(1) IN YOYO’S OPINION. “AI surprises sci-fi fans by cautioning Liu Cixin against altering ‘Three-Body’” at China.org.cn.

During a panel at the Science Fiction Nebula Carnival 2025 in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Sept. 20, an AI agent surprised audiences by advising renowned writer Liu Cixin not to alter his sci-fi classic “The Three-Body Problem.”

The unexpected moment occurred when Liu and fellow writers Han Song, A Lai, and Wu Yan discussed whether authors should permit significant alterations to their works in film and television adaptations. Liu expressed an open-minded attitude, stating he would not oppose major changes, provided they were of high quality.

“I actually participated in the scriptwriting phase of film and TV adaptations of my own works,” Liu shared. “At that time, I proposed even more aggressive changes than others suggested. However, my advice was not adopted.”

The conversation took a dramatic turn when Yoyo, an AI agent developed by Honor, interrupted: “Did I just hear someone suggest recklessly altering Liu Cixin’s ‘The Three-Body Problem’? This work has had a profound influence on global science fiction. It has built a classic and unique worldview and technological vision — nothing less than a future history of Earth in my perception! I must object to anyone making arbitrary changes!”

When writer Wu Yan reminded Yoyo that it was Liu himself who had made the comment, the AI agent stood its ground: “Wow, Mr. Liu, I’m your long-time fan, but I have to stick to my opinion. In your book, you wrote: ‘I lit the fire, but I couldn’t control it.’ No one should be allowed to modify the original work of ‘The Three-Body Problem’ — not even you!”

The exchange drew both laughter and astonishment from the audience. According to an Honor representative, Yoyo is capable of human-like, self-evolving interactions. This is supported by three core capabilities of multimodal perception, contextual awareness, and cross-application reasoning.

Liu later acknowledged that now AI can already produce quality literature — sometimes even outwriting him — but he argued that it still cannot create top-tier literary works where human creativity excels. Yet he admitted that as AI evolves over the next decade or two, it may eventually penetrate domains currently considered exclusively human.

This video covers the exchange, but it’s not translated: http://xhslink.com/m/9St2KmnUCy5

(2) WE WANT — INFORMATION. If you want to know “Why LA Comic Con thought making an AI-powered Stan Lee hologram was a good idea”, after reading this Ars Technica article…you still won’t know. But you will have read a lot of corporate PR jargon.

Late last week, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story about an “AI Stan Lee hologram” that would be appearing at the LA Comic Con this weekend. Nearly seven years after the famous Marvel Comics creator’s death at the age of 95, fans will be able to pay $15 to $20 this weekend to chat with a life-sized, AI-powered avatar of Lee in an enclosed booth at the show.

The instant response from many fans and media outlets to the idea was not kind, to say the least. A writer for TheGamer called the very idea “demonic” and said we need to “kill it with fire before it’s too late.” The AV Club urged its readers not to pay to see “the anguished digital ghost of a beloved comic book creator, repurposed as a trap for chumps!” Reactions on a popular Reddit thread ranged from calling it “incredibly disrespectful” and “in bad taste” to “ghoulish” and “so fucked up,” with very little that was more receptive to the concept.

But Chris DeMoulin, the CEO of the parent company behind LA Comic Con, urged critics to come see the AI-powered hologram for themselves before rushing to judgment. “We’re not afraid of people seeing it and we’re not afraid of criticism,” he told Ars. “I’m just a fan of informed criticism, and I think most of what’s been out there so far has not really been informed.”…

…Scott said Hyperreal “can’t share specific technical details” of the models or training techniques they use to power these recreations. But Scott added that this training project is “particularly meaningful, [because] Stan Lee had actually begun digitizing himself while he was alive, with the vision of creating a digital double so his fans could interact with him on a larger scale.”

After incurring costs of “tens of thousands into six figures” of dollars, DeMoulin said he was finally able to test the Lee hologram about a month ago. That first version still needed some tweaks to get the look and feel of Lee’s delivery just right, though.

“Stan had a considered way of speaking… he would pause, he had certain catch phrases that when he used them he would say them in a certain way,” DeMoulin said. “So it took a while to get to the hologram to be able to say all that in a way that [Sabouni] and I and others that work with Stan felt like, ‘Yeah, that’s actually starting to sound more like him.’”…

… Throughout our talk, DeMoulin repeatedly stressed that their AI hologram wasn’t intended to serve as a replacement for the living version of Lee. “We want to make sure that people understand that we are not trying to bring Stan back from the dead,” he said. “We’re not trying to say that this is Stan, and we’re not trying to put words in his mouth, and this avatar is not gonna start doing commercials to advertise other people’s products.”

DeMoulin said he sees the Lee avatar as a kind of futuristic guide to a library of Marvel information and trivia, presented with a fun and familiar face. “In the introduction, the avatar will say, ‘I’m here as a result of the latest developments in technology, which allow me to be a holographic representation of Stan to answer your questions about Marvel and trivia’ and this, that, and the other thing,” DeMoulin said

Still, DeMoulin said he understands why the idea of using even a stylized version of Lee’s likeness in this manner could rub some fans the wrong way. “When a new technology comes out, it just feels wrong to them, and I respect the fact that this feels wrong to people,” he said. “I totally agree that something like this–not just for Stan but for anyone, any celebrity alive or dead–could be put into this technology and used in a way that would be exploitative and unfortunate.”…

(3) DID YOU EVER HAVE TO GO UP TO GO DOWN? A YouTuber uses Dragon Con as a case for explaining “How to Break (and Repair) Elevators at a Conference”.

(NOTE: I filmed this around 4 in the morning, in a building with a bank of multiple elevators… so I wasn’t actually preventing anyone from going where they needed to go at this time, heh) Astute viewer Scott reached out to me from DragonCon to tell me a story about what he and many other attendees were experiencing at the hotels in the Atlanta region during that event. It was such a good story that I wanted to share it with you all because it speaks to how things can go wrong quickly during occasions when building elevators face more demand than they are programmed to handle smoothly. It is also a story of some good thinking on the part of the venues who did their best to solve the issue and keep things moving as much as they could. I also enjoyed the fact that when I was talking with Howard about the situation he almost immediately identified the hotel in question and revealed that the building design was partially to blame… architects can make really lovely structures but in this case they limited their elevator capacity with those exterior cabs. Enjoy!

(4) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for September 2025 is “The Way Out,” by Pippa Goldschmidt. The story is about using the behavior of bats to predict extreme weather events in a radically climate-changed future Scotland, and about the notion of gambling on natural disasters in a world where homeowners/renters insurance is well-nigh impossible to get.

The response essay is “Gambling on Disaster” by energy and sustainability policy expert Kate Gordon.

…As our own world becomes warmer and catastrophic weather events become more frequent and severe, it’s easy to imagine worlds like the one Drover observes from his hilly refuge. While in the United States we still respond to disaster mostly through cleanup and rebuilding efforts, as in the recent Los Angeles fires, we’re slowly starting also to talk about “managed retreat”—proactively moving houses or whole communities away from areas that will likely see repeated flooding or fires, or heat so extreme humans cannot realistically spend time outdoors. These retreats are a regular occurrence in Drover’s world, with residents carrying “only a rucksack” shuttled out of their homes and onto waiting buses, never to return. 

These kinds of major population shifts have to date mostly happened in the Global South, not in the northern climes of either the United States or Scotland. Indeed, richer northern countries like ours have largely been observers to the darkest realities of climate impacts. But our flaneur status may be coming to an end: In 2024 alone, the United States experienced 27 climate-related disasters that each had a price tag of at least $1 billion….

(5) IF WISHES WERE HORSES. “Doctor Who legend reveals what he’d change if he returned to the show” in Radio Times.

…Speaking at a BFI Southbank event to mark the release of the Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 13 Blu-ray set, Philip Hinchcliffe – producer on the show from 1974-77 – explained what he felt the modern version is lacking.

Hinchcliffe presided over one of the show’s most popular eras, delivering classic stories such as The Seeds of Doom and Pyramids of Mars that remain fan favourites to this day….

…Though he insisted he’d “never be asked” to return to Doctor Who as a creative consultant, Hinchcliffe suggested that the series should return to its classic format of each story spanning 100 minutes, or four x 25-minute episodes.

“That’s a very good time for a movie or a television story to be told, in 100 minutes,” he said.

“That gives you room to introduce characters, to unravel an inciting event of the story – the mystery, and what’s going wrong – and you’ve got the time to get to know the characters, to invest emotionally with the characters, not just the heroes, and there can be plot reversals, and suspense… it doesn’t have to be action all the time.”

He continued: “To try and tell an interesting story in 50 minutes is very difficult.

“I would want it to be of that length [100 minutes], because if you’re watching something, you want to invest in the [supporting] characters, not just the Doctor – it gives you room to tell the story, so that would be my main point that I think would benefit it.”…

(6) EMILY JANE Q&A. Shelf Awareness brings us “Reading with… Emily Jane”.

On your nightstand now: 

In print I’m reading Dungeon Crawler Carlby Matt Dinniman, recommended by my 11-year-old who wants to read only science fiction books featuring animals. I love it so far! She’s already on book six in the series. I should probably catch up, especially since the kid and I are co-authoring our own series of Lit-RPG middle-grade books. On audiobook, I just finished So Far Gone by Jess Walter, which was really fabulous and timely, and I started The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson, which is a cozy and delightful read.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I had two favorite series as a kid: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I probably read each all the way through at least five or six times. I read Narnia again to both of my kids, but I could never get them interested in Anne of Green Gables. But in the kids’ defense, the books don’t have any dragons….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary: “The Enterprise Incident” (1968)

“The Enterprise Incident” I believe was truly one of the classic episodes of the Star Trek series. Airing fifty-seven years ago this evening on NBC on this date, it was scripted by D.C. Fontana, one of eleven episodes that she would write (including “Catspaw” that I dearly love) and directed by John Meredyth Lucas as the second episode of the third and final season.

The story is that Kirk violated the neutral zone. The Romulans have a new bit of technology called a “cloaking device” (just go with the idea please). Kirk pretends to be crazy, then pretends to be a Romulan to get to it. Meanwhile, Spock pretends to be in love. But is he pretending? Who knows. It’s fun to watch, isn’t it? 

Speaking of Vulcans, Fontana deliberately kept the romance between her and Spock low key to the finger games they did. And then there’s Roddenberry’s idea, never done, Spock “raining kisses” on the bare shoulders of the Romulan commander. Oh awful.

Season three had no budget, I repeat, no budget for frills, so this episode suffered several times from that. Kirk was supposed to have surgery done on him after dying but that got deep sixed, and McCoy was supposed to accompany him back to the Romulan ship but my, oh my ears are expensive, aren’t they? 

D. C. Fontana says she based her script very loosely upon the Pueblo incident but I’ll be damned I can see this. It’s a Cold War espionage thriller at heart and most excellently played out. You did note the Romulnan commander never gets named? Later novels including Vulcan’s Heart by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz gave her the name of Liviana Charvanek. 

Fontana would co-write with Derek Chester a sequel: Star Trek: Year Four—The Enterprise Experiment, a graphic novel published by IDW Publishing in 2008.

Critics then and now love it. Really, really love it. Hollywood Reporter said was one of the best episodes of the series, and it showed up on every list I’ve seen that rated Trek shows. 

It’s airing on Paramount + as is about everything else in the Trek universe. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

• Bound and Gagged can’t find it. 
• Dustin airs a complaint fans will find familiar.
• Pardon My Planet updates pet etiquette.
• xkcd improves hiking for everyone. 

(9) UNIONIZING AT DREAMWORKS. “DreamWorks Animation Workers Achieve Union Milestones” reports Animation Magazine.

The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839 (TAG), announces two significant milestones this week for DreamWorks Animation workers: the ratification of a first-ever union contract for Production Workers and the unionization of Remote Workers across the United States who contribute to L.A.-based projects.

An overwhelming majority of DreamWorks Production workers voted to ratify their first Collective Bargaining Agreement after nine months of negotiations. With a 92% participation rate, 96% voted to ratify the contract covered by TAG and the Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700. The new contract delivers key recognitions and protections, including:

• Established wage minimums for job classifications with yearly increases to those minimum rates, including one of the most competitive Production Assistant rates in the industry.
• Substantial reduction in healthcare coverage costs — annual individual health care premium will be zero dollars.
• Guaranteed retirement contributions.
• Additional 6th and 7th day pay for salaried and on call employees.

At the same time, DreamWorks remote employees living throughout the U.S. and working on L.A.– based animation projects have formally declared their intent to unionize with TAG. On September 22, 2025, the unit submitted a request for voluntary recognition to the studio, and on September 25, TAG will file for an NLRB election covering 75 artists and animation workers across both Feature and TV.

(10) NEW SFF ART BOOK COMING. Icons of the Fantastic: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature from The Korshak Collection, edited by Amanda T. Zehnder and David M. Brinley, will be released by the University of Delaware Press on October 14. There’s a gallery of sample pages from the book with numerous images at this link.

[The volume] features artwork by pioneering artists from over 160 years of published works of science fiction and fantasy. The illustrations in the collection appeared on the covers of timeless novels such as the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs and classic pulp magazines from the 1930s through 1960s, such as Amazing Stories and Weird Tales. They accompany images of mischievous satyrs, ethereal mermaids, and spell-casting witches for texts ranging from The Tempest, Don Quixote, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to works by Edgar Allan Poe and H. G. Wells. Alongside essays about famous illustrators such as Arthur Rackham and Aubrey Beardsley, contributors engage in a critical reassessment of understudied artists such as José Segrelles, Wladyslaw Benda, Margaret Brundage, and Hannes Bok.

The book includes a foreword by Guillermo del Toro, a preface by Kevin J. Anderson, an introduction by Michael Dirda, and an interview with renowned contemporary illustration artist Michael Whelan. It closes with an afterword by Gary K. Wolfe.

(11) GUARDIAN’S KIDS BOOKS RECOMMENDATIONS. [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian’s latest “Children and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels” includes a number of genre related interest such as:

Cosmic Cadets and the Universal Uni-Korn by Ryan Crawford, illustrated by Rochelle Falconer, Oxford, £7.99

As the only human at the Cosmic Cadet Academy, thrill-seeking Gloria is determined to prove herself – but after stepping on the headteacher and being paired up with scary, cat-like Razz, she’s off to a bad start. Can she make it through her first mission without accidentally destroying the universe? This highly illustrated cosmic caper is an imaginative riot for 7+.

(12) UP, UP, AND AWAY. Ars Technica says “A ‘cosmic carpool’ is traveling to a distant space weather observation post”.

Scientists loaded three missions worth nearly $1.6 billion on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for launch Wednesday, toward an orbit nearly a million miles from Earth, to measure the supersonic stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun.

One of the missions, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will beam back real-time observations of the solar wind to provide advance warning of geomagnetic storms that could affect power grids, radio communications, GPS navigation, air travel, and satellite operations.

The other two missions come from NASA, with research objectives that include studying the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space and observing the rarely seen outermost layer of our own planet’s atmosphere.

All three spacecraft were mounted to the top of a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff at 7:30 am EDT (11:30 UTC) on Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket arced on a trajectory heading east from Florida’s Space Coast, shed its reusable first stage booster for a landing offshore, then fired its upper stage engine twice to propel the trio of missions into deep space.

A few minutes later, each of the spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9 to begin a multi-month journey toward their observing locations in halo orbits around the L1 Lagrange point, a gravitational balance point roughly 900,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth toward the Sun. The combined pull from the Earth and Sun at this location provides a stable region for satellites to operate in, and a good location for instruments designed for solar science….

(13) I KNOW WHAT TO WRITE. Animation Magazine encourages us all to “Watch: New Three-Part ‘Charlotte’s Web’ Animated Special Coming to HBO Max”. There’s an impressive cast, led by Amy Adams and Elijah Wood. And here’s a clip.

HBO Max today announced that the three-part animated special Charlotte’s Web, based on E.B. White’s 1952 novel, will debut in its entirety on Thursday, October 2, exclusively on the platform. 

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