Tag Archives: John D. MacDonald

Pixel Scroll 6/13/26 One Of Our Check Boxes Is Missing

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(1) SOUND FAMILIAR? The New York Times poses a challenge: “Do You Recognize These Lines From Popular Science Fiction?” Link bypasses the NYT paywall.

Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.

Here’s where the quiz begins – you’ll have to click the link if you need the multiple-choice options.

Question 1 of 5

Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button.

(2) ORIGINALLY IN ANOTHER TONGUE. “Rachel Cordasco on Translated SF” – an interview conducted by James Machell at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia’s Substack newsletter.

Rachel Cordasco has written a variety of entries for the SFE, most notably SF in Translation in which she places the first golden age of science fiction translation in the 1970s (see entry for more details). Her expertise in translation range from her time as translator of works from Italian, reviews for SF Signal, and founding of Speculative Fiction in Translation where she has continued to review translations from over a dozen languages. Small Planet, a magazine dedicated to further discussion, was published on Speculative Fiction in Translation last month. In this interview, she discusses her career so far, underrated works of translated SF, what distinguishes a great translation, and the direction of Small Planet #2….

…JM: Are there particular translated works which you feel deserve greater critical attention?

RC: There are so many worthy works of SFT that I’d like to highlight, but that would take up volumes because, in fact, so much SFT that comes to us is double-vetted. These texts have often already won awards in their native countries or become extremely popular with readers and Anglophone publishers only want to invest in what they think will be successful. The translators then use their talents to not only bring the text into English but also make it a beautiful and readable work. This is why so much SFT is of a very high quality. I will take this opportunity to say, as I complain often on social media, that it’s a shame we no longer have Kurodahan and Haikasoru to bring us some of the greatest Japanese SF written in the twentieth century. Another publisher needs to step into this void and continue the work that those two publishers did for a decade. I’m also always on the lookout for SFT from underrepresented languages: I would love to read more, for instance, Vietnamese SFT, Buglarian SFT, Norwegian SFT, Icelandic SFT, etc.

One more thing: I used to think that Stanislaw Lem and the Strugatskys were so well known in the Anglosphere that I didn’t have to recommend them because, you know, everybody has already read them, right? Well, I’m getting the terrible feeling that this isn’t the case. So for anyone who is just starting with SFT, go read Lem and the Strugatskys.

(3) WORLD WIDE PARTY 2026. [Item by John Hertz.] From Dale Speirs’ Opuntia 628 (p. 18):

Founded by Benoit Girard (Quebec) and Franz Mikiis (Austria) in 1994, the World Wide Party is held on June 21 every year. 2026 will be the 33rd year of the WWP. At 21h00 local time, everyone is invited to raise a glass and toast fellow members of zinedom around the world. It is important to have it exactly at 21h00 your time. The idea is to get a wave of fellowship circling the planet.

At 21h00, face to the east and salute those who have already celebrated. Then face north, then south, and toast those in your time zone who are celebrating as you do. Finally, face west and raise a glass to those who will celebrate WWP in the next hour.

Raise a glass, publish a one-shot zine, have a party, or do a mail art project for the WWP. Let me know how you celebrated the day.

(4) MATT KRESSEL Q&A. In the new episode of the If This Goes On (Don’t Panic) podcast, “The Rainseekers with Matt Kressel”, Alan Bailey and Cat Rambo talk with Matt Kressel “about writing with authenticity, writing unfamiliar cultures, Dungeons and Dragons, what writers can take from RPGs, Matt’s new novels Spacetrucker Jess and The Rainseekers, AI, plagiarism, and much more.”

(5) ORBITAL AIR BAGS – NO, NOT FAN PANELS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In this week’s Science orbital air bags proposed to block Solar storms…

In a study published this week in Space Weather, the researchers describe a provocative proposal called “StormWall”: a fleet of satellites that would release hundreds of tons of gases into space just before a solar storm strikes Earth. Computer simulations suggest the artificial cloud could cut the intensity of a major solar storm by half or more.

(6) WINNING STARSCAPES. [Item by Steven French.] For a lovely ’time-line cleanse’ check out these stunning images from the “2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year Competition” at Capture the Atlas.

Now in its 9th edition, our Milky Way Photographer of the Year brings together 25 inspiring images captured under some of the most remarkable dark skies on Earth. Each photograph in this collection represents a unique moment where planning, patience, creativity, and technical skill came together beneath the stars….

… Beyond their artistic and technical achievement, these photographs also remind us how rare truly dark skies are becoming. As light pollution continues to erase the stars from many places around the world, this collection is both a celebration of what still exists and a reminder of what we stand to lose….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

June 13, 1893 — Dorothy Sayers. (Died 1957.)

I’m going to talk about Dorothy Sayers tonight who although she wrote a handful of ghost stories is here because of mysteries. Oh, what mysteries they were.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Her first novel, Whose Body?, was published in 1923. Over the next thirteen years, she would write ten more novels featuring the ever so proper Lord Peter Wimsey who solved mysteries. In Strong Poison, we would be introduced to artist Harriet Vane who Wimsey would fall in love with in a properly upper-class manner. Harriet appears off and on in the future novels, resisting Lord Peter’s proposals of marriage until Gaudy Night six novels later.

Yes, I read all ten of these novels in order some forty years back. I like them better than Agatha Christie novels on the whole as the social commentary here gives them a sharper edge and I think Sayers described her society better than Christie did. Now Christie was way more productive over a much longer period of time as Sayers stopped writing these mysteries, which includes short stories, by the later Thirties in favor of writing plays, mostly on religious themes which were performed in cathedrals and broadcast by the BBC. 

So there’s eleven novels and the short story collection, Lord Peter Views the Body, which I’ve not read but now I see is on the usual suspects as a rather good deal of just a dollar, so I’ll grab a copy now. Done. 

I’d like to speak about The Lord Peter Wimsey series starring Ian Carmichael of the early Seventies, it covered the first five novels. Carmichael said he was too old to play the part for the romantic relationship of the later novels, but it didn’t matter as the series was cancelled.  

I thought it was a rather well-done series and I caught it recently on Britbox, one of those streaming services, and it has help up rather well fifty years on with the Suck Fairy concurring. 

He did play Wimsey into the BBC radio series that covered all of the novels and ran at the same time. They are quite excellent and are available on Audible at a very reasonable price. 

Finally she wrote, according to ISFDB, a handful of genre stories, four to be precise —“The Cyprian Cat”, “The Cave of Ali Baba”, “Bitter Almonds” and “The Leopard Lady”. Three seem to be fantasy and the fourth, “Bitter Almonds” I’ve no idea about. Anyone have knowledge of these?

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

June 13, 1980 — The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything

Robert Hays and Pam Dawber from the 1980 movie The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything

Forty-six years ago, a rather charming film premiered in syndication this evening as produced by Paramount. The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything was based on the novel of the same name by John D. MacDonald, who of course did the Travis McGee series. I know I watched it and I know I like it even four decades on.

It was written by George Zateslo who hadn’t written anything prior to this save an episode of CHiPS. After writing this, he’d write the script for the sequel, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite, originally titled the The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything Else before they realized that was way too long. Or so they thought.

Actors Lee Purcell and Philip MacHale from the 1981 sequel The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite

The two cast members to note here are Robert Hays as Kirby Winter and Pam Dawber as Bonny Lee Beaumont. That because the story is a rather thin SF plot involving a young male who inherits from his millionaire uncle a gold watch that has the power to stop time. A series of quite unlikely and comic adventures ensue. And yes there’s a girl involved. This girl is entirely, I believe, why the novels were written, but then a girl was always present in John MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels as well. 

An episode of the Twilight Zone, “A Kind of Stop Watch”, has essentially the same story as that of “The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything”. A lot of Twilight Zone fans would claim very loudly that McDonald ripped off Serling’s script. That episode, however, aired in October of 1963, the year after the publication of the novel on which the movie is based. Sigh. 

Can y’all remember how far back this story plot device goes? I assuming it’s present in the beginning of the genre, isn’t? 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) JUSTICE LEAGUE STANDINGS. “Every Founding Member of the Justice League, Ranked by Importance in 2026” in the opinion of ComicBook.com.

…The League has certainly gotten bigger over the years. The advent of the Justice League Unlimited has seen nearly every superhero alive join their ranks, but the classics should always be respected. Seven people founded the League, and to this day, they are all incredible heroes. To celebrate those heroes, we’re going to take a look at how important each of the original seven is in comics in 2026. We’re only judging them by how much they are impacting overall stories and DC right now, and while each is definitely important, you might be surprised to see that some have waxed or waned more than you think. With all that said, let’s leap into ranking the League….

On the lower end of the list is —

6) Martian Manhunter

Unfortunately, sixth place on our list belongs to the beloved Manhunter from Mars. J’onn has often gotten the short end of the stick compared to his fellow founding Leaguers, especially when it comes to his own storylines. Where he is best shown off in Justice League stories, his teammates each have their own volumes focused solely on them. With the Justice League being so massive right now, that leaves even less time for Martian Manhunter to stake his claim. He’s still DC’s strongest telepath and the person everyone can turn to, but as of right now, he’s not doing nearly as much as his teammates. He is currently helping out Superboy in Action Comics (2016), so at least he’s operating in some spotlight.

(11) SCARF AND GOBBLE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I do like to go to the cinema with local SF group members. (Remember the days when the Eastercon always had a film programme as did British venued Worldcons…?)

For me, watching films is a communal experience to chat about after, or if at home, ‘pausing’ to have a mug of Builders and ask a pressing questions such as “I haven’t seen any 12 monkeys  in The 12 Monkeys so far. where are they?”

However, some can spoil the experience, as described over at the BBC. “Loud eaters and phones nearly spoiled my cinema trip – and it’s not just me” (Subscription required by readers outside the UK.)

The cinema lights are low and you’re cocooned in your seat, ready for the film to transport you to another world. But just as you settle in, you’re jolted back to reality. Audience members around you are scrolling on their phones, talking and munching loudly.

(12) SPACE LOGISTICS. [Item by Steven French.] Can we mine asteroids to colonize Mars? A new study suggests we can, if we use certain asteroids themselves to produce the fuel required: “Mining the solar system to build a new world” at Phys.org.

I watched Armageddon again fairly recently with Bruce Willis, oil drillers in space and an asteroid the size of Texas bearing down on Earth. Buried beneath the Hollywood chaos is a genuinely interesting question: What exactly could we do with an asteroid if we got our hands on one? As it turns out, the answer has nothing to do with blowing it up, sorry Bruce, but everything to do with building a new world.

Building a colony on Mars is not just an engineering problem, it’s a logistics one too. The logistics, unglamorous as it sound, may ultimately determine whether humanity becomes a multi-planetary species or stays firmly rooted on Earth.

Think about what a Mars colony actually needs. Not just food and oxygen, but metal. Structural steel for habitats, aluminum for equipment, iron for tools and many of the components will wear out, break, and need replacing. Shipping all of that from Earth every time is not a serious long-term strategy. A rocket launch costs tens of millions of pounds per ton of cargo, and the journey to Mars takes between six and nine months depending on where the two planets happen to sit in their orbits. You cannot run a hardware store on that kind of supply chain.

A new study from researchers at EPFL in Switzerland posted to the arXiv preprint server has now done the hard math on mining asteroids and delivering the metals directly to Mars. The solar system contains millions of asteroids, and the metallic ones, known as M-type asteroids, are essentially giant lumps of iron, nickel, and other valuable materials floating through space. The question is whether we can actually reach them, extract what we need, and get it to Mars efficiently enough to make it worthwhile.

The answer, it turns out, is a careful yes but with conditions….

(13) HOLY VELIKOVSKY! “Scientists Link 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Asteroid Strike To Dawn Of Life On Earth” at HotHardware.

A small stone discovered in the sands of Mali is reimagining what we know about the early solar system. By examining this rare lunar meteorite, planetary scientists have mapped out a sequence of cosmic collisions that retell the history shared by Earth and the Moon.

Thanks (or no thanks) to plate tectonics, erosion, and volcanic activity on Earth, finding pristine physical evidence of what happened here billions of years ago is nearly impossible. To uncover our planet’s earliest chapters, scientists must sometimes look to the Moon, a geologically quiet place where the lack of an atmosphere or weather acts as a permanent cosmic museum.

The meteorite, called Northwest Africa (NWA) 12593, is a lunar breccia, essentially a natural concrete formed when fragments of different rocks are fused together by extreme force. A research team at the University of Colorado Boulder subjected the stone to radiometric dating and chemical analysis, revealing that it survived three distinct impacts. The last collision launched it off the Moon toward Earth, while a prior mid-history strike smashed and welded the fragments into its current concrete-like form.

However, it is the first and oldest impact that is the most interesting. Dated to roughly 3.5 billion years ago, this colossal asteroid strike released enough energy to turn the lunar surface into a sheet of liquid rock. The heat was so intense that it generated cubic zirconia, a mineral that requires extreme, controlled temperatures to form. Though the mineral fragilely dissolved as the magma cooled, researchers successfully identified its chemical fingerprints locked inside the meteorite.

This 3.5-billion-year-old timestamp coincidentally mirrors known impact records found in ancient crusts on Earth, as well as on 4 Vesta, one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt. Finding an identical bombardment signature across three completely separate bodies suggests a coordinated, system-wide event. This possibly indicates that the inner solar system was transitioning away from the constant chaos of planet formation toward a sudden, massive wave of debris, perhaps caused by the breakup of a giant asteroid….

(14) SPIELBERG Q&A. “Steven Spielberg on ‘Disclosure Day’ and alien visitations – YouTube on CBS Sunday Morning.

As a child, Steven Spielberg stared at a meteor shower on a wondrous starry night and began his love affair with the sky. The director of the classic “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” has returned to the sci-fi genre with “Disclosure Day,” which imagines closely-held secrets surrounding alien visitations. He talks with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz about UAP/UFO phenomena, the paranormal, and his own beliefs regarding intelligent life beyond Earth.

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

Pixel Scroll 6/13/2025 Pixel Scrolls And Sandworms Always Bring Me Dune

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(1) CANADIAN ZOOM DURING WORLDCON. The Montreal in 2027 and Edmonton in 2030 Worldcon bids are planning to run an “online party” during the Seattle 2025 Worldcon — – actually a concurrent virtual program — either Friday August 15 or Saturday August 16 (or possibly both). They are recruiting through this form: “Montreal and Edmonton: online bid party”.

…As well as a hang out room, we want to showcase how amazing the Canadian and Indigenous Science Fiction Community is. We are interested in authors who want to read, artists who want to show and talk about their work; musicians who might want to take us through a medley of their music; podcasters who might want to run a session; anyone who fancies running an interview or Q&A; and researchers who might want to give a short talk. We will have multiple zoom rooms and an actual program…

(2) GARTH NIX HONORED. Congratulations to Australian author Garth Nix, who has received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the General Division. (“King’s Birthday Honours List 2025” at ARTShub.)

Mr Garth Nix, NSW

For service to literature as an author.

The author of over 40 books including the Old Kingdom series (including 7 novels), 1995-2021; The Seventh Tower series (including 6 books), 2000-2001; and The Keys to the Kingdom series (7 books), 2003–2010, was also a National Library of Australia Ambassador (2018). Among the many prizes won are a slew of Aurealis Awards, the Ditmar Award, Best Novel 2021, Best Australian Novel (2002), the Golden Duck Award for Excellence in Children’s Science Fiction (1999) and the Australian Book Industry Award, Book of the Year for Older Children (2021).

(3) TOMORROW. On June 14, Gabrielle Zevin will give an author talk at the Glendale (CA) Central Library at 4:00 p.m. as part of “One Book, One Glendale”. Full information at the link. (Seating limited to 200, get tickets tomorrow at the library at 2:30 p.m.)

Join us with author Gabrielle Zevin to discuss the New York Times bestseller and our One Book, One Glendale selection, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. A glorious and immersive novel about two childhood friends, once estranged, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. 

Author Biography: GABRIELLE ZEVIN is a New York Times best-selling novelist whose books have been translated into forty languages. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was published by Knopf in July of 2022 and was an instant New York Times Best Seller, a Sunday Times Best Seller, a USA Today Best Seller, a #1 National Indie Best Seller, and a selection of the Tonight Show’s Fallon Book Club. Following a twenty-five-bidder auction, the feature film rights to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow were acquired by Temple Hill and Paramount Studios. She is currently writing the screenplay.

(4) AI ON THE VINE. Jason Sanford has a vast roundup about and commentary on AI in “GenAI Grapevine for June 2025”. He begins —

Will GenAI Change How People Think and Experience the World?

I’ve written before that artists and writers are the canaries in the coal mine with regards to what the tech companies pushing generative AI systems plan for the coming years. Essentially, the threat genAI poses to the livelihoods of artists and writers will soon expand to numerous other areas of people’s work and life.

But why did these corporations come after writers and artists first? Essentially, we’re the low hanging fruit – our works were easy for corporations to access and pirate for training their AI systems. As an added bonus from the corporate point of view, most writers and artists are economically weak. Yes, there are artists and writers whose work has made them rich and powerful, but they’re the exception not the rule.

And equally as important: while artists and writers may generally be economically weak, what we create is powerful. Stories and art change the way people think and experience the world around them. That ability is something the rich and powerful have long coveted and attempted to use for themselves….

(5) NOT THIS ONE. A Deep Look by Dave Hook finds a clinker in its run through 1949 — “’From Off This World: Gems of Science Fiction Chosen from “Hall of Fame Classics”’, Oscar J. Friend & Leo Margulies editors, 1949 Merlin Press”.

The Short: I just read From Off This World: Gems of Science Fiction Chosen from “Hall of Fame Classics“, Oscar J. Friend & Leo Margulies editors, 1949 Merlin Press, all reprints from Science Wonder Stories/Wonder Stories/Thrilling Wonder Stories. My favorite story was the superlative “A Martian Odyssey” novelette by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Wonder Stories July 1934, and my “Hidden Gem” was “The World Without“, a Parling & Klington short story by Benson Herbert, Wonder Stories February 1931. It was dramatically uneven, with an average overall rating of 3.29/5, or “Good”. This is one of the lowest ratings I have ever given an anthology I finished reading. Not recommended….

(6) CHINA ENFORCES ‘DIGITAL OBSCENITY’ REGULATIONS. “Police in China arrest female authors of homosexual novels in crackdown on ‘boys love’ fiction genre” reports ABC News (Australia).

Female writers have been summoned by police for posting and sharing homosexual romance stories online, in a widespread crackdown on the “boys love” genre in China.

If convicted, they could be subjected to detention, financial penalties or even prison sentences.

Many of the targeted writers published their work on Haitang, a Taiwanese website popular with fans of boys love fiction — a genre that features romantic relationships between male characters, often depicting sex scenes.

Some of them have been documenting their experiences on Chinese social media.

A writer who goes by the pen name Sijindejin said she was served a notice in May to present herself at a local police station in Gansu province — about 970km away from her village in Chengdu.

Sijindejin, who says she grew up in a “poor village”, bought the cheapest flight available and took her first plane trip to comply.

According to Chinese laws, police in any part of the country who claim they have received complaints about an individual can call them in for questioning.

Having only made 4,000 yuan ($857) after writing for years, Sijindejin said she never knew it could be a crime….

… Three lawyers, representing some of the writers, also posted about the crackdown, noting the scale of action has been widespread, with estimates that at least 100 writers have been affected.

Radio Free Asia reported that police in remote north-western Gansu province had called in dozens of writers, with some subsequently being detained, fined or charged with offences that could result in prison terms….

…China last updated its laws on “digitally obscene” content in 2010.

Those regulations said the “production, reproduction, publication, trafficking, dissemination” of any obscene works that generate more than 5,000 clicks online, or that make profits of more than 5,000 yuan ($1,072), should be treated as a crime….

There have also been some protests about this crackdown outside of China; here’s a recent Mastodon post of photos of a protest in (apparently) Washington DC: “Charlie’s Notebook: FreeWritersofHaitang”.

(7) CRAIG MCDONOUGH OBITUARY. Massachusetts sff fan Craig McDonough died June 12. Leslie McDonough announced:

My husband Craig McDonough died yesterday. He had been suffering from heart disease for some time. He was formerly very active in fandom, especially Boskone and Readercon and, more recently, Arisia. Many years ago he was also active in the SCA.

Among his contributions to fandom was editing the first edition of the NESFA Hymnal, a collection of filksongs, which came out in February 1976, in time for Boskone XIII.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

June 13, 1980 — The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything

Forty-five years ago, a rather charming film premiered in syndication this evening as produced by Paramount. The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything was based on the novel of the same name by John D. MacDonald, who of course did the Travis McGee series. I know I watched it and I know I like it even four decades on.

It was written by George Zateslo who hadn’t written anything prior to this save an episode of CHiPS. After writing this, he’d write the script for the sequel, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite, originally titled the The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything Else before they realized that was way too long. Or so they thought.

The two cast members to note here are Robert Hays as Kirby Winter and Pam Dawber as Bonny Lee Beaumont. That because the story is — 

SPOILER ALERT

a rather thin SF plot involving a young male who inherits from his millionaire uncle a gold watch that has the power to stop time. A series of quite unlikely and comic adventures ensue. And yes there’s a girl involved. Thie girl is entirely, I believe, why the novels were written, but then a girl was always present in John MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels as well. 

END OF SPOILER ALERT

An episode of the Twilight Zone, “A Kind of Stop Watch”, has essentially the same story as that of “The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything”. A lot of Twilight Zone fans would claim very loudly that McDonald ripped off Serling’s script. That episode, however, aired in October of 1963, the year after the publication of the novel on which the movie is based. Sigh. 

Can y’all remember how far back this story plot device goes? I assuming it’s present in the beginning of the genre, isn’t? 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • F Minus has a new POV for the closet monster problem.  
  • Frank and Ernest combines H.G. Wells with Shakespeare. 
  • Spectickles updates another fairy tale.  
  • xkcd agonizes about a big number.  

(10) MURDERBOT AFTER-ACTION. Alex Brown is doing Murderbot episode reviews at Reactor: “Murderbot Coded”.

(11) SF 101. Colin Kuskie and Phil Nichols devote episode 55 of the SF 101 podcast to “Reviewing the Hugo Short Stories”.

Every year, we review the short stories shortlisted for the famous Hugo Awards. It’s our way of keep abreast of trends in the field of science without having to read a ton of longer works!

All of the shortlisted stories are available online for free (see links below), so why not take a look at them yourself, and see if you agree with Colin’s and Phil’s assessment?

(12) BEWARE LILYPAD. “’Toy Story 5′ First Look Reveals Return of Jessie and an All-New Enemy” at Movieweb.

…[Pete] Docter confirmed that Toy Story 5 will explore the challenges of the digital-first world from the perspective of the toys. “It’s Toy meets Tech,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter. The original gang will be forced to grapple with the takeover of technology in their home, with eight-year-old Bonnie Anderson now the proud owner of a tech tablet (pictured below). Its wide-eyed and friendly exterior might prove deceptive, as it threatens to steal Bonnie’s attention away from the toys, as she finds herself drawn towards screens over playthings….

(13) DRAWING CARD. Chinese fan Riverflow has given his Hugo trophy to one of his friends to display in a coffee shop called “Ansible” they are opening in Chengdu. We do not know whether this is a temporary or permanent loan.

(14) THE ETHICS OF BRAIN-READING DEVICES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] One area of science that is decidedly SFnaly adjacent, if not just a few years ago would be considered decidedly SF, is that of the use of technology to read thoughts: techno-telepathy if you will.  Yet recent advances are such that we are beginning to actually do this.  However, such technology has ethical implications.  As SF fans we are all too aware of Orwell’s ‘thought police’…

An article in this week’s Nature looks at the ethics behind this technology. You can access it here.

For two decades, Ann Johnson has been unable to walk or talk after she experienced a stroke that impaired her balance and her breathing and swallowing abilities. But in 2022, Johnson was finally able to hear her voice through an avatar, thanks to a brain implant.

The implant is an example of the neurotechnologies that have entered human trials during the past five years. These devices, developed by research teams and firms including entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Neuralink, can alter the nervous system’s activity to influence functions such as speech, touch and movement. In April, they were the topic of a meeting in Paris, hosted by the United Nations scientific and cultural agency UNESCO, at which delegates finalized a set of ethical principles to govern neurotechnologies.

The recommendations focus on protecting users from technology misuse that could infringe on their human rights, including their autonomy and freedom of thought. The delegates, who included scientists, ethicists and legal specialists, decided on nine principles. These include recommendations that technology developers disclose how neural information is collected and used, and that they ensure the long-term safety of a product on people’s mental states….

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “How Thunderbolts Should Have Ended”.

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

Pixel Scroll 6/13/22 Life’s Like A Pixel; Scroll Your Own Ending

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(1) NOT QUIET ON THE BOOKSTORE FRONT. Sergej Sumlenny tweeted a long thread about “How [the] Russian book market prepared Russians for a full-scale war against Ukraine, NATO, the West, and promoted stalinism and nazism, and how this was ignored by the West.” Thread starts here. Some excerpts:

(2) THE BUZZ. Sam Stone returns an enthusiastic verdict on “Pixar’s Lightyear” at CBR.com. If it has a fault, it’s that the movie doesn’t swing for the fences as hard as it should.

… The animation team similarly pulls out all the stops to make Lightyear a memorable sci-fi film, with a visual style that feels very much its own thing compared with the Toy Story movies while retaining that sense of familiarity. Drawing from a whole line of sci-fi influences, Lightyear evokes the sensibilities of classic ’80s sci-fi cinema, from the Space Rangers’ tech and vehicles to the creepy extraterrestrials prowling the planet where Buzz and his friends have crashed. With its time-bending concepts and a genuine sense of heart, Lightyear earns its place among that pantheon of great science fiction….

(3) WHO LEFT THE GRAVITY TURNED ON? [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] I’m up to February 2019 in my New Yorkers (you may report me to the magazine control board!) but I thought this Talk Of The Town piece was interesting: “When ‘Spaceman’ Came Crashing Down to Earth”.

… On February 22nd of last year, “Spaceman” made its début at the Wild Project, an eighty-nine-seat theatre in the East Village. The set was a room-size contraption made of welded steel and Plexiglas, fitted with buzzers and keyboards and a chair that spins on a truss. The production simulated zero gravity using low-light effects and a puppeteer. After the show, Treadway, feeling good about the performance, came out for a bow in her spacesuit. As she walked off the stage, she tripped over a speaker. She broke her fall with her arms, then popped back up and made a “clumsy old me” face.

“Then I walked backstage and was, like, whoa,” she recalled. “I realized I couldn’t even take my costume off.” Stevens helped her change clothes, and they took an Uber to a clinic in Red Hook. The doctor informed Treadway that she had broken both elbows and her left wrist. (“The woman at physical therapy said it’s an injury that a lot of break dancers have,” she said.) She would need hard casts for a week, and then splints. They would have to cancel the entire three-week run. Stevens recalled, “The next morning, I’m drafting an e-mail to everybody telling them the news, and I’m looking through all these e-mails from people saying, ‘Break a leg!’ ” He laughed ruefully. “I never want to hear that phrase again.”…

(4) THE DOOR INTO MUMMER. FirstShowing.net introduces a “Fun Trailer for Aliens vs Swordsmen Epic Sci-Fi ‘Alienoid’ from Korea”.

“How long do we have to stay on Earth?” CJ Entertainment in Korea has revealed the first international trailer for an epic sci-fi movie called Alienoid. Actually it’s two movies! This “Part 1” will be out in July in Korea, though no US date is set yet. During the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), Taoists try to take a mysterious holy sword. Meanwhile in present day (in 2022), aliens appear on Earth. A time door soon connects the late Goryeo period and the present day. The two parties cross paths when a time-traveling portal opens, causing chaos and confusion…. 

(5) AIYEE! SYFY Wire promises these are “The Star Trek movies’ 12 most disturbing moments”. First on the list:

1. RANDOM TRANSPORTER ACCIDENT (STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE) 

Here’s one way to get rid of a science officer. Sonak is a Vulcan prepped to take the place of Spock at the start of the first Star Trek movie. His tenure in the position is quite short. Thanks to a random transporter malfunction, he (and the person he transports over to the Enterprise with) dies a gruesome death. 

Transporter malfunctions happen all the time, but this is not “The Next Phase” or “Tuvix.” These two people are dead, and it looks (and sounds) horrific. What little of them is recovered does not last long. That’s what Admiral Kirk is told, anyway. 

People make light of McCoy not wanting to use the transporter a little later in the movie, but after this? Damn right he shouldn’t use it, especially since the accident was so random and is never really addressed. It’s not a transporter, it’s a character killer. What did Sonak ever do to deserve it? Highly illogical and highly disturbing. 

(6) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1980 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Forty-two years ago, a rather charming film premiered in syndication this evening as produced by Paramount. The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything was based on the novel of the same name by John D. MacDonald who of course did the Travis McGee series. I know it watched it and I know I liked even four decades on.

It was written by George Zateslo who hadn’t written anything prior to this save an episode of CHIPS. After writing this, he’d write the script for the sequel, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite. 

The two cast members to note here are Robert Hays as Kirby Winter and Pam Dawber as Bonny Lee Beaumont. That because the story is — SPOILER ALERT — rather a thin SF plot involving a young male who inherits a gold watch that inherits from his millionaire uncle a gold watch that has the power to stop time. A series of rather unlikely and comic adventures ensue. And yes there’s a girl involved. END OF SPOILER ALERT. 

An episode of the Twilight Zone, “A Kind of Stop Watch”, has essentially the same story as that of “The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything”. A lot of Twilight Zone fans would claim very loudly that McDonald ripped off Serling’s script. The episode, however, aired in October of 1963, the year after the publication of the novel on which the movie is based. Sigh. 

Neither film appears to streaming anywhere, nor does it appear to be available for purchase. Huh.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 13, 1893 — Dorothy Sayers. I absolutely love her mysteries. I think the Lord Peter Wimsey series are among the best mysteries ever done. And I thought that Ian Carmichael made a most excellent Lord Peter Wimsey in the Seventies Clouds of Witness series. Now to the matter at hand, ISFDB often surprises me and having her listed as writing four stories in the genre did it again. All of them were written in the Thirties and here they are: “The Cyprian Cat”, “The Cave of Ali Baba”, “Bitter Almonds” and “The Leopard Lady”. So, who here has read them and can comment on them being genre or not? (Died 1957)
  • Born June 13, 1892 — Basil Rathbone. He’s best remembered for being Sherlock Holmes in fourteen films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series of the same period. For films other than these, I’ll single out The Adventures of Robin Hood (after all Robin Hood is fantasy), Son of Frankenstein and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. (Died 1967.)
  • Born June 13, 1903 — Frederick Stephani. Screenwriter and film director who is best remembered for co-writing and directing the 13-chapter Flash Gordon serial in 1936. He directed Johnny Weissmuller‘s Tarzan’s New York Adventure (aka Tarzan Against the World). He was also an uncredited writer on 1932’s Dracula. (Died 1962.)
  • Born June 13, 1929 — Ralph McQuarrie. Conceptual designer and illustrator. He worked on the original Star Wars trilogy, the first Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars Holiday Special (well somebody had to, didn’t they?), Cocoon, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nightbreed, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home andE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. All of his work is quite stellar. Literally. Pun fully intended. (Died 2012.)
  • Born June 13, 1943 — Malcolm McDowell, 79. My favorite role for him was Mr. Roarke on the second rebooted Fantasy Island. (Still haven’t seen either of the recent versions.) Of course, his most infamous role was Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Scary film that was and yes, I saw it in the theater. His characterization of H. G. Wells in Time After Time was I thought rather spot on. And I’d like to single out his voicing Arcady Duvall in the “Showdown” episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Remember the truly awful Will Smith starred Wild Wild West film? Of course you do unfortunately. Here is the same premise with Jonah Hex involved instead as written by Joe R. Lansdale. Go watch it as it is a stellar script and of course everything is perfect. 
  • Born June 13, 1949 — Simon Callow, 73. English actor, musician, writer, and theatre director. So what’s he doing here? Well he got to be Charles Dickens twice on Doctor Who, the first being in “The Unquiet Dead” during the time of the Ninth Doctor and then later during “The Wedding of River Song”, an Eleventh Doctor story. He’d also appear, though not as Dickens, on The Sarah Jane Adventures as the voice of Tree Blathereen in “The Gift” episode. I’ve not watched the series. How is this series? He was also The Duke of Sandringham in the first season of Outlander. And he did have a role in Shakespeare in Love which I claim is genre. As of late, he’s been on Hawkeye as Armand Duquesne III in the pilot episode.
  • Born June 13, 1953 — Tim Allen, 69. Jason Nesmith in the much beloved Galaxy Quest. (Which of course won a much deserved Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation at Chicon 2000.) He actually had a big hit several years previously voicing Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story which would be the first in what would become a long-running film franchise.
  • Born June 13, 1963 — Audrey Niffenegger, 59. Her first novel was The Time Traveler’s Wife. She has stated in interviews that she will not see the film or the series as only the characters in the novels are hers. Good for her. (I’ve stated before that I don’t watch films or the series based on novels that I really like.)  Raven Girl, her third novel about a couple whose child is a raven trapped in a human body, was turned into performance at the Royal Opera House. Oh, and her Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories is, well, chillingly delicious.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) WHEN WILL YOU MAKE AN END? “Taika Waititi’s Star Wars Script Is Still Not Finished” he tells CBR.com.

Taika Waititi has revealed that he is still hard at work finishing the script for his upcoming Star Wars movie.

In an interview with Screen Rant, Waititi explained where he’s currently at in the writing process for his untitled film and how he approached tying his script into the wider Star Wars universe. “That’s yet to be seen. I don’t know. I’m still writing. I’m still coming up with the ideas and storylining it and just wanted to make sure that it feels like a Star Wars film,” he said. “Because, I could say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll just write any old thing and set in space and then put Star Wars on the front.’ But it wouldn’t be a Star Wars film without certain elements and a certain treatment, so I’ve just got to make sure that it stays within that wheelhouse.”…

(10) UTTERLY MADE UP. GameRant walks us through the development of the alien tongue: “Star Trek: The Klingon Language, Explained”. Dr. Marc Okrand’s 1985 book The Klingon Dictionary sold over 300,000 copies.

…The Klingons have been a steady part of Star Trek right from the beginning, starting out as the main antagonists in The Original Series and progressing to tentative friends in series to follow. Roddenberry took a leaf out of Tolkien’s book, and created the Klingon language to flesh out the culture. In doing so, he was able to add a depth of realism to his fictional race that’s not often seen even today (with a few exceptions). Instead of a bare-bones array of random sounds, the language has its own vocabulary and grammar, even its own regional dialects. The language was not always present in its fullest form, and developed slowly alongside the show. The first Klingons during the main TV series simply spoke in English, with the audience first hearing their guttural tones during the Star Trek: The Motion Picture film in 1979….

(11) SO MANY TITLES. What should File 770’s headline be for Science Alert’s story “A Hitchhiking Rock Has Traveled With The Perseverance Rover For More Than 120 Days”? Mike Kennedy couldn’t decide on one, so he sent them all.

  • Rock and Roll, OR
  • (The) Rolling Stone, OR
  • Everybody Must Get Stoned, OR
  • (Just) Along For The Ride, OR
  • Pet Rock, OR
  • Moss-free, OR
  • Stone Cold, OR
  • The Stones Must Roll, OR
  • probably dozens more

Roaming Mars is a lonely existence for NASA’s Perseverance, but the exploratory rover now has a traveling companion: a hitchhiking “pet rock” that got stuck in one of its wheels.

Luckily, the Martian stone won’t impact the rover’s science mission and is only a minor inconvenience  – like having a pebble stuck in your shoe. 

Perseverance’s front-left wheel accidentally picked up the pet rock on Feb. 4, or Sol 341 – the 341st Martian day of the Martian year, according to a statement by NASA.

The rock has periodically photobombed images taken by the rover’s front-left Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam).

Recent images show that the rock is still tumbling along with Perseverance 126 days (123 sols) after it first hitched a ride. (A sol, or Martian day, is just 37 minutes longer than an Earth day.)

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Todd Mason, Daniel Dern, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]