26 Pixels Do Purr. Just Don’t Wake Them When They’re Doing It

Posted on July 10, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) NOOOOOOO!!! Among the featured lots in Heritage Auctions’ forthcoming “July 13 – 17 Hollywood & Entertainment Signature® Auction” is this iconic prop from “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (TCF, 1980)”.

VADER:
“Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”

LUKE:
“He told me enough! He told me you killed him!”

VADER:
“No. I am your father.”

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (TCF, 1980), Mark Hamill “Luke Skywalker” Screen-Used Lightsaber with Severed Hand Effects Rig from the Iconic Cloud City Duel with Darth Vader, Featured in J.W. Rinzler’s The Making of The Empire Strikes Back – the Definitive Archive of Star Wars History. Few props in cinematic history possess the immediate recognizability, cultural significance, and mythic stature of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber from Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back. More than a weapon, the lightsaber became the defining symbol of the Star Wars saga itself – the physical embodiment of the Jedi legacy and one of the most iconic prop designs ever created for the screen. Offered here is the original screen-used Luke Skywalker lightsaber seen during the climactic Cloud City duel between Luke and Darth Vader, culminating in one of the most shocking and influential moments in motion picture history.

The confrontation atop Bespin’s reactor shaft irrevocably altered the trajectory of the Star Wars narrative and delivered an image forever etched into popular culture: Luke’s severed hand, still clutching his lightsaber, disappearing into the abyss below. This extraordinary artifact remains the very lightsaber wielded by Luke Skywalker in that legendary sequence – a tangible relic from the precise cinematic moment when Star Wars transcended blockbuster entertainment and entered modern mythology….

(2) NEW SFF/H REVIEWS. Lisa Tuttle’s “The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup” in the Guardian covers Sublimation by Isabel J Kim; Last Day of a Prior Life by Andrés Barba; Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay; The Carrier by Ruth Newton; and Time to Burn by Ellery Lloyd.

(3) THE LATEST IN ‘CODES OF CONDUCT’. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] OK, so here am I having a lunch break not at an SF convention but on day two of a three-day science symposium on life and planet being held at the Geological Society, which itself has a Fellows room complete with a cybercafé. And so I can give you the latest as it happens.

Actually, it is all rather classy as we are at Burlington House in central London (off Piccadilly) which itself has a history dating from 1664. It is an old complex that houses the Geological Society, the Linnean Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry and, famously for the public, the Royal Academy of Arts. And we have our own Geological Society lecture hall that holds over 170 people, so it is perfect for us.

The event itself is going rather well and the first paper of the day looked at the Earth’s early microbial mats dating from some 3.2 billion years ago. Here, the British researchers are letting NASA have some of their samples so that NASA can analyse them using the same SHERLOC kit as is on the Mars Perseverance rover. The idea being that if there is any similarity between how SHERLOC sees the Martian samples and those of early-Earth microbial mats then that would be a very strong suggestion that early Mars also had microbial mats.

Another paper today was titled ‘What if Doctor Strange is a palaeobotanist: let fossil plants travel through space and time’. It is all cracking stuff. And, of course I am here (as I am most years but this time) plugging my next book (whose paperback is out at the end of next month – an case any Filers are also science-philes). So, no peace for the wicked.

Anyway, the thing about codes of conduct, here in the Brit-Cit science community, we seem to have imported codes of conduct from N. American symposia (I guess you folk on the other side of the Black Atlantic have possibly had more of a divided society since Trump 1?) But at this event I have noted that they (codes of conduct) have just further evolved. We did get a warning this morning (day 2) that some in the audience had been observed taking pictures of some scientists’ PowerPoint slides and this is clearly not on (nobody seems to have told some of the younger generation of scientists) as at these events work that has yet to go through peer review and get published is presented… but that’s not the really new thing.

The new thing about this year’s symposium’s code of conduct is that for the first time it includes artificial intelligence and of the importance of keeping anything learned at this event away from large language models!

I keep on telling folk that the machines are taking over, bit no-one ever seems to listen… well, now perhaps some are….!

(4) SFWA HELP WANTED. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association has initiated a search for the person who will fill the vacancy left by Isis Asare: “Now Hiring: SFWA’s Next Executive Director”. Full guidelines at the link.

Organization Overview

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization for published writers and industry professionals in the field of science fiction, fantasy, and related genres. Founded in 1965, SFWA runs the annual Nebula Conference, the Nebula Awards, and has a number of programs to assist authors worldwide.

Compensation: $77,000 – 85,000/year with benefits.

Status: This is a full time, salaried position. Candidates must be US-based and eligible for legal employment.

Location: Hybrid remote/on-site (annual conference location)

Position Overview

The Executive Director is the key management leader for SFWA. The Executive Director will provide strategic direction and overall leadership for the organization, ensuring its mission to support science fiction and fantasy writers around the world. The Executive Director is responsible for overseeing the administration, programs, and strategic plan of the organization….

(5) JEOPARDY! On last night’s show — Category: Alternative History Books.

(6) TOLKIEN LETTERS AUCTIONED. “JRR Tolkien fan letters sell at auction for £103k” reports BBC. (Subscription required for readers outside the UK.)

Books, letters and notes documenting the friendship between writer JRR Tolkien and a profoundly deaf fan have sold at auction for more than £100,000

Eileen Elgar, who died in 1980, used to live near the Hotel Miramar in Bournemouth where Tolkien and his wife holidayed every year.

Elgar wrote to the Lord of the Rings author, who lived in Oxford, in the 1960s and they began a friendship.

Among the lots, a letter mentioning the death of author CS Lewis and a signed copy of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil sold at Sotheby’s auction house in London for £20,480….

…Elgar’s grandaughter Helen Dutfield described her as “quite an isolated figure”.

She previously explained that the contact with Tolkien came about after Elgar had read some of his books.

“She kept talking to my mother about these amazing books that she was reading and she had lots of questions,” Dutfield said.

“My mother, who wasn’t interested in them at all, said ‘Why don’t you write to the author?’ – so that’s how that started,” she said.

As Elgar never learned to lip read, she and Tolkien communicated with notes whenever he visited her home in Bournemouth.

(7) DON’T PASS THIS BAR. Daytonian in Manhattan tells the nearly-two-century history of the building which today houses the bar where the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series is held: “Sewing Women, Socialists and Theater – 85 East 4th Street”.

…Around 1993, Woychuck opened the Kraine Gallery Bar, aka KGB. It was followed by a black box theater on the third floor called The Red Room. That space was remodeled in 2013 as a speakeasy-inspired performance venue.

Sharing the building in the 21st century are the New York Neo-Futurists which, according to The WNET Group’s website, “create theater that is fusion of sport, poetry and living-newspaper;” a branch of the New York Comedy Club; and the long-lasting KGB Bar…

(8) MULTIPLE MANIFESTOS. Cora Buhlert’s latest contribution to Galactic Journey is “[July 8, 1971] I read this stuff so you don’t have to: The Concept Urban Guerilla by Ulrike Meinhof and Conan the Buccaneer by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter”.

…Though the group doesn’t like the moniker the media has given them and so they have taken to calling themselves the Red Army Fraction, RAF for short. They also have a logo now – a five pointed star overlaid with a machine gun and the letters RAF. Because branding is everything – even for criminals….

…After struggling through the mess that is the Red Army Fraction manifesto, I needed a palate cleanser. Something fun and enjoyable. Something like a sword and sorcery adventure. And luckily, I spotted just such a book in the spinner rack of my trusty import bookstore, namely Conan the Buccaneer by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter….

…However, before we get to the actual story, Lin Carter treats us to what must be the worst introduction to a Conan book ever. I’m not sure why a Conan novel needs any introduction at all – since surely everybody who picks up a Conan book will at least have a vague idea who the Cimmerian Barbarian is. But if you must have an introduction, maybe you shouldn’t have one which completely misses the point of who Conan is and what Robert E. Howard was trying to do with the character….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 10, 1903 — John Wyndham. (Died 1969.)

By Paul Weimer: Cozy Catastrophe? My first encounter with John Wyndham’s work was anything but cozy. That would be, on good old WPIX, the movie version of Day of the Triffids, where Jeanette Scott fought a triffid that spits poison and kills, to quote Rocky Horror Picture Show. So when I finally picked up his work (The Chrysalids, I think was the first), I was quite taken and surprised by the “bait and switch” that my mind and expectations had for Wyndham’s work as opposed to the cinematic adaptation.

Wyndham did teach me something that I would learn later in novels such as Earth Abides, Alas Babylon, and even On the Beach, and that is that catastrophes, and disasters, even ones that end civilization as the protagonists know it, could be surprisingly gentle and not harsh as the world falls apart around them. There can be afternoon tea even as the tripods march across the landscape in an inescapable force of nature invasion.

I recently read The Midwich Cuckoos, and even more than Day of the Triffids (which I really think could be remade in this day and age. Hollywood, call me, I could write your script), it is the Wyndham work that really hits the fears and anxieties in an otherwise pastoral and idyllic English countryside. The horror that one’s children are, in effect, changelings is an old idea (going back to the ideas of Faeries switching children at birth) and the Midwich Cuckoos plays on that, and plays on that, hard. But it’s even more than the parents and adults being horrified by what is happening to the children, what might be happening with the very pregnancy you have. It is the idea that these children are forming a community, a society, a way of life that excludes you (which gets into fears of the generation gap. The use of the telepathic Cuckoos in the X-men series and how tight they are together under Emma Frost, takes that idea from Wyndham and makes it front and center. It’s their world, and not yours.

That shows, ultimately, John Wyndham and his legacy at his best.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Speed Bump has a new version.
The Argyle Sweater makes a slight change.

(11) FUTURE TENSE. The new Future Tense Fiction story for June 2026 is “Mirror, Mirror” by Sofia Samatar.

The story follows an artist and a technologist who set out to create a technological model that can replicate the experience of staring deeply into someone’s eyes. Enamored by the possibility of recreating such a fundamental human connection, they fail to consider what will happen if they can’t handle what the model reflects back.

There’s a response essay “In the Blink of an Eye”, by video game designer Will Hellwarth:

…So when I read Sofia Samatar’s story “Mirror, Mirror,” I felt as though it was speaking directly to me, a fellow meddler in eyes and art. At the heart of the story is a project undertaken by Oscar, an idealistic technologist, and Sabrina, a passionate young sculptor, to create a machinic set of eyes that can return and hold a person’s gaze. The endeavor is framed by Oscar as a way to advance social robotics, perhaps for medical applications, but it becomes increasingly clear that their quest is more ineffable and mystical: a search for truth and self-knowledge in the eyes of another. Like Oscar and Sabrina, I was trying to use the viewer’s own gaze to dredge up suppressed emotions and bring healing. And I hoped my game would be a shortcut, a way to practice grief without real loss….

(12) ALL WRAPPED UP. The Official Robert Bloch Website linked to an irresistible little story: “The Eyes of the Mummy” (Weird Tales, April 1938). (Direct Internet Archive link.) Here’s the introduction:

Surprisingly enough, the protagonist from “The Secret of Sebek” returns in this story which was published only five months later. Remember that he is an Egyptologist who travels to New Orleans to do some writing and is caught up in Mardi Gras. He meets a few strangers who turn out to be acolytes of the Egyptian god, Sebek, who have a fresh mummy that they want the protagonist to tell them about. Curses being what they are, Sebek arrives to exact vengeance on those who defiled his burial place. Despite the evidence of his eyes and hands, which touched the reptilian snout of the crocodile go, he still does not completely believe in the curse or anything else supernatural. He speculates early in “The Eyes of the Mummy” about how the realistic crocodile mask might have been constructed, how the jaws might have been built to open and close as he saw that they did. He blames alcohol from clouding his senses and confusing his judgment. When one of the survivors comes to him soon thereafter with an offer to travel to Egypt for an easy in and out plunder of ancient riches, the protagonist cannot say no. They arrive with no fanfare and venture out into the desert where they find the crypt entrance exactly as predicted….

(13) LOTS IN SPACE. “SpaceX wants to launch 100,000 Starlink satellites to orbit” reports Space.com.

SpaceX is nothing if not ambitious.

Elon Musk‘s company just filed an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate a 100,000-member constellation of “Gen3” satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

This will presumably be an updated version of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network, according to astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, who reported the news via X today (July 9)….

…The new plan would dramatically expand Starlink’s already extensive orbital footprint. SpaceX currently operates nearly 10,800 of the internet spacecraft in LEO and has FCC approval for about 4,000 more.

And each individual Gen3 satellite will be considerably larger than its predecessors. According to McDowell, SpaceX’s FCC application states that each one will weigh 4,400 to 5,500 pounds (2,000 to 2,500 kilograms) and cover an area of 3,230 to 4,300 square feet (300 to 400 square meters) with its solar arrays extended….

(14) JUSTWATCH MARKET SHARES. JustWatch – The Streaming Guide has published the latest Q2 2026 Market Shares report for the US. [Click for larger images.]

Things that stood out this quarter:

Netflix widened its lead, up 1pp to 20%, still comfortably ahead of Prime Video even with flat annual growth.
Apple TV+ is the one to watch, up 5pp year-over-year (the strongest annual gain of any platform) and now bigger than both Hulu and HBO Max.
Peacock Premium keeps quietly climbing, +2pp year-over-year.
Hulu just edged past HBO Max for fifth place, holding at 11% while HBO Max slid 2pp to 10%.

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

Apex Magazine Removes Suspected AI Story

Posted on July 10, 2026 by Mike Glyer

Apex Magazine today announced they have removed a short story from the latest issue which is suspected of having been written with AI assistance.

They also said the work of a second author has been removed from the shortlist for an upcoming anthology.

Here is the announcement as it was presented on Facebook.

Lesley Conner is the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief. Apex publisher is Jason Sizemore.

Apex Magazine was founded in 2005 and has published 153 issues to date.

Dinners with Robin

Posted on July 10, 2026 by Mike Glyer

By Rich Lynch: Notification reached me yesterday that my friend Robin Johnson had died. All of last evening and this morning I’ve been in denial. Up in my headspace he’s still very much alive – so much so that I’d half-convinced myself that I was going to see him at LAcon V.

As most of us in the science fiction community are well aware, Robin was one of Australia’s most renowned science fiction fans. He was Chair of the 1975 Aussiecon, which was the first time a Worldcon had been staged Down Under, and was a Guest of Honor at Aussiecon Four back in 2010. He had been twice presented Australia’s Ditmar Award, in 1974 and 1983, for “Contributions to Fandom” and in 2007, at the Yokohama Worldcon, had received the Big Heart Award which (according to Fancyclopedia 3) embodies “good work and great spirit long contributed”. Robin was the elder statesman of Australian fandom, a true patriarchal figure, and was a joy to be around. My wife Nicki and I had known Robin for many years but as far away as he lived from us, World Science Fiction Conventions were really the only times we ever crossed paths.

Robin and Rich, at the Italian restaurant

The final time was in 2019 at the Dublin Worldcon. It was the next-to-last day of the convention and late in the afternoon, when Nicki and I were pondering restaurant options, Robin and I spotted each other across the entrance hall of the convention centre. He was a bit mobility challenged at that point in his life, so we chose a place nearby – an above-average Italian restaurant named Milano. Nicki stayed only for an appetizer, as there was an across-town chili party happening that evening and she had wanted to retain as much of her appetite as possible. But I’m not a big fan of chili so spending some quality time with Robin was really a no-brainer. And it was very much a pleasure to have the opportunity to share a meal and exchange some of our travel and convention stories. And talk about places yet to be visited. We decided that there were still many, even at our advanced ages.

Alicia and Robin Johnson at the Lebanese restaurant during Anticipation (2009). Photo by Rich Lynch.

But that was not my first dinner with him. Back in 2009, in Montréal on the evening before the convention began, Nicki and I had dinner with Robin and his wife Alicia at at what turned out to be an overrated Lebanese restaurant in the convention center. I remember that the conversation was pleasant but the food much less so. And three years later, in Chicago, Robin was the Guest of Honor (of sorts) during a dinner expedition of probably about ten fans. Alicia had passed away a few months prior to the convention and I remember that we had all wanted to be with him so that he wouldn’t be alone. I think he sensed this, and the dinner turned out to be the best one of the convention for Nicki and me. And Robin, too, I believe, because all during the meal there was warm conversation, sharing of stories, and much laughter. It seemed clear that it was a happy time for him.

Other than the Dublin dinner, the one I remember the most happened in 2008 at the Denver Worldcon. It was the evening of the Hugo Awards and as we’d expected, our dinner was filled with far-ranging conversation on dozens of topics including, of course, Australia. But there was never even a hint from him of what the entire convention would find out the next day, when Melbourne had been announced as the winner of the 2010 Worldcon site selection vote and that he had been chosen as its Fan Guest of Honor. At some point during that meal I’d speculated on who the Aussiecon Four guests would be, but Robin had kept an admirable poker face.

I regret that it wasn’t really possible for Nicki and me to travel to Australia for the 2010 Worldcon. I would have very much enjoyed spending time with Robin, especially if there had been another memorable dinner expedition. So now here I am, trying to put together a few coherent paragraphs. I’d never thought that our dinner in Dublin would be the last time I’d see him. I’m grateful for all the times we crossed paths. And I feel sorry that there weren’t more of them. Farewell, my friend. May we meet again, by and by, at the centerline.

2026 Prometheus Best Novel and Hall of Fame Winners

Posted on July 10, 2026 by Mike Glyer

The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the Best Novel and Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction Prometheus Award winners for 2026.

THE PROMETHEUS AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

A Kiss for Damocles by J. Kenton Pierce has won the 2026 Prometheus award for Best Novel for novels published in 2025.

The citation says:

The science fiction novel, published by Raconteur Press and launching Pierce’s Tales From the Long Night series, illuminates the ethics and efficacy of free trade and self-defense as a proper foundation for civilization.

Pierce’s novel is set on a remote planet where humans in towns and homesteading communities are struggling to recover centuries after a catastrophic attack and volcanic cataclysm that set back and severely limits their use of advanced technology. At the story’s heart is Shai, a young homesteader facing harsh frontier conditions, corrupt Townie politicians, dangerous native species, and sinister forces amid still-functional A.I.-powered orbiting war machines.

Pierce celebrates the self-reliance and resilience of self-regulating frontier communities that survive and evolve based on the hard-won realities of voluntarism, mutual respect and cooperation. But this is also a cautionary tale about the deceptive ideals of a command-and-control politics and the perennial tendency toward abuse of power, reflected in the Townies’ push for higher taxation, fiat money and state takeover of education to indoctrinate new generations.

Narrating from her wry but hopeful perspective, Shai becomes a leader in her community’s struggles to defend their freedom, preserve their heritage and restore their world.

The other 2025 Best Novel finalists were Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer (Raconteur Press); War by Other Means, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); No Man’s Land, by Sarah Hoyt (Goldport Press); and Powerless, by Harry Turtledove (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.)

THE PROMETHEUS HALL OF FAME FOR BEST CLASSIC FICTION

Brave New World, a 1932 novel (Chatto & Windus) by Aldous Huxley, won the 2026 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

The citation says:

This dystopian classic offers a still-timely cautionary tale of collectivist soft tyranny under seemingly benevolent world government and technocratic central planning.

Critiquing his era’s rise of collectivism and scientism, Huxley warned about behavioral/biochemical conditioning, propaganda, censorship and manipulation of artificial wombs limiting intelligence and initiative to create and control different castes.

At a time when the intellectual and artistic elite saw most forms of authoritarian collectivism as the inevitable and positive wave of the future, Huxley foresaw the dark side of utopia. The novel explicitly dramatizes how such trends deny individuality, liberty, reason, romantic love, the family, history, and literature (including Shakespeare, which inspired the novel’s title).

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of Brave New World that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other Hall of Fame finalists were The Star Dwellers, a 1961 novel (Faber and Faber; Avon Books) by James Blish; That Hideous Strength, a 1945 novel (Scribner) by C.S. Lewis; Salt, a 2000 novel (Gollancz) by Adam Roberts; and Singularity Sky, a 2003 novel (Ace) by Charles Stross.

AWARDS CEREMONY. The 46th annual Prometheus Awards will be presented online Sunday afternoon August 16, 2026 in a Zoom awards ceremony open to the public.

This year’s hourlong ceremony, tentatively scheduled for 2-3 p.m. Eastern time and emceed by LFS President William H. Stoddard. A guest speaker, lifelong science-fiction fan Ilya Somin (George Mason University law professor, Cato Institute scholar and author) will present the Hall of Fame award.

Updates will be posted on the Prometheus Blog over the next several weeks about additional speakers and the ceremony line-up.

PROMETHEUS AWARDS HISTORY. The Prometheus Awards, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), were first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.

In the words of LFS:

For more than four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power, favor cooperation over coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, and/or critique or satirize authoritarian systems, ideologies and assumptions.

Above all, the Prometheus Awards strive to recognize speculative fiction that champions individual rights, based on the moral/legal principle of non-aggression as the ethical and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, mutual respect, civility and civilization itself.

All LFS members have the right to nominate eligible works for all categories of the Prometheus Awards, while publishers and authors are welcome to submit potentially eligible works for consideration using the form linked from the LFS website’s main page at www.lfs.org

While the Best Novel category is limited to novels published in English for the first time during the previous calendar year, Hall of Fame nominees — which must have been published, performed, broadcast or released at least 20 years ago — may be in any narrative or dramatic form, including novels, novellas, stories, films, television series or episodes, plays, musicals, graphic novels, song lyrics, or narrative or dramatic verse.

The Best Novel winner receives a plaque with a gold coin, and the Hall of Fame winner, a plaque with a smaller gold coin.

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 7/9/26 These Are The Pixels That Try Fen’s Scrolls

Posted on July 9, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) DEADLINE APPROACHING TO NOMINATE FOR DRAGON AWARDS. Nominations are being taken for the 2026 Dragon Awards until July 12.

(2) REVISITING THE CODOMINIUM. Mark Atwood says about Baen author Jerry Pournelle’s CoDominium stories – “The CoDominium Was a Warning, Not a Forecast”. Atwood writes “The CoDominium is a setting that got more legible after its geopolitics expired. That’s what happens when you’re diagnosing the disease and everyone else is arguing about the symptoms.”

Jerry Pournelle’s CoDominium stories land in Analog between 1971 and 1973, right as Nixon and Brezhnev are signing SALT I and the ABM treaty. The setting depicts a near-future where the United States and Soviet Union merge their militaries, carve up the world, and collude to suppress any technology that might destabilize the arrangement. Read at a glance, it looks like Pournelle bought the mid-century assumption that both superpowers were converging on the same managerial form. Galbraith’s technostructure with different flags.

He didn’t buy it. He weaponized it.

“Superpower condominium” was a live term of art in 1970s foreign policy. It’s what Peking and Gaullist Paris accused Washington and Moscow of building: a duopoly that carves up the world and colludes to keep everyone else down. Pournelle took the accusation literally and named his setting after it. That’s not agreement with convergence optimism. It’s taking the Chinese critique of détente and saying: yes, exactly, and here’s what it looks like fully ripened.

The intellectual lineage runs through James Burnham, not John Kenneth Galbraith. Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution argued the converging managerial form was coming regardless of ideology, and Burnham was a founding-generation anti-communist Cold Warrior. You could take managerial convergence seriously as a threat model while hating it. Pournelle, PhD in political science, protégé of Stefan Possony at the Hoover Institution, was squarely in that tradition. Notice what the CoDominium actually converges on: not shared values, but the shared class interest of two ruling elites who discover they fear their own populations, nationalist movements, and destabilizing technology more than they fear each other. The ideologies were always liturgical. The apparat is what’s real, and two apparats can do business.

The tell that it’s a nightmare and not a forecast is the technology suppression.

In the CoDominium future, Fleet intelligence assassinates physicists and buries research. This is the precise inversion of The Strategy of Technology, which Pournelle co-wrote with Possony and Francis X. Kane. That book argued technological momentum is the decisive weapon; freezing the competition is suicide-by-stability….

(3) HISTORY SHOWS AGAIN AND AGAIN. [Item by N.] The sequel to Minus One, Godzilla Minus Zero stomps into theaters on November 6.

(4) SIGN UP FOR PKDFEST2026. Registration for PKDFEST2026, The 4th International Philip K. Dick Festival, is open and free. August 20–23, 2026. Fullerton Marriott at California State University. Four days of panels, readings, world premieres, and the first-ever Pink Beam Awards.

(5) CREATIVE ARTS EMMY AWARDS. Animation Magazine lists “2026 Emmy Awards: All the Animation & VFX Nominees”.

…The 78th Emmy Awards, hosted by Emmy Award winner Mariska Hargitay, will air Monday, September 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT from the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE., airing live coast-to-coast on NBC and streaming on Peacock. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which include Outstanding Animated Program and Outstanding Special Visual Effects categories, will take place on Saturday, September 5, and Sunday, September 6….

Outstanding Animated Program

Bob’s Burgers – “Grand Pre Pre Pre Opening” (FOX / 20th Television Animation)
Rick and Morty – “There’s Something About Morty” (Adult Swim / Rick and Morty LLC, Williams Street)
The Simpsons – “Homer? A Cracker Bro?” (FOX / Gracie Films, 20th Television Animation)
Smiling Friends – “Le Voyage Incroyable de Monsieur Grenouille” (Adult Swim / Williams Street)
South Park – “Sermon on the Mount” (Comedy Central)
Star Wars: Visions – “Black” (Disney+ / Lucasfilm, David Production)

Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance

Pamela Adlon – Bobby Hill, King of the Hill
Julie Andrews – Lady Whistledown, Bridgerton
Hank Azaria – Gary Chalmers, The Simpsons
Trey Parker – Satan, South Park
Matt Vogel – Kermit the Frog, The Muppet Show
Steven Yeun – Mark Grayson/Invincible, Invincible

Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or a Movie

Alien: Earth (FX/Hulu)
Foundation (Apple TV+)
IT: Welcome to Derry (HBO Max)
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Apple TV+)
Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age (Apple TV+)
Stranger Things (Netflix)

Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode

Gen V – “New Year, New U” (Prime Video)
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – “In the Name of the Mother” (HBO Max)
Paradise – “Exodus” (Hulu)
Spider-Noir – “Nightmare on a Gurney” (MGM+/Prime Video)
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – “Costa da Morte” (AMC)

(6) KGB. Ellen Datlow has shared her photos from “Fantastic Fiction at KGB July 8, 2026” on Flickr.

Sam Rebelein read an excerpt from his chapbook and Victor Manibo read from his work in progress, a novel coming out in 2028. A large and enthusiastic audience!

(7) JY MEMORIES. Here’s a Jane Yolen tribute by her daughter Heidi Stemple: “Lessons from My Mother, Jane Yolen” at the School Library Journal.

…My brothers and I have always known we shared our mom with the world, and these last two weeks really brought that home. Years ago, she told me, instead of a headstone, when she died, she wanted a bench where people could sit and read. She wanted it to say, “She wrote many good books and one great one,” because, she said, she wanted everyone to pick their own favorite.

I may have laughed at the time, but in the online memorials since her death, I can see that this is, indeed, appropriate. Everyone has pointed to their own special Jane Yolen book—not just the classics. Yes, the “How Do Dino” books and Owl Moon, but also dragon books and Merlin books, long out-of-print picture books, nonfictions, and ones even I had forgotten about. It’s like she knew (of course she knew) that each reader connects with a book in their own way. An individual book may not be right for every reader, but with so many, six decades of readers have found their way to at least one of her stories. And made it their own.

She, by the way, will be getting a headstone and the bench.

What can I say that hasn’t already been written? My mom was so smart. She had a once-in-a-lifetime imagination. Everything became a story once she got ahold of it. She was a lifelong learner. Often, at conferences, she would attend sessions other authors were teaching. I never could get her to understand how nerve wracking it must be to have Jane Yolen in the front row of your workshop taking notes….

(8) IAN MAULE (1952-2026). British fan Ian Maule died July 8. Originally a member of the Gannets from Newcastle upon Tyne, he moved to London in the mid-1970s, and later to Surrey where he became a leading member of the Surrey Limpwrists group.

Maule edited the newzine Checkpoint from issue #63 to #73. He also published By British: A Fanthology of the Seventies (with Joseph Nicholas).

(9) GERRY CONWAY (1952-2026). The Comics Journal profiles “Gerry Conway, 1952-2026” who died April 26.

He grew up: that’s the important thing to remember. He had swaggered into the lecture hall in Bloomington that morning with the same confidence he swaggered into Marvel Comics two years earlier: with the assurance of a pro. Gerry Conway had come to Indiana in September 1972 to deliver a guest lecture at Indiana University’s first-of-its-kind “The Comic In Society” course (instigated at the school by future Swamp Thing and Batman film producer Michael Uslan). Conway was, to be sure, a high-profile get for the course’s lecture series: four months earlier, he had taken over from Stan Lee as scripter on Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man, the first writer to be permanently assigned to Marvel’s flagship title apart from Stan himself.

Still, it must be admitted, the article in the Herald-Times might have oversold him. “Gerry Conway, a New York City writer who created Spiderman [sic], Daredevil, Thor and the Hulk for Marvel Comics assured some 50 members of an Indiana University class Wednesday night they are not looney if they like comic books,” ran the lede, underneath the headline, “Spiderman Creator Says Comic Lovers Not Looney.”

But if Conway himself made no claims to displace Steve Ditko or Stan Lee, what he had to say that morning was just as ambitious as the headline implied. “We are not hacks,” he told the Indiana students. “We are professional writers and artists who have chosen, for a variety of reasons, to work in the comics.” …

… Oddly enough, the Hollywood caste system being what it is, Conway was seldom involved with movie and TV projects based on his own comic book creations — one of whom in particular had been growing up without him. In 1974, Conway, along with artist John Romita, had created the Punisher as a vigilante antihero in the model of Don Pendleton’s Executioner novels. The Punisher appeared initially as a recurring foil for Spider-Man, and in later years Conway would maintain that the character was imagined as a one-off villain, and certainly not a hero in his own right.

To be sure, this wasn’t entirely ingenuous. The Punisher as originally conceived wasn’t a moral paragon, but he wasn’t a villain either, and when the character showed enough success to warrant a spinoff stories in Marvel’s black-and-white magazines, Conway obliged by writing him with the kind of hard-bitten grittiness that had made Dirty Harry a hit at the box office.

But during the early 2000s, the Punisher took on a second life of his own, becoming a kind of mascot for the American far right: “American Sniper” Chris Kyle boasted of putting the Punisher’s skull logo on his unit’s gear during the Iraq War, and by the time Donald Trump was in office, the image and character had become a meme on military and police-centric kitsch. By 2025, Kash Patel was putting the logo on challenge coins handed out to agents at the FBI.

Conway, whose own politics by then skewed toward the left, wanted none of it. “It’s as offensive as putting a Confederate flag on a government building,” he said. In 2020, amid the wave of protests following the murder of George Floyd, he decided, vigilante-style, to take matters into his own hands, selling a line of shirts bearing the logo with all proceeds donated to Black Lives Matter. A few decades earlier, it might have been different. Roy Thomas recalled that in the early ‘80s, Conway was something of a “definite Reaganite, not unlike myself.” In a field not always known for the capacity of its creators to grow and change with the times, Conway was a model of graceful evolution….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 9, 1944 — Glen Cook, 82

By Paul Weimer: Grimdark before Grimdark was a thing? Maybe. My first encounter with Glen Cook was not the series he is most famous for, which I will talk about shortly. And not his other major fantasy series, which I will also talk about. Instead, I encountered Glen Cook somewhere in the early 1990’s with a book called Tower of Fear. A city under the uneasy rule of an oppressive occupation, a wizard sealed and lost in the titular tower, and a general simmering of a city ready to go over the edge, with the right spark. Think of it as a darker, more sword and sorcery version of Ilmar (City of Last Chances) and you will be in the right ballpark. I was on an S&S kick at the time, so I thought it was just excellent.

A few years later, I came across The Black Company. This is the series that marks Glen Cook as possibly Grimdark before Grimdark was a thing. And also Sword and Sorcery. The premise of the sprawling series, for those who haven’t tried it, is that a mercenary company winds up getting caught in power struggles within and without an evil empire. They literally do work for the Dark Queen but that winds up getting more complicated than even they expect, when they meet the prophecy fueled White Rose, who is supposedly fated to take the Empire down. And oh yeah, the Queen’s ex, locked in a tomb, is looking to break out. It’s a relatively low level look at what happens when a company has to deal with some very high level movers and shakers. The aforementioned Dark Queen has a number of lieutenants, the Taken, who squabble and scheme among themselves (and the poor Black Company caught in the crossfire) as much as actually fight their enemies.

It’s a dark military fantasy, well written for those who like that sort of thing (it got reissued not too long ago as one of the Tor Essentials) The world of the Black Company is not a pleasant world, the Company gets chewed up a lot, and their advancement toward their goals can be slow at best. But they keep on keeping on, even as they often do dark things in the pursuit of their goals, their employers’ goals, or both.

The other major series of Cook that I’ve read is the Garrett, PI books, inspired and suggested to me by a friend who loved them to pieces. Garrett (named for Randall Garrett the fantasy author) is a hard-boiled noir private detective, but in a fantasy city. The novels follow the titular character as he takes cases from the mostly demihuman population of Tunfaire, and follow a lot of the conventions of Noir fiction. Women in trouble, getting into tangles with the law and organized crime, betrayals, reversals, Garrett getting chewed up quite a bit, way in over his head but determined to see the job done. It’s a living. If you like fantasy and you like Noir/detective fiction, this is the series for you, no question.

And all of the Garrett books have a metal of some sort in the name (the first book is Sweet Silver Blues, the apparently last one (after a dozen!) was Wicked Bronze Ambition. Come to think, The Black Company was a pretty long lasting series, too. The man can certainly come up with idea after idea in his world, and make page turners in the progress.

Cook, prolific as he has been over a long career, has other fantasy novel series, as well but I’ve not picked any of them up. I’ve not really cottoned to his science fiction, it’s proven to be not for me, alas.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comments on flight positions.
Rubes brings in an expert.
The Flying McCoys features an unwanted change.
Tom the Dancing Bug reprints the history of a catch phrase.

(12) STATELY WAYNE MANOR FOR SALE. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “Holy Mortgage Busters, Batman!” — “Wayne Manor From ‘Batman’ Could Be Yours For Just $32M” reports Deadline.

The estate that provided the exteriors for the 1960s Batman TV series is on the block — albeit with a Bruce Wayne-sized price tag.

The 18,000-foot Pasadena mansion is listed for a cool $32M. The home has 7 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 4 half baths and 4 three-quarter baths. Bruce Wayne, it seems, likes to bathe….

(13) ZEROES AND ONES ONLY. [Item by Steven French.] Keith Stuart reports on the latest Sony games debacle in this week’s “Pushing Buttons” newsletter: “PlayStation says it will stop making physical games – and that should worry us all” in the Guardian.

Sony’s decision last week to quietly announce the end of physical games production for the PlayStation in 2028 is one of the most perfect PR disasters in recent gaming history – and considering what has been happening with Xbox, that’s saying something.

First, there was the timing. Sony posted the news of its decision on the PlayStation blog, less than a week after admitting that it would be deleting 550 movies from the digital libraries of PlayStation owners due to the end of a licensing deal – thereby perfectly illustrating the dangers of purchasing digital products. (Surprise! You never actually owned them!) The move is in stark contrast with the company’s stance on this very issue back in 2013. When Microsoft was attempting to push Xbox One as a digital-first console with strict controls on the sharing and reselling of its games, Sony brilliantly mocked its rival with a short video on how easy it was to lend physical games to pals on the PS4. Oh dear.

If Sony thought the response to its decision would be meek compliance, it was wrong. TikTok and YouTube are buzzing with vociferous reaction videos by disgruntled gamers, while brands such as KFC, Domino’s and, for heaven’s sake, Dolorean have posted mock announcements to social media declaring their own intentions to go download-only. Satirical news site the Onion soon got in on the joke, with a story claiming popular US snack Twinkies would become exclusively digital. The response from Sony? Four days of total radio silence, because, well, what can they possibly say?…

(14) VERNE IN TRANSLATION AND ANNOTATED. Last week, Imagination Annotated published a new book, From the Earth to the Moon: Annotated for Our Spacefaring Age. Here are the details:

The Imagination, Annotated series presents compelling works of speculative fiction for new readers and contemporary concerns. Inspired by the MIT Press edition of Frankenstein, each volume is annotated by a diverse group of scientists, scholars, and other experts to illuminate the historical context and enduring questions that animate these visions of the future. By exploring speculations from the 19th and 20th centuries, the series invites readers into a continuing conversation about the kind of world we want to live in together.

The first new volume in the series is From the Earth to the Moon: Annotated for Our Spacefaring Age. Edited by literary scholar and historian Anastasia Klimchynskaya, the book presents Jules Verne’s influential 1865 novel in an acclaimed translation by Walter James Miller, with dozens of annotations and essays by contributors including astrophysicist Erika Nesvold, literature scholar Adam Roberts, space historians Asif A. Siddiqi and Jordan Bimm, and fiction authors Samit Basu, Malka Older, and Adam Oyebanji.

Verne is lauded for anticipating many modern-day technologies, including a moonshot launching from Florida with a trio of astronauts almost exactly a century before it happened. But Verne didn’t just dream up exciting gadgetry: he combined the scientific and literary, pondering the relationship between humans, science, and technology and considering the political, social, and ethical stakes of discovery and innovation.

Bridging the sciences and humanities, this edition of From the Earth to the Moon is designed for use in classrooms and reading groups, but also for science fiction fans and students and scholars of the genre.

20% Discount
If you order the book directly from Penguin Random House, you can receive a 20% discount using the code READMIT20. The discount works only if you are shipping to an address in the United States. More details about the discount code are here.

(15) RIGHT HERE ON EARTH. Matthew Byrd found “10 Hard Sci-Fi Movies Not Set in Space” and listed them for Reactor readers.

Hard sci-fi movies are surprisingly rare beasts. As is the case with hard sci-fi video games, it’s a subgenre that has really exploded in popularity in recent years thanks largely to the release of a few tentpole projects. In the case of movies, The Martian and Interstellar most certainly helped kick off a new era of studios slowly realizing there is a sizeable (if sometimes simply vocal) audience for genre movies that feel a bit more scientific and a little less fantastical.

Interestingly, what few hard sci-fi movies we have largely take place in outer space. That’s understandable given that we are still talking about sci-fi movies, but the fact of the matter is that some of the most important and fascinating hard sci-fi films never leave our planet. These are movies that, at the very least, remind us that we have so much to learn about ourselves and our world before we ever start looking toward the stars. And though the classification of some of these movies as hard sci-fi may ruffle a few feathers (don’t such discussions always do so?), these films all show the fantastical possibilities of theories, processes, practices, experiments, and the logical pursuit of the meaning behind advancements and wonders. Above all, these movies are, rather appropriately, quite grounded….

Here’s one of them:

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Considered to be one of the premier examples of relative scientific accuracy in a movie, Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain has lost little of its potency in the 55 years since its release. It’s an appropriate legacy for a movie that boasts this banger of a tagline:The picture runs 130 minutes…
The story covers 96 of the most critical hours in man’s history…
The suspense will last through your lifetime!

The Andromeda Strain begins in the aftermath of a catastrophic event that resulted in the death of all but two residents of a small New Mexico town. A group of scientists soon discover that the event was caused by the return of a satellite that has apparently brought back an unknown deadly substance. For a movie that mostly consists of older gentlemen examining ‘70s technology and discussing hypothetical possibilities, The Andromeda Strain is a true thriller. There is so much joy to be found in watching these incredibly capable scientists realistically breaking down a situation that is both fantastical (quite literally alien) and perhaps a little too close for comfort in modern times.

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

2026 Inductees Join SFF Hall of Fame

Posted on July 9, 2026 by Mike Glyer

Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture has announced the four MoPOP Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame Inductees of 2026. Two Creators and two Creations are going in this year.

CREATORS

LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD

Few writers have mapped the full terrain of human experience across so many genres so fearlessly. Bujold has won more Hugo Awards than almost anyone in the history of science fiction, crafting space operas like the beloved Vorkosigan Saga, epic fantasies like The Curse of Chalion, and intimate character studies with equal brilliance. Her work asks what it means to be a person in impossible circumstances, and somehow always finds an answer worth believing in.

TIM BURTON

Burton built a world you’d recognize anywhere: gothic, tender, a little sad, and wildly alive. From Beetlejuice to Edward Scissorhands to Batman, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure to The Nightmare Before Christmas, his films gave a generation of outsiders permission to see themselves as the hero. Nobody stages a nightmare like a fairy tale quite like Tim Burton.

CREATIONS

X-MEN FRANCHISE

Born in 1963 as a Stan Lee and Jack Kirby story about prejudice and belonging, the X-Men became one of the most durable metaphors in popular culture. Mutants as the marginalized. Professors and soldiers. Chosen family built from people the world rejected. Across decades of comics, the landmark 90s animated series, and a film franchise that launched with Bryan Singer’s X-Men in 2000, the franchise keeps asking the same urgent question: who gets to be considered human?

METROPOLIS (1927)

Nearly a century old and still ahead of its time. Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece imagined a future of towering cities, exploited workers, and a robot built in a woman’s image to deceive the masses. Alongside collaborators including screenwriter Thea von Harbou, Lang created a film that didn’t just influence science fiction. It invented the visual grammar that genre film is still writing in today.

[Based on a press release.]

Primetime Emmy 2026 Nominees

Posted on July 8, 2026 by Mike Glyer

Pluribus has received five nominations for the Primetime Emmy Awards. That was the most for any work of genre interest. Overall, The Pitt leads the field with 25.

Here are all the nominees of genre interest. For the complete list of nominees see the link: Primetime Emmy Awards 2026 at CNN.

Outstanding drama series

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Paradise

Outstanding lead actor in a drama series:26

Sterling K. Brown – Paradise

Outstanding lead actress in a drama series

Chase Infiniti – The Testaments
Rhea Seehorn – Pluribus

Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series

Carlos-Manuel Vesga – Pluribus

Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series

Julianne Nicholson – Paradise
Karolina Wydra – Pluribus

Outstanding lead actor in a comedy series

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II – Wonder Man

Outstanding guest actor in a drama series

Jeff Hiller – Pluribus

Outstanding guest actress in a drama series

Miriam Shor – Pluribus
Shailene Woodley – Paradise

Pixel Scroll 7/8/26 Some Pixels Were Bound For The Scroll, Some Just Couldn’t Find It

Posted on July 8, 2026 by Mike Glyer

(1) MIKE RESNICK MEMORIAL AWARD 2026 FINALISTS. The finalists for the 2026 Mike Resnick Memorial Award for the best unpublished science fiction short story by a new author were announced on July 1.

Mike Resnick at Imaginales 2016 in France.

The award is sponsored by Arc Manor Publishers and Dragon Con. The winner will be announced at Dragon Con during the annual Dragon Awards ceremony.

FINALISTS FOR THE 2026 AWARD

Natalie Carre (France)
Daniel M. Cojocaru (Switzerland)
Dougal Jackson (Australia)
Eric J. Juneau (United States)

This is an annual award sponsored by Arc Manor Publishers and Dragon Con that celebrates new authors. As well as publishing hundreds of books as author and editor, Mike Resnick was known for his “Writer Children”—paying it forward by helping new writers start their careers. This award was created to honor his memory and continue on his legacy by spotlighting the wonderful new voices in the writing world.

The first-place winner will get a trophy, a cash award of $250 and have their story bought (at the magazine’s prevailing rate) by Galaxy’s Edge for publication in the magazine. The second-place winner will be given a prize of $100 and the third-place winner a prize of $50.

(2) HUGO RULES HISTORY TOOL. Tammy Coxen has created a “History of Hugo Category Definitions” and made it available at Google Sheets. As she told Facebook readers:

Possibly the nerdiest 3 days of my life, but the thing I’ve wanted every time I started a fan history research project now exists in the world. Want to know what the definition of a any Hugo Category was in any year since 1970? Now you can! I realize I am probably the only person who wants that, though.

(3) TOURIST SPOTS YOU CAN SINK YOUR FANGS INTO. CrimeReads passes on “Top 10 Global Vampire Hunting Destinations: From Lonely Planet”.

Vampires occupy the threshold between life and death, love and terror. Whether you prefer them brooding in black lace, coffin-bound in a Gothic castle or greedily devouring human souls, we know all the right places to look….

Here’s one destination:

FORKS (Washington, USA)

In her Twilight books, author Stephenie Meyer made this sleepy logging town the home of glittering vampires and werewolves. But this area has held stories of people transforming into wolves long before that series. Among the people of the Quileute Tribe, their origin story tells of two wolves turning into humans.

(4) X-MEN WITH A TWIST. “An ‘X-Men’ Artist Returns to Rewrite the Story His Way” in the New York Times (behind a paywall.)

A half century ago, the artist John Byrne, alongside key collaborators Chris Claremont and Terry Austin, took Uncanny X-Men — a light-selling Marvel comic book title created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the early 1960s — and turned it into a juggernaut.

The book, about a team of humans born with extraordinary powers, helped to light the fuse that led to the pop culture explosion that is Marvel today.

But in 1981, after controversially killing off Jean Grey (aka Phoenix), one of the original X-Men, Byrne struck out on his own, leaving his mark on scores of other titles, including the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Captain America and Superman.

Now 76, Byrne has re-emerged with what he’s calling his swan song: “X-Men: Elsewhen,” an alternate reality hardcover which revisits the X-Men at the point where he left, without his former collaborators but with a big plot twist: Phoenix was not killed.

The first of three volumes, which Abrams ComicArts published last week, immediately sold out its initial run and put Byrne reluctantly back in the spotlight.

In a recent conversation, edited for length and clarity, he talked about revisiting familiar characters, good versus evil and how he’d like to be remembered.

You have a reputation for being an outspoken guy.

I shoot from the lip, yes.

What is it about the X-Men that has captured the imaginations of so many?

Roger Stern, who was a writer and editor at Marvel, used to say that the appeal of the X-Men was that they were very much like the fans themselves. They were outsiders who only hung out with their own kind. And so the fans saw themselves in the X-Men more than they did in, say, the Fantastic Four or the Justice League.

We’ve seen a pretty major cultural shift in terms of understanding and accepting people with differences. The X-Men were created in a more conservative time, when difference was still a bugaboo.

Stan said that the X-Men were his metaphor for racism, that Xavier [the leader] was Martin Luther King, and Magneto [his nemesis] was Malcolm X. And I go, no, actually, go look at the earliest issues. Xavier is F.D.R. and Magneto is Hitler. You know, he’s even using Nazi trappings. But people persuaded Stan that he was doing something else, and Stan said, “Sure, why not?”

(5) ROBIN JOHNSON (1937-2026). One of Australia’s best known fans and former Worldcon chair Robin Johnson died July 6 at the age of 89.

Robin Johnson in 2010. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

Leigh Edmonds announced on Facebook:

Robin Johnson died peacefully in his sleep in St John of God Hospital, Ballarat, on the afternoon of Monday 6 July. He had been in hospital for the previous two weeks after a relatively minor fall but died of underlying causes. When I visited him the previous day he was fairly cheerful but weak and tired. He was asleep when I visited him on Monday so I didn’t disturb him. The hospital rang a couple of hours later to tell me he had died.

Robin will be remembered as the fan who led the team that bid for and hosted Aussiecon, Australia’s first World SF Convention, in 1975. He will also be remembered by his many friends here and overseas for his many visits and WorldCon attendances over the years.

Details of any memorial activities have yet to be worked out.

Robin Johnson was living in England in 1968 where he had attended a few conventions and London fan gatherings. In 1969 he decided to move to Australia, attended the 1969 Natcon in Melbourne, and became active in fandom. He replaced John Foyster as the Australian Worldcon bid chairman in 1972, ultimately chairing the first Aussiecon in 1975.

During his lifetime Robin lived in three different Australian state capitals, as well as London.

Bruce Gillespie wrote, “Robin Johnson can claim to be Australia’s most international fan. He’s lived in Australia for more than forty years, yet to an Australian he still sounds like an upperclass Englishman. He worked for British Airways for many years, and since retirement he continues to travel overseas as often as possible.”

Johnson was twice honored with Australia’s Ditmar Award, first in 1974, and again in 1983, for “Contributions to Fandom”.

At the 2007 Worldcon in Japan, he was presented the Big Heart Award, a service award given to a member of the SF community. He was a guest of honor at Aussiecon Four in 2010.

He married Alicia in the 1980s and moved to live in Tasmania. In Hobart, he has helped organize two Thylacons. Alicia predeceased him in 2012.

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

July 8, 1951 — Anjelica Huston, 75.

The first role that I clearly remember Anjelica Huston from was as Mortica Addams in The Addams Family thirty-five years ago. She was every bit was ghoulishly fascinating as was Raul Julia as Gomez Addams. She inhabited that role as if she’d been born to play it. A perfect couple they were.

It’s worth noting that she always had a ghostly glow around the eyes, which became most noticeable when she was standing or lying in dim light. Bela Lugosi in 1931’s Dracula had the same effect. That meant all were her scenes were filmed with a light in her face.

So being Morticia required Huston to wear a truly tight dress on top of an already tight corset to give her the character’s distinctive, slim silhouette. (Director Barry Sonnenfeld aimed for a cartoon-like figure, so hence that metal corset which restricted her movements and caused quite severe headaches. She reported that she gleefully burned all of the dresses when shooting finished.)

In addition, she had to wear custom makeup to lighten her skin to create the look of Morticia, have her hair painfully scraped so that she could wear a wig and then on top of all this, had to wear regular makeup, fake nails and eyelash extensions to complete the look.

Despite all of this I think that, Huston’s portrayal of Morticia captured both warmth and macabre humor. She was a perfect mother to two rather unusual children, and a loving wife to Raul.

She’d reprise her role in Addams Family Values. The first film was nominated for a Hugo at MagiCon, the second at ConAdian.

Her first genre role, and yes I’ve seen it but I’ve honestly long since forgotten everything about it, was in Ice Pirates as Maida, one of the pirates. I really need to show you what she was outfitted there as it is, errrr, well, I think kind of silly.

So what else did Angelica appear in? Good question. She would appear in The Witches based off of the Roald Dahl work as the Grand High Witch. Her makeup here is a work of art so here it is.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

Ink Pen asks the inevitable question.
Rubes lost.
Waynovision adds complications.
Grickle is about universal parenting.

(8) STRANGEST STORIES. Starship Sloane Publishing’s new release is The Strangest of Stories: A Collection of the Weird and Surreal by Zdravka Evtimova. With cover art by Bruce Pennington and a foreword by Hugo-winner Nigel Suckling. Edited by Nigel Suckling and Justin T. O’Conor Sloane. Design work by F. J. Bergmann. 216 pages. $15.99. Available everywhere soon. Here it is on Amazon.

This is the unforgettable collection of strange stories that you have been waiting for. Zdravka Evtimova is a sorceress of the mind’s eye, conjuring eerie, uneasy realities at once bleak and brooding, haunting and beautiful; punctuated by indelible imagery of the highest weirdness. These stories inhabit spellbinding realms of the magical, the mysterious, the fantastic, and the unsettling. Evtimova has kept Bulgaria up all night for years with her dark and shatteringly original stories. Now it’s our turn. Prepare yourself for reading her imagination. The inspired storytelling that defines these unique tales will enthrall you, delight you, and envelope you in a mist-like mood of the surreal.

(9) READY FOR MY NOT-VERY-CLOSE-UP. “Vera Rubin Observatory begins unprecedented survey of universe” – CNN has the story.

Every 40 seconds of nighttime for the next 10 years, a camera the size of a small car will capture strikingly detailed images of the southern sky, stitching together a time-lapse panorama of intergalactic evolution that could help unlock some of the universe’s lingering mysteries.

The historic effort, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), began on Tuesday, according to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the state-of-the-art facility in Chile that houses the world’s largest digital camera weighing 6,600 pounds.

During its decade-long study, a series of colored filters will give the camera superhuman vision as it scans the sky each night and creates a living image of how celestial objects — from asteroids to supernovae — morph and move.

The “color-rich” images of exploding stars, black holes and cosmic collisions will also help direct the attention of other observatories around the world, according to a news release, allowing various institutions to work in tandem to collect wholistic observations of notable celestial events….

(10) FILERS FOR ALGAE-NONE [Item by Daniel Dern.] “E Pluribus Algae: Why Green Pond Scum Is as American as Red, White and Blue” – the New York Times explains; link bypasses the NYT paywall.

Starting around halfway down, the article has a remarkable amount of bio science in it, enough to worldbuild a novel on IMHO, in particular:

Scientists have described 50,000 species of algae, but there could be a million. They are red, brown or green, depending on the wavelengths of light they have adapted to capture; some glow in the dark. A few, the bad apples, release toxins that can be deadly. Far more are constructive. Red algae provide the cement in the world’s coral reefs. The calcium in coccolithophores, single-celled phytoplankton, produced the white cliffs of Dover. Phytoplankton is to Earth’s waters what grass is to land: pasturage for more complex organisms and the foundation of food webs, ecosystems and the human food supply. As a whole, algae generate half the oxygen we breathe, and their bodies, subjected to intense heat and pressure over millions of years, are the oil and the gas we burn.

Indeed, algae’s legacy includes humanity itself. By 3.5 billion years ago, Earth’s waters no longer merely reflected, as photosynthetic cyanobacteria (formerly known as blue-green algae) teemed on the surface of shallow seas: New Pond 1.0. Green algae emerged with dedicated internal storage bins — chloroplasts for photosynthesis, a cell nucleus for DNA — and, 500 million years ago, gave rise to land plants. Fins, limbs, spines, brains, people. Even now we share roughly one-third of our functional DNA with algae. So that’s us, or some fraction of us, in the Reflecting Pool….

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Daniel Dern, Justin T. O’Conor Sloane, Lise Andreasen, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics 2026 Finalists

Posted on July 8, 2026 by Mike Glyer

Five finalists for the 2026 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics Award were revealed July 8.

Comics writer Dwayne McDuffie was co-creator of Milestone Media, which featured superheroes of varying genders, sexualities, race, and ethnicity. He died in 2011 at the age of 49. The award is given to comics that continue his legacy of featuring diversity and inclusion as well as telling a compelling story.

He led by example, and his quote “From invisible to inevitable” is the motto of the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics.

This year’s finalists are:

Crownsville written by Rodney Barnes & illustrated by Elia Bonetti
Age 16 written & illustrated by Rosena Fung
Ra! Ta! Ma! Cue! written & illustrated by Howie Shia
Okchundang Candy written & illustrated by Jung-Soon Go
Flip written & illustrated by Ngozi Ukazu

The selection committee for the 11th annual award included Will J. Watkins, Dr. Eve L. Ewing, Marv Wolfman, Colleen Doran, Jamal Igle, Kevin Rubio, Geoffrey Thorne, Eric Wallace, Matt Wayne, and ComicsBeat EiC Heidi MacDonald.

The winner will be announced at San Diego Comic Con International on July 24.

2026 Harvey Awards Nominees

Posted on July 8, 2026 by Mike Glyer

Finalists for the 2026 Harvey Awards, honoring the life and work of comics creator Harvey Kurtzman, (1924-1993), cartoonist, writer, editor and founder of Mad Magazine, have been revealed.

Nominees for this year’s awards were selected by a curated committee of diverse industry voices including creators, publishing professionals, retailers, educators, and librarians. Voting for the winners is now open to eligible industry professionals.

The annual Harvey Awards ceremony will take place on October 9, 2026, at the Javits Center during New York Comic Con.

The nominees for the 2026 Harvey Awards are:

Book of the Year Nominees

The Harvey Awards’ highest honor recognizes the year’s best work, in an effort to help guide readers, retailers, librarians, and educators to essential titles.

Absolute Batman Vol. 1: The Zoo by Scott Snyder & Nick Dragotta (DC)
Absolute Martian Manhunter Vol. 1: Martian Vision by Deniz Camp & Javier Rodriguez (DC)
Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance by Ben Passmore (Pantheon)
Cannon by Lee Lai (Drawn & Quarterly)
Drome by Jesse Lonergan (23rd Street Books/Macmillan)
The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief by Carol Tyler (Fantagraphics)
A Garden of Spheres by Linnea Sterte (Peow2)
More Weight: A Salem Story by Ben Wickey (Top Shelf/IDW)
The Once and Future Riot by Joe Sacco (Metropolitan/Holt)
The Weight by Melissa Mendes (Drawn & Quarterly)

Digital Book of the Year Nominees

This category honors creators who are redefining publishing through digital-first storytelling and innovation.

In the Real Dark Night by Jimmy Gownley (Webcomic)
The Keluarga Cable Ship Company by Mereida Fajardo (UK Digital)
The Lycan by Mike Carey, Thomas Jane, David James Kelly, and Diego Yapur (Comixology Originals)
Nap Comix by Rachael Smith (WEBTOON)
Practical Defense Against Piracy by Tony Cliff (Webcomic)
Terran Omega: The Ghosts of War by PJ Holden (Webcomic)
The World of Lublu by Charbak Dipta (The Charbax Store)

Best Children’s Book Nominees

This category honors outstanding comics and graphic novels that inspire young readers through imaginative storytelling, memorable characters, and accessible adventures.

A Fishboy Named . . . Sashimi by Dan Santat (Roaring Brook Press)
Inbetweens by Faith Erin Hicks (First Second)
The New Girl: First Crush by Cassandra Calin (Scholastic)
Night Chef by Mika Song (Random House Graphic)
Young Shadow & the Watchdogs by Ben Sears (Fantagraphics)

Best Young Adult Book Nominees

This category recognizes exceptional graphic novels and comics that engage YA readers through compelling storytelling, unforgettable characters, and powerful themes.

Angelica and the Bear Prince by Trung Le Nguyen (Random House Graphic)
Flip by Ngozi Ukazu (First Second)
Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit: A Graphic Novel by Kim Hyun Sook & Ryan Estrada (Penguin Workshop)
Hello Sunshine by Keezy Young (Little, Brown Ink)
This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki & Nicole Goux (Abrams Fanfare)

Best Manga Nominees

This category celebrates the artistry and storytelling of manga, honoring the works and creators carrying one of the world’s most influential comics traditions to readers everywhere.

Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa & Takashi Nagasaki (Kana/Abrams)
He Rolled Me Up Like a Grilled Squid by Yoshiharu Tsuge (Drawn & Quarterly)
Land by Kazumi Yamashita (Yen Press)
Miss Ruki by Fumiko Takano (NYR Comics)
My Gorilla Family by Iijima Ichiro (Living the Line)
My Life in 24 Frames Per Second by Rintaro (Kana/Abrams ComicArts)

Best International Book Nominees

This category recognizes outstanding comics and graphic novels from around the world, spotlighting the creators and stories expanding the medium beyond borders and languages.

Animan by Anouk Ricard (Drawn & Quarterly)
Buff Soul by Moa Romanova (Fantagraphics)
Mary Pain by Lola Lorente (Drawn & Quarterly)
Nocturnos by Laura Perez (Fantagraphics)
Tiodora’s Letters: An Enslaved Woman’s Fight for Family and Freedom by Marcelo D’Salete (Fantagraphics)
Witchcraft by Sole Otero (Fantagraphics)

Best Adaptation from Comic Book/Graphic Novel Nominees

This category recognizes comics’ ongoing influence on television, film, streaming, and interactive entertainment.

The Boys — Season 5 (Prime Video). Based on The Boys by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson (Dynamite)
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc (Theatrical — Crunchyroll/Sony). Based on Chainsaw Man by Tatsuki Fujimoto (VIZ Media)
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (Theatrical — Crunchyroll/Sony). Based on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba by Koyoharu Gotouge (VIZ Media)
Invincible — Season 4 (Prime Video). Based on Invincible by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker & Ryan Ottley (Image/Skybound)
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight (Warner Bros. Games — PS5/Xbox/Switch/PC). Based on Batman (DC Comics), created by Bob Kane & Bill Finger
My Hero Academia — Final Season (Crunchyroll). Based on My Hero Academia by Kōhei Horikoshi (VIZ Media)
One Piece — Season 2 (Netflix). Based on One Piece by Eiichiro Oda (VIZ Media)
Peacemaker — Season 2 (HBO Max). Based on Peacemaker (DC Comics, orig. Charlton), created by Joe Gill & Pat Boyette
Spider-Noir (Prime Video/MGM+). Based on Spider-Man Noir (Marvel Comics) by David Hine, Fabrice Sapolsky & Carmine Di Giandomenico
Your Letter (Netflix). Based on Your Letter by Hyeon A. Cho (WEBTOON/Naver)

[Based on a press release.]