26 When The Pixel-Scrolley’s Done, When The Hugo’s Lost And Won

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) L. W. CURREY BOOKSELLER ROBBED AGAIN. The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) reports genre specialty book dealer L. W. Currey has suffered another theft – the third, says Currey.

A theft has occurred on August 14, 2026 at the offices of Lloyd Currey of approximately 50 books, many unique and quite valuable. The New York State Police have been notified and are investigating. An initial report has been made but a case number is not yet available.

Currey says:

The third! Break-in was last night bypassing security… — total thefts over a quarter of a million. Most books are identifiable and some are unique.

Thief or thieves are knowledgeable and target specific authors and genres. This is under active investigation and lists have been sent to stolen book database. I would like to publicize this for warning others.

The list of stolen books can be downloaded here.

(2) ROBOTS I HAVE KNOWN. ScreenRant lists the “13 Best Robot Characters In TV History”.

Robots make some of the most iconic sci-fi movie characters of all time, from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s game-changing Terminator, to the more recent Roz in The Wild Robot. However, while the best sci-fi movie robots make an undeniable impact, TV shows often give viewers more of a chance to get to know these characters. Many sci-fi TV masterpieces use robots to question what it means to be human, which often reveals surprising answers.

Robot characters with human elements, like Cliff Steele in Doom Patrol, often have a head start and a ready-made plotline when their human and synthetic sides clash. However, the experiences of characters who are fully synthetic (with the occasional exception of lab-grown tissue) can turn a funny moment into a hilarious one, and a creepy show into a terrifying one.

Here’s the first on their list – one you might never have thought about.

The Mail Robot – The Americans

It is not unheard-of for spy dramas to contain advanced technology, from the James Bond franchise to Inspector Gadget. However, The Americans has a relatively serious tone that makes the arrival of the Mail Robot both surprising and hilarious. Aptly named, the device is intended for mail delivery, but it is an absolute nuisance to the staff at the FBI.

The bulky robot blocks pathways, malfunctions, and is a major security risk, with characters leaving classified documents on it. It is central to some major plotlines, with the episode “Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?” being one of the most nerve-wracking episodes in The Americans. The Mail Robot became an unlikely fan-favorite character, with its own X account which was active from 2015 to 2022 and mostly analyzed movie scenes from a robot’s perspective.

(3) 2ND PSIFA REUNION AND FIFTH SF FAN REUNION OF YEAR. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] It is always good to have a few reunions each year. This long weekend was my fifth of sixth and four SF fan get-togethers of the year.

Myself, Anthony and Liz Heathcote and Chris Sellar, all first generation Hatfield PSIFAns, gathered in Sheffield along with two SF² Concatenation team – Simon and Elaine – in a mini-heatwave. Four of us PSIFAns were involved in the early Shoestringcons, the first of which was held the same year as the Brighton Worldcon. (The first time we’d seen Chris in nearly [gasp] half a century!)

Much water has passed under the bridge since we were bright young things in our early 20s. Hatfield PSIFA has also changed. Hatfield Polytechnic is now Hertfordshire University, and PSIFA itself is no longer a broad-church SF group (into books, films, genre-adjacent science, SF conventions etc) but is now devoted to table top gaming… C’est la vie as you Americans say…

Old Age PSIFANs — Liz, Jonathan Anthony and Chris

(4) RASMUSSEN Q&A. Shelf Awareness profiles a genre author in “Reading with… Seven Rasmussen”.

Seven Machina Rasmussen was created in a lab from the remnants of a crashed UFO in an audacious attempt to create the world’s gayest computer. Government officials claimed under duress that she is an astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. Rasmussen also writes science fiction under the pen name C.M. Fields, with recent works appearing in Clarkesworld, Diabolical Plots, and Neon Hemlock…. Her debut nonfiction is Cloudy with a Chance of Starships: How the Drake Equation Reveals the Odds of Life in the Cosmos (Princeton University Press, August 4, 2026).

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Chronicles of Narnia! I would read all seven books back-to-back over and over again. I still have the omnibus, which has a million water stains because I would read it in the bathtub. I was just so completely pulled into the storytelling. In my fiction, I’m always trying to re-create that complete absorption that captivated me as a child. And when I was very little, I loved Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland so much that I had the entire book memorized. My mom would take me and my book to parties and amaze people with her toddler who could read.

Your top five authors:

N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy and short story collection, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month, I consider to be some of the best science fiction of the decade. Dan Simmons wrote my favorite sci-fi series, the Hyperion Cantos. That’s my gold standard of world-building. Jeff VanderMeer (the Southern Reach series) writes the weirdest, most brain-melting prose I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness) is the intellectual equivalent of staring at the sun (incomparably brilliant). Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series taught the power of committing to an absolutely insane premise so hard that it permanently alters the brain chemistry of gay people around the world.

Book you’ve faked reading:

This is really terrible of me, but I’ve never read Contact by Carl Sagan. I’ve never even seen the movie. I have read several books by Sagan, I’ve met Jill Tarter (on whom the book is based), and I like to think I’m in the top 100 people the government would abduct to Area 51 to attempt first contact, but I have not read Contact. This is my cross to bear.

(5) ‘MAUS’ CREATOR COMMENTS. “Art Spiegelman: ‘The US needs a counter-revolution’” – so he tells the Guardian.

…Spiegelman, who in 1992 became the first cartoonist to win a Pulitzer prize for Maus, a graphic novel about his father’s memories of the Holocaust, has done more than anyone to establish comics as a serious art form, capable of tackling difficult political and personal subjects….

…He is 78 years old, slight and scruffy-looking, with a grizzled goatee and wispy grey hair, and he can still talk faster than most people can think. …

…Spiegelman muses that the US’s volatile politics might reflect humankind’s natural tendency to self-destruction. “I guess, after a while, you get restless, so if you get too comfortable you create problems for yourself, even in more mundane, small-time life, never mind as a nation. At this point, we just had the bad luck of having a megalomaniac walking onto the scene,” he says, of the Trump presidency. American politics is, after all, “entertaining if you don’t give a shit, if you’re nihilistic”.

Spiegelman’s mood is sombre as he discusses how Trump has “very effectively dismantled” the country’s democratic ideals: “Whatever the ideals were, we never lived up to them, but at least we had them. Now it’s all so cynical and sordid and stupid.” The president “is cutting off civil liberties and using his powers to squelch dissent and enrich himself in such thoroughly illegal ways, it’s kind of mindblowing”, Spiegelman says, and he finds himself watching in alarm as the “plutocrat in chief” and his “few dozen toadies” get ever richer while ordinary Americans struggle and suffer a “new indignity every day”. He has no hesitation in describing the Trump administration as fascist. “It’s fascism,” he says. “It’s not nazism, per se, but it has a template that it’s following. And it does have to do with othering, which is the basis of what Maus is about, it’s: ‘OK, you guys are mice, we’re cats.’” Maus is among the many books to be banned by various Republican school boards in recent years, but Spiegelman says he has a “predilection” for producing the kind of art people will seek to ban. Sales of Maus spiked in response to the bans.

“I tend to be pessimistic, but this is worse than most things I know,” he says of American politics. “I just don’t see how we get out of this.” The media are struggling with how to convey the stakes in this post-truth era, he explains, the courts are packed with Trump appointees, democratic norms have been destroyed, and there is no effective opposition. The Republicans are “at this point the equivalent of made men in the mafia,” Spiegelman says, “they’ve committed a murder, they’re complicit in something and they have to keep moving as a complicit unit, so it’s very hard to get someone to blow the whistle and say ‘This is crazy.’” The US needs a “counter-revolution”, Spiegelman says. “But I don’t know where to look for it because the Democrats are so timid.”…

(6) BIG B.O. “’Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Joins $2 Billion Box Office Club”. Yahoo! has the tally.

After three weekends in theaters, Sony/Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has made history as the eighth film to gross $2 billion at the global box office.

The milestone was assured after its $360 million domestic/$927 million global launch at the end of July, as the film enjoyed excellent reception from critics and audiences alike. With a $70 million domestic third weekend, the movie is well on course to keep on rolling past post-COVID shutdown megahits like “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Ne Zha 2” to become the third film to reach $2.5 billion before inflation adjustment, joining “Avatar” and “Avengers: Endgame” in that elite club.

Domestically, the film is also pushing to become the highest grossing release of all time by passing the $936 million record set in 2016 by “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Currently, “Brand New Day” is on pace to reach that mark with $785 million after three weekends, 5.6% ahead of the pace set by “Force Awakens,” though its mid-week grosses have been lower compared to that film’s holiday

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 16, 1934 — Diana Wynne Jones. (Died 2011.)

Tonight we’re at the fiction of Diana Wynne Jones. I’m picking just my favorites here.

So what do I pick off the shelf first for reading by her? That’s Deep Secret, where the protagonist is Rupert Venables, overseer of the Multiverse, and who’s going to PhantasmaCon. Absolutely fun it is. And the sequel, The Merlin Conspiracy, is just as pleasing.

If there’s essential reading for her by me in terms of just plain being intrigued by the idea underlying the book, it’d be The Tough Guide to Fantasyland which is a playful look at the genre. A really playful look.

Fire and Hemlock for her artful merging of the Scottish ballads Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer is amazing. Then there’s the setting here, a small private college. We’ve such a college not far away up the coast and her depiction feels spot on.

What’s not to like about Howl’s Moving Castle with its moving, magical castle inhabited by the wizard Howl and his fire demon, Calcifer, alongside his apprentice, Michael? Simply an extraordinary reading experience. The film is good, but the novel much better.

Let’s not overlook the exemplary short story collection she did of Unexpected Magic: Collected Stories with the great cover by Dan Craig. Yes, I bought it without opening the book solely because of it. Well and that it was by her.

My final pick, and yes, I’m fully aware how much I’m overlooking in just giving my personal choices, is Archer’s Goon, a boy who finds out something about himself quite unexpected. A family with secrets. A creature who won’t leave their house. What’s not to be intrigued by? I’m sure one of you will talk about, won’t you?

I’m very much looking forward to hearing your choices now.

A postscript. I would be very remiss not to mention Farah Mendlesohn’s Diana Wynne Jones: The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s Literature which I’ve not read but was reviewed on Green Man by Kestrell Rath.

She leads off her review this way, “Diana Wynne Jones (DWJ to her fans) is one of those writers who, despite the fact that she is frequently referred to as a ‘children’s author,’ has a significant following of adult readers. Although there are an increasing number of literary critics addressing the subject of children’s and young adult fantasy, there is still a lack of literary criticism addressing why those books often shelved in the children’s sections of bookstores and libraries hold such a strong appeal for so many adult readers. Despite the title of this book (a title chosen by the publisher, not the author), its subject is a sophisticated exploration of Diana Wynne Jones’s complex approach to writing and storytelling.”

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Free Range has physics books that live up to their categories.
Loose Parts returns a pet.
Reality Check brings your tongue up to date.
Thatababy visits musical beetles.
The Other Coast sees things in clouds.
Tom Gauld appeals to a higher authority.

(9) KAIJU KITTY. “McDonald’s to unleash Hello Kitty x Godzilla Happy Meal next week” reports Yahoo!

McDonald’s is rolling out a new Happy Meal next week in an unexpected crossover between Japanese pop culture icons.

The KittyZilla Happy Meal brings together Sanrio’s beloved Hello Kitty and Friends characters and some of the most iconic monsters from the Godzilla universe. It will be available at participating McDonald’s locations in the United States for a limited time starting Tuesday, Aug. 18….

…Here’s the full toy lineup:

Hello Kitty x Godzilla
Kuromi x Mechagodzilla
My Melody x Mothra
Keroppi x King Ghidorah
Pompompurin x Gigan
Badtz-Maru x Rodan
Chococat x SpaceGodzilla
Cinnamoroll x Destoroyah

(10) SELF-PROPELLED BIRRIA. “Two Billy Goats Boarded a Bus in Portland. They Did Not Have Passes.” The New York Times tells what happened next. (Behind a paywall.)

There was not a moment to spare.

The doors to the TriMet bus, which was heading west on Tuesday morning toward downtown Portland, Ore., had started to close when they opened for two stragglers.

Neither paid the fare.

Kids ride free, or so they thought.

Not in the case of these two juvenile goats, which transit officials and the police said had escaped from their enclosure and ventured onto a lime green FX2-Division bus.

Security camera footage chronicled their strange escapade, showing some other passengers doing a double take before shooing the goats off the bus after the driver reopened the doors.

Their jaunt prompted 911 calls and drew comparisons in Portland to the famous 2002 foray of a coyote that wandered onto a light rail MAX train, which was not in service at the time, and inspired a music video and another song.

“They don’t have a valid pass,” the driver playfully told the other passengers as the goats exited the bus.

The goats belong to a family that lives less than two blocks from the bus stop and are named Billy the Kid and Billy the Goat, Lrae Anderson, who identified himself as the owner, said in an interview on Friday.

“I couldn’t believe that they actually went across the busy street and tried to get on the bus and all that,” Mr. Anderson said.

He added, “They got on like they’ve done it before.”

(11) SPACE OPERA NOVELS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Sci-Fi Scavenger has just posted a look at his favourite space opera books.

In this video I’m counting down **my 20 favourite space opera novels of all time**. These are the books that, for me, best capture the sense of wonder that only space opera can deliver. Some are undisputed classics, while others deserve a much bigger audience.

The list includes legendary authors like *Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Vernor Vinge, Frank Herbert, Adrian Tchaikovsky, C.J. Cherryh, Larry Niven, Peter F. Hamilton* and many more.

From *Dune* and *The Expanse* to *The Algebraist**, **House of Suns**, **Children of Time**, **A Fire Upon the Deep* and plenty of hidden gems, these are the novels I’d recommend to anyone wanting to explore the very best that space opera has to offer.

You can see the 24 minute video here or below…

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

2023 Hugo Finalist Pins Available To Be Picked Up At LAcon V

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Mike Glyer

LAcon V has agreed to distribute Hugo finalist pins to those 2023 Hugo finalists who have not received them.

If you are due one, please visit the Hugo Finalist Check-in Desk next to registration. It will be staffed on Wednesday from 10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. and on Thursday and Friday from 8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. The staff will have a checklist of all finalists. They also will allow finalists to pick up additional pins on behalf of other finalists to be distributed later as works best among them.

Development Center for Chengdu Worldcon, Inc. (DCFCW) President Colette H. Fozard said, “DCFCW expresses its deep appreciation to Tammy Coxen, Hugo Administrator for LAcon V for assisting us with our efforts to complete finalist pin distribution.”

Any questions regarding 2023 Hugo Award and finalist pin distribution can be directed to [email protected].

Colette H. Fozard, President, DCFCW, Inc.
Tammy Coxen, Hugo Administrator, LAcon V

[Based on a press release.]

Dublin 2029 Worldcon Bid Starts “Free Books” Outreach Campaign, Holds Meetups

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Mike Glyer

By James Bacon: Dublin 2029 were at Dublin Comic Con last weekend (August 8-9, 2026), initiating their free book outreach campaign for attendees. The books were in demand by many hundreds of fans, with over a dozen boxes of books given away across the two days.

Co-chair Marguerite Smith was in the vanguard of the action and noted:

“We know that we have to reach out to local fans to let them know that Dublin is bidding for a Worldcon, in order to engage their enthusiasm as volunteers for the bid and to encourage them to join from 2027, all going well. The many fans we encountered can be easily split between those who already know of Worldcon from 2019, and those who are not yet aware but were excited to hear about our plans. Dublin Comic Con attracts a very broad demographic so we have a whole new set of fans who are now looking forward to what might be their first Worldcon.

“We know that promoting a Worldcon is really hard work, but if we look at the success of Glasgow and of Dublin 2019, the promotional strategies and tactics worked well. Both conventions had great success with pre-supports and subsequently had strong memberships, but it’s a constant multi-leveled effort. This is an important piece of local outreach, and we need to combine it with additional efforts across the island and around the world.”

Dublin Comic Con sold out and the youthfulness of those attending as well as those being recognized and invited as guests and those in the artists alley is clear to see. There has been a wave of Irish artists successfully entering the professional scene working for DC, Marvel and Image comics this decade and the way DCC celebrate them is noticeable. Entering the industry is a key part and it was amazing to see Ricky Purdin, Director & Talent Relations at Marvel Comics as a guest, engaging with so many fans who aspire to write or draw, and he was so generous with his time during these one to one conversations.

The spotlight on Ireland and the 2026 Marvel Art Atelier programme was a real insight into how Marvel brings in new artists and helps build and develop them.

Donegal-based artist Reese Hannigan was selected by Marvel Comics to participate in Marvel Art Atelier, a training and mentorship programme for rising comic book artists, hosted at Disneyland Paris in March of this year. Reese, Rickey Purdin and Humberto Ramos spoke with Seamus Kavanagh of Irish comic collective Limit Break Comics.

The Dublin 2029 bidders know that Irish fandom has a long history of developing writers through fan activities, leading to professional publication. There have been many Science Fiction workshops, publications and activities helping to develop writers in Ireland, both with their writing as well as learning from established industry professionals about the processes.

Marguerite added:

“Dublin 2029 needs to look at how we harness the enthusiasm and how we bring fans and professionals across the variety of media that we celebrate: art, writing, music, game design and gaming, comics, and more. Just one of the many things we hope we can develop.”

MONTHLY MEETUPS. On Monday night the first Dublin 2029 Monthly Meetup took place, which this month combined with an in person meet up for the Irish National SF Con, Octocon – www.octocon.com

Co-chair Brian Nisbet noted that: “There was a good crowd along and it was amazing to see fans who are getting involved with cons for the first time as well as those involved since the 1980s.”

“The plan is to gather together in Dublin on the second Monday of every month for a chat, a bit of craic, and the chance to meet others from the community. Our venue is currently Tapped on Nassau St on the second Monday from 6pm, but we’ll also share details of each meeting on our social media and newsletters.” added Brian.

The bid continues to build their pre-supports and asks readers to please consider supporting the bid: https://www.dublin2029.ie/

Pixel Scroll 8/15/26 This Is The Emergency Scroll System. Look At Your Left, Look To Your Right. See There’s A Scroll To Read

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) IT’S ALL GREEK TO YOU. [Item by Steven French.] Despite being constructed for very different purposes, ‘artificial’ languages such as Elvish, Esperanto and Klingon activate the same brain areas as natural languages, unlike programming languages: “Elvish, Klingon and Pig Latin: What can invented languages teach us about the human brain?” asks Phys.org.

For many years, it was not clear how the brain responds to invented languages. To address this, a 2025 study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took functional magnetic resonance images of brain activity in people who spoke them.

The results were clear. When fluent speakers used invented languages (such as Esperanto, Klingon, the Na’vi language from Avatar, and High Valyrian or Dothraki from Game of Thrones), the brain activated the same neural networks as for a natural language. In other words, there was no difference in how the brain processed natural and invented languages.

But for the brain to perceive these languages as a real language, they have to express meaning about the world, other people and our own mental states. For this reason, programming languages do not—despite their clear rules and structure—activate the same brain areas.’…

(2) FAIR SURPRISES. Robert Gold tells about “Planting the Seed: How Agatha Christie’s Techniques Shaped the Modern Thriller” at CrimeReads.

In Sleeping Murder, Miss Marple visits the fictional British seaside town of Dillmouth. She warns the novels young protagonists, Gwenda and Giles, not to investigate past events at their new home, telling them to let well alone. Miss Marple then proceeds to uncover and solve a decades old murder, where only the killer knew a murder had taken place.

Sleeping Murder is one of my favorite Christie novels for the way she seeds the constantly unfurling plot, leaving clues for the reader at each stage of the story. By the end of the book, Miss Marple has uncovered the victim, where and how she was killed, where she is buried and, of course, who the killer is. Throughout Sleeping Murder, Christie takes us on a brilliant journey of discovery where one revelation leads to another, before the killer is finally exposed.

In reading the novel, a casual reader can enjoy the story for what it is: an adventure in a seaside town with classic characters and a great twist at the end. However, Christie knew other readers liked to read in forensic detail. Searching for clues, acting as detective, they follow the seeds she carefully plants along the way.

Reading a Christie thriller for a second time gives you a true appreciation of her genius. All thriller writers wanting to learn from her skill should take the time to revisit her classics. A second reading, when you have full knowledge of the final denouement, lets you share in all of the authors brilliantly seeded delicious twists and turns.

In every one of her novels, she seeds the truth, but very often secrets are planted so deep they are impossible to appreciate upon first reading. Early in Sleeping Murder, the author gives us such a definitive steer on the location of the body, long before the confirmation of an actual murder, reading the book again you wonder how you missed it….

(3) USED DATA BUYERS. “Secondhand booksellers in UK and Ireland suspect AI firms behind ‘strange’ bulk orders” reports the Guardian.

Secondhand booksellers in the UK and Ireland are reporting a flurry of bulk orders from mystery buyers, amid speculation AI companies are acquiring the tomes for their data.

Bookshops contacted by the Guardian say they have been receiving orders from buyers in the US, Canada, continental Europe and the UK. The increase has been replicated around the world, with booksellers in the US, Australia and Europe also reporting unusual orders.

Stuart Manley, the co-owner of Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland, said the orders, which began arriving three months ago, were unusual because they did not follow the typical pattern of being grouped into themes such as sport or motoring.

“It’s definitely a strange combination of books,” said Manley. “Normally a book order is on a theme but this is all over the place.”

(4) COMPLAINTS ABOUT ANOTHER SCRAPER. “Twitch faces backlash over Amazon using content to train AI” – BBC has details. (Subscription required by readers outside the UK.)

Twitch has been criticised by users after it emerged the popular streaming platform allowed their content to be used to train Amazon’s AI models.

Amazon owns Twitch and a setting allowing the US tech giant to take data generated by creators and audiences to train AI is turned on by default.

Users can opt out of that, Twitch said on Wednesday, but the announcement sparked a backlash with some users questioning why it was allowed in the first place.

Twitch’s chief product officer Mike Minton, said it was “respecting” users by letting them opt out but on why data was collected by default, he admitted: “If it’s opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That’s the honest answer.”

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 15, 1933 – Bĵo Trimble, 93.

Bĵo was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma, in 1933, discovered sf fandom in 1952. She was serving in the US Navy, at the Great Lakes Naval Station, and saw an announcement in Astounding Science Fiction about the science fiction convention that weekend in Chicago—the 10th Worldcon, the one we now call Chicon II, though at the time it had no official name. The largest Worldcon ever at the time, with 870 members, it was a great place for a smart and friendly young woman to meet people and make connections in fandom. Her new acquaintances included Robert Bloch, Willy Ley, August Derleth, and Harlan Ellison.

Bĵo Trimble attends the 2024 Peabody Awards at Beverly Wilshire on June 9. Photo by Jon Kopaloff.

When it was discovered that she was an artist and cartoonist, she was recruited to provide illustrations for fanzines, sealing her fate. She claims to have met her husband, John Griffin Trimble, under Forrest J Ackerman’s piano, during a particularly crowded party. He was serving in the US Air Force, and they traded Stupid Officer Stories.

But as we all know, this was mere prelude. Bĵo was active in LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fiction Society), and organized a fashion show for Solacon (the 16th Worldcon). In 1960, she started Project Art Show, which brought the first modern, organized art show at a science fiction convention to Pittcon, the 1960 Worldcon. Bĵo continued the project, bringing art shows to Worldcons and other conventions. By 1969, Project Art Show had become The International Science-Fantasy Art Exhibition” (ISFAE), and was judging and awarding prizes, as well as organizing the art shows.

But in 1968, Bĵo started turning her attention to a new fannish interest–Star Trek. Bĵo and John Trimble were active in the letter-writing campaign credited with getting the show a third season, after it was initially canceled after its second season. They also helped convince NASA to name the first of the Space Shuttles Enterprise, although that was a test vehicle never intended for space flight.

Bĵo was a major contributor to the Star Trek Concordance, containing cross-referenced details on every character, setting, event and device in every episode of the original Star Trek, and, in later editions of the book, its animated incarnation, and the Star Trek films. Originally self-published, it got a mass market publication by Ballantine Books in 1976, and an updated edition by Citadel Press in 1995. On the Good Ship Enterprise: My 15 Years with Star Trek, her memoir of her experiences in Star Trek fandom, was published in 1982.

Bĵo was a Guest of Honor at Dragon Con, which was also the 6th North American Science Fiction Convention, in 1995. Bĵo and John Trimble were Fan Guests of Honor at ConJosé, the 60th Worldcon. Bĵo, or Bĵo and John, were also honored at many Star Trek and other science fiction conventions.

In addition, Bĵo and John Trimble were Baron and Baroness of the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Barony of the Angels, from September 2008 to January 2012. That’s at least fandom adjacent, right?

Sadly, John left us in April 2024, but Bĵo is still with us. Her contributions to fandom will remain.

Luise Petti and Bĵo at Disneyland in 1966. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

(6) COMICS SECTION.

Glasbergen found a selling point.
Reality Check has a sad tale.
xkcd found the geological controls.

(7) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 166 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Writings of Greeks and Romans”, is introduced by John Coxon who says, “It’s a day late, and John’s going to bed now. Goodnight everyone. Zzzzzzzzzzz.”

There’s an uncorrected transcript here.

A photograph of a total solar eclipse above a beach in Northern Spain. Text reads “Octothorpe 166” in purple at the top and “SUMMER of SUN” in white at the bottom.

(8) LUCKY RABBIT GETS TV SERIES. “’Oswald’ Gets Live-Action Animated Series on Disney+” reports Variety.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, one of Disney’s earliest characters who predated Mickey Mouse, is back for the 21st century.

At the D23 fan event in Anaheim on Friday, Disney revealed the first look at its live action combined with hand-drawn 2D animation series “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” that’s being written, directed and executive produced by Jon Favreau. The series is coming to Disney+ as a three-part miniseries in February 2027….

… Oswald was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1927 for Universal Pictures. The character proved to be a major milestone for Disney, as he and Iwerks created Mickey Mouse after Universal took control of Oswald in 1928. The Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to the character in 2006, though it entered the public domain in 2023….

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

See 46th Prometheus Awards Ceremony on Zoom August 16

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Mike Glyer

The 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, open to the public, will take place via Zoom at 1 p.m. Sunday August 16 (Eastern time).

The hourlong awards show, honoring outstanding science fiction and fantasy that explores libertarian and anti-authoritarian themes, will include the first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction along with presentations of the two annual categories for Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Among the 10 speakers: Prometheus-winning novelists Travis Corcoran, Dave Freer and J. Kenton Pierce; and leading libertarian thinker and law professor Ilya Somin, giving the keynote address on libertarian currents in science fiction.

Accepting the Hall of Fame award for Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will be Pulitzer-winning writer-editor Jack Miles and Huxley’s two adult grandchildren, Tessa and Trev Huxley.

Corcoran, a two-time Best Novel winner (The Powers of the Earth, Causes of Separation), will present the Special Award following his speech about the vital connection between literacy and liberty and the importance of Young Adult Fiction to encourage and inspire new generations of readers.

Pierce, based in Pennsylvania, will accept the Best Novel award for A Kiss for Damocles.

Freer, based in Tasmania, Australia, will accept the Special Award for Storm-Dragon.

Here’s the direct Zoom link for the Prometheus ceremony.

For more information about the awards show, the lineup of speakers, and capsule descriptions of each winning novel, check out the latest post at the Libertarian Futurist Society website (www.lfs.org) on the Prometheus Blog page.[Based on a press release.]

Cats Sleep on SFF: Small Gods

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Mike Glyer

Nickpheas brings us something this series hasn’t seen for awhile – an actual sleeping cat!

Here is Maverick, sleeping on Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. He’s coming up on his first birthday.

Photos of your felines (or whatever you’ve got!) resting on genre works are welcome. Send to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com

Pixel Scroll 8/14/26 When The Scroll Comes A Filing, The Pixel Turn It Back, First From The Circle, Fifth From The Track

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) THE VOTES FOR COUNT BINFACE HAVE BEEN COUNTED. “Count Binface gets almost 10,000 votes in Clacton by-election” – BBC says he came in second.

Count Binface has enjoyed his best-ever election performance after receiving almost 10,000 votes and finishing second to Nigel Farage at the Clacton by-election.

The self-styled intergalactic space warrior said he was “more popular” when standing against Farage compared to Andy Burnham, after he picked up 95 votes when challenging the now-prime minister in Makerfield in June.

Count Binface received 9,455 votes compared to Farage’s 22,239. His 26.9% share of the vote is thought to be the highest ever for a novelty candidate.

He became the leading rival to Farage after the main UK parties boycotted the by-election triggered by the Reform UK leader, amid questions over his finances.

Farage had branded Count Binface the “candidate of the establishment” after claiming supporters of other parties had canvassed for him.

The contest in the Essex constituency saw a record 34 candidates for a Westminster Parliament election, although Farage did not attend the announcement of the result in person, denying Count Binface and others a chance to line-up alongside him in the Clacton Leisure Centre.

This led Count Binface to declare he was “the winning candidate in the room”.

Reform UK said Essex Police had advised Farage not to attend the count “due to a credible threat against him”.

The BBC has been told the force did not advise any candidate that they should not attend the count.

Count Binface is the satirical alter ego of comedian Jon Harvey, who has specialised in satire and been involved with BBC comedy shows, including The Thick of It and Have I Got News For You….

…The Clacton result was the first time that Count Binface has retained the £500 deposit candidates are required to make to validate their nomination. It is repaid if a candidate polls more than 5% of the total number of valid votes cast in the constituency….

(2) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to break away from StokerCon for BBQ with Jamal Hodge on Episode 289 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

My third Eating the Fantastic conversation during the 2026 StokerCon was with the award-winning writer of horror poetry and prose Jamal Hodge mere hours after his Bram Stoker Award win of the previous night.

That isn’t the only award recognition Hodge has received along his writing journey, for he’s also an Elgin Award winner, a Dwarf Stars Award winner and a Rhysling Award finalist. His collections include The Dark Between the Twilight, which earned him his first Bram Stoker Award nomination, as well as Everything Endless, written with previous guest of this podcast Linda Addison, which is what resulted in this year’s win.

His creative life isn’t limited to the page, for he’s also a multi-award-winning filmmaker who’s a sitting Board Member of Harlem Film House and Axs Lab. His films have been an official selection in over 100 Film Festivals, and have won more than 50 awards including The Vanguard Award (Best of The Fest) at the Hip Hop Film Festival (2020), Best Director at The Chelsea Film Festival (2020) and Best Director at GenreBlast (2020). He co‑produced the Academy Award‑nominated documentary Armed Only With a Camera: The Life & Death of Brent Renaud, and is producing the upcoming animated feature Pierre the Pigeon Hawk. He also directed the first season of the Discovery ID series Primal Instinct.

His upcoming books include I’m Not a Good Person, I’m a New Yorker from Crystal Lake Publishing in Sept 2026, plus Shards of Gotham: New York City Through the Looking Glass from Ruadán Books in June 2027.

We discussed how winning a Stoker Award the previous night altered his ambitions, why Linda Addison is his favorite collaborator, how most things we think of as choices aren’t, why he prefers Batman to Spider-Man, the reason the environment in his stories is not your friend, the way the living are controlled by the dead, how he always starts a project thinking it’s one thing only to discover it’s something else, what Mega Man has to do with him becoming a better writer, his favorite short story of all time, how 1984 made him realize what writing could do, the way poetry healed him, plus much more.

(3) XPRIZE FILM COMPETITION. “Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neal Stephenson, Mira Lane, Rod Roddenberry to Judge XPRIZE Sci-Fi Film Competition” reports Variety.

XPRIZE announced the judges for its sci-fi film competition, which aims to inspire optimistic adaptations of a technology-enabled future.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neal Stephenson, Mira Lane and Rod Roddenberry will preside over the competition. The panel will help select the grand prize winner, who will be named at Moonshots Live on Sept. 25 in Los Angeles.

The Future Vision XPRIZE competition invites global filmmakers and creators to submit three-minute trailers or short films that depict hopeful future visions. Submissions close Aug. 15.

The grand prize is $2.5 million in production funding to develop the concept, as well as $100K cash. Four runner-ups will receive $100K each, and 10 finalists will receive $10K….

(4) CZECH IT OUT. A Deep Look by Dave Hook delves into “’FROM THE LAND OF ROBOTS AND GOLEMS: Chronicles of Czech Science Fiction, vol. 5, 21st century Czech speculative fiction’, Julie Nováková editor, 2025 Nová vlna”. Here’s his short take. The long analysis is at the link.

The Short: I attended at least one gathering and several panels relating to science fiction in the Czech Republic at the 2025 Seattle Worldcon. I obtained and read FROM THE LAND OF ROBOTS AND GOLEMS: Chronicle of Czech Science Fiction, vol. 5, 21st century Czech speculative fiction, Julie Nováková editor, 2025 Nová vlna. It includes an Introduction by Julie Nováková, ten works of short fiction (including three published in English for the first time here), two novel excerpts (translated for the first time here), an Authors and Translators essay which is quite helpful, and brief author/story note paragraphs for each story. It’s 278 pages and available in trade paperback from the publisher. My favorites were the great “The Thanatos Mode”, a short story by Tom Hadrava, and “A Flaw In The Works”, a novelette by Julie Nováková. My overall, average rating is 3.63/5, or “Very good”. Recommended.

(5) NEW YORK CITY EXHIBIT. EV Grieve advises, “You have 2 days to see Jon Langford’s ‘Insignificance’”. Photos at the link. Jon is the brother of David Langford.

A three-day exhibition featuring the work of artist and musician Jon Langford is up through tomorrow at 14BC Gallery, 626 E. 14th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C.

Titled “Insignificance,” the show is on view today from 3-7 p.m. and tomorrow from 1-7 p.m….

(6) MURAKAMI MEETS TERPSICHORE. [Item by Steven French.] Bringing Murakami alive through the medium of dance: “’Murakami saw his book come alive!’: the Japanese company bringing the author’s science fiction masterpiece to the stage” reports the Guardian.

Tatsuya Fujiwara is no stranger to London’s Barbican theatre. It was here nearly 30 years ago that one of Japan’s biggest film stars, now 44, made his stage debut. He was just 15, plucked out of an audition of more than 5,000 hopeful youngsters by the revered theatre director Yukio Ninagawa for his play Shintoku-Maru. It kickstarted Fujiwara’s career, and three years later he landed a role in the cult dystopian film Battle Royale, going on to star in hit TV dramas and blockbuster films, all the while continuing to perform in Ninagawa’s acclaimed productions.

Now, Fujiwara returns to where it all began, to perform in a stage adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s science fiction novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The story alternates between two seemingly unrelated narratives: a cyberpunk thriller set in Tokyo, and a surreal fantasy that unfolds within a mysterious walled town. Directed by the French choreographer Philippe Decouflé, the play premiered in Tokyo in January, toured Japan until March, then Singapore in April. After the Barbican run this autumn, the tour will wrap up in Paris.

“When performing in Japan, you become accustomed to your own audience,” says Fujiwara. “You develop a feel for what reaches them and how they receive you. The moment you cross a border, that certainty disappears.”…

(7) SINCE WHEN IS 800 BOOKS A LOT? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] “Woman Divides Internet with Creative Storage Solution After Amassing Collection of More Than 800 Books” reports People.

…Her unconventional storage system began in 2024, when she moved back home during a gap year after graduating from college. By then, her books had outgrown her shelves, and selling or donating some titles wasn’t enough to solve the problem.

“That’s when I realized I had all this unused space beneath my bed and thought, why not turn it into book storage?” Monroy says.

The bed itself was never intended to house hundreds of books. Monroy says she bought the full-size platform bed from Wayfair years earlier and never modified it; it simply happened to have enough space underneath to accommodate her collection.

Getting hundreds of books into the space took a few hours. To keep the setup from becoming an impossible-to-navigate maze, Monroy also created a spreadsheet.

“The organization makes it surprisingly easy to find a specific book,” she explains. “The books are grouped by series, genre, and author, and I also keep a spreadsheet that tracks which pile each book is in, so I know exactly where to look when I want a particular title.”…

Harlan Ellison used to store his comics collection under his bed – except he had someone build a multi-level platform that looked like a red-painted ziggarut and was about halfway to the ceiling.

(8) ANIMATION EMMYS. “’Primal,’ ‘Eyes of Wakanda,’ ‘The Mighty Nein’ and ‘Star Wars: Visions’ Win Juried Animation Emmy Awards” – Animation Magazine has the story.

The TV Academy has revealed the juried award winners in animation for the upcoming 78th Emmy Awards. The awards, which are screened by a panel of professionals in the appropriate peer groups (animation, costume design, emerging media, and motion and title design) will be presented on Saturday, Sept. 5, and Sunday, Sept. 6 at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live. An edited version of these first two nights will air on Saturday, Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. on FXX.

The 2026 Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation Emmys winners are:

Eyes of Wakanda • Into the Lion’s Den [Disney+, Marvel Animation]
Uzoma Dunkwu, Character Design
Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal • Kingdom of Sorrow [Adult Swim, Cartoon Network Studios
David Krantz, Storyboards
Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal • Vengeance of Death [Adult Swim, Cartoon Network Studios]
Scott Wills, Art Direction
The Mighty Nein • Mote of Possibility [Prime Video, Amazon MGM Studios, Titmouse Studios, Critical Role Productions]
Howard Chen, Background Design
Star Wars: Visions • The Duel: Payback [Disney+, Kamikaze Douga, ANIMA, Lucasfilm Ltd.]
Takashi Okazaki, Character Designer

No juried Emmy will be awarded in the Outstanding Motion Design category this year.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 14, 1965 — Brannon Braga, 61.

Brannon Braga was, not at the same time or always, the writer, producer and creator of the Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, The Orville, as well as writer of First Contact, Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis films.

Those four films he’s written. Is that more than anyone else? I could look it up, but I figure I’d ask the great pool of Trek fans here instead.

Confession time — I’ve still not watched The Orville. Now that it’s been canceled, shall I go ahead and watch all of it? Opinions please.

He has written more episodes of the many Trek series than anyone, many of course co- written. I really don’t think he’ll be writing any more as his last scripts were for Enterprise.

He was responsible for the Next Generation series finale “All Good Things…” which won him a Hugo Award at Intersection for excellence in SF writing, along with Ronald D. Moore.

He was nominated at LoneStarCon2 for Star Trek: First Contact for the screenplay along with Ronald D. Moore, and the story by Rick Berman and Ronald D. Moore; Torcon 3 saw him pick up two nominations for Enterprise stories — first for the “Carbon Creek” story along with Rick Berman and Dan O’Shannon, and the wonderful “A Night in The Sick Bay” with Rick Berman.

(Digression. Ok, I like Enterprise a lot. For me, everything there worked. And the Mirror Universe finale worked for me though it got a lot of criticism.)

Aussiecon 4 saw him pick up only his non-Trek related Hugo nomination or Award. It was for writing FlashForward’s “No More Good Days” with David S. Goyer.

There’s a great quote by him after he stopped being Roddenberry’s replacement as head of the Trek franchise: “It’s not an easy task. On the other hand, I have nothing to be ashamed about. We created 624 hours of television and four feature films, and I think we did a hell of a job. I’m amazed that we managed to get 18 years of the kind of work that everyone involved managed to contribute to, and it’s certainly more than anyone could have asked for.” — Star Trek Magazine

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Carpe Diem needs you to know a Latin tag.
Close to Home markets to a king.
Eek! needs a better focus group.
Rubes meets a frontier witch.
Strange Brew helps out the community.
Tom the Dancing Bug is a whole comics page in itself.

(11) THE DEMOLISHED ROBOT. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “How a Smart Recycling Robot Dismantles Old Devices” at IEEE Spectrum.

…There are over 4 million industrial robots in use worldwide, according to the International Federation of Robotics. And researchers predict that number will grow to over 16 million by 2030, as manufacturing rapidly increases. But what’s going to happen when they start breaking down? A new system designed by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in Karlsruhe, Germany, can predict the defect in a broken product and disassemble it while protecting valuable parts from damage. To continue robotic development sustainably, the industry should prepare for the dismantling, recycling, and rebuilding of our robotic systems.

The system consists of a predictive algorithm that guesses how a product is broken, along with robotic manipulators that actually take the broken product apart. At every stage of the process, the system checks to see if the results align with its predictions, and updates its methods if necessary….

Not quite a Clifford Simak-level ‘bot, but still interesting.

(But)(asks Dern): What if two of these robots try disassembling each other?

What if they escape, and start disassembling things at random?

What if they start trying to disassemble people?

What if they keep parts and build more robots for their own use, community, army, etc.?

What could possibly go wrong?

(12) KGB. Ellen Datlow has posted photos from the Fantastic Fiction at KGB readings of August 12, 2026 at Flickr.

(13) TWIST AND SHOUT. “Oreo unveils 3 new limited flavors, invites fans to vote on favorite” – USA Today tells what to expect.

The cookie brand revealed exclusively to USA TODAY on Thursday, Aug. 13, that it is launching three new limited-edition cookie flavors at once and letting fans vote for their favorite one. The winning flavor will be brought back in 2027, the company said in a news release.

The three new flavors include:

Oreo Banana Pudding Cookies: Feature layers of sweet banana and vanilla pudding in a deliciously delectable dual-layered creme, sandwiched between vanilla wafer cookies.
Oreo Deep Fried Cookies: Feature iconic golden-fried, doughy flavor baked into the cookie itself with fried dough-flavored cookies wrapping layers of dark chocolate and fried dough-flavored creme.
Oreo Chicken & Waffles Cookies: Feature a signature waffle texture and embossment and dual-layered creme, both infused with sweet and savory flavor notes for a fried chicken and maple syrup flavor in every bite.

(14) OPENS TODAY. “The End of Oak Street | Official Trailer”.

After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings. Starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, THE END OF OAK STREET also stars Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. The film is written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and produced by J.J. Abrams, Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, David Robert Mitchell, Matt Jackson and Tommy Harper. The executive producers are Chris Bender, Jake Weiner, Joanne Lee and Leeann Stonebreaker. Mitchell’s team behind the camera includes director of photography Michael Gioulakis, production designer Maya Shimoguchi, editor John Axelrad, composer Michael Giacchino and costume designer Erin Benach. Warner Bros. Pictures Presents A Bad Robot Production, A Jackson Pictures Production, A David Robert Mitchell Film: THE END OF OAK STREET. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, only in theaters and IMAXÒ in North America on August 14, 2026, and internationally beginning 12 August 2026.

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

Pixel Scroll 8/13/26 I Like Pixels — Snakes, You Have To Feed

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) HARTWELL’S BOOKS NOW INVENTORY. The Sun Community News celebrates: a “New bookstore opens in Westport” (New York).

Dragon Press — a two-in-one business that serves as both a bookstore and a family art and design studio — officially reopened on July 22.

Located on Champlain Avenue, the shop features a variety of science fiction, fantasy, and horror hardcover first editions from the vast collection of the late David G. Hartwell.

A native of Salem, Mass., Hartwell was an American critic, publisher, and editor of thousands of science fiction and fantasy novels, best known for his work with Tor Books and Timescape Books at Simon & Schuster.

“He edited literally thousands of books, primarily science fiction, fantasy, and horror by prominent authors like George R.R, Martin, Gene Wolfe, Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, and more,” said his widow, Kathryn Cramer, who runs the shop today. “He really had a very broad impact over a long period of time.”

Unfortunately, an accidental fall led to his passing at the age of 74 in 2016. Eventually, Cramer, as Literary Executor, took over sales of his books, over 20,000 of them, that Hartwell started collecting from the age of 12.

“He was an early collector. He already had a notable collection when he was in college and then continued collecting afterward up until his passing,” said Cramer about the man who received a BA in 1963 from Williams College, an MA in 1965 from Colgate University, and a Ph.D. in comparative medieval literature from Columbia University in 1973. “It’s a very impressive collection.”

And while Henry Wessels of James Cummins Bookseller, a well-known antiquarian book dealer in New York City, is handling his more high-end books, Cramer is selling the rest of his used-book collection in the shop and a future online bookstore.

Walking in today, around 3,500 of his books are lined along the walls. His neckties, which he was notorious for wearing, hang from the ceiling, along with other book covers, convention paper ephemera, and more….

(2) LIVE, LOVE, AND PROSPER. [Item by N.] A flag for anyone in the Illinois area: there’s a large estate sale in Downer’s Grove (started today, continuing into Friday and Saturday). Among the items being sold is a large collection of vintage Star Trek memorabilia, which includes vintage Kirk/Spock slash fanfiction, some of which may or may not have been previously lost.

(3) THREE FORMER ‘DOCTORS’ WILL GUEST ON MYSTERY SERIES. “’Only Murders In The Building’ Adds Peter Capaldi To Season 6 Cast” reports Deadline.

It’s only murders in the building and mostly actors who have played Doctor Who‘s title character in the upcoming sixth season of Hulu‘s murder mystery comedy.

Peter Capaldi, who portrayed the Twelfth Doctor, has been cast as a recurring guest star in the London-set installment of Only Murders In the Building. He joins fellow Season 6 recurring cast additions Jodie Whittaker, who was Capaldi’s successor and the first woman to portray the iconic Time Lord, and the actor most closely associated with the role, David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor and the Fourteenth Doctor. Additionally, part of OMITB‘s upcoming season is Jim Broadbent, who played an alternate version of the Eleventh Doctor in the 1999 Comic Relief special Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death.

The previously announced S6 recurring guest stars also include Nicola Coughlan, Richard Ayoade, Adrian Lukis, Kathryn Hunter, Jennifer Saunders, Sean Teale, Simone Ashley, Amar Chadha-Patel, Rhea Norwood, Matthew Beard, Sharon Horgan, Martin Freeman, Geri Halliwell-Horner, Jamie Demetriou, Anjana Vasan, Jane Horrocks, Derek Jacobi and Lesley Nicol.

Production on the new season continues in the U.K.. This marks the first time the comedy mystery series has ventured outside of the U.S., as the crime-solving trio of Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) leaves New York City to investigate London’s newest mystery.

(4) BRITISH LIBRARY PROGRAMMING. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Cheery news from the British Library. “American Writers’ Week”. Program is both in-person and online. Ticket information at the link.

Join us for the British Library’s American Writers’ Week (28 September – 2 November), presented in association with Festival America, Vincennes, France.

Participating writers include Alison Bechdel, Armistead Maupin, Daniel Kraus, Jeanine Cummins, Joyce Carol Oates, Katie Kitamura, Rabih Alameddine and Viet Thanh Nguyen.

Including “American Writers’ Week: Daniel Kraus”.

A rare chance to hear from one of the most adventurous writers of our time, recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Angel Down. This astonishing cinematic horror novel about survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict, set amongst the grit and mud of the trenches in WW1, was described by The Pulitzer committee as ‘a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism, and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence’.

Daniel Kraus is also the multi award winning author of Whalefall, now a major film starring starring Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin and Elisabeth Shue; co-author of The Shape of Water and Trollhunters alongside Guillermo del Toro and co-writer of The Living Dead and Pay the Piper with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero.

In conversation with serial horror anthologist Johnny Mains.

(5) M. JOHN HARRISON’S INFLUENCES. BBC Radio 4’s Take Four Books features “M. John Harrison” on August 16.

The writer M. John Harrison speaks to Take Four Books about his latest novel, The End of Everything, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other works. The End of Everything follows the characters of Phillip Tennent and his elderly aunt Marnie. A crisis has happened. The exact nature of which remains obscure, but government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures and Europe has been mislaid. Is this the end?

For his three influences M. John Harrison chose: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham which was published in 1961 and released as a film two years later; Drought by J. G. Ballard from 1965; and a short story called The Same Dog by Robert Aickman from 1974.

(6) MAGIC: THE GATHERING PROFILED. The August 12 Marketplace Morning Report features “Putting the magic in Magic: The Gathering”.

Today, we hear what it takes to bring the fantastical world of Magic: The Gathering to life.

And there’s a segment on “How designers for Magic: The Gathering started out”.

Meet the professionals behind Magic: The Gathering’s fantastical worlds.

Trading card games — like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon — surged during the pandemic, as more people searched for comfort and nostalgia. But unlike some other COVID-era trends, their popularity has stuck around.

Take Magic: The Gathering, for example. Hasbro said that the game’s revenue jumped 32% in the second quarter, to a record $545 million.

This week on “What’s That Like” we’re meeting some of the workers who bring the Magic ecosystem to life.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

August 13, 1899 — Alfred Hitchcock. (Died 1980.)

By Paul Weimer: Alfred Hitchcock came to my attention in drips and drabs at first, hearing his name, hearing about him, and hearing about his work. But until I was an adult, I had not actually seen a single complete version of any of his movies. I finally decided to watch Psycho, and see what the fuss was all about. Although it is somewhat atypical of his works, I indeed was blown away by the cinematography, the writing, the narrative and the tight revelations. I saw his economy of motion and action, the precision of his movies.

I was hooked and started renting all the Hitchcock I could get. Rear Window, long before I got into photography, fascinated me. (Also, Grace Kelly to be honest). Vertigo seems the least “fun” of his movies, but the most technically and narratively precise. It’s a beautiful film in how it all comes together.

The Birds showed me his horror and thriller side. Movies like Rebecca showed me an earlier side to his work, showing his ability then to create all sorts of compelling characters. Hitchcock is a director whose work I can study on multiple levels and multiple times and always find something new.

My favorite of his movies is lighter fare by any standard, and that would be To Catch a Thief. An excuse to put Cary Grant and Grace Kelly on the French Riviera and see what happens? Maybe! It’s not as perfect as some of the other movies I’ve named and it’s definitely lighter, often comedic in tone. But the chemistry of Grant and Kelly, the scenery, and the classic “thief gets blamed for new crimes he didn’t do” setup is timeless. I can watch it again and again and never, ever get bored. Much like the rest of Hitchcock’s work, come to think.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal compares pain/pleasure levels.
Baby Blues puts the brakes on research.
Mother Goose and Grimm shouldn’t gossip.
xkcd has an unstable design.

(9) LEST DARKNESS FALL. A solar eclipse was visible from Europe on August 12. The Guardian shares a gallery: “Solar eclipse 2026 across Europe: in pictures”.

A total solar eclipse swept across parts of Europe and the North Atlantic on 12 August, with the path of totality moving through Greenland, Iceland, Spain and a small section of north-eastern Portugal, while surrounding areas across Europe experienced a partial solar eclipse, according to the European Space Agency

(10) AND THE BANDS PLAYED ON. “During the total solar eclipse of July 8, 1842, an astronomer watched the ground itself start to ripple — thin bands of light chasing each other across open earth in the last seconds before the sky went fully dark, and 184 years later, nobody has proven why” at SpaceDaily.

During the total solar eclipse of 8 July 1842, observers across Europe recorded a strange effect in the final moments before totality: faint, wavering bands of light and shadow moving rapidly across the ground, a phenomenon now known as shadow bands. According to the astronomer and writer George F. Chambers, whose 1902 book The Story of Eclipses is one of the earliest detailed compilations of eclipse observations, England’s Astronomer Royal, George Biddell Airy, noted “undulations” along the thinning crescent of the Sun roughly six minutes before totality that year. The 1842 eclipse is often cited as one of the earliest well-documented sightings of the effect, though as the astronomy writer Joe Rao has pointed out, “nobody can state with certainty as to when shadow bands were first noted.”

(11) HANDMADE. Viral Hand-Drawn Spider-Man: Brand New Day Poster Artist Speaks (hollywoodreporter.com)

The promotional materials for Spider-Man: Brand New Day look a bit different in one theater in Canada, and the internet is loving it.

A Famous Players theater in Prince George, British Columbia, almost certainly has the most unique movie poster for the record-breaking film led by Tom Holland. It features a hand-drawn illustration by employee Drake Landon that was inspired by the Spooder-Man meme, with the title of the movie written in font strikingly similar to the script in the official promotional materials.

The movie theater did not receive the official movie poster in time for its release, which led to Landon creating an original drawing to be put in its place in the cinema. That was explained in his now-viral illustration, as a note on the poster reads, “Sorry! We never recieved the real posters! Sorry for any inconviniences!” (Yes, with those exact spelling errors and all, adding to the amusement surrounding the sketch.)

Pictures of the poster have gained widespread attention online, with one Reddit post receiving upward of 51,000 upvotes. Landon tells The Hollywood Reporter the reaction to his Spider-Man poster has been “very unexpected,” and he’s “kinda still not realizing how big it is.”…

(12) HARD TO FOLD UP AGAIN. “Scientists create largest 2D map of the universe with 5.6 trillion pixels and nearly 4 billion cosmic objects” at Space.com.

Astronomers have released the largest two-dimensional map of the universe ever created, offering a sweeping new view of nearly 4 billion celestial objects across roughly three-quarters of the sky.

The new map, created by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys team, contains a staggering 5.6 trillion pixels and combines more than 263,000 telescope exposures collected over more than a decade. The observations span visible and near-infrared wavelengths, providing an enormous portrait of stars, galaxies and other cosmic phenomena across the sky, according to a statement from the National Science Foundation (NSF) NOIRLab. (You can explore the full data here.)

“It’s part of the fabric of astronomy research now,” David Schlegel, co-lead of the Legacy Surveys and a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said in the statement. “When you’re working with astronomical objects today, you often start by pulling up the Legacy Imaging Viewer to see what you’re looking at.”…

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

Support Pull-up Challenge Fundraiser By Emma J. King

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Mike Glyer

Long-time British science fiction fan, Dr. Emma J. King, is currently raising funds for cancer research by carrying out a month of sponsored pull-ups. Many fans will know of her presentation on matters related to space science at Novacons, Eastercons and Worldcons, as well as her involvement with FunCon.

Emma is taking on the 310 Pull-Ups Challenge during August to raise £1085 for Cancer Research UK — that’s £3.50 per pull-up!

Emma’s dad, Arthur, is 90 years old and has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Arthur is also a fan and introduced Emma to, and shared his interest in Science Fiction with her from a young age, and is a friend as much as a father to her. She has many fond memories of watching Doctor Who, Star Wars and other classics with him as a child. He is also an avid reader and lifelong learner, and has enjoyed Asimov, HG Wells, Vonnegut and others.

As many fans at this year’s Eastercon will know, Emma is an accomplished aerialist, and has recently combined this with her love of science into a Science Circus project to excite school children about STEM subjects and science fiction through the medium of circus arts, which had a debut at Irridescence.

Emma’s passion for aerial circus arts is part of the reason for her undertaking this arduous challenge. Emma started training at the Flying Fantastic Aerial gym in London just over 4 years ago in her mid-40s, and says it has changed her life. She got her first ever pull-up soon after and is now putting that strength to good use to raise some much needed money for cancer research, raising over £500 so far!

Arthur has always been an active man. Last year at the age of 90, with Emma’s encouragement, he joined a local gym and started strength training, which he enjoyed doing with her, and was gaining strength until Christmas. Sadly he was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of this year, but has been aiming to stay active, continuing his favourite hobby of golf until very recently. For Arthur, sadly there is no suitable treatment available, but as ever positive together, Father and Daughter are focusing on making the most of the time they have left together. By raising funds for cancer research, Emma hopes to help change that for others in the future.

You can follow Emma’s progress on Instagram.com.

Fans interested in supporting Emma can do so by sponsoring a pull-up for £3.50 here: Phoenix Giving Page at Cancerresearchuk.

Pixel Scroll 8/12/26 I Tell Stories; That Doesn’t Mean They’re True, Does It?

Posted on August 12, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) BUTLER BOOK IS BACK. The Huntington in Pasadena, CA will host “Reading Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Lost’ Novel” on September 2 from 6-8 p.m. Attendees will be able to get Butler’s Survivor, which has been long out of print. Ticket information at the link.

Be among the first to get your hands on legendary speculative fiction writer Octavia E. Butler’s novel, ‘Survivor’, out in a new edition Sept. 1.

Returning to print after nearly 50 years, Survivor extends Butler’sPatternist series, telling the story of a woman struggling to stay alive on a warring planet far from Earth. The new edition includes essays from Alyssa Collins, The Huntington’s inaugural Octavia E. Butler Research Fellow.

Gather with fellow book lovers to hear Collins in conversation with Butler scholars Alaina Morgan (USC) and Phoenix Alexander (UCR). Learn more about this exciting novel, the decision to reprint it, and what Butler’s archives at The Huntington can tell us about her thoughts regarding its composition and publication.

Survivor will be available for purchase. This event is sponsored by Hachette Book Group.

(2) CAN DO. The New York Times tells “How Nigel Farage Ended Up Running Against Count Binface in Clacton”. “Nigel Farage forced a new election in his parliamentary seat after coming under pressure over his finances. His main challenger is Count Binface, a novelty candidate.” In theory this link bypasses the NYT paywall, but it mostly doesn’t.

Count Binface, a man in a trash can costume, was trying to explain why he would be a winner no matter what happened on Thursday in the most high-profile election he’s ever fought.

“Shall we do a little flowchart?” he asked me, gesturing with his gloved fingers.

If you haven’t been following British politics, you may be wondering why I was interviewing someone who claims to be an intergalactic space warrior from the planet Sigma IX. Count Binface is a character played by the writer and comedian Jon Harvey, 46, and he has run in several elections as part of Britain’s long tradition of novelty political candidates.

Now he is heading for his biggest gig yet. He is the main opposition to Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing populist party Reform U.K., in a special parliamentary election in Clacton, an area on England’s eastern coast….

Count Binface, a candidate in Britain’s upcoming general election, poses for photographers during the Glastonbury Festival in Worthy Farm, Somerset, England, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

(3) LUNCH IS SERVED. “Skywalker Grill opens bookings ahead of hotly anticipated $1B Lucas Museum debut” reports Yahoo!

May the forks be with you!

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art announced the debut of Skywalker Grill Wednesday, an out-of-this-world restaurant inspired by the essence of George Lucas’ creative workplace Skywalker Ranch.

The long-awaited museum, alongside the Grill, will open its doors next month to the public — art enthusiasts, cinephiles and Star Wars fanatics alike have been anticipating the grand opening of the museum since an official unveiling date was announced in November 2025.

The menu will incorporate locally-grown ingredients to make up its classic American fare. Some options include a Skywalker Ranch Wagyu burger, Dungeness crab cakes, lobster corn dogs, house-made pastas, seasonal salads and communal appetizers…

(4) COULD IT BE…MALARKEY? [Item by Steven French.] Theatre critic Michael Billington adopts a somewhat jaundiced view towards claims that The Game of Thrones prequel The Mad King is ‘Shakespearean’, despite it being performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company: “Game of Thrones, Shakespearean? What fools these mortals be!” in the Guardian.

As a latecomer to Game of Thrones, I am struck by how many people tell me it is “very Shakespearean”. It is as if they need to justify its heady escapism and heavy reliance on bonking and brutality. But its debt to the Bard – apart from the rivalry between the houses of Lannister and Stark – rests mainly on the casting. Watching the first 11 episodes, I noticed four Lears past and to come (Julian Glover, David Bradley, Oliver Ford-Davies and Roger Allam), a Macbeth (Sean Bean), a Hamlet and Henry V (Iain Glen) and a Cassius (Michelle Fairley) among many others.

Because it is presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and staged by Dominic Cooke, who memorably directed The Hollow Crown on television, we shall doubtless hear the same arguments about Game of Thrones: The Mad King at Stratford. But, although there are frequent nods to Shakespeare, they totally lack the resonance of the original….

(5) FRANKENSTEINLY SPEAKING. “Chris Carter on How the Real World Has Caught Up With ‘The X-Files’” at Gizmodo.

Cheryl Eddy, io9: The director’s cut is billed as being more horror-oriented than the original. But other things have also changed—the movie’s a few minutes shorter, some scenes are re-edited, and there are some musical swaps too. What was the process like as you decided what to change?

Chris Carter: There were things I wanted to put back in to make it the scary movie I always imagined it [would be], but there are also things I wanted to take out….

… And when I talk about horror elements, I’m realizing I keep talking about this as a horror movie. It’s really an X-Files horror movie. The original idea came to me when I read a story about a doctor in Cleveland, Ohio, who had transplanted the head of a monkey onto another monkey, and he did it successfully. I thought that’s X-Files territory right there. So I went and sought this guy out, and he explained to me how he had done it and the process … so [I Want to Believe co-writer] Frank Spotnitz and I set about trying to tell an X-Files story about this very thing…

… I’ll tell you the reason to do this director’s cut. It came out of an experience that I had when I showed I Want to Believe to the executives. They watched it. The lights went up and they were angry. They said, “This is not the PG-13 movie you promised you’d make for us. This is torture porn,” they called it, which is a term often used to reference movies like the Saw movies. But, you know, this wasn’t a Saw movie. This was an X-Files movie. But we had to cut it back to satisfy them…

(6) MONSTER TIMES CO-FOUNDER EULOGIZED. “The Passing of a Visionary: Remembering Larry Brill, Co-Founder of ‘The Monster Times’” — Dream Saga pays tribute. (See Steve Vertlieb’s own account from File 770 yesterday, “Remembering Larry Brill And ‘The Monster Times’”.)

…Larry Brill was not merely a businessman; he was a cultural provocateur. In the early 1970s, the landscape of horror fandom was dominated by glossy magazines like James Warren’s Famous Monsters of Filmland. Brill and Waldstein envisioned something different: a bi-weekly tabloid that treated the “fantastic” with the urgency and layout of a major metropolitan newspaper.

The Monster Times premiered in January 1972. While industry insiders predicted a swift and expensive failure, the publication defied the odds, running for 48 issues until 1976. It became a cornerstone of the “Second Wave” of horror fandom, providing a platform for serious film scholarship, investigative reporting on special effects, and a training ground for the next generation of film critics.

Brill’s personality was as much a part of the publication’s DNA as the monsters on the cover. A fierce advocate for human rights and an outspoken participant in cultural debates, he ensured that The Monster Times was more than just a fan magazine—it was a reflection of a creative, adventurous, and often provocative spirit….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

August 12, 1931 — William Goldman. (Died 2018.)

By Paul Weimer: William Goldman was a screenwriter par excellence, so you probably think I am going to mostly talk about The Princess Bride in this piece. And you would be right, we’ll start there. He adapted his own novel (which had not really found an audience) into one of the greatest screenplays in movie history. It’s the kind of movie roleplayers quote and reference endlessly, it’s a movie with verve, and love, and drama, and everything that viewers of any age could possibly want. I didn’t get to see it until 1990 or so on a videotape of it. I wondered why the Wonder Years kid was the grandson of an old looking Columbo, but I highly enjoyed it.

As my mother was a big fan of WWF (at the time) wrestling, I particularly liked seeing Andre the Giant, especially because in a few short years, he would get less and less mobile and capable, but in the movie he is delightfully fully able. The swordfighting scene is a masterpiece, the duelists actually performing the real swordsmanship schools as they are fighting. (Was 7th Sea the RPG born thanks to this sword fighting sequence?). And so much more.

And Goldman is much more than The Princess Bride. He wrote the screenplay for All the President’s Men although he wasn’t happy with the changes to it. He wrote the screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also did the screenplay for a number of other movies I’ve loved…Heat, Misery, Maverick, Dreamcatcher, and The Ghost and the Darkness. His oeuvre was varied, his scripts excellent, and his talent undeniable. My favorite remains The Princess Bride, but I think you expected that. I’ll blame Vizzini.

William Goldman. Photo by Bernard Gotfryd

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Herman knows the family.
Mother Goose and Grimm applaud self-determination.
Off the Mark demonstrates a new app.
Reality Check has a super-horrible pun.
The Argyle Sweater lists hilariously-named failed cartoons.

(9) TREK COMIC. Charlie Jane Anders announces “I’ve Written a Star Trek Comic!” at Happy Dancing.

… I have loved Star Trek for as long as I can remember. Literally, somewhere there exists a photo of me aged seven or eight wearing my homemade Starfleet uniform — which I probably wore to school, let’s be real. I’ve also been a massive fan of Star Trek tie-in media forever. Star Trek is how I first became a fan of the legendary Vonda McIntyre and the iconic John M. Ford. I will always consider Diane Duane’s Rihannsu novels to be the definitive version of the Romulans. I still have a collected edition of the Gold Key comics that I defaced as a small child with lots of terrible doodles and scribbles. I have a complete set of Peter David’s New Frontier novels, along with a smattering of his other Trek books and comics. And last but definitely not least, I’ve been absolutely blown away by everything IDW has been doing with the Star Trek comics for the past few years.

More than any other big science fiction or fantasy universe, I’ve always seen Star Trek as being at least as much about the novels and comics as the TV shows and movies.

So yeah — when I was approached to write a Star Trek comic, I was over the moon. Especially the opportunity to start a title from scratch, with a brand new ship and a mostly new crew, including a few characters from existing TV shows, felt like a massive gift. The comic I’m writing is called Star Trek: Zero Point and the first issue is out October 14. However, if you want to make sure your local comic book store sets aside a copy for you and you don’t lose out, you only have until September 7 to request it. This is a weird quirk of how comics work — they’re non-returnable, so if you really want to read something, you absolutely need to ask for it over a month before-hand.

Star Trek: Zero Point takes place five years after the end of the Picard TV show….

… One thing I can tease about the opening storyline is that we’re visiting an eyeball planet! Long-time readers of my work will know that I am obsessed with tidally-locked planets, meaning planets where one side faces towards the sun and the other side is always locked in darkness. Many tidally-locked planets are believed to be so cold that they are covered entirely with ice except for a small dot of liquid water where the planet is closest to the sun — hence eyeball. To make this work, I ended up talking to four physicists and exoplanet scientists, including a former NASA scientist. I’m super passionate about including real science in this comic wherever I can…

(10) DOGS RECOGNISE HUMAN EXPRESSIONS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] “We should smile at our dogs – a new scientific study reveals why” at BBC. (Subscription required for readers outside the UK.)

Now scientists have worked out exactly what is going on inside a dog’s brain when it sees a human – even a complete stranger – smiling or scowling.

Their research involved 14 dogs in total who all sat very still in a brain scanner while they were shown pictures of people’s faces.

Photographs of happy, smiling human faces made an area of the brain that is associated with reward “light up” with activity.

This reward circuitry is the part of the brain that is activated when we enjoy and remember good things, like tasty food or praise.

In terms of our own brains, we often refer to it as the “hit” or “high” that is triggered by winning a game or even receiving a positive comment on a social media post….

Primary research for above is here.

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