Tag Archives: Deadpool

Pixel Scroll 1/11/26 We’d Like To Scroll A Pixel Bit About You For Our File

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(1) ALONG THE AUTOBAHN. Cora Buhlert tells about “The First Road Trip of the Year: Walsrode and Hildesheim in the Snow” on her blog. The objective of the trip was to purchase action figures, however, there was a great deal to see on the way.

… I was here to visit a monument to another much venerated figure from the Second German Empire, namely the Walsrode Bismarck Tower.

I have written about the Second German Empire’s tendency to engage in nation building via putting monuments on mountain tops before. The Bismarck Towers are one example of this. Count Otto von Bismarck, prime minister of Prussia and later chancellor of the Second German Empire from 1871 to 1890, was much venerated as the uniter of Germany, which is also why there are a lot of monuments dedicated to him all over the place. Pretty much every larger city in Germany has a Bismarck statue somewhere – Bremen’s depicts Bismarck on horseback and stands next to the cathedral. Hamburg has a giant Bismarck statue which holds a giant sword and stands on a pedestal held up by muscular naked young men who are supposed to represent the various German states, but it’s kind of obvious that the artist just liked depicting naked muscular men and that this is a very gay Bismarck monument. Hamburg’s Bismarck monument is badly neglected, half hidden by trees and covered in graffiti and some people would like to see it gone altogether, because they view Bismarck as a promoter of colonialism. That’s not quite true – Bismarck was sceptical of colonialism and would have preferred to focus on Germany, but Emperor Wilhelm II and some wealthy merchants wanted colonies, so Bismarck yielded. Also, whether you like Bismarck or not, he is an important part of our history and we shouldn’t just throw out history we don’t like. Besides, the Hamburg Bismarck monument is interesting from an artistic POV, so it should absolutely be restored.

And then there are the Bismarck Towers. Once upon a time, there were 243 Bismarck Towers all over Germany, neighbouring countries and even overseas. 173 of them survive, 146 of them in present-day Germany. Here is a website, which has information and photos of all of them, both surviving and destroyed.

North Germany never had all that many Bismarck Towers, probably because we lack the mountain tops to put them on top of. And of the few we had, many were destroyed over the years. The closest surviving Bismarck Tower to me is actually the one in Walsrode, which I had planned to visit for a while now. Because I find Bismarck Towers and the quasi-religious veneration of Count Otto von Bismarck they represent fascinating. Many Bismarck Towers were even topped with a metal bowl for lighting fires in memory of Bismarck, though these fire bowls are mostly gone now, even from the surviving towers.

According to Google Maps, the Walsrode Bismarck Tower was supposed to be on the edge of town. So I parked on the parking lot of a supermarket. Opposite the supermarket a path should lead to the Bismarck Tower, at least in theory. For in practice, there was no path. Nor was there any signpost, but then there rarely are signposts for Bismarck Towers, because many towns that have one find them kind of embarassing….

(2) THEY CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU. Charlie Jane Anders would like to tell you about “The Most Surprising Book Trend Right Now: Memory-Sharing” at Happy Dancing.

If you asked someone to name the main trends in genre book publishing from the past year or two, they’d probably mention romantasy, cozy fiction, horror and a few other things. But I’ve been blown away by a sleeper trend lately: novels about people storing their memories remotely, gaining access to someone else’s memories, or sharing a memory with another person. In general, memory seems to be on a lot of people’s minds lately….

… To find out more about this topic, I talked to four authors of recent books that deal with this concept in various fascinating ways. (I also reviewed some books on this theme a while back for the Washington Post.) 

One of my favorite books of 2025 was The Antidote, the long-awaited new novel by Karen Russell. The Antidote is the sobriquet of a prairie witch in dustbowl-era Nebraska, who acts as a sort of bank vault for people to store their unpleasant memories — with the promise that you can retrieve the memory later when you need it. But after a catastrophic dust storm, the Antidote and other prairie witches find their vaults cleaned out, all the stored memories gone forever. 

The Antidote turns into an examination of buried historical trauma, especially the attempted genocide of Native Americans — thanks in part to a New Deal photographer’s magical camera that takes pictures of the past and future.

In writing The Antidote, Russell says, “I was interested in what happens when people are unable or unwilling to reckon with the past, in the exiling of memories from our waking consciousness and from our public histories, those things that many of us must continuously forget or suppress in order to go on living as we do, and how that ‘collapse of memory’ harms us individually and collectively.”

Russell adds, “I do think that whatever else a memory might be, it’s never the fullness of what happened. It’s always a (re)creation, never static or inert.” And that “these secrets that can feel so private and so personal, can become, in aggregate, something like a mass denial.  Who and what we exclude from our family stories and collective histories has tremendous consequences, for all of us.”…

(3) SEATTLE WRITING CAMP OFFERED. Clarion West’s 2026 Teen Writing Camp is taking registrations. Full details and prices at the link. It will be an in-person camp in Seattle.

This is a ten-day, in-person camp for teens geared toward students 13 – 18 who are interested in creative writing and learning more about writing speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, supernatural, horror, etc). Participants will explore Seattle art spaces and museums as a means of inspiration while they write.

Camp hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday. This is a small-group camp for up to 10 students, highly focused on individual attention and developing friendships! 

Taught by professional author and writing instructor, Tara Campbell, this camp will include readings and discussions of published work, as well as prompts and writing time for students to work on their own stories. Writing days will alternate between Hugo House as our base and field trips to art spaces throughout the city, such as the Museum of Popular Culture (MoPop), Seattle Art Museum, and others, drawing upon Seattle as a creative muse. In addition, special guest instructors will join us to discuss other industries that rely on writers! 

Participants will be introduced to workshop methods for giving and receiving feedback and hone their presentation skills for a capstone reading with an audience of their peers at the end of the program.

Topics to be covered include worldbuilding, defamiliarization, science fiction, urban fantasy, the supernatural, horror, and hermit crab fiction (stories told in unusual formats like transcripts and reports). Our subject matter will range from the depths of the ocean to the outer reaches of space, technological advances, and life beyond death….

(4) AN EARLIER ‘ACADEMY’ IDEA. “Inside the Lost ‘Star Trek’ Movie That Would Have Rebooted Kirk and Spock at Starfleet Academy” at Yahoo!

In the aftermath of 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, producer Harve Bennett found himself confronting a problem that had shadowed the Star Trek franchise since its move to the big screen a decade earlier: how long could the original cast realistically continue? The answer he proposed was radical for its time—a feature-film prequel titled Starfleet Academy (also known as The Academy Years and no relation to the new series premiering on January 15), focused on how Kirk, Spock and McCoy first met as cadets.

As screenwriter David Loughery puts it, “Every time they were going to make one of these Star Trek movies, the producers and the studio always ran into the same problem in getting the original cast together. The reasons for that were money, power, creative differences, ego, health, unavailability… all of those things.”

The concept itself originated with producer Ralph Winter, who recalls pitching the idea directly to Bennett. “We’d just demonstrated with Star Trek III that we could do a young Spock,” Winter explains. “We should see how these guys meet the first time… build something that would be a reboot of this with younger characters to pick up with when these older characters don’t want to do this as much.”…

… Set over a single year at Starfleet Academy in Huntsville, Alabama, the script introduced a cocky, reckless young Kirk, an emotionally conflicted Spock who has left Vulcan against his father’s wishes, and a medical student McCoy trying to find his place. “They begin as rivals and end up as friends and comrades,” Loughery explains, “and in the final scene… we’re able to see the legends that they are going to grow up to become.”…

… Fan reaction was equally volatile. “We were really caught off guard,” Loughery admits. “Somehow they conceived it as a sort of spoof or a takeoff.” Rumors circulated that the film would resemble “a cross between Police Academy and The Jetsons,” a perception Loughery attributes to misinformation—possibly fueled by fears within the cast that long-standing roles and convention income were being threatened….

(5) COMICS WRITER WILL SPEAK IN LA. The Los Angeles Breakfast Club presents “DC Comics with Geoff Johns!” on January 14. Tickets at the link.

Geoff Johns is one of the most prolific and popular contemporary comic book writers. He has written highly acclaimed stories starring Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Teen Titans, and Justice Society of America. He is the author of The New York Times best-selling graphic novels GREEN LANTERN: RAGE OF THE RED LANTERNS, GREEN LANTERN: SINESTRO CORPS WAR, JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA: THY KINGDOM COME, SUPERMAN: BRAINIAC and BLACKEST NIGHT.

Johns was born in Detroit and studied media arts, screenwriting, film production and film theory at Michigan State University. After moving to Los Angeles, he worked as an intern and later an assistant for film director Richard Donner, whose credits include Superman: The Movie, Lethal Weapon 4 and Conspiracy Theory.

Johns began his comics career writing STARS AND S.T.R.I.P.E. and creating Stargirl for DC Comics. He received the Wizard Fan Award for Breakout Talent of 2002 and Writer of the Year for 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 as well as the CBG Writer of the Year 2003 through 2005 and 2007 and 2008, and CBG Best Comic Book Series for JSA 2001 through 2005.
After acclaimed runs on THE FLASH, TEEN TITANS, and the best-selling INFINITE CRISIS miniseries, Johns co-wrote a run on ACTION COMICS with his mentor Donner. In 2006, he co-wrote 52: an ambitious weekly comic book series set in real time, with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid. Johns has also written for various other media, including the acclaimed “Legion” episode of SMALLVILLE and the fourth season of ROBOT CHICKEN.

(6) ERICH VON DÄNIKEN (1935-2026). Remember Chariots of the Gods? “Erich von Däniken, Who Claimed Aliens Visited Earth, Dies at 90” reports the New York Times. (Behind a paywall.) This is definitely not a “say nothing ill about the dead” obituary.

Erich von Däniken, the best-selling Swiss author and self-styled maverick archaeologist who propagated the theory that thousands of years ago an advanced alien species visited Earth, mated with ancient humans and gave them the technology, and the intelligence, to erect such marvels as the Great Pyramids, died on Saturday in Switzerland. He was 90.

His death was announced on his website.

Mr. von Däniken was 32 and managing a hotel in Davos, Switzerland, when he published his first and by far most popular book, “Chariots of the Gods,” in 1968. In breathless prose, saturated with exclamation points and folksy interjections such as “Hey, presto!” Mr. von Däniken posited that virtually the sum of human knowledge and ability had been bestowed by extraterrestrials.

With little evidence and a lot of innuendo, he proclaimed that the Egyptian pyramids could have been built only with alien expertise. (“Is it really a coincidence that the height of the pyramid of Cheops multiplied by a thousand million — 98,000,000 miles — corresponds approximately to the distance between the earth and sun?” he wrote.)

The birdman cult of Easter Island, Mr. von Däniken declared, developed as a way to honor the supreme beings who had flitted down from the outer atmosphere to land on that remote spot in the Pacific, off the coast of South America.

Because an iron rod in a temple in Delhi, India, appeared impervious to rust, it must have been made from a celestial alloy, he insisted. Similarly, he said, when viewed from the air, the geoglyphs of Nazca, Peru, are obvious landing strips for spaceships. And artwork on a Mayan sarcophagus depicts not a king descending into the underworld, he concluded, but an astronaut-god piloting a spaceship.

Critics were unsparing. “Chariots of the Gods,” one anthropologist wrote, was “a warped parody of reasoning, argumentation, as well as a vigorous exercise in selective quotation, misrepresentation and error based on ignorance.”

The astrophysicist Carl Sagan said of Mr. von Däniken: “Every time he sees something he can’t understand, he attributes it to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing, he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet.” …

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 11, 1961 — Jasper Fforde, 65.

I, like most folk I suspect, first discovered the somewhat eccentric charms of Jasper Fforde in the Eyre Affair, the first of his novels with Tuesday Next, the Special Operation Network, Literary Detectives (SO-27) who could literally enter the great and not so great works of English literature. 

Bidder and Stoughton published it twenty-three years ago. I’d like to say the Eyre Affair was a much desired literary property but he says there were seventy-six publishers that he sent his manuscript to. I’m surprised there were that many publishers in the U.K. that would have been interested, so it’s rather possible that number is, errr, made up. 

There would be six in the series in all — this novel followed by Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels, One of our Thursdays Is Missing and The Woman Who Died a Lot. I won’t say that they were consistently great as they weren’t and the humor sometimes wore more than a bit thin, but overall I like the series considerably.

Next up, and I wasn’t eggspecting to like it, yes I know bad pun there, is The Big Over Easy which is set in the same universe as the Thursday Next novels though I don’t remember any overlapping character twenty years after reading them. It reworks his first written novel, which absolutely failed to find any publisher whatsoever. 

Its original title was Who Killed Humpty Dumpty? Errr, wasn’t there a novel involving a rabbit by almost that name?  It had a sequel of sorts in The Fourth Bear. Both are quite more than bearably good. 

I have not read his dystopian novel Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron which is about a future Britain where everyone there is judged by how they perceive colors. Suspect someone with color blindness like myself wouldn’t be welcome there. A friend who did read it liked it a lot. 

His Dragonslayer series, also known as The Chronicles of Kazam, are a YA affair and a great deal of fun indeed. 

Jasper Fforde

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Ursula K. Le Guin’s Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (1990)

The 1991 Nebula Award for Best Novel went to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, the fourth novel of the Earthsea sequence. The first three novels —  beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea and finishing off with The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, which were published between 1968 and 1972. These novels did win any awards which really, really surprised me. 

Tehanu was published by Atheneum in 1990. As I noted above, it’d had been twenty years since the last Earthsea novel was published. It would be not the last novel, despite the subtitle, as The Other Wind would follow twenty years later.  It would also win the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

So what is Tehanu about? 

SPOILERS SORT OF.

Years before, they had escaped together from the Tombs of Atuan—she, an young priestess by the name of Tenar and he, Ged, a wizard. Now she is just a farmer’s widow. And he is a just old man, stripped of his immense abilities.

A lifetime ago, they helped each other at a time of darkness and danger. Now they must join forces again, to help another — Tehanu, a physically and very deeply emotionally scarred child whose destiny remains to be revealed.

COME BACK NOW. I PROMISE I WON’T GIVE ANYTHING AWAY. 

So did I like it? Yeah I did. I think Le Guin in the time between the writing of original Earthsea trilogy and this novel did mature quite a bit as a writer and it shows here. Tehanu is more complex, deeper and thoughtful novel that those earlier works are. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) BOW – WOW! “Dogs Build Their Vocabularies Like Toddlers” says the New York Times. (Behind a paywall.)

Basket the Border collie seems to have a way with words. The 7-year-old dog, who resides on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, knows the names of at least 150 toys — “froggy,” “crayon box” and “Pop-Tart,” among them — and can retrieve them on command.

Basket built her vocabulary thanks to the dedicated efforts of one of her owners, Elle Baumgartel-Austin. She began the language lessons when Basket was a puppy. “I would play with her, say the name of the toy — say the name of the toy a lot of times,” Ms. Baumgartel-Austin said. She started with 10 toys, adding more as Basket mastered them.

“There never seemed to be a limit,” she said. “It’s basically like, how many toys could I feasibly store in my tiny apartment?”

Now, in a new study, scientists have found that Basket, and other dogs that share her advanced word-learning ability, have a skill that puts them functionally on par with 18-month-old children: They can learn the names of new toys not only through direct instruction but also by eavesdropping on the conversations of their owners.

Such sophisticated word learning appears to be rare among dogs, and recognizing the labels for specific objects is a far cry from acquiring language. But the study’s findings add to evidence that the cognitive and social abilities that underpin certain kinds of language learning are not limited to humans — and highlight just how adept dogs are at reading human signals.

“They’re very good at picking up on these cues,” said Shany Dror, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, and an author of the study. “They’re so good that they can pick up on them equally well when the cues are directed to the dog or when they’re directed to someone else.”

The study, which Dr. Dror conducted at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, was published in the journal Science on Thursday.

Although many dogs can understand simple commands, like “sit” or “stay,” picking up the names of specific objects — a skill known as label learning — appears to be a much tougher task. Scientists do not fully understand why.

But over the past two decades or so, scientists have identified a handful of outliers, canine prodigies that know the names for dozens or even hundreds of toys and can remember such labels for years. “They accumulate these huge vocabularies,” Dr. Dror said….

(11) NASA BRINGING HOME SICK ISS CREW MEMBER. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Global News reports “NASA to return ISS crew to Earth months early due to astronaut’s illness”. NASA has announced they’re indeed bringing the subject crew home early, but have not announced the exact time. They also said they’re investigating sending the next crew earlier than had been planned but made no commitment.

NASA will bring Crew 11 back to Earth months ahead of schedule after an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) experienced a medical issue, the aeronautics agency said Thursday.

The ill crew member, who is currently living and working aboard the orbital laboratory, has not been identified by NASA, but is said to be in stable condition and will be returned to Earth with the rest of the crew.

A medical diagnosis has not been shared, though NASA’s Chief Health and Medical Officer, Dr. James D. Polk, said he and a team of experts deemed it necessary to bring the astronaut home in order to complete more comprehensive testing.

“We have a very robust suite of medical hardware on board the International Space Station, but we don’t have the hardware we would have in the emergency department to complete a workup of a patient,” he said….

(12) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. From The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on May 16, 2018: “Deadpool Takes Over Stephen’s Monologue”.

Then, this duo took over the Jimmy Kimmel Show on July 25, 2024: “Guest Hosts Ryan Reynolds & Hugh Jackman Interview Each Other”.

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

Pixel Scroll 9/24/25 Mrs. Scrollinson, You’re Trying To Pixel Me

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(1) TOURNAMENT OF 1970 HUGO PHOTOS CONTINUES. Andrew Porter, who once had F&SF’s 1970 Hugo Award trophy, says about yesterday’s photo of Tim Kirk’s, “His does NOT look like the Hugo I had. The base of the one I had was in brown, not black, enamel paint, and the grain of the wood was clearly visible.” So Porter appealed to Gordon Van Gelder, current host of F&SF’s 1970 rocket, to snap a photo. And he did.

Porter asks, “When the toilet paper revolves, it provides gravity for the creatures inside, right?”

(2) GAME DEVELOPER’S CONFERENCE – SOON R.I.P.? “Even a rebrand may not be able to save America’s most storied gaming event” says the Guardian’s Keza MacDonald.  

Every year for as long as I have been alive (read: since 1988), the annual Game Developers Conference has been held in California. It started out as essentially a house party: a gathering of 27 people in the living room of Atari designer Chris Crawford. By the mid-90s it had left Chris’s house and grown to more than 4,000 attenders, and in 2005 found a permanent home in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. These days, about 30,000 game development professionals of all kinds attend every year. The online GDC Vault is a precious trove of game development history and useful advice for any gaming discipline.

GDC has developed a bit of an image problem in recent years, however, as we have reported before. It’s prohibitively expensive for developers: a conference pass is more than $1,500, and travel and accommodation in one of the world’s most expensive cities quickly multiplies the total cost to anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 (even for a hotel room with approximately the dimensions and safety of a phone booth).

On top of that, since Trump was re-elected president, a large percentage of the global video game development community is reluctant to visit the US. And the vibe of the event has been somewhat soured by the sudden withdrawal of funding from the entire games industry, alongside the threats to developers’ livelihoods from AI and ever-present layoffs. If nobody is funding games, what’s the point of travelling for days and spending thousands to attend some meetings?

As Jon Ingold, founder of UK studio Inkle, puts it: “GDC as an industry brokerage doesn’t make sense when there’s no money, no hiring, and the US is a hostile place to be … I fear whatever they do instead is too little too late; the executive club don’t leave much behind when they move out.”…

(3) GRAY POWER. Bookmarkedone brings us a list: “Glorious Grannies: Mature Female Protagonists in Science Fiction and Fantasy”.

Science fiction and fantasy isn’t always the intrepid young hero on his first voyage to Mars.

Or the naïve but strong and independent young woman falling for a magically attractive and dangerous fae lord.

Although those protagonists are impressively popular, there are plenty of stories where the heroes aren’t young, fresh-faced, able-bodied, perpetually confused, and conventionally attractive.

So please get to your feet and provide some thunderous applause for a look at protagonists with a brush of silver in their hair, joints that sometimes creak, and a fondness for quiet coziness in life:

The stylish and sassy senior ladies of science fiction and fantasy.

The list begins with —

“How to Train Your Demon” by Lisa Lacey Liscoumb

from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jul./Aug., 2021

It seems only right we should start off our list with one of the first and most charming pieces of SF/F granny fiction I’ve ever read.

It has everything you would expect—cookie baking, cozy vibes, helping hands…and demonic summoning circles?

The lovely lady in this story has some chores she can’t do anymore. She doesn’t have family or friends nearby, so what’s she to do except summon a demon?

Honestly though, this story is wholesome and delightful, if you’re reasonably prepared that it may awaken a craving for ginger snaps.

the bookmarkedone blog does not recommend trying demon summoning at home or in a laboratory setting. Please don’t.

(4) MURDER PARTIES. Olivia Rutigliano contends “The Best Movie Genre is One Where a Party at An Estate Goes Horribly Wrong” at CrimeReads.

As everybody knows, the best thing that can happen in a movie is for a character to go “someone in this house is a murderer!”

I’m rounding up a bunch of movies with that general vibe, for you to enjoy this month. Here are a bunch of movies where a party at an estate goes horribly wrong, probably because someone gets killed or something is stolen. What I would not give for a good film adaptation of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, or to find out that the French movie 8 Femmes were streaming, but c’est la vie, I suppose. Moving on!

Now, you might be asking, WHAT about the movies where someone getting killed or something getting stolen during a party at an estate is the POINT of that party in the first place, and therefore, from the perspective of the event’s puppetmaster, it means that the party at the estate is actually going horribly RIGHT? Not so fast, inspector! Of COURSE they are included in this list!…

One of her picks is —

The Mirror Crack’d (1980)

Before she became Jessica Fletcher, Angela Lansbury played the world’s other most famous nosy lady sleuth, Miss Jane Marple, in this classic Christie adaptation about an Englishwoman who winds up poisoned when her village ends up becoming the shooting location for a Hollywood picture and a glitzy party becomes the setting for a murder attempt! Miss Marple is on the case! And Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, and Geraldine Chaplin are also in the film! If you’re not obsessed with this movie right after seeing it, I’m sorry but you are clinically insane.

(5) HOLLYWOOD PUPPET MAKER TO SPEAK. The Los Angeles Breakfast Club presents “Kirk Thatcher – Making Monsters, Muppets, Messes and Merriment!” on October 1 at 7:00 a.m.

ABOUT THE PRESENTATION: Kirk discusses his work creating puppets for movies and television, from making creatures in Return of the Jedi and Gremlins through his work with Jim Henson and Henson productions, as a designer, writer, and director.  From Dinosaurs and Muppet Treasure Island through Muppets Tonight, The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell and Muppet’s Haunted Mansion.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Kirk R. Thatcher is an Emmy award winning writer/producer, an award winning television, commercial and viral video director, as well as a creature maker and character designer for both films and television. Kirk began at nineteen working at Industrial Light and Magic, designing, creating and puppeteering creatures for blockbusters such as, Return of the Jedi, Star Trek II, Star Trek III, E.T., Poltergeist, and Gremlins. He was also an associate producer on Star Trek IV, in which he had a memorable cameo as the Punk on the Bus, rocking out to the Punk anthem he both wrote and sang, called, “I HateYou!” 

Kirk has co-written several Muppet films including Muppet Treasure Island and directed four television movies: “The Muppets Wizard of Oz”, which premiered at Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Film Festival, “It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie,”  “The Muppets Letters to Santa” as well as the Lifetime Network Thanksgiving movie, “Jim Henson’s Turkey Hollow” starring Mary Steenburgen. He was Supervising Producer on the Emmy Award winning ABC series, Muppets Tonight, and co-producer on the ABC series Dinosaurs, on which he designed most of the characters, working closely with one of his mentors, the Muppet’s creator Jim Henson. As well as his long form work, Kirk has directed over thirty Muppet commercials and web shorts including, Muppet’s Bohemian Rhapsody, which has been viewed over 72 Million times, and all of Neil Patrick Harris’ web comedy series, “Neil’s Puppet Dreams”.

(6) JIMMY KIMMEL RETURNS TO LATE NIGHT. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] In a poignant, emotional, delightfully funny monologue, one of media’s most courageous, outspoken, humanitarian television hosts and witty comedians returned to his post. He was humble, self-deprecating, and solemn in his concerns for the future of free speech.

He didn’t bend the knee, nor did he apologize for a “crime” for which he was guiltless. He spoke to truth with gentle humor and utter fairness. His return is a welcome remembrance of freshness, substance, originality, humor and GUTS!

Watching Jimmy Kimmel last night reminded me that hope remains for our country and that speaking out against tyranny and censorship is the cornerstone of our cherished constitution.

Watch the first half hour of last night’s show here: “Jimmy Kimmel is Back”.

(7) FINAL WICKED: FOR GOOD TRAILER. “Wicked: For Good’ new trailer teases Elphaba and Glinda’s showdown, ‘Wizard of Oz’ characters” – Entertainment Weekly sets the frame.

Dorothy has reached the end of the Yellow Brick Road in the final trailer for Wicked: For Good.

The beloved Wizard of Oz characters — including that tornado — appear in the new preview for the upcoming Wicked sequel, which concludes the epic musical battle of wills and circumstance first mounted by Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) in director Jon M. Chu‘s 2024 adaptation of the Broadway musical.

Ahead of the film’s debut in November, Universal unveiled the final trailer Wednesday, featuring several callbacks to The Wizard of Oz — including a scene that sees Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow face the the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). “Bring me the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West,” the Wizard instructs them. “So I have proof that she’s dead.”…

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

September 24, 1934 — John Brunner. (Died 1995.)

By Paul Weimer: John Brunner, the man who saw our future. Or multiple futures.  Yes, I know science fiction is really about the present much more than “predicting the future”, but take a look around at our year of 2024, with random violence, political instability, a kaleidoscope of fashions and trends, social divisions, global terrorism, extremism, billionaires running amok. And also, gay marriage, affirmative action, electric cars, the use of marijuana and more. 

John Brunner

Aside from the fact that the random violence in the book is NOT gun-based, we seem to be living very much in the world of Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar. But that’s not all. In The Sheep Look Up, we get environmental degradation, a Republican President who says the answer to all our problems is “Deregulation”, a widening gap between rich and poor, and a degradation of quality of life across the board. Or The Jagged Orbit, where a cabal of Republicans are going to use computers to swing an election. Or The Shockwave Rider, showing a United Stated dominated by computer networks a la the internet, even as infrastructure crumbles and crumbles.

Reading (or rereading Brunner) in 2024 can be a lot. 

Beyond the gloom and doom of Brunner’s trilogy, though, there is much lighter fare if you want to try one of SF’s greatest visionaries. Out of his large oeuvre, my favorite is The Squares of the City. 

Boyd Hakluyt is a traffic and systems engineer who is hired by a fictional South American country to resolve a traffic and transit problem. While there, he gets wrapped up in a plot between the government and the not so loyal opposition, in a literal chess match where Boyd finds himself a piece on the board. It’s a taut and fun political thriller that might be a bit light on the SF, but high on tension, drama, and if you like chess, you will love this book. And then there is The Infinitive of Go, which is the type of multiverse novel whose implications slowly creep on you. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) GUEST WHO? Ben Herman assesses the Marvel/DC “Deadpool / Batman” crossover issue at In My Not So Humble Opinion.

…As with pretty much any intercompany crossover involving Marvel and DC, the story is not especially deep or sophisticated. Pretty much the entire appeal is seeing characters from the American comic book industry’s two largest publishers appear together in the same story. To the credit of Wells, he does write a genuinely funny story that shows the rambunctious, loquacious Deadpool hamming it up in reaction to the grim, brooding, taciturn Batman. Wells also gets a fair amount of mileage out of contrasting Deadpool with fellow chaos agent the Joker, who is also possessed of a, well, distinctive sense of humor that frequently revolves around chaos & carnage…

(11) I WILL FEAR NO CHOCOLATE. “Hershey Wins Lawsuit Claiming Reese’s Candies Aren’t Spooky” – Insurance Journal tells why.

U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian ruled on Friday that the plaintiffs did not show they suffered economic harm because their pumpkin-shaped candies, which they thought would contain “artistic carvings” of triangular eyes and crooked mouths, were blank.

The May 2024 lawsuit challenged the lack of details on nine Reese’s products, including a bat-shaped candy missing eyes, a ghost-shaped candy missing eyes and a mouth, and a football-shaped candy that resembled an egg because it had no stitching.

Damian also said the subjective belief of the plaintiffs that they overpaid did not support their claims, or give them standing to sue.

“Put simply, plaintiffs do not allege that the products were unfit for consumption, did not taste as plaintiffs expected, or otherwise were so flawed as to render them worthless,” the Miami-based judge wrote.

The proposed class action by Florida residents Nathan Vidal and Eduardo Granados sought at least $5 million in damages. Damian said they may seek to file an amended complaint.

Anthony Russo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, called the ruling procedural, and said his clients will review their next steps.

Hershey and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(12) THE THRILLING DAYS OF YESTER(FUTURE)YEAR. formless blob with a blog at Tumblr keeps alive a meme:

(13) ALIEN: EARTH WINDS UP FIRST SEASON. With the finale of Alien Earth now streaming, audiences are flocking to the Alien universe’s bold new chapter. JustWatch, the largest international streaming guide, has exclusive commentary from the show’s creators and cast, plus fresh streaming insights.

About Alien: Earth

In the year 2120, an unidentified spacecraft crash lands on planet Earth. It is first discovered by a young woman and a group of soldiers who begin investigating. But as they look closer they soon realize that something deadly has been unleashed.

Alien: Earth is #3 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The TV show has moved up the charts by 1 place since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Only Murders in the Building but less popular than Task.

(14) NASA’S FORTHCOMING VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE. “’We are ready for every scenario.’ NASA’s Artemis 2 astronauts say they’re all set for historic flight to the moon” reports Space.

The first astronauts to visit the moon in the 21st century can’t wait for their trip.

The four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission to the moon, which could launch as early as Feb. 5 of next year, are deep in training for the first crewed lunar flight in over 50 years. They’ll launch atop NASA’s giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket aboard an Orion spacecraft, whose name was revealed on Wednesday (Sept. 24) — “Integrity.”

“We’re going to launch when this vehicle is ready, when this team is ready, and we’re going to go execute this mission to the best of our abilities,” Artemis 2 commander Reid Wiseman told reporters here at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) during a press conference on Wednesday.

“We might go to the moon — that’s where we want to go — but it is a test mission, and we are ready for every scenario as we ride this amazing Space Launch System on the Orion spacecraft, 250,000 miles away,” he added. “It’s going to be amazing.”

Joining Wiseman on Artemis 2 — a 10-day trip around the moon and back to Earth — are pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch (both of NASA), as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, also a mission specialist. The mission, decades in the making since NASA first unveiled a planned crewed return to the moon in 2004, will set the stage for an even more ambitious flight: Artemis 3, the first astronaut landing on the moon of NASA’s Artemis program.

Artemis 2 will mark a number of firsts: The first crewed moon flight since NASA’s famed Apollo program. The first woman and person of color to visit lunar realms. The first astronaut flight of NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks not only to land humans on the moon but also to conduct sustained crewed exploration of the lunar south pole and beyond to prepare for an eventual trip to Mars….

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah” lyrics. View it at the link.

Now you can sing along with the famous rock and roll song from The Jetsons! The words are there, so you have no excuse! …This is posted for the informative and educational value.

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

Pixel Scroll 6/14/25 Kids, Grow Your Own Bestiary Of Sub-Atomic Particles In Your Basement!

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(1) STAR WARS FIRST CONTACT. Congratulations to Filer Cliff whose reminiscence made this Guardian collection of memories: “’It was simply mind-blowing’: readers remember seeing Star Wars for the first time”.

Like many readers, Cliff Ramshaw’s anticipation for the film had been fuelled by its merchandising. By the time it came out in the UK, Ramshaw, now 58, had already read the novelisation and part of the Marvel comic book adaptation, and had decorated his school haversack with drawings of X-wings and Tie fighters. Unfortunately, his father did not share his enthusiasm for the film when he took him and his younger brother to see it in Sunderland in 1978.

“We arrived early and Dad, not wanting to hang around, took us in straight away [to an earlier screening],” he recalled. “We sat down just in time to see the attack on the Death Star. After the movie ended we remained seated while the audience left and a new crowd arrived. We saw the beginning and middle of the movie and then, when the attack on the Death Star was about to start, Dad took us out of the cinema and drove us home!”

Ramshaw, who now lives in the Cotswolds, didn’t get to see the film the whole way through until it was aired on British TV four years later. But his unusual viewing experience did not dampen his love for Star Wars, and he later became a software engineer at George Lucas’s visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic….

Click on the link and you can see a photo of Cliff with his daughter, too!

(2) GAMING CON HELD IN KIEV. This YouTube video about recent Kiev Fancon, via Borys Sydiuk, shows SF activities re-starting in Ukraine. The narrative is in Ukranian. The title is “Fancon 2025 — 40 000 геймерів під одним дахом!!!” — “40,000 gamers under one roof”. The introduction says —

Fancon 2025 impressed with both its scale and quality.

For a festival held in a warring country, the event exceeded all expectations. The number of visitors, partners, and celebrities was off the charts.

Cosplayers gave it their all. We still can’t shake off the emotions. This is the best festival of popular culture not only in Ukraine, but we are sure it would become one for many European countries!

(3) NEW BRITISH FANTASY EVENT. “Hodderscape and Lucy’s Book Club launch fantasy event series” reports The Bookseller (behind a paywall).

Hodderscape, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, has announced a new collaboration with Lucy’s Book Club to launch a series of intimate, community-led events celebrating the best in fantasy fiction.

Designed as a cosy, connected space for readers to meet new friends, swap books and get lost in their favourite magical worlds, the events will be held in collaboration with independent bookshops.

Each event will centre around a different fantasy title, promising signature cocktails inspired by the books, games designed to help readers meet their next bookish best friend, and an unfiltered, joyful discussion about their favourite fantasy reads.

The first event will take place on Wednesday 2nd July at Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings, and will spotlight the romantasy book of the moment: Quicksilver by Callie Hart. Tickets for the first event will go on sale on Tuesday 17th June….

(4) ACCEPTABLE DUD? From the Guardian’s “Week in Geek” column: “Heroic indifference: was Thunderbolts* always doomed at the box office?”

There’s no such thing as a sure thing in Hollywood. Just ask Marvel Studios – once the box office equivalent of a cashpoint duct-taped to a golden goose, now resembling a busted slot machine in Skegness. Reports this week suggest that Thunderbolts*, the studio’s latest attempt to turn supervillain also-rans into marquee gold, has officially faceplanted at the box office despite strong reviews, a cast stacked with rising stars and indie darlings, and enough emotional baggage to ground a Sundance drama….

…In many ways, Thunderbolts* was something of a free hit for the studio. Had comic book movie fans warmed to it, Marvel might have had a completely new team of colourful miscreants to spin off into the glorious synergised future, just as they did with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. But if fans aren’t feeling the new team, it’s really not a big issue, because Red Guardian, Ghost and US Agent are surely destined to be torpedoed by the real Avengers when they eventually trampoline in from whatever pocket dimension Robert Downey Jr is cryogenically stored in….

…Maybe Thunderbolts* was never meant to save the MCU – just stall for time while the A-listers finished renegotiating their contracts….

(5) DOOGIEPOOL. “Ryan Reynolds reacts to Neil Patrick Harris stealing his Deadpool role” – Harris will play Deadpool in a VR game. So Reynolds parodies Harris’ old Doogie Houser show.

“Today, I learned a lesson about buttholes they don’t teach you in medical school,” Reynolds narrates. “People who steal your signature role are the biggest buttholes of all.”

Spoofing the journal entries that Doogie often made on the show, Reynolds continued, “No, I don’t blame Meta Quest. Neil Patrick Harris is an amazing actor with the nurturing voice of an angel, but even though I haven’t hit puberty yet, I still know when you’re getting totally screwed.”

Reynolds is then interrupted by the appearance of Robyn Lively, who played a love interest to Harris in Doogie Howser M.D. “House call,” she announces…

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

June 14, 1949 — Harry Turtledove, 76.

By Paul Weimer: Harry Turtledove, The Avtokrator.

That one is not my invention, that would be Steven Silver, who is the most knowledgeable person I know about the work of Harry Turtledove. I was delighted, back in the day, to encounter Steven’s website about Harry’s work, and he made it very easy to catch up and figure out my gaps in my reading.

I discovered Turtledove in my first big alternate history phase in the late Eighties. I had started reading a (now unreadable, thanks a lot Theodore Beale) anthology series edited by Jerry Pournelle called There Will Be War. I was also into military science fiction of the time at the time. In any event in one of those volumes was a story called “The Long Drum Roll” which was an early version/excerpt from the novel that would become The Guns of the South, his classic “Time traveling South Africans help the Confederacy win the civil war with AK-47s”. I devoured that novel, too, and then started reading his work.

Although Turtledove wrote a lot of fantasy I liked (such as King of the North, The Case of the Toxic-Spell Dump, Between the Rivers) and more, Imagine my squee of delight when I discovered Videssos. Videssos was the story of a Roman Legion transported in space to a fantasy world that was extremely similar to Byzantium (so in a sense, they “time travelled” as well ). Lots of the setup, incidents and characters in the Videssos novels are based on real Byzantine history. 

The Avtokrator has written a lot since. There’s straight up alternate history (How Few Remain) as well as science fiction alternate history (e,g, Worldwar), and of course fantasy novels here and there as well. Turtledove doesn’t always write a form of alternate history, he has written straight up fantasy and SF novels, but alternate history, or secondary worlds that resonate strongly with history, really are the center of his oeuvre. 

And he is prolific. He has several books this year this year alone, and much of his older stuff is being reissued, particularly in ebook, and including stuff he originally wrote under pen names. 

The Avtokrator’s realm is large, and there is always more to read. 

Happy birthday, good sir!

Harry Turtledove

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU WANT. [Item by Steven French.]  The British Library is to symbolically reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader pass, 130 years after its trustees cancelled it following his conviction for gross indecency reports the Guardian.

A contemporary pass bearing the name of the Irish author and playwright will be officially presented to his grandson, Merlin Holland, at an event in October, it will be announced on Sunday.

Rupert Everett, who wrote, directed and starred as Wilde in The Happy Prince – the acclaimed 2018 film about the writer’s tragic final years in exile – will play a part in the ceremony.

Holland is an expert on Wilde whose publications include The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. Asked how his grandfather might have reacted to the pass being reinstated, he said: “He’d probably say ‘about time too’.”

(9) SQUID FINALE. JoBlo introduces us to the“Squid Game season 3 final trailer released by Netflix”.

The official logline reads: “The third and final season of Squid Game follows Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) after losing his best friend in the game and being driven to utter despair by The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who was hiding his true identity to infiltrate the game. Gi-hun persists with his goal to put an end to the game, while the Front Man continues onto his next move and the surviving players’ choices will lead to graver consequences with each round. The world eagerly awaits to see the grand finale written and directed by Director Hwang Dong-hyuk, who has vowed to bring the epic story to its deserved closure. Can we hope for humanity in the cruelest of realities? Fans all over the world are counting the days until the final answer is revealed.”

(10) NEVER? WELL, HARDLY EVER. The New York Times takes readers “Inside Universal’s Big Bet on ‘How to Train Your Dragon’”. (Behind a paywall.)

In 2020, Dean DeBlois publicly blasted live-action remakes of animated films as “lazy” studio endeavors.

The director who, along with Chris Sanders, had made the 2002 Disney animated “Lilo & Stitch” and the 2010 DreamWorks Animation release “How to Train Your Dragon,” said that he viewed such remakes as “a missed opportunity to put something original into the world.”

Then, two years later, DeBlois received a call from the Universal Pictures president, Peter Cramer, asking if he’d be interested in directing a live-action version of “How to Train Your Dragon.”

“At the expense of seeming like a hypocrite, I thought, well, I’m either going to sit here and pout and watch somebody else do it,” DeBlois said in a video interview with The Times, “or I could jump in and shoulder the blame or help to change the narrative.”

Now, as the live-action “Dragon” arrives in theaters on Friday, DeBlois is enthusiastically attached to the type of movie he formerly criticized.

(11) ARE WE MISSING LAYERS OF REALITY…? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I sometimes wonder if I am in the same world as everyone else?  Not only do I keep warning that the machines are taking over, but successive Worldcons in recent years have trampled on the WSFS constitution with impunity, but no-one ever listens…  And then at cons, I wake up and wonder, did that really happen last night, as I see a black leather, toad body harness languidly lying on the floor…? (Don’t ask — I never do…) And so we come to the question the ever-interesting Matt O’Dowd at PBS Space Time  who is asking this week…  Are there missing layers (note the plural) to reality…? “The Crisis In Physics: Are We Missing 17 Layers of Reality?”

Big things are made of smaller things, and those smaller things are made of smaller things still. That’s reductionism in a nutshell, and digging our way to the smallest layer has been one of the primary goals of physics for ever. But what if, just before we reach the bottom, we find out that reductionism fails?

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

Pixel Scroll 6/8/25 When They Scroll Low, We Scroll Pixels

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(1) EDITORS TO AVOID. Cedar Sanderson tells freelance editors “How Not to Drum Up Business” at Mad Genius Club.

This was a new one on me. I have a reviewer who seems to think that if they leave a review describing how they would have done a better job at editing my book, I might hire them….

… Authors, you don’t have to take bad editing lying down. Demand better. And ask for references. Not only ‘who have you worked with?’ but look up the books this person has edited and see what kind of product they have had a hand in. If the books don’t sell well… yeah. That’s also a clue. Sometimes the editor can’t help pathetic covers and bad placement in categories and keywords, because that’s not their department. However, if you see a consistent alignment between an editor that works with those kinds of books? And social media presence that is full of untruths and negativities? Run, my young friend, because this is not a professional. You need support and help, not whatever that is. If they are willing to bully you in their approach to you, they will be abusive when they are working ‘for’ you….

(2) HELPING AUTHORS NAVIGATE ROUGH WATERS. At Writer Beware, Victoria Strauss says, “Bankruptcies of Unbound and Albert Whitman & Co Put Authors Between a Rock and a Hard Place”.

… The concerns for authors go beyond unpaid royalties: there are unanswered questions about the status of authors’ rights, how they can request reversion, whether they can obtain unsold inventory, and more. Unbound author Alex de Campi is offering a letter template writers can use to contact administrators about these matters…

(3) SFWA ADDS STAFF. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced their newest full-time staff:

  • Executive Director Isis Asare
  • Operations Director Russell Davis

(4) IMPACT OF JOANNA RUSS. Farah Mendlesohn profiles a favorite writer in “Fantastic Fiction: Joanna Russ” at the Seattle Worldcon 2025 blog.

I am partial. I truly believe that Joanna Russ is one of the greatest writers that the science fiction field has ever produced, and from 1977–1991 she was a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle….

… I wish I’d had the chance to meet and be taught by Professor Russ, although everything I’ve heard about her suggests that she could be terrifying. But as it is, I am aware that I have learned so much from her fiction and her critical work (even where I disagree with it), and I would love more people to read it and talk about it. Maybe at Worldcon?

(5) LEAP YEARS. “Best Movie Stunts of All Time, Over Nearly 100 Years of Oscars” in The Hollywood Reporter.

Any list of Hollywood’s most memorable stunt work is bound to be idiosyncratic. Do you prefer a jaw-dropping action set piece with the star visibly and unmistakably at risk (as with the silent comedians and, more recently, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise); a feat by a nameless stunt double whose fate you’re not emotionally invested in (presumably with the Wilhelm scream sounding his demise); or the choreography of battalions of humans in league with horses, trains, cars or planes (in which case Plutarch deserves a posthumous credit as stunt coordinator on Spartacus)?

Even the definition of a “stunt” is hard to pin down… Now, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has formalized a plan for its stunt design Oscar category, which will first be presented at the 100th honors in 2028.

In that spirit, here is a close read, year-by-year, from the start of the Academy Awards onward, on some of the most noteworthy stunt artistry in Hollywood cinema over the course of the last century — and which films may have claimed Oscar gold….

There are quite a few genre picks, however, they aren’t all written up in an equally interesting way. Here are two, one which cross-references a famed genre film, and another from a successful sf franchise.

1939: Stagecoach

The sequence of Yakima Canutt falling under a team of six stagecoach horses and the stagecoach remains the platonic ideal of Hollywood stunt work. In costume as an attacking Indian, he leaps at full gallop from his horse and lands between the front two horses pulling the stagecoach. Falling between the horses, he is dragged along the ground until he lets go and lies flat as the horses and the stagecoach pass over him. (Steven Spielberg could not resist repurposing the stunt in Raiders of the Lost Ark [1981], with a truck subbing for a stagecoach.) Canutt considered the exploit (“stunt” seems too trivial a description) his personal best. “A whale of a good story that has brilliant direction, writing and acting,” THR wrote in its 1939 review.

1991: Terminator 2: Judgment Day  

James Cameron’s high-tech follow-up to the low-tech noir The Terminator — Arnold Schwarzenegger joked that the catering bill for the sequel would have financed the original — is remembered for introducing a slew of then-unprecedented digital morphing effects, but Cameron went back to analog for the stunning stunt involving a helicopter and the California transportation system. The clip has been circulating around social media lately, with the commentary track from Cameron. “You see this helicopter going under the freeway overpass?” he asks. “That’s a helicopter going under a freeway overpass.”  The pilot was Chuck Tamburro.

(6) VOTE FOR 2027 WESTERCON SITE. [Item by Kayla Allen.] Westercon 79 (2027) Site Selection voting is now open.

Members (“badge holders” is their terminology) of BayCon 2025 and supporting members of Westercon 77 (those people who voted in the election at the 2023 Westercon or bought a supporting membership later) can vote on the site of Westercon 79 (2027) by paying a $20 voting fee. Fees can be paid by check or money order payable to Westercon 79, in cash (only in person at BayCon/Westercon) or by purchasing a Voting Token through the BayCon website. Voting fees go to the winning bid.

The Site Selection ballot is a PDF that you can download from here, fill out, and either paper mail or email to the addresses on the ballot. Advance ballots must arrive by July 1 to be certain they are counted. Site Selection will take place at BayCon/Westercon on the Friday and Saturday of the convention, with the results of the election announced at the Business Meeting on Sunday morning at BayCon/Westercon.

All of the details, including detailed instructions on how to buy a voting token, are in the announcement on the Westercon.org website linked above.

(7) ANTICIPATION. Fendy Satria Tulodo springs a surprise in “Indonesian Shadow Puppets. Science Fiction in the Classic Art of Puppetry” at Interstellar Flight Magazine on Medium.

Science fiction is often associated with distant galaxies, futuristic technology, and interstellar battles. But what if I told you that some of the oldest sci-fi elements exist right here in Indonesia? Not in modern literature or film, but in wayang kulit, the traditional Javanese shadow puppet performances that have been around for centuries.

When I first watched a wayang kulit performance, I didn’t expect to find anything remotely “sci-fi” about it. The puppets, made of intricately carved leather, cast flickering shadows against an oil lamp as the dalang (puppeteer) brought them to life. It felt ancient, mystical, and deeply cultural. But as I paid attention to the stories, a strange realization hit me — these tales weren’t just about kings and gods. They contained something else: futuristic technology, cosmic battles, and even philosophical questions about reality.

These elements have existed for centuries in traditional wayang stories, long before modern science fiction was conceptualized. Many of these myths were passed down through generations, integrating advanced ideas that seemed futuristic even in their time….

… One of the most mind-bending examples is Gatotkaca, a legendary warrior with superhuman strength who flies through the sky using his invisible iron suit — remind you of anything? Yeah, Iron Man. Except Gatotkaca predates Tony Stark by several centuries. The concept of flying warriors with enhanced abilities exists in many wayang kulit narratives, almost like ancient versions of superheroes or cyborgs….

(8) THE EARLY UNIVERSE, UMM… [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] Not what we thought. “’Galaxies Actually Existed Before The Big Bang’ James Webb Telescope Saw 15 Strange Galaxies beyond.”

(9) CHRIS HADFIELD Q&A. [Item by Steven French.] Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield answers Guardian readers’ questions, including one on his favorite science-fiction books (further down he lists 2001 as his favorite space movie’):  “Chris Hadfield: ‘Worst space chore? Fixing the toilet. It’s even worse when it’s weightless’”.

What about favourite sci-fi?

[Growing up] I read Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. I got to spend a day with Arthur C Clarke – he came to the Kennedy Space Centre, I spent a whole day showing him the space shuttle and the launch site, and it was like a dream come true because he’d been one of my science fiction idols growing up.

[In 2015] Ray Bradbury’s family asked me to write an introduction for the Folio Society rerelease of The Martian Chronicles – I’d read it once a long time ago but I’d forgotten just what an exquisitely good writer he was. The Martian Chronicles was written just after the second world war, so after the first two atomic bombs had been released and killed so many people but before the very first space flight. It was a really interesting moment in time – of both despair and disgust at human behaviour and then hope. And it’s a beautiful book.

(10) THE INVENTOR OF THE DOUBLE-CLICK. “Bill Atkinson, Who Made Computers Easier to Use, Is Dead at 74” – the New York Times pays tribute.

A designer for Apple, he created software that made it possible to display shapes, images and text on the screen and present a simulated “desktop.”…

 …Before the Macintosh was introduced in January 1984, most personal computers were text-oriented; graphics were not yet an integrated function of the machines. And computer mice pointing devices were not widely available; software programs were instead controlled by typing arcane commands.

The QuickDraw library had originally been designed for Apple’s Lisa computer, which was introduced in January 1983. Intended for business users, the Lisa predated many of the Macintosh’s easy-to-use features, but priced at $10,000 (almost $33,000 in today’s money), it was a commercial failure.

A year later, however, QuickDraw paved the way for the Macintosh graphical interface. It was based on an approach to computing that had been pioneered during the 1970s at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center by a group led by the computer scientist Alan Kay. Mr. Kay was trying to create a computer system that he described as a “Dynabook,” a portable educational computer that would become a guiding light for Silicon Valley computer designers for decades.

Xerox kept the project secret, but Dynabook nevertheless ultimately informed the design of both the Lisa and the Macintosh. In an unusual agreement, Xerox gave Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, and a small group of Apple engineers, including Mr. Atkinson, a private demonstration of Mr. Kay’s project in 1979.

The group, however, was not permitted to examine the software code. As a result, the Apple engineers had to make assumptions about the Xerox technology, leading them to make fundamental technical advances and design new capabilities.

In “Insanely Great,” a book about the development of the Macintosh, Steven Levy wrote of Mr. Atkinson, “He had set out to reinvent the wheel; actually he wound up inventing it.”

Mr. Atkinson’s programming feats were renowned in Silicon Valley.

“Looking at his code was like looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” recalled Steve Perlman, who as a young Apple hardware engineer took advantage of Mr. Atkinson’s software to design the first color Macintosh. “His code was remarkable. It is what made the Macintosh possible.”…

(11) WAIT, WHAT – WALT WAS SMOKED? [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian’s Stuart Heritage looks at transhumanism in the movies, both science-fiction related and otherwise: “Death is not the end! From the new robot Walt Disney to Mountainhead, movies are fuelled by immortality”.

For years, the world’s most perfect urban myth was this: Walt Disney’s body was cryogenically frozen at the moment of death, waiting for technology to advance enough to bring him back to life. Started by a National Spotlite reporter who claimed to have sneaked into a hospital in 1967, only to be confronted by the sight of Disney suspended in a cryogenic cylinder, the myth prevailed because it was such a good fit.

Disney – and therefore Walt Disney himself – was the smiling face of rigidly controlled joy, radiating a message of mandatory fun that is magical when you are a child and increasingly sinister as you age. This policy (essentially “enjoy yourself or else”) suits the idea of cryogenic preservation. After all, if you have the ego to successfully enforce a blanket emotion as a company mission statement, you definitely have the ego to transcend human mortality.

However, not only has the cryogenic Disney myth been put to bed – he was cremated weeks before the National Spotlite hack claimed to find his body – but his family has issued a strongly worded rebuttal of the very idea of a post-human Walt Disney.

The catalyst is the recently announced Disneyland show Walt Disney – A Magical Life, which will feature as its star attraction an animatronic recreation of Walt Disney. This, according to Josh D’Amaro, Disney experiences chair, will give visitors a sense of “what it would have been like to be in Walt’s presence”. However, Disney’s granddaughter Joanna Miller is convinced that this is not what Disney the man would have wanted. In a Facebook post that was stinging enough to earn her an audience with the Disney CEO, Bob Iger, Miller said Disney was “dehumanising” her grandfather. “The idea of a robotic Grampa to give the public a feeling of who the living man was just makes no sense,” she wrote. “It would be an impostor, people are not replaceable. You could never get the casualness of his talking, interacting with the camera, [or] his excitement to show and tell people about what is new at the park. You cannot add life to one empty of a soul or essence of the man.”

As recently as a decade ago, this would have been the stuff of bad science fiction – a woman worried that a multinational corporation is bringing a dead relative back to life against his wishes, like a warped nonconsensual Westworld – but no more. As an entertainment concept, post-humanism feels worryingly current….

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

June 8, 1928 — Kate Wilheim. (Died 2018.)

By Paul Weimer: Kate Wilheim has two main legacies in my mind.

The first one may not be fair. Kate has written a fair number of stories and novels, several of which (“The Planners”, “The Girl Who Fell into the Sky” and “Forever Yours, Anna”) won the Nebula award. She’s written books of poetry. She has a more than respectable oeuvre in SFF, and that doesn’t even count her mystery novels. 

But the first legacy in my mind is just one book, the fantastic Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang. It’s one of the best postapocalyptic novels out there, a story of survival, and cloning, and commonality, community, individuality, Psionic empathy and much more. Its bittersweet ending has haunted me for years. If there is still something as an SF canon, Wilheim’s book must, I say, must be part of it. It is in conversation backwards and forwards, from Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow and George R Stewart’s Earth Abides, to books like Walk to the End of the World, and on and on to today.

The reason why the novel fits so well in the genre conversation is that Wilhelm is well immersed in those waters, and the second main legacy. Wilhelm, along with her husband Damon Knight, has been instrumental in mentoring authors. Their Milford Writer’s Conference was a progenitor to the original Clarion Workshop. As a result, Wilheim’s teaching has touched hundreds of writers, and thus, as a result, most science fiction readers have read a story that has at least a glimmer of the influence of Kate Wilhelm.

Now that is definitely being a part of the genre conversation.

Kate Wilhelm

(13) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984)

Forty-one years ago Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, the sequel to the Hugo-winning Raiders of the Lost Ark, premiered. It’s actually a prequel to that film. Once again it’s directed by Steven Spielberg from a story by George Lucas. The screenplay was by the husband and wife team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, best known for American Graffiti which yes involved both George Lucas and Harrison Ford. 

Harrison Ford was of course back along with Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, Philip Stone and Ke Huy Quan. Capshaw would marry Spielberg seven years later and yes they are still married, bless them! 

I’ll admit that Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom was nearly not as fun for me as Raiders of the Lost Ark but critics loved it, with Roger Ebert in his Chicago Sun-Times review saying it was “the most cheerfully exciting, bizarre, goofy, romantic adventure movie since Raiders, and it is high praise to say that it’s not so much a sequel as an equal. It’s quite an experience.”  

And Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily Post was equally exuberant: “Indie, you will be happy to learn, hasn’t changed a bit. Played with gruff determination by the appealingly rugged Harrison Ford, he continues to set quite a pace for himself in Spielberg’s rip-roaring, boldly imaginative sequel to his blockbuster hit.” 

It’s worth noting that It did get banned in India which as one who spent considerable time in Sri Lanka is something I fully understand as there are truly disgusting Indian stereotypes in that film.

It was fantastically profitable as it cost just under thirty million in production and publicity costs and made ten times that at the box office in its initial run! 

Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes are very fond of it, giving it an eighty-six percent rating. 

(14) COMICS SECTION.

(15) IT’S JUST AN UPGRADE. [Item by Steven French.] Keza MacDonald reviews the Nintendo Switch 2 in the Guardian’s gaming column, “Pushing Buttons”: “Nintendo’s Switch 2 is the upgrade of my dreams – but it’s not as ‘new’ as some might hope”.

Launch week is finally here, and though I would love to be bringing you a proper review of the Nintendo Switch 2 right now, I still don’t have one at the time of writing. In its wisdom, Nintendo has decided not to send review units out until the day before release, so as you read this I will be standing impatiently by the door like a dog anxiously awaiting its owner.

I have played the console, though, for a whole day at Nintendo’s offices, so I can give you some first impressions. Hardware-wise, it is the upgrade of my dreams: sturdier JoyCons, a beautiful screen, the graphical muscle to make games look as good as I want them to in 2025 (though still not comparable to the high-end PlayStation 5 Pro or a modern gaming PC). I like the understated pops of colour on the controllers, the refined menu with its soothing chimes and blips. Game sharing, online functionality and other basic stuff is frictionless now. I love that Nintendo Switch Online is so reasonably priced, at £18 a year, as opposed to about the same per month for comparable gaming services, and it gives me access to a treasure trove of Nintendo games from decades past.

But here’s the key word in that paragraph: it’s an upgrade. After eight years, an upgrade feels rather belated. I was hoping for something actually new, and aside from the fact that you can now use those controllers as mice by turning them sideways and moving them around on a desk or on your lap, there isn’t much new in the Switch 2. Absorbed in Mario Kart World, the main launch title, it was easy to forget I was even playing a new console. I do wonder – as I did in January – whether many less gaming-literate families who own a Switch will see a reason to upgrade, given the £400 asking price….

(16) SUPER MALE GAZE. “Superman Popcorn Machine Bucket Shows Off Man of Steel’s Heat Vision” reports Yahoo! Is this for real? I have no idea.

…The popcorn bucket machine sees Superman popping movie goers’ popcorn for them with his heat vision. Check out an image, via an X post from DiscussingFilm…

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure this one is not for real.

(17) INTERESTING CHOICE. GamingBible reports “Marvel officially casts our new Deadpool, and he’s perfect”.

…Meta has officially announced Marvel’s Deadpool VR, a joint venture between Twisted Pixel and Oculus Studios in collaboration with Marvel Games – and yes, that means we’ve got a new Deadpool.

This time around, the merc with a mouth will not be played by the familiar Ryan Reynolds, nuh uh.

It’s another famous face that’ll be stepping into the suit: Neil Patrick Harris.

That’s right. How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris is officially Deadpool….

(18) BUDGET IS SPACE EXPLORATION DEATH SENTENCE. “Dozens of active and planned NASA spacecraft killed in Trump budget request” reports Science.

…“This is a tragic mistake for the new administration,” says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and former NASA science chief. The proposal undercuts the country’s science pipeline and wastes billions of dollars, he adds.

The request would kill off missions that are active in space right now, including two Orbiting Carbon Observatories (OCOs): OCO-2, a standalone spacecraft launched in 2014, and OCO-3, which is mounted on the International Space Station. Both missions carry a spectrometer that spies on wavelengths of light absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules, providing an ability to map atmospheric carbon abundance around the planet. The missions enabled investigations into the variations of the natural carbon cycle and also proved capable of detecting human carbon emissions.

The budget proposal would also end the Earth-facing instruments on the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which monitors space weather and records snapshots of the planet’s surface. It would kill the space station’s Sage III instrument, which makes long-term measurements of ozone, water vapor, and other gases in the atmosphere. And it would terminate the Terra, Aqua, and Aura satellites, each of which has operated for more than 2 decades, providing unprecedented insight into climate change with steady, well-calibrated instruments. And although Terra and Aqua are both near the end of their lives, Aura, which measures the stratosphere in a way no other satellite can imitate, could operate until late this decade.

The losses would not stop at Earth. The proposal would end the Juno mission orbiting Jupiter, which has revealed the gas giant’s interior structure and provided close-up views of its large moons. It would end New Horizons, which famously imaged Pluto and is now pushing into a Kuiper belt of cold, icy objects that is deeper than scientists once thought. It would terminate the OSIRIS-APEX mission, which is reusing the healthy spacecraft that returned asteroid samples to Earth to visit the asteroid Apophis right after it makes a close pass of Earth in 2029. And it would kill off several spacecraft orbiting Mars, including Mars Odyssey and Maven, while pulling the agency’s funds supporting Mars Express, another orbiter operated by the European Space Agency.

The plans would also kill off nearly every major science mission the agency has not yet begun to build. It would end development of the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS), a multibillion-dollar series of satellites meant to study the complex formation of clouds and storms and their alteration by pollution—one of the main sources of uncertainty for future climate change, seen most recently in the debate on how much ship pollution reductions influence recent record high temperatures.

It would also terminate the Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) mission, which would loft an instrument into space capable of dividing reflected light into more than 400 wavelength channels across the visible and into the infrared. While these measurements can be used to study methane and carbon dioxide emissions, such imaging spectrometers—which serve, in effect, as molecular mapping tools—can also be used to prospect for critical minerals and track forest and farm health. The proposal to end SBG is particularly disappointing, Nolin says. “It’s deeply unfortunate they don’t understand the greater value of an instrument like that,” she says.

In the planetary science division, the administration would cancel two much-delayed missions NASA has planned for Venus. One, called DAVINCI, would send an armored sphere plunging through the venusian atmosphere, measuring noble gases to sort out the planet’s origins and sniffing for sulfur and carbon near the surface for more evidence of recent volcanic activity. The other, Veritas, would use a radar to peer through the planet’s thick clouds and re-create its topography, revealing whether volcanoes or variants of tectonic plates are active on its surface…

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

Pixel Scroll 5/27/25 Everybody Loves Raymond Palmer (Both The Shaver’s Mystery Guy And The Size-Shrinking Superhero)

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(1) SO THIS HEINLEIN, IS HE ANY GOOD? View Sharon Lee’s acceptance speech for the 2025 Robert A. Heinlein Award in this YouTube video.

(2) FAIR PAY. Steve Davidson urges sff readers to commit to pay a fair price for short fiction in a post on Facebook. Davidson begins by telling what the market rates of the Thirties would translate to after factoring in 90 years’ worth of inflation. Then he makes this appeal —

…Authors need to LIVE in order to be able to write and, I’d venture to guess, authors who are not stressing over whether or not they’ll be living in their cars next month will write more and better than those who have no such concerns.

To put a finer point on it: magazines would have to pay a word rate of 67 cents per word if the sale of that one short story is to have the same economic power today as $150 bucks did back in 1930.

On the other hand….

I’m betting that readers actually DO value authors and their works (well, at least those readers who read anyways). And I’m betting that they are willing to step up IF they’re given the opportunity. Oh, maybe not quite yet to covering sixty-seven cents per word, but certainly more than 8 cents per word.

I think the evidence is all around us that they are. I mean – go look at what a paperback costs these days! Me, I choke whenever I see the cover price because my baseline is what it cost me to buy those first Heinlein novels from the Bookmobile back in 1968 – 45 cents to 60 cents. Those same books now go for $13 – or more!

Anyway, the point is this:

We KNOW you all are willing to pay something close to what modern science fiction is actually worth, because you’re already doing it everyday when you plunk down ten bucks for an ebook or fifteen bucks for a paperback (or forty+ bucks for a hardback).

Now all you have to do is extend that same calculus, that same perceptual handwavium when it comes to magazine issues and their close cousin companions, theme anthologies….

(3) LOCUS FUNDRAISER LOOKS TO FINISH STRONG. The “Locus Mag: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror 2025” appeal at Indiegogo has four days to go. It had raised $44,671 when I checked this afternoon. Among reasons for you to click over, the Indiegogo paid includes links to videos of Connie Willis, Daniel Abraham, and Tobi Ogundrian reading from their work.

We are incredibly grateful for every penny donated and we’ll put it all to good use, but this is a moment to be honest about the urgency of our fundraiser. We’re just 4 days from the close of this fundraiser and we haven’t raised even half of the money we need to keep Locus running. 

Being an indie non-profit press, we’ve been running on a skeleton crew for years. A larger budget means paying writers and artists a better rate, adding more short fiction and long form reviewers to cover all the amazing stories that are being written, and enough budget to cover all the amazing events out there and to stay connected with the community. Please help keep Locus alive, as the independent voice of the field and the guide to the world’s imagination!

If we don’t reach our funding goals, we will have to contract even further – you’ve seen your favorite magazines and newspapers shrink or disappear… There’s no part of what Locus does that we can imagine giving it up, reviews, interviews, cons, obits, the Locus Awards, the recommended lists – remembering people, pushing the news out, evening out the playing field. We don’t want to give any of it up. And we want to get back to a full schedule of writing workshops, reach more people on different platforms about our amazing genre, host readings… so much more. 

We’re particularly concerned about the loss of short fiction reviews. Locus is one of the only venues that reviews short stories and makes a concerted effort to cover the small and independent press. Locus wants to help level the playing field for emerging writers and everyone in general. Without those efforts it feels like the only SFF writers getting attention out there are NYT bestsellers…

(4) APPEALS COURT SAYS LIBRARY COLLECTION DECISIONS ARE GOVERNMENT SPEECH. “Full Court of Appeals Reverses Previous Rulings, Supports Texas Library’s Book Removals” at Publishers Lunch (behind a paywall).

A full en banc ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned both a lower-court decision and a Court of Appeals ruling that had found a Texas library’s removal of books was a violation of the First Amendment, in a 10-7 decision.

Last year, a regular three-person Court of Appeals panel ruled that the Llano County Library could not remove books based on their content, writing that, “Government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree.” The titles at issue included books about sexuality and racism, and “butt and fart books.” Eight of the original 17 removed titles were returned to the library.

Now, the court reversed that preliminary injunction and dismissed the free speech claims of the plaintiffs—seven library patrons.

In the decision, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan writes that the right to receive information from “tax-payer funded library books” is not protected by the First Amendment.

“That is a relief, because trying to apply it would be a nightmare,” the decision continues. “How would judges decide when removing a book is forbidden? No one in this case—not plaintiffs, nor the district court, nor the panel—can agree on a standard. May a library remove a book because it dislikes its ideas? Because it finds the book vulgar? Sexist? Inaccurate? Outdated? Poorly written? Heaven knows.”

The decision also states that “a library’s collection decisions are government speech and therefore not subject to Free Speech challenge.” Judge Duncan asserts that libraries have always made decisions about what books to shelve, just as government-funded museums decide on which paintings to include.

“That is what it means to be a library—to make judgments about which books are worth reading and which are not, which ideas belong on the shelves and which do not.

“If you doubt that, next time you visit the library ask the librarian to direct you to the Holocaust Denial Section.”…

(5) LETTING THE DOGS IN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] In chatting with one of the (local) librarians about some catalog quirks (mentioning my not-yet-replicated search within WorldCat/OCLC showing a library/book location of “outer space”), they noted that the CountWay library in the (Harvard) medical center area had a dog in their catalog — a “library” dog, e.g., for “Read with a Dog,” “schedule cuddle time”…

I haven’t (yet) found actual catalog entries, but (as I already knew), “library dogs” are indeed a Real Thing, e.g., Therapy Pets | Countway Library (harvard.edu)

For many Filers, this, of course, immediately brings to mind the classic Eric Frank Russell story, “Allamagoosa” (here’s a Baen link to the story.)

(6) ORSON WELLES HELPS SELL A BOOK. A Deep Look by Dave Hook looks at another 1949 sf collection: “’Invasion from Mars: Interplanetary Stories’, Orson Welles ‘editor’, 1949 Dell (SFE says ghost editor was Don Ward)”

The Short: I read Invasion from Mars: Interplanetary Stories, Orson Welles “editor”, 1949 Dell (there is controversy about the actual editor). Including the 1938 “Invasion from Mars: A Radio Adaption” radio play adaptation, it includes ten stories and an Introduction. My favorite story is the well reprinted and superlative Ray Bradbury story “The Million Year Picnic“, a Martian Chronicles short story, Planet Stories Summer 1946. My overall average rating of the stories was 3.76/5, or “Very good”. I have mixed feelings about recommending it, see below. You can find links to the stories here.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 27, 1911 — Vincent Price. (Died 1993.)

By Paul Weimer: Vincent Price. My first voice and face of horror. But especially, his voice. 

I’ve mentioned WPIX many times in these birthday reminiscences and in comments at File 770. And so it was on NY’s movie station that I first encountered the work of Vincent Price. It was one of the Dr. Phibes movies, gory, weird and a lot of fun. That voice was unmistakable. Imagine my surprise when the very different looking Dr. Egghead (played by Price) showed up in an episode of the 60’s Batman cartoon. Although Egghead and Phibes couldn’t be more different, the voice was what keyed me, even with my amusia, that the same actor was at work here.  That oily, horror fueled voice. He was the voice of terror, of nightmares, of the dark descent. 

And that’s kind of how I kept running into him, by accident, again and again. For a while it seemed I could not escape the Master of Horror. Oh, here he is in a movie based on the “Pit and the Pendulum”. How very droll.  Oh, and here he has shown up randomly on an episode of Columbo. Oops, here he is again in a Roger Corman horror film. All with That Voice. Although I still think the Jeff Goldblum version is better, the haunting image of his version of The Fly, where a part of him is trapped in a fly’s body, caught in a web, with a spider coming to eat him, is enough to give me the chills. 

Even with all of his other work, again and again, what Price comes down to is the voice of horror. And so I ask you, who else could have been the narrator voice for the music video Thriller?

Vincent Price

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY, TOO.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 27, 1934 — Harlan Ellison. (Died 2018.)

By Paul Weimer: Harlan Ellison. No trademark symbols, if he wants to come back from the dead and harangue me, he’s welcome to do so. 

To talk about him as a broken step will be taken as read, it turns out he did behave very badly indeed, and that mars his reputation. Not being ever to finish the Last Dangerous Visions is another stain on his record, too. He seems to have forgotten his own maxims and advice on that one. He was a writer’s writer and an editor’s editor, and while he had the juice for the first Last Dangerous Visions, he never could see through to the last. 

My older brother had plenty of collections of his stories, so his stories, both genre and only near-SF was an early part of my reading. Included in those collections were both volumes of The Glass Teat, so along with lots of Ellison stories, I also got a healthy dose of his film and television criticism, and his unyielding personality. I may have never gotten to meet him personally, but his ferocious reputation by his writing was enough. When Heinlein has him show up in the end of The Number of the Beast as simply “Harlan”, I had read enough to know what Heinlein meant with that one word. 

Three stories of his always come to my mind and you can guess them.  “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” which for even though the titular Harlequin is captured and his rebellion ended, is still a story of hope, because his spirit of chaos cannot and will not be permanently stilled.  “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, one of the most ultimate horror stories, with four people and a deranged computer at the end of the world.  And, “Paladin of the Lost Hour” which is the best “Rage against the dying of the light” story I’ve ever read.  When he wasn’t a raging a-hole, Harlan Ellison could and did write.

Harlan Ellison

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) DEADPOOL/BATMAN CROSSOVER. Wade Wilson has been hired for a job in Gotham City, but will the World’s Greatest Detective help him or destroy him? Entertainment Weekly today revealed Marvel’s Merc with a Mouth will meet DC’s Dark Knight this September in Marvel/DC: Deadpool/Batman #1, the first of two crossovers between Marvel and DC more than twenty years in the making. It will be followed by DC’s Batman/Deadpool #1 in November.

 Deadpool/Batman #1 will be written by prolific Spider-Man comics writer and co-writer for Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine Zeb Wells and drawn by industry superstar Greg Capullo, an artist with an incredible legacy at both legendary comic book companies, with influential work on Batman and X-Men titles.

“After writing Amazing Spider-Man for 60 issues, I told Marvel I needed a break. Marvel told me I could do that or I could write a comic starring Deadpool and Batman with the best Batman artist of our generation. I no longer needed a break,” Wells shared with EW. “In Batman we’ve found someone who has even less time for Deadpool’s antics than Wolverine, but a city-wide threat from the Joker makes strange bedfellows (literally, if Deadpool had his way). It’s been a blast letting Deadpool loose in Gotham City and watching what happens.”

“Am I dreaming? This crossover is likely to be the high point of my career…and, I’ve had a great career,” Capullo added. “Some of my earliest work (many years ago) was on X-Force, so Deadpool and I go way back. More recently, I spent 10-plus years drawing Batman at DC. The idea that I get to do a crossover event with Deadpool and Batman…If I am dreaming, please don’t wake me!”

Check out Capullo’s main cover and stay tuned for more news about Deadpool/Batman #1 in the weeks ahead.

(11) WB WHACKS SCREENING OF SCHUMACHER CUT. “Studio Blocks Screening of Controversial Batman Forever Director’s Cut” reports CBR.com.

The fabled Schumacher cut of Batman Forever has hit a major snag as Warner Bros. has decided to scrap a planned screening of the hotly anticipated film.

A screening of the Schumacher cut was supposed to take place at Cinefile Video in Santa Monica, California. But according to The AV Club, the event was canceled following a legal request from Warner Bros. “Our planned screening of Batman Forever has been canceled,” the store said in an email to its members. “This follows a legal request from Warner Bros. regarding the rights to the version of the film we intended to show. While this was a free, members-only event meant to celebrate a unique piece of film history, we respect the rights of studios and creators, and have chosen to withdraw the event accordingly.”

The news came as a major blow for Batman fans as the Schumacher cut has long been considered a Holy Grail of sorts….

(12) FIRST OF THE LAST OF US. [Item by Steven French.] “The Last of Us science adviser: COVID changed our appetite for zombies” learned Nature.

The year was 2013, and the release of a hotly anticipated zombie-apocalypse video game was on the horizon.

The game, called The Last of Us, invited players to explore what then seemed a fanciful scenario: a world devastated by a pandemic in which a pathogen kills millions of people.

Unlike in many apocalypse fictions, the pathogen responsible wasn’t a bacterium or a virus, but a fungus called Cordyceps that infects humans and takes over their brains.

The writers at game studio Naughty Dog, based in Santa Monica, California, were inspired by real fungi — particularly Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, known as the zombie-ant fungus. The fungus infects insects and releases chemicals into the animals’ brains to change their behaviour. Ahead of the game’s release, Naughty Dog turned to scientists, including behavioural ecologist David Hughes, a specialist in zombie-ant fungi (he named one after his wife), to field questions from the media about the fungal and pandemic science that inspired the story. Hughes, who is at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, has since moved to studying climate change and food security….

(13) BALTICON SUNDAY SHORT SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL 2025 WINNERS. [Report by lance oszko.] Audience scores were from 0 to 5, with sum of values divided by number of votes. 

Best Live Action

  • Stephen King’s The Reach (2024) Italy Luca Caserta 167 points in 41 votes cast = 4.0731 * 

Best Animation

  • Dad in the Echo (2023) China Jacky Heng SUN  315 points in 82 votes cast = 3.8414 *  

Scores of all entries:

  • An Old Friend 2024 USA Nuk Suwanchote  198 Points in 57 Votes cast = 3.4736.
  • Akashic Spheres 2021 USA James Scott 150 points in 69 votes cast =2.1739
  • Invasion ’53  2024 Maryland Danielle Weinberg 304 points in 77 votes cast = 3.9480
  • Zerk 2024 Maryland Theo Jack-Monroe 193 points in 69 votes cast = 2.7971
  • Dad in the Echo 2023 China  Jacky Heng SUN  315 points in 82 votes cast = 3.8414  * Best Animation
  • Eunice 2018 UK Eric Garro 240 points in 74 votes cast = 3.2432  * Science History Discovery of Greenhouse Gasses.
  • M.T. Nestor 2023 USA John Schlag  250 points in 70 votes cast = 3.5714  
  • The Hairdo 2024 UK Catherine Ruby Yeats  205 points in 73 votes cast = 2.8082
  • Fire of God 2024 Belgium Yannick Mourcia  106 points in 40 votes cast = 2.6500
  • Frederic Brown’s The Hobbyist 2016 USA George Vatistas 161 points in 46 votes cast = 3.5000
  • Battle of LA 2024 USA Patrick Pizzolorusso 137 points in 46 votes cast = 2.9782  
  • Forever 2018 France  Donia Summer 115 points in 47 votes cast = 2.4468
  • Under Siege 2025 Greece Nikos Nikitoglou 107 points in 47 votes cast = 2.2765
  • Stephen King’s The Reach 2024 Italy Luca Caserta  167 points in 41 votes cast = 4.0731  * Best Live Action
  • The Faun of Healwood The Edge 2023 France Stephane Artus 116 points in 39 votes cast = 2.9743
  • In The Walls 2023  Argentina  Ramsés Tuzzio  63 points in 32 votes cast = 1.9687   (continuing trend of low scoring Horror)

*** last 3 had technical error in missing subtitle/captioning.

  • Leïla et Les Fantômes 2023  France Chiraz Chouchane  41 points in 19 votes cast = 2.1578 
  • Alcalyne 2022 France  MICHAËL PROENÇA  41 points in 24 votes cast  = 1.7083  * Lowest Score.
  • Howard Waldrop’s Mary Margaret Road Grader 2024 USA Steven Paul Judd  110 points in 30 votes cast = 3.6666.

(14) THEY KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES. “New evidence suggests our solar system has nine planets again” – Earth.com discusses a new candidate for number nine.

…Searching the far reaches

Researchers at a university in Taiwan believe a Neptune-sized object could be wandering roughly 46.5 to 65.1 billion miles from the sun.

Their fresh findings are based on two deep infrared surveys taken more than two decades apart, with equipment sensitive enough to detect a faint planetary glow.

Infrared data from 1983 and 2006 offered a rare chance to see if something moved slightly between observations.

A possible candidate popped up, and the group thinks it might take 10,000 to 20,000 years to orbit the sun….

…Researchers estimate that if this object exists, it could weigh between seven and seventeen times as much as Earth. That puts it in the ice giant category, similar to Uranus or Neptune, rather than a rocky planet like Earth or Mars….

(15) 48 CHALLENGE 2025. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Sci-Fi London Film Fest has just posted its latest 48-hour film challenge’s 10 finalists for 2025.

This challenge is where amateur film makers are given a line of script and told to include a particular prop (it could be anything from a top hat to a candle stick) and then they are given two days to complete a short SF film.

You can view the finalist shorts at the link.

Meanwhile, this year’s Fest runs June 19– 22, 2025 at the Picture House in Finsbury Park (just north of central London).

(16) ESA BLUE DANUBE BROADCAST TO SPACE, [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] To mark ESA’s 50th anniversary, ESA’s  Cebreros station will broadcast “The Blue Danube” to space on Saturday, May 31, 2025.

The Cebreros station has been used to communicate with deep space missions including: BepiColombo, Euclid, Juice, Hera, Rosetta, Mars Express and NASA’s Perseverance rover.

The Blue Danube was famously (for us SF buffs) in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Cebreros station can, in theory, communicate with current-technology deep-space probes up to 1/3 light years away. However, it could communicate further with bigger dishes than those aboard current deep space probes and so in theory anyone listening around nearby stars should pick the microwave (S-band) broadcast up.

Details here: “European Space Agency will beam the famous ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ waltz out into the cosmos” in BBC Sky at Night Magazine.

The European Space Agency is planning to beam Johann Strauss’s ‘Blue Danube’ waltz out into the cosmos to celebrate a series of key anniversaries in the history of spaceflight.

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the European Space Agency and its ‘Estrack’ satellite tracking network.

It also marks the 20th anniversary of its ‘Cebreros’ space antenna and, coincidentally, the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II himself, composer of the Blue Danube.

And a reminder of the 2001: A Space Odyssey clip:

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

Pixel Scroll 2/8/25 God Had Names For All The Pixels. No One Else Knows Them

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(1) AMANDA PALMER ISSUES DENIAL. “Neil Gaiman’s ex-wife Amanda Palmer denies negligence allegations” reports the BBC.

Amanda Palmer, the ex-wife of British author Neil Gaiman, has denied allegations of negligence and human trafficking made by a woman who worked for the former couple.

Earlier this week, the woman filed civil lawsuits in the US alleging the former couple violated laws on federal human trafficking, with complaints of assault, battery and inflicting emotional distress against Gaiman and negligence against Palmer.

In a short post on Instagram, Palmer, who lives in the US, said she would not respond to specific allegations against her, but broadly denied them.

Gaiman has denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by eight women….

Amanda Palmer’s Instagram statement says:

I thank you all deeply for continuing to respect my recent request for privacy as I navigate this extremely difficult moment. I must protect my young child and his right to privacy.

With that as my priority, I will not respond to the specific allegations being made against me except to say that I deny the allegations and will respond in due course. My heart goes out to all survivors.

(2) RELIGION AS PART OF THE STORY IN SFF. Lancelot Schaubert wants to develop “A formalized schema for imagining and understanding religion in fantasy, science fiction, and other speculative works.” This sophisticated taxonomy is offered as “Schaubert’s Laws of Fantasy Religions”. [Via Camestros Felapton.]

…Part of the problem is that so few people, up until recently at least, have written lovingly about religion in the genre outside of, say, Walter Miller’s Canticle for Leibowitz or something like Anathem by Neil Stephenson. These days, Sanderson has written voluminously about many, many types of invented religions and he seems to understand that religion is fundamentally human. There are others, but he seems to be taking up a standard that has lain mostly unwielded on the landscape of the genre for some time. Another post for another day will survey the field, but other titles come to mind (negatively and positively) like Heinlein’s “Methuselah’s Children” and Stranger in a Strange Land (though this can be argued as anti-religion), James Blish’s “A Case of Conscience,” Lord of the World by Hugh Benson, M.P. Shiel’s Lord of the Sea, C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy, “The Man” by Ray Bradbury, “Fool’s Errand” by Paul L. Payne, Believers’ World by Robert Lowndes.

I wanted to create a taxonomy that would work no matter what you run through it, sort of a philosophical grid for making these sorts of systems analogous to Sanderson’s Laws of Magic (which works no matter the kind or scale of magic system). It works for me, that’s sufficient.

Here’s one example of Schaubert’s analysis.

…I want to speak to a couple of rights and beliefs in fantasy to show how this ends up being helpful in the narrative.

Mindful of the Cosmology of Tolkien’s legendarium, the light of Ilúvatar is given to Frodo by Galadriel. Sam ends up, in faith, wielding that vial in the depth of Shelob’s darkness. Now Ilúvatar means, more or less, “All father” which indicates “the alone.” And Shelob, being a child of Ungoliant, is a lesser Maia. Sort of a fallen angel, an immortal spirit who feasts on light and spins it into her webs. It’s a statement about proximate good in the reality of Tolkien’s world, but it’s also a statement about the substance of light. And when the undiluted light is unveiled — perhaps even unknowingly — by Sam, it is too much for the demon spider.

So here you have an object, a rite, a belief, and the reality of the world playing at very different levels….

(3) THIS IS THE CASH WE’RE LOOKING FOR. “Prince Andrew’s ex Koo Stark is suing Star Wars producers for £190million” says Bang Showbiz NZ.

Prince Andrew’s ex Koo Stark is suing ‘Star Wars’ producers for £190million.

The 68-year-old actress – who dated Prince Andrew in the early 1980s prior to his now-defunct marriage to Sarah, Duchess of York – starred as Camie Marstrap in the 1977 film ‘New Hope’ but her scenes were cut from the final film.

The scenes in question have resurfaced online in recent times and the character has appeared in various spin-offs over the years, so litigation filed in an LA court claims that the production company has profited off her likeness.

The legal action was brought by actor Anthony Forrest – who also starred in the film as Fixer in scenes that were eventually cut – and it is claimed that their “intellectual property rights were exploited” when the scenes became available online and on DVD.

In the film, Anthony – who also played a storm trooper and appeared in the James Bond film ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ – utters the line: “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for”, and has claimed that he has received no compensation for his work….

(4) DIGITAL GHOSTS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The idea of data scraping all that can be had about an individual and using that to train an AI to create a quasi-version of that individual has come up in science fiction, including in an episode of Black Mirror.

Indeed, StoryFile already does this by training a Chat-Bot with an individual’s writing, social media and so forth.  However, with generative AI it is possible to go further and create something even more interactive.  This week’s BBC Radio 4 programme Sideways takes a look at this as we are now on the cusp of creating digital ghosts.

Amy Kurzweil’s dad is a famous inventor, futurist and pioneer in the field of AI. In 2015, she discovers his aspiration to make an AI chatbot of her late grandfather, Fred. Fred was a musician who dramatically escaped the Holocaust, but he died before Amy was born. Matthew Syed delves into Amy’s fascinating journey with her father to build the ‘Fredbot’ and have an online conversation with the grandfather she never met.

The idea of using AI to simulate conversations with the dead troubles Matthew and raises all sorts of ethical questions. With the help of experts, he discovers how similar concepts were once debated by ancient Chinese philosophers and explores how digital ghosts could affect the grieving process.

Featuring references to the graphic novel Artificial: A Love Story by Amy Kurzweil, published in 2022 by Catapult Books.

You can download the half-hour episode here.

(5) DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER. Longreads’ “Remember the Titans: An ‘Attack on Titan’ Reading List” is a list of recommended articles with brief excerpts (just like the Scroll!)

Despite coming nearly a century after the art form’s birth, Attack on Titan may be one of the most genre-defining anime Japan has produced. The original manga, about a war between humans and the colossal creatures who attack them, has some 140 million copies in circulation. The televised adaptation that began in 2013 expanded anime’s global audience. There’s even a stage musical—performed in Osaka and Tokyo in 2023 and New York City in 2024. And now, the series is officially a piece of history: Next week, the anime’s final two episodes, which first aired in 2023, arrive in movie theaters as a single film. 

At the series’ outset, we’re told that the last remnants of humanity erected a network of concentric walls to fend off the Titans, and meet the three preteens living behind those walls who become our initial protagonists. That premise quickly proves to be knottier than expected, however; this is no simple humans-versus-megamonsters kaiju like Godzilla or Pacific Rim. While Hajime Isayama’s saga might begin as a dystopian fantasy, it soon twists into a speculative, discomfitingly realistic meditation on imperialism, war, genocide, hubris, and cyclical violence. ’…

(6) DIRDA SIGNS OFF. Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda, who frequently covered sff, has brought his time there to an end (column behind a paywall). Thanks to Scott Edelman for screencapping this part.  

(7) TUTTLE REVIEWS. Lisa Tuttle’s Guardian column, “The best science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup”, looks at Old Soul by Susan Barker; Model Home by Rivers Solomon; Mother of Serpents by John R Gordon; Symbiote by Michael Nayak; and Waterblack by Alex Pheby.

(8) FRANK HILDEBRAND (1950-2024). Fear of the Walking Dead Frank Hildebrand producer and production manager died November 21 at the age of 73 reported Deadline today.

Born and educated in Zurich, Switzerland, Hildebrand began his filmmaking career in the UK before moving to Hollywood in the 1980s, working on such indie films as Vice Squad (1982) and Once Bitten (1985).

He then went on to line produce and supervise on such films as Triumph of the Spirit (1989), Freeway (1996), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Into the Wild (2007), The Runaways (2010), Fair Game (2010) and The Tree of Life (2011). In recent years, Hildebrand served as a producer on the last seven seasons of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead.

(9) MARIA VON BRAUN DIED. “NASA rocket pioneer Wernher Von Braun’s widow passes away at home in Alexandria, Virginia” – AL.com has the story.

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center announced the passing of Maria von Braun, Wernher von Braun’s widow on Friday.

The center said she died Jan. 20 at her home in Alexandria, Va. She was 96.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Planet of the Apes (1968)

By Paul Weimer: You maniacs!

You’ve seen the meme even if you have never seen the Planet of the Apes. Charlton Heston as Taylor, finds out he and his crew had just crashed landed on Earth in the far future. He hadn’t seen a new world of apes ruling men…he saw the future of his own society. 

So yes, first and foremost Planet of the Apes (forgot the Marky Mark remake and the newest remakes are a different kettle of fish entirely) are a one way time travel story. The sequels they made are in the end not necessary. They are surplus to requirements. 

All you need is the original. I saw it on WPIX back in the day, and have seen it many times once. The movie cheats a bit here and there, particularlg with the Moon which would have given the game away earlier. 

But it is such a rich and visually interesting movie. The Eden that Taylor and his crew find and where they are captured. The Ape Judges that do the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” bit. The creepy taxidermy of his fellow astronaut. The cave and tunnel shaped dwellings. The excellent makeup and prosthetics for the people playing the Apes.and on and on.

And then the cast, not just Heston, but Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans providing stroke and unmistakable acting and passion even with such a heavy transformation. 

And did you know Rod Serling helped write the screenplay?

And now I am definitely due a rewatch.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) THE CUT DIRECT. Beau Brummel wouldn’t put up with this either: “Deadpool Creator Rob Liefeld Cuts Ties With Marvel” reports Deadline.

Nearly 35 years after creating Deadpool, Rob Liefeld has reached his boiling point with Marvel.

The comic book creator, who conceived the character in a 1990 issue of New Mutants, publicly cut ties with Marvel as he recounted being snubbed at the July 2024 premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine.

“It was meant to embarrass, diminish, defeat me,” he said in the latest episode of his Robservations podcast, which was titled ‘Marvel: Access Denied!’

The description of the episode reads: “Why I left Marvel Entertainment and won’t look back.”

He recalled being ignored by Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige on the red carpet before finding out he and his family were not invited to the afterparty, the final straw for Liefeld. Meanwhile, Liefeld posed on the carpet with creatives from the movie but later learned those photos were deleted, as he believes they were only taken to appease him.

“At some point, you go, ‘I’ve received the message, and the message is clear,’” added Liefeld.

Previously, Liefeld sent an email to Marvel after they granted Wolverine co-creator Roy Thomas a special spot in the film’s credits, which upset co-creator Len Wein’s widow Christine Valada, a friend of Liefeld. He also inquired about a special mention for himself in the credits, noting he did not ask for money.

“Marvel’s treatment of creators has never been their strength,” he wrote in the email. “Without the worlds, the characters and the concepts that we create — and in this specific case, the world of Deadpool — there are no films to shoot. No blockbusters to distribute. … I am not the easy button at Staples. I am the human imagination behind it all.”

Liefeld added, “Comic book creators cannot continue to be relegated as afterthoughts. This is easy to address. Unless I reach out to address it, it will never manifest.”…

(13) GOTHAM HIJACK. What Vera Drew told the Guardian: “The trans film-maker who remade Batman: ‘There’s a reason all the heroes are queer, mentally ill villains’”.

It started as a joke,” says Vera Drew. “I just took it a little too far.” The 35-year-old former editor for Sacha Baron Cohen, Nathan Fielder and Tim & Eric is referring to her debut movie: The People’s Joker, a transgender-punk-superhero comedy in which she hijacks DC Comics characters to tell her own coming-out story. The film is set in an apocalyptic Gotham City ruled by Batman, billionaire groomer of teenage boys. Comedy can only be practised by licensed clowns divided into Jokers (male) and Harlequins (female). Enter Joker the Harlequin, played by Drew, who establishes an illegal comedy club specialising in cringe and bad-taste humour.

(14) STAYIN’ ALIVE. Camestros Felapton posted an interesting game review: “Currently Playing: Citizen Sleeper”.

…I’m saying all that because I’m actually enjoying Citizen Sleeper. Functionally, it is really just a text based adventure game with a limited set of locations. It looks better than that, with a nice 3D view of a space-station-city-habitat showing you where you (or rather your character) is. However, the other people you meet are just two dimensional art work with text.

You are a Sleeper, some sort of emulated-human-construct-robot-escaped-indetured-servant. You don’t remember much but you are a fugitive and you have woken on-board a run-down industrial space habitat. You need energy to live but also your body is slowly breaking down and you’ll need cash and technology to stay alive. You need work and you need somewhere safe to sleep. It is a basic struggle to stay alive in a shitty world….

(15) THEY DINED ME WITH SCIENCE! [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] It’s not just Eating The Fantastic with Scott Edelman that’s reported in File 770, it’s cooking tips too! So, starting with the basics, what is the best way to cook a boiled egg?  Well, scientists to the rescue…primary research here.  And this week’s BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science tried it out to save you the hassle.  

You can listen to the programme here (topic is two-thirds way through).

Science-backed boiled egg recipe:

– You need two pans… and exactly 32 minutes
– Keep one pan at 100 degrees Celsius (boiling) and the other pan at 30 degrees Celsius
– Move the egg between the two every two minutes for 32 minutes

Enjoy!

(16) BLOOPS AND BLEEPS! TVcrazyman adds his own commentary to these “1978 Battlestar Galactica Goofs, Facts, and Bloopers” which does kind of improve them.

(17) LIVE FROM AREA 51. Get a head start on the Super Bowl commercials with “Unidentified Frying Object” featuring Gordon Ramsay and Pete Davidson.

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

Pixel Scroll 1/18/25 “All These Pixels Are Just For Us” Said Tom Clickishly

Posted on by

(1) CLOCK NOT RUNNING OUT ON TIKTOK? Yesterday’s Deadline’s article “Supreme Court Upholds Law Banning TikTok In U.S.” initially reported —

…the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower court ruling that the app owned by China’s ByteDance must sell itself or be banned in the U.S. on January 19 due to national security concerns….

…Read the Supreme Court’s full TikTok opinion here….

…The ban would take effect under a new bipartisan law, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Controlled Applications Act, signed by President Joe Biden last year….

However, the incoming President said he will probably delay the ban: “Trump says he will ‘most likely’ give TikTok 90-day extension to avoid ban” at NBC News.

President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in a phone interview Saturday that he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban in the U.S. after he takes office Monday….

And Deadline subsequently added this update to its article:

TikTok’s CEO has responded to a Supreme Court ruling today that paves the way for the app to be banned on Sunday, thanking the incoming president. “On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” said chief executive Shou Chew in a video posted to the platform.

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process,” he said. “As you know, we have been fighting to protect the constitutional right of free speech for the more than 170 million Americans who use our platform every day to connect, create, discover and achieve their dreams.”

(2) WHY WE FIGHT. CrimeReads’ fascinating analysis of “Pride and Prejudice and Nazis: On Aldous Huxley’s Wild Wartime Jane Austen Adaptation” teases out its threads of pre-WWII propaganda.

…But underneath its thick, saccharine coating; the film is something else: a contrived, convoluted morsel of political propaganda. Filmed by on American soil by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, this British adaptation shot directly after the French surrender to the Nazis, released during the Battle of Britain, and co-screenwritten by depressed British idealist Aldous Huxley, managed to transform that famous English book Pride and Prejudice into a partisan plug relying on Depression-era escapism, thematic idealization of a nationalistic Anglocentric tradition, the depiction of highly distracting romantic merriment, and a reassuringly happy ending to prepare and energize Americans for the inevitable: the United States’ joining the Allied Forces overseas to fight in World War II….

…Austen, Jerome, and Huxley place the same emphasis on class, however, in that all three versions have the same classless ending—Jane and Mr. Bingley marry, and Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy marry, despite their class and financial differences.  The concept of any Pride and Prejudice adaptation is that is possible to climb up a social ladder, because everyone is equal—or rather, everyone has the ability to be equal. Most of the characters belong in many social circles, and it is possible to find love or friendship somewhere else.  Perhaps this is the dominant reason why Huxley chose the Pride and Prejudice story for his anti-war-but-if-you-have-to-fight-then-fight-with-these-guys-esque opus instead of another classical novel (after all, many of other elements of the film Pride and Prejudice that make it jingoistic lie in plot alterations, or aesthetics —changes that could applied to any other story in the adaptation process): Pride and Prejudice is, at its core, a story about good, smart everyday people who make mistakes but learn their lessons just as much as it is a story about how important it is not to form judgments. Huxley nearly abuses this tone by exaggerating it in his own, though; any shred of mystery about the moral of the story is completely detonated throughout.  For example, in the film, Mr. Darcy comforts Elizabeth after Caroline Bingley insults her.  Elizabeth is shocked, and informs him, “At this moment, it’s difficult to believe that you are so proud.”  Mr. Darcy smiles vainly and answers back, “at this moment, it’s difficult to believe that you are so prejudiced.” Huxley spells out the main paradox of the story, killing the main thematic mystery – the only thing left for the audience to wonder is how they can get shipped off to fun, idyllic England.  Austen’s tone is inclusive, it’s happy, it’s insightful, and it’s open-minded—so now it fights fascism.

Of course, the aesthetics of the film Pride and Prejudice hide these anti-Nazi sentiments under tons and tons of poofy dresses and behind maypoles. For example, in the script, Huxley and Murfin manage to turn the extravagant Netherfield Ball into a garden party, which the film then turns into a frothy visual circus—where everything appears to be made out of cotton candy and wishes….

(3) LIU CIXIN MUSEUM. “Museum dedicated to sci-fi writer opens” from Chinadaily.com in October 2024.

China launched its first literary museum dedicated to Liu Cixin, a renowned science fiction writer and Hugo Award winning novelist, in Yangquan, Shanxi province, on Sunday.

While accepting the nation’s honor and unveiling the Liu Cixin Sci-fi Museum, Liu, author of the acclaimed sci-fi novel trilogy The Three-Body Problem who grew up in Yangquan, said that he hopes the museum can help the general public gain a better understanding of the sci-fi literature and develop an interest in the genre.

Located at a cultural park, the 700-square-meter museum educates visitors about Liu’s growth, his books and awards, and cultural and creative products derived from his works. Immersive projectors also create an atmosphere mimicking interstellar voyages described in Liu’s novels….

… Yan Jingming, vice-president of the China Writers Association, said that the establishment of the museum is not only an homage to Liu and his works but also serves as a beacon for China’s sci-fi writers and fans.

He said he hopes it will bring like-minded sci-fi novelists together and spark more inspiration and works.

The launch was part of a weeklong sci-fi promotional event in Yangquan that also included a symposium on sci-fi literature and real-world productivity, where Liu shared his thoughts on potential immigration to Mars.

“I would love to go to Mars if it were a round trip,” Liu said, explaining that a one-way journey would not suit him as he had work to do and family members to be with on Earth….

(4) WHAT’S THAT SMELL? Neil Baker returns with more horrible dino movies in “Prehistrionics, Part III” at Black Gate.

We’re off on another adventure filled to the brim with disappointment. 20 films I’ve never seen before, all free to stream, all dinosaur-based.

First on his list, last in his heart:

The Jurassic Dead (2017) Tubi

Just how bad is the CG? Rubbish.

Sexy scientist? Nope.

Mumbo jumbo? Reanimation, dinosaurs, zombies, asteroids.

Just in case you thought I might try to start the year on a high note, might I present this tripe. The premise is simple: a Herbert West type (complete with glowing green reanimating fluid and dead cat) loses his job and decides to destroy the world. Somehow he has a T-Rex, which he zombifies, and then he turns into Immortan Joe and sets off an EMP just as asteroids wipe out some cities. A crack, sorry crap, team of commandos based on 80s action figures must team up with a group of hugely unlikeable civilians to survive.

Everything ends in nuclear devastation. Effects-wise, the dinosaur is a cute, Walking with Dinosaurs puppet, but everything else is shockingly awful green screen composites. Just terrible.

3/10

(5) GAIMAN: ART AND ARTIST. NPR’s popular culture commentator Glen Weldon speaks as “One longtime Neil Gaiman fan on where we go from here”.

…While we don’t know whether these disturbing allegations are true, learning of them naturally leads to a deeply personal, complicated question: How do we deal with allegations about artists whose work we admire — even revere?

I should note: It’s a complicated question for most of us. It’s not remotely complicated for those who rush to social media to declare that they never truly liked the creator’s work in the first place, or that they always suspected them, or that the only possible response for absolutely everyone is to rid themselves of the now-poisoned art that, before learning of the allegations against the creator, they loved so dearly.

Nor is it complicated for those who will insist that a creator’s personal life has no bearing on how we choose to respond to their work, and that the history of art is a grim, unremitting litany of monstrous individuals who created works of enduring, inviolate beauty.

Most of us, however, will find ourselves mired in the hand-wringing of the in-between. We’ll make individual, case-by-case choices, we’ll cherry-pick from the art, we’ll envision ourselves, in years ahead, sampling lightly from the salad bar of the artist’s collected works, and feeling a little lousy about it.

Here’s my personal approach, whenever allegations come out about an artist whose work is important to me: I see the moment I learned of them as an inflection point. From that very instant, it’s on me.The knowledge of the allegations will color their past works, when and if I choose to revisit them in the future. It won’t change how those works affected me back then, and there’s no point in pretending it will. But my newfound understanding of the claims can and will change how those works affect me today, and tomorrow.

To put that in practical perspective: If I own any physical media of their past work, I feel free to revisit it, while leaving plenty of room for the new allegations to color my impressions. But as for any future work — that’s a door I’m only too willing to shut….

(6) HINT: IT’S ZELAZNY. Grammaticus Books asks is he “The MOST DISRESPECTED Science Fiction author of ALL TIME ???” How could you not click on that?

An indepth analysis of the works of science fiction and fantasy author Roger Zelazny. With a focus on his lack of recognition as one of the greats of the SF field. Worthy of mention alongside Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Frank Herbert.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

January 18, 1953 — Pamela Dean, 72.

By Paul Weimer: One of the legends of Minneapolis fantasy writing, Pamela Dean’s work first came to my attention in the same season that also brought such novels as War for the Oaks to my attention. From my perch in New York, work by people like Bull and Dean and Brust (among others) enlightened me to the fact that the Twin Cities was a hotbed of fantasy and science fiction writing. 

I started reading her with her classic Tam Lin, which I picked up not long after the aforementioned Bull novel. (I was on a kick to read novels set in Minnesota at that point, you seem, especially by this community).  It’s an excellent adaptation and exploration of the Scottish-English story. You know the one. Young man taken by a Queen or noble of Faerie, and the titular Tam Lin must thus be rescued by the love of his life, Janet. You can see the appeal, it is an empowering fantasy that puts a woman in a forward, protagonist position. Since the original reels and songs, it’s been adapted many times by many authors. Dean’s version has the story take place, predictably in Minnesota, setting it at Blackrock College. 

But it is the Secret Country trilogy that I think of as her best work, or at any rate my favorite. It’s a conceit that was not new to her, as far as I am aware, it dates back to Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame series: the idea that a group of people, playing a game with and imagining a fantasy world, find themselves transported into the realm of the very game that they thought was fiction. The idea is the same, but the Secret country is on the brink of war, there’s a dragon afoot, and so there is far more urgency and threat to the realm than wandering about as in Rosenberg’s series. It is one of the classic portal fantasies into a realm you think you already known. 

I’ve gotten to meet Pamela Dean many times at local cons. She might even be able to pick me out of a line up. Happy birthday, Pamela!

Pamela Dean

(8) MEMORY LANE

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Six Million Dollar Man (1973)

Fifty-two years ago, The Six Million Dollar Man premiered on ABC. It was based on Martin Caidin’s Cyborg. Executive Producer was Harve Bennett, who you will recognize from the Star Trek films. It was produced by Kenneth Johnson who would later do The Bionic Woman spin-off and the Alien Nation film. 

Its primary cast was Lee Majors,  Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks. Majors had a successful second series shortly after this series was cancelled, The Fall Guy, about heart-of-gold bounty hunters. The Six Million Dollar Man would run for five seasons consisting of ninety-nine episodes and five films. The Fall Guy would run five seasons as well. 

Reception by media critics is generally positive. Phelim O’Neil of The Guardian says, “He was Superman, James Bond and Neil Armstrong all rolled into one, and $6M was an almost incomprehensibly large amount of money: how could anyone not watch this show?” And Rob Hunter of Film School Reviews states “The story lines run the gamut from semi-believable to outright ludicrous, but even at its most silly the show is an entertaining family friendly mix of drama, humor, action, and science fiction.”

It’s streaming on Peacock. 

(9) MEMORY LANE, TOO.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

The Demolished Man (1952)

Seventy-three years ago, Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man was first published in three parts starting in the January 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Although he had been writing short fiction since 1939, this was Bester’s first novel.

The novel is dedicated to Galaxy‘s editor, H. L. Gold, who made suggestions during its writing. 

Bester’s preferred title was Demolition! but Gold convinced him it was not a good one. Anyone know where the published title came from? Bester or Gold? 

The Demolished Man would be published in hardcover by Shasta Publishers the next year. Shasta Publishers was formed by a group of Chicago area fans in 1947.

Critics at the time really loved it. 

Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas in their Recommended Reading column for The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy said it was “a taut, surrealistic melodrama [and] a masterful compounding of science and detective fiction.” And Groff Conklin in his Galaxy 5 Star Shelf column exclaimed that it is “a magnificent novel as fascinating a study of character as I have ever read.”

As you know The Demolished Man would win the first Hugo for Best Novel at PhilCon II. It was also nominated for the International Fantasy Award. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Off the Mark has a frightening brand name.
  • Pardon My Planet knows you could explain this vampire’s problem.
  • Tom Gauld’s editor is like Cosby’s refrigerator light – “How do it know?”

My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books.

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-01-18T10:35:58.069Z

(11) YOU HAVE TO BE EITHER OH-SO-SMART, OR OH-SO-NICE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] In a twist, the words coming from the Merc with a Mouth are just fine. It’s what Nicepool said that Justin Baldoni finds offensive. And has filed a lawsuit over. “How Deadpool Entered Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively Feud With Nicepool” at The Hollywood Reporter.

Half a century ago, a defining question of the Watergate scandal was, “What did the president know and when did he know it?” Today, a surprising question has emerged in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni legal saga: “What did Nicepool say, and when did he say it?”

On Tuesday, a letter from Baldoni attorney Bryan Freedman to Disney landed in the hands of the media. Freedman’s legal hold letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige — in which he addressed them as “Bob” and “Kevin” — asked the studio to preserve any documents regarding Baldoni and the creation of Nicepool, a minor character in Deadpool & Wolverine that internet sleuths (and Freedman himself) say star-writer-producer Ryan Reynolds used to mock Baldoni….

… Freedman suggests work on Nicepool came as Reynolds’ wife, Lively, was in the midst of a contentious shoot with her It Ends With Us director-star Baldoni. She later filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, while on Thursday, Baldoni sued Reynolds, Lively and Lively’s publicist, Leslie Sloane.

So, how (and when) did Nicepool end up in the movie?

The character was developed before the rift between Lively and Baldoni, but sources tell THR that scenes involving Nicepool were shot late in the game following the November 2023 conclusion of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

“It was all added post-strike,” says one knowledgeable source of the shooting schedule, who says the scenes were filmed in the final days of principal photography, which wrapped up in January 2024. 

In other words, the scenes were shot during a high point of tension between Lively and Baldoni….

(12) WHAT WE DID IN THE SHADOWS. “U.S. Reveals Once-Secret Support for Ukraine’s Drone Industry” in the New York Times (behind a paywall).

The Biden administration declassified one last piece of information about how it has helped Ukraine: an account of its once-secret support for the country’s military drone industry.

U.S. officials said on Thursday that they had made big investments that helped Ukraine start and expand its production of drones as it battled Russia’s larger and better-equipped army.

Much of the U.S. assistance to the Ukrainian military, including billions of dollars in missiles, air defense systems, tanks, artillery and training, has been announced to the public. But other support has largely gone on in the shadows….

… Last fall, the Pentagon allocated $800 million to Ukraine’s drone production, which was used to purchase drone components and finance drone makers. When President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the White House in September, President Biden said another $1.5 billion would be directed to Ukraine’s drone industry.

American officials said on Thursday that they believe the investments have made Ukraine’s drones more effective and deadly. They noted that Ukraine’s sea drones had destroyed a quarter of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and that drones deployed on the front lines had helped slow Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine….

(13) STARSHIP TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED. “F.A.A. Temporarily Halts Launches of Musk’s Starship After Explosion” reports the New York Times. (Behind a paywall.)

The urgent radio calls by the air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration office in Puerto Rico started to go out on Thursday evening as a SpaceX test flight exploded and debris began to rain toward the Caribbean.

Flights near Puerto Rico needed to avoid passing through the area — or risk being hit by falling chunks of the Starship, the newest and biggest of Elon Musk’s rockets.

“Space vehicle mishap,” an air traffic controller said over the F.A.A. radio system, as onlookers on islands below and even in some planes flying nearby saw bright streaks of light as parts of the spacecraft tumbled toward the ocean.

Added a second air traffic controller: “We have reports of debris outside of the protected areas so we’re currently going to have to hold you in this airspace.”

The mishap — the Starship spacecraft blew up as it was still climbing into space — led the F.A.A. on Friday to suspend any additional liftoffs by SpaceX’s Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built.

The incident raises new questions about both the safety of the rapidly increasing number of commercial space launches, or at least the air traffic disruption being caused by them….

(14) BIG BOY REMEMBERS DAVID LYNCH? For some reason there’s a David Lynch memorial at the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank – Patton Oswalt posted photos. (Is there some reference involved? Maybe one of you can explain it to me.)

The marginal details of the David Lynch memorial at the Burbank Bob’s Big Boy are what make it.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt.bsky.social) 2025-01-18T19:55:32.073Z

Just saw this one earlier.

— Sam Ebbets (@samebbets.bsky.social) 2025-01-18T21:34:55.074Z

Hold the phone – John King Tarpinian sent me the answer.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Retired Disney Imagineer Jim Shull tells how “Toy Story Land went from a one and done to a Disney- land built in four separate parks. How the toys were Imagineered is the subject in this episode of Disney Journey.” “Imagineering Toy Story Land”.

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

Pixel Scroll 12/14/24 They Say It’s Only A Paper Shadow Square

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(1) IT COMES IN THE MAIL*. Whenever David Langford air mails me a paper copy of Ansible there’s always a colorful assortment of British postage stamps on the envelope. I was struck to see on the most recent arrival a singular image – the smile of the Mona Lisa. The smile alone. And without a caption. (But do we need one?)

I wondered if this was a current issue and checked with Langford. He replied that it’s from the Royal Mail’s 1990 “Smiles” set, which also includes Stan Laurel and the UK Dennis the Menace.

Isn’t this a collectible? Not exactly, he explained. “People used to buy commemorative stamps in bulk as an investment, but the bottom dropped out of that market some time ago: there’s at least one UK dealer who acquires these accumulations on the cheap and sells at less than face value to cheapskates who actually use them for postage. As you say, it makes for interesting envelopes!”

(*pace Ned Brooks.)

(2) BRUCE STERLING Q&A. Worldbuilding Agency brings us “deliberate oxymorons: an interview with Bruce Sterling (part 1)”.

Paul Graham Raven: Okay. What’s your elevator pitch, on the rare occasion you meet someone who doesn’t know who you are already? What do you tell them you do?

BS: I would tell them nowadays that I’m the art director of a technology art fair in Turin, Italy….

PGR: As I understand it, that’s almost a kind of return to something you were doing very early on. You were very involved in, I don’t think it was called that then, but the tech-art scene in Austin [Texas] when you were younger, right?

BS: Yeah, I used to hang out with a lot of robotics guys and engineering people, software people and hardware people. I mean, my father was an engineer, so I have a long lasting interest in material culture and how things are made. It was very rare of me to actually do any of that. But now in later life—I mean, this year I turned 70, and I’m actually giving in and doing a lot more hands-on… well, I don’t even like to call it creative work, really.

But I’m very involved in studies of luxury multi-tools. [brandishes multi-tool] This is the Leatherman Free from the USA; as an American in Italy, it’s kind of like a crusade of mine to try to explain to people why an object like this existed, why you might want to use it, and why an American invented it in Eastern Europe. We’re known for distributing tools to our guests and the core of creative artists that surrounds our festival. I found that I could give them like a futuristic lecture about what to do, but they were much, much more interested if I just said to them, “if I gave you this, what would you do with it,” right?. I mean, I’ll put it in a bag—you can have ten! And then they come back and we put what they did on display.

That’s just an intervention that the Turinese invited me to do, and nobody in Austin would have asked me to do such a thing. But in Italian design circles, they have the atmosphere, or the motto really, “proviamo”: give it a shot, prove it, try it out. And proviamo is never just a lecture; proviamo is always a thing. It’s a process or a tool—you know, make a lamp out of plastic bags, make a chair out of styrofoam. That’s a proviamo, very Italian design-centric situation. So I do a lot of that.

I mean, I’m the judge, I’m the art director for our fair. And people come up with these proviamo “innovations”, or just hacks, really. Interventions, you might call them. And I have to judge them and decide whether to show them to the Turinese public, right? So in order to do that, I have to have an aesthetic, and I have to have some idea of what’s worth showing to the public. I mean, we’re publicly funded art fair, you know—it’s my job, really. And so I do a lot of writing for this festival; I write all our pamphlets, do a lot of basically behind-the-scenes art-world politics.

But, you know, I found that this suits me—I find it less tiresome than actually going out and doing futurism for people and getting paid for it. I mean, that situation, which I’ve done a lot, it is like politics, but it’s also kind of psychoanalytic; you’re dealing with people who are in trouble, and you’re trying to sort of gently bend their worldview so they could see some way out of their difficulty. Whereas something like brandishing a Leatherman Free multi-tool on an Italian actually gets to the point, and it stays in his pocket when you leave the room….

(3) SPIRIT OF THE SEASON. “Deadpool & Kidpool Return For DC-Baiting Christmas Promo & They Really Want You To Cost Ryan Reynolds $500k” says ScreenRant.

… Ryan Reynolds has shared a new holiday video in support of the SickKids Foundation, this time appearing as Deadpool alongside Kidpool and Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter to ask for donations for The Hospital for Sick Children. Reynolds and his wife, Blake Lively, will match all donations up to $500,000 made before midnight on December 24th….

… Due to the characters’ R-rated nature, Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter comes in. Plenty of hilarious DC references follow, including nods to Henry Cavill, Batman, Wonder Woman’s classic costume change by spinning, and more….

(4) GAMERGATE LITIGATION. “‘GamerGate’ lawsuit between video game reviewers hits Brooklyn court” reports the Brooklyn Eagle.

An online battle over video game reporting entered the real world on Wednesday, after one well-known reviewer filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York against a rival, accusing him of orchestrating a harassment campaign that led to her losing her job.

Brooklyn writer Alyssa Mercante, formerly a senior editor at the game review website Kotaku, is seeking damages from California YouTuber Jeff “SmashJT” Tarzia, alleging that Tarzia created hundreds of false and inflammatory posts and videos designed to provoke hate towards Mercante and Kotaku.

Screenshots in Mercante’s lawsuit purport to show Tarzia making comments like “How many times do I need to teach these crazy bitches this lesson?” Other allegations include that Tarzia falsely stated Mercante engaged in prostitution, a crime in New York, and that Tarzia helped to accuse Mercante of antisemitism – a charge that ended with her compelled resignation.

Mercante also seeks to have the court recognize “stochastic terrorism” as a new residual liability tort, defined in the suit as a pattern of escalating harassment. A court in Washington has previously recognized this tort, according to the suit.

Tarzia, in response, is fundraising for a legal defense, and claims Mercante is attempting to silence him through the suit. “Mercante has retained activist lawyers with a clear agenda to bring this ridiculous case against me, and the video game industry to it’s [sic] knees […] This case isn’t just about me. It’s about all gamers,” Tarzia wrote in a post on the conservative crowdfunding website GiveSendGo.

The feud stems from the “GamerGate” controversy, a long-running and vicious online debate – linked to the rise of the alt-right – over the politics of video games. Self-identified GamerGate supporters, including Tarzia, accuse developers and journalists of left-wing bias and favoritism. Opponents, meanwhile, including Mercante, say that those supporters are in reality an organized hate mob, focusing primarily on targeting women and seeking to punish opponents for their political views. Mercante’s former employer, Kotaku, has long been a lightning rod for this debate. The suit claims Tarzia’s campaign began following the site’s publication of an article by Mercante on a popular conspiracy theory.

The suit also touches on the separate, and equally loaded, internet battle over the game streaming website Twitch and the war between Israel and Hamas, in which several observers, including U.S. Rep. Richie Torres, have accused the site of platforming antisemitic creators. Mercante has been previously accused of antisemitism in connection to Twitch, centered around her positive coverage of controversial streamer Hasan Piker and an alleged retweeting of an X post skeptical of reports of rape occurring during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year. According to Mercante, Tarzia’s amplification of the antisemitism claim led to multiple individuals contacting Kotaku’s owners with these accusations, resulting in parent company G/O Media pressuring her to resign.

Mercante is seeking a jury trial in the suit, as well as damages in excess of $75,000.

(5) SCI-FI LONDON IS BACK! [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Good news for SF film lovers in Brit-Cit…If Glasgow’s programme of wall-to-wall panels and sparse film stream (it was the first British-hosted Worldcon not have any film screenings) failed to hearten, then fret not, the Sci-Fi London film fest is back!  (Sci-Fi London were the people who co-organised (with the British Film Institute) the Loncon 3 film programme.)

This year’s (2024) event was greatly slimmed-down to a single day of short films, nonetheless some great stuff was in there. The reduction came about due to a cinema chain deciding to close the Stratford community cinema that had been SFL’s home.  However, the latest news is that in 2025 there will be a four-day fest just outside of central London in Finsbury Park around the corner (literally) from its rail and tube/metro station.

As usual, the Fest firmly focuses on screenings with many of the feature films having their first British airing and, if true to form, there should be a few World premieres in the mix.  There will also be some two-hour short SF film sessions and the results of the 48-hour film challenge.  This last takes place earlier in the year in which amateur film makers are given a couple of lines of dialogue and a prop to include and then just two days in which to turn in a film…  One Gareth (The Creator; Star Wars: Rogue One) Edwards was a past SFL 48-hour challenge winner.  The Fest itself sees the short-list screened and winner announced.

If it the same as previous years, then you pay for each film you see but if you are seeing more than several it may be cheaper to get an all-Festival pass.

For those coming from afar wishing to attend, there are nearby hotels including some mid-range budget hotels such as the local Travelodge which provides a good base for central London tourism.

More details as and when on sci-fi-london.com. The dates are June 19-22, 2025. The venue is the Picturehouse Cinema, Finsbury Park.

Stand-by for action. Anything can happen in these four days…

(6) CINEMA TOOTHSOME. In “Jumping the Shark, Part II” at Black Gate, Neil Baker continues to wonder why these movies bite.

…A new watch-a-thon, this one based on a handful of the 500+ shark movies that I haven’t seen (or gave up on). I’m not holding out much hope for these – shark movies are, on the whole, awful, but I know for a fact that some of these are among the worst films ever made. This 20-film marathon is me just trying to understand why they get made, bought and streamed….

Here’s one of his subjects:

Shark Exorcist (2014) Tubi

What kind of shark? A rubbish CG chonk and some possessed ladies.

How deep is the plot? The depth of a small pail.

Anyone famous get eaten? Nope.

Just going by the title, you know this going to be rubbish, but what KIND of rubbish? Actually, this is a step up from the usual rubbish.

Normally, a film with this premise, shot on a camcorder, with acting that ranges from earnest to ironing board, would be acutely aware of their own daftness, and play it for laughs. But Shark Exorcist, bless it, takes itself seriously, and it’s not a hateful experience. I’m not recommending it, but I’m also not tracking down every last copy with a hammer.

3/10

(7) GARNER AT 90. [Item by Steven French.] Interesting interview with Alan Garner, author of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (among other wonderful works): “’It can feel quite mysterious’: Alan Garner on writing, folklore and experiencing time slips in the Pennines” in the Guardian.

His novels have always channelled ideas about time and quantum reality, and he is keen to elide distinctions between art and science: working with Jodrell Bank on what he calls “Operation Melting Snow”, and today describing maths as philosophy, philosophy as a game, creativity as play. What Garner knows for sure is that “I don’t write set books. I keep coming back to the distinction between mysterious, which is OK, and mystical, which is not OK. The thing that ties all creativity together is not something that universities should analyse, but people should just accept as wonder.”

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

December 14, 1978 — Superman the Movie

By Paul Weimer: I had heard about Superman the Movie which premiered on this date before I ever saw it, and the first time I saw it was on television in a network television cut. Even then, DC characters were never my primary comic interest, that was marvel. But when Christopher Reeve came on screen, he became Superman for me, in a way that blew away, I must admit, the black and white Superman 1950’s series episodes I had seen. Even with all of the Supermen since, he still is my default mental image. 

And to this day Reeve is still Superman for me. It’s the acting, really in the movie. Sure, on the face of it, everyone should recognize Clark Kent as Superman, or so you’d think. But Reeve’s…call it full body performance as Kent and as Superman are so completely different, so completely alien to each other, that you can watch both people and not believe they were remotely the same person. (Just watch Kent and his body language in the newsroom versus any of the Superman scenes. It’s night and day and it’s a testament to Reeve’s skill as an actor. 

And then there is Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. She is Lois Lane, and I will not be taking any other questions at this time. She does the body language thing as well–compare Lane doing her job versus when she is with Superman. It’s more subtle but it is surely there. 

And then there is Lex Luthor as played by Gene Hackman. He is the Luthor that for years was the Luthor that others reacted to. He brings his A-game to this role, and is every inch Reeve’s equal. It’s kind of amazing to have a supergenius Lex Luthor to be so pedestrian, like the worst used car salesman on the planet, but with enormous resources.  But claiming that version of Luthor himself resulted, as I say, in having everyone else react to that portrayal, which just highlights his portrayal all the more.

And yes, the time travel bit of Superman is absolutely nonsense. I can forgive the movie for it. A movie that has Marlon Brando, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, and Christopher Reeve can be forgiven that misstep.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

My cartoon for this weekend’s @theguardian.com books.

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2024-12-14T15:17:18.564Z

(10) MICAELA ALCAINO Q&A. At Axios, “Illustrator Micaela Alcaino says it’s OK to judge a book by its cover”.

What they’re saying: “When you go into a bookshop, you do pick up books that you like the look of … there’s power behind good cover design because it will draw people in before even the blurb,” Alcaino tells Axios Latino.

“So please, judge away,” she jokes.

State of play: Alcaino has come up with covers for popular authors like Isabel Allende and Jennifer Saint, and she has also done special editions of massive series, like George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire,” and collectible editions of Leigh Bardugo’s “Six of Crows” duology.

 She was a finalist for Best Professional Artist at the 2024 Hugo Awards, and was shortlisted for Designer of the Year at the British Book Awards after having already won the latter in 2022….

(11) BEST SCIENCE PICS OF THE YEAR. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Nature has just posted its science pics of the year.  In the mix: the Etna volcano blowing rings; a Pratchett-like turtle but instead of carrying the world….; a neat picture of Jupiter taken by the Juno probe; meteors over Stonehenge; and Jaws…

These pics will appear in Nature’s double Christmas edition on Thursday December 19.  Apparently, in that edition the correspondence page features a letter from one wag known to Filers… 😉 [Click for larger images.]

(12) PERSEVERANCE CLIMB. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Perseverance has just climbed 500 metres out of Jezero Crater on Mars reaching the top on 11th Dec to get quite a view. See video below. “Perseverance Rover Panorama of Mars’ Jezero Crater”.

Travel along a steep slope up to the rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater in this panoramic image captured by NASA’s Perseverance just days before the rover reached the top. The scene shows just how steep some of the slopes leading to the crater rim can be.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. A multiplied Muppet performs “Ode To Joy”. Now we know why Beethoven didn’t score it for electrical instruments.

[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Paul Weimer, David Langford, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 12/3/24 I See Files Of Blue, Red Pixels Too, I See Them Purr For Me And You

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(0) FILE 770 TURNS ON ‘LIKE’ FUNCTION. Starting today you can now tag posts and comments with a “like”.

(1) SUPER SPOILER ALERT! Superman and Lois ends with a climactic fight, and a highly sentimental flashforward to the beginning of Superman’s supernatural life. I found both clips pretty impressive, so just imagine their impact on those who watched the series faithfully.

(2) FROM BC TO AD TO DC. “The CW’s DC Era Ends With ‘Superman & Lois’ Finale: Numbers Behind the Enduring Franchise” from The Hollywood Reporter.

The series finale of Superman & Lois aired Monday night on The CW. It marked not just the end of the show’s four-season run, but also an entire programming philosophy at the network.

Superman & Lois was the last series based on DC Comics characters to air at the network. It was also the last connection to The CW’s Arrowverse (even if it wasn’t technically part of the main continuity of that franchise), which defined the 2010s for the network and became one of the more successful multi-show franchises in TV history.

The ending of Superman & Lois, which — spoiler alert — flashes forward several decades to show the end of its title characters’ (Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch) lives, precludes any continuation of the show elsewhere — as do new regimes at both The CW and DC parent Warner Bros. Discovery, which both have very different approaches than they did during the Arrowverse’s heyday in the mid- and late 2010s….

… 10: The number of series based on DC characters that aired on The CW, beginning with Arrow in October 2012. All of them came from Warner Bros. TV and what was then called DC Entertainment, and nine — Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman, Stargirl, Superman & Lois and Gotham Knights — were executive produced by Berlanti via his Berlanti Productions. The 10th is 2022’s Naomi, co-created by Ava DuVernay and Jill Blankenship and produced by DuVernay’s ARRAY Filmworks along with DC and WB….

… 817, 797: The combined episode total from all 10 shows, and those that ran on The CW; Supergirl‘s first season, which spanned 20 episodes, aired on CBS. The 817 episodes are more than all but three multi-show franchise since 1990 — only Law & Order (1,363 episodes as of publication time), JAG/NCIS (1,249) and CSI (838) have more. NBC’s Chicago franchise will need to air 131 more episodes — about six 22-episode seasons’ worth of shows — to pass the DC total….

(3) DIVERSE READING AID. Rocket Stack Rank reminds us of “Outstanding SF/F by People of Color 2023”. See the list at the link.

62 outstanding SF/F short stories by People of Color from 2023 that were finalists for major SF/F awards, included in “year’s best” SF/F anthologies, or recommended by prolific reviewers. (40 free online, 18 with podcasts)….

… Readers asked us to make it easy for them to find good stories written by authors with diverse racial backgrounds, and that’s what this list is meant to accomplish (author identity plays no role in our ratings)….

(4) MORPHIN’ INTO CASH. By the time Heritage Auction’s November 18-19 Power Rangers Hasbro Hollywood & Entertainment Signature® Auction wrapped it had realized $3.3 million dollars in sales.

Every costume, monster, prop, weapon and warrior offered in the landmark event — nearly 700 lots! — found a new home.

As a result, the auction realized $3,310,929, with countless surprises and smash hits throughout the largest and most comprehensive collection of Power Rangers memorabilia ever assembled, spanning the classic Power Rangers Mighty Morphin to the most recent season, Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, which premiered last year.

From the latter series came the auction’s top lot: the original hero Cosmic Fury Cannon, the team’s signature weapon that combines all five of the Cosmic Fury Rangers’ individual dino-themed powers into an 80-inch-long laser blaster. After a prolonged bidding war during the auction’s second day, the Cosmic Fury Cannon shot up to its final price of $87,500.

Another smash hit was one of this auction’s numerous centerpieces: the Transformable Astro Megaship/Astro Megazord hero filming miniature from 1998’s Power Rangers in Space, one of the only complete Zords in this auction used on screen as the Rangers’ spacecraft and battle Zord. It’s fully articulated, an armed warrior and battle carrier that still moves like a well-oiled machine — and is so complete it still has the fishing line used to open its chest. It opened live bidding at $19,000 and finally realized $47,500 after a lengthy bidding war.

Weapons wielded significant power during this event, with the Green Ranger Hero Dragon Dagger from last year’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always realizing $23,750. And six Cosmic Morpher Hero Props from Power Rangers Cosmic Fury blasted their way to a $17,500 finish.

Numerous costumes worn throughout the series’ 31-year run realized five figures, among them the Green Ranger hero costume worn by Jason David Frank, as Tommy Oliver, during the initial run of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the mid-1990s. It realized $30,000, while his complete White Ranger hero costume from 1995’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie sold for $16,250. The auction’s second day began with a moment of silence in tribute to Frank….

A couple more favorites:

Fierce Fashions: Trini Kwan’s Yellow Ranger costume, Saber-Toothed Tiger Power Morpher included, roared to $23,750. Kimberly Hart’s Pink Ranger suit wasn’t far behind, landing $22,500.

Villains Rule: Even baddies got their moment in the spotlight, with Goldar Maximus strutting off for $21,250 and Master Zedd securing $18,750.

(5) TERMINALS OF ENDEARMENT. “Lovable Movie Robots Are Coming to Charm Your Children” writes Diego Hadis in the New York Times (great article, but behind a paywall).

 One near certainty about raising a young child these days is that you and your offspring will be exposed to a lot of stories about robots. Another is that the robots working their charms most effectively on you will belong to a new kind of archetype: the sympathetic robot. Sitting in darkened theaters with my 5-year-old son, I have watched any number of these characters. They are openhearted and often dazzled by the wonders of everyday life — innocently astounded by, say, the freedom of playing in the surf, the bliss of dancing with a loved one or the thrill of just holding hands. They might be more winningly human than some of the humans you know….

… Take Roz, the main character of the animated film “The Wild Robot,” which came out in September. Like the Peter Brown book series on which it is based, the movie focuses on a robot protagonist that gains emotional complexity after she washes ashore on an island unpopulated by humans, learns to communicate with the animals she meets there and becomes the surrogate mother of an orphaned gosling. Roz changes and adapts; she goes from seeing her care for the gosling as a rote task to welcoming it as a real connection. She embraces the wildness of the animals around her and ceases to be the unfeeling machine that her programming intended. Instead, she becomes an unnatural champion for the natural world — one whose touching incomprehension of how to care for a newborn makes her charming….

…We’re now inarguably living in the future that science fiction once imagined. Artificial intelligences weaned on vast libraries of human endeavor are coming online, their boosters hyping their potential to either fulfill our greatest wishes or realize our deepest fears. It feels notable that we are raising our children on pointedly comforting stories about robots that, instead of relieving us of our jobs or edging us to the brink of Armageddon, offer to show us how to be more human. Granted, computers are an inescapable facet of our world now. As they grow up, our children will consume stories about humanlike robots as naturally as our ancestors delighted in tales about anthropomorphic animals. Still, these stories seem to be doing an inordinate amount of work to help children feel warm toward the technologies that increasingly dominate our lives….

…This is all in spite of the remarkably bleak near future portrayed in many of these children’s films. They tend to show us a world of ecological ruin devastated by climate change. “The Wild Robot” offers haunting images like the Golden Gate Bridge submerged in San Francisco Bay as a flock of geese passes overhead. The Earth in “Wall-E” has been reduced to a lifeless, postindustrial horrorscape reminiscent of the works of the photographer Edward Burtynsky; humans have fled it entirely. “Robot Dreams” evades this by being set in and around its 1980s New York, but even that film concerns itself greatly with the natural world. We see the robot experiencing the changing seasons on a wintry beach; the dog takes pity on a fish that he has caught and releases it. There is even a scene — echoing the surrogate parenting in “The Wild Robot” — in which the robot helps encourage a young bird to learn how to fly.

There is an echo here of the classic robot stories: Humanity’s hubris has once again led us to get in over our heads. But now we’re encouraged to take pleasure in watching a robot try to navigate what’s left, slowly figuring out that human values — love, connection, caretaking — are eternally important. The sympathetic robots are devised as much to comfort us parents as they are to make technology appealing to our kids. Despite the destabilized world that we’re leaving to our offspring, they reassure us, artificial intelligences could one day serve as our surrogates — and care for our children or, who knows, even love them for us when we’re gone.

(6) WRITERS NEED HELP. [Item by Steven French.] Worrying news: “Royal Literary Fund’s hardship grants for writers see applications increase by 400%” in the Guardian.

Applications for the Royal Literary Fund’s (RLF’s) hardship grants for professional writers increased by 400% between last year and this year, the charity has said.

There was a nearly fivefold increase in applications in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2023, RLF CEO Edward Kemp told the Guardian.

The RLF’s grant applications are open to writers who need short- or long-term financial support because they are, for example, facing an unexpected bill, reduced income, or are unable to write due to a “change in circumstances, sickness, disability, or age”, according to the RLF.

The grants are given as a donation towards the “removal of distress for the applicant”, rather than to help complete literary works. Writers must have published (via a traditional publisher, not self-published) at least two books in the UK or Ireland to be eligible for a grant.

The rise in applications comes after research published by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society in 2022 showed authors’ median earnings were just £7,000 a year, down from £12,330 in 2006.

(7) FUTURE WORLDS PRIZE JUDGES NAMED. TheFuture Worlds Prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of Colour has announced the judging panel for its 2025 prize. The prize aims to find new talent based in the UK writing in the SFF space and is funded by author Ben Aaronovitch and actor Adjoa Andoh.  The judges are:   

  • 2023 winner Mahmud El Sayed 
  • Shadow and Bone actor Amita Suman 
  • Bestselling author Saara El Arifi 
  • Literary agent Amandeep Singh 
  • Author Rogba Payne. 

The winner of Future Worlds Prize receives £4,500, and the runner-up receives £2,500. The remaining six shortlisted writers each receive £850. All eight writers also get mentoring from one of the prize’s publishing partners: Bloomsbury, Daphne Press, Gollancz, HarperVoyager, Hodderscape, Orbit, Penguin Michael Joseph, Simon & Schuster, Titan and Tor.

Future Worlds Prize closes for entries at 23:59 GMT on Sunday 26th January 2025.  

(8) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Sarah Pinsker and Yume Kitasei on Wednesday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

SARAH PINSKER

A starred Booklist review called Sarah Pinsker’s latest, Haunt Sweet Home, “Fun, eerie, [and] unexpectedly beautiful…” She is the Hugo and Nebula winning author of the novels A Song For A New Day and We Are Satellites, plus the collections Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea and Lost Places, both published by Small Beer Press, and over sixty pieces of short fiction. She’s currently the Kratz Writer in Residence at Goucher College, and lives in Baltimore with her wife and two weird dogs.

YUME KITASEI

Yume Kitasei is the author of The Deep Sky, The Stardust Grail, and Saltcrop (forthcoming in 2025). She is half Japanese and half American and grew up in a space between two cultures—the same space where her stories reside. She lives in Brooklyn with two cats, Boondoggle and Filibuster. Her stories have appeared in publications including New England Review, Catapult, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Baltimore Review. You can find more information about her at www.yumekitasei.com. She chirps occasionally @Yumewrites at Instagram, TikTok, and Blue Sky.

Meets at the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003 (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs).

(9) WALT BOYES AND JOY WARD JOIN MISTI MEDIA, LLC. Walt Boyes and Joy Ward, longtime chief editors for Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire Press, and Top of the World Publishing, are joining Misti Media as Editors-at-Large. They will be responsible for the startup of Misti Media’s new Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror imprint: Nazca Press. They will also be working with Misti Media’s other main imprints and alongside Sandra Murphy who oversees content for specialty imprint Sandra Murphy Presents. For the Misti Media story, see Misti Media, LLC.

“Nazca Press doesn’t have a website yet, as Misti Media is only a year old and growing its Internet presence,” says Walt Boyes, “but what we do have is close to 100 years of editing and publishing experience in both fiction, genre fiction, and non-fiction. And when you add this to the incredible 30 years of industry experience brought to Misti Media by CEO and Publisher Jay Hartman, we are the real deal.”

“We moved first to create world-class distribution for both ebooks and trade paperbacks,” Jay Hartman explains. “We have worldwide distribution in nearly every country, including bookstores and libraries, and we have begun publishing some fantastic authors. Now, with Walt and Joy’s experience and knowledge, we can start looking for more great authors to join our family.”

You can reach Walt at [email protected]; Joy at [email protected]; and Jay Hartman at [email protected].

(10) LARPING IN SOCAL. The Washington Post takes you “Inside Twin Mask, an elaborate fantasy world just miles from L.A.” (This gift article bypasses the paywall, but you still need a free WaPo account to read it.)

…The entire weekend — Friday night until Sunday morning — would be spent inside this elaborate fantasy realm with its many rules and intricate replicas.

Held at the site of the Koroneburg Renaissance Festival about an hour outside Los Angeles, the live-action role-playing (LARP) game Twin Mask stands out for its sheer size and lifespan. It’s far more elaborate than other games of its ilk, with anywhere from 400 to 600 players converging in character at events held every month and a half or so.

“You eat food in character, you walk to the bathroom in character,” says its creator, John Basset, who started Twin Mask 14 years ago. “It really feels like you’re in another world.”

Given its proximity to Hollywood, it attracts a fair number of players whose day jobs are in the film industry. And they revel in making a next-level spectacle.

… In the dark world of Adelrune, characters share a unifying aspect — they each have been resurrected from death. Whether they’re a knight, a healer or a merchant, allthe players, known collectively as “The Returned,” have detailed backstories….

… Twin Mask is run by a detailed system of unpaid volunteers and staff who take on everything from writing the story, to ensuring people (and mythical creatures) are hydrated and safe, to performing as non-player characters who help guide the storyline. Still, every player can influence the plot, which continues long after the weekend is over….

… A little over an hour into the game, no one is in charge and a criminal underworld is beginning to take hold. Much of the site is eerily quiet.

Not so at the tavern in the center of town where the single dusty road splits. The boisterous bar is filled with the chatter of players who never break character. Some are making deals while others are socializing. The crowd is soon silenced by the sound of a ringing bell. Players returning from death quietly shuffle in.…

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

December 3, 1958 — Terri Windling, 66.

I first encountered Terri Windling’s writing through reading The Wood Wife, a truly extraordinary fantasy that deserved the Mythopoeic Award it won. (The Hole in the Wall bar in it would be borrowed by Charles de Lint with her permission for a scene in his Medicine Road novel, an excellent novel.) I like the American edition with Susan Sedona Boulet’s art much better than I do the British edition with the Brian Froud art as I feel it catches the tone of the novel. 

I would be very remiss not mention about her stellar work as the founding editor along with Ellen Datlow of what would be called The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror after the first volume which was simply The Year’s Best Fantasy, that being noted for those of you who would doubt correct me for not noting that. The series won three World Fantasy Awards and a Stoker as well.

They also edited the most splendid Snow White, Blood Red anthologies which were stories based on traditional folk tales. Lots of very good stuff there. Like the Mythic Fiction series is well worth reading and available at usual suspects and in digital form as well.

Oh, and I want to single out The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood which took on the difficult subject of child abuse. It garnered a much warranted Otherwise nomination.

Now let’s have a beer at the Dancing Ferret as I note her creation and editing (for the most part) of the Bordertown series. I haven’t read all of it, though I did read her first three anthologies several times and love the punks as you can see here on Life on the Border, but I’ve quite a bit of it and all of the three novels written in it, Emma Bull’s Finder: A Novel: of The Borderlands, is one of my comfort works, so she gets credit for that. 

So now let’s move to an art credit for her. So have you seen the cover art for Another Way to Travel by Cats Laughing? I’ve the original pen and ink art that she did here. 

Which brings me to the Old Oak Wood series which is penned by her and illustrated by Wendy Froud. Now Wikipedia and most of the reading world thinks that it consists of three lovely works — A Midsummer Night’s Faery Tale, The Winter Child and The Faeries of Spring Cottage. 

But there’s a story that Terri wrote that never got published anywhere but on Green Man. It’s an Excerpt from The Old Oak Chronicles: Interviews with Famous Personages by Professor Arnel Rootmuster. It’s a charming story, so go ahead and read it.

Photo posted by Terri on Bluesky. Photographer unstated.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

(13) PREPARE TO BLEEP AND BLUR. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The House of Mouse said nay to one line of dialogue in Deadpool & Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds came up with a replacement that was just as raunchy, but didn’t reference Steamboat Willie’s willy. People says, “We Now Know the Super-Raunchy Mickey Mouse Joke Disney Asked Ryan Reynolds to Cut from Deadpool & Wolverine”.

…Director Shawn Levy previously said there was “only one line in the entire movie that we were asked to change,” telling Entertainment Weekly in August that he and star Ryan Reynolds made a “pact” to “go to our grave with that line.”

However, Marvel Studios has shared the film’s official screenplay online as part of a For Your Consideration campaign this awards season, and in the script, that original deleted line is revealed.

In the scene where Deadpool (Reynolds) asks if Magneto is also in the film, he’s told the character is dead. He then says, “F—! What, we can’t even afford one more X-Man? Disney is so cheap. I can barely breathe with all this Mickey Mouse c–k in my throat.”

The actual line in the final cut of the movie is: “F—, now Disney gets cheap? It’s like Pinocchio jammed his face in my ass and started lying like crazy.”

The scene features the surprise cameos made by Jennifer Garner as Elektra, Wesley Snipes as Blade and Channing Tatum as Gambit. The screenplay showcases the Stranger Things–inspired code names the writers used to keep the characters’ identities a secret. Gambit is “Gatsby,” Elektra is “Eleven” and Blade is “Billy,” plus, earlier, Chris Evans’ Johnny Storm is listed as “Jonathan Byers.”…

(14) SFF ON LEARNEDLEAGUE: PAOLO BACIGALUPI. [Item by David Goldfarb.] Season 103 of LearnedLeague feature this as the third question of the twelfth match day:

Emiko, the central character in Paolo Bacigalupi’s 2009 dystopian science fiction novel, is a genetically engineered humanoid designed for servitude known as what type of girl, as referenced in the book’s title?

Although this refers to a Hugo-winning novel, it’s sufficiently obscure that not all Filers might know it: the answer is “windup”; the novel is The Windup Girl.

11% of LearnedLeague players got this right (your reporter being one of them). The most common wrong answer actually had a higher rate than the right answer: 16% guessed “geisha” — not totally unreasonable if you have to guess something.

One interesting note is that the question originally gave the author’s name as “Paulo” and the answer as “wind up”, two words. I contacted the League commissioner and got it corrected. (I don’t know how many other people might also have done so.)

LearnedLeague competition allows you to control the points available on each question, within limits, and makes extensive history available to the players. My opponent did not avail himself of this resource! He gave me the maximum points for this one, when even a quick search would suggest that I’d know it.

Brick Barrientos sent along his own comment about the difficulty of this LL question:

“Emiko, the central character in Paulo Bacigalupi’s 2009 dystopian science fiction novel, is a genetically engineered humanoid designed for servitude known as what type of girl, as referenced in the book’s title?”

The answer, of course, is Windup. Only 11% got it right. I thought it was a very hard question for a general knowledge, non-specialist trivia quiz. In my mind, I tried to think of three more recent Hugo novel winners that maybe 30% of trivia enthusiasts could get. In other words, if you gave the author, said it was a Hugo novel winner, some elements of the plot, and a hint at the title, would a mainstream audience get it? I came up with The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, Redshirts by John Scalzi, and maybe Network Effect by Martha Wells. 

Extend it to novellas, and you could add This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. If this becomes a Pixel Scroll item, what genre novels have had major mainstream exposure in the last 15 years?

(15) COULROPHOBIA CENTRAL. Those of you who made it to the Westercon in Tonopah have already driven past this landmark: “Creepy vibes drives booming business at Tonopah’s Clown Motel” in the LA Times (behind a paywall).

Business is so good at the Clown Motel, you might expect more of its painted faces to be smiling.

But as Vijay Mehar has learned in his years as owner of the creepiest motel in Tonopah, Nev., happy clowns are not what most of his customers want.

What they seem to want is fear, loathing, painted faces, circus vibes and hints of paranormal activity. Basically, Mehar said recently, “they want to be scared.”

So aiming to lure more people off Main Street (a.k.a. U.S. 95) to visit this 31-room motel in the dusty, stark middle of Nevada, Mehar is boosting his creepiness quotient.

By the end of 2025, he’s hoping to have completed a 900-square-foot addition, doubling the size of the motel’s busy, disquieting lobby-museum-gift shop area. Meanwhile, behind the motel, Mehar is planning a year-round haunted house, to be made of 11 shipping containers….

…“America’s Scariest Motel,” read the brochures by the register. “Let fear run down your spine.”

There are paintings, dolls and ceramic figures, each with its own expression — smiling, laughing, smirking, weeping or silently shrieking. And then there are the neighbors. The motel stands next to the Old Tonopah Cemetery, most of whose residents perished between 1900 and 1911, often in mining accidents…

…“If we had paid 60, or 70, or even 80 bucks, this place might have been worth it,” wrote one unamused motel customer on Trip Advisor recently.

“We had good fun, and even better we weren’t murdered,” wrote another….

(16) TRADING PLACES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Over here in Brit Cit we have a shop chain called Games Workshop that sells tabletop games and models.  It has been steadily growing and now may become one of the nation’s top 100 companies on the UK stock market…. “Alliance Witan and Games Workshop expected to join FTSE 100 this month” reports Shares Magazine.

Games Workshop store.

(17) HEARING FROM PAUL DI FILIPPO. Mark Barsotti recently interviewed prolific sff author Paul Di Filippo and through the creative use of photos and book covers turned the recordings into a three-part video series.

Part one of my interview with writer Paul Di Filippo, who in a better world would make the bestseller lists. Interview: November 11, 2024.

Part two of my interview with writer Paul Di Filippo, who in a juster world would make a lot more money. Paul talks about his multiverse novel VANGIE’S GHOST. Interview 11, 2024.

Part 3 on my interview with science fiction writer Paul Di Filippo, who discusses his latest novel, Vangie’s Ghosts, “technopunk jazz scatting” and not being a miserabilist. Interview: 11-11-24.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Barsotti, Walt Boyes, Cathy Green, Brick Barrientos, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jeff “What A Wonderful World” Smith.]

Pixel Scroll 10/10/24 I Ride An Old Anti-Gravity Paint, My Partner Favors Cavorite

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(1) NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE. Korean author Han Kang wins 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature reports Publishers Weekly. (There are no genre elements present in the descriptions of Han Kang’s work in “What to read: Han Kang” at NobelPrize.org, or in the “Han Kang” Wikipedia article.)

Han Kang. Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach

…One of only 18 women to be awarded global literature’s highest honor, she is the first South Korean writer to win the prize and the first Asian laureate since 2012, when the Nobel was awarded to Chinese author Mo Yan.

“Han Kang’s visible empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives, is palpable, and reinforced by her metaphorically charged prose,” said Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee at the Swedish Academy, the body that administers the prize. “In her oeuvre,” he added, quoting from the Committee’s citation, “Han Kang confronts historical traumas and invisible sets of rules and, in each of her works, exposes the fragility of human life. She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in her poetic and experimental style has become an innovator in contemporary prose.”…

(2) FORMER FRAZETTA HOME IN FLORIDA UNHARMED BY STORM. Frank Frazetta’s daughter reassured fans that the Frazetta Art Gallery in Boca Raton, FL was undamaged by Hurricane Helene. (This is not the Frazetta Art Museum which is in Pennsylvania.)

This paragraph distinguishes the Frazetta Art Gallery from the Museum:

…For Frazetta fans, it’s an essential destination, since it contains dozens of pieces of Frazetta artwork, paintings, newspaper strips, comic book pages, and a nice selection of personal artwork Frazetta executed as gifts for his wife, Ellie, and other family members. The personal work on display gives viewers a true feeling of intimacy, of being part of Frazetta’s inner circle, since most of them have never been reprinted….

(3) ELECTORIAL. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] A few years ago, because of the Sad Puppies Affair (which, contrary to popular belief, was not a Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode), there was much debate in fandom as to how we vote on the Hugo short-list.  Now, better late than never, this week’s edition of Nature has an article on electoral systems,  “Which Is The Fairest Electoral System?”  

Scientists hope to explore whether some approaches are more likely to promote democratic resilience or to stave off corrosive partisanship. Such answers might inform policy, but differences in interpretation are inevitable when it comes to politics. “Democracy is a complex system,” says Lee Drutman, a political-science researcher at New America, a think tank in Washington DC. There can be multiple ways to parse the data, he says.

A Hugo-type system is briefly mentioned…

There are sub-variants in FPTP (first past the post) systems: ranked-choice voting, which is used, for instance, in Australia, ensures a majority winner. Voters rank all candidates or parties; the lowest-ranked candidate drops out and their supporters’ second-choice preferences are tallied, and so on until a single candidate surpasses a 50% threshold. And run-off elections, such as those in France, when the two leading parties are voted for in a second round, ensure a direct national face-off.

Interestingly the piece has two conclusions. One that ranked choice has benefits, but a contrary view 2) is that this pushes folk to limited options. Here the article calls for more political parties in the US rather than the two big ones.  In Hugo terms this would translate as increasing the number in the short-lists.

(By the way, personally I have no preference: I just share out of interest and am not advocating anything.)

(4) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 120 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Activate Liz” —

We do rather fewer letters of comment than last episode, and then we let Liz do her favourite topic of all: STATISTICS.

Listen here: Octothorpe (Podbean.com). Read the unedited transcript of the episode here.

Words read ‘Octothorpe 120: Introducing Judge Coxon. “I am the lore”’. They are around a picture of John as a Judge in the style of *2000AD*, holding a big stack of books. The logo of the Clarke Award may or may not appear in the artwork.

(5) ATWOOD PICKS A CARD. Margaret Atwood appeared on NPR to publicize her new collection called, Paper Boat: New And Selected Poems: 1961-2023. They played clips of her answers to questions on the Wild Card program. “Writer Margaret Atwood plays a game of ‘Wild Card’”.

MARTIN: When I asked the question [about envy], though, you asked for a definition – envy that you suffered or had to manage or other people’s envy of you?

ATWOOD: Yes.

MARTIN: Is that – does that happen a lot?

ATWOOD: It has, certainly. Yeah. So what I said to young writers who had had a sudden success, I said, within a couple of years, you will have three nasty, vicious personal attacks from people you don’t know.

MARTIN: What were the attacks that were leveled at you in your first couple years of success?

ATWOOD: (Laughter) Some of them were quite funny. So a lot of it had to do with hair – Medusa hair, frizzy hair, you know, name something about hair. Yes, and one of them wrote a satirical fairy tale in which I bit the heads off men and made them into a pile and turned into an octopus. Figure that out.

MARTIN: So you were a Medusa-haired man hater.

ATWOOD: Yeah. And power mad, ladder-climbing…

MARTIN: Oh, power mad?

ATWOOD: Yes. Power-mad, ladder-climbing witch.

MARTIN: Oh, wow. I mean, that’s evocative.

ATWOOD: I thought so too.

(6) REMEMBERING J.G. BALLARD. “Diary: Deborah Levy on J. G. Ballard” at Book Post.

J. G. Ballard, England’s greatest literary futurist, changed the coordinates of reality in British fiction and took his faithful readers on a wild intellectual ride. He never restored moral order to the proceedings in his fiction because he did not believe we really wanted it. Whatever it was that Ballard next imagined for us, however unfamiliar, we knew we were in safe hands because he understood “the need to construct a dramatically coherent narrative space.”

When it came to anything by Ballard, genre really did not matter to me; his fiction could have been filed under “Tales of Alien Abduction” or “Marsh Plants” and I would have hunted it down. Despite our difference in generation, gender, and literary purpose, it was clear to me that he and I were both working with some of the same aesthetic influences: film, surrealist art and poetry, Freud’s avant-garde theories of the unconscious….

…The reach of his imagination was never going to fit with the realist literary mainstream but I was always encouraged by his insistence that he was an imaginative writer.
“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”

Good on you, Jim.

His highly imagined landscapes and abandoned aircraft and stopped clocks and desert sand were located in his head—and anyway he preferred driving fast cars to walking. He once sent me a photograph of the Heathrow Hilton and told me it was his spiritual home. …

 (7) BUSTED. Was Chuck Tingle’s “true identity” revealed today? That’s what author C.J. Leede was hoping we’d think, til you-know-who caught them in the act.  

(8) THOU SHALT NOT PASS. “The Editors Protecting Wikipedia from AI Hoaxes” — an excerpt from a 404 Media’s post.

A group of Wikipedia editors have formed WikiProject AI Cleanup, “a collaboration to combat the increasing problem of unsourced, poorly-written AI-generated content on Wikipedia.”

The group’s goal is to protect one of the world’s largest repositories of information from the same kind of misleading AI-generated information that has plagued Google search results, books sold on Amazon, and academic journals.

“A few of us had noticed the prevalence of unnatural writing that showed clear signs of being AI-generated, and we managed to replicate similar ‘styles’ using ChatGPT,” Ilyas Lebleu, a founding member of WikiProject AI Cleanup, told me in an email. “Discovering some common AI catchphrases allowed us to quickly spot some of the most egregious examples of generated articles, which we quickly wanted to formalize into an organized project to compile our findings and techniques.”…

(9) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. Space Cowboys Books presents episode79 of the “Simultaneous Times” podcast with Pedro Iniguez, Lisa E Black, and Addison Smith.

  • “Sneeze” by Pedro Iniguez. (Music by Phog Masheeen. Read by Jean-Paul L. Garnier)
  • “Of Course I Still Love You” by Lisa E Black. (Music by Phog Masheeen. Read by the author.)
  • “Residual Traces” by Addison Smith. (Music by Fall Precauxions. Read by Jean-Paul L. Garnier.)
  • Theme music by Dain Luscombe.

Simultaneous Times is a monthly science fiction podcast produced by Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree, CA.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Anniversary: Barbarella film (1968)

Oh, Barbarella. 

I didn’t quite get why it was so controversial when I first saw it, it was a bowdlerized version of the already bowdlerized version Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy. This was on a local channel in New York City in the 1980’s. I thought it was a funny but rather goofy looking SF movie, although of course Jane Fonda was something to look at.

(My father was upset at her being in the movie, something I did not understand for years until I understood her politics…and my own family’s politics, better)

I finally got to see the uncut and real version in the early 2000’s on DVD.  And then I could finally see what I was missing. Did it add a lot to the actual movie besides the visuals? No, but what visuals!  I slotted it in the same space as Woody Allen’s Sleeper, as a science fiction movie that talked about sex, and around sex, a lot. But going on the other visuals, the sets, costume design and props (including the infamous Excess Pleasure Machine) were just mind boggling in both of the versions I’ve seen.  Too, the actual cinematography is mesmerizing, the camera knows where to linger, where to bring our attention in sometimes rather chaotic and baroque set pieces. I have not yet seen a 4k version of the film, but that is something I do very much need to see sometime, to see it at the maximum fidelity and clarity.  

Is it great cinema? No. But it is great art. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE COMICS REUNION. “Deadpool and Wolverine officially return in 2025, Marvel confirms” – GamingBible has the story.

…For those who miss the bromance between Marvel’s Deadpool and Wolverine, you’re in luck because the pair are officially returning in 2025.

Their antics won’t play out on the big screen but upon the pages of comics instead.

The Deadpool/Wolverine series comes from writer Benjamin Percy and artist Joshua Cassara. This partnership, much like Deadpool and Wolverine, is a match made in heaven.

Fans who enjoyed the bloody violence of the film needn’t worry that the comics will strip that action away…

(13) BEGINNING OF A FASCINATION. CrimeRead’s Jeremy Dauber outlines “A Brief History of the Rise of Horror in 19th Century America”.

At the Civil War’s end, under a quarter of Americans lived in cities; by the end of the Great War, the proportion was almost exactly half. All those people moving to the cities—both from rural America and from abroad— changed things. Size created anonymity, the possibility of losing yourself in the crowds, remaking yourself, if you so chose. . . . or getting lost, and not always by your choice. Increasingly, the streets were lit by electric light, and the machines inside them were powered the same way; but that simply swapped a new set of shadows and terrors for the old ones. The horrors of the next decades were, all too frequently, industrial and mass-produced: whether they came from the chatter of guns or the whirr of a film projector, they cast an eye on progress, and murmured about what lay beneath.

Start, perhaps, with that newly electrified white city, Chicago. In 1893, its World’s Columbian Exposition, or World’s Fair, was an announcement of America’s newly flexing muscles: its willingness to be broad-shouldered, to play a leadership role in world affairs, to stride into the future. And yet, inside the city limits, there sat a haunted castle. This castle, though, had no clanking chains, no Gothic ghost or Salem witch; it had a psychopath who used modern tools—the soundproofed room, the knockout gas-bearing pipes, and of course, the three-thousand-degrees-Fahrenheit kiln—to disable, kill, and dispose of guests who checked into his World’s Fair Hotel at 701 Sixty-third Street. And why did H. H. Holmes do it? For his part, when eventually caught, he had a simple, and chillingly modern, explanation: “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.”…

(14) I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR. SFFAudio reminds us that once upon a time Robert Bloch urged authors to swear to uphold “ROBERT BLOCH’S CREDO FOR FANTASY WRITERS”.

(15) JUSTWATCH MARKET SHARE REPORT. As the third quarter of 2024 comes to an end, JustWatch has released their latest data report on market shares in the US. As usual, they based our report on the 13 million JustWatch users in the US selecting their streaming services, clicking out to streaming offers and marking titles as seen.

SVOD market shares in Q3 2024
Global streaming giant: Prime Video managed to keep its first-place rank, with a 1% lead against Netflix. Meanwhile, Max is managing to stay ahead of major competitors Disney+ and Hulu.

Market share development in 2024
Disney+ and Hulu both gained momentum with a +1% subscriber boost by September. While Netflix and Max stumbled with a -1% decline each, revealing a shake-up in the streaming rivalry.

(16) IF YOU INSIST ON WATCHING. “Too Scared to Watch Horror Movies? These 5 Tips May Help” says the New York Times (paywalled).  

The October ritual of watching horror movies in the lead-up to Halloween can be exhilarating. Unless, of course, you can’t quite stomach the gory and gruesome, or even the spooky and spine-tingling….

…If you’re someone who wants to indulge in the season but dreads jump scares and buckets of blood, here are five tips that could help even the biggest scaredy cats among us start to open up to the world of horror.

The first two tips are:

Embrace the Spoiler

The first and best line of defense is to read the plot in advance. If you’re feeling brave, go for just a synopsis, but there’s no reason to be a hero. I sometimes read an entire plot in great detail before watching, especially with films I know will tap into my weak spot: movies about demonic possession. Unlike with other genres, knowing what will happen in horror doesn’t necessarily detract from the experience of watching. Your heart will most likely still pound. You will probably still jump. And the visuals and sounds will probably still shock. Knowing what comes next may simply help keep the anxiety and uncertainty in check.

The Smaller, the Better

Nothing against the big-screen experience, but going small, by watching on your phone or a tablet, can go a long way. Not only will you have a sense of control that a crowded theater with speakers blaring hellish soundscapes can’t provide, you will also be able to make adjustments. If it gets too loud or chaotic, turn down the volume. If it gets too visually scary, turn down the brightness or flip the device down. Sometimes for the most intense scenes, it’s better to just hear the movie without seeing it, or to watch without sound….

(17) QUITE A TAIL. And for your viewing pleasure, The Copenhagen Post recommends “Reptilicus”.

Next time you’re looking for a Danish film to watch, spare a thought for Denmark’s only giant monster film ‘Reptilicus’ – a 1960s cult-classic with puppets, bad acting, bazookas, and a prehistoric reptilian beast rampaging through Amager…

… Reptilicus is the name for two monster films about a giant, prehistoric reptile which decides to attack Denmark.

Shot simultaneously, one film is in Danish (1961) and the other is from the USA in English (1962). Both films have a near identical cast (except for one actress) and two directors (Poul Bang – Danish, and Sidney Pink – English) who took turns throughout each shooting day to create two of the most iconic, kitsch and downright unintentional masterpieces to grace Danish screens.

The plot tells of a Danish miner in Lapland who accidentally digs up a section of a giant reptile’s tail from the frozen ground. The section is flown to the Denmark’s Aquarium in Copenhagen, where it is preserved in a temperature-controlled room for scientific study.

Of course they don’t put anyone competent in charge of monitoring it but instead choose a bumbling buffoon (the legendary Dirch Passer). The room is left open and the section begins to thaw and regenerate….

(18) FILLING UP WITH GAS. According to TechRadar, “Toyota’s portable hydrogen cartridges look like giant AA batteries – and could spell the end of lengthy EV charging”.

Toyota is showcasing a series of sustainable developments at the Japan Mobility Bizweek later this month – including its vision of a portable hydrogen cartridge future, which could apparently provide ‘swappable’ power for next-gen hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).

Originally a project of Toyota’s mobility technology subsidiary Woven (formerly Woven Planet), the team produced a working prototype of a hydrogen cartridge back in 2022 but has since developed the idea further… and appears to be running with it.The latest cartridges are lighter and easier to transport, with Toyota claiming the current iteration has been developed with the experience the company has gained in reducing the size and weight of the hydrogen tanks used in its fuel cell electric vehicles….

…Put simply, the cartridges would allow fuel cell electric vehicle drivers to swap out their power source when hydrogen levels run low, rather than having to refuel at a station like you typically would with a fossil fuel-powered car.

But Toyota also feels that these refillable and renewable cartridges could be used in a multitude of situations, such as to generate electricity in a fuel cell to power the home or even providing hydrogen to burn for cooking.

In fact, Toyota and the Rinnai Corporation are exhibiting a stove at Japan Mobility Bizweek that does just that. Similarly, in emergency situations, the hydrogen cartridge could be removed from the car and used to power any applicable device in the case of a blackout, for example….

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Paul Weimer, Danny Sichel, Lise Andreasen, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “All Is Wells” Dern.]