(1) DO READERS NEED PROTECTING FROM THESE? ScreenRant has a little list: “If You’re Just Getting Into Sci-Fi Books, These Are 10 You Should Absolutely Avoid”. Dhalgren and Anathem, okay. Starship Troopers and Ringworld, huh. Slaughterhouse-Five, too.

…The wild world of sci-fi literature is full of fantastic books and incredible storytelling, but like any canon that’s been evolving for over a century, it also has some incredibly inaccessible and difficult books. While many of them are also some of the greatest works in the genre, they’re also frequently heavy on the technobabble – or worse, real science – and often stray into some very experimental and existentially challenging forms of storytelling. So, while these books are all (or at least mostly) excellent, beginners should be cautious about jumping straight into the deep end of this particular pool…

Slaughterhouse-Five

By Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

Kurt Vonnegut, another one of America’s greatest authors, clearly drew on his experiences as a German prisoner of war in Dresden during the Second World War when writing Slaughterhouse-Five, given that the book’s protagonist Billy Pilgrim endures a similarly harrowing experience. Unlike Vonnegut, though, Billy is abducted after the war by the alien Tralfamadorians, who place him in a zoo with a porn star for a mate and send him flashing back and forth through time.

Everything about Slaughterhouse-Five, from its brilliant nonlinear structure to its powerful anti-war message, makes it clear that the book has deserved every iota of praise it has received over the years. Yet that same nonlinear structure, and the raw power of how it explores Billy’s (and by extension, Vonnegut’s) traumatic experiences in the war, make it hard to recommend as anyone’s starting point.

(2) VARNEY BANNED FROM WORLDCON. Literary agent Leslie Varney complained about being banned from attending Seattle Worldcon 2025 in an op-ed today at Jon Del Arroz hate site Fandom Pulse . Worldcons (and most other conventions) rarely make public statements when someone is banned anymore. And Varney says she wasn’t given a reason, either: “the organizers chose to keep me entirely in the dark.” Varney’s op-ed advances several strawman reasons and knocks them down.

Varney included Seattle Worldcon 2025’s email in the article:

Varney, who regularly trades salvos with Patrick S. Tomlinson, also characterizes Seattle as having chosen to side with him against her (he’s on Seattle’s list of selected program participants). She is dropping heavy hints in social media about her plans for revenge.

(3) SOURCERY. Christopher Lockett’s grand tour of Pratchett brings us to “Discworld Reread #4: Sourcery”.

…The Librarian. Of all the dozens of vivid, weird, hilarious, and poignant recurring characters who come to populate Discworld, the Librarian is one of my favourites. In this I am not alone.⁵ Transformed from a man into an orangutan by a magical accident, he resists the efforts of some of his fellow wizards to turn him back, finding contentment in his new form, in part because he can now climb through the labyrinthine stacks in the University Library with ease. So long as he has his books and a healthy supply of bananas, he’s happy.

The Librarian, the Library he occupies, and the books crowding the shelves—all of which, being magical books, have lives of their own—are very obviously the creation of an author whose own spiritual and emotional connection to libraries is profound. …

(4) POP QUIZ. Take the New York Times’ interactive quiz, “Match These Books to Their Movie Versions”. Link bypasses the paywall. Reader, I nailed it!

Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions, video games and more. 

Here’s one of the questions:

Question 2 of 5

“Sunrise on the Reaping,” the Y.A. novel released earlier this year by Suzanne Collins, is the fifth installment in which book/film series that was first adapted for the screen in 2012?

(5) CELEBRATE RY HERMAN’S NEW RELEASE. The Lighthouse bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland is offering tickets to their June 19 event: “This Princess Kills Monsters: Queer Fairytale night with Ry Herman”.

A princess with a mostly useless magical talent takes on horrible monsters, a dozen identical masked heroes, and a talking lion in a quest to save a kingdom—and herself—in this affectionate satire of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale The Twelve Huntsmen.

Join us to celebrate in this DELIGHT of a novel, to raise a toast to feminist fairy tales and gorge on the magic of queering familiar stories.

We’ll have 40 minutes of discussion with the author, followed by time for questions, signing and festive good vibes: We’ll be in the bookshop garden for this very special launch, expect themed surprises and refreshments – costumes and extra fabulousness most welcome.

The event also will be livestreamed on Lighthouse Bookshop’s YouTube channel.

(6) FUNERAL FOR CRAIG MCDONOUGH. Leslie McDonough, widow of Craig McDonough, whose death was reported in the June 13 Scroll, sends word that the funeral will be July 1, calling hours 10-11 am, service at 11, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Shrewsbury MA.

(7) SF COMMENTARY. Bruce Gillespie’s SF Commentary 120 includes extensive tributes to two major figures in Australian sff who recently passed away: Race Matthews and Damien Broderick. Download free at eFanzines.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

June 19, 1947 — Salman Rushdie, 78.

By Paul Weimer: It was senior year in high school that I first heard of Salman Rushdie, and yes, it was the fatwa issued against him for The Satanic Verses.  As a result, he first came onto my radar, but I didn’t pick up a copy at that point.  Coming from a conservative family, even with all the SF I had read to that point, a book named “The Satanic Verses” would be a bridge too far.  I already had had to deal with my mother coming to terms with Dungeons and Dragons.  But one day, after Chemistry class, I noticed my teacher was in fact, reading the book.  

I asked him about it, asked him what it was like, and if it was any good.  (This was also the conversation where I learned that ennui was not pronounced en-you-eye, although my teacher thought I was just messing with him). In any event, I waited for the book to hit paperback, by which time I was commuting to Brooklyn College, and so I could read it on the subway in surety and safety.  

The Satanic Verses, brilliant, strong and vibrant, was probably my first real contact with magic realism and was perhaps the most “literary” novel I attempted reading that wasn’t assigned in school. I am pretty sure that 19-year-old me didn’t grok the half of the book. Or maybe even that much. But it stunned me all the same. 

In the meantime, I’ve enjoyed a number of other works of his, particularly in audio (a couple of them read by Rushdie himself), like Midnight’s Children, The Enchantress of Florence, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. In all of this and throughout all of these books, including The Satanic Verses, there is a strong and abiding interest in the nature and the use of stories. I know there is plenty to untangle in terms of immigration, East-West Relations, history, mythology, and faith. Salman Rushdie’s work is a seemingly bottomless well for exploring and investigating these themes. 

Does he consider himself a SFF writer? I’m not sure, but if he isn’t, he has a house on the borderlands, ready to provoke and evoke thought in readers.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• Ink Pen learns the downside of CGI. 
• Lio has two bubbly personalities. 
• Reality Check finally decides to read the directions.
• Tom the Dancing Bug doubts parenting has changed for the better. 

(10) LAWYER LETTER. CBR.com knows “Why Marvel Hit a WWE Hall of Famer With a Cease And Desist”.

An amusing thing about the connection between comic book superheroes and professional wrestlers is that, of course, Spider-Man’s very first appearance saw him become a professional wrestler in Amazing Fantasy #15 (by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee), where he fought against Crusher Hogan in the ring, and easily defeated him because, well, you know, he has superpowers….

… So, obviously, there has always been a connection between comic books and wrestlers, but an issue over the years has been when wrestlers got TOO close to superheroes, and in the case of the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) superstar, Rey Mysterio, it turned out that he had come TOO close to Marvel’s characters for their liking when WWE received a cease and desist letter over his usage of costumes inspired by Marvel sueprheroes and villains!…

…As I wrote about in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed (by “old,” I mean literally almost TWENTY YEARS AGO), “The Incredible Hulk” Hogan made his debut for World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) in late 1979. The Incredible Hulk was, at the time, a fairly popular television program. WWF, never one to ask for permission first, did not confer with Marvel before debuting this new character. As you could imagine, Marvel did not take kindly to the idea of someone using their character’s name, and warned them to stop. However, Vince McMahon Sr. had a clever way of avoiding the problem. Rather than get caught up in litigation, he just struck up a deal with Marvel to license the name “Hulk” from Marvel for his new wrestler….That’s how Hulk Hogan handled it, but it was another story for the WWE Hall of Famer, Rey Mysterio….

(11) WHY-TO-WATCH. They say if you liked the 90s movie True Lies, you’ll like Netflix’s series FUBAR.

In JustWatch’s latest “Why-To-Watch” feature, they caught up with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Monica Barbaro to talk all things FUBAR—the Netflix action-comedy now climbing to #9 on the U.S. JustWatch streaming charts.

SYNOPSIS: Luke Brunner is a CIA operative who has hidden his identity and work from his family his whole life. Little does he know, his own daughter Emma is also a CIA operative. As they realize the truth about each other suddenly all of their differences begin to become clear.

Arnie took a swing at guessing his most popular films—according to viewing data from JustWatch’s 60 million global movie fans.

Arnold’s guesses

• True Lies
• The Terminator
• Kindergarten Cop

JustWatch Streaming Data:

• #1 – The Terminator
• #2 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• #3 – Predator

Watch his surprise here: 

(12) NOT EASY MAKING GREEN. Popular Mechanics made me click. I’m sure your will is stronger: “Scientists Have Discovered the Recipe for Real-Life Kryptonite”.

Most of us know kryptonite as the mineral weakness of the otherwise invulnerable Superman. But geologists are also familiar with its real-world counterpart, known as Jadarite. Initially discovered in Serbia’s Jadar Basin—the only place in the world where it’s been found—in 2004, the mineral is actually sodium lithium borosilicate hydroxide, which is remarkably similar in chemical composition to the fictional kryptonite. (Additionally, krypton is an unrelated chemical element, so jadarite is the most scientifically acceptable name.)

Now, scientists at the Natural History Museum in the U.K. have discovered why the white mineral is so rare on Earth—producing the stuff requires a series of very specific geologic events. The results of this study were published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

“Similar to baking a cake, everything needs to be measured and exact for this rare mineral to form,” Natural History Museum scientist Francesco Putzolu, lead author of the study, said in a press statement. “For instance, if the mineral ingredients are not just right, if the conditions are too acidic or too cold, jadarite will not form.”

In jadarite’s case, those ingredients include a precise interplay among an alkaline-rich terminal (or endorheic) lake, lithium-rich volcanic glass, and crystalline structures formed from clay minerals. A previous paper, published last month in Economic Geology (on which Putzolu was also the lead author), goes into more specifics….

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Little Caesars Pizza has an ad tie-in to Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

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