Tag Archives: Mel Brooks

Pixel Scroll 6/12/25 Never Knowingly Underscrolled

Posted on by
38

(1) DISNEY TAKES ON MIDJOURNEY. “Disney and Universal sue AI company over use of copyrighted characters” reports Entertainment Weekly. I can’t remember ever before being on the same of an issue as Disney’s lawyers.

Disney and NBCUniversal have accused AI company Midjourney of copyright infringement.

The plaintiffs accuse the company of using its characters, such as Spider-Man, Star Wars‘ Darth Vader and Yoda, Disney’s Princess Elsa from Frozen, the Minions, Homer Simpson, Deadpool and Wolverine, and more via an online service that allows users to create images, according to lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California in Los Angeles.

“For more than 100 years, Disney and Universal have delighted audiences around the world by investing in and fostering American creative innovation and producing some of the greatest motion pictures and fictional characters of all time,” the lawsuit states. “Midjourney, however, seeks to reap the rewards of Plaintiffs’ creative investment by selling an artificial intelligence (“AI”) image-generating service (“Image Service”) that functions as a virtual vending machine, generating endless unauthorized copies of Disney’s and Universal’s copyrighted works.”

The suit continues, “By helping itself to Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, and then distributing images mages (and soon videos) that blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters—without investing a penny in their creation—Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing.”

According to the lawsuit, the startup reportedly made $300 million in revenue last year. Its 21 million users, as of September, paid for subscriptions of $10 to $120 monthly in order to, according to the lawsuit, “view and download copies and derivatives of Plaintiffs’ valuable copyrighted characters.” They called it “textbook copyright infringement.”…

(2) SPACEBALLS 2. Is the Spaceballs 2 announcement a teaser or an encyclopedia? Whichever applies, Gizmodo says it also includes this important bit of casting news.

…Amazon announced Thursday that [Mel] Brooks, who wrote, directed, and starred in the 1987 comedy classic, will return as Yogurt in the sequel, scheduled for theatrical release in 2027….

(3) RESISTING PROPOSED “NONPROFIT KILLER” LAW. Fight For The Future is circulating a letter in which “270 artists demand Congress drop ‘Nonprofit killer’ law”. Lucy Lawless and Karen Joy Fowler are two of the signers. The letter begins —

We are artists and creators who are deeply opposed to the criminalization and destruction of nonprofit organizations. Alongside hundreds of civil society groups, we denounce recent efforts to pass a law that would give the Trump Administration, and any Administration that follows, the power to annihilate any nonprofit in the United States with no due process or appeal. 

Advocates for these “nonprofit killer” laws say they want the power to stop nonprofits from supporting terrorism, but there are already many laws that make that illegal. This law is about giving the US President a new power to destroy any organization that stands in the way of their agenda. It would hurt free speech, censor nonprofit media outlets, and punish disfavored groups across the political spectrum…. 

(4) WEINBAUM’S SHORT, BRILLIANT CAREER. A Deep Look by Dave Hook continues its look back to 1949 with “’A Martian Odyssey and Other Stories’, Stanley G. Weinbaum, 1949 Fantasy Press”. (Article is behind a paywall.)

… Stanley G. Weinbaum died way too young of cancer, with his last story published during his lifetime in December 1935, the short story “The Mad Moon” in Astounding, just 18 months after the first, the July 1934 “A Martian Odyssey”….

(5) RECALLING THE THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS. [Item by Andrew (not Werdna).] This article in The New Yorker talks about the Three Laws and AI, “What Isaac Asimov Reveals About Living with A.I.”, ending with this paragraph:

…Ultimately, Asimov’s laws are both a gift and a warning. They helped introduce the idea that A.I., if properly constrained, could be more of a pragmatic benefit than an existential threat to humanity. But Asimov also recognized that powerful artificial intelligences, even if attempting to follow our rules, would be strange and upsetting at times. Despite our best efforts to make machines behave, we’re unlikely to shake the uncanny sense that our world feels a lot like science fiction.

Unfortunately it leaves out Campbell — and Asimov always gave Campbell with at least half the credit for the laws.

(6) BANNED VIDEO GAME BATTLES CHINA’S COMMUNIST PARTY. “Hong Kong Outlaws a Video Game, Saying It Promotes ‘Armed Revolution’” – the New York Times has the story. (Behind a paywall.)

Hong Kong’s national security police have a new target in their sights: gamers.

In a stern warning issued Tuesday, they effectively banned a Taiwanese video game they described as “advocating armed revolution,” saying anyone who downloaded or recommended it would face serious legal charges. The move comes as the authorities continue to tighten control over online content they consider a threat to the Chinese city.

“Reversed Front: Bonfire” is an online game of war strategy released by a Taiwanese group. Illustrated in a colorful manga style, players can choose the roles of “propagandists, patrons, spies or guerrillas” from Taiwan, Mongolia and the Chinese territories of Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet in plots and simulated battles against China’s ruling Communist Party. Alternatively, players can choose to represent government fighters.

The game was removed from Apple’s app store in Hong Kong on Wednesday, but remains available elsewhere.

But it had already been out of reach for many gamers. It was never available in mainland China and earlier this month Google removed “Reversed Front” from its app store, citing hateful language, according to the developers.

ESC Taiwan is a group of anonymous volunteers who are outspoken against China’s Communist Party. Their products, which include a board game released in 2020, are supported by crowdfunded donations….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

June 12, 1916 — Irwin Allen. (Died 1991.)

Ahhhh Irwin Allen. While he may be best known for that most spectacular of ocean disaster movies, The Poseidon Adventure, he’s done more than a reasonable share of genre work.

The first series that he created in the Sixties was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea which was based off his film of the same name. It would air on ABC from the fall of 1964 to the spring of 1968 making it the decade’s longest-running American SF series with continuing characters. The one hundred ten episodes produced included the first thirty-two shot in black-and-white, and last seventy-eight filmed in color. It remains one of my most favorite series long after I’ve seen quite a few more series. 

Next up for him was Lost in Space. Saying it’s based off Johann David Wyss’ The Swiss Family Robinson is really, really stretching things, isn’t it? Be that as it may, the show ran for eighty-three episodes over three seasons on CBS. I’m going to hurmph here as it has a lower approval score on Rotten Tomatoes than the reboot series does. Really? No accounting for taste or lack thereof. 

Remember The Time Tunnel? Yeah he was responsible for it too. The show ran for one season of thirty episodes from 1966 to 1967 on ABC. I thought that the stories here were good. Not great I grant but good enough.  

His run of SF series would be concluded with Land of the Giants, a one-hour series that aired on ABC from the fall of 1968 to the spring of 1970. It was filmed in color. It’s worth noting that five novels based on the television series, including three written by Murray Leinster, would be published while the series aired. Did this ever air later? If it did, I don’t remember it doing so. 

A decade later, we have a miniseries on that took Robert Bloch and six other scriptwriters to please Irwin Allen, The Return of Captain Nemo (theatrical title; when a shortened, possibly more coherent version had a screen run ot was called The Amazing Captain Nemo).  It has been considered an attempt by him to duplicate the success of his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. It didn’t. Really didn’t. 

Finally, I’ll note that he was responsible for it happening in all aspects possible, a music version of Alice in Wonderland. It aired on CBS over two nights in 1985, and it had an amazing cast of Natalie Gregory (Alice here), Red Buttons, Anthony Newley, Jayne Meadows, Carol Channing, Sammy Davis Jr., Roddy McDowall, Ann Jillian, Pat Morita and Robert Morley. It has an extraordinary rating of eighty-five percent over at Rotten Tomatoes. 

Irwin Allen.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) EARTH’S MIGHTIEST DUCK. Scrooge McDuck is starring in all-new adventures from Marvel Comics. Following last year’s acclaimed Uncle Scrooge & the Infinity Dime one-shot, the first-ever Uncle Scrooge Marvel comic, the legendary adventurer is back to take things to the level with a solo four issue limited series this August—Uncle Scrooge: Earth’s Mightiest Duck.

Announced last week at D23.com, Uncle Scrooge & the Infinity Dime scribe and superstar Marvel writer Jason Aaron returns to craft another fantastic Uncle Scrooge saga that expertly blends the wonderful world of Uncle Scrooge with epic Marvel Comics super hero storytelling. Aaron will be joined by an extravagance of all-star artists including Giuseppe Camuncoli, Mahmud Asrar, and Ciro Cangialosi. Uncle Scrooge: Earth’s Mightiest Duck kicks off in August and today, fans can behold the covers for the first two issues. The covers see how some of industry’s biggest talents—from Gabriele Dell’Otto to Mark Brooks—bring this beloved comic book icon to life Marvel style!

 In Uncle Scrooge: Earth’s Mightiest Duck, the planet has been conquered by alien invaders known as the Connoisseurs, nefarious hoarders of the rarest antiquities from throughout the cosmos. As they tear the Earth apart, pillaging its fabled treasures, only the world’s greatest adventurer can possibly stop them. But Scrooge McDuck is facing a battle unlike any he’s ever fought, trapped inside his own mind, fighting to preserve his most precious memories….

(10) MEANWHILE, IN ANOTHER PART OF DOWNTOWN LA. The Guardian covers a gaming event that just happened in LA: “Everything that happened at Summer Game Fest 2025, from marathon game sessions to military helicopters”.

As protests exploded in Los Angeles last weekend, elsewhere in the city, a coterie of games journalists and developers were gathered together to play new games at the industry’s annual summer showcase. This week’s issue is a dispatch from our correspondent Alyssa Mercante.

Summer Game Fest (SGF), the annual Los Angeles-based gaming festival/marketing marathon, was set up to compete with the once-massive E3. It’s taken a few years, but now it has replaced it. 2025’s event felt like a cogent reminder that the games industry has dramatically changed since the pandemic. Whereas E3 used to commandeer the city’s convention centre smack in the middle of downtown LA, SGF is off the beaten path, nestled among the reams of fabric in the Fashion District, adjacent to Skid Row. There are fewer game companies present, it’s not open to the public and there’s no cosplay, unless it’s for marketing purposes.

Its centrepiece is a live show held at the YouTube theatre near the airport, hosted by ever-present games industry hype-man Geoff Keighley and streamed to millions – and you can buy tickets for that. Some video game enthusiasts and smaller content creators told me that the in-person showcase wasn’t worth their money: just a very lengthy show that they could have watched online, culminating in a massive traffic jam to get out of Inglewood….

Then, the Guardian follows with a roundup:“From Resident Evil to 007: the 15 best games at 2025’s Summer Game Fest”.

(11) PRESCHOOL WHO PLANNED. Deadline reports “’Doctor Who’ Animated Series Coming To CBeebies”.

The Doctor Who Tardis is heading to BBC pre-school channel CBeebies.

The BBC has announced the next stage in the expansion of its Whoniverse, a pre-school animation version of its big-selling IP, which just wrapped second season under returned showrunner Russell T. Davies.

The show will see the Doctor traveling through time and space for the pre-school audience, solving mysteries and problems alongside their companions and other friends. And, of course, they may come up against one or two challenges on their way, the BBC said.

The BBC has set out a desire to find a “passionate production company” to produce the series, which will run independently from the main show. Disney, which co-produces the Bad Wolf and BBC Studios-produced main version, will not be involved with the animation….

(12) PEAK PEEK. If Gizmodo can begin a sentence with “Mars’s marred”, I know their copyeditors will love my headline, too. “Astronomers Find Hidden Volcano on Mars”.

Mars’s marred surface consists of craters, canyons, and mysterious formations that hint at a complex geological past. Scientists recently studied a tantalizing feature that could shed light on the planet’s elusive history.

A mountain perched on the rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater may actually be a volcano hiding in plain sight, according to a new study. This peak, called Jezero Mons, could offer new insight into the Red Planet’s geologic history and the potential for ancient Martian life, the researchers say.

The findings, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment in May, validate long-held suspicions that Jezero Mons is volcanic. Using data from three Mars orbiters and NASA’s Perseverance rover, researchers found striking similarities between this mountain and explosive volcanoes previously identified on Mars and Earth…. 

(13) IS THERE A GALACTIC NO-CALL LIST? [Item by Steven French.] Here’s yet another take on the so-called paradox: “75 years after Fermi’s paradox, are we any closer to finding alien life?” asks Phys.Org.

“If you look around on Earth, there are a lot of organisms, some would say intelligent organisms, that are not interested in developing technology, and they’re also maybe not interested in communicating,” Charbonneau said. “We humans love to communicate, and we love to connect, and maybe that’s just not a property of life: Maybe that’s really a property of humans.”

(14) FROM MEDIA DEATH CULT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The latest from Moid over at Media Death Cult.

He looks at the Clarke Award-winning 1996 novel The Sparrow, which bring the church up against extraterrestrials.

(15) SCI-FI LONDON. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The Sci-Fi-London film fest will soon be with us (June 19-22). It promises to be another great celebration of recent, independent cinematic SF.  Here is a short teaser.

Sci-Fi London’s opening film is A Matter of Time. What if you could hit pause on life itself?

Charlie (Myles Erlick), a 29-year-old aspiring video game designer, sees his world change when his friend Gibbs (Sean Astin), a toy shop owner, hands him a mysterious device that can stop time. Suddenly, Charlie’s world becomes a playground where seconds freeze and possibilities multiply.

But messing with time isn’t just a trick. As Charlie dives deeper into this strange power, he’s forced to confront the ethical dilemmas and personal consequences that come with bending reality. Caught between ambition, regret, and temptation, he must decide whether controlling time means controlling his fate or losing it altogether…

SFL has posted a four-minute behind-the-scenes exclusive. See it below…

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

Pixel Scroll 2/7/25 It’s Only A Pixel Scroll, Filing Over A Mimeo Sea

Posted on by

(1) THE BLURB REVOLUTION. “Book blurbs: Authors hate them. Publishers love them. They’re often made-up” says Slate’s Imogen West-Knights.

Whip-smart, unputdownable, lyrical, dazzling, pitch-perfect. Taut, tender, a tour de force. A triumph. Unflinching, stunning, mesmerizing, evocative. You will have seen a book—probably many, many books—with some of these words, what one might call blurbiage, if one were being annoying, on its cover. Often, these quotes will be just that one word. But the process by which those single words are acquired is a fraught one. So much so that last week, one top editor at a major publisher, Sean Manning at Simon & Schuster, made an unusual and attention-grabbing announcement about them. In his eight years at the company, he wrote in an essay for Publishers Weekly, “it has been tacitly expected that authors—with the help of their agents and editors—do everything in their power to obtain blurbs to use on their book cover and in promotional material.” No longer. Under his leadership, authors won’t be “required” to spend “an excessive amount of time” getting blurbs for their books….

…Debut authors also told me that it had “taken over their lives” sending out “begging letters” for blurbs, and more established ones said their lives had been taken over by the barrage of unsolicited proofs to blurb that they were receiving. “A lot of publicists are probably paid too poorly to really sit and consider which authors might genuinely like which book,” one novelist said, “but I wish this meant they just sent out less requests in general instead of taking this scatter-gun spam-bot approach.”

So many book proofs are getting sent out, and authors are being pursued so relentlessly for comment, that it has become common enough practice to blurb a book without having actually read it. “I was really horrified the first time someone said I should just make something up for them to approve,” said one debut nonfiction writer, who had a book out last year. This happens all the time, people told me.

Much of the blurb game is built on existing acquaintances. There is enormous social pressure to blurb books for people you sort of know. So people either lie about liking a book, because they don’t want things to be awkward, or end up ghosting the requests, or blurb it positively because they are “blinded by affection,” one nonfiction author told me. “The only time I’ve heard of someone having the balls to say ‘I haven’t blurbed your book because I didn’t actually like it’ is Sarah Schulman,” she added. According to another novelist, “It turns the entire industry into this fucking Regency-era tea party, where we all just owe each other favors and there’s actually no meritocracy or peer review or even admiration going on.”…

(2) ALL THAT TROUBLE, SO ARE THEY WORTH ANYTHING? The New York Times has also reacted to the Simon & Schuster announcement in “What Are Book Blurbs, and How Much Do They Matter in Publishing?” (link bypasses the paywall.)

…Do blurbs really help sell books?

The truth is, no one can say for sure.

“I don’t know if blurbs have ever worked,” Manning said. “There’s no metric to tell.”

Victoria Ford, the owner of Comma, a bookstore in Minneapolis, said, “My initial reaction was that blurbs don’t matter at all.” She’d rather read a thorough summary on the back of a book, or a lively description on the flyleaf, than rely on a few beats from an established author who might have a personal relationship with the author in question.

As for her customers, Ford went on: “I have not noticed readers paying a lot of attention to blurbs, with a few exceptions. I’ve definitely sold books because a customer was browsing and saw a book Ann Patchett had blurbed. Readers trust her.”…

(3) COSTUME DESIGNERS GUILD AWARDS. The 2025 Costume Designers Guild Awards winners include two in categories devoted to sff, and a third in the Period Film category.

Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film

  • Wicked; Paul Tazewell, CDG

Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Television

  • Dune: Prophecy; “The Hidden Hand”; Bojana Nikitovic

Excellence in Period Film

  • Nosferatu; Linda Muir, Costume Designer, Alima Meyboom, ACD; Anna Munro, ACD

(4) CLASSIC ELLISON SHORT FICTION CONSIDERED. A Deep Look by Dave Hook devotes its closest attention to “’Deathbird Stories’, by Harlan Ellison, 1975 Harper & Row”.

…Ellison starts by trying, perhaps to link this collection and its contents to literature and SF, with the quotation of a letter (I assume) from George Bernard Shaw to Count Leo Tolstoy, followed by quotes from Voltaire, Ovid, and Robert A. Heinlein. These are all about gods in some way.

He adds this Caveat Lector, a Latin Phrase for “let the reader beware“:

“It is suggested that the reader not attempt to read this book at one sitting. The emotional content of these stories, taken without break, may be extremely upsetting. This note is intended most sincerely, and not as hyperbole. H.E.”

I take this both ways, as an honest warning and part of his hyperbole….

(5) ALTERNATE HISTORY TV SPINOFF. “’Star City’: Anna Maxwell Martin Joins ‘For All Mankind’ Spinoff” reports Deadline.

BAFTA Award-winner Anna Maxwell Martin (Motherland) is set as a lead opposite Rhys Ifans in Apple TV+‘s upcoming series Star City, a spinoff from the streamer’s space race drama For All Mankind.

Created by Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert and Ronald D. Moore, Star City is another alt-history retelling of the space race – when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon. But this time, we explore the story from behind the Iron Curtain, showing the lives of the cosmonauts, the engineers, and the intelligence officers embedded among them in the Soviet space program, and the risks they all took to propel humanity forward…

(6) IN MEMORIAM. Steven H Silver’s list of members of the sff community who died in 2024 is available at Amazing Stories: “In Memoriam 2024”.

(7) BUT THE MEMORY LINGERS ON. Amazing Stories’ Steve Davidson at “Where Is It Safe To Host A Worldcon?” provides a new map of where he approves for the Worldcon to be held. Can you guess which country between Canada and Mexico has recently fallen off the map? Hint: It’s hosting the next two Worldcons.

…It it supremely ironic that one of the counter-arguments to the protest against the Chengdu bid was a stated belief that exposing the citizens of a repressive regime to the openness and diversity of Fandom would offer an alternative example and somehow inspire governmental change.  Instead, the repressive regime has now come to the home of Fandom, the United States, which will have hosted 59 of the 83 Worldcons held by the end of this year.  (Leeds excepted.)

It is, therefore, not just appropriate, but necessary, to amend the map that illustrates the relative appropriateness of Worldcon hosting.

This year, Worldcon will be hosted in a country whose government has enacted or intends to enact policies that are both repressive and dangerous to members of Fandom.  It will be doing so in the name of all of its citizens as it is a duly and legally elected government (for now), because that is how representative democracies work.

Owing to prior bidding, next year’s Worldcon will also be held in a country that is dangerous to Fans and their beliefs.  Three times in four years is a trend that I  don’t want to see continue.  I hope that the majority of Bid voters agree with me….

(8) MORT KÜNSTLER (1931-2025). [Item by Artie Fenner.]  Artist Morton (Mort) Künstler died. Mostly known for his Civil War gallery paintings today, he did plenty of painted covers for comics and men’s adventure magazines back in the day. Early in his career he and James Bama shared a studio and modeled for each other’s illustrations. The Daily Cartoonist paid tribute: “Mort Künstler – RIP”.

…Künstler would go on to paint about 4,000 magazine covers, movie ads and canvases for NASA, the U.S. Postal Service (a depiction of Black soldiers in the Indian Wars in 1994), institutions and private collectors. His paintings are in the permanent collection of more than 50 museums and his work has been featured in more than 20 books. He was the subject of an A&E documentary in 1993.

His specialty was images of the Civil War, and historians and art critics considered him the premier historical artist in the country — one known for his detailed research and accurate depictions of scenes from Colonial times through the Space Age. In 2006, M. Stephen Doherty, editor of American Artist magazine, wrote “Künstler is now known as America’s foremost historical artist” and since the late 1970s “has been recognized as a distinguished fine artist.”…

(9) MEMORY LANE. History.com remembers what happened on February 7, 1974: “Guests watch Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” movie premiere from horseback”. Guess which daily Scroll contributor whose initials are JKT was there! See photo at this link.

In one of Hollywood’s zaniest movie premiere stunts, Mel Brooks’ 1974 western spoof Blazing Saddles screens at the Pickwick Drive-In Theater in Burbank, California. Guests attend not in cars—but on horseback.

Attendees, many sporting cowboy hats, watched the movie from atop their steeds. Movie sound came through speakers attached to saddle pommels, and the studio set up a “Horsepitality Bar” where guests got “horse d’oeuvres.” Brooks, one of Hollywood’s most legendary comedic directors, was reportedly thrilled with the memorable publicity stunt, and wrote to Warner Bros.’ publicist, Marty Weiser, who came up with the clever idea. Its message: “You’re crazier than I am!”…

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

February 7, 1960 — James Spader, 65.

How can I not do the Birthday of James Spader, the performer who played Dr. Daniel Jackson, Egyptologist in Stargate? Yes, I’m really fond of him in that film. And yes, I am equally fond of Michael Shanks playing that version of the character in the Stargate SG-1 franchise.

His first SF film actually came as a starring role as Joey Callaghan in Starcrossed where an alien woman is running from a deadly enemy and tries to hide here. She meets a young mechanic (Joey), who helps her to go home and to be a freedom fighter there.

A decade later, his next role is in Stargate. I thought it was a great performance by him. And yes, the character as performed by Michael Shanks in Stargate SG-1 continuity is just as interesting, just completely different. His role I thought was more true to that of being an Egyptologist but the Stargate SG-1 continuity isn’t really concerned with the original premise, is it? 

If you saw Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I will readily admit that I have not, he not only voiced Ultron but did the motion capture for it. 

But his greatest role, and I readily admit that is not genre was in The Blacklist series as Raymond “Red” Reddington, a former US Naval Intelligence officer turned fugitive who’s maybe forced to become an FBI crime consultant. And I was surprised to learn that he was an executive producer for that series.  

It’s streaming on Netflix. 

James Spader

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) CIVILIZATION SHUFFLES THE DECK. Polygon tells us what they think about the latest iteration of a longtime classic video game: “Review: Civilization 7 embraces a new era”.

… Civilization 7 breaks with franchise tradition in a couple ways. The first is that your leader and your civilization are unrelated to one another. At the beginning of a game, you select a leader (say, Harriet Tubman) who brings certain capabilities with them (like a bonus to espionage actions). You also select a civilization, a group of people who your leader, well, leads. If you’re starting in the age of Antiquity, the oldest time period, these are civilizations like the Greeks, the Mississippians, or the Han. They are distinguished by specific traits and units that are unique to them. This whole process is inevitably a little weird to people who have played these games before, given that historically there was not a split between leaders and civs, but ultimately the vibes are the same when playing the game — you simply get to mix and match your people, even if it produces extremely weird combos like Machiavelli, leader of ancient Persia….

(13) SUPERSIZED. “Astronomers find the largest structure in the universe and name it Quipu” reports Phys.Org.

Is it possible to understand the universe without understanding the largest structures that reside in it? In principle, not likely. In practical terms? Definitely not. Extremely large objects can distort our understanding of the cosmos.

Astronomers have found the largest structure in the universe so far, named Quipu after an Incan measuring system. It contains a shocking 200 quadrillion solar masses.

Astronomy is an endeavor where extremely large numbers are a part of daily discourse. But even in astronomy, 200 quadrillion is a number so large it’s rarely encountered. And if Quipu’s extremely large mass doesn’t garner attention, its size surely does. The object, called a superstructure, is more than 400 megaparsecs long. That’s more than 1.3 billion light-years.

A structure that large simply has to affect its surroundings, and understanding those effects is critical to understanding the cosmos. According to new research, studying Quipu and its brethren can help us understand how galaxies evolve, help us improve our cosmological models, and improve the accuracy of our cosmological measurements…

…Astronomers have found the largest structure in the universe so far, named Quipu after an Incan measuring system. It contains a shocking 200 quadrillion solar masses….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Jack Benny and Mel Blanc – The Man of a Thousand Voices” with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

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

Pixel Scroll 5/18/24 Come On You Pixels, Do You Want To Scroll Forever?

Posted on by

(1) R. F. KUANG’S BABEL WINS AWARD AT A CEREMONY AT THE CHENGDU SF MUSEUM. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] The Chinese edition of R. F. Kuang’s Babel, as translated by Chen Yang, won the “Best Translated Work” category of the Xingyun (Chinese Nebula) Award.  The award ceremony took place in the Hugo Hall at the Chengdu SF Museum on Saturday May 18.

China.org.cn have published a brief English language article on the awards; a longer Chinese-language report, including all the winners, was published by the Xingyun Award account on WeChat/Weixin, which is where the pictures below are taken from.   A five-and-a-half-hour long video has also been posted to Weibo.

Judging by the logos in the hall and on photos from the event, the awards appear to have been sponsored by Guojiao 1573, an alcohol brand.  The aforementioned WeChat/Weixin report mentions that a member of the Pidu district local government gave a welcoming speech, but the report does not mention if there was any discussion of the 10-year science fiction plan.

(2) TRIPLETS. “Red Dwarf ‘returning to TV with 3 brand new episodes’” promises Radio Times.

It has been reported that long-running sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf will be returning for a new set of three specials in 2025, the first time the show has been seen on-screen since 2020.

British Comedy Guide has reported that one feature-length instalment will be split into three episodes, with filming set to begin in September, and stars Craig Charles, Chris Barrie, Danny John-Jules and Robert Llewellyn all returning.

Robert Llewellyn reportedy confirmed the news on his Fully Charged YouTube channel, saying: “We knew we were going to do more Red Dwarf, and we’re actually now doing it in the middle of October to the middle of November this year.

“A 90-minute special, three half-hours. So yes, we are making more. I can’t believe I’ve agreed to do it, I’m insane. I’m much too old.”

He previously told the channel: “We’ve all agreed to do more. We’re not going to do a new series, but we’re making something and it should be fun.”…

(3) BEAGLE Q&A. “Peter S. Beagle on his new novel, the hero’s journey, and why villains talk so much” at NPR.

[SCOTT] SIMON: Let me ask you about the wizard in the book ’cause he can’t keep his yap shut about what he’s hellbent on doing. Why is that?

BEAGLE: Well, you can’t possibly blame him. After all, he has been destroyed and come back. He has ridden with dragons. He knows so much about dragons, just not the important stuff. But because of his experience, he thinks he knows more than he does. And that’s fatal. I know that myself.

SIMON: That’s happened to you?

BEAGLE: It has. It has. Not with dragons, particularly….

(4) READ THE ANTHONY AWARD FINALISTS. The 2024 Bouchercon recently posted the Anthony Award Shortlists, and where one can read the short story finalists online.

(5) BWAH! Gizmodo’s James Whitbrook contends there are “25 Great Things About The Phantom Menace”. (Maybe you had trouble thinking of even one?) Seventh on his list —

I have to put “Sound Design” as one item on this list, because if wasn’t, 90% of this list would be me trying to find the onomatopoeia for practically every noise in this movie. The thrum of podrace engines, the clack of droideka feet, the little wibble Gungan energy shields make under fire, and yes, the Naboo blasters that go “bwah!”.

Especially the Naboo blasters that go “bwah!”.

(6) AND BLAB! “Did a Star Wars Producer Just Reveal the Title For James Mangold’s Movie?” asks Collider.

In a recent interview with SFX Magazine, Emanuel referred to the movie with a new title that could signal a significant shift in its direction. He said, “James Mangold’s Jedi Prime is set thousands and thousands of years before [the original trilogy], and I’m really excited to see what happens there.” While that quote does not officially confirm a title change, Emanuel’s use of “Jedi Prime” suggests exciting possibilities for the upcoming film.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born May 18, 1930 — Fred Saberhagen. (Died 2007.)

By Paul Weimer: I came to Fred Saberhagen through epic fantasy.  I came across a reference to his Empire of the East series in a piece discussing science fantasy and the mixture of the two.  So I sought out that series and started to devour it. The idea of a post apocalypse America now ruled by magic, but the protagonist finds an old tank, and then goes on to find the “g0d” that was once a supercomputer fighting a demon that was once a nuclear bomb…the appeal to me of this was obvious from the start. 

Fred Saberhagen. Photo by Patricia Rogers.

After Empire of the East, I fell into his Books of Swords stories (which are in the same verse although the connection between the two was very very thin), and then, once I had gone with all of those, looked to see what else Saberhagen had written. 

If you are a sophisticated reader, you are probably wondering where Saberhagen’s Berserkers came in. It actually took me a while to make my way to Saberhagen’s most famous creation, with stops in Dracula, Frankenstein, and more before I would finally come across the ultimate killer AI stories. When I watched a Babylon 5 episode that referenced Berserkers, I was absolutely delighted. Beserker’s Planet is probably the oddest one of the whole series, which is much taken up with the ultimate MMA tournament where fighters of different skills from across the planet compete to be the champion (this is all secretly run by a half broken berserker, but for a lot of this book you have no idea it’s even there)

My favorite Saberhagen, overall, though, is a novella, “The Mask of The Sun”, which is about an absolutely interesting artifact that almost works like magic, showing probabilistic results from actions when you put it on. The main character gets hold of this, and it turns out two timelines and timeline/time travelling empires want that same artifact, at any cost. The interesting fillip for me, back then, was that it was timelines and polities based on the Aztecs and the Inca, rather than (at the time) more usual choices.  A Time War with the Inca and Aztecs pushes a LOT of my buttons. And I vividly enjoyed the main character trying to figure out how to have the Inca defeat Pizzaro and the Spanish, sustainably, once he wound up in 16th century Peru. His solution is ingenious and it makes a lot of sense, and overall, the story has a strong playground of the imagination, and shows Saberhagen at his best. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) LIBRARY’S STAR TURN. TrekMovie.com takes us “Inside How ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Transformed A Toronto University Library Into The Eternal Archive”.

Last week’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Labyrinths,” featured an unusual location: the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. Star Trek fan Michael Cassabon, the Director of Advancement for the University of Toronto library system, assisted the production team on site and wrote about his experiences with the show and what makes the Fisher Library so unique.

… Modern-day Toronto is part of Trek canon (SNW: “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow”); for those of you keeping track, the library complex is a few blocks away from where the child Khan Noonien-Singh — the notorious ancestor of La’an — lives, and where an alt-universe Captain Kirk was killed trying to restore the timeline.

It is almost unheard of for filming to take place at the Fisher Library, but a rare exception was made for Star Trek: Discovery. Our library’s leadership believed that this collaboration would be a wonderful opportunity to showcase the enduring relevance of libraries in the human quest for meaning. Libraries connect people to the information they seek in their quest for knowledge. The executive producers dedicated the episode with thanks “to librarians everywhere, dedicated to the preservation of artifacts, knowledge, and truth.”…

(10) LEARNING FROM THE SEVENTIES. Francis Hamit recommends Ken Miyamoto’s ScreenCraft article “25 Years Later: Why The DAZED AND CONFUSED Script Works”.

…So with no major character arcs being explored, surely there’s a compelling plot that takes us through the whole eventual film?

Not so much. Dazed and Confused is lacking in significant plot motivations and devices. There is no conventional plotting of moments beyond the overarching conflict of first-year students getting paddled by seniors. That is the sole piece of evidence of any consistent plot.

Instead, we follow the characters through their first day and night of summer. They drive in cars and bob their heads to now-classic seventies tunes, they play baseball, they smoke pot, they drink, they fight, they make out, and that’s about it….

The script teaches us that not every story needs broad character arcs, crucial plot points, and pinpoint structure. If you have stories that involve multiple characters, you can:

  • Engage the reader and audience by showcasing a specific world that attracts attention and interest
  • Offer characters that are void of the clichés we’ve already seen in multiple films and television series
  • Focus on small story windows to enhance the conflicts and drama
  • Use the multiple characters in creative ways to cut between scenes and showcase small character moment windows
  • Find creative ways to break up the dialogue to heighten each and every word that is spoken
  • Learn when too much is too much in scenes during the rewrite process
  • Set up the collaboration process by writing great characters that call for great casting

So go do likewise in your scripts and just keep livin’. L-I-V-I-N.

 (11) MONTY PYTHON. Eric Idle is fond of this take on King Charles’ portrait:

(12) DYSON SPHERES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] There may be seven Dyson spheres within 1,000 light years!

A collaboration of eight, primarily Swedish-based, astronomers have identified seven Dyson sphere candidates within 300 parsecs (about 1,000 light years) of Earth.  The astronomers looked a data from ESA’s Gaia satellite, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and 2MASS of around five million stars.

A Dyson sphere is a theoretical concept seriously developed in 1960 by Freeman Dyson, but actually originating from the novel Star Maker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon. The Dyson sphere is a construct that completely surrounds a star and so captures all of, or most of, its visible light. Similarly, a Dyson swarm is a multitude of small orbiting bodies about a star that captures the majority of its light. While Dyson spheres and Dyson swarms capture visible light, they in turn warm and so give off infra-red (IR) and this IR excess might be considered a ‘techno-signature’ of an extraterrestrial civilisation.

Combing through the Gaia, WISE and 2MASS data, the astronomers come up with 7 possible candidates for Dyson spheres/swarms. The nearest is 466 light years away. All are M-type stars or red dwarfs. The astronomers do point out that there are several alternate natural explanations to the Dyson sphere/swarm suggestions but none of them fully explain the spectra seen from these candidate stars.

See   Suazo, M. et al (2024) Project Hephaistos – II. Dyson sphere candidates from Gaia DR3, 2MASS, and WISE. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. vol. 531 p695–707.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The “Young Frankenstein Movie Documentary (with Mel Brooks)” is a 2002 documentary. A bit self-adulatory, but worth it for the amusing anecdotes.

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is a 1974 American comedy horror film directed by Mel Brooks. The screenplay was co-written by Brooks and Gene Wilder. Wilder also starred in the lead role as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and Peter Boyle as the monster. The film co-stars Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn, and Gene Hackman. The film is a parody of the classic horror film genre, in particular the various film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus produced by Universal Pictures in the 1930s. Much of the lab equipment used as props was created by Kenneth Strickfaden for the 1931 film Frankenstein. To help evoke the atmosphere of the earlier films, Brooks shot the picture entirely in black and white, a rarity in the 1970s, and employed 1930s’ style opening credits and scene transitions such as iris outs, wipes, and fades to black. The film also features a period score by Brooks’ longtime composer John Morris.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Ersatz Culture, Joel Zakem, Francis Hamit, Lise Andreasen, 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 Dann.]

Pixel Scroll 3/28/24 Did You Ever Dance With The Pixel In The Pale Scroll Light?

Posted on by

(1) JAMES A. MOORE (1965-2024). [Item by Anne Marble.]Horror and fantasy author James A. Moore died March 27. Christopher Golden made the announcement in a concise obituary on Facebook.

Celebrated horror and fantasy author James A. Moore passed away this morning at the age of 58. Moore was the author of more than fifty horror and fantasy novels, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under The Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring anti-hero, Jonathan Crowley) and the grimdark fantasy series Seven Forges and Tides of War. Moore also co-wrote many novels and stories with his longtime collaborator Charles R. Rutledge. 

His early career highlights included major contributions to White Wolf Games’ World of Darkness, and he was especially proud of his first comic book script sale, to Marvel Comics original series set in the world of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. A prolific and versatile writer, Jim wrote novels based on various media properties, including Alien, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Avengers. 

He was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award three times, for his novel Serenity Falls, in the long fiction category for Bloodstained Oz, a collaboration with Christopher Golden, and as editor (with Golden) for the groundbreaking horror anthology The Twisted Book of Shadows, for which the pair won the Shirley Jackson Award. 

Beyond his work, Jim Moore was a much-beloved figure in the horror community, a tireless champion of other writers and their work, who mentored dozens of new writers, relentlessly urging them to pursue their desire to tell stories. He is survived by his wife, Tessa Moore, and his legions of readers. No wake or funeral is planned, but a celebration of life will be held sometime in April.

And on his own blog Golden has written a longer and more personal remembrance: “James A. Moore”.

Many writers are remembering Moore as a supportive friend and a mentor.

A couple of GoFundMe campaigns were established by Camp Necon to help James A. Moore (and his family). There was one established to help him during a cancer battle, and there was a more recent one established to help both him and his wife with medical expenses after he beat cancer: “Fundraiser for James A. Moore by Camp Necon : Please Help Jim & Tessa Moore (COVID-19 Expenses)”.

Now a GoFundMe has been started for his memorial expenses.

“Fundraiser by Christopher Golden : James A. Moore Final Wishes and Memorial Expenses”.

This is hard to do. Jim would’ve hated it. He received so much help from so many of you over the past five years, through cancer and Covid and surgeries and job loss and housing loss and amputation. We did two major GoFundMe campaigns during that time. Over the past year, there were moments we talked about doing a third one, but Jim hated the idea of asking again, no matter how much trouble he was in. Sympathy fatigue is real, and so many other people needed help, too.

Jim is going to be cremated. The expense for that is nothing compared to a funeral and a casket and a burial plot, but it’s still costly. I also want to be able to gather everyone together to have a Celebration of Life in a way that honors him. If we could wait a few months, we could risk doing it outside, but I know that everyone is feeling raw and would like to do it sooner. I’d like to do it on a Saturday or Sunday in April.

I’ve set the goal of this GFM to $6K to pay for both his cremation (and associated expenses) and the memorial gathering. I’m not sure it will be enough, but we’ll see. PLEASE NOTE that any monies received over and above the costs of those two things will be given directly to Jim’s wife, Tessa, to help her as she sorts out her next steps. These years have been hard enough, and we’d like to do all we can to help at this time.

(2) WORLDBUILDING ON EARTH. “Arkady Martine in Singapore: On Sci-Fi City Planning and What Makes a ‘City of the Future’” at Reactor.

…Usually in a sci-fi setting, the city functions as a snapshot in time that helps to illustrate how characters engage with their environment; for Martine, this might involve how long it takes for a character to get to their job, or if they even have a job to get to at all. It is not so much concerned with planning, or what drives planning decisions. “Fiction in general, and science fiction specifically, is bad at thinking about city planning as a discipline,” she explains. “Mostly because it feels absolutely dull, it’s worse than economics. I say this as someone who’s trained as a city planner and who loves it very much and actually finds it deeply fascinating and exciting and horrifically political.” More often than not, she finds that the idea of a constructed, planned city in science fiction—with some exceptions—is simply a given. 

“In the US they go on and on…that planning is some kind of neutral process, and that the point of a planner is to be a facilitator,” says Martine. “This is why I ended up in politics and policy and not in planning, because to be perfectly honest, it’s bullshit.” She cites the origins of Victorian infrastructure as a starting point for the western view that the constructed environment determines behavior, “which is that there are too many people and too little space and it’s not sanitary, which is all true.” The solution is not actually ‘everyone has to live in a perfect little garden house,’ but that’s the ideal that is constructed.”…

(3) PURPLE FRIENDS AND OTHERS. “’IF’ Trailer — Ryan Reynolds’ Imaginary Friend Comes to Life” – Collider introduces the movie, which arrives in theaters on May 17.

IF focuses on a young girl with the unique ability to see not only her own imaginary friends but also those of others, particularly the ones left behind by their human companions. These forgotten imaginary beings, once vital to the lives of many children, find themselves lonely and at risk of being forsaken indefinitely. In their desperation, they ally themselves with the girl, seeing her as their last chance to be recalled and cherished again before it’s too late.

(4) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 106 of Octothorpe promises a “Fitter Happier Healthier Eastercon”. Which, of course, you want, right?

Octothorpe 106 is now available! You can listen to it while at Eastercon, while travelling to Eastercon, or in defiance of the occurrence of Eastercon. We discuss, er, Eastercon. We talk about transcripts a little, too, before discussing awards, science fiction, cricket, and games. It’s basically a pretty representative episode, is what we’re saying.

Three ponies in the style of My Little Pony adorn the cover. The left-hand one is orange, and has a six-sided die as a cutie mark. The central one is teal, and has a rainbow Apple logo for a cutie mark. The right-hand one is blue, and has a Hugo Award for a cutie mark. They look like they are having a nice time. The words “My Little Octothorpe 106” appear at the top, and the words “Podcasting Is Magic” appear at the bottom.

(5) PASSING THE PLATE. 13th Dimension ranks “13 Delectable ALEX ROSS Collector Plates”. A whole gallery of images here, naturally.

3. Christmas with the Justice League of America (Warner Bros. Studio Store, 2000). Harking back to some of the classic covers of DC’s Christmas With the Super-Heroes specials, Ross creates a jubilant yuletide scene, literally framed with a bit of melancholy. The classic satellite era League (along with Ross favorites Captain Marvel and Plastic Man) celebrate in their own unique ways: The toast between Martian Manhunter and Red Tornado; Black Canary hanging on Green Arrow’s shoulder; Hawkman and Hawkgirl observing the strange Earth custom of decorating the tree; and my favorite, Green Lantern making the tree lights with his power ring. But all of this is superseded by the Man of Steel beckoning the Dark Knight to let his often-lonely crusade rest for the night, and come inside and join the celebration.

(6) LIADEN UNIVERSE® NEWS. Sharon Lee announced that the  eARC (electronic Advance Reading Copy) of Ribbon Dance is now available from Baen Books.

Also, a spoiler discussion page has been set up for those folks who have read the eARC and Want To Talk About It. Here is that link.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 28, 1912 — A. Bertram Chandler. (Died 1984.) Tonight’s Scroll features a Birthday for a writer from Australia — A. Bertram Chandler. 

Did you ever hear of space opera? Of course you have. Well, the universe of Chandler’s character John Grimes was such. A very good place to start is the Baen Books omnibus of To The Galactic Rim which contains three novels and seven stories. If there’s a counterpart to him, it’d be I think Dominic Flandry who appeared in Anderson’s Technic History series. (My opinion, yours may differ.) Oh, and I’ve revisited both to see if the Suck Fairy had dropped by. She hadn’t.

A. Bertram Chandler

Connected to the Grimes stories are the Rim World works of which The Deep Reaches of Space is the prime work. The main story is set in an earlier period of the same future timeline as Grimes, a period in which ships are the magnetic Gaussjammers, recalled with some nostalgia in Grimes’ time. 

But that’s hardly all that he wrote. I remember fondly The Alternate Martians, a novella that he did. A space expedition to Mars that find themselves in the worlds of H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Otis Adelbert Kline. Why he chose the latter I know not as I’d never heard of him. It’s a great story well told. And fun to boot. It was first published as an Ace Double, The Alternate Martians / Empress of Outer Space. Gateway has released it as a separate epub for a mere buck ninety nine at the usual suspects. 

He wrote a reasonably large number of stand-alone-alones, so what did I like?  For a bit of nicely done horror, you can’t beat The Star Beasts — yes, I know that there’s nothing terribly original there but it’s entertaining to read; Glory Planet has a watery Venus occupied by anti-machine theocracy opposed by a high-tech city-state fascinating; and finally I liked The Coils of Timeenin which a scientist has created a Time Machine but now needs a guinea pig, errr, a volunteer to go back through time and see what’s there —  did it go as planned? Oh guess.

I see that he’s written but a handful of short stories, none of which I’ve read other than the ones in To The Galactic Rim. So who here has? 

He’s won five Ditmars and The Giant Killer novel was nominated for a Retro Hugo. 

All in all, I like him a lot. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) SOUNDS FAMILIAR. From the New York Times: “Like My Book Title? Thanks, I Borrowed It.” Just like the Scroll item headlines here, yes?

You see it everywhere, even if you don’t always recognize it: the literary allusion. Quick! Which two big novels of the past two years borrowed their titles from “Macbeth”? Nailing the answer — “Birnam Wood” and “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” — might make you feel a little smug.

Perhaps the frisson of cleverness (I know where that’s from!), or the flip-side cringe of ignorance (I should know where that’s from!), is enough to spur you to buy a book, the way a search-optimized headline compels you to click a link. After all, titles are especially fertile ground for allusion-mongering. The name of a book becomes more memorable when it echoes something you might have heard — or think you should have heard — before.

This kind of appropriation seems to be a relatively modern phenomenon. Before the turn of the 20th century titles were more descriptive than allusive. The books themselves may have been stuffed with learning, but the words on the covers were largely content to give the prospective reader the who (“Pamela,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Frankenstein”), where (“Wuthering Heights,” “The Mill on the Floss,” “Treasure Island”) or what (“The Scarlet Letter,” “War and Peace,” “The Way We Live Now”) of the book.

Somehow, by the middle of the 20th century, literature had become an echo chamber. Look homeward, angel! Ask not for whom the sound and the fury slouches toward Bethlehem in dubious battle. When Marcel Proust was first translated into English, he was made to quote Shakespeare, and “In Search of Lost Time” (the literal, plainly descriptive French title) became “Remembrance of Things Past,” a line from Sonnet 30.

(10) YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING. “Liu Cixin: ‘I’m often asked – there’s science fiction in China?’” he told the Guardian.

…Science fiction was a rarity in China when Liu was growing up because most western books were banned. Living in a coal mining town in Shanxi province as a young man, he found a book hidden in a box that once belonged to his father. It was Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, and Liu read it in secret, and in doing so forged a lifelong love of science fiction….

(11) BREAD FOR CIRCUSES. “The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming: ‘One day you’ll barter bread for our DVDs’” in the Guardian. Anybody who’s bought an ebook from Amazon doesn’t need a natural disaster to convince them about the advantages of owning physical media.

When a hurricane struck Florida in 2018, Christina’s neighborhood lost electricity, cell service and internet. For four weeks her family was cut off from the world, their days dictated by the rising and setting sun. But Christina did have a vast collection of movies on DVD and Blu-ray, and a portable player that could be charged from an emergency generator.

Word got around. The family’s library of physical films and books became a kind of currency. Neighbors offered bottled water or jars of peanut butter for access. The 1989 Tom Hanks comedy The ’Burbs was an inexplicably valuable commodity, as were movies that could captivate restless and anxious children.

“I don’t think 99% of people in America would ever stop to think, ‘What would I do if I woke up tomorrow and all access to digital media disappeared?’ But we know,” Christina told me. “We’ve lived it. We’ll never give up our collection. Ever. And maybe, one day, you’ll be the one to come and barter a loaf of bread for our DVD of Casino.”…

(12) IN SPACE NOBODY CAN HEAR YOU LAUGH. “Spaceballs: 12 Behind the Scenes Stories of Mel Brooks’ Ludicrous Sci-Fi Adventure” at Moviemaker. Here’s one I never thought of:

Spaceballs Was Also Inspired by It Happened One Night

One of the biggest reference points for Spaceballs wasn’t a sci-fi film, but a Frank Capra classic, 1934’s It Happened One Night. The film was the first to sweep the top five Oscar categories — Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress.

The film follows an heiress (Claudette Colbert) who flees her dull groom on her wedding day and falls for a cool regular guy played by Clark Gable. “We took that same basic plot and shot it into space!” Brooks wrote in his memoir.

In Spaceballs, Princess Vespa of Planet Druidia (Daphne Zuniga) flees her dull groom, Prince Valium, on her wedding day, and falls for a cool regular guy named Lone Starr (Bill Pullman).

(13) DON’T ASK? “Artemis astronauts will carry plants to the moon in 2026” reports Space.com. Strangely, neither this article nor the NASA press release it’s based on say what specific plants will be part of the experiment.

The first astronauts to land on the moon in more than half a century will set up a lunar mini-greenhouse, if all goes according to plan.

NASA has selected the first three science experiments to be deployed by astronauts on the moon’s surface on the Artemis 3 mission in 2026. Among them is LEAF (“Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora”), which will study how space crops fare in the exotic lunar environment.”LEAF will be the first experiment to observe plant photosynthesis, growth and systemic stress responses in space-radiation and partial gravity,” NASA officials wrote in a statement Tuesday (March 26) announcing the selection of the three experiments….

(14) WAS HE LOST IN SPACE? Dan Monroe investigates “Whatever Happened to ROBBY The ROBOT?”

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Slashfilm covers (and uncovers) “The Most Controversial Costumes In Sci-Fi History”.

The worst superhero costume in history, space bikinis, and a leather trenchcoat that sparked a media frenzy — sci-fi costumes don’t get much more controversial than this.

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

Pixel Scroll 1/17/23 A Stone Soup Of Pixels Served Up With Buttered Toasted Scrolls

Posted on by

(1) PLAYING THE TRUMPS. “Stephen Colbert to Produce ‘Chronicles of Amber’ TV Series Adaptation” reports Variety.

Stephen Colbert is joining the team that is adapting Roger Zelazny’s “The Chronicles of Amber” for television [under his Spartina production banner].

… “George R.R. Martin and I have similar dreams,” Colbert said. “I’ve carried the story of Corwin in my head for over 40 years, and I’m thrilled to partner with Skybound and Vincent Newman to bring these worlds to life. All roads lead to Amber, and I’m happy to be walking them.”

“The Chronicles of Amber” follows the story of Corwin, who is said to “awaken on Earth with no memory, but soon finds he is a prince of a royal family that has the ability to travel through different dimensions of reality (called ‘shadows’) and rules over the one true world, Amber.”…

(2) MORE LORE. Season 3 of The Mandalorian airs 3 March 1 on Disney+.

The journeys of the Mandalorian through the Star Wars galaxy continue. Once a lone bounty hunter, Din Djarin has reunited with Grogu. Meanwhile, the New Republic struggles to lead the galaxy away from its dark history. The Mandalorian will cross paths with old allies and make new enemies as he and Grogu continue their journey together.

And according to Dark Horizons:

…A fourth season of the series is already in development, whilst this arrives ahead of both “Star Wars: Ahsoka” and “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew”, both due to arrive on the Disney+ service later this year. Filming on “Star Wars: The Acolyte” and a second season of “Star Wars: Andor” are both underway in the UK at present….

(3) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. Simultaneous Times SF podcast episode 59 has been released. Listen to it here. Stories featured in this episode:

  • “Three to Go” by Ria Rees. Music by Phog Masheeen. Read by Jean-Paul Garnier 
  • “Ghosts” by Michael Butterworth. Music by Julie Carpenter. Read by the author.

Simultaneous Times is a monthly science fiction podcast produced by Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree, CA.

(4) FIFTIETH DAY OF HARPERCOLLINS STRIKE TOMORROW. Supporters of the strike against HarperCollins will rally January 18. Publishers Weekly has details: “HarperCollins Union Plans Rally at News Corp Offices in Manhattan”.

As unionized employees at HarperCollins Publishers prepare to mark their 50th day on strike next week, union representatives announced that a rally is planned outside the publisher’s parent company, News Corp, in Manhattan at 12:30 p.m. on January 18. Since November 10 of last year, labor negotiations between the union and company executives have been stalled, and union representatives are hoping to put pressure on the publisher to return to the bargaining table.

Local 2110 of the UAW represents more than 250 HarperCollins employees in editorial, sales, publicity, design, legal, and marketing departments. Union representatives said negotiations have stalled over higher pay, a greater commitment to diversifying staff, and stronger union protection. Negotiations started in December 2021 and unionized employees have been working without a contract since April 2022….

(5) WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, THEY SAY. [Item by Bill Higgins.] Kenneth Hite, a Chicago author, game designer, and podcaster, was shot in the leg last week by armed robbers near his Hyde Park home.  Fortunately, he’s going to be fine.  Furthermore, he sold an account of the experience to the UK magazine The Spectator.  Because Ken Hite is a true professional. “Trigger warning: how it feels to get shot”.

… But at 3.10 a.m. on Friday, I was walking home from a late-night writing session at a colleague’s apartment a block from my house. (I work as a games designer.) A car pulled up, and two guys with guns jumped out and aggressively requested my 2014 MacBook Air.

I wish I could say I carefully considered whether my life was worth more than a nine-year-old computer and (more importantly) a manuscript I hadn’t backed up, but I acted without thinking and ran. After six or seven shots, I felt a hard thump on the back of my right calf. Then the two geniuses remembered that stuff about the third-largest armed force in Illinois, jumped back into their car and tore off. I counted my blessings and let myself into my house.

It was then that I noticed an awful lot of blood on the floor around my foot. The gunshots had, it turned out, awakened my wife Sheila, who wondered if I knew what had happened. Suddenly I did. ‘I’ve been shot in the leg,’ I told her. She called 911 and both sets of police – University of Chicago and Chicago Police Department – showed up almost immediately. In between questions, one of the cops put a tourniquet on my leg. I’ve heard since that if the tourniquet doesn’t hurt more than the bullet wound, it’s not on tight enough. This one was on tight enough….

(6) COVID STALKS AWARDS SHOWS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Following the Golden Globe Awards, several celebrities (including some particularly big names) tested positive for COVID. Apparently in response, the Critics Choice Awards instituted a COVID test policy. “Several celebrities test positive for COVID after Golden Globes” at ABC News.

In the wake of the Golden Globes last week, several celebrities said they have tested positive for COVID-19.

At least four stars, including Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Pfeiffer, revealed they contracted the virus following the awards show.

In response, the Critics Choice Awards, which was held on Sunday, announced that all attendees would be required to submit a negative COVID-19 test before entering the venue, according to Deadline.

Public health experts said the news of actors and actresses falling ill is not surprising due to the relaxed regulations and people gathering indoors.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1992 — [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]  Mexican food liked you’ve dreamed of

Tonight’s essay concerns Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies. It was published by Doubleday in Mexico in 1992 as Como agua para chocolate.  Yes, the English language title is a lot longer.

Perfection Learning published the first edition in 1995. The film actually came out here in 1993 before the book was published here because though shot in Mexico, it had simultaneous English and Spanish language versions. 

So let’s talk about the book. And a magical book it is. Even in the English translation! The original Spanish version, Como agua para chocolat, was the top-selling book in Mexico in 1990. As a work of Latin magical realism, it can’t be topped by any other work to date. I unfortunately don’t know Spanish so I read the English translation which is quite excellent.

Now it’s here because a recurring theme of both the book and the film that came out is is food, which is used to represent all aspects of the vibrant, if troubled, Mexican culture. Hardly a scene goes by without someone eating or preparing a meal, and some of the more tasty chapters/scenes involve truly awesome banquets. Both in the book and in the film, there’s a real feeling that food is more than just something one eats. Food here is a celebration of the helix of life and death, of consuming and being consumed.

It’s is possibly the most erotic film ever made. Truly it is. Even the baking of bread becomes an act of eros. 

Now here’s an exquisite example of the food scenes herein

She felt so lost and lonely. One last chile in walnut sauce left on the platter after a fancy dinner couldn’t feel any worse than she did. How many times had she eaten one of those treats, standing by herself in the kitchen, rather than let it be thrown away. When nobody eats the last chile on the plate, it’s usually because none of them wants to look like a glutton, so even though they’d really like to devour it, they don’t have the nerve to take it. It was as if they were rejecting that stuffed pepper, which contains every imaginable flavor; sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, with the bit of pepper and the subtlety of walnuts, that marvelous chile in the walnut sauce. Within it lies the secret of love, but it will never be penetrated, and all because it wouldn’t feel proper.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born January 17, 1899 — Nevil Shute. Author of On the Beach. It originally appeared as a four-part series, The Last Days on Earth, in the London weekly Sunday Graphic in April 1957. It was twice a film. He has other SF novels including An Old Captivity which involves time travel and No Highway which gets a review by Pohl in Super Science Stories, April 1949. There’s In the Wet and Vinland the Good as well. (Died 1960.)
  • Born January 17, 1910 — Carol Hughes. Genre fans will no doubt best recognize her as Dale Arden in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe from sixty years ago. Other than The Red Dragon, a Charlie Chan film done in the Forties if I remember correctly, I’m not seeing anything that’s even genre adjacent for her though I’m assuming that the Fifties Ghost Buster short she was in should be a genre production. (Died 1995.)
  • Born January 17, 1927 — Eartha Kitt. Though you’ll have lots of folks remembering her as Catwoman from the original Batman, she appeared in but four episodes there. Genre wise, she was in such series as I-Spy, Mission: Impossible, Matrix, the animated Space Ghost Coast to Coast and the animated My Life as a Teenage Robot. Film wise, she played Freya in Erik the Viking, voiced Bagheera in The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story and was Madame Zeroni In Holes.(Died 2008.)
  • Born January 17, 1931 — James Earl Jones, 92. His first SF appearance was in Dr. Strangelove as Lt. Lothar Zogg.  And I think I need not list all his appearances as Darth Vader here. Some genre appearances include Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Flight of Dragons, Conan the Barbarian as Thulsa Doom and I actually remember him in that role, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, did you know the 1995 Judge Dredd had a Narrator? Well he’s listed as doing it, and Fantasia 2000 as well. In 2022, his voice was used via software for Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan KenobiDisney+ miniseries. Jones signed a deal with Lucasfilm authorizing archival recordings of his voice to be used in the future to artificially generate the voice of Darth Vader. Jones said later that all Vader voicing would using AI software. 
  • Born January 17, 1935 — Paul O. Williams. A poet won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 1983 after publishing The Breaking of Northwall and The Ends of the Circle which are the first two novels of his Pelbar Cycle. I’ve not read these, so be interested in your opinions, of course. (Died 2009.)
  • Born January 17, 1962 — Jim Carrey, 61. His first genre film is Once Bitten whose content is obvious from its name. The ‘dorable Earth Girls Are Easy was next followed up by Batman Forever in which he played a manic Riddler, then there’s the The Truman Show which stretches genre boundaries I think. May we not talk about How the Grinch Stole Christmas? And is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind genre?,  who’s seen Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events?, Horton Hears a Who! (FUN!), A Christmas Carol  of which I know nothing, Mr. Popper’s Penguins (well it sounds cute) and, I’m not you, Sonic the Hedgehog. Busy, isn’t he?
  • Born January 17, 1970 — Genndy Tartakovsky, 53. Like Romulan Ale, animation style is a matter of taste. So while I like his work on Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars, I can understand why many SW fans don’t as it’s definitely an acquired taste.  He also is responsible for directing the animated Hotel Transylvania franchise. 

(9) THE SKY’S THE LIMIT. “Should We Block the Sun to Counter Climate Change?” – an opinion piece in the New York Times.

Last month, a two-person start-up company by the name of Make Sunsets claimed that it had launched weather balloons filled with reflective sulfur particles into the sky somewhere over the coast of Baja California. More provocation than experiment, the launch was a first-of-its-kind field test of a climate intervention known as geoengineering: a branch of speculative technology that promises to counteract and even reverse global warming by altering Earth’s atmosphere.

Long a taboo idea among climate experts thought too dangerous even to research, geoengineering is becoming increasingly mainstream. In 2019, Congress gave the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration $4 million to research techniques like the one Make Sunsets just tested, and it has since drawn interest from the Biden administration.

As the world continues to fall short of the goals of the Paris agreement and the costs of climate change mount, is geoengineering an idea worth taking seriously, or is it a world-historically reckless distraction from the global effort to transition away from fossil fuels? Here’s a look at the debate….

(10) A CELLER’S MARKET. [Item by Christian Brunschen.] A company literally calling themselves “SciFi Foods” are using CRISPR gene editing to develop “scalable beef cell lines” for cultivation — with the CEO claiming inspiration from Ian M. Banks’ The Player of Games. (They’re by far not the only cultivated-meat company out there of course.) “The first CRISPR gene-edited meat is coming. This is the CEO making sci-fi a reality” at Fast Company.

…Cost parity with traditional meat is every founder’s goal, one that sets a seemingly unattainable target. (In 2022, the average price of ground beef was $4.81/lb.) SciFi is betting that the only way to economically scale cultivated meat is with CRISPR, and that by making iterative tweaks they can create dependable cell lines with rich, meat-y flavor. “We have an eventual target of $1 per burger at commercial scale,” March says.

Once harvested, beef cells will be formulated into a blended burger that is mostly like the plant-based burgers you may already know—soy protein and coconut oil. SciFi’s secret sauce is adding a small percentage of SciFi cells (5% to 20%, according to March) to reward our taste buds with the beef-y notes we may think are missing from competitors like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. Blood-quickening, salivatory, tempting….

(11) TRIVIAL TRIVIA. The TV adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story, “The Electric Grandmother”, first aired on this day in 1982.

(12) EXTRA CREDIT. Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part 2, “A sequel 40 years in the making.” A four-night event, streaming March 6 on Hulu. John King Tarpinian declares, “I can hardly wait.”

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Honest Trailers — Demolition Man” sends up another Sylvester Stallone science ficton movie.

…One of the few R-rated action sci-fi films that’s remembered more for its clever writing than its shootouts. But kids today will never understand the significance of this movie just like my ex-wife will never understand the significance of the John Spartan mannequin I bought from a Planet Hollywood estate sale….

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Christian Brunschen, Bill Higgins, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 12/20/21 The RingWorld Must Roll, Please Turn On Your Scrith-Magnetic Footware

Posted on by

(1) HUGO AWARDS ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES. There’s been a demand for copies of some of the speeches by Hugo winners at the DisCon III ceremony. Here are links to three now online:

Martha Wells, who won twice, posted the text of her Best Series acceptance speech at “Hugo Awards”. (Only one speech — as she says, “I didn’t expect to win twice.”)

… I’ve been in this field since my first novel was published in 1993, and it has not always been good to me. At first I was too young and later I was too old. I was from the wrong place, I had the wrong accent, I wasn’t friends with the right people. And I know the amount of shit I’ve experienced is a small fraction compared to what writers of color, and other marginalized writers, have experienced and continue to experience in this field.

There are people who don’t want you to write. They especially don’t want you to write and be published. They want all stories to be told by people who are just like them. They have many different ways of letting you know that, and they all add up, and sometimes the weight of it is crushing….

Diana M. Pho, who won Best Editor: Long Form, has both text and video here: “My 2021 Hugo Award Speech”.

It was so unspeakably painful to live the last 18 months knowing — sharply — your breath, the very words out of your mouth, can kill.

Strangers. Loved ones. The vulnerable.

It makes you so afraid to speak. It makes you second-guess your choices. It makes even now being vaxxed, tested, boostered, all that, is not enough. Perhaps I am not enough. But I have done… I have now nothing except my words by which to make this known. It is so hard to feel the pressure and the honor to have the Hugo Award tonight….

Joe Sherry, part of the team that creates Best Fanzine winner Nerds of a Feather, has posted his speech here, with added remarks by the other editors Adri, The G and Vance.

… I’d like to thank and acknowledge the various writers at Nerds of a Feather, both past and present. Our names are on the trophy, but it is your writing day in and day out that makes this possible. You’ve been the best team of writers we could have ever asked to have and you’ve carried us along. You earned this. Thank you…

(2) WELLS-KNOWN. The Guardian’s David Barnett reports on the streak: “Martha Wells continues run of female Hugo award winners”.

… This is the sixth year that a woman has taken the best novel award, with Wells following Arkady Martine last year, Mary Robinette Kowal in 2019, and – for the previous three years – NK Jemisin….

(3) REFLECTIONS. L.D. Lewis, art director for Best Semiprozine Hugo finalist FIYAH Literary Magazine, described incidents of racism she experienced at DisCon III, her first Worldcon. Thread includes five tweets with examples. Starts here.

Lewis is also publisher at Fireside Fiction, founding Director of FIYAHCON, chair of the 2021 Nebula Conference, and Awards Manager for the Lambda Literary Foundation.

(4) MORE REFLECTIONS. It was also the first Worldcon for Clint Schnekloth, pastor of a Lutheran church in Arkansas, and founder of a refugee resettlement agency, who wrote up his experiences at DisCon III in “Pastoral Reflections On The World Science Fiction Convention (#WorldCon2021)” at Patheos, a wide-spectrum site about religions.

…One of the more remarkable aspects of the Con is the way the attendees steward the story of the conventions as a form of in-group identity. Quite often they say, “I found my people.” Or, “Let me tell you the history of what the many Cons were like and where they took place.” This typically comes up in any conversation long before any personal introductions like “where are you from” or “what do you do.”

As we talked, Wesley Chu walked up and joined our conversation. He was both interested in lunch tips, and because I had just attended his kaffeeklatsch he now quasi-knew me (Chu is a New York Times bestselling author with multiple books now optioned for television). This is another part of these Cons. Authors are still also just fans and people. There’s no special treatment.

Chu was heading off soon to go see the new Spiderman film, but in the meantime Juliette Wade walked up and introduced herself. This was a novelist new to me who now intrigues me, as I think she writes at the intersection of disability justice and sci-fi. Joining her was Kate JohnsTon, who among other things is a sensitivity editor. Turns out Kate is also new friends with a neighbor of GSLC here in Fayetteville, who just set up a coffee with me next week. So that’s weird small world.

This morning I got up and the first thing I did was playtest a new RPG with a novelist who is turning his stories into a game. We took about 30 minutes to create characters, then immediately set our characters out on a rescue/capture adventure on another planet. Leaning in to a bit of gaming with the hum of the convention in the background was just about perfect.

Now this afternoon I went to a session on Queering Necromancy. This panel discussion was packed to the gills. It’s hard to summarize everything said by the panel, but one thing stood out. A panelist said, “In a way, coming out is necromancy.” It’s both a kind of coming back to life after death, a raising of oneself, but it also means in some instances dying to others in order to live….

(5) LAKE WOE-IS-ME. The series’ holiday entry is coming this week. Meanwhile, use this newly-created page to catch up with all the installments of Melanie Stormm’s humorous series about the misdirected emails she gets from Writer X: “Emails From Lake Woe-Is-Me: Links To Every Installment”.

(6) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1970 — [Item by Cat Eldridge.] Fifty-one years ago on this evening, “The Great Santa Claus Switch” aired on CBS  as part of The Ed Sullivan Show. It was directed by John Moffitt (who has one genre cred, directing The Werewolf of Woodstock film) as written by Jerry Juhl. The puppets here were designed by Don Sahlin who done some of the puppets on Kukla, Fran and Ollie. (Yes, I remember that show fondly.) The human here was Art Carney with the Muppet players this time being Jim Henson, Fran Brill, Richard Hunt, John Lovelady, Jerry Nelson, Frank Oz and Danny Seagren.

The special, narrated by Ed Sullivan narrated in a chair surrounded by children on the floor by a fireplace, begins at the North Pole with Santa Claus and his Christmas Elves getting ready for another Christmas. However, Cosmo Scam played by Art Carney has hatched a plan to kidnap Santa and take his place. As part of the plan, Cosmo plans to abduct Santa’s Christmas Elves one by one and replace them with his evil henchmen.  It’s the Muppets first television special being done after four years of guest spots on the show. 

It hasn’t been released on DVD as the rights are held by the assignees of the Ed Sullivan Show, but you can watch it here.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 20, 1838 — Edwin Abbott Abbott. Author of the Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, an 1884 novella that has come to be adopted as SF even though it’s really mathematical fiction. Go ahead, argue with me. (Died 1926.)
  • Born December 20, 1943 — Jacqueline Pearce. She’s best known as the villain Servalan on Blake’s 7. She appeared in “The Two Doctors”, a Second and Sixth Doctor story  as Chessene, and she’d voice Admiral Mettna in “Death Comes to Time”, a Seventh Doctor story. I’d be remiss not to note her one-offs in Danger Man, The Avengers, The Chronicles of Young Indiana Jones and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. (Died 2018.)
  • Born December 20, 1952 — Jenny Agutter, 69. Her first SF role was Jessica 6, the female lead in Logan’s Run. Later genre roles include Nurse Alex Price In An American Werewolf in London (fantastic film), Carolyn Page in Dark Tower which is not a Stephen King based film, an uncredited cameo as a burn doctor in one of my all time fave films which is Darkman and finally she was Councilwoman Hawley in The Avengers and The Winter Soldier. 
  • Born December 20, 1952 — Kate Atkinson, 69. A strong case can be made that her Jackson Brodie detective novels are at least genre adjacent with their level of Universe assisting metanarrative. (Her Jason Isaacs fronted series is also superb.) The Life After Life douology is definitely SF and pretty good reading too. She’s well stocked on all of the usual suspects. 
  • Born December 20, 1960 — Nalo Hopkinson, 61. First novel I ever read by her was Brown Girl in The Ring, a truly amazing novel. Like most of her work, it draws on Afro-Caribbean history and language, and its intertwined traditions of oral and written storytelling. I’d also single out Mojo: Conjure Stories and Falling in Love With Hominids collections as they are both wonderful and challenging reading. Worth seeking out is her edited Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction. Midnight Robber earned her only Hugo nomination at The Millennium Philcon. 
  • Born December 20,1970 — Nicole de Boer, 51. Best remembered for playing the trill Ezri Dax on the final season of Deep Space Nine, and as Sarah Bannerman on The Dead Zone. She’s done a number of genre films including Deepwater Black, Cube, Iron Invader, and Metal Tornado, and has one-offs in Beyond Reality, Forever Knight, TekWar, Outer Limits, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Psi Factor and Stargate Atlantis. Did I mention she’s Canadian?
  • Born December 20, 1984 — Ilean Almaguer, 37. Here for her role as Illa on the most excellent Counterpart series. If you’ve not seen it, I highly recommend it. 

(8) DIVE IN. Miyuki Jane Pinckard helps promote the Mermaids Monthly Kickstarter campaign in a guest post at Sarah Gailey’s Stone Soup: “Thalassophobia”. The Kickstarter has nine days to run.

The thing is, I’m afraid of the ocean.

…I can’t quite pinpoint exactly when my feelings about the ocean and mermaids shifted. What I do know for a fact is that back in December 2019, amid a bleak world (with no idea how much bleaker it was going to get in just a couple of months), I backed a Kickstarter that promised mermaid fiction, poems, art, and comics, once a month. I didn’t especially care for mermaids then, but I really admired the work that Julia Rios and Meg Frank had done elsewhere, and I like to support independent publishing.

Every month, the issues landed in my inbox. They were, first of all, incredibly beautiful to look at, from their stunning covers to the layouts, the font choices, the interior art. And the stories! They featured a wildly diverse range of mer-creatures from righteously vengeful sea witches to joyful selkies to sirenas to human girls longing to become mermaids to climate activist rebels. Mischievous rusalki and wild trapped mermaids. Stories that engaged with disability and toxic relationships and the meaning of home.

I began to realize that, actually, mermaids did mean a lot to me. And so did oceans….

(9) IT HAPPENED ONE VERY STARRY NIGHT. Polygon’s headline “George Lucas threatened Spaceballs’ Mel Brooks over Star Wars parody merch” doesn’t seem a fair representation of what’s said in the body of the article. However, there’s much more about Spaceballs than the issue with Lucas.

…Why? As Brooks explains in All About Me!, even a parody of sci-fi starts with finding the right story. Rather than looking to Star Wars, Alien, 2001 or any of the other famous science fiction plot, Brooks writes that Spaceballs was “inspired by Frank Capra’s 1934 classic It Happened One Night.”

“It is the story of a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) who escapes her marriage by fleeing on her wedding day from a very, very rich but very, very dull groom and then she subsequently falls in love with an attractive wise-guy commoner (Clark Gable). We took that same basic plot and shoved it into space!”…

(10) NO KIDDING? Atlas Obscura assures us “In Sweden, There Is No Christmas Without Donald Duck”. “In Sweden, the Christmas star has a yellow bill, a furious temper, and no pants.”

EVERY COUNTRY HAS ITS OWN festive holiday traditions. Austrian children fear Krampus, the half-goat, half-demon who beats naughty children with sticks. Catalonian nativity scenes feature a small defecating man. And in Sweden, about 40 percent of the country gathers round the squawk box on Christmas Eve—to watch Donald Duck.

Every year since 1959, at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, the 1958 special Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul (Donald Duck and His Friends Wish You a Merry Christmas, in English) is screened on Sweden’s main public television channel, TV1. Known in English as From All of Us to All of You, this hour of Disney mayhem is hosted by Jiminy Cricket, who leads viewers through about a dozen “Christmas cards” that open to reveal shorts, film clips and other cartoons dating from the 1930s through the 1960s. For decades Sweden only had two channels, and this was the only time of year when people could watch Disney animation or American cartoons on television. And the tradition stuck. Swedes are so compelled by the cartoon that last year during the program, cell data usage fell 28 percent and calls to emergency services dropped 16 percent, reports the Local.

(11) ROAD HOG. “Sonic the Hedgehog will become playable via Tesla” reports Eurogamer. Legislators are already dealing with the first question that came to my mind.

Sega’s original Sonic the Hedgehog game will soon become playable via Tesla in-car screens.

Its the latest game to join the Tesla in-car games service, which is compatible with USB controllers. The move comes after a new partnership between the Elon Musk car company and Sega.

Of course, the comparisons between Tesla and Sonic make for an easy brand hookup. One can be wild, out of control, and controlled via computer – and the other… well, you get my drift.

Over the years, numerous games have become available to play via Tesla – including Cuphead, and The Witcher 3. With Cuphead, at least, you could only play while parked or charging – which is common sense.

Last month, the UK government finally announced plans to make playing games while driving illegal – at least while using a mobile phone.

(12) PLAY AGAIN? IGN points to the Homeworld 3 official trailer.

The legendary real-time strategy series is finally getting a new sequel. Check out the trailer for Homeworld 3, revealed at The Game Awards 2021

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Steven French, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 1/31/21 The Gripping Hand Is Quicker Than The Eye With A Mote In It

Posted on by

(1) IBA WINNERS. The “Infected by Art 9 Winners” were announced January 18. The jury panel members were Ed Binkley, Tran Nguyen, John Picacio and Dug Stanat. [H/t Locus Online]

Scott Gustafson – St. George and the Dragon

GRAND PRIZE WINNERS

The artworks that won Art Medium Category Honors are listed here.

Hope Doe was also chosen by her peers to win the Body of Work Award for IBA 9.

Out of almost 2,000 pieces submitted to this year’s competition there were 63 artworks that were unanimously selected by the Jury Panel through their rounds of voting which have been given special recognition. What the Jury Panel felt were the best pieces submitted to IBA 9 can be viewed at the link. See all 336 artworks selected for IBA 9 here.

Infected by Art Volume 9 will have 269 artists represented. IBA 9 will go into production in Spring and debut next Fall at IX 2021.

(2) PERPETUAL FAVORITE. In the Washington Post, Danny Freedman discusses The Monster At The End Of This Book, a Sesame Street Little Golden Book which has sold 13 million copies, been turned into a book app and a half-hour animated special on HBO Max, and introduced generations of four-year-olds to metafiction. “’The Monster at the End of this Book’ is still a hit”.

… It’s one of the top-10 selling Little Golden Books of all time. A decade-old interactive app version has been downloaded more than half a million times and is among the most popular book apps. Last fall, HBO Max released an animated special based on the book, giving sales another bump.

All of that has made “The Monster at the End of This Book” an unlikely constant, at a rarefied height, though it still chases the iconic status of picture books such as “The Cat in the Hat,” “Goodnight Moon” and “Where the Wild Things Are.”

And the book’s long tail of influence is out of proportion with its 24 pages and its cardboard cover devoid of medallions. It’s come to be regarded as an evolutionary step in children’s metafiction, nudging further the creation of stories that “demystify bookmaking for children and invite them to sort of get their hands dirty,” says children’s book historian Leonard Marcus.

(3) WISCON 2021. Due to the pandemic there will not be a full-scale WisCon in 2021, only a small event sufficient to honor the hotel contract. The guests of honor have once again been rolled forward to the next in-person WisCon in 2022: Rebecca Roanhorse and Yoon Ha Lee, who were originally invited to attend WisCon 44 in 2020; as well as Sheree Renée Thomas and Zen Cho, who were originally invited to attend WisCon 45 in 2021.

What will happen instead?
Firstly, we are in the process of planning a much smaller in-person event to occur at the Concourse Hotel in May in order to fulfill the contract we signed with them. This would look something like an intensive workshop event, rather than a convention, and the Workshops department has been looking into how it could work. The number of attendees would also be vastly reduced, in compliance with whatever guidance Public Health Madison & Dane County has in place at the time. We’ll be talking again with the Concourse Hotel this month and probably again later to revisit these plans.

The group would also like to plan another WisCONline to occur in 2021 if they can get enough help.

(4) THE MILENNIUM APPROACHES. James Davis Nicoll is making a list and checking it twice – of the number of works he’s reviewed on his blog. James says, “I have just discovered I am 4 1/2 books away from having reviewed an even one thousand books by women.”

Grand Total to Date
1770 works reviewed. 994.5 by women (56%), 738.5 by men (42%), 21 by non-binary authors (1%), 15 by gender unknown (1%), 488.75 by POC (28%)

(5) MEET THE FANEDS. Cora Buhlert has two more Fanzine Spotlight posts, one for Runalong the Shelves, a UK book blog by “Runalong Womble”, and the other for Warp Speed Odyssey, a Canadian SFF site.

Tell us about your site or zine.

Runalong The Shelves is now in its fourth year and is very much a book blog with a big focus on reviewing science fiction and fantasy but also interested in horror and the occasional thriller. You may find me interviewing authors on recent works; answering the odd book tag and taking part in a small annual blogger jury award named Subjective Chaos Kind of Award which is a lot of fun debating books with different bloggers. I try to be diverse both in the types of books I review but also increasingly promoting the diverse voices creating them which I think is a wonderful move for our genre (and way overdue)

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

I [Steven Morrissette] started by myself slowly but then I met Jean-Paul Garnier from Space Cowboy Books who was of tremendous help and also became the first contributing author, reviewing some books and conducting some interviews for Warp Speed Odyssey. Furthermore, Robin Rose Graves who is a friend of Jean-Paul became the second contributing author submitting book reviews and interviews as well. And Finally, there is my sister Jessica who started translating some of the articles into french.

(6) DE FOREST OBIT. The Space Review reported the death of Kellam de Forest (1926–2021) on January 19 from complications due to COVID-19: “Kellam de Forest, who gave us Stardates and the Gorn”.

…De Forest was one of two technical advisors that Gene Roddenberry employed during the production of the original Star Trek television series….

With a degree in American history from Yale, de Forest made many major contributions to the original television series created by Gene Roddenberry including developing the idea of the Stardate, which he supplied for Star Trek’s second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”

(7) TODAY’S DAY.

January 31 – Gorilla Suit Day

Mad Magazine artist Don Martin created the idea of Gorilla Suit Day for a 1963 comic strip in which a character mocks the holiday and is then assaulted by gorillas and people in gorilla suits. 

(8) MEDIA ANNIVERSARIES.

  • 1981 — Forty years ago, Clifford D. Simak’s “Grotto of the Dancing Deer” wins the Hugo Award for Short Story at Denvention Two. It would also win a Nebula, and both Locus and Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact would make it their first place pick that year. It was originally published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact in the April 1980 issue.
  • January 31, 1993 — Space Rangers came to a quick end on CBS, airing its fouth of sixth episodes, “To Be … Or Not To Be”. (The final two episodes aired later.) It was created by Pat Densham, and it starred a cast that arguably was larger than the length of the series: Jeff Kaake, Jack McGee, Marjorie Monaghan, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Danny Quinn, Clint Howard, Linda Hunt and Gottfried John. The series is available on DVD which is out of print at this point. 

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born January 31, 1901 – Maria Luise Kaschnitz.  Highly regarded as a poet; also prose fiction, essays.  A novel and a few shorter stories for us; «Gespenster» is in English as “Ghosts!”  Outside our field, see The House of Childhood; Circe’s Mountain and Long Shadows (shorter stories); Whether or Not (tr. of memoir Steht noch dahin, more literally Still there); Selected Later Poems.  Büchner Prize, Roswitha Prize.  Kaschnitz Prize named for her.  (Died 1974) [JH]
  • Born January 31, 1927 —  Norm Prescott. Co-founder and executive producer at Filmation Associates, an animation studio he created with veteran animator Lou Scheimer. The studio is responsible for such productions as The New Adventures of Superman, Fantastic Voyage, The Batman/Superman Hour and Star Trek: The Animated Series. (Died 2005.) (CE) 
  • Born January 31, 1937 —  Philip Glass, 84. 1000 Airplanes on the Roof: A Science Fiction Music-Drama, Einstein on the Beach, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (with a libretto by Doris Lessing based on her novel of the same name), The marriages between zones three, four, and five (1997, libretto by Doris Lessing, after her second novel from Canopus in Argos), The Witches of Venice and The Juniper Tree would be a very fragmentary listing of his works that have a genre underpinning.  (CE) 
  • Born January 31, 1934 – Gene DeWeese.  Fan and pro. Thirty novels, as many shorter stories, some with Buck Coulson; almost three hundred reviews in “Once Over Lightly” for SF Review.  Now You See It/Him/Them and Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats, both with Buck, are classic faan fiction, i.e. fiction by fans about fans; Now is set at Discon II the 32nd Worldcon and has more or less recognizably e.g. Dean Grennell, George Scithers, Buck’s wife Juanita; Charles is a sequel set in Sydney just before Aussiecon I the 32nd Worldcon with e.g. Rusty Hevelin, Denny Lien, Bob Tucker.  (Died 2012) [JH]
  • Born January 31, 1941 —  Jonathan Banks, 80. First genre role was as Deputy Brent in Gremlins, a film I adore. In the same year, he’s a Lizardo Hospital Guard in another film I adore, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Ahhh, a good year indeed. Next I see him playing Michelette in Freejack, another better than merely good sf film. The last thing I see him doing film wise is voicing Rick Dicker in the fairly recent Incredibles 2.  Series wise and these are just my highlights, I’ve got him on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Shel-la in the “Battle Lines” episode, in Highlander: The Series as Mako in the “Under Colour of Authority” episode and as Kommander Nuveen Kroll in short lived Otherworld series. In SeaQuest 2032 also had for two episodes as Maximillian Scully. (CE)
  • Born January 31, 1959 – Laura Lippman, age 62.  Three short stories for us and, little as I like titles with colonitis, “In a Strange City: Baltimore and the Poe Toaster”.  Next door in detective fiction she has won the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Edgar, Gumshoe, Nero, and Shamus Awards. Three NY Times Best-Sellers that I know of.  Writes in a neighborhood coffee shop.  Teaches at Goucher College.  [JH]
  • Born January 31, 1960 —  Grant Morrison, 61. If you can find it, his early stuff on such U.K. publishers as Galaxy Media and Harrier Comics is worth searching out. Not your hero in tights materials at all. For his work in that venue, I’d recommend his run on The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul, all of his Doom Patrol work (and the HBO series is based on his work and is quite spectacular), Seven Soldiers and The Multiversity which is spectacularly weird. (CE) 
  • Born January 31, 1963 – Jeffrey Scott Savage, age 58.  A dozen novels for us, half a dozen others.  Has been a plumber and a French chef.  To “What is your favorite book that you didn’t write?” he answered “I am always discovering new books that I love.  But if I had to pick my very favorite of all time, it would probably be Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”  [JH]
  • Born January 31, 1967 — Sam Weller, 54. Author of Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview, Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (co-edited with Mort Castle), The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury and Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews. He also recently published his first collection of short fiction, Dark Black. (CE) 
  • Born January 31, 1975 – Krista McGee, age 46.  Three novels for us, as many others. Said C.S. Lewis’ Space trilogy “is … fantastic … underappreciated…. a brilliant work of science fiction, well worth the time and effort it takes to read.”  [JH]
  • Born January 3, 1981 – Chris McCoy, age 40.  Has a wicked tennis serve.  Went via a writing scholarship to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji.  First novel for us actually called Scurvy Goonda.  Although, in case you couldn’t tell, I don’t always agree with Kirkus, its reviewer said “imaginary friends – no, ‘Abstract Companions’ – are … manufactured … in Orion’s Belt….  all … vanish suddenly … recruited into an army of Ab-Coms….  [In] a climactic battle … a gigantic slab of bacon and melted-down video games figure prominently.”  Next, The Prom-Goer’s Interstellar Excursion.  [JH]
  • Born January 31, 1987 — Sabaa Tahir, 34. Pakistani-American YA writer best known for her NYT-bestselling An Ember in the Ashes series and its sequels.  An Ember in the Ashes, the first novel in the now four novels deep series, was nominated for the David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy.(CE) 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Tom Gauld: “Waiting for Godot to Join the Zoom Meeting”

(11) ON THE SPINNER RACK. Cora Buhlert reaches back to the Sixties to review a then-new paperback for Galactic Journey: “[January 22, 1966] Monks, Demi-Gods and Cat People: The Sword of Lankor by Howard L. Cory”.

…The Sword of Lankor by Howard L. Cory plunges us right in medias res with our hero, the mercenary Thuron of Ulmekoor embroiled in a tavern brawl in the city of Taveeshe on the planet of Lankor. Thuron is certainly the perfect protagonist, because – so the author assures us – “adventure followed him around like a friendly puppy”. He’s also tall, strong and a skilled swordsman.

During the tavern brawl, Thuron saves the life of Gaar, a member of a race of furry cat people called Kend. As a result, Gaar is now Thuron’s servant for a year and a day, as the customs of his people demand. But Gaar brings other skills to the partnership as well, for he is an oracle, conjurer and pickpocket. Gaar is also the brains of the duo, while Thuron is the brawn.

If you are reminded at this point of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, you are not alone. And indeed the Burroughs comparison on the backcover is misleading, for there are many authors that The Sword of Lankor is more reminiscent of than Burroughs.

(12) BABYLON 5 VISUALS UPGRADED. Engadget delivers the good news that “’Babylon 5 Remastered’ now available to buy or stream on HBO Max”.

Nearly thirty years after its first broadcast and close to twenty since its troubled DVD release, Babylon 5 is finally getting a polish. From today, Warner Bros. is launching Babylon 5 Remastered both as a digital download (from iTunes and Amazon where available globally) and on HBO Max. It might not be the perfect version of the show that its creators had intended, but it’s likely the best we’re gonna get. 

A Warner Bros. spokesperson told Engadget that Babylon 5 Remastered has been scanned from the original camera negative. The film sequences were scanned in 4K and then “finished,” or downscaled, back to HD, with a dirt and scratch clean-up, as well as color correction. The show’s CGI and composite sequences, meanwhile, have been digitally upscaled to HD with only some minor tweaks where absolutely necessary.

In order to maintain visual quality and fidelity between the show’s filmed and effects-heavy sequences, the new version is only available in 4:3. That’s the same format that the show was originally broadcast in, rather than the widescreen DVD releases….

(13) THAT’S HEDLEY. The Reprobate tells how Warner went through the charade of producing a Blazing Saddles TV series to hold onto its rights to make a sequel to Mel Brooks’ movie: “Black Bart – The Buried TV Sequel To Blazing Saddles”. I must have blinked and missed the pilot when it aired in 1975. The IMDB listing is here.

….But perhaps the most absurd of these contractual obligation projects came with Blazing Saddles, which was adapted into a TV series that ran for four seasons – which would suggest a major hit show by 1970s television standards, except for the fact that it never aired. Not a single episode beyond the pilot was shown on TV anywhere.

…What the cast and crew thought of all this is hard to gauge – Gossett has talked about the weirdness of it all, but you have to wonder just how anyone managed to drum up any enthusiasm once it became clear that the show would never air. Ironically, the plans for a Blazing Saddles sequel ultimately went nowhere – by 1979, it was clear that the moment had passed and audience tastes had changed. The sequel was shelved, and the series was finally cancelled. The pilot episode has since turned up on the Blazing Saddles DVD and blu-ray, but the other episodes have yet to be seen. It’s entirely possible that they were never even completed beyond the ones shown to Brooks, and may have been trashed

(14) BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS. “Army robots made of robots? New LEGO-like method could make it happen” reports Army Times.

…“Robots rearranging to form a bridge made of robots, similar to ants, is one embodiment of our concept of structural robotics, which blur the line between active and passive elements and feature reconfigurability. It is still a motivating use case for the system, but we are looking at broader implications for ground robotics which are adaptable, reconfigurable, and resilient,” said Dr. Christopher Cameron, an Army researcher.

Researchers are also interested in building those impact-absorbing materials for similar robots. Using the LEGO-lattice configuration paired with injection molding helps for rapid assembly. And they don’t have to do just one thing.

That method of building the structures could give them a combination of characteristics such as becoming thicker when force is applied, getting stiff or flexible, depending on the need or reaction. And by using these materials in these ways, researchers said that larger structures can be put together than with conventional materials used in robots today.

(15) CRIME’S A WASTIN’. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] This is hilarious: “Midsomer Murders ‘Series Finale’: Finally An Explanation for all Those Murders” at Mystery Tribune.

DCI Barnaby looked down at the body and then at me. “Everyone else is dead or in jail. So, I’m going to guess you’re the murderer.”…

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Thomas J. Yagodinski created “Jawa Plays Eruption: A Stop Motion Tribute to the Great Edward Van Halen”.

…This was an extremely FUN way to pay respects to a musical Legend and to also challenge myself to recreate Eddie’s amazing solo, frame by frame via stop motion animation. Is it perfect? Of course not, that’s impossible and nothing ever is 🙂 The Jawa is a stop motion puppet I fabricated and the guitar is the 1:4 scale (16inch) Mini Guitar (#EVH?-004) that I further customized.

[Thanks to Cora Buhlert, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, Michael J. Lowrey, Cat Eldridge, Michael Toman, John Hertz, Cliff, Mike Kennedy, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 6/28/20 No One Expects The Fannish Inquisition! Our Chief Weapons Are Filing, Scrolls, And A Fanatical Devotion To The Pixel

Posted on by

(1) IN POOH’S OWN PAW. Pooh may have been a bear of very little brain, but he knew etiquette.

A 1935 letter signed by “Winnie the Pooh” — actually written by illustrator Ernest Howard Shepard — fetched triple its expected amount when it sold for more than $15,000.

The note, which included a drawing of the titular bear from A.A. Milne‘s book series as well as best friend Piglet, apologizes to a young fan named “Buffkins” for missing his birthday party.

(2) COLD DECK. Vox’s Aja Romano asks: “Did Cards Against Humanity’s ironic humor mask a toxic culture all along?” Tagline: “The popular brand built its progressive ethos through a game that encouraged ironic bigotry. Now, it faces a reckoning.”

The company’s own statement begins:

Starting on June 6, several of our former employees posted reports on social media about a toxic work environment in our Chicago office. Many of them centered on one of our eight co-founders, Max Temkin, who led that office. We immediately began an internal investigation, and on June 9, we made the following commitments to our staff:

  • Max Temkin stepped down and no longer has any active role at Cards Against Humanity, effective that day.
  • We’re hiring a specialist firm to review and improve all HR, hiring, and management practices at the company. Our goal is to make these practices more inclusive, transparent, and equitable.
  • An outside organization will lead workplace training for all partners and employees of Cards Against Humanity, focusing on communication and unconscious bias at work.

Romano’s Vox article continues with an explanation of the problematic aspects of the game, and why they were not called out earlier –

…CAH’s namesake card game, a self-proclaimed “party game for terrible people,” is an off-color derivative of the family-friendly Apples to Apples, the Mad Libs-style party game. Players use a small handful of words to fill in blanks within loaded phrases for maximum comedic effect, and the appeal lies in the goal of creating a more shocking, provocative one-liner from your hand of cards than your fellow players in order to be dubbed the funniest player in the group. It’s the kind of wordplay silliness that goes over well among a lot of drunk party-goers.

But detractors have argued for years that CAH’s real appeal is, in a word, racism. A 2016 study published in the academic journal Humanity & Society found that a quarter of the cards in the original deck dealt with race, and nearly all of those cards involving minorities seemed to invite the worst readings possible. Consider, for example, the card about indigenous Rwandans, “Stifling a giggle at the mention of Hutus and Tutsis,” later reportedly changed to “Helplessly giggling at the mention …” The phrase implies that something about the names of indigenous tribes is inherently funny, and that even though we all know it’s wrong, we just can’t help but indulge in our racism just a little bit, for a laugh. (CAH removed this card from circulation in 2015.)…

(3) ANOTHER CUCKOO IN THE SLUSHPILE. [Item by Andrew Porter.]  Okay, which word in the title would you have changed?

(4) PRACTICE YOUR WORLDCON SKILLS. In the CoNZealand 2020 Worldcon Community Group on Facebook, Laurie Mann announced there will be training and practice sessions for the apps they will use to run the virtual Worldcon.

To help people learn about Grenadine, Zoom & Discord & to get practice using these apps leading up to, we will have training sessions & practice sessions over the next few weeks. The schedule, using New Zealand Time, is here: https://conzealand.grenadine.co/en/cnzpreconz/ If you plan to attend any items, don’t forget to log into Grenadine – there’s information about that on the first page of the schedule.

(5) SUMMER SCHOOL. The Clarion West Write-A-Thon has started. The schedule and other nformation is at the links:

The Write-a-thon is on! Five hundred and eight participants have begun guided writing sessions, and on Tuesday, we hosted a livestream video of Andy Duncan’s reading. In the coming weeks, the world can tune in to see and hear Eileen Gunn, Nalo Hopkinson, Tina Connolly, Caroline M. Yoachim, and an editors’ roundtable featuring Scott H. Andrews, Chinelo Onwualu, Julia Rios, and Wendy Wagner. These live events include ASL interpreters to help ensure that they are accessible to as many as possible. If you prefer closed captioning, please contact the Seattle Public Library. Please subscribe to our newly revamped YouTube channel for reminders about these events and more!

(6) DYSON SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. From the March 2018 New York Review of Books: “The Big Bang”. Tagline: The following letters to relatives and the accompanying headnotes are adapted from Freeman Dyson’s Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters, published by Liveright. This would be of interest in any case, all the more so to readers of Robert J. Sawyer’s new The Oppenheimer Alternative.

… Yesterday I had a talk with [Hans] Bethe about my future. Bethe told me that unless I raise objections, he will press for me to be given a second year; he said this was “in the interests of science as well as in your own interests.” He said I should spend the second year at Princeton with [J. Robert] Oppenheimer, and that Oppenheimer would be glad to look after me…

(7) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • June 1982 — Ursula K, Le Guin’s The Compass Rose was published  by Pendragon Press, the Welsh publisher. This edition was of only 550 copies, and featured cover art by Tom Canty with interior illustrations by Anne Yvonne Gilbert.  It would garner a Best Single Author Collection From the annual Locus Readers Poll. And a Ditmar was also awarded. It’s been in print even since, and has quite a few translations.  Most of the stories here are reprinted from elsewhere but some such as the horrific “The Wife’s Story” which is highly reminiscent of work done by Angela Carter is written for here. (CE)

(8)  TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

  • Born June 28, 1948 — Kathy Bates, 72. Her performance in Misery based on the King novel was her big Hollywood film. She was soon in Dolores Claiborne, another King derived film. Another genre roles included Mrs. Green in Dick Tracy, Mrs. Miriam Belmont in Dragonfly, voice of the Sea Hag in Popeye’s Voyage: The Quest for Pappy, voice of Bitsy the Cow in Charlotte’s Web and Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , a very loose adaption of the Fifties film of the same name. (CE)
  • Born June 28, 1954 — Deborah Grabien, 66. She makes the Birthday list for her most excellent Haunted Ballads series in which a folk musician and his lover tackle the matter of actual haunted spaces. It leads off with The Weaver and the Factory Maid. You can read the first chapter here. Oh, and she makes truly great dark chocolate fudge. (CE)
  • Born June 28, 1954 — Alice Krige, 66. I think her first genre role was in the full role of Eva Galli  and Alma Mobley in Ghost Story. From there, she plays Mary Shelley (née Godwin) in Haunted Summer before going onto being Mary Brady in Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers. Now Star Trek: First Contact in which she first plays the Borg Queen, a role she’ll repeat in the 2001 finale of Star Trek: Voyager, “Endgame”. She’s had a number of other genre roles but I only note that she was Eir in Thor: The Dark World. (CE)
  • Born June 28, 1979 — Felicia Day, 41. She was Vi in  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr. Holly Marten in Eureka, and had a recurring role as Charles Bradbury on Supernatural. She also appears  as Kinga Forrester in Mystery Science Theater 3000. (CE)
  • Born June 28, 1957 — Mark Helprin, 73. Author of three works of significance to the genre, Winter’s Tale, A City in Winter which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella and The Veil of Snows. The latter two are tastefully illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg. I know Winter’s Tale was turned into a film but color me very disinterested in seeing it.  (CE)
  • Born June 27, 1926 — Mel Brooks, 94. Blazing Saddles I’ve watched, oh, at least two dozen times. And Get Smart several times at least wholly or in part. Spaceballs, errr, once was enough. And let’s not mention Robin Hood: Men in Tights, though The Producers (not genre I grant you) was brilliant. So what do you like or dislike by him? (CE)
  • Born June 27, 1951 — Lalla Ward, 69. She is known for her role as Romana (or Romanadvoratrelundar in full) on  Doctor Who during the time of the Fourth Doctor. She has reprised the character in Dimensions in Time, the webcast version of Shada, and in several Doctor Who Big Finish productions. In addition, she played Ophelia to Derek Jacobi’s Hamlet in the BBC television production.  And she was Helga in an early horror film called Vampire Circus. (CE)
  • Born June 27, 1954 — Raffaella De Laurentiis, 66. Yes, she’s related to that De Laurentiis hence she was the producer of the Dune film. She also did Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, both staring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Kull the Conqueror. She also produced all films in the Dragonheart series. She was the Executive Producer of the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. (CE)
  • Born June 28, 1918 – Martin Greenberg.  Co-founded Gnome Press with Dave Kyle (Dave’s logograph is here), publishing ninety books in hard covers including Anderson, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Moore, Norton, Simak.  Edited eight anthologies.  Lost his shirt to Bob Bloch at poker.  First Fandom Hall of Fame.  (Died 2013) [JH]
  • Born June 28, 1930 – Joe Schaumburger.  Active in our two longest-running apas, the Fantasy Amateur Press Ass’n (FAPA) and Spectator Amateur Press Society (SAPS).  President of the New Jersey SF Society and the Dickens Fellowship of New York.  Founded Wossname (Pratchett fans).  (Died 2011) [JH]
  • Born June 28, 1944 – Peggy Rae Sapienza.  Daughter of Jack McKnight who made the first Hugo Award trophies.  Active in FAPA.  With husband Bob Pavlat was given the Big Heart, our highest service award.  Chaired Smofcon 9.  Vice-chair of ConFrancisco the 51st Worldcon.  After BP’s death, married John Sapienza.  Chaired BucConeer the 56th Worldcon, Nebula Awards Weekend 2012 and 2014, World Fantasy Convention 2014.  Fan Guest of Honor at Chicon 7 the 70th Worldcon.  When Japanese fans bid for and won the right, privilege, or typhoon of holding the 65th Worldcon, she was the North America agent, as probably no one else on the continent could have been.  Our Gracious Host’s appreciation is here.  (Died 2015) [JH]
  • Born June 28, 1945 – Jon Gustafson.  Co-founded Moscon (Moscow, Idaho) and the Ass’n of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists (ASFA); ASFA Western Region Director until his death. Wrote “The Gimlet Eye” for Science Fiction Review and Pulphouse.  Edited the Program Books for Westercon 46 and MagiCon the 50th Worldcon; the 1995 SFWA Handbook (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America); Chroma, the Art of Alex Schomburg.  Founded JMG Appraisals, first professional SF art and book appraisal service in North America.  Wouldn’t lead Art Show tours but walked around with me so I could lead them better.  (Died 2002) [JH]
  • Born June 28, 1954 – Darcy Pattison, 66.  Author and quilter; “Houses and Stars” on the cover of Quilting Today (September 1991); Great Arkansas Quilt Show 2002, 2007-2008.  The Wayfinder among a dozen novels for us, a few shorter stories; thirty more books for children and adults.  Leads the Novel-Revision Retreat.  Five Nat’l Science Teaching Ass’n (NSTA) Outstanding Science Trade Books.  Arkansas Governor’s Art Award.  Translated into Arabic, Chinese, Danish, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish.  [JH]
  • Born June 28, 1983 – Gina Damico, 37.  Croak, Wax, and four more novels for us.  Grew up under four feet of snow in Syracuse, New York; California now.  Hardcore crocheter and knitter.  Likes Utz cheese balls.  Even she has seized the Iron Throne.  Her Website is here.  [JH]

(9) TRIVIAL TRIVIA.

On Mel Brooks’ birthday, let John King Tarpinian tell you about attending the premiere of Blazing Saddles. Not the one in the movie, but the real one at the Pickwick Drive-in in Burbank. 

“Attending on horseback was encouraged,” says John. “It was a block from what was then called the Pickwick Stables, now the Burbank Equestrian Center.  What is now the entrance back then was a grass lawn, which is where George Burns, as God, made his final phone booth call to John Denver.”

(10) A ROSE OF TEXAS BY ANY OTHER NAME. There’s not much to it besides a map of the district and a news clipping: “Lou Antonelli for Congress – Texas 4th District”.

(11) HOW’S FOR DINNER? “Dolphins Learn Foraging Tricks From Each Other, Not Just From Mom”.

Dolphins learn special foraging techniques from their mothers—and it’s now clear that they can learn from their buddies as well. Take the clever trick that some dolphins use to catch fish by trapping them in seashells. It turns out that they learn this skill by watching their pals do the job.

The discovery, reported in the journal Current Biology, helps reveal how groups of wild animals can transmit learned behaviors and develop their own distinct cultures.

“Dolphins are indeed very clever animals. So it makes sense that they are able to learn from others,” says Sonja Wild, a researcher at the University of Konstanz in Germany. She says young dolphins spend years in close association with their mothers and naturally tend to adopt their mothers’ ways, but this study shows that “dolphins are not only capable, but also motivated to learn from their peers.”

The bottlenose dolphins that live in Shark Bay, Western Australia, have been studied for decades, and scientists have identified over a thousand individuals by looking at the unique shape and markings of their dorsal fins. Researchers know what families the dolphins belong to, and keep track of their close associates. These dolphins use a variety ways of finding food—and not every dolphin uses every method.

Some dolphins, for examples, use sponges as tools. The dolphins break a conical sponge off the seafloor, and then wear it almost like a protective cap on their long snout, or beak. This apparently helps them probe into the rough sand of the rocky seafloor and search for buried prey.

(12) WE HAVE ALWAYS PUNKED IN THE CASTLE. “Shirley Jackson Meets Johnny Rotten In ‘Dark Blood Comes From The Feet'” – NPR will tell you about it.

Horror isn’t many readers’ first choice during times like these. And while the prospect of wallowing in the murkier end of the emotional spectrum isn’t exactly high on the list of anyone’s self-care regimen right now, there’s a lot to be said for confronting our demons on the printed page as well as in real life. Emma J. Gibbon gets it. The Maine-by-way-of-England author’s debut collection of short stories, Dark Blood Comes from the Feet, is an assortment of seventeen scalding, acidic tales that eat away at society’s thin veneer of normalcy, convention, and even reality. At the same time, these horrific confections leave a sweet aftertaste of humanity.

As with all great horror, Dark Blood puts its characters first. In “Janine,” a reporter interviews a broken, middle-aged woman whose experience during her prom night in the ’80s shattered lives as well as reality. It’s the doom-laden, small-town fable of rich boy romancing a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, as if Stephen King had written Pretty in Pink instead of John Hughes.

“The Tale of Bobby Red Eyes” is more mysterious but no less sympathetic to its titular character. In it, a group of children set out to investigate a local urban legend. The ending isn’t exactly happy. “If you say ‘Bobby Red Eyes’ three times in the mirror on Halloween, he’ll be your reflection,” whispers the story’s narrator, and Gibbon builds that incantatory force until it’s incandescently frightening. And in “The Last Witch in Florida,” Gibbon etches an endearingly weird portrait of an elderly witch who’s retired to the Sunshine State, stirring up magical mischief using pink plastic flamingoes and whatever she can scare up at the corner CVS.

(13) UNRELEASED. An NPR review: “A Painful Past And Ghostly Present Converge In ‘Tokyo Ueno Station'”.

Kazu, the narrator of Tokyo Ueno Station, had hoped that his death would bring him some rest, some sense of closure. The man led a life marked with hard work and intense pain; he spent his final years homeless, living in a makeshift shelter in a Tokyo park. But when he dies, he finds the afterlife — such as it is — is nothing like he expected.

“I thought that once I was dead, I would be reunited with the dead,” he reflects. “I thought something would be resolved by death … But then I realized that I was back in the park. I was not going anywhere, I had not understood anything, I was still stunned by the same numberless doubts, only I was now outside life looking in, as someone who has lost the capacity to exist, now ceaselessly thinking, ceaselessly feeling –“

Kazu’s painful past and ghostly present are the subject of Tokyo Ueno Station, the latest book by Korean-Japanese author Yu Miri to be published in English. It’s a relatively slim novel that packs an enormous emotional punch, thanks to Yu’s gorgeous, haunting writing and Morgan Giles’ wonderful translation.

(14) NOT UNCUT AFTER ALL. Bruce Haring, in the Deadline story, “‘South Park’ Missing Five Episodes From HBO Max Offerings Because Of Prophet Muhammad Depictions”, says that HBO Max is offering 23 seasons of South Park except for five episodes that have the Prophet Muhammad as a character.  Two of the five episodes are on the South Park website.

…The controversial episodes violate a widespread Islamic belief that depictions of Muhammad or any of the other prophets of Islam are forbidden, as they encourage the worship of idols. The prohibitions cover images, drawings, statues and cartoons.

…The episodes not available on HBO Max include season five’s Super Best Friends and season 14’s 200 and 201. Those shows had previously been removed from a streaming deal with Hulu and also were axed on the official South Park website. Also not made available to HBO Max were season 10’s Cartoon Wars Part I and Cartoon Wars Part 2, although those episodes can still be streamed on the South Park website.

South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were threatened in 2010 for the prior depictions of Muhammad. That prompted Comedy Central to remove voice and visual references in the episodes, and eventually to pull the entire episodes from streaming.

(15) A SPOONFUL OF NOT-SUGAR. BBC explains “How one teaspoon of Amazon soil teems with fungal life”.

A teaspoon of soil from the Amazon contains as many as 1,800 microscopic life forms, of which 400 are fungi.

Largely invisible and hidden underground, the “dark matter” of life on Earth has “amazing properties”, which we’re just starting to explore, say scientists.

The vast majority of the estimated 3.8 million fungi in the world have yet to be formally classified.

Yet, fungi are surprisingly abundant in soil from Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

To help protect the Amazon rainforest, which is being lost at an ever-faster rate, it is essential to understand the role of fungi, said a team of researchers led by Prof Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

…Fungi in soil from tropical countries are particularly poorly understood. To find out about soil from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, researchers collected samples of soil and leaf litter from four regions.

Genetic analysis revealed hundreds of different fungi, including lichen, fungi living on the roots of plants, and fungal pathogens, most of which are unknown or extremely rare. Most species have yet to be named and investigated.

Areas of naturally open grasslands, known as campinas, were found to be the richest habitat for fungi overall, where they may help the poorer soil take up nutrients.

Understanding soil diversity is critical in conservation actions to preserve the world’s most diverse forest in a changing world, said Dr Camila Ritter of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

(16) VIDEO OF YESTERDAY. The Locus Awards virtual ceremony video is now available at YouTube.

[Thanks to Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John Hertz, and Carl Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Nina.]

Pixel Scroll 3/20/20 Four Feet Good — Six Feet Better!

Posted on by

(1) STAR DATING. Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter we have not missed these entries: “William Shatner Gives Captain’s Log Updates as Kirk Amid Coronavirus Standstill”.

It would appear William Shatner is not quite through with Capt. James T. Kirk after all. The actor has been giving Star Trek fans a treat via social media with Captain’s Log updates — a plot device, usually done for story exposition, on the famed sci-fi TV show and subsequent films. Shatner, like many around the world, is self-isolating during the coronavirus pandemic.

(2) NEBULA CONFERENCE. A plan will be shared at the end of the month said SFWA President Mary Robinette Kowal today in “An Update on the SFWA Nebula Conference”.

Last night, California announced that it was extending its shelter-in-place measures across the entire state. With the Nebula Conference scheduled to take place in Los Angeles at the end of May, we have been anticipating that move and working towards a positive solution which we had planned to announce on March 31st. I would like to keep to that timeline as it will enable us to complete some final details for what we believe will be a great conference. I would appreciate your patience until then.

Though the circumstances are distressing, the alterations that we are making to prioritize the health and safety of our attendees have offered us some exciting opportunities to make the Nebula Conference more accessible and inclusive. I know you may have questions about refunds and your hotel reservations. Please do not make any changes until we share with you our plan on March 31st, which will allow us to expand the range of options that you will have.

I look forward to speaking with you on March 31st.

(3) INDUSTRY POSTPONEMENTS. On the other hand, BookExpo has definitely moved reports Shelf Awareness:

BookExpo, Unbound and BookCon are being moved to July 22-26 from May 27-31, at the Javits Center in New York City.

Reedpop, the organizer of the events, explained: “We have been closely monitoring the outbreak of COVID-19 in New York and around the country. Following the guidance of health officials, we are now complying with the State’s request that large gatherings be postponed to ensure the well-being of everyone involved with our event.”

Event director Jenny Martin commented: “If the situation changes again between now and July, we will change along with it. We run events, we pivot proudly. Right now, we remain focused on the goal of serving our community this summer with those who want to do the same.”

(4) A LITTLE LIST. Discover magazine calls these the “10 Best Science Fiction Planets” – a 2008 post, but it’s news to me!

4. Mote Prime (1974): In Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye, this is the homeworld of the Moties, a species that, due to cosmic happenstance, has been bottled up in its solar system ever since it evolved. Mote Prime is planet which has become a palimpsest, mutely testifying to the endless cycles of technological development and collapse experienced by the trapped Moties.

I’m quoting this one because a friend recently shared with me his quite definite ideas about the usage of palimpsest.

(5) PRODUCTION HALTED. TV Guide’s article includes news of many genre/related media going on hiatus: “Coronavirus Update: Every TV Show, Movie, Sport, and Major Event Canceled Due to COVID-19”. Here are a couple of excerpts – more at the link.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Deadline reports that production on Season 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale has been temporarily suspended due to concerns over the recent spread of COVID-19, aka coronavirus. The show, which films in Toronto, has yet to announce whether this suspension will delay its planned fall premiere date….

Disney+ Marvel Shows, including MCU spin-offs

On March 10, Disney+ shut down production on its Marvel series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which stars Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, because the Czech Republic placed restrictions on travel and events, and closed its schools due to COVID-19 concerns. There is no word yet on if the show will revisit Prague to finish shooting.

On March 14, Variety reported Marvel Studios paused production on the rest of its Disney+ series, which includes Loki and WandaVision. For shows currently in production, the work will continue remotely.

(6) INFLUENTIAL CINEMA. The Criterion Channel is running a block of historic movies of the ”German Expressionism” school.

Physical reality warps and bends to fit the twisted psychological states on display in the cinema of the German expressionist movement of the 1920s. With their emphasis on exaggerated shadows, off-kilter camera angles, dreamlike sets, and macabre story lines, these movies paved the way for the aesthetics of both horror cinema and film noir, genres in which mood and atmosphere take precedence over realism. This selection of some of the movement’s key works includes the quintessential example of the style, the delirious nightmare THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI; F. W. Murnau’s shivery vampire classic NOSFERATU; and several masterpieces by Fritz Lang, who, following the success of works like METROPOLIS and M, would go on to become instrumental in importing expressionist aesthetics to the Hollywood of the 1930s and ’40s.

(7) ACCIO JAVA. Delish reports some clever branding: “This Harry Potter Inspired Coffee Comes In Flavors Fit For Your Favorite Wizards”.

…Etsy shop 9andthreequartersco has created coffee blends inspired by the magical world of Harry Potter. These coffees names are not only inspired by the books and movies, but so are the flavors.

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • March 20, On this date, X Minus One’s “Protection” first aired. A man accidentally acquires an alien protector, who knows every disaster in the world before it happens. The script is by Ernest Kinoy.  The cast includes Bill Redfield, William Keane and Elliott Reed.  It written by Robert Sheckley.  It was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series that broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC. You can hear it this episode here.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born March 20, 1902 — David Lasser. From 1929 to 1933, he was the Managing Editor of Gernsback’s Stellar Publishing Corporation. He edited Science Wonder Stories and Wonder Stories Quarterly, as well working with writers on both zines. Lasser also edited Gernsback’s Wonder Stories from June 1930 to October 1933. As near as I can tell, The Time Projector novel is his only genre work. (Died 1996.)
  • Born March 20, 1932 — Jack Cady. He won the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award, an impressive feat indeed. McDowell’s Ghost gives a fresh spin on the trope of seeing seeing a War Between The States ghost, and The Night We Buried Road Dog is another ghost story set in early Sixties Montana. Underland Press printed all of his superb short fiction into two volumes, Phantoms: Collected Writings, Volume 1 and Fathoms: Collected Writings, Volume 2. (Died 2004.)
  • Born March 20, 1948 — Pamela Sargent, 72. She has three exemplary series of which I think the Seed trilogy, a unique take on intergenerational colony ships, is the one I like the best. The other two series, the Venus trilogy about a women determined to terraform that world at all costs is quite good also, and there is the Watchstar trilogy which I know nothing about. Nor have I read any of her one-off novels, so please do tell me about them. 
  • Born March 20, 1950 — William Hurt, 70. He made his first film appearance as a troubled scientist in Ken Russell’s Altered States, a history-making film indeed. He’s next up as Doug Tate in Alice, a Woody Allen film. Breaking his run of weird roles, he shows in it’s that not bad really to be Lost in Space as Professor John Robinson. Dark City and the phenomenal role of Inspector Frank Bumstead follows for him. He was in A.I. Artificial Intelligence as Professor Allen Hobby and performed the character of William Marshal in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, Up next was horror film Hellgate and his role as Warren Mills which spiked a lot watchable than The Host and Jebediah character  from Winter’s Tale as adapted from the Mark Helprin novel was interesting as wax the entire film. His final, to date that is, is in Avengers: Infinity War as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. Two series roles of notes, the first being in the SyFy Frank Herbert’s Dune as Duke Leto I Atreides. Confession: the digitised blue eyes bugged me so much that I couldn’t watch it. The other role worth noting is him as  Hrothgar in Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands. 
  • Born March 20, 1955 — Nina Kiriki Hoffman, 65. Her first novel, The Thread That Binds the Bones, won the Bram Stoker Award for first novel. In addition, her short story “Trophy Wives” won a Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Other novels include The Silent Strength of Stones (a sequel to Thread), A Fistful of Sky, and A Stir of Bones. All are excellent. Most of her work has a strong sense of regionalism being set In either California or the Pacific Northwest. 
  • Born March 20, 1979 — Freema Agyeman, 41. Best-known for playing Martha Jones in Doctor Who, companion to the Tenth Doctor. She reprised that role briefly in Torchwood. She voiced her character on The Infinite Quest, an animated Doctor Who serial. She was on Sense8 as Amanita Caplan. And some seventeen years ago, she was involved in a live production of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld’s Lords and Ladies held in Rollright Stone Circle Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. It was presented out of doors in the centre of two stone circles. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Macanudo wonders what if traditional witches gained access to Lovecraftian monsters?
  • Bizarro finds the … bright? … side of a visit to the pediatrician.
  • Reprinted in The Paris Review – “Krazy Kat Gets the Spanish Flu.”

(11) FREE READS. Apex Book Company is offering “Free eBooks for Your Covid-19 Social Distancing”.

Available until March 31st

Covid-19 is serious business. In an effort to control the spread of the virus, people across the world are being asked to practice social distancing and to stay home.

As part of that call, Apex Books and other publishers are providing free eBooks to help readers cope with the extended periods of inactivity and being housebound.

We hope this selection of Apex titles will help make this stressful time pass a little easier, a little quicker.

Books in the Covid-19 bundle:

  • Machine by Jennifer Pelland (dark SF)
  • Stay Crazy by Erica L. Satifka (dark SF)
  • Maze by J.M. McDermott (dark fantasy)
  • Beautiful Sorrows by Mercedes M. Yardley (horror)
  • Like Death by Tim Waggoner (horror)

(12) FREE MISS FISHER. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Even if you’ve already seen all the Miss Fisher Mysteries episodes, here’s your chance to see the new (releasing 3/23/2020) movie! Also starring David Tennant and (from The Good Wife/The Good Fight) Cush Jumbo (she played Luca Quinn)

Per a Miss F movie thread on Facebook from a few weeks back that I’m not sure where it is.

Starting today, we’re offering an extended 30-day free trial for new subscribers with code FREE30. Settle in for the streaming debut of Miss Fisher and The Crypt of Tears (3/23) and Deadwater Fell starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo (4/6). Share the best TV from Britain and beyond.

Sign up at http://acorn.tv — use special code: FREE30

Daniel Dern notes: “I’m not sure whether they’d already been offering a 30-day free trial anyway. Their ‘Start Free Trial’ page asks for, but doesn’t seem to require, a promo code. Since we’ve already been subscribing to Acorn for a buncha months — watched/watching Murdoch Mysteries, The Good Karma Hospital, the Brokenwood Mysteries, Foyle’s War, etc.

“Mmm, they have Slings & Arrows, which we saw years ago, but if you haven’t, recommended! (‘…this darkly comic Canadian series follows the fortunes of a dysfunctional Shakespearean theatre troupe, exposing the high drama, scorching battles, and electrifying thrills that happen behind the scenes. Paul Gross (Tales of the City, Due South [AND The Republic Of Doyle – DPD]) leads an outstanding ensemble cast in ‘one of TV’s greatest shows’ (The A.V. Club).’”

(13) UNCLE TIMMY TRIBUTE. The Give Me Libertycon anthology E-ARC is available from Baen. The trade paperback will be released in June.

Since its inception, LibertyCon has been a science fiction convention like no other. Held annually in Chattanooga, Tennessee, LibertyCon attracts the best of the best science fiction and fantasy writers, working scientists, fans, and organizers. Now, join Baen Books as we celebrate this unique institution with an anthology of all-new fiction and nonfiction—and some filk songs, too! A new Honorverse story by David Weber, and stories by Timothy Zahn, David Drake, Larry Correia, Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Massa, Charles E. Gannon and Sarah A. Hoyt, David B. Coe, Kacey Ezell and Christopher L. Smith, Bill Fawcett, and more. Plus, nonfiction by Les Johnson, filk (science fiction folk) songs by Gray Rinehart.

A portion of the sales will fund a scholarship set up in the name of superfan, TVA engineer, and LibertyCon founder Richard T. “Uncle Timmy” Bolgeo.

(14) SUPER-ROOMBA. “Coronavirus: Robots use light beams to zap hospital viruses”.

“Please leave the room, close the door and start a disinfection,” says a voice from the robot.

“It says it in Chinese as well now,” Simon Ellison, vice president of UVD Robots, tells me as he demonstrates the machine.

Through a glass window we watch as the self-driving machine navigates a mock-hospital room, where it kills microbes with a zap of ultraviolet light.

“We had been growing the business at quite a high pace – but the coronavirus has kind of rocketed the demand,” says chief executive, Per Juul Nielsen.

He says “truckloads” of robots have been shipped to China, in particular Wuhan. Sales elsewhere in Asia, and Europe are also up.

…Glowing like light sabres, eight bulbs emit concentrated UV-C ultraviolet light. This destroys bacteria, viruses and other harmful microbes by damaging their DNA and RNA, so they can’t multiply.

It’s also hazardous to humans, so we wait outside. The job is done in 10-20 minutes. Afterwards there’s a smell, much like burned hair

“There are a lot of problematic organisms that give rise to infections,” explains Prof Hans Jørn Kolmos, a professor of clinical microbiology, at the University of Southern Denmark, which helped develop the robot.

“If you apply a proper dose of ultraviolet light in a proper period of time, then you can be pretty sure that you get rid of your organism.”

(15) COURTSHIP RITE. “Vampire bats ‘French kiss with blood’ to form lasting bonds”.

Vampire bats establish friendships by sharing regurgitated blood with their neighbours in a “kind of horrifying French kiss”, a new study says.

Researchers observing the mammals said their sharing behaviours appeared to be an important aspect of their bonding.

(16) LOST MOON. “Coronavirus: Nasa’s Moon plans take a hit”.

The fall-out from the coronavirus crisis is even being felt in space.

Rising infection rates near key technical centres in Louisiana and Mississippi mean the US space agency is suspending production and testing of its Moon rocket and capsule systems.

…Nasa said it had no choice but to suspend work on the construction of the rocket, called the Space Launch System, and the capsule, known as Orion.

The Stennis Space Center in Mississippi has had one confirmed infection among its staff, and although the Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana hasn’t yet had a COVID-19 case – growing infection rates in the communities around both complexes means a shut-down is the only sensible option.

(17) CORONAVIRUS ADVICE. This is how you get to be a 2000-year-old man. “Don’t Be A Spreader,” a message from Mel Brooks’ son.

(18) CHANGES IN STORE. John Scalzi is among the writers contributing the the Washington Post’s speculative“After the Pandemic”. As he framed it at Whatever –

The folks over at the Washington Post have put together a piece on how the world will change after this pandemic — not in the huge ways, but in the smaller, day-to-day ways — and they asked me to write something for it. I did a piece on personal greetings, because, as it happens, it was a matter of some discussion on the cruise I just came back from.

[Thanks to Daniel Dern, Michael Toman, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, JJ, Rich Horton, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Willard Stone, Jeffrey Smith, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 9/21/17 A Pixel Walks Into A Bar And Orders A Fifth

Posted on by

(1) CELEBRATE THE RADCH. Ann Leckie’s new book Provenance comes out on September 26, and the Imperial Radch fandom on Tumblr is asking people to create thematic fanworks as part of the celebration.

Each day, fans are encouraged to post work under the #Imperial Radch tag, and if you like, a new #Imperial Radch Week tag. Any medium is encouraged, and we selected days that hopefully highlight a wide range of skills!

  • Tuesday, Sept 19th: Ship Day
  • Wednesday, Sept 20th: Music Day
  • Friday, Sept 22nd: Fav Friday
  • Saturday: Sept 23rd: AU Day
  • Sunday, Sept 24th: Favorite Scene Day
  • Monday, Sept 25th: What the Heck is a Geck Day
  • Tuesday, Sept 26th: Release day

See this post for details of each day’s featured topic.

(2) RAISE YOUR TBR HIGHER. James Davis Nicoll foresees you will want to read “Twenty Core SF Works About Psionics and Awesome Mind Powers Every True SF Fan Should Have On Their Shelves”. Three of those works are –

  • The Clairvoyant Countess by Dorothy Gilman
  • Ingathering by Zenna Henderson
  • Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang

Next week – “Twenty Room Houses True Fans Need To Own To Accommodate All The Books True Fans Should Have On Their Shelves.”

(3) FINAL JEOPARDY REFERENCES LEN WEIN. Steven H Silver has the story: “Today’s Final Jeopardy question may be the first time there’s been a FJ question about the spouse of a former contestant.  The question asked about a character created by Len Wein.  Len was married to four-time Jeopardy! champion Christine Valada (2009).”

(4) DONATIONS NEEDED. Mica Sunday Deerfield, Linda Bushyager’s sister, suffered substantial damage to her Houston home from Hurricane Harvey, and has launched a GoFundMe to raise money to make it habitable again.

When hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf coast, it filled over capacity the reservoir that is behind Mica’s house in West Houston. There was about 3 1/2 feet of water in the house and the neighborhood was inaccessible until yesterday, when our friend Dan courageously went there to see what happened. After 7 days of floodwaters, virtually all her possessions were dissolved, covered with mold, and lost to the flood. It will cost approximately $25,000 to empty the house, tear out all of the drywall, and remove the appliances, kitchen cabinets, insulation, furniture and everything else. Then they will do drying out and mold remediation. She will end up with an empty shell of a house. She will also then need money to fix the house back up. Any donation at all will be much appreciated. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you don’t know Linda Bushyager, she’s a long-time fanzine fan (Granfalloon, Karass) and fantasy author. More than that, when she shut down her fannish newzine Karass in the mid-Seventies, she passed the torch to File 770. And we’re still here!

(5) GATEKEEPERS. Martin Wisse defines a problematic culture in “The real trouble with comix”.

Supporting small business is important, but Amazon won’t ask you if you’re buying X-Men for your boyfriend every week. I’ve lost count of the women I know who stopped going to comic shops after being hit on or patronized too many times.

That small aside from a story about online harassment in video gaming perfectly illustrates the challenge the socalled mainstream comics industry has created for itself. Like videogaming, comics culture is steeped in rightwing victim culture, where you convince yourself both that you and your hobby are horribly oppressed and bullied by the jocks, the popular clique, riajuu and that your particular brand of pop culture is superior to what the brainless masses consume because they don’t spent their Wednesday evenings waiting for the new issue of whatever The Avengers is called this week. So you get a culture and industry that bemoans the fact that nobody loves comics anymore, but resents any step made to make people feel welcome. In fact, people seem to feel personally insulted if others enjoy the wrong sort of comics, as this fortuitous tweet demonstrates.

(6) SHOULDN’T SALES MATTER? Barry Deutsch addresses the same problem in a tweetstorm that begins here —

It runs 21 tweets and along the way observes:

(7) AGENT SPILLS THE BEANS. Fantasy-Faction scored an interview with agent Harry Illingworth.

When you’re reading all of those submissions, trawling through the slush pile, what is it you are actually looking for? What type of story, point of view, writing sets fire to your super-agent synapses and makes you request the full manuscript or sign them up there and then?

First up I’m looking at whether the author has followed the submission guidelines. It may sound obvious that you follow the guidelines when you submit, but you’d be amazed at how many people don’t. I then think about whether it’s a good cover letter as if it’s not a good cover letter I’m not inclined to be too hopeful about the book itself. I do find the authors I’ve taken on have all had really strong cover letters and the author knows their book and can express that in the letter. It all comes down to the actual writing though, and I’ll only ever call in the full manuscript based on my enjoyment of the first three chapters.

When writers search the internet for advice on how to create successful query it can be… overwhelming. So, help us out – what makes a good query letter, synopsis?

I think what makes a good query is research beforehand. You’ve written a book, so take care to find out who is writing similar kinds of books. Who can you compare to without saying you’re the next GRRM? Entice the agent but don’t tell the whole story of the book, and also carefully research the agent before you submit. Make sure you are putting your book in front of the right pair of eyes, and it doesn’t hurt to add a personal touch so the agent knows you haven’t just sent it out blindly.

(8) STINKIN’ BADGES. Jeff Somers names “Science Fiction & Fantasy’s Most Delightful Government Agencies” for readers of the B&N Sci-FI & Fantasy Blog.

SpecOps 27 (Thursday Next Series, by Jasper Fforde) What isn’t to love about a government agency charged with investigating literature-related crimes? Especially in an alternate universe where literature has the cultural heft of superhero movies, and the division between reality and fiction is so thin the two are easily mixed—with breathtaking results. All of the “Special Operations” units in the fictional world are pretty cool, actually, including SpecOps 12, in charge of investigating time travel-related events. For anyone who’s ever dreamed of falling into a book and waking up in their favorite story, SO-27 represents kind of the next best thing.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • September 21, 1937 — J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit published.
  • September 21, 2005 – Invasion premiered to those interested TV audiences.
  • September 21, 2015 — Fox TV dished out the series premiere of Minority Report.  The premise was culled from the Steven Spielberg movie of the same name, based on a story by Philip K. Dick. By the end of the first season it had been learned that few people want to see precogs go incog.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born September 21, 1866 – H.G. Wells
  • Born September 21, 1912 – Chuck Jones, famous animator
  • Born September 21, 1947 — Stephen King

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Mike Kennedy found someone who probably should have asked for help earlier, in Real Life Adventures.

(12) SCARED TO DEATH. In October, Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) has filled their calendar with all things spooky and magical. Their movie lineup that includes Interview with the Vampire, The Dark Crystal, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and a talk with Cheryl Henson (daughter of Jim and Jane Henson and President of The Henson Foundation).

Campout Cinema: Interview With the Vampire, October 6, 8:00 p.m. 21+ ($14, $11 MoPOP members)

A vampire tells the story of his life from widowed plantation owner to murderous immortal in this gothic classic based on Anne Rice’s best-selling novel starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater. Includes admission to Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film and Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction.

Campout Cinema: The Dark Crystal, October 13, 7:00 p.m. All ages. ($16, $12 MoPOP members)

The last of the Gelfings must journey to find the crystal shard that will create order and bring peace to his world in this Jim Henson classic. Includes admission to The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited and a pre-screening talk with Cheryl Henson (Henson Foundation President, and Jim and Jane’s daughter).

The Art of Puppetry with Cheryl Henson, October 14, 2:00pm Free with museum admission.

From Sesame Street and The Muppet Show to The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson’s creative imagination and enthusiasm for new technologies expanded the art of puppetry. Join Cheryl Henson (Henson Foundation President, and Jim and Jane’s daughter) as she looks at her parent’s dedication to the art form through a discussion and showcase of their impressive body of work.

 Campout Cinema: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, October 26, 8:00 p.m. ($14, $11 MoPOP members)

The dream warriors must work together to try and stop Freddy Krueger for good in the third installment of this classic horror franchise starring Robert Englund, Patricia Arquette, and Heather Langencamp. Includes admission to Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film and Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction.

MoPOP After Dark: On Thursdays and Fridays throughout the month of October, MoPOP will host After Dark Happy Hours with exclusive after-hours access to MoPOP’s newest exhibition Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film, plus MoPOP favorites Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds of Myth and Magic. Specialty, bone-chilling cocktails will be available for purchase. 5pm-8pm, MoPOP South Galleries. 21+, $15.

(12) ASGARD STYLE. About this time of year if I think of anyone wearing Marvel-themed clothing, I’m thinking about a Halloween costume. But no longer!

Josh Bennett, fashion designer and knitter extraordinaire, brings his passion for Marvel and its complex storytelling into a new sweater collection inspired by Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok. The new line will showcase Nordic influences, luxury fibers, and fantastical touches across a tight range of men’s sweaters available this holiday season.

…Bennett has always had a love for storytelling, and grew an appreciation for the robust worlds in Marvel stories as he immersed himself in Marvel films. When Thor: Ragnarok was announced as a November release, the unique settings, bold colors, and sense of wonder made it a perfect idea for a winter sweater collection.  Using references from the film, modern day trend influences, and new knitting techniques, Bennett has created a first-of-its-kind collection.

… The luxury limited edition collection includes four different styles, a chunky cardigan, v-neck tennis sweater, fisherman hoodie, and fair isle zip up, and uses yarns including 100% Italian cashmere and yarns from New Zealand, a nod to Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi.  Each sweater is extremely limited to no more than three pieces per size for each style and is numbered and dated.

The Josh Bennett x Marvel collection ranges from $1095 – $1495 USD and is available to shop online at www.joshbennettnyc.com  beginning November 10 with a pre sale October 10.

Thor front
Odin front
Loki front

(13) HOW TO BREAK IN. The BBC reports that “Game of Thrones’ Ellie Kendrick wants to open up ‘closed shop’ film industry”.

“I’ve worked in the film industry on and off for about half my life and I’ve noticed that the worlds that are represented on our screens by no means mirror the worlds that we see around us in our everyday lives,” the 27-year-old says.

“Part of that is because it’s such a difficult industry to break into and often it requires huge financial support from parents or jobs. Or it requires contacts you’ve made in film school – which again costs a lot of money.

“So it’s a bit of a closed shop.”

The piece ends with this prime quote about her GoT role:

“But also, you know, I get to wield an axe occasionally and kill some zombies. So, all in all, she’s a pretty well-rounded character.”

(14) DIFFERENT BOUNDARIES. Mel Brooks, currently preparing for the opening in London’s West End of a musical version of his film Young Frankenstein, told a reporter, “Blazing Saddles would never be made today”.

He said Blazing Saddles, his Western spoof about a black sheriff in a racist town, could never be made today.

“It’s OK not to hurt the feelings of various tribes and groups,” he said. “However, it’s not good for comedy.

“Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. It’s the lecherous little elf whispering in the king’s ear, telling the truth about human behaviour.”

(15) MICHELLE YEOH. A featurette with Star Trek: Discovery’s Captain Georgiou.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Steven H Silver, Carl Slaughter, Chip Hitchcock, David K.M. Klaus, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]