(1) SOUND ADVICE? “Is listening to an audiobook as good as reading?” asks the Guardian.

Queen Camilla has met many disreputable characters in her time as a royal, but her encounter this week with two celebrity reprobates was at least for a good cause. The queen has appeared in the Beano alongside its celebrated bad boy Dennis the Menace and his dog, Gnasher, as part of a campaign to promote reading.

It wasn’t the cartoon Camilla’s waspish waist that captured the headlines (“I wish,” she said of her comic strip avatar), but what she had to say while encouraging the tween menace to “go all in” for reading: “Comics and audiobooks count too!”

Audiobooks have boomed in popularity in recent years – the revenue they generated for UK publishers rose by almost a third in 2023-24 – becoming an increasingly central part of the industry. But do they truly count as “proper” reading? Is listening to a book while doing the dishes, walking the dog or drifting off to sleep really as valuable as sitting down to read it?

For authors, the publishing trade and those encouraging reading and literacy, the answer is increasingly yes. “Reading is about the content and not the medium,” says Debbie Hicks, the creative director of the Reading Agency, a charity that promotes the personal and social benefits of reading and leads nationwide reading programmes in schools, prisons and communities.

Audio may have been traditionally viewed as a lesser medium, acknowledges Hicks, “but we need to reframe what it means to be a reader and throw off these traditional value hierarchies linked to print and books. Reading is about the content and not the medium.”…

(2) 2025 EASTERCON FINANCIAL REPORT. Tommy Ferguson, Treasurer and Co-Chair, has published the financial report and chair observations for Reconnect, the 2025 Eastercon, held for the first time in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

It shows a healthy surplus of approximately, of which £20k has been disbursed as passalong to current and future Eastercons, as well as a portion retained to support a new Northern Ireland convention NornCon happening in May 2026 (NornCon) which hopes to build on the legacy of Reconnect.

The report details ways in which the committee reached out to other fandoms and new to Eastercon fans (135 people attended an Eastercon for the first time) as well as supported fans with low rates, no questions asked concession rates and, with the help of the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon, bursaries for those who would otherwise be unable attend. Ferguson says, “We hope these actions will be repeated for future Eastercons.”

The report can be accessed on their website – download link here: Reconnect Financial Analysis Report.

(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to chat over calamari with Megaton Man creator Don Simpson in Episode 273 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

It’s time for a trip to Baltimore Comic-Con, where I had the chance to chat with comics creator Don Simpson, whose work I’ve been reading for more than 40 years, ever since the first issue of Megaton Man in 1984.

Back at the beginning of that series, it seemed (incorrectly) as if Don’s interest was solely in satirizing the Marvel tropes of my childhood, with characters such as Stella Starlight (the See-Thru Girl) and Bing Gloom (Yarn Man) spoofing Sue Storm (the Invisible Girl) and Ben Grimm (the Thing). But he soon started focusing on the natural outgrowth of the characters rather than limiting himself to metafictionally commenting only on the comics themselves. There was some pushback on that from those who wanted him to stick to the nostalgia game, as you’ll hear us chat about a bit.

He also created the science fiction backup Border Worlds, which eventually expanded into its own comic, as well as Bizarre Heroes, plus underground comics such as Forbidden Frankenstein, that last project under the pseudonym Anton Drek. Don celebrated Megaton Man’s 40th Anniversary last year with two major projects — the 608-page The Complete Megaton Man Volume I: The 1980s  and Megaton Man: Multimensions — with more planned collections forthcoming.

Even those who haven’t been privileged to experience Don through those many comics projects might have encountered him via the illustrations he created for Al Franken’s 2003 bestseller Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.

We discussed why he splurged on a special issue of Captain Marvel at the Baltimore Comic-Con, how the business practices of comics affect the artistic side, the way two early visits with artist Keith Pollard taught him he didn’t want to be a Marvel Comics penciller after all, where he feels the Silver Age ended and the Bronze Age truly began, how classic cinema and the auteur theory influenced his creative choices, the lessons he learned from the first few issues of Love & Rockets vs. the unfortunate expectations set up by the first few issues of Megaton Man, how working on DC’s anthology title Wasteland caused him to reinvent himself, what path his publishing life would have taken had Megaton Man been only a one-shot as originally planned, the career differences between Basil Wolverton and Will Eisner, why he’s able to let others play with his characters without feeling proprietary, the alternate universe in which he would have been a Crusty Bunker or one of Romita’s Raiders, how 9/11 caused him to head back to school for a PhD, why he wrote a Ms. Megaton Man prose novel, whether he already knows the final chapter to his comics universe, and much more.

(4) COUNTDOWN TO 1971. Galactic Journey, the daily blog that follows the sff field 55 years in the past, has announced they will do “live” coverage of the Apollo 14 mission through Portal 55, their Discord channel.

Apollo 14 coverage starts next week, with the big event beginning January 31st.

This is to-the-second “live” coverage of the entire Apollo 14 mission with all extant footage.

PLEASE tell all your friends. This is a once in a lifetime experience; this is the last time the Journey will make an extravaganza out of space for a long time.

Here’s the full schedule: Apollo 14 schedule at Google Sheets.

(5) MAD ABOUT DC. “MAD Magazine DC Comics Parody: April Fool’s One-Shot Details” from SYFY Wire.

…DC Comics announced Jan. 21 that it will release a MAD Magazine-inspired parody of its own superhero IP by way of a special one-shot guest edited by Eisner Award winning creator Chip Zdarsky (Image’s Sex Criminals). The 64-page MAD About DC appropriately drops on Wednesday, April 1—you know, April Fool’s Day.

“They say at DC there’s nowhere to go but down after writing Batman, and, yeah, it’s true,” Zdarsky said in a statement. “It’s very true.”…

…Zdarsky, of course, is no stranger to the sprawling world of DC, having penned stories for several Gotham City mainstays—Batman, Joker, Harley Quinn, Red Hood, Catwoman, Penguin—as well as the Justice League….

What to expect from the MAD Magazine parody of DC Comics:

• Sergio Aragonés with “A MAD Look at Comic Book Stores”
• Jim Zub & Ramon Perez teaming for “Guy vs. Spy”
• A brand-new DC Fold-In by Charles Soule & Ryan Browne
• A parade of MAD-style parodies skewering the DC comic books you love, and a few you’ve always hated anyway, from Kyle Starks, Dave Johnson, Tini Howard, Mattie Lubchansky, Mark Waid, Ty Templeton, Rainbow Rowell, Vita Ayala, M.L. Sanapo, Mark Russell, Steve Lieber, Jeff Parker, Lukas Ketner, Gerry Duggan, Scott Aukerman, Mitch Gerads, Joanne Starer, Joe Quinones, Scott Snyder, Josh Williamson, Deniz Camp, Gail Simone, Colleen Doran, Joe Kelly, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, Ryan North, Erica Henderson, Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo, Mariko Tamaki, Riley Rossmo, Al Ewing, PJ Holden, Shannon Wheeler, Leah Williams, Isaac Goodhart, Cody Ziglar, Daniele Di Nicuolo, Daniel Kibblesmith, Brandt&Stein, Casey Gilly, J. Bone, Skottie Young, Andrew Wheeler, Stephen Byrne, Colleen Coover, Benjamin Errett, Matt Fraction, Kagan McLeod, Lee Gatlin, Joseph Starkey, Graham Roumieu…and more?!

(6) NEW TOR IMPRINT. “Tor Publishing Group Announces Commercial Fiction Imprint” – Publishers Weekly has details.

Tor Publishing Group has announced the launch of Wildthorn Books, a new imprint for “commercial stories” spanning multiple genres. Its inaugural list is set for winter 2027.

The SFF publishing group’s first commercial fiction imprint will be overseen by Devi Pillai, president and publisher, and Monique Patterson, VP and editorial director. Senior editor Susan Barnes will also be acquiring for Wildthorn. Pillai and Patterson previously teamed to launch Tor Publishing Group’s romance imprint, Bramble, in 2023.

Per the announcement, Wildthorn plans to publish in such genres as “commercial and upmarket women’s fiction, suspense, paranormal mystery, magical realism, speculative nonfiction, and historical fantasy.” The imprint will simultaneously launch with Tor UK, with the two companies sharing lead authors while also commissioning in distinct areas.

“Readers have changed—and so has the market,” said Pillai in a statement, noting that as commercial fiction continues to blend with genre, it became apparent that Tor “was the perfect house to create Wildthorn.” The new imprint will be supported by the team that launched Tor’s successful Nightfire, Bramble, and Tordotcom Publishing imprints.

Wildthorn will launch next January with The Stars Look Like Home, a new novel by TJ Klune. In a statement, Klune called the book “an adventure inspired by my love of animals and favorite childhood films like Homeward Bound, The Adventures of Milo and Otis, and The Incredible Journey,” adding that publishing with Wildthorn “gives me the opportunity to tell a different kind of ‘fantasy’ story.”…

(7) BIG BUCKS. Ted Gioia looks back on the death of the midlist, and “The Day NY Publishing Lost Its Soul”.

…You can’t understand the stagnancy of publishing today without understanding this history. When Random House was a tiny independent company, it could make a tidy profit by publishing books that sold just ten thousand copies. But when you’re part of a billion dollar corporation, those books don’t move the needle—you need something bigger and splashier.

So you put large fonts on the cover, along with fancy shapes and garish colors. And the story inside those covers has to be tried and true.

You are now imprisoned by the formula.

The problem starts at the top. I can’t find out how much the CEO of Bertelsmann makes, but I do know that his compensation at his previous job was $1.7 million. So I assume he’s making at least as much at his new job.

This is great for him—but terrible for the book business. You can’t pay enormous salaries like this by publishing smart and bold midlist books. You’re not allowed to take risks. So editors have to reach for surefire books—celebrity memoirs filled with juicy gossip, formula novels with the potential for a Netflix adaptation, self-help books from Instagram influencers, and other dumbed down mass market fare.

If it works, the CEO gets that huge payday. But the literary culture goes down the tank—which is where we’re sitting right now….

(8) MONSTERVERSE. Apple TV has dropped the “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” Season 2 Official Teaser.

Titan X has awakened. The new season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters  arrives February 27 on Apple TV Based on the Monsterverse from Legendary, this dramatic saga — spanning three generations — reveals buried secrets and the ways that epic, earth-shattering events can reverberate through our lives.

(9) SANDY COHEN (1948-2026). Longtime LASFS member Sandy Cohen died January 20 from medical complications after a fall.

Sandy joined LASFS in March 1967. He was at the first meeting ever held in the LASFS Clubhouse in 1973, and at the successor clubhouses, including in 2011. In the Seventies he wrote numerous reviews for Delap’s F&SF Review.

Helpful at many conventions; he was a leading Art Show auctioneer. His management of the Dealers’ Room at the 2019 World Fantasy Con was applauded in Locus. He was a member of the Board of Directors of SCIFI, Inc., the nonprofit organization that is running LAcon V this year.

(10) JEAN RABE (1957-2026). Author Jean Rabe, named an International Association of Media Tie-In Writers Grandmaster in 2020, died on January 19 at the age of 68.

Rabe wrote game accessories and novels for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy worlds of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, and contributed to West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game and FASA’s BattleTech product lines.

She served the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as business manager and editor of the association’s SFWA Bulletin until 2013, when she resigned following controversies over cover art on one issue, and a misogynistic column by Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg.

Rabe also became known for collaborations with Andre Norton and a series of short story anthologies frequently co-edited with Martin H. Greenberg.

She is survived by her husband, Bruce Rabe. 

(11) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

January 21, 1972 – First Trek Con, NYC

By Paul Weimer: No, I wasn’t there, I was three months old and my mother and father were not into Star Trek.  Oh, Dad would patiently watch as I watched reruns of TOS, but this piece is not about that. It is about the first Star Trek Con. Star Trek Lives! (The exclamation point is part of the title).

Or was it the first?  It was held in January 1972 at the Statler Hilton, but a research of the subject suggests that there was a previous con in 1969 in Newark, New Jersey. That con was just a group of fans, no guests and lasted an afternoon. It is not the first time Star Trek was in a con of any sort– Roddenberry was at Worldcon in 1966 (Tricon).  Fans have always been meeting and talking Star Trek when getting together. But the first full convention devoted to the show was Star Trek Lives!

With all of that in mind, let’s get back to the con itself. It featured guests including Roddenberry and Majel Barrett and D.C Fontana. It also had Hal Clement and Isaac Asimov. Asimov was well known as a big fan of Star Trek, so while I might be mildly surprised by Clement being at this con, I am not that surprised Asimov was invited. In any event, that’s a solid list of guests for a first ever Star Trek convention.

This con, the first Star Trek Lives! Convention, is considered the first con as we understand them, and is worth celebrating on that basis. The not so subtle goal of the con, like other efforts at the time, was to provide momentum for a revival of the show. Even given the problems of the third and final TOS season, the enthusiasm of fans for the show to come back manifested the moment the show was cancelled. This con, in 1972 was an expression by the fans not only of the love of the show, but laying the groundwork for its return. 

The con also featured an art show, a dealer room, a costume call, NASA space displays (moon rocks and an astronaut suit), and a hospitality room. Episodes were also screened from 16mm prints, including the original pilot The Cage and a blooper reel. There was also a fan-made reconstruction of the Enterprise Bridge as well.  

And it was written up in fanzines of the time like Ragnarok and Poison Pen Press. 

This original con was the first of a series of four conventions and was in the end successful in their mission. After all, Star Trek did return in the form of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  In a time between TOS and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the fate of Star Trek was fraught.  Cons like Star Trek Lives! were essential in keeping the flame of Star Trek alive.  It was not the only strand in keeping interest in the show alive, but it was unmistakably important, and deserves to be remembered.

My own first science fiction convention was, in fact, a Star Trek convention in the mid 1990’s in a different hotel in New York City. That Star Trek convention had Marina Sirtis and George Takei as guests, the latter I accidentally bumped into on a back staircase. At the time I had the feeling there had been plenty of these sorts of conventions before, but I did not know at the time just how far back Star Trek conventions went. 

Now if I only had a time machine to go visit this first Star Trek convention. In this era where retro style cameras are all the rage, I could take all the pictures I wanted and not even raise an eyebrow.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal compares sciences.
• Bizarro has a suggestion to improve the strategy. 
• Bob the Squirrel is not impressed. 
• Dark Side of the Horse sees time really does fly. 
• Eek! has a therapeutic insight. 
• Nancy wants to be first. 
• The Argyle Sweater attends a superhero’s funeral. 
• Wumo is overstaffed. 

(13) POOF! [Item by Steven French.] It’s out there! “Complex building blocks of life form spontaneously in space, research reveals” – at Phys.org.

Challenging long-held assumptions, Aarhus University researchers have demonstrated that the protein building blocks essential for life as we know it can form readily in space. This discovery, appearing in Nature Astronomy, significantly raises the statistical probability of finding extraterrestrial life.

In a modern laboratory at Aarhus University and at an international European facility in Hungary (HUN-REN Atomki), researchers Sergio Ioppolo and Alfred Thomas Hopkinson conduct pioneering experiments. Within a small chamber, the two scientists have mimicked the environment found in giant dust clouds thousands of light-years away. This is no easy feat….

(14) LOOK WHAT I FOUND. “American high school student stuns scientists by mapping 1.5 million previously unknown space objects” reports Futura-Sciences.

A California teenager has stumbled upon a cosmic jackpot while digging through forgotten NASA archives. What began as a summer side project turned into a groundbreaking  AI discovery — one that’s now published in a leading scientific journal.

In one of modern astronomy’s most surprising breakthroughs, a high school student from California used artificial intelligence to uncover more than 1.5 million previously unidentified space objects — all from a retired NASA mission’s data. His work has been peer-reviewed and published in The Astronomical Journal, earning him recognition within the scientific community….

(15) LONG DIVISION. Maps will be updated. But no need to hurry. “Africa is splitting in two in slow motion, and geologists have found the crack where a new ocean is being born” says Ecoticias.

Most people grew up with a simple world map in school where Africa is one solid block of land. Now scientists say that picture is slowly going out of date. According to work highlighted by National Geographic and several research teams, the African continent is tearing along a giant scar that will one day create a new ocean between two separate landmasses.

This breakup is happening along the East African Rift, where the Somali plate is pulling away from the larger Nubian plate. The movement is incredibly slow, only a few millimeters each year, yet over tens of millions of years it will reshape coastlines, trade routes, and even the way future students learn their geography….

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