a look at some positive science stories of 2025….

(12) TINY TYRANT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The latest Nature cover story relates to who ruled the dinosaur world.  Apparently a smaller than T. rex dinosaur is a contender.

Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the most iconic and well-known dinosaurs — but it has also been beset for decades by a controversy. At the heart of the debate is a fossil skull from what appeared to be a smaller cousin of T. rex, discovered in the 1940s. Initially described as a new species, Nanotyrannus lancensis, this skull has more recently been labelled as merely a juvenile Tyrannosaurus. In this week’s issue, Lindsay Zanno and James Napoli present evidence that should settle the debate. The authors describe a new skeleton of a small tyrannosaur found in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. The remains are exceptionally well preserved, and the researchers were able to determine that it was a young adult — not yet fully grown, but also, crucially, unlikely to grow to anywhere near the size of an adult.

T. rex. Their analyses reveal that Nanotyrannus, a small, swift predator, hunted in the same ecosystems as the colossal apex predator T. rex at the end of the Cretaceous.

(13) LOOKING BACK AT ‘THE LORD OF LIGHT’. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid Moidelhoff, over at the reasonably popular Media Death Cult YouTube Channel, took down his archive a few years ago. (He is bigger on Patreon these days.) However, he is now re-posting some of the best short videos including here a review of Roger Zelazny’s The Lord of Light (the 1968 Hugo winner).  Moid read this first as a teenager and is now having a blast re-reading some SF classics including this one.

You can check out his 12-minute review, with countless cover variants, below…

[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Paul Weimer, Olav Rokne, Joey Eschrich, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Randall M.]

Pixel Scroll 12/12/25 I Think Only One Of Mars’ Two Moons Is A Harsh Mistress, But I Can’t Tell Which

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(1) LETTING THE CAT OUT OF THE CELLOPHANE BAG. In “Saints of the Middlebrow”, John Repetti reviews Genre Bending: The Plasticity of Form in Contemporary Literary Fiction by Jeremy Rosen at Los Angeles Review of Books.

IT’S 2025, and the turn to genre is old news. Since at least the 1980s, writers of “literary fiction” have been adopting the forms and techniques of popular “genre fiction”—a huge category that includes detective novels, sci-fi, spy thrillers, fantasy, horror, Westerns, and all varieties of romance. By 2012, China Miéville could tell the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference that it had already become “a cliché to point out that generic tropes are infecting the mainstream.” As ever, it seems that the academics are the last to know. Thirteen years after Miéville’s much-cited remark, Jeremy Rosen’s Genre Bending: The Plasticity of Form in Contemporary Literary Fiction can still advertise itself as “the first monograph to address this phenomenon.” (We’ll take the author at his word, while noting that the institutional history of this turn has been told and retold, with the usual variations and hair-splitting, by a number of Rosen’s colleagues: Mark McGurl, Dan Sinykin, and Sarah Brouillette, among others.)…

…The corporate machinations are complex, but the incentives are simple. Genre fiction sells, literary fiction doesn’t, and therefore publishers want literary fiction that looks more like genre fiction. Around this basic market incentive, the whole literary ecosystem of the Anglophone world (from MFA programs to prize committees to book clubs and beyond) has shifted to elevate the sorts of novels Rosen discusses—works by such latter-day saints of the middlebrow as two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead, former PEN America president Jennifer Egan, and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, all of whom receive extensive attention in Genre Bending. Add to this the central role of Amazon in the book market, accounting for roughly half of all sales, for which “Literary Fiction” is no more than one genre category among hundreds, slotted somewhere between “Legal Thrillers” and “Lumberjack Erotica.”

Surveying Rosen’s examples and close readings, it does seem that something has shifted not only within the publishing economy but also within literary form itself as practiced on the Anglophone scene. Whereas the modernists and postmodernists tended to use low culture as a vast reserve of references, tropes, and stock characters to be deployed as needed within the novel-as-polyvocal-assemblage, integrating genre elements into high-literary forms, our recent crop of “genre-benders” instead work from within the given structures of genre plots, out of which they develop more traditional “literary” elements….

(2) WHAT TO READ. Lisa Tuttle’s “The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup” in the Guardian. She looks at Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds; Paris Fantastique by Nicholas Royle; All Tomorrows by CM Kosemen; The Salt Oracle by Lorraine Wilson; and The Witching Hour by various authors.

(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to savor shrimp — and Steve Ditko — with comics writer/editor Jack C. Harris on Episode 270 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Jack C. Harris

Jack C. Harris may not be the Eating the Fantastic guest I’ve known the longest — that honor belongs to Paul Levitz, whom I met in 1971 during the 4th of July weekend Comic Art Convention — but I met Jack two years later at the same con where he famously cosplayed at the masquerade as the Batman villain Two-Face, and knowing someone for 52 years is no small thing.

More than half a century later, we got together for dinner the weekend of Ditko Con, which Jack attended because of his many collaborations with the legendary Steve Ditko over the years, including on titles such as The Creeper, Shade the Changing Man, The Demon, Wonder Woman, Legion of Super-Heroes, The Fly, and others. Jack wrote about their relationship in his 2023 book Working with Ditko.

While I was working in the Marvel Comics Bullpen during the mid-’70s, he was one of DC’s Junior Woodchucks, as their assistant editors were called. He worked for a time under editor Murray Boltinoff before becoming a full editor himself. Among the additional titles he wrote were Kamandi, The Ray, Isis, Karate Kid, Metal Men, and others, plus he edited Black Lightning, Firestorm, Madame Xanadu, and more.

We discussed why he decided to abandon his original plan of becoming an artist and chose writing instead, the chance comics shop encounter which led to him being offered a job at DC Comics, why he was astonished when he first saw the colors of Superman’s costume, how his working relationship with Steve Ditko began, an intriguing comparison between Julie Schwartz and Stan Lee I’d never considered, the greatest compliment he ever received during his comics career, the idiosyncrasies of editor Murray Boltinoff, which comics pro was responsible for the flowering of comics fandom, how he felt about the Marvel/DC divide during the time we were both assistant editors, what it was like working with the legendary creators who preceded us, the legacy character he regrets never having gotten the chance to write, his Human Torch story which took 17 years to get published, the contrasting ways Marvel and DC treated their Golden Age characters at the beginning of the Silver Age, and much more.

(4) THEY’RE THE TOPS. Gizmodo invites us to remember “The Top 42 Moments From Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror TV in 2025”.

It was a damn good year for TV, especially genre TV. We feasted all year on quality Star Wars, freaky horror, endearing and exciting sci-fi, thrilling fantasy, gloriously weird storytelling, and top-tier anime and animation. We’ll have io9’s list of 2025’s top sci-fi, fantasy, and horror series coming very soon, but first: here are 42 standout moments that stuck with us long after the credits rolled….

Here’s one of Gizmodo’s picks.

Pluribus – Sprouts

The first season of Pluribus is filled with jaw-dropping, incredible moments. One that stands out, just from its mind-numbing logistics, is when Carol wants to go shopping, only to find her local grocery store, Sprouts, has been emptied. She asked that it be refilled, so the Others do just that. Watching it happen, you can’t help but think about how much work that is for the characters on the show, for no reason, and also how much work it must have been for the people working on the show, for the best reason. We’ll never forget it.

(5) REASONS TO READ. Rich Lynch gives plenty of reasons to download My Back Pages #33 from eFanzines.

The 33rd installment of my personal time capsule comes out at the end of a year that desperately needs a reset, and has essays & related commentary involving evil men and strong women, light comedy and dark tragedy, a tiny hotel room and large Lego constructs, a classical clarinet and a bluesy guitar, group sing and a trumpet solo, old acquaintances and a new love, looks of sheer horror and a comical eyeroll, Shakespearean villains and Bard College, chilly break dancers and a hippo ballerina, icy winds and hot jazz.  And also nearly getting ejected from an art exhibition.  Woops!

(6) KGB PHOTOS. Ellen Datlow shared her photos from the Fantastic Fiction at KGB readings on December 10, 2025.

Daniel Braum and Martin Cahill read from new work in front of a great crowd, despite the rainy night.

(7) RECENT OBITUARIES. Here are some more personal tributes to people whose deaths have been reported this week.

… He was full of wit and bon mots in person, also, in a light textured voice with a trace of New York accent, when I finally met him at a convention. Without the gnome extension, he looked like this – a little later on, after his dark hair and beard turned white. Earlier than that, in 1983, I actually ventured down to Durham to visit Arthur at home. By this time he had acquired a permanent romantic partner, an English lit grad student named Bernadette Bosky, whom Arthur had first met in the pages of a Lovecraft-oriented apa. She seemed so perfectly matched for Arthur’s distinctive character that some of those reading about her from far away doubted that she could possibly be real, and one of my goals in traveling to Durham was to be one of the first outside fans to meet her and confirm her corporeal existence….

…In the mid-1970s, Varley exploded into science fiction like a phoenix. His “Eight Worlds” stories were set in a future where hyper-powerful aliens have killed everyone on Earth as a threat to its whales and porpoises and humanity survives everywhere else in the Solar System. Despite this bleak background, the stories were bright and inventive. People change gender on a whim. Wealthy and glorious cities turn to shacks and hovels when their holographic fronts are turned off at night. People bank their memories so that, upon death, they can be restarted with new memories. He wrote so many major stories per year that, in a resurrection of an old pulp-days practice, some had to be published under a pseudonym.

We were all dazzled. His work was full of impressive new ideas. And, outside of the Eight Worlds sequence, he wrote things like “In the Hall of the Martian Kings,” which resurrected the possibility of intelligent life on Mars after the Mariner probes had apparently disproved that. Or “Air Raid,” which made air travel terrifying again. 

His novel Titan looked to be the opening of a classic trilogy.

Briefly–for almost a decade–John Varley seemed to be the new Robert Heinlein.

And then, alas, he went to Hollywood….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

December 12, 1944 — Ginjer Buchanan, 81.

By Paul Weimer: I’ll start with this birthday remembrance of Ginjer with her novel, White Silence. It’s an absorbing tale set during the Yukon Gold Rush in the 19th century. Buchanan channels her inner Jack London in the story of several individuals under dire circumstances. The trick is, one of the individuals is Duncan MacLeod (and another is his friend Hugh).  Yes, this is a Highlander TV series tie-in novel, and the last one in that line as it so happens. So yes, it’s a tale of the far north during the Gold Rush…and a story about Immortals. But what good is that immortality in that perilous wilderness? It might not be a spoiler that there is a bit of an Edge of Tomorrow feel to it all…Duncan and his companions do have a body count throughout the novel…themselves, in point of fact.

Ginjer Buchanan

I came across this book somewhere, a used bookstore maybe, in the early 2000’s. By then, Buchanan had had a long history in genre as a fan, having written many essays. A long history as a pro, having written a few short stories.  And an even longer career as an editor. A thirty year run at ACE is nothing to sneeze at, ending up as Senior Executive Editor and Marketing Director. So, undoubtedly, her hand was ultimately on the tiller of many books that I read in the 80’s and 90’s. 

But again, she’s a fan as much as a book editor, or writer. Witness her occasional comments here at File 770 as documentary proof. I could swear, too, that I’ve met her a couple of times at cons (maybe at a File 770 meetup or two, he asked curiously).  Lovely person. Happy birthday!

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) RIGHTS ALREADY ADJUDICATED? A Shuster family member’s claim is not seen favorably: “Manhattan Judge Signals Likely Win for DC Comics in Superman Copyright Dispute” reports Supermansite.

A New York judge suggested Thursday that DC Comics and Warner Bros. Discovery appear well-positioned to retain long-standing control over Superman’s international copyrights, offering pointed comments during a hearing that underscored the strength of the companies’ contractual claims.

The case centers on a challenge brought by the nephew of Superman co-creator, Joseph Shuster. The Shuster heir argues that the character’s copyrights in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia should revert to the family under those countries’ laws. Justice Robert Reed, however, appeared skeptical, repeatedly noting that Shuster’s sister signed away those rights in a 1992 agreement that granted DC Comics permanent ownership in exchange for lifetime financial support.

Justice Reed acknowledged that the decision might not be viewed kindly in hindsight, but he stressed that the contract’s language was unambiguous. He also pointed to a 2013 Ninth Circuit ruling that upheld the same agreement in the United States, finding that the Shuster estate had no grounds to reclaim domestic rights….

(11) HIS SF SERIES TURNED OUT TO BE A FANTASY. “Hollywood Director Is Convicted in $11 Million Scheme to Defraud Netflix” reports the New York Times. (Behind a paywall.)

A director who was hired by Netflix to make a science-fiction series was convicted on Thursday on charges that he had engaged in an $11 million scheme to defraud the streaming giant, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said.

Prosecutors said the filmmaker, Carl Erik Rinsch, 48, secured funding from Netflix from 2018 to early 2020 to make the series, which was initially called “White Horse” and renamed “Conquest.” But he put the money in a personal brokerage account and used it to trade securities instead of putting it toward the production, prosecutors said.

Netflix canceled development for the show in early 2021 after Mr. Rinsch’s behavior turned erratic. In texts and emails to Netflix executives, he claimed to have discovered Covid-19’s secret transmission mechanism and told his wife, a producer on the show, that he could predict earthquakes and lightning strikes.

After the company informed Mr. Rinsch that it would stop funding “Conquest,” he went on a spending spree with the show’s remaining production money, speculating on cryptocurrency, living out of five-star hotels in California and Spain and buying five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari as well as high-end furniture, including a $439,000 handmade mattress, prosecutors said. He said the cars and furniture were props for the show, but an arbitrator ruled that none of the purchases were necessary for the production.

Mr. Rinsch, who lives in Los Angeles, was arrested in March in West Hollywood, Calif., and was charged with wire fraud, money laundering and making monetary transactions derived from unlawful activity. Taking the stand in his own defense at trial, Mr. Rinsch said he believed the $11 million was meant to keep the production of “Conquest” afloat during the coronavirus pandemic and to conduct preproduction on a potential second season of the show.

But former Netflix executives testified that they had agreed to only one season of the show and that the $11 million was supposed to be used to finish episodes for that season, which Mr. Rinsch failed to do. Mr. Rinsch never produced any episodes of the series, and Netflix had to write off the $55 million it spent on the project.

On Thursday, a jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan convicted him of the wire fraud, money laundering and illegal monetary transaction charges. He faces up to 90 years in prison but is expected to receive a lighter sentence based on sentencing guidelines….

(12) 2025 SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS. [Item by Steven French.] Physics World’s Top Ten Scientific Breakthroughs include finding the ingredients for life on an asteroid and mapping the weather on a giant gas exoplanet: “Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year in physics for 2025 revealed”.

For example:

“Finding the stuff of life on an asteroid”

To Tim McCoy, Danny Glavin, Jason Dworkin, Yoshihiro Furukawa, Ann Nguyen, Scott Sandford, Zack Gainsforth and an international team of collaborators for identifying salt, ammonia, sugar, nitrogen- and oxygen-rich organic materials, and traces of metal-rich supernova dust, in samples returned from the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu. The incredible chemical richness of this asteroid, which NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft visited in 2020, lends support to the longstanding hypothesis that asteroid impacts could have “seeded” the early Earth with the raw ingredients needed for life to form. The discoveries also enhance our understanding of how Bennu and other objects in the solar system formed out of the disc of material that coalesced around the young Sun.

(13) TRAILER PARK. “Andy Serkis’ Animal Farm Animation Acquired by Angel, Trailer Unveiled” – Variety has details.

Andy Serkis‘ all-star animated adaptation of George Orwell’s classic allegorical novella has been acquired for U.S theatrical rights by Angel.

With a voice cast including Seth Rogen, Glenn Close, Woody Harrelson, Kieran Culkin and more, the film was produced by Adam Nagle and Dave Rosenbaum for Aniventure, and Jonathan Cavendish for Imaginarium Productions, with animation from Cinesite. It’s now scheduled for a wide theatrical release on May 1, 2026 through Utah-based Angel (which changed its name from Angel Studios in September 2025 after going public)….

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Ersatz Culture, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 5/11/25 Scrollers Of The Purple Pixel

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(1) PARDON MY FRENCH. Mental Floss remembers “When Isaac Asimov Decided to Secretly Write Under the Name Paul French”.

If there was one author Henry Bott disliked more than any other, it was Isaac Asimov.

Bott, a book reviewer for the science fiction publication Imagination, had spent years lobbing insults at the respected writer and his work. Of Asimov’s Second Foundation, published in 1953, Bott wrote that Asimov was “neither a writer nor a storyteller” and could churn out only “elephantine prose.” Second Foundation was, Bott observed, “not a good book.”

After another seemingly personal review followed, this one for The Caves of Steel, an irritated Asimov penned a fiery retort in which he referred to Bott as “The Nameless One” in the fan publication Peon [PDF]. More volleys followed, and Asimov continued to take a shelling.

But when Asimov picked up the February 1955 issue of Imagination, he was amused to read Bott’s enthusiastic review of Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, a spirited sci-fi adventure yarn that was part of an ongoing series by writer Paul French. The story, Bott effused, was gripping and worthy of a reader’s attention, though he felt it fell short of the young adult works by Robert Heinlein.

Asimov put the magazine down and began typing a letter to Imagination. This time, he would not attempt to argue with Bott. “I am sure that Mr. French, on reading this review, would feel quite good about the kind words and would feel no rancor at all about the eminently fair criticism,” Asimov wrote. “In fact, I am sure he would say he does his best to make his juveniles as good as Mr. Heinlein’s, and that perhaps he will improve as he continues to try.

“I am positive that Mr. French would say all this. The reason I am positive is that Paul French and Isaac Asimov are the same person.”…

It reminds me of the time Jerry Pournelle told us about a fan letter John W. Campbell received on the issue of Analog that contained one story by Pournelle and another under his pseudonym Wade Curtis. The fan’s verdict was: “Keep Wade Curtis but get rid of that Jerry Pournelle!”

(2) A POEM FOR BĴO.

By John Hertz: (reprinted from Vanamonde 1643) Learning that Bĵo Trimble was in the West Los Angeles Veterans Home, registered as Betty Trimble (Bĵo is short for Betty JoAnne), I sent her this.

Before others knew,
Enterprise was in your mind;
Talking, drawing, you
Took what could be to what was;
Yet humility, yet strength.

The ĵ in Bĵo is an Esperanto device indicating pronunciation bee•joe; her name has sometimes alas been written Bjo {i.e. without the circumflex over the j) – which, when I first saw it, I thought must be some Nordic name pronounced b’yo; she served in the United States Navy; the poem is an acrostic (read down the first letters of each line) in unrhymed 5-7-5-7-7-syllable lines like Japanese tanka.

(3) BAFTA TV AWARDS. Genre got totally shut out of the 2025 BAFTA awards (complete list of winners at the link).

One show of genre adjacent interest won the Specialist Factual category – Atomic People (BBC), which gathers the testimony of some of the last ‘Hibakusha’, survivors of the two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945.

(4) PARTS NOT UNKNOWN. In “A Tolkienian miscellany at Kalimac’s corner, David Bratman says another posthumous Tolkien publication is coming out this year.

If you’ve heard a rumor that yet another new book by JRRT is coming out, it’s true. The Bovadium Fragments will be appearing in the UK in October and in the US in November. “First-ever publication” as it says in the blurb is true, but “previously unknown”? Not a chance. As with some other posthumous Tolkien publication touted as “previously unknown,” its existence was first revealed in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography nearly 50 years ago. The Bovadium Fragments is mentioned there in a footnote as “a parable of the destruction of Oxford (Bovadium) by the motores manufactured by the Daemon of Vaccipratum (a reference to Lord Nuffield and his motor-works at Cowley) which block the streets, asphyxiate the inhabitants, and finally explode.” Which makes it something of a pair to an almost incoherently angry alliterative poem about motorcycles, written probably over 40 years earlier, which is no. 63 in the Collected Poems published last year, and which I think was previously unknown.

(5) CHRISTIE REANIMATED. “Agatha Christie, Who Died in 1976, Will See You in Class” reports the New York Times (behind a paywall).  

Amelia Nierenberg, who reported from London, considers “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” to be one of the greatest books ever written.

Agatha Christie is dead. But Agatha Christie also just started teaching a writing class.

“I must confess,” she says, in a cut-glass English accent, “that this is all rather new to me.”

The literary legend, who died in 1976, has been tapped to teach a course with BBC Maestro, an online lecture series similar to MasterClass. Christie, alongside dozens of other experts, is there for any aspiring writer with 79 pounds (about $105) to spare.

She has been reanimated with the help of a team of academic researchers — who wrote a script using her writings and archival interviews — and a “digital prosthetic” made with artificial intelligence and then fitted over a real actor’s performance.

“We are not trying to pretend, in any way, that this is Agatha somehow brought to life,” Michael Levine, the chief executive of BBC Maestro, said in a phone interview. “This is just a representation of Agatha to teach her own craft.”

The course’s release coincides with a heated debate about the ethics of artificial intelligence. In Britain, a potential change to copyright law has frightened artists who fear it will allow their work to be used to train A.I. models without their consent. In this case, however, there is no copyright issue: Christie’s family, who manage her estate, are fully on board.

(6) FOR CERTAIN VALUES OF INFLUENCE. The Notion Club Papers – an Inklings Blog argues “Charles Williams Did influence JRR Tolkien’s writing – The Place of the Lion and The Notion Club Papers”.

For the past fifty years it has been normal to assume that JRR Tolkien disliked (probably because he was jealous of) Charles Williams; and that Williams did not influence Tolkien’s writing.

Despite that Tolkien personally claimed such things in writing; none of these are strictly correct. 

Tolkien was good friends with Williams, during Williams’s life – it was only some years after Williams died, when Tolkien became aware of some aspects of CW’s biography, that Tolkien turned against Williams and began to make misleading statements to play-down their friendship. 

The denial of Williams’s influence on Tolkien is more complex. As a generalization, it is true to say that the two men had different minds, aims, and literary styles – and there is no striking influence of Williams noticeable in the works Tolkien published during his lifetime – especially not The Lord of the Rings. 

But more can be said….

… It seems to me very likely that Tolkien’s writing of The Notion Club Papers was a direct consequence of the death of Charles Williams. 

The Williams derivation is seen firstly in the origins of the NCPs as a playful “alter-ego” discussion group, explicitly referencing The Inklings, read to The Inklings as work-in-progress in instalments, and with characters loosely-based on the post-Williams membership. 

In this respect I regard it as significant that there is no Notion Club member who is described as based-on the just-deceased Charles. It is as if the NCPs was a tribute to Charles’s memory, and as such to include CW among the somewhat facetious caricatures the NCP membership would have been disrespectful and altogether inappropriate. …

(7) WHERE TO START WITH PRATCHETT? Christopher Lockett begins a “Discworld Reread #1: The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic” at The Magical Humanist.

…Before I get into the novels proper, I feel it behoves me to address the perennial Discworld question: where to begin? I am starting at the beginning here and going in sequence for two reasons: (1) I want to be systematic and not haphazard about this, and (2) I want to watch Discworld develop and grow as I go.

But then, this is not the ideal way to approach Discworld if you’re just starting.

There are forty-one novels in total, but even though we refer to the Discworld series, it’s really not. Not a series, I mean … not in the sense of being serial, at any rate, wherein each instalment picks up where the last left off, and to have a grasp on the overarching story you must begin at the beginning and read in sequence.

That is not how Discworld works. As I’ve noted in this space previously, when asked by newbies what Discworld novel to start with, the lion’s share of Sir Terry devotees emphatically recommend against starting at the beginning…

Lockett follows with a chart of all the books that looks just one step away from being a Tom Gauld cartoon.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

So Weird series (1999)

The considerable joy of doing these anniversaries is finding these series that I’ve never heard of. So it is with a Disney series called So Weird which ran for sixty-five episodes. So Weird could best be described as a younger version of the X-Files and it far darker than anything which was on Disney when it debuted in 1999. It lasted for just three seasons. 

It was centered around teen Fiona “Fi” Phillips (played by Cara DeLizia) who toured with her rocker mom Molly Phillips (played by Mackenzie Phillips). They kept running into strange and very unworldly things. For the third and final season, she was replaced by Alexz Johnson playing Annie Thelen after the other actress gets the jones to see if she could make in Hollywood. (Well she didn’t.)

The story is that one of the characters, Annie, while visiting an Egyptian museum encounters a cat who once belonged to Egyptian queen that now wants her very much missed companion back. Yes, both the cat and the princess are either immortal or of the undead. 

The writer of this episode, Eleah Horwitz, had little genre background having written just three Slider episodes and a previous one in this series. He’d later be a production assistant on ALF. 

Now if you went looking to watch So Weird’s “Meow” on the Disney service after it debuted, that service which is not Disney+ originally pulled the second season within days of adding the series but returned it a month later within any reason for having pulled it. The show has never been released on DVD. 

However the first five episodes in the first season of the series were novelized and published by Disney Press as mass-market paperbacks, beginning with Family Reunion by Cathy East Dubowski. (I know the Wiki page says Parke Godwin wrote it but the Amazon illustration of the novel cover shows her name. So unless this is one of his pen names, it is not by him.) You can find the other four that were novelized in the Amazon app by simply doing So Weird + the episode name. No they are not available at the usual suspects.

I didn’t find hardly any critics who reviewed it, hardly surprising given it was on the Disney channel but those that did really liked it including John Dougherty at America: The Jesuit Review: “As a kid, my favorite show was about death. Well, not just death: it was also about faith, sacrifice and trying to make sense of life’s ineffable mysteries. Strangest of all, I watched it on the Disney Channel. ‘So Weird’ ran for three seasons from 1999 to 2001. It was Disney’s attempt to create a kid-friendly version of ‘The X-Files,’ tapping into an in-vogue fascination with ghosts, alien encounters and other paranormal phenomena. In practice, it became something more: a meditation on mystery and mortality.” 

I think I’ll leave it there. 

For those of you with Disney+, it’s streaming there.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) ALAN MOORE Q&A. At Alan Moore World: “Long London, Magic & the future of Humanity”.

…In many of your works, Imagination or the Elsewhere often invades Reality. We see this, obviously, in Long London, Providence, Promethea, the League, the story about Thunderman in Illuminations, and so on. Often the world of Imagination influences or interferes, when it does not directly override, the Real one. Could you elaborate on the interconnected relationship between Reality and Imagination, and how your concept of Idea-Space and Magic is linked to it?

Alan Moore: I have to start by carefully defining what is meant by the term ‘reality’. It seems to me that what you most probably mean is material reality. My own position is that while we are indeed apparently part of and surrounded by a material reality (I say apparently because we all compose material reality moment by moment on the loom of our perceptions and are unable to prove that it is actually there, this being the hard problem of consciousness), we are just as evidently part of and immersed in the immaterial reality of our own thought processes. Since material science, which rightly requires empirical testing and repeatable experiments, cannot measure or meaningfully investigate human consciousness, it has tended to argue away consciousness as a ‘ghost in the machine’, and to insist that the only true reality is the material reality for which it has metrics and theories. This has percolated down into the ordinary person on the street’s default worldview, where to say that something is only happening in someone’s mind is to say that it isn’t happening, and by extension that our thoughts and inner workings are not real. Now, thanks to the hard problem of consciousness referred to earlier, while I cannot conclusively state that everybody else’s thoughts and inner workings are real, I can assure you that mine definitely are. In fact, again thanks to the hard problem of consciousness, my thoughts and inner workings are the only things in all existence that I know to be real. The imagination is the sole phenomenon that we know not to be imaginary….

(11) YESTERDAY’S SCALZI BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. That was clever.

Horatio and his paid intern Jojo wish author @scalzi.com a happy birthday!#Caturday #StarterVillain #HoratioTheCat #JojoThePirateCat

— Centre County Library & Historical Museum (@centrecolibrary.bsky.social) 2025-05-10T15:10:08.924Z

(12) CONAN OUTSIDE THE BOX. “Frazetta Icon Collectibles Conan 1:12 Action Figure Demo”.

As FrazettaGirls designer and project manager I am proud to invite you to join me at the Coffee table for an exciting unboxing and demonstration of the upcoming Frazetta Icon Collectibles Action Figure, Conan The Barbarian!

(13) WHAT IS THE WEIRDEST FILM EVER MADE? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid Moidelhoff over at Media Death Cult asks this question over three days of weed-enhanced film watching.  He comes up with a few recommendations and also asks cult members to provide their suggestions in the ‘comments’ (worth having a skim). In the process, he scares himself sh*tless and has a nervous breakdown…  But he comes up with some interesting choices including a previous film by the folk behind the Hugo-winning Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and also the best killer tyre film of all time.  You can see the 21-minute video here:

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

Pixel Scroll 12/9/24 If I Only Had A Positronic Brain

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(1) SNARKY CLAUS. Naomi Kritzer recommends “Gifts for People You Hate, 2024” at Will Tell Stories For Food. This really is an amazing/appalling assortment.

Once again, the holidays are upon us, and once again, people are telling me that in this trying time, the one thing I have to offer that they truly need is a hand-picked selection of the absolute worst possible gifts that they can give their brother-in-law. You know which brother-in-law…

…Using my guide, you can carefully select a gift to present with wide-eyed faux sincerity while knowing he’ll take it home and think, “what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” (Bonus points if the nephew thinks it’s awesome.)…

Here’s the kind of thing she’s talking about –

… So this one is actually kind of cool: it’s a whiskey decanter shaped like a Star Wars Storm Trooper’s head (with two glasses that are molded on the inside so that if you pour in whiskey or some other beverage that isn’t clear, it’ll look like you’re drinking your whiskey out of Storm Trooper heads. Like Ewoks.) However, you have to pour quite a lot of whiskey into the decanter to make it look cool (which means if you’re not drinking it quickly, and want to store it properly, you’ll have to pour it back into the bottle). It’s bulky to store and not dishwasher safe. It’s solidly in the sweet spot of “too nifty to just toss so it’ll take up cabinet space for years.”…

(2) YEAR’S TOP HORROR BOOKS. New York Times columnist Gabino Iglesias shared a gift link to “The Best Horror Books of 2024”. His list of 10 books includes:

Model Home

By Rivers Solomon

Solomon’s novel takes a new approach to the “evil house” trope. The novel is about three sisters forced to return to their haunted childhood home after the mysterious deaths of their parents. Solomon puts the malevolent building in the back seat and focuses instead on a plethora of topics like depression, motherhood, sexuality, gender, trauma and growing up in a hostile environment with a strong, demanding mother. The result is a wonderfully surprising haunted house story that is also a sharp excavation of the human issues that plague us all.

(3) ALEX SEGURA Q&A. “The End as the Beginning: Alex Segura on his Continuing Adventures in Comic Book Noir” at CrimeReads.

JBV: As with Secret Identity’s Carmen Valdez, this book has a trailblazing hero in Annie Bustamante, who is both an icon of the arts and entertainment world and a fiercely devoted single mom. In what ways did you want to honor the complexities of modern life (and womanhood) – both professionally and personally? How is this an extension of Carmen’s experiences without being a retread of them?

AS: I wanted Annie to feel three-dimensional, and that meant pushing back on some of the narrative tropes of crime fiction – like the untethered protagonist. Annie is a parent with a job, she’s also in recovery and isn’t afraid to speak her mind. She felt real to me, and though it made the writing more logistically challenging from a plot perspective, I felt like giving readers time to get to know Annie, her life, and most importantly, her past, created a more layered character and better story. Like Carmen, I wanted to be friends with Annie by the end of the story. 

I think the unifying thing between Carmen and Annie is that both are presented their dream creative opportunity – and are forced to realize that these dreams are often laced with poison. Carmen is asked to create a superhero for a comic book publisher, something she’s hoped for since she was a kid. But when she does it, it’s anonymous, and she has to claw and fight to reclaim that credit. On the flipside, Annie has to pinch herself when she’s asked to write and draw a new Legendary Lynx comic – based on the character that made her a comic fan. But when she finds that the people running the company that purports to own the Lynx don’t understand the property they control, Annie has to ask herself if it’s worth the artistic expense. Both characters find their dreams crashing down to reality, but that also creates a sense of fearlessness and freedom that propels both books….

(4) COMICS EDITOR’S DAYBOOK TO AUCTION. NateSanders.com is auctioning items from the Chic Young Estate (creator of Blondie) and others.

One lot has “Sheldon Mayer’s 1946 Day Planner as Editor of All-American Publications — Nearly Every Day Filled-in With Dozens of Artists & Strips Like Flash & Green Lantern — With Idea of Wonder Woman as a Girl”.

Sheldon Mayer’s personal day planner from 1946 when Mayer was editing and creating content for All-American Publications, one of the companies that would ultimately form DC Comics. Mayer filled-in nearly every day of this planner, mentioning almost all the characters and titles in the AA canon, including Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Mr. Terrific, Boy Blue, 3 Mousketeers, J. Rufus Lion, Wildcat, Molly Pitcher, Funny Stuff, Sargon [the Sorcerer], All Star [Comics], Willy Nilly, Black Pirate, Joey Kangaroo, Bulldog Drumhead, Ghost Patrol, Nutsy Squirrel, Foney Fairy Tales and more. Almost every day Mayer lists various comic artists, pairing them with the title, including the issue number and pages. He also sometimes notes payment details for the artist, recording mailing checks and other details such as ”Get raise for [Woody] Gelman”, which appears on 8 March 1946.

Interestingly, Mayer appeared to explore the possibility of expanding ”Wonder Woman” with an additional storyline or comic book with the character as a young girl. On 12 August 1946 Mayer writes a note to himself, ”See Jack re W.W. as a girl.” He seemed to get the idea on 2 August when he writes to himself, ”Wonder Girl?”. Other notes include a funny doodle of a man’s head that he draws on 25 March. There’s even a note slipped in by another person named Ted (likely Ted Udall) on Friday 26 June 1946 reading, ”I’ll see you Monday – BOO! / Ted”.

Some of the comic artists that Mayer mentions in the 1946 day planner include Joe Kubert, Harry Lampert, Ronald Santi, Jack Adler, Larry Nadle, Martin Naydel, Stookie Allen, Ed Wheelan, Moe Worthman, Paul Reinman, Howard Purcell, Rube Grossman, Bill Hudson, Joe Rosen, Ewald Ludwig, and Marin Nodell, sometimes with references to pay, and assigning artists to specific strips. A few notes are also tucked into the book. The day planner ends on 31 December, but with additional memoranda pages filled in after that, including one with entries for specific strips and prices. Most entries written in pencil, with a few in fountain pen. Planner measures 5” x 7.875”, with each page assigned to one calendar day. Bound in red boards with gold lettering. Some cocking to spine and light wear, overall in very good condition. A treasure trove detailing the inner workings of the comic industry during its Golden Age. From the Sheldon Mayer estate.

(5) JULES BURT NAMES ‘BEYOND THE VOID’ BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024. Popular YouTube channel presenter Jules Burt has named his book of the year: Steve Holland’s Beyond The Void: The Remarkable Story Of Badger Books.

Published by Bear Alley Books, this full-colour softback charts the history of the British paperback publisher, notorious for publishing the science fiction and horror stories of the Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe and John S. Glasby, who wrote over 400 novels and short story collections for the firm… some written over a weekend.

Beyond The Void covers the origins of Badger Books, when, as John Spencer & Co., they began producing slim magazines in the late 1940s, before turning to science fiction magazines in 1950, their four titles—Futuristic Science Fiction, Worlds of Fantasy, Tales of Tomorrow and Wonders of  the Spaceways—infamous for publishing some of the worst sf stories ever written.

The collapse of the market for original novels in 1954 led most publishers to experiment with reprints. Not so Badger Books, the imprint adopted in 1959, who continued to publish mostly original works, paid for at the rate of 10 shillings a thousand words—$75 for a full-length novel, all rights—well into the 1960s.

Steve Holland says: “To have the book recognised by Jules as his favourite title of 2024 is an honour given the quality of the books BEYOND THE VOID was up against, ironic as BEYOND celebrates a company and its notoriously terrible output. But exploring the authors and artists turns up some gems that I wanted to share with fans… and if you’re new to Badger, the interviews and over 500 covers illustrated will hopefully make you want to explore further.”

Beyond the Void: The Remarkable History of Badger Books is available at the link.  

(6) EYE THE JURY. In “another online conference” at Kalimac’s Corner, David Bratman discusses a paper presented last weekend at a virtual conference hosted by the Tolkien Society (UK-based) and the Tolkien Society of Serbia. He ends with a very hooky comment:

…It’s true that Tolkien experimented with writing stories that were factually unreliable within the fictive universe, but I think you can tell which ones those are, and while there are small points in The Lord of the Rings which are unknown or unanswered, the oft-used trope of claiming Sauron as the hero and depicting the book as a giant libel on him does not, I think, fall into that category. I mean, you can write that, but don’t claim Tolkien’s imprimatur on it….

(7) HANDMADE FANZINES. First Fandom Experience introduces us to a Chinese-American fan artist who wrote to Forrest J Ackerman in the Thirties: “Howard Low and the Junior Science Correspondence Club”.

…Although dated “Sol 23, 1947,” this remarkable Martian newspaper of the future was penned in January 1932 by one “Howard Lowe.” At the time of our 2020 post, we admitted that we knew nothing further about Lowe or his work.

We’ve learned a lot since then.

Stephen Howard Lowe (later, Low) was born on April 19 1917 in Portland Oregon. In 1930, he was 13 years old and living in New York City. During that year, he began a correspondence with Forrest J Ackerman, then 14. The first known example of the teenagers’ exchange dates to January 18 1931, where Lowe says, “I feel as if I’ve known you for a long time but really its been only about six or seven months.”…

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Anniversary: December 9, 2002 — Star Trek Nemesis (2002)

By Paul Weimer: Be prepared, this one is not going to be a fun look back.  

I had had high hopes for what would turn out to be the last of the Star Trek TNG movies, Star Trek Nemesis. It features Tom Hardy (in an early role) as the villain, a clone of Picard that wreaks havoc on the Romulan Empire. Themes of identity, cloning, technology and more were promised. What’s not to love?

Just about everything. There is little I can say that is good about this movie, and it would be folly for me to try, except maybe the confrontations between Shinzon and Picard. There is some actual good stuff there. But it’s cut to merry hell.

And I do think it was the bad editing that really kills the movie’s room to breathe. The original run time of 2 hours and 40 minutes may have been too much, but cutting it down to two hours means that a lot of character development and space for the characters just winds up on the cutting room floor, and it feels like a “this way to the egress” with a lot of scenes and subplots unexplained and undercooked. Just take Deanna and Riker’s marriage, with Wesley somehow coming back to say hi. What was that? 

And don’t get me started on Data and B-4.  The frustrating thing is, in the final cut, the existence of B-4, Data’s earlier model, there is absolutely, positively no consideration of the existence of Lore, Data’s original “twin”, who featured on multiple episodes of ST: TNG. As far as this movie concerned, and the way characters act and react to B-4…Lore might as well never have existed, which is a crying shame. And having Data be sacrificed at the end but his memories downloaded into B-4…that feels like an identity erasure of B-4, quite frankly.  I left the movie with a very foul taste in my mouth, and I didn’t even rewatch any TNG related stuff for a couple of years afterwards. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Baldo looks behind the scene.
  • Bizarro tentatively adds to the roll call of superheroes.
  • Free Range mocks our cryptid interest.
  • Working Daze knows why internet research doesn’t get finished.

(10) INDELIBLE PURPLE. “’Generation Barney’ explores one dinosaur’s enduring legacy”, NPR reminds us that PBS intended to quit on Barney after its first season. Here’s how he avoided extinction.

…HERRERA: When it debuted on PBS on April 6, 1992, “Barney & Friends” was a hit, but Barney was competing against two worthy opponents.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)

HERRERA: In one quarter, “Lamb Chop,” and in the other, “Thomas The Tank Engine.”

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)

HERRERA: About a month later, PBS broke some bad news. It was moving forward with the other two shows. There wouldn’t be a second season of “Barney & Friends.”

RIFKIN: I was crestfallen. I was devastated, as you can imagine, because there was a lot of personal reputation on the line.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

HERRERA: This is where Barney’s story could have ended. But Larry didn’t go quietly into the night.

(SOUNDBITE OF RICHARD AITKEN AND ANDREW GANNON’S “CYLINDERS AND BANK VAULTS”)

HERRERA: He had a plan to save Barney from extinction that included bending a few rules. First, Larry worked Barney into CPTV’s fundraising drives. Technically, you couldn’t use a character like Barney to ask viewers for money, so Larry came up with a workaround. He would make the financial ask with Barney in studio spreading messages of love and kindness, you know, his specialty….

(11) SOUNDS LIKE YOUNG INDY. “Indiana Jones Chooses Wisely: The Biggest Voice in Gaming” – a New York Times profile. (Paywalled.) “Troy Baker, the industry’s go-to voice actor, channels a young Harrison Ford in the action-adventure Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.”

When Todd Howard heard the name Troy Baker, he could not help but roll his eyes.

For months, the team behind Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a first-person action-adventure video game based on the film franchise, had been discussing who to cast as the charismatic archaeologist. (The 82-year-old Harrison Ford, it was decided early on, would not be reprising the role.) The game’s performance director was pushing for Baker. But Howard, who is its executive producer and previously led several Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, was unconvinced.

“I’m not putting Troy Baker in my game,” Howard told the team, “just because that’s what you do.”

Baker, a veteran voice actor with more than 150 video game credits, is sympathetic to this perspective. He is one of the industry’s most recognizable names, turning up in multiplayer shooters, comic book fighting games, online battle royale hits and Japanese role-playing games.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle uses a young Harrison Ford’s likeness, but Baker provided the motion capture for the character.

He earned enthusiastic acclaim playing Joel Miller, the morally conflicted hero of the postapocalyptic drama The Last of Us, and won legions of fans as the voice of Booker DeWitt, the disgraced Pinkerton agent turned class liberator in the steampunk BioShock Infinite. He has played Batman, Superman, the Joker and Robin, each in a different game. He has played countless numbers of soldiers, aliens and demons in franchises like Call of Duty, Final Fantasy and Mortal Kombat. If you have played a video game in the past two decades, you have probably heard him speak.

He is aware that it is a lot….

(12) BODY OF LITERATURE. “Scientists Think a Skeleton Found in a Well Is the Same Man Described in an 800-Year-Old Norse Text” reports Smithsonian Magazine.

More than 800 years ago, raiders threw a dead body into a well outside a Norwegian castle. The incident is chronicled in a medieval Norse text, which suggests that the men hoped to poison the area’s water supply. Known as the Sverris Saga, the tale is named for King Sverre Sigurdsson, who was battling enemies affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1938, archaeologists excavated the well—and found a skeleton. Now, by analyzing the DNA extracted from the skeleton’s tooth, researchers have learned new information about the physical characteristics and lineage of the so-called “Well Man,” according to a recent study published in the journal iScience.

“This is the first time that the remains of a person or character described in a Norse saga has been positively identified,” co-author Michael Martin, an evolutionary genomicist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, tells the New York Times’ Franz Lidz. “It is also the oldest case in which we have retrieved the complete genome sequence from a specific person mentioned in a medieval text.”

The well is located near the ruined Sverresborg Castle outside the city of Trondheim in central Norway. During a period of political instability in the 12th century, Sverre insisted he had a claim to the throne, but he faced opposition from the archbishop. The 182-verse Sverris Saga, which Sverre ordered one of his associates to write, describes battles between the new king and his opposition, though historians don’t know whether these accounts are accurate. According to one passage, Roman Catholic “Baglers”—from the Norse for “bishop’s wand”—raided Sverresborg Castle while Sverre was out of town in 1197.

The Baglers didn’t harm the castle’s inhabitants, “but they completely destroyed the castle,” co-author Anna Petersén, an archaeologist at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, tells NPR’s Ari Daniel. “They burned all the houses.”

After that, she adds, “the archbishop’s people wanted to do something nasty.”

Per the saga, the Baglers “took a dead man and cast him into the well headfirst, and then filled it up with stones.” Scholars have long assumed the man was connected to the king, and that the Baglers dumped his body in that spot to taint the water and perhaps humiliate Sverre. The text includes “nothing about who this dead man was, where he came from, what group he belonged to,” says Petersén…

(13) BACK TO THREE MILE DESERT ISLAND. “Artificial Intelligence wants to go nuclear. Will it work?” asks NPR.

… But since the advent of AI, power consumption has been rising rapidly.

Training and using AI requires significantly more computational power than conventional computing, and “that corresponds to energy use,” Strubell says. Strubell and other experts expect emissions will skyrocket as AI becomes more common.

Nuclear power offers a way out: plants like Three Mile Island can deliver hundreds of megawatts of power without producing greenhouse gas emissions. New nuclear plants could do still more, powering data centers using the latest technology.

But Silicon Valley’s ethos is to go fast and break things. Nuclear power, on the other hand, has a reputation for moving extremely slowly, because nothing can ever break….

(14) TENSION HEADACHE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The “Hubble Tension” is still there, giving cosmologists headaches.

Initial studies of the Webb telescope data had failed to resolve the Tension. But some people hoped that further study would illuminate conflicting observations for the rate at which the universe is expanding. Nope. A new analysis of a whopping third of data from the Webb still show about an 8% discrepancy (plus or minus a few percentage points) in the expansion rate of the universe based on the ancient universe versus the current universe.  “Webb telescope confirms the universe is expanding at an unexpected rate” at Reuters.

Fresh corroboration of the perplexing observation that the universe is expanding more rapidly than expected has scientists pondering the cause – perhaps some unknown factor involving the mysterious cosmic components dark energy and dark matter.

Two years of data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have now validated the Hubble Space Telescope’s earlier finding that the rate of the universe’s expansion is faster – by about 8% – than would be expected based on what astrophysicists know of the initial conditions in the cosmos and its evolution over billions of years. The discrepancy is called the Hubble Tension.

The observations by Webb, the most capable space telescope ever deployed, appear to rule out the notion that the data from its forerunner Hubble was somehow flawed due to instrument error.

“This is the largest sample of Webb Telescope data – its first two years in space – and it confirms the puzzling finding from the Hubble Space Telescope that we have been wrestling with for a decade – the universe is now expanding faster than our best theories can explain,” said astrophysicist Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, lead author of the study published on Monday in the Astrophysical Journal, opens new tab….

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

Pixel Scroll 6/18/24 Destination: Moon Wedding

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(1) TAKE A FLYER ON THE FIRST WORLDCON. You have three days left to bid on this “First World Science Fiction Convention Flyer (1939)” at Heritage Auctions.

Relive the magic of going to the First world Science Fiction Convention with this vintage flyer for the legendary event! The event was chaired by Sam Moskowitz; the Guest of Honor was Frank R. Paul, and other attendees included John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Jack Williamson, Harry Harrison, Forrest J. Ackerman, and many more influential figures in pulps, comics, and genre fiction at large. Held in conjunction with the New York World’s Fair, the event was a great success and WorldCon continues to this day. The flyer measures 9″ x 12″ has a horizontal page-length crease, other small creases, toning, and handling wear. In Very Good condition. From the Roger Hill Collection.

(2) OKORAFOR SELLS ‘DEATH OF THE AUTHOR’. “Gollancz signs Nnedi Okorafor’s ‘future classic’” – The Bookseller has details.

Gollancz has signed Nnedi Okorafor’s “tour-de-force”, the Death of the Author.

Editor Brendan Durkin acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Fiona Baird at WME. North American rights went to Julia Elliott at William Morrow in a seven-figure deal after a deal negotiated with Angeline Rodriguez and Eric Simonoff at WME. French rights have been pre-empted by Ailleurs & Demain. The novel will be published in early 2025. 

Death of the Author is an “exhilarating” story about a disabled Nigerian American woman who writes a science fiction novel that becomes a bestselling phenomenon, but her success comes at a price. Billed as a “sweeping narrative” for fans of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow,Tomorrow and Tomorrow, the story is “a multi-threaded meta drama examining the relationship between storyteller and audience”. 

Okorafor said: “Death of the Author is the most ambitious and naked work I’ve ever written. I’m so proud of it. I’ve been writing it in my head for 30 years. It brings together so many of my many parts, my contradictions, fusions and my weirdness. The title comes from a famous essay by French scholar Roland Barthes, an essay that I’ve always loathed but also chewed on throughout my years working on my PhD in literature. I want readers to come away from this novel with questions, answers, and a refreshed love of what we as human beings are and what we’re capable of. Also, I wanted to tell a really good story.”…

(3) MUPHRY’S LAW VISITS MIDDLE-EARTH? David Bratman dismantles “nitwit Tolkienists” at Kalimac’s corner.

I’m not going to name this book, because I haven’t finished reading it yet, but it’s not the only recent book on Tolkien to begin by rudely and inaccurately denouncing all previous Tolkien studies for failing to fit the standards of the author’s own perfect and unimpeachable work.

Once it gets past that, it does have some interesting and original things to say, but I was stopped cold by this sentence:

Merry … finally contributes to the fighting in a decisive way, using his magic sword to slay the Black Rider, thus saving Éowyn’s life.

There are about three things wrong with this sentence….

And he details the specific problems are at the link.

(4) PICTCON 1. Farah Mendlesohn has announced plans to run a one-day PictCon1 in Perth, Scotland on Saturday, October 18, 2025.

I’m going to run a one day convention in Perth, Scotland in 2025. PictCon1: 18th October, Guest of Honour, Francesca Barbini. Tickets: £30/£20/ dealer tables £10. If you are fan based in Scotland or anywhere it’s easy to get to us from, please do come!

Francesca T Barbini is a writer, editor and translator from Rome, Italy. In January 2015 she founded Luna Press Publishing, an award-winning small press, home of speculative fiction in fiction and academia.

PictCon1 is a small convention, running just one day at the Salutation Hotel on South St, Perth. The focus is on Science Fiction and Fantasy books, games, art etc, produced in Scotland or by Scots, but there are no rigid rules. This is the first year.

(5) BOOKSHOP’S UNEXPECTED BONANZA. “Award-winning author who passed away donates over 2,000 books to Paisley shop” – Daily Record reveals Christopher Priest’s estate is the donor.

…However, despite having no obvious connection to Abbey Books in Paisley, the author’s family donated more than 2,000 creations to the store – a record according to Brian Hannan, who works there….

Brian said: “I was gobsmacked to see box after box of books being carried into the shop. We didn’t know where to put them and had to clear an area in front of the till as well as stack them in the office.

“We already have 40,000 books so we’re hardly desperate for more stock but this was an offer we could not refuse. For an author so well known as Christopher Priest to choose us as the recipient of his massive library was an honour….”

(6) LETTING THE AIR OUT OF THE INFLATABLE CASH. Filmsite lists the “Top 100 Films of All-Time – Adjusted For Inflation”. Two sff films are in the top five.

  1. Gone With the Wind (1939)
    This Civil War-era love story with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh has seduced generations of moviegoers.
  2. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
    George Lucas’ space western with aliens, revolutionaries and high-tech effects spawned sci-fi’s biggest franchise of six films.
  3. The Sound of Music (1965)
    Julie Andrews headlines the von Trapp family saga that celebrates the triumph of good over Nazism.
  4. E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
    Spielberg enchants audiences by showing how suburban kids could help a magical, little alien get back home.
  5. Titanic (1997)
    Romance, life-or-death stakes and spectacular effects make household names of director James Cameron and star Leonardo DiCaprio.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

June 17, 2005 — Doctor Who’s “The Parting of the Ways”. Segueing from my post of yesterday’s Scroll concerning “The Unicorn and The Wasp” episode, we will examine the last episode of season one, “The Parting of the Ways”, which saw Christopher Eccleston end his all too brief tenure as the Doctor and David Tennant begin his reign in that role. 

It aired on this date nineteen years ago on BBC. It was an all too brief time for the parting of a Doctor after the series ended a sixteen-year hiatus. Why am I saying all too brief a time? That’s because Christopher Eccleston would have the shortest tenure at that point as a Doctor at just one series – and still does.

So let’s talk about the first modern Doctor. There is, I think, a lot to like in him and I would’ve really preferred to have seen what Christopher Eccleston could have done with his iteration of the Doctor given the usual three years and out. 

Unlike Jodie Whittaker who I thought was stellar in her role but got let down by her scripts far too often, Eccleston had really great scripts, be it “The End of the World” where he takes Rose to witness the destruction of Earth billions of years from now, or a favorite of mine, “In “The Empty Child” where Captain Jack Harkness has unleashed a nanoplague that in WW II has turned everyone into gas mask wearing zombies. They really are chilling looking and I mean that in all aspects.

Unlike previous Doctors who one and all leaned quite frankly towards the eccentric looking side of things and yes, that included my beloved Fourth Doctor, his look was stripped down motorcycle gear being worn by an anonymous intelligence officer who could’ve been on Spooks and no one would’ve noticed him at all. 

I don’t know who decided on his look but it definitely made a statement that this wasn’t the classic Who. 

I loved every aspect of the single series that he did— the stories, the performers, the stellar practical effects and the more than state of the art special effects.  A splendid series which gave everything we needed in a contemporary Doctor including a well-chosen primary companion in Rose.

So how to see him out? Well that would mean, SPOLIER ALERT!, him taking on oldest enemy, the Daleks. And not just any Daleks, but the Grand Poobah of them, the Emperor Dalek. Notice how alien races use Earth terms? Or how unimaginative British SF script writers can be? I digress. 

So the plot here which continues the story started in “Bad Wolf” in brief is that those Dalek have taken over Satellite Five in the year 200, 000 in order to make more Daleks by harvesting human corpses. Gross. The Doctor in turn plans to use the transmitter there to wipe out every Dalek in existence forever while sending Rose home to keep her safe. What could possibly go wrong? Did I mention Jack Harkness is involved with what happens here? 

It’s an extremely well-crafted exit for him, and I consider it to have an exceptionally well done regeneration scene, a belief shared by critics in general. 

What I will say though it would have been great to see Eccleston continue in the role, David Tenannt was so good that I was delighted starting with “The Christmas Invasion.” He got three thirteen-episode  series plus Christmas specials.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Reality Check compares literary ancestries.
  • The Argyle Sweater finds it makes a difference when you drop a silent “e”.
  • 1 and Done reveals a legendary character once had vision problems.
  • One Big Happy tries rewards.
  • Last Place Comics begins a series with Lasso Man:

(9) MACK REYNOLDS GOES TO A CON IN 1949. [Item by Danny Sichel.] The people who run the SFF Audio podcast found something interesting, and scanned it, and posted it online: Mack Reynolds’ article “My Best Friends Are Martians” about the business of writing science fiction, as published in the March 1950 issue of Writer’s Digest.

It’s accompanied by a “Capsule Report on a StF Convention” and an analysis of the concept of science fiction fandom (“a phenomenon almost unbelievable. There is absolutely nothing like it in any other fiction field”).

This link is just the con report by itself.

(10) BUMPING UGLIES. The New York Times says a scientist theorizes “A Big Whack That Made the Moon May Have Also Created Continents That Move”.

Some 4.5 billion years ago, many scientists say, Earth had a meetup with Theia, another planetary object the size of Mars. When the two worlds collided in a big whack, the thinking goes, debris shot into space, got locked into the orbit of the young, damaged Earth and led to the formation of our moon.

But the collision with Theia may have done more than that, according to a study published last month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The impact may have given rise to something else: plate tectonics, the engine that drives the motion of Earth’s giant continental and oceanic plates and causes earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the eventual remaking of our planet’s surface about every 200 million years.

Earth scientists have long studied and debated the origin of plate tectonics, and other theories have been offered. Qian Yuan, a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology and an author of the new paper, and his colleagues make the case for the Theia collision as the source of plate tectonics. They reason from computer simulations that the event produced the heat needed in Earth’s early days to get the process going.

Tectonics starts with superheated plumes of magma from close to Earth’s core rising and sitting beneath the planet’s plates. The plumes can weaken the crust, and lava can erupt and push aside overriding plates….

(11) THEY’RE BAAAAAACK. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Remember those “monoliths“ that kept cropping up during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic? They’re back. Or at least one is. “’Mysterious’ monolith similar to column seen in 2020 appears in Las Vegas desert: Police” at ABC News. (Click the link for a short video.)

I know President Biden is fond of his aviator shades, but if it comes down to a dogfight with the returning aliens, I’ll take President Whitmore, thank you.

A reflective monolith, similar to one that became an Internet sensation during the height of the pandemic in 2020, was seen in Las Vegas in what local officials are dubbing a mystery.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department took to X on Monday to share two photos of the long, vertical slab of metal that allegedly appeared over the weekend on a hiking trail near Gass Peak on the northern side of the Las Vegas area….

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

Pixel Scroll 10/23/23 In A Scroll In The File, There Lived A Pixel

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(1) WORLDS OF IF REVIVAL. The title that won three straight Hugos in the Sixties under the editorship of Frederik Pohl, Worlds of If, then folded in 1974, is making a comeback here.

The classic science fiction magazine Worlds of IF will live again starting February 2024. The magazine will be relaunched with Justin Sloane of Starship Sloane as editor-in-chief and publisher, Jean-Paul L. Garnier of Space Cowboy Books filling the role of deputy-editor-in-chief, and Dr. Daniel Pomarède as science editor. The inaugural issue will be available both in print and free download PDF, with works from multiple generations of SFF authors, artists, and poets. Leading up to the release, the website will feature teasers including interviews with notable SFF authors and fans, audio adaptations of classic tales from the original IF, and articles about SFF and beyond. In the tradition of IF, the editors plan on experimenting with new forms and styles of SF, showcasing new authors, interacting with fandom, and bringing fun and weird science fiction to readers.

Visit Starship Sloane Publishing’s homesite for a free webzine reissue of the April 1955 Worlds of IF, featuring novelettes by James E. Gunn and Fox B. Holden, with a short story by Philip K. Dick.  Learn more and find bonus content here.

(2) TOLKIEN STUDIES NEWS. David Bratman of Tolkien Studies today announced his co-editor, Verlyn Flieger, is ending her run with the journal. Her place will be taken by Yvette Kisor, Professor of Literature at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

After 22 years as co-Editor of Tolkien Studies, Verlyn Flieger will be retiring to take up the position of Editor Emerita. One of the co-founders of the journal, Verlyn has co-edited 20 volumes of the journal. Highlights include editing previously unknown material by Tolkien, some of his scholarly works that had become very difficult to access, and many of the most insightful and original articles published on Tolkien in the past two decades. It is impossible to list even a fraction of the contributions Verlyn has made to every single aspect of the journal’s operations, so we are reduced to saying the obvious: without Verlyn, there would be no Tolkien Studies. We will miss her terribly (though we expect to be drawing upon her wisdom on a regular basis). Volume 20, to be published later this year, will be the last issue she will have co-edited.

Tolkien Studies is delighted to announce that, beginning with Volume 21, Yvette Kisor, Professor of Literature at Ramapo College of New Jersey, will be taking up the position of co-Editor. The co-editor of Tolkien and Alterity, Yvette is well known to the international community of Tolkien scholars both for her publications on Tolkien, including “‘The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun’: Sexuality, Imagery, and Desire in Tolkien’s Works,” in Tolkien Studies 18 (2021), and her work organizing the influential “Tolkien at Kalamazoo” sessions at the International Congresses on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. A medievalist by training, Prof. Kisor has also published extensively on Old and Middle English literature. We are extremely pleased that she will be joining the journal’s editorial team.

(3) UNCANNY HUGO ACCEPTANCE SPEECH. Best Semiprozine Hugo winner Uncanny Magazine hasposted the video with the team’s acceptance remarks.

(4) ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDALS LONGLISTS.  The Longlist for 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction is now available on the awards’ website.

Forty-five books (21 fiction, 24 nonfiction) have been selected for the longlist for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The list is now available on the awards’ website. The six-title shortlist—three each for the fiction and nonfiction medals—will be chosen from longlist titles and announced on November 14, 2023. The two medal winners will be announced by 2024 selection committee chair Aryssa Damron at the Reference and User Services Association’s (RUSA) Book and Media Awards livestreaming event, held during LibLearnX in Baltimore on Saturday, January 20, at 9:45 a.m. Eastern. A celebratory event, including presentations by the winners and a featured speaker, will take place in June 2024 at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference in San Diego.

The fiction longlist contains the following works of genre interest. Several are novels, while others are story collections in which one or more of the stories have a genre component.

  • Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame. Chain-Gang All-Stars (Pantheon)
  • Blaché, Sin and Helen Macdonald. Prophet (Grove)
  • Brinkley, Jamel. Witness (Farrar)
  • Huang, S. L. The Water Outlaws (Tordotcom)
  • Labatut, Benjamin. The MANIAC (Penguin)
  • Norris, Kelsey. House Gone Quiet (Scribner)
  • Qian, Cleo. Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go (Tin House)

(5) ASKING FOR FLASH FICTION NEBULA. A letter being circulated for signatures calls for SFWA to create a Nebula Award for Flash Fiction. The letter says in part:

… Flash fiction, short-short fiction, drabbles, dribbles, and other forms of very short prose stories have long had a place in genre fiction. Over the years, there have been many respected genre publications devoted exclusively to flash, while other publications recognize it as a distinct category. Despite this, works of flash rarely appear on the SFWA Nebula final ballot, and even fewer works of this length have won.

We do not think this is because SFWA members do not appreciate or enjoy flash fiction or other forms of very short fiction. Rather, it is likely because the strategies and techniques of flash often differ from those used in short stories, which makes it difficult to compare them to these longer works. In particular, flash as a form encourages experimentation, and pieces of flash fiction are more likely to include unusual narrative structures and points of view, to blend elements of poetry and prose, or to otherwise approach storytelling differently than longer works of fiction.

Indeed, in early 2022 the SFWA membership recognized the value of flash fiction and its presence in the genre community by passing two rules changes to the membership qualification criteria that removed the minimum word count for joining as an associate or full member….

(6) SIDEWISE AWARD PRESENTATION. [Item by Steven H Silver.] The Sidewise Awards will be presented this Friday, October 27 at 12:30 CDT (UTC-5) at the World Fantasy Con  in Kansas City, Missouri.

The presentation will be made by judges Eileen Gunn and Steven H Silver in the Chicago A Room.

Finalists who will not be in attendance can appoint a designated acceptor or e-mail an acceptance speech to Steven H Silver at [email protected].

(7) NANANA NONOMO HEY HEY. Cass Morris’ latest newsletter is full of advice about “Worldbuilding for NaNoWriMo: Preptober Edition”.

What do you need to get started?

A perennial question for the worldbuilding writer: How much do you need to do before you actually start drafting?

The answer varies by writer, of course. Some of us compile chonky world bibles before setting down a word; some of us start with the plot and fill the world in as we go. For me it’s usually somewhere in the middle. The dolls and the dollhouse tend to come at least a bit at the same time.

The answer can also vary by project. Some may need more scaffolding before you can set to work. That may be dictated by how near or far your speculative world is from the “real world,” or by how much research you need to do.

When it comes to Nano, though, it can help to target your worldbuilding to the sort of story you think you’re working on. Me, I gravitate towards political plots, so I can’t really get started until I know a lot of details about what sort of government a world has, how it functions, and what factions are at play. If you’re doing a tightly-focused fantasy of manners, however, that might be something you can handwave….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born October 23, 1880 — Una O’Connor. Actress who appeared in the 1930s The Invisible Man as Jenny Hall. She had a bit part in Bride of Frankenstein, and a supporting role in the genre The Adventures of Robin Hood. Though not even genre adjacent, she was Mrs. Peters in the film adaptation of the quite excellent Graham Greene’s Stamboul. Great novel, I’ll need to see if I can find this film. She’s in The Canterville Ghost, and shows up twice in TV’s Tales of Tomorrow anthology series. (Died 1959.)
  • Born October 23, 1918 — James Daly. He was Mr. Flint in Trek‘s most excellent “Requiem for Methuselah” episode. He also showed up on The Twilight Zone, Mission:Impossible and The Invaders. He was Honorious in The Planet of The Apes, and Dr. Redding in The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler. 
  • Born October 23, 1935 — Bruce Mars, 87. He was on Trek three times, one uncredited, with his best remembered being in the most excellent Shore Leave episode as Finnegan, the man Kirk fights with. He also had one-offs in The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of The Sea, and Mission: Impossible.  He is now Brother Paramananda with the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles which he joined shortly after ending his acting career in 1969. 
  • Born October 23, 1942 — Michael Crichton. An impressive number of Hugos, both winners and nominations. The Andromeda Strain nominated at L.A. Con, Westworld at Discon II and the Jurassic Park film would win a Hugo at ConAndian.  I’m very fond of the original Westworld film, not at all enamored of anything that has followed. Same holds for The Andromeda Strain film which I think is a perfect adaptation of his novel unlike the latter series that trashes the novel. (Died 2008.)
  • Born October 23, 1948 — Brian Catling. Author of The Vorrh trilogy whose first novel, The Vorrh, has an introduction by Alan Moore. Writing was just one facet of his work life as he was a sculptor, poet, novelist, film maker and performance. And artist. Impressively he held Professor of Fine Art at the [John] Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford and was a fellow of Linacre College. Yeah that John Ruskin. (Died 2022.)
  • Born October 23, 1953 — Ira Steven Behr, 70. Best remembered for his work on the Trek franchise, particularly Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which is still my favorite Trek though Strange Worlds has its charms, on which he served as showrunner and executive producer. As writer and or producer, he has been in involved in Beyond Reality, Dark Angel, The Twilight Zone, The 4400, Alphas, and Outlander. 
  • Born October 23, 1969 — Trudy Canavan, 54. Australian writer who’s won two Ditmars for her Thief’s Magic and A Room for Improvement novels and two Aurealis Awards as well, one for her “Whispers of the Mist Children” short story, and one for The Magician’s Apprentice novel.  It’s worth noting that she’s picked up two Ditmar nominations for her artwork as well. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Shoe contains a horrible, horrible, genre-adjacent pun. Did I mention it’s horrible?
  • Tom Gauld’s pick is probably number one in its own obscure Amazon category.

(10) MYTHING ANSWERS. The Scots Magazine invites you to take the “Scottish Myths And Folklore Quiz”. Flying absolutely blind I scored 7 out of 10. All those fantasy book blurbs I’ve read must have helped.

Do you know the name of the Loch Ness Monster’s cousin, who is said to live in Loch Morar? Or which season, Beira, who washes her clothes in the Corryvreckan whirlpool, represents?

There’s so much more to learn about Scotland’s strange and mystical past….

(11) MONSTER MAVEN. The Hollywood Heritage Museum presents “Jack Pierce: Hollywood’s Greatest Monster Maker” on October 25. Tickets for this in-person event are available at the link.

Please join us on Wednesday, October 25th at 7:30PM as we kick off the 2023-24 season of our Evening @ The Barn series with a very special Halloween edition!

In this exclusive multimedia event, the career of Jack Pierce, legendary makeup department head at Universal Pictures from 1928-1947, will be explored in depth. Unquestionably, Pierce was responsible for many of cinema’s most memorable screen characters, including The Frankenstein Monster, The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and The Phantom of the Opera, during that seminal period in horror films. Videos, photos, and unique, rarely seen elements will be critical aspects of this two-hour presentation hosted by author and historian Scott Essman. Additionally, special guests and surprises are in store for attendees!

Free parking is available in Hollywood Bowl Lot “D” which is directly adjacent to the museum.

In case you’ve never heard of the Hollywood Heritage Museum before:

The Hollywood Heritage Museum is a must-visit for cinema enthusiasts. It is located in the oldest surviving motion picture studio in Hollywood. Here, you can learn about the history of the studio and how it played a crucial role in the birth of Paramount Pictures Corporation in 1916. The first feature length film was produced here in 1912 by Jesse L. Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille. This 1901 barn turned studio was designated California State Historic Landmark No. 554 in 1956. 

(12) SPIELBERG Q&A. SYFY Wire speaks to the director about Laurent Bouzereau’s new book in “Spielberg: The First Ten Years Excerpt Reveals E.T. Secrets”.

Last fall, Neil DeGrasse Tyson made the claim that E.T., the lovable cosmic visitor, “was a sentient plant” during a guest appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. When asked how he came by this strange piece of information, DeGrasse Tyson simply replied: “Steven Spielberg told me in my office.” He didn’t elaborate any further than that, but we now know he wasn’t just blowing smoke.

The legendary director confirms the titular alien of his 1982 coming-of-age classic (now streaming on Peacock) is “more like a plant or a vegetable” in the pages of Laurent Bouzereau’s new book — Spielberg: The First Ten Years. 

Bouzereau is, perhaps, one of the few people alive who could actually pull off something like this. After all, he’s spent decades cultivating a close professional relationship with the celebrated storyteller while serving as director on the numerous behind-the-scenes documentaries found on the home release editions of Spielberg’s own movies.

Hitting stands tomorrow, Tuesday, October 24, from Insight Editions, Spielberg: The First Ten Years features exhaustive and must-read interviews centered around the productions of Duel, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and, of course, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial….

What other references did you study?

I wanted E.T. to give the impression of a thousand-year old wizened life form. Carlo took directions the same way an actor would — but it’s of course really the actor who creates the performance, and in that sense, it’s really Carlo Rambaldi who created E.T. I also remember saying to Carlo that E.T. should kind of waddle when he walks like Chaplin with his cane, that he should look like Bambi on ice. When E.T. starts to walk on Earth, he is ungainly, and he is insecure. Several times in the movie, we showed how awkward E.T. is and how funny he is when he falls over…

(13) WHAT CATS THINK. This book trailed for The Adventures of Trim series is pretty cute – probably because several cats are interviewed on camera.

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Please Don’t Destroy: “Bad Bunny Is Shrek” on Saturday Night Live.

Three guys listen to Bad Bunny’s idea for a script.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, Lynne M. Thomas, Daniel Dern, John-Paul L. Garnier, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]

Pixel Scroll 7/29/23 Glass Pixels Are Good For Seeing Into The Hearts Of Scrolls

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(1) CLASSIC CAR WITH AN SFF PEDIGREE. J. Michael Straczysnki told Facebook readers he needs a taker for the late Harlan Ellison’s 1947 Packard.

For the last six months, we’ve talked to just about every vintage car company in existence about buying Harlan’s 1947 Packard, to no avail. It’s not an especially collectible car, not in great condition, not worth much on the market, and nobody we spoke to knew who Harlan was or felt that this added to its market value.

We need to get the car out of the garage where it’s been sitting, exposed to the elements, every day for almost ten years because the plan is to turn the open garage into an enclosed, on-site storage and work area to make it easier to work on the house, rotate out equipment, and store display cabinets and other items to be used for exhibitions. But I really don’t want to just sell it for parts because it hurts my heart.

Knowing Harlan, I think he’d want the Packard to end up in the hands of a fan who could appreciate it, look after it, maybe fix it up over time. Which brings me here. If there’s a stone Harlan fan who can arrange to have the car (safely) picked up and transported away, it’s yours.

(And to everyone looking on: please don’t send me suggestions or links or say “well, what about this company?” or “I think I know a guy” or “what about an SF museum somewhere” because we have spent half a year chasing that stuff down and come up empty every time. We have to start the process of transforming the garage into on-site storage and as a place for the contractors currently making repairs to the house to seek refuge from the bitter heat. It’s been a long, difficult and annoying process, with so many folks flaking out on us, so honestly, just don’t.)

Any takers? Serious only. Must be able to pick it up by no later than the end of August.

UPDATED TO ADD: Despite the very clear request not to post more dead-end solutions, true to the tradition of the Internet, people keep posting the very thing they’re being asked not to post. I don’t mean to be crotchety about it, but I don’t know how to express it any more clearly: the only posts here should be from folks interested in taking the car, so if we can keep the signal to noise ratio to a minimum that would be grand. Otherwise every time I get pinged with a notification and think, oh, good, we have someone who can take the car, I come back to…the opposite.

Harlan Ellison wrote about his love for that Packard here.

I’m sitting in my car, my car is a 1947 Packard. I got a current car. I drive that one, but I love the Packard. I love the Packard because it was built to run, built to last. You could hit this car with 200 small Japanese cars and they would be demolished into ashes. When I go past a grade school little kids have no idea what this car is. They have no idea it was made in 1947. They don’t even know there was a year called 1947. But they see this car go by and they give me that (thumbs up & OK signs) and that means they recognize something that is forever, like the pyramids….

(2) X NO LONGER MARKS THE SPOT. Charlie Jane Anders has pulled the plug on her X (formerly Twitter) account. It’s gone. “If you see me on Twitter, it’s not me”. She tells why another common strategy for leaving the platform wouldn’t work for her:

…. Many, many people have advised me to delete all of my tweets, lock my account, and simply stop tweeting. Their argument is that someone else could take my username and impersonate me, which feels like a real, serious issue — but if I leave my account inactive for long enough, Twitter will probably take my username away and let someone else take it in any case. So I apologize in advance to anyone who sees a fake Charlie Jane on Twitter and gets confused. It’s not me, I swear. (And that’s part of why I’m writing this newsletter: so people can point to it if there’s any confusion.)

I feel the need to make a clean break from Twitter at this point. After all of the proliferation of hate speech, and the random shutdowns of progressive accounts that challenge the owner’s rigid orthodoxy, I was already wanting to make a break for it. But after the latest scandals involving CSAM, I really feel as though I have no choice. And the “clean break” thing feels important — to be honest, I don’t entirely trust myself not to log in a month from now when I have something to announce, unless I delete the account entirely….

(3) CELEBRATE BRATMAN’S HALF-CENTURY OF SCHOLARSHIP. A collection of David Bratman’s nonfiction, Gifted Amateurs, has been released by the Mythopoeic Press.

For more than four decades, David Bratman has established himself as a leading authority on J.R.R. Tolkien, the Inklings, and the enchanting realms of fantasy literature. Bratman’s scholarly articles, captivating Mythopoeic Conference presentations, and esteemed editorial work for the newsletter Mythprint and the journal Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review have solidified his expertise. Now, in celebration of his profound contributions and recent distinction as the Scholar Guest of Honor at Mythcon 52, the Mythopoeic Press proudly presents Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays, an extraordinary collection of some of Bratman’s most insightful, engaging, and intellectually stimulating works.

Within these pages, discover the untold stories behind the “Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from The Lord of the Rings,” unravel the religious themes woven throughout Middle-earth, and delve into the surprising origins of hobbit names. Guided by Bratman’s unwavering curiosity and scholarly passion, explore the fascinating history of the Inklings and how they connect to the boundless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, unearth the dramatic works of Lord Dunsany and the overlooked masterpiece of Mervyn Peake, and revel in the mythopoeic genius of Roger Zelazny. Seamlessly blending scholarship and entertainment, Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays invites readers on a journey that illuminates the true essence and enduring power of mythopoeic storytelling.

David Bratman has been writing Tolkien scholarship for nearly 50 years. He’s been co-editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review since 2013 and has edited its annual “Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies” since 2004. In addition to contributing to Tolkien scholarship, Bratman has published works on Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, Ursula Le Guin, Mervyn Peake, Neil Gaiman, and others. Now a retired academic librarian, Bratman also was editor of the Mythopoeic Society’s members’ bulletin Mythprint for 15 years and worked on many Mythopoeic Conferences, including serving twice as chair.

(4) SDCC SOUVENIR BOOK. The 2023 San Diego Comi-Con souvenir book can be downloaded as a free PDF here.

(5) WANT TO BE A SPSFC JUDGE? The Self-Published Science Fiction Competition is recruiting judges for its third season. Apply here.

(6) YEARS PASS AND THESE ARE STILL LIVE ISSUES. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] SAG-AFTRA and producers are still at odds over many things. But, at least they have seemingly agreed to end the large majority of paintdowns and wiggings. 

Wait, what?

“Ending One of the Last Vestiges of Blackface in Hollywood” in Rolling Stone.

As SAG strikes, stunt performers have proposed one thing the union and studios can agree on: a new process to end controversial “paintdowns” and “wiggings”

Actor Jason George was a few years into his career when he secured his first starring role in a movie. It was the early 2000s, and he’d been cast as a co-lead in a mountain climbing flick called The Climb. He was excited for the prospect of a break until he walked into a trailer one day and saw a white man “wearing my wardrobe, my helmet, my climbing harness, and they’re putting makeup on him to make him look like me.”

George, who is Black, was stunned. 

“I did a double take — if you’d shot it for a movie, [my reaction] would’ve been too much, too big,” he tells Rolling Stone. “I stepped out to make sure I was in the right place, came back in, and said, ‘What is happening?’ And they said, ‘This is your stunt double.’”

What George had walked in on was a “paintdown.” It wasn’t blackface in the traditional sense of a minstrel show, but it was also definitely blackface. One of Hollywood’s many seedy little secrets, a paintdown is when the skin of a white stunt performer is darkened so they can double for an actor of color — rather than just hiring a stunt performer of the same ethnicity….

In the 20-odd years since, paintdowns and “wiggings” — a similar practice where, instead of hiring a stuntwoman, a man is dressed up to double a woman — have been on the decline, but they’re far from eradicated….

(7) A LITTLE MISTAKE. [Item by Kevin Hogan.] I always start my Hugo ballot early, based on what I nominated.  In case I’m abducted by aliens, at least my initial preferences will be taken into account.

The website itself is nicely done, and the ranking of choices is easy enough.  No way to accidentally rank multiple entries the same number with a drag and drop system. 

I feel that the English proofreading on the nominees might need another pass, though.  Unless Rachel Hartman truly is the secret 7th member of Monty Python.

Editor’s note: In case that’s too hard to read, we’re talking about Lodestone Award finalist Rachel Hartman’s In the Serpent’s Wake. When I voted today I copied the Chinese characters for Hartman’s work and ran them through Google Translate. It returned “Monty Python – Rachel Hartman (Random Children’s Books)” in English. The self-same Chinese text is part of the 2023 Hugo finalists press release.

(8) ROLL BACK THE RED CARPET. The New York Times is reporting “With Actors on Strike, Sony Pushes Big Releases to 2024”.

…Sony Pictures Entertainment on Friday pushed back the release of two major films that had been set to arrive in theaters by the end of the year — the Marvel Comics-based “Kraven the Hunter” and a sequel to “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”

In addition, Sony is postponing some of its big 2024 releases. “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse,” is no longer on track for a March premiere, and a new “Karate Kid” will no longer arrive in June.

Until now, the 2023 theatrical release schedule had been left relatively unscathed by the actors’ strike, which started on July 14. But other studios are likely to follow Sony’s lead. Warner Bros. has been debating whether to postpone “Dune: Part Two,” which is supposed to arrive in theaters on Nov. 3. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” a big-budget superhero sequel, and “The Color Purple,” based on the Broadway musical, are among other 2023 holiday-season movies that could be delayed….

(9) BO GOLDMAN (1932-2023.) [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Bo Goldman is probably best known as the screenwriter for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, but many of his films received acclaim. He won two Oscars (for Cuckoo’s Nest plus Melvin and Howard) and was nominated for a third (for Scent of a Woman). Goldman died July 25. Read Variety’s tribute: “Bo Goldman, Oscar-Winning Writer of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ Script, Dies at 90”.

His only completed and credited genre work appears to be the script for Meet Joe Black (1998)—starring Brad Pitt as Joe Black, aka Death. He did also do uncredited script revisions for 1990’s Dick Tracy.

In an alternate reality, we could’ve seen Goldman’s take on the King Kong story. In 1975 he wrote a script for a Universal film, to be called The Legend of King Kong. It went unproduced after Paramount and Dino DeLaurentis sued in favor of their own 1976 release of King Kong. (Source: IMDb, Trivia section of his entry.)

Goldman is also credited as one of the sources for a fan-produced King Kong film from 2016. 

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born July 29, 1888 — Farnsworth Wright. Editor of Weird Tales, editing an amazing 179 issues from November 1924–March 1940. Mike Ashley in EoSF says, “Wright developed WT from a relatively routine horror pulp magazine to create what has become a legend.” His own genre fiction is generally considered undistinguished. He also edited during the Thirties, Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet. The work available digitally is a poem, “After Two Nights of the Ear-ache”. He was nominated at Loncon 3 for a Best Editor Retro Hugo. (Died 1940.)
  • Born July 29, 1907 — Melvin Belli. Sole genre role is that of Gorgan (also known as the “Friendly Angel”) in the Star Trek “And the Children Shall Lead” episode. Koenig objected to his playing this role believing the role should have gone to someone who was an actor. (Died 1996.)
  • Born July 29, 1915 — Kay Dick. Author of two genre novels, The Mandrake Root and At Close of Eve, plus a collection, The Uncertain Element: An Anthology of Fanta. She is known in Britain for campaigning successfully for the introduction of the Public Lending Right which pays royalties to authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries. They which may or may not be genre is her only work available at the usual suspects. (Died 2001.)
  • Born July 29, 1927 — Jean E. Karl. Founder of Atheneum Children’s Books, where she edited Ursula K Le Guin’s early Earthsea novels and Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series. An SF author as well for children and young adults, she wrote The Turning Place collection and three novels, Beloved Benjamin is Waiting, But We are Not of Earth and Strange Tomorrow. (Died 2000.)
  • Born July 29, 1941 — David Warner. Being Lysander in that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was his first genre role. I’m going to do just highlights after that as he’s got far too extensive a genre history to list everything. So he’s been A Most Delightful Evil in Time Bandits, Jack the Ripper in Time After Time, Ed Dillinger / Sark In Tron, Father in The Company of Wolves, Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, The Creature in Frankenstein, voice of Ra’s al Ghul on Batman: The Animated Series and Abraham Van Helsing on Penny Dreadful. (Died 2022.)
  • Born July 29, 1955 — Dave Stevens. American illustrator and comics artist. He created The Rocketeer comic book and film character. It’s worth noting that he assisted Russ Manning on the Star Wars newspaper strip and worked on the storyboards for Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Rocketeer film was nominated for a Hugo at MagiCon which was the year Terminator 2: Judgment Day won. (Died 2008.)
  • Born July 29, 1956 — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, 67. Author of the India set magical realist The Brotherhood of the Conch series. She also has three one-off novels, The Palace of Illusions, The Mistress of Spices, and The Forest of Enchantments.

(11) VALHALLA FOR FANZINES. Thanks to Heath Row, the late Marty Cantor’s 54 boxes have been delivered to the Eaton Collection at UC Riverside. See photos on FB.

Today a friend and I loaded a rented van with 54 boxes of science fiction fanzines and amateur press association bundles and mailings to donate to the Eaton collection at UC Riverside. The collection spans 1975 to the present day. It is a veritable treasure trove.

(12) A JOLLY PAIR OF FRIGHTENERS. Once upon a time in 1968, Boris Karloff and Vincent Price sang a duet on the Red Skelton Hour.

(13) IS THAT WATER THEY SEE? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] There’s a pre-print just up on Nature in which an international collaboration of western European based astronomers has reported the detection of water in the terrestrial zone of a planet forming star system.

PDS 70 (V1032 Centauri) is a very young T Tauri star in the constellation Centaurus. Located 370 light-years (110 parsecs) from Earth, it has a mass of 0.76 M☉ and is approximately 5.4 million years old. The star has a protoplanetary disk containing two very early exoplanets, named PDS 70b and PDS 70c, which have previously been directly imaged by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. PDS 70b was the first confirmed protoplanet to be directly imaged.

Terrestrial and sub-Neptune planets are expected to form in the inner (less than 10 AU – 1 AU being the distance from Earth to the Sun) regions of protoplanetary disks.

The European astronomers’ findings show water in the inner disk of PDS 70. This implies that potential terrestrial planets forming therein have access to a water reservoir.

OK, before we get too excited 1) the edge of the detection is 1 AU (the distance from the Earth to our Sun) and 2) PDS 70 is smaller, hence cooler, K-type star than our Sun and so the habitable zone would closer in to the star than in the Solar System: further in than the 1AU detection limit.

OK, we can get a little excited. There has been a fair bit about water in proto-planetary systems recently and the over-all picture emerging does seem that it is likely that water might exist early in star systems’ lives in the habitable zone and not — as it is today either already on planets or alternatively on small bodies beyond planetary snow or frost line which in our system is beyond Jupiter. The reason it could exists so close in — as the pre-print alludes — is because proto-planetary systems have not yet has a star with solar wind clearing out all the interplanetary dust and gas: that came later.

Until recently, the conventional theory was that the Earth (and Mars) had water transported to it from beyond the snow line. by the more abundant comets in the early Solar system. Possibly these comets were driven inward by a migrating Jupiter to a more stable orbit, so providing the inner system with a late veneer or heavy bombardment of volatile rich comets. The picture that emerges is that water is more common — if not universal — in very early planetary systems and so planets forming there will have water.

The pre-print is Perotti, G. et al (2023) Water in the terrestrial planet-forming zone of the PDS 70 disk. Nature, vol. to be determined, pages to be determined.

(14) VASTER THAN EMPIRES. The Smithsonian discusses the challenges of “Preserving Launch Infrastructure” at the National Air and Space Museum.

Launching a rocket is a complex operation, requiring personnel, equipment, and infrastructure. Space agencies and companies around the world, therefore, build giant ground systems to support launches. One of the largest and best-known launch complexes is Launch Complex 39 (LC 39), which NASA has used at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to stack and launch rockets for the Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle, and Artemis programs, among others.

All these programs have relied on a similar method of assembly. Apollo and Skylab’s Saturn V and Saturn IB, the Space Shuttle’s Space Transportation System, and Artemis’ Space Launch System (SLS) have all had their final construction inside the massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). At 525 feet tall, the VAB is one of the largest buildings by volume in the world. Stacking the launch vehicle inside protects it from weather, including Florida’s frequent storms….

Both the mobile launch platforms and the CTs are enormous, meaning that they are both much too large to fit inside either of the National Air and Space Museum’s two locations. Even NASA does not have enough space to store the MLPs now that they will not be used for Artemis. At the same time, both structures are integral to the histories of three space programs. How can the Museum collect artifacts to tell this history? One way is through preserving representative components that can speak to the history, use, and scale of these pieces of infrastructure. 

From the Crawler Transporter, the Museum’s collection boasts two tread shoes. Seeing the shoes up close gives a sense of scale. Additionally, it is possible to see that these are shoes that have been used. Their wear and tear speaks to the heavy load that the CT carries as it moves the vehicle to the launch pad….

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. How It Should Have Ended works out the correct finish for “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3”. Actually, several correct finishes. Take your pick!

How Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 Should Have Ended. Starlord remembers his boots, The High Evolutionary visits the Villain Pub, The Guardians visit the Super Cafe, and Rocket Raccoon saves his friends.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Kevin Hogan, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day P J Evans.]

Pixel Scroll 7/19/2023 Sometimes A Great Alien Nation

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(1) WRITER LOSES EYE TO GUN VIOLENCE; FUNDRAISER STARTED. Sff author Jessie Kwak of Portland, OR was severely injured in a drive-by shooting last weekend while leaving the Mississippi Street Fair. “Author shot in eye near Mississippi Street Fair in Portland: ‘My left eye exploded'” at KGW8.

Jessie Kwak spent most of Saturday among hundreds of others enjoying the Mississippi Street Fair in North Portland. For the science fiction author, it was a special chance for her to sell her books at a booth, along with her friend and fellow author, Mark. Just after 8 p.m., the pair walked to Mark’s car, which was parked at North Kerby Avenue and North Failing Street. As they prepared to drive away, they heard gunfire.

“It was just kind of like, pop, pop, pop, pop, like somebody set off a string of fireworks,” Kwak said. “The windshield exploded and my left eye exploded and I realized that wasn’t fireworks, and so I ducked down.”

Mark drove Kwak, 40, to Legacy Emanuel Hospital about four miles away. Kwak’s husband, Robert Kittilson, took photographs of his wife’s injured face, which was covered in blood. The photos are difficult to look at, but the couple hopes those who see them will see the impact of gun violence for what it is, not just a statistic to ignore

There’s a GoFundMe to help with medical bills and loss of freelance income. “Help Jessie recover from a traumatic eye injury”. The appeal has raised almost $8,000 of the $20,000 goal in the first 24 hours.

Hi, I’m Jessie, a self-made freelance writer and author. On Saturday, July 15th, I was selling books at a local street fair with another author friend. As we were leaving, someone in the car ahead of us started firing their gun into the street nearby. A bullet ricocheted into our windshield, and glass and bullet fragments hit my face and entered my left eye. I was rushed to the hospital immediately, but it was clear that the bullet had done severe damage to the eye.

On Sunday, July 16th, I went under for a 5-hour surgery to reconstruct my left eye. Doctors said it was in pieces and had to be put back together like a puzzle. The CT scan revealed that bullet fragments were embedded deep in my eye and had damaged the retina. Another surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, July 19th to remove the bullet fragments and if possible repair the retina.

It will take time to learn to live with one eye, and as a freelancer, I won’t be able to work as I recover. And no work means no income.

This fundraiser is to help pay for medical treatment, lost income and clients, and for future legal expenses.

I have been watching as gun violence has been increasing in our country, and in retrospect, I know that I am very very lucky. Many families don’t get a second chance to hug their loved ones tight.

I want to take this opportunity to show you the real person behind the statistic, and that this was not a freak accident, but the result of a systemic issue we are facing here in the United States.

(2) HUMMINGBIRD PRIZE. The winner of the 2023 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize has been announced.

Winner: ‘Field’s Nocturne No. 10 in E Major’ by Matt Lumbard

Sonny wakes to the smell of coffee and the sight of his Grampa slipping suspenders over his shoulders, looking at the woodstove and muttering: “It’ll burn itself out.”

The editors also picked their own winner, by sff author Chip Houser.

Editors’ Choice: ‘Separate Worlds’ by Chip Houser

The first time the earth tolls, we’re all in our separate worlds doing what we do.

(3) AWARDS META. Daniel Dern suggests the Award Award, featuring categories like the “Most ingenious nomination process”. What others would you suggest?

(4) BACK IN THE TOY BOX. Masters of the Universe has been returned to development hell says Variety: “’Masters of the Universe’ Movie Dead at Netflix”. What will Cora think?

…Set on the planet Eternia, “Masters of the Universe” largely focuses on the conflict between He-Man, a blonde muscle god, and his devious nemesis Skeletor. The characters formed a much-loved 1980s animated series, which developed a cross-generational fan base during its syndicated runs. For the latest film iteration, the budget came in at over $200 million with cameras set to roll this February, sources said. Last spring, however, Netflix was confronted with a stunning stock drop that saw the powerful streamer shed $50 billion in value after investors became concerned about the company’s subscriber losses.

In the aftermath of the sell-off, Netflix film head Scott Stuber and chief content officer Bela Bajaria tried to reassure the industry that they still had money to spend amid their Wall Street woes. However, sources close to “Masters of the Universe” said after that point the streamer refused to shell out more than $150 million to see up-and-comer Allen (“American Horror Story,” “A Haunting in Venice”) pick up He-Man’s sword. A source familiar with Netflix said the stock drop was irrelevant to budget issues on “Masters,” noting that its content spend has been flat at $17 billion for two years, despite market fluctuation….

(5) WE PAUSE FOR A COMMERCIAL MESSAGE. Meanwhile, the Mark Twain House & Museum is adding a dose of grumpiness to the Masters of the Universe mix by hosting the virtual event “The He-Man Effect: How American Toymakers Sold You Your Childhood”. Register here – choose your own price, minimum $2.50 (free to Twain House members).

Brian “Box” Brown unravels how marketing that targeted children in the 1980s has shaped adults in the present. The He-Man Effect shows how corporate manipulation brought muscular, accessory-stuffed action figures to dizzying heights in the eighties and beyond. Bringing beloved brands like He-Man, Transformers, My Little Pony, and even Mickey Mouse himself into the spotlight, this graphic history exposes a world with no rules and no concern for results beyond profit. 

(6) CHARLES E. NOAD OBITUARY. David Bratman has written a tribute to the late Charles E. Noad at Kalimac’s corner. It begins:

Charles was a mainstay of the Tolkien Society, the UK-based organization, and an absolute monument for Tolkien studies for all that he didn’t write very much. Besides doing bibliographical work for the TS, his most valuable contribution was as proofreader for most of the posthumous Tolkien volumes, in the History of Middle-earth series and elsewhere. At this his ability to catch glitches was unsurpassed. He could quite literally tell whether a period (the full stop at the end of a sentence) was in italics or not. As a support to Christopher Tolkien, the editor of these volumes, he was more than invaluable….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1998 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

A work by S. M. Stirling provides our Beginning this Scroll. Now I’ll admit that I am not that familiar with him which is not to say that there aren’t works by him that I do like deeply such as The Peshawar Lancers and The Lords of Creation series which consists of The Sky People and In the Courts of the Crimson Kings. The latter is extraordinary work.

He has been nominated for many awards, winning the Lord Ruthven Award which is given for significant contributions to the field of horror literature for his A Taint the Blood novel, and a Dragon Award for the Black Chamber novel in the Best Alternate History Novel category. It was nominated for a Sunburst was awarded to a Canadian novel in previous year.

Mike choose Island in the Sea of Time, the first novel in the Nantucket series, published by Roc Books twenty-five years ago. 

And now for the Beginning…

March, 1998 A.D. 

Ian Arnstein stepped off the ferry gangway and hefted his bags. Nantucket on a foggy March evening was chilly enough to make him thankful he’d worn the heavier overcoat; Southern Californian habits could betray you, here on the coast of New England. Thirty-odd miles off the coast. The summer houses built out over the water were still shuttered, and most of the shops were closed—tourist season wouldn’t really start until Daffodil Weekend in late April, when the population began to climb from seven thousand to sixty. He was a tourist of sorts himself, even though he came here regularly; to the locals he was still a “coof,” of course, or “from away,” to use a less old-fashioned term. Everybody whose ancestors hadn’t arrived in the seventeenth century was a coof, to the core of old-time inhabitants, a “wash-ashore” even if he’d lived here for years. This was the sort of place where they talked about “going to America” when they took the ferry to the mainland.

He trudged past Easy Street, which wasn’t, and turned onto Broad, which wasn’t either, up to the whaling magnate’s mansion that he stayed in every year. It had been converted to an inn back in the 1850s, when the magnate’s wife insisted on moving to Boston for the social life. Few buildings downtown were much more recent than that. The collapse of the whaling industry during the Civil War era had frozen Nantucket in time, down to the huge American elms along Main Street and the cobblestone alleys. The British travel writer Jan Morris had called it the most beautiful small town in the world, mellow brick and shingle in Federal or neoclassical style. A ferociously restrictive building code kept it that way, a place where Longfellow and Whittier would have felt at home and Melville would have taken a few minutes to notice the differences. 

Mind you, it probably smells a lot better these days. Must have reeked something fierce when the harborfront was lined with whale-oil renderies. It had its own memories for him, now. Still painful, but life was like that. People died, marriages too, and you went on. 

He hurried up Broad Street and hefted his bags up the brick stairs to the white neoclassical doors with their overhead fanlights flanked by white wooden pillars. The desk was just within, but the tantalizing smells came from downstairs. The whalers were long gone, but they still served a mean seafood dinner in the basement restaurant at the John Cofflin House.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born July 19, 1883 — Max Fleischer. Animator, film director and producer. He brought such animated characters as Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman to the screen and was responsible for a number of technological innovations including the Rotoscope and Stereoptical Processes. You can see Betty’s first screen appearance here in the 1930 Cartoon, “Dizzy Dishes”. (Died 1972.)
  • Born July 19, 1924 — Pat Hingle. He portrayed Jim Gordon in the Burton Batman film franchise. Genre wise, he had roles in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Carol for Another Christmas, Mission: Impossible, The Invaders, Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo, Amazing Stories and The Land Before Time. He would reprise his Gordon role in the Batman OnStar commercials. (Died 2009.)
  • Born July 19, 1927 — Richard E. Geis. I met him at least once when I was living out there in Oregon. Interesting person. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer twice; and whose science fiction fanzine Science Fiction Review won Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine four times. The Alien Critic won the Best Fanzine Hugo (once in a tie with Algol), and once by himself. And yes, I enjoyed reading the Science Fiction Review. I’ve not read any of his handful of genre novels, and certainly haven’t encountered his soft-core porn of which there’s a lot. (Died 2013.)
  • Born July 19, 1950 — Richard Pini, 73. He’s half of the husband-and-wife team responsible for creating the well-known Elfquest series of comics, graphic novels and prose works. They are also known as WaRP (as in Warp Graphics). It’s worth noting that characters based on works by the Pinis appear in Ghost Rider (vol.1 issue 14).
  • Born July 19, 1957 — John Pelan. Committed (more or less) the act of opening serial small publishing houses in succession with the first being Axolotl Press in the mid-Eighties where he’d published the likes of de Lint and Powers (before selling it to Pulphouse Publishing) followed by Darkside Press, Silver Salamander Press and finally co-founding Midnight House. All have been inactive for quite awhile now and he’d been editing such anthologies as Tales of Terror and Torment: Stories from the Pulps, Volume 1 for other presses though even that has not happened for some years as near as I can tell. As a writer, he had more than thirty published stories and he had won both a Stoker for The Darker Side: Generations of Horror anthology and an International Horror Guild Award for his Darkside: Horror for the Next Millennium anthology. (Died 2021.)
  • Born July 19, 1969 — Kelly Link, 54. First, let me note that along with Ellen Datlow, she and her husband Gavin Grant were responsible for the last five volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. They all did an absolutely magnificent job. All of her collections, Pretty Monsters, Magic for Beginners and Get in Trouble are astonishingly good. And she’s much honored having three Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, an Otherwise Award, a Sturgeon Award and received a MacArthur Genius Grant. She was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. And Hugos. She won a Hugo at Interaction for her “Faery Handbag” novellette, her “Magic for Beginners” novella was nominated at L.A. Con IV, and finally Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet was nominated at Nippon 2007 for Best Semi-Prozine (her husband Gavin Grant was also nominated). 
  • Born July 19, 1976 — Benedict Cumberbatch, 47. Confession time: I really didn’t care for him in the Sherlock series, nor did I think his Khan In Star Trek Into Darkness was all that interesting but his Stephen Strange In Doctor Strange was excellent. He did do a superb job of voicing Smaug inThe Hobbit and his Grinch voicing in that film was also superb. I understand he’s the voice of Satan in Good Omens… 

(9) WIZARDS IN TRAINING. This is a pretty cute set of bookends (and middle!) “The Journey To HOGWARTS Illuminated Bookend Collection Featuring A Detailed HOGWARTS Express On Its Journey Back To HOGWARTS Castle” from the Bradford Exchange.

(10)  ARE FANS NO LONGER ALIENATED? “’The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks’ podcast explores internet outrage and its aftermath” at WBUR.

1999’s “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” introduced audiences to a technological marvel: Jar Jar Binks, cinema’s first major motion-captured character. But the comic-relief alien also became the target of one of the internet’s first hate campaigns, with vitriol spilling over to the actor who played Jar Jar as well.

The new podcast “The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks” tells this story and how it informs online discourse today. Here & Now‘s Celeste Headlee speaks to podcast host Dylan Marron, also known for his writing work on “Ted Lasso” and his podcast “Conversations with People Who Hate Me.”

Here’s the direct link to the podcast: “The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks”.

Jar Jar Binks became one of the most polarizing figures in cinematic history when he made his debut in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 1999. He was even named “the most annoying movie character of all time” by Complex Magazine. After the release, Ahmed Best, the man who played Jar Jar, was hit with the full force of the backlash — and it nearly destroyed him. The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks is a six-part journey through the early internet to understand how one of the first-ever online hate campaigns began, and to right what we got so wrong about Jar Jar the first time around.

(11) UP ABOVE THE WORLD SO HIGH. “High altitude balloons spy on dark matter” at Popular Science.

High altitude balloons have drawn a lot of fire lately. In February, the US military shot down a spy balloon potentially operated by the Chinese government and an “unidentified aerial phenomenon” that was later revealed to likely be a hobbyist balloon.

So, when people caught sight of another large balloon in the southern hemisphere in early May, there was concern it could be another spy device. Instead, it represents the future of astronomy: balloon-borne telescopes that peer deep into space without leaving the stratosphere.

“We’re looking up, not down,” says William Jones, a professor of physics at Princeton University and head of NASA’s Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) team. Launched from Wānaka, New Zealand, on April 15, the nearly 10-foot-tall telescope has already circled the southern hemisphere four times on a football stadium-sized balloon made from polyethylene film. Its three onboard cameras also took stunning images of the Tarantula Nebula and Antennae galaxies to rival those of the Hubble Space Telescope. The findings from SuperBIT could help scientists unravel one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: the nature of dark matter, a theoretically invisible material only known from its gravitational effects on visible objects….

(12) THE SHIPPING NEWS. The Last Voyage of the Demeter has the dirt on Dracula.

Based on a single chilling chapter from Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula, The Last Voyage of the Demeter tells the terrifying story of the merchant ship Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo—fifty unmarked wooden crates—from Carpathia to London. Strange events befall the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a merciless presence onboard the ship. When the Demeter finally arrives off the shores of England, it is a charred, derelict wreck. There is no trace of the crew.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Fanac.org now hosts the venerable Castle of Terrors made in 1964 by the UK’s Delta Science Fiction Film Group.

This fannish production from Harry Nadler and the Delta SF Film Group gives us a slapstick parody of horror movies, replete with well known British fans of the day. There are angry villagers, damsels in distress, and scary monsters, as well as less well-known horror tropes like food fights in this 20 minute amateur extravaganza. In “Castle of Terrors” you can feel just how much fun Delta Group was having (and get a clear sense of their love for slapstick). Bill Burns, who provided this and other Delta Films tells us “The individual films date from 1963 to 1970, and were made on 8mm silent film to which a magnetic stripe was later added and the sound dubbed on. They were then shown mercilessly at club meetings and Eastercons, and suffered accordingly.” For more about the Delta SF Film Group, see the Fancyclopedia article and see the text of Bill’s talk at Manunicon (2016 Eastercon) here.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Daniel Dern, A. P. Howell, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 6/29/23 Every Pixel In The Room Was Scrolling At Me

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(1) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Michael Cisco and Farah Rose Smith on Wednesday, July 12, beginning at 7 Eastern.

MICHAEL CISCO

Michael Cisco is the author of several novels, including The Divinity Student, The Great Lover, The Narrator, and Pest, as well as the Stoker-nominated nonfiction book Weird Fiction: A Genre Study. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, and his most recent collection is Antisoc. He is the author of two novellas: ETHICS, and Do You Mind If We Dance With Your Legs? He lives in New York City.

FARAH ROSE SMITH

Farah Rose Smith is the author of the horror and dark fantasy novellas Eviscerator, The Almanac of Dust, Anonyma, and Lavinia Rising. She has also written two collections of short supernatural fiction, Of One Pure Will and The Witch is the Body. Smith recently completed a master’s degree in English Literature, Language, and Theory and is writing her third collection. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Smith currently lives in New York City with her husband, weird fiction author Michael Cisco, and their three cats.

Location: The KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003 (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs).

(2) BANKS ACCOUNT. On the 10th anniversary of the author’s death, the Guardian’s Steven Poole helps readers decide “Where to start with: Iain Banks”. The second book he considers is Consider Phlebas:

The billionaires’ favourite

Banks originally wanted to be a science-fiction author, but after several unsuccessful drafts in the 1970s decided to write something “normal” instead, thus rocket-boosting his literary career with The Wasp Factory. He then started publishing science fiction as Iain M Banks, beginning with Consider Phlebas, a phrase taken from Eliot’s The Waste Land. It’s a cosmos-spanning romp that introduces the Culture, a post-human galactic civilisation in which AI does all the work and no one wants for food or other resources. (Fully automated luxury communism – in space.)

In this first story, the smug liberal Culture is at war with the Idirans – AI refuseniks who are waging a jihad against them. Through this backdrop wanders sympathetic mercenary Bora Horza Gobuchul, a Mandalorian-style drifter with a very particular set of skills. Banks’s vision of a starfaring, post-scarcity civilisation run by AIs, in which people can change their DNA at will and live for 400 years, is publicly admired by tech giants such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk – even as they toil along with us in the capitalist present. Unfortunately for Bezos, a planned Amazon TV series based on the novel was cancelled in 2020 after Banks’s estate withdrew permission.

(3) APOCALYPSE, THE NEXT GENERATION. The New York Times magazine looks at media to probe the question “Will Children Save Us at the End of the World?”

…There’s “Station Eleven,” the 2014 novel by Emily St. John Mandel about the aftermath of a swine flu, which was turned into a much-discussed 2021 HBO Max series, in which an 8-year-old girl manages to survive with the help of a stranger turned surrogate parent. “The Last of Us,” HBO’s video game adaptation, which debuted in January, features a zombie-fungus pandemic; a seemingly immune teenage girl is humanity’s one hope. “Leave the World Behind,” Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel — soon to be a movie — about a bourgeois family vacation gone very bad, features a vague but menacing threat of apocalypse. Also loosely belonging to this category are the shows “Yellowjackets” (2021-present) — a girls’ soccer team turns to cannibalism after a plane crash — and “Class of ’07” (2023) — a school reunion coincides with a climate apocalypse — and the new-to-Netflix 2019 Icelandic movie “Woman at War” (a renegade activist tries to stop the destruction of the environment and adopt a child).

These stories are, in various ways, about how and whether our children can survive the mess that we’ve left them — and what it will cost them to do so. In “Station Eleven,” post-pans (children who were born after the pandemic) are both beacons of optimism and conscripted killers deployed by a self-styled prophet who hopes to erase anyone who holds on to the trauma of the past. And in “The Last of Us,” Ellie, the young girl with possible immunity (played by the actor Bella Ramsey), is forced to kill to survive, and to grapple with whether it’s worth sacrificing her own life in the search for a cure….

The anxieties that these works explore — about planetary destruction and what we did to enable it — are, evidence suggests, affecting the desire of some to have children at all, either because of fear for their future or a belief that not procreating will help stave off the worst. But following the children in these fictions, who didn’t create the conditions of their suffering, isn’t just a devastating guilt trip. Almost all these stories also frame children as our best hope, as we so often do in real life. Children, we need to believe, are resilient and ingenious in ways that adults aren’t. In these stories, when the phones stop working and Amazon stops delivering, it’s children, less set in their ways, who can rebuild and imagine something different. They’re our victims but also our saviors….

(4) SALVAGE RIGHT NEWS. Salvage Right by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the 25th Liaden Universe® novel (and their 100th collaborative work), will be officially released in paper and ebook editions July 4, 2023. Some stores already have the hardback on the shelves; signed copies are available from Uncle Hugo’s bookstore in Minneapolis.

Sample chapters from Salvage Right are available online at Baen Books

In honor of Salvage Right Lee and Miller are taking part in a number of podcasts and special events:

  • Annies Bookstore: Selina Lovett at Annie’s Bookstore did a Zoom interview with the authors, which can be found here
  • Watch for Griffin Barber’s interview with them at the Baen Free Radio Hour
  • Upcoming: An interview with fyyd: CultureScape with Peter PischkeCultureScape with Peter Pischke with release date TBA
  • Another interview with Under The Radar SFF Books is due later in July
  • The authors will be doing a virtual book signing at Pandemonium Books, Wednesday July 26, details TBA

(5) MANNERS, PLEASE. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki thought a timely reminder was in order about the awards etiquette published by the Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog a couple of months ago, so he retweeted it today. Thread begins here. Here’s an excerpt:

(6) AMY WISNIEWSKI (1947-2023). Mythopoeic Society member Amy Wisniewski died June 20 at the age of 76. She is survived by her wife, Edith Crowe. David Bratman has written a tribute on Kalimac’s corner, “Amy Wisniewski”, which says in part:

…Amy was already in the Society when I arrived. The first meeting I attended was at the small house that she and her partner (and later wife) Edith Crowe were living at in the flatlands of Redwood City. 48 years later, in a larger house further up in the hills, they were still hosting meetings. Almost every year, except during pandemics, they hosted the annual Reading and Eating Meeting. We would gather for a potluck meal and then take turns reading short selections around the (once real, later theoretical) fire.

For a few years, Amy was our discussion group’s moderator, and she actually directed meetings with a skill and knowledge surpassing that of anyone else who had that title. Amy wasn’t a Tolkien scholar; she didn’t give papers at Mythcon; but she had read and absorbed his books and did the same for the books we were discussing, and consequently always had intelligent things to say….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

2002 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Tonight we have a Beginning by Carol Emshwiller. She was prolific as a short fiction writer with more stories than I can comfortably count.  The two volume collection of The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller that Nonstop Press did a decade back collects nearly twelve hundred pages of her stories. 

She did just six novels of which four were genre and two were in the cowboy genre, Ledoyt and Leaping Man Hill.  No, I didn’t know she’d written the latter. All four of her genre novels are quite excellent.  The Mount which is where our Beginning comes from garnered a Philip K. Dick Award. 

And now from stage left comes our Beginning…

We’re not against you, we’re for. In fact we’re built for you and you for us – we, so our weak little legs will dangle on your chest and our tail down the back. Exactly as you so often transport your own young when they are weak and small. It’s a joy. Just like mother-walk.

You’ll be free. You’ll have a pillow. You’ll have a water faucet and a bookcase. We’ll pat you if you do things fast enough and don’t play hard to catch. We’ll rub your legs and soak your feet. Sams and Sues, and you Sams had better behave yourselves.

You still call us aliens in spite of the fact that we’ve been on your world for generations. And why call aliens exactly those who have brought health and happiness to you? And look how well we fit, you and us. As if born for each other even though we come from different worlds.

We mate the stock with the stocky, the thin with the thin, the pygmy with the pygmy. You’ve done a fairly good job of that yourselves before we came. As to skin, we like a color a little on the reddish side. Freckles are third best.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 29, 1919 — Slim Pickens. Surely you remember his memorable scene as Major T. J. “King” Kong in Dr. Strangelove? I certainly do. Simply astounding. And, of course, he shows up in Blazing Saddles as Taggart. He’s the uncredited voice of B.O.B in The Black Hole and he’s Sam Newfield in The Howling. He’s got some series genre work including several appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, plus work on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Night Gallery. (Died 1983.)
  • Born June 29, 1920 — Ray Harryhausen. All-around film genius who created stop-motion model Dynamation animation. His work can be seen in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (his first color film) which was nominated for a Hugo at Detention, Jason and the Argonauts, Mighty Joe Young and Clash of the Titans. (Died 2013.)
  • Born June 29, 1943 — Maureen O’Brien, 80. Vicki, companion of the First Doctor. Some 40 years later, she reprised the role for several Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio works. She had a recurring role as Morgan in The Legend of King Arthur, a late Seventies BBC series. Her Detective Inspector John Bright series has been well received.
  • Born June 29, 1947 — Michael Carter, 76. Best remembered for being Gerald Bringsley in An American Werewolf in London, Von Thurnburg in The Illusionist and Bib Fortuna in the Return of the Jedi. He plays two roles as a prisoner and as UNIT soldier in the Third Doctor story, “The Mind of Evil”. 
  • Born June 29, 1950 — Michael Whelan, 73. I’m reasonably sure that most of the Del Rey editions of McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series was where I first noticed his artwork but I’ve certainly seen it elsewhere since. He did Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walks Through Walls cover which I love and many more I can’t recall right now. And there’s a wonderful collection of work available, Beyond Science Fiction: The Alternative Realism of Michael Whelan.
  • Born June 29, 1956 — David Burroughs Mattingly, 67. He’s an American illustrator and painter, best known for his numerous book covers of genre literature. Earlier in his career, he worked at Disney Studio on the production of The Black Hole, Tron, Dick Tracy and Stephen King’s The Stand. His main cover work was at Ballantine Books where he did such work as the 1982 cover of Herbert’s Under Pressure (superb novel), 2006 Anderson’s Time Patrol and the 1986 Berkley Books publication of E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith Triplanetary.
  • Born June 29, 1957 — Fred Duarte, Jr. His Birthday is today and this long-time Texas fan is eulogized by Mike here upon his passing almost a decade back. (Died 2015.)

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Catching up with Tom Gauld —

(10) JEOPARDY! [Item by David Goldfarb.] From the June 28 episode, three clues in the single Jeopardy round.

Open Door, $1000: Gandalf initially struggles to open the door to this place, but after speaking the Elvish word for “friend” he gets it right

This was a triple stumper.

Google Easter eggs, $400: A Google search for what’s the answer to life, the universe, & everything gives you this number

Bryan White (whose score was $4200!): “What is 37?”

Neither of the other two could respond correctly. Douglas Adams is spinning in his grave.

$800: Google this HBO show with Pedro Pascal & keep clicking the mushroom icon for your screen to be enveloped by some humongous fungus

Bryan knew “The Last of Us”.

(11) ALL KAIJU ALL THE TIME. “24-Hour Godzilla Channel Coming to Pluto TV With Exclusive Films” promises Comicbook.com.

Godzilla is coming to Pluto TV with a huge new channel dedicated to showing off tons of Godzilla movies and shows 24 hours a day with some exclusive films to boot! TOHO’s famous Kaiju has been stomping through many eras since the giant monster was first introduced back in the 1950s, and has since amassed a massive library of TV shows and movies that fans still enjoy to this day. Now Pluto TV has made checking out your favorite Godzilla projects easier than ever before with a new streaming channel with the platform highlighting all of the biggest and best Godzilla outings over the years! 

Pluto TV has announced a new Godzilla channel filled with not only classics such as the original 1954 Godzilla debut film, Godzilla vs. Megalon, and more but even left-field additions such as the animated Godzilla: The Series from the late ’90s and early ’00s. But the biggest surprise is that this new Godzilla channel will also offer up seven Godzilla films that are exclusive to Pluto TV as fans won’t be able to find them streaming anywhere else. Read on to see the massive list of movies and TV shows coming to Pluto TV’s new Godzilla channel launching on July 1st…. 

(12) HERE’S MY NUMBER AND A DIME, DIAL ANYTIME. “The Real History Behind the Archimedes Dial in ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’” in Smithsonian Magazine.

Off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900, sponge divers came across a shipwreck filled with ancient treasures. Hidden among flashier finds like marble statues and jewelry was a mysterious device known today as the Antikythera mechanism.

Dated to more than 2,000 years ago, the device “is probably the most exciting artifact that we have from the ancient world,” says Jo Marchant, author of the 2008 book Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s First Computer. More than a millennium before 13th-century Europeans invented the first mechanical clocks, the Antikythera mechanism employed similarly complex technology—including gear wheels, dials and pointers—to chart the cosmos. The ancients used it to predict eclipses, track the movement of the sun and the moon, and even see when sporting events like the Olympics were scheduled to take place.

Contrary to what Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the latest installment in the epic franchise, suggests, the Antikythera mechanism won’t transport you back in time—not literally, at least. Every Indiana Jones adventure needs an exotic MacGuffin; in the new outing, which arrives in theaters this week, the hero chases after the Archimedes Dial, a fictionalized version of the Antikythera mechanism that predicts the location of naturally occurring fissures in time.

…In the film’s 1944-set prologue, Indy (Harrison Ford) captures a train loaded with Nazi plunder, including the titular Dial of Destiny. The movie then jumps ahead to 1969. Indy is set to retire from teaching archaeology, and the world is celebrating the safe return of the Apollo 11 crew. One of the men most responsible for the United States’ victory in the space race is Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), a former Nazi who was given sanctuary by the Allies in exchange for his expertise, much like the real-life NASA engineer Wernher von Braun. When Indy learns that Voller wants to use the Archimedes Dial to travel for nefarious purposes, he reluctantly dusts off his old hat and bullwhip to (again) keep a potentially devastating weapon out of Nazi hands….

(13) NATURE EDITORIAL WARNS ABOUT AI. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] You know, I simply love the end of the world.  You can’t beat it. Of course, as long as it is firmly in SF.  (Wouldn’t like it in reality: it’d get in the way of afternoon tea and evening real ale down the pub…)

Today’s Nature editorial once more tackles doomsday.  Beware of tech companies achieving their goals through obsfucation… “Stop talking about tomorrow’s AI doomsday when AI poses risks today”.

Talk of artificial intelligence destroying humanity plays into the tech companies’ agenda, and hinders effective regulation of the societal harms AI is causing right now.

The idea that AI could lead to human extinction has been discussed on the fringes of the technology community for years. The excitement about the tool ChatGPT and generative AI has now propelled it into the mainstream. But, like a magician’s sleight of hand, it draws attention away from the real issue: the societal harms that AI systems and tools are causing now, or risk causing in future. Governments and regulators in particular should not be distracted by this narrative and must act decisively to curb potential harms. And although their work should be informed by the tech industry, it should not be beholden to the tech agenda.

Many AI researchers and ethicists to whom Nature has spoken are frustrated by the doomsday talk dominating debates about AI. It is problematic in at least two ways. First, the spectre of AI as an all-powerful machine fuels competition between nations to develop AI so that they can benefit from and control it. This works to the advantage of tech firms: it encourages investment and weakens arguments for regulating the industry. An actual arms race to produce next-generation AI-powered military technology is already under way, increasing the risk of catastrophic conflict — doomsday, perhaps, but not of the sort much discussed in the dominant ‘AI threatens human extinction’ narrative.

Second, it allows a homogeneous group of company executives and technologists to dominate the conversation about AI risks and regulation, while other communities are left out. Letters written by tech-industry leaders are “essentially drawing boundaries around who counts as an expert in this conversation”, says Amba Kak, director of the AI Now Institute in New York City, which focuses on the social consequences of AI.

To all of which the SF fan might ask how the genre might contribute…?

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

Pixel Scroll 4/18/23 Sister Pixel, Oh, The File Has Come

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(1) MICHELLE YEOH RETURNS TO TREK. “’Star Trek: Section 31′ Original Movie Event Starring Oscar Winner Michelle Yeoh Announced” at StarTrek.com.

Paramount+ today announced it has officially greenlit Star Trek: Section 31 starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh. In this special original movie event for the service, Yeoh will return to her role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou, a character she first played in Star Trek: Discovery’s first season.

In Star Trek: Section 31, Emperor Philippa Georgiou joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and faces the sins of her past. Produced by CBS Studios, production will begin later this year….

(2) UK POLICE ARREST FRENCH PUBLISHER. Publishers Weekly reports from London Book Fair 2023 about how a shocking arrest started the show.

Protests Greet Arrest of French Publisher

In an upsetting action prior to the start of the fair, Ernest Moret, foreign rights manager for the French publisher Editions La Fabrique, was detained by U.K. police on arriving at St. Pancras Station from Paris. He was stopped under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and detained for questioning without a lawyer present, allegedly to determine whether he was engaged in terrorist acts or in possession of material for use in terrorism, according to a joint press release from Editions La Fabrique and Verso Books, on Tuesday morning. Moret was traveling with the author Alain Damasio, a well-known French science fiction writer, and had planned to attend meetings at the fair before returning to France on Friday.

The police claimed that Moret had participated in demonstrations in France, presumably that threatened the authorities, as a justification for the initial detention. How this justifies detention in the U.K. is unclear. The detaining officers demanded that Moret surrender his phone and passwords. After he refused, Moret was formally arrested and accused of obstruction. As of Tuesday afternoon, he was still in police custody.

“We consider these actions to be outrageous and unjustifiable infringements of basic principles of the freedom of expression and an example of the abuse of anti-terrorism laws,” Éditions La Fabrique and Verso Books said in their release. “We consider that this assault on the freedom of expression of a publisher is yet another manifestation of the slide towards repressive and authoritarian measures taken by the current French government in the face of widespread popular discontent and protest. It is crucial for all defenders of basic democratic values to express in the strongest terms that we find this intolerable and outrageous.”

(3) BEWARE HACKED FAN FB ACCOUNTS. “Orange Mike” Lowrey reported today, “Several fans’ Facebook accounts have been hacked and hijacked; in addition to mine, I know that filk legend Tom Smith has been a victim. I don’t know when and how we will be able to recover our accounts. I am told that Tom Smith and I are not fandom’s only victims.”

Someone posted a dog adoption post to Lowrey’s FB page, apparently as a phishing scheme.

(4) BOOK TOWN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] The Sunday Boston Globe had this article (including an interesting book reference/suggestion). Fortunately MSN.com picked it up, so it’s not paywalled: “A haven for bookworms in the Catskills”.

Book towns, which are exactly what you’d expect, are located mostly outside the United States — in the United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand, Japan, India, etc. According to Alex Johnson, author of “Book Towns,” the definitive book on the subject: “A book town is simply a small town, usually rural and scenic, full of bookshops and book-related industries … it started with Hay-on-Wye in Wales in the 1960s, picked up speed in the 1980s, and is continuing to thrive in the new millennium.” The success of book towns is very good news for those of us who revere the printed word.

Luckily for local bibliophiles, Hobart Book Village, the only book town east of the Mississippi River, is not too far away, in the northern Catskills. It’s a bucolic, blink-and-you-miss-it hamlet of fewer than 500 souls that was reinvented as a book village in 2005 through the efforts of local entrepreneur, Don Dales. Dales is Hobart Book Village’s prime mover, unofficial mayor, and, as it happens, an accomplished pianist. He sought to revive a faded and economically depressed community and, after hearing about Hay-on-Wye, hit upon the idea of using books to do so. He bought up a few key buildings on Main Street and rented them to bookshops at drastically reduced rates (initially zero dollars). And it worked. Now, according to Dales, “instead of tumbleweeds, we have pedestrians walking down Main Street.” He adds, somewhat emphatically, that the name of the village is pronounced “Hobert.” So now you know….

And here’s some older (but probably less-paywalled) articles on Hobart:

New York’s Catskills is truly a unique destination for more reasons than one. Not only is it home to the abandoned Borsch Belt resorts, but it’s also scenic in all of its mountainside beauty. It’s often overlooked compared to its mountain neighbor to the north, the Adirondacks, but there’s one town, in particular, that has gained quite a reputation.

It might come as a surprise to know that book lovers should be adding the Catskills to their bucket list, and that’s thanks to one town: Hobart. This (very) small village is home to more bookstores than any other type of store in town, and that was done so intentionally. It’s a unique corner of the Catskill Mountains and is one that’s worth spending a day – or a weekend – exploring….

Calling all bookworms! This quaint little town in New York made up entirely of bookstores is the next spot to cross off on your summer bucket list….

(5) LEE HARDING (1937-2023). Australian writer Lee Harding died April 19. [Date corrected as requested by Belinda Gordon, on 6/23/23.] Jean Hollis Weber announced on Facebook:

Belinda Gordon (daughter of Lee Harding) writes that Lee died peacefully at 6.33 am this morning in Perth. He had been unwell for some time.

Harding was among the founding members of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club, together with Race Mathews, Bertram Chandler, Bob McCubbin, Merv Binns and Dick Jenssen. He and John Foyster started the prestigious fanzine Australian Science Fiction Review in 1966.

His first published sff short story, “Displaced Person” appeared in 1961 in Science Fantasy. He also wrote two 12-part science fiction serials for ABC Education Radio and dramatized an H.G. Wells story for the same program. During his career he won two Ditmar Awards, for “Dancing Gerontius” (1970) and “Fallen Spaceman” (1972). In 2006 he was honored with the A. Bertram Chandler Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in Australian SF, presented by Australian SF Foundation.

(6) LARRY CARD. First Fandom member Larry Card died April 15 after an 18-month illness reports John L. Coker III. Arlan K. Andrews, Sr.’s writeup about the sad news included this background: “A member of Mensa and Intertel, Larry was an advanced ham radio operator, an expert in 19th Century telegraphy, and a black powder gun enthusiast.  With a background in crypto, he served in both the US Army and Navy, as a technician at Bell Labs, and then at Naval Air Warfare Center (later Raytheon), in Indianapolis.”

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1975 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

A note about the Beginnings. Cat and Mike collaboratively choose both the authors and the works that the Beginnings that are from. Then Cat does the writing. The one for this Scroll was the choice of Mike. 

Michael Bishop’s A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire was his debut novel. It was published by Ballantine Books forty-eight years ago in a hardcover edition. 

It picked up a Nebula nomination, but critics were decidedly mixed on it were some comparing it favorably to the work of Le Guin and Tiptree while another critic thought it was “highly imperfect” whatever that means.  

The 1980 revision SFE notes is rather different as it is essentially an author’s preferred edition that changes the meaning of the novel. No spoilers there really I’d say. 

Now I’ve not read it, so I’d like your opinions on it. I must say that I did read the first several chapters of the 1980 revised edition and I am quite, quite impressed with what I read. 

So now our Beginning…

PROLOGUE 

Long ago there was a jongleur-thief in Kier, before Kier was yet a nation, and the name of the jongleur-thief was Jaud. Gla Taus, The World, was new in those days, only lately formed from the primordial slag, and in every situation in this new world Jaud acted out of the selfish center of himself. This was not unusual, for in the beginning the world was without law and the people had no word for conscience. 

Jaud’s disposition was merry and cruel at once, and he chose to live by stealing. After each theft he whirled before his victim and deftly juggled the items he had stolen: rings, bracelets, coins, seashells, beads, digging tools, and even weapons. Often his victims applauded these performances. Only rarely did the aggrieved Gla Tausian try to recover his belongings, for Jaud was impatient of those who interfered with his juggling, and throughout the land his deadliness with knife and hand ax was well known. 

In the infancy of Gla Taus, Jaud honored only Jaud and a few fellow thieves who served as his disciples and retainers, having recognized in him a sorcerer of chicanery and bloodthirstiness. For untold years, the Thieves of Jaud preyed upon the people of Kier before Kier was a nation. They made themselves a bastion in the Orpla Mountains, from which they undertook forays of theft, jugglery, and slaughter.

But as time passed, people drew together against the indifference of Gla Taus and the cruelty of Jaud. From these first feeble bands tribes arose, and from the tribes chiefdoms, and from the chiefdoms primitive states, and from the primitive states a nation that called itself Kier. Kier exercised dominion through the authority of the first Prime Liege, whom everyone knew as Shobbes or Law. Only Jaud and his fellow jongleur-thieves failed to acknowledge the preeminence of Law, for they were free spirits obeying no statutes but those written in the runes of their blood. How could they know that the superstitious taboos of the first bands had become the inhibitory customs of the tribes? That the customs had become ordinances, and that finally Shobbes had had these ordinances codified in writing?

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 18, 1884 — Frank R. Paul. Illustrator who graced the covers of Amazing Stories from May 1926 to June 1939, Science Wonder Stories and Air Wonder Stories from June 1929 to October 1940 and a number of others well past his death date.  He also illustrated the cover of Gernsback’s Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 (Stratford Company, 1925), published first as a 1911–1912 serial in Modern Electrics. He was inducted into Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2009. Stephen D. Korshak and Frank R. Paul’s From the Pen of Paul: The Fantastic Images of Frank R. Paul published in 2010 is the only work I found that looks at him. (Died 1963.)
  • Born April 18, 1930 — Clive Revill, 93. His first genre role was as Ambrose Dudley in The Headless Ghost, a late Fifties British film. He then was in Modesty Blaise in the dual roles of McWhirter / Sheik Abu Tahir followed by The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes playing Rogozhin. A choice role follows as he’s The Voice of The Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back.  As for one-offs, he shows up in The Adventures of Robin Hood, The New Avengers, Wizards and Warriors in a recurring role as Wizard Vector, Dragon’s Lair, the second version of The Twilight Zone, Batman: The Animated Series in recurring role as as Alfred Pennyworth, Babylon 5, Freakazoid in a number of roles, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Pinky and The Brain… that’s not even close to a full listing! 
  • Born April 18, 1946 — Janet Kagan. She wrote but three novels in her lifetime, Uhura’s Song, set in Trek universe, Hellspark and Mirabile which is a stitch-up of her Mirabile short stories. The Collected Kagan collects all of her short fiction not set in the Mirabile setting. Her story “The Nutcracker Coup” was nominated for both the Hugo Award for Best Novelette and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette, winning the Hugo at ConFrancisco. (Died 2008.)
  • Born April 18, 1965 — Stephen Player, 58. Some birthday honor folks are elusive. He came up via one of the sites JJ gave me but there is little about him on the web. What I did find is awesome as he’s deep in the Pratchett’s Discworld and the fandom that sprung up around it. He illustrated the first two Discworld Maps, and quite a number of the books including the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Light Fantastic and The Illustrated Wee Free Men. Oh, but that’s just a mere wee taste of all he’s done as he did the production design for the Sky One production of Hogfather and The Colour of Magic. He did box art and card illustrations for Guards! Guards! A Discworld Boardgame. Finally, he contributed to some Discworld Calendars, games books, money for the Discworld convention. I want that money. 
  • Born April 18, 1969 — Keith R. A. DeCandido, 54. I found him working in these genre media franchises: such as Supernatural, Andromeda, Farscape, Firefly, Aliens, Star Trek in its various permutations, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Spider-Man, X-Men, Hercules, Thor, Sleepy Hollow,and Stargate SG-1. Now I will admit that his Farscape: House of Cards novel is quite fantastic, and it’s available from the usual suspects. He’s also written quite a bit of non-tie-in fiction.
  • Born April 18, 1971 — David Tennant, 52. The Tenth Doctor and my favorite of the modern Doctors along with Thirteen whom I’m also very fond of. There are some episodes such as the “The Unicorn and The Wasp” that I’ve watched repeatedly and even reviewed at Green Man.  He’s also done other spectacular genre work such as the downright creepy Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, and and Barty Crouch, Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He’s also in the Beeb’s remake of the The Quatermass Experiment as Dr. Gordon Briscoe.
  • Born April 18, 1973 — Cora Buhlert, 50. Winner of the 2022 Best Fan Writer Hugo. With Jessica Rydill, she edits the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a most excellent site. She has a generous handful of short fiction professionally published. I’ve got her Paris Green: A Helen Shepherd Mystery in my far too long to-be-read list.

(9) TEACHING TOLKIEN. David Bratman shared these memories of Mike Foster, who died April 12.

…At the big 50th anniversary of The Lord of the Rings conference at Marquette University, where the papers are held, Mike gave a talk bristling with intelligent and clever ideas of how to teach Tolkien.

For instance, he outlined the papers he assigned in his Tolkien class. First, an analysis of any chapter – of the student’s choice – from any of Tolkien’s major works: how it contributes to the story. Second, a study of a work Tolkien might have read and its possible influences. Third, an evaluation of any full-length critical study. And last, a study of the evolution of one particular character.

But my favorite line of Mike’s – one I refer to often – was one he occasionally noted on an essay: “That happened in the film you obviously saw, not in the book you were supposed to have read.”…

(10) CELEBRATE MARVEL COMICS’ BIRTHDAY IN MARVEL AGE #1000. Pick up a giant-sized spectacular starring the X-Men, Spider-Man, and more to celebrate Marvel Comics’ birthday on August 31 when Marvel celebrates the release of Marvel Comics #1, the one that started it all, and the 84 years of stories and characters since then that have shaped pop culture. To mark the occasion, Marvel will be releasing MARVEL AGE #1000, a massive commemorative issue that includes contributions from some of the most storied creators in Marvel history.  

  • J. Michael Straczynski and Kaare Andrews create the Marvel Universe in a backyard!
  • Dan Slott and Michael Allred depict a crucial turning point for Captain Marvel!
  • Rainbow Rowell and Marguerite Sauvage explore the blossoming relationship between Cyclops and Jean Grey!
  • The original Human Torch finds his purpose thanks to Mark Waid and Alessandro Cappuccio!
  • The Silver Surfer confronts Mephisto under the guidance of Steve McNiven!
  • Jason Aaron and Pepe Larraz detail Thor’s impact on a mortal life!
  • Ryan Stegman explores the support network of Spider-Man’s friends and family!
  • Armando Iannucci and Adam Kubert pit Daredevil up against a very human problem!
  • And more!

In addition, MARVEL AGE #1000 will bring back a classic and beloved Marvel Comics tradition: The Marvel Comics Value Stamp! Who or what will the ultimate Marvel Value Stamp, #1000, feature?

Check out Gary Frank’s cover below. For more information, visit Marvel.com.

(11) BORGES LITERARY ESTATE. AP News reports the “Future of Borges estate in limbo as widow doesn’t leave will”.

The rights to the works of the late Jorge Luis Borges, considered Argentina’s most internationally significant author of the 20th century, have fallen into limbo because his widow died last month without a will.

The revelation this week surprised the country’s literary circles, because Borges’ wife, Maria Kodama, devoted much of her life to fiercely protecting his legacy. She set up a foundation under the writer’s name, but did not detail plans for what should happen after she died, even though she was battling breast cancer….

…Borges died in 1986 at age 86 and left Kodama, a translator and writer whom he had married earlier that year, as his only heir. They never had children. She died March 26, also aged 86.

(12) CORGO SHIP. [Item by Daniel Dern.] See the silly image on this Facebook page.

(13) VOLTAIC TECHNOSAUSAGES. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Some Italians are perfecting classic cuisine while others are doing this: “Scientists Develop A Tasty Rechargeable Battery Made From Food And Yes It’s Edible” – HotHardware has the story.

Researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) have created the world’s first fully edible rechargeable battery. Key foodie ingredients of the new battery may include extracts from almonds, pomegranates, mushrooms, capers, seaweed, charcoal, and beeswax. The electrodes also make use of food-grade gold leaf, which may invoke thoughts of extravagant cuisine, but the combination of the flavors outlined isn’t going to win any culinary awards. This low-power rechargeable battery could become a key component in the burgeoning field of edible electronics, with solutions mainly targeting medical devices and the food safety.

The IIT researchers say that their invention was inspired by living organisms which generate electricity. Organisms typically use “redox cofactors to power biochemical machines,” and this is the base technology for this research. In its current state, the edible battery isn’t going to crank out as much voltage as an electric eel though, and it doesn’t even sound powerful enough for tackling the more modest demands of a smartwatch, for example. A proof-of-concept edible rechargeable battery created by the research team operated at 0.65 V, sustaining a current of 48µA for 12 minutes. Don’t worry though, the researchers are already working on cells with both greater capacity and density.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Daniel Dern, John L. Coker III, Joyce Scrivner, Michael J. “Orange Mike” Lowrey, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]