Tag Archives: Kevin Standlee

Pixel Scroll 4/16/25 It’s Been A Long File Since I Pixel Scrolled

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(1) WSFS BUSINESS MEETING TOWN HALLS IN MAY. The Seattle 2025 Worldcon committee today reminded members they will be hosting two Business Meeting Town Halls where members can learn how to participate in the business meeting process. They will be on Zoom, and recorded for later playback. The committee has yet to announce how to attend and RSVP. The available information is here on the convention website: “Business Meeting Town Hall”.

  • Town Hall One: May 4 at noon Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7).
  • Town Hall Two: May 25 at noon Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7).

(2) SEATTLE WORLDCON WILL HOLD CONSULTATIVE VOTE. The Seattle 2025 Worldcon also announced they will hold a consultative vote of WSFS members on two of the proposed Constitutional amendments passed on from the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting to the Seattle Worldcon: (1) the proposed revisions of the Hugo Award categories for best professional artist and best fan artist, and (2) the proposed amendment to abolish the Retro Hugo Awards.

As when Glasgow 2024 did this, there is no constitutional authorization for the poll, and it is not binding on the Business Meeting.

…The purpose of this exercise is simply to test whether a consultative vote of Worldcon members is feasible, and to learn lessons about how it might someday be formally adopted as a part of the WSFS decision-making process. We chose these two proposals in particular because they have clearly generated wide interest among the Worldcon community.

The consultative vote results will be used solely to inform the Seattle Business Meeting of the preferences of a larger sample of the membership than might otherwise be able to attend. Glasgow 2024’s consultative vote allowed over 1,200 WSFS members to share their opinion on a proposed amendment.

The consultative vote will run from May 1 to May 31 and may be accessed at the same site and in the same manner as the Hugo Award voting—so you can do both at the same time!

(3) A DATE THAT SHALL LIVE IN INFAMY. Convention History is shocked, shocked I tell you, by the party in Room 770.

(4) MARK EVANIER DID NOT OUTGROW COMICS. [Item by rcade.] The comic book writer Mark Evanier remembers the 1960s divide between fans of science fiction and comic books. “Fandom Freedom” at News From ME.

…One older female fan used to lecture me that Comic Book Fandom was an unfortunate outgrowth of Science-Fiction Fandom and oughta stay that way…or better still, disappear entirely. What they read was for sophisticated adults and what “we” read (drawing a firm, uncrossable line with that “we” there) was for the kiddos. Her suggestion was that there was something wrong with us for not outgrowing it.

The last such lecture I got — this would have been around ’73 — was from a guy wearing Spock ears and brandishing a plastic phaser that fired little multi-colored discs….

(5) THINKING INSIDE THE BOX. “A new chapter for publishing? Book subscription services launch their own titles” – the Guardian tells how it works.

Book subscription services are magic. A few clicks of a form and a bunch of new books , selected by talented curators, turn up at your door – often with collectible perks such as special cover designs and art. In a world saturated by choice and trends, not only is the choosing done for you, but you’ll often have a less conventional, better rounded and precious bookshelf collection to show for it.

This is presumably why there’s a strong appetite for such services: UK fantasy subscription box FairyLoot has 569,000 followers on Instagram alone, and many bookshops have started sending out their own boxes.

Now, some of these businesses have decided not just to sell books, but to publish their own: In January, FairyLoot announced a collaboration with Transworld, a division of Penguin Random House, while last week Canada-based subscription service OwlCrate launched OwlCrate Press….

(6) REASONS TO WATCH. Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie discuss an award-winning film in SF 101’s “Go With The Flow” episode.

Flow (2024) is an extraordinary film – Latvia’s most successful of all time, and winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Film. Colin and Phil discuss whether it counts as science fiction (of course it does!), and what makes this delightful movie tick.

If you haven’t seen the film, we think we give you enough of flavour of it for the discussion to make sense, and hopefully to inspire you to watch it.

(7) FASCINATING MARQUEE. Tony Gleeson ran the photo below on Facebook with this introduction:

The venerable Vista Theatre in East Hollywood: it’s been everything from a porno palace to a repertory house. It’s been featured in scenes for numerous movies (the one that comes to mind is “Throw Mama From the Train”). It’s now owned by Quentin Tarantino and offers some pretty unusual fare.

When he gave permission for File 770 to reprint it, Gleeson added:

One thing I love is the coffee shop attached to the theatre (it used to be called the Onyx many years ago and had the best blackout chocolate cake) is now called Pam’s Coffy and features a portrait of Pam Grier. There is also a mini-Grauman’s Chinese footprint walk in front.

(8) THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK. “No Bids Filed for 2027 Westercon” reports Kevin Standlee at the Westercon website.

No bids filed to be on the ballot to select the site of Westercon 79, the 2027 West Coast Science Fantasy Conference. Although there will be no bids listed on the ballot, there will be space for write-in bids, and bids can still file the necessary papers (specified in Section 3.4 of the Westercon Bylaws) before the close of voting at 6 PM Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -7) on Saturday, July 5, 2025. The election will take place during Westercon 77 / BayCon 2025 at the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara, California. Should no valid bids file by the close of voting, or should None of the Above win the election, the site of Westercon 79 will be determined by the Westercon Business Meeting on Sunday, July 6.

We will post the 2027 Westercon Site Selection ballot on the Westercon website by the end of April. All members of BayCon 2025 are members of Westercon 77 and all members are eligible to vote. Members can vote by postal mail (there will be no electronic voting) or in person at Westercon 77 / BayCon 2025.

To file a bid, or to ask any questions about the Westercon Site Selection process, contact Kayla Allen, the 2027 Westercon Site Selection Administrator, at [email protected].

(9) ART SPIEGELMAN AND JUDY-LYNN DEL REY PROFILED. Through May 14 PBS is making available online “Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse” part of the American Masters series. At the end of the program, they’re also running a short documentary about Judy-Lynn Del Rey. It starts about 1 hour 40 minutes into the 2-hour program.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

April 16, 1921 – Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov. (Died 2004.)

Peter Ustinov showed up in Logan’s Run as the Old Man; he had the lead role in Blackbeard’s Ghost as Captain Blackbeard based on the Robert Stevenson novel; he was Charlie Chan in Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (it’s at least genre adjacent, isn’t it?). He’s The Caliph in stellar Thief of Baghdad; a truck driver in The Great Muppet Caper and finally he has the dual roles of Grandfather and Phoenix in The Phoenix and the Carpet.

He voiced myriad characters in animated films including that of Grendel in Grendel Grendel Grendel based off John Gardner’s novel Grendel, in Robin Hood, he voiced Prince John and King Richard; and in The Mouse and His Child, he was the voice of Manny the Rat. 

Now I’m going to admit that my favorite role by Peter Ustinov was playing Poirot which he did in half a dozen films, which he first in Death on the Nile and then in Evil Under the Sun, Thirteen at Dinner, Dead Man’s Folly, Murder in Three Acts and Appointment with Death. He wasn’t my favorite Poirot as that was David Suchet but it was obvious that he liked performing that role quite a bit. 

Peter Ustinov

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) IN A BRICKYARD FAR, FAR AWAY. Gizmodo says get ready – “Lego Is Celebrating Star Wars Day With a Ton of Sets”.

The start of May is always a good time for Star Wars fans, but for Lego Star Wars ones, it’s also a time to fear the brick-maker coming down on your wallet with all the fury of a fully armed and operational battle station. This year is no exception, with Lego announcing a ton of sets ready to drop next month–including its next crowning entry in the Ultimate Collector Series line.

Today Lego announced that its annual May the 4th releases will be spearheaded by a new 2,970-piece take on Slave I as it appeared in Attack of the Clones. Renamed here as simply ‘Jango Fett’s Starship’ (aligning with prior merchandise moves away from the “Slave” naming around the ship’s return in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett), the new set includes a detailed interior cockpit which can house two new minifigures of Jango and a young Boba, an openable landing ramp and bomb hatch to place one of the ship’s legendary-sounding seismic charges in, and a display stand to have the ship posed in either landing or flight mode.

Jango’s starship will cost $300, and will release on early access for Insiders on May 1, before releasing widely on May 4….

… If you don’t want to grab Jango’s ride but still want to try and nab that Kamino set, then good news: Lego is also releasing another eight brand new Star Wars sets on May 1. Covering the whole gamut of the franchise, the releases see the first set inspired by Andor season 2, a new U-Wing, two Brickheadz releases inspired by A New Hope and the 20th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith, Rebels icon Chopper entering the buildable droid series, two new entries in the collectible helmet line, and even a buildable version of the Star Wars logo…. 

From the Lego Shop itself, the “Best Star Wars™ Gift Ideas for Adults” has photos of all the character helmets and other items mentioned above.

Fans who admire the pilots of the Star Wars™ galaxy can now showcase their passion with the LEGO® Star Wars AT-AT Driver™ Helmet (75429), inspired by the helmets worn by the pilots of the formidable AT-AT Walkers in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back™….

…For even more ways to put the heroes and villains of your favorite galaxy on display, check out the complete selection offered by the LEGO Star Wars helmet collection. From helmets inspired by Mandalorians and Clone Troopers to bounty hunters and Dark Lords of the Sith, there is something for every Star Wars fan to add to their collection.

(13) BUT ARE THOSE BRICKS PLASTIC OR GOLD? Just make sure you lock up your house after you buy those collectible Legos. The New York Times warns, “Worth Thousands on the Black Market, Lego Kits Are Now a Target of Thieves”.

It’s one Lego kit, a collection of small plastic bricks and related accessories. What could it cost? The answer, it turns out, could be thousands of dollars.

Lego kits and minifigures, figurines that are a little over 1.5 inches tall, are commanding high prices on the secondary market, with some, like the LEGO San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Spider-Man, valued as high as $16,846.

The children’s toys have even become something of an investing opportunity for those savvy enough to know what to look for.

But with the eye-popping price tags comes a dark side: Lego kits have become a hot commodity on the black market and the target of brazen thieves.

Last year, burglars hit Bricks & Minifigs outlets in California. Thieves made off with at least $100,000 worth of Lego kits and accessories.

Last month, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in California recovered nearly 200 Lego sets after arresting a person in connection with a burglary at Crush Comics, a comic book store in Castro Valley, Calif.

Joshua Hunter, the owner of Crush Comics, said that members of his staff found the store’s stolen comic books for sale on eBay within hours of the theft.

The store worked with law enforcement and alerted other small business owners, including Five Little Monkeys, a toy store that recently had $7,000 worth of Lego stolen, to solve what turned out to be a spree of burglaries in the area.

Five Little Monkeys was able to recover a lot of its stolen Lego, said Meghan DeGoey, the company’s marketing director, but the theft was only the latest in what has been a growing problem.

“It’s been a problem for probably, I mean, forever, but it’s really ramped up in the last five, six years,” she said.

Five Little Monkeys has eight stores around the Bay Area, said Ms. DeGoey, and Lego stands out among its top-stolen items.

“People are really brazen when they’re going to steal,” she said, describing the way thieves will sometimes come into a store and walk right out or “do some like crazy misdirect and have a second person that tries to distract us.”…

(14) BUSINESS SHOULD NOT BE BOOMING. “Bahamas suspends SpaceX rocket landings pending post-launch probe” reports Reuters.

The Bahamas’ government said on Tuesday it is suspending all SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landings in the country, pending a full post-launch investigation.

“No further clearances will be granted until a full environmental assessment is reviewed,” Bahamian Director of Communications Latrae Rahming said in a post on X.

The Bahamian government said in February after SpaceX’s first landing in the country that it had approved 19 more throughout 2025, subject to regulatory approval.

The Bahamas’ post-launch investigation comes after a SpaceX Starship spacecraft exploded in space last month, minutes after lifting off from Texas.

Social media videos showed fiery debris streaking through the skies near South Florida and the Bahamas after the spacecraft broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off.

Following the incident, the Bahamas said debris from the spacecraft fell into its airspace. The country said the debris contained no toxic materials and added it was not expected to have a significant impact on marine life or water quality.

The Starship explosion was not connected to the Bahamas’ Falcon 9 landing program with SpaceX.

(15) IS THAT SPACE ROT? “Webb telescope detects a possible signature of life on a distant world”  in the Washington Post.

A distant planet’s atmosphere shows signs of molecules that on Earth are associated only with biological activity, a possible signal of life on what is suspected to be a watery world,according to a report published Wednesday that analyzed observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The peer-reviewed report in the Astrophysical Journal Letters presents more questions than answers, acknowledges numerous uncertainties and does not declare the discovery of life beyond Earth, something never conclusively detected. But the authors do claim to have found the best evidence to date of a possible “biosignature” on a planet far from our solar system.

The planet,known asK2-18b, is 124 light-years away, orbiting a red dwarf star. Earlier observations suggested that its atmosphere is consistent with the presence of a global ocean. The molecule purportedly detected is dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth it is produced by the decay of marine phytoplankton and other microbes, and it has no other known source. The astronomers want to observe the planet further to strengthen the evidence that the molecule is present….

… “This is the first time humanity has ever seen biosignature molecules — potential biosignature molecules, which are biosignatures on Earth — in the atmosphere of a habitable-zone planet,” he added.The habitable, or “Goldilocks,” zone is the distance from a star that could allow water to remain liquid at the planet’s surface.

K2-18b, which is within ourgalaxy, the Milky Way,cannot be seen by any telescope as a discrete object. But it has a fortuitous orbit that crosses its parent star as seen from Earth. Such transits dim the starlight ever so slightly, which is how many exoplanets have been discovered. The transits also change the starlight’s spectrum in a pattern that — if observed with instruments on a telescope as advanced as the Webb — can reveal the composition of the planet’s atmosphere.

In 2023, Madhusudhan and colleagues reported that two instruments on the Webb had detected carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere of K2-18b, as well ashints of DMS. …

(16) SF² CONCATENATION  SUMMER 2025 EDITION. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] SF² Concatenation has just posted its seasonal edition of SF and science news and reviews. Also in the mix are some articles, convention reports as well as some archive items from its well over 30 years history and a load of standalone book reviews. Something for everyone.

v35(3) 2025.4.15 — New Columns & Articles for the Summer 2025

v35(3) 2025.4.15 — Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Reviews

v35(3) 2025.4.15 — Non-Fiction SF & Science Fact Book Reviews

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

Tel Aviv Worldcon Bid Will Shift from 2027 to Later Year

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The committee to hold the Worldcon in Tel Aviv, Israel has announced they are no longer bidding for 2027 but will aim for a later year.

Kevin Standlee shared the message from Tel Aviv in 2027 bid chair Guy Kovel in a post on Worldcon.org:

Regrettably, due to the situation in Israel, we would have to push our bid to a later year, we have not yet made an announcement as we are still in internal discussions as to what year we would be able to bid for.

That leaves Montréal in 2027 the only announced bid for the year. Standlee adds that Montréal officially filed with the administering convention (Seattle 2025) today.

Text of Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting’s Apology for 2023 Hugo Awards

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At Glasgow 2024, the WSFS Business Meeting passed a resolution offering an apology to those people who were harmed by the Hugo Award results in 2023. Kevin Standlee published the text of the apology today on the World Science Fiction Society website. Linda Deneroff, Chair, WSFS Marketing Committee, has requested File 770 to publish it, too. The text includes a Chinese translation by Sophia Xue, who did all of Glasgow’s Chinese translations.  

The following resolution passed at the 2024 Business Meeting of the World Science Fiction Society:

BE IT RESOLVED, that the World Science Fiction Society apologizes unreservedly to the nominators and voters of the 2023 Hugo Awards for any failures in the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards; and

The World Science Fiction Society apologizes unreservedly to all nominees, finalists, and winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards for any failures in the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards as well as any harm which may result from those actions; and

The World Science Fiction Society specifically and unreservedly apologizes to R.F. Kuang, author of Babel; Congyun “Mu Ming” Gu, author of “Color the World”; Hai Ya, author of Fongong Temple Pagoda; Neil Gaiman, author/writer for The Sandman; Paul Weimer; and Xiran Jay Zhao for their exclusion from the 2023 Hugo Award and/or Astounding Award Final Ballots.

Sophia Xue has provided the following Chinese translation of the official resolution:

世界科幻协会为2023年雨果奖评选过程中的任何失误，向2023年雨果奖的提名者和投票者表示毫无保留的歉意；

世界科幻协会为2023年雨果奖评选过程中的任何失误以及由此可能造成的任何伤害，向2023年雨果奖的所有获提名者、入围者和获奖者表示毫无保留的歉意；

世界科幻协会尤其向以下个人表示毫无保留的歉意：匡灵秀（R.F. Kuang）（《巴别塔》作者）、慕明（顾从云）（《涂色世界》作者）、海漄（《尽化塔》作者）、尼尔·盖曼（Neil Gaiman）（《睡魔》作者/编剧）、保罗·韦默（Paul Weimer）、赵希然（Xiran Jay Zhao），因为他们被排除在2023年雨果奖和/或惊奇奖决选名单之外。

[Thanks to Linda Deneroff for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 8/13/24 The Fifth-Million Pixel Fan

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(1) INDUSTRY TAKE ON WORLDCON. Publishers Weekly gave it thumbs up: “In Glasgow, Worldcon Worked to Put Controversy Behind It”.

In a spirited five-day celebration, held August 8–12 at the Scottish Events Campus in Glasgow, Scotland, crowds converged from all over the globe for the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention, known as Worldcon. Show organizers said that more than 8,000 membership badges were purchased in total, with over 7,200 issued at the venue and upwards of 600 in attendance online.

On the convention floor and across a wealth of a wealth of panels, book signings, and creative showcases, the mood was buoyant, with old hands and first-timers alike connecting in bars, at events, and simply in passing. And the organization’s promise to “[consider] access, inclusion, and diversity as integral to Glasgow 2024,” found the perfect venue in the Scottish city, which was welcoming, accessible, and spacious.

…From an industry perspective, there was a scarcity of American publishers at this year’s Worldcon. Still, everyone in attendance seemed more focused on celebrating the current boom in the genre around the world.

“There’s never been a more exciting time to be a SFF publisher,” said Bethan Morgan, editorial director of Gollancz. Eleanor Teasdale, publisher at Angry Robot Books and Datura Books, remarked, “It’s been a joyous festival of genre, with so many international attendees too.”

This excitement was shared by Amanda Rutter, commissioning editor at Solaris Books. “I haven’t been to [a Worldcon] that felt so productive and positive since before the pandemic,” she said, adding, “The Glasgow team made it the most inclusive convention I have been to by far, given their commitment to accessibility needs and striving to ensure that every single participant felt as though they were represented.”

“The con felt very well organized,” said George Sandison, managing editor at Titan Books. “Like all effective project management, it looked like it was very simple to do and probably required Herculean efforts by numerous highly competent people!” Francesca T. Barbini, founder of Luna Press Publishing, agreed, praising the organizers for “being lots of help when we arrived. Overall, it’s been an amazing experience.”

The main takeaway from the event seemed to be about the importance of in-person connection to both the publishing industry and the greater SFF community. Cath Trechman, editor at large at Titan Books, noted, “I can say I found this year’s Worldcon to be a great place to meet authors and agents and chat about the current trends and the idiosyncrasies of publishing, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd of genre fans and book lovers.”…

(2) GLASGOW 2024 BUSINESS MEETING VIDEOS. At the link is the YouTube playlist for the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting videos recorded by Lisa Hayes. Kevin Standlee finally found a workaround to overcome the bandwidth problem at his Glasgow hotel.

(3) REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY. [Item by Olav Rokne.] Intended as a happy, silly coda to this year’s Hugo season, Amanda and I present “How to Lose a Hugo,” which after four go-arounds we’re starting to have some experience at. (Though we can think of some folks who have lost far more often than we have.) “How To Lose A Hugo” at the Hugo Book Club Blog.

… When it comes to the Hugo Awards, it’s worth remembering that they are a community award that masquerades as a literary institution. These awards are nominated and voted on by a self-selected group that loosely organizes itself around a series of conventions. That means that how well someone is known and how they are seen within the community will inevitably affect whether or not their work is recognized by the community.

Social media is awash with accounts run by authors who rarely post anything other than promotional content aimed at selling their own books. It’s also worth letting people know who you are, what books you enjoy, and what your general vibe is.

Engaging with the community isn’t just about telling people how good you think your book or art is, it’s about listening and talking about the things that are important to them. Talk about politics, talk about art, talk about architecture, talk about music, and be authentic….

(4) BRISBANE 2028 WORLDCON BID MAY CHANGE DATE. To July?

(5) ROWLING, MUSK, LISTED IN CYBERBULLYING COMPLAINT. “J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk Named in Imane Khelif’s Cyberbullying Lawsuit” – Variety has details.

J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have both been named in a criminal complaint filed to French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer and newly crowned Olympic champion Imane Khelif.

Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney of Khelif, confirmed to Variety that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, posted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday.

The lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means that it was filed against unknown persons. That “ensure[s] that the ‘prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, said Boudi. The complaint nevertheless mentions famously controversial figures….

(6) TWO GREATS AGREE.

(7) DISCREET HORROR. [Item by Steven French.] Signs of the times: Nightmare on Elm Street gets downgraded from ‘18’ to ‘15’ while Paint Your Wagon is reclassified a ‘12’ from a PG for the ‘sex references’. “A Nightmare on Elm Street rating change defended by BBFC” reports the Guardian.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has defended its decision to change the certificate of horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street from an 18 to a 15, saying that its audience research showed “strong support for older content to be reclassified in line with modern standards”.

The classic 1980s horror, featuring the malevolent, razor-gloved Freddy Krueger who stalks and murders teenagers in their dreams, was given an 18 certificate on its first UK release in 1985, a designation confirmed on a subsequent cinema release in 2013 and a series of home entertainment releases. However, after a new application from its studio Warner Bros, the certificate was changed to a 15 on 1 August, ahead of a home entertainment reissue in September….

…The spokesperson added: “In the case of A Nightmare on Elm Street, although the film features various bloody moments, it is relatively discreet in terms of gore and stronger injury detail. The kills often leave more to the imagination than visceral detail, and largely occur within a fantasy context. Compared to more recent precedents for violence and horror [classified] at 18 – such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Imaculate or Saw X – the film is now containable at 15 and we reclassified it accordingly.”…

(8) ABOUT THAT BLACK HOLE. This looks irresistible. Omni Loop – Official Trailer. In theaters September 20.

OMNI LOOP follows Zoya Lowe (Parker), a quantum physicist who finds herself in a time loop, with a black hole growing in her chest and only a week to live. But what the doctors and her family don’t know is that she has already lived this week before; so many times, in fact, that she doesn’t even know how long it’s been. Until one day Zoya meets a gifted student named Paula (Edebiri). Together they team up to save her life – and to unlock the mysteries of time travel.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born August 13, 1953 — The War of The Worlds film (1953)

It’s 1953, it’s New York City, it’s August, a hot summer night, a perfect evening for an alien invasion to begin, and so we have The War of The Worlds premiere there. Based off, of course the H.G. Wells novel of the same name, it was produced for the screen by George Pal. 

The screenplay was written by Barré Lyndon. This is part of his legal name, Alfred Edgar Barre Lyndon, and it is obviously taken from the title character of Thackeray’s novel. This and Conquest of Space were his only SF screenplays.

It was directed by Brian Haskin, just one of many films where he teamed with George Pal, another one being Conquest of Space which our screenwriter here also was on.

It starred Gene Barry who six years later would be Bat Masterson, and Anne Richards, who would be in the Dragnet film that led to the series as Officer Grace Downey. (She does not reprise the character in the series.) Bless her, she’s still with us at age ninety-five. Barry passed on five years ago. 

Paramount rather pointedly said there’d be a romantic subplot in which our scientist have a love interest, hence the casting of Richards here.

The story itself is moved to Southern California in to my surprise, it was set in, emphasis was, an actual real place. Linda Rose was formerly in San Diego County, but is now in Riverside County. It’s a ghost town as it was a failed development scheme from the 1880s, one of many from that time. Fascinating as Spock would say.

The special effects were, shall I say, inordinately expensive. Paramount budgeted two million and wouldn’t budge, not a dollar over that amount would be further given, so stock footage of World War Two battles had to do for the global Mars invasion.  Even so the film just broke even — two million in production costs, two million in box office receipts in an era when studios generally own the cinemas. 

What did critics think of it? The best summation I think come from Variety at the time: “War of the Worlds is a socko science-fiction feature, as fearsome as a film as was the Orson Welles 1938 radio interpretation of the H.G. Wells novel.” It was at the time, after all, only fourteen years since the latter broadcast. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) LATEST AND GREATEST. Lisa Tuttle, in “The best recent science fiction and fantasy – reviews roundup” for the Guardian, covers Extremophile by Ian Green; Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan; Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova; The Formidable Miss Cassidy by Meihan Boey; and Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts.

(12) TAKE A WHIFF. [Item by Steven French.] I love the smell of Minecraft in the morning! “Want to smell like the Ender Dragon? We test the Lush Minecraft range” in the Guardian.

Last spring, one of my favourite brand tie-ins of 2023 saw high-street cosmetics chain Lush team up with Nintendo to create a range of products based around Super Mario. It was a riot of brightly coloured shower gels and super-sweet fragrances, including a divine Princess Peach body spray that I’m still using because screw gender-based perfume norms.

Now, Lush has released a new video game range celebrating 15 years of Minecraft. There are 12 items in the collection, including easily the most literal bath bomb Lush has ever made – a TNT block – as well as Grass and Lava blocks, a Creeper head shower bomb and a Diamond Pickaxe bubble bar, which is genuinely quite hefty despite its diminutive size.

The collection is apparently the result of a year-long collaboration with the game’s developer Mojang, and it’s been a popular project for the company’s employees. Lush concepts creative director Melody Morton is a regular player – and she’s not the only one. “We have many Minecraft players within the business, so there was lots of reference and resource to pull on when it came to products, creative and messaging,” says Kalem Brinkworth, the creative lead on the Lush collaborations team….

(13) BONESTELL ON THE BLOCK. Christie’s will run its “Over the Horizon: Art of the Future from the Paul G. Allen Collection” online auction from August 23-September 12.

Over the Horizon: Art of the Future from the Paul G. Allen Collection is devoted to how the future, especially interplanetary travel, was imagined by artists and other thinkers during the 20th century. These include Chesley Bonestell, Robert McCall, R.C. Swanson, George Gibbs, and Fred Freeman, among many others. The artworks in this auction, along with their publication in popular magazines, inspired a generation of explorers, scientists, and aerospace engineers. 

Paul Allen was among the most significant collectors of works by Chesley Bonestell, widely acknowledged as the “father of space art.” Bonestell’s Saturn as Seen from Titan, first published in 1949, has been called by the Smithsonian “the painting that launched a thousand careers.” A version of that painting, circa 1952, is available in the sale, along with several works published as illustrations for the famous “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!” series of articles, published in Collier’s Magazine in the early 1950s. 

(14) MET AT READERCON. The Nerd Count Podcast, hosted by Mercurio D. Rivera and Matthew Kressel, brings episode 4 “Live From Readercon”.

In our fourth episode, we come you you LIVE from Readercon, the “conference on imaginative literature,” held this past July in Quincy, Massachusetts. We had the pleasure of interviewing the following guests: Jeffrey Ford, A.T. Greenblatt, A.C. Wise, Scott H. Andrews, Mike Allen, A.T. Sayre, Julie C. Day, C.S.E. Cooney, William Alexander, John Wiswell, Rob Cameron, and Sophia Babai. We talk about Readercons past, what makes Readercon a truly special convention — particularly its welcoming and friendly vibe — and we talk with each guest about their recent and upcoming creative works. This was a blast to record, and we had so much fun talking to all these diverse and talented folks!

(15) SPLISH, SPLASH. “Mars water: Liquid water reservoirs found under Martian crust” reports BBC.

Scientists have discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars – deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet.

The findings come from a new analysis of data from Nasa’s Mars Insight Lander, which touched down on the planet back in 2018.

The lander carried a seismometer, which recorded four years’ of vibrations – Mars quakes – from deep inside the Red Planet.

Analysing those quakes – and exactly how the planet moves – revealed “seismic signals” of liquid water.

While there is water frozen at the Martian poles and evidence of vapour in the atmosphere, this is the first time liquid water has been found on the planet.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Insight’s scientific mission ended in December 2022, after the lander sat quietly listening to “the pulse of Mars” for four years.

In that time, the probe recorded more than 1,319 quakes….

(16) LEGOS BY THE THOUSANDS. Bell of Lost Souls is thrilled that “Huge LEGO Star Trek ‘Deep Space Nine’ Model Has Over 75,000 Pieces”.

…Adrian Drake built the famous space station from the frame up using more than 75,000 pieces. It’s 6 feet tall and eight feet in diameter and is heavy enough that it needs some extra supports. The whole build took over two years.

It’s a truly impressive and gigantic build. Drake displayed it at Brickworld Chicago, where he gave a tour to Beyond the Brick. Check out how he built the LEGO Deep Space Nine and all of the cool details….

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Olav Rokne, N., Kevin Standlee, Anne Marble, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Report of Glasgow 2024 First Main Business Meeting on Saturday

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File 770 has compiled a box score of agenda items handled at the First Main Business Meeting on Saturday at Glasgow 2024. It’s based on Kevin Standlee’s blog entry “2024 Worldcon Day 3: Grinding the Agenda”, and his explanation of some of the intricacies are quoted with permission. Read his post for a full account of the meeting.

(For a summary of Friday’s 2024 Worldcon Preliminary Business Meeting click the link.)

COVID STRIKES. Standlee reports that as of Saturday at least three Business Meeting attendees, including one member of the BM tech team and the BM Secretary, were down with COVID. Linda Deneroff moved up as the Emergency Holographic Secretary after Alex Acks tested positive at lunchtime.

TL;DR BOX SCORE OF AGENDA ITEMS ADDRESSED AT SATURDAY BUSINESS MEETING

RESOLUTIONS.

D.9. Business Meeting Study Group — PASSED

D.11 Statement of Values for Transparency and Fair Treatment – Considered in Executive Session

D.12 Chengdu Censure – Considered in Executive Session

Additional information about the Executive Session has subsequently been posted on the Glasgow 2024 Facebook page:

The meeting began in executive session, which adopted the following resolution:

Resolved, That a committee of seven be elected by ballot to investigate the Hugo Award Administrator for Chengdu Worldcon, the Chengdu Worldcon Hugo Subcommittee, and the chairs of Chengdu Worldcon for allegations regarding their conduct and the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards, and the committee be instructed to report resolutions regarding its recommendations to the 2025 Business Meeting.

Further resolved, That items D.11 and D.12 on this year’s Business Meeting agenda be referred to said committee.

Further resolved, That the committee has the power to fill vacancies by appointment.

The following folks have been nominated for this committee: Teri Carny, Ingvar Mattsson, Warren Buff, Chris Barkley, Elspeth Kovar, Doctor Science, Randall Shepherd, Todd Dashoff, Chuck Serface, Jason Sandford, Cliff Dunn, Farah Mendlesohn, Nicholas Whyte, Chris Garcia, Alan Bond.

D.13. Apology – PASSED AS MODIFIED — This motion was significantly modified, with the entire preamble (the “Whereas” clauses) removed, and a modified version of the Resolved clauses considered. The portions that declared certain people/works retroactively to be Hugo Award finalists (the last two clauses of the original resolution) were struck out due to the overlap with D.14. The modified resolution was adopted by a show of hands.

D.14. Make Them Finalists – SUBSTITE AMENDMENT PASSED — As originally introduced, this would have attempted to retroactively declare certain people/works to be Hugo Award or Astounding Award finalists. It did appear that this was heading toward being ruled unconstitutional, on the grounds that no single Business Meeting has such a right. Donald Eastlake III introduced a substitute in the form of a constitutional amendment that would allow the Business Meeting to make such declarations by a 3/4 vote, and that would allow a companion resolution passed affecting the 2023 or 2024 Hugo Awards to apply if the amendment is ratified at the 2025 Worldcon. Don’s constitutional amendment got first passage and will be submitted to Seattle for ratification, and the companion resolution that retroactively added the specified finalists was adopted by the necessary 3/4 vote. This does not add those finalists unless the constitutional amendment is ratified in Seattle.

BUSINESS PASSED ON – SECTION E OF THE AGENDA – ALL ITEMS HELD OVER TO SUNDAY

NEW CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS – SECTION F OF THE AGENDA

First Pass process applied, where the only actions allowed are Object to Consideration, Postpone Indefinitely, or refer to committee. “No action taken” means the item remains active in the Agenda and when it comes up again, debate time will be set.

F.1 Missing In Action – NO ACTION TAKEN

F.2 The Way We Were – NO ACTION TAKEN

F.3 Required License Agreement – NO ACTION TAKEN

F.4 MPC Procedures – NO ACTION TAKEN.

F.5. Transparency in Hugo Administration — REFERRED TO HUGO PROCESS STUDY COMMITTEE

F.6. Independent Hugo Administrator — REFERRED TO HUGO PROCESS STUDY COMMITTEE

F.7. No Illegal Exclusions — REFERRED TO HUGO PROCESS STUDY COMMITTEE

F.8. Irregular Disqualifications and Rogue Administrators — REFERRED TO HUGO PROCESS STUDY COMMITTEE

F.9. And the Horse You Rode In On — OBJECTION TO CONSIDERATION (3/4 VOTE REQUIRED) FAILED. REFERRED TO HUGO PROCESS STUDY COMMITTEE.

F.10. Make the Change — DIVIDED INTO FOUR SEPARATE PROPOSALS. PARTS OF IT WERE REFERRED TO THE HUGO PROCESS STUDY COMMITTEE. OTHERS WERE POSTPONED INDEFINITELY.

F.11. Hugo Administration and Site Selection Monitoring – MOTION TO POSTPONE INDEFINITELY FAILED. MOTION TO REFER IT TO HUGO PROCESS STUDY COMMITTEE FAILED.

ADJOURNED AT 15:00

Update 08/11/2024: Added information about the Executive Session from the Glasgow 2024 Facebook page.

The Case for Popular Ratification

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By Kevin Standlee: Popular Ratification is the name of a proposal that would change the way that amendments to the WSFS Constitution are ratified, opening up the process so that all WSFS members (attending and non-attending) would have a vote in the process.

Currently, changes to the WSFS Constitution must be passed by the vote of the WSFS Business Meeting at two consecutive Worldcons. Only WSFS members attending the Business Meeting may vote. The current system allows the second year’s meeting to make changes to the proposal, provided that such changes do not increase the scope of the proposal.

Many members have complained that it is unfair that only those WSFS members who have the resources to attend Worldcon and the ability to spend a substantial portion of their time at that Worldcon in the Business Meeting have a voice and a vote in the amendment process.

Some people have proposed things like holding the meeting entirely online or allowing proxy voting. This proposal does not address those ideas, but does address something that I know I have heard many times. People who attend Worldcon but whose other commitments do not allow them to spend 10 AM to 1 PM for three or four days of the convention attending the Business Meeting have complained, “I can’t spend all of that time, and I don’t want to sit through all of that debate stuff. I just want to vote!”

WSFS doesn’t have a Board of Directors. It is governed by a “Town Meeting” direct democracy. Because of this, the Meeting can often spend a lot of time arguing procedural matters. There is no delegated decision-making body. All legislation is in the hands of the members, but only those members who come and sit through the arguments, amendments, and maneuvering. This can be immensely frustrating and time-consuming. It is a big barrier to participation.

Short of changing our system to an elected representative democracy, there are a few ways that we could allow all WSFS members to directly vote upon proposals, Popular Ratification is one of those ways.

Under Popular Ratification, the Business Meeting would still be the place where constitutional amendments start. The process of hashing out a proposal and wordsmithing it would continue to be at the Business Meeting. Once a proposal passes the Business Meeting, it would be the responsibility of the following year’s Worldcon to submit those changes to a vote of all of all current WSFS members. Those members would not have to attend Worldcon or the Business Meeting.

This new ratification process would allow members to vote in advance or at the convention. This is the same system as we use for voting on future Worldcon Site Selection. Unlike Site Selection, no additional fee would be required to vote on ratification of constitutional amendments.

All WSFS members, attending or not, could vote. Any proposal that gets more yes votes than no votes would be ratified and would take effect at the end of the Worldcon where the ratification vote was held.

There are exceptions and special cases defined in the motion, including dealing with proposals with conflicting effects.

This proposed procedure is similar to how changes to the constitutions of some states in the USA are handled. In those states, the legislature originates constitutional amendments, which are then submitted to the voters of the state for ratification.

I think that this proposal strikes a balance between the debate needed to originate constitutional amendments and recognizing that all of the members of the World Science Fiction Society have a stake in the process of making changes to the Society’s rules.

This proposal would not speed up the process of changing the WSFS Constitution. Some people think that it should be possible to make changes very quickly, and even to apply changes retroactively. While I understand the passion that these people have, an organization’s fundamental governing document should not be subject to sudden changes. This is why WSFS has required that constitutional changes take two years to complete. The two-year ratification process reduces what has been called “meeting packing,” It is not difficult to round up a bunch of people at a single Worldcon to push through proposals, It is a lot harder to do it two years in a row.

This would not be the first time that WSFS has changed its rules to allow people who cannot attend the Business Meeting to have a stake in a major part of how Worldcon works. Until the early 1970s, the selection of the site for future Worldcons was done entirely by a vote of the Business Meeting. You had to be at the meeting in order to vote. According to what I have read, only those people who were present at the start of the meeting where the vote would happen could vote. The doors were secured and late-comers were not admitted. This was to make sure that each bid could make a speech before the vote so that all the voters could hear it. Voting was done only in person.

By 1975, the members of WSFS had voted to introduce advance voting by mail. Today, almost fifty years later, we take it for granted that site selection voting is done in advance and at the convention. The Business Meeting’s role has been reduced to a ceremonial receipt of the results, even when there have been legitimate questions raised about the voting. Today, the idea that the Business Meeting should have a substantive voice in the determination of the results of Site Selection appears to be considered absurd by most members.

Over the years, WSFS has changed its rules to increase its openness to participation by all of its members, not just those physically present at the convention or at the Business Meeting. This has included such steps as publishing the meetings’ minutes, making the governing documents available online, and recording and posting recordings of the meetings. Publishing recordings of the Business Meeting was controversial when we started doing so in the 2000s. There were some members of long standing who strongly objected to recordings being made. They certainly did not want those recordings published where anyone with a web browser could see them. It did not become a fully accepted part of the process until the Business Meeting passed a rule confirming it. Now, we take for granted that the Business Meeting can provide for official recordings. Also, any member of WSFS present at the meeting may make their own recordings. Thus, the proceedings of WSFS, once obscure, are open to everyone who wants to see them.

We have changed our rules to allow the non-attending members to vote on where to hold future Worldcons. We have made the Business Meeting less mysterious and something where all members can hear the debate over proposals. Surely we can change our rules to allow them to have a vote in the process for changing our fundamental governing document. Doing so would be another step in an ongoing process of opening up the governance of the World Science Fiction Society to all of its members.

WSFS 2024: Popular Ratification

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Kevin Standlee has sent File 770 a copy for publication of a motion submitted to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting.

“Popular Ratification” proposes that an amendment to the WSFS Constitution passed at a Business Meeting shall then be subject to ratification by a vote of WSFS members of the following year’s Worldcon. If the amendment receives a majority of votes in favor, it shall take effect at the end of the administering Worldcon (unless a later date is specified in the amendment).

SHORT TITLE: POPULAR RATIFICATION

Moved, To amend Article 6 the WSFS Constitution to replace the existing process for amending the WSFS Constitution with a process that would replace the existing ratification process with a ratification election by the WSFS members of the Worldcon the year after the Worldcon whose Business Meeting first passed the amendment by striking out and inserting words as follows:

Section 6.6: Amendment. The WSFS Constitution may be amended by a motion passed by a simple majority at any Business Meeting but only to the extent that such motion is ratified by a simple majority at the Business Meeting of the subsequent Worldcon. the process described in this Section.

6.6.1. First Passage. A Constitutional amendment passed by a majority vote at any Business Meeting shall be submitted to the members of WSFS for ratification by a process administered by the following year’s Worldcon.

6.6.2. Ratification. Each Worldcon shall conduct an election to ratify Constitutional amendments given first passage by the Business Meeting of the previous Worldcon. All WSFS members of the Worldcon administering the election on or before the end of the election period shall be entitled to vote on each amendment. Each amendment shall be presented as a separate proposal and voted upon individually.

6.6.3. Election Period. Ratification voting shall open at least ninety (90) days before the first Preliminary Business Meeting and shall close at the same time as Site Selection voting at the Worldcon administering the election.

6.6.4. Arguments For and Against Ratification. The Business Meeting may provide by the Standing Rules for the Governance of the Business Meeting for a process whereby arguments for and against ratification may be presented to the membership. The Worldcon administering the ratification election shall be responsible for making such arguments available to the eligible members.

6.6.5 Vote Required for Ratification.

(1) Any amendment that receives more votes in favor of ratification than votes opposed to ratification shall be considered ratified, except as otherwise provided in this Section.

(2) Should amendments with conflicting provisions receive more votes in favor of ratification than votes opposed to ratification, only the amendment that receives the most votes in favor of ratification shall be considered ratified.

(3) Should amendments with conflicting provisions and with the most votes in favor of ratification be tied, the Business Meeting of the Worldcon administering the voting shall determine which version shall be considered ratified after it receives the results of the ratification vote. However, the Business Meeting making such decision may not amend the amendments pending ratification, but may only select from among them.

6.6.7. Announcement of Results. The Worldcon administering the voting shall announce the results of each ratification vote at the Site Selection Business Meeting.

Section 6.7: Commencement. Any change ratified amendment to the Constitution of WSFS shall take effect at the end of the Worldcon at which such change is ratified, that administered the ratification election for that amendment, unless a later date is specified in the amendment,  except that no change imposing additional costs or financial obligations upon Worldcon Committees shall be binding upon any Committee already selected at the time when it takes effect.

Provided That this amendment shall first affect Constitutional amendments that receive first passage at the 2026 Business Meeting, so that any Constitutional amendments receiving first passage at the 2025 Business Meeting must be ratified by the 2026 Business Meeting by the process in place before the ratification of this amendment;

Provided Further That upon initial passage of this amendment, the Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee is directed to draw up proposed Standing Rules for the regulation of arguments for and against ratification, as provided for in new section 6.6.5, and to report such proposed rules to the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting for consideration if this Constitutional amendment is ratified;

Provided Further That unless the above changes are re-ratified by the 2030 Business Meeting, this amendment shall be repealed and the wording of sections 6.6 and 6.7 shall revert to what was in place at the time of this amendment’s initial ratification; and

Provided Further That the question of re-ratification of this amendment shall automatically be placed on the agenda of the 2030 Business Meeting.

PROPOSED BY: Kevin Standlee, Berni Phillips Bratman, Linda Deneroff, Lisa Hayes, Laura Miller, Cheryl Morgan, Ron Oakes, Linda Robinette, Olav Rokne.

COMMENTARY: Currently, amendments to the WSFS Constitution must be passed by one WSFS Business Meeting and then ratified by the following year’s meeting. This means that the legislative process is exclusively limited to those WSFS members who attend the Business Meeting. Members who cannot attend the meeting cannot participate in the process.

This proposal would replace the ratification stage (the second WSFS Business Meeting) with a vote of all WSFS members, whether or not they attend the Worldcon, of the Worldcon following the one whose Business Meeting gave the Constitutional amendment first passage. The Administering Worldcon (the one following the year in which the amendment received first passage) would submit all amendments that were first passed in the previous year to their WSFS members (attending and non-attending). Members could vote in advance of the convention by mail or by other mechanism (electronic voting) determined by the Administering Worldcon, or they could vote in person at the Administering Worldcon. (Note that existing WSFS Constitution Section 6.3 already says that “Valid paper ballots delivered by any means shall always be acceptable.” Therefore, the Administering Worldcon must provide a mechanism to vote by paper ballot; however, this proposal does not otherwise regulate the technology that the Administering Worldcon must use to run their election. The proponents of this proposal assume that the Administering Worldcon is likely to develop some form of electronic voting such as what is used for the Hugo Awards; however, it is up to each Worldcon to determine how they want to run their election.

Voting would continue until the end of Worldcon Site Selection, which typically ends on the third day of the Worldcon. The results of the ratification vote would be announced at the Site Selection Business Meeting. Any Constitutional Amendment receiving a majority (more yes votes than no votes) would be ratified. Ties lose, and abstentions or blank ballots do not count. There is no minimum vote requirement.

As with current Constitutional amendments, any ratified amendment becomes part of the Constitution upon ratification, but is not effective until the end of the Worldcon where it is ratified, A Constitutional amendment could include a future effective date, but could not take effect before the end of the Worldcon whose members ratified it. Once an amendment becomes part of the Constitution, it can be amended, even if it is not yet effective.

The Administering Worldcon would be required to publish arguments for and against ratification of Constitutional Amendments. The Business Meeting could create regulations for such arguments (such as who could submit them, any length restrictions, deadlines for submitting arguments, and so forth), and the provisions for this proposal directs the Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee to, upon first passage of this proposal, to draw up a draft of such regulations to be considered by the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting should this proposal be ratified at the 2025 Meeting.

This proposal includes transition rules for moving from the current system to the new system, and a “sunset” re-ratification clause that would require the Business Meeting to re-ratify this system at the 2030 Meeting.

This proposal opens up the right to vote to nearly every WSFS member, other than the small number of members who join Worldcon as a WSFS member after the close of Site Selection voting. It would allow nearly all WSFS members to express a preference on changes to the WSFS Constitution without having to attend the current Worldcon or the Business Meeting.

This does not speed up the ratification process; however, it allows all WSFS members to have a say in the ratification process, rather than restricting it to members attending the business meeting.

Motion to Abolish the Retro Hugos Submitted to 2024 Business Meeting

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Ray Bradbury's 2004 Retro Hugo for Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Bradbury’s 2004 Retro Hugo for Fahrenheit 451.

Kent Bloom, seconded by Kevin Standlee, are proposing to repeal the Retrospective Hugo Awards from the WSFS Constitution in a motion submitted to the upcoming Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting.

Here is the markup showing the language to be removed and added, followed by their reasons for seeking the change.

Short Title: No More Retros

Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution by striking out Section 3.14.1 to remove the Retrospective Hugo Awards from the WSFS Constitution, and to insert text to preserve those given previously:

Section 3.14: Retrospective Hugo Awards

3.14.1. A Worldcon held in a year that is an exact multiple of 25 years after a year in which no Hugo Awards were awarded may conduct nominations and elections for retrospective year Hugo Awards for that year with procedures as for the current Hugo Awards, provided that year was 1939 or later and that no previous Worldcon has awarded retrospective year Hugo Awards for that year.

3.14.2: In any listing of Hugo Award winners published by a Worldcon committee or WSFS, Retrospective Hugo Awards presented prior to the 2026 Worldcon shall be distinguished and annotated with the year in which such retrospective Hugo Awards were voted.

Commentary:

It seems very unlikely that the Retro-Hugos given so far would match those which would have been given by the Worldcon in the year they would have been awarded.

It also seems that the people being honored by these awards are not available to receive the honors, so the awards have little meaning as far as encouraging and rewarding the creators. 

And it does not seem that the awards have made any significant impact on the availability and popularity of the works / people who received them.

Thus it seems to us that they have outlived their usefulness and should be abolished.

  • Kent Bloom, Member #0383
  • Kevin Standlee, Member #0377

Pixel Scroll 5/27/24 Pixel Yourself On A Scroll By A Tickbox

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(1) WAYWARD WORMHOLE Signups are being taken for the Rambo Academy Wayward Wormhole – New Mexico 2024. Full details at the link.

The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers is pleased to announce the second annual Wayward Wormhole, this time in New Mexico. Join us for the short story workshop to study with Arley Sorg and Minister Faust, or the novel workshop with Donald Maass, C.C. Finlay, and Cat Rambo.

Both intensive workshops will be hosted at the Painted Pony ranch in Rodeo, New Mexico. The short story workshop runs November 4-12, 2024, and the novel workshop runs November 15 through 24, 2024.

(2) EARLY ENTRY ON THE 2024 BUSINESS MEETING AGENDA. Linda Deneroff, Alexia Hebel, Kevin Standlee, and Kevin Black have submitted to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting an amendment to the WSFS Constitution to restore “supporting” and “attending” to replace “WSFS Membership” and “Attending Supplement”.

Short Title: The Way We Were

Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution by striking out and inserting the following:

Moved: To replace WSFS Membership with Supporting Membership wherever it appears in the Constitution, and to replace Attending Supplement with Attending Membership, including all similar variations of the words (e.g., WSFS Memberships, WSFS members, attending supplement) to their grammatically correct replacements.

Proposed by: Linda Deneroff, Alexia Hebel, Kevin Standlee, and Kevin Black

Commentary: Since both terms involved the word “Membership” there has been a lot of confusion among people purchasing memberships who do not understand why they have to purchase a “second” membership, or why they have to buy a “WSFS membership” in the first place. Under the original terminology, the price of an attending membership was inclusive of the support price.

Any reimbursement restrictions could still remain in place, with the price of the supporting portion of the attending membership deducted from any refund.

(3) IF IT’S NOT MADE IN MIDDLE-EARTH, IT’S CRAP! “Why Do Dwarves Sound Scottish and Elves Sound Like Royalty?” While Atlas Obscura  tries to say Tolkien had a lot to do with it, their evidence shows it’s not his books but the filmmakers who adapted them that are the greatest influence.

…Of course the original readers couldn’t hear what Tolkien’s creatures sounded like, but the intense focus he placed on developing their languages gave people a pretty good idea. “Tolkien was a philologist,” says Olsen.“This is what he did. He studied language and the history of language and the changing of language over time.”

Tolkien would create languages first, then write cultures and histories to speak them, often taking inspiration from the sound of an existing language. In the case of the ever-present Elvish languages in his works, Tolkien took inspiration from Finnish and Welsh. As the race of men and hobbits got their language from the elves in Tolkien’s universe, their language was portrayed as similarly Euro-centric in flavor.

For the dwarves, who were meant to have evolved from an entirely separate lineage, he took inspiration from Semitic languages for their speech, resulting in dwarven place names like Khazad-dûm and Moria….

… However, the dwarves of the Lord of the Rings movies don’t speak with an Israeli accent, and the elves of Warcraft don’t have a Finnish inflection. This comes down to the differences between how Tolkien portrayed his fantasy races and how he imagined they should talk, and the readers’ interpretation….

(4) KEEP THEM SEQUELS ROLLIN’. “Alien? Mission: Impossible? Toy Story? What is the greatest movie franchise ever?” The Guardian’s staff stake their claims. Here’s Jesse Hassenger’s pick.

Predator

There are a lot of movie series that made it through four or five entries as an unusual rotating showcase for different directors before giving in to the temptation to re-hire past successes. I still love the Alien and Mission: Impossible movies dearly, but they’ve also made me extra-grateful for the rare franchise that has managed to never repeat a director or major (human) cast member. I’m talking – for now – about the Predator movies, the B-movie little siblings to the classier, weirder, more thought-provoking A-list Alien. Only one is bad – the second Alien vs Predator match-up, nonsensically subtitled Requiem. All of the rest, where various badass aliens hunt various opponents (including Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Danny Glover, Olivia Munn, the xenomorph and Adrien Brody, among others) for sport, filter their premise through a different vision of monster-movie splendor. On one level, you always know what you’ll get: clicky noises, gory deaths, those triangle laser-sight things. Yet the specifics have plenty of wiggle room: should they be scary, funny or nasty? Action, horror or sci-fi? It’s a throwback to when movie franchises knew their place as fun programmers, rather than tentpole sagas. Alas, Dan Trachtenberg is about to become the first Predator director to return to the series. He did a great job with the entertaining Prey; it’s just a shame for the series to lose its constant one-and-done churn. For now, I’ll continue to savor those no-nonsense weirdos with the ugly mandibles and over-elaborate armor, and their accidental compatibility with B-movie auteurism. Jesse Hassenger

(5) THAT 70’S ART. This link assembles many examples of “Space Bar” themed examples of “70s Sci-Fi Art”. (And from later, too).

(6) JOHNNY WACTOR (1986-2024). Best known for his work in daytime TV, Johnny Wactor was reportedly killed by thieves on May 25. The New York Times’ summary shows he also had roles in several genre series.

Johnny Wactor, an actor best known for his role in “General Hospital,” was shot and killed on Saturday, reports said, amid what his family described as an attempted theft of a catalytic converter in Los Angeles.

Ms. Wactor said her son thought his car was being towed at first, and when he approached the person to ask, the person “looked up, he was wearing a mask, and opened fire.”

Mr. Wactor … also appeared in episodes of “Westworld,” “The OA” and “Station 19.”

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 27, 1934 – Harlan Ellison. (Died 2018.)

By Paul Weimer. Or, even though he has passed away, he still might sue me from beyond the grave, so Harlan Ellison® .

My reading of Harlan Ellison® was benefited to me thanks to my older brother, whom I have mentioned earlier in this space was mainly responsible for me to get into science fiction and fantasy, and his bookshelf were my early steps into the genre. As it so happened, he had a fair number of the extant Harlan Ellison®  short story collections. So very early on in my SFF reading, I did come across “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” and other SFF stories of his. At that early age, I found few SFF short story writers that could match him.

Harlan Ellison at the ABA convention; Larry and Marilyn Niven behind him: Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

And I learned, thanks to the collections my brother had, that Harlan Ellison®   wrote far more than SFF short stories. I’m not even talking about his movie or television scripts.  Ellison is the first SFF author who I read non-SFF work by. I read The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat. I read and reread his criticism of television and cinema and began to understand the wide range of his talent. When I discovered he wrote mimetic short stories, and horror short stories as well, there was a point that I wondered what Ellison didn’t excel at as a writer in the short form.

My favorite Harlan Ellison®  is not “Mouth” because I think that is just too easy an answer. I have a fondness for the sadness of “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” and the tragic fate of the protagonist. “Jeffty is Five” breaks my heart every time I read it. “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” moved me, even though I was too young to know it was a take on the Kitty Genovese murder.

I will reach more deeply and go with “Paladin”, which I saw first as the Twilight Zone episode “Paladin of the Lost Hour” and then later read the Hugo winning novelette. It’s a poignant story, with some of the sadness and gray veil that you find in some of Ellison’s work.  It’s as if Harlan Ellison® is grabbing me by the collar and shouting. “Feel something, you coward. Feel something!”.  The anger of raging against the dying of the light and being angry when people shoulder-shrug, give up, and shuffle along?  I may not have ever met Harlan Jay Ellison®, but I think Paladin helps you feel just how powerful, angry, and potent a writer he was. Love him or hate him, his work could not and would not be ignored.  

I think there are definite periods and waves of Harlan Ellison® ‘s work. And like another sui generis artist, David Bowie, you probably will find a wave or period of Harlan Ellison® that you will like best. Not all of his oeuvre worked for me, there is a definite band I like, and a narrower (but not narrow) band that I really like. This may be the consequence of his extensive oeuvre and constant ability to change and try and write new things, or rewrite old things in a new way. Restless, Angry, Raging. Potent. 

 I loved his cameo on Babylon 5 which he served as a creative consultant and wrote an episode “A View from The Gallery”.  (Which may mean that we have  Harlan Ellison®  to thank for Lower Decks, which is to Star Trek that this episode is to the rest of Babylon 5.) 

That, my friends, is the work of Harlan Ellison® 

Harlan Ellison in 2014 at Creation event in Las Vegas.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) ANOTHER HARLAN TRIBUTE. Janis Ian marked Harlan Ellison’s 90th with this tribute on Facebook.

In my life, there have been very few colleagues who viscerally understand having been an “enfant terrible”. Even fewer that lived up to their promise. And even fewer who continued to be brave, and bold, fearlessly speaking out despite the consequences.

Today is the birthday of my late friend Harlan Ellison. A writer who completely understood what it was like for me at the age of 15, when “Society’s Child” became a hit. Unable to connect with most of my peers because of the experiences I was having, unable to much time with those I could connect with, who were always 5 to 10 years older and usually on the road.

Harlan understood better than most that Fame hadn’t changed me, it had changed the people around me. And he understood the impossibility of living up to the expectations placed on me because of my innate talent and ability.

He could be an unbelievable pain in the rear. He could be absolutely impossible. He could be rude and obnoxious and he did not suffer fools. God help you if you annoyed him. But to me, he was unfailingly courteous, generous, kind, and giving. I miss him more than I can say, and I regret the years I did not know him.

(10) APPLAUSE FOR BRENNAN. Rich Horton reviews “Cold-Forged Flame, and Lightning in the Blood, by Marie Brennan” at Strange at Ecbatan.

Marie Brennan has been publishing short SF and Fantasy (mostly Fantasy, I think) for a couple of decades, after winning the Asimov’s Undergraduate Award back in 2003. (That’s an award which spurred some excellent careers over time — writers like Rich Larson, Marissa Lingen, Eric Choi, and Seth Dickinson are also among the past winners.)…

…The two books [Cold-Forged Flame, and Lightning in the Blood] concern Ree, whom we meet “coming into existence” as Cold-Forged Flame opens. She has no idea of her name, only a dim sense of her abilities (she is a warrior, for one thing) and of her character (suspicious, prickly) — but also aware that she is bound to do what the nine people who have summoned her ask. After some debate, she learns what these people want: she must go and bring back a vial of blood from the cauldron of the Lhian. And, in exchange, they offer her her freedom — and, but only after the fact, what knowledge they have of her … history. To tell too much in advance would harm her, they suggest….

(11) SAM I AM. Knowing that a fan’s brain is never sufficiently stuffed with trivia about Tolkien, CBR.com brings us “The Lord the Rings’ Samwise Gamgee’s Real World Inspiration, Explained”.

…In Appendix C of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien explained the in-universe origin of the surname Gamgee. It came from the family’s ancestral village of Gamwich, which meant “game village” in the language of the hobbits. Over time, the name Gamwich evolved into Gamidge and later to Gamgee. This was one of many examples of the great amount of thought and effort that went into even the tiniest worldbuilding details of The Lord of the Rings. However, this backstory was a retroactive explanation that Tolkien came up with long after settling on the name Sam Gamgee for his story’s deuteragonist. The real-world basis for Sam’s surname was more unusual, and its origins predated Tolkien’s conception of Middle-earth.

Gamgee is a real — albeit uncommon — surname. In fact, in 1956, a man named Sam Gamgee wrote a letter to Tolkien after learning that a character in The Lord of the Rings shared his name. Tolkien was surprised and delighted by this coincidence. Since the real Sam had not read the novel for himself, Tolkien assured him that the fictional Sam was “a most heroic character, now widely beloved by many readers” and offered to send him a copy of the book. In Tolkien’s response, he also explained the reason that he chose to use the name. It was a long story that began with a famous surgeon: Dr. Joseph Sampson Gamgee.

Born in 1828, Joseph Gamgee made major strides in the field of aseptic surgery, the practice of ensuring that a doctor’s hands and tools remain sanitary during medical procedures….

(12) WOLFE PACK ON LOCATION. Black Gate has Bob Byrne’s newest installment of “Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone”: “Welcome to Kanawha Spa – The Wolfe Pack 2024 Greenbrier Weekend”. He joined the Wolfe Pack for a descent on the West Virginia resort featured in Too Many Cooks.

…Trish [Parker] is the resident Greenbrier historian. She is also a Wolfe fan! She gave a really cool presentation that talked about the Greenbrier, the logistics of of other locations (Barry Tolman was NOT going to make that court session he was pressing to be at), and other related information.

I loved it! It was really neat. Especially as she knew the story. I really enjoyed it. She took a couple questions and got a healthy round of applause.

Intelligence Guided by Experience – A question I heard more than once over the weekend was, “Did Rex Stout stay here before he wrote the book?” While the thought seemed to be, ‘Probably, as he knew the place pretty well.’ it’s unknown. The records from that early have been lost over the years. No proof he had been to the Greenbrier….

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

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(1) NO, NO, NOT ROGOV! Annalee Newitz calls Paul Linebarger (aka Cordwainer Smith) “The Sci-Fi Writer Who Invented Conspiracy Theory” in The Atlantic.

…Linebarger, who died of a heart attack in 1966 at age 53, could not have predicted that tropes from his sci-fi stories about mind control and techno-authoritarianism would shape 21st-century American political rhetoric. But the persistence of his ideas is far from accidental, because Linebarger wasn’t just a writer and soldier. He was an anti-communist intelligence operative who helped define U.S. psychological operations, or psyops, during World War II and the Cold War. His essential insight was that the most effective psychological warfare is storytelling. Linebarger saw psyops as an emotionally intense, persuasive form of fiction—and, to him, no genre engaged people’s imagination better than science fiction.

I pored over Linebarger’s personal papers at the Hoover Institution propaganda collection while researching my forthcoming book, Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind. Boxes of his studies on the politics of China and Southeast Asia are filed alongside his fiction manuscripts and unpublished musings on psychology. Here, I realized, was an origin story for modern conspiracy politics, which blur the line between sci-fi plots and American patriotism—they came from a psywar operative. Put another way, an agent of what some would now call the “deep state” had devised the far-out stories that politicians like Greene use to condemn it. Perhaps, if she and others knew this, they might not be so eager to blame space lasers and vaccine microchips for what ails our nation….

(2) WESTERCON 76 UTAH HOTEL RESERVATIONS OPEN. [Item by Kevin Standlee.] Westercon 76 has updated their hotel/venue web page with their hotel booking information. I published a post on the Westercon.org site about it{ “Westercon 76 Utah Opens Hotel Reservations”.

The short version is “use the link on the convention hotel/venue page” or “use group code WET when booking through Hilton.com.  

(3) MAKING BOOK. These suspects are from the nation, not the U.S. state — “Georgians arrested over cross-Europe thefts of rare library books”. The Guardian tells how the crime was committed.

Police have arrested nine Georgians suspected of running a sophisticated criminal operation stealing valuable antique books – including an original Alexander Pushkin manuscript – from national libraries across Europe.

Shelves of 19th-century Russian-language literature had been ransacked over two years across several countries and replaced with fakes, Europol, the EU police agency, revealed on Thursday.

The University of Warsaw, which was among the targets, last year reported the theft of first editions of works by the influential authors Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol.

Europol said the suspects allegedly sometimes posed as academics to gain access to the books in order to make counterfeits of “outstanding quality”.

While in the reading rooms “they would meticulously measure the books and take photographs before handing them back” – only to return days, weeks or months later to swap them with near perfect copies.

In other cases they “relied on a more crude approach” and simply staked out the collection in national libraries, decided what was of interest and later broke in and stole the books, police said….

(4) MARK D. BRIGHT (1955-2024). Black comics creator Mark D. Bright died March 27. The Comics Journal’s in-depth tribute begins:

Issue #257 of DC’s House of Mystery wasn’t short on talent when it hit the stands in late 1977. Like all issues of that horror anthology, it had its fair share of clunkers, but you couldn’t fault the art team. Joe Orlando (on the cover), Ernie Chan, Michael Golden, Arthur Suydam… and in between these heavy hitters was a three-pager by a newcomer named Mark D. Bright, raised in Montclair, NJ, and not yet a graduate of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He would have other names in credit boxes throughout the years: M.D. Bright, “Doc” Bright, but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Bright would go on to a long and storied career, doing well-regarded work for both Marvel and DC throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He was also the co-creator of Icon with Dwayne McDuffie, one of the cornerstones of Milestone Comics, and co-creator of the oddball superhero comedy series Quantum and Woody with frequent collaborator Christopher Priest. Bright passed away on March 27, 2024, leaving the world of comics a much poorer place….

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born April 28, 1948 — Terry Pratchett. (Died 2015.)

By Paul Weimer: It took a second bite at the apple for me to fall for the works of Terry Pratchett.  My first attempt was in the 90’s, when I had vaguely heard about his work, and picked up The Color/Colour of Magic.  I thought it was fine and I also tried the Light Fantastic and Sourcery.  But it really didn’t gel for me. I thought at the time Pratchett was an okay writer, and maybe the humor wasn’t quite what I was looking for in fantasy at the time.  (To be fair, the humor in those early Discworld novels is a lot broader than the later more refined ones). 

Terry Pratchett in 2011.

It took over a decade and my late friend Scott to get me to try Pratchett again.  Scott was passionate about a number of writers. Zelazny, which we had in common. Lois M. Bujold, which we also had in common. Michael Scott Rohan. And Terry Pratchett.  Scott encouraged me and “talked me through” finding where I would best enjoy Pratchett’s oeuvre.  I found an affinity for Pyramids (and the best Mathematician on all of Discworld), but when it came to The Night Watch, I really started understanding the Discworld Project and what it was doing.  From then on, Pratchett was on auto-buy.  Vimes and company remained my favorite, although The Librarian is probably my single favorite minor character, if only for the fantastic idea of L-Space. 

Beyond Discworld, there is also Good Omens of course, and also the Long Earth series. The latter feels a lot more the work of his co-author Stephen Baxter than Pratchett but there are moments, scenes, images where the utter magic of Terry Pratchett’s work and writing and humanism comes through. 

One of my not-in-a-Pratchett bits that involves Pratchett is a bit in the late Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End. In that novel, in its (now a) alternate history, Pratchett went on to write many many more Discworld novels, and became so popular that people would use VR to cosplay as being from the new area of the Discworld these imaginary novels were set (basically an entrepot more along the lines of Alexandria, Egypt).  I could wish, Zelazny style, to walk into that world and bring home copies of those “lost” Pratchett novels. I would love to read them. 

And, sadly I never got to meet him in person. My loss. 

Happy birthday.

(6) COMICS SECTION.

  • Off the Mark agrees that there’s always leftovers.
  • Bizarro takes us inside a reactive museum.

(7) DOUBLE FEATURE. The Flights of Fantasy Film Festival will show The War of The Worlds (1953 — 4K Restoration) and ten of the Best George Pal Oscar-Winning Puppetoons (restored in Technicolor®) at the Historic 1931 Regency Westwood Theater in LA on Wednesday, May 22 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets at the link.

Scheduled to appear are special guests director Joe Dante (Gremlins), Ann Robinson (star of War of the Worlds), and director-producer Arnold Leibovit (The Puppetoon Movie, The Time Machine 2002). These distinguished guests will offer their unique perspectives and insights, sharing behind-the-scenes stories and discussing the lasting impact of George Pal’s work on the world of cinema. Maxwell DeMille (master of ceremonies) is a prominent figure in reviving old Hollywood glamour through vintage-themed events. His commitment to authenticity has made him a leading figure in the vintage entertainment scene, and he also hosts film screenings and lectures on classic Hollywood culture.

(8) PRODUCTS LAUNCH. Gizmodo promises “Lego’s Gorgeous New Space Sets Shoot You Into the Stars”.

…This morning Lego revealed two more entries in its 2024 campaign to bring the ethos of its classic space sets across its various lines: for Lego Art, there’s a beautiful, buildable recreation of the Milky Way, containing 3,091 pieces for you to build into a technicolor spiral galaxy and hang on your wall. For those looking for something a little less macro-scaled, but still high on detail, the new 3,601-piece Artemis Launch System, part of the Lego Icons series, includes a mobile launch tower, a rocket support and crew bridge, and then of course a multistage rocket, complete with 2 solid-fuel boosters. The model also even includes a small brick-built recreation of the ESA Orion spacecraft, which can be put into the rocket or as part of a separate display stand, highlighting Artemis’ mission to further explore the Moon….

See photo galleries of both at the Lego website:

(9) METAL DETECTIVE. “Spacecraft approaches metal object zooming around Earth, snaps footage” – at Mashable.

A spacecraft has carefully approached and imaged a large hunk of metal orbiting Earth — a step in tackling humanity’s mounting space junk woes.

The delicate space mission, undertaken by the Japanese satellite technology company Astroscale, used its ADRAS-J satellite to travel within several hundred meters of an abandoned section of a noncommunicative, derelict rocket, proving it could safely observe in such close proximity…

(10) PIGS NOT QUITE IN SPACE. William Shatner has taken this flight before – a clip from a 1996 Muppets Tonight episode. Watch it on YouTube.

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