(1) FATE OF FIRE-DAMAGED OSCARS. The Hollywood Reporter interviewed “Colleen Atwood on Losing Oscars in L.A. Wildfires”.

When the Palisades Fire tore through Pacific Palisades last year, it didn’t just destroy Colleen Atwood‘s home. It melted three of her Academy Awards and badly damaged a fourth — a surreal, devastating footnote to one of the most decorated careers in Hollywood costume design.

A costume designer whose work has helped define the look of modern studio filmmaking, Atwood has collaborated for decades with such filmmakers as Tim Burton, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Demme, creating looks for films including Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Alice in Wonderland and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Then came the fire. The blaze consumed her beloved Aderno Way house, along with nearly everything inside it. In the aftermath, Atwood was left with a single scorched statuette that she affectionately refers to as her “crispy critter.”…

… And not all Oscars, it turns out, are created equal, with older statues made from softer alloys melting faster than the bronze versions cast more recently….

… A year later, all of Atwood’s Academy Awards have been replaced, but she is far from recovered….

…. “The Academy replaced the statues and they were the first to do so. The Academy and BAFTA were both really great when I reached out, and the Emmys were replaced as well. The Costume Designers Guild Awards have been slightly different as they haven’t been replaced. Three of my Oscars totally melted. But the Academy changed to a foundry before I won for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them so they were solid metal. It’s the only award that didn’t melt.”…

(2) NEW PROZINE. Editor Scott Beggs is launching a new online short fiction magazine called Adventitious on February 1.

We publish speculative and genre-bending work, including original stories and selected reprints, and I’m thrilled that a brand new novelette from Nebula-nominated author P.A. Cornell will anchor our first issue. 

 (3) HOW HARD IS IT? A Deep Look by Dave Hook leads us through “’The Hard SF Renaissance’, Kathryn Cramer & David G. Hartwell editors, 2002 Tor”.

The Short: I just read The Hard SF Renaissance, Kathryn Cramer & David G. Hartwell editors, 2002 Tor. It’s a brick of a book, 41 stories and 960 pages. By a hair, my favorite story was “Think Like a Dinosaur“, a novelette by James Patrick Kelly, Asimov’s June 1995, which is a classic. I loved the “Introduction: New People, New Places, New Politics” essay and the author/story introductions by Cramer and Hartwell, which often quoted the authors as well on the subject of hard SF. My overall average rating for the stories is 3.94/5, or “Great”. Strongly recommended.

(4) HEINLEIN’S HOLLYWOOD HOUSE. The Heinlein Society has reposted photos from their 2012 tour of “Heinlein’s Home in The Hollywood Hills”.

In June of 1935 Robert and Leslyn Heinlein purchased the house at 8777 Lookout Mountain Ave, Los Angeles, CA, near Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. This house was where the Mañana Literary Society held their meetings and where Robert wrote all his early works until WWII took him to Philadelphia in 1942. “And He Built A Crooked House” was supposedly located across the street and if you read “Lost Legacy” closely, you will notice striking similarities to Joan’s house and the Heinlein’s house….

(By the way, this also was the house visited by the census-taker in “What the Heinleins Told the 1940 Census”.)

(5) THE WAYWARD WORMHOLE ADDS MORE STARS. A Workshop for Professional Novelists – Sandusky, Ohio, 2026 has been announced on The World of Cat Rambo. The workshop runs from September 10-14. Full details and cost information at the link. Applications are open until March 31.

Working together, Donald Maass and C.C. Finlay have created a workshop for mid-career writers: those novelists who are already creating income from their books, whether they are traditionally or independently published, but still want more. 

Donald Maass, a renowned name in the craft of writing, and founder of the Donald Maass Literary Agency, along with C.C. Finlay, a successful novelist and award-winning editor, will  co-teach a workshop for professional novelists in conjunction with the Wayward Wormhole. Scheduled for September 2026, this critique-focused weekend offers a twist on most craft workshops by assuming applicants are already well past the basics and are interested in forwarding their skills with professional guidance and quality peer critiques. This workshop is for those who reach higher.

Donald Maass founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist, Writing the Breakout Novel, The Fire in Fiction, The Breakout Novelist, Writing 21st Century Fiction, The Emotional Craft of Fiction, and over sixty novels.

C.C. Finlay has published five novels and a short story collection. His fiction has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella, the Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the Sidewise Award. In 2003 he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer In January 2015, Finlay was named the ninth editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and served until the January/February 2021 issue. In 2021, he won a World Fantasy Award for his work editing the magazine.

The Wayward Wormhole is an off-shoot of the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which has been serving up classes, workshops, and community for writers since 2011. 

To find out more about the Sandusky workshop, which is open to traditionally and independently published writers, see Workshop for Professional Novelists – Sandusky, Ohio, 2026.

(6) TRAILER PARK. Variety cheers as “X-Men Back in Avengers Doomsday Teaser: Cyclops, Xavier, Magneto”. In theaters December 18, 2026.

…The third teaser for “Avengers: Doomsday,” which has been playing in front of “Avatar: Fire and Ash” screenings, has been released online, and it marks the return of Fox’s “X-Men” characters Prof. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Cyclops (James Marsden)….

(7) CON PEDERSON (1934-2026) Con Pederson, a CGI pioneer who worked alongside Douglas Trumbull creating the Oscar-winning visual effects for the Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has died January 2 at the age of 91.

Before that, Pederson was an LA fan in the Forties and Fifties, a member of LASFS and The Outlanders. He edited at least one issue of The Outlander, as well as contributing to the 1948 Fantasy Annual. He also wrote some short stories that appeared in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy and IF.

The Hollywood Reporter obituary chronicles his effects career: “Con Pederson Dead: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ VFX Artist Was 91”.

While working for Southern California-based Graphic Films, which produced content for NASA, Pederson wrote and directed To the Moon and Beyond, a 15-minute film narrated by Rod Serling that screened at the Transportation and Travel Pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. (Trumbull, hired by Pederson a few years earlier, painted a rotating spiral galaxy for the project.)

Kubrick saw To the Moon and Beyond and invited Pederson to his Manhattan apartment to read the script and view storyboards for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He and Trumball were hired in summer 1965 to go to England, and they worked on the movie through March 1968.

As one of four special photographic effects supervisors credited on the 1968 classic — Trumbull, Wally Veevers and Tom Howard were the others — Pederson helped create stars, planets, spaceships and the unforgettable five-minute Star Gate sequence.

Kubrick would receive the Academy Award for special effects in 1969, the only Oscar of his sterling career.

Pederson began writing science fiction at age 14 and after two years at Los Angeles City College majored in Art and Anthropology at UCLA. He discovered animation in Westwood in the college theater department, made a couple of student films and was hired at Disney, where he was introduced to German American aerospace engineer and space architect Wernher von Braun.

In 1956, Pederson was drafted into the U.S. Army and through his Disney connections wound up working for von Braun in graphic engineering, drawing illustrations about rockets and space travel. After the service, he went back to Disney before heading to Graphic Films.

Pederson joined Metrolight Studios and served as a creative lead alongside Tim McGovern. There, he was a VFX supervisor on HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon, the 12-part 1998 documentary about the Apollo space program, and an animator on the films Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), Imposter (2001), Gods and Generals (2003) and View From the Top (2003)….

In 1999, Pederson was one of the winners of The Winsor McKay Award for his contributions to animation. It is presented at the annual Annie Awards ceremony.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 6, 1905 – Eric Frank Russell

So let’s talk about the British writer Eric Frank Russell. His first published piece of fiction was in the first issue of Tales of Wonder called “The Prr-r-eet” (1937). (Please don’t tell me it was about cats. If it is, would that make it that first appearance of social justice credentials?) He also had a letter of comment in Astounding Stories that year. He wrote a lot of such comments down the years. 

Just two years later, his first novel, Sinister Barrier, would be published as the cover story as the first issue of Unknown. His second novel, Dreadful Sanctuary, would be serialized in Astounding, Unknown’s sister periodical, in 1948.

At Clevention, “Allamagoosa” would win a Short Story Hugo.  The Great Explosion novel garnered a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.

Now let’s note some reworkings he did as I like them a lot. Men, Martians and Machines published in 1955 is four related novellas of space adventures at their very best.   You don’t see novellas connected this way very often, if hardly at all. 

The 1956 Three to Conquer, nominated for a Hugo at NY Con II, is a reworking of the earlier Call Him Dead magazine serial that deals with an alien telepath and very well at that. Finally Next of Kin, also known as The Space Willies, shows him being comic, something he does oh so well. It was a novella-length work in Astounding first.

And then there’s the Design for Great-Day novel which was written by Alan Dean Foster. It’s an expansion by him based off a 1953 short story of the same name by Russell. I’m pretty familiar with Foster has done but this isn’t ringing even the faintest of bells. Who’s read it? 

He wrote an extraordinary amount of short stories, around seventy by my guess with Short Stories Collection being the only one available at the usual suspects. He’s an author who needs a definitive short story collection done for him. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• Bizarro might catch the baker.  
• Carpe Diem eyes the bait.  
• Rubes launches a Berlitzkrieg.
• xkcd brings up a new effect.  

(10) LOSS OF GODDARD CENTER LIBRARY. “Goddard Space Flight Center staff says library’s closure degrades NASA’s mission” reports NPR.

NASA’s plans for the new year include sending a spacecraft near the moon. Some of the work for missions like that takes place at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and that is where the Trump administration is closing a library where scientists did a lot of work. What’s the connection between high technology and an old-style center of learning? NPR’s Katia Riddle reports….

… RIDDLE: NASA officials say that the library’s closure is part of a long-standing, quote, “transformation effort.” Staff interviewed for this story said that many of the buildings on the campus are in need of repair, including the one that houses the library. But they point out that closures of buildings like this was not in the original plan. They say these closures have been rushed and disorganized, with no clear blueprint to replace important spaces. Monica Gorman works at Goddard.

MONICA GORMAN: The way that they’ve gone about it has just been extraordinarily haphazard and chaotic, and really to the point of being cruel to the people who work in these buildings….

GORMAN: They kept telling us, oh, you can’t work from home because you have to be in person to collaborate with people. You have to sit across the table from people in real life. And this was one of the best places on campus to do that, and they’re just throwing it away.

RIDDLE: Representatives from NASA and Goddard declined an interview for this story, but NASA administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X in response to news reports about the library closure. He insisted the Goddard staff will still have access to the resources they need, writing, quote, “the Goddard community does have and will continue to have access to books via the federal interlibrary loan process.”

(11) SMART BRICKS. “Lego unveils tech-filled Smart Bricks – to play experts’ dismay” reports BBC. (Article is behind a paywall.)

Lego has unveiled Smart Bricks – tech-filled versions of its small building blocks – which it says will bring sets to life with sound, light and reaction to movement.

However, the new product range is causing unease among play experts, who say it risks undermining what makes Lego special for children in an increasingly digital world.

Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 in Las Vegas, the Danish toymaker’s Smart Play system introduces new electronic components to the classic plastic blocks.

Lego says its new tech-enabled products, launching in March with a new Star Wars set, are its “most revolutionary innovation” in nearly 50 years.

But Josh Golin, executive director of children’s wellbeing group Fairplay, believes Smart Bricks”undermine what was once great about Legos” – harnessing children’s own imagination during play.

“As anyone who has ever watched a child play with old-school Legos knows, children’s Lego creations already do move and make noises through the power of children’s imaginations,” he told the BBC….

…Lego says its Smart Bricks can sense motion, position and distance, allowing the models to respond in various ways during play.

Measuring 2×4, the brick itself contains sensors, lights, a small sound synthesiser, an accelerometer and a custom-made silicon chip enabling it to detect movement and react to it.

But it is designed to be used with Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags tiles – two additional products making up Lego’s Smart Play System.

Similarly adapted from existing Lego components, these possess digital identifiers triggering different sounds or reactions when they detect and interact with each other.

For instance, when tried out by the BBC at CES, a Lego birthday cake recognised when its “candles” were blown out – sounding a cheer and a happy birthday song.

Meanwhile, a Lego helicopter made whooshing sounds when moved or rotated, with its Smart Brick lighting up red upon crashing….

(12) COWABUNGA. “Satellites capture a mega-storm in the North Pacific that produced giant waves up to 115 feet high that traveled nearly 15,000 miles” reports EcoNews.

Far out in the North Pacific, with no ship in sight, satellites have confirmed waves towering to about 35 meters high, roughly 115 feet. The event, linked to a powerful storm in December 2024 and analyzed this year, now ranks among the largest ocean waves ever measured from space.

Those waves were born in a megastorm known as Eddie. Using the SWOT satellite, researchers calculated a significant wave height of 19.7 meters, which is already enough to batter a large vessel. Inside that field, individual crests were estimated to climb beyond 35 meters (115 feet high) while the swell traveled almost 15,000 miles from the North Pacific, through the Drake Passage, into the tropical Atlantic.

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