text:
Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom
"And In The Darkness Line Them"
2023 Recommended SF/F Page & Links to Prior Years
About File770.com
Best Series, Editor, and Artist Hugos: Eligible Works from 2021
Brackets From The File 770 Honeycomb
Carl Slaughter Interview List
Dern — File 770's Dublin 2019 Coverage
Emails From Lake Woe-Is-Me: Links To Every Installment
Fourth of Sierra Madre
Glow-in-the-Dark Comedy
Is Your Club Dead Yet?
Kyra's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Brackets
Reflections on Field of Dreams
Riverboat Gambler
Sixth Sense and Sensibility
The Compleat Litter of Puppy Roundup Titles
Tag Archives: J.J. Abrams
Pixel Scroll 12/11/19 Electronic Sheep May Safely Graze, Thanks To Grounding Footware
Posted on December 11, 2019 by Mike Glyer
(1) A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR'S CAST MEMBER. Ed Green, fandom's working actor, has made another commercial! This time Ed advertises Rebate Key. He's the fellow in the blue shirt.
(2) BABY YODA GRAFFITI. Reddit says this street art is in the south of France. (Near Remulac?)
Spotted some epic baby Yoda graffiti! https://t.co/BgCNKTKu6c pic.twitter.com/Aw4E0UmUNZ
— Yoda (@YodaJediSoy) December 9, 2019
(3) MIKE RESNICK GOFUNDME. Mike Resnick, beset by new medical problems, has more bills to pay and his GoFundMe target has been raised to $50,000: "Help Mike Resnick pay off a near-death experience".
UPDATE on 12/11/2019: Mike is now battling cancer on top of his previous major surgery, for which this fundraiser was created. The doctors are very optimistic and say he is responding to treatment incredibly well, but because of new surgery, radiation and chemo bills, he is in need of this fundraiser more than ever. As you can imagine, he is literally bleeding money at he moment. Every dollar helps. Thank you, again, for all the support you have given Mike! <3
(4) BLUEPRINTS. "How To Structure a Cozy Mystery" by Sarah A. Hoyt at Mad Genius Club – I found her exploration of a popular formula completely fascinating.
3- For some reason your character has special knowledge.
This could be as inside-baseball as knowing it was the wrong tropical fish (I know NOTHING about tropical fish, btw) or how fanatic tropical fish collectors get. Or it could be as "generic" as she saw something she can't tell the police, either because it's not clear or because she wouldn't want to rope in a person she's sure is innocent.
So, she's going to investigate.
BTW by now we should have already seen or heard of the murderer. No, you shouldn't make it obvious. But it's important, to avoid the elephant from the ceiling feeling. If not, we should see her or meet her early in the investigation phase. (Yes, it can be a him too, do I need to tell you that?)
At this point it might become obvious to everyone but your protag that love interest is interested.
(5) GREAT EXPECTATIONS. [Item by Olav Rokne,] Prominent cultural critic Dave Itzkoff writing in The Gray Lady delves into the creative turmoil surrounding Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and J.J. Abrams' attempts to live up to the mantle of the franchise. "A New Hype" is filled with interesting tidbits and observations about the creative process. It's an example of why I think so highly of Itzkoff as a journalist.
As [Abrams] slyly acknowledged, "Any great ending is a new beginning on some level." But what the future of "Star Wars" might look like without its foundational narrative is something Abrams — who struck a lucrative overall deal with WarnerMedia in September — was in no hurry to envision. "I didn't design that, so I don't know," he said.
(6) PICARD ALREADY IN REAR VIEW MIRROR. "Michael Chabon's 'Adventures of Kavalier and Clay' Series Coming to Showtime". The Hollywood Reporter says Chabon will exit Picard in 2020 to work with his wife on the series:
…The author, who serves as showrunner on the studio's forthcoming Star Trek: Picard for CBS All Access, has, alongside his writer wife, Ayelet Waldman, signed an overall deal with the studio. Under the pact, Chabon and Waldman will adapt the former's 2000 novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay as a limited series for CBS TV Studios' corporate sibling Showtime.
The series, which earned Chabon the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, will be written and exec produced by the husband and wife duo and has received a series commitment from the premium cable network. Chabon and Waldman will serve as showrunners on Kavalier and Clay. Chabon will transition to the new series, an epic tale of love, war and the birth of America's comic book superhero obsession in big band-era New York, in 2020 and exit Picard. The series is a co-production with Paramount Television, which controlled the rights to the book.
(7) LONG STRING OF SHOWS. Amazingly, after 56 years LA's Bob Baker Marionette Theater still exists. The New York Times tells how that happened, with lots of pictures, in "Marionettes at Play".
…But starting back in 2013, a series of calamities almost derailed these time-honored traditions. That was when Baker — a man who bubbled over with creativity, but when it came to business, was a car wreck — was forced to sell the building, and the troupe became tenants in their longtime home. When Baker died the following year at the age of 90, the company members dedicated themselves to preserving his legacy.
"At the end of the day, we'd still be doing shows, and there'd be a hundred happy kids," said Alex Evans, a scruffy-bearded 34-year-old who arrived at the theater in 2006 from New York after Googling "Los Angeles" and "puppets." He is now the theater's executive director and head puppeteer. "So it was easy to look around and highlight this as a beautiful moment."
After Baker's death, the group learned the landlord intended to raze the theater and replace it with a mixed-use development, which would include a spot for them to perform. "Then we looked at the plan and it was like, 'We are essentially going to be squeezed into a space otherwise allocated to a Starbucks," Evans said. "We were, like, 'This won't work. We can't do that.' "
They visited dozens of places before finding the two-story former Pyong Kang First Congregational Church on a bustling, tree-lined street, across from a children's park. Not only was it bigger than their original home — at 10,000 square feet compared to about 5600 — it was also zoned for assembly. "We could just open the doors and just go," Evans said.
(8) SHORT TREKS. SYFY Wire points the way as CBS All Access previews two new animated installments in the Short Treks series which will debut this week: "Star Trek shares whimsical peek at two new Short Treks animated tales".
Star Trek: Short Treks | Ephraim & Dot Trailer
Ephraim, a humble tardigrade, is flying through the mycelial network when an unexpected encounter takes her on a bewildering adventure through space.
Star Trek: Short Treks | The Girl Who Made the Stars Trailer
When a lightning storm in space scares a young Michael Burnham, her father aims to ease her fears with a mythical story about a brave little girl who faced her own fears head on.
(9) CONSPIRATORS' TOOLKIT. "'The Illuminatus! Trilogy': Hivemind & Brian Taylor Conspire On TV Adaptation" says Deadline. If only Sam Konkin III had lived to see this day!
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is coming to television and Hivemind is in on the conspiracy. Hivemind, the production company behind The Expanse and Witcher, is partnering with writer-director Brian Taylor (Crank, Happy!) and the European production company Kallisti to adapt The Illuminatus! Trilogy, the off-kilter bookshelf series by authors Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea.
Originally published in the 1970s, The Illuminatus! Trilogy defies simple descriptions but the surreal and satirical milestone introduced "the Illuminati" lore to a global audience and sparked much of the contemporary American fascination with conspiracy theories and their modern rhythms.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.
December 11, 1929 — The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says that "Fandom begins in New York with the first meeting of the Scienceers, 1929." Timebinders has a history of that Club here as it appeared in Joe Christoff's Sphere fanzine.
December 11, 1982 — Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann. Junk films are a great deal of fun (sometimes). Timerider is certainly junky. It's directed by William Dear and starring Fred Ward as Lyle Swann, a cross country dirt bike racer. The film was scored, produced and co-written (with Dear) by Michael Nesmith of Monkees fame. There's rating at Rotten Tomatoes but Amazon reviews really liked it as did some critics.
December 11, 1998 — Star Trek: Insurrection premiered. Directed by Frakes who was widely praised for doing so, it starred the Next Gen cast. It did very well at the box office and critics mostly liked it. The story was by Rick Berman and Michael Piller. It currently has a rating of 44% by viewers over at Rotten Tomatoes where an amazing 62,772 have registered their opinion.
(11) TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born December 11, 1922 — Maila Syrjäniemi. She was Vampira, the first tv horror host as she hosted her own series, The Vampira Show, from 1954–55 in the LA market. After it was canceled, she showed up on Plan 9 from Outer Space in one of the starring roles. (Died 2008.)
Born December 11, 1926 — Dick Tufeld. His best known role, or at least best recognized, Is as the voice of the Robot on Lost in Space, a role he reprised for the feature film. The first words heard on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea are spoken by him: "This is the Seaview, the most extraordinary submarine in all the seven seas." He's been the opening announcer on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Spider-Woman, Thundarr the Barbarian, Fantastic Four and the Time Tunnel. (Died 2012.)
Born December 11, 1937 — Marshal Tymn, 82. Academic whose books I've actually read. (I find most of these sorts of works really boring, errr, too dry.) He's written two works that I've enjoyed, one with Neil Barron, Fantasy and Horror, is a guide to those genres up to mid Nineties, and Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird Fiction Magazines with Mike Ashley as his co-writer is a fascinating read indeed. A Research Guide to Science Fiction Studies: An Annotated Checklist of Primary and Secondary Sources for Fantasy and Science Fiction is the only work by him available in a digital form.
Born December 11, 1954 — Katherine Lawrence. Short story writer and script writer for a number of animated SF series including Reboot, Stargate Infinity and Conan the Adventurer to which she contributed quite a number of stories. (Died 2004.)
Born December 11, 1957 — William Joyce, 62. Author of the YA series Guardians of Childhood which is currently at twelve books and growing. Joyce and Guillermo del Toro turned them into in a rather splendid Rise of the Guardians film which I enjoyed quite a bit. The antagonist in it reminds me somewhat of a villain later on In Willingham's Fables series called Mr. Dark. Michael Toman in an email says that "I've been watching for his books since reading Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo back in 1988."
Born December 11, 1959 — M. Rickert, 60. Short story writer par excellence. She's got three collections to date, Map of Dreams, Holiday and You Have Never Been Here. I've not read her novel, The Memory Garden, and would like your opinions on it. The latter and You Have Never Been Here are her only works available digitally.
Born December 11, 1962 — Ben Browder, 57. Actor best known, of course, for his roles as John Crichton in Farscape and Cameron Mitchell in Stargate SG-1. One of my favorite roles by him was his voicing of Bartholomew Aloysius "Bat" Lash in Justice League Unlimited "The Once and Future Thing, Part 1" episode. He'd have an appearance in Doctor Who in "A town Called Mercy", a Weird Western of sorts.
Born December 11, 1979 — Rider Strong, 40. Making Birthday Honors for his voice work Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles as Pvt. Carl Jenkins. If you've not seen this series, go watch it. He's done a lot of voice work including for Star vs. the Forces of Evil and his live work is mostly horror.
(12) END OF MISSION. TMZ, in "William Shatner Files for Divorce, Prenup In The Stars", reports that Shatner, 88, is divorcing from his fourth wife, Elizabeth, 61.
William Shatner wants Scotty the judge to beam him up and out of his marriage, 'cause he's calling it quits after 18 years … TMZ has learned.
The 'Star Trek' actor just filed for divorce against his wife, Elizabeth, whom he got hitched with back in 2001. Sources familiar with the matter tell us Bill and Liz's split should move along relatively smoothly, as we're told the couple has a prenup.
…Elizabeth is Will's fourth wife — he was previously married to Nerine Kidd, Marcy Lafferty and Gloria Rand … and only had children with Rand. It's Elizabeth's second go-around … she was married to Michael Glenn Martin before William. He's 88 … she's 61.
… According to William's divorce docs — obtained by TMZ — he lists their date of separation as Feb. 1, 2019.
(13) LOOSED LIPS. "Vault of the Wordmonger" on The Dark Mountain Project is a short story by Nick Hunt about a future where words have become imprisoned and are only gradually being freed.
Our father bought words once a week. He was a big man in our town and fresh words gave him status. He paid for them in animal parts from the farm our family owned and sometimes in mineral parts from the mine beyond the hill. He did not own the mine but he had interests there. The animal parts and mineral parts he carried there in his hands and the words he carried back in his mouth. That is the way to carry words….
(14) NO FLIES ON THEM. One of the reasons for "The truth behind why zebras have stripes".
Rudyard Kipling playfully wrote that zebras stripes were due to "the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees" falling on its body but are scientists getting closer to the truth?
In February 2019, at a horse livery yard in the UK, a fascinating experiment took place. A team of evolutionary biologists from the University of California, Davis, and their UK collaborators, investigated why zebras have stripes. In the name of science, they dressed several domestic horses at Hill Livery in zebra-striped coats, and studied them alongside actual zebras.
Owner Terri Hill keeps a herd of zebras which she has acquired from zoos across the UK – a collection which stems from Hill's passion for the conservation of wild equids. Maintaining the herd, which live on a two acre paddock complete with sand pit and herb garden, is a way of maintaining breeding stock for zoos, and so helping to protect the animals against future extinction.
For Tim Caro, an ecologist from the University of St Andrews who has been studying zebra stripes for almost two decades, the livery yard's relatively tame zebras provided a rare opportunity to stand within metres of them and observe them. "People have been talking about zebra stripes for over a hundred years, but it's just a matter of really doing experiments and thinking clearly about the issue to understand it better," he says.
How and why zebras evolved to sport black and white stripes are questions that have tested scientists for over a century. Scientists have put forward at least 18 reasons why, from camouflage or warning colours, to more creative explanations like unique markers that help to identify individuals like a human fingerprint. But, for a long time new theories were introduced without rigorous tests.
(15) LET US TELL YOU WHERE TO GO. BBC reports "Google: The most searched for questions and phrases of 2019 revealed".
Game of Thrones, Caitlyn Jenner, the Rugby World Cup, what is Area 51, how to eat a pineapple and what is a dead ting?
These are some of the top phrases and questions you searched for on Google in 2019.
The Rugby World Cup – which South Africa won after beating England in the final – topped the list of overall trending searches in the UK, according to the search engine.
"What is Area 51?" and "How to pronounce psalm" were among the top questions you had this year.
(16) SCARECROW. "Bangalore: Dummies in police uniforms 'control' city traffic".
One of India's most gridlocked cities has come up with an unconventional solution to rein in errant drivers.
Mannequins dressed up as traffic police have been placed on roads in the southern city of Bangalore.
Dressed in police caps, white shirts and brown trousers, and wearing sunglasses, the mannequins are now on duty at congested junctions.
It's hoped drivers will mistake them for real police and think twice about breaking the rules of the road.
Home to India's IT industry, Bangalore has eight million registered vehicles on its streets. This number is expected to grow to more than 10 million by 2022.
At 18.7 km/h (11.61 mph) traffic speeds in the city are the second slowest in the country after Mumbai (18.5 km/h), according to a study by an office commute platform, MovinSync Technology Solutions. Cameras at traffic junctions have recorded more than 20,000 traffic violations every day.
But commuters have mixed feelings on whether mannequins can actually step in to help their real police counterparts.
(17) WORD OF THE YEAR. "Merriam-Webster Singles Out Nonbinary 'They' For Word Of The Year Honors" – NPR has the story.
There are plenty of flashpoints for controversy littered among the grand pantheon of four-letter words. Plenty of examples probably come to mind immediately — from the relatively tame ("heck," anyone?) to the kind of graphic profanity that may warrant an uncomfortable call from our ombudsman.
Still, one four-letter word has elicited more heated debate than most among grammarians lately. And it happens to be one that we're free to print right here: they.
Merriam-Webster announced Tuesday that the personal pronoun was its 2019 Word of the Year, noting that the tiny, unassuming word had undergone a rather radical transformation in usage in recent years — and found itself at the heart of some wide-ranging cultural conversations in the process.
"English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone, and as a consequence they has been used for this purpose for over 600 years," the dictionary publisher explained in a statement.
"More recently, though, they has also been used to refer to one person whose gender identity is nonbinary, a sense that is increasingly common in published, edited text, as well as social media and in daily personal interactions between English speakers."
(18) THINKING OUTSIDE THE CAN. Delish thinks these will be irresistible — "Pringles Is Making A Pickle Rick Flavor For 'Rick And Morty' Fans" – but I'll give you share!
Do you ever just shove your hand all the way into the bottom of the Pringles can to get the just-out-of-reach last chip? Because same. And now I'll be doing that even more willingly because Pringles is bringing back its Pickle Rick flavor.
The flavor is obviously an ode to Rick and Morty, the Adult Swim cartoon series with a super cult following. In a now-famous episode of the show, a scientist turns into a pickle to avoid going to family therapy…as one does? Thus, "Pickle Rick" was born.
(19) A BOUNTY FOR YOUR TABLE. N sent the link to Binging with Babish: Bone Broth from The Mandalorian with the recommendation, "Unconventional, but I'm watching this right now and everything he's making with the broth is just too tasty looking."
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Michael Tolan, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, N., Andrew Porter, Mike Kennedy, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged Baby Yoda, Ed Green, Google, J.J. Abrams, Michael Chabon, Mike Resnick, Nick Hunt, Rick and Morty, Star T, Star Trek: Picard, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian, William Shatner
Pixel Scroll 8/24/19 Do You Come From A File Down Under, Where Pixels Scroll And Men Chunder
Posted on August 24, 2019 by Mike Glyer
(1) EUROCON NEWS. Eurocon 2021 will be in Fiuggi, Italy from March 18-21. It will be run concurrently with the annual Italcon, and Deepcon, hosted by the Italian cultural association DeepSpaceOne.
Future Eurocon bids include
2022 in Esch, the southern region of Luxembourg.
2023 in Uppsala, Sweden
(2) MORE DUBLIN 2019 PHOTOS. Dan Ofer has posted two sets of Worldcon photos on Facebook (set to public):
"Worldcon Dublin 1/3"
"Worldcon Dublin 2/3 + Masquerade"
(3) DUBLIN MEETUP ISSUE. Wanda Kurtcu said on Facebook there are two people who should not have attended the meetup for PoC of African descent at Dublin 2019:
I had the opportunity to co-facilitate an POC of African Descent meetup at WorldCon. The description of the meetup was that it was ONLY for POC of African Descent. NOTE the PEOPLE OF COLOR (POC) requirement for this meeting.
There were two white men already in the room when I arrived. At no point did they request to be allowed to be part of our meeting. One said he was the editor of a spec sci-fi magazine and the other said he was there because his adopted son was Ethiopian and he wanted to see what the meetup was about. His son was not at WorldCon.
Neither I nor my co-facilitator asked them to leave because I didn't want to cause any problems. In fact, I waited a few days to write this post to make sure I was coming from a place of mindfulness and not anger….
(4) LEIA. At D23 J.J. Abrams teased Carrie Fisher's role in the final movie of this trilogy: "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker reveals poster, epic new footage at D23".
Director Abrams said of adding Leia into the film: "Of course, we can't talk about the cast without talking about Carrie Fisher. And the character of Leia is really in a way the heart of this story. We could not tell the end of these 9 films without Leia. And we realized that we had footage from episode 7 that we realized we could use in a new way. So Carrie, as Leia, gets to be in the film."
Continued Abrams: "But the crazy part is we started to work on this movie and I wasn't supposed to be directing this movie [as Colin Trevorrow was originally tapped as director]. Then we lost Carrie. And I was hired on this film and began working. And I remember this thing that I had read that I actually thought I was mistaken. I looked in her last book, The Princess Diarist, and she had written, 'Special thanks to J.J. Abrams for putting up with me twice.' Now I had never worked with her before Force Awakens and I wasn't supposed to do this movie. So it was a classic Carrie thing to sort of write something like that that could only mean one thing for me. We couldn't be more excited to have you see her in her final performance as Leia."
(5) FUTURE TENSE. This month's Future Tense Fiction short story is out, part of a series Slate and ASU's Center for Science and the Imagination — "What the Dead Man Said" by Nigerian author Chinelo Onwualu. Tagline: "Read a new short story about climate change, migration, and family secrets."
I suppose you could say that it started with the storm.
I hadn't seen one like it in 30 years. Not since I moved to Tkaronto, in the Northern Indigenous Zone of Turtle Island—what settler-colonialists still insisted on calling North America. I'd forgotten its raw power: angry thunderclouds that blot out the sun, taking you from noon to evening in an instant, then the water that comes down like fury—like the sky itself wants to hurt you.
Read a response essay "The Scars of Being Uprooted" by Valeria Fernández, a journalist who reports on immigration.
Immigrants know what is like to deal with restless ghosts from the past. Some of us are haunted for the rest of our lives by the inability to have closure. But when the opportunity presents itself to face our demons, it's never like what we imagined in our heads.
Chinelo Onwualu's short story "What the Dead Man Said" speaks to and delves deeper than that universal theme. The reader enters a futuristic society suffering from climate change–induced disaster and migration, a place where human bodies of those once enslaved are treated as a commodity and where unhealed trauma lies beneath the surface….
(6) JOURNALING ADVISED. Fran Wilde ran a "Creativity & Journaling" online today. Cat Rambo tweeted some notes. A portion of the thread starts here.
Fran describes journaling as "the swiss army knife of creativity" – she uses multiple ones as part of her process. #creativejournal pic.twitter.com/31nDCrk2gD
— Cat Rambo (@Catrambo) August 24, 2019
(7) LITIGATON OVER HOTEL HIDDEN FEES. The New York Times reports "Marriott and Hilton Sued Over 'Resort Fees,' Long a Bane for Travelers".
The hotel charges known as resort fees are again under scrutiny — this time, from state attorneys general.
Travelers loathe the mandatory — and consumer watchdogs say, confusing — fees, which vary by location and by the services they purport to cover. Some hotels charge the fees for Wi-Fi and gym access, while others may use them to cover in-room safes, newspapers or bottled water — whether guests use them or not.
The attorneys general in Washington, D.C., and Nebraska filed separate but similar lawsuits this summer against two big hotel chains, accusing them of deceiving travelers by failing to include the resort fees in their published room rates, making it hard for consumers to compare rates when booking online. The suits allege that the hotels' "deceptive and misleading" pricing practices violate consumer protection laws.
The suits, brought against the Marriott and Hilton chains, follow an investigation of hotel industry pricing practices by the attorneys general in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the attorneys general in Washington, D.C., and Nebraska.
Travelers searching for lodging, whether on hotel websites or on separate travel websites, typically are not made aware of the resort fees until after they have clicked past the initial search results page and have started booking, according to a complaint filed in July against Marriott International by the attorney general in Washington….
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY.
August 24, 1966 — Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch opened in theatres. It was based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. Bixby was a script writer for Star Trek writing four episodes: "Mirror, Mirror", "Day of the Dove", "Requiem for Methuselah", and "By Any Other Name".
(9) TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS.
Born August 24, 1896 — Stanton Arthur Coblentz. A very prolific genre writer whose first published genre work was The Sunken World, a satire about Atlantis, serialized in Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories Quarterly starting in July, 1928. Scattered tales by him are available in digital form from iBooks and Kindle but it looks no one has actually systematically digitized him yet. (Died 1982.)
Born August 24, 1899 — Gaylord Du Bois. He was a writer of comic book stories and comic strips, as well as Big Little Books. He wrote Tarzan for Dell Comics and Gold Key Comics from the Forties to early Seventies.) He was one of the writers for Space Family Robinson which was the basis for the Lost in Space series. (Died 1993.)
Born August 24, 1915 — James Tiptree Jr. One of our most brilliant short story writers ever. She only wrote two novels, Up the Walls of the World and Brightness Falls from the Air but they too are worth reading even if critics weren't pleased by them. (Died 1987.)
Born August 24, 1932 — William M. Sheppard. I remember him best as Blank Reg on Max Headroom but I see he has a long history in genre with appearances in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (as a Klingon prison warden), The Prestige, Mysterious Island (in which he played Captain Nemo), Needful Things, Elvira, Mistress of The Darkness, The Doctor and the Devils, Transformers and Star Trek (in an uncredited role as Vulcan Science Minister). Series wise, he's shown up, on Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, Babylon 5, The Legend of King Arthur, Next Gen, seaQuest DSV, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Voyager and The Librarians. And yes, Doctor Who. He was Old Canton Everett Delaware III in "The Impossible Astronaut" story which featured the Eleventh Doctor. (Died 2019.)
Born August 24, 1934 — Kenny Baker. Certainly his portrayal of R2-D2 in the Star Wars franchise is what he's best known for but he's also been in Circus of Horrors, Wombling Free, Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader series, The Elephant Man, Sleeping Beauty, Time Bandits, Willow, Flash Gordon and Labyrinth. Personally, I think his best role was as Fidgit in Time Bandits. (Died 2016.)
Born August 24, 1951 — Orson Scott Card, 68. Ender's Game and its sequel, Speaker for the Dead, both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win the two top genre Awards in consecutive years. Huh. I think the only thing I've read by him is Ender's Game. So anyone here read his more recent works?
Born August 24, 1951 — Tony Amendola, 68. Prolly best known or being the Jaffa master Bra'tac on Stargate SG-1. He's also had recurring roles as Edouard Kagame of Liber8 on Continuum and on Once Upon a Time as Pinocchio's creator, Geppetto. His list of one-off genre appearances is extensive and includes Angel, Charmed, Lois & Clark, Space: Above and Beyond, the Crusade spin-off of Babylon 5, X Files, Voyager, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Alias, She-Wolf of London and Kindred: The Embraced. He's also been a voice actor in gaming with roles in such games as World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft: Legion and Workd of Final Fantasy.
Born August 24, 1957 — Stephen Fry, 62. He's Gordon Deitrich in V for Vendetta, and he's the Master of Lakedown in The Hobbit franchise. His best role is as Mycroft Holmes in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. And he's the narrator for all seven of the Potter novels for the UK audiobook recordings
Born August 24, 1958 — Lisa A. Barnett. Wife of Melissa Scott. All of her works were for-authored with her: The Armor of Light, Point of Hopes: A Novel of Astreiant and Point of Dreams: A Novel of Astreiant. They wrote one short story, "The Carmen Miranda Gambit". (Died 2006.)
Born August 24, 1972 — Ava DuVernay, 47. Director of A Wrinkle in Time. She will be directing a New Gods film based upon the characters that Jack Kirby created. She and Tom King, who had the writing for recent Mister Miracle series (one of the New Gods), will co-write the film.
Born August 24, 1976 — Alex O'Loughlin, 43. I discover the oddest things in doing these Birthdays. Did you know that an obscure Marvel character named Man Thing got used for a horror film of that name? This Australian actor who is much better as the lead for the retooled Hawaii Five-0 was in it. He's was also in horror films Feed and The Invisible, both Australian, and The American Moonlight series where he's a vampire PI named Mick St. John. It lasted sixteen episodes.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
Her date did turn out not to be a jackass after all: The Non-Adventures of Wonderella.
(11) LATE BLOOMER. Like PJ Evans said after reading this, "It's awfully dusty in here, all of a sudden." Thanks to Soon Lee for leaving the link in comments.
My grandmother passed away. Her funerals were today, but here I'd like to talk about the most important thing I couldn't spend too much time on in her eulogy: her love for Dungeons & Dragons. #DnD
She started very late, at 75, only a little over a year ago. One day I simply asked her if she'd like to try, and, like always when presented with something new, she said "Of course!". So we grabbed my PHB and built up a character together.
My grandmother chose to be a forest gnome because they seemed the most happy of the races and she really liked the fact that she could talk to small animals. She went with druid just to double down on the animal-friendship theme.
(Also when we went through the character traits, I asked her: "Do you want to be a boy or a girl?", and she answered right away "I've been a girl my whole life, it'd be fun to try being a boy for once".)
So, we're making her character sheet, rolling her stats (she gets a 17 and puts it in WIS) and chosing her first spells, and I ask her if she has a name in mind. "I don't know, I'll find one by tomorrow".
That night, she does something that even I never expected: she goes on the Internet and reads every piece of lore she can find about gnomes. She barely knew how to Google, and yet here she was, browsing Wikipedia articles and D&D fansites….
(12) SURVIVING AS A WRITER. N.K. Jemisin argues against the attitude that writers with day jobs just need to tough it out. Thread starts here.
I get what he's saying. People *do* "anxiety" themselves out of writing, fretting that they can't do enough so therefore doing nothing. But becoming a workaholic about it is just another form of anxiety. Sure, you can do this. And then, burnout. And then, you die young.
— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) August 24, 2019
(13) CRIME IN SPACE. Maybe, maybe not: "Astronaut accessed estranged spouse's bank account in possible first criminal allegation from space".
NASA is examining a claim that an astronaut improperly accessed the bank account of her estranged spouse from the International Space Station, The New York Times reported Friday — potentially the first criminal allegation from space.
NASA astronaut Anne McClain told investigators she had accessed the bank account of her spouse while on a six-month mission aboard the ISS in preparation for her role in NASA's anticipated first all-female spacewalk, the Times reported.
McClain's spouse, former Air Force intelligence officer Summer Worden, brought a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission that McClain had committed identity theft, despite not seeing any indication of moved or spent funds.
Worden's parents then brought another complaint with NASA's Office of Inspector General, alleging that McClain had improperly accessed Worden's private financial records and conducted a "highly calculated and manipulative campaign" to gain custody of Worden's son.
McClain's lawyer, Rusty Hardin, told the Times that "she strenuously denies that she did anything improper" and "is totally cooperating."
(14) LOOKING FOR CLASS M. LiveScience claims "Scientists Are Building a Real-Life Version of the Starship Enterprise's Life Scanner".
When the crewmembers of the starship Enterprise pull into orbit around a new planet, one of the first things they do is scan for life-forms. Here in the real world, researchers have long been trying to figure out how to unambiguously detect signs of life on distant exoplanets.
They are now one step closer to this goal, thanks to a new remote-sensing technique that relies on a quirk of biochemistry causing light to spiral in a particular direction and produce a fairly unmistakable signal. The method, described in a recent paper published in the journal Astrobiology, could be used aboard space-based observatories and help scientists learn if the universe contains living beings like ourselves.
In recent years, remote-life detection has become a topic of immense interest as astronomers have begun to capture light from planets orbiting other stars, which can be analyzed to determine what kind of chemicals those worlds contain. Researchers would like to figure out some indicator that could definitively tell them whether or not they are looking at a living biosphere.
(15) DON'T FORGET. Todd Mason collects links to book reviews at "FRIDAY'S 'FORGOTTEN' BOOKS AND MORE…23 August 2019". The reviewer's name comes first, then the book and author.
This week's books and more, unfairly (or sometimes fairly) neglected, or simply those the reviewers below think you might find of some interest (or, infrequently, you should be warned away from); certainly, most weeks we have a few not at all forgotten titles, and this week is festooned with not-obscure writers and their books which have fallen mostly out of favor, or, even more often, been lost in the shuffle of their prolific legacy…i
Patricia Abbott: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
Stacy Alesi: The A List: Fiction Reviews: 1983-2013
Brad Bigelow: No Goodness in the Worm by Gay Taylor
Les Blatt: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie; The Case of the Careless Kitten by Erle Stanley Gardner
Elgin Bleecker: The Case of the Beautiful Beggar by Erle Stanley Gardner
Brian Busby: The Squeaking Wheel by John Mercer
Rachel S. Cordasco: from 13 French Science Fiction Stories, edited and translated by Damon Knight, stories by Catherine Cliff, Natalie Henneberg, Suzanne Malaval
Martin Edwards: Midsummer Murder by Clifford Whitting
Peter Enfantino: Atlas (proto-Marvel) horror comics, August 1952
Peter Enfantino and Jack Seabrook: DC war comics, July 1975
Barry Ergang: The Last Best Hope by "Ed McBain" (Evan Hunter)
Will Errickson: Unholy Trinity by Ray Russell
José Ignacio Escribano: "Ibn-Hakam al Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth" by Jorge Luis Borges (variously translated from "Abenjacán el Bojarí, muerto en su laberinto"), Sur, August 1951
Curtis Evans: recommendations to the Library of America
Olman Feelyus: Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper
Paul Fraser: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1954, edited by "Anthony Boucher" (William White)
John Grant: Bad Debts by Peter Temple; The Lazarus Curse by Tessa Harris; When Elves Attack by Tim Dorsey
Aubrey Hamilton: Most Cunning Workmen by Roy (John Royston) Lewis; Bad to the Bones by Rett MacPherson
Bev Hankins: Family Affair by Ione Sandberg Shriber
Rich Horton: Stories of Brian W. Aldiss; stories of Rachel Pollack; The Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones; stories of Greg Egan; stories of Lucius Shepard; The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury; The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer; Christopher Priest novels
Jerry House: "The Death Chair" by L. T. (Elizabeth Thomasina) Meade and Robert Eustace, The Strand Magazine, July 1899, edited by Herbert Smith
Sally Fitzgerald: "The Train" by Flannery O'Connor, Sewanee Review, April 1948, edited by Alan Tate
Kate Jackson: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers; Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie
Tracy K: City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin; Behind That Curtain by Earl Derr Biggers
Colman Keane: Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse by Lee Goldberg
George Kelley: The Case of the Borrowed Brunette by Earl Stanley Gardner
Joe Kenney: The Anderson Tapes by Lawrence Sanders; Cult of the Damned by "Spike Andrews" (Duane Schemerhorn)
Rob Kitchin: Black Hornet by James Sallis
B. V. Lawson: The FBI: A Centennial History 1908-2008, Anonymous (produced by the US Dept. of Justice)
Evan Lewis: Hombre by Elmore Leonard
Steve Lewis: "The Spy Who Came to the Brink" by Edward D. Hoch, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 1965, edited by Frederic Dannay; "The Theft from the Onyx Pool", EQMM, June 1967; stories from Forbidden River by Frederick Nebel; The Detective and the Chinese High-Fin by Michael Craven
J. F. Norris: Secret Sceptre by Francis Gerard
Matt Paust: Hollywood by Charles Bukowski
James Reasoner: Love Addict by "Don Elliott" (Robert Silverberg)
Richard Robinson: Have Space Suit–Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein
Sandra Ruttan: A Thousand Bones by P. J. Parrish
Gerard Saylor: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Doreen Sheridan: The Suspect by L. R. Wright
Steven H Silver: "giANTS" by Edward Bryant, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, August 1979, edited by Stanley Schmidt
Kerrie Smith: Head in the Sand by Damien Boyd
Dan Stumpf: The Third Man by Graham Greene; Leonardo's Bicycle by Paco Ignacio Taibo II
"TomCat": Terror Tower by Gerald Verner
David Vineyard: Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood
Bill Wallace: One by David Karp
(16) DISNEY+ NOTES. Can't tell the programs without a program… Here's what The Hollywood Reporter knows: "Disney+: A Comprehensive Guide to All Its Programming (So Far".
Disney will officially enter the streaming wars in the fall when it launches its direct-to-consumer platform, Disney+, in November.
The platform, in the works since August 2017 when it was announced during an earnings call by Disney CEO Bob Iger, saw the media behemoth begin to pull its films from Netflix in a bid to use fare like Marvel features to incentivize potential subscribers to the service.
Make no mistake, Disney+ is the company's biggest bet yet. The service — designed as a competitor to Netflix with a monthly price of $6.99 — will be a home to Disney's massive animated feature library as well as assets from Lucasfilm (Star Wars), Pixar and Marvel, including new scripted offerings from the latter two companies.
Disney+ will be a separate service from its majority stake in Hulu and sports-themed ESPN+. While viewers will have to pay for each of the three services, they will all exist on the same platform — meaning subscribers can use the same password and credit card for each and all….
[Thanks to JJ, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, John A Arkansawyer, Martin Morse Wooster, Contrarius, Karl-Johan Norén, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged Carrie Fisher, Cat Rambo, Chinelo Onwualu, Disney, Dublin 2019, Dungeons & Dragons, Eurocon, Fran Wilde, Future Tense, J.J. Abrams, N. K. Jemisin, Star Wars, Todd Mason, Wanda Kurtcu
Pixel Scroll 4/13/19 No Matter Where You Scroll, There You Are
Posted on April 13, 2019 by Mike Glyer
(1) SCHOEN LEAVES SFWA BOARD. Earlier this week Lawrence M. Schoen announced he was "Resigning from the SFWA Board of Directors":
Effective as of 10am today, April 10th, 2019, I am resigning my position as a member of the SFWA Board of Directors.
We live in a world where appearance often carries more weight than intention. Recent controversies, and my perceived involvement in them, have increasingly made it difficult for me to effectively perform the responsibilities for which I'd been elected. Accordingly, it makes sense for me to step aside and allow someone else to continue the work.
Today's decision notwithstanding, I remain committed to the ideals and goals of SFWA, perhaps best expressed by the statement the Board composed at last year's Nebula Conference: "We are genre writers fostering a diverse professional community committed to inclusion, empowerment, and outreach."
It has been my privilege to be of service to this organization and our community. I encourage you all to pay it forward.
Schoen's statement does not specify what "recent controversies" he is perceived to be involved in. They may relate to Jonathan Brazee's 20Booksto50K Nebula recommendation list. Schoen's novelette "The Rule of Three" is one of the stories on the list that made the Nebula ballot. Brazee responded to criticism by apologizing for the list.
(2) NICHOLS ON SPACE COMMAND. Marc Zicree told fans, "Today's shoot with Nichelle Nichols went great! Here's a behind the scenes clip, with more to come."
To help with the GoFundMe to pay for their efforts, click on "Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols Space Command Scene!". At this writing they've raised $2,310 of their $15,000 goal.
(3) LUCAS' FINGERPRINTS. IGN explains "How George Lucas Helped Finish Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker".
The new teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker features quite the surprise: as the trailer comes to a close, the screen cuts to black and our ears are filled with the cackling of Emperor Palpatine. It's a laugh cold enough to send shivers down your spine and a character inclusion crazy enough to make your head spin. He met his electrifying end in Return of the Jedi, after all. IGN talked to director and co-writer JJ Abrams at Star Wars Celebration Chicago about how the iconic villain came to be a part of the film, and his answer included a meeting with the Maker himself, George Lucas.
"This movie had a very, very specific challenge, which was to take eight films and give an ending to three trilogies, and so we had to look at, what is the bigger story? We had conversations amongst ourselves, we met with George Lucas before writing the script," Abrams revealed. "These were things that were in real, not debate, but looking at the vastness of the story and trying to figure out, what is the way to conclude this? But it has to work on its own as a movie, it has to be its own thing, it has to be surprising and funny and you have to understand it."
(4) COPING. Sarah Hughes, TV critic at The Guardian, tells how Game of Thrones helped her cope with her cancer diagnosis. "Game of Thrones, cancer and me…"
…Best of all, while I might not find out how Martin himself intends to finish his series (there are still two long-awaited books to come), I will almost certainly see the TV series of Game of Thrones return for its brutal, no doubt bloody and hopefully rewarding conclusion this month. As for Tottenham Hotspur winning the league in my lifetime, that remains too great a step for even the most benign of gods to arrange.
(5) CLFA VOTING BEGINS. At the Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Alliance "The 2019 Book of the Year ballot is now open!"
Ready to cast your vote for CLFA Book of the Year 2019? Go here to support your favorite!
(6) YAKFALL. We only thought we'd figured out the subject for Ursula Vernon's next Hugo acceptance speech. Hilarious thread starts here.
Good god, I have signal again! We saw Himalayan vultures eating a dead yak!
— The Wombat Resists (@UrsulaV) April 12, 2019
Another great thread about their Tibetan explorations begins here.
We are talking a serious pile of incense here. White smoke billowing like a radiator just gave up.
(7) THE ESSENTIALS. Can a fannish kitchen be complete without a set of "Star Trek Klingon Alphabet Fridge Magnets"? ThinkGeek takes the "No" side of the debate.
A fun way to teach anyone the basics of pIqaD (the Klingon alphabet)
For use on magnetic surfaces, like your fridge or your ship's hull
…This set contains the entire alphabet, with multiples for the more frequently used, plus a few apostrophes.
Born April 13, 1937 — Terry Carr. Lifelong fan and long after he turn pro, he continued to be active in fandom, hence was nominated five times for Hugos for Best Fanzine (1959–1961, 1967–1968), winning in 1959, was nominated three times for Best Fan Writer (1971–1973), winning in 1973, and was Fan Guest of Honor at ConFederation in 1986. He worked as an Editor, first at Ace where he edited The Left Hand of Darkness. After a fallout with Wollheim, he went freelance where he developed Universe and Best Science Fiction of the Year, the latter on a remarkable four publishers. He was nominated for Best Editor Hugo thirteen times and won twice. He wrote three novels, one with Ted White, and three collections of his stories in print. (Died 1987.)
Born April 13, 1943 — Bill Pronzini, 76. Mystery writer whose Nameless Detective has one genre adventure in A Killing in Xanadu. Genre anthologist, often with Barry N Malzberg, were many and wide ranging, covering such things as Bug-Eyed Monsters (with Malzberg), Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural (with Greenberg and Malzberg) and Arbor House Necropolis. As Robert Hart Davis, he wrote "The Pillars of Salt Affair", a Man from U.N.C.L.E. novella that ran in the The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine.
Born April 13, 1951 — Peter Davison, 68. The Fifth Doctor and one that I never came to be fond of. Just seemed too lightweight for the role. I thought he put more gravitas into the voice of Mole he did for The Wind in the Willows animated special Mole's Christmas. For twenty years now, he has reprised his role as the Fifth Doctor in myriad Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish.
Born April 13, 1954 — Michael Cassutt, 65. His notable genre TV work includes executive producing, producing or writing, or both, for Strange Luck, Seven Days, Outer Limits, Eerie, Indiana, and The Twilight Zone. He was also story editor for the Max Headroom series which I loved.
Born April 13, 1959 — Brian Thomsen. Editor, writer and anthologist. He was founding editor of Warner Books' Questar Science Fiction, and later served as managing fiction editor at TSR. He co-wrote the autobiography of Julius Schwartz. Strangely enough, I've actually read one of his anthologies, A Yuletide Universe, as I remember it from the cover art. (Died 2008.)
Born April 13, 1950 — Ron Perlman, 69. Hellboy in a total of five films including three animated films (Hellboy: Sword of Storms, Hellboy: Blood and Iron and Redcap). He's got a very long association with the genre as his very first film was Quest for Fire in which he was Amoukar. The Ice Pirates and being Zeno followed quickly Captain Soames in Sleepwalkers and Angel De La Guardia in Mexican horror film Cronos. Several years later, I see he's Boltar in Prince Valiant, followed by a hard SF role as Johnher in Alien Resurrection and Reman Viceroy in Star Trek: Nemesis. And I should note he was in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as Gnarlack, a goblin gangster if I read the Cliff notes to that correctly. No, I'm not forgetting about his most amazing role of all, Vincent in Beauty and The Beast. At the time, I thought it was the most awesome practical makeup I'd ever seen. And the costume just made look him amazing.
Born April 13, 1962 — Stephen Holland, 57. I'm a deep admirer of those who document our genre and this gentleman is no exception. In handful of works, he's created an invaluable resource for those interested in SF published in paperback. British Science Fiction Paperbacks and Magazines, 1949-1956: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide and The Mushroom Jungle: A History of Postwar Paperback Publishing certainly look to be essential reading, and his Fantasy Fanzine Index: Volume 1 also sounds useful.
(9) WHAT A TANGLED WEB THEY WEAVE. Rebecca F. Kuang's thread about the Game of Thrones tapestry starts here.
i've had a really eye-opening few days in Northern Ireland this past week, but maybe the coolest thing I saw was this Game of Thrones tapestry at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. It's HAND WOVEN and over 60+ meters long and ridiculously impressive pic.twitter.com/UPXxnsXJ72
— Rebecca F. Kuang (@kuangrf) April 10, 2019
Through July 28 the public can "see Game of Thrones® immortalised in a giant, 77-metre long Bayeux style tapestry at the Ulster Museum."
(10) THRONE CHOW. Delish says that in the UK, "TGI Friday's Is Celebrating The Game Of Thrones Premiere With A Menu Inspired By The Series".
In honor of the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones—which premieres in just three days, people!!!—TGI Friday's has released a limited-edition menu inspired by the series. However, vegetarians and vegans may want to steer clear of the "Dragon Slayer Feast." It's definitely a meat-heavy selection….
You can also order up Dragon Fire Hot Wings and the Bucket of Beast Bones, which is a combo of ribs and Friday's famed glazed wings. However, as far as we know, the GOT special is currently a U.K. exclusive. The meat-filled feast will kick off April 10.
(11) ALTERNATE ASTRONAUTS. Camestros Felapton continues working his way through the finalists: "Hugo Novels: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal".
The Calculating Stars has a more grounded aesthetic than it's predecessor, and aims to present a plausible alternative history where the space program is accelerated and is also a more international collaboration. In the centre of this effort is Dr Elma York who desperately wants to go into space but who must also navigate through the complexities of 1950s America.
It's an engaging fictional autobiography of a remarkable person — the kind of multi-talented character that you find in accounts of America's space program. Drive, talent, brains and luck conspire to put Elma in a spotlight but the attention that comes with it reveals Elma's greatest weakness: social anxiety in crowds when she is the focus of attention. Ironically the press characterising her preemptively as 'The Lady Astronaut' complicates her attempts to actually become an astronaut.
(12) CREDIT WHERE DUE. Misty S. Boyer's long Facebook post provides further detail about who contributed to the newsmaking black hole photo.
…The photo that everyone is looking at, the world famous black hole photo? It's actually a composite photo. It was generated by an algorithm credited to Mareki Honma. Honma's algorithm, based on MRI technology, is used to "stitch together" photos and fill in the missing pixels by analyzing the surrounding pixels.
But where did the photos come from that are composited into this photo?
The photos making up the composite were generated by 4 separate teams, led by Katie Bouman, Andrew Chael, Kazu Akiyama, Michael Johnson, and Jose L Gomez. Each team was given a copy of the black hole data and isolated from each other. Between the four of them, they used two techniques – an older, traditional one called CLEAN, and a newer one called RML – to generate an image.
The purpose of this division and isolation of teams was deliberately done to test the accuracy of the black hole data they were all using. If four isolated teams using different algorithms all got similar results, that would indicate that the data itself was accurate….
(13) POST MORTEM. What happened? "Beresheet spacecraft: 'Technical glitch' led to Moon crash".
Preliminary data from the Beresheet spacecraft suggests a technical glitch in one of its components caused the lander to crash on the Moon.
The malfunction triggered a chain of events that eventually caused its main engine to switch off.
Despite a restart, this meant that the spacecraft was unable to slow down during the final stages of its descent.
(14) BIG STICK. "Internet Archive denies hosting 'terrorist' content".
The Internet Archive has been hit with 550 "false" demands to remove "terrorist propaganda" from its servers in less than a week.
The demands came via the Europol net monitoring unit and gave the site only one hour to comply.
The Internet Archive said the demands wrongly accused it of hosting terror-related material.
The website said the requests set a poor precedent ahead of new European rules governing removal of content.
If the Archive does not comply with the notices, it risks its site getting added to lists which ISPs are required to block.
(15) BULL MARKET. Science reports "Beliefs in aliens, Atlantis are on the rise". (Full text restricted to subscribers.)
Beliefs in "pseudoarchaeology"—ancient aliens, Atlantis, and other myths—are on the rise. In 2018 41% of Americans believed that aliens visited Earth in the ancient past, and 57% believed that Atlantis or other advanced ancient civilizations existed. These outlandish beliefs have been circulating for decades, and archaeologists are now mobilizing to counter them. They are taking to Twitter, blogs, podcasts, YouTube, and newspapers to debunk false claims and explain real archaeological methods, and they plan to compare notes this week during a symposium at the Society for American Archaeology meeting.
(16) IT'S ALL JUST FUN AND GAMES UNTIL… Never forget that Quidditch is a field sport: "For Some Quidditch Players, The Magic Wears Off As Injury Risks Grow Clearer".
It happened in a split second, and Vanessa Barker doesn't remember any of it. She doesn't remember dropping to the field, nor does she remember how she got hit.
When she came to, she was sitting on the sidelines with an EMT, being evaluated for what turned out to be her first concussion. Over the next two years, she'd suffer another two more while out on the field — hardly what she expected when she decided to start playing quidditch.
…"If I ever have any others, I'll have to stop playing," she said.
(17) PLAYING A TATTOO. For the next four weeks you can listen online to BBC4's production of "Ray Bradbury – The Illustrated Man", dramatized by Brian Sibley.
A young traveller encounters a vagrant on the road, who claims that his tattoos come to life after dark and tell the future. Starring Iain Glen and Elaine Claxton.
(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. "The Black Hole: Based on Stephen Hawking's Reith Lecture" on YouTube is an animation done for BBC Radio4 of an excerpt of a Stephen hawking lecture where Hawking says it's not hopeless if you fall into a black hole.
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Cora Buhlert, SF Concatenation's Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day cmm.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged 20Booksto50K, Beresheet, black holes, Camestros Felapton, CLFA Book of the Year Awards, Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Alliance, Game of Thrones, George Lucas, Internet Archive, J.J. Abrams, Jonathan Brazee, Klingonese, Lawrence Schoen, Marc Scott Zicree, Mary Robinette Kowal, Nichelle Nichols, quidditch, Ray Bradbury, Rebecca F. Kuang, SFWA, Space Command, Star Trek, Star Wars, Ursula Vernon
Pixel Scroll 2/23/19 So Come On, Come On, Scroll The Pixellation With Me
Posted on February 23, 2019 by Mike Glyer
(1) MCINTYRE HEALTH UPDATE. Vonda McIntyre, one of sff's most loved figures, is seriously ill. A Caringbridge page has been started: "Vonda N.'s Story".
Vonda spent much of Seattle's snow week at Swedish Hospital with jaundice and some vertigo, having many tests. The test results are in now, and the news is not good. The diagnosis is inoperable metastatic pancreatic cancer. Her doctor said it isn't stupid to hope for a year, but it could be less. She'll probably be getting treatment that may or may not slow things down, no way to know for sure.
(2) #COPYPASTECRIS. Nora Roberts tells some things she's learned about plagiarists and people scamming Amazon's Kindle Unlimited author revenue system in "Not a Rant, but a promise".
The count of my books lifted from is now five. And the count of writers victimized has gone up.
I'm getting one hell of an education on the sick, greedy, opportunistic culture that games Amazon's absurdly weak system. And everything I learn enrages me.
There are black hat teams, working together, who routinely hire ghosts on the cheap, have them throw books together, push them out–many and fast–to make money, to smother out competition from those self-pubbed writers who do their own work. Those who do their own work can't possibly keep up with the volume these teams produce by these fraudulent tactics.
They tutor others how to scam the system….
(3) A WHIRLWIND OF FANAC. Joe Siclari of Fanac.org reports "We've been getting a lot done, and last weekend we had a particularly productive Boskone."
At Boskone, the FANAC scanning station scanned almost 2000 pages of material. Scanning by Mark Olson, Edie Stern and Joe Siclari. History-minded fans stopped by and provided material (thanks Geri Sullivan!), and promised more. We have promises of photos and fanzines, and have already received a historical recording from Fred Lerner, and new scanning hardware too.
The zines scanned at Boskone will be so marked in the index pages of the title, so you can see what we did. So far, we have put online about 850 pages of it. So far from the Boston scanning we've put up issues of George Locke's Smoke, Richard Bergeron's Warhoon, Charles Lee Riddle's Peon, Don Miller's WSFA Journal, the Coulsons' Yandro and brown and Katz's Focal Point.
They can all be accessed from the Classic Fanzines List. More issues will be forthcoming.
(4) RIGHT IN THE EYE. How would you like to go out this way? From NPR: "NOAA Researcher's Ashes Were Dropped Into The Eye Of Hurricane Michael".
Last fall, as Hurricane Michael was swirling toward the Florida panhandle, NOAA officials say it was carrying something in addition to rain and wind — the ashes of long-time hurricane researcher, Michael Black. Black was a research meteorologist who worked at the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory on Virginia Key, just across the bridge from downtown Miami.
He was a pioneer in the use of dropwindsondes — small measuring devices dropped from airplanes that record wind speed, air pressure, temperature and humidity.
In 1997, on a mission flying through Hurricane Guillermo in the Pacific, he had an audacious idea. Why not drop some dropwindsondes — sometimes called dropsondes — directly into the eyewall of a hurricane?
NOAA research meteorologist Stan Goldenberg, who worked with Michael Black for more than two decades, recalls that flight with Black 21 years ago: "I remember the excitement we felt at seeing these winds and knowing these 'sondes' could handle it." Black's idea suddenly provided hurricane researchers with an important new data tool.
(5) PARSEC AWARDS. Bruce Press will step down as chair of the Parsec Awards Committee if he can find somebody to take his place. The sff podcast awards organizers have been reeling since December, when four 2018 Parsec Awards winners declined because the committee sustained the decision to give an award an alleged harasser. Today Press sent this statement to his distribution list:
After a pretty grueling 2018 for the committee, we were taking a bit of a breather to get our collective heads together.
We very much want to get trophies out to winners who want them, but we are without funds having done absolutely no fundraising in 2018. Our lack of resources is due to lack of resources. So, that's item 1.
Item 2 is our perennial problem of manpower and leadership. The committee is severely short-staffed. We hoped to grow by creating sub-committee's like ceremony and fundraising. However, it turns out that takes leadership and we only had me.
Item 3 is me. While item 2 might have been enough reason alone, I have some really good personal reasons to step down as committee chair. The timing of this is not ideal, but life rarely operates on a convenient schedule. Like previous chairs, I am not immediately leaving the committee.
So, here's what I'm asking. If you think you have what it takes to lead. If you have a plan and can execute it. Whether overall, ceremony or fundraising. Send us an email [email protected].
February 23, 1896 –Tootsie Roll introduced
February 23, 1935 — The Phantom Empire starred Gene Autry, it was an SF musical western.
Born February 23, 1564 — Christopher Marlowe. Author of Doctor Faustus (or The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Look, ISFDB lists him, so he must be genre. More to the point Elizabeth Bear made him a character in her Stratford Man series which is Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth novels which is highly recommended. If you've not read them, the Green Man review is here. (Died 1593.)
Born February 23, 1930 — Gerry Davis. Mid-Sixties Story Editor on Doctor Who where he created companion Jamie McCrimmon and co-created the Cybermen along with unofficial scientific adviser Dr. Kit Pedler. They would create the Doomwatch series in the Sixties on BBC. Davis briefly returned to writing for Doctor Who, penning the first script for Revenge of the Cybermen though his script was largely abandoned by editor Robert Holmes. In 1989 he and Terry Nation who created the Daleks made a failed bid to take over production of the series and reformat it for the American market. (Died 1991.)
Born February 23, 1932 — Majel Barrett. No doubt best remembered for being Nurse Christine Chapel and Lwaxana Troi as well as for being the voice of most ship computer interfaces throughout the Star Trek series. I'll note that she was originally cast as Number One in the unused (TOS) Pilot but the male studio heads hated the idea of a female in that role. Early Puppies obviously. (Died 2008.)
Born February 23, 1965 — Jacob Weisman, 54. Founder, Tachyon Publications which you really should go look at as they've published every great author I'd care to read. Seriously Tidhar, Beagle and Yolen are among their newest releases! He also edited (with Beagle) The New Voices of Fantasy which I highly recommend as most excellent reading.
Born February 23, 1970 — Marie-Josée Croze, 49. Bibiane Champagne In Maelström which is genre if only because it's narrated by a talking fish. In Canada movie theatres, she was in Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 as Mara. Yeah, that film with a long title. Doubt it improved it. It looks like her first genre acting was on The Hunger in two episodes, in "A Matter of Style" as Dominique and in "I'm Dangerous Tonight" as Mimi. Oh, and she had the lead as Pregnant Woman in Ascension which just looks weird.
Born February 23, 1994 — Dakota Fanning, 25. Genre roles include Sally Walden in The Cat in the Hat which is on my worst films of all time list, Katie In Hansel and Gretel, Rachel Ferrier In War of the Worlds which, errr, is on the same list, and as the voice of Fern Arable In Charlotte's Web which is brilliant.
Born February 23, 2002 — Emilia Jones, 17. I'm reasonably sure this is the youngest Birthday I've done. At nine years of age, she's made her acting debut in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides as English Girl. She's Young Beth in the horror film Ghostland. She shows up on Doctor Who as Merry Gejelh in the "The Rings of Akhaten", an Eleventh Doctor story. She's currently in Residue, an SF horror series you can find on Netflix.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
Free Range shows the monstrous side of photography.
(10) CRITICAL FAVORITES. On the Strange at Ecbatan blog Rich Horton is working through his Hugo recommendations.
"Hugo recommendations, 2019: Novella"
Of these stories – none of which would disappoint me if they won the Hugo – my four favorites, in no particular order, are…
2. David Gerrold and Ctein, "Bubble and Squeak" – About a gay couple, hoping to get married, who have their plans interrupted by a tsunami heading to Los Angeles, and who have to find a way to get to higher ground – and, as it turns out, help a bunch of others as well. It's simply terrifically exciting, involving a plausible mix of heroism, foolishness, brutality, luck, and intelligence, on their part and others, as they struggle to find a way to a safe place, and as various options are closed off over time.
"Hugo Recommendations, 2019: Novelette"
4. Kelly Robson, "Intervention" (Infinity's End) — A very intelligent story about child rearing in a heavily inhabited future Solar System. The narrator is from Luna, where creche work is socially frowned upon, so she leaves to work on an asteroid-based creche – and then later gets a chance to work on a bid to reform Luna's failing creche system. This is just really interesting social speculation; and the characters are also very solidly portrayed, very honest.
5. Karen Russell, "Orange World" (The New Yorker, 6/4/18) – An older first time mother is driven to make a deal with a literal devil to save the life of her child, and only the intervention of her support group allows her to cope … Really well written, really convincing.
(11) STAR WARS WRAPS. Entertainment Tonight did a red carpet interview of "J.J. Abrams on Wrapping 'Star Wars: Episode IX' and Bringing Back Lando (Exclusive)" (video).
(12) DOLLARS AND SENSE. Alasdair Stuart's The Full Lid for February 22 includes a wryly-named commentary on cancelled cable sff shows – "Boulevard of Broken Streams."
Netflix have done what Thanos couldn't; wiped out an entire section of the Marvel universe. It was announced this week that The Punisher is done with season 2 and Jessica Jones with season 3. That will air later this year and be the swan song for a five (and a half) show mini-universe.
My feelings about this are, to mis-quote the best line in the entire Mission: Impossible franchise, complicated.
For a start there's the Rat King of fan speculation and business practice to try and untie. We can all clap as loud as we want, the shows were never going to the Disney streaming platform because that platform has to aim for the widest possible audience. It's also almost certainly what raised the renewal costs for the shows beyond practical. So, rationally, this all makes sense. It's annoying, but it does make sense….
(13) PATIENCE, GRASSHOPPER. And here I thought it was a disaster of Biblical proportions: "What An Insect Can Teach Us About Adapting To Stress".
What if we told you that you could learn a lot about handling adversity from the life of a bug? In their explorations of humans and how we interact with the world around us, the team that makes NPR's Invisibilia stumbled on a surprising fact about the insect world — one that could inspire a new way of looking at ourselves.
The epic destruction wrought by swarms of locusts is downright biblical. Exodus tells of a plague that left nothing green in all of Egypt, and we've seen these harbingers of destruction at work in modern day Australia, Argentina and Israel, just to name a few. But for centuries, one essential piece of information about these strange insects eluded scientists: Where do they come from?
These massive swarms just seemed to pop up out of nowhere, decimate everything and then vanish.
(14) GRIND YOUR GOGGLES INTO PLOWSHARES. NPR reports "Microsoft Workers Protest Army Contract With Tech 'Designed To Help People Kill'".
Microsoft workers are calling on the giant tech company to cancel its nearly $480 million U.S. Army contract, saying the deal has "crossed the line" into weapons development by Microsoft for the first time. They say the use of the company's HoloLens augmented reality technology under the contract "is designed to help people kill."
In a letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith, the workers also say the company is failing to inform its engineers "on the intent of the software they are building."
The November contract is for what's called an Integrated Visual Augmentation System.
"The contract's stated objective is to 'rapidly develop, test, and manufacture a single platform that Soldiers can use to Fight, Rehearse, and Train that provides increased lethality, mobility, and situational awareness necessary to achieve overmatch against our current and future adversaries,' " the letter said.
(15) KNOCKING THE COMPETITION. A Business Insider reporter was there: "Jeff Bezos just gave a private talk in New York. From utopian space colonies to dissing Elon Musk's Martian dream, here are the most notable things he said."
• Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, gave a talk to a members-only event at the Yale Club in New York on Tuesday.
• During the 30-minute lecture, Bezos said his private aerospace company, Blue Origin, would launch its first people into space aboard a New Shepard rocket in 2019.
• Bezos also questioned the capabilities of a space tourism competitor, Virgin Galactic, and criticized the goal of Elon Musk and SpaceX to settle Mars with humans.
• Ultimately, Bezos said he wants Blue Origin to enable a space-faring civilization where "a Mark Zuckerberg of space" and "1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins" can flourish.
• Bezos advised the crowd to hold a powerful, personal long-term vision, but to devote "the vast majority of your energy and attention" on shorter-term activities and those ranging up to 2- or 3-year timeframes.
(16) THE WEST END ZONE. In the February 16 Financial Times (behind a paywall), Matt Trueman profiles Anne Washburn, whose play based on The Twilight Zone is opening March 4 at The Ambassador Theatre in London.
"Her stage version of The Twilight Zone transfers into town next month. On the surface, it's a straightforward celebration of Rod Serling's cult TV series. Having watched all 156 episodes,she selected those stories that stuck in America's psyche. 'I was polling anyone I ran into: What Twilight Zone episode traumatized you as a small child? People would answer immediately. That's where it lives in our culture."
"In April, The Twilight Zone's getting a high profile reboot by Get Out director Jordan Peele, but Washburn's incarnation celebrates its loveable, low-fi 1950s charm. Its schlockiness, essentially.'It's morality,comedy, and horror at the same time,' beams Washburn. 'That's very appealing.' The show sends up its arched-eyebrowed asides and cheap cardboard cut-outs. 'Where things are less adept, you can see right to its heart. That's always moving.'
"Insightful, too, as Washburn unpeels The Twilight Zone's skin to show us a glimpse of America's soul in its recurring images: alien invasions and nuclear oblivion. 'The Twilight Zone is about America dreaming–or America's nightmare.'"
(17) SPIDER-SAN. CBR.com: shares the image: "Spider-Man: Far From Home Gets Spectacular Japanese Poster".
Sony Pictures has released a new poster promoting the Japanese release of the upcoming Marvel film Spider-Man: Far From Home, and it's really awesome.
This exceptionally creative poster features a typographic image of Spider-Man's mask composed almost entirely of bold, red Japanese text. The words and phrases used to create Spidey's face mostly reference different aspects of the film, with the text repeating "summer vacation." There are also numerous references to Nick Fury. Moreover, where Spider-Man's mouth ought to be, there is a QR code that links to Spider-Man: Far From Home's Japanese trailer, which is the same as the international trailer.
(18) PUMP, BROTHERS. Food Network advises, "Throw Away Your Peanut Butter Knife!" This clearly isn't genre, but it is a "great" "scientific" advance. Or it is you can't resist both peanut butter and silly gadgets.
Who knew the world was clamoring for a better – or at least different – way to prepare a peanut butter sandwich?
One week after a Burbank, California, inventor/entrepreneur named Andrew Scherer launched an Indiegogo page to raise funds for his new Peanut Butter Pump, promising a way to eat "Peanut Butter Without the Knife," the project has raised $46,955 (from more than 1,220 backers) and counting – more than twice its $20,000 goal.
[…] It's basically a jar top – made to fit onto your standard 40-ounce grocery-store or name-brand peanut butter jar – with a pump top and a plunger inside that presses down the peanut butter, leaving the sides of the jar clean as it goes, and dispensing the peanut butter out the top and directly onto your bread or celery stick or wherever you're aiming it.
(19) WITH AUTOMATIC UPSELL. Welcome to Uncanny Valley Restaurant. "This Fast Food Drive-Thru Is Now Using AI to Take Orders" – Futurism has the story.
We already had a robot that could make fast food burgers. And now we have an artificial intelligence that can take your order for one.
Earlier this month, Colorado-based startup Valyant AI announced the launch of a voice-based AI customer service platform, which is now taking customer orders at the drive-thru at Denver's Good Times Burgers and Frozen Custard.
"We're excited to deliver a customer service experience unlike anything you've ever experienced before," Valyant AI CEO Rob Carpenter said in a press release.
A video demonstration is here.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Emperox JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, James Davis Nicoll, Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Tom Becker.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged Alasdair Stuart, artificial intelligence, Bruce Press, Fanac.org, Hugo Awards, J.J. Abrams, Jeff Bezos, Joe Siclari, Nora Roberts, Parsec Awards, Rich Horton, Star Wars, Twilight Zone, Vonda McIntyre
Pixel Scroll 7/18/18 Your Scroll Is Important To Us. Please Hold.
Posted on July 18, 2018 by Mike Glyer
(1) OKORAFOR BRANCHES OUT. The Black Panther's sister, Shuri, is getting her own comic series. Marvel's press release says:
All hail Wakanda's technological genius! As revealed exclusively on Bustle, Marvel is thrilled to announce that this fall, award winning author Nnedi Okorafor and Eisner-nominated artist Leonardo Romero (Hawkeye) will be bringing SHURI #1 to readers everywhere! And revealed for the first time, Marvel is excited to share the dazzling cover to issue #1 by industry-acclaimed artist, Sam Spratt, best known for his cover art work on Janelle Monae's "Electric Lady."
The world of Wakanda is facing a tragic crisis: Black Panther is lost in space, and everyone is looking at who will step up to lead their country in his absence. But Shuri is happier in a lab than she is on the throne…how does a princess choose between her duties to her country and her own ideals?
"Shuri is an African young woman of genius level intelligence who is obsessed with technology and has traveled spiritually so far into the past that she's seen Wakanda before it was Wakanda," Okorafor told Bustle in an interview. "The Ancestors call her Ancient Future. And she's super ambitious. What do I love about her? Alllll that and more. She's a character in the Marvel Universe who really sings to me."
(2) OVERLORD TRAILER. J.J. Abrams' zombie horror movie Overlord is in theaters November 9.
On the eve of D-Day, US paratroopers drop behind enemy lines, to infiltrate a small village. Unfortunately, they realize the Nazis are experimenting with supernatural forces to fight them.
(3) BATWOMAN ON THE WAY. SYFY Wire has two stories about the development of a Batwoman TV show to join the other DC Comics properties running on the CW network (the "Arrowverse"). CW is already the home of The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, with a tradition of doing a set of crossover episodes as an annual event since the 2014–2015 season. In "Batwoman TV Series in Development at the CW to Join the Arrowverse" some of the basics are discussed:
Vampire Diaries writer/producer Caroline Dries is locked in as a writer and producer on the project, along with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Geoff Johns. To that end, the casting and tonal decisions made for the crossover event would likely carry over into a potential series. Think of it as one heck of a big backdoor pilot, basically.
That article also speculates on which version of Batgirl would be filmed, noting that the original 1956 character is not in the modern comics:
However, this iteration of the hero was wiped out of DC's continuity during 1985's seminal limited series, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Batwoman was reestablished into existence in 2006 in the form of Kate Kane, a Jewish LBGTQ character, one of the first-openly gay characters in the DC universe.
The story "Report: The CW Seeking Lesbian Actress With Open Ethnicity to Play Batwoman in Solo Series" pursues that aspect more thoroughly as well as sounding a cautionary note [emphasis added]:
TVLine is reporting the network has put out the call for an actress of any ethnicity who can play in the age range of 24-29, and that it's looking for a lesbian for the role if possible. The right person would join scriptwriter and co-producer Caroline Dries (The Vampire Diaries) to develop the standalone Batwoman series. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Geoff Johns are also co-producing.
News that The CW is eyeing Batwoman for the series treatment is still super-fresh, and it's not guaranteed that her appearance in the crossover will lead directly to a green-lit show. If the network does move forward with Batwoman, the show is expected to debut sometime next year.
(4) SHAZAM! Yahoo! Entertainment reports Shazam! will be released April 5, 2019 — "Shazam! on EW's special Comic-Con cover: 'It's Superman meets Big'".
Zachary Levi throws off the perfect Shazam! pitch: "It's Superman meets Big!" declares the affable former Chuck star who's squeezing into a skin-tight suit to play what's perhaps the ultimate daydream-come-true superhero across all of comic book lore: An ordinary 14-year-old kid named Billy Batson who can transform into a grown-up superhero with an array of heroic powers by uttering a single world ("Soundhound!" No wait: "Shazam!") and then return to his regular self whenever he wants.
(5) THAT SOUND YOU HEARD. JJ read this tweet and squeed — "This is by the same guy who did The Silence space SF trilogy which I really loved last year (under pen name D. Nolan Clark)."
COVER LAUNCH: The Last Astronaut by @LastTrilobite! Was super excited to design this cover bc I was asked to ADD signs of aging to make it really obvious the hero is a middle-aged woman. Yay for diversity in SFF! https://t.co/GafpfMZRJS pic.twitter.com/dD2cD3FwTk
— Lauren Panepinto (@Planetpinto) July 17, 2018
(6) TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS
Born July 18, 1948 — James Faulkner, who played Mr. K in Martian Chronicles (TV edition in the US)
Born July 18 – Paul Verhoeven, 80. Director of RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers. Also Hollow Man which has a gratuitous nude scene fitting a man who responsible for Basic Instinct. Also Producer of the animated Starship Troopers series which is quite excellent. Writer for the apparently forthcoming RoboCop Returns film.
Born July 18 – Vin Diesel, 51. Guardians of The Galaxy ("I am Groot!") and other MCU films, The Iron Giant, xXx and Chronicles of Riddick franchises and The Fifth Element.
Born July 18 – Kristen Bell, 38. The forthcoming animated Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, also Deadwood, Flatland: The Movie, Heroes and the Astro Boy franchise and iZombie.
SJW credential tech in Arlo and Janis.
Fantasy tropes face retrenchment in Bizarro.
Something has two possible explanations, and since you're reading this blog the odds are you'll prefer Last Kiss' second choice.
(8) MARKET REPORT. According to Yahoo! Finance, "Comic sales are down as readers abandon print".
Comic book and graphic novel sales fell 6.5% in 2017 from a 2016 high of $1.015 billion. Graphic novels brought in $570 million while comic books brought in about $350 million.
A report posted to Comichron notes that comic stores are still the biggest source for revenue while $90 million is attributable to digital downloads.
"After a multiyear growth run, the comics shop market gave back some of its gains in 2017, with lackluster response to new periodical offerings and, consequently, graphic novel sales," wrote Comichron's John Jackson Miller. "The third quarter of 2017 saw the worst of the year-over-year declines, leading into what has turned out to be a stronger spring for stores in 2018."
(9) THE OVERPRICE GUIDE. (Or so Bruce Pelz used to call it….) Heritage Auctions encourages comics collectors to "Download the Complete 2018-19 48th Edition Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide!" at a cost of $30.
In conjunction with the release of the book the new 2018-19, 48th edition of the electronic Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide is now available for immediate download! (Compatible with both Mac and PC!) No serious collector should be without an Overstreet, and this is even more true of the searchable electronic version. Available exclusively through Heritage Auctions, this new version is:
Alphabetically indexed
Searchable (by any keyword)
At a cost of only $30, this revolutionary new format is one of the best investments available in our hobby. Begin enjoying the benefits right now. Download your copy to your hard drive today.
(10) SEE IT FREE. On July 22 the community will get in free to the Dreaming the Universe sf exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of History.
(11) OWN BOND'S RIDE. Lego has come out with the official James Bond Aston Martin DB5 which you can make out of Lego elements.
It's here! The LEGO Creator Expert Aston Martin DB5… clean lines and cool gadgets. #LicenceToBuildhttps://t.co/bUc1Nr0aNX pic.twitter.com/J7vI44LuvU
(12) MORE LEGO CREATIONS. Here are a couple more cool projects, including a ferocious Lego SJW credential….
From 881,470 bricks, something awesome can bloom ? Check out this life-sized #LEGO replica of a Japanese Sakura tree ?? @LEGOLAND_Japan pic.twitter.com/VkekbRLVUO
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) July 8, 2018
The claws are out! ?? #TheLEGOMovie2's #Ultrakatty makes for an impressive #SDCC2018 model with almost 56,000 LEGO elements! ? #LEGOSDCC #SDCC @TheLEGOMovie @Comic_Con pic.twitter.com/SK61NSrSz8
(13) DOUBLE PARKED. When Bob Shaw MC'd the Hugos in 1986, one of his humorous interludes involved a job assignment to write copy about a submarine prone to take "unplanned depth excursions." "Spain's new submarine 'too big for its dock'".
An attempt to deploy a new submarine for Spain's navy has run aground again, after it emerged it cannot fit in its dock, Spanish media report.
The S-80 boat was redesigned at great expense after an earlier mistake meant it had problems floating, and it was lengthened to correct the issue.
Spanish newspaper El País now reports that after the changes, the docks at Cartagena can no longer fit the vessel….
The original problem with the submarine dates back to 2013, when it was discovered that it was about 100 tons heavier than it needed to be.
That caused a problem for its buoyancy – so it could submerge, but might not come back up again.
A former Spanish official told the Associated Press at the time that someone had put a decimal point in the wrong place, and "nobody paid attention to review the calculations".
(14) BIG LIFTER. Clip of the An-124 in action: "Business booming for giant cargo planes". Possibly highest capacity — internal crane, kneeling landing gear — what's not to like?
$7tn of goods travel by air every year. Most goes in the hold of normal airliners. But for those big, awkward loads, something rather larger is required.
(15) TAKING A BITE OUT OF DEVELOPMENT. "Anne Rice's 'Vampire Chronicles' Lands at Hulu" – The Hollywood Reporter has the news.
Two years after being put into development, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles TV series has found a home.
In a competitive situation with multiple outlets pursuing the project, Hulu has landed Vampire Chronicles. The streamer, home to Emmy darling The Handmaid's Tale, has put the drama into development.
Bryan Fuller, who boarded the Paramount Television and Anonymous Content effort as showrunner in January, exited the project six months ago. Fuller opted to step back rather than step on the toes of longtime friends Rice and her son, Christopher, who penned the original script. (Christopher is a four-time New York Times best-selling author and recipient of the Lambda Literary Award.)
Anne and Christopher Rice will executive produce the potential series, alongside Anonymous Content's David Kanter and Steve Golin.
Paramount Television and Anonymous Content optioned the rights to 11 books from the Vampire Chronicles franchise back in April 2017. More than 100 million copies have been sold worldwide. Rice's Interview With the Vampire was first published in 1976 and served as the basis for the 1994 feature of the same name starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas.
(16) COURT RULES ON PARENT'S NOTE. Dear Judge, please excuse my boy from having the pants sued off him for thieving on the internet….. From Techspot we learn that a "Federal court says Epic can go ahead with its lawsuit against teen".
Judge says mother's letter does not establish a strong enough claim to dismiss…
According to TorrentFreak, most of the arguments put forth in the document were irrelevant because they failed to state a claim. The only complaint that held any water was whether or not C.R. could have entered into the EULA agreement.
Epic argued that minors cannot invalidate the terms of a contract while receiving the benefits of said contract. In other words, C.R. illegally misrepresented himself as an adult and is therefore still obligated to the contractual terms.
According to court rules, an accuser's complaint holds more weight than a motion to dismiss. Judge Howard ruled that the letter from the mother was not enough to throw out the suit.
"As detailed in plaintiff's response memorandum, defendant has not shown that the complaint fails to allege sufficient facts to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. [T]herefore, in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, plaintiff has stated a plausible claim, and the motion to dismiss must be denied."
The defendant now has two weeks to file a response to the complaint. Failing that, Epic can proceed to ask for a default judgment in the case.
(17) ENCHANTMENT UNDER THE SEA. Deadline has the art: "'Aquaman' Poster Revealed: Jason Momoa Dives In To The Crowded DC Pool"
The film will have [a] Comic-Con panel this week, where director James Wan has said the fir.st trailer will be revealed. The initial footage shown at CinemaCon showed the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, replete with swimming fish people — some riding sea horses — and futuristic submarines. Aquaman is challenged by his brother (Patrick Wilson) for the throne, with Amber Heard's Mera begging Aquaman, "Unless you help us, millions will die."
[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged Anne Rice, Aquaman, Batwoman, Black Panther, comic books, J.J. Abrams, James Bond, JJ, Lego, Marvel, Nnedi Okorafor, Shazam!, Shuri
Pixel Scroll 3/12/18 Dammit, Jim, I'm A Filer, Not A Pixel-Scroller!
Posted on March 12, 2018 by Mike Glyer
(1) MOOMIN FAN. She remembers the Moomin scape her father made for her: "My family and other Moomins: Rhianna Pratchett on her father's love for Tove Jansson" in The Guardian.
I don't remember the precise moment I was introduced to the Moomins. They were always just there; a cosy, comforting and slightly weird presence in my childhood that has stayed with me. My father called Tove Jansson "one of the greatest children's writers there has ever been", and credited her writing as one of the reasons he became an author.
My father's family were the kind of postwar, no-nonsense British people who didn't really do hugs or talk about their feelings. Instead, they showed their love by building things: toys, puzzles, go-carts, treehouses. It was a tradition that my father, still very much the awkward hugger himself, would continue during my childhood. He built me a market stall, a beehive (complete with toy bees), a stove and, most memorably, Moominvalley.
It was crafted out of wood and papier-mache – a staple of all art projects in the 70s and 80s. It had a forest and a river and even a dark cave. He also made the Moominhouse and crafted all the Moomin characters out of clay; then painted and varnished them. Many years later we would turn over an entire attic full of junk trying to find a box that I thought might contain a solitary hand-made Moomin. He's still out there somewhere.
(2) GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. Declan Finn says something's missing from Amazon. It's the reviews he's written about people's books, and some of the reviews others have written about his books. Why? He calls it "Amazon's War on Users".
Has Amazon declared war on authors?
It would seem so at first pass. Last week, I had 315 reviews spread out over my various and sundry projects. Honor at Stake, for example, had 63, 68 reviews.
Today, I only have 238 reviews over all of them. Honor at Stake in particular having only 45 now. When I ask Amazon via email, they know nothing. Could I be more specific? It's literally EVERY BOOK. They need a road map?
The mystery depends when I looked at reviews that I myself have written. They're all gone. Poof. Vanished.
What the Hell?
And I'm not the only one. In fact, one writer's group I'm a part of has had a lot of the same problem.
The Conservative Libertarian Fiction Alliance.
Funny that. And the one person outside of CLFA who had also had problems is friends with three of us.
However, I'm not about to declare enemy action just yet. For that, I need your help, that of the average reader. Because there is a problem. We can't ask people outside the group, that we don't know, if they have the same problem. Why? Because if we don't know them, it's hard to ask. And if we know them, it can be construed as guilt by association.
Camestros Felapton joined the investigation. The conspiracy-minded won't find his thoughts nearly as pleasing as Finn's: "Amazon Purging Reviews Again".
(3) FEAST FOR THE EYES. A cover reveal for Latchkey by Nicole Kornher-Stace, sequel to Archivist Wasp. Art by Jacquelin de Leon.
(4) THE MONEY KEEPS ROLLING IN. BBC reports — "Black Panther film: 'Game-changing' movie takes $1bn".
Marvel's superhero film Black Panther has taken more than a billion US dollars (£794m) at cinemas worldwide.
It is the fifth movie based in Disney's Marvel Universe to hit the milestone.
(5) WAKANDA. A group hopes to run Wakanda Con in Chicago, IL this summer. Right now they're building a list of interested fans.
WAKANDA CON is a fan-driven, one-day celebration of Afro-Futurism, Tech, and Black superheroes in film, television, and comic books, and of course, Black Panther. Our event will be held in Chicago, IL in Summer 2018. Join fellow citizens of Wakanda for discussion, education, networking, and festivities.
Marvel's Black Panther has ushered in a new wave of thought about issues surrounding the African Diaspora and a new future for Black people around the world. The image of an African country with advanced technology and equality has inspired some of the world's greatest thinkers and all of Black Twitter to create, think, and respond. WAKANDA CON is chance to take the conversation about Black Panther offline and into the real world.
(6) BRING KLEENEX. John Scalzi gives people lots of reasons to want to see A Wrinkle in Time.
(And, you may ask, what do I think about the film's multicultural and feminine viewpoint and aesthetic? I think it works very well, and it's a reminder that things that are not designed specifically for one in mind may still speak significantly and specifically to one, if one is open to it. I would not have imagined A Wrinkle in Time the way DuVernay has — I seriously doubt I could have imagined it this way — and yet there I was crying my eyes out all the same. I do not need the world to be imagined as I would have imagined it. I want the world and the things in it to exceed my imagination, to show me things I cannot make for myself but can take into myself, hold precious, and make my imagination that much wider from that point forward. As I noted before, this movie was not, I think, made for me, and still here I am, loving it as much as I do.)
(7) HEARTFELT STORY. Charles Payseur is just as persuasive in getting people to read his short fiction reviews: "Quick Sips – GigaNotoSaurus March 2018"
GigaNotoSaurus offers up a beautiful short story for March that might have been a bit more appropriate for February and Valentine's Day because it is adorable and wonderful and sweet and just good! I'm a sucker for romance, and so the focus of this story for me is refreshing, especially because it refuses to tread the same tired paths of angst and powerlessness that seem to dominate so many romantic story lines. It's not without darkness or sadness, but it's a story to me about the triumph of love and humans over despair, loss, and death. To the review!
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
March 12, 1971 — Andromeda Strain was first released theatrically.
Chip Hitchcock studied the canine cosmology in Pooch Cafe.
(10) COMEDIAN SECTION. Today's relevant joke, from the just-late Ken Dodd: "Ken Dodd: 17 of his funniest one-liners".
So it turns out that if you bang two halves of a horse together, it doesn't make the sound of a coconut.
(Other 16 are NSF just about everything….)
(11) BEYOND THE FAIL FRONTIER. ScreenRant delights in finding these contradictions: "Star Trek: 17 Memes That Prove The Show Makes No Sense". They begin with an infographic —
(12) INCLUSIVE OR NOT? Dave Huber, in The College Fix story, "MIT Librarian: Tech Posters Plastered With Star Trek Posters, Other Geeky Stuff Is Non-Inclusive to Women," says that MIT head librarian Chris Bourg has said that students should "replace Star Trek posters with travel posters…and generally just avoid geek references and inside nerd jokes" if they want to be inclusive for women.
Since the many incarnations of "Star Trek" are considered some of the most diverse shows in the history of television, not to mention that about half those attending Star Trek conventions are female, The College Fix contacted Bourg about this particular reference.
She responded by pointing out her advice "comes directly from the research," and provided a link to the study: "Ambient Belonging: How Stereotypical Cues Impact Gender Participation in Computer Science."
The 2009 study examined whether "stereotypical objects" like Star Trek posters "signal a masculinity that precludes women from ever developing an interest in computer science." Or, as the authors dub it, how the "ambient belonging" of women is affected by tech-geek ware.
While conceding that the tech-geek "masculinity" in question may not refer to a "traditional definition" (think "strength, assertiveness, and sexual prowess") the authors argue the "stereotypicality" of the group still has a "profound" effect on the ability to recruit people who do not see themselves as fitting that stereotype.
(13) PROPHET OF DOOM? "Tim Berners-Lee says net has 'heaps of problems'". [[Voice only]]
The inventor of the World Wide Web says the internet as we know it is "under threat" and faces "heaps" of problems.
Monday 12 March marks 29 years since Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web. This year is expected to be the first time that more than half of the world's population will have internet access.
Sir Tim spoke to the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones about the challenges faced.
(14) ELON MUSK. More blue-skying? "Elon Musk: Mars ship test flights 'next year'".
A Mars colony, he said, would reduce the chance of an extended new Dark Ages if a nuclear conflict was to wipe out life on Earth.
But, aware of his reputation, he added: "Sometimes my timelines are a little… y'know."
But enough about reality.
Elon Musk is unquestionably the most interesting businessman in Silicon Valley – arguably the world – thanks to his almost single-handed reignition of the space race.
(15) MONITORING TV. Rich Lynch says tonight's "Literary L.A." Category on Jeopardy! had a Bradbury clue. It even showed a photo of him.
The contestant got it right.
(16) TENT TECH. It's not your grandfather's yurt — "To Fight Pollution, He's Reinventing The Mongolian Tent".
In Gamsukh's office those possibilities seem endless. Books, papers and sketches cover a desk and table. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, Gamsukh, whose dark hair has a slight orange tint, comes off as artistic. But the sketches he produces are not dreamy musings. They are technical drawings supported by mathematical calculations. They are solid, like the sturdily built Gamsukh. Many are already being implemented, including a partially completed passive solar heated immobile ger that adds windows, insulation and solar collectors to the traditional model. Passive solar heating design uses windows, walls and floors to collect, store and distribute heat in the winter and reject it in the summer. Designs vary depending on the climate in which they are built, but shade can be used to block the sun in summer without taking away from warmth in winter because the sun is higher in summer.
When it is finished, Gamsukh plans to call it home. He is also testing another modified ger that uses solar power and those underground pipes he tried to dig in winter for heat.
(17) SHORT ORDER ROBOT. "Burger-flipping robot begins first shift" at Cali-Burger in Pasadena, CA. See a video of the robot in action, at the link.
Flippy, a burger-flipping robot, has begun work at a restaurant in Pasadena, Los Angeles.
It is the first of dozens of locations for the system, which is destined to replace human fast-food workers.
The BBC's North America technology reporter Dave Lee saw it in action.
(18) BUSTED. To go with the recent Pixel on Iceland running out of energy due to Bitcoin generation: "Iceland police arrest suspected Bitcoin server thieves".
Police in Iceland have arrested 11 people suspected of stealing more than 600 computers that were being used to mine crypto-currencies, reports AP.
The computers were stolen during four raids on data centres around Iceland.
The country is a popular location for data centres because almost 100% of the power generated there comes from renewable sources.
(19) THE OTHER JJ. ScreenRant says this JJ Abrams sketch was cut from Saturday Night Live for time.
[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Mike Allen, John King Tarpinian, Mark Hepworth, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Rich Lynch, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor Niall McAuley.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged Amazon, Black Panther, Camestros Felapton, Charles Payseur, Chip Hitchcock, Declan Finn, Elon Musk, J.J. Abrams, Jacquelin de Leon, John Scalzi, Moomin, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Rhianna Pratchett, Rich Lynch, robots, Star Trek, Terry Pratchett, Tove Jansson
Pixel Scroll 12/7/17 Pixel, It's Scrolled Outside
Posted on December 7, 2017 by Mike Glyer
(1) SOCIETY PAGE. Cat Valente and Heath Miller shared their news on Twitter. Jump onto the thread about the romantic proposal here —
You guys… @veryheathmiller and I are going to a museum today…you know what that means!
— Catherynne Valente (@catvalente) December 6, 2017
Part of the announcement:
Inside the box was this. And about fifty vintage matchbooks he'd apparently been collecting for ages in preparation pic.twitter.com/fwXSeYRKCo
(2) A GOOD COUNTRY FOR OLD MAN. Deadline started with an Exclusive story, but now we all know — "Netflix Grabs Hold Of John Scalzi's Sci-Fi Novel 'Old Man's War' For Jon Shestack, Madhouse".
Netflix has acquired John Scalzi's modern sci-fi classic Old Man's War to develop as an original film. The novel is the first in a bestselling six-book series and is considered to be one of the best of the genre over the past two decades, nominated for a Hugo Award. Jon Shestack Productions and Madhouse Entertainment will produce.
John Scalzi goes into a little more detail in his FAQ about the news: "Old Man's War in Development at Netflix".
Are you excited?
Hell, yes. One, because I would love to see an OMW movie. But also, two, Netflix is a place where a lot of fantastic entertainment is happening these days. It's trying a lot of things and taking a lot of chances, and most people I know who are working with Netflix are thrilled about being there right now. It really seems like it could be a great place for the OMW universe.
So is this a movie or TV series?
It's a movie. On your television!
(Or computer or phone or monitor or wherever you choose to watch Netflix, I don't judge.)
(3) GODSTALKER. James Davis Nicoll brings you his list of "Twenty Core Works of Religious Speculative Fiction Every True SF Fan Should Have on Their Shelves". Here are four examples –
High Deryni by Katherine Kurtz
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
(4) ROWLING CHALLENGED ON SUPPORT OF DEPP. Amy Zimmerman of The Daily Beast calls it "J.K. Rowling's Cowardly Defense of Alleged Abuser Johnny Depp in 'Fantastic Beasts'".
… In May 2016, actress Amber Heard filed for divorce from Johnny Depp, declaring at the time, "During the entirety of our relationship, Johnny has been verbally and physically abusive to me…I endured excessive emotional, verbal, and physical abuse from Johnny, which has included angry, hostile, humiliating, and threatening assaults to me whenever I questioned his authority or disagreed with him." In the wake of these explosive allegations, The Daily Beast's Kevin Fallon wrote a piece titled "Amber Heard Says Johnny Depp Beat Her. It Will Ruin His Career. Just Kidding!", in which he argued that Depp, like so many accused A-listers before him, was destined to emerge from this scandal professionally unscathed.
…On the one hand, Rowling has inarguably found herself in a difficult position, and it's hard to watch as female creators are asked to answer for the alleged misconduct and immorality of their male collaborators. In her statement, Rowling acknowledges the seriousness of the allegations against Depp, and appears to have taken the pressure to potentially recast seriously. But, make no mistake: she is supporting and defending Johnny Depp. And, in doing so, she is calling his accuser's testimony into question.
The most damning sentence here is when Rowling cites "our understanding of the circumstances" to justify the fact that she is "genuinely happy" with Depp's starring role; it sounds like she's implying that, if we knew what she knew, we would feel comfortable dismissing Heard's story too. Rowling is, finally, saying "I believe you"—but the person she's acknowledging in this scenario is Johnny Depp, not Amber Heard
Here is J.K. Rowling's complete statement on "Grindelwald casting":
When Johnny Depp was cast as Grindelwald, I thought he'd be wonderful in the role. However, around the time of filming his cameo in the first movie, stories had appeared in the press that deeply concerned me and everyone most closely involved in the franchise.
Harry Potter fans had legitimate questions and concerns about our choice to continue with Johnny Depp in the role. As David Yates, long-time Potter director, has already said, we naturally considered the possibility of recasting. I understand why some have been confused and angry about why that didn't happen.
The huge, mutually supportive community that has grown up around Harry Potter is one of the greatest joys of my life. For me personally, the inability to speak openly to fans about this issue has been difficult, frustrating and at times painful. However, the agreements that have been put in place to protect the privacy of two people, both of whom have expressed a desire to get on with their lives, must be respected. Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.
I've loved writing the first two screenplays and I can't wait for fans to see 'The Crimes of Grindelwald'. I accept that there will be those who are not satisfied with our choice of actor in the title role. However, conscience isn't governable by committee. Within the fictional world and outside it, we all have to do what we believe to be the right thing.
(5) QUICK SIP SHORT FIC RECS. I think I missed Charles Payseur's "Quick Sip Reviews 2017 Recommended Reading List", posted last month.
This comes courtesy of my monthly recommendation column, The Monthly Round. The rules are fairly easy, in that the stories must come from publications I regularly read. It's the single greatest limiting factor for the list, because I do not read everything, but this prevents me from essentially cherry-picking stories from other publications. So there are my favorite stories published at the places I read regularly and have reviewed. There's a whole wide world of other stories out there, but I did dearly love these. So I hope that, even with that limitation in mind, the list is helpful for finding some truly awesome short SFF. If you want more info on any of the stories, there are links to each or you can do a search of this blog to find my more in-depth reviews.
(6) BLACK SF HONORED. The Root has named "The 16 Best Books of the Year by Black Authors". Three of these books are of genre interest.
#1 — Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward, which Amazon currently lists as the top-selling book in Magical Realism.
#4 — Akata Warrior by World Fantasy/Hugo/Nebula Award winner Nnedi Okorafor.
#9 — What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, by Lesley Nneka Arimah, a debut short-story collection from an award-winning Nigerian-American writer whose short stories hit fantasy, magical realism, science fiction, and horror.
(7) THERE ARE NO OLD, BOLD EQUATIONS. RedWombat mashes up a classic poem with a Hall of Fame story. The first tweet in response by Tim Chase is brilliant, too,
This is just to say
I have thrown
the airlock
who you
were probably hoping
it's these equations
so contrived
and so cold.
— The Wombat Resists (@UrsulaV) December 7, 2017
(8) JOIN THE VAMPIRE LODGE. An io9 exclusive! "Vampire Veronica Descends on Riverdale in a New Archie Horror Series".
Between Afterlife with Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and the recent addition of Jughead: The Hunger, Archie Comics' horror imprint is flying higher than Sabrina's broomstick ever thought possible. But there's already another series coming to Archie Horror, and it's got a bit of a bite to it….
Veronica Lodge, Riverdale's socialite encounters a centuries-old creature of the night, who transforms her into a bloodthirsty vampire. Now she must descend on her unsuspecting hometown to quench her newfound hunger. Veronica now has to contend with this new transformation However, she is still the Veronica we all know and love.
(9) GULP FICTION. Fainting cloths have been in much demand since news broke that "Quentin Tarantino Might Direct a Star Trek Movie" – io9 has the story.
Apparently Tarantino recently pitched an idea for a Trek movie to producer J.J. Abrams, who loved it, and they'll soon begin to assembling a writer's room to flesh it out. If everything falls into place, Tarantino could be interested in directing with Abrams producing.
This isn't something that'll be happening soon, though. Next up for the iconic director is his still-untitled 1969-set movie, which Sony Pictures just picked up. That already has a release date of August 9, 2019, so there's no doubt that's next for him. That leaves almost two years of time for a script to get written that could woo Tarantino into doing several things he's never done before.
He's never directed a feature he didn't write. He's never done a scifi film. He's never done a major franchise film.
(10) EARLY BIRDS. Worldcon 76 and Dublin 2019 announced their Retro Hugo plans a few days ago and the Hugo Awards Book Club wasted no time coming up with the first set of recommendations: "Retro Hugos 1943: Novels"
It was with no small degree of excitement that we greeted the news that there would be Retro Hugo awards presented at next summer's Worldcon. Just on principle, we love Retro Hugos, and will take any opportunity to do a deep dive into the science fiction published in a particular year. The Hugo year of 1943 (which would cover works published in 1942) has some excellent novels to choose from. We will explore other fiction categories for these awards in later posts.
Legendary science fiction pioneer Olaf Stapledon has never been nominated for a Hugo
Award in any category. The author of Last and First Men, Star Maker, and Odd John had published most of his major works prior to the first Worldcon, so even with Retro Hugos, there hasn't been much opportunity to honour his works with the genre's top award. Although Darkness And The Light is not one of his most well-remembered works, and although it has some flaws, it is still one that should be considered for the award.
(11) CRIDER IN HOSPICE. Crime fiction writer Bill Crider, who also won a 2015 Sidewise Award for his story "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," has entered hospice care. He signed off from his blog saying –
Things could change, but I suspect this will be my final post on the blog. I met with some doctors at M. D. Anderson today, and they suggested that I enter hospice care. A few weeks, a few months is about all I have left. The blog has been a tremendous source of pleasure to me over the years, and I've made a lot of friends here. My only regret is that I have several unreviewed books, including Lawrence Block' fine new anthology, Alive in Shape and Color, and Max Allan Collins' latest collaboration with Mickey Spillane, The Last Stand, which is a collection of two novellas, "A Bullet for Satisfaction," an early Spillane manuscript with an interesting history, and "The Last Stand," the last thing that Spillane completed. It saddens me to think of all the great books by many writers that I'll never read. But I've had a great life, and my readers have been a big part of it. Much love to you all.*
(12) TODAY IN HISTORY
December 7, 1972 — The crew of Apollo 17, while on their way to the Moon, took a photo of Earth from about 28,000 miles.
(13) TODAY'S BIRTHDAY GIRL
Born December 7, 1915 — Leigh Brackett, well-known sf author and screenwriter. George Lucas hired Brackett to write the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back, which she completed shortly before she died in March of 1978.
(14) ALL BRADBURY. Courtesy of Cora Buhlert, here's a brief clip from a German cultural TV program presenting a new illustrated German edition of Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes". (Video.)
(15) THE GOLD RUSH IS OVER. In "Business Musings: Sustainability", Kristine Katherine Rusch argues that the market for independently published books has "matured" and that authors should expect much slower growth and lower incomes from here on.
I'm talking about the changes in income to writers who were not rushing to every new way of doing something, writers who were not gaming algorithms, writers who were producing a lot, interacting professionally with their fans, and doing everything right.
Those writers received major rewards, both in sales and in income, in the early years of indie publishing. Those rewards have diminished, because we are entering into a mature market.
What does that mean, exactly?
In business, markets respond to things in similar ways, whether we're talking markets for shoes or markets for books.
When something is new, everyone wants it. When something is new, the growth is usually exponential. We see that in all kinds of new markets over the years, from desktop computers twenty-five years ago to smart phones ten years ago. There's always something cool, and consumers flock to it, sometimes in very large numbers.
In publishing, we went through a shift, from traditional only to anyone-can-do-it indie, because of the rise of the neat-o ereader, the Kindle, from Amazon, which gave that ereader a platform and an ecosystem.
Year to year, the number of people who joined the new ecosystem was huge. Other players created viable ereaders and ebook ecosystems. You didn't just have to use Amazon to publish a book. You could do it on other platforms.
(16) SEVENTIES SF RARITY. The British Film Institute tells "How lost British TV sci-fi Thwum was rediscovered".
On 16 December 2017, BFI Southbank is offering the first opportunity for over 40 years to see Thwum, a sci-fi-themed 1970s rarity that had long been thought lost forever – and Pete Postlethwaite's first TV appearance with it.
At the time of Thwum's broadcast in 1975, it was still common practice for TV companies to wipe much of their output, meaning that many television programmes from the era are now sadly missing. Since 1993, it's been the mission of the BFI's Missing Believed Wiped initiative to track down and screen material long AWOL from the official TV archives. Finds over the years have included material from television programmes such as The Avengers, Till Death Us Do Part, Dad's Army, Armchair Theatre and Top of the Pops.
The case of Thwum provides an interesting example of how missing UK TV material can be recovered….
(17) THE KING IS DEAD. Google's general-purpose AI beats chess specialist: "Google's 'superhuman' DeepMind AI claims chess crown". It won or drew 100 games 4 hours after being given the rules of chess.
Even so, one human chess grandmaster was still hugely impressed by DeepMind's victory.
"I always wondered how it would be if a superior species landed on earth and showed us how they played chess," Peter Heine Nielsen told the BBC.
(18) WHERE YOUR PIZZA DELIVERS ITSELF. There are limits: "San Francisco to restrict goods delivery robots".
Opponents are concerned about the safety of pedestrians, particularly elderly people and children.
Walk San Francisco, a group that campaigns for pedestrian safety, wanted a complete ban.
A range of companies have begun trialling small robots that can deliver food and other goods.
They use sensors and lasers in a similar way to self-driving cars in order to navigate their routes.
(19) ON A HOLE FAR AWAY. BBC tells where "Farthest monster black hole found".
The matter-munching sinkhole is a whopping 13 billion light-years away, so far that we see it as it was a mere 690 million years after the Big Bang.
But at about 800 million times the mass of our Sun, it managed to grow to a surprisingly large size in just a short time after the origin of the Universe.
The find is described in the journal Nature.
The newly discovered black hole is busily devouring material at the centre of a galaxy – marking it out as a so-called quasar.
(20) PETRIFEYED. They say it may not be possible to find one any earlier: "Researchers find 'oldest ever eye' in fossil".
An "exceptional" 530-million-year-old fossil contains what could be the oldest eye ever discovered, according to scientists.
The remains of the extinct sea creature include an early form of the eye seen in many of today's animals, including crabs, bees and dragonflies.
Scientists made the find while looking at the well-preserved trilobite fossil.
These ancestors of spiders and crabs lived in seas during the Palaeozoic era, between 541-251 million years ago.
(21) FTFY. They're not riotously funny, though some are clever or wonderfully bitter: "These Parody Book Covers Of Famous Classics Will Make Any True Literary Nerd Laugh Out Loud". Here's a sample:
(22) SHOULD THAT BE PETREON? Another Patreon critic heard from.
Chicken does not approve of the new @Patreon payment plans. #chicken #chickensoftwitter pic.twitter.com/fX1uahW7Wk
— Kevin Sonney (@ksonney) December 8, 2017
[Thanks to Mark Hepworth, Paul Weimer, JJ, Carl Slaughter, Cora Buhlert, Cat Eldridge, rcade, Greg Hullender, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, Allan Maurer, Chip Hitchccock, Darrah Chavey, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Chris S.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged artificial intelligence, Bill Crider, Catherynne M. Valente, Charles Payseur, Fantastic Beasts, Heath Miller, Hugo Award Book Club, J. K. Rowling, J.J. Abrams, James Davis Nicoll, Jesmyn Ward, John Scalzi, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Nnedi Okorafor, Quentin Tarantino, Ray Bradbury, RedWombat, Retro-Hugos, Star Trek
Pixel Scroll 11/22/17 By Jove, Who Scrolled The Quartz Monkey Pixel Fudge?
Posted on November 22, 2017 by Mike Glyer
(1) WORLDCON 76 HOTEL RESERVATIONS. Worldcon 76 emailed the passkey to members today and opened reservations today at 1 p.m. Pacific time.
Worldcon 76 members reserved over 4000 room nights since we distributed the reservations link this afternoon.
If you have any reservation questions, please contact [email protected]
— Worldcon 76 San Jose (@worldcon2018) November 23, 2017
The Marriott and the Hilton, the two hotels directly connected to the CC, and the least expensive of the official hotels, almost immediately became unavailable, presumably due to being booked up.
The Fairmont, the party hotel ($199/night), The Hyatt Place, Westin and The AC Hotel by Marriott remain available on the convention dates (Thursday-Monday) at this writing. However, when I added Wednesday to my request, only The Fairmont was available.
(2) NEW "NOTHING TO READ" UPDATE. North Carolina schoolteacher Becky Sasala (sister of John Joseph Adams) has received hundreds of donated books for her classroom library since her appeal was posted in September (item #2).
There's no rest for the English teacher. You guys have compiled just over 700 books for my school! This was the first batch. We filled that cart twice more! pic.twitter.com/AV6bSUSJpE
— Becky Sasala (@Becky_Sasala) November 22, 2017
Updated classroom library. #englishteacher
A post shared by Becky Donovan Sasala (@becky_sasala) on Oct 22, 2017 at 12:33pm PDT
(3) NEW HUMBLE BOOK BUNDLE. The "Humble Book Bundle: Stellar Sci-Fi & Fantasy by Tachyon" is offered for a short time at the usual pay-what-you-want rates. Pay more, unlock more books.
Falling In Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson (World Fantasy Award Winner)
The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer
In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle
Invaders by Junot Diaz, Katherine Dunn, Jonathan Lethem, contributors
Wicked Wonders by Ellen Klages
The Very Best of Kate Elliott
The Very Best of Tad Williams
Beyond the Rift by Peter Watts
Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology by John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, contributors
Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip
Pirate Utopia by Bruce Sterling
Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century by Cory Doctorow
Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror by Stephen King, Clive Barker, George R. R. Martin, contributors
Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds (Locus Award Winner)
Not So Much, Said the Cat by Michael Swanwick (Hugo Award Winner)
Hap and Leonard Ride Again by Joe R. Lansdale
Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, contributors
The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Hugo Award Winner)
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar (Campbell Award Winner)
Yesterday's Kin by Nancy Kress (Nebula Award Winner)
Led Astray: The Best of Kelly Armstrong
Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade by Joe R. Lansdale
Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, contributors
The New Voices of Fantasy by Peter Beagle, Jacob Weisman, contributors
(4) SPEED SHOPPING. Pornokitch's 2017 gifting guide begins with Becky Chambers' suggestions:
Becky recommends:
If they need a laugh after this garbage fire of a year, then get them season one of The Good Place, because we're all messy humans, we're all caught up in stupid systems beyond our control, and we all could use some frozen yogurt.
If they're still ride or die for Game of Thrones while simultaneously nursing a bitter resentment over how much better this show could do by its female characters, then get them the Skyrim Special Edition and let them live their own high fantasy adventure. It's got all the time-sucking goodness of the original game, but the art's gloriously remastered, the DLC's unlocked, and the bugs are (mostly) fixed.
If they aren't religious but love the winter holidays for symbolizing love and kindness in the face of the freezing dark, then give them The Bonobo and the Atheist by primatologist Frans de Waal. It's a thought-provoking, perspective-altering, brain-calming book about compassion as natural instinct….
(5) PIXAR EXEC PLACED ON "SABBATICAL". The Washington Post's Steven Zeitchik, in "Disney animation guru John Lasseter takes leave after sexual misconduct allegations" follows up The Hollywood Reporter piece about John Lasseter being sidelined on sexual harassment allegations by noting that Lasseter is "one of the most important figures in modern entertainment…in charge of hundreds of people, making discipline a more fraught affair."
Citing a six-month "sabbatical," Lasseter closed the letter to employees saying he looked forward to "working together again in the new year."
It remains unclear whether Disney could extend the leave or make it permanent. The company released a short statement late Tuesday saying that it is "committed to maintaining an environment in which all employees are respected and empowered to do their best work. We appreciate John's candor and sincere apology and fully support his sabbatical."
…The Hollywood Reporter piece cited one woman as saying Lasseter was prone to "grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes." Another woman said that Lasseter's statement Tuesday that centered on hugs minimized the alleged offenses. Many of the accusers were anonymous.
The story said that the writer-actor Rashida Jones had left "Toy Story 4" because of Lasseter's behavior. But she and writing partner Will McCormack later issued a statement that "we did not leave Pixar because of unwanted advances. That is untrue." They said instead that diversity concerns played a role. "There is so much talent at Pixar and we remain enormous fans of their films. But it is also a culture where women and people of color do not have an equal creative voice," they wrote.
(6) BLABBING FOR DOLLARS. SyFy Wire says "J.J. Abrams is selling Star Wars spoilers for a good cause".
When J.J. Abrams directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he was his usual secretive self right up until the end. But something seems to have changed in the Star Wars/J.J. Abrams universe since he was tapped to direct Star Wars Episode IX. He's now selling Star Wars spoilers to the highest bidder.
After Ron Howard's masterful use of social media when it came to getting fans engaged with Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy announced a shift in the company's attitude toward sharing more information with the fans, and we even saw a verified Twitter handle pop up for Abrams (no tweets yet, but we remain hopeful), but J.J.'s appearance on HBO's Night of Too Many Stars definitely qualifies as a new development.
To help raise money for autism, J.J. offered up the plot of Star Wars Episode IX to one lucky bidder. What happened next? Well, you'll just have to watch….
(7) UNLIKELY PAIR. Yahoo! Entertainment writer Gwynne Watkins, in "'Star Wars: The Last Jedi': 7 things we just learned", summarized the Entertainment Weekly issue devoted to the film, and says that a reunion between Luke and Leia is highly unlikely and General Leia's successor is her childhood friend Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dern.
One of the biggest questions for longtime Star Wars fans is whether estranged twins Luke and Leia will find one another in The Last Jedi, since Carrie Fisher died before shooting any scenes for Episode IX. (Lucasfilm has said they will not digitally recreate the character to conclude her storyline.) EW won't say either way, but their coverage suggests that a reunion may have been planned for the third part of the trilogy, which is slated for 2019 and hasn't begun production. Nevertheless, director Rian Johnson chose to pair Luke (Mark Hamill) and Leia on one of EW's four covers. "It's nice seeing them on the cover though. Even if all we have is that," Johnson told the magazine.
(8) PROP WORTH MORE THAN MOVIE. After Bonham auctioned Robby the Robot for over $5.3M, Phil Nichols of Bradburymedia did a little checking —
According to Wikipedia (so it MUST be true!), the movie cost $1,968,000. It took in $2,765,000 at the box office. So Robby alone has earned nearly double what the film earned.
(9) TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES FOR FORTY THOUSAND BUCKS, Another sff treasure sold at yesterday's auction was "A Harper Goff scrapbook pertaining to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", for $40,000 including premium.
"Forget Robby," says Andrew Porter. "Click on images to see gorgeous preproduction paintings and behind-the-camera photos."
Titled "A history in informal photography," this is production designer Harper Goff's personal scrapbook documenting every stage of the making of his masterpiece, Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This is a mother lode of original artwork, rare photographs, and ephemera from the film, curated throughout with Goff's handwritten captions. Goff's original art in this lot includes an incredible series of 5 vividly-colored, action-packed sequential paintings of the submarine Nautilus' attack on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
(10) PHOENIX EVENT CANCELLED. From Nerdvana we learn — "LepreCon 44 cancels 2018 Phoenix Science Fiction and Fantasy Art Expo".
The Phoenix Science Fiction and Fantasy Art Expo, which was scheduled for March 16-18, 2018, in conjunction with and presented by LepreCon 44, is apparently canceled — but may be retooled.
…According to the group's Facebook page and website, "LepreCon 44, in the form of the Phoenix Sci-Fi & Fantasy Art Expo, which was scheduled for March 2018 at the Unexpected Art Gallery, has been cancelled. LepreCon, Inc. is no longer associated with any event of that name.
(11) UNDER THE HAMMER. Dominic Winter Auctioneers will be handling the sale of The Library Of Richard Adams on December 14. The catalog is now available in print and online.
Comprising 1500 books sold singly and in groups in a total of 134 lots, the antiquarian highlights include a Shakespeare Second Folio, 1632, a uniformly calf-bound set of the first editions of Jane Austen, a very rare first edition of John Milton's Lycidas, 1638, and a two-volume first edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, 1755. Among the highlights of the children's books are first editions of Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows and the four Winnie-the-Pooh books. Adams's deep interest in the history of English literature, poetry, nineteenth-century fiction and country matters is also reflected throughout the collection, many of the highlights of which bear his bookplate.
(12) COCO. NPR's Bob Mondello says: "In 'Coco,' Pixar Finds Joyous Life — In Death"
We get there alongside young Miguel (voiced by Anthony Gonzalez), who lives with his shoemaking family in a Mexican village. He's a happy kid, except for one thing: His family has lived an entirely music-free existence for three generations. His grandmother (Renee Victor) has forbidden it all — no blowing into soda bottles, no listening to passing car radios and absolutely no mariachis.
Miguel knows why. Years ago, his musical great-great-grandfather grabbed his guitar and left, never to return. On Dia de Muertos — the Day of the Dead — when it's said the deceased return to visit their families, no one so much as mentions great-great-granddad. Which means Miguel gets a bit of a shock when he strums a guitar in a cemetery on that day and finds himself and his street puppy Dante — get it? — transported to the land of the dead.
(13) TANZER REVIEWED. NPR's Jason Sheehan approves of subtlety: "'Creatures Of Will And Temper' Is A Slow-Burn Slide Into Deviltry"
The biggest problem with most urban fantasy is that, by nature, it becomes alternate history. It's Renaissance Italy, but with vampires. Or Victorian England, but everyone wears cool goggles and has an airship!
And there's nothing wrong with that. There are stories out there that have done wonders with their skewed versions of our shared past. I'm just saying it's rare for a writer to be able to do one (insert a fantasy element into a historical setting) without doing the other (letting the dragons eat the townsfolk, thereby giving rise to Bert the Dragonbasher, hero of West Crudwell, or whatever). And when someone pulls it off as well as Molly Tanzer in her new novel, Creatures of Will and Temper, it's worth checking out just to see the restraint and careful worldbuilding gymnastics required.
Honestly, if that was the only thing Tanzer accomplished here, I'd be impressed. She has created a Victorian England which is, in all noticeable ways, exactly the Victorian England we know — the mother of our modern world, by turns smoky, smutty, gross and backward, then beautiful, wondrous and louche with the turn of a corner. And yet, embedded in it — woven so closely into the fabric of normalcy that almost no one can see it — Tanzer has given us … demons.
(14) DON'T SPARE THE ROD. John W. Campbell would have been thrilled to hear it: "U.K. Water Companies Sometimes Use Dowsing Rods To Find Pipes".
Most of the major water companies in the United Kingdom use dowsing rods — a folk magic practice discredited by science — to find underwater pipes, according to an Oxford Ph.D. student and science video producer who accidentally discovered the practice is still in use.
Ten out of the U.K.'s 12 regional water and sewer utilities confirmed to Sally Le Page that they at least occasionally use dowsing rods, also known as divining rods or "witching sticks," to locate underground water sources. Many of the companies later emphasized that dowsing is done by individuals, not as a company-wide policy, and that it does not cost any money.
Le Page began asking water companies about the practice after her parents told her that they saw a water technician holding "two bent tent pegs" to decide how much of the road needed to be closed off. Le Page was incredulous and started asking water companies if this was an actual practice they used.
(15) FREQUENT VISITOR. It's been in and out of Europe multiple times: "Plague reached Europe by Stone Age".
Plague was present in Europe during the late Stone Age, according to a study of ancient remains.
Writing in Current Biology journal, researchers suggest the deadly bacterium entered Europe with a mass migration of people from further east.
They screened more than 500 ancient skeletal samples and recovered the full genomes of plague bacteria from six individuals.
These six variously date to between Late Neolithic and Bronze Age times.
The plague-positive samples come from Russia, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia and Croatia.
"The two samples from Russia and Croatia are among the oldest plague-positive samples published. They are contemporary with [a] previously published sample from the Altai region [in Siberia]," co-author Alexander Herbig from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, told BBC News.
The plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, was responsible for several major historic pandemics, including the infamous Black Death in the 14th Century, which is estimated to have killed between 30% and 60% of Europe's population.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contrinbuting editor of the day Kip W.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged Becky Chambers, Disney, Humble Bundle, J.J. Abrams, LepreCon, Molly Tanzer, Phil Nichols, Pixar, Pornokitsch, Richard Adams, Robby the Robot, Star Wars, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Worldcon 76
Pixel Scroll 9/19/17 These Are A Few Of My Favorite Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Posted on September 19, 2017 by Mike Glyer
(1) DARMOK AND JALAD AT THE TIKI BAR. ThinkGeek invites you to get your "Star Trek The Next Generation Geeki Tikis".
La Forge, Picard, Worf, Cardassian, Borg, Ferengi
Allow us to raise a toast to your taste in housewares with these Star Trek The Next Generation Geeki Tikis. A set of six, these tiki mugs let you drink with Captain Picard, Geordi La Forge, Worf, a Cardassian, a Ferengi, and the Borg. Yes, all of the Borg since they're a collective consciousness. Best not to play trivia against that one. These tiki mugs hold around 14 oz. each, and they'll look great next to your Horga'hn fertility statue.
(2) BOOK DONATIONS REQUESTED. John Joseph Adams posts:
Got any books you'd like to donate to a good home? My sister's looking for donations for her school's library:
In "Nothing to Read", teacher Becky Sasala explains the need.
I recently assigned my juniors to independently read a book every nine weeks. We took part of a class period and visited the media center to ensure that every student had access to a variety of books. I was absolutely floored by the emptiness of the building. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised; the county that I work (and live) in is a poor rural county. The average wage in Hoke County is $18,421. Most households' combined income is less than $50,000. Less than 15% of adult residents hold a degree beyond high school. I also discovered that the library has not had any money to purchase new books since 2009. 2009!
Books appropriate for high school students can be sent to the following address:
Hoke County High School
c/o Rebecca Sasala
505 Bethel Rd.
More information at the linked post. There's also a related Amazon wish list.
(3) HEINLEIN UNBOUND. Farah Mendlesohn, a historian, critic and fan who is a Hugo, BSFA, and BFA winner, and WFA, Mythopoeic, and Locus Award finalist for her scholarly non-fiction works on science fiction and fantasy, is crowdfunding the publication (by Unbound) of her critical study of the writings of a giant of the SF genre.
As you all know, I had to withdraw my book on Heinlein from the original publisher due to length. As I explored other options it became clear that no academic publisher could take it without substantial cuts, and no one who read it, could suggest any. So I am utterly delighted to be able to say that Unbound, a crowdsourcing press, have agreed to take the book.
Robert A. Heinlein began publishing in the 1940s at the dawn of the Golden Age of science fiction and carried on writing until his death in 1988. His short stories contributed immensely to the development of science fiction's structure and rhetoric, while his novels (for both the juvenile and adult markets) demonstrated that you could write hard SF with strong political argument. His vision of the future was sometimes radical, sometimes crosswise, and towards the end in retrenchment. He continues to influence many writers whether in emulation or reaction. Recent controversies in science fiction have involved fighting over Heinlein's reputation and arguing about what his legacy is and to whom he belongs…
The key thesis of the book is a challenge to the idea of Heinlein as a libertarian and resituating him as a classical Liberal in the terms he understood; a man who prized the individual highly but understood the individual as at their best when enmeshed in the complex structure of a nurturing society.
Support levels start at £12 for the e-book, and higher levels include hardback copies, critiques of supporters' non-fiction, workshops, and afternoon tea plus a tour of the personal library of Mendlesohn and SF critic Edward James.
(4) THE STORIES YOU WANT. Like everyone, Liz Bourke has her own specific set of interests, however, most readers have privately asked themselves the question in the title of her latest column, "Sleeps With Monsters: Why Can't More Books Pander To Me?" at Tor.com.
I'm a queer woman (bisexual, and to a degree genderqueer, if precision matters). Much of my reading experience, particularly with new-to-me authors, and even more so with male authors, involves bracing for things that are tiresome, wearying, and/or hurtful. Whether it's active misogyny, background sexist assumptions, gratuitous sexual assault of women (which may or may not be used to motivate the character arc or development of male protagonists), Smurfettes, women without communities that include other women, transphobia, Buried Gays, or just the general sense that the world the author's created has no room for people like me in it, there's frequently a level of alienation that I need to overcome in order to be able to enjoy a new book—or film, or television show, or videogame, etc.—and constantly being braced for that alienation is exhausting.
And that's even before we get to books that are outright badly done, alienating in ways that aren't aimed at me (but fuck racism), or just aren't to my tastes (a lot of comedy, most horror, certain themes that need to be really well done to work for me).
But I'm so used to experiencing this alienation, or to expecting it, that it's a wrenching shock when I find books that just… welcome me in. That don't place any barriers in my way. I don't notice the amount of effort overcoming this alienation requires until I don't have to make that effort—like not really knowing how much pain you were in until it stops.
(5) THE HOME STRETCH. Artist Gary Gianni's Kickstarter to publish Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea, Gianni's book with Mike Mignola, has gotten a great reception – in fact, they've just added their FOURTH stretch goal reward –
FOURTH STRETCH GOAL ANNOUNCED! Free all-new fully illustrated The Call of Cthulhu book by Gianni with 100 pencil drawings to all Kickstarter supporters who pledge $50 or more if we reach our Stretch Goal #4, 80K goal!
Gianni's many credits include illustrating George R.R. Martin's A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
(6) 21ST CENTURY AIR TRAVEL. The title promises "WorldCon 2017, aka The Best, Most Tedious Disaster Story Ever" and Anaea Lay delivers. And yet I read it all. Highly illogical!
When that broke up and it was time to head home, several of the people I'd been hanging out with very kindly and English-ly refused to go on to their hotel before making sure I could find where I was staying, despite my insistence that this was unnecessary. The joke was on them, though, because I managed to have a fail-tastic adventure anyway. You see, I knew the address of where I was staying, and I had the keys for getting in. What I didn't have was the apartment number. In a building with eight floors.
(7) MARKETING TECHNIQUE. RedWombat explains a new piece to her agent:
AGENT: ….
ME: That was a terrible elevator pitch, wasn't it?
AGENT: Just send it to me.
— The Wombat Resists (@UrsulaV) September 18, 2017
(8) HE LOOKS BEFORE HE LEAPS. Arnie Fenner interviewed John Fleskes at Muddy Colors earlier this week. How many bungee-jumping publishers do you know?
People don't normally equate daredevils with art books: how does doing death-defying stunts segue into becoming a publisher?
Well, the risk of doing a stunt and that of running a business is very similar, really. So, people have the tendency to call us "extreme" or "daredevils" but in reality each stunt is very calculated and planned far in advance. It's not like we would just hook up a random bungee cord to anything and just jump off. I worked for a pair of brilliant engineers who would include us in the planning stages and I really learned to appreciate the analytical process of working for those who set up highly complicated stunts where peoples lives were on the line. By the time the actual stunt would happen, sure, if you went off script you could die, but there really wasn't anything to seriously worry about. Oh, man, jumping out of a hot air balloon at 500 feet and falling 300 feet, now that is a feeling of absolute freedom to fly like that!
But, my real point is that it is a calculated risk when doing a stunt. Days, or weeks, or months of planning can go into what we did. It's exactly the same with Flesk. Everything that I do is a risk. Instead of risking my life, I'm risking all of my finances, my company, and my livelihood.
…The Call For Entries for Spectrum 25 will go out in a few weeks: can you share some of your perspective after having led the competition, judging, and annual for the past 4-going-on-5 years?
The greatest part of Spectrum, without a doubt, has been its community. It's the people that make it worthwhile year after year. We're all in it together, it's here because of the generosity, the support and the downright goodwill of everyone involved. It's so much bigger than me, it's not about me whatsoever, but like I've mentioned before, it lets me play a role in doing for others. If I do things right, my name never comes to the front or is in the spotlight. I want it to be about the artists. That's the part at the end of the day that satisfies me the most. That's my drive. I prefer to work in the background as much as possible, only coming out when absolutely necessary and only when it is to serve others. This community, these artists, it's one of the greatest things I've ever been a part of. That you and Cathy would tap me on the shoulder, that they would see something in me, I'm forever grateful. You've treated me like family. I'm truly blessed to know you both and be a part of Spectrum. You know, I'm still a bit shocked by where I am today? I never would have expected any of this.
(9) TODAY'S DAY
(10) TODAY IN ALLEGED HISTORY
September 19, 1961 – Betty and Barney Hill were abducted for two hours by a UFO.
(11) TODAY IN REGULAR OLD HISTORY
September 19, 2000 – Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel about the glory years of the American comic book, was published. It won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
(12) TODAY'S BIRTHDAY WIZARD
Born September 19, 1979 — Hermione Jean Granger
(13) TODAY'S BIRTHDAY CAPED CRUSADER
Born September 19, 1928 – Adam West
(14) TODAY'S BIRTHDAY U.N.C.L.E. AGENT
Born September 19, 1933 – David McCallum
(15) LIVING PROOF. Remember when the Worldcon's new YA Award couldn't be called the Tesseract out of courtesy to an existing Canadian anthology series? If you weren't already acquainted with it, now's your chance. Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) edited by Spider Robinson and James Alan Gardner will be released in the U.S. on October 9. (It's already available in Canada.)
Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) is an anthology of hard and soft science fiction stories that best represent a futuristic view of the sciences and how humanity might be affected (for better or worse) by a reliance in all things technological.
The stories contained within the pages of Compostela are a reflection of the world we live in today; where science produces both wonders and horrors; and will leave us with a future that undoubtedly will contain both. Journeys to the stars may be exhilarating and mind-expanding, but they can also be dangerous or even tragic. SF has always reflected that wide range of possibilities.
Featuring works by these Canadian visionaries:
Alan Bao, John Bell, Chantal Boudreau, Leslie Brown, Tanya Bryan, J. R. Campbell, Eric Choi, David Clink, paulo da costa, Miki Dare, Robert Dawson, Linda DeMeulemeester, Steve Fahnestalk, Jacob Fletcher, Catherine Girczyc, R. Gregory, Mary-Jean Harris, Geoffrey Hart, Michaela Hiebert, Matthew Hughes, Guy Immega, Garnet Johnson-Koehn, Michael Johnstone, Cate McBride, Lisa Ann McLean, Rati Mehrotra, Derryl Murphy, Brent Nichols, Susan Pieters, Alexandra Renwick, Rhea Rose, Robert J. Sawyer, Thea van Diepen, Nancy SM Waldman.
(16) THE EIGHTIES WERE STRANGER. Adweek is enthusiastic: "Netflix Is Making Stranger Things Versions of Classic '80s Movie Posters, and They're Amazing".
Netflix is pulling out all the stops on social media in the weeks leading up to Season 2. Last month, the show's official Twitter account began giving fans more of what they want by launching a weekly recap of each episode of the first season under the hashtag #StrangerThursdays, and tying each episode to a classic '80s film.
Even more impressive, the art team at the show has paid homage to each film's original poster art while placing the Stranger Things cast members in its universe. The tweets also include copy referencing the movies that inspired them.
The post has all of them, but here's one example.
#StrangerThings recreated 7 classic movie posters for s2!
Via @EW https://t.co/UmtX3k2xCH pic.twitter.com/zXIMSf0L8i
— Nerd Fu (@TheNerdFu) September 19, 2017
A fan has been inspired to make another —
Seeing the 80s retro posters for Stranger Things Season 2 inspired me to make my own. Name the 80s movie poster. pic.twitter.com/jegTsFdaIT
— a-wop (@CAVargas23) September 15, 2017
(17) UHHH. A comic linked from File 770 prompted Steve J. Wright to refer to his Lego-playing days as "Grotesque Sexual Deviancy".
At least, we thought we were just having fun. It turns out, though, that we were transgressing the boundaries of gender as laid down by God and marketing departments. We should never have engaged in the heinous perversion of unsegregated Lego. Our Lego should have been sorted into strong, potent, manly Lego (mine) and soft, gentle, feminine Lego (my sister's), and the division should have been rigorously maintained. All these years I thought we were just playing with Lego, and instead we were promoting an insidious non-binary genderqueer agenda that subverts all the established notions of masculinity and femininity, that causes confusion and actual harm to children who are too young to handle the idea of boys playing with girls' Lego, that will probably pollute our precious bodily fluids and hasten the downfall of Western civilization.
I thought we'd just got a sensible arrangement, so that if, say, my sister wanted to hold a state funeral for one of the Crater Critters, she could grab a bunch of black Legos and build a hearse without any arguments. Now I know that we were, in fact, undermining the very foundations of all that is good and decent and true.
(18) FRESH OUTBREAK OF TROLLS. Gwynne Watkins of Yahoo! Movies, in "'Star Wars' fan petition seeking removal of J.J. Abrams from 'Episode IX' picks up steam", writes that 3,000 people have signed a petition demanding that J.J. Abrams be removed as director of Episode IX because they feel that Disney promised a fresh director for every installment.
The petition at Change.org begins:
Star Wars fans abroad were upset with the result of J.J. Abrams' directing of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Although not reflected in the box office sales, most fans agree that Abrams' vision for Episode VII resulted in a rehash of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. There was virtually no creativity, and no risks taken. Such complacency cannot be the trajectory of this sequel trilogy. More specifically, the metric for success in a Star Wars movie cannot be box office sales. Lucasfilm and Disney *need* to listen to fan criticism. Star Wars fans deserve better. They demand better.
Almost 3,500 people have signed it so far.
(19) BONES. New books by the late Michael Crichton continue to appear. Fantasy Literature's Ryan Skardal renders a verdict on one that came out this past May in "Dragon Teeth: Palaeontologist wars"
Johnson is stranded in Deadwood with his bones, which everyone assumes is a cover for gold. Some readers may be pleased to learn that the Bone Wars between Cope and Marsh are drawn from history. Robert Louis Stevenson and Wyatt Earp also appear.
I did not find very much information on how finished Dragon Teeth was before publication, but, unlike Micro, there is no mention of another author who finished this work. It's tempting to point out that this novel about fossils seems more skeletal than most of Crichton's novels. The characters are flat, their interactions seem rushed, and every chapter is very short. There are moments of historical detail that are a bit more developed, such as when devout Christians express doubt about fossils and whether a perfect god could create something flawed — let alone something so flawed that it might go extinct. Even these details, however, feel like sketches.
(20) CON CEASES FOR SAFETY REASONS. The staff has put an end to an Ohio convention in the wake of the chair's criminal conviction. Nerd & Tie has the story: "Anime Punch Disbands After Con Chair Michael Beuerlein Pleads Guilty to Sexual Battery".
Columbus, OH based convention Anime Punch has been disbanded and will no longer hold any more events. The convention staff announced that they would be ceasing all future operations on in a statement on their official Facebook page on September 14…
The crime was prosecuted in Virginia, so probably was not committed at the convention.
(21) A SPECIALIZED NEED. Erika Satifka, in "Difference of Mind" at the SFWA Blog, points to a problem with most fictional treatments of mental illness.
According to the World Health Organization, one out of every four people will be affected by mental illness at some point in their lives. Considering this, it's important that when characters with mental illness are featured in one's writing, the subject is treated with sensitivity and accuracy. Novels that portray such disorders well can make a huge difference.
Em Kalberg, the protagonist of my debut novel Stay Crazy, has paranoid schizophrenia. As I researched the novel, I found that there were very few positive representations of people with schizophrenia, and not just in speculative fiction, but everywhere. The vast majority of the time, characters with psychotic disorders are monsters or killers….
Besides her own Stay Crazy, Satifka recommends fourteen other novels, novellas, and short story collections that prominently feature characters with mental illnesses or trauma.
(22) TIS THE SEASON. Time to be reminded about "The REAL Legend Behind the Halloween Tree at Disneyland":
Learning about Disneyland's storied history is as fun as spending a day getting your thrills on at all of the attractions. From true tragic stories inspiring haunting legends to secrets and facts only the biggest park fans know, there's always something else to discover about the Happiest Place on Earth – the legend of the Halloween Tree included.
Now, fans are probably familiar with the tree. The oak is located in front of the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland. Every Halloween since 2007, the tree is decorated in a special way with jack-o'-lanterns hanging from its branches – but have you ever wondered why? The story goes that author Ray Bradbury, famous for Fahrenheit 451 and countless other fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and horror works, loved Halloween – and had a long history with Disney. Bradbury was a huge proponent of the Walt Disney Company and made his support for it clear throughout the years.
(23) SETTING THEM STRAIGHT. Camestros Felapton has been dismantling "Vlad James'" attack on the science in an Ursula Le Guin novel The Lathe of Heaven.
James wrote:
Unfortunately, she was less self-aware than [Harry Harrison], and injected phenomenally idiotic, pseudo-scientific explanations in her stories constantly.
She also claims that it would take the atmosphere "several hundred years to get rid of the CO2". While I understand Le Guin found math difficult, if humans completely stopped producing CO2, it would take 9-12 days for the atmosphere to rid itself of the amount presently there. Or, if you believe global warm…err "climate change" hysterics, it will take…several years. A few hundred years is baseless ignorance.
But young Felapton, in "Science and Le Guin Part 2", shows —
The quote from Le Guin is genuine and from The Lathe of Heaven published in 1970. It is also scientifically correct (more or less) whereas the criticism is scientific nonsense – indeed it is error piled on error….
A thorough takedown follows.
(24) THE SMELL IS OUT THERE. This is pretty damn funny – Anime Conventions: An Honest Guide.
(25) A MAGICAL TIME. IMDB says Andy the Talking Hedgehog is up 778% in popularity this week. Articles like The Guardian's are the reason.
When Reid tweeted the Andy the Talking Hedgehog poster on Friday, the internet went nuts. That was partly because the poster featured a hedgehog, two cats, Dean Cain, Tara Reid's Twitter profile pic manipulated to look slightly more wholesome and an unattributed quote calling it "a magical good time". But it was also because the IMDb plot summary for the film read "Tara Reid brings her Oscar award-winning prowess to this documentary about a hedgehog that Dean Cain farted on giving it the ability to talk. It's a fun-loving family movie that will for sure make you say "WOWZA. That's a stinky fart!"' That summary, incidentally, was attributed to Scott Baio.
Obviously, like the rest of the world, I desperately wanted to know the story behind Andy the Talking Hedgehog. Although we can rule out the summary as nothing more than internet high jinks, it would appear that the film is real. Back in November actress Maria Wasikowski tweeted a photo from the Andy the Talking Hedgehog set, alongside Dean Cain and, one month later, Tara Reid Instagrammed a shot of her character, Fairy BFF.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Hampus Eckerman, JJ, Arnie Fenner, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, Karl-Johan Norén, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged Aenaea Lay, Arnie Fenner, Camestros Felapton, Castalia House, Disneyland, Erica L. Satifka, Farah Mendlesohn, Gary Gianni, Heinlein, J.J. Abrams, James Alan Gardner, John Fleskes, John Joseph Adams, Lego, Liz Bourke, Michael Crichton, Ray Bradbury, RedWombat, Ryan Skardal, Spider Robinson, Star Trek, Star Wars, Steve Wright, Stranger Things, Worldcon 75
Pixel Scroll 9/12/17 There Are As Yet Insufficient Pixels For A Meaningful Scroll
(1) ABRAMS BACK AT THE HELM. The Wrap's Beatrice Verhoeven and Umberto Gonzalez, in "J.J. Abrams To Replace Colin Trevorrow on STAR WARS: EPISODE IX", say that Disney says that Abrams has been signed to direct this Star Wars film after Trevorrow, who has been attached to Episode IX since 2015, was given the boot.
"With 'The Force Awakens,' J.J. delivered everything we could have possibly hoped for, and I am so excited that he is coming back to close out this trilogy," said Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy in a statement.
Abrams directed and produced "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in 2015. He is also serving as an executive producer on the upcoming film "The Last Jedi," out this December, which Rian Johnson is directing. Abrams will co-write "Episode IX" with Chris Terrio.
(2) A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. Time-lapse photography unexpectedly reveals that starships are built from wood.
(3) TOOTLE, PLUNK AND BOOM. And it's time that the new series theme embarked on a shakedown cruise.
When it comes to Star Trek, a dynamic main title theme is key. In this behind-the-scenes video for Star Trek: Discovery, composer Jeff Russo leads a 60-piece orchestra in recording the new series theme.
(4) THANKS FROM THE CENTER. The Center for Bradbury Studies hit its fundraising goal.
THANK YOU! Because of your generous support, the #CenterforRayBradburyStudies exceeded its #fundraising goal to raise over $6,000! In May, the Center received a generous grant from the Indiana Historical Society with a matching requirement that you helped raise. Thanks to you, we will be able to move forward in our mission to preserve and advance #RayBradbury's amazing legacy. We promise to steward your investments wisely. We'll do our best to keep you up to date on what's happening at the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies and the impact of your support. For those who missed the opportunity, the Preserving the World of Ray Bradbury crowdfunding site is still open. The collection is huge and our preservation needs continue. Thank you again, great Bradbury supporters, including those of you who support us regularly!!! #RayBradbury @indianahistory https://iufoundation.fundly.com/preservingtheworldofraybradbury
A post shared by The Ray Bradbury Center (@bradburycenter) on Sep 12, 2017 at 11:46am PDT
(5) VINTAGE TUBE. Echo Ishii has a new installment in her series of reviews of antique TV shows: "SF Obscure: The Tripods"
The Tripods TV series is a 1984-1985 YA SF series based on a series of books The Tripods by John Christopher. It ran for two seasons on the BBC. There are many changes from the books to the tv series though the basic concept remains the same.
The show begins in the future 2089. We see a pre-industrial version of England. Horse drawn carriages, family farms, etc. A young man in a suit is being congratulated by his friends and family for his "capping "ceremony. He takes off his hat to reveal his shaven head. Out of the sky comes a giant metal tripod, that lands in the lake and pulls the young man up inside.
(6) BELIEVERS IN THE MISANDRY CONSPIRACY. At the Emperor's Notepad a blogger who writes books as Xavier Lastra is convinced he has come up with a more profound explanation for the anti-male bias claims Jon Del Arroz has been selling online this week: "'Lit Bait' and preferences/discrimination in genre literature".
Because the artistic preferences of SF&F editors go way beyond a possible gender bias (which I'm sure exists in some places.) You could be a woman of color with an African-Asian name and a card-carrying member of the Communist Party that if you write a certain type of story, it will be ignored. If it gives off just a whiff of testosterone or sounds like an action-packed adventure yarn with a preference for honest and unironic drama and fun, without any pretense of being "mature," it won't be accepted. After all, they have an artistic image to maintain. They can't just publish any pulpy trash!
And here's where the feminine aspect comes into play. Obviously, women write all sort of stories, but there is a specific female subset that seems to be especially apt at writing the sort of sentimental Literary Bait, dripping with status anxiety and cheap progressive performances, that routinely gets awarded. It happens at all levels, from school contests to international literary awards. Call it "discrimination" or simply "preferences," but it's there.
(7) CAN YOU SAY, "ECOLOGICAL DISASTER"? I KNEW YOU COULD. The more I hear about these hippo books, the more intriguing they become. The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fic & Fantasy Blog's Martin Cahill gives Sarah Gailey's latest two tusks up: "The Hippo Mayhem Continues in Taste of Marrow".
Earlier this year, Sarah Gailey treated us to a book that made the phrase "alternate history western hippo caper" part of the vernacular. River of Teeth is a fun, nuanced tale of an alternate 19th century United States in which hippopotami were introduced into the environment to make up for a livestock shortage and soon overran their boundaries (something that really almost happened, save for a fateful vote in Congress). It's a novella chock full of what we love in a debut: memorable prose, a lush setting, precise worldbuilding, and a cast of diverse characters trying their best to pull off a caper, even with the odds against them.
If River of Teeth asked why and how this hippo-hunting posse formed up, sequel Taste of Marrow asks a different question: why do they stay together? Especially with the caper is in shambles, a key member of the crew dead, and another presumed dead at the hands of a pregnant assassin?
Several weeks after River of Teeth, the feral hippos once penned into the Mississippi have been let loose, and Archie and Houndstooth are fleeing to parts left un-feraled.
(8) WEIN REMEMBRANCE. NPR's Glen Weldon paid tribute to the late Lein Wein on Morning Edition: "Comic Book Legend Len Wein Dies At 69".
GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: Len Wein wrote and edited the adventures of many well-known superheroes over the course of his career – your Batmans, your Hulks. But he created Wolverine with artists John Romita Sr. and Herb Trimpe. Hugh Jackman played him on screen for years. With his extendible, razor-sharp, adamantium claws, he isn't much of a talker.
(SOUNDBITE OF SCREAMING)
WELDON: He's more of a grunter, and slasher and stabber.
(SOUNDBITE OF SLASHING)
WELDON: Wolverine was an innovative superhero in several ways. He was hotheaded. He was hyperviolent. He was Canadian. Most importantly, he was an antihero, one of an emerging breed of characters who strained against the good-guy-versus-bad-guy formula of old-school comics. As Wein explained in the 2016 PBS documentary, you couldn't pin the guy down.
Video Games Day
History of Video Games Day
The history of Video Games Day is really the history of the video game, and that history goes back much farther than most people imagine. The first game ever created is often thought to be Bertie the Brain, an artificial intelligence designed to play Tic-Tac-Toe. Considering that Bertie was a 4 meter high machine built on vacuum tube technology, you can imagine it didn't get out much, in fact, it was disassembled after the Canadian National Exhibition it was revealed at, and never rebuilt. A year later a computer was built called Nimrod, Nimrod was a computer built and displayed at the Festival of Britain in 1951 and designed to play a game called Nim.
September 12, 1958 – The Blob premiered.
September 12, 1993 — Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman premiered on the small screen.
(11) TODAY'S BIRTHDAY POET
Born September 12, 1942 – Marge Simon, Grand Master of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association.
(12) HURRICANE HARVEY FALLOUT. The 100 Year Starship Symposium that was scheduled for this weekend in Santa Monica has been postponed til next year.
While we were busily and excitedly preparing for the debut of the NEXUS 2017 event in Santa Monica this month, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, the administrative, programming and operational headquarters of 100 Year Starship (100YSS).
As you know from all the news reporting, Hurricane Harvey effectively stopped Houston business, transportation, commerce and private activities at homes for five days or more. All aspects of the work on NEXUS was severely disrupted. And though the skies are clear in Houston now, the problems of catching up in the face of clean-up and remediation of this natural disaster — currently called the most severe in U.S. history – continue. We tried diligently, but it has been impossible to overcome Harvey's impact.
The NEXUS event team huddled and decided to postpone NEXUS so that it will be the type of wildly transformational, engaging and magical event planned.
Space. Radical. Vital. Down to Earth.
We are working to reschedule NEXUS for the first quarter of 2018 and should have new dates shortly.
However, one of the weekend's scheduled events will still take place —
The 25 Strong! Celebration under the Space Shuttle Endeavour at the Oschin Pavilion of the California Science Center will take place in Los Angeles on Friday, September 15 as originally scheduled since most of the planning and logistics activities were handled there. If you had planned to attend, are local or have safe travel plans, then please join us.
Patrick S. Tomlinson will be hosting 25 Strong.
So here's the special guest list of the event I'll be hosting on Saturday. No pressure… pic.twitter.com/LDEx2MFxc6
— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) September 11, 2017
(13) LAWS WERE BROKEN. In "Still A Harsh Mistress – Andy Weir: Artemis" at Spekulatív Zóna, Bence Pintér reviews the new novel by the author of The Martian.
Nevertheless, Jazz needs money. Very, very much. And that's the point when one of her old clients, a Norwegian billionaire businessman comes up with a plan. It is complicated, but it's a piece of cake for a woman as talented as Jazz. The job pays a lot of money. It is also illegal as hell. And as it turns out, it can really affect the future of Artemis. By the way: why everyone is suddenly crazy about the failing aluminium industry?
The start is a bit bumpy, but after we learn more about Jazz and her ways, the novel shifts to full throttle. The elements are almost the same as in The Martian: a lot of fun in the narration by the badass protagonist and loads of Moon-science instead of Mars-science. Also with some sparkling dialogues and one-liners, the Brazilian mafia, and a collection of misfit friends of Jazz. Jazz is doing a lot of illegal stuff, so forget about the heroism of Mark Watney. And also say goodbye to space potatoes: all you got in exchange is algae-based food called Gunk, which is awful by all accounts.
(14) 19TH-CENTURY RESISTANCE LEADER. GF Willmetts of SFCrowsnest has some iconoclastic things to say about "The Forgotten Genius Of Oliver Heaviside by Basil Mahon (book review)".
Much of the formulas and his science, especially his legacy, are in the footnotes at the back of the book. It would have made more sense to have incorporated much of this into the main contents of the book. If readers couldn't understand it, they can easily skip it but placing in notes brings it to secondary importance. I think even Heaviside would agree his maths is more important than his life.
(15) NOTE FROM THE DEAN. Crooked Timber's John Holbo helps you visualize what happens when "Robert Heinlein writes letters to editors and librarians".
Enough Lovecraft! Robert Heinlein! I'm reading Innocent Experiments:Childhood and the Culture of Popular Science in the United States, by Rebecca Onion. Chapter 4, "Space Cadets and Rocket Boys: Policing the Masculinity of Scientific Enthusiasms" has quite a bit of good stuff on Heinlein – well it would have to, wouldn't it? If you've read some Heinlein you kind of know what Heinlein is like. But there's good stuff here about his exchanges with editors. The guy was one serious SJW, insisting on his minority quotas. Of course, he always manages to make it weird in his cosmopolitan-but-All-American, messianic-rationalist-masculinist libertarian-disciplinarian anti-authoritarian-but-in-an-authoritarian-way way.
(16) GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY GAINS RECRUIT. Marvel says you can expect to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar space when the comic's next issue appears.
The Guardians have been tasked with some wacky and big adventures while doing the Grandmaster's bidding, which includes stealing from The Collector – and Star-Lord even accidently destroyed one of his favorite mix-tapes. Now, as they prepare for their Legacy arc THE INFINITY QUEST, they'll have to team up with the group that has been on their tails – the Nova Corps – as well as one ex-Avenger if they want to keep the universe safe.
"We're excited to have an Avenger joining the ranks of the Guardians…or is it the Nova Corps? Or both? Oh, you'll see," teased editor Jordan D. White. "Just know, he beat out some stiff competition, as you can tell by that cover of issue #12!"
Who exactly is this Avenger? One of the five Marvel superstars on this cover should give you a hint…
(17) HWA ANTHOLOGY. The Horror Writers Association's Haunted Nights will be released October 3:
Sixteen never-before-published chilling tales that explore every aspect of our darkest holiday, Halloween, co-edited by Ellen Datlow, one of the most successful and respected genre editors, and Lisa Morton, a leading authority on Halloween.
In addition to stories about scheming jack-o'-lanterns, vengeful ghosts, otherworldly changelings, disturbingly realistic haunted attractions, masks that cover terrifying faces, murderous urban legends, parties gone bad, cult Halloween movies, and trick or treating in the future, Haunted Nights also offers terrifying and mind-bending explorations of related holidays like All Souls' Day, Dia de los Muertos, and Devil's Night.
"With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfbane Seeds" by Seanan McGuire
"Dirtmouth" by Stephen Graham Jones"
"A Small Taste of the Old Countr" by Jonathan Maberry
"Wick's End" by Joanna Parypinski
"The Seventeen Year Itch" by Garth Nix
"A Flicker of Light on Devil's Night" by Kate Jonez
"Witch-Hazel" by Jeffrey Ford
"Nos Galen Gaeaf" by Kelley Armstrong
"We're Never Inviting Amber Again" by S. P. Miskowski
"Sisters" by Brian Evenson
"All Through the Night" by Elise Forier Edie
"A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds" by Eric J. Guignard
"The Turn" by Paul Kane
"Jack" by Pat Cadigan
"Lost in the Dark" by John Langan
"The First Lunar Halloween" by John R. Little
(18) NOPE. Madeleine E. Robins explains "No, I Won't Put You in My Book" at Book View Café.
I have a lot of friends who tuckerize, or even kill off people who have hurt them in their fiction. Sometimes they auction off naming for a character for charity. Sometimes a friend just works his/her way into a story. I found myself a member of the NYPD a few years ago, which was kind of interesting. I have nothing against having real-world names or real-world people showing up in fiction; I sometimes find it distracting, if it's a real-world name or person I personally know, but that's not enough reason to demand a practice be stopped. I don't kill off my enemies (wait, I have enemies?) or exes in my work, but again–that's me.
(19) CAT HERDERS. SJW symbols survive Irma: "Hurricane Irma: Rare animals survive devastating storm".
As Hurricane Irma cut a devastating path through the Florida Keys islands, a colony of six-toed cats appears to have survived without a scratch.
The furry felines, descended from a pet owned by Ernest Hemingway, ignored orders to evacuate as the winds swept through the writer's historic house.
Endangered deer native to the islands also appear to have survived the storm.
Florida Keys and western parts of the state bore the brunt of Irma in the US, with winds of up to 120mph (192km/h).
"Save the cats. Get all the cats in the car and take off!" the late Mr Hemingway's granddaughter, Mariel, urged in a video posted on Friday.
Staff responsible for maintaining the Hemingway Home Museum in Key West, Florida, chose to ride out the storm over the weekend in the property with 54 of their feline friends.
(20) SJW CREDENTIALS – ALL ABOARD! Unfortunately I can't get my computer to pick up an excerpt from "What It's Like to Ride Japan's Cat Café Train" at Atlas Obscura. You'll love the photos.
(21) ALWAYS NEWS TO SOMEONE. To make up for it, I will run another SJW Credential story I missed when it came out in 2016: Seanan McGuire and the TSA.
Today in exciting new things I have learned, blueberries can look suspicious enough to trigger an additional TSA search.
— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) May 5, 2016
(22) SCARES MORE THAN CROWS. "Giant Star Wars AT-AT model built in front garden" – video at the link.
A man has built a giant Star Wars model in his front garden.
The 20ft (6m) replica AT-AT – a combat vehicle in the Star Wars films – was built by Ian Mockett, 54, at his home in Harpole, Northamptonshire.
It took him and his friends a month to make it out of wood for the village's annual scarecrow festival.
(23) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Burn Out. JJ has anointed this a "strong contender for the DP Short Form Hugo."
Stella, a space mechanician, has broken down and ended on a desert planet. While she is in despair, a little girl appears out of nowhere. Following the child into a tunnel, in the depths of the planet, she discovers a big cave full of objects that belonged to her, reminding her the dreams she has left behind.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Alan Baumler, Cat Eldridge, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll | Tagged 100 Year Starship, Bence Pinter, Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University, Echo Ishii, Geoff Willmets, Glen Weldon, Guardians of the Galaxy, J.J. Abrams, JJ, John Holbo, Jon Del Arroz, Len Wein, Madeleine E. Robins, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Sarah Gailey, Seanan McGuire, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Wars, video games, Xavier Lastra
Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Glasgow 2024 PR1 Now Online
2023 World Fantasy Awards Judge To Be Replaced
Cats Sleep on SFF: Avalanche
Pixel Scroll 1/26/23 First, They Came For The Pixels, But I Was Not A Pixel, So I Scrolled Nothing
Oleksandr ZHOLUD on Lis Carey Review: Eversion
Lis Carey on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Bruce Arthurs on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Mike Glyer on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Troyce on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Thomas the Red on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
mark on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Andrew (not Werdna) on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Cat Eldridge on Pixel Scroll 1/27/23 Gully File Is My Name, And The Scroll's My Destination
Darien on 2023 World Fantasy Awards Judge To Be Replaced
Lis Carey on Glasgow 2024 PR1 Now Online
Andrew (not Werdna) on Glasgow 2024 PR1 Now Online
Kyra on 2023 Recommended SF/F List
Bonnie McDaniel on Cats Sleep on SFF: Avalanche
Bruce Arthurs on Cats Sleep on SFF: Avalanche
Mlex on Pixel Scroll 1/26/23 First, They Came For The Pixels, But I Was Not A Pixel, So I Scrolled Nothing
Darrah Chavey on 2023 World Fantasy Awards Judge To Be Replaced
Cassy B. on Glasgow 2024 PR1 Now Online
Cassy B. on Pixel Scroll 1/26/23 First, They Came For The Pixels, But I Was Not A Pixel, So I Scrolled Nothing
30s Fanhistory (12)
70s Fanhistory (132)
Cats Sleep on SFF (145)
Clipping Service (200)
Conventions (1,018)
Deep Space 770 (259)
Editorial Notes (335)
Fan Artists (95)
Fan Funds (249)
Fan Writers (79)
Fanzine Reviews (18)
Fanzines (259)
Graphic Examples (302)
Heard Online (982)
In Passing (991)
Like Show Business (2,797)
Masked Filers Reading SFF (17)
Pixel Scroll (2,709)
Poor Trufan's Almanack (475)
Reference Director! (63)
Sercon (385)
SF & Fantasy Art (215)
Skiffy (636)
Snapshots (148)
This Week in Words (20)
Worldcon (1,337)
Archives Select Month January 2023 (106) December 2022 (91) November 2022 (100) October 2022 (121) September 2022 (122) August 2022 (114) July 2022 (112) June 2022 (111) May 2022 (113) April 2022 (117) March 2022 (110) February 2022 (107) January 2022 (113) December 2021 (114) November 2021 (103) October 2021 (105) September 2021 (104) August 2021 (107) July 2021 (106) June 2021 (103) May 2021 (101) April 2021 (113) March 2021 (121) February 2021 (106) January 2021 (101) December 2020 (91) November 2020 (93) October 2020 (102) September 2020 (101) August 2020 (123) July 2020 (125) June 2020 (114) May 2020 (104) April 2020 (103) March 2020 (112) February 2020 (108) January 2020 (113) December 2019 (98) November 2019 (91) October 2019 (87) September 2019 (94) August 2019 (140) July 2019 (113) June 2019 (108) May 2019 (113) April 2019 (115) March 2019 (103) February 2019 (104) January 2019 (99) December 2018 (82) November 2018 (97) October 2018 (109) September 2018 (100) August 2018 (93) July 2018 (115) June 2018 (107) May 2018 (121) April 2018 (111) March 2018 (125) February 2018 (150) January 2018 (135) December 2017 (93) November 2017 (109) October 2017 (118) September 2017 (106) August 2017 (133) July 2017 (138) June 2017 (130) May 2017 (126) April 2017 (132) March 2017 (111) February 2017 (96) January 2017 (106) December 2016 (112) November 2016 (120) October 2016 (132) September 2016 (106) August 2016 (25) July 2016 (137) June 2016 (110) May 2016 (123) April 2016 (114) March 2016 (123) February 2016 (109) January 2016 (113) December 2015 (125) November 2015 (118) October 2015 (135) September 2015 (138) August 2015 (129) July 2015 (147) June 2015 (145) May 2015 (157) April 2015 (141) March 2015 (139) February 2015 (110) January 2015 (105) December 2014 (96) November 2014 (112) October 2014 (126) September 2014 (95) August 2014 (102) July 2014 (115) June 2014 (115) May 2014 (133) April 2014 (89) March 2014 (80) February 2014 (77) January 2014 (83) December 2013 (71) November 2013 (91) October 2013 (82) September 2013 (83) August 2013 (99) July 2013 (107) June 2013 (107) May 2013 (105) April 2013 (94) March 2013 (104) February 2013 (68) January 2013 (54) December 2012 (58) November 2012 (62) October 2012 (71) September 2012 (79) August 2012 (73) July 2012 (65) June 2012 (78) May 2012 (70) April 2012 (57) March 2012 (66) February 2012 (60) January 2012 (69) December 2011 (59) November 2011 (48) October 2011 (70) September 2011 (60) August 2011 (52) July 2011 (58) June 2011 (56) May 2011 (41) April 2011 (49) March 2011 (42) February 2011 (58) January 2011 (48) December 2010 (43) November 2010 (40) October 2010 (49) September 2010 (41) August 2010 (31) July 2010 (21) June 2010 (43) May 2010 (48) April 2010 (50) March 2010 (81) February 2010 (55) January 2010 (51) December 2009 (84) November 2009 (55) October 2009 (79) September 2009 (66) August 2009 (57) July 2009 (56) June 2009 (42) May 2009 (52) April 2009 (63) March 2009 (65) February 2009 (38) January 2009 (67) December 2008 (53) November 2008 (43) October 2008 (73) September 2008 (66) August 2008 (98) July 2008 (106) June 2008 (54) May 2008 (52) April 2008 (50) March 2008 (32) February 2008 (29) January 2008 (17) October 2007 (1) September 2007 (1) April 2007 (1) December 2006 (1) May 2006 (1) March 2006 (2) February 2006 (1) September 2005 (1) August 2005 (1) May 2005 (1) April 2005 (5) March 2005 (3) January 2005 (1) December 2004 (4) October 2004 (4) September 2004 (4)
Andrew Porter
Camestros Felapton
Carl Slaughter
Cat Rambo
Daniel Dern
Dublin 2019
Horror Writers Association
Hugo Awards
James Bacon
James Davis Nicoll
James H. Burns
John Hertz
John King Tarpinian
Kevin Standlee
LASFS
Paul Weimer
Sad Puppies
Scott Edelman
SFF in Translation
SFWA
Steve Vertlieb
Feedspot "Top 50 Science Fiction Blogs and Websites for Sci-Fi Fans"