(1) DELANY CONSIDERS FATE OF HIS PERSONAL LIBRARY. Samuel Delany told Facebook readers today: 

The majority of my personal library, from my apartment… in New York City, is currently in a CubeSmart storage unit.

Once upon a time, I lived in an 8-room apartment with books all up and down the hallway, along with my own little room and library at the very end. From there I went to my daughter’s house in Wynnewood, where there was room for the entire library (it filled their entire basement), but when Dennis and I were kicked out (with an hour to pack) we came to this three-room apartment. Most of my books went into storage, initially a 320+ cardboard cartons filled with literature, philosophy, current thought, and advance copies of my own work and some science fiction.

It’s almost as much money to store my books as it is to pay my rent, and I don’t even get to read them.

Soon, I am planning to sell my collection to a corporate book reseller. If anyone has any suggestions for a better fate, I’d love to hear it.

(2) CONSEQUENCES OF EMPATHY. Christopher Lockett has “Some Thoughts on Pluribus”. Beware spoilers. (I don’t think this excerpt gives away anything that isn’t evident from the trailer.)

…As a result of the joining, all members of the collective have access to the sum total of human knowledge and, further, can perform such sophisticated actions as flying airplanes or doing surgery. In other words, if someone somewhere knows something, everybody else knows it; similarly, the skill one person has is now held in common.

What’s more, the joining renders all its members incapable of violence or doing any sort of harm to any living thing. This detail is quite reminiscent of Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever Peace (1998), which envisions a form of future combat in which elite soldiers operate battle bots remotely by being connected mentally—they virtually inhabit the machines along with the rest of their squad, with whom they share a mind link, such that they can operate as one without the need for vocalizing orders or intention. All such soldiers are limited to two-week tours at a time, ostensibly to protect their mental health. But the main characters discover that the real reason is because anybody who has spent more than two weeks connected to other humans loses the capacity to do harm. Too much time inhabiting the minds of others, in other words, engenders a radical empathy that removes the instinct and ability for violence….

(3) VIDEOS FROM TENTH CITY TECH SCIENCE FICTION SYMPOSIUM. Videos from panels held at the Tenth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on “Image in SF” have been posted to YouTube. The event took place December 2 in New York.

This is the direct link to the YouTube video playlist.

(4) GENRE GRAPEVINE. Jason Sanford tells about his look inside a fake Discord book club in “Genre Grapevine: Book Club Scams Are a Warning of Emerging AI Super-Scams”, an unlocked post at Patreon.

…So far this scam followed what I’d read in Strauss’ Writer Beware report. However, everything took a new turn when Speier offered to let me see the Discord where their so-called community interacted with each other and discussed books.

After receiving an invite to the Supper Books readers Discord, I quickly started exploring and screenshotting everything….

…I’ve redacted the names of other authors in any screenshots I’ve shared. However, one author who said I could quote him is the environmental author David Sobel. Sobel came into the Discord before I did and interacted with the users for a while before leaving. He later told me he didn’t send the scammers any money.

When I asked Sobel what convinced him it was a scam, he said, “The organizer suggested that the readers she was convening were all enthusiastic about the book of mine we were going to talk about. When I got on the chat, it was clear that none of the ‘readers’ knew a thing about the book.”

This ties in with what I realized each time Melissa Speier and the other users talked about my book. While Speier’s initial email appears to be from someone who read We Who Hunt Alexanders, a closer look shows that the details about my book are both specific and generic along with saying a lot without saying much at all. This is a pattern seen frequently with AI-generated copy. It appears someone used a program like ChatGPT to write the remarks about my book….

(5) FREE READ: HOLLY HUNTER PROFILE. We linked to this a few days ago. We now have a gift link that bypasses the paywall: “Holly Hunter Reaches for the Stars” in the New York Times.

(6) INAUGURAL LIBRARO PRIZE. The Guardian is on hand when a “£50,000 ‘reader-led’ writing prize launched” by Libraro. (Here is the direct link: The Libraro Prize 2026.)

A new £50,000 writing prize that allows readers to select the shortlist from submitted manuscripts – and rewards them with cash prizes for their involvement – has been launched by the publishing platform Libraro, in partnership with Hachette UK.

The Libraro prize aims to “sidestep the traditional barricades of the book industry”, according to organisers. Writers upload full manuscripts to the Libraro platform, where readers champion their favourite entries to create a shortlist of six books.

It is open to adult and crossover YA fiction written in English and is designed to give readers a role in discovering new writing talent.

The overall winner will receive a £50,000 prize package from Libraro – comprising £30,000 and an additional £20,000 towards marketing the finished book – alongside a book deal with Hachette UK. Two additional reader prizes of £10,000 each will also be awarded: one to the reader who referred the winning author to the platform, and another to the reader who engages most actively with submissions….

…The competition is open to anyone aged 18 or over, worldwide, regardless of previous publishing history or professional representation. Entrants will have the chance to receive constructive feedback from readers, while shortlisted authors will be given professional support to help them package and format their manuscripts before they are assessed by the judges….

…Entries open on 19 January and close on 15 February, with reader engagement running from 19 February to 20 March. The shortlist will be announced on 21 April, and the winner revealed on 13 May.

(7) OPERA BASED ON CHABON NOVEL CAN BE SEEN VIA MET LIVE. “Belonging, art, and trauma collide in The Met’s WWII opera ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’” at Gay City News. (Here’s a direct link to the production atMetropolitan Opera, where you can search for a cinema where it is being shown.)

Last fall the Metropolitan Opera debuted a new opera, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” composed by Michael Bates, with a libretto by Gene Scheer, who adapted Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Now, The Met Live is giving audiences a chance to see a filmed version of this production in cinemas on Jan. 24, with encore presentations on Jan. 26.

The opera, which is performed in English, is ambitious and entertaining. It incorporates themes of belonging, art, and trauma into a story that has the Jewish Joe Kavalier (baritone Andrzej Filończyk) escaping Prague in 1939 via a coffin to go live with his cousin, Sam Clay (tenor Miles Mykkanen), in Brooklyn. Joe has left his teenage sister Sarah (soprano Lauren Snouffer) behind, but he promises to send for her and their parents. 

In New York, Joe and Sam create “The Escapist” comic book featuring a superhero who fights fascism. It becomes wildly successful, and a radio production of “The Escapist” features actor Tracy Bacon (baritone Edward Nelson), who falls in love with the equally smitten Sam. Meanwhile, Joe meets Rosa Saks (mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce), who runs the Transatlantic Rescue Agency, which helps Jews sail to America from war-torn Europe. As the romances develop, a tragedy occurs and, for different reasons, Joe and Tracy enlist to go fight overseas, leaving Rosa and Sam back home…. 

“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” is an impressive-looking production. The sets and visual design (by 59 Studios) are imaginative; some images are seen being drawn in “real time.”  Various comic book panels from “The Escapist” also come to life on a big screen like giant Roy Lichtenstein canvases. There is even an actor playing the caped and masked superhero who dances and battles evildoers on stage. 

In addition, there is a fabulous set piece of the radio play, complete with a foley artist, and a later sequence of another comic book character floating down from the sky that has a dreamlike quality. The opera really hits its stride with these wondrous moments, and the period-themed music heightens the energy of these scenes. While an extended sequence in Act II, set in the Western Front, is quite elaborate, and features dozens of soldiers on a giant moving stage, that episode tends to be a bit repetitive narratively and musically, which is a drawback….

(8) WILLIAM GOWEN (1957-2026). Seattle fan William “Lile” Gowen died on January 5. Karen G. Anderson made the announcement on Facebook.

…Some of us knew Lile as one of the members of the concom for the Foolscap Convention; some of us knew him as an avid film buff, art collector, and baseball enthusiast. Lile was a gracious host for many of the events benefitting the Clarion West science fiction writing workshop and the Seattle area science fiction community in general.

His death was a surprise. He’d been recovering from an illness suffered this summer….

The family obituary is here: “William Carlile Gowen Obituary (1957-2026)”.

With solemn hearts, we announce the passing of William Carlile Gowen of Seattle, Washington, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose presence will be deeply missed, having departed on January 5, 2026 at the age of 68. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 19, 1932 — Richard Lester, 94

Serious film and I don’t get along — give me a good, fun film and I’m very, very happy. Thus you’re getting American-born but eventually British-resident film director Richard Lester for the Birthday this Scroll. Pop the bubbly and dig into the chocolate cake, let’s get started. 

A variety show he produced caught the attention of Peter Sellers who got Lester’s assistance in getting The Goon Show from the BBC Home Service onto ITV in the London area as The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d.  It lasted but six episodes. Six insane episodes mind you. 

His second film after It’s Trad, Dad which is decidedly not genre was The Mouse on the Moon, a sequel to The Mouse That Roared (which he was not involved in at all.) It was by Michael Pertwee, brother of a certain actor we know from Doctor Who. Quite silly it was. 

He directed The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, a late Fifties sketch comedy short film directed by him and Peter Sellers. So why mention it? It’s because it was a favorite of John Lennon which led to Lester’s being hired to direct A Hard Day’s Night and then Help! You know which film is genre, so I needn’t say so. 

Next up is The Three Musketeers (which I didn’t know was also known as The Three Musketeers (The Queen’s Diamonds) which is an interesting title).  Fascinatingly George MacDonald Fraser wrote the screenplay. Lester shot The Four Musketeers right after this film.

He later reunited most of the Three Musketeers cast to film The Return of the Musketeers with the only notable cast member not present being Raquel Welch. 

Lester was fond of swashbuckler films, so it was only natural that he decided to direct a Flashman film. Royal Flash was based off the second of the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser which now gives me the link to him writing the Musketeer screenplays. Cool. Very cool. And naturally Fraser wrote the screenplay here.

(A digression. I mentioned it before but I’ll mention it again. Kage Baker adored Flashman and this film as well. She told me several times in the last year before her passing on that she was planning on writing a Flashman novel but of course never did, sadly. There are some Flashman references in her Company series, she told me.) 

Then there was Robin and Marian, which along with along with Richard Carpenter’s Robin of Sherwood, I hold to be the finest representations of Robin Hood ever done. The script was by James Goldman, writer of The Lion in Winter, and as you know the leads were performed by Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn. Perfect. Truly perfect. 

Superman II was a great success after he reshot almost all the footage Richard Donner had already shot, some three-quarters of the projected film. Ouch. (That was released as Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut.) Unlike this film, Superman III directed by him would be both a critical and box office failure. 

His last film before retirement though not genre, I’ll note as it’s a great film called Get Back, the thirty-three-year old concert film about The Paul McCartney World Tour of 1989–1990.  Seventeen of the twenty-three songs he performs are by the Beatles. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

• Bound and Gagged reveals Area 51 has a neighbor. 
• Free Range dug some some dino tech bros. 
• Loose Parts knows the way deities work. 
• Rubes might outrun this leash.
• Swan Eaters found the right ingredient. 
• Zen Pencils quotes Carl Sagan. 
• heyokyay must admit advanced civilizations are more advanced…
• Nancy and Sluggo disagree about the length of time.

(11) THAT WRAPS IT UP. The Guardian profiles a book about a popular culture history niche: “A 10p masterpiece! The golden age of crisp packet design, from Chipsticks to Frazzles to Hedgehogs”.

Would you eat a smoky spider flavour Monster Munch? What about a Bovril crisp, cooked up to celebrate the release of Back to the Future? Then there’s hedgehog flavour – and even a Wallace and Gromit corn snack designed to capture the unique taste of moon cheese, which the duo rocketed off to collect in A Grand Day Out.

All these salty, crunchy and perhaps even tasty snacks are celebrated in UK Crisp Packets 1970-2000, a 140-page compendium that delves into the colourful, often strange and occasionally wild world of crisp packet design. The book will come as a heavy hit of nostalgia for many people, featuring various childhood favourites – Chipsticks, Frazzles, Snaps – along with the lesser known and the rare.

You’ll find Dennis the Menace bacon and baked bean flavour alongside Golden Wonder roast turkey and stuffing and Sonic the Hedgehog salt and vinegar. There are long-gone regional brands from Penryn, Blackpool and Wigan, along with a whole heap of TV and film special editions, including the Spice Girls, Thunderbirds, Zig and Zag, Dr Who, The Mask and Jurassic Park.

The book is by a 43-year-old artist going by the name of Chris Packet, who has amassed quite an archive. It is nothing if not eclectic, the designs it showcases ranging from straightforward to inspired to bizarre. There’s union jack-clad cheese and onion to commemorate the 1981 royal wedding and even innuendo-laden comic strips that recall smutty seaside postcards. The Dandy’s Beryl the Peril fronts a bag of sausage and tomato….

(12) BAY AREA SENDOFF. “See You Later, Claude: San Francisco Mourns Its Beloved Alligator” – the New York Times covers the obsequies. (Behind a paywall.)

Heather Knight has covered the quirky side of San Francisco for many years, but this is her first alligator funeral.

This funeral traded hymns for a brass band, somber pallbearers for dancing drag queens, and black suits and dresses for reptile costumes. There were no platters of cheese and crackers, but there was a nearly life-size loaf of sourdough shaped like the deceased.

In San Francisco, people do things differently — including the memorial service on Sunday to mourn the passing of Claude, an albino alligator who entertained crowds at the California Academy of Sciences for years by not doing much at all.

San Francisco has long embraced those who stand out from the crowd, and Claude certainly did. He was pure white, had pink eyes that did not see well, stretched 10 feet long, weighed 300 pounds and was so quiet and still that many first-time visitors to the science museum thought he was a statue.

A few times over the years, Claude shocked his admirers with a roar — and on Sunday, the city roared its love and appreciation back at him. He died last month of liver cancer at 30, a ripe age for an albino alligator, and thousands turned out to a concourse near the museum in Golden Gate Park for his jubilant memorial service….

(13)  LITTLE RED DOTS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The latest Nature cover story may solve the little red dot (LRD) mystery!

Back in 2022, in its first two weeks of operation, the James Webb space telescope detected little red dots (LRDs) and no-one knew what they were. These LRDs seemed to date from the early Universe, around 600 million years after the Big Bang.

Two theories emerged: could they be young, unexpectedly star-filled galaxies or, alternatively, anomalously massive black holes that were accreting glowing gas?

A new analysis of the light from LRDs now supports the latter scenario but indicates that the black holes are hidden behind a thick curtain of gas, which made them seem more massive in earlier analyses than they really are. The British, Swedish and Swiss based astrophysicists note that the hydrogen line emissions in the spectra of LRDs are particularly broad, which indicates that the glowing gas is moving at velocities of thousands of kilometres per second.  Such speeds suggest an active galactic nucleus in which gas surrounding a supermassive black hole heats up and glows.

Now, the bigger the black hole the greater the gas speed and so the greater the hydrogen line broadening.  The problem is that the broadening is so great that it suggests that the black hole is the mass of an entire galaxy and not just its nucleus.  So, are LRDs galaxies or black holes?

The hydrogen line spectra are consistent with a dot being  bright object surrounded by dense clouds of ionised material. Here, if the researchers’ model is correct, the brightness of a dot represents more than 250 billion Suns, but this collection of stars was less than one-tenth of a parsec across, which is a fraction of a light year and much, much smaller than a galaxy (which can be one or two hundred thousand light years across). The only possible explanation could be that an LRD is a dense, compact object that is converting the gravitational potential energy of in-falling gas into light. Such an object would be a really big, or supermassive, black hole such as the ones found at the hearts of galaxies but that this is surrounded by gas through which light generated by some of the gas in-falling itself gets altered into the way the hydrogen lines are seen.

Primary research  Rusakov, V. et al. (2026) Little red dots as young supermassive black holes in dense ionized cocoons, Nature, vol. 649, p574-9.

[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Jerry Kaufman, Jeffrey Smith, Jason Sanford, Lise Andreasen, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, and Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]