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/Spockslash fanfiction, some of which may or may not have been previously lost.
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‘supcoming 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.
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.
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.
Alfred Hitchcock
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.
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
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.”
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.”…
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.]
(1) NEW WORDS. Charles Platt has asked File 770 to share the Editorial from New Words, his magazine project. Interested? You can contact him through this email address: [email protected].
EDITORIAL: Words? At a time like this? When almost every movie ever made can be streamed on impulse, and more than 8 billion mobile phones are scattered around the globe, each containing a digital camera? Eh! Words are so twentieth-century.
Yet almost every phone has QWERTY-layout text input, forcing more people to learn to type than at any time in human history (even if they only use their thumbs). About 25 billion text messages are sent each day, each requiring a rudimentary level of literacy. And each of the 2 billion personal computers in the world has a keyboard. Really, I would argue that words are more ubiquitous than ever before.
In fact, this is the problem. There are so many words, any new words are liable to be lost in the flood. To be noticed, one has to be relevant and contemporary, and unusual. Therefore, I begin with this as my assumption and my mandate.
But—a magazine? Seriously? Aren’t they all dead or dying?
I see that as a problem of distribution, and a failure to adapt. I think the magazine format is still potentially viable. I am clinging to this belief because I have loved magazines all my life, and have dabbled in their genesis repeatedly.
When I was 7 years old, I sold copies of a 2-page comic book to kids at school, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Later, I became the editor of the official school magazine—which published a scandalous jeremiad against the headmaster’s pet construction project, causing this diatribe to be written up in a national newspaper. Then there was The Patchin Review, more than 40 years ago, although still remembered in some circles. Still later, after I moved to a small town, I self-published a news magazine which triggered so much backlash, I found myself spending the night in the county detention center, facing an assortment of spurious criminal charges. The charges were dropped when I agreed to sign a document promising to relocate outside a radius of 50 miles. Yes, they threatened to lock me up if I didn’t go away. Few writers or publishers have been so honored.
The key has always been relevance. If a magazine seems relevant, people will read it. But relevance is a slippery concept. Can a fiction magazine seem relevant? I’m not sure, so this magazine will contain nonfiction as well as fiction, just to be on the safe side. And, to show that I am not entirely biased in favor of words (despite having spent most of my life writing them and selling them), I am including pictures, too. But for me, the words come first.
Lastly: Some people know that I used to design, and eventually edited, a British magazine named New Worlds, primarily publishing imaginative fiction. To pre-empt any confusion, I have trademarked the title New Words and registered it in the United States. I don’t want anyone to mistake this publication for the old one, because (sadly) the old one barely exists now, and cannot be considered very relevant anymore.
(2) KRASZNAHORKAI Q&A:[Item by Steven French.] László Krasznahorkai, last year’s Nobel Prize winner for Literature, talks about how he would never have become a writer if not for Kafka: “László Krasznahorkai – Interview”.
Which authors are important to you?
László Krasznahorkai: Franz Kafka. Without Kafka, I would never have become a writer. I have a brother, six years older than me. I was a little child, he was a big boy, and his circle of friends read a lot of literature. I wanted to understand what they talked about: Kafka, Dostoyevsky, the Russian literature, the American and European literature. I wanted to get closer to this circle, to be among these big boys. One night, I chose a book from my brother’s bookshelf. It was – unfortunately or fortunately – The Castle by Kafka. I was maybe 12 or 11 years old. I read the whole book and I couldn’t understand it: what is the story, what is this castle? It was absolutely a secret for me. I got closer to the circle, but I could never understand this Castle. The Castle by Kafka remained until today the most beautiful secret in literature for me. That’s why I told you that without this Castle, I would never have been a writer.
“On a sweltering morning last July, Vernon Spear, a burly eighty-five-year-old with thinning gray hair, went to check a chicken-wire crab trap that was hanging from a dock in Cambridge, Maryland. Spear is a lifelong resident of the Eastern Shore, near where the Choptank River flows into the Chesapeake Bay. He lives less than fifty yards from the dock. He was pleased to find that the trap held six feisty blue crabs, a local delicacy that he likes to steam and sprinkle with Old Bay. As Spear reached in, however, he scraped his arm on some metal, drawing blood. He wasn’t worried; he’d been scratched many times before. But, in the hours that followed, Spear’s arm began to turn violent shades of purple and red. His wife, Lea, thought it looked like he’d been badly burned. Soon his arm swelled up—liquid appeared to be pooling under the skin—and he rushed to his local emergency room. A clinician suspected an infection of Vibrio vulnificus, which under a microscope looks like a kidney bean with a tail. It is popularly known as flesh-eating bacteria.
When V. vulnificus enters a wound, it damages blood vessels, causing them to leak plasma into surrounding tissues. The immune system tries to protect the body by calling in clotting cells to halt the leaking; in the process, the cells cut off blood flow, prompting flesh to become necrotic. The bacteria can cause shock, sepsis, and multi-organ failure. Infections that reach the bloodstream prove deadly at least fifty per cent of the time.”
“For most of Spear’s lifetime, infections of V. vulnificus north of Georgia were rare. Lately, however, the bacteria have killed people as far north as New York and Rhode Island. “What has happened is that the environment has changed,” Rita Colwell, a ninety-one-year-old microbiologist at the University of Maryland, told me. It’s not that the bacteria are migrating, she said. Low levels are always present where freshwater and salt water mix. But when water warms above fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit V. vulnificus becomes more abundant, and above seventy-seven degrees its population soars.”
“In the opening scene of “The Last of Us,” a post-apocalyptic HBO series that débuted in 2023, an epidemiologist goes on TV to share his greatest fear: that fungi will adapt to warmer and warmer temperatures. Right now, most fungi grow best between fifty-four and eighty-six degrees; the human body hovers around ninety-eight. “Currently, there are no reasons for fungi to evolve to be able to withstand higher temperatures,” the epidemiologist says. “But what if that were to change?” A few scenes later, an elderly woman who is infected with a fungus develops a taste for human flesh.”
Fans of The Boys, it’s time to fly straight into your next gloriously chaotic weekend plans.
To celebrate the fifth and final season of The Boys, Prime Video is transforming Hollywood Legion Post 43 into The Boys: Glory Hall. It’s a two-day immersive museum experience packed with iconic props, costumes, easter eggs, exclusive merch, and enough satire to make Homelander proud.
Running for one weekend only on June 6 and 7, this limited-time experience invites fans to walk through five unforgettable seasons of one of television’s wildest superhero universes.
The Boys: Glory Hall is designed as a retrospective experience, taking visitors through four themed exhibition wings dedicated to the show’s legacy.
Fans can wander through The Great Wall, which features hidden references, memorable artifacts, and easter eggs pulled from all five seasons.
Meanwhile, The Story Gallery offers a timeline experience exploring major moments, character arcs, and the most shocking chapters that shaped the series.
One of the biggest attractions may be the in-world Democratic Church of America installation.
The ceremonial-style showcase promises original Supes costumes, immersive displays, and large-scale set pieces pulled directly from the world of The Boys. It’s giving visitors a rare chance to see pieces of the show outside of the screen. Because if there’s one thing The Boys knows how to do, it’s spectacle….
…Prime Video says the experience will stay true to the spirit of The Boys. Which means fans should expect satire, absurdity, surprises, and probably a few moments that feel delightfully unhinged.
Whether you’ve been watching since Season 1 or you simply want to experience one of TV’s most chaotic worlds in real life, this might be one of the more unique pop culture events landing in L.A. this summer.
Saturday, June 6 from 10:00 AM–6:30 PM
Sunday, June 7 from 9:00 AM–3:30 PM
Location: Hollywood Legion Post 43 (2035 Highland Ave Los Angeles, CA 90068)
Online publishers can choose not to appear in the AI Overviews of Google search results in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced.
The competition regulator said this would “put publishers, like news organisations, in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google”….
… Theo Bamber, chief executive of News Media Association, which represents UK news publishers including the Financial Times and Guardian Media Group, called the move a “significant step” towards building a “fair digital economy”.
“It’s the job of the CMA to make this happen, but it needs strong and consistent political support,” he said.
“Only then will we see meaningful progress towards a system of fair and reasonable payment for publisher content which is crucial for the future of high[1]quality journalism.”…
(6) JOHN BLANCHE (1948-2026). Warhammer/gaming artist John Blanche died this week. He was a British fantasy and science fiction illustrator and modeller who worked on Games Workshop’s White Dwarf magazine, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar games and was the art director for the company and illustrated various game books and Fighting Fantasy publications.
… Blanche’s influence on the development of all Warhammer products was both directorial and hands-on. He was the art director and a contributor to the original Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook in 1987. In 1993, as print deadlines for the second edition of Warhammer 40k loomed and large amounts of interior art were missing, Blanche rushed out a huge quantity at speed, in addition to the considerable contributions he’d already made – an iconic color painting of Blood Angels Space Marines fighting Orks for the box cover, illustrations of the Eternity Gate and Golden Throne of Terra, and more….
His ISFDB entry shows that he did some Tolkien-related work early and late on in his career, but it’s not really what he was renowned for.
On this date in 1969, the first incarnation of Star Trek came to an end. Its “five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before” would last just three years and seventy-nine episodes before ending with the “Turnabout Intruder”.
The ratings for the series were never great and NBC responded by cutting the production each season from one hundred ninety thousand the first season to the one hundred eighty-five thousand the second season to the one hundred seventy-five thousand the last season. Assuming that there were salary increases which there were obviously were, this left little for special effects, costumes or anything else by the third season. And yes, it showed such as the scenery falling over or the so obviously being the cheapest leftover sets in the known universe. None of which was Roddenberry’s fault.
It might have been a ratings failure in its first run but it thrived in syndication and spawned a vast franchise including Strange New Worlds which I like quite a lot, and thirteen films if my count is correct. Not to mention novels, comics, action figures, games and toys. And decades of cosplayers and fiction, both authorized and not at all. And there’s the short-lived Starfleet Academy. And more series as I know there’s one coming whose name I’ve forgotten.
Anniversary: When Star Trek came to an end I rewatched a lot of the series recently courtesy of Paramount + which is the home of it and most everything else Trek. Some of the episodes are quite excellent, some are not bad and some are really execrable as the final episode of TOS. Now go ahead defend that episode.
(9) TOR ANNOUNCES NOVELS BASED ON BLOOD ON THE CLOCKTOWER. Blood on the Clocktower is the world’s number one Party Game. A social deduction game of bluffing, deduction, and hidden betrayal for 5–20 players, set in a cursed Victorian town terrorized by a Demon, Blood on the Clocktower has attracted fans around the globe.
Developed by Steve Medway, and published by The Pandemonium Institute, Blood on the Clocktower is played by millions of players worldwide, both in person and online, and streamed games regularly attract hundreds of thousands of viewers, and sometimes more. The game has been translated into numerous languages, including Chinese, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Brazilian, Portuguese, Hungarian and Korean.
Tor Publishing Group has announced they are partnering with The Pandemonium Institute to create a series of novels and novellas based on the game. Each book is written by an author who is already a devout player of Clocktower, with more authors lined up for future titles. Though based on the game, the books are all suitable for non-players—no knowledge of Blood on the Clocktower will be required to enjoy the books.
This initial three book deal was brokered by Tor Publishing Group Executive Editor Lee Harris and Chris Dwyer, Chief Operating Officer of The Pandemonium Institute.
The first three titles are:
Because the Night: a swashbuckling escapade in the pulp tradition by California-based author, Riley Silverman, scheduled to publish in Fall 2027
Beneath the Martyr’s Eye: a gothic adventure by Hugo-nominated poet and author, Oliver K. Langmead, scheduled for Winter 2028
Midnight in Ravenswood: a shadow-soaked noir adventure by fan-favorite Clocktower streamer, Jon Gracey, scheduled in Spring 2028.
Further notes for fans of the game:
The first three books use characters from the Trouble Brewing script.
The books share some characters and the setting of Ravenswood Bluff but like every new game they are not part of the same continuity.
Future books will utilize alternative scripts and characters
(10) HARTWELL ESTATE NEWS. Kathleen Cramer announced an achievement unlocked. She adds, the books are now “in real estate I own. So no more rent.
Scientists examining the mummified body of Oetzi, a man murdered some 5300 years ago, whose remains were found in the Alps in 1991, found several still-living varieties of yeast in those remains.
After three months work, they had developed one of the yeasts into a sourdough starter and baked a loaf of bread with it. The bread was reported to have a sweet, yeasty taste.
Asked what other things would be tried with this viable but ancient yeast, one researcher said that brewing beer was “on the list.”…
…The scientists discovered four different yeasts that can survive sub-zero temperatures in Oetzi’s guts, skin and “brownish” water that melted off his body when he was partially unfrozen.
These kinds of yeast only live in very cold conditions such as Antarctica, so are believed to have entered Oetzi’s body at some point after he died.
Genetic analysis revealed “DNA damage levels very comparable to the original microbes” in the Iceman’s guts, suggesting the yeast entered his body soon after death, Sarhan said.
“These yeasts have accompanied Oetzi on his long journey through the millennia,” study co-author Frank Maixner said in a statement…
(12) SUPER TRAILER PARK. Supergirl opens in theaters on June 26.
“Supergirl,” DC Studios’ newest feature film to hit the big screen, will be in theaters worldwide this summer from Warner Bros. Pictures, starring Milly Alcock in the dual role of Supergirl/Kara Zor-El. Craig Gillespie directs the film from a screenplay by Ana Nogueira. When an unexpected and ruthless adversary strikes too close to home, Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, reluctantly joins forces with an unlikely companion on an epic, interstellar journey of vengeance and justice.
[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Lew Wolkoff, Ersatz Culture, Charles Platt, Andrew (not Werdna), Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, 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 Peer.]
(1) UNEXPLAINED ALDISS AWARD LONGLIST ADDITIONS. Sometime since the original news release on March 14 the administrators have added two titles to the longlist without any public announcement: Firstborn Of The Sun by Marvellous Michael Anson and Outlaw Planet by M. R. Carey. Locus Online posted the complete longlist on March 30.
However, while making the addition the Aldiss Award’s post restored two errors relating to authors which were present in the original announcement but had been fixed. On the Aldiss Award site The Gryphon King is erroneously credited to “Nohra Zultama”. The book is actually by Sara Omer; a review indicates that “Nohra is our second main character”. Also, Aliya Whiteley isn’t credited as the co-author of City of All Seasons, only Oliver Langmead is listed. (Today’s Locus list contains the corrections.)
Ersatz Culture further noted on Bluesky previously, all of this year’s longlist came from just 3 UK publisher’s imprints: Titan Books, Orbit and Tor UK. Firstborn of the Sun does add a fourth publisher, Michael Joseph, a Penguin imprint. The just-published Locus story on this longlist seems to report the US publisher in many cases, serving to obfuscate the limited publisher participation.
Weir, the author of Project Hail Mary, told Star Trek EP Alex Kurtzman in a just-posted open letter: “I was trying to be funny, but in retrospect it comes off as disrespectful and mean.”
He said his quotes made on the Critical Drinker pod were “taken out of context as salacioius sound bytes” and he “was trying to be self-deprecating.”
Weir on the pod made a series of statements about Paramount‘s handling of the Star Trek universe and claimed he had a pitch turned down by Trek EP Kurtzman.
“And here’s another thing: I pitched a Star Trek show to Paramount and I was on Zoom with the showrunners with all the shows and spent a lot of time talking to [Kurtzman],” Weir said on the pod. “He, as a person, is a really nice guy. But at the same time, those shows are s*it. He is a nice guy, but they didn’t accept my pitch so, you know, f*ck ’em.”
His apology just posted on Facebook said he also stressed “how much I like you as a person and what a nice guy you are” to Kurtzman. “Anyway, if you want to talk about it in real time – even if it’s just to rip me a new one – I’m happy to hop on the phone or zoom,” he added.
Weir’s comments had earlier drawn ire from scribes including Don Winslow, the author behind the source material for Crime 101….
HBO boss Casey Bloys has responded to reports linking the broadcaster to Doctor Who, following the conclusion of the BBC’s deal with Disney+.
Last month, Salt was asked by Deadline if HBO Max could act as a new streaming partner on Doctor Who, following co-production deals between HBO and the BBC on upcoming series Half Man (from Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gadd) and the Michaela Coel vehicle First Day on Earth.
Salt did not rule out the possibility, noting that HBO “have been great partners creatively”.
In conversation with Radio Times, Casey Bloys (chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content) was asked if he’d be interested in partnering on Doctor Who – and Bloys also seemed open to the idea.
“It has not been presented to us,” he clarified. “As with anything, I would say ‘Never say never’ – it’s just not something that I know about.”
The last season of Doctor Who ended on a surprising twist, bringing Ncuti Gatwa’s time as the Doctor to a dramatic close. In the closing moments, the Doctor began to regenerate, only for the new incarnation to be revealed as a shock returning face: Billie Piper.
Her brief appearance left fans stunned and set the Whoniverse buzzing with speculation about what comes next…
(4) SPINRAD QUESTION ON BBC SHOW. [Item by Steven French.] As seen on a recent edition of the BBC2 quiz show House of Games! (Apologies for the blurry photo.)
The short: I’ve been a fan of science fiction by Algis Budrys for a long time. Looking recently, I was surprised that I did not find a “Best Of” or “Selected Short Fiction” collection by him. I decided to read more of his short fiction and create my own Table of Contents for a “Selected Short Fiction of Algis Budrys”. My Table of Contents would include the classic “Rogue Moon” novella, F&SF December 1960, the superlative “The End of Summer” novelette, Astounding November 1954, and “Forever Stenn” (AKA “The Ridge Around the World”), a short story, Satellite December 1957, and 23 more short works I rated “Great”. I would also include horror novelette “The Master of the Hounds” a novelette, The Saturday Evening Post Aug 27 1966. Although it’s not to my taste, I am not a huge fan of horror and it appears to be an appropriate choice. See my TOC below.
Workers were repairing a Dutch church when they stumbled upon a skeleton hidden beneath the floor tiles. Now, officials say it could be the remains of Charles de Batz de Castelmore. The 17th-century French soldier—who is also known as D’Artagnan—is the inspiration behind The Three Musketeers by the French novelist Alexandre Dumas.
Experts are currently analyzing DNA recovered from the skeleton and comparing it with DNA from descendants of the real D’Artagnan’s father. In the meantime, however, they’re urging the public not to jump to conclusions before the analysis is complete.
“This has truly become a top-level investigation, in which we want to be absolutely certain—or as certain as possible—whether it is the famous musketeer,” independent archaeologist Wim Dijkman tells Reuters’ Toby Sterling and Piroschka van de Wouw….
… The real D’Artagnan was born into a noble family in France in the early 17th century. Like Dumas’ character, he served under Louis and rose through the ranks of the musketeers. In 1673, while fighting in the Franco-Dutch War, he was killed by a musket ball during the siege of Maastricht….
… The grave also contained several other pieces of evidence. “We found the bullet that put an end to his life, and we found a coin from 1660 in his grave,” Valke tells BBC News’ Paul Kirby…
(7) ALAN BOSTICK (1959-2026). Bay Area fan Alan Bostick died March 23 while on a flight to the Irish poker open.
The Fancyclopedia notes he was part of the team that produced The Emperor Norton SF Hour. And that his fanzine Fast and Loose “was one of the first examples of the small, frequent fanzine format which was in vogue during the early 1980s.”
He is survived by his partners Lynn A. Kendall and Debbie Notkin.
(8) JUDY NEWTON OBITUARY. Judy Newton died peacefully, but unexpectedly this weekend – probably on Friday night (March 27), due to a heart issue. She will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, next to her late husband, Barry Newton.
Judy was a member of the Washington Science Fiction Association, where she served three terms as a Trustee, once as Vice President, and once as President (2009-2010).
She was a retiree from a government career at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Ahhh, John Astin. I know him best as Gomez Addams in The Addams Family series, which was on the air shorter than I thought, lasting just two seasons and a little over sixty episodes. (It’s not streaming on one on the major streaming services.) He played him again in Halloween with theNew Addams Family (which I’ve not seen but it is streaming on Prime) and voiced him thirty years later in The Addams Family, a two-season animated series which is not streaming. I’ll admit I’m not interested in animated series based off live series. Any live series.
Oh, did you know he was in West Side Story? He played Glad Hand, well-meaning but ineffective social worker. No, you won’t find him in the credits as he wasn’t credited then but retroactively, he got credited for it which was good as he was a lead dancer. Brilliant film and I’ve no intention of watching the new version, ever. It’s streaming on Disney+.
I’d talk about him being in Teen Wolf Too but let’s take the advice of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers and steer way clear of it. Like in a part of the multiverse where the Pixels are contently napping by the Gay Deceiver. Same for the two Killer Tomatoes films. I see he’s in Gremlins 2: The New Batchas a janitor but I can’t say I remember him, nor much of that forgettable film.
So, series work… I was going to list all of his work but there’s way too much to do that, so I’ll be very selective. He’s The Riddler in two episodes of Batman and a most excellent Riddler he was. That series rather surprisingly is not streaming anywhere.
But that was nothing when compared to his role on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. as Prof. Albert Wickwire. He’s a charming, if somewhat absent-minded inventor who assists Brisco with diving suits, motorcycles, and even grander creations such as rockets and airships. Dare I say that this was an element of steampunk in the series? It was a great role for him. This is another series I surprised to find isn’t streaming anywhere.
Finally, he has a recurring role as Mr. Radford (the real one) as opposed to Mr. Radford (the imposter) on Eerie, Indiana. A decidedly weird series that was unfortunately cancelled before it completed. It is streaming on Prime.
A selection of books from the library of science fiction editor extraordinaire and discerning book collector David G. Hartwell (1941-2016), including many inscribed and association copies.
Prices range from (based on site sorting)(assuming I’m still within the Hartwell collection):
The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton, Sheckley, Robert (signed), $100 to Speaker for the Dead, Card, Orson Scott. (Proof Copy, Inscribed to His Editor), $3,750
Some quasi-random searches turn up this more-expensive item:
Destination Moon … With a new Introduction by David G. Hartwell. Heinlein, Robert A. Boston: Greg Press, 1979. (Includes Heinlein’s novelette, Destination Moon (originally published in Short Story Magazine for September 1950), Shooting Destination Moon, Heinlein’s essay on the making of the George Pal film, a reproduction of Facts About Destination Moon, an illustrated promotional booklet, and 13 full-page stills.
Signed copies of this edition are uncommon. This copy is inscribed: “To David Hartwell, warmest good wishes! Robert A. Heinlein”. Hartwell was co-editor of the Gregg Press series and author of the introduction.) Price: $9,000.00
Redditor NanoSpore‘s boyfriend had never seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy all the way through so she wanted to make their first marathon memorable. She cooked up some food for all 7 Hobbit meals and made it into an adventure! She really made hobbit meals for breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, and supper:
SECOND BREAKFAST
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Cora Buhlert, Ersatz Culture, Gary Farber, Rich Lynch, Daniel Dern, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]
When the Palisades Fire tore through Pacific Palisades last year, it didn’t just destroy Colleen Atwood‘s home. It melted three of her Academy Awards and badly damaged a fourth — a surreal, devastating footnote to one of the most decorated careers in Hollywood costume design.
A costume designer whose work has helped define the look of modern studio filmmaking, Atwood has collaborated for decades with such filmmakers as Tim Burton, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Demme, creating looks for films including Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Alice in Wonderland and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Then came the fire. The blaze consumed her beloved Aderno Way house, along with nearly everything inside it. In the aftermath, Atwood was left with a single scorched statuette that she affectionately refers to as her “crispy critter.”…
… And not all Oscars, it turns out, are created equal, with older statues made from softer alloys melting faster than the bronze versions cast more recently….
… A year later, all of Atwood’s Academy Awards have been replaced, but she is far from recovered….
…. “The Academy replaced the statues and they were the first to do so. The Academy and BAFTA were both really great when I reached out, and the Emmys were replaced as well. The Costume Designers Guild Awards have been slightly different as they haven’t been replaced. Three of my Oscars totally melted. But the Academy changed to a foundry before I won for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them so they were solid metal. It’s the only award that didn’t melt.”…
(2) NEW PROZINE. Editor Scott Beggs is launching a new online short fiction magazine called Adventitiouson February 1.
We publish speculative and genre-bending work, including original stories and selected reprints, and I’m thrilled that a brand new novelette from Nebula-nominated author P.A. Cornell will anchor our first issue.
The Short: I just read The Hard SF Renaissance, Kathryn Cramer & David G. Hartwell editors, 2002 Tor. It’s a brick of a book, 41 stories and 960 pages. By a hair, my favorite story was “Think Like a Dinosaur“, a novelette by James Patrick Kelly, Asimov’s June 1995, which is a classic. I loved the “Introduction: New People, New Places, New Politics” essay and the author/story introductions by Cramer and Hartwell, which often quoted the authors as well on the subject of hard SF. My overall average rating for the stories is 3.94/5, or “Great”. Strongly recommended.
In June of 1935 Robert and Leslyn Heinlein purchased the house at 8777 Lookout Mountain Ave, Los Angeles, CA, near Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. This house was where the Mañana Literary Society held their meetings and where Robert wrote all his early works until WWII took him to Philadelphia in 1942. “And He Built A Crooked House” was supposedly located across the street and if you read “Lost Legacy” closely, you will notice striking similarities to Joan’s house and the Heinlein’s house….
(5) THE WAYWARD WORMHOLE ADDS MORE STARS. A Workshop for Professional Novelists – Sandusky, Ohio, 2026 has been announced on The World of Cat Rambo. The workshop runs from September 10-14. Full details and cost information at the link. Applications are open until March 31.
Working together, Donald Maass and C.C. Finlay have created a workshop for mid-career writers: those novelists who are already creating income from their books, whether they are traditionally or independently published, but still want more.
Donald Maass, a renowned name in the craft of writing, and founder of the Donald Maass Literary Agency, along with C.C. Finlay, a successful novelist and award-winning editor, will co-teach a workshop for professional novelists in conjunction with the Wayward Wormhole. Scheduled for September 2026, this critique-focused weekend offers a twist on most craft workshops by assuming applicants are already well past the basics and are interested in forwarding their skills with professional guidance and quality peer critiques. This workshop is for those who reach higher.
Donald Maass founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist, Writing the Breakout Novel, The Fire in Fiction, The Breakout Novelist, Writing 21st Century Fiction, The Emotional Craft of Fiction, and over sixty novels.
C.C. Finlay has published five novels and a short story collection. His fiction has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella, the Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the Sidewise Award. In 2003 he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer In January 2015, Finlay was named the ninth editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and served until the January/February 2021 issue. In 2021, he won a World Fantasy Award for his work editing the magazine.
The Wayward Wormhole is an off-shoot of the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which has been serving up classes, workshops, and community for writers since 2011.
…The third teaser for “Avengers: Doomsday,” which has been playing in front of “Avatar: Fire and Ash” screenings, has been released online, and it marks the return of Fox’s “X-Men” characters Prof. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Cyclops (James Marsden)….
(7) CON PEDERSON (1934-2026) Con Pederson, a CGI pioneer who worked alongside Douglas Trumbull creating the Oscar-winning visual effects for the Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has died January 2 at the age of 91.
Con Pederson in the Fifties. Photo from The LASFS Album (1966).
Before that, Pederson was an LA fan in the Forties and Fifties, a member of LASFS and The Outlanders. He edited at least one issue of The Outlander, as well as contributing to the 1948 Fantasy Annual. He also wrote some short stories that appeared in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy and IF.
While working for Southern California-based Graphic Films, which produced content for NASA, Pederson wrote and directed To the Moon and Beyond, a 15-minute film narrated by Rod Serling that screened at the Transportation and Travel Pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. (Trumbull, hired by Pederson a few years earlier, painted a rotating spiral galaxy for the project.)
Kubrick saw To the Moon and Beyond and invited Pederson to his Manhattan apartment to read the script and view storyboards for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He and Trumball were hired in summer 1965 to go to England, and they worked on the movie through March 1968.
As one of four special photographic effects supervisors credited on the 1968 classic — Trumbull, Wally Veevers and Tom Howard were the others — Pederson helped create stars, planets, spaceships and the unforgettable five-minute Star Gate sequence.
Kubrick would receive the Academy Award for special effects in 1969, the only Oscar of his sterling career.
Pederson began writing science fiction at age 14 and after two years at Los Angeles City College majored in Art and Anthropology at UCLA. He discovered animation in Westwood in the college theater department, made a couple of student films and was hired at Disney, where he was introduced to German American aerospace engineer and space architect Wernher von Braun.
In 1956, Pederson was drafted into the U.S. Army and through his Disney connections wound up working for von Braun in graphic engineering, drawing illustrations about rockets and space travel. After the service, he went back to Disney before heading to Graphic Films.
Pederson joined Metrolight Studios and served as a creative lead alongside Tim McGovern. There, he was a VFX supervisor on HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon, the 12-part 1998 documentary about the Apollo space program, and an animator on the films Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), Imposter (2001), Gods and Generals (2003) and View From the Top (2003)….
In 1999, Pederson was one of the winners of The Winsor McKay Award for his contributions to animation. It is presented at the annual Annie Awards ceremony.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
January 6, 1905 – Eric Frank Russell
So let’s talk about the British writer Eric Frank Russell. His first published piece of fiction was in the first issue of Tales of Wonder called “The Prr-r-eet” (1937). (Please don’t tell me it was about cats. If it is, would that make it that first appearance of social justice credentials?) He also had a letter of comment in Astounding Stories that year. He wrote a lot of such comments down the years.
Eric Frank Russell
Just two years later, his first novel, Sinister Barrier, would be published as the cover story as the first issue of Unknown. His second novel, Dreadful Sanctuary, would be serialized in Astounding, Unknown’s sister periodical, in 1948.
At Clevention, “Allamagoosa” would win a Short Story Hugo. The Great Explosion novel garnered a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.
Now let’s note some reworkings he did as I like them a lot. Men, Martians and Machines published in 1955 is four related novellas of space adventures at their very best. You don’t see novellas connected this way very often, if hardly at all.
The 1956 Three to Conquer, nominated for a Hugo at NY Con II, is a reworking of the earlier Call Him Dead magazine serial that deals with an alien telepath and very well at that. Finally Next of Kin, also known as The Space Willies, shows him being comic, something he does oh so well. It was a novella-length work in Astounding first.
And then there’s the Design for Great-Day novel which was written by Alan Dean Foster. It’s an expansion by him based off a 1953 short story of the same name by Russell. I’m pretty familiar with Foster has done but this isn’t ringing even the faintest of bells. Who’s read it?
He wrote an extraordinary amount of short stories, around seventy by my guess with Short Stories Collection being the only one available at the usual suspects. He’s an author who needs a definitive short story collection done for him.
NASA’s plans for the new year include sending a spacecraft near the moon. Some of the work for missions like that takes place at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and that is where the Trump administration is closing a library where scientists did a lot of work. What’s the connection between high technology and an old-style center of learning? NPR’s Katia Riddle reports….
… RIDDLE: NASA officials say that the library’s closure is part of a long-standing, quote, “transformation effort.” Staff interviewed for this story said that many of the buildings on the campus are in need of repair, including the one that houses the library. But they point out that closures of buildings like this was not in the original plan. They say these closures have been rushed and disorganized, with no clear blueprint to replace important spaces. Monica Gorman works at Goddard.
MONICA GORMAN: The way that they’ve gone about it has just been extraordinarily haphazard and chaotic, and really to the point of being cruel to the people who work in these buildings….
GORMAN: They kept telling us, oh, you can’t work from home because you have to be in person to collaborate with people. You have to sit across the table from people in real life. And this was one of the best places on campus to do that, and they’re just throwing it away.
RIDDLE: Representatives from NASA and Goddard declined an interview for this story, but NASA administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X in response to news reports about the library closure. He insisted the Goddard staff will still have access to the resources they need, writing, quote, “the Goddard community does have and will continue to have access to books via the federal interlibrary loan process.”
Lego has unveiled Smart Bricks – tech-filled versions of its small building blocks – which it says will bring sets to life with sound, light and reaction to movement.
However, the new product range is causing unease among play experts, who say it risks undermining what makes Lego special for children in an increasingly digital world.
Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 in Las Vegas, the Danish toymaker’s Smart Play system introduces new electronic components to the classic plastic blocks.
Lego says its new tech-enabled products, launching in March with a new Star Wars set, are its “most revolutionary innovation” in nearly 50 years.
But Josh Golin, executive director of children’s wellbeing group Fairplay, believes Smart Bricks”undermine what was once great about Legos” – harnessing children’s own imagination during play.
“As anyone who has ever watched a child play with old-school Legos knows, children’s Lego creations already do move and make noises through the power of children’s imaginations,” he told the BBC….
…Lego says its Smart Bricks can sense motion, position and distance, allowing the models to respond in various ways during play.
Measuring 2×4, the brick itself contains sensors, lights, a small sound synthesiser, an accelerometer and a custom-made silicon chip enabling it to detect movement and react to it.
But it is designed to be used with Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags tiles – two additional products making up Lego’s Smart Play System.
Similarly adapted from existing Lego components, these possess digital identifiers triggering different sounds or reactions when they detect and interact with each other.
For instance, when tried out by the BBC at CES, a Lego birthday cake recognised when its “candles” were blown out – sounding a cheer and a happy birthday song.
Meanwhile, a Lego helicopter made whooshing sounds when moved or rotated, with its Smart Brick lighting up red upon crashing….
Far out in the North Pacific, with no ship in sight, satellites have confirmed waves towering to about 35 meters high, roughly 115 feet. The event, linked to a powerful storm in December 2024 and analyzed this year, now ranks among the largest ocean waves ever measured from space.
Those waves were born in a megastorm known as Eddie. Using the SWOT satellite, researchers calculated a significant wave height of 19.7 meters, which is already enough to batter a large vessel. Inside that field, individual crests were estimated to climb beyond 35 meters (115 feet high) while the swell traveled almost 15,000 miles from the North Pacific, through the Drake Passage, into the tropical Atlantic.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, John A Arkansawyer, Cat Rambo, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day SocialInjusticeWorrier.]
(1) ANOTHER HARTWELL-WORTHY GARB-MENT. [Item by Daniel Dern.] From the David-Hartwell-worthy wardrobe catalog: the PAC-MAN Jacket/suit (from Opposuits).
I first saw it posted by Mitch Wagner, a fellow sf/f fan (and telecom and enterprise industry analyst, technology writer/editor, which is how/where I’ve known him).
(And here’s a related photo of from my 2017 Helsinki WorldCon coverage, as seen in a department store.)
A federal judge on June 5 denied defendants’ request for a stay pending appeal on his May 13 preliminary injunction in Rhode Island v. Trump, a case in which 21 states’ attorneys general sued to halt the dismantling of three federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, in response to a White House executive order. Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island observed that the defendants appear to be complying with the court order “without any apparent harm—irreparable or otherwise.”
In addition to the IMLS, the Minority Business and Development Agency and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service are implicated in the suit. Defendants in the case include the agencies and their acting directors, President Donald Trump, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought….
(3) DAILY “TIGHTROPE” TRIVIA GAME — OOPS! [Item by David Goldfarb.] Among my quizzes nowadays is one on the Britannica website called “Tightrope”. Today’s quiz featured this question:
In 1953 Ray Bradbury published what anti-censorship book following firefighter Guy Montag?
Ummm….no. Try that again.
(4) DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY – BUT HIS APPRENTICE DOESN’T. Christopher Lockett continues his Pratchett series with “Discworld Reread #3: Mort”.
…Why Death wants an apprentice is unclear at first, but it turns out Mort isn’t the first mortal he’s taken on. Mort soon meets Albert, a former wizard of some note who now acts as Death’s manservant, and Death’s adopted daughter Ysabell—with whom Mort forms a prickly and combative relationship of the entirely predictable variety.
Why does Death, who self-identifies as an anthropomorphic personification, want or need an apprentice? As it turns out, he wants to take some personal time; he wants to satisfy his curiosity about these weird and feckless mortals for whom he acts as psychopomp2 by spending time among them….
…To be clear, we’re still a ways off from actually mapping Discworld. The Discworld Mapp, a collaboration between Sir Terry and Stephen Briggs, came out in 1995, the same year as Maskerade (#18).⁵ As he explains in the introduction to the Mapp, Sir Terry never intended to create one—but by that point, eighteen novels set in the Discworld had effectively created a geography that could be surveyed.
And while we’re far from any sort of definitive sense of geography in Mort, there is a definite sense of the world’s shape—and more importantly, a sense of inhabited places, cities, countries, kingdoms, and so forth, that exist in spatial and political relation to one another. This sensibility is a departure from The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which—as is appropriate to the kind of fantasy they parody—have a far more nebulous understanding of space and place that corresponds to the conventions of romance. Medieval romance, like many fairy tales, tends to operate on a hic sunt dracones (Here Be Dragons) logic, in which the spaces outside enclaves of safety is unmapped and lawless, spaces in which anything is possible and doesn’t operate according to the rules or laws of reality. So, should you venture out of your village or beyond the castle walls, all bets are off: monsters, gingerbread cottages, wandering enchanters, magical temples, mysterious knights guarding river crossings, homicidal bunnies … all are possible and indeed likely encounters, whether you’re a questing hero or cowardly failed wizard.⁶…
(5) EVERGREEN ADVICE. Kermit the Frog delivers commencement speech at University of Maryland. Originally streamed on May 22.
(6) MARA CORDAY (1930-2025) Actress Mara Corday died February 9 at the age of 95. The New York Times profile says her death was not widely reported until now.
In the 1950s, Mara Corday, a nightclub showgirl and popular pinup model, was a star of three science-fiction movie thrillers, including “Tarantula” (1955), in which she fled from a 100-foot-tall spider that had escaped from a laboratory.
“The whole world is after him,” Ms. Corday told the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper that year, about the terrifying arachnid. “He’s a pretty unhappy spider, I can tell you. I’m a lady scientist, and Leo Carroll and John Agar are playing two top roles.”
At a time when sci-fi cinema was focused on subjects like alien invasions, space exploration and nuclear paranoia, Ms. Corday was cast in B-movie tales about nasty, gigantic creatures.
In 1957, she played a mathematician in “The Giant Claw,” in which a gigantic bird (first thought to be a U.F.O.) tears down buildings and foments panic. She returned that year to outsize insects, as a rancher in “The Black Scorpion,” about giant scorpions threatening the countryside after rising out of a volcanic eruption in Mexico.
While filming on location in Mexico, Ms. Corday discovered a coral snake of normal size in her hotel room. Her screams brought a bellboy to her rescue.
“After working with scorpions all day,” she was quoted as saying in Valley Times of North Hollywood, “I’m in no condition to combat snakes at night.”
Ms. Corday — whose movie career stretched from sci-fi and western films in the 1950s to four of her friend Clint Eastwood’s movies decades later — died on Feb. 9 at her home in Valencia, Calif. She was 95….
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
June 6, 1959 — Gary Graham. (Died 2024.)
I was trying to remember where first saw Gary Graham as a genre performer. What I remember him most for is in the recurring role of Soval, the Vulcan ambassador to Earth, in the Enterprise series. It was a most excellent performance by him.
So it turns out that it was the Alien Nation franchise in which he played Detective Matthew Sikes, which aired from the late Eighties until mid-Nineties, where I first saw him. Great role by him it was indeed.
He had the recurring role of Captain Ken Hetrick on what I think was the underappreciated M.A.N.T.I.S. series. Yes, it was a slightly awkward merging of a police procedural and a SF superhero story but I liked it a lot.
He was the lead in, well, Robot Jox, post-apocalyptic mecha film; the mechas being giant robots pilots by soldiers. Joe Haldeman wrote the innumerable screenplays as he and Stuart Gordon who wrote the story never agreed on anything. As near as I can tell from IMDb and other sources, it cost at least ten million and according to them made the studio nothing.
Finally he got involved in one of those fanfic Trek videos that CBS decided to ignore as long as they didn’t attempt to make them a commercial property, e.g. sell them as DVDs. (Yes, this one asked CBS to sell them for them. You can guess the answer.)
In Star Trek: Of Gods and Men and the web series that came off it he was Ragnar, a shape-shifter, who led a rebellion against the Federation. Bet that didn’t end well.
They claim CBS authorized them to write it as a script for a new series. Of course neither CBS or Paramount ever publicly said anything about this.
Ever wanted to eat your popcorn directly out of Galactus’ head? Well, if you plan on seeing The Fantastic Four: First Steps in theaters, you’ll be able to do just that. The Galactus popcorn bucket for the upcoming film has been revealed — and needless to say, it’s probably going to be a major collectors item.
The “Giant Galactus Popcorn Vessel,” as it’s being called by AMC Theatres, stands a whopping 17 inches tall and features the film’s antagonist, who will be played by The Witch and Nosferatu’s Ralph Ineson, from the neck up. The bucket is a replica of the character’s head, which dons bright blue eyes, and helmet, which is finished in a shimmery purple hue. The popcorn itself is eaten out of the open top of Galactus’ helmet and, according to the chain, a large popcorn comes with each limited edition bucket….
Seth MacFarlane is best known for creating and starring in American Dad! and Family Guy, as well as co-creating and starring in the Ted film and TV franchise. But off screen, he has another passion: singing. In fact, he’s a five-time Grammy nominee.
MacFarlane has interpreted tunes from the Great American Songbook, big-band style with a classic, baritone voice. He’s long been an admirer of Frank Sinatra. So he was overjoyed when the late crooner’s daughter Tina approached him about purchasing a trove of long-lost musical arrangements written for her father…
Martínez: Whenever I hear someone try Frank Sinatra songs in karaoke, it’s like they’re trying the vocal mannerisms of Frank. So, how do you try to be you, but also give the essence and sense of Frank?
MacFarlane: I had the luxury of training with Lee and Sally Sweetland, who were two contemporaries of Sinatra who worked with him, worked with Dean Martin, worked with Streisand. They just taught you how to sing the way these songs are supposed to be sung. The best of Sinatra to me are his ballad albums. He’s singing like he’s at a concert hall; he’s singing like he’s singing an opera. There’s nothing about it that evokes any of those kinds of gimmicky mannerisms that people sometimes do….
A private lunar lander from Japan crashed while attempting a touchdown Friday, the latest casualty in the commercial rush to the moon.
The Tokyo-based company ispace declared the mission a failure several hours after communication was lost with the lander. Flight controllers scrambled to gain contact, but were met with only silence and said they were concluding the mission.
Communications ceased less than two minutes before the spacecraft’s scheduled landing on the moon with a mini rover. Until then, the descent from lunar orbit seemed to be going well.
CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada apologized to everyone who contributed to the mission, the second lunar strikeout for ispace….
Proton beams with giga-electron-volt (GeV) energies—once thought to be achievable only with massive particle accelerators—may soon be generated in compact setups thanks to a breakthrough by researchers at The University of Osaka.
A team led by Professor Masakatsu Murakami has developed a novel concept called micronozzle acceleration (MNA). By designing a microtarget with tiny nozzle-like features and irradiating it with ultraintense, ultrashort laser pulses, the team successfully demonstrated—through advanced numerical simulations—the generation of high-quality, GeV-class proton beams: a world-first achievement.
The article, “Generation of giga-electron-volt proton beams by micronozzle acceleration,” was published in Scientific Reports….
(13) MONTHLY ASTRONOMICAL NEWS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Astrophysicist Dr Becky has a 30-minute monthly astronomy news. A fair bit will be of interest to SF fans into science. In the mix is the sad news that NASA’s 2026/7 space science budget had been halved (even if the humans returning to the Moon budgets have been increased by over half a billion dollars) Astrophysicists are really worried as there is talk that they may lose two-thirds of their budget…
Elsewhere there is news on the hunt for ‘planet nine’, the supposed, and certainly elusive outermost planet of the Solar system. The big problem is that because it is so far away, it would be very faint and also move very slowly against the backdrop of distant stars. But now we have the infra red observation data from over 23 years. And, guess what? They have found an object that has moved the anticipated distance. The bad news is that we will have to wait another couple of decades for another data point and that might give us a possible orbit.
Meanwhile, for Filers in the southern hemisphere, this is the month to see the main part of the Galaxy and its centre. But for those of us here in the northern hemisphere, the 1st of June is the best time to see Venus as that is the date of its ‘greatest western elongation’. This in turn means it appears to us the furthest it gets from the Sun which means it is the furthest it gets from the Sunrise. So, if you are an early bird, keep an eye out for it before dawn. Conversely, if you are a bit of a night owl, we have Mars and Jupiter just after Sunset. Jupiter will be lower in the horizon below the (tiny sliver of the) Moon on the 28th May. Mars will be close to the Moon on the 31st May and 1st June.
And there is news of the great dimethyl sulphide exoplanet detection which, sadly, increasingly looks like it is not a reliable biosignature (and indeed elsewhere the statistical analysis has been almost heatedly debated). Then there’s news of a number of world class telescopes in Chile coming under threat of light pollution from a proposed, major green energy project to be sited a few miles away.
The video rounds off with a look at what is happening to NASA. This is even worrying some over here at ESA as there are a number of joint ESA-NASA missions under threat. Becky also opines that budget is not driven by science as the dots don’t join up. The budget supports a drive for humans on the Moon and Mars as if we do not sort out whether there is life on Mars before humans arrive as any subsequent detection might be human contamination. Sadly, because of the time it takes to get budgets sorted, it could be the end of this year or even early next, before we know NASA’s fate.
(14) WHY SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE IS A MASTERPIECE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.]Half a decade on, Moid Moidelhoff over at Media Death Culthas been refreshing some of his old vids. This time he has just re-posted his analysis of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. He is forthright from the start telling anyone no to expect this video to give either a quick thumbs up or thumbs down.
“Sorry, I’m not going to help you with that. You should piss off, and go and read the book yourselves. Don’t ever let any some stupid YouTuber tell you what books to read!. I mean that more than ever with the stone-cold classics…
You can see the 16-minute video below.
[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, David Goldfarb, John A Arkansawyer, Daniel Dern, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mark Roth-Whitworth for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]
(1) HOW PROZINES ARE COPING WITH SUBMISSIONS PRODUCED BY AI. The Dark, edited by Sean Wallace, is another sff publication being sent a lot of AI-written stories. They’ve adopted a policy in response:
1) As there’s been an uptick on AI-generated submissions lately, we’ve gone ahead and updated our guidelines for The Dark, with this statement, lifted pretty much from the @clarkesworld website:
3) Quite a few other magazines have already added something similar and I am hopeful that the genre writing organizations in our field follow suit with their positions on this matter sooner than later. Thanks!
Meanwhile, Matthew Kressel, designer of the Moksha Submissions System used by many sff publications, told Facebook readers today he will “soon be releasing a set of tools for Moksha to allow editors to easily filter AI-generated submissions. Yes, it relies on author affirmation that the work is wholly their own, but to affirm otherwise would be plagiarism. Gotta start somewhere.”
(2) STATEMENTS FROM AUTHORS ORGANIZATIONS. In the UK, the Society of Authors discusses the challenges of “Protecting copyright and creative careers in the face of new technology” in its statement on “Artificial Intelligence” which begins —
Whatever your area of work, whether you are an academic, an illustrator, a poet, a scriptwriter or a translator (to name a few), AI systems are being trained on existing copyright-protected works (input) and these same systems are being used to generate works ‘in the style of’ those existing works (output).
The AI development race is opaque, unfettered and unregulated, and driven primarily by the profit motives of large corporations, despite some likely adverse impacts. The ethical and moral ramifications of these AI systems are complex, and the legal ramifications are not limited to the infringement of copyright’s economic rights, but may include infringement of an author’s moral rights of attribution and integrity and right to object to false attribution; infringement of data protection laws; invasions of privacy; and acts of passing off.
And these aren’t issues for a hypothetical future….
And in the U.S., The Authors Guild discusses the problem in its advocacy article about “Artificial Intelligence”.
Artificial intelligence machines capable of generating literary and artistic works and performing other fantastical tasks that were once “science fiction” are at our doorstep. Today, commercial AI programs can already write articles, compose music, and render images in response to text prompts, and their ability to do these tasks is improving at a rapid clip. A wide assortment of tools to help writers write are commercially available today and show great potential to expedite and improve many writers’ output. At the same time, once AI is writing good books on its own (which is not so far off), it threatens to crowd the market for human authored books.
AI-generated literary and artistic works, even in their most impressive form, are essentially mimicry of human expressive works. AI generative technologies (i.e, AI machines that are used to generate output) are “trained” on mass amounts of pre-existing works (e.g., text, images, recorded music), where the copied works are broken down to their components and rules and their patterns deciphered. The consumer facing AI machines available to date have been trained on works copied by internet crawlers without licenses or permission.
While AI-generated works might look or sound like human-created works, they lack human intelligence and feeling. AI cannot feel, think, or empathize. It lacks the essential human faculties that move the arts forward. Nevertheless, the speed at which AI can create artistic and literary works to compete with human-authored works poses a significant threat to both the economic and cultural value of the latter.
We are confronting serious policy issues about the future of creativity: Do we want humans or AI creating our literature and other arts?…
(3) SUDOWRITE ADVOCATE WILL DROP TWITTER. S. B. Divya, whose promotion of Sudowrite’s “Story Engine” on Twitter met with much criticism, announced yesterday that she will be leaving the platform.
YouTuber and author Hank Green announced that he has been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in a YouTube video last week.
In the video, Green recounted his diagnosis, saying it all started when “I noticed my lymph nodes were big.” After consulting with his doctor, getting an ultrasound and undergoing a biopsy, Green was given a diagnosis. According to Green, it was “good news, bad news.”
“One, it’s cancer. It’s called lymphoma. It’s cancer of the lymphatic system. And good news, it’s something called Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” Green said. “It’s one of the most treatable cancers. It responds very well to treatment. The goal is cure. The treatment to get there is fairly well-known, if unpleasant.”…
…Last week, the Supreme Court resolved a major copyright dispute involving a Warhol that many experts thought would have a spillover effect on other cases, including a pair involving Prince that are currently playing themselves out in federal court in New York.
But in the end, the court’s Warhol decision appeared to be fairly narrow, the experts said, as the justices did not so much weigh in on how much of another work an artist can copy, but ruled instead on what sort of use such a work can be put to.
Warhol, who died in 1987, had created a series of silk-screen portraits of the rock star Prince that were based on a photograph of the musician taken by Lynn Goldsmith. One of the silk-screens was licensed by his estate to Condé Nast in 2016 to illustrate the cover of a special issue about the musician’s legacy.
When Goldsmith sued, asserting her copyright had been infringed, the Warhol estate argued that it was entitled to the so-called fair-use defense. The estate’s lawyers suggested that Warhol’s treatment of the image, which was colored, cropped and shaded in certain places, had been “transformative,” a term the courts have adopted to define just how much change the appropriating artist must bring to the underlying work to pass muster.
Many thought the latest Supreme Court decision might more clearly delineate what qualifies a work as transformative. But the justices chose instead to focus on how the Warhol portrait had been used, namely to illustrate an article about the musician. The court found that such a use was not distinct enough from the “purpose and character” of Goldsmith’s photo, which had been licensed to Vanity Fair years earlier to help illustrate an article about [the musician] Prince….
… Brian Sexton, a lawyer for [artist] Richard Prince, said the Supreme Court, in its Warhol decision, “went to great pains” to make clear that its findings were “limited to a single licensing dispute.”
“As Richard Prince makes individual paintings and does not license his works, the holding in Warhol is clearly inapplicable to his New Portraits litigation,” he said….
(6) OCTAVIA BUTLER FELLOWSHIP AWARDED. Dr. Lois Rosson is the winner of the second Octavia E. Butler Fellowship, which will support her work at the Huntington in Pasadena, CA. “Introducing the 2023–24 Huntington Fellows”.
Dr. Lois Rosson
Among the incoming cohort of fellows is Lois Rosson, winner of the Octavia E. Butler Fellowship. She received her Ph.D. from the history department of the University of California, Berkeley, in 2022 and took up a Berggruen Institute Fellowship at USC’s Center for Science, Technology, and Public Life the same year. Rosson is a historian of science, focusing on visual representations of the space environment. Her work has been supported by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NASA’s Ames Research Center, and The Huntington, where she was awarded a short-term fellowship in 2020.
As the second Butler Fellow at The Huntington, Rosson will develop her first book project, which explores why visual tropes that associated outer space with Western frontier expansion persisted into the late 20th century. At no point in this history, she argues, was the framing of space landscapes as topographies ideologically continuous with American Manifest Destiny an obvious or inevitable outcome. How then, she asks, did this perception become so dominant?
Rosson proposes two conceptual alternatives to depictions of space as a landscape couched in colonialist narrative. The first centers on Afrofuturist representations of outer space as a realm to which inhabitants of Earth can hypothetically flee—as opposed to landscapes characterized by prospective settlement or colonial resource extraction. The second compares representations of Latinx farm workers in midcentury California with visions of the labor-free space colonies developed by NASA at the time.
Rosson plans to spend her time principally working with The Huntington’s Octavia E. Butler Papers. Butler’s literary vision of space as a place of asylum, Rosson writes, is one of the most widely read of the 20th century. In Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, the protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina, frustrated with life in dystopian California, compares Mars—“cold, empty, almost airless, dead”—to heaven. In Olamina’s view, the Martian landscape is not an especially inviting one, but it offers the prospect of escaping a planet characterized by degraded human life and violent climate catastrophe. At The Huntington, Rosson will focus on Butler’s ideas about how life in space should be organized as well as her upbringing in Pasadena and proximity to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Along with representations of space as a realm of noncorporate diaspora, Rosson explores the centrality of agricultural production to the large-scale space station designs that emerged in the 1970s and ’80s. While illustrations of these space stations depicted fully populated colonies set against the pastoral landscapes of fully engineered agricultural systems, the labor required to maintain these environments is never depicted. Rosson plans to compare depictions of agricultural production in space with the idealized versions circulated in 20th-century American print culture, which erased most traces of human labor. She argues that images of California citrus and vegetable farming—like those illustrated on lithographed labels held in The Huntington’s Jay T. Last Collection of Graphic Arts and Social History—function as visual precursors to the inert versions eventually depicted in illustrations of futuristic space stations in the early 1970s, a time when the rights of immigrant farm workers became increasingly visible in the United States.
In 1987, editor David G. Hartwell embarked on a massive undertaking.
Through conversations, panels, and a variety of correspondence, he came to realize the horror genre was at something of a turning point. A lot of horror writers and critics, when they cited their influences and favorite works, tended to favor short stories over longer forms of horror. In fact, a lot of the works that drove horror history appeared to be short stories. After much thought, he compiled what he felt was a definitive work on shorter horror at the crossroads of the genre; The way forward being paved by novels, the previous history built upon the foundation of short stories. It was meant as an all-encompassing paean to dark fiction, to discuss and outline Hartwell’s own thoughts and definitions of the genre.
The result was a huge tome titled The Dark Descent, as much a historical and critical work of horror as it was an attempt to codify and collect the best specimens of short horror stories. It’s award-winning, weighty in both content and size, and looms large in the collections of horror fans old and new.
That was thirty-six years ago. In the years since The Dark Descent landed with an almighty boom upon our bookshelves, horror has in fact changed quite a bit….
…Now, as you may have already gathered from the title of this post, I have some rather disheartening news to share. The movie that my dear friend Ben and I co-wrote, The Princess, is being removed from popular streaming platforms such as Hulu and Disney+. A decision made in the pursuit of cost-saving measures….
… Here is an article from Variety that provides further insight into this unfortunate development.
To be completely honest, Ben and I are both profoundly saddened by this turn of events. As Ben aptly expressed in his recent tweet, “After 25 years in LA, I finally had a movie that I’m proud of. Now, it could vanish forever…”
And indeed, that is the harsh reality we are faced with. Ben and I have dedicated countless hours to this industry, tirelessly honing our skills as writers. For 15 years, we have toiled together, overcoming numerous obstacles in the pursuit of our dreams. Finally, in 2014, our hard work paid off, and we broke into the industry. Yet, it took an additional seven long years before one of our projects was brought to life. The Princess was that project. Finally! We had achieved something remarkable—an offering for the world to experience. A piece of work that I could proudly share with my future grandchildren. Something to present to those who ever questioned my abilities as a screenwriter, proving that I had indeed left a mark on the world.
However, in an effort to cut costs, Disney has chosen to withdraw The Princess, along with several other films and shows, from their streaming services. This is reminiscent of a similar situation last year when David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery, removed a multitude of shows from HBO Max and even decided against releasing Batgirl to reduce expenses.
Now, both the creative team behind The Princess and ourselves find ourselves among the victims of such decisions….
…Deep in the jungle of central Vietnam lies an underground kingdom. Hang Son Doong, which translates as ‘mountain river cave’ is the largest cave passage in the world and a place of beauty. Located in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Quang Binh Province, the cave entrance was first discovered in 1990 by a local farmer. But it wasn’t explored until 2009 when a British expedition team rigged ropes and descended.
Often described as the eighth wonder of the world, Son Doong has its own lake, jungle and a unique weather system, and remained undisturbed for millions of years. However, in 2014, Son Doong’s future was thrown into doubt when plans were announced to build a cable car into the cave. With many arguing that this would destroy the cave’s delicate eco-system and the local community divided over the benefits this development would bring, the film follows those caught up in the unfolding events….
(10) MEMORY LANE.
2005 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Joe Hill’s the son of Stephen King. I’ve met him several times, and yes he looks like his father. He’s every bit as friendly and charming as his father is in person. Lovely family they are.
Our Beginning is that of “Voluntary Committal” which was published by Subterranean Press eighteen years ago.
I don’t know who I’m writing this for, can’t say who I expect to read it. Not the police, anyway. I don’t know what happened to my brother, and I can’t tell them where he is. Nothing I could put down here would help them find him.
And anyway, this isn’t really about his disappearance… although it does concern a missing person, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think the two things had anything to do with each other. I have never told anyone what I know about Edward Prior, who left school one October day in 1977, and never arrived home for chili and baked potatoes with Mom. For a long time, the first year or two after he vanished, I didn’t want to think about my friend Eddie. I would do anything not to think about him. If I passed some people talking about him in the halls of my high school—I heard he stole his momma’s weed and some money and ran away to fuckin California!—I’d fix my eyes on some point in the distance and pretend I was deaf. And if someone actually approached and asked me straight out what I thought had happened to him—now and then someone would, since we were known compañeros—I’d set my face into a rigid blank and shrug. “I almost think I care sometimes,” I said.
Later, I didn’t think about Eddie out of studiously formed habit. If anything happened by chance to remind me of him—if I saw a boy who looked like him, or read something in the news about a missing teen—I would instantly begin to think of something else, hardly aware I was even doing it.
In the last three weeks, though, ever since my little brother Morris went missing, I find myself thinking about Ed Prior more and more; can’t seem, through any effort of will, to turn thoughts of him aside. The urge to talk to someone about what I know is really almost more than I can bear. But this isn’t a story for the police. Believe me, it wouldn’t do them any good, and it might do myself a fair amount of bad. I can’t tell them where to look for Edward Prior any more than I can tell them where to look for Morris—can’t tell what I don’t know—but if I were to share this story with a detective, I think I might be asked some harsh questions, and some people (Eddie’s mother, for example, still alive and on her third marriage) would be put through a lot of unnecessary emotional strain.
And it’s just possible I could wind up with a one-way ticket to the same place where my brother spent the last two years of his life: the Wellbrook Progressive Mental Health Center. My brother was there voluntarily, but Wellbrook includes a wing just for people who had to be committed. Morris was part of the clinic’s work program, pushed a mop for them four days out of the week, and on Friday mornings he went into the Governor’s Wing, as it’s known, to wash their shit off the walls. And their blood.
Was I just talking about Morris in the past tense? I guess I was. I don’t hope anymore that the phone will ring, and it will be Betty Millhauser from Wellbrook, her voice rushed and winded, telling me they’ve found him in a homeless shelter somewhere, and they’re bringing him back. I don’t think anyone will be calling to tell me they found him floating in the Charles, either. I don’t think anyone will be calling at all, except maybe to say nothing is known. Which could almost be the epitaph on Morris’s grave. And maybe I have to admit that I’m writing this, not to show it to anyone, but because I can’t help myself, and a blank page is the only safe audience for this story I can imagine.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born May 23, 1909 — Robert Thomas Maitland Scott Jr., 1909 – 1945. Son in a father-and-son writing team who created The Spider, a pulp character who was clearly a rip-off of The Shadow. They wrote only the first two Spider novels before it was written by various house authors though it’s disputed if Scott Jt. had an uncredited role because the SF element in the series clearly reflect his tastes. He would die in a motor vehicle while on active duty with Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. (Died 1945.)
Born May 23, 1921 — James Blish. What was his best work? Cities in Flight? A Case of Conscience? I’d argue it was one of those works. Certainly it wasn’t the Trek novels. And I hadn’t realized that he wrote one series, the Pantropy series, under a pen name, that of Arthur Merlyn. (Died 1975.)
Born May 23, 1933 — Margaret Aldiss. Wife of Brian Aldiss. She wrote extensively on her husband’s work including The Work of Brian W. Aldiss: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide. He in turn wrote When the Feast is Finished: Reflections on Terminal Illness, a look at her final days. She also co-edited the A is for Brian anthology with Malcolm Edwards and Frank Hatherley. (Died 1997.)
Born May 23, 1935 — Susan Cooper, 88. Author of the superb Dark is Rising series. Her Scottish castle set YA Boggart series is lighter in tone and is just plain fun. I’d also recommend her Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children which is quite excellent. The Grey King, part of The Dark is Risk series, won a Newbery, and she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.
Born May 23, 1942 — Zalman King. OK he’s best known for The Red Shoe Diaries which are decidedly not genre and indeed are soft core erotica but even that isn’t quite true as some of the episodes were definitely genre such as “The Forbidden Zone” set in a future where things are very different, and “Banished” which deals with an Angel now in mortal form all on Earth. I’m betting there’s more fantasy elements but I need to go through sixty episodes to confirm that. Denise Crosby appeared in two episodes of the Red Shoe Dairies playing the different characters, Lynn ‘Mona’ McCabe in “The Psychiatrist” and Officer Lynn ‘Mona’ McCabe in “You Have the Right to Remain Silent”. Zalman himself played Nick in “The Lost Ones” episode on The Land of The Giants and earlier was The Man with The Beard in the Munsters episode of “Far Out Munsters”. His final genre acting gig was on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as Gregory Haymish in “The Cap and Gown Affair”. (Died 2012.)
Born May 23, 1967 — Sean Williams, 56. Australian author who has been the recipient of a lot of Ditmar and Aurealis Awards. And I mean a lot. Most of his work has been co-authored with Shane Nix (such as Emergence and Orphans series, Star Wars: New Jedi Order novels) but I’d recommend The Books of the Cataclysm series wrote solely by him as it’s most excellent. He’s deeply stocked at the usual digital suspects.
Born May 23, 1986 — Ryan Coogler, 37. Co-writer with Joe Robert Cole of Black Panther which he also directed. He directed Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Producer, Space Jam 2, producer of the Wankanda series on Disney+. Black Panther was a Hugo finalist at Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon, the year that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won.
(12) ‘BLOOM COUNTY’ – A BETTER FAREWELL. When the Bloom County comic originally closed its run in 1989 Mark Roth-Whitworth thought he could improve on the way it ended. “For something different: a Bloom County end”.
A long time ago, a comic strip ended: Bloom County. A lot of us were unhappy, but I also thought that there could have been a better ending… so I wrote one.
Star Date 93350.09 Captain’s Log of the Starchair Enterpoop, Helmsman and now commanding officer Binkley recording.
It seems that our long mission has come to an end. Apparently, we have been successful….
…In February 2013, General Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff (comparable to the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), published an article titled “The Value of Science is in the Foresight,” in the weekly Russian trade paper Military-Industrial Kurier. In it, Gerasimov suggested that the “very ‘rules of war’ have changed,” and that in many cases, nonmilitary means have exceeded the power and force of weapons in their ability to effect change on the international stage.2 Gerasimov argues that new technologies have reduced gaps between traditional forces and their command and control, though also noting that “frontal engagements of large formations of forces at the strategic and operational level are gradually becoming a thing of the past.”3 The future, Gerasimov suggests, lies in “contactless actions”—made through cyber or other electronic means—being used as the main means of military or intelligence goals. This belief—that traditional military interactions are giving way to newer and subjectively more effective indirect interactions via computers and electronics—has been dubbed by some as the Gerasimov Doctrine…..
Over the years, there have been many memorable movies about Hercules that have captivated audiences worldwide. Some examples include the groundbreaking 1958 Italian film Hercules, starring bodybuilder Steve Reeves; Disney’s beloved animated feature Hercules (1997), which boasts an unforgettable soundtrack; and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s action-packed performance in Hercules (2014). Each film offers its own unique perspective on the life and legend of one of Greece’s most iconic heroes, with stunning visuals, thrilling action sequences, and engaging storytelling.
Now it’s your turn to let us know which Hercules movies stand out as the best among this legendary lineup. We invite you to vote on your favorite films featuring this mighty mythical hero. Together we’ll determine which movies truly capture the essence of Hercules’ strength, wisdom, and enduring popularity across generations. So grab your lion-skin cloak and club – it’s time to dive into the world of Hercules like never before.
Number one on the list is actually a sequel:
Hercules Unchained (1959)
In this timeless sequel, we’re treated to the unstoppable Steve Reeves as he takes on the role of Hercules, flexing his muscles and captivating audiences with his charm. With a gripping storyline that has him breaking free from an evil queen’s clutches, it’s no wonder this film became a hit, making Reeves a household name and cementing his status as a beloved hero in cinematic history.
(15) NEW ESTIMATE AS TO HOW OLD ARE SATURN’S RINGS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.]There are two main, competing hypotheses: (1) They are ancient and either formed with Saturn or during the late veneer, or… (2) They are young and formed since then. Now data has been analysed from the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) on the Cassini spacecraft, which began orbiting Saturn in July 2004 until end of mission in September 2017. Continuous bombardment by non-icy micro-meteoroids from beyond the Saturnian system is a source non-icy material in Saturn’s rings. Knowing that rate of micro-meteor accumulation in the rings and knowing how much is the non-icy component to the rings, it is possible to estimate the age of the rings. Using CDA data European and US based astronomers estimate that the rings’ age is between around 100 million and 400 million years: hypothesis ‘2’. This estimate chimes in with a previous one using a different method. (See Kempf, S. et al. (2023) “Micrometeoroid infall onto Saturn’s rings constrains their age to no more than a few hundred million years”. Science Advances, vol. 9 (19), eadf8537.)
Black holes might really be strange defects in spacetime called topological stars that are generated by hidden cosmic dimensions, reports a new study.
Topological stars are completely hypothetical and only exist as mathematical constructions at this point. However, they have the potential to probe perplexing paradoxes of the cosmos, including the true nature of black holes and the mind-boggling ideas raised by string theory, a framework that attempts to reconcile seemingly contradictory physical laws into a unified theory.
String theory proposes that particles in the universe are actually vibrating strings tethered to many extra dimensions that are imperceptible to us. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) have worked for years to envision the objects and phenomena that might exist in such a universe, including topological stars, or topological solitons, which are bubbles of nothing that form in the fabric of spacetime.
Now, the team has used simulations to show that topological solitons would appear “remarkably similar to black holes in apparent size and scattering properties, while being smooth and horizonless,” according to a recent study published in Physical Review D. In other words, the hypothetical objects would look almost exactly like black holes from our perspective, raising the tantalizing possibility that they may actually lurk in our universe.
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Jeffrey Smith, Francis Hamit, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Charon D.]
(1) HARTWELL LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. Kathryn Cramer posted the speech she prepared for Gordon Van Gelder to deliver accepting David G. Hartwell’s posthumous World Fantasy Life Achievement Award.
First of all, to the board, we are sorry David missed the meeting this morning. Almost nothing could stop him from showing up bright and early on the Sunday morning of World Fantasy to preside over the board meeting.
Not late nights, high fevers, the birth of his children.
This convention—and these awards—were very important to David. For him they were about the conversations we have about our genre and what the genre can do for the world. It makes us proud to think of you all in this room thinking about and talking about the fantasy and horror genres and what excites you about them.
Take a moment, in his honor, and look around the room at the people you have connected with here.
This is what he wanted for you.
This Life Achievement award honors a life well-lived. Thank you all.
Sunday morning – this morning although it’s after midnight now so maybe I mean yesterday morning – I discovered that Roberta had suffered a stroke during the night. I called 911. The firemen responded almost instantly.
We spent the day first at the St. Joseph’s Emergency Room (where the firemen took me after my stroke), then at the Kaiser Emergency Room where she was taken by ambulance arranged by Kaiser, then finally in the Kaiser main hospital. Alex was with me for essentially the entire time. My second son, Frank, who lives in Palm Springs, drove up as soon as he could. Our youngest son, Richard, flew in from DC and just got here.
Roberta appears to be about where I was after my stroke. She can’t really talk yet, but she’s aware of what’s going on around her. We’re trying to arrange rehab at Holy Cross where I was retaught how to swallow, walk, and do all the other things people do.
…This is not silly wish-fulfilment fantasy optimism on my part. At the worldcon in Kansas City, a few of us fellow-travellers in Cancerland did a panel about living with cancer. One beautiful lady has stage-four lung cancer. You’d never know it, though, because she’s doing great––clinical trials pay off. In fact, over thirty years ago, my Aunt Loretta (one of my mothers) agreed to be in a clinical trial for a breast cancer drug. That drug is Tamoxifen. On her behalf, you’re welcome.
Rational optimism notwithstanding, however, I still remember how the last months of 2016 were projected to be the last months of my life and…well, I can’t help gloating. Who am I gloating at? Cancer, of course. Who else?
These days, I’m thinking not so much in terms of a singing horse as I am the story about the two people in the forest being chased by a bear. One of them stops and puts on fancy running shoes. The other person says, ‘Do you really think you can outrun a bear?’ And the first person says, ‘No, I only have to outrun you.’
I picture me and cancer being chased by a bear called Annihilation. It’s going to get one of us first, and I’m hoping thanks to current clinical trials and the latest developments in immunotherapy, that will be cancer, not me. All I have to do is last long enough. All I have to do is outrun cancer.
(4) TOLKIEN GETS AWARD. The Tolkien Society reports Christopher Tolkien has been awarded the Bodley Medal, given by the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to literature, culture, science, and communication.
Tolkien Society chair Shaun Gunner said: “Christopher Tolkien is a very worthy recipient of the Bodley Medal not only for his own work but for the decades of tireless dedication he has shown in editing his father’s texts. From The Silmarillion to next year’s Beren and Lúthien, Christopher has opened up new vistas of Middle-earth that otherwise might never have seen the light of day. This award is a testament to Christopher’s quiet scholarship as an editor, and a symbol of the continuing significance of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium.”
Christopher Tolkien said: “Although I have never looked for anything remotely of such a kind, I find it especially welcome to receive the Bodley Medal in that it affirms the unique significance of my father’s creation and accords a worthy place in the Republic of Letters to Tolkien scholarship. It gives me particular pleasure that the award comes from and is conceived by the Bodleian, where a great part of my father’s manuscripts lie and where I have happy memories of the great library itself.”
(5) HARASSMENT AT WFC. Jason Sanford revealed the committee was called upon to handle a harassment issue at this weekend’s World Fantasy Con.
So I just returned from WFC, where some women experienced harassment: street harassment from rando men that convention organizers had no control over, and at-con harassment courtesy of a local fan who has a documented history of bad behavior (the convention organizers appeared to take the harassment report seriously and appeared to handle it as per their policy, but I question why they’d sell a membership to someone who is known to be a problem.)…
Snyder added in a comment:
I know he harassed at least one woman, because she told me and I escorted her to con ops so she could make the report. In the instance I know about, he did it in front of a male witness (who filed a corroborating report), so I strongly suspect there were other instances that I don’t know about and/or didn’t get reported.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY FANDOM
Born October 31 1930 – British fandom. That is fanhistorian Rob Hansen’s pick for the date it all began. Click to see the newspaper report of the meeting from the Ilford Recorder.
On Monday October 27th, 1930, the Ilford Science Literary Circle held its inaugural meeting at 32 Thorold Road (which a check of contemporary electoral rolls shows to have been the home of George & Mary Dew), the first ever meeting of our first ever SF fan group. If British fandom has a birthday, this is it. Here is Gillings’ report on the outcome of the event. More details of how many were present and the like would have been useful, but Gillings’ primary intent is to proselytise:…
I’m not excerpting any of the information here because a lot of the names include special characters that just turn into question marks on WordPress. Boo!
First, let me tell you what Person of Interest is. Person of Interest is the inverse of Game of Thrones. For every shock death from the HBO’s version of George R.R. Martin’s book series, it had Kevin Chapman getting maced by a model and beaten up with a handbag. For every Game of Thrones setpiece that sent 49 bloggers into an ejaculatory frenzy over the ambiguous motives and bloodlines of royals, Person of Interest had a scene where Jim Caviezel kicks seven shades of shit out of the cardboard archetype of a bad person. It’s weird watching Jesus throttle people, but you know what, we’re all going to Hell anyway.
[Warning, reading this may spoil the show. But really, you could read an entire synopsis and the show would still be fantastic.]
Caviezel’s John Reese is a former CIA agent that you’re introduced to as a piss-stained, beardy hooch-swigging hobo sitting on a subway train. In one of the most satisfying scenes in TV history, a group of rich dickheads yell at him on the train and attempt to take his booze, which he clings to with an iron grip. He then proceeds to beat them up with his somehow-not-atrophied CIA skills before grabbing one around the throat and giving him the deep, angry stare of a man who uses his pants as a toilet and just wanted to enjoy his train booze in peace.
It’s a great introduction to the show in its purest sense. Peel back the layers of intrigue, spywork and social commentary, and you’ll still find a TV show that brings back the pure joy of seeing people you don’t like getting beaten up. There are no pretenses to prestige here.
NASA pays for several telescopes around the planet to scan the skies on a nightly basis, looking for these objects. “The NASA surveys are finding something like at least five asteroids every night,” says astronomer Paul Chodas of JPL.
But then the trick is to figure out which new objects might hit Earth.
“When a telescope first finds a moving object, all you know is it’s just a dot, moving on the sky,” says Chodas. “You have no information about how far away it is. “The more telescopes you get pointed at an object, the more data you get, and the more you’re sure you are how big it is and which way it’s headed. But sometimes you don’t have a lot of time to make those observations.
“Objects can come close to the Earth shortly after discovery, sometimes one day, two days, even hours in some cases,” says JPL’s Davide Farnocchia. “The main goal of Scout is to speed up the confirmation process.”
Carving pumpkins may not be rocket science – but that hasn’t stopped Nasa engineers.
Scientists at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Lab held their annual contest to create the best pumpkin this week.
Entries included a gourd inspired by Star Wars villain Darth Vader, and two pumpkins dressed as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton being hit by a meteor.
Halloween is big business and when you use a wheelchair you want your outfit to pack a punch when you go trick-or-treating.
In America, Ryan Weimer and his wife Lana, have tapped into that market by providing children with the 3D costumes of their imaginations.
Costing between $2,000 and $4,000 each, a team of volunteers spend about 120 hours building the costumes which range from aeroplanes to dragons.
(13) HALLOWEEN TREE. Ray Bradbury tells how the “Halloween Tree” novel and animated film came about.
(14) RAY’S FAVORITE HOLIDAY. John King Tarpinian visited Ray Bradbury’s grave today, bringing some gifts and decorations.
Every Halloween I pay a visit to the Westwood Cemetery where Ray Bradbury is at rest. I had the custom trick or treat bag made and filled it with Clark Bars, Ray’s favorite. The little pumpkin shaped stone I luckily found yesterday from a bead shop I was dragged to by a visiting out of town friend. The pumpkins were brought by one of Ray’s theatrical actors, Robert Kerr.
(15) BOO PLATE SPECIAL. Someone’s Cthulhu license plate attracted a crowd at World Fantasy Con.
(16) SILLY SYMPHONY. And here’s your musical accompaniment of the day:
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, James Davis Nicoll, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]
The New York Review of Science Fiction #330 is a Special Memorial Issue devoted to the magazine’s co-founder, the late David G. Hartwell. Produced in conjunction with the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, it presents “a collection of memories, conversations, appreciations, poetry, arguments, and outpourings from friends, family, fellow travelers, clients, coworkers, and others whose lives David touched.”
Andrew Porter, who sent me the link, cautions that the download link is live for only another four days. In case that’s true, get a move on! However, no time limit is mentioned in NYRSF’s announcement on Twitter –
So to some extent, this is a sufficient answer to Stephanie’s question. Why is there so much vitriol against the Puppies? Because we’re on the internet, where it doesn’t take a whole lot to escalate an argument over Best Brand of Pasta into virtual knifings…..
To start things off: I would say I understand the core Puppy complaints, and agree with many of them (to varying extents).
I definitely see a shift in the “focus” of the genre, even if I’d be hard-pressed to nail it down to a definition (not unreasonable, in a genre still best-defined as “what we point to when we say it”). The disproportionate influence of particular groups and fandoms has been raised and enthusiastically argued over in the past (e.g. [1][2][3]). And I think there’s been a lot of snubbing, condescension and ad-hominem attacks coming from non-Puppies. Which they often don’t notice, or consider justified. (Scott Alexander’s I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup springs to mind, as it so often does.)
I won’t go over the Puppy grievances one by one, but I think I can see where all of them are coming from.
(2) DAN SCHNEIDER VIDEO INTERVIEW #68. Steven H Silver says, “Yesterday, Terry Bisson and I were interviewed for a podcast about Alternate History. If you want to hear what I would sound like recording on an Edison cylinder, I imagine this is pretty much it.”
Bill opened up about many things, including the genius of Samuel R. Delany, how Rosarium’s first book Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond gave birth to a new publishing company, the challenges of crowdfunding creative projects, why he was once blacklisted at a convention, and many other topics which I hope you’ll find as fascinating as I did.
Episode four, coming in two weeks, will feature writer Tom Doyle.
(5) NAMING CONVENTIONS. Michael J. Walsh observes what a well-Cultured sense of humor Elon Musk displayed in naming his ships.
By January 2016, a total of three ASDSs have been refitted. The first ASDS, named Just Read the Instructions (JRtI), was converted from a barge in late 2014 and was deployed in January 2015 during the CRS-5 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station in order to provide a landing platform for a test flight of the returning booster stage. It was used for two landing tests through April 2015, and by June 2015, was retired as an ASDS.[1] The second ASDS, named Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), was converted from a much-newer deck barge and became operational in June 2015 to support a landing test on the CRS-7 mission.
(6) CRADLE OF SF’S GOLDEN AGE. Robert A. Heinlein’s birthplace in Butler, MO has been listed for sale. The asking price is $97,500.
Geo Rule says “The Heinlein Society will gladly accept a six figure donation to purchase it and turn it into a museum, if you’re feeling generous as well. Well, maybe seven figure to turn it into a museum…”
Lou Antonelli takes a selfie at Heinlein’s birthplace.
(7) STATHOPOULOS EXHIBITION. Rejects! The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a retrospective of portraits by famed Australian painter Nick Stathopoulos , runs March 28-April 15 at Project 504 Studio in St. Leonards (Sydney). Stathopoulos is a 10-time Ditmar Award winner, who also was a 1999 Hugo nominee in the Best Professional Artist category.
(8) NANCY REAGAN OBIT. Former First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan died today, March 6, at the age of 95. Like her spouse, she had an acting career prior to living in the White House, which included a role in the genre movie Donovan’s Brain. The movie was based on a 1942 horror novel by Curt Siodmak who, showing what a small world it is, lived in those days not far from Robert A. Heinlein’s home on Laurel Canyon.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
Born March 6, 1906 — Lou Costello. “Abbott and Costello Meet… have to be some of the best monster movies,” says John King Tarpinian.
Born March 6, 1928 – William F. Nolan
William F. Nolan, Forrest J Ackerman, and Ray Bradbury.
CARL SLAUGHTER: Which of your novels is being adapted by hollywood?
JONATHAN MABERRY: I’m fortunate to have several of my projects in development for film and television. My Joe Ledger thrillers are being developed by Lone Tree Entertainment and Vintage Picture Company as a possible series of movies, likely beginning with Extinction Machine, the 5th in the series. And my vampire apocalypse series, V-Wars, is headed to TV, with a brilliant script by former Dexter head writer, Tim Schlattmann. Several other properties, including Rot & Ruin, The Pine Deep Trilogy, and others, are being discussed.
CS: How long and how hard is the journey to the screen?
JM: Like most writers I’ve coasted the edges of the Hollywood experience for years. There are some frustrations, of course, but that’s part of the game. For example, back on 2007 I co-created a show for ABC-Disney called On the Slab, which was a horror-sci fi-fantasy news program. Disney paid us to develop it and write a series bible and sample script; and then there was a change of management in the department that purchased it. Suddenly the project was orphaned and therefore dead in the water. Another time producer Michael DeLuca (Blade, Magnolia) optioned the first Joe Ledger novel, Patient Zero, on behalf of Sony, who in turn took it to ABC, who hired Emmy Award-winning TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost) to write a pilot. Then after we’d gone a long way toward seeing it launch they decided instead to focus on the reboot of Charlie’s Angels, which flubbed badly. That’s Hollywood. I don’t take this stuff personally, though. And I never lost my optimism.
I guarantee you, if I am close to Friend X, I know that “Asshole” is part of his Venn Diagram. As it is part of mine. As it is part of yours. I have clearly already made my personal calculations and decided that his other aspects are more important. I may someday change my mind. But it is my mind to change, based on whatever passes between me and Friend X; possibly even depending on what I see Friend X do to Friend Y. But you, who have had a different experience with Friend X, and therefore a different reaction, cannot win this argument with me using words, no matter how eloquently you express everything you find objectionable about him. It is, however, very possible for you to lose it. You can become a bore. You can become a scold. You can just become the distasteful person who always feels obligated to piss on my pal; the guy who gives me the impression that nothing will satisfy him until I start pissing on my pal too. That makes YOU the shithead.
Gigantic mimiviruses fend off invaders using defences similar to the CRISPR system deployed by bacteria and other microorganisms, French researchers report. They say that the discovery of a working immune system in a mimivirus bolsters their claim that the giant virus represents a new branch in the tree of life.
Mimiviruses are so large that they are visible under a light microscope. Around half a micrometre across, and first found infecting amoebae living in a water tower, they boast genomes that are larger than those of some bacteria. They are distantly related to viruses that include smallpox, but unlike most viruses, they have genes to make amino acids, DNA letters and complex proteins.
When does science-fiction become science fact? Throughout various mediums over the last few centuries, we’ve seen early versions of concepts that would eventually become a reality. Sometimes these portrayals are pretty far off base (still waiting on those flying cars), while other times they feel downright prescient. But in the case of Star Trek and one particular engineer at NASA, science-fiction actually informed science fact, with NASA engineer and physicist Harold White now actively working on a space ship that would allow travel faster than the speed of light—or, for the Star Trek inclined, warp speed.
White announced this idea a few years ago, with the concept seeking to allow travel faster than the speed of light by literally expanding space-time behind the object and contracting space-time in front of it. In reality, the object doesn’t “go fast,” but instead takes advantage of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity to move between space-time.
If your head has yet to explode, sit tight—in concert with White, designerMark Rademaker has now created a CGI design concept of the ship that would operate using this theory, which they have aptly named the IXS Enterprise. Per Rademaker in an interview with the Washington Post, the idea behind the concept art serves two purposes: to visualize their idea, and to inspire burgeoning young scientists
(14) PAGING HUGO NOMINEES. George R.R. Martin knows it’s “Nomination Time”. His short fiction recommendation is a needle in a small Venusian haystack.
Last year, however, these three categories were among those most impacted by Puppygate. The slates dominated all three, sweeping the board and shutting out all other work. In the novelette category, a disqualification allowed one non-Puppy nominee to squeeze onto the ballot, and that story ultimately won. In novella and short story, fans unhappy with the choices presented them voted No Award. Understandably, IMNSHO… still, it was not a happy ending. There was some wonderful and powerful work published in these categories in 2014, and it was a shame that none of it could be recognized. (I was proud and pleased to present Alfie Awards to Ursula Vernon for “Jackalope Wives” in short story, and to Patrick Rothfuss for “The Slow Regard of Silent Things” in novella… but we all know that an Alfie is not a Hugo, and in an ordinary year both Vernon and Rothfuss would surely have been contending for a rocket).
That’s last year, however. No amount of rehashing can change what happened. The important thing is to see that it does not happen again. And to that end, it behooves all of us to nominate the short stories, novelettes, and novellas that we enjoyed most last year… to share our thoughts with our friends… to shout our recommendations from the rooftops. Let’s make sure this year’s shortlists truly represent the best of what was published in 2015.
As to my own recommendations…
Ah, there I hit a problem. I am not making any recommendations in these categories. Problem is, I have a conflict of interest. As a writer I did not publish any original short fiction in 2015, true. As an editor, however… well, Gardner Dozois and I co-edited an anthology called OLD VENUS that came out last year, and in my (admittedly less than objective) view, that book contained several stories that are worthy of Hugo nominations, and one that is so bloody brilliant that I think it stands right up there with any story that ever won the Hugo.
I really can’t tell you which one it is, however. Or the names of the other stories in the book that I think worthy of consideration. Look, Gardner and I liked all the stories we included in OLD VENUS. If we hadn’t, we would not have purchased them (and we do reject stories for every one of our anthologies). But we’d be lying if we said we liked all of them equally. There are stories Gardner liked more than I did; there are stories I liked more than Gardner did; there are stories both of us loved, loved, loved. As editors, however, it would be unethical for us to say which were which in public. Just as parents need to maintain devoutly that they love all their children equally and have no favorites, it behooves the ethical editor to take a similar stance toward the stories they purchase and publish.
(15) GIVING KATE A HELPING PAW. Steve Davidson hated to let go to waste the effort he invested on a comment I deleted here the other day. It now has manifested as “Puppy See, Puppy Do-Do” at Amazing Stories.
Kate Paulk recently closed the comments (at the beginning of March) so that they could be compiled and a final list composed.
It’s a little late in the game, especially considering that nominators are kinda expected to read and be familiar with works they’re going to recommend (but that isn’t necessarily an impediment for organized voting), so we’ve decided to help them out a bit and give them a hand up.
We started with one of the most visible categories – Best Novel. The following list contains all of the individual works mentioned in the comments. We did not verify eligibility (although most, if not all of the works seems to meet that criteria). When judging whether or not someone recommended something, we took “Plus 1” and “Me Too” to count for a “vote”. If someone talked about a work but didn’t expressly indicate that it was something they were going to nominate, we didn’t count it.
If a “top ten” is going to be compiled, it’s pretty obvious from the counts below what we should see on the Sad Puppy IV Slate. It will be interesting to see how the final list compares.
(16) HAMMER EMCEE RAPPED. Marie Porter has some feedback for masquerade emcees, triggered by a recent bad example of the art.
I want to talk about Emcees for convention ?#?cosplay masquerades.
It feels like almost every masquerade we’ve competed in, judged, or watched – with maybe 1-2 exceptions – has had an emcee that behaves in a manner that I find disrespectful to the competitors.
As a general thing, it usually comes in the form of trying to be “entertaining”, and basically comes off like this emcee has an audience, that they are the STAR of the show, and the competitors are basically props to them. They feed off the laughs, which they try to obtain by any means necessary.
A lot of the time, it happens by cracking rude and unnecessary jokes while introducing the competitor, as the competitor leaves the stage, etc.
When it happens, it feels like the emcee has lost sight of what the show is actually about – showcasing the hard work of the competitors. It’s not the “emcee show”, no matter how much they would like to think it is.
Tonight, a few things happened that still have me mad, so let me describe it to demonstrate what I’m saying.
A friend of mine was competing in the beginner category, in a costume she SLAVED over – a Steampunk Lady Thor. I watched her build progress – she put a ton of work into it, and she had every reason to be proud of it.
As she was on stage – being judged, mind you – the emcee talked *over her provided audio* to say – and I quote
“She could hammer me any time”.
She looked horrified, and – quite frankly – like she wanted to murder the guy. Rightly so, IMHO. She basically had all of her hard work diminished into a sexual joke. It was degrading and objectifying, and had no place happening. SHE WAS COMPETING, during PERFORMANCE judging. Can you imagine being shocked by something like that, after all that work?
Tantalising news about the ‘secret chamber’ in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
“We do not know if the burial chamber is Nefertiti or another woman, but it is full of treasures.” – Egypt’s Tourism Minister, Hisham Zaazou.
It seems that some secrets are too good to keep. Is this a phenomenal leak about what lays beyond the false wall in Tutankhamun’s tomb? Is it speculative wishful thinking? Or is this a clever boost for badly-needed tourism?
Mr. Zaazou claims that the announcement of what lays inside the secret chamber will be made in April. “It will be a ‘Big Bang’ – the discovery of the 21st century.”
To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of the news that has wafted out of Egypt via Spain in the past 24 hours. The Spanish national daily newspaper, ABC, claims that Egypt’s Tourism Minister, Hisham Zaazou, who was in Spain a few weeks ago, confirmed that there is “treasure” in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
(18) OLD NEWS IS GOOD NEWS. Shortly after Ray Bradbury died in 2012, Jessica Allen wrote a retrospective for Maclean’s about the Bradbury stories Maclean’s had published, in “Here’s to you, Ray Bradbury”. Her article was adorned with photos of the title page art, including a notable typo in the credit for his contribution to Maclean’s September 15, 1948 edition.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Michael J., Walsh, Steven H Silver, Lis, Andrew Porter, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]
(1) CROTCHETY GOES TO TOWN. Amazing Stories’ Steve Davidson gets his Boskone report off to a fast start with a post about Day 1.
I’m at Boskone this weekend, hanging out with the fans, loquaciously displaying my intimate knowledge of arcana on several panels and availing myself of various perks offered by this long-running (53rd year) convention that was launched as a bid for the 1967 Worldcon.
It’s operated by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA), one of the longest running fan clubs in the country.
One of the things NESFA does is clear out their library and make the clearances available on a freebie table. Last year, someone snagged a bunch of large-size Analogs out from under my reaching hand (‘sigh’). This year I was one of the first ‘gleaners’ to hit the table and was rewarded with:
several D series Ace Doubles; a good-sized stack of early Locus fanzines; same for File 770; a handful of Groff Conklin paperback anthologies (filling in a couple of gaps. The paperbacks are shortened versions of the hardback anthologies Conklin produced over the years.); a couple of Lee & Miller hardbacks; a NESFA anthology of Lester Del Rey shorts (edited by our own Steven H. Silver); the remaining issues of Galileo magazine that I didn’t have (complete run now!). (Galileo was a “semi-prozine” from back in the late 70s); a few issues of Infinity digest magazine, and a smattering of this and that interesting looking items.
I’m thinking a loquacious displayer would be a great subject for an Audobon drawing.
(2) HARTWELL REMEMBERED. Boskone ran a David Hartwell memorial panel.
While in San Francisco for a panel on artificial consciousness, I had an opportunity to stop by the headquarters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation — dedicated to preserving your freedom online and off. As part of their 25th year anniversary celebration, EFF released Pwning Tomorrow, an anthology of science fiction stories by Bruce Sterling, Ramaz Naam, Charlie Jane Anders, Cory Doctorow, David Brin, Lauren Beukes, and others. You can download it for a donation to this worthy organization.
(5) TODAY IN HISTORY
February 20, 1962 — A camera onboard the “Friendship 7” Mercury spacecraft photographs astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. during the Mercury-Atlas 6 space flight.
Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage brings five decades of Star Trek to concert halls for the first time in this galaxy or any other.
This lavish production includes an impressive live symphony orchestra and international solo instruments. People of all ages and backgrounds will experience the franchise’s groundbreaking and wildly popular musical achievements while the most iconic Star Trek film and TV footage is simultaneously beamed in high definition to a 40-foot wide screen.
The concert will feature some of the greatest music written for the franchise including music from Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Starfleet Academy and much more. This never-before-seen concert event is perfect for music lovers, filmgoers, science-fiction fans and anyone looking for an exciting and unique concert experience.
(8) PERCEPTIONS ABOUT DISABILITY. At The Bias, Annalee Flower Horne covers a lot of ground in “The Geeks Guide To Disability”.
I want the science fiction community to be inclusive and accessible to disabled people. I want our conventions and corners of the internet to be places where disabled people are treated with dignity and respect. I’m hoping that if I walk through some of the more common misconceptions, I can move the needle a little–or at least save myself some time in the future, because I’ll be able to give people a link instead of explaining all this again.
What is Disability?
This may seem like starting from first principles, but a lot of the misconceptions I’ve encountered within the science fiction community have been rooted in a poorly thought-out model of what the term ‘disability’ means….
(10) LONG FORM EDITOR. George R.R. Martin, in “What They Edited, The Third”, posts an impressive resume from Joe Monti of Saga Press, the new science fiction imprint of Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books.
(11) PRIVATE LABEL. From the Worldcon in the city where everything’s up to date….
(13) AND SPEAKING OF EATING. Scott Edelman says a second episode of his podcast Eating the Fantastic has gone live, with guest Bud Sparhawk.
Bud Sparhawk
I chatted with Bud—a three-time Nebula finalist and Analog magazine regular—about how Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology inspired him to become a writer, what it was like to write for three different Analog editors over four decades, the plotters vs. pantsers debate, and more.
Edelman ends, “If all goes well, Episode 3 will feature writer, editor, and Rosarium Publishing owner Bill Campbell.”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Rose Embolism, and Gerry Williams for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
