Tag Archives: LearnedLeague

Pixel Scroll 2/3/25 Lord Scrollentine’s Pixel

Posted on by

(1) GRAMMY AWARDS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The Grammy Awards were given out Sunday night. (See Grammy.com for “The Full Winners & Nominees List”.) The only two obvious (to me) genre/related winners were:

Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media (Includes Film And Television)

  • Dune: Part Two – Hans Zimmer, composer

Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media

  • Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord — Winifred Phillips, composer

It’s perfectly possible that many of the other winners included music used in genre film, TV, games, etc. Or the works themselves may have genre content. But my knowledge of contemporary music is so slim as to be virtually invisible. You don’t even have to turn it edgewise. So let us know in comments if you find any more.

(2) GAIMAN AND PALMER SUED. Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer have been sued by a former New Zealand nanny of their son: “Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer Sued Over Rape and Human Trafficking Allegations” at File 770.

(3) FANS, RIPE FOR THE HARVESTING. Jessa Crispin, writing ahead of the lawsuit filings today, starts an analysis of the Gaiman/Palmer business model: “Around twenty years ago, publishing forgot how to sell books.” “Culture, Digested: Neil Gaiman is an Industry Problem” at The Culture We Deserve.

…Even taking into consideration their years of exploitation and abuse, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer remain models of artistic success in the 21st century. Gaiman created an extremely sellable brand — affable, “oh goodness,” harmless Britishness wrapped up in a “I have read a lot of books” kind of storytelling — and the publishing industry used that not only to sell a lot of his books but that of his friends as well. Amanda Palmer has crowdsourced her way into a perfect little Patreon pyramid scheme, where all money flows to her and she gives back vibes and requests for domestic labor. This is the ideal artistic arrangement these days, where stars receive 95% of Patreon/Substack/other crowdsourced forms of income and everyone else competes for scraps. Both are reliant on a dedicated, servile audience, willing to turn over their time and bodies and cash to get a piece of that bohemian existence that only millionaires can manage these days. It’s the bohemianism not of Weimar, which Palmer constantly references, but the bohemianism of contemporary Burning Man, full of tech billionaires wearing the worst outfits you’ve ever seen in your life.

Accusations against bad actors follow a reliable structure. We dig through their work for signs that they were bad all along, we wonder why no one said anything sooner, a few select people will breathlessly explain how while they themselves were not harmed they could have been because they were so close to danger and didn’t know it. That’s fine. But it would seem more productive if we could discuss how the way our creative industries currently function leave people vulnerable to exploitation, how difficult it is to break through the veneer of a public figure who makes a lot of money for so many people, and the fantasies that allow people to confuse abuse with inclusion.

(4) CALL FOR PAPERS. Submissions are being taken for the MLA 2026 (Toronto) Speculative Fiction forum: “Genealogies and Futurities of AI in Speculative Fiction”.

MLA Call for Papers #29768

Session Title:  Genealogies and Futurities of AI in Speculative Fiction

Submit proposals to:  Rachel Haywood, Iowa State University ([email protected]) 

Description & Requirements:

Inviting proposals examining AI’s historical and futuristic representations in speculative fiction. How have speculative narratives anticipated, shaped, and reflected current developments in AI or imagined AIs that diverge from present realities? 250-word abstract, short cv

 Submission Deadline: Friday, 14 March 2025

(5) DOES HE NEED TO DRAW YOU A PICTURE? Adam Kotsko would like to tell you “Why I Am Not a Gene Roddenberry Fan” at the Late Star Trek newsletter. He doesn’t explicitly say Roddenberry’s novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is sleazy, he just supplies the necessary quotes and paraphrases to make that conclusion unavoidable.

The description of this newsletter says that the purpose is to reflect on the development of the Star Trek franchise. One great way to do that is to read tie-in novels from previous eras, especially ones that have been “superseded” by current-day canonical productions…

…I approached Gene Roddenberry’s novelization of The Motion Picture in a similar spirit. At the time when he was witnessing the franchise improbably reviving, what did Star Trek’s creator think Star Trek could be? I had read bemused articles like this one and hence knew that it was weird. But already in the first few pages, I felt like I was in a completely different universe…

… The aspect of Kirk’s preface that most often jumps out at readers is his reference to his mother’s “love coach”—presumably the person who gave her sex lessons in this extremely liberated utopian world. This idea is of course very “Seventies,” but it is also very “Roddenberry.” The movie itself already displays his worst impulses, because we are introduced to a new species of “sex aliens,” in the person of the bald Deltan woman Ilia, whose species is so overwhelmingly sensual that making love with them would drive a human mad. This is the same guy who introduced the Orion Slave Girls in the first pilot (and had Pike contemplate a career as a human trafficker) and who oversaw any number of plots where Kirk uses sex as a tool to fulfill his mission….

(6) ADAM NIMOY BOOK APPEARANCE. Now happening March 20 at the Pasadena Museum of History: “The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy with Adam Nimoy”. (Rescheduled from January 30.)

While the tabloids and fan publications portrayed the Nimoys as a “close family,” to his son, Leonard Nimoy was a total stranger. The actor was as inscrutable as the iconic half-Vulcan science officer he portrayed on Star Trek, even to those close to him. Join Adam Nimoy as he discusses his poignant memoir The Most Human and explores their complicated relationship and how it informed his views on marriage, parenting, and later, sobriety. Discover how the son of Spock learned to navigate this tumultuous relationship and how he was finally able to reconcile with his father — and with himself.

Copies of The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoywill be available for purchase in our Museum Store on 03/20/2025.

Presentation will begin at 7:00 pm; PMH Galleries will be open for viewing at 6:00 pm.

Space is limited; advance reservations required

Note: the book The Most Human was released in June 2024.

(7) SPSFC CODE OF CONDUCT. The Self-Published Science Fiction Competition has posted its new Code of Conduct to X.com. (Not its own website.)

(8) MORE LEARNEDLEAGUE SFF: ELEMENTAL MASTERS, MADELEINE L’ENGLE, ALIENS, SPACE. [Item by David Goldfarb.] This LearnedLeague off-season has featured a few SFF-related One-Day Special quizzes.

This one has Mercedes Lackey’s “Elemental Masters” series as its ostensible theme, but is really more about folklore. I managed 10/12 right and 8th place, despite never having read any of the books.

This one about Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet I did rather worse on: only 7 right. To be fair, I have only read three of them, and that decades ago.

I also got 7 right in Alien Franchise, for much the same reasons: I’ve only seen two of the movies, and quite some time has passed.

Space is not technically SFF, but it’s a topic that is SF-adjacent enough that I think Filers might be interested. 11/12 right for me there, and the 12th off by only one letter.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

The Greatest American Hero (1981-1983)

Forty-two years ago, The Greatest American Hero ended its three-year run on ABC. A rather wonderful run if I must say so myself. 

It was created by producer Stephen J. Cannell, more known for series like Magnum P.I. and Castle (in which he appeared in a poker game with Castle as himself until his death) than SF series like this.

The series features William Katt as Ralph Hinkley, a teacher turned superhero after getting a suit from aliens; Robert Culp as FBI agent Bill Maxwell; and Connie Sellecca as lawyer Pam Davidson. Sellecca in another genre connection was married to Gil Gerard who played, well, you know who on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Though it ran for three seasons, it had an unusually low number of episodes for a show of that duration racking up only forty-five in total of which of five went unaired during the original broadcast. 

The powers of the red suit would appear to be quite generic, but that apparently didn’t appear so to Warner Bros., the owners of DC Comics, who filed a lawsuit against ABC, Warner Bros. Inc. v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.  It was ultimately dismissed by the Court where it was filed who said it had no grounds. 

A wise decision given how common red suits with extraordinary powers were. I’m not which red suit DC was thinking of anyways as theirs. The red lanterns? Plastic man? The time Superman split in two, one blue and one red? And did they ever see Marvel’s Iron Man? 

Five years later, the cast came back together for a pilot movie for a new NBC series which was named The Greatest American Heroine which was never picked up. The movie was later added in syndication to this series. 

It’s streaming on Peacock. Yes, with the five that were not aired originally.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) VASTER THAN EMPIRES. Chowhound asks, “Does Beer Come In Bigger Sizes Than A Tallboy?” Sure, but after you drink one of them you may not remember this answer.

Typically, a “normal” beer can is about 12 ounces in size, and you see them everywhere. They’re featured in six-packs of domestic beers and plenty of non-alcoholic sodas as well. Sometimes, while you’re perusing the beer aisle, you’ll also see larger individual cans which are about 16 ounces in size, colloquially known as tallboys. Craft breweries love selling their beer in tallboys because it makes their beers stand out on the shelf. Increasingly, however, tallboys are coming up short for breweries. Your typical beer can is getting bigger.

There are a few larger sizes, each with common nicknames in the brewing industry. Past tallboys, you can also find 19.2-ounce cans called “stovepipes” which are an increasingly common way for craft breweries to sell their wares in convenience stores and local delis. Then you’ve got 24-ounce cans called “silo” cans, although you might recognize them as White Claw cans, because you can frequently buy cans of hard seltzer packaged in silos. The largest of all is a whopping 32-ounce can called the “crowler,” which is most often seen as a to-go option when you’re visiting the tap room of a local brewery. A crowler gets its name from the beer growler, which is a ceramic or glass jug which can be resealed with a lid; the crowler’s name is a portmanteau of “can growler.”…

(12) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON. Yes, this seems pretty disturbing…

(13) RYAN GEORGE. Who knew there is a 12-Step program for Star Wars addicts? Ryan George is “Hearing The Star Wars Soundtrack Everywhere”.

(14) CHANGE COMING TO NASA RECRUITMENT. “NASA Astronaut Recruitment Faces Trump’s Moves Against D.E.I.” reports the New York Times. (Story behind a paywall.)

Since 1978, every new group of NASA astronauts has included women and usually reflected a multiplicity of races and ethnicities.

That is not simply by chance. NASA’s process for selecting its astronauts is not entirely gender- and race-blind. With so many outstanding applicants, choosing a diversified, highly qualified group of candidates has been achievable, said Duane Ross, who worked as manager of NASA’s astronaut selection office from 1976 until he retired in 2014.

“You didn’t lose sight of wanting your astronaut corps to be reflective of society,” he said.

Over most of its history, NASA has risen above partisan bickering, with broad support in Congress from Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. But the makeup of its most visible employees — its astronauts — could now collide with President Trump’s crusade against programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion — or D.E.I.

For NASA to consider race and gender at all in the choosing of astronauts appears to run counter to an executive order that Mr. Trump signed on Jan. 22. That order declares that hiring for federal jobs will “not under any circumstances consider D.E.I.-related factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.”

On the same day, echoing language in a template used by agency heads across the federal government, Janet Petro, the current acting administrator, told NASA employees that D.E.I. programs “divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”…

… Even during Mr. Trump’s first term, diversity and inclusion was a priority for top NASA officials. The administrator then was Jim Bridenstine, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, and in 2020, he added “inclusion” as the fifth core value for the space agency, joining “safety,” “integrity,” “teamwork” and “excellence.”

Under Mr. Trump, NASA also promised that the next moon landing would include a woman astronaut. Under President Biden, NASA broadened that promise to include a “person of color,” although not necessarily for the first Artemis program landing.

The embrace of inclusion was also evident last March when NASA issued a call for new astronauts. April Jordan, the current manager of the astronaut selection office, spoke about wanting to choose a group that was reflective of American society….

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

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

Posted on by

(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 11/11/24 It’s The Grand Scroll-rade Of File-less Pixeling

Posted on by

(1) TWO BIDS FOR BRITISH EASTERCON. Many times British Eastercon bids have been put together at the last minute, but the committees interested in running the 2026 and 2027 editions are giving fans plenty of advance notice.

2026. The 2026 Eastercon will be held in Birmingham and named Iridescence if this bid is successful. The committee is led by chair Phil Dyson, joined by Phil Nanson, Caroline Mersey, Virginia Preston, James “JT” Turner, and James Shields.

2027. A bid to hold Eastercon in Glasgow is being advanced at the moment by an unidentified “group of fans — some old hands, some newcomers. Mainly Scottish (but not exclusively).” They also haven’t picked a hotel yet. But they do have a webpage, so, hey! (You used to be able to run a WHOIS search to help unravel these mysteries. Folks are too clever now.)

(2) 2025 GRAMMY NOMINEES. The traditional huge list of Grammy Award nominees was released by the Recording Academy® on November 8. The winners will be revealed in a televised ceremony on February 2, 2025. Click here to see all the nominees. You may spot more works of genre interest – please drop a comment with your additions. Meanwhile, here are the ones I recognized.

Best Song Written for Visual Media

  • “Can’t Catch Me Now” [From The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes] — Daniel Nigro & Olivia Rodrigo, songwriters (OliviaRodrigo)

Best Opera Recording

  • Moravec: The Shining – Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Tristan Hallett, Kelly Kaduce & Edward Parks; Blanton Alspaugh, producer (Kansas City Symphony; Lyric Opera of Kansas City Chorus)

(There’s a website for this adaptation of the King novel: https://operatheshining.com/)

Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media

  • Deadpool & Wolverine — (Various Artists)

Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media (Includes Film And Television)

  • Dune: Part Two — Hans Zimmer, composer

Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media

  • Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora — Pinar Toprak, composer
  • God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla — Bear McCreary, composer
  • Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 — John Paesano, composer
  • Star Wars Outlaws — Wilbert Roget, II, composer
  • Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord — Winifred Phillips, composer

(3) SLF 2024 GULLIVER GRANT. The Speculative Literature Foundation is accepting applications for the 2024 Gulliver Travel Grant through November 30, 2024. For more information and to apply, visit speculativeliterature.org/grants.

Since 2004, the Gulliver Travel Grant has been awarded annually to assist writers of speculative literature in their non-academic research. These funds are used to cover airfare, lodging, and other travel expenses. Travel may be domestic or international. Grants may be used for travel to take place at any point in the following year. Grant applications are open to all: you do not need to be a member of SLF to apply for or receive a grant.

(4) STEPHENSON REPLAYS THE THIRTIES. In his novel Polostan,“Neal Stephenson Jumps From Speculative Fancy to Strange History” says Literary Hub.

…So keen is Stephenson’s anticipatory knack, he’s been hired at companies like Blue Origin and Magic Leap just to sit around and think—working at the latter, an augmented reality startup, his title was “Chief Futurist.” It’s therefore surprising that, twenty pages into his latest excursion (then fifty, then seventy), the speculative takes a backseat to history.

The novel, Polostan, is a detective story set mainly in the 1930s, in a slew of cities and rural outposts scattered across the US and USSR. Unlike Stephenson’s previous opuses, which resemble multiple books sandwiched into gigantic tomes—Cryptonomicon and Reamde both clock in at over 1,000 pages—this one is slim, about a third of that size, and boasts a correspondingly streamlined plot….

… Polostan, the first novel in a cycle entitled Bomb Light, features a succession of increasingly intimidating nuclear brainiacs, up to and including the physicist Niels Bohr, whose appearance produces a classic Stephenson cramming session: Chadwich, Joliot, Curie, the discovery of the neutron. “The chain of reasoning,” Stephenson writes, “though long, wasn’t that difficult to follow.” (If you say so!)…

… Stephenson’s scientific narrative shines in a meeting of upper-echelon Russian secret police. It’s the winter of 1934, and they’ve called in some young experts to brief them on atomic physics outside of a labor camp in frigid Magnitogorsk, an industrial town 1,000 miles east of Moscow. “We live in this intermediate layer of medium-sized nuclei that are stable enough to form complicated molecules that support life. Bellow us, massive nuclei are decaying in a hellish sea of lava. Above us, light nuclei are combining to make starlight…”…

(5) HELP DECIDE THE DIAGRAM PRIZE. The shortlist for The Bookseller Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year 2024 was released November 8, and is now open for a public vote on The Bookseller website here. Voting will close December 2, with the winner revealed December 6.

In contention: The Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year 2024

Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them
In this updated edition of Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them, the city’s archaeologist takes you on a whirlwind tour of Beantown, including the delights of the Lemuel Clap House. 

Hell-Bent for Leather: Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western
The mass media discussed in Hell-Bent for Leather: Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western includes “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, “BioShock Infinite” and A A Carr’s erotic vampire/monster slayer western Eye Killers.

How to Dungeon Master Parenting
Shelly Mazzanoble invites mums and dads to “level up” their child-rearing in How to Dungeon Master Parenting, arguing lessons learned from “Dungeons & Dragons” can help them “win at their most challenging role yet”.

Killing the Buddha on the Appalachian Trail
John Turner wrestles with the elements, self-doubt and ageing while he hikes the nearly 2,200-mile path from Georgia to Maine in Killing the Buddha on the Appalachian Trail.

Looking through the Speculum: Examining the Women’s Health Movement
Judith Houck’s Looking through the Speculum: Examining the Women’s Health Movement is an “eye-opening” examination of the struggles and successes of “bringing feminist dreams into clinical spaces”.

The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire
“A wild upstream adventure”, raved the New York Post about The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire—a “high-stakes cocktail of business, crime… and the dilemmas of conservation”. 

(6) SNAPSHOT OF THE BUSINESS. Publishers Weekly has released “The 2024 PW Publishing Industry Salary & Jobs Report”. Median pay is up. Company usage of AI has jumped.

2023 Median Compensation

Respondents from across the industry earned more on average in 2023 than in 2022. The median compensation, which includes base salary plus bonuses and commissions, rose 7.3% over 2022, to $75,000. That increase could be due in part to the success unions and other employee groups had in getting major New York publishers to raise entry-level pay beginning in 2022. Indeed, the share of respondents earning less than $50,000 per year fell to 12% in 2023, from 17% in 2022….

AI Rising

This year’s survey found a huge jump in the percentage of employees who said their companies are using AI: 53%, compared to 23% in 2022. But like everyone else, publishing employees are uneasy about the new technology. Only 25% of survey respondents believe AI will have a positive impact on their jobs, while 40% believe it will have a negative impact. Respondents were even more concerned about how AI will affect the industry in general: only 13% said they believe AI will change publishing for the better, while 56% think the technology will make it worse…

(7) PLAINTIFF WHIFFS AGAINST OPENAI IN COPYRIGHT ACTION. [Item by Francis Hamit.] The Federal Bench hates copyright cases because of their complexity. AI is copyright poison. “Will AI Copyright Claims Keep Standing After New Ruling?” asks Copyright Lately.

…After TransUnion [v. Ramirez, in 2021], legal experts warned that this break from precedent could have sweeping effects, particularly for statutes that provide for statutory damages without proof of actual harm—like the Copyright Act. For copyright claims involving AI, TransUnion could also make it significantly harder for copyright owners to bring claims against AI companies for using their creative works in training data—at least without specific examples of infringing output.

That scenario began to unfold last week, as TransUnion played a starring role in the dismissal of Raw Story Media v. OpenAI (read here). Southern District of New York Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show any concrete harm caused by OpenAI’s alleged removal of copyright management information from their articles, which they claim were then used to train ChatGPT’s language model. If Judge McMahon’s reasoning is adopted—or even extended—by other courts, AI-related copyright claims could find themselves on shaky ground, facing stricter standing requirements across a broader range of cases.

Raw Story Media v. OpenAI

In the Raw Story Media case, two digital news organizations, Raw Story and AlterNet, claimed that OpenAI violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by using their copyrighted articles—stripped of copyright management information (CMI), such as author names and copyright notices—to train ChatGPT. The plaintiffs argued that this violated section 1202(b) of the DMCA, which prohibits the removal or alteration of CMI when the party knows that doing so will facilitate future infringement.

But Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed the case, finding that the plaintiffs failed to allege a “concrete injury-in-fact”—a requirement for Article III standing, which is a threshold question in every federal case…

… The Raw Story Media ruling, with its reliance on TransUnion, raises significant questions about the future of copyright law in the context of AI. If other courts follow Judge McMahon’s lead, copyright owners may find it increasingly difficult to bring cases involving AI training data, particularly if they can’t show concrete harm from the outset.

For now, copyright holders may need to rethink their approach to AI-related claims. Gathering clear evidence of actual harm—such as instances where AI models produce outputs that closely mirror expressive elements from the original copyrighted material—may be essential. In any event, plaintiffs will need to show a real-world impact from the AI’s use of their work or risk seeing their claims fall short.

(8) SFF ON LEARNEDLEAGUE: SCIENCE OF SCIENCE FICTION AND ST:TNG. [Item by David Goldfarb.] The final week of the current “off-season” in LearnedLeague saw two SFF-related One-Day Special quizzes.

Science of Science Fiction 2 had 979 players; I got 10 right and came in 32nd. (Never having read any Alastair Reynolds hurt me.)

Star Trek: The Next Generation had 1412 players; I got 10 right and came in 632nd(!). (Evidently LL players [or LLamas, as we sometimes call ourselves] really remember this show.)

(9) CLARION WEST HOSTS MARATHON NOVEL WRITING WORKSHOP. From now through December 15, applications are open for the Nine-Month Novel Writing Workshop with instructor Samit Basu. 

Course Dates: March 10, 2025, to November 17, 2025

Whether you’ve outlined extensively or are navigating by instinct, Clarion West’s nine-month virtual workshop is designed to guide you from conception to completion of your novel.

Led by author and Six-Week Workshop instructor Samit Basu, with the support of the Clarion West team, this program is built around finding your unique process. 

(10) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born November 11, 1922 — Kurt Vonnegut. (Died 2007.)

By Paul Weimer: My first encounter with Kurt Vonnegut was not actually through his work, but through a movie. Not the movie of Slaughterhouse Five, his best known (an adaptation of perhaps his best novel), although that would come later. No, it came, in all places, in the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back To School. In that movie, Dangerfield, a successful businessman who doesn’t have a college degree, goes to college in order to inspire his son, who is not doing well at the university. But Dangerfield’s character figures he can buy his way to a grade.  So, when he needs to do a paper on the work of Kurt Vonnegut…he hires Kurt Vonnegut, who shows up in a cameo in the movie.  Dangerfield’s tactic backfires, when his professor tells him “whoever wrote this doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut”

Kurt Vonnegut

Friends, I didn’t know who Kurt Vonnegut was at the time. My high school had not taught him, and I had missed him in my still growing education into SF. But, if you know me by now, I had to know who he was. And so I read Slaughterhouse Five, and Breakfast of Champions, and a variety of other things by him. His biting and unrelenting humor has stayed with me ever since, and “So it goes” is part of my vocabulary.

Speaking of which, funny thing, when I got around to reading Pournelle and Niven’s Inferno, I was shocked and surprised to find that Vonnegut had a particularly prominent place in hell. I think that the reason they put him there as they did (Vonnegut was still alive when they wrote Inferno) is because Vonnegut (like, say, Margaret Atwood or Joyce Carol Oates) vociferously and vocally denied he wrote science fiction, despite all evidence to the contrary. 

I am certain that Vonnegut wrote science fiction, but to put him in hell for not saying so…badly done, indeed.  But…so it goes. 

(12) COMICS SECTION.

(13) THUNDERBOLTS. Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts*, a D23 Brazil Special Look. In Theaters May 2, 2025.

And what’s the deal with that asterisk in the title? AV Club is grateful that “New Thunderbolts* trailer finally addresses that damn asterisk”.

…But can we just say how relieved we are that the new look at Marvel’s Thunderbolts*—dropped this afternoon at D23 Brazil—finally, kinda, addresses that stupid asterisk in the title? Marvel added the mark to the movie’s name a few months back, and it’s been irritating the hell out of us; from the trailer, it’s apparently just intended as a joke, denoting the black ops super-team’s overall rejection of the goofy name slapped on them by enthusiastic member Red Guardian. So that’s a relief….

(14) MI:8. “’Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning’ trailer reveals bigger stunts” – Entertainment Weekly sets the frame.

Ethan Hunt is back in action, and his latest mission officially has a name: Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning.

The first trailer for the eighth film in the massively successful spy franchise dropped Monday. With it came the new title, new characters, and a look at more insane stunts by star Tom Cruise in Ethan’s latest mission.

As Ethan hangs from planes and explores submarines, he’s told that “the fate of every living soul is your responsibility,” and that there are consequences for the fact that he refuses to sacrifice those he loves. But as Ethan says, “I need you to trust me … one last time.”

(15) WICKED INDEED. “’Wicked’ Dolls: Mattel Apologizes for Linking to Porn Site on Packaging” says The Hollywood Reporter. The web address listed on the boxed dolls is wicked.com, instead of wickedmovie.com. 

Wicked movie merchandising turned into a nightmare for Mattel over the weekend as news broke that a web address listed on the packaging for character dolls took consumers to an adult pornographic site.

The toy company apologized later Sunday…. “We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this. Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children. Consumers who already have the product are advised to discard the product packaging or obscure the link and may contact Mattel Customer Service for further information.”

By Sunday afternoon, the entire Mattel-manufactured doll collection had been pulled at Target, and the products with the incorrect website address were being taken off the shelves at other retailers.

But others hope this mistake has only added value in the eyes of discriminating collectors:

…The character dolls being sold with the erroneous address include Grande’s Glinda and Erivo’s Elphaba. The products with misprinted websites have already popped up on eBay for $100 to $800. (The dolls retail for $24.99 to $39.99.)…

(16) THINKING INSIDE THE BOX. [Item by Steven French.] If readers are ever in Western Australia: “TARDIS Bus Shelter – Narrogin, Australia” at Atlas Obscura.

ON A RURAL ROAD IN Western Australia, tucked back next to a driveway, there is a traditional London police call box. If you watched the television series Doctor Who, you might suspect that it’s bigger on the inside. This a full-size replica of the TARDIS, the time and space travel machine hidden inside a call box. This one is electrified, with lights and a working control panel. Be careful of the button labeled, “Don’t press this.”

The replica TARDIS is the work of Narrogin local Rob Shepherd, who originally built it as a bus shelter for his daughter. But the distinctive blue call box took on a life of its own and has become something of a pilgrimage site for fans of the show.

Shepherd used plans for a 1947 London police box to design the bus shelter, which went up in 2018. In the years that it has been up on the roadside, the TARDIS has drawn visitors not just from Australia, but all over the world. Shepherd and his family check the guest book inside every time they catch the bus to see where their ever-growing list of visitors have come from…

[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, David Langford, Francis Hamit, David Goldfarb, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (Not Werdna) who may know what the title means.]

Pixel Scroll 10/30/24 John Pixel’s Not The Boogeyman. He’s Who You Send To Scroll The Boogeyman

Posted on by

(1) NEW 2030 WORLDCON BID. The Edmonton in 2030 Worldcon bid unveiled its Bluesky page today: “Edmonton Bidding for 2030 Worldcon” at File 770.

(2) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present James Patrick Kelly and James Teel Glenn on Wednesday, November 13, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Location: KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003 (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs)

James Patrick Kelly

James Patrick Kelly has won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for his short fiction. He has also written five and half novels, a dozen or so plays and some embarrassing poetry. His column “On The Net” is a regular feature of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. He is an early adopter, a shade gardener, a cross-country skier, and an open water swimmer, so it helps that he lives on a lake in New Hampshire. KGB is one of his favorite places to read and this will be his eighth visit to Fantastic Fiction since 2000. His new novella, Moon and Mars, will be out from Asimov’s in the January/February issue.

Teel James Glenn

Teel James Glenn has killed hundreds and been killed more times–on stage and screen, for forty-plus years as a stuntman, swordmaster, storyteller, book illustrator, bodyguard, actor, and haunted house barker. He has dozens of novels and stories published in over two hundred magazines including Weird Tales, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. His novel A Cowboy in Carpathia: A Bob Howard Adventure won best novel 2021 in the Pulp Factory Award. He can be found at in wild Weehawken NJ and at TheUrbanSwashbuckler.com.

(3) ANOTHER EKPEKI ISSUE RAISED. Dare Segun Falowo is a winner of the inaugural Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction, an award created by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. Today Dare shared on Bluesky a bad experience with Africa Risen co-editor Ekpeki about Dare’s support for the idea that writers in anthologies should share credit for awards won by editors. Thread starts here.

And ‪Bogi Takács emphatically supports the practice of writers in anthologies sharing credit with the editor(s) for the book’s awards:

(4) THE BIRD OF CRIME BEARS BITTER FRUIT. [Item by Steven French.] Two thumbs up from the Guardian for The Penguin: “Batman who? Why The Penguin is TV’s biggest surprise of the year”.

…Between Falcone and Oz, this show is like watching two scuzzy raccoons fight over the last slice of rancid pizza in a back alley from the depths of DC hell. Neither is prepared to end up second best, and both have shown themselves capable of mass murder to avoid having to settle for it. It reminds me of that scene in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight in which Heath Ledger’s Joker snaps off a pool cue and invites two wannabe goons to fight to the death for the chance to be one of his henchmen.

One reason many fans might consider watching The Penguin is the expectation that Robert Pattinson’s Batman is likely to turn up at some point to show both who’s really in charge. In reality, both the showrunner, Lauren LeFranc, and Reeves have said that’s unlikely to happen any time soon, but the splendid thing about the show is that we barely miss the caped crusader. This is Gotham at street level, the city’s grimy underbelly exposed in all its filth and fury, while Batman’s place is above the city’s streets, looking down on the scum below like an avenging dark angel. Who knew that one of those unfortunate wretches scurrying about the gutter might just be capable of carrying an entire show on his doughy shoulders?

Sure, the ultimate expectation is that the Penguin will at some point climb his way up the greasy pole of power to become an A-list villain for Pattinson to take down in a future movie. But right now, watching Farrell shuffle through the shadows like a cross between Machiavelli and Harvey Weinstein after a fight with a dumpster, the whole thing is so engrossing that there’s absolutely no rush.’…

(5) DAREDEVIL. “Daredevil: Born Again trailer teases Punisher return, hints at Bullseye” – Radio Times has the story.

A trailer spotlighting Marvel’s upcoming Disney Plus releases has emerged online, with a 20-second teaser for Daredevil: Born Again included within it.

The teaser is sure to get fans excited for the revival show, which is set to arrive in March next year and will see Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock once again face off against Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin….

(6) LOST ELLISON. Michael Burianyk compares two of “The Lost Visions of Harlan Ellison” in his latest blog post.

There’s been an interesting juxtaposition of recently published books that shed light on two of the most notorious events in Science Fiction history – “The Last Dangerous Visions” and “The Starlost”, both involving the venerated writer, Harlan Ellison….

… In his long introduction to the anthology, Straczynski recounted the saga of “The Last Dangerous Visions”, his close friendship with Ellison and the revelation that Ellison suffered from bipolar disorder and clinical depression which went untreated until close to Ellison’s death in 2018. His mental condition is cited as the reason he was not able to concentrate on big projects and gather the spiritual energy to finish the grand undertaking he had conceived….

(7) A ROBOT GROWS IN BROOKLYN. [Item by Andrew Porter.] According to John Boston:

Appeared on the local Nextdoor.com site, allegedly “the product of a welding training program and is based on a graphic novel hip hop character.”   It resides in Borough Hall Park, and hard by the federal district court for the Eastern District of New York and the main Brooklyn Post Office.

From the pages of the first-ever hip hop comic book, written by Eric Orr in 1986, to the streets of the Boogie Down Bronx and finally to the streets of Paris, Rappin’ Max Robot is alive and standing 18 feet tall.

Andrew Porter adds:

I saw them installing it Monday, when I walked by having just gone to the Post Office (visible at right background). It’s about 20 feet high.

Made a comment to the workers, “You’re gonna have to oil up that robot!”

This is exactly where much of the Brooklyn Book Festival too place, on this plaza.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Born October 30, 1977 — Malka Ann Older, 47.

By Paul Weimer: I remember when she burst onto the scene with Infomocracy.  It was in wake of her talented brother Daniel Older’s own SF literary debut with Half-Resurrection Blues, and I do wonder if Infomocracy got play and visibility because Malka Older was his sister. As for me, I had not read Blues and picked up Infomocracy solely on the strength of its idea of a new, atomized, political system with strengths and advantages, but problems of its own. It depicts a vibrant, multicultural and inclusive future (with one SF “gimmie” to make it happen), and it knocked my socks off. When I told Malka that I truly didn’t know that she was Daniel’s brother, her reaction was a somewhat skeptical “Really?!”

But it’s true. I don’t know everything in SF.

I think her Mossa and Pleiti novels, starting with The Mimicking of Known Successes walk a fine line between being “cozy” and comfortable reads, and being furiously inventive medium-term science fiction. They are so well written, and so different in some fundamental ways than Infomocracy that it really shows her range and ability. 

But my favorite Older work is her collaboration with Fran Wilde, Jacqueline Koyanagi, and Curtis C. Chen in Ninth Step Station. Ninth Step Station is a collaborative cyberpunk crime drama published by Serial Box and showcases the writers’ talents showing a divided and dangerous Tokyo in the near future. It combines the political power and intrigue from the Infomocracy novels with the (later) mystery and investigation of the Mossa and Pleiti novels and serves as a bridge between the two types of works. 

Malka Older

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) HORRIBLY YOUNG. [Item by Steven French.] “What’s it like to be the spine-chilling child in a scary film?” The Guardian asked the actors who played them: “’After the shoot, we had a party in a slaughterhouse’: horror movies’ creepiest kids reveal all”.

When Danielle Keaton was seven, her homework was to open her eyes as wide as possible and stare. She had just secured a role in director John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned – a horror film about inhuman psychic children with violent tendencies – and had to perfect her creepy glare. “We had to practise not blinking for a very long time,” says the actor and coach, now 38 and based in LA. “We would have to look in a mirror and hold the stare without laughing.” On set, the children would have staring contests with Superman star Christopher Reeve…

(11) SFF ON LEARNEDLEAGUE: PORTALS AND NEXT YEAR’S ONE-DAY SPECIALS. [Item by David Goldfarb.] LearnedLeague just had a One-Day Special quiz entitled “Just Images Portals” — the “Just Images” part means that each question has a picture associated with it, which may be required to answer the question correctly. You can find the questions here, although unfortunately you need to be a LearnedLeague member in order to view the pictures.

I got 8 right out of 12, placing 211th out of 1,167 players.

Also next year’s One-Day Special schedule has now been set. Here are the ones that seem to be SFF-related. Notes in parentheses are from me:

  • Elemental Masters
  • Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist
  • Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet
  • What We Do in the Shadows
  • Victorian Fiction (not an SFF subject, but SFF-related because the quiz will be written by SF fan and anthologist Rich Horton – DG)
  • The Stormlight Archive
  • Goblins
  • Watchmen
  • Ghost
  • Dragon Age
  • Mass Effect
  • Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
  • Learn Zoology with the Animorphs
  • Actors in Star Wars & Other SF/Fantasy IP
  • Personification of Death in Literature
  • Tolkien’s Other Work (after three quizzes on The Lord of the Rings and one on The Silmarillion, now we move on to the Other Work – DG)
  • The Last of Us
  • Famous Luxembourgers (not directly SFnal, but sure to have a question on Hugo Gernsback at least – DG)
  • Sapphic Fantasy
  • Batman ’66 (to be written by SF fan Tom Galloway – DG)
  • xkcd2
  • Mars 2
  • Apocalyptic Fiction
  • Songs about Superman
  • Furry Fandom 101

(12) RIDERS OF THE PURPLE WHOPPER. A little late with this story – but it was news to me! “Burger King’s Addams Family Menu Has Landed — Here’s What’s in It” at Food & Wine.

…This year, the King is celebrating Halloween with a group of people who have been creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky for more than 80 years. That’s right: Burger King has teamed up with the Addams Family for a special menu that will launch on Thursday, October 10, with four new Addams-inspired items. 

Two of them are:

Wednesday’s Whopper

This sandwich takes all of the trappings of a classic flame-grilled Whopper, tops it with Swiss cheese, ketchup, lettuce, mayo, onions, pickles, and tomatoes — and serves it up on a purple bun. (The violet bun gets its signature shade from purple potatoes.) 

Thing’s Rings

The Addams Family’s long-time companion, Thing, was just a disembodied hand — which means it is perfectly designed to grab a few crispy onion rings right out of the package. During the month of October, BK’s rings come in a special Addams-family-designed sleeve. 

There’s also Gomez’s Churro Fries and Morticia’s Kooky Chocolate Shake.

(13) FOR NATIONAL CATS DAY. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Which was yesterday in the U.S. The latest issue of Marvel Meow, from Marvel’s Infinity line, many of which (including this issue) are digitally available free, and without needing a (free) Marvel.com account. “Marvel Meow Infinity Comic (2022) #19”.

MARVEL MEOW IS BACK! To kick off, the Spider-Men and Doc Ock take on their biggest battle yet–finding homes for stray cats!

(14) CHINESE ASTRONAUT SCULPTURE. Interesting photo from the Brooklyn Eagle.

(15) SHROUDS OF WITNESS. Ryan George is in time for the Halloween season with his video “Super Scary and Definitely Real Ghost Evidence”.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Posted by MGM: “Halloween With The Addams Family (Full Episode)” (legit).

A pair of bank robbers are welcomed as Halloween trick-or-treaters by Morticia and Gomez. The creepy atmosphere of the house, Morticia’s smoldering holiday punch, and Lurch’s ominous presence impel the crooks to abandon their plans to add Addams money and jewelry to their bank loot.

[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 Randall M.]

Pixel Scroll 9/26/24 What A Knitted Sweater Would Look Like If I Scrolled One And Pixel Two

Posted on by

(1) TOLKIEN CRITICISM. Some fannish references surprisingly creep into Dennis Wilson Wise’s reviews of The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien by Nicholas Birns and Representing Middle-earth: Tolkien, Form, and Ideology by Robert T. Tally Jr. in “Tolkien Criticism Today, Revisited” for the Los Angeles Review of Books. For example:

….Of these debates, Birns often takes the more challenging or counterintuitive side. For instance, most Tolkienists agree that Tolkien based his Rohirrim on the Old English kingdom of Mercia. Instead, Birns sees the Rohirrim as semimodern—not medieval—through their “civilizing” contact with Gondor. To say the least, this view enjoys questionable textual support, but as one goes through Birns’s book, a clear pattern begins to emerge. Over the last few years, the Tolkien community has endured its own shadow version of the Sad Puppies fiasco. In 2021, certain right-leaning fans (and at least one senior scholar) loudly decried the “wokeism” of a diversity-themed seminar hosted by the Tolkien Society, and with even greater toxicity, some people in Tolkien fandom have virulently attacked the multiracial casting in The Rings of Power, an Amazon Prime Video series that first aired in September 2022.

This is the cultural moment into which Birns wades, but for someone hoping to make an important political intervention, he frequently stumbles over several small, self-deprecating asides. One example involves race and representation. Before launching into the argument, Birns explicitly denies that, as a white male from an Anglo-American cultural background, he is “trying to act as an authority on those subjects.” Here, Birns is plainly attempting to acknowledge his positionality, a move often called for by progressive scholars, but his good intentions catch The Role of History in Tolkien in a performative quandary. They let right-wing crusaders dismiss his arguments out of hand; after all, this book wasn’t written by “an expert.”

But of course Birns isn’t really trying to show wayward young fascists the light. His real audience is the academic Left, and despite his principled humility, Birns clearly wants to provide his fellow leftists with scholarly ammunition against the anti-diversity crowd. Thus his various scholarly takes consist mainly in quashing claims of “Germanic primitivism” in Tolkien. Birns downplays not only Rohan’s clear connection to Mercia—the Old English people, remember, were originally Germanic—but also Tolkien’s overall admiration for the Gothic peoples. Additionally, Birns alleges that Tolkien took multicultural Byzantium as his model for Gondor, not imperial (and eventually Ostrogothic) Rome. Even more pointedly, although Birns laments how little Tolkien knew about the “traditions and cultural memory of non-European peoples,” he nevertheless claims to see some African influence on the legendarium. Allegedly, Tar-Míriel of Númenor bears a passing resemblance to Empress Zewditu of Ethiopia.

Even for readers who cheer his goals, these connections can seem far-fetched….

(2) CAN’T GET NO SATISFACTION. “6 sci-fi and fantasy authors who hated the screen adaptations of their books” at Winter Is Coming.

Earlier this week, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin set off a drama bomb when he bluntly criticized HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon in a blog post….

But compared to some of the other authors who have criticized adaptations of their work, it was nothing. Below, let’s look at some authors who were unhappy with the screen versions of their books, and what they said and did about it…

The article leads off with Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea), and follows with Alan Moore (Watchmen), Stephen King (The Shining), P.J. Travers (Mary Poppins), Brandon Sanderson (The Wheel of Time) and Michael Ende (The Neverending Story).

Ursula K. Le Guin didn’t like the Sci-Fi Channel’s adaptation of Earthsea

Let’s begin our journey into dissatisfaction with Ursula K. Le Guin, the author of the beloved Earthsea books. Where high fantasy epics often involve war or other mass-scale conflict, the Earthsea novels are quieter and more complicated, with different books following different characters living on a string of islands where magic is practiced freely. When The Sci-Fi Channel announced that it was going to make an Earthsea miniseries based on the first book in the series, A Wizard of Earthsea, people were excited.

But that excitement evaporated when they saw the finished product, which ran back in 2004. Le Guin herself was already bracing for the worst. “When I saw the script, I realized that what the writer had done was kill the books, cut them up, take out an eye here, a leg there, and stick these bits into a totally different story, stitching it all together with catgut and hokum,” she wrote for Locusmagazine. “They were going to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a silly plot based on sex and violence.”

“I want to say that I am very sorry for the actors. They all tried really hard. I’m not sorry for myself, or for my books. We’re doing fine, thanks. But I am sorry for people who tuned in to the show thinking they were going to see something by me, or about Earthsea. I will try to be more careful in future, and not let either myself or my readers be fooled.”

While Le Guin had kind words for the actors, she had a major problem with the casting. In the Archipelago of Earthsea, almost all of the characters are people of color, including the wizard Ged, the closest thing the series has to a main character. But in the Sci-Fi show, pretty much everyone was white, something Le Guin did not appreciate. “In the miniseries, Danny Glover is the only man of color among the main characters (although there are a few others among the spear-carriers),” she wrote for Slate. “A far cry from the Earthsea I envisioned.”

“My color scheme was conscious and deliberate from the start. I didn’t see why everybody in science fiction had to be a honky named Bob or Joe or Bill. I didn’t see why everybody in heroic fantasy had to be white (and why all the leading women had “violet eyes”). It didn’t even make sense. Whites are a minority on Earth now—why wouldn’t they still be either a minority, or just swallowed up in the larger colored gene pool, in the future?”

Le Guin was a bit kinder about the 2006 animated movie Tales from Earthsea, although she was still disappointed it didn’t channel her books more. “It is not my book. It is your movie. It is a good movie,” she remembers telling director Goro Miyazaki. At least she didn’t hate it this time.

(3) GERWIG HONORED. Deadline is there as Barbie director “Greta Gerwig Accepts Motion Picture Pioneer Of The Year Award”.

Greta Gerwig was beaming Wednesday night as she was honored as this year’s Pioneer Of The Year, and in the process also helped raised $1.4 million for the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation at a sold-out dinner that packed the Beverly Hilton Hotel International Ballroom…

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to chow down on cheesy garlic bread with Jeffrey Ford in Episode 237 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

I last chatted with Jeffrey Ford — last for your ears, that is — eight years ago during the 2016 Readercon — in a conversation which appeared on Episode 17. Back then, I described him as a six-time World Fantasy Award-winning and three-time Shirley Jackson Award-winning writer whose new short story collection A Natural History of Hell had just been published. But now that it’s 2024 and we’re back for yet another Readercon, he’s an eight-time World Fantasy Award-winning writer and a four-time Shirley Jackson Award winner.

Jeffrey Ford

Since that previous meal, he’s also published the novel Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage in 2018, A Primer to Jeffrey Ford in 2019, The Best of Jeffrey Ford in 2020, and Big Dark Hole in 2021, plus three dozen stories or so new stories.

We discussed why writing has gotten more daunting (but more fun) as he’s gotten older, the difficulties of teaching writing remotely during a pandemic, how he often doesn’t realize what he was really writing about in a story until years after it was written, the realization that made him write a sequel to Moby-Dick, why if you have confidence and courage you can do anything, the music he suggests you listen to while writing, the reason he thinks world building is a “stupid term,” the advice given to him by his mentor John Gardner, how the writing of Isaac Bashevis Singer taught him not to blink, why he prefers giving readings to doing panels, the writer who advised him if everybody liked his stories it meant he was doing something wrong, and much more.

(5) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 119 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Only One of Them Is My Bludgeoning Hand, John” –

We respond to your burning questions in our bumper mailbag episode! We spend a good long time going through your posts, and we briefly discuss the recent allegations against Neil Gaiman before moving onto happier topics. Listen here.

There’s a transcript at the link.

A famous photograph of Margaret Hamilton standing beside printed outputs of the code that took the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon, overlaid with the words “Octothorpe 119” and “Our Listeners Write In”.

(6) BRITISH ROBOT PURCHASES BOOM. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Robot sales in Britain broke its own record in 2023 with 3,830 industrial robots sold according to the International Federation of Robotics.  This represented a 51% increase over 2022.

However, Britain still lags behind France, Italy and the European leader Germany. In 2022 Germany installed 269,427 industrial robots.

I keep on warning folk that the machines are taking over, but no-one ever listens….

You can read about it here: “IFR press release World Robotics 2024”.

(7) UNSTUCK THE LANDING. Space-Biff! surprises us by revealing Kurt Vonnegut’s work creating board games in “So It Goes”. And one was finally published this year — Kurt Vonnegut’s GHQ: The Lost Board Game. (It seems to be available at Barnes & Noble®.)

Before he became a famous author, over a decade before Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut was a board game designer. A failed board game designer, with only a sheaf of notes, a single rejection note, and an unfinished patent to his name, but a board game designer nonetheless.

And now his sole surviving design is an actual board game you can buy and play and, if you’re anything like me, spend a few hours marveling at. Thanks to the efforts of the Vonnegut estate in preserving his notes and Geoff Engelstein in interpreting and tweaking them into a functional state, GHQ — short for “General Headquarters” — is, not unlike Billy Pilgrim, a thing unstuck in time, transported from 1956 to 2024….

… Is GHQ a good game? Sure. For its time. For its place. Had it appeared in 1956, it may well have become the third great checkerboard game. With its zones of control and special units, it might have helped shape the coming century’s approach to tabletop gaming….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Lis Carey.]

September 26, 1957 – Tanya Huff, 67.

By Lis Carey: Tanya Huff is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy writer, who made her first sale of two poems to The Picton Gazette for $10, at age ten.

Since then, she has given us several fantasy series, including the Keeper’s Chronicles, in which Claire Hansen, a Keeper, has unintentionally become responsible for a small hotel, and the not completely sealed hole to hell in its basement. She’s assisted, with some degree of befuddlement initially, by Dean, the young handyman and cook she found working there; Jacques, the ghost of a French-Canadian sailor who has haunted the hotel since he died there in the 1920s; and her not befuddled at all cat, Austin, who talks, and is the source of a great deal of often snarky advice. I’m currently enjoying the first volume, Summon the Keeper.

Tanya Huff

Other fantasy series include the Blood series, featuring a former police detective and a vampire, which was adapted for television as Blood Ties, and the Quarters series, with bards who travel the kingdom carrying both news and magical skills, and are faced with new challenges when the kingdom is invaded.

Tanya Huff has also given us the Valor Confederation series, a military sf series where Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr tries to keep both her superiors and her company of space marines alive while on lethal missions across the galaxy. I hear excellent things about it, but haven’t read any of it yet.

An interesting tidbit is that while studying at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto for her Bachelor of Applied Arts degree, she was in the same class as science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer. They collaborated on their final TV Studio Lab assignment, a short science fiction show.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) WEST COAST AVENGERS INTRODUCES BLUE BOLT. This November, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are back on the best coast in an all-new run of West Coast Avengers from writer Gerry Duggan and artist Danny Kim. Led by Iron Man, the new roster includes Spider-Woman, War Machine, Firestar, a mysteriously redeemed Ultron, and another former villain seeking redemption— Blue Bolt!

 An experienced Marvel henchman with unrefined lightning-based abilities, Chad Braxton, AKA Blue Bolt, makes his first appearance in WEST COAST AVENGERS #1 where he finds himself on loan to the Avengers through a new prison release program. Reckless, undisciplined, and downright rude, Blue Bolt may just be the biggest jerk in the entire Marvel Universe. Can the Avengers whip him into shape or will Blue Bolt’s abrasive attitude–and lack of morals–tarnish the team’s legacy forever? See him for yourself in Kim’s original design sheet for the character plus a promotional image by Todd Nauck.

On the unique role Blue Bolt will serve on the team, Duggan said, “The Avengers have seen a lot of rough customers over the years. Hell, even Deadpool and Wolverine have been Avengers at different points. But the Avengers haven’t seen a bigger @$!&^% than Blue Bolt. He’s mean, he’s self-centered, narcissistic, and he’s only on the Avengers West Coast squad to shave time off his sentence. And wait until you find out what he’s in jail for. Yeesh.”

(11) SFF ON LEARNEDLEAGUE: WILLIAM GIBSON. [Item by David Goldfarb.] Yesterday’s match day featured this question:

What is the portmanteau title of William Gibson’s seminal and influential 1984 cyberpunk novel, the first (and only) to win the Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick awards?

This had a 37% get rate league-wide, with no single wrong answer getting as much as 5% of the submissions.

(12) MY PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION NOMINATION. [Item by Francis Hamit.] My novel Starmen has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The nomination has been accepted by Columbia University. It awards the Pulitzers. Which is good but there is more to do.

Leigh Strother-Vien is also nominated for her great work editing the book. It’s a very long book: 620 pages in the print editions. Four years of work at a time when we were both disabled and sick a lot of the time. Just shows you what you can do when you try. But we are up against very big publishers with big marketing and publicity machines. There is a long list of distinguished and very busy jurors from Publishing and Academia who may not like the fact that we are, alas, self published.

We never thought of doing it any other way. Why? I’ll be 80 next week and Leigh is 70. We are disabled. And we are soldiers. There is a lot of prejudice between us and a traditional publisher. We don’t have an agent and the “over the transom” method was closed years ago. There is a generation of younger editors that are more concerned about politics than the quality of the writing. Publishing executives tend to chase the market and imitate what has been successful rather than take risks on “new” or “unknown” writers. Ageism and Ableism are just two of the many hoops our book would have to jump through to get a deal. We don’t have time for all of that. We are too sick and tired, both of us, to deal with it.

So we applied, got accepted, and we’re a bit of a charity case because of the Kickstarter appeal to raise funds for formatting the interior and the excellent cover donated by Markee Book Covers. I took a credit union loan to cover other expenses. We have been graced with almost entirely five star reviews and the endorsements of friends such as Jacqueline Lichtenburg and Glen Olsen. So far, so good. But now this is a battle for public attention, for sales, and for ratings and reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and other websites.

This novel is an experiment in genres.  We use a lot of them packed into what is on the surface an adventure novel with more than a dozen principal characters, each fully formed. Thematically it moves from Historical/ Western/ Detective fiction to Espionage, Political Intrigue, and Apache Myths, that becomes surrealist Fantasy and Science Fiction, mixed with Romance, Witchcraft, Feminism, Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, and disquisitions on slavery in the Old South, the failure of Reconstruction, and the floating world of sex workers called the Demimonde. All are grist for the mill.  A lot of research was needed. A lot of deep thinking since I had no outline. That would have been more of a hindrance than a help.

Instead I just start at the beginning with an accidental meeting of two Scots far from home, in a dusty border town called El Paso, and the appearance overhead of a large balloon carrying a traveling circus. One of the Scots is the local manager for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (a forerunner of today’s FBI) and the other is a young anthropologist from Cambridge University, George James Frazer. You just know interesting things will happen.

So much for the tease. Buy the book for the rest.

There is another reason that I feel confident.  I’m a very good writer.  I’m also a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, the oldest and most prestigious graduate writing program in the world. Rather amazing for a kid who got Ds in high school English. I could not spell or punctuate worth a damn. Still can’t. I’m dyslexic, a condition unknown and unnamed in the 1960s. I began my career as a Drama major, and when I came to Iowa the first time, I had never heard of the Workshop. I soon met professors there and graduate assistants, some of whom were or would become famous. But it was a mandatory drama theory course, “Playwrighting”, that changed my life. I began writing fiction and was admitted to the Undergraduate Writers Workshop. Then I spent four years in the US Army, where I also learned journalism and began my professional career. Returning to Iowa I was in classes with writers who became very famous and also won Pulitzer Prizes. Jane Smiley, Tracy Kidder, and last year’s winner, Jayne Philips were among them. But it’s not the Iowa MFA that helps, but the Iowa workshop program, a trial by fire if there ever was one for literature. Iowa rigs the game. You don’t get in unless you are already at the top. Over 97% of all applicants fail. When you have done that getting your book published should be easy — and is, when you are young and have an agent and a publisher that can see decades of other books coming.  At my age, not so much, and I have had agents tell me that to my face and others drop me because I wouldn’t imitate other writers that were best sellers.

Self-publishing is a long and honorable tradition in American letters. Willa Cather and Walt Whitman started that way. So once more I’m in good company. I am going to have to push myself and my book to prevail, but there is no long list or short list for the Pulitzers. Only winners and finalists. If it were not for so many top reviews we would not have entered, but now that we are here we can only try our best.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] “Trap Pitch Meeting”. Huh. Sounds pretty much like the review I read. Then again, with a plot this shallow/unbelievable and nepotism this blatant, it might be hard for a parody and a review to differ very much.

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

Pixel Scroll 9/7/24 You Are Like A Pixel Scroll, There’s Files In Your Skies

Posted on by

(1) SANS CLUE. Cora Buhlert declares, “The Guardian is Clueless about Masters of the Universe”.

…That said, the casting of Alison Brie has attracted more mainstream attraction than the casting of Galitzine and Mendes, probably because Brie is better known. And so Ben Child, who has a weekly geek media column in The Guardian, penned a spectacularly clueless article about the proposed live action Masters of the Universe movie.

Even the headline is terrible: “Can Travis Knight’s He-Man movie do for boys what Greta Gerwig’s Barbie did for girls?”

Yes, we all know how fiercely gendered the toy industry is, but must we really perpetuate those shitty stereotypes, especially when we know they’re wrong? Because in the 1980s, Mattel found to their own surprise that forty percent of all Masters of the Universe toys were sold to girls, which is what prompted the introduction of She-Ra. The 1980s Filmation cartoon was eagerly watched by both boys and girls and though Masters of the Universe fandom skews male, there are plenty of female fans, me among them. This isn’t surprising either, because Masters of the Universe has always featured plenty of impressive female characters such as Teela, Evil-Lyn, the Sorceress, Queen Marlena and of course, She-Ra and her entire supporting cast. Finally, there are plenty of male Barbie collectors as well….

… The main problem with the article is that Ben Child seems unable to view Masters of the Universe as anything other than a joke…

(2) FORMER BOARD MEMBER, NOW 404 ERROR. Sarah Gailey, who was on the NaNoWriMo “writers board” is no longer, as explained in “Some Thoughts on NaNoWriMo”.

…It’s reasonable for people to have reacted badly; the “statement” they released was very silly. To say “we will not take one of two positions, but we will say that one of those positions is classist and ableist” is not the deft rhetorical maneuver that NaNoWriMo seems to think it is. The arguments themselves around this so-called classism and ableism wave off the actual existence of writing communities, critique groups, beta readers, and critique partners; they also ignore the creative realities of the impoverished and disabled artists, marginalized authors, and indie authors who have been working all this time without the help of language learning model software that was trained on work stolen from their peers and colleagues. …

And this is the statement Gailey sent to Kilby Blades, Interim Executive Director of NaNoWriMo:

And Gailey said:

… I haven’t heard anything back. As of the time I’m writing this, the urls for the staff page and the Writers’ Board page are returning 404 errors. So does the url for my pep talk. …

(3) GOOD OMENS THIRD SEASON STILL HAPPENING. “’Good Omens’ season three on track at Amazon despite Neil Gaiman allegations” reports Screen Daily.

The third season of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens is understood to be going ahead as planned at Amazon Prime Video, even though Disney has paused a feature adaptation of Gaiman’s novel, The Graveyard Book, following allegations of sexual assault against the UK author and screenwriter….

Amazon officially greenlit the third season of fantasy drama Good Omens in December 2023. Screen understands plans have not changed for the third season starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant to start filming in early 2025 in Scotland. Gaiman is executive producer, writer and showrunner of the series that is based on a book he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett.

Gaiman is also executive producer and a screenwriter on Anansi Boys, a Prime Video series based on Gaiman’s novel of the same name. While production wrapped on the series last year, no official release date has been set. Screen understands there are no plans to not stream the series….  

(4) CRIME ACTUALLY DOES PAY. For seven years! “FBI busts musician’s elaborate AI-powered $10M streaming-royalty heist” – Ars Technica tells how the scheme worked.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged a North Carolina musician with defrauding streaming services of $10 million through an elaborate scheme involving AI, as reported by The New York Times. Michael Smith, 52, allegedly used AI to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs by nonexistent bands, then streamed them using bots to collect royalties from platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.

While the AI-generated element of this story is novel, Smith allegedly broke the law by setting up an elaborate fake listener scheme. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, announced the charges, which include wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. If convicted, Smith could face up to 20 years in prison for each charge.

Smith’s scheme, which prosecutors say ran for seven years, involved creating thousands of fake streaming accounts using purchased email addresses. He developed software to play his AI-generated music on repeat from various computers, mimicking individual listeners from different locations. In an industry where success is measured by digital listens, Smith’s fabricated catalog reportedly managed to rack up billions of streams.

To avoid detection, Smith spread his streaming activity across numerous fake songs, never playing a single track too many times. He also generated unique names for the AI-created artists and songs, trying to blend in with the quirky names of legitimate musical acts. Smith used artist names like “Callous Post” and “Calorie Screams,” while their songs included titles such as “Zygotic Washstands” and “Zymotechnical.”

…The district attorney announcement did not specify precisely what method Smith used to generate the songs….

(5) BULGACON. Начална страница (bulgacon.org) – Bulgacon, the Bulgarian national convention – takes place September 21-23 with Ian McDonald and Farah Mendlesohn as guests of honor. Dr. Valentin D. Ivanov reports, “Many panels will be in English and the committee is considering opening the online panels to everybody.”

(6) LEARNEDLEAGUE SFF: NARNIA AND MURDERBOT. [Item by David Goldfarb.] Question 1 on day 9 of the current regular LearnedLeague season asked us:

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Magician’s Nephew are all books set in what mythical realm?

(I’ve spoiled the answer in my header, but I daresay very few Filers would have had any trouble with it.) This had a get rate of 89%, with no single wrong answer getting to 5% of the submissions.

In the most recent off-season there was a One-Day Special about File 770’s favorite rogue death machine: follow this link to see Murderbot for Everyone. As the title suggests, the questions try to include general-knowledge paths to the answers as well as knowledge of the books themselves. I actually didn’t do all that well on it: 9 right out of 12, and only 63rd percentile in the scoring. Filers may enjoy seeing if they could have done better.

(7) FLASH SF NIGHT. Space Cowboy Books of Joshua Tree, CA presents “Flash Science Fiction Night” online on Monday September 9 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Register to attend for free here.

This is the last Flash Science Fiction Night of the season! Join us online for an evening of short science fiction readings (1000 words or less) with authors Jenna Hanchey, Eric Fomley, and Marie Vibbert. Flash Science Fiction Nights run 30 minutes or less, and are a fun and great way to learn about new authors from around the world.

(8) SFWA TOWN HALL COMING. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association Board will conduct the organization’s first SFWA Town Hall for members on September 10, 2024.

This event is part of the ongoing effort to foster communication with the membership, talk about what the organization is current doing and planning, and to take an opportunity to listen.

By working together, the board can address concerns and begin writing the next chapters in the history of SFWA.

(9) TRIBUTE TO BROTHER. Inverse remembers, “40 Years Ago, a Cult Classic Sci-Fi Movie Beat John Carpenter to the Punch”.

…Compared to the bloated multiverse era where “less is more” is an alien concept, 1984 cult favorite The Brother from Another Planet seems like it’s been beamed in from an entirely different celestial body. Its $350,000 budget — a small sum even for the time — would be lucky to cover 30 seconds of a Marvel flick. Its special effects are limited to a few glowing lights and a deformed toe. And far from delivering any grandstanding speeches, its superhero is entirely mute.

The titular Brother, who’s not even given the luxury of a name, is an extra-terrestrial whose powers are far more intuitive (he can hear voices from the past by touching his surroundings) than communicative. But thanks to a nuanced performance from future Emmy winner Joe Morton, he still manages to convey the emotional complexities of the immigrant experience (just to make it clear the film is allegorical, his primitive spaceship crashlands on Ellis Island)….

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Anniversary: Land of the Lost series (1974)

By Paul Weimer. “Marshall, Will and Holly, on a routine expedition…”

Before Buck Rogers, or Battlestar Galactica, or reruns of TOS Star Trek, the first genre shows I can recall watching, in the misty lands of the 1970’s, were reruns of the Sid and Marty Krofft TV shows, including and most especially, Land of the Lost. 

What was not to love in those days? The Marshall family trapped in another world. Dinosaurs! Lizardmen! Weird alien technology crystals? I watched the show avidly, until it fell away from TV screens, and other tv series took their place in my mind in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  And I mostly didn’t think about Land of the Lost for two decades.

Until Bubble Boy.

Bubble Boy was a 2001 film, and I can’t really counsel you to seek it out and watch it. It has a young Jake Gyllenhaal playing the titular immunocompromised character who goes on adventures despite being in a bubble. But he is as sheltered emotionally and otherwise as he is physically, having not been allowed to even watch much TV.  One of the shows he has been able to watch was, in fact, Land of the Lost…and very early in the movie, the titular character does a “punk rock version” of the theme song.  It brought me back immediately to my young watching of the show.  That song really is an earworm.

Later on, a few years later, I met a friend who was obsessed with the show, and insisted I watch it again. So, with the suck fairy an idea that had not formulated in popular culture, but was in my mind, I decided to rent it on Netflix DVDs and rewatch it. I was nervous it was more going to be than wasted time, that my fond distant memories of the show would burst like a bubble.

Yes the show is cheesy, the special effects not so much, and it is a kids tv show…but I was surprised at how much I liked the show for what it was. 

Watching the entire arc from start to finish, I saw the creative seeds of genius in the show (and also saw at least one episode I had missed back in the day. Crucially, an episode written by Larry Niven (!) where the Marshalls try to paddle out of the Land of the Lost, run into a Confederate Gold miner and discover they are, in fact, in an enclosed pocket universe. Combine that with the crystal powered pylons that allow time and space travel, a time loop episode and more, the strong SF roots of the show came to mind. 

And then there is Enik. Poor, poor Enik, the intelligent Sleestak..who thought he had traveled into the past to see the barbaric ancestors of his high-tech civilization. And the soul crushing realization he gets when he realizes that he has in fact traveled far to the future, and his high-tech civilization is doomed to fall to barbarism. Heady stuff for a kids TV show, eh?

Land of the Lost crops up again, visually and otherwise in fantasy novels and tv series. In the novel Paragaea, for instance, the main character, trapped on another planet, stumbles onto a jungle temple ruin, complete with Sleestaks, described exactly in terms of the tv series. 

But the remake movie with Will Farrell? Skip it. Just skip it. I’ve never seen the reboot series, either (that is apparently currently on Apple TV).

“When I look all around, I can’t believe the things I found…”

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) CAMPY CRANIUM. “New horror musical arrives in Ypsilanti just in time for Halloween” – The Eastern Echo has details.

Getting antsy for the spooky season? Kick off those calendars with the premiere of “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die!”, a new musical written by Ypsilanti-area vocalist and stage director Carla Margolis.

Inspired by the 1960s cult classic of the same name, the musical is a reimagining that takes audiences through the infamous, campy storyline with an all-new original soundtrack. When a brilliant yet, reckless scientist’s fiancé is decapitated in a car accident, he uses a magical serum to keep her head alive. The head, while completely immobile, keeps its ability to sing and talk.

Fans of the movie can expect a more serious look at the same themes found in the original. 

“It focuses on bodily autonomy for women; now that it’s more perilous than ever, I don’t really address it specifically, but there was definitely an inspiration. There’s a lot of misogyny baked into this story,” Margolis said. 

Margolis’ unique take is rooted in a time period when feminist themes were less accepted in media, and that elevates the script to new levels, they said….

(13) ALL ABOARD FOR ALL ALONG. “How Marvel expands ‘WandaVision’ corner of MCU with ‘Agatha All Along,’ ‘Vision Quest’” – Entertainment Weekly interviews a Marvel TV exec and a showrunner.

…These two shows will broaden what Schaeffer refers to as “the WandaVision corner” of the MCU, and Winderbaum says Agatha All Along, titled after Hahn’s chart-topping song of the same name as performed in that first series, “really led the charge.”

The premise kicks off when a mysterious goth teen who’s obsessed with witchcraft (Joe Locke) helps Agatha break free of Wanda’s spell, only now she’s completely left without her powers. This “Teen,” who’s been hexed by…someone so that he can never share his name or any identifying information with other witches, plants the idea of traversing the Witches’ Road, a mystical realm that faces wanderers with deadly trials. If conquered, Agatha could regain all her magic once more. She just needs a coven to pull it off. Enter Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal, Patti LuPone’s Lilia Calderu, Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer Kale, and Ali Ahn’s Alice Wu-Gulliver….

(14) SAIL SIGHTED. “NASA spacecraft captures 1st photo of its giant solar sail while tumbling in space” – Space has the story.

On April 23, NASA launched a solar sail protype to orbit around our planet — a piece of technology that could very well revolutionize the way we think about spacecraft propulsion. Then, on Aug. 29, the agency confirmed this sail successfully unfurled itself in outer space. Yet, we still didn’t have official photographic evidence of this for some time. 

Now, as of Sept. 5, we indeed do. NASA has released the first image of the open solar sail, formally called the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, and stated that the spacecraft from which the sail was released will continue to send back more footage and data as time goes on….

… As NASA says in the statement, it’s important to first remember there are four wide-angle cameras in the center of the spacecraft anchoring the sail. 

Near the bottom of the image, one camera view shows the “reflective sail quadrants supported by composite booms” while at the top of the photo, we can see the back surface of one of the craft’s solar panels. Most spacecraft are lined with solar panels because that’s how they power themselves up: with sunlight.

“The five sets of markings on the booms close to the spacecraft are reference markers to indicate full extension of the sail,” the statement says. “The booms are mounted at right angles, and the solar panel is rectangular, but appear distorted because of the wide-angle camera field of view.”…

(15) WHIP IT. Gizmodo says “Bear McCreary Wants to Bring an Obscure Lord of the Rings Song to Rings of Power”.

The soundtrack for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel has afforded composer Bear McCreary a canvas as vast as Middle-earth to play with: Howard Shore-ish riffs, unique orchestral pieces, and increasingly in season two, lots of song work. We already know the lumbering hill-troll Damrod is getting his own heavy metal infused piece this season, and this week, McCreary weaved one of Tolkien’s own poems into a beautiful song to welcome Tom Bombadil to the show. But the composer has a much more obscure, and much more intriguing ditty from the franchise’s adaptive past he wants to make a nod to.

That song? “Where There’s a Whip, There’s a Way” from the Rankin Bass adaptation of Return of the King. “I’m looking. I’m looking for the moment,” McCreary said in a recent Instagram live chat of his desire to bring the song to Rings of Power (via /Film). “It hasn’t happened yet but I would love to make that happen.”

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, David Goldfarb, 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 Ken Richards.]

Pixel Scroll 8/9/24 Not Pixels, Nor Mandragora, Nor All The Drowsy Syrups Of The World

Posted on by

(0) …Shall Ever Medicine Thee To That Sweet Sleep Which Thou Scrolledst Yesterday

(If I make the headline too long, Jetpack definitely won’t send a subscriber notice. It may be too long as it is! But what a wonderful title.)

(1) FILE 770 MEETUP AT GLASGOW ON SUNDAY. Cora Buhlert on her first day at the Worldcon met several Filers — Chris Barkley, Christian Brunschen, Ingvar, Standback a.k.a. Ziv, but thinks it would be great to have a semi-official Filer meet-up in Glasgow.

Cora proposes that Filers meet her on Sunday at 3:00 p.m.at the free library in Hall 4 and then find someplace to sit down. There are several tables and chairs in the area.

Please take pictures!

(2) SEATTLE 2025 MEMBERSHIP SALE. Through Monday the Seattle 2025 Worldcon is giving a $10 discount on memberships. The deal was announced on Facebook.

In honor of Glasgow 2024, A Worldcon For Our Futures, we have a $10 membership discount that is good from today (Thursday) through Monday!

Go to https://reg.seattlein2025.org/ and click on “Add New Registration”. After you fill out the information, go to “Review and Pay”. Next to “Total Cost”, you will see a button marked “Add Coupon”. Click on it and enter “Glasgow” in the text box.

You’ll go back to “Review and Pay” and the total cost will be adjusted.

(3) WHERE’S WALDO DAVE? Dave McCarty is in Glasgow…somewhere… despite not being allowed to attend Glasgow 2024.

(4) CROATIA’S GIFT. The SFera Science Fiction Society of Zagreb, Croatia has produced an issue of its fanzine Parsek to commemorate there being a Worldcon in Europe. Download Parsek here.

This issue was edited by Emanuel Ježić-Hammer, Jelena Janjić, Vedran Ilic-Dreven and Mila.

In this issue we present a story from the most recent fantasy collection Project Tulip, and two winners of the SPera Prize for Story, from 2019. in 2024 Here’s a review of events on the local SF scene since 2009. years (there we stopped in one of the older numbers), and one film, to show the Americans and English that we also have power armour for the race. Reports and gossip from Glasgow and Rotterdam caught in one of the following issues!

(5) SUPPORT FAN FUND AUCTIONS AT WORLDCON. Courtesy of David Langford, here are the catalogues for two fan fund auctions being held at Glasgow 2024. In person and online bidding is available. One auction is Saturday evening local time, and the other closes on Sunday. The catalogs tell how to bid online.

(6) SAYONARA. [Item by Dave Doering.] After almost 20 years as an institution in fan events in Utah, Anime Banzai abruptly announced it closing down less than two months before its October edition: See their home page, the only heads up on the cancellation: Anime Banzai – Utah’s Premier Anime Convention.

Anime Banzai family

Utah Anime Promotions has been considering the fate of Anime Banzai 2024 after the convention meeting held on 4 Aug (including the harsh realities that shutting down an event like this entail), but events have outpaced that consideration. The problems are too deep to address long term, and while we had hoped to patch things up internally to still successfully run Anime Banzai 2024 as a farewell for attendees and staff, that is no longer possible.

I would like to deeply apologize directly to Artemis and Warky who were spoken of in this meeting, and clearly state that Utah Anime Promotions vehemently rejects all negative claims made against either. The Board has been in communication with you both since then to discuss the situation, and would like to thank that both of you have continued to express a hope that Anime Banzai 2024 could be provided for attendees, even under these circumstances. Hope can be a hard choice to make, and I regret that we won’t be able to assist with that.

Anime Banzai has always operated on a shoe-string budget, with funds diverted back into running each next event and the expenses that lead up to it. Without a convention in Oct where most of the convention funds are generated, we’re honestly not sure what it will look like to take care of outstanding expenses including pre-registration, vendors, etc. While we’re not sure what this path will look like, we will do our best to make things right.

Utah Anime Promotions has let the community down by not being attentive enough to the signs that manifested over time. As years continued, patterns of complacency and detachment grew. Some members of staff pointed this out over time; I’m sorry we didn’t pay better attention.

We have had many great people involved with Anime Banzai over time; inspiring experiences with energetic guests, panelists eager to share their passions with attendees, cosplayers sharing their delight for costuming and embodying characters they love, editors marrying audio and visual for anime music videos, and staff and volunteers who have worked long and hard hours to help things going. Thank you for the uplifting joy, and I hope people can hold on to more of those positive experiences than be burdened by the negative.

This convention was started by a local group of friends, who had the idea of “How hard would it be to start a convention ourselves?” while on a road trip back from a convention in a nearby state. Anime Banzai grew from that seed with the enthusiasm and joy from the community. As Anime Banzai shuts down, I hope that anime fans in Utah can continue that positive spirit. You have been the best part of Anime Banzai; always remember that, and you can continue to be better, shine brighter, day to day.

Utah Anime Promotions: Steven Jones, Daniel Bentley

They say when refunds will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) MORE LEARNEDLEAGUE SFF: BRANDON SANDERSON, OCTAVIA BUTLER, STUDIO GHIBLI, SPECULATIVE BIOLOGY. [Item by David Goldfarb.] We’re in the middle of what’s called the “off-season” in LearnedLeague, when in between regular seasons we have specialty quizzes for one day, and “mini-Leagues” that are more topic-oriented and go for 12 days.

Yesterday we had a One-Day Special about Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. Follow the link for the questions, but be warned that they are for serious Sanderson fans. I’ve read every book published in the Cosmere (and a couple that haven’t!) and I got only 8/12. At 56 I don’t have the memory for small details that I used to.

In day 10 of the just-concluded California mini-league (technically “California 2” because there was a previous one on the same topic back in 2007), we had this question:

Give the title of the prescient 1993 dystopian novel by Pasadena-born Octavia E. Butler that has as its protagonist Lauren Olamina, a young woman who creates a religion called Earthseed in a speculative 2024 California, ravaged by climate change and social inequality.

This had a 33% get rate, with no single wrong answer getting to the 5% threshold to be shown.

Filers might also find of interest 1DS’s about Studio Ghibli (the animation studio behind Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Howl’s Moving Castle, among many others) and Speculative Biology (based on books such as Dougal Dixon’s After Man, taking a look at how life on Earth might evolve in the future if humanity were to vanish).

(9) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman keeps the wheel turning even while he’s away at the Worldcon, inviting listeners to breakfast with Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam in Episode 232 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam is the author of the horror novel Grim Root, which was officially released two days after our chat. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in over 90 publications, such as Popular Science, Lightspeed, and LeVar Burton Reads. Her short story collection Where You Linger & Other Stories and her horror novella Glorious Fiends were both published in 2022.. She’s a two-time finalist for the Nebula Award. By day, she works as a Narrative Designer writing games for a mobile game company. 

We discussed how her new horror novel toys with the tropes of reality TV, the importance of balancing multiple POVs in a novel to keep them all equally interesting, our differing views on the revision process, the three years she spent writing 1,000 words per day (and why she stopped), the message she took from her two Nebula nominations, the importance of community, what she learned about herself by rereading her short stories to assemble a collection, why we both believe in ambiguous endings, and much more.

(10) SUPES ON! [Item by Daniel Dern.] Some Dern current recommendations on TV/streamers:

(a) The Umbrella Academy is re-opened for business: Season 4, the six-episode final season of The Umbrella Academy, dropped on Netflix on Thursday, August 8, 2024. Having so far watched Episode 1, I’m in.

Here’s an article that includes the S4 teaser trailer and other information (I can’t tell if there’s any spoilers but I’ll guess there aren’t.) “’The Umbrella Academy’ Season 4: Cast, Release Date, Teaser Trailer, Character Posters, Script Page, Photos” at Netflix Tudum.

And here’s the amazing Footloose Dance-Off! segment from Season 3, which I don’t think is in any way a spoiler (btw, there’s a nice short making-of documentary somewhere online):

(b) Orphan Black: Echoes (on Prime Video/AMC, Apple+, etc), starring Krysten Ritter (previously in, among other things, Marvel’s Jessica Jones series). This is a 37-years-later (in the show timelines, set in 2052) follow-up to Orphan Black (which starred Tatiana Maslany (who was on the recent HBO/MAX Perry Mason, and was Jennifer Walters in the (great) Marvel TV series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law).

We’re 7 episodes in, and we’re enjoying it. (I’m sure it makes more sense if you’ve seen Orphan Black; since we’ve seen Orphan Black, I can’t speak to that.)

(c) Season 5 of The Boys (over on Amazon) was, unsurprisingly, good. (Met expectations on the lotta violence, cussing, sex, violence, drugs, politics — note, this was all written and filmed several years ago — more violence and cussing, and great acting.)

‘Nuff Scrolled! (or Itemized!)

(11) YOUR MILEAGE PHONING HOME MAY VARY. [Item by Steven French.] Not every child thought ET was cute: “’Sobbing in the aisles’: writers on their most memorable parent-kid film experiences”.

ET: adorable interstellar tyke or nightmarish space demon? As a four-year-old in a multiplex in Aberystwyth, west Wales, I was in the latter camp. From the moment he scuttled out of an eldritch mist like the Demogorgon’s weirdo little cousin, my blood curdled. There were tears, almost instantly. What was this monster? This boggle-eyed gonad? This sentient hammer wrapped in flayed human flesh? And other questions I wouldn’t have had the vocab to ask.

The final straw came when he terrified a tiny Drew Barrymore almost as much as the prospect of runninga talkshow during Writers Guild strikes. I was whisked into an empty lobby, where my mum tried soothing me.

She possibly pointed out that my two-year-old sister was such a fan of ET that every off-camera moment left her yelling: “Where TV?” I forget the exact details – all I remember is the sweet relief of being nowhere near the cinema screen. We left shortly after – not quite the pleasant Welsh holiday movie jaunt my parents had hoped for….

(12) BY ALL THAT’S HOLY. [Item by Steven French.] Good beginning! “No god in the machine: the pitfalls of AI worship” as assessed in the Guardian.

In Arthur C Clarke’s short story The Nine Billion Names of God, a sect of monks in Tibet believes humanity has a divinely inspired purpose: inscribing all the various names of God. Once the list was complete, they thought, he would bring the universe to an end. Having worked at it by hand for centuries, the monks decide to employ some modern technology. Two sceptical engineers arrive in the Himalayas, powerful computers in tow. Instead of 15,000 years to write out all the permutations of God’s name, the job gets done in three months. As the engineers ride ponies down the mountainside, Clarke’s tale ends with one of literature’s most economical final lines: “Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”

It is an image of the computer as a shortcut to objectivity or ultimate meaning – which also happens to be, at least part of, what now animates the fascination with artificial intelligence. Though the technologies that underpin AI have existed for some time, it’s only since late 2022, with the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, that the technology that approached intelligence appeared to be much closer. In a 2023 report by Microsoft Canada, president Chris Barry proclaimed that “the era of AI is here, ushering in a transformative wave with potential to touch every facet of our lives”, and that “it is not just a technological advancement; it is a societal shift”. That is among the more level-headed reactions. Artists and writers are panicking that they will be made obsolete, governments are scrambling to catch up and regulate, and academics are debating furiously….

(13) ROUGH START AT BIG FINISH. Big Finish, known for its Doctor Who audio adventures (among other things), has experienced problems with its systems upgrades. The chairman has apologized: “A personal message from Big Finish chairman, Jason Haigh-Ellery”.

Over the past 18 months, Big Finish has undergone a transformational change. We have introduced several new systems which control the essential business functions of Big Finish.

These systems, which include stock control, dispatch and shipping tracking, payment gateways and accounting, email and customer service tools, replaced older software that had reached the end of its life.

They were vital upgrades, needed to ensure that we could continue to fulfil orders to our customers, and all the new “behind the scenes” systems have been tested for many months and are working seamlessly. 

The final action of this transformation was the rolling out of our new “shop front”, the Big Finish website and app. 

Unfortunately, it is very clear that here a number of mistakes have been made. In particular, the migration of customer data has not gone as planned, and the browsing experience of the website and app is proving to be a frustration. I sincerely apologise to everyone who has encountered difficulties accessing their purchase library since the relaunch, or who feels let down by how we have managed the process.

I know from seeing the many messages coming in via email and social media that these updates are a cause of worry and concern to many listeners. I would like to reassure each and every customer that no purchases will be lost, all the data is safe, and we are committed to improve the functionality, accessibility and reliability of the website, whatever it takes.

If you haven’t yet had a chance to do so, I would urge you to read the new “How tos” page which explains how to reset your password and update address information the first time you visit the site. We could not carry across any of these details in the upgrade due to the requirements of data protection law. It is not possible to browse your purchased items or order new releases without completing these steps.

The team will keep updating the “Work in progress” page with known issues and our timetable for improvements. As you might imagine, the Big Finish customer service team is currently inundated with messages but they will do their best to answer all queries. I thank you in advance for your patience, understanding and loyalty, and for sticking with us during this difficult period.

Finally, please let me just restate how deeply sorry I am for the inconvenience so many of our loyal listeners are experiencing at the moment. I completely recognise the very valid frustrations being expressed and I hope that you can bear with us as we try our utmost to find the best solution to bring you the best website and app experience at Big Finish. 

(14) D&D GOES POSTAL. The Dungeons & Dragons stamp issue that USPS announced last November was released August 1. “Dungeons & Dragons Stamps | USPS.com”.

(15) SKILL TREE EPISODE: SIGNS OF THE SOJOURNER. ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination has released another episode of CSI Skill Tree, their series examining how video games envision possible futures and build thought-provoking worlds. In this episode, they discuss “Signs of the Sojourner”, a deckbuilding game set in a hazily sketched post-crash version of the southwestern U.S. that explores themes of community resilience, trust, and the dynamics of conversation.

The guests are Leigh Alexander, a speculative fiction author, critic, and narrative designer for video games including Reigns: Game of Thrones and Neo Cab, and Mia Armstrong-López, a journalist and editor working on issues of science, health, and justice, and managing editor for our Future Tense Fiction series.

 Also, here’s a YouTube playlist with all 16 of Skill Tree episodes thus far.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Ersatz Culture, Dave Doering, David Langford, Scott Edelman, Joey Eschrich, 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 Jayn.]

Pixel Scroll 7/24/24 Be Careful Of The Tale You Scroll, Pixels Will Listen

Posted on by

(1) SURVIVING THE TIMES. N.K. Jemisin tells Esquire readers “We Need Speculative Fiction Now More Than Ever” in this commentary excerpted from her introduction to Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer.

…Enter the Southern Reach books. At the time I first read Annihilation—during the run-up to the 2016 election—it was a welcome breath of fungal, fetid air. Other fiction of the time seemed determined to suggest there was no need for alarm, things couldn’t be so bad, anything broken could be fixed. Could it, though? As I watched my country embrace a stupid, incompetent, and blatantly criminal fascist while insisting that his spiteful, privileged sycophants somehow had a point…well. When you’re already queasy, sweet smells make the feeling worse.

It helped to read instead about the smells—and sights, and horrors, and haunting beauty—of Area X. It helped me to imagine that creeping, transformative infection, warping body and mind and environment and institution, because that was the world I was living in. It helped to meet the twelfth expedition’s nameless women, who were simultaneously individuals with selfish motivations and archetypes trapped in their roles: the biologist, driven by the loss of her mate and the need to integrate into a new ecosystem; the psychologist, a human-subjects ethics violation in human(?) flesh. We are dropped into danger with these women, immediately forced to confront an existential threat with courage and perseverance…and this, this, was what I needed from my fiction. The second book, Authority, was even more of what I needed. As we watched Control slowly realize he’s never been in control, and that things were a lot worse than his complacency allowed him to see, it just resonated so powerfully. His over-reliance on procedure and the assumed wisdom of his predecessor, his dogged refusal to see the undying plant in his office as a sign of something wrong… There was nothing of 2014’s politics overtly visible in the book, yet they were all over it, like mold….

(2) ALEX TREBEK FOREVER. “Late ‘Jeopardy!’ host Alex Trebek memorialized on new stamp”. The USPS issued the stamp on July 22. Good Morning America has the story.

The U.S. Postal Service is honoring late “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek with a new forever stamp and celebrated the pop culture icon in a dedication ceremony Monday.

The new stamps will be available in a set of 20 designed to resemble a “Jeopardy!” game board with its eye-catching, signature blue video screens. Each stamp features a clue, prompting collectors and letter-senders with the query, “This naturalized U.S. citizen hosted the quiz show ‘Jeopardy!’ for 37 seasons.” Its answer, “Who is Alex Trebek?” also appears underneath the clue in upside-down print….

(3) THE ATOMIC WAY. [Item by Jim Janney.] Ars Technica has a long article on the new NASA/DARPA combined research project for nuclear powered space ships, and includes a history of previous efforts starting in the 1950s. “We’re building nuclear spaceships again—this time for real”.

One of the plot points of Miss Pickerell Goes To Mars is that the crew member responsible for navigating the ship, and doing the essential calculations, gets left behind. They muddle through anyway, with the help of some sensible advice from Miss Pickerell and because, as one of the crew cheerfully says, “Don’t have to worry about that. Using atomic fuel.” Reading that in 2024 caused me to roll my eyes a little (and the question of reaction mass is never discussed), but it’s more plausible than I realized.

Phoebus 2A, the most powerful space nuclear reactor ever made, was fired up at Nevada Test Site on June 26, 1968. The test lasted 750 seconds and confirmed it could carry first humans to Mars. But Phoebus 2A did not take anyone to Mars. It was too large, it cost too much, and it didn’t mesh with Nixon’s idea that we had no business going anywhere further than low-Earth orbit.

But it wasn’t NASA that first called for rockets with nuclear engines. It was the military that wanted to use them for intercontinental ballistic missiles. And now, the military wants them again….

…DARPA’s website says it has always held to a singular mission of making investments in breakthrough technologies for national security. What does a nuclear-powered spaceship have to do with national security? The military’s perspective was hinted at by General James Dickinson, a US Space Command officer, in his testimony before Congress in April 2021.

He said that “Beijing is seeking space superiority through space attack systems” and mentioned intelligence gathered on the Shijian-17, a Chinese satellite fitted with a robotic arm that could be used for “grappling other satellites.” That may sound like a ridiculous stretch, but it was enough get a go-ahead for a nuclear spaceship.

And the apparent concern regarding hypothetical threats has continued. The purpose of the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) project, stated in its environmental assessment, was to “provide space-based assets to deter strategic attacks by adversaries.” Dickinson’s worries about China were quoted in there as well.

“Let’s say you have a time-critical mission where you need to quickly go from A to B in cislunar space or you need to keep an eye on another country that is doing something near or around the Moon, and you need to move in very fast. With a platform like DRACO, you can do that,” said DARPA’s Dodson….

(4) OFFENSIVE CHOICE? [Item by Ersatz Culture.] The Bookseller’s article “Hugo awards disqualifies hundreds of ‘fake votes’ cast for finalist” is essentially a rerun of Glasgow 2024’s press release, but the image they used to represent the Hugos may raise some eyebrows —

(5) HISTORIC BLOCH PHOTOS. The Robert Bloch Official Website has announced a big update: an entirely new, second gallery page. All photos supplied courtesy of Robert Unik, Elly Bloch’s great nephew. “Gallery 2”.

(6) FOR THE COAL BITERS AMONG US. [Item by Danny Sichel.] When he was in graduate school, earning his doctorate in Scandinavian Studies, Jackson Crawford took the time to compile a work called “Tattúínárdǿla saga”: Star Wars as an Icelandic saga. True, this was in 2010, but if you haven’t seen it, then it might as well be new.

…Tattúínárdǿla saga tells of the youth of Anakinn himingangari, beginning with his childhood as a slave in Tattúínárdalr, notably lacking the prolonged racing scene of the MHG version, and referring to the character of “Jarjari inn heimski” only as a local fool slain by Anakinn in a childhood berserker rage (whereas in the MHG version, “Jarjare” is one of “Anacen’s” marshals and his constant companion; Cochrane 2010 suggests that this may be because the MHG text is Frankish in origin, and “Jarjare” was identified with a Frankish culture hero with a similar name). After this killing, for which Anakinn’s owner (and implied father) refuses to pay compensation, Anakinn’s mother, an enslaved Irish princess, foresees a great future for Anakinn as a “jeði” (the exact provenance of this word is unknown but perhaps represents an intentionally humorous Irish mispronunciation of “goði”). This compels Anakinn to recite his first verse…

[Translation] “My mother said/ That they should buy me/ A warship and fair oars,/ That I should go abroad with Jedis,/ Stand up in the ship’s stern,/ Steer a magnificent X-Wing,/ Hold my course till the harbor,/ Kill one man after another.”

The etymology of “xwingi” (nom. *xwingr?) is unknown; numerous editors have proposed emendations, but none is considered particularly plausible. It is likely to be another humorous Irish mispronunciation of a Norse word….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 24, 1895 – Robert Graves. (Died 1985).  

Robert Graves

By Paul Weimer: Graves for me has always sat at the intersection of myth, mythology and ancient (secret) history. I first came across his work, although I didn’t know that he was the ultimate author of it, when I watched the BBC adaptation of his novel I, Claudius, which purports to tell the “True” story of Claudius and his ancestors from the perspective of the titular character. It gave me a somewhat distorted opinion, as well as a great appreciation, of the strangeness and wild nature of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and helped cement my interest in Ancient Rome for good. It would be a decade before I read the actual novel   It took me years, after reading the book, to come to a better and more balanced opinion of Livia than what Graves inadvertently taught me.  In similar fashion, his Count Belisarius gave me a skewed but interesting perspective on the titular Byzantine General. This novel once again (a bad theme in his work) gave me a skewed opinion and view of Belisarius’ wife Antonia. It’s well written (just like I, Claudius and Claudius the God) but is it good history?  No, no it is absolutely not. The novels (all of them) should be taken with a huge heaping of salt. 

Where Graves hits science fiction circles more directly is The White Goddess and his interest in Celtic spiritualism, myth and mythology. It’s most certainly a response and extension of Frazer’s The Golden Bough.  By the time I came across The White Goddess (when I was studying all sorts of myth and mythology), I had had enough grounding in Graves and his work to be able to read it critically. Is it history? Is it at all accurate and represents real belief systems and systems of thought? 

No.

Instead, The White Goddess, I felt, is an individualistic and idiosyncratic, and poetic and mythopoetic point of view on this Celtic flavored belief and spirituality. It has no actual value in exploring the real belief systems of the past, it’s not quite a fantasy so much as a demonstration of how one can construct and use belief systems. In that sense, it functions to show how one could go about worldbuilding a belief system for a secondary world fantasy setting based on iconography and interpretation and imagery. In that sense, as a tool for thinking about spirituality and how it might be created, The White Goddess is far more successful, and is on far firmer ground, than an actual depiction of ancient beliefs in any way whatsoever. I think the strong poetic writing of Graves, the keenness of word choice and imagery, here and elsewhere, gives his work a power that still resonates. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) MARS IN POPULAR CULTURE ONE-DAY SPECIAL. [Item by David Goldfarb.] LearnedLeague is at it again, with a One-Day Special quiz about “Mars in Popular Culture”. You can find the questions by following this link. As you might expect from the subject, it has a great deal of SFF content. I got 9 of the 12 questions right, and somewhat unusually for me, managed to pick the five questions that would play the toughest and so got the best possible score given those 9.

(10) KEEP THOSE DOGIES ROLLING. [Item by Daniel Dern.] (With a tip of the hat to the Firesign Theatre), “And there’s hot dogs [or perhaps, for scansion, “frankfurters”] all over the highway!” “Oscar Mayer Wienermobile rolls in crash on Chicago-area highway” at AP News.

An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile got into a pickle on a Chicago highway.

The hot-dog shaped Wienermobile hit a car Monday morning along Interstate 294 and its driver lost control and overcorrected, causing it to roll onto its side near the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Illinois State Police said.

No injuries were reported after the crash, which prompted the closure of the right lane of northbound I-294 for more than an hour, officials said.

(11) DOPEST SHARKS IN THE WORLD. “Sharks test positive for cocaine near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil” says NPR.

Scientists in Brazil have come up with the first evidence that sharks are being exposed to cocaine.

Rachel Ann Hauser Davis, a biologist who worked on the study at Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, told NPR that they dissected 13 wild sharpnose sharks caught near Rio de Janeiro. All tested positive for cocaine in their muscles and livers.
 
“The key findings of the study are the presence of cocaine in sharks,” Hauser Davis says. “The actual high levels of cocaine detected in muscle is indicative of chronic exposure.”
 
Narcotraffickers being chased in the high seas often toss bales of cocaine overboard. But Hauser Davis says it’s more likely the sharks in the study were exposed to Rio de Janeiro wastewater contaminated with the drug.

“Probably the main source would be human use of cocaine and metabolization and urine and feces discharge, and the second source would be from illegal refining labs,” she says….

(12) WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE. [Item by Steven French.] “Inventors on hunt for way to make clean water on moon” says the Guardian. One of the ‘contestants’ is the British Interplanetary Society whose former Chair was of course the inimitable Arthur C!

 Inventors hope to crack how to create a reliable clean water supply on the moon – and it may involve a microwave oven from Tesco.

The goal to set up a crewed lunar base was launched many moons ago but has yet to come to fruition. With reliance on water supplies from Earth risky and expensive, one of the many challenges is how to extract and purify water from ice lying in craters at the lunar south pole.

Such a supply would not only provide a resource for drinking and growing crops, but the water could also be split into hydrogen, for use as rocket fuel, and oxygen for residents to breathe.

Now the UK Space Agency has announced that it is awarding £30,000 in seed funding, with expert support, to each of 10 UK teams who are vying to solve the problem….

(13) ABOUT THAT DEBRIS. “NASA Sponsors New Research on Orbital Debris, Lunar Sustainability” – a NASA announcement.

As part of NASA’s commitment to foster responsible exploration of the universe for the benefit of humanity, the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) is funding space sustainability research proposals from five university-based teams to analyze critical economic, social, and policy issues related to Earth’s orbit and cislunar space.

The new research awards reflect the agency’s commitment identified in NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy to ensure safe, peaceful, and responsible space exploration for future generations, and encourage sustainable behaviors in cislunar space and on the lunar surface by ensuring that current operations do not impact those yet to come.

Three of the five awards will fund research that addresses the growing problem of orbital debris, human-made objects in Earth’s orbit that no longer serve a purpose. This debris can endanger spacecraft, jeopardize access to space, and impede the development of a low-Earth orbit economy. 

The remaining two awards focus on lunar surface sustainability and will address key policy questions such as the protection of valuable locations and human heritage sites as well as other technical, economic, or cultural considerations that may factor into mission planning. ….

A panel of NASA experts selected the following proposals, awarding a total of about $550,000 to fund them: 

Lunar surface sustainability 

  • “A RAD Framework for the Moon: Applying Resist-Accept-Direct Decision-Making,” submitted by Dr. Caitlin Ahrens of the University of Maryland, College Park 
  • “Synthesizing Frameworks of Sustainability for Futures on the Moon,” submitted by research scientist Afreen Siddiqi of Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Orbital Debris and Space Sustainability 

  • “Integrated Economic-Debris Modeling of Active Debris Removal to Inform Space Sustainability and Policy,” submitted by researcher Mark Moretto of the University of Colorado, Boulder 
  • “Avoiding the Kessler Syndrome Through Policy Intervention,” submitted by aeronautics and astronautics researcher Richard Linares of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
  • “Analysis of Cislunar Space Environment Scenarios, Enabling Deterrence and Incentive-Based Policy,” submitted by mechanical and aerospace engineering researcher Ryne Beeson of Princeton University 

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Jim Janney, Ersatz Culture, Rich Lynch, Danny SIchel, 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 Thomas the Red.]

Pixel Scroll 7/22/24 Or The Pixel May Learn To Scroll

Posted on by

(1) HAS DARK REGIONS PRESS REACHED THE END? Dark Regions Press is a small press founded by Joe Morey in 1985, specializing in horror and dark fiction. His son, Chris, is the current owner.

Their business website is down and one of their published authors William Meikel is calling it the “End Of The Line At Dark Regions Press”.

… With them also taking on the Dark Renaissance books when that venture folded, Dark Regions Press ended up as home to a lot of my material – more than fifteen books in total, and I was always happy to see it there, given the tremendous production values that the company put into their products, particularly the hardcovers…

So, from a purely selfish viewpoint, I’ve been mostly happy there.

But over the years there have been many rumblings of discontent, from both authors and customers, and it’s been getting increasingly hard for me to ignore them. I’ve pulled some of my work for them in recent years, and just last month was asking them to release rights back to me on some others… maybe my spidey-senses were tingling just enough to try to tell me something.

And now there’s the current shitshow.

The website is down, the company is up for sale (although my books are still being sold on the online sites), and Chris Morey, the owner, is incommunicado. I’ve seen reports of customers being over $1000 in the hole on preorders, and of people waiting for many years for books that now look like they’ll never arrive. I can’t begin to imagine how much money is owed, given the number of people I see complaining over the past few days. It’s turned into one of the all time great small press publishing clusterfucks.

Right now I’m trying to get in contact with them to find out exactly what’s going on, but I think this is the end of the line for me there whatever happens to them now.

Brian Keene remembers reporting issues with that publisher before:

Bev Vincent on X.com shared this link showing Dark Regions Press announced in April it was for sale: “Profitable online business with 17,000 customers for sale – in business since 1985 — Dark Regions Press”.

Weird House Press shared what they know in a Facebook post on July 20.

It has come to our attention that Dark Regions Press has gone dark and their site has come down with no word to customers. We are aware that DRP owes a lot of books to a lot of customers. While Weird House is a separate entity from Dark Regions, many of you know that Chris at DRP is Joe’s son and that Joe used to own Dark Regions over a decade ago. As such, we feel compelled to make a statement and share what we know.

Some of you may be aware that Joe at Weird House was helping Dark Regions to fulfill some of the books they were behind on, including Transmissions from Punktown and Wolf Hunt 3. Weird House lent some of its resources to Chris to finish these books and fulfill orders. Small press is a tough business however, and we could only afford to help out so much. We had hoped that with the aid we lent to Chris and DRP the company could recover and make good on their commitments to customers. Unfortunately, Dark Regions seems to have needed more help than Weird House could afford to give.

As for what is happening with DRP, we honestly don’t know at the moment. We at Weird House were unaware of Dark Regions taking down their site. We only became aware of this when it was brought to our attention by a reader. Chris at DRP didn’t inform Joe or anyone else at Weird House of his intention to take down the site. At this point, we still don’t know the status of the company.

We wish that there was more we could do, but the truth is, Joe left Dark Regions many years ago. While we sympathize with those impacted by the actions of DRP, Chris and Dark Regions are responsible for their unfulfilled orders. We simply can’t afford to pay for the failings of another business because of a shared last name.

We will continue to share any information as it comes to us. Feel free to reach out to us via email or facebook messenger if you have any questions or concerns.

(2) THE SECOND SHALL BE FIRST. ScreenRant says there are “8 Book Trilogies Where The Second Book Is The Best”.

Book trilogies often suffer from second-book syndrome, with the middle installment feeling like a slow and unnecessary bridge between the opening and conclusion — though there are a few lucky trilogies where the second book is the best. Trilogies tend to struggle when it comes to balancing their stories, and when this happens, the middle typically suffers. This is why so many book trilogies peak with the first installment, though some manage to make a comeback during the finale, even after a lackluster second novel.

Then there are the rare trilogies that successfully navigate their second books, using them to raise the stakes and move the story forward ahead of the final chapter. In some cases, the middle novel is even the best of the series, as endings don’t always stick the landing….

At the top of their list:

1. The Farseer Trilogy By Robin Hobb (1995-1997)

Second Book: Royal Assassin

Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy is considered a fantasy classic, and while all three books deserve their reputations, Royal Assassin stands out as the best. The Farseer Trilogy tells the tale of Fitz, and it continues well beyond this series. But this trilogy sets the stage for the rest of the Elderlings books, and it does a compelling job of it. Assassin’s Apprentice is a great start, but the later books surpass it. Again, the first book in any trilogy bears the burden of introducing characters and world-building elements that make it slower and more difficult to get into.

(3) BE ON THE LOOKOUT. Crypt Keeper taken from The Mystic Museum this weekend in Burbank, CA.

(4) MEANWHILE, BACK IN SCOTLAND. [Item by Steven French.] No, not that Glasgow festival!! “Glasgow’s independent game festival: an anarchic showcase of Scotland’s thriving virtual world” in the Guardian.

Walking through the doors of this boutique video game festival, you are immediately greeted by a bullet hell shoot-em-up with a painterly twist. In ZOE Begone!, you dodge and unleash attacks at blistering speed before the game erupts into a euphoric shower of pointillist colour, dazzling the eyes and punishing the thumbs. Next to it sits Left Upon Read; at first glance, a dark-fantasy Quake clone, but one that gives you the bizarre task of checking text messages on a smartphone as you slice your way through a dungeon. These are subversive games, taking well-worn design tropes and breaking them in witty, playful ways.

Rule-breaking is a major theme of Glasgow independent game festival, the latest iteration of an event previously known as Southside games festival. It took place last weekend at Civic House, nestled in the shadow of the M8, the concrete eyesore that carves through Glasgow and connects the city with the wider central belt. On display are more eccentric and smaller-budget games than those you see on shelves, all made by developers who either live within Glasgow or a short train ride away….

(5) GOING FOR THE BIGGEST BANGS. “’We pursued it to the point where we got a solid no’: Harrison Ford and Sandra Bullock Were Far from the Biggest Star Who Flat Out Rejected The Big Bang Theory Request” – Fandomwire has the story.

The Big Bang Theory wasn’t just a ratings juggernaut—it was a casting magnet for big names. But even the biggest magnets have their limits, as the show discovered with a few near misses that would have sent fan theories into overdrive….

…Forget the whispers of Harrison Ford as Professor Proton or Sandra Bullock as a mystery love interest. Big Bang almost landed a true legend: Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey). In an interview with TV Line, creator Chuck Lorre revealed his dream casting for the absentee Howard Wolowitz Sr.—Howard’s mysterious father….

(6) DEBORAH P KOLODJI (1959-2024). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association today announced the passing of its former president, Deborah P Kolodji, on July 21.

Deborah P. Kolodji

She was an integral part to the growth and continuance of the speculative poetry community and the SFPA. A lifelong champion and educator of short form poetry, Debbie was well-respected through many writing communities. Her influence, talent and passion will be missed. She was the creator of the Dwarf Stars Award, and we believe she remains a giant in the cosmos.

She was the inaugural recipient of SFPA President’s Lifetime Service Award in 2023. The citation told about her many career highlights:

[She was] the moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group, the California Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America, and a member of the board of directors for Haiku North America. She has given hundreds of haiku workshops over the past 15 years and recorded two Poetry Pea videos, one on “Exaggerated Perspective” in haiku (which referenced scifaiku) and one on speculative haiku.

She has long been an advocate for speculative haiku and scifaiku, writing several articles for mainstream haiku journals, including one in Terry Ann Carter’s book, Lighting the Global Lantern: A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Haiku and Related Literary Forms. She presented a talk on scifaiku at the 2007 Haiku North America in Ottawa as well as being on a haiku panel at the 2007 WorldCon in Montreal. She has given several scifaiku workshops at ConDor as well as participating in a scifaiku slam in San Diego.

The Dwarf Stars Award came out of Kolodji’s advocacy for short form poetry, and she edited several volumes of the Dwarf Stars anthology, including the first one.  As SFPA president, she created Eye to the Telescope with Samantha Henderson, and co-edited the first issue.  The Vice President position was added to the SFPA board under her administration, and the SFPA also held its first poetry contests. 

A native Californian, she has a degree in mathematics from the University of Southern California. With over 1,000 published haiku to her name, her first full-length book of haiku and senryu, highway of sleeping towns, from Shabda Press, was awarded a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award from The Haiku Foundation. Her e-chapbook tug of a black hole won 2nd Place in the Elgin Awards from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. Her new book, Distance, was co-authored with Mariko Kitakubo of Tokyo. This book was written in a collaborative form called “Tan-ku,” a conversation in tanka and haiku, where the tanka were written by Mariko and the haiku by Deborah….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

1974 – A Midsummer’s Tempest by Poul Anderson.

By Paul Weimer: Shakespeare, no surprise, is extremely popular and common to reference, allude and outright steal from by science fiction and fantasy authors. And why not? The Bard’s work is immortal, after all, and while most of his work is not genre as we understand it, plenty of it touches upon or outright waltzes into fantasy.  But what if everything that Shakespeare wrote was true, especially the fantastic bits. What if Shakespeare’s work were history, not fantasy and quasi-history?  Faeries, wizards, ghosts and more were all established facts in the world?

That’s the conceit of Poul Anderson’s A Midsummer’s Tempest, fifty years old this year.

The setting is the early 17th century in this alternate world, and we are in the midst of the English Civil War. The Roundheads and the Cavaliers are in deadly contention. Charles the First is on the edge of defeat. Prince Rupert, in our timeline, is one of the most interesting characters of the period with a varied career ranging from Cavalry officer to colonial governor, and cousin to several English Monarchs. In this world and timeline, in the course of the book, he teams up with the ward of his captor (love, true love, friends) and together they go through a whirlwind set of plots involving Titania and Oberon, the books of Prospero, and a lot more in their efforts to try and preserve Charles I as king of England. Chases, escapes, magic, romance and much more.

And if you like cinematic universes and multiverses, this novel is also for you. This novel features The Old Phoenix, an inn that connects to multiple worlds in Anderson’s verse, and Rupert meets characters from other Anderson universes in the process. A decade before Heinlein tried it in Number of the Beast, the appearance of the Old Phoenix in A Midsummer’s Tempest helps knit together a lot of the fantastic verses and worlds of Anderson’s worlds.

Oh, and did I mention the characters speak in blank verse, and sometimes outright poetry, in the bargain, with plenty of allusions to a slew of Shakespeare’s plays in the bargain?

This is one of the lighter, funnier and confectionary of Anderson’s oeuvre. Some of his work can be fraught with doom, dark destiny and a vision of fighting against fate bravely but in vain.  A Midsummer’s
Tempest is the exception that proves the rule. The protagonists win, true love prevails, and the book ends in a proper marriage, Shakespeare style.

About the only other novel that even tries to come close to Anderson’s approach here is John M Ford’s The Dragon Waiting, which is pretty good company for A Midsummer’s Tempest to share.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) SCIENCE FICTION HOMEWORLDS ONE-DAY SPECIAL ON LEARNEDLEAGUE. [Item by David Goldfarb.] An SFF-related One-Day Special quiz appeared on LearnedLeague over the past weekend: Science Fiction Homeworlds. I got 8/12, which was good for 95th percentile since some of the ones I knew were relatively obscure to the LL community. (I didn’t do better because it branched out into media and video game franchises that I haven’t followed.)

(10) HE DID “PAY THE WRITER”. “Ryan Reynolds Paid Deadpool Writers From His Own Salary to Be on Set” he told Variety.

Ryan Reynolds recently spoke to The New York Times ahead of the release of “Deadpool and Wolverine” and remembered the humble beginnings of his R-rated superhero franchise. The actor said the first “Deadpool” movie finally got off the ground at 20th Century Fox after he’d already spent a decade trying to get it made. Reynolds even paid out of pocket for his screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to be on set because the scrappier production was not that of a normal comic book tentpole.

“No part of me was thinking when ‘Deadpool’ was finally greenlit that this would be a success,” Reynolds said. “I even let go of getting paid to do the movie just to put it back on the screen: They wouldn’t allow my co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on set, so I took the little salary I had left and paid them to be on set with me so we could form a de facto writers room.”…

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, David Goldfarb, Anne Marble, 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 Paul Weimer.]

Pixel Scroll 5/9/24 When Pixel Filed, And Scroll Span, Who Then Melted Jack Dann?

Posted on by

(1) PARDON MY WTF. “Apple Apologizes for iPad Pro Ad After Criticism” – The Hollywood Reporter explains why they need to. (Though they can’t be too sorry because the kerfuffle has helped the ad draw 53 million views.)

Apple is apologizing for an iPad Pro ad that was widely criticized when it debuted earlier this week.

The dystopian spot, titled “Crush,” shows several instruments, including a guitar and piano, being crushed by a hydraulic press. Also among the items being smashed flat are balls that look like emojis and an Angry Birds statue….

Apple CEO Tim Cook posted the spot on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday (it also was posted on YouTube). His post and the YouTube video are still up, but the spot won’t run on TV, according to Ad Age.

“Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Cook wrote….

[One of the many negative comments was,] “Crushing symbols of human creativity and cultural achievements to appeal to pro creators, nice. Maybe for the next Apple Watch Pro you should crush sports equipment, show a robot running faster than a man, then turn to the camera and say, ‘God is dead and we have killed him.’”

(2) KGB. Ellen Datlow has posted photos from Wednesday night’s Fantastic Fiction at KGB session where John Wiswell and Anya Johanna DeNiro read from their recent novels.

(3) CHOOSING CONVENTIONS. The new episode of Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing podcast is “Conquering Conventions; Crafting Confidence”. (There’s also an excellent transcript available – yay!)

In this episode, she shares her experiences and insights on convention attendance, from choosing the right ones to the art of mingling without the cringe. Plus, she tackles the ever-present concern of COVID safety in crowded spaces.

Whether you’re a cosplayer or a casual attendee, Mur advises on how to present yourself professionally, connect with industry pros, and enjoy the con experience while staying true to your comfort level. And for those not ready to dive back into the physical con scene, she discusses the merits of virtual conventions and how they can be a great alternative.

(4) LEVAR READS RAY. LeVar Burton Reads “The Toynbee Convector” © 1983 by Ray Bradbury in his latest podcast.

The world’s only time traveler finally reveals his secrets.

(5) ‘THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM’. “New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie Coming in 2026, Andy Serkis Directing” – Variety has the story.

Warner Bros. will release the first of its new batch of live-action “The Lord of the Rings” films in 2026, which will focus on Andy Serkis’ Gollum.

Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.

The project is currently in the early stages of script development from writers Walsh and Boyens, along with Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou, and will “explore storylines yet to be told,” Zaslav said.

In a press release from Warner Bros. later Thursday morning, the studio revealed that the working title for the film is “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” and it will be directed by and star Serkis in his iconic titular role….

…A separate, animated Middle-earth movie, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” is due on Dec. 13 via Warner Bros. and director Kenji Kamiyama. That movie is set 200 years before the events of “The Hobbit.”…

(6) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 109 of the Octothorpe podcast, “But Also a Worrying One”, John Coxon is middle, Alison Scott is even sadder, and Liz Batty is sorry.

We have a bumper mailbag in Octothorpe 109, and we continue our discussion about accessibility in Eastercon before segueing into a discussion of money and privilege with respect to conventions. We also mention the latest news out of Chengdu. Massive thanks to Ulrika O’Brien for the gorgeous cover art this week!

The background is a starry, lightning-filled square in blues, purples, and yellows. Atop that, there is a spaceship, somewhat like a rocket, with engines coming out of the sides. There are yellow lights shining from it, and a ladder reaches up to a central archway. John, Alison and Liz are depicted as silhouettes, regarding it with wonder. Their shadows stretch off the canvas, and they look faintly alien or futuristic in a hard-to-define manner.

(7) SERLING’S TRUNK STORY. “A short story by The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling is published for the first time” reports NPR.

…Not long after he returned from the war in 1946, Serling attended Antioch College on the G.I. bill. There, in his early 20s, he penned “First Squad, First Platoon,” a short story which is being published for the first time Thursday in The Strand. It was one of his earliest stories, starting a writing career that Serling once said helped him get the war “out of his gut.”

“It was like an exercise for him to deal with the demons of war and fear,” said his daughter, Jodi Serling. “And he sort of turned it into fiction, although there was a lot of truth to it.”

The story is set on Leyte Island in “heavy jungle foliage” and a “hostile rain that caked mud on weapons, uniforms, equipment.” Each of the five chapters in the 11,000-word story is about a different soldier and how they died….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born May 9, 1936 — Albert Finney. (Died 2019.) I’m very, very fond of British performers and among them is Albert Finney. So let’s look at the career of this most talent actor.

His first genre performance is as Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge. Scrooge is my favorite Albert Finney film and it is benefitted immensely by the many extraordinary strong performances by actors like him. To give a good sense of him in that role, I feel obligated to show him in his full Victorian regalia. 

That’s followed by being Dewey Wilson in Wolfen, a deeply disturbing film. Wolfen to me is the perfect werewolf film as it is a police procedural firmly within the horror genre. His character here Detective Dewey Wilson along with Diane Venora as Detective Rebecca Neff unraveled the grisly murders that turn-out to be based in First Folk reality. 

He plays Edward Bloom, Sr. Big Fish in the wonderful Big Fish. He’s central character here.  He is a story-teller but his only son, Will, doesn’t enjoy them because he believes they are simply not true. Of course, they are, but they’re just exaggerated. Or are they being so? 

He voices Finis Everglot in Corpse Bride. Now I’d love to tell how he was in that role but I’ll confess and say that I’ve not see that film as I am not a big fan of Tim Burton’s animated work at all. 

He was Kincade in Skyfall. He’s the gamekeeper of Skyfall Lodge and the ancestral Bond family estate in Scotland. He’s got a major role in that film.

He was Maurice Allington in The Green Man based on Kingsley Amis’ novel of the same name. He’s the somewhat inebriated owner and landlord of The Green Man, an inn that he says is haunted by ghosts.  He tells tales of these to scare guests as it amuses, or trying to seduce them to no avail as he’s not at all handsome. But it may be that The Green Man is truly haunted and those ghosts are happy with him…  it’s a great role for him and he play it quite well.

Lastly, I’ll wrap up with Murder on the Orient Express, the 1974 version. I have that poster, an original, not a reproduction, framed and hanging here as I truly love this film. Christie, who lived just long enough to see the film get released and be a box office success, said that Murder on the Orient Express and Witness for the Prosecution were the only movie versions of her books that she liked although she expressed disappointment with Poirot’s moustache as depicted here was far from the creation she had detailed in her mysteries.

She’s misremembering her detailing of that moustache which I confirmed checking the many such novels I have on hand in Apple Books. Most novels have no detailed description at all, and this in The Mysterious Affair at Styles  being typical: “Poirot seized his hat, gave a ferocious twist to his moustache, and, carefully brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve, motioned me to precede him down the stairs; there we joined the detectives and set out for Styles.”

Finney made a most excellent Poirot though many later critics compared him to David Souchet who they consider the definitive version of the character. I always wondered what Dame Christie would have thought of Souchet.  

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Free Range might not be teaching what the student wants to learn.
  • Carpe Diem has an unexpected Egyptian traffic sign.
  • Heathcliff’s latest in a week-long series of guest appearances comes from Star Wars.
  • Nathan W. Pyle emphathizes with creators.

(10) GLIMPSE THE NEXT CHAPTER OF NEIL GAIMAN AND MARK BUCKINGHAM’S GROUNDBREAKING MIRACLEMAN SAGA. Miracleman By Gaiman & Buckingham: The Silver Age #1-7 is now available as a complete collection. Catch a glimpse of the action in the new trailer, featuring artwork from all seven issues.

In THE SILVER AGE, Miracleman has created a utopia on Earth where gods walk among men and men have become gods. But when his long-dead friend Young Miracleman is resurrected, Miracleman finds that not everyone is ready for his brave new world! The story that ensues fractures the Miracleman Family and sends Young Miracleman on a stirring quest to understand this world — and himself. It’s a touching exploration of the hero’s journey that ranges from the top of the Himalayas to the realm of the towering Black Warpsmiths — and into the secret past of the Miracleman Family!

 (11) X-MEN ONE-DAY SPECIAL ON LEARNEDLEAGUE. [Item by David Goldfarb.] LearnedLeague just had a One-Day Special quiz about the X-Men. It focused more on the comic books than the various adaptations, which suited me just fine. I’m currently scored at 11/12, but I’ve submitted an appeal on the one answer where I was marked wrong. We’ll see if that goes through.

You can find the questions behind this link, although nearly all of them have pictures that people who aren’t LL members won’t be able to see. None of the pictures are absolutely necessary, but at least a couple of them have valuable clues.

(12) VIDEO GAME ANIMATION INSIGHTS. “’Harold Halibut’ brings with handmade charm and stop motion inspirations” on NPR’s “Here and Now”.

“Harold Halibut” is a new sci-fi video game set in an underwater space colony. But it’s got a novel look; all of the characters and sets in the game were made by hand, then 3D scanned and animated digitally….

(13) BRAINS DON’T GROW ON TREES. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] 1 cu. mm of brain tissue. 5000 slices. 23 cm of blood vessels. 57,000 cells. 150,000,000 neural connections. Lots of surprises. The Guardian reports “Scientists find 57,000 cells and 150m neural connections in tiny sample of human brain”.

… “The aim was to get a high resolution view of this most mysterious piece of biology that each of us carries around on our shoulders,” said Jeff Lichtman, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard. “The reason we haven’t done it before is that it is damn challenging. It really was enormously hard to do this.”

Having sliced the tissue into wafers less than 1,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair, the researchers took electron microscope images of each to capture details of brain structure down to the nanoscale, or thousandths of a millimetre. A machine-learning algorithm then traced the paths of neurons and other cells through the individual sections, a painstaking process that would have taken humans years. The images comprised 1.4 petabytes of data, equivalent to 14,000 full length, 4k resolution movies.

“We found many things in this dataset that are not in the textbooks,” said Lichtman. “We don’t understand those things, but I can tell you they suggest there’s a chasm between what we already know and what we need to know.”

In one baffling observation, so-called pyramidal neurons, which have large branches called dendrites protruding from their bases, displayed a curious symmetry, with some facing forwards and others backwards. Other images revealed tight whorls of axons, the thin fibres that carry signals from one brain cell to another, as if they had become stuck on a roundabout before identifying the right exit and proceeding on their way…

(14) INSULIN PUMP ISSUE. “FDA Warns on Insulin Pump Problem” at MedPage Today. “This has been a plot point in several movies and tv shows lately,” says Chris Barkley.

A mobile app used with an insulin pump that led to 224 injuries was recalled by Tandem Diabetes Care, the FDA announced today.

The recall is for the 2.7 version of the Apple iOS t:connect mobile app, used in conjunction with t:slim X2 insulin pump with Control-IQ technology, the agency said.

The FDA identified the action as a Class I recall, the most serious type. The recall is a correction, not a product removal, and was prompted by a software glitch that may cause the pump battery to drain sooner than expected. Users are being urged to update the app to the latest software….

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Adam Savage tells “How Star Wars: Ahsoka’s Jedi Shuttle Filming Model Was Made!”

During the production of Star Wars: Ahsoka, Adam Savage visited the miniatures filming stage set up at Lucasfilm to watch the practical model of Ahsoka’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle being filmed. Modelmaker John Goodson and machinist Dan Patrascu spent four months building the 30-inch model of that T-6 ship for the show–an incredible hero ship model not only equipped with lights, but was fully mechanized with a rotating wing!

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