June 2024 – Page 3 – File 770 (2024)

(1) STAR WARS AND SDI EXHIBIT. Longtime LASFSians may remember Jerry Pournelle telling about the meetings of theCitizens’ Advisory Council on National Space Policyhe once organized at Larry Niven’s house, which contributed some ideas to the Reagan administration’s “Strategic Defense Initiative” (nicknamed “Star Wars”). Now the Reagan Presidential Library is combining memories of SDI with an exhibit of Star Wars memorabilia in “Defending America and the Galaxy: Star Wars and SDI”. It’s open through September 8.

StarWarsmay have been a transformative movie, but SDI transformed our national security.

Join us at the Reagan Library for a fun and informative exhibition onStarWars– both the real-world technology of SDI, as well as items from the movie phenomenon. The exhibition will include original items from SDI including an authentic Command Launch Equipment Console, as well as props, costumes, and concept art from theStarWarsfranchise, including a Landspeeder made forA New Hope, master replicas of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber made from the original mold ofThe Last Jedi,and an original script signed by Dave Prowse (actor who portrayed Darth Vader in the original trilogy). With special thanks to Propstore (propstore.com), Entertainment Memorabilia Auctions, the exhibit will also showcase an original dress worn by Princess Leia, original sketches by George Lucas of the spaceships, and original helmets worn by Darth Vader, Stormtroopers and more.

(2) HUNGER GAME$ Variety brings word of a “New ‘Hunger Games’ Movie Set for 2026”. There will be a new book in the series, too.

A new “Hunger Games” prequel film will be released in theaters in 2026.

After last November’s “Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” charmed its way to $337 million at the box office, Lionsgate teased that moviegoers may not have seen the last of Panem, the dystopia where the story is set — even though the spinoff story covered the entirety of author Suzanne Collins’ 2020 novel of the same name….

… To that end,Collins is writing a new book, “Sunrise on the Reaping,” to be released in 2025. The film adaptation will hit theaters on Nov. 20, 2026. Francis Lawrence, who has helmed every “Hunger Games” installment since 2012’s “Catching Fire,” is in talks to direct.

(3) HPL ON THE BLOCK. Eighty-four pages of H. P. Lovecraft letters compose a lot in Heritage Auction’s June 27 offering Part I of the collection of Important English and American Literaturefrom the library of William A. Strutz. “H. P. Lovecraft. Small archive of nine lengthy autograph letters”.

Nine autograph letters signed with six addressed envelopes (four signed “HPL”, four signed “E’ch-Pi-El”, and one signed “H.P. Lovecraft”)…

…[Lovecraft comments on] the inspirations and influences of his own writing style: “You are right in saying that Poe is my chief source & model – & I can assure you that I have never presumed to compare my stuff to his, qualitatively… That is why I dispute your statement thatmy talessuffer from a ‘lack of warmth’. I may not have the warmth – buttales of the sort I writedon’t require such a thing. Indeed – I’ll go a step further & express the opinion that a romantic or especially human element in a weird tale is adefinite defect & dilution. The weird writer must above all else becosmic & objective– with no more sympathy for mankind & its petty values than for the daemons that oppose mankind. Without this impersonal independence & unconventionality, weird fiction sinks quickly into a namby-pamby condition…” (letter dated Aug. 28, 1931). And continues in his next letter of September 3, 1931: “I still insist that ‘warmth’ is an element not properly belong to weird fiction as a genre… What you term ‘coldness & formality’ of style is what I callobjective plainness– the bold, neutral simplicity which includes as frills, trivialities, or irrelevancies, & of which treats all phenomena – cosmic, terrestrial, human, or otherwise – as of perfectly equal importance in an infinite, futile, & meaningless cosmos…”

(4) CONSERVATIVE IDEAS FAIL THE TEST SAYS TINGLE. Chuck Tingle took another victory lap over the Rabid Puppies today.

(5) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 111 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Slightly Lower Tolerance for Feelings”, John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty read the Hugo Award finalists for Best Novel.

We talk about each of the novels, what we liked and what we didn’t, and then we each say how we’re (currently) planning to rank them on the ballot.

Uncorrected transcripthere.

(6) VIEW ONLINE. [Item by lance oszko.] Some items from the Balticon 58 Film Festival are publicly available. See links here: “Winner of Balticon 58 Short Film Festival 2024”.

(7) ALAN SCARFE (1946-2024). Alan Scarfe, the classically trained British Canadian actor known for his turns as bad guys inDouble ImpactandLethal Weapon IIIand as Dr. Bradley Talmadge on the UPN sci-fi seriesSeven Days died April 28. The Hollywood Reporter profile includes these additional genre roles:

…Born in England and raised in Vancouver, Scarfe portrayed the Romulans Tokath and Admiral Mendak on episodes ofStar Trek: The Next Generationin 1991 and 1993 and was another alien, the powerful Magistrate Augris, on a 1995 installment ofStar Trek: Voyager.

“Science fiction on film and television, especially if you are playing some kind of alien character with fantastic make-up, is great for actors with a strong stage background,” hesaidin a 2007 interview. “The productions need that kind of size and intensity of performance. You can’t really mumble if you’re a Klingon.”…

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

June 6, 1950 — Gary Graham. (Died 2024.) I was trying to remember where first saw Gary Graham as a genre performer. What I remember him most for is in the recurring role of Soval, the Vulcan ambassador to Earth,in theEnterpriseseries. It was a most excellent performance by him.

So it turns out that it was the Alien Nationfranchise in which he played Detective Matthew Sikes, which aired from the late Eighties until mid-Nineties, where I first saw him. Great role by him it was indeed.

He had the recurring role of Captain Ken Hetrick on what I think was the underappreciated M.AN.T.I.S.series. Yes, it was a slightly awkward merging of a police procedural and a SF superhero story but I liked it a lot.

Finally he got involved inone of those fanfic Trek videos that CBS decided to ignore as long as they didn’t attempt to make them a commercial property, e.g. sell them as DVDs.(Yes, this one asked CBS to sell them for them. You can guess the answer.)

In Star Trek: Of Gods and Menand the web series that came off it he was Ragnar, a shape-shifter, who led a rebellion against the Federation.Bet that didn’t end well.

They claim CBS authorized them to write it as a script for a new series. Of course neither CBS or Paramount ever publicly said anything about this. They didn’t block the use of the characters either. You’re welcome to watch here as it’s legal.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• Thatababy has a musical riddle.
• Broom Hilda reveals the missing scene from a monster movie.
• Boondocks finds a reason for making super soldiers.

(10) PERSISTENT TECHNOLOGY. The resurgence of interest in film photography leads to consideration of “The Lost Art of the Negative” by the New York Times. Customers who have been sent the photos often don’t return for the negatives.

…“The very-big-picture legal issue is the difference between ownership of the negatives and ownership of the copyright,” said David Deal, a former professional photographer who now practices copyright law. “When those two things are detached from one another, then all hell breaks loose.”

Put simply: Whoever has the negatives has the mechanism to reproduce the work but not the copyright to do so; the artist sans negatives has the right but not the means.

It’s a concept that has been battered in the age of digital cameras, then left for dead with the advent of iPhones. Dinosaurs of the photography game, negatives are the original images that are burned into frames when film loaded into an analog camera is exposed to light. They once were the primary deliverable when processing a roll of film.

In the digital age, most shops where people get their film developed will scan the negatives into a computer and just email the photographs to their customers.

“Negatives would’ve never been forgotten before, because people had to pick up the digital copy,” said Richard Damery, a developer who has worked at Aperture Printing in London for 15 years. “They can now have everything uploaded to them. They forget about the negatives.”

It can be hard for some to imagine (or remember) a time when a photograph involved more steps than just the instant gratification of looking down at a screen.

That’s especially true for much of Gen Z, the driving force behind the contemporary film resurgence. The industry has boomed in the years since the pandemic, and not just with upmarket brands likeLeica; the classicFujifilm disposablesare back, too. For many young shooters, theanticipation and delayed payoffof film are a welcome salve to the 24/7 exposure of apps like Instagram….

(11) NO MORE DISCS DOWN UNDER? “Disney locks the Vault, ceases DVD distribution in Australia” reports A.V. Club.

In another win for Disney+, The Walt Disney Company has ceased DVD and Blu-ray distribution in Australia and New Zealand. As confirmed by a spokesperson for The Walt Disney Company in Australia and New Zealand,Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3will be the final release from the Mouse House in the countries. However, we’ve been assured that viewers can watch Disney+ to enjoy Disney classics and new releases,such asWillowseason one andArtemis Fowl.The only option for viewers lookingto score a copy of the 4K release ofCinderellais through international retailers because once stock runs out in the country, Disney will not replenish.

As noted byThe Digital Bits, which first confirmed the news, the move is not surprising. Disney has already stopped distributing DVDs in some Asian and Latin American countries. Physical media sales in the region are dismal, and as global retailers like Amazon suck up a market share of customers, Disney has fewer reasons to keep shelves stocked….

(12) DISTANCE LENDS DISENCHANTMENT. CBR.com claims there are “10 Ways The Hobbit Trilogy Has Aged Poorly”. The movie, that is.

9. There Is Too Much Emphasis on Azog

Spotlight on villains is often admirable, but in the case ofThe Hobbit, it works to the film’s detriment. To accommodate for the book’s lack of a recurring antagonist and to set up a final fight for Thorin, Azog was introduced. One of themany aspects wrong with Azogin the movies is his very presence, as he was killed years before Bilbo journeyed to the Lonely Mountain in Tolkien’s novel.

Overall, Azog adds little to the plot. He doesn’t differ from any other orc in a relevant way, nor does he serve a major purpose beyond fueling Thorin’s rage towards orcs. What makes his sizable amount of screentime more confusing is the fact that Bolg, the son of Azog, could have fulfilled his role as the orc chieftain of the trilogy without resorting to resurrection.

(13) STARLINER ARRIVES AT ISS. Overcoming some problems, including small helium leaks, “Boeing’s astronaut capsule arrives at International Space Station” reports AP News.

Boeing’s newcapsulearrived at the International Space Station on Thursday, delayed by last-minute thruster trouble that almost derailed the docking for thisfirst test flight with astronauts.

The 260-mile-high (420-kilometer-high) linkup over the Indian Ocean culminated more than a day of continuing drama forBoeing’s astronaut flight debutcarrying NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams….

The Starliner capsule already had one small helium leak when it rocketed into orbit with two NASA astronauts Wednesday. Boeing and NASA managers were confident they could manage the propulsion system despite the problem and that more leaks were unlikely. But just hours into the flight, two more leaks cropped up and another was discovered after docking.

Later, five of the capsule’s 28 thrusters went down. The astronauts managed to restart four of them, providing enough safety margin to proceed. By then, Starliner had passed up the first docking opportunity and circled the world for an extra hour alongside the station before moving in.

The thrusters problems were unrelated to the helium leaks, NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said after the docking.

Going forward in the flight, “we have some tools in our tool kit to manage this,” Stich said.

Earlier in the day, before the thrusters malfunctioned, officials stressed that the helium leaks posed no safety issues for the astronauts or the mission.

Helium is used to pressurize the fuel lines of Starliner’s thrusters, which are essential for maneuvering. Before liftoff, engineers devised a plan to work around any additional leaks in the system. A faulty rubber seal, no bigger than a shirt button, is believed responsible for the original leak….

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

The Australia 2028 Worldcon bid today made its first post on X.com in three years saying they are “live”.

The X.com profile has been partially updated to show the bid’s target year.

The X.com profile says the bid chair is Random Jones. (There was a Chicon 8 (2022) member by that name.)

The bid’s X.com profile still links to a now-defunct Australia in 2025 web page. A copy of the page saved at the Internet Archive in 2023 shows it was launched after CoNZealand in 2020.

For the past several years the only active 2028 bid has been Uganda 2028, to host the Worldcon in Kampala.

Chautauqua Institution has selected The Reformatory: A Novel(Saga Press) by Tananarive Due as the 2024 winner of The Chautauqua Prize.

Awarded annually since 2012, the Prize celebrates a book of fiction or literary/narrative nonfiction that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and honors the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts. As author of this year’s winning book, Due receives $7,500, and will be presented with the Prize during a celebratory event and public reading at 5 p.m. EDT Monday, August 19, in Chautauqua’s Hall of Philosophy.

The Reformatoryis agenre-defying work that is equal parts historical fiction, magical realism, supernatural horror, and speculative fiction. In this gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida, readers follow Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice — for the living, and for the dead.

“The Reformatoryis a novel that deserves to be celebrated by enthusiasts of literary, historical, cultural, and mainstream circles alike,” noted Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill. “Ultimately — and serendipitously, considering we celebrate the seasons and stories of Chautauqua during this 150th anniversary summer —The Reformatoryis a narrative about the power of story. It’s a master class in the infinitesimal and expansive impact a story’s telling can have on an individual, a community, and a nation, just as much as it is about elevating stories that have been silenced.”

Due’s book is “a touching, heartbreaking, and tragically powerful story about a horrific episode in American history,” said Kwame Alexander, the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts and Inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Chautauqua. “Truly magical, this novel will bring about the kinds of honest conversation that will haunt and heal readers at Chautauqua and beyond.”

Due is an American Book Award and NAACP Image Award­-winning author, who was an executive producer on “Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror” for Shudder and teaches Afrofuturism and Black Horror at UCLA. She and her husband, science-fiction author Steven Barnes, cowrote the graphic novelThe Keeperand a second-season episode of The Twilight Zone for Paramount Plus and Monkeypaw Productions. Due is the author of several novels and two short story collections,Ghost Summer: StoriesandThe Wishing Pool and Other Stories. She is also coauthor of a civil rights memoir,Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights(with her late mother, Patricia Stephens Due).

• “On the Fox Roads” by Nghi Vo (Tor Books, 2023)

Review by Lis Carey: A Chinese American girl in 1930s America hooks up with two Chinese American bank robbers, Jack and Lai. The girl’s parents had lost the deed to their store to the bank, and then Jack and Lai robbed the bank and took the deed with the rest of what they stole. Now, the girl wants to steal it back from them.

Two adult bank robbers aren’t overcome by a young teen girl, but they offer her a chance to earn it back. She becomes their lookout, getaway driver, and occasional more active participant in some crimes.

Along the way, she gets dressed up as a boy for one job, and finds this feels much more natural to her. Or rather, him. He learns the ways of Chinese magic, and not just the “fox roads,” or spirit roads of Chinese mythology.

There’s something of a bond between these three characters, but they don’t all have the same goals. They also all have secrets they’re keeping, and as they bank rob and shoplift their way across the country, it eventually all comes to a head, as it must.

It’s an interesting and well-done story, but for some reason it just didn’t connect for me the way Vo’s Singing Hills stories do. Maybe 1930s bank robbery just isn’t as compelling for me?

This is a 2024 Hugo Awards Best Novelette Finalist.

Introduction: Areview piece in this week’sNatureprovides a sobering picture. As usual,SF² Concatenation’sJonathan Cowie has gotten a tad worried…

By Jonathan Cowie: In SF we are always bigging up the benefits of technology. The counter SF trope to this is technology running amok (as inTerminator) or abused (as inNineteen Eighty-Fourand recentWorldcon publication policies) but what if things were more insidious? One thing the 21st century has seen is the wide use (almost to the point of overly chronic use) of the internet. Here, it is not so much the information (fake news etc.) that is the concern but the way we use it: the very act of surfing the internet. Very often it is accessed on small screens, and here the past one-and-a-half decades has seen the dramatic rise of the smartphone.

All well and good, but what has this to do with a “silent pandemic’? Well, rates of myopia (short-sightedness) have been steadily increasing and it is not welcome news. Study after study show this. And the CoVID-19 pandemic itself has not helped. One study from Hong Kong has shown a near doubling of myopia among six-year olds above pre-pandemic levels (research here).

One academic paper widely circulated among ophthalmologists suggests that this century will see a rise in incidence of myopia to around half the world’s population by 2050 (research here). Some others say that the situation is worse!

So what to do? Studies have suggested that less screen time and more outdoors time for children would help (research hereandhere).

Children are particularly prone to myopia since the eye grows as we grow and if it is more used to looking at very short distances it will grow accordingly and out of shape. This should not be much of a surprise as we evolved over many millennia outdoors: who knew?

Of course, getting children to spend less time on-screen and more time outdoors is difficult despite being outdoors having other benefits, such as: healthy physical activity, human social contact and other well-being benefits. But even so, it is a challenge. So, some researchers are bringing the outside indoors suggesting bright lighting, well-illuminated blackboards and classroom walls depicting outdoor scenes and the ceilings the sky (research here).

Other research looks at shining light into children’s eyes. One study looks at three-minute red light laser sessions twice a day: a routine analogous to brushing your teeth twice a day. The idea is that this stimulates eyes’ blood circulation (research here). However, it has to be said that there is considerable debate as to what frequencies of light to use. (And even one incidence of harm for a 12-year old girl (research here).)

So, while there is much benefit to the internet and screen time, do try to limit your online time and focus on those really useful websites (such as the dailyFile770, the monthlyAnsibleand the seasonalScience Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation(other worthy SF sites are around)).

Meanwhile, (especially your kids) keep watching the skies: it’ll help stave off myopia… (Let alone warn us of ‘the Thing’, as who knows who goes there?)

Without all the SFnal references and even more science, the fullNature piece is here. A separate but relatedarticle is here.

(1) DEPICTING CULTURE. Kanishk Tantia discusses the difference between using set dressing and true engagement in the representations of a culture at the SFWA Blog: “Culture: Moving Beyond Set Dressing”.

… But perhaps we can do better. I hope I have been doing better. When I wrote “I Hear the Starwhale Sing”,which was published in Canadian SFF magazineHeartlines Spec,I was consciously possessed of the urge to write something truer to my experience, something more genuine than a list of Indian foodstuffs to convince the reader they were in a diverse setting.

What does “better” look like? Let’s draw out the issues with the Rajpur sample above, and contrast what better replacements could be used.

First, there’s theshallownessof the writing. The passage above does not need to be set in Rajpur, India. It could take place on Mars, or in London, or Atlantis. The setting exists only for flavor and can be quickly hot-swapped out without changing what we have seen of the story so far.

Next, thesimple goodness,or stereotyping. It’s a dirty word, isn’t it? Even positive stereotypes can be harmful. In the paragraph above, I elicit color, food, and smell, all in a positive way. But these are flashy tricks, forcing my reader to imagine richness and depth by drawing on their own biases about India rather than trying to show them something new or deeper. That’s what stereotyping does; it simply pulls from a reader’s existing bank of experiences, without challenge or comment.

Most egregious are theloanwords. And there are indeed so many. Sari, kachoris, modaks, gulab jamuns, beedi, Diwali. These are all Hindi words, but they are given no real meaning and treated as arbitrary objects. The cultural impact of these words is lost entirely, because they exist only to fill space and create an illusion.

Can we do better? Perhaps. Here’s another sample….

(2) MANIFESTO DESTINY. WIRED eavesdrops as “China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel With the Internet’s Boyfriend (It’s Keanu Reeves)”.

… My next question to Mr. Reeves was an innocent “What do you make of China’s politics?” Did the Internet’s Boyfriend fully understand, in other words, that he was partnering with ChinaMiévillehere? “I don’t really know his politics per se,” Keanu replied. He knew exactly what China’s politics were. As any interviewer would, I waited. Keanu then told me he had recently read, “and enjoyed,” theCommunist Manifesto.

Whether he meant the short text by Marx and Engels, itself a commissioned project, a tie-in of sorts for the revolutions of 1848, or China Miéville’s most recent book,A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, about the same, I could not tell. The ambiguity made me giggle. Sensing it well up in me like a sneeze, I muted the phone just in time. I was forming my own speculative fiction: Keanu Reeves as communist, the Engels to China’s Marx. I suppose this makes perfect sense. Because science fiction—the kind China Miéville writes, but also, maybe, all of it, the entire genre—is, or so the great critic Fredric Jameson tells us, bent toward utopia. Possibly even a communist one….

(3) WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE SKY. “Paramount, Skydance agree to terms of a merger deal” – CNBC has the details.

A Paramount special committee and the buying consortium —David Ellison’s Skydance, backed by private equity firms RedBird Capital and KKR — agreed to the terms. The deal is awaiting signoff from Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, who owns National Amusem*nts, which owns 77% of class A Paramount shares… [National Amusem*nts has movie theaters in the U.S., U.K. and Latin America.]

The agreement terms come after weeks of discussion and a recent competing offer from Apollo Global Management and Sony Pictures.

“We received the financial terms of the proposed Paramount/Skydance transaction over the weekend and we are reviewing them,” said a National Amusem*nts spokesperson.

The deal currently calls for Redstone to receive $2 billion for National Amusem*nts, Faber reported Monday. Skydance would buy out nearly 50% of class B Paramount shares at $15 apiece, or $4.5 billion, leaving the holders with equity in the new company.

Skydance and RedBird would also contribute $1.5 billion in cash to Paramount’s balance sheet to help reduce debt.

Following the deal’s close, Skydance and RedBird would own two-thirds of Paramount, and the class B shareholders would own the remaining third of the company, Faber reported. The negotiated terms werereportedearlier by The Wall Street Journal….

(4) SF IN SF. Science Fiction in San Francisco will host readings by Robin Sloan, Rudy Rucker & Clara Ward on June 23 at The American Bookbinders Museum, 355 Clementina Street, San Francisco CA. Doors open at 6PM – event gets underway 6:30PM. $10 at the door – $8 seniors and students. No one turned away for lack of funds. CASH PREFERRED. All proceeds benefit the American Bookbinders Museum.

(5) JOURNEY PLANET CALL FOR ARTICLES. For the August issue of Journey Planet, Chris Garcia and James Bacon are joined by Jean Martin for an issuefeaturing food and drink in sci-fi and fantasy stories.

Chris says, “A key part of worldbuilding is creating comestibles and libations that offer the audience an elevated sensory experience along with the characters. Share articles and artwork with us about your favorite made-up gustatory delights in novels, movies, etc. And if you know where to get them and/or have actually made them, let us know how they tasted!”

Submissions to[emailprotected]. Deadline – July 1.

(6) ONLINE FLASH SF NIGHT. Space Cowboy Books presents Online Flash Science Fiction Night with Eliane Boey, Jendia Gammon, and Jonathan Nevairon June 11 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Register for free tickets at the link.

Join us online for an evening of short science fiction readings (1000 words or less) with authors Eliane Boey, Jendia Gammon, and Jonathan Nevair. 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.

(7) TAKING GAS. Cora Buhlert was on the autobahn and filled up at Dammer Berge, the “service station of the future” (in 1969). Her encounter is part of Galactic Journey’s roundup “[May 16, 1969] Strange Dreams (May Galactoscope)”. Cora makes clear that the cuisine is not a reason to visit:

The structure is spectacular, a beacon of modernism, though sadly the food itself was rather lacklustre: a cup of coffee that tasted of the soap used to clean the machine and a slice of stale apple cake.

Cora then goes on to review Zero Cool, a pseudonymous Michael Crichton thriller from 1969.

(8) BLOCKED. “Franz Kafka letter shows author’s anguished struggle with writer’s block” – the Guardian has details.

A rare letter written byFranz Kafkato his publisher shows just how anguished a struggle it was for the Bohemian writer to put pen to paper, especially as his health deteriorated.

The letter, which will soon be auctioned, coincided with Kafka’s diagnosis with tuberculosis, which would end up killing him and which, scholars say, very probably added to his sense of mental paralysis and helplessness.

“When worries have penetrated to a certain layer of existence, the writing and the complaining obviously stop,” he wrote to his friend and publisher, the Austrian poet Albert Ehrenstein. “My resistance was not all that strong either.”

Undated, the letter is believed by scholars to have been written between April and June 1920, when Kafka was being treated for his illness at a clinic in Merano, northern Italy. Writer’s block famously haunted Kafka throughout his life but was exacerbated by his poor physical condition.

Neatly handwritten in polite, legible German, the letter is thought to be Kafka’s response to Ehrenstein’s request for the established author to contribute to Die Gefährten (The Fellows), the expressionist literary journal he was editing at the time. He had recently seen new work by Kafka in print, possibly his short story collection Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor), written in 1917 and published two years later. But Kafka quickly disabused him of the notion that he was actively writing….

(9) WILLIAM RUSSELL (1924-2024). One of Doctor Who’s four original cast members, William Russell, has died reports the BBC: “William Russell: Original Doctor Who cast member dies aged 99”.

…Russell played schoolteacher Ian Chesterton in the first two series of the BBC’s sci-fi show and was the Doctor’s first companion.

He left the show in 1965, but in 2022 he reprised his role and made a cameo in Jodie Whittaker’s final episode, The Power of The Doctor.

The actor broke a Guinness World Record for the longest gap between TV appearances.

In the first ever episode, An Unearthly Child, which aired in 1963, Russell’s character meets the Doctor, played by William Hartnell.

Russell’s character mistakenly calls him Doctor Foreman, before Hartnell then replies “Doctor Who?”…

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

June 5, 1928 — Robert Lansing. (Died 1994.) Let’s talk about Gary Seven, errrr, Robert Lansing.

For us, his most important performance was as the secret agent Gary Seven onStar Trek’s “Assignment: Earth” in which the Enterprise ended up in the Sixties. His companion was Teri Garr. He was sent there by an alien race on a mission that he’s now afraid the Enterprise will compromise. And then there’s Isis, a shapeshifter who’s a black cat in one form. Nice kitty.

Sources agree that this episode was designed at least in partas a pilot for a new series featuring Gary Seven and his mission.Trekwas seriously on the edge of cancellation late in its second year, and Roddenberry hoped to get a new show going for the fall season, hence this episode. The first draft pilot script of November 14 of 1968 had no mention ofStar Trekor its characters which suggests that this was not intended as an episode for this series at all.

Indeed, somewhere there’s a draft of “Seven” as it was titled before that was revised two years after the first outline ofwhat would become “Assignment: Earth” written by Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace in October of 1967. I want that script!

Garr was quoted inaSci-fiarticle about this episode: “Garr feared (correctly) thatStarlogwanted to talkTrekand had to be persuaded to chat so as to promote her new flick. Warren sat down with her on the balcony of her publicist’s office for an in-person session and from there, things went sour. ‘I have nothing to say about it,’ Garr declared of ‘Assignment: Earth’ inStarlog#173. ‘I did that years ago and I mostly deny I ever did it.’ Turns out she was glad the Gary Seven show didn’t go to series.”

Lansing did do some other genre work…

His major role was as Dan Stokely inThe Empire of The Ants, he’s a charter boat captain in Fort Pierce, Florida. He’s a primary character here and is in almost every scene.

Following up on that fillm, he has the lead role of Elias Johnson inThe Nestwhere a small New England town is overrun by genetically engineered killer co*ckroaches. Ants.co*ckroaches.

So what next? Crabs, yes crabs. InIsland Crabs, he’s Captain Moody nearly ten foot long land crabs created by a biological experiment gone horribly wrong are killing everything in sight.

Oh he has other genre and genre adjacent roles, but how can I not stop there?

Well just one more as it’s a significant one — he wasCommander Douglas Stansfield in Twilight Zone’s “The Long Morrow” where before leaving on a decades-long solitary mission to another system he meets a woman and they both fall deeply in love. But what kind of a future can there be for them in the Twilight Zone when he returns?

(11) COMICS SECTION.

• Mannequin on the Moon illustrates a different take on a classic
• Pardon My Planet comes up with an elementary solution.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has an unusual but not cruel punishment.

(12) VANCOUVER COMICS FESTIVAL APOLOGIZES TO JEWISH ARTIST IT BANNED. “After backlash, Vancouver comics festival apologizes for excluding Jewish artist over IDF service” reports Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A Vancouver comics festival apologized to a Jewish artist it had banned over her past Israeli military service and a Seattle museum announced it was recommitting to an exhibit on antisemitism that prompted a staff walkout, in two reversals of arts-world sanctions connected to the Israel-Hamas war.

Both the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival and the Wing Luke Museum had faced significant backlash over the actions they took because of pro-Palestinian activism.

“VanCAF has lost and continues to lose the trust of many we have sought to serve,” the Vancouver festival said in a social media apology late Sunday, days afterannouncing that it was banning American-Israeli comics artist Miriam Libicki following activist complaints over her past IDF service.

The festival didn’t name Libicki in either its initial statement banning her — which it quickly removed from social media following backlash — orits lengthy new apology.But the ban referenced Libicki’s previous IDF service, which she has turned into a comic, while the apology referenced another specific work of hers: “But I Live,” a collaboration with Holocaust survivors.

(13) FREE AT LAST. Here’s the complete article we linked in yesterday’s Scroll, except no paywall – yay! “Sci-fi pioneer Harlan Ellison’s L.A. Shangri-la offers a window into his complicated soul”.

… As Straczynski moves through the rooms of the house called “Ellison Wonderland,” his deep affection and respect for his friend remains evident. He points out the care with which more than 250,000 books are shelved, each hardback jacket fitted with transparent archival covers, the dust-free groupings of comic-book figurines, the room full of shelves specifically made to hold jelly glasses from the 1960s. He touches only the things he must, in order to make something visible, such as when in Ellison’s office proper he opens a tiny door in one of the Bram Stoker Awards given by the Horror Writers Assn. and takes out the mini plaque inside that holds the winner’s name and book title…

(14) VERBAL CATS. This article is paywalled, but you can enjoy the excerpt. “Written by Paw” by Kathryn Hughes in The New York Review of Books.

Cats were not, historically, great talkers (unless you counted Siamese). For much of their existence they had not needed to be. Consigned to barns, kitchens and alleyways for centuries, their main communication remained mostly among themselves. Apart from the unearthly wailing of queens during heat, or the involuntary screech of a tom scratched during a fight, cats conveyed their feelings by a twitch of the tail, a flattened ear, a crouch to the ground.

Only in the nineteenth century, once cats moved to the city and started to bump into humans more regularly, did direct communication become necessary with greater frequency….

… For the more suggestible owner, though, it was possible to imagine a darker side to this newfound articulation. For if the modern cat knew its name and could ask for food when hungry, who was to say that, when your back was turned, it wasn’t gossiping about you? If you added the cat’s well-known fondness for sitting on tops of piles of paper and books, it was quite possible to believe that it was reading your diary or browsing your letters. Worse still, perhaps it was at this very moment jotting in its own journal or cogitating a literary masterpiece—and, again, it might be all about you….

(15) SELLING BOOKS IS TOO MUCH WORK. “Costco Plans to Stop Selling Books Year-Round” reports the New York Times. (Story is behind a paywall.)

In a blow to publishers and authors, Costco plans to stop selling books regularly at stores around the United States, four publishing executives who had been informed of the warehouse retailer’s plans said on Wednesday.

Beginning in January 2025, the company will stop stocking books regularly, and will instead sell them only during the holiday shopping period, from September through December. During the rest of the year, some books may be sold at Costco stores from time to time, but not in a consistent manner, according to the executives, who spoke anonymously in order to discuss a confidential business matter that has not yet been publicly announced.

Costco’s shift away from books came largely because of the labor required to stock books, the executives said. Copies have to be laid out by hand, rather than just rolled out on a pallet as other products often are at Costco. The constant turnaround of books — new ones come out every Tuesday and the ones that have not sold need to be returned — also created more work….

(16) KAIJU STAR. The Guardian investigates “How Godzilla Minus One became a monster hit for Netflix”.

…Godzilla Minus One is by no means an artsy slow burn; like the other titles on the list of the highest-grossing foreign-language films in US history, it’s accessible and entertaining. It’s about reckoning with postwar survivor’s guilt, and it movingly challenges cultural notions of what constitutes honor, yes, but it’s also about the half-terrifying, half-exhilarating vision of a particularly mean-looking iteration of Godzilla laying waste to anything in his path…

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Cora Buhlert, Chris Garcia, Joel Zakem, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, 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 Tom Becker.]

TheKurd Laßwitz Preis 2024winners have been announced. The award, named after German author Kurd Laßwitz, is given to works written in or translated into the German language and published during the previous year.

The award ceremony will take place as part ofElsterCon, a multimedia event on science fiction, fantasy, and horror that will be held September 27-29at Haus des Buches in Leipzig.

Out of four nominations for three radio plays, two were selected and presented to the radio play jury (seven radio play authors, directors and radio play experts).

Note: The Kurd Laßwitz Award names only the first place winner per category as the award winner, no second or third prizes are awarded. The numbering only reflects the order based on the voting points.

The 2024 SFPA Speculative Poetry Contest began taking entries on June 1 and will continue through August 31. The contest is open to all poets, including non-SFPA-members. Prizes will be awarded for best unpublished poem in three categories:

• Dwarf (poems 1–10 lines [prose poems 0–100 words])
• Short (11–49 lines [prose poems 101–499 words])
• Long (50 lines and more [prose 500 words and up])

Line count does not include title or stanza breaks. All sub-genres of speculative poetry are allowed in any form.

Prizes in each category (Dwarf, Short, Long) will be $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, $25 Third Prize. Publication on the SFPA website for first through third places. There is an entry fee of $3 per poem.

Entries are read blind. Unpublished poems only.Author retains rights, except that first through third place winners will be published on the SPFA website. Full guidelineshere.

[Based on a press release.]

• “One Man’s Treasure”by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny January-February 2023)

Review by Lis Carey: Aden, Nash, and new crewmate Renny are city trash collectors in a world where magic is just a fact of life, and bulk trash day in the wealthy neighborhoods can be exciting.

Sometimes it’s neat stuff the wealthy throw away, often with magical enhancements. Sometimes it’s dangerous stuff that can potentially kill you — which is what happened to Blue, the teammate Renny is replacing.

This time, it’s a statue quietly asking for help.

City regulations say that a statue, talking or not, is an inanimate object, and if it’s been thrown out, it’s trash.

Aden can’t, and doesn’t, accept that. Nash and Renny somewhat reluctantly go along. Aden’s girlfriend, Nura, a medical student whose training includes magical complications and tools, is more committed.

And as they’re all planning how to defy the rules to help the man who is now a statue, they also start to think about how to change the rules to help themselves. The city doesn’t even provide protective equipment for bulk trash day. When Renny has his own magical accident, thankfully a minor one, they start drawing up a list of demands, and Nura does some research at the library.

Renny has a secret, and it’s about to come out.

It’s a fun story, that I really enjoyed.

This is a 2024 Hugo Awards Best Novelette.

By John Hertz: We’ll discuss three Classics of Science Fiction at Westercon 76 in Salt Lake City, one discussion each. Come to as many as you like. You’ll be welcome to join in.

Our operating definition is “A classic is a work that survives its own time. After the currents which might have sustained it have changed, it remains, and is seen to be worthwhile for itself.” If you have a better definition, bring it.

Each of the three is famous in a different way. Each may be more interesting now than when first published.

Have you read them? Have you re-read them?

I. Asimov. Foundation and Empire (1952)

A great man; a great plan; what can go wrong? Or, better for us since we’re discussing it, how does the author show us? Not only is skim milk masquerading as cream, but cream masquerades as skim milk. I’ve said Watch this author use dialogue to paint character; one of SF’s finest moments may be the single word “Naturally”.

E. MacGregor, Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars (1951)

This little jewel may be just about perfect. Why are there seven noisy children? Why is our hero the sort of woman who thinks she’d better get supper ready? Her car breaks down after eighteen years; the man she’s offering a ride to says”Where are your tools?” Of course they’re in the car, it’s 1951.

R.L. Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)

The best treatment l know of this masterly story is in Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature (1980), a book well worth while. We’ll do the best we can. The doctor’s name rhymes with “sea pill”, not “peck, Will”; it’s Scots, as the author was.