(1) WAS AI ART USED IN NEW GRRM BOOK? ART DIRECTOR’S DENIAL. Did Penguin Random House’s 20th anniversary edition of GRRM’s A Feast for Crows use AI art? This thread on Reddit – “George R.R. Martin’s team accused of using AI” – analyzes numerous examples in support of the claim, pointing to odd anatomical distortions and mistakes.
The book’s illustrations are by imaginative realism artist Jeffery R McDonald.
The person responsible for approving the art in the book, Raya Golden, yesterday published a denial AI art was used in a post at GRRM’s Not A Blog: “FFC art accusations”.
My name is Raya Golden and I manage the art direction and licensing development here at Fevre River working closely with GRRM as his schedule will allow. But I alone am responsible for approving all the licensed art that accompanies our SOI&F book driven materials.
Recently there have been accusations floating around that the Penguin Random House’s illustrated edition of A Feast For Crows was produced using AI generative art.
To our knowledge and as presented by the artist who completed the work in question there was NO such programing used. While he is a digital multimedia artist and relies on digital programing to complete his work, he has expressed unequivocally that no AI was used, and we believe him.
SO…
The official word from our office is, of course, that we DO NOT, never have and will not willingly work with A.I generative artists in any way shape or form.
(2) ELLISON WONDERLAND PRESERVATION UPDATE. On Facebook, J.Michael Straczynski has posted an impressive gallery of photos taken inside Harlan Ellison’s house:
While I am here…as part of preserving Ellison Wonderland and getting it ready to be classified a historic/cultural landmark, we had one of the best architectural photographers, Barry Schwartz, come in to shoot high resolution photos, along with an Oscar nominated filmographer to do videos for a 3D tour on an eventual website. The core photos, which have been sized down for upload to Facebook, are such high resolution that you can go all the way down on books in the libraries to read the titles.
(There are also a couple of shots of the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars, which has had the capstones atop the house fixed and restored to their original positions, and each panel was individually taken down so that the wooden boarding on which they were mounted could be replaced. The mounting was so soft from years of decay that you could literally shove your finger through them. One more good storm and they would have collapsed.) We had to clear out some of the shrubbery to get to the bottom of the mounting, then clean the panels before returning them to their original place. We’ve also found the molds for some of the broken or missing hieroglyphs and will be replacing them.)
Just for those who wonder if the house still looks as it should. Those of you who have been there should recognize every inch of these….
(3) GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD VOTING OPENS. File 770’s post “Goodreads Choice Awards 2025 Opening Round Nominees” shows the covers of the first round contenders in the Fantasy, Romantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, and Young Adult Fantasy and Sci-Fi categories. There are 15 categories altogether, and Goodreads members have until November 23 to cast their votes. A second round of voting will follow, and then the winners will be announced December 4.
(4) 2025 BOOKER PRIZE. The winner of the 2025 Booker Prize is David Szalay for Flesh, which is a non-genre novel.
(5) MEET THE BSFA CHAIR. The latest Clarke Award Substack newsletter includes an intriguing interview with novelist and Chair of the British Science Fiction Association Stewart Hotston, which includes his reasons for preferring juried awards.
Tom Hunter: Hi Stewart, and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. I was hoping that to start us off you could introduce yourself and your work to our readers.
Stewart Hotston: Hi, yes, I’m an author who’s largely known for SF. I’ve also been a judge for the Clarkes as well as currently being the treasurer of the BFS and as a councillor and now Chair for the BSFA.
I write non-fiction in a number of places — both essays and cultural criticism. My previous published longer work was The Entropy of Loss which was a finalist for both the BFS awards and for the Subjective Chaos awards.
My new book, the space opera Project Hanuman, is published by Angry Robot, and features microbial spaceships, information warfare, planets made of gold and grand ringworlds.
Tom: We know you best, of course, as a BSFA nominated judge for the Clarke Award. I was curious about how you found reading an entire year’s worth of UK published SF (twice!) and the impact, if any, on both your own writing and any wider understanding of the genre.
Stewart: The impact was broad. I found I recognised trends properly for the first time — when you’re reading everything publishers think is worthy of consideration you also get a sense of what the industry thinks is both commercial and substantial. Of course, you’re aware of trends and fashions, but seeing them first hand because you’re seeing literally everything, was a new experience for me.
I found the entire thing fascinating and although it was a tremendous amount of work, it was also really enjoyable.
I’m on record as saying I prefer juried awards over voted because although I think both approaches have strengths, you’re really unlikely to find diamonds in the rough rising to the top of voted awards. What really excites me is those stories that haven’t been as visible as others suddenly getting seen…
(6) HWA WEBMASTER TURNOVER. Horror Writers Association webmaster Angel Leigh McCoy announced on Facebook they will no longer hold that post after December 5. McCoy says it “was not my choice” and calls it a “surprise”.
I wanted to share an important update so that no one is caught off guard. The HWA is undergoing a leadership-directed restructuring, and as part of that process, my contract will end after the first week of December. After that time, my responsibilities will transition to someone new (I don’t yet know who that will be).
This decision was made by the Executive Director, Max, and was not my choice. It came as a surprise, and while transitions are never easy, I want to ensure that the community experiences as smooth a hand-off as possible. If you have any website requests, tech needs, or support questions, please send them to me before December 5 so I can complete them while I’m still in place.
Serving the HWA for the past twelve years has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my career. It’s been my privilege to support our members, chapters, events, awards, and scholarships, and to witness the creativity and generosity that make this community so special. I joined HWA as a new writer back in 1999, and I’ve cherished every step of this journey.
If my work has made a positive impact on your experience with the HWA, I would be deeply grateful if you shared that with the organization’s leadership ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected]).
Thank you all for your trust, your collaboration, and your kindness. It has truly been an honor.
With appreciation and affection, Angel Leigh McCoy
(7) ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD NEWS. The Arthur C. Clarke Award is now taking submissions for books published in 2025.
…Our judges are braced for incoming book mail.
The award is open to original authored works published in English by an author of any nationality, provided that the novel is published for the first time by a UK publisher between 1 January and 31 December of the current submission year.
Deadline for submissions is 31st December 2025: Contact us for our full submissions guidelines.
(8) LEE MOYER INJURED. [Item by Brick Barrientos.] Artist Lee Moyer, a two-time Hugo Award-winning illustrator and designer, sent the following email to his mailing list:
Writing great comics sound effects is harder than you’d think. But sadly, FOOSH is not just a great sound effect, it’s an acronym that stands for “Fall Onto Out-Stretched Hand.”
While I’m usually quite slow in sending out updates, this update represents an all-time (s)low because I’m typing it entirely with my offhand.
I sheered off the larger bone in my left wrist (the Radius) in a terrible fall. A longish metal plate with nine screws has been implanted in my wrist, but it may be months until I can really again draw with my left hand.
So, rather than a cheery list of all the things I’ve been working on, I have a humble request.
If your budget and interest allow, it would mean a great deal to me if you ordered a custom-made print.”
Lee Moyer’s Author Arcana would be interest just to look at.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
November 11, 1922 — Kurt Vonnegut. (Died 2007.)
By Paul Weimer: My first encounter with Kurt Vonnegut was not actually through his work, but through a movie. Not the movie of Slaughterhouse Five, his best known (an adaptation of perhaps his best novel), although that would come later. No, it came, in all places, in the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back To School.
In that movie, Dangerfield, a successful businessman who doesn’t have a college degree, goes to college in order to inspire his son, who is not doing well at the university. But Dangerfield’s character figures he can buy his way to a grade. So, when he needs to do a paper on the work of Kurt Vonnegut…he hires Kurt Vonnegut, who shows up in a cameo in the movie. Dangerfield’s tactic backfires, when his professor tells him “whoever wrote this doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut”
Friends, I didn’t know who Kurt Vonnegut was at the time. My high school had not taught him, and I had missed him in my still growing education into SF. But, if you know me by now, I had to know who he was. And so I read Slaughterhouse Five, and Breakfast of Champions, and a variety of other things by him. His biting and unrelenting humor has stayed with me ever since, and “So it goes” is part of my vocabulary.
Speaking of which, funny thing, when I got around to reading Pournelle and Niven’s Inferno, I was shocked and surprised to find that Vonnegut had a particularly prominent place in hell. I think that the reason they put him there as they did (Vonnegut was still alive when they wrote Inferno) is because Vonnegut (like, say, Margaret Atwood or Joyce Carol Oates) vociferously and vocally denied he wrote science fiction, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I am certain that Vonnegut wrote science fiction, but to put him in hell for not saying so…badly done, indeed. But…so it goes.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- Frank and Ernest feel the lack.
- Imagine This bluffs time travel.
(11) ATWOOD ON WOMEN’S HOUR. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Last week’s Best of Women’s Hour had an interview with Margaret Atwood (first item after the programme’s introduction) as her autobiography is now out.. In the programme, she covered why and how she became a writer. She never thought she would be successful. It was Canada and writers were considered dedicated and writing a purely vocational occupation. Other topics also covered included A Handmaid’s Tale and the history of the USA…
In Margaret Atwood’s 64-year career she has published world-renowned, prescient novels like The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, Alias Grace and Blind Assassin, and now a memoir. Margaret joins Nuala McGovern to discuss Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts and reflect on her life, her work and the power of knowing her own mind.
You can access it here.
(12) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 147 of the Octothorpe podcast, “What? What?! No!”, says John Coxon, “was described by my two cohosts during the editing process as ‘discursive’ and ‘rambly’. STRAP IN, LISTENERS.” There’s an uncorrected transcript available here.
(13) KATHERINE RUNDELL Q&A. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Take Four Books is a weekly BBC Radio 4 series of interviews with authors where they discuss an author’s famous book and then the author discusses three other books that inspired the author in the writing of their book. This week’s author was the children’s fantasy writer Katherine Rundell the author of the Impossible Creatures books that riffs on species loss and climate change. Her latest one is The Poisoned King. The first here recommended books in Prince Caspian.and the second was The Wizard of Earthsea. The programme includes a clip of Ursula K. LeGuin speaking on writing fantasy.
Award-winning author Katherine Rundell discusses The Poisoned King, the second installment in her acclaimed children’s fantasy series, ‘Impossible Creatures’.
In this latest adventure, protagonist Christopher journeys back to the magical archipelago – a realm where dragons, unicorns, griffons, mermaids, and much more, all roam free. But this time, he’s faced with an urgent and mysterious threat.
Rundell shares the three literary inspirations behind her new novel: William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600), C.S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian (1951), and Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea (1968).
You can access it here.
(14) REREADING CHILDHOOD’S END. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid Moidelhoff over at YouTube’s Media Death Cult wiped his archive some years ago, but has now been re-posting some of his more memorable videos. This one is from 2021 and is a review of Arthur C. Clarke’s classic Childhood’s End. This novel came out back in 1953 early on in Clarke’s career but Moid has only just resurrected his review video. Now, I suspect most Filers will have already read this book, but possibly not recently. The same is true for Moid. It is interesting to see how younger SF readers consider the classics as well as how re-reading after many years alters perceptions. You can see the 15-minute video here.
(15) THREE’S COMPANY, SIX IS A CROWD. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Tiangong, the Chinese space station, is a little more crowded than usual. It’s currently playing host to two crews of three taikonauts each.
Normally, the old crew (launched in April of this year on Shenzhou-20) would have returned to Earth shortly after the arrival of the Shenzhou-21 crew. However, it’s suspected that the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft was damaged by an on-orbit debris collision. The China Manned Space Agency is undertaking analysis and has not announced a timeline for the earlier crew’s return.
Though not covered in the linked article, various SpaceX/Elon Musk fans are starting to agitate for a SpaceX rescue mission for the taikonauts. The technical, as well as political, complications that would have to be overcome for that to occur are not known (but would likely be quite significant, so don’t bet the house on it just yet). “Tiangong hosts dual crews after debris impact delays Shenzhou-20 return” reports Space Daily.
…On November 5, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) postponed the scheduled return of Shenzhou-20, citing concerns over possible damage caused by a debris event. Crew commander Chen Dong, operator Chen Zhongrui, and science operator Wang Jie continue to live and work aboard the station, joined by the three-member Shenzhou-21 crew.
CMSA officials reaffirmed: “Following the postponement of the Shenzhou-20 manned spacecraft return mission, the project team, adhering to the principles of ‘life first, safety first,’ immediately activated emergency plans and measures… All tasks are progressing steadily and orderly according to schedule”.
Both Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 astronauts are conducting joint scientific experiments, made possible by robust station systems and supplies delivered by Tianzhou cargo ships.
Engineers and risk teams have performed simulation analysis and system testing on the Shenzhou-20 capsule, while ground teams continue return drills at the landing site….
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Arnie Fenner, Brick Barrientos, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]
