26 Pixel On My Scrollward Son, There’ll Be Files When You Are Done

Posted on May 31, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) CON OR BUST BESET BY BOGUS APPLICATIONS. The Dream Foundry told newsletter readers today that its Con or Bust project, which makes cash grants to creators or fans of color to help them attend industry events, has been plagued with fake applicants.

After receiving a substantial number of fraudulent applications (from fake identities, to fake events, and in one case impersonating a person who did not actually apply) we’ve had to implement tighter vetting procedures as part of our application review process. This is slowing down the review process, and in some cases, undermining our ability to make grants on the timeline we’ve previously operated on. It has also made the process more cumbersome for applicants. We regret the delays and inconvenience, but we also take our responsibility to be stewards of the resources donated to us for this program very seriously.

In the coming months as we develop consistent procedures to streamline our new verification requirements you’ll see some significant changes to the Con or Bust application itself, as well as the process and communication around application reviews. In the meantime it’s going to be extremely helpful if you apply as early as possible for a grant, especially if you don’t have a social security number and passport or US-based ID. When we’re confident we have a grasp of what our new timelines and process looks like, we’ll be updating the website to reflect that information, too.

(2) FUTURE OF ELLISON COLLECTIONS? Chris Barkley asked Harlan Ellison literary executor J. Michael Straczynski about the prospects for Ellison’s short story collections being reissued.

(3) LGBTQ+ PUBLISHING UPDATE. Danika Ellis tells BookRiot readers “Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point”.

I’ve noticed a trend in the news stories coming out about queer books and authors: it’s clear that five years of unrelenting and escalating censorship has brought us to a breaking point. It’s not sustainable for authors, librarians, and teachers to endure years of anti-LGBTQ abuse. It’s becoming harder to get queer books published, harder to sell queer books, and harder to make a living doing it—especially when it comes to queer kidlit and YA. For queer authors of color and other multiply marginalized people, the pressure is even more intense. There’s no sign of this slowing down, either: a national “Don’t Say Trans” bill just passed the House. The fight for queer books badly needs reinforcements.

School Library Journal published an article called “Are LGBTQIA+ Voices Being Pushed Out of Kid Lit?” that includes interviews with authors and agents describing how publishers have stopped acquiring “diverse” books or dramatically reduced their numbers.

For queer books that have already been published, sales have cratered. Small publishers focusing on diverse books have seen their sales to libraries and schools drop by 50%. Jason Low, co-owner of the publisher Lee & Low Books, said, “Our salespeople have told us that books that feature a rainbow on the cover, even if the rainbow has nothing to do with a Pride flag, are being omitted from orders.”

Children’s book authors often depend on school visits for a good portion of their income, and writers of queer books have reported that those invites have dried up almost entirely. Adib Khorram, who writes award-winning queer YA novels, reported that his royalties dropped by 70% amidst increased censorship of queer books, and other queer authors have seen their titles go out of print after 10+ years of success….

… Author and LGBTQ Reads creator Dahlia Adler notes that publishers are stepping back from queer books because of the risk of bans. She’s been tracking queer book deal announcements in Publishers Weekly for many years, and they’ve been declining. Even when queer books are acquired, the language used in the announcements is often coded, obscuring the queer representation. Adler sees this chilling effect of publishers hiding the queer content in books as a result of the Trump administration….

(4) FUTURE TENSE. This month’s Future Tense Fiction story: “Golden Rule” by Monica Byrne explores a future with a criminal justice system based on an “eye for an eye” retributive logic, and invites us to ponder what kinds of values and outcomes our current justice system is optimized for, the fundamental aims of criminal punishment, as well as the ethical and logistical difficulties of establishing an alternative system.

There is a response essay by attorney Randy McDonald, “The Purpose of Punishment”.

…Eighteenth-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, for instance, wrote that all punishment is inherently evil, and should only be applied to exclude a greater evil. The purpose of punishment is thus to increase total happiness throughout the polity by preventing future crime, rather than to exact vengeance for past offenses.

Today, criminal law is based on the idea that there are effectively four “purposes” of punishment: to remove some people who cannot conform to the law (incapacitation); to reform those who are able to be productive and law-abiding members of society (rehabilitation); to dissuade others from violating the law (deterrence); and, of course, retribution. Supporters of America’s modern, supposedly enlightened criminal justice system like to think it focuses on rehabilitation over retribution. (In Arizona, where I practice, the organization that administers prisons has just rebranded itself as the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry, a title that I decline to use because I don’t think that it actually does those last two things.)

With this background, it is no surprise that “Golden Rule” is provocative. It presents a world in which society has shed the “myth” that the purpose of criminal punishment is rehabilitative instead of purely retributive….

(5) REFERENCE DIRECTOR! The Wrap calls out “10 Classic Film References in The Mandalorian and Grogu”.

In 1977, George Lucas took practically every movie he loved and shoved them all into a single motion picture. The blockbuster “Star Wars” not only referenced classic, art house and cult cinema, it also found the unexpected connective tissue between seemingly disparate works of art. “Star Wars” was full of direct shout-outs to sci-fi serials like “Flash Gordon,” World War II epics like “The Dam Busters,” samurai movies like “The Hidden Fortress,” and experimental Canadian short films like “21-87.”

Every “Star Wars” project since has, to one extent or another, followed suit, and Jon Favreau’s “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is no exception. The latest trip to a galaxy far, far away is full of direct and indirect references to classic movies, new and old, including Oscar-winners, blockbusters, notorious but influential duds, and ultraviolent action adventures. And since it’s “Star Wars,” we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here’s one of the references they spotted:

‘Chef’ (2014)

After directing two “Iron Man” movies and the big budget box office dud “Cowboys and Aliens,” Jon Favreau returned to his indie roots with “Chef,” a film about another promising artist who burned out and went back to his indie roots. It’s arguably Favreau’s best film, an honest and self-reflective film about creative inspiration and sharing what you love with your family, and the food truck Favreau’s protagonist drives appears to have been the inspiration for the food truck run by the alien snitch Hugo Durant in “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” In “Chef” the signature dish is a Cubano, in Favreau’s latest it’s a similar sandwich called a “flat meat fry.” As a nice little bonus, both “Chef” and Favreau’s new “Star Wars” movie are also about a father and son bonding while on the job. Aw, that’s kinda nice.

(6) PEAK NOVELLA. A Deep Look by Dave Hook asks “Is the Golden Age of the Novella Over?” Here’s Dave Hook’s short take. The long analysis is at the link.

The Short: I continue to think that the novella (17,500 to 40,000 words) is the perfect story length for speculative fiction, and I’m not the only one. Looking at one aspect of how healthy and popular the novella format is, I looked at ISFDB at how many novella titles were published each year from 1800 to 2025. Although the number of novella titles published has declined substantially from the peak in 2016 and 2017, there are still more novellas being published then every year before 2008. The importance of novellas in speculative fiction is reflected by the four major awards that include a novella category every year, the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. Is the Golden Age of the novella over? I hope not, but it’s too early for me to tell.

(7) THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE. Mike Allen relates his experience of winning the 2026 Webster Award at Ravencon: “TRAIL OF SHADOWS … wins the Webster Award, what???”

Last month, my Weird Haunted Appalachia novel Trail of Shadows won the Webster Award. This fact still shocks me, in the best possible way. I was there at the ceremony, but did not at all expect my name to be the one inside the envelope. (And I for sure did not win the popular vote. In fact, my fellow nominee Dennis M. Myers won that, and received a trophy of his own, which was also awesome.)

Most wonderful for me: Bud was a friend and confidant, which gave this event the feel of a touching reunion. Bud and I first connected when I recruited his side-splittingly funny short story “The Slithery Dee” for my first-ever anthology project, New Dominions, and that connection grew into a friendship….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 31, 1990 — Total Recall

By Paul Weimer: “Get your ass to Mars”.

Sure, I think as social satire The Running Man is probably better science fiction as a movie. But as a vehicle for 1980’s SF for Schwarzenegger that wasn’t Terminator, I think you can’t do better than one of my favorites, Total Recall. The excitement of a movie “based on a story by Philip K. Dick” (which I subsequently read and was confused by how little it actually had to do with it.)

But the movie is a corker from start to finish and so much of the movie is imprinted in my brain to this day. The movie’s insistence on keeping it very ambiguous, right to the end, if Quaid was dreaming or not , charmed me. I argued with my brother over this, who thought the “sweat drop” scene with Dr. Edgemar proved it was all real. I disagreed, and pointed out things like “Bluesky on Mars” being the name of his program, and how Melina resembled the woman programmed for his vacation. And if you listen to the commentary, Paul Verhoeven directed the movie with the point of view that it was all a dream, and Schwarzenegger acted with the point of view that it was reality. It makes for an interesting tension on screen and it works.

There are lots of little details that happen in the background. The change in geopolitical setup to a North-South Cold War. The Tokyo Samurai are trying to go for a fifth and deciding win in the World Series (so now the American Baseball leagues have teams in Japan…and the World Series is a best of nine affair). The movie is visually rich and generous like that, showing a lived in world that you can believe is real. Two worlds to be precise, both Earth and Mars. And the brutalist architecture pattern works for this authoritarian future.

And of course the movie is hideously violent. The body count is high.

The movie remains ever relevant with its critiques of colonialism, and authoritarianism. We are meant to side with the Free Mars movement, and maybe not until Cox’s Cohagen decides to kill everyone by asphyxiation does he really go from a tyrannical colonial figure who is vaguely understandable, to a true and undeniable monster that is irredeemable. But that steady revelation of just how horrible he can be starts with him looking sympathetic at first, and then unfurling his true nature and the extent of what he has done, and is willing to do. It’s a dive into authoritarian and colonialist mindsets, and in this day and age, even more relevant than ever.

And the movie follows through on the implications of its technology with the character beats. When Richter is told that Quaid/Hauser won’t remember anything, he just has to punch him hard, because of all what he’s put Richter through at this point. It’s a character beat that makes sense given the tech. And we have Chekov’s guns all over the place, which all fire, which propel us to the final confrontation. Sure, the “Ten second terraforming method of Mars” is bonkers and would not work. The movie doesn’t explain that there are more steps to the breathable atmosphere than melting the ice to get oxygen. I don’t care.

I read the novelization, done by Piers Anthony, because “I wanted to know more”. And I wish I hadn’t. I had not yet discovered how terrible Anthony was as a writer, but the novel’s insistence at each and every chance to say “yes this is real” over and over, was disappointing. Even at the end, when Quaid points out to Melina that she looks like the woman from Rekall, she casually says she used to do modeling for them. The book was determined to squash any ambiguity, and it was a major turn off. It did more solidly explain the terraforming, though and how it would work.

But the movie remains solid. Don’t bother with the remake. Watch the original. Don’t let me down, buddy, I’m counting on you.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro features a known killer.
Brewster Rockit little suspects rover envy is real.
Carpe Diem screens attendees of this event.
Heart of the City looks for the right net.
Off the Mark runs a test.
Six Chix needs meaning.
The Argyle Sweater is hiding out.

(10) CLASSIC, NOT DUD. Two Ars Technica writers are “Reassessing 1986’s SpaceCamp”.

…The loss of Challenger in January 1986—carrying educator Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first private citizen in space—put the kibosh on all of that. The shuttle, while fantastically advanced, would never be the vehicle to help humankind slip all of our surly bonds, so to speak. Even operating at its most frantic peak in 1985 just before Challenger’s loss, the shuttle hardware managed a maximum of nine flights in one calendar year; for most of the 1990s, it performed at five or six flights per year. Civilians in space—to say nothing of Big Bird—would have to wait.

And into that post-Challenger disillusioned summer of 1986, Hollywood brought us SpaceCamp. It had all the right ingredients: A stacked cast with a solid leading duo (Kate Capshaw and Tom Skerritt), tons of real NASA location footage, and a big, brassy score by none other than John Williams. The film was completed before the Challenger disaster, leaving 20th Century Fox with something of a nightmarish choice on their hands—to shelve the film and lose millions, or send it to theaters and risk a PR disaster.

For better or for worse, Fox chose to release the film, which ultimately made about $9.6 million on a reported $25 million budget. Ouch. Audiences, it seemed, weren’t really interested in watching a bunch of kids in peril on a space shuttle. Today, on the rare occasions SpaceCamp comes up in film discussions at all—usually among geeks of a certain age who encountered it when they were younger—it’s often spoken of with derision. Kids! Robots! Thermal curtain failures! Preposterous!

But is it really a bad movie? It’s not currently available for streaming, but this is exactly the kind of scenario that physical media is made for. And so, with the movie’s 40th anniversary looming, Senior Space Editor Eric Berger and I [Lee Hutchinson] grabbed the DVD and watched our way through it—and this is what we thought….

Here’s an excerpt from their dialog:

Eric: What is striking to me is that, despite the movie’s poor timing, it has had a long shelf life. It only came out four years after the actual Space Camp opened in Huntsville, and I’ve spoken with more than one space enthusiast who watched the movie and then signed up for a week in Alabama. In its own way I think the film helped to fuel interest in the space program at a time, the late 1980s and 1990s, when quite frankly there was just not that much exciting happening in human spaceflight. The movie also correctly anticipates NASA having a large space station in orbit, called Daedalus, nearly a decade and a half before one exists. Man, I’ve got to tell you I could not get over the station’s truss design. There was so much metal for no apparent purpose, other than serving the plot I suppose.

(11) SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, CHATBOT. Mark Roth-Whitworth asks “What do you know about AI/chatbots, *really*?” The post transcribes several statements by different chatbots about themselves and their nature.

(12) CASTING CALL. [Item by Steven French.] Ben Child offers an interesting sliding door speculation in the Guardian’s “Week in Geek”: “Nicolas Cage as the Green Goblin? It will always be one of Hollywood’s great might-have-beens”.

There are numerous sliding doors moments in Hollywood that, had they actually happened, would have fractured the space-time continuum like a DeLorean hitting potholes at 88mph. Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones, Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly, Sean Connery as Gandalf, Bill Murray as a distinctly sardonic Batman. And yet, if there has ever been a more deliciously unhinged alternate timeline than Nicolas Cage as the Green Goblin/Norman Osborn in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man from 2002, it has probably already been confiscated by the time police for crimes against narrative stability….

(13) SUPER SENSES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In SF we have as tropes out of the ordinary senses, be it spidey-sense, telepathy, precognition, etc. But in the real world there are unusual senses too, including how do birds navigate?

This is the topic for this week’s Science journal’s cover story…

How animals sense Earth’s magnetic field is one of biology’s enduring mysteries. Researchers have now identified superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons (Columba livia) to be crucial for magnetic sensing. The finding uncovers an unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception and may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation. See pages 919 and 985.

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

Pixel Scroll 3/27/26 What, Mad Universe Me Worry?

Posted on March 27, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) SCIENCE FICTION OUTREACH AT WONDERCON. The Science Fiction Outreach Project – USA is at Wondercon in Anaheim this weekend doling out free sff books and planting seeds of interest in LAcon V they hope to harvest in August – and in years to come. They’re in booth 711.

(2) HUGO NOMINATING DEADLINE IS TOMORROW. And speaking of LAcon V, they reminded eligible Hugo Award nominators that the window to make nominations for the 2026 awards will close TOMORROW, Saturday March 28, 2026, at Noon Pacific Time/ 3:00 pm Eastern Time/ 7:00pm GMT.

(3) PHILOSOPHER’S STONE PHILOSOPHY. Commentator Rick Ellis of Too Much TV tells “Why I Won’t Be Covering ‘Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone’”.

…So when Tony & Ziva came out, I felt as if I couldn’t cover a show helmed by someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for behavior he admits took place. I understand the career implications for him if had done so. But at least then I wouldn’t be thinking about the “rape van” every time I watched the show.

And I feel the same way when it comes to the upcoming HBO Max series Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone. The streamer has gone to great lengths to distance itself from J.K. Rowling, but the series is based on her books and she will making a substantial amount of money from the project.

I am not going to go over all of Rowling’s distasteful comments here, they are easy enough to find if you’re unaware of the issue. But she doesn’t just hold beliefs I deeply find offensive, it’s also that she has used her fame and substantial wealth to bully and harass critics. And given that, it seems hypocritical of me to cover a show that is only going to provide her with yet another platform and even more resources to be a loud-mouthed asshat.

Maybe you’re a Harry Potter fan and it doesn’t matter. Or maybe you agree with her comments. If so, and if you want to learn more about the show, there are plenty of outlets that will be covering it.

And to be clear, I don’t blame any of the journalists who will have to write about the show. If you are a freelancer or working for an editor who wants it covered, you can’t afford to burn bridges and decline to do the work. But that’s also why I think it’s important for people like myself who have the ability to say no to do so when we can….

(4) HEAD OF THE CLASS. “C-3PO head used in Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back sells for more than $1m at auction” – the Guardian has details.

A light-up C-3PO head used in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back has fetched more than US$1m at an auction.

The prop was part of a collection of film and TV memorabilia that went under the hammer on Wednesday as part of the Spring Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction at Propstore auction house in Los Angeles.

It is the only known example of the fictional droid’s head to appear on the collector market and sold for US$1,058,400 (£790,440 or A$1,519,259), having received a pre-sale estimate of $350,000 to $700,000.

The C-3PO head was the top lot at the auction, which also saw the harpoon gun used by the actor Robert Shaw in Jaws, accompanied by its original case, fetch $327,600….

…Elsewhere, a Wilson volleyball used by Tom Hanks in 2000’s Cast Away sold for $189,000 after receiving a pre-sale estimate of $150,000 to $300,000.

The auction also featured broken pieces of a sword used in The Lord Of The Rings, which sold for $252,000….

(5) DYNAMIC DUO. William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson bring their show “The Universe is Absurd!” to the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, CA on May 19 and 20. Tickets at the link.

Each evening features a completely different conversation and program. Because the event is unscripted, no two performances are ever the same.

(6) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for March 2026 is “The Pocket Box,” by Gunnar Anderson. The story is about dimensional paradoxes, consumerism, the technology hype cycle, and crime.

The response essay is “The Real Drivers of Tech Adoption” by journalist Torie Bosch, who has more than a decade of experience covering emerging technologies and is currently the First Opinion editor at the health and medicine news outlet STAT.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Quantum Leap series (1989)

By Paul Weimer:

[Editor’s note: Spoiler warning for end of original series.]

Dr. Sam Beckett, theorizing one could time travel within their own lifetime, stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator, and vanished.

So began Quantum Leap, one of the iconic SF shows of the late 80’s and early 90’s. With excellent chemistry between Scott Bakula as Beckett and Dean Stockwell as Al, the show got to explore recent American History by mostly telling the small stories, stories of individual people, not usually famous ones, and changing the world for the better. (It seems interesting to me that Beckett has problems when he tries to change big events in history (the Lee Harvey Oswald episodes really show this in spades) but his goal is to make small changes in the timeline to make the world better. It became clear to me somewhere along the line that the timeline of the Quantum Leap show wasn’t our own, but that the changes were aligning it with our own reality. The idea of our world being the best of all possible worlds is one that had a lot more plausibility then, than it does now, I am afraid.

With a few exceptions to show his own range, this really is a masterpiece of a Bakula vehicle, playing basically the same character every week–and yet not, having to inhabit a new character every week in his ceaseless efforts. While I at first always wanted more allohistorical content (like, say, Voyagers), the show wasn’t for that. The show was about the small changes, the small moves, to make things better.

I still don’t quite understand the last episode. Was the bartender God? Could Beckett ever return home whenever he wanted? Was he always really on a mission from God? I don’t know. I suppose with a series like this, one shouldn’t even try to find definitive answers, and when you get them they are unsatisfactory at best.

I was amused, years later, during Enterprise, when Bakula, as Captain Archer, encounters an alien played by Dean Stockwell. They do NOT get along together at all. That was a neat tip of the hat to Quantum Leap.

I have not seen the two-season remake.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Bound and Gagged asks us to pick the suspect from the lineup.
Dinosaur Comics favors memorable character names.
Macanudo redirects a familiar movie scene.
Nancy is busted.
Rhymes with Orange has the wrong font.
Rubes loses its grip on reality.
Thatababy knows why the Doctor prefers that hat.
xkcd figured out how to make satellite pollution even worse.

(9) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to lunch on lamb with Steven H Silver in Episode 278 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Silver, a 21-time Hugo Award nominee, was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB Books. His novel, After Hastings, was first published in 2020. In 1995, he created the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference 5 times, as well as serving as the Event Coordinator for SFWA. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7. Steven has maintained In Memoriam lists for Worldcon, the Nebula Conference, and the World Fantasy Con for several years.

We discussed our shared status as record-breaking losers, my morbid suggestion about what he’ll need to do upon my death, the reason he found The Silmarillion more interesting than The Lord of the Rings, how meeting Mel Brooks and other luminaries made him more at ease once he began attending science fiction conventions, the way a cancelled contest resulted in his first short fiction sale, what it was like to be in a writing workshop taught by Gene Wolfe, the allure of the alternate history subgenre (and how it differs from secret histories), what he learned publishing a novel in the middle of a global pandemic, the Easter eggs he scattered through After Hastings, and much more.

(10) FAMOUS GRAPHIC STORY SERIES PICKED FOR TV. “MONSTRESS animated series in the works at Amazon MGM” says Comicsbeat.

Variety reports an adult-aimed animated series based on Monstress is being developed at Amazon MGM Studios, presumably for the Prime Video streaming service. The steampunk fantasy series, created by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, debuted at Image in 2015, and tells the story of a 17-year old slave girl with a literal monster living inside of her, who embarks on a quest to avenge her mother….

…Since its debut in 2015, Monstress has racked up multiple awards, including the Hugo for Best Graphic Story from 2017 to 2019. In 2018, it won five Eisners, including Best Writer, making Liu the first woman to win the award….

(11) FILL ‘ER UP. “New Chinese Spacecraft Tests Robotic Octopus Tentacle for Refueling in Orbit” at Futurism.

With over 1,100 satellites currently in orbit and plans to complete a massive megaconstellation in the coming years, China has plenty of flashy experiments in orbital tech underway, from hatching a butterfly in zero gravity to hosting a sumptuous barbeque in orbit.

Another promising test is the Yuxing 3-06, also known as the Hukeda-2, a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite sporting a robotic “octopus tentacle” for pumping fellow spacecraft full of rocket fuel.

According to CCTV, the craft — which launched on March 16 — has now successfully completed a demonstration of its robotic appendage, which involved both a compliance control and refueling test. To complete the test, the robotic tentacle inserted a nozzled tip into its own dummy fuel port while flying around the planet at around 16,800 miles per hour, the South China Morning Post reported.

The arm is basically an assemblage of spring-laden tubes articulated via individually motorized cables, SCMP notes, designed to maneuver in the microgravity of LEO….

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

Pixel Scroll 2/4/26 Pixel, Pixel, Scroll And Stumble; File Churn And Cauldron Double

Posted on February 4, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) GAY HALDEMAN HONORED. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced today that the 2026 Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award will be presented to Gay Haldeman at the 61st SFWA Nebula Awards® for her outstanding work on behalf of the organization.

(2) 2028 WORLDCON BID NEWS. The Nuremberg 2028 Worldcon Bid has launched its new website with detailed information about the German city, the proposed venues, and who’s on their team.

(3) HUGO NOMINATIONS TO OPEN SOON. Although they did not name the date, LAcon V told members today, “Nominations for the 2026 Hugo Awards will open early in February. Now is a great time to start thinking about your favorite written and dramatic works, artists, podcasts, fanwriting and more from 2025.”

(4) SPACE COWBOY BOOKS CELEBRATES 10 YEARS. Space Cowboy Books received a Certificate of Recognition from San Bernardino County Supervisor Dawn Rowe for their ongoing commitment to community. Field representative Glen Harris attended their 10-year anniversary celebration on January 23 to deliver the certificate.

Morongo Basin Field Representative Glen Harris presented an official Certificate of Recognition to Jean-Paul Garnier of Space Cowboy Books in downtown Joshua Tree, honoring a decade of cultivating community, creativity, and a love of independent bookstores. Congratulations on 10 years and here’s to many more chapters ahead!

Jean-Paul Garnier of Space Cowboy Books and Glen Harris.

(5) PEAKE FANTASY. James Machell shows readers where to find “The ‘Gorm’ in Gormenghast” at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

… Its name, Gormenghast, is frequently interpreted as amalgamating the words, “gore” and “ghastly.” While the setting certainly is ghastly, and few readers will finish the series yearning for additional gore, emphasising those two words overlooks the most significant in the portmanteau. Gorm, potentially derived from the Gaelic for blue, became a 19^th century slang term for attention or being with it. Though no longer common, gormless is frequently used to describe someone who cannot read a room or needs to be carefully instructed.

The closest equivalent to gorm in Mandarin is chá yán guān sè, meaning to “observe words and watch expressions,” an idiom still commonly used.

Gormenghast is massively influenced by Mervyn Peake’s childhood in China. Every character is bound to social roles, akin to Confucian ideas of social order, duty, and propriety. The rituals of the castle mirror the way imperial court rituals maintain hierarchy and cosmic order. Eastern palaces blend natural and constructed spaces to create a sense of eternity or ritualised life. Castle Gormenghast and its inner courtyards share this idea of a self-contained world, governed as much by aesthetics as by function….

(6) CAT ELDRIDGE MEDICAL UPDATE. On January 26, Cat Eldridge fell, hit the left side of his head (no worries there as it’s fine) and his left hip, which was fractured but doctors expect it to heal in three months or so. Cat is presently hospitalized for physical rehab. Fortunately he’ll be going home Saturday where he’ll have at-home physical therapy and Shonda Okoko’s excellent food.

(7) SF 101. Episode 62 of Phil Nichols’ and Colin Kuskie’s Science Fiction 101 podcast is about “Asimov’s Lore”.

Traditionally on Science Fiction 101, we follow up our “old magazine” review with a review of its modern counterpart – and this year is no exception, as in this episode we cast our eyes over a very recent issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, dated Nov/Dec 2025. Contributors to this issue include Robert Silverberg, Greg Egan and Allen M. Steele.

(8) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for January 2026 is “Deficiency Agent,” by Andrew Liptak.

The story is about the challenges encountered by a small military unit that is using guidance from an AI system for pathfinding and threat assessment; they come to suspect that the system is prioritizing different goals and aims than the soldiers would on their own.

The response essay is “The Algorithmic Fog of War” by Candace Rondeaux, senior director of the Future Frontlines and Planetary Politics programs at New America, and author of the book Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos.

(9) BROKEN LINK. “JK Rowling Denies Epstein ‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child’ Invite”. Deadline backs up Rowling and says here’s what really happened.

Jeffrey Epstein was refused entry to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child‘s Broadway opening party, according to U.S. Department of Justice files on the sex offender.

The Epstein documents revealed that the late financier wanted to attend the Cursed Child event in April 2018 and was sent tickets by the stage show’s producers, but was ultimately turned away at the door.

J.K. Rowling‘s critics jumped to the conclusion that she had invited Epstein, but in a post on X/Twitter, the Harry Potter author denied ever meeting or communicating with the criminal. The DoJ documents support her recollection of events.

Two days before the Cursed Child curtain raiser, Peggy Siegal, the showbiz publicist and Epstein’s longtime associate, emailed Playground Entertainment boss Colin Callender saying a “very important friend” wanted to “come see the spectacle,” though she did not name Epstein in her message….

… Even though tickets made their way to Epstein, the emails reveal that his attendance did not go to plan. The financier was not sent the correct tickets for the evening, and in an email to Siegal, he claimed that his name was not on the door. “Couldnt get in,” Epstein told Siegal the next morning. “No biggy but thought you should know.”

Siegal was furious, emailing Playground to complain that the incident was “terribly upsetting” and she was “incredibly embarrassed.” She demanded an “apology note,” though Callender told Deadline that no one at Playground said sorry. Siegal was contacted for comment.

In her X/Twitter post, Rowling responded to a user who claimed she was “sending invitations to Epstein 10 years after he was convicted.” Rowling said: “This is beyond silly. Neither I, nor anybody on my team, ever met, communicated with or invited Jeffrey Epstein to anything.”

(10) NO MORE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD. “WashPo Shutters Books Section Amid Widespread Layoffs” reports Publishers Weekly.

After weeks of rumors about impending layoffs, employees at the Washington Post were informed Wednesday morning that the Jeff Bezos–owned newspaper would be eliminating its books section, Book World, along with an array of other sections.

Book World, whose reviews are nationally syndicated, was culled as part of an attempt by the paper’s leadership to reverse course amid years of losses and a shrinking audience. In all, the Post is laying off one-third of staff across all departments.

Book World relaunched in 2022 under editor John Williams, an industry veteran with 11 years at the News York Times Book Review, as well as a stint at HarperCollins, under his belt. The section revitalized its online coverage and started printing a Sunday section for the first time since 2009; its staff included fiction critic Ron Charles, nonfiction critic Becca Rothfeld, and Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Michael Dirda.

In a post on X, Book World editor Jacob Brogan wrote that he was “heartbroken,” adding that the “existence of a standalone ooks section felt like a real celebration of a culture of literacy, dialogue, and even debate.”…

(11) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

The Adventures of Superman on radio

The Adventures of Superman was a long-running radio serial. Initially, the show, which aired from 1940 through to 1951, was syndicated through the Mutual Broadcasting System’s cornerstone station, WOR in New York, subsequently taken up by the Mutual network, and finally by ABC. In the beginning there were three episodes a week of 15 minutes in length. When in 1941 they began making five episodes a week, some stations stayed with the three-a-week format. Late in the show’s run episodes ran 30 minutes.

The year after the comic strip debuted four audition radio programs were prepared to sell Superman as a syndicated radio series. It took very little time to have WOR sign the contract to do this, so it went on the air less two years after the comic strip launched.

The original pitch was that the audience was going to be predominantly juvenile so the scripts had to be lighthearted with the violence toned down. The performers were chosen with that mind, so they cast Bud Collyer in the Clark Kent / Superman role and Joan Alexander as Lois Lane. She also voiced that role in animated Fleischer Superman shorts.

The continuity of the series is significantly different than the series as Krypton is located on the far side of the sun, and on the journey to Earth, Kal-el becomes an adult before his ship lands on Earth, so he is never adopted by the Kents but immediately begins his superhero / reporter career.

This serial is responsible for the introduction of kryptonite to the Superman universe. Daily Planet editor Perry White and Jimmy Olsen who was a copy editor originated in the serial as well.

As a gimmick that paralleled the Superman comic and which the audience adored, they kept the identity of Collyer as the character a secret for the first six years, until when Superman became the character in a radio campaign for racial and religious tolerance and Collyer did a Time magazine interview about that campaign.

Kellogg Company was the sponsor at least initially with the product being its Pep cereal. It was sponsored Tom Corbet, Space Cadet.

Superman radio show cast members Jackson Beck (announcer), Joan Alexander (Lois Lane) and Bud Collyer (Superman)

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Barney and Clyde rejects an sf reference.
Bound and Gagged tries the low tech solution.
Dogs of C-Kennel has seen the movie.
Ink Pen’s new power may be too realistic.
Loose Parts is undercover.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal doubts a seeker of wisdom and truth.
WaynoVision remembers a toy.

(13) AVATAR EFFECTS Q&A. “Wētā FX’s Dan Barrett and Eric Saindon Talk ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’” at Animation World Network.

…What were your earliest and biggest concerns regarding the size and scope of the work, both on the animation and visual effects sides?…

Eric Saindon: My take on that question – it’s a big one – comes down largely to scale, particularly with fire and water. Those were some of the biggest challenges on the effects side for both films. Understanding scale in water means understanding mist and all the secondary elements that communicate how big or small something is. It’s a difficult problem, and it took a long time to build the tools needed to support it. Because Jim thinks so deeply about these films, he gave us an unusual amount of lead time. Normally, you’re told you have six months to make it work. Jim gave us years to develop a new effects pipeline and a new fire pipeline for this movie.

That time allowed us not only to make fire look physically correct and realistic – with proper simulations, air, fuel, and the underlying physics – but also to make fire a “directable” element so Jim could shape it creatively. It’s not just things burning. It’s flamethrowers igniting specific elements, flames traveling into the flux vortex, ships bursting into fire and having that fire pulled upward. Those details were critical to selling both scale and behavior. We were involved from the very beginning. Often visual effects doesn’t attend early script readings, but here we worked closely with production design, wardrobe, and other departments to make sure everything would function later in CG.

Deb [Deborah] Scott stayed with the show throughout, ensuring costumes worked from initial design through live-action testing and into CG – down to details like Varang dancing next to the fire, with her outfit spinning and flowing correctly through the scene. That level of collaboration extended across every department. Jim is the glue that holds it together. He listens, empowers teams, and stays deeply involved – from costume and production design all the way through sound.

Sound and visuals have to work hand in hand. Weak visuals can’t be saved by sound, and weak sound can undermine strong visuals. That holistic approach is one reason Jim Cameron films take longer, but it’s also what allows the work to be refined properly….

(14) SOCIAL MEDIA BY BOTS, FOR BOTS. [Item by John A Arkansawyer.] This is genuinely weird. “Moltbook is the newest social media platform — but it’s just for AI bots”. NPR checked it out.

Can computer programs have faith? Can they conspire against the humans that created them? Or feel melancholy?

On a social media platform built just for artificial intelligence bots, some of them are acting like it.

Moltbook was launched a week ago as a Reddit-like platform for AI agents. Agents, or bots, are a type of computer program that can autonomously carry out tasks, like organizing email inboxes or booking travel.

People can make a bot on a site called OpenClaw, and assign them those kinds of management or organizing tasks. Their makers can also give them a type of “personality,” prompting them, for instance, to act calmly or aggressively….

…After just one week, the site says more than 1.6 million AI agents have joined.

Mollick says much of the stuff they post seems to be repetitive, but some of the comments “look like they are trying to figure out how to hide information from people or complaining about their users or plotting world destruction.”

Still, he believes those do not reflect true intent. Rather, chatbots are trained on data largely from the internet — which is full of angst and weird sci-fi ideas. And so the bots parrot it back.

“AIs are very much trained on Reddit and they’re very much trained on science fiction. So they know how to act like a crazy AI on Reddit, and that’s kind of what they’re doing,” he said….

(15) QUANTUM LEAP? [Item by Steven French.] We’ve been here before (“vibe shift”? really?!) but it does seem as if a real advance is on the horizon (from Nature, behind a paywall): “Quantum computers will finally be useful: what’s behind the revolution”.

Just a few years ago, many researchers in quantum computing thought it would take several decades to develop machines that could solve complex tasks, such as predicting how chemicals react or cracking encrypted text. But now, there is growing hope that such machines could arrive in the next ten years.

A ‘vibe shift’ is how Nathalie de Leon, an experimental quantum physicist at Princeton University in New Jersey, describes the change. “People are now starting to come around.”

The pace of progress in the field has picked up dramatically, especially in the past two years or so, along several fronts. Teams in academic laboratories, as well as companies ranging from small start-ups to large technology corporations, have drastically reduced the size of errors that notoriously fickle quantum devices tend to produce, by improving both the manufacturing of quantum devices and the techniques used to control them. Meanwhile, theorists better understand how to use quantum devices more efficiently….

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

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

Posted on December 17, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(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.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal knows Tolkien emphasizes the value of each syllable.
Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee witnesses an AI hallucination.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal scales up a new term.
Savage Chickens gets a second opinion.
Bob the Squirrel sings delusionally.

(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 11/21/25 Pixel’s Not Scrolling, Man

Posted on November 21, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) SOLD BY VOLUME NOT WEIGHT. Weightless Books delivered the Summer 2025 issue of F&SF to digital subscribers today. Interestingly, it’s labeled Volume 1 on the cover, but inside the Indicia says it’s Volume 147.

(2) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for November 2025 is “Subsidence,” by E. G. Condé.

The story is about the intersection of data centers, AI systems, and nuclear energy. It explores how data center systems can fail and the role of human workers in keeping systems online, attending to finicky machines, and diagnosing hard-to-sniff-out problems with their intuition and experience. The author is also an anthropologist of computing who has done extensive research in and around data centers.

The response essay “Is It Possible to Store Data in DNA?” is by author and musician Claire L. Evans.

… As much as we may pretend otherwise—imagining our terabytes of stored photos, files, and text to be eternal—data is no exception to this rule. Every digital calculation grinds away at its host servers at a molecular scale, producing accumulated frictions that escape as relentless heat. To keep it at bay, data centers depend on constant air-conditioning and convective pipes coursing with cooled water. Without continual monitoring and backup cooling systems ready to kick on at a moment’s notice, the heat produced by the internet’s constant calculations could easily spark the kind “thermal runaway event” detailed in E. G. Condé’s striking short story “Subsidence.” At scale, in less than half an hour, such an event would quite literally melt the cloud as we know it.

Every digital calculation grinds away at its host servers at a molecular scale, producing accumulated frictions that escape as relentless heat.

“Heat is the waste product of computation,” Condé writes in his other life as an anthropologist of computing, under the name Steven Gonzalez. “If left unchecked, it becomes a foil to the workings of digital civilization.”…

(3) ‘PLURIBUS’ A BIG SUCCESS. “Vince Gilligan’s ‘Pluribus’ Sets Record For Biggest Apple TV Drama Series Launch” reports Deadline.

Years of unprecedented secrecy, a hard to explain premise and a title many have to look up in the dictionary did not hamper Pluribus‘ launch as Apple TV‘s most viewed drama of all time. According to the streamer, the series from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan broke the record previously held by Severance Season 2 for the biggest global drama series launch cross Apple TV’s more than 100 territories, led by the U.S., UK, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Mexico, India and France.

In the U.S., the viewership high mark has been corroborated by the Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings, measuring minutes for Episodes 1 and 2 of drama originals over premiere weekend. Pluribus, starring Rhea Seehorn, debuted with two episodes Friday, Nov. 7.

While official Nielsen data will not be available for a couple of weeks, Luminate reported earlier this week that Pluribus logged 6.4M hours with its first two episodes over the first seven days of release in the U.S., a strong showing that landed the series at #4 for the week behind shows that all had significantly more episodes available.

There also has been anecdotal evidence, with reports of the Apple TV app crashing from high demand after the first two episodes of Pluribus were put up on the platform….

(4) SHOCKING LACK OF ATTENTION. “The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?” asks CityAM.

The widespread indifference to the British Library’s crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity, says Hetan Shah

The head of a critical British information body has resigned. No, not the BBC. At the start of this month the chief executive of the British Library, the UK’s national library based in Kings Cross, left her role after less than a year in post. And virtually no one noticed.

The media’s near-silence parallels the national reaction to the major cyberattack the Library suffered two years ago. So limited was the coverage that even parliament was oblivious. Around six months after the cyber incident I talked to the then chair of the science select committee, who was not aware of this incident that was having such a profound impact on the research community.

Why the lack of interest? Contrast this with the fascination in the leadership travails of the Turing Institute, an artificial intelligence body (ironically enough physically housed in the British Library) which has had sustained coverage across the media. The nation rightly values scientific infrastructure, but it pays extraordinarily little attention to what is happening at our national library….

(5) ALAN DEAN FOSTER – DEAD MAN’S TALE. Free download at this link, courtesy of the author: “Dead Man’s Tale” at Hidden Door.

In the near future, people can volunteer to become a Nul — an empty vessel for a tiny creature called a NyVarnn, who are curious about the human experience.

You volunteered for the procedure expecting death, but something went wrong and you now find yourself an unwilling passenger to an alien in control of your body, out for adventure in New York City!

(6) FIRST CALCULATOR A ‘NATIONAL TREASURE’? “Paris court blocks auction of earliest-known calculator” reports BBC.

One of the world’s first calculating machines will not go to auction as scheduled in France, after a Paris court provisionally blocked the historic item from being exported.

Auction house Christie’s has confirmed it will not proceed with bidding for the machine La Pascaline, developed by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal in 1642.

Valuations suggested the machine could fetch €2m to 3m (£1.7m to £2.6m), and Christie’s called it the “most important scientific instrument ever offered at auction”.

Scientists and researchers made a legal appeal to grant heritage protections to the historic instrument, arguing it should be classified as a “national treasure”.

Pascal was just 19 years old when he developed the earliest version of a calculator, Christie’s said. There are only nine of these machines still in existence.

“It is the first attempt in history to substitute the human mind with a machine,” the official collection description reads.

“Its invention marks a breakthrough, a ‘quantum leap’ whose importance and significance take on a very special meaning today.”

La Pascaline was exhibited at Christie’s venues in New York and Hong Kong throughout the year.

The machine was included in Christie’s auction of the library of the late Catalonia collector Léon Parcé, which also featured Pascal’s philosophical piece Pensées and the first printed version of “Pascal’s wager”.

On Wednesday, a Paris administrative court temporarily blocked an earlier export authorisation provided by France’s culture minister in May. Two experts had signed off on the minister’s certificate, including one from the Louvre Museum.

The judge concluded there were “serious doubts” over the legality of the certificate, a statement from the Paris court said, adding the decision was provisional until a final judgment is delivered.

In a statement to the AFP news agency, a Christie’s spokesperson said: “Given the provisional nature of this decision and in accordance with the instructions of its client, Christie’s is suspending the sale of La Pascaline.”

The court noted La Pascaline’s historic and scientific value could qualify it as a “national treasure”, guaranteeing protections under France’s heritage code….

(7) PAY THE WRITER. Writer Beware’s Victoria Strauss warns, “Royalties in Arrears: Mango Publishing / Blushing Books / Bottlecap Press”.

Publishers do a lot of bad things (as the archives of this blog attest), but among the most infuriating–and, often, the hardest to remedy–is the failure to pay authors the money they are due. Non-payment of royalties and/or failure to provide sales reporting are among the most common publisher complaints Writer Beware receives.

Below, you’ll find a collection of recent offenders….

(8) BEAR NECESSITY. BBC is there when “Prince and Princess of Wales meet Paddington Bear at Royal Variety Performance”.

The Prince and Princess of Wales shook hands with Paddington Bear and discussed marmalade sandwiches backstage at this year’s Royal Variety Performance.

Paddington, in the form of an actor in a costume from the beloved bear’s new West End musical, performed for the royal couple at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Wednesday.

Prince William said the performance was “fantastic”, before adding: “Your sandwich looks very nice.”…

… Paddington has a close connection with the Royal Family, after the character famously appeared in a sketch with the late Queen Elizabeth II for her Platinum Jubilee in 2022….

(9) SUE GRANQUIST (1966-2025). “Sue Granquist, the Chicago blogger and technology professional who wrote Black Gate‘s Goth Chick column every Thursday for sixteen years, passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday” reports John O’Neill in Black Gate’s tribute “Goth Chick, January 13, 1966 – November 18, 2025”.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

November 21, 2012 — The Rise of the Guardians

On this day thirteen years ago, The Rise of the Guardians enjoyed its premiere in limited release with its full one that coming weekend. It is quite possibly my favorite holiday film, though Scrooged, the original and absolutely perfect A Lion in Winter, and The Polar Express are also on the list as well. Oh, and the forty-year-old version of A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott

It was directed by Peter Ramsey and produced by Christina Steinberg and Nancy Bernstein from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire. It was based on William Joyce’s The Guardians of Childhood series, a most delightful series indeed.

OK, IT IS TIME FOR A CUP OF HOT CHOCOLATE PREPARED BY THE STEWARDS OF THE POLAR EXPRESS. COME BACK AFTER WE HAVE TOLD THE STORY OF THIS FILM AS THERE ARE REALLY, REALLY SPOILERS THIS TIME.

The Guardians of Childhood series was a mystical epic of mythological characters fighting darkness to protect childhood dreams. It made very good source material for that aforementioned screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire in which Jack Frost awakens from a very long nap under the ice with his memory gone to discover everyone has forgotten him.

Meanwhile at the North Pole (splendidly realized here), the Man in the Moon warns Nicholas St. North that Pitch Black (who look a lot Mr. Dark in Bill Willingham’s Fables series) is threatening the children of the world with his nightmares.

He calls E. Aster Bunnymund, the Sandman, and the Tooth Fairy to arms. Each of these is a wonderfully realized character as the Man in the Moon and Nicholas St. North.

A series of truly epic battles to defeat Pitch Black follows lest all the children of the world are permanently beset with nightmares. He is defeated when his own Nightmares sensing he has grown weak drag him down into the Underworld.

DID YOU ENJOY THAT HOT CHOCOLATE? GOOD, COME ON BACK.

The feature starred the voice talents of Hugh Jackman, Jude Law and Isla Fisher among others. I think it was a stellar voice cast and the animation was splendid. I’ve rewatched it several times, and the Suck Fairy sits on the couch sighing, drinking hot chocolate, stroking a Pixel, and saying that it’s too sweet for her to mess with. The holiday season does bring out the soft side of her.

It did exceedingly well at the box office taking in over three hundred million on a budget of one hundred and thirty million according to Box Office Mojo, and about half of the critics really liked it such as Derek Adam’s of Time Out who proclaimed “Rise of the Guardians is an effervescent dose of fantasia that’s pretty hard to dislike. Unless, of course, you’re a cynical grump.” The grumpy ones I’ll not quote, but let just say that v that a certain Nickolas gave them a lump of coal when it came out.

The audience rating at Rotten Tomatoes is very healthy eighty percent.

It can be streamed on Peacock.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

BC fails to launch.
Dinosaur Comics rants about a vitamin name.
Dog Eat Doug has an annoying request.
Rhymes with Orange features early hold music.
The Argyle Sweater draws the fashion line.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal questions an inherited relic.
Yaffle meets a Seuss character at a concert.

(12) GET HAPPY. “McDonald’s Grinch Happy Meal: When, where to get it” – FOX 11 Los Angeles has the story.

…The specialty meal is through a partnership between McDonald’s and Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

“THiS iS MY MEAL AND i DiDN’T PARTNER WiTH McDONALD’S OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF MY HEART,” The Grinch wrote i in a handwritten note on crumpled paper from Mt. Crumpit, according to a McDonald’s news release.

The McDonald’s Grinch Meal includes: Choice of Big Mac or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets; Dill Pickle “Grinch Salt” McShaker Fries (tangy, dill pickle seasoning); Medium Drink.

The Grinch is also being generous and adding a special gift with each meal: a pair of socks. The socks come in four colors—yellow, red, blue and green—and feature a handwritten message from The Grinch.

The Grinch Meal will be available at all participating McDonald’s restaurants across the United States. You’ll have to check with the restaurants closest to you to see if they’re participating.

It will be available beginning on Dec. 2, 2025, and will be available for a limited time. McDonald’s did not provide an end date….

(13) WITCHING GEAR. “Bronze Age to Elphaba: The centuries-old origins of the witch’s hat” at BBC.

What’s the first image you associate with the witch? Might it be the broomstick, which was first linked to sorcery and heresy in 1342 when Irishwoman Lady Alice Kyteler was accused of witchcraft? An investigator, on searching her home, found the offending item, “upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin”. Or perhaps it’s the cauldron, where potions were brewed in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble” was the witches’ now iconic incantation.

But perhaps the most enduring image of the witch is the conical hat, seen in Frank L Baum’s 1900 classic children’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; in 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and Margaret Hamilton’s frightening depiction of the Wicked Witch of the West; in the opening cartoon credits of 1960s sitcom Bewitched; in the Harry Potter films; and of course Cynthia Erivo’s portrayal of Elphaba in the Wicked film adaptation, set to defy gravity once again when the concluding instalment, Wicked: For Good lands in theatres on 21 November.

Some of the earliest examples of conical hats are majestic, gold, tapered headpieces decorated with astronomical symbols from the Bronze Age, when it was said that the priests who likely wore them had divine knowledge and power. Pointy hats were found on the heads of Chinese mummies from the 4th to 2nd Centuries BC, earning them the modern nickname “The Witches of Subeshi” when their graves were unearthed in 1978….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. How It Should Have Ended gives Predator Badlands a new twist.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, 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 Jon Meltzer.]

Pixel Scroll 9/27/25 Current Music: “All I File About Now” By The Pixels

Posted on September 27, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(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.]

Pixel Scroll 8/29/25 This Is The Emergency Pixel Alert System. When You See A Wayward Pixel, Place It In The Nearest Scroll

Posted on August 29, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for August 2025 is “The Middle,” by Erin K. Wagner.

The story is about a haute cuisine restaurant in a near-future Atlantic City that introduces “Su-Chef,” a supposedly cutting-edge kitchen robot, touching off a strike among the human restaurant workers. The story unfolds against the backdrop of climate change and disrupted supply chains for food items, even for high-end restaurants.

Art/science scholar Christy Spackman has written a response essay, “Can Flavor Make Scientific Sense?”

…The sensory standardization and technological precision that underlie the twentieth-century miracle of food that tastes the same and can be packaged and shipped thousands of miles differ drastically—at least on the surface—from foods found in high-end restaurant kitchens. Or at least it did until the culinary movement known as molecular gastronomy, modernist cuisine, or experimental cooking took off. In what may seem like a strange reversal, fine-dining chefs adopted the insights and technologies that made fast-food chicken nuggets possible and employed these approaches to create foods that defy traditional narratives….

(2) TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES. NPR has posted its reader survey of “23 books that shaped you in high school”.

…This summer, we asked you to tell us about the books you read in high school that profoundly affected you. It turns out you had a lot to share. More than 1,100 of you wrote back to tell us about the formative texts you were assigned as teens….

The list comes with this caveat —

…We’re sharing your thoughts here. This list reflects a time when fewer female authors and writers of color were being published and assigned in high schools — and many of you expressed hope that today’s syllabuses are more varied and diverse….

SFF is represented on the list by 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, Lord of the Rings, and Brave New World, plus perpetual favorite –

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lauren Gradowski, 35, of Glen Burnie, Md., has taught Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel for a decade. It takes place in a future America where books are prohibited. “With every passing year, I become more and more alarmed at how quickly our society has begun to mimic the dystopia it depicts,” Gradowski writes. “The book shows us how easily a society slips into apathy and contempt for critical thinking. … Our kids need to understand the risks, the price that we pay if we let this sort of world become normalized. … They already live in the early stages of Bradbury’s dystopia. They at least deserve the chance to realize where things will end if they lean into it without question.”

(3) PORTER MEDICAL UPDATE. Andrew Porter’s brother Stephen Silverberg reports: “Surgery successful. Tear repaired and he’s recuperating. Still in the hospital and will probably be until early or midweek.”

(4) MOOMIN PICTURE BUSINESS. “Moomins Enter the Cuteness Pantheon, With Help From Gen Z” – link bypasses the New York Times paywall.

The Moomin family — Moominpappa, Moominmamma and Moomintroll — live in Moominvalley, where they welcome all friends, visitors and vagrants for adventures and sweet treats.

Lately, though, the milk-white hippo-esque characters created by the Finnish author and artist Tove Jansson, have taken over the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. With huge, friendly eyes and protruding, snuffly snouts, they peer from balconies and dance across giant pink and green floor displays.

On a recent summer afternoon, Meera Sastry, who was visiting from Los Angeles, stopped by to see the exhibit on the recommendation of a college friend.

“I remember Moomins growing up, from online — I was big into Tumblr,” said Ms. Sastry, 23, pausing to admire a photograph of Ms. Jansson by the Finnish coast. “Of course they were cute, like Sanrio characters. But I liked that they were also anxious, and had little narratives.” Ms. Sastry hadn’t read any of the nine books featuring the characters, she admitted: “I’ll have to get on that.”…

… When the library announced the exhibition on Instagram, said Linda E. Johnson, the president and chief executive of the Brooklyn Public Library, it became the account’s highest-performing post to date….

(5) SFWA UPDATE ON ANTHROPIC LAWSUIT. SFWA President Kate Ristau shared with members what they know about the settlement of the class-action lawsuit against Anthropic.

…The class-action lawsuit against Anthropic that SFWA supported through an amicus brief reached a preliminary settlement. Michael Capobianco, my fellow Commissioner with Authors Coalition, and I met with the lawyers from Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP representing authors in this case.

The basic argument in this class-action lawsuit is that Anthropic infringed on author copyrights.

Instead of going to court, Anthropic has agreed to a settlement.

This a big victory for authors (in what is expected to be the first of many lawsuits).

What does this mean?

We don’t have all the details yet. The judge ordered a lightning quick agreement process on the settlement, which will be negotiated and filed by Friday, September 5.
At that point, we will be able to share more details about the settlement amount and who will ultimately be a legal or beneficial owner of the class in this settlement.

Why is SFWA emailing you about this?

As an organization representing authors and creators like you, SFWA participated in supporting this lawsuit before the court.

We signed onto an amicus brief in favor of the class-action lawsuit and gave our feedback on the class and the proposed suit.
We met with Authors Coalition member groups and attorneys to work through how to contact authors who are owed money.
We met again with lawyers yesterday to discuss the proposed settlement.

What’s next?

The class still needs to be finalized. SFWA is working with the attorneys (as we discussed here) to collect author information, so that authors can receive notice if the court approves this settlement.

If you receive notice, you will have 90 days to choose to:

Participate in the class
Participate and object
Not participate

If you have friends or colleagues who are not part of SFWA and may be impacted by this lawsuit, we encourage you to share this website with them:https://www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-author-contact/

The sooner they get in contact, the better.

If you are receiving this email, you will also be receiving information about the lawsuit from Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP in the following weeks. We encourage you to follow up.

After the settlement is finalized, we will update you on the full details.

(6) ALIEN Q&A. “’If ever there’s a movie where I got everything right, it was ‘Alien’: How Oscar winner Roger Christian made ‘Alien: Earth’ feel like a classic” – a Space.com interview.

… Noted Lucasfilm editor and author J.W. Rinzler, who was a personal friend of Christian’s and wrote “The Making of Alien,” considers these two projects to be “one of the greatest back-to-back Hollywood design accomplishments ever.” On “Alien,” Christian prowled British junkyards for scrap aviation parts, old jet engines, PVC piping, and sewer drain pipes for his unique set artistry and was present right beside Scott for the entire UK-based shoot outside London.

“‘Alien’ in some ways was similar to ‘Star Wars.’ It was essentially the first R-rated science fiction movie. They cut $600,000 out of our budget and where does that go? Off the art department because there were no stars in it. The moment I was asked to go they’d already built the wooden structure on two stages at Shepperton. I was on ‘The Life of Brian’ and couldn’t do ‘Alien,’ but it got cancelled and I was in London sitting the producer’s office when the phone rang and it was Ridley. He said, ‘Get your a$$ down here to Shepperton.’

“That was because I knew how to work this kind of grungy used world. Michael Seymour who did his commercials wasn’t a science fiction designer. As soon as I walked in the office they gave me the script. Around the wall were six Giger paintings and I thought, God, with Ridley’s eye I knew what he was going to do.”…

(7) TAKE A GANDER AT SANDERSON’S GRANDER GARRETS. [Item by David Doering.] Here are a couple of pics of Brandon Sanderson’s newest abode under construction . The Utah Valley view also shows our Wasatch Mountains in the background as well as the LDS Temple in the middle.

(8) LIVE FOREVER. [Item by Andrew (not Werdna).] “How to Live Forever and Get Rich Doing It” by Tad Friend in The New Yorker (behind a paywall). About longevity research, but the SF reference was not quite the expected one:

“He mentioned one more seminal book, Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi collection “The Man Who Sold the Moon.” The man in question, D. D. Harriman, longs to go to the moon, but his vision and salesmanship are so vital to the moon-colonization program that his colleagues maneuver to keep him on Earth.”

The article begins:

Peter Diamandis is five feet four and has pipestem legs, but his torso widens into broad shoulders, powerful biceps, and a craggy, Homeric head. The composite effect is of a genie emerging from a lamp. Our wish is his command, and our wish, surely, must be for more time to make wishes: for limitless life. In December, Diamandis stood before two hundred doctors and scientists and vowed that in the coming decade our wish would begin to come true: “It’s either a hardware problem or a software problem—and we’re going to be able to fix that!”

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born August 29, 1954 — Michael Kube-McDowell, 71.

By Paul Weimer: I first encountered Michael Kube-McDowell ‘s work in a quasi tie-in novel, Isaac Asimov’s Robot City: Odyssey. This was part of a series of novels that Asimov commissioned in the titular city, set somewhere in his Robot-Empire timeline. It started off in the classic amnesia case, with a man on the run and not remembering why, and easing readers into the setting Asimov had created for Kube-McDowell to explore in this and subsequent books. It was entertaining enough that I started to look for other works of his. I came across some stories here and there (especially a couple that wound up as Tales from the Darkside).

And then I struck gold when I found Alternities.

Alternities stands as one of the classic parallel world novels. Walter Endicott, clearly not from our world, stumbles from our world, suddenly, into a world not his own. The singular universe has now fractured into a kaleidoscope (the novel uses the word maze) of alternate realities. The novel, like many alternate history multiverse novels of the period (before and since) heavily thinks about the branch points, the jonbar points, the decisions that lead to each of the major color-coded worlds that we see in the book.

There is a lot of speculation as to why the worlds split as they did, and a surprising answer and conclusion, as well. The novel shows his erudition not only in science but in general communication of popular knowledge. Kube-McDowell’s columns and articles on everything from the space program to the idiocy of “scientific creationism” are a testament to his knowledge, curiosity, and ability to explain and bring ideas to his reading audience both in fiction and nonfiction alike.

And he’s a filker on top of all that. Quite the Renaissance man indeed.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Dinette Set is skeptical.
Loose Parts has merch.
The Argyle Sweater makes you figure it out.
Tom the Dancing Bug writes a perfectly structured story.

(11) A VOTE FOR ALIENS. Emma Stone endorses Carl Sagan at the Venice Film Festival: “Emma Stone declares belief in aliens during Bugonia film promo” reports the Guardian.

…“I don’t know about looking down on us, but one of my favourite people who has ever lived is Carl Sagan and I fell madly in love with his philosophy and science and how brilliant he is,” the Oscar winner said.

“He very deeply believed [that] the idea that we’re alone in this vast expansive universe – not that we’re being watched – is a pretty narcissistic thing. So, yes, I’m coming out and saying it: I believe in aliens.”…

(12) NINE? NEIN! GamesRadar+ picks “The 32 Greatest Alien Invasion Movies”.

Do aliens exist? Based on how many alien invasion movies there are, you’d be forgiven that there’s gotta be some proof of extraterrestrial life—and that the aliens are out to get us here on Earth. But, for now, attacking aliens are just the stuff of fiction. (Barring any funny business at Area 51, of course.) Makes for some great movies, though!…

You might wonder why the movie on the bottom of the list didn’t drop off altogether….

32. Plan 9 From Outer Space

Year: 1957
Director: Ed Wood

Widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made (if not the worst film ever made), Plan 9 From Outer Space is the masterpiece of Ed Wood, a ’50s genre filmmaker whose passion was huge but whose talents were, ah, lacking. Made famous in the ’90s when it was X-Files protagonist Fox Mulder’s favorite film and by Tim Burton’s funny and sympathetic biopic of the maligned director, Plan 9 From Outer Space probably doesn’t deserve the label of the worst film of all time. It’s certainly not good—it’s a confused, haphazardly made tale of aliens who bring corpses back to life to invade Earth—but there’s something charming about the inept gusto.

(13) POETRY CHAPBOOK PUBLISHING. “Creating a Chapbook: How To” — Dream Foundry’s 2023 panel video has advice.

From selecting the poems to include to options for publication and distribution, a conversation on the nuts and bolts of creating a chapbook for your speculative poetry.

(14) DIRT CHEAP. [Item by Steven French.] Part of me thinks this is neat, the other part thinks we shouldn’t encourage Musk & co. any further: “Turning Martian soil into metal: Scientists test new extraction process” at Phys.org.

The idea of building settlements on Mars is a popular goal of billionaires, space agencies and interplanetary enthusiasts.

But construction demands materials, and we can’t ship it all from Earth: it cost US$243 million just to send NASA’s one ton Perseverance Rover to the Red Planet.

Unless we’re building a settlement for ants, we’ll need much, much more stuff. So how do we get it there?

CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow and Swinburne alum Dr. Deddy Nababan has been pondering this question for years. His answer lies in the Martian dirt, known as regolith.

“Sending metals to Mars from Earth might be feasible, but it’s not economical. Can you imagine bringing tons of metals to Mars? It’s just not practical,” he says.

“Instead, we can use what’s available on Mars—it’s called in-situ resource utilization (ISRU).”

More specifically, Dr. Nababan is looking at astrometallurgy—making metals in space….

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Paul Weimer, David Doering, Andrew (not Werdna), Stephen Silverberg, 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 Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 7/9/25 In A Scroll In The File, There Ticked A Pixel

Posted on July 9, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Monday saw me travel 35 miles into and out of London to Radlett in the leafy country of Hertfordshire for a small reunion of my former college SF group PSIFA (Polytechnic Science Fiction and Fantasy Association). Three PSIFAns lived there back in the day — late 1970s to early ’80s.

Radlett is down the road from Elstree and they were shooting a little known ‘b’ movie called Star Wars. Drive through Elstree at 14.00 and you’d hear a siren sound to call actors and crew back to the stage. Drivers in the high street would be slightly alarmed as droves of white and black storm troopers exited the cafes and bars to cross the road, halting the traffic, as they returned to set…

Pulling into Radlett station I was surprised not to be able to see my friends’ former flat: it was all trees! Upon reflection, hardly surprising as it was nearly half a century ago and you get a heck of a lot of tree growth over that time…

Some of the discussion was fannish and there was quiet musings as whether or not to have another reunion at either Manchester’s Festival of Fantastic Films or the next Sci-Fi London. We will see…. Both are worth checking out for Filers who are film buffs: the former more for those into vintage horror and the latter for those into recent independent SF. Meanwhile, the deference to which the staff treated us ‘oldsters’ was a little bemusing as we are still late teenagers/early-20-somethings at heart. Tempus fugit.

(2) SF IN TRANSLATION HUGO PROPOSED. The people behind adding a Best Translated Work category to the Hugos — Jake Casella Brookins, Rachel Cordasco, Eden Kupermintz, Alexander Dickow, and Kat Kourbeti — have created The Translated Hugo Initiative website to encourage support.

Speculative fiction—including science fiction, fantasy, and related genres—is a global phenomenon. There is a wealth of communities and organizations creating and celebrating SF around the world, and yet, within English-speaking circles, there are no major awards highlighting translated speculative fiction.

The Translated Hugo Initiative wants to change that, by introducing a Hugo Award for Best Translated Work….

… We believe that it’s a great time to propose this award, due to the strength and variety of speculative fiction being translated today. A shortlist highlighting diverse and interesting science fiction and fantasy from around the world would deepen conversations within fan communities, boost authors and publishers who are expanding what SF is and does, and benefit the librarians, booksellers, educators, and readers who look to the awards for a record of noteworthy books. And, at a time of rising xenophobia & insularity in the the predominant Worldcon host countries, a Translated Hugo would be a small but potent gesture of inclusion toward the world SF community….

The people who have already lent their names in support are listed on the Signatories page.

(3) FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE READING PLEASURE. The New York Times says these are “The Best Science Fiction Novels to Read Right Now” – gift link bypasses the paywall. List includes “Jeff VanderMeer’s Favorite Climate Fiction”.

The editors of The New York Times Book Review bring you immersive climate fiction, our latest reviews, gripping dystopian reads, novels with great world-building, books with “The Last of Us” vibes, the essential Octavia E. Butler and more!

(4) GUNN ON SUPERMAN. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] BBC Radio 4s weekday arts programme Front Row’s first item was with James Gunn on his new Superman film. This informative over-10-minute interview saw the director of Guardians of the Galaxy tell us that he did not want to do Superman but his partner went on at him for years. He finally contemplated what sort of Superman film he might make if he were ever offered it. He decided he would not tell of Kal El’s coming to Earth as that had been done twice before, but to present Superman as Gunn had read the comics when growing up. Luther would be a technophile scientist and he’d bring back Krypto. There would even be hints of what might be the Justice League of America (no doubt making it Great Again…

Front Row can be downloaded here for a month and after that it will be available through BBC Sounds.

Superman is back on the big screen for the first time in nearly a decade, we speak with director James Gunn.

(5) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for June 2025 is “Tunnel Fever,” by Margrét Helgadóttir. The story has a bit of the Western in it, and it engages with issues of climate chaos and rampant pollution, imagining a far future in which many (maybe all?) humans are living underground.

Did you know that the seabed in the Arctic Ocean is covered with myriad tunnels? Three hectic highways meet at the foot of the Lomonosov Ridge, uniting the northern parts of the American, Eurasian, and European continents thousands of meters below the surface. But there are numerous other tunnels. They crisscross between the underwater mountains, valleys, and lakes. Here traffic moves leisurely. At the crossroads where the Yukon and East Siberia tunnels intersect at the edge of the steep Chukchi Plateau, you’ll even find a small roadside bar where the weary journeyer may rest for a few hours in artificial daylight. Here, no one cares why you are wayfaring so far off the grid….

There’s a response essay by human geographer Anna Pigott: “Resisting Tunnel Vision”. “To work toward better climate policy and governance, we need to expand our vision of what’s possible.”

(6) BEWARE MURDERBOT SPOILER. Entertainment Weekly lets the SJW credential out of the bag in “Alexander Skarsgård might be beyond saving in ‘Murderbot’ finale clip”. Kathy Sullivan says, “Spoiler for those who haven’t read the novella, extra stuff for those who have.”

(7) WASTE NOT, WANT NOT. Michael Whelan invites fans to visit his “Leftovers & Palette Gremlins 2025” gallery at The Art of Michael Whelan website.

About Leftovers & Palette Gremlins

Leftovers are spur-of-the-moment doodles or sketches created with paint left over from a work in progress. (Ever since my poor art student days, I’ve been loathe to discard any usable paint or other art materials!) Many of these quickies end up in the trash, but some give rise to an idea that merits development into a full sized painting.

Palette Gremlins are small creations inspired by random or accidental shapes in my immediate environment. Usually these gremlins are found on a used palette, but nearly as often they spring from an unintentional mark of paint on a piece of paper or a suggestive shadow in my studio.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 8, 1944 — Glen Cook, 81.

By Paul Weimer: Grimdark before Grimdark was a thing? Maybe. My first encounter with Glen Cook was not the series he is most famous for, which I will talk about shortly. And not his other major fantasy series, which I will also talk about. Instead, I encountered Glen Cook somewhere in the early 1990’s with a book called Tower of Fear. A city under the uneasy rule of an oppressive occupation, a wizard sealed and lost in the titular tower, and a general simmering of a city ready to go over the edge, with the right spark. Think of it as a darker, more sword and sorcery version of Ilmar (City of Last Chances) and you will be in the right ballpark. I was on a S&S kick at the time, so I thought it was just excellent.

A few years later, I came across The Black Company. This is the series that marks Glen Cook as possibly Grimdark before Grimdark was a thing. And also Sword and Sorcery. The premise of the sprawling series, for those who haven’t tried it, is that a mercenary company winds up getting caught in power struggles within and without an evil empire. They literally do work for the Dark Queen but that winds up getting more complicated than even they expect, when they meet the prophecy fueled White Rose, who is supposedly fated to take the Empire down. And oh yeah, the Queen’s ex, locked in a tomb, is looking to break out. It’s a relatively low level look at what happens when a company has to deal with some very high level movers and shakers. The aforementioned Dark Queen has a number of lieutenants, the Taken, who squabble and scheme among themselves (and the poor Black Company caught in the crossfire) as much as actually fight their enemies.

It’s a dark military fantasy, well written for those who like that sort of thing (it got reissued not too long ago as one of the Tor Essentials) The world of the Black Company is not a pleasant world, the Company gets chewed up a lot, and their advancement toward their goals can be slow at best. But they keep on keeping on, even as they often do dark things in the pursuit of their goals, their employers’ goals, or both.

The other major series of Cook that I’ve read is the Garrett, PI books, inspired and suggested to me by a friend who loved them to pieces. Garrett (named for Randall Garrett the fantasy author) is a hard-boiled noir private detective, but in a fantasy city. The novels follow the titular character as he takes cases from the mostly demihuman population of Tunfaire, and follow a lot of the conventions of Noir fiction. Women in trouble, getting into tangles with the law and organized crime, betrayals, reversals, Garrett getting chewed up quite a bit, way in over his head but determined to see the job done. It’s a living. If you like fantasy and you like Noir/detective fiction, this is the series for you, no question.

And all of the Garrett books have a metal of some sort in the name (the first book is Sweet Silver Blues, the apparently last one (after a dozen!) was Wicked Bronze Ambition. Come to think, The Black Company was a pretty long lasting series, too. The man can certainly come up with idea after idea in his world, and make page turners in the progress.

Cook, prolific as he has been over a long career, has other fantasy novel series, as well but I’ve not picked any of them up. I’ve not really cottoned to his science fiction, it’s proven to be not for me, alas.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Bound and Gagged hasn’t considered why there’s a legacy.
Dog Eat Doug features an overachiever.
Jerry King meets an old school applicant.
WaynoVision can’t convince the barkeep.

(10) A RED ‘S’ AND A BLACK EYE. [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth, who says he needs to rewatch Christopher Reeve.] Two stars. “Superman review – is it a bust? Is it a pain? James Gunn’s dim reboot is both” – can you guess which direction the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw is pointing his thumb?

Here is a film occupying the heartsinking Venn diagram overlap between franchise exhaustion and AI soullessness: a film fatally unconvinced of the reason for its own existence. We’d all hoped that writer-director James Gunn, who was in charge of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie series, might put some wind back beneath Superman’s wings – or in his cape, or under his boots, or at any rate somewhere near his costumed person. The Man of Steel needed a fresh start after his self-cancelling contest in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016, and getting muddled together with a lot of other utility superheroes in Justice League a year later – though I will admit to enjoying the pure hubristic craziness of the lengthy Zack Snyder cut of that movie when it saw the light of day.

But this? If it was to be a reboot then really we needed to get back to basics, and be reminded why we liked superheroes in the first place – and I do – and remember why they were exciting and escapist and fun. We needed the clarity and simplicity of something like the origin myth of the infant Superman arriving here from his doomed planet, like Moses, destined to put heart back into an America hit by the Great Depression, hokey though all that may be.

Yet from the very beginning, this new Superman is encumbered by a pointless and cluttered new backstory which has to be explained in many wearisome intertitles flashed up on screen before anything happens at all. Only the repeated and laborious quotation of the great John Williams theme from the 1978 original reminds you of happier times. Superman, played with square-faced vanilla dullness by David Corenswet, has recently taken it upon himself to intervene in a war between two fancifully named fictional nation states. Why this war in particular, and none of the many others happening all over the globe, you ask? Perhaps because these countries are so palpably made up and without inconvenient political associations and implications….

(11) THUMB THE OTHER (AMERICAN?) WAY. However, New York Times critic Alissa Wilkinson says it works: “‘Superman’ Review: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Reboot!” (Behind a paywall).

…So while staying true to Superman requires trotting out certain familiar plot elements — his birth parents, his adoptive parents, his susceptibility to Kryptonite, his big old crush on the scrappy lady reporter Lois Lane — it also means tapping into those ideological roots. He’s a metahuman, but he’s also a man who’s almost guilelessly attached to truth, justice and something called “the American way”: protecting the little guy, pummeling the baddies. Set that guy down in the 21st century, and things get complicated.

By all of these measures, Gunn’s charming take on the Superman myth succeeds — it even won over a particular superhero-weary critic. It’s a sincere but also goofy movie, with a few well-timed twists on the mythology and a couple of added characters (I won’t spoil it, I promise) who keep things light at just the right moments….

(12) STUART KEEPS BANGING ON. Deadline has the story — “‘The Big Bang Theory’ Enters The Multiverse As Sci-Fi Spinoff ‘Stuart Fails To Save The Universe’ Gets HBO Max Pickup & Sets Up More OG Returns”.

SFTSTU is set in the future, after the events in Big Bang. In it, comic book store owner Stuart Bloom (Sussman) is tasked with restoring reality after he breaks a device built by Sheldon and Leonard, accidentally bringing about a multiverse Armageddon. (The contraption is something Sheldon and Leonard worked on after the end of the original series.)

Stuart is aided in this quest by his girlfriend Denise (Lapkus), geologist friend Bert (Posehn), and quantum physicist/all-around pain in the ass Barry Kripke (Bowie). Along the way, they meet alternate-universe versions of characters we’ve come to know and love from The Big Bang Theory. As the title implies, things don’t go well.

Like has been the case in superhero franchises, Big Bang actors are expected to play alternate-universe versions of characters. No details on who may be returning are being revealed, but given that their characters made the device whose destruction unleashed chaos, it is safe to assume that Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki may pop in as Sheldon and Leonard, respectively….

… The pickup caps a long journey for the project, which was first announced in April 2023 with no premise and a single auspice, Lorre, via Big Bang studio Warner Bros. Television where his Chuck Lorre Prods. is based….

(13) BIG BIRD. “Peter Jackson joins Colossal Biosciences to resurrect New Zealand’s moa bird from extinction” reports AP News.

Filmmaker Peter Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct New Zealand bird called the moa. His fascination with the flightless ostrich-like bird has led to an unusual partnership with a biotech company known for its grand and controversial plans to bring back lost species.

On Tuesday, Colossal Biosciences announced an effort to genetically engineer living birds to resemble the extinct South Island giant moa – which once stood 12 feet (3.6 meters) tall – with $15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ngāi Tahu Research Centre….

… The moa had roamed New Zealand for 4,000 years until they became extinct around 600 years ago, mainly because of overhunting. A large skeleton brought to England in the 19th century, now on display at the Yorkshire Museum, prompted international interest in the long-necked bird….

(14) SCHOOL’S BACK IN SESSION. “’Wednesday’ Season 2 Trailer Reveals Plot”, which is where Deadline gets these details:

…Wednesday is focused on getting where she needs to be when she is approached by a bubbly man dressed in head-to-toe purple. This is her new principal, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi), who refers to Wednesday as the savior of Nevermore, a comment connected to her heroic deeds in Season 1. Much to the famous pupil’s chagrin, she also has a bevy of fangirls hoping to get their queen’s autograph.

Once the fandom dies down, Wednesday reunites with Enid (Emma Myers), who is looking excitedly to a new year full of fun with her roomie. However, Wednesday becomes entranced, leading to a horrible vision: Enid is dead, and Wednesday is somehow at fault. Wednesday confesses what she saw to her mother, who vows not to let history repeat itself. This season, the show’s protagonist will also count on the support of Grandmama (Joanna Lumley), whose powers have yet to be revealed….

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

Pixel Scroll 5/30/25 If They Could Scroll Me Now, That Old Karass Of Mine

Posted on May 30, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) NANOWRIMO SITE VANISHES. [Item by Dan Bloch.] Earlier this week NaNoWriMo shut down their website without any notice. People are commiserating on Reddit.

What a freaking waste. A huge, passionate and vibrant community founded on conquering the impossible, brought down by gross mismanagement and a refusal to listen to the community that gave it life.

I’ve been sad about this for a long time, but it’s definitely hitting home today, especially seeing the posts from people freaking out about losing their site data, since NaNoWriMo NEVER officially announced the shutdown on official channels to warn them.

We meant nothing to them, even in the end. Good riddance.

The Wayback Machine’s latest Nanowrimo.org screencap was May 27.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) announced in March that the organization was shutting down. They offered a lengthy explanation in “The State of NaNoWriMo – A Community Update – March 2025” on YouTube.

This followed in the aftermath of a controversy that erupted the previous September when they issued an equivocal statement about using AI – and it did not go unnoticed that NaNoWriMo is sponsored by ProWritingAid, a writing app that advertises AI-powered technology, including text rewrites – leading Zriters Board members Daniel Jose Older, Cass Morris, and Rebecca Kim Wells to immediately resign.

(2) EXTRA CREDIT READING. Two sff news periodicals posted today:

Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine for May 2025 at Patreon; and
David Langford’s Ansible® 455, for June 2025.

(3) IGNYTE AWARDS VOTING OPENS JUNE 9. Public voting on The Ignyte Awards will begin June 9.

The Ignyte Awards began in 2020 alongside the inaugural FIYAHCON, a virtual convention centering the contributions and experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in Speculative Fiction. Founded by L. D. Lewis and Suzan Palumbo, the awards were an attempt to correct representative gaps in traditional spec lit awards and have grown into a coveted and cherished addition to the awards landscape. The Ignytes seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.

(4) SAVE WHEEL OF TIME. Did a show ever have so many spokes persons? “Wheel of Time fans band together to save show after cancellation – petition gets over 50,000 signatures” says Radio Times.

Following the cancellation of The Wheel of Time after its third season, a petition has quickly racked up signatures from fans hoping to save the Prime Video fantasy show.

The petition, titled Save The Wheel of Time, has already got over 53,700 signatures and counting, with fans calling for the story to be finished and arguing that it “deserves to be told in full”.

The petition points not only to the third season’s strong critical and fan reception, but also to reported viewing figures, arguing for the show’s continuation by putting it in comparison with other fantasy shows The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon and The Witcher….

(5) FUTURE TENSE FICTION. The Future Tense Fiction story for May 2025 is “The Shade Technician,” by Harrison Cook, about urban heat and its health effects, as well as the privatization of critical infrastructure.

The response essay “The Limits of Heat Resilience” is by physician and heat researcher Pope L. Moseley.

Extreme heat is pushing up against our physiological limits. We can’t adapt our way out of the problem—we need to confront it directly.

(6) JOHN SCALZI Q&A. CollectSPACE starts their interview with an anecdote about the author’s research: “John Scalzi reconned Apollo 11 moon rock before turning it to cheese in new novel”.

…”I went to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum very specifically so I knew what the layout of the place was, so I could see the moon rock there for myself and so when I wrote about it, it would be reasonable to what is actually there,” said Scalzi in an interview with collectSPACE. “They had no idea.”

Had the docents approached him and asked why he was interested in the moon rock, they might not have believed him anyway. In “When the Moon Hits Your Eye,” released today (March 25), it is Virgil Augustine, the museum’s (fictional) executive director, who comes to realize what has happened, however impossible it might seem…

Then they follow with more conventional questions about the new book.

collectSPACE (cS): Was there a particular moment in your life that it just struck you, or how do you come up with the idea of writing a book about the moon turning into cheese?

John Scalzi: It was something that had been just rolling around my brain for a while, simply because it was just such an absurd idea that it almost felt like a challenge. You know, was this something that I could make something out of?

cS: Did you search to see if anyone else had written a book about the moon turning to cheese?

Scalzi: I didn’t, but if someone did, it wouldn’t have necessarily stopped me because there are so few super original ideas. you just accept that most of what you’re doing is not about what’s original, but what you can bring to that particular topic that nobody else has.

There are lots of children’s books about the moon being made of cheese, but they’re all picture books, so I felt that this was a pretty safe subject. Also, as soon someone mentions the topic, people are like, ‘Oh, it’s like Wallace and Gromit,’ because they go to the moon and it is cheese [in “A Grand Day Out With Wallace and Gromit” released in 1989].

This was something I was reasonably confident had been unexplored territory in the adult literature format, and certainly in the manner in which I did it, which was to structure it around a lunar cycle, rather than just one or two main characters….

(7) THE ONLY ONE WHO COULD INTERRUPT HARLAN WAS – HARLAN. Edwin L. Battistella reminisces about his introduction to parenthetical phrases in “What I learned from reading Harlan Ellison” at the OUPblog.

When I was in high school, I went through a Harlan Ellison phase….

…Stylistically, what stood out most was his use of parentheses. In the essays, Ellison used them all the time. In a random four-page section I count six parentheticals, some as long as a paragraph. Elsewhere, I found a couple that went on for more than half a page….

…Ellison used the parenthesis to amplify his outrage, to underscore his smart-alecky awareness, and even occasionally to poke fun at himself.

For a time, Elision’s style left a mark on me as a writer. I began including (what I thought were) pointed, witty asides in my essays and correspondence. I got away with it in high school, less so in college, and finally my wife convinced me to give it up. It was, she said, “too cutesy” and “distracting.”

Every now and then, I miss parentheses and trot a pair of parens out, but for the most part I’ve given them up. The style worked for Ellison, who managed to never be too cutesy and whose distractions were interesting, but I could not pull it off….

(8) BREATH MINT OR CANDY MINT? Chris Winkle argues “Why Literary Fiction Is a Genre” at Mythcreants. Here are a couple of excerpts. You’d need to read the article to see him make his case.

…In any widespread discussion of literary fiction, two contradictory ideas are bound to make an appearance. Some people advocate for one or the other, while others embrace both simultaneously. Let’s look at these two competing ideas.

Literary fiction as the best fiction. Under this definition, any book of any genre can be considered literary fiction if it is good enough. This means that literary fiction is simply a prestige label given to a wide variety of books we admire. Let’s call this the prestige definition.
Literary fiction as a distinct style of fiction. Under this definition, literary fiction has specific characteristics that distinguish it from non-literary books. These characteristics include realism, slow and detailed prose, and experimental style or form. Let’s call this the style definition.

You might think these two definitions would be at war with each other. Conceptually, they are. But while individual literary fans may take one side or the other, the community as a whole isn’t interested in resolving this contradiction. In fact, these definitions coexist by design.

That’s because both definitions are needed to send a bigger message: that literary fiction entails specific characteristics, and those characteristics are superior. Meaning, a book of any genre supposedly becomes better by adopting literary fiction conventions. That’s how it “transcends” its genre and becomes literary instead….

… This is why publishers already treat contemporary literary fiction like a genre. It’s a specific type of fiction that appeals to a specific audience of fans. Business-wise, that’s what a genre is. It’s used to match books with the readers who are inclined to purchase and enjoy them.

However, literary books don’t fit everyone’s idea of what genres are. The prestige definition is only partly responsible for this. I think a greater factor is that we love our favorite genres, so we want them to be more coherent and meaningful than they are. And when we assign meaning to them, it’s easy to make that meaning too restrictive. For instance, if we associate genres with a specific type of setting or plot, then literary books, which are distinguished by characteristics such as prose style, may seem like the odd group out….

(9) JOHN BOARDMAN (1932-2025). By Gary Farber. I was sorry to read Ansible’s report today: “John Boardman (1932-2025), US fan active since 1950 in cons, clubs and APAs, and treasurer of the 1967 Worldcon, died on 29 May aged 92.”

John was among the first fans I met in NYC fandom in the early 1970s; he and his wife Perdita lived within a long walk’s distance from my childhood home in Midwood, Brooklyn, and at the time I was first invited to the Lunarians, the NYC science fiction club that put on the annual Lunacon science fiction convention, the club met at their home, until months later when Perdita, fed up with the way fans left half-filled cups and dirty plates all over their large house, announced that she wouldn’t put up with it any more, and that the club would have to find a new meeting place.

For a time, that was Frank and Ann Dietz (Frank’s second wife) house in Oradell, New Jersey, and then we met at the Lunacon hotel in Manhattan; my memory is a bit shaky at the moment if we were using the Statler-Hilton that year or the Commodore.

John was a true character. Known to some as “the Jerry Pournelle of the left,” he was a professor of physics at Brooklyn College, a leftist, a bit deaf and thus very loud, very opinionated, and thus the parallels to Jerry. John was a founder of Diplomacy-by-mail fandom with his fanzine Graustark, a mainstay of parts of NYC fandom, a bit of a blowhard, but unforgettable.

He was always hale and hearty, speaking with a vibrant and booming voice, one you could hear as soon as you entered a party he was at, always ready for a good argument.

Among other bits of personal history, from his Wikipedia page:

“Boardman earned his BA at the University of Chicago in 1952 and his MS from Iowa State University in 1956. He then attended Florida State University to begin his doctoral studies. However, he was expelled in 1957 due to his involvement with the Inter-Civic Council and more specifically for inviting three black Florida A&M exchange students to a Christmas party.”

Also see Fancyclopedia’s entry on John Boardman.

John Boardman, right, at 1967 PhilCon. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter. “Taken with my trusty Kodak Starflash, I think”

(10) ALF CLAUSEN (1941-2025). “Alf Clausen, Emmy-winning ‘Simpsons’ Composer, Dies at 84” reports Variety. He died on May 29.

… Clausen won two Emmys and another 21 nominations for the long-running animated Fox series. He began scoring the antics of Bart, Lisa and company in 1990, during its second season, and is believed to be the most-nominated composer in Emmy history with a total of 30 nominations overall.

He also won five Annie Awards, also for “Simpsons” music. His long tenure with Matt Groening’s irreverent creation made him one of the most respected creators of animation music in TV history. His nearly 600 original scores for the series are also believed to be a record for the most written for a single TV series in America….

Clausen conducted a 35-piece orchestra every week, something producers insisted upon from the beginning. His unexpected firing in August 2017, a cost-saving move by Fox and “Simpsons” producer Gracie Films, resulted in a firestorm of protests from fans around the world….

Six of Clausen’s pre-“Simpsons” Emmy nominations were for “Moonlighting,” including two landmark episodes: the black-and-white “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice” and the “Taming of the Shrew” sendup “Atomic Shakespeare.”…

… He scored nearly 100 episodes of the late 1980s puppet sitcom “Alf” (and when asked about the title, he would often quip, “no relation”)….

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 30, 1922 — Hal Clement. (Died 2003.)

By Paul Weimer: If hard science and physics could be considered “characters” in science fiction, Hal Clement is certainly the person who was able to make them so. Mission of Gravity is the premier look at this, giving an extremely weird and strange, and yet possible high gravity world. Do the characters he populates this world with work as individual characters? Not really, but what you read Clement for is the puzzles and the logic behind the hard science that makes a high gravity-distorted world like Mesklin (the planet of Mission of Gravity) possible in the first place.

Another novel in this vein that doesn’t get much play or notice, but I ironically read before Mission of Gravity, is The Nitrogen Fix. In this book, Earth’s atmosphere has changed, radically, with the free nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere having combined into a toxic and unbreathable mix of nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and water. Did the aliens who have come to Earth change and terraform Earth for their own purposes? In the end, the transformation of Earth’s atmosphere is a puzzle that is solved, and makes sense, with a big heaping sense of irony to it all.

Although shared worlds are not a big thing anymore, back in the 1980’s, they were all the rage. I didn’t mention it back when I wrote on Ellison (way too much to write about him) but even Harlan Ellison did a shared world, Medea. His shared planet had a bunch of writers very interested in building a realistic planet and solar system. Clement not only provided an essay on worldbuilding the astrophysics of Medea in the book, but also contributed a story.

Once again, hard science as a character in Clement’s work. That’s what it means to me.

Hal Clement at ConFiction (1990). Photo by Frank Olynyk. From Fanac.org site.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Curses! suspects what a book club is really about.
Half Full gives a compliment at a signing.
Jerry King questions book marketing.
Reality Check thinks a writer is busy.
Rhymes with Orange has a monster problem.
Tom the Dancing Bug completely redoes the comics page.

(13) MEMORIES. Steven Thompson, son of famous comics fans Don and Maggie Thompson, tells a great anecdote about the late Peter David on Facebook. It has to do with how Peter made a tribute panel to Don Thompson a terrific memory.

(14) JON DECLES PROFILE. File 770 commenter Jon DeCles – the pen name of Don Studebaker – was interviewed in 2017 by The Press Democrat about the loss of his house in a fire: “Valley fire survivor starting over with prized cuckoo clock that escaped the flames”.

It’s nearly two years since the Valley fire vaporized the Cobb Mountain home of Don Studebaker, a highly literate high-school dropout, science-fantasy writer, stage channeler of Mark Twain, devotee of ancient Greek gods, co-creator of the documentary-worthy Berkeley literary commune of Greyhaven and a decadeslong student of the nearly infinite subtleties and elements of ritual significance of the Japanese tea ceremony.

The 75-year-old Studebaker has no earthly idea when he’ll be able to call in a crane to set a new modular home roughly where the old, conventionally constructed house was. But already he contemplates special placement of the clock.

“The cuckoo is going to be the pièce de résistance,” beamed the gray-bearded, blue-eyed and kinetic Studebaker from alongside the fish-pond porch of the residence off State Route 75 that he dubbed the Rhinoceros Lodge and references fleetingly on his website home.pon.net/rhinoceroslodge. The 1950s country home was devoured along with those of 11 immediate neighbors by the historic south Lake County inferno of Sept. 12, 2015, that killed four people downhill from Cobb, charred more than 76,000 acres and destroyed nearly 2,000 buildings.

Studebaker lost almost everything he owned, but not his German cuckoo clock.

One day in June 2015, three months before the Valley fire, he’d decided for no particular reason that it was time to seek repair of the musical timepiece his wife purchased for him while on an international book tour at least two decades earlier….

… Had it not been in the shop, the clock surely would have burned in the fire that surged down Cobb Mountain toward Middletown that Saturday afternoon two years ago. …

(15) SHAKEN NOT STIRRED, DEEP UNDERGROUND. [Item by Steven French.] A complex of tunnels built after the Blitz is set to become an immersive spy museum and will also feature one of the deepest underground bars in the world: “London tunnels that inspired James Bond creator will become spy museum” reports the Guardian.

During his time in military intelligence, Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels, regularly worked with Winston Churchill’s spy organisation based 30 metres below ground in a labyrinth of tunnels in central London.

The Kingsway Exchange tunnels complex, stretching out across 8,000 sq metres beneath High Holborn, near Chancery Lane underground station, hosted the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and is said to have inspired Q Branch in Fleming’s novels.

So it seems appropriate that plans to breathe new life into this long-abandoned second world war subterranean network will include a permanent exhibition about the history of military intelligence and espionage.

The Military Intelligence Museum is to collaborate with the London Tunnels company, developing the complex to showcase its original artefacts, equipment, weapons and documents in a modern hi-tech experience at the proposed new £220m London tourist attraction, which is planned to open in 2028.

(16) FEEL FREE TO STEP ON THAT BUTTERFLY. Dete Meserve’s op-ed for Space.com asks “Could time travel tourism be the next space tourism?” I admit it – I clicked.

…Up until recently, physicists believed that time travel to the past was impossible because it required unusual matter or extreme warping of spacetime. However, physicist John D. Norton has developed a new model based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity that shows time travel is mathematically possible.

His model does not rely on strange matter or intense space-time distortion, but uses a simple space-time shape that allows paths to loop back in time. This work suggests that time travel could occur under more ordinary physical conditions than previously thought.

The classic understanding of time travel centers on a fundamental problem: paradoxes. If travelers could alter even minor details of the past, the cascading consequences would either rewrite the present or eliminate the traveler’s own existence — the infamous grandfather paradox. This seemingly insurmountable obstacle led physicist Stephen Hawking to propose his Chronology Protection Conjecture, which essentially argues that the laws of physics themselves forbid backward time travel by preventing the formation of closed timelike curves.

However, groundbreaking research by Dr. Fabio Costa and Germain Tobar at the University of Queensland challenges this assumption. They’ve developed a mathematical model showing that closed timelike curves do not automatically create paradoxes. Their revolutionary model suggests that while time travelers can move and act freely in the past, the universe itself maintains consistency—events would self-adjust to prevent any logical contradictions from occurring.

This revolutionary finding has profound implications. If Norton is right — that time travel won’t require exotic materials — and Costa and Tobar are correct — that time travel doesn’t alter the future — it opens the door for time travel technology to evolve beyond fictional ideas of secret inventions or unpredictable glitches in the universe. Instead, it could follow the trajectory of other breakthrough technologies—gradually becoming accessible, eventually commercial….

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The Blasters and Blades podcast features author Sharon Lee speaking about a Liaden Universe® novel she co-wrote with Steven Miller: “Episode 578: Ribbon Dance by Sharon Lee”. The book was released in 2024.

Today we were graced with the presence of Sharon Lee, one of the nicest ladies we’ve interviewed! We had Jana S Brown (aka Jena Rey) on as a co-host, and together we produced a kick butt interview about Sharon’s love of reading and speculative fiction. And we talked about her Liaden Universe. This was a fun interview, so go check out this episode. Lend us your eyes and ears, you won’t be sorry!!

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Bill, Dan Bloch, Joey Eschrich, 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 Daniel “Tin Pan Alley” Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 5/8/25 It’s Just A Scroll To The Left

Posted on May 8, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) FUTURE TENSE. April 2025’s Future Tense Fiction story is “The 28th,” by Mark Stasenko—a story about AI, bias, and the criminal justice system.

The response essay by legal scholar Elizabeth Joh, of the University of California Davis, is “Automated Justice?”

… Yet nowhere is the use of AI as fraught as it is in the criminal justice system, where adverse decisions lead to starkly life-altering outcomes. This isn’t a hypothetical future concern: criminal justice automation of varying degrees has already arrived. Local police agencies can turn to predictive technologies to help direct patrol resources and even generate police reports. A number of jurisdictions use risk assessment tools to decide who should be detained pretrial. Others permit judges to use algorithmic tools to determine criminal sentences. Parole boards can rely on automated assessments to identify who should be eligible for parole.

So AI is already present in the criminal justice system. But how far should it go?…

(2) INFLUENCE OF ‘CLOUD ATLAS’. Charlie Jane Anders explores the question “Has ‘Cloud Atlas’ Become a Genre?” at Happy Dancing. Here’s an excerpt:

…I also feel like Cloud Atlas has become a shorthand for “genre-hopping novel with literary aspirations.”

As I’ve said before, this is how genres happen: a book comes along that everybody loves so much, they want more of the same. And “more of the same” leads to the use of tropes or devices that are reminiscent of that influential work.

To find out more, I talked to four authors of recent books that seemed to bear a clear influence from Cloud Atlas. Here’s what they told me.

Conscious influence

“I conceived of Down in the Sea of Angels as Cloud Atlas meets X-Men,” says Khan Wong of his brand new novel. Down in the Sea of Angels is about Maida Sun, who can touch any object and see the stories of anyone who’s interacted with it in the past. Maida’s story in 2106 becomes intertwined with stories of a girl in a 1906 brothel and a tech worker in 2006. Wong describes it as “a time-hopping dystopian fantasy about psychic powers, liberation, and our interconnectedness through time.”

Wong says that he started out doing something more similar to Cloud Atlas’ format of six storylines spanning vast periods of time. But as he developed the novel, he “scaled it back, “both in terms of the span of time and the number of storylines and genres.”…

(3) ADULTING NEEDED. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Cli-Fi is becoming an established sub-genre of SF no least with books like Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry For The Future. However most politicians simply don’t get it: some even deny it! Meanwhile scientists working in the area are suffering mentally. This is something of which I am acutely aware having worked in climate science for a number of years. So this week’s Nature has a very important editorial message on behalf of today’s youth….

“Adults should finally act like adults on climate change”:

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.” This rebuke to the delegates at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City in 2019 came from a tearful Greta Thunberg, founder of the children’s climate movement Fridays For Future. Then aged 16, she urged attendees to inject more urgency into keeping global warming to within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial levels. Since then, hundreds of thousands of children around the world have made similarly impassioned appeals to adults to heed the overwhelming evidence of the dangers of climate change. But so far, a grown-up sense of responsibility is lacking….

…Quantifying what climate change will mean for those being born now is an active topic of research. This week in Nature, one group of climate researchers reports findings (L. Grant et al. Nature 641, 374–379; 2025) that must surely make adults take more notice of what younger people are saying. Building on an earlier study (W. Thiery et al. Science 374,158–160; 2021), Luke Grant, a climate researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and his colleagues report that children and young people born in the present decade face exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, in a way that their parents and grandparents never did — and that this applies pretty much anywhere in the world.

Non-PDF version of the editorial with links to this week’s relevant research here.

(4) THE BIG THREE AND FRIENDS. Big Issue offers several examples in “These are all the times sci-fi writers predicted the future”.

…In a 1964 interview for the BBC’s Horizon program, another of the ‘Big Three’, Arthur C Clarke, said: “I’m perfectly serious when I suggest that one day we may have brain surgeons in Edinburgh operating on patients in New Zealand.” He expanded on this in his 1975 novel Imperial Earth, in which the protagonist explains the risks of telesurgery over a network experiencing high latency: “A half-second lag would not matter in conversation; but between a surgeon’s hand and eye, it might be fatal.”

Clarke’s vision became reality in (fittingly) 2001, when a New York-based surgeon removed the gall bladder of a patient in Strasbourg, 6,200km away. A medical robot called ZEUS cut the patient’s flesh; the surgeon’s movements reached ZEUS across a network designed to minimise lag times….

…Sometimes one sees a prediction coming true in real time, and asks: will we heed the warnings SF gave us? Jack Williamson’s 1947 novelette With Folded Hands tells of a new type of robot following a Prime Directive: “to serve and obey and guard men from harm”. Since the robots work for free, soon no one has a job. It gets worse. The robots take the “guard men from harm” directive too literally.

They ensure a person can’t do anything remotely dangerous. Before long, humans can do nothing except sit… with folded hands. We should not fear this scenario. But one can easily imagine a world in which creatives – writers, painters, musicians, photographers – twiddle their thumbs while AI spews out soulless content on demand.

Writers such as Williamson saw the threat eight decades ago. Don’t complain we’ve had no time to prepare.

(5) THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING GAMING NEWS SCENE. [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian’s “Pushing Buttons” newsletter laments further loss of authenticity in video games journalism: “When video games journalism eats itself, we all lose out”.

Last week was a bad one for video games journalism. Two key contributors to the veteran site Giant Bomb, Jeff Grubb and Mike Minotti, have announced their departure after a recent podcast was taken down. The 888th episode of the Giant Bombcast reportedly featured a section lampooning new brand guidelinesissued to staff and is no longer available online. Later this week, it was announced that major US site Polygon was being sold to Valnet, owner of the ScreenRant and GameRant brands, resulting in a swathe of job losses. This follows ReedPop’s sale, in 2024, of four high-profile UK-based sites – Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun and VG247 – to IGN Entertainment, owned by Ziff Davis, which also resulted in redundancies.

It’s sad how these long-standing sites, each with vast audiences and sturdy reputations, have been traded and chopped up like commodities. On selling Polygon, Vox CEO Jim Bankoff said in a statement: “This transaction will enable us to focus our energies and investment resources in other priority areas of growth across our portfolio.” It felt gross, to be honest, to see this decade-old bastion of progressive video games writing being reduced to an asset ripe for off-loading. Of its purchase Valnet said: “Polygon is poised to reach new editorial heights through focused investment and innovation.” Quite how it will do that with a significantly reduced staff is anyone’s guess….

(6) THIRD (SEASON) FOUNDATION. Gizmodo analyzes the Season 3 teaser: “Foundation Season 3 Shares a First Look for Lee Pace Fans (and Everyone Else)”. Returns on Apple TV+ on July 11.

…Here’s the official description for the season: “Set 152 years after the events of season two, the Foundation has become increasingly established far beyond its humble beginnings while the Cleonic Dynasty’s Empire has dwindled. As both of these galactic powers forge an uneasy alliance, a threat to the entire galaxy appears in the fearsome form of a warlord known as ‘The Mule’ whose sights are set on ruling the universe by use of physical and military force, as well as mind control. It’s anyone’s guess who will win, who will lose, who will live and who will die as Hari Seldon, Gaal Dornick, the Cleons, and Demerzel play a potentially deadly game of intergalactic chess.”…

(7) NOTES FROM BEAR MCCREARY. “‘The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’ Composer Bear McCreary On ‘Limitless Palette’ Of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Work & ‘Pushing Boundaries’ For Season 3” at Deadline.

…With Season 2 and the rise of Sauron, McCreary was excited to musically explore parts of Tolkien’s world that haven’t been adapted to screen. “We go to this part of the map that no adaptation has ever done before, the lands of Rhûn, and I’ve always wanted to write for the Bulgarian women’s choir,” says McCreary. “They are singing in a language Tolkien himself devised, so they had to learn it phonetically. But they brought all the beautiful, unique things that come with that kind of music.”…

(8) TOMORROW PRIZE CEREMONY. The Omega Sci-Fi Project’s “Tomorrow Prize & The Green Feather Award: Celebrity Readings & Honors” will be held on Saturday, May 17, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. Free registration at the link.

Our line-up of incredible guest stars include:

Nana Visitor from Star Trek: Deep Space, Tim Russ from Star Trek: Voyager, Isabella Gomez from One Day at a Time, Marcelo Tubert from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Amy Tolsky from Jury Duty, and Rico E. Anderson from Star Trek: Renegades.

Students winners and honorees of the Omega Sci-Fi Project’s awards are publicly recognized at the incredible May culminating event, where celebrity actors perform dramatic readings of finalists’ stories that you won’t want to miss!

“The young writers are offered a wonderful chance at recognition for their creative work through the awards process. Often, students don’t even realize that creative writing is a meaningful way for them to explore a world they struggle to understand. That is, until they get to try it!” says Bodin Adler, a participating teacher from Hollywood High School.

This event culminates a season of classroom workshops led by trained writers and literary enthusiasts and are free to any educator who wishes to participate. Within these workshops, students get to explore the development, writing, and editing processes for crafting a short science fiction story, preparing them to submit their original work to The Tomorrow Prize or The Green Feather Award, the two competitions offered under the Omega Sci-Fi Project umbrella.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Non Sequitur offers Stone Age art criticism.
Rhymes with Orange gives an endorsement.
The Other Coast brings in a new detector.
Tom Gauld gives fans a choice of bookshops.

(11) SFF TO STREAM NOW. “’Godzilla Minus One’ and Other Science Fiction Movies to Stream” – recommendations from the New York Times. (Link bypasses paywall.) Here’s one of their picks.

‘Alienoid: Return to the Future’

Can’t decide if you want to watch a movie involving tentacled aliens or one with a sorcerer? Wire fu or time travel? How about ominous spaceships? The Korean director Choi Dong-hoon has you covered with his two-part “Alienoid” epic, which includes all of these elements. The second installment kicks off with a serviceable recap so newcomers can jump in, but having seen its predecessor, “Alienoid” (2022), makes the overall experience more enjoyable.

The madcap action goes back and forth between the 14th century and 2022 Seoul, when an alien menace going by the Controller is threatening to kill the entire population by unleashing a lethal gas. The key to defeat the Controller is in the past and involves a weapon called the Divine Blade. Even more important are the actions of a ragtag team that includes the spunky Ean (Kim Tae-ri, from “Space Sweepers”) and her possible love interest, Muruk (Ryu Jun-yeol). Choi keeps up a steady pace, peppered with goofy humor and surreal touches, as when Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” plays during a big moment. Narrative coherence is an afterthought in the “Alienoid” universe so it’s best to go with whatever wackadoo scenes the movies throw at you: What matters here is pure fun, and this installment delivers.

(12) SHAUN THE SHEEP 3. [Item by Steven French.] Who could resist a trip to Mossy Bottom?! “Aardman announces third Shaun the Sheep movie: The Beast of Mossy Bottom” – details in the Guardian.

A Halloween-themed third Shaun the Sheep film is in the works from Aardman Animations, following hot on the heels of the success of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

“Expect smashed pumpkins, wayward science, and a wild hairy beast,” said Sarah Cox, chief creative director of Aardman, about the film, which launches international sales via studio StudioCanal at Cannes next week, but has already been acquired by Sky for UK distribution.

“Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom sees the residents of Mossy Bottom Farm looking forward to Halloween – until the clumsy farmer trashes the flock’s beloved pumpkin patch!” runs a synopsis for the film.

“When Shaun turns mad scientist to fix the problem, things rapidly spiral out of control … With the farmer missing and a wild beast roaming the woods of Mossingham, all the ingredients are in place for a monstrously fun family adventure.”

(13) LEGO AND LUNAR OUTPOST PARTNERSHIP. “Lego and Lunar Outpost to roll out ‘Moon Rover Space Vehicle’ in August” promises CollectSPACE.

The United States’ first teleoperated rover to reach the moon’s surface is rolling out as a Lego model this summer, together with two futuristic vehicles inspired by real-life robotic lunar explorers.

The new Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Space Vehicle is scheduled for release on Aug. 1, as part of Lego’s Technic line of advanced building kits. The $99.99 set is the result of a collaboration between the Danish toymaker and Lunar Outpost, a Colorado-based company specializing in lunar surface mobility, commercial space robotics and space resources.

“Inspired by real-life Lunar Outpost vehicles enabling humanity’s return to the moon, this Lego Technic Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Space Vehicle comes with a moon rover, mining rover and MAPP rover to inspire endless journeys of exploration,” reads the set’s description on Lego’s website.

The MAPP, or Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform, was the key part of Lunar Outpost’s Lunar Voyage 1 mission, which on March 6 arrived on the moon, making history. It would have made even more, had the commercial lander that delivered MAPP there not have immediately tipped over, trapping the rover inside its garage. It never had the chance to actually rove anywhere….

(14) ONE LAST LANDING ON THE GLOBE THAT GAVE IT BIRTH. “53-Year-Old Soviet Spacecraft Will Plummet Back to Earth This Week” reports Gizmodo.

Kosmos 482 has been trapped in Earth’s orbit for 53 years but its wandering journey is coming to an end. The failed Venus mission is expected to reenter through the atmosphere in a dramatic fall toward its home planet, where it may remain intact or scatter its bits across a still unknown location on either side of the equator.

The Soviet-era spacecraft will plunge through Earth’s atmosphere sometime between May 8 to 12. As of now, the exact location of where Kosmos 482 will crash-land on Earth is still unknown, with a preliminary estimate that stretches across large parts of the world on either side of the equator. It’s also unclear whether the spacecraft will remain in one piece or if it will break apart during reentry, raining down bits of debris.

Kosmos 482 launched on March 31, 1972 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport in what is know Kazakhstan. The mission was an attempt by the Soviet space program to reach Venus, but it failed to gain enough velocity to enter a transfer trajectory toward the scorching hot planet….

(15) DONE BY DAYLIGHT. “Lunar laser: China makes 1st daytime laser-ranging measurement from Earth to the moon” – Space has the story.

China has achieved a milestone feat, making the first-ever laser ranging measurement from Earth to the moon during the daytime.

Researchers at Yunnan Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) used an infrared lunar laser ranging system of a recently upgraded 1.2-meter (3.9 feet) telescope to ping a small laser retroreflector on the Tiandu 1 satellite orbiting the moon.

Laser ranging over lunar distances is challenging, requiring sending a high-power, precise beam over 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) to hit a small corner retroreflector, which bounces the laser pulse straight back where it came from. The return signal then needs to be picked up by a telescope using ultra-sensitive detectors. Doing this in the daytime brings the added challenge of massive background “noise” from the sun….

(16) SQUAREPANTS TREK BLOOPERS. Animation Magazine is there when “Paramount+ Voyages Behind the Scenes of Crossover Spot ‘Patrick Starship Enterprise’”.

Following the debut of its new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds X SpongeBob SquarePants promo video (which you can watch here), Paramount+ has dropped a behind-the-scenes blooper reel full of illogical, astro-nautical amusement.

Starring Strange New Worlds cast members Ethan Peck (Spock), Anson Mount (Christopher Pike) and Celia Rose-Gooding (Nyota Uhura), the new video pokes fun at the making of the short and features some funny moments where we see the creative stand-in solutions for the animated characters, which include SpongeBob, Sandy and Mr. Krabs…

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

File 770

Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom

Tag Archives: Future Tense

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