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 Prizes will be awarded for best unpublished poem in three categories:
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.
The contest judge is Stephanie M. Wytovich. Her work has been showcased in Weird Tales, Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8 & 15. Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press. She won the Bram Stoker Award for her poetry collection, Brothel. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press, and her nonfiction craft book for speculative poetry, Writing Poetry in the Dark, is available from Raw Dog Screaming Press.
The contest chair is Angela Yuriko Smith, a third-generation Ryukyuan-American, award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years in newspapers. Publisher of Space & Time magazine (est. 1966), two-time Bram Stoker Awards® Winner, and an HWA Mentor of the Year, she shares Authortunities, a free weekly calendar of author opportunities, at the link.
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 Unpublished poems only.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 guidelines here.
“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.
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.
The winners of the 55th Seiun Awards, the Japanese speculative fiction award honoring the best works of the previous calendar year, have been announced. The awards will be presented July 6 at Yanecon, the 62nd Japan Science Fiction Convention, to be held in Nagano Prefecture.
The award has nine categories. The full list of winners in Japanese is here. Below are the items shortlisted in the categories for translated works.
BEST TRANSLATED LONG WORK
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Translated by Masayuki Uchida
BEST TRANSLATED SHORT WORK
“Solidity” by Greg Egan. Translated by Makoto Yamagishi
Marshall: This short story, “The Sound of Children Screaming,” drew inspiration from real life events, including one that involved you. Can you talk more about that?
Jones: It was one of the more scary experiences in my career in education. I’m a speech language pathologist, which is someone who works in special education with children who have communication disorders.
There was a lockdown at my school that happened during prep planning, which is the week before the school opens for children. All the teachers are in the building. We’re getting our classrooms ready and we’re getting the space ready for children. One evening I stayed late to finish building some Ikea furniture. While I was getting ready to leave the building you could hear weird sounds outside the school, little popping sounds.
The secretary called a lockdown of the whole school. It turned out that there was a shooting happening in the neighborhood. I went back and had to hide under my desk in my office with all the blinds drawn on a Friday night. I’m really grateful there weren’t any children in the building, but the most disturbing thing was that, because there were no children in the building, I knew it couldn’t be a drill. I was really scared.
It was one of those moments where we all tell ourselves stories in our own heads about what we would do in an emergency situation. With school shootings, you have a fantasy about how you’re gonna block the door, throw that stapler over there or tackle the guy and how you’re going to be this hero in your imagination. It was this really chilling moment to realize that this could be it. And what am I doing? I’m hiding under my desk and I’m not any more heroic than I usually am. I could die tonight on a Friday night at my job and that would be that, and there would be nothing I could do about it.
A lot of times I use my stories as a way to process strong feelings, I can’t really get out in any other way. For me, the story represents that kind of story where it says the things that are hard for me to say in any other way than fiction….
(2) TAKE THE AUTOBAHN TO THE CON. Cora Buhlert went to a German Masters of the Universe convention in May and posted a three-part con report with many photos. To get there required a three hour road trip:
…Last Saturday, I attended the 2024 Los Amigos Masters of the Universe fan convention. There are two big Masters of the Universe conventions in Germany, Grayskull Con and Los Amigos, plus at least two general toy cons which attract a lot of Masters of Universe fans and collectors.
Last year, I considered going to one or more of those cons. However, there was one problem or rather two, a) I live in North Germany and most German cons, whether general SFF or specialty cons, are much further south and quite far away, and b) I had sick parents at home and/or in hospital and didn’t really want to leave them alone. Since point b) is no longer an issue, there was only point a) to consider.
Until last year, the Los Amigos convention used to take place in Hanau near Frankfurt, which is a four-and-a-half-hour drive away (or a one-hour flight to Frankfurt and then a train ride to Hanau). However, for 2024 the convention relocated to Neuss, a city in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, which is somewhat closer, though still roughly three hundred kilometers away, which means a three-to-three-and-a-half-hour drive, depending on traffic conditions….
…In fact, there were quite a few customisers were displaying their creations, sometimes for sale, sometimes not. One stall offered a regular Origins Battle Cat customised to look like Battle Cat might have looked, if he had appeared in the 1987 live action movie (he didn’t, because the production team couldn’t make him work with 1980s tech). That Battle Cat looked great, but he was also quite expensive – 130 Euros – and there was so much to buy, so I passed on him. Besides, the Battle Cat was in Origins scale, but the movie figures Mattel is currently making are the bigger Masterverse figures, so the movie style Battle Cat wouldn’t fit in with my movie figure….
… I also learned that Tecklenburg has a castle ruin, as the name implies, and that bits and pieces of the castle have been integrated into buildings all over town. The ruined castle now houses an open air theater – the largest in all of Germany. The open air theater opened in 1924 and is hugely important for the town, since it’s a major tourist draw. The local handyman frequently builds sets and backdrops for them. The theatre used to stage everything from boulevard comedies to operas, but nowadays they most do musicals and children’s plays, because those are the most popular. They also host pop concerts on occasion. This summer, the open air theater Tecklenburg is staging Mamma Mia!, Madagascar (based on the eponymous CGI animated kids film) and a musical version of The Three Musketeers. Personally, I’d prefer operas and operettas or regular plays (Shakespeare should be great on an open air stage in the middle of a ruined castle), but money talks and musicals are popular with people who’d otherwise never watch musical theater or otherwise set foot inside a theater….
(3) HELP WANTED. Cora also has written a recruitment ad parody for the Evil Horde, which is one of the main villain groups in Masters of the Universe and a remarkably diverse bunch. Many positions are immediately open! “Join the Horde! Conquer the Universe! Sign Up Now!”
Are you dissatisfied with harassing peasants and raiding space tramp freighters? Are looking for a new challenge? Do want to see the galaxy and help to subjugate it? Do you want to become part of something greater? Then join the Mighty, All-Conquering Horde.
The Horde Empire is seeking, at the earliest possible date….
(4) KAIJU KORNER. Camestros Felapton is among those dialing up Netflix this week to see “Godzilla Minus One”.
…So firstly, if you are a fan of kaiju stomping and chomping their way through populated cities and military forces who foolishly think their puny weapons can stop the rampaging monster then this film absolutely delivers. Godzilla bites through warships, stomps on buildings and blasts all and sundry with atomic breath. Have no worries in this regard, if that is what you want from a Godzilla film, you should be satisfied. If you want Godzilla to be the misunderstood hero who battles a much worse kaiju, then no, you won’t get that but otherwise this is a solid entry in kaiju mayhem….
(5) MARYANN HARRIS (1953-2024). MaryAnn Harris, wife of Charles de Lint, who had been hospitalized and on a ventilator since 2021 after contracting Powassan virus, an extremely rare tick-bourne illness, died June 3. De Lint made the announcement on Facebook:
I’m so so sorry to have to tell you all that Mare passed away this afternoon, June 3, 2024. She fought long and hard to try to beat the awful state in which the Powasssan virus had left her but in the end she just didn’t have the strength to carry on any longer. She died peacefully in her room, surrounded by family, in the beautiful space that her friends and family made of what had been a sterile hospital room.
She touched the hearts of every one she met and we were all so blessed to have known her.
Lately I’d been wondering what this day would feel like. I’ve been on my own since September 2021 and feel that I started grieving at that point, but all that time did nothing to prepare me for how desolate I feel now that she’s actually gone.
Thanks to everyone who cheered her on through this journey, who sent her cards and little gifts, donations towards her care and all the love and words of encouragement. That did much to carry her forward with strength and determination until her body finally gave out on her.
Words can’t express how grateful we are for your support.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Compiled by Paul Weimer.]
June 4, 1960 — Kristine Kathryn Rusch, 64.
By Paul Weimer: For me, Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s diverse and large oeuvre, in my reading, runs along two main tracks.
Where I first discovered and encountered her work was in the boom fantasy period in the 90’s with her Fey series. The Fey novels were my first experience with a robust and expansionistic version of Elves. Up until reading The Sacrifice, The Changling and its sequels, my impression of Elves as I had read them to that point were Tolkienistic: hermit kingdoms, quietly holding their power, or slowly fading away, or looking for the chance to slip away and head west to somewhere over the sea. Elves “belonged” to a world that had passed them by. Imagine my surprise when I started reading the Changeling, and discovered a Elf-like race, the Fey, who were not retiring quietly. Instead, these Fey had decided to conquer the entire world with their battle magic. Sure, Blue Isle proved to be an insurmountable roadblock to those conquests, but the very idea of militant expansionist elves…well, I’ve read takes on it since then in various guises and authors, but Rusch’s Fey were the first time I had ever encountered the idea.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch in 2019.
The Wreck series was not quite as innovative for me, but it sits in a relatively unexploited portion of space opera: Space Archaeology. Boss’ story, in Diving into the Wreck and its sequels, is the story of a character whom, when I met her, thought, “Hey, that would make a neat Traveller character– someone who plunders old spaceships for a living, especially for their history, as well as for the financial aspects of same. I’d read McDevitt, and Modesitt, and other authors which explored Xenoarchaeology before running into Boss, but Boss was and is a one-of-a-kind character, larger than life. I can always tell that a character resonates with me when I want to make an expy of that character for a RPG. Boss and her adventures in the first couple of novels wanted me to do that. I didn’t quite as warm to the other various characters, such as Coop, in the later Diving novels, but maybe that’s because Boss so firmly imprinted on me that she ate up the space for me to do so.
But in the end, Rusch has a prodigious output, under a variety of pen names, in a wide variety of subgenres from tie-in novels to romance, and thus is one of those authors you could lose yourself in her massive oeuvre and not come out for months or years.
(7) COMICS SECTION.
Thatababy reports something that once was commonly known
Pearls Before Swine wistfully remembers a social media platform. (Wait, it’s still here!)
(8) BASED ON AN OCCASIONALLY TRUE STORY. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] ROH Press published an interesting profile about the Italian adventure fiction writer Emilio Salgari (1862-1911), who created Sandokan, the Tiger of Malaysia, and the Black Corsair. Salgari isn’t very well known in the US, but I encountered his work via the film adaptations which were a staple of afternoon TV, when I was a kid: “Emilio Salgari: Master of Adventure”
…He claimed to have travelled throughout the American West where he met Buffalo Bill; he had explored the Sudan, lived at the Mahdi’s court, loved Indian princesses, sailed among the many islands of the Far East. Here was a man of action that had explored the world and lived many adventures, adventures he would use for the basis of his 80 plus novels and hundreds of short stories to captivate readers worldwide. At dinner parties he regaled his hosts with tales from his many voyages, guests to his home would often be shown artefacts acquired in far off lands. Throughout the 20th century illustrations of him on the back of his novels showed him clad in his captain’s uniform. His memoirs were filled with adventures in the most exotic lands. A remarkable life, envied by many.
Except that very little of it was true. He did meet Buffalo Bill, but at Sherman’s Wild West Show in Verona, not, as he claimed, while exploring Nebraska. He was knighted for his stories, that much was true; he founded the adventure genre in Italy, his tales captivating young and old, and inspiring many to take up the pen….
(9) NO SUCH THING. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] This is a year old, but it’s still a lovely remembrance of Manly Wade Wellman from Stephen Smith who was one of his creative writing students: “Manly Wade Wellman: Our Forgotten Man of Letters” in The Pilot.
…Wellman was fiercely proud of his stature as a writer. “Outlaws,” he called us, generously including his students in the designation, and he had the rare ability, from the moment he stepped into the room, to instill in each student the strong belief in self that made him a successful writer and a charismatic presence.
Each Tuesday morning that semester, I’d drop a story in the campus mail, and Manly would critique and correct it and hand it back after reading it aloud to the class. I was no doubt an annoyingly eager student, and on a couple of occasions I submitted two stories in one week. “You’re like the tiger who’s tasted blood,” Manly laughed — and in fact, I was spending entirely too much study time writing fiction. Not all my stories were keepers, but one was good enough to win a state-wide short story contest that earned me $100 and a magazine publication. When I met with Manly after winning the magazine prize, he asked what my major was. I told him it was sociology. “Change your major to English!” he barked. “There’s no such thing as sociology!”…
Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton died from cancer over 15 years ago – now, his unfinished “passion project”, about a humanity-threatening volcanic eruption, has been completed by fellow literary giant James Patterson and is already generating heated interest in Hollywood.
Eruption takes readers on a thrilling journey through Hawaii’s biggest island, which, unbeknown to its residents, hides dangerous military secrets dating back decades.
There has been no formal screen auction yet – but Sherri Crichton, who discovered her late husband’s unfinished manuscript over a decade ago and controls his estate, told BBC News she was now in talks with Steven Spielberg about a possible big-screen adaptation.
… What a pleasure it is, then, to open “The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy,” and discover someone vigorously disagreeing with herself on almost every page. To say that the Le Guin we meet in this book is argumentative, sometimes unfair, sometimes wrong and even self-contradictory is not to diminish her greatness. It is rather to rescue her from the dullness imposed on her by her canonization.
By her own account, Le Guin was an indiscriminate reader of books at a young age; she read science fiction, but with no particular devotion. As she got older, the genre did not seem to have a place in it for an adult. “If I glanced at a magazine,” she wrote in the essay “A Citizen of Mondath,” included in this collection, “it still seemed to be all about starship captains in black with lean rugged faces and a lot of fancy artillery.” She drifted off to “Tolstoy and things,” and it was only when a friend told her to read a short story by Cordwainer Smith that she went back to science fiction.
Smith — whose real name was the somehow even more improbable Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger — worked for the United States military; he was, perhaps, too close to war to fantasize about it. He drew imaginatively from other sources, like Joan of Arc and Chinese mythology. His work, which features psychic pilots and heroic space cats, is elastic, wild and, perhaps most importantly in seeing his influence on Le Guin, very funny.
For Le Guin, who was also uninspired by military aesthetics, similarly eclectic in her influences and would complain that nobody ever noticed when she was being funny, reading Smith must have been a shock of recognition akin to love at first sight. (“I don’t really remember what I thought when I read it,” she wrote, “but what I think now I ought to have thought when I read it is My God! It can be done!”) …
(12) JMS Q&A. Also behind a paywall (it’s not our lucky day!) is the Los Angeles Times’ interview with J. Michael Straczynski about his work preserving Harlan Ellison’s legacy: “Harlan Ellison’s books being reissued by J. Michael Straczynski” This passage talks about the façade of Ellison’s home dubbed “The Lost Aztec Temple of Mars”.
On a hilly street in Sherman Oaks, writer and producer J. Michael “Joe” Straczynski gestures to a row of gray gargoylesque heads mounted above an entryway. “If you look carefully, you’ll see they are the Watergate figures,” he says. “Nixon in the middle, surrounded by Mitchell, Dean, Haldeman, all of them.” He smiles, knowing that the mind that created this funky tableau belonged to none other than his closest friend, the eccentric author of speculative fiction, Harlan Ellison….
…. The Watergate grotesques form a small portion of the weird and sometimes wacky, but always carefully curated, world of Ellison. The largest portion of the facade features stone-intaglio pictographs that at first glance might be Egyptian hieroglyphs or Aztec sun symbols; closer examination reveals all sorts of imaginative creatures, from tiny robots to taloned divinities to monsters. Every piece of the house was carefully chosen by Ellison, and many pieces, including carved doors, staircases and even hinges and handles, were designed to his specifications. Next to the doorbell hangs a small framed sign: “Dig. Or split.” The author had no interest in catering to people who did not share his enthusiasms or worldviews….
(13) JUSTWATCH TOP 10S FOR MAY. JustWatch has shared their Top 10 streaming charts for the month of May.
…The Chang’e-6 probe was launched last month and its lander touched down on the far side of the moon Sunday. Its ascender lifted off Tuesday morning at 7:38 a.m. Beijing time, with its engine burning for about six minutes as it entered a preset orbit around the moon, the China National Space Administration said.
The agency said the spacecraft withstood a high temperature test on the lunar surface, and acquired the samples using both drilling and surface collection before stowing them in a container inside the ascender of the probe as planned.
The container will be transferred to a reentry capsule that is due to return to Earth in the deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia region about June 25.
…WondLa centers on Eva, voiced by Jeanine Mason (Roswell, New Mexico), a curious, enthusiastic and spirited teenager being raised in a state-of-the-art underground bunker by Muthr, a robot caretaker, voiced by Emmy Award nominee Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives).
On her 16th birthday, an attack on Eva’s bunker forces her onto the Earth’s surface which is now inhabited by aliens, covered with other-worldly fauna, and no other humans to be found. In fact, it’s no longer called Earth, but Orbona. Otto, a loveable giant water bear with whom Eva shares telepathic powers, voiced by Emmy Award winner Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond), and Rovender, a cantankerous alien with a troubled past voiced by Gary Anthony Williams (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) join Eva as she leads the team on a dangerous quest to find humans, her home, and her true destiny….
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Cora Buhlert, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
Glasgow 2024 has announced changes to its membership rates to take effect from July 1, 2024. These rates will apply until the convention and on the door.
Attending Membership Rates: In-person attending membership rates from July 1, 2024 will be as follows. All these memberships include the right to attend the convention, WSFS rights to participate in the Hugo Awards and Site Selection, and for those over 15 years old, full access to the Online Convention, both during and after the convention.
Full Adult (26 and over) – £255 (previously £230) First Worldcon Adult – £185 (previously £165) Historically Under-represented Adult – £185 (previously £165) Scottish / Local Adult – £165 (previously £150) Full Young Adult (16-25) – £150 (previously £135) Scottish / Local Young Adult – £100 (previously £95) Teenage (11-15) – £100 (previously £90)
Day and Weekend Tickets: The prices for Glasgow’s Day and Weekend Tickets will also increase from July 1. These tickets are available in two forms: one for those aged 16 and over including access to the online convention, and one for younger fans covering physical attendance only.
Please note that Day and Weekend Tickets do not include WSFS rights; a separate WSFS Only Membership will be required for individuals who wish to participate in the Hugo Awards, Site Selection and Business Meeting.
Day / Weekend ticket rates from July 1 will be as follows:
Day
Adult (over 16)
Under 16
Thursday 8 Aug
£60
£25
Friday 9 Aug
£85
£30
Saturday 10 Aug
£85
£30
Sunday 11 Aug
£85
£30
Monday 12 Aug
£50
£20
Weekend 10 and 11 Aug
£155
£55
People planning to attend on two or more days should check their rates against our Full Attending In-Person rates, particularly if they are eligible for a concessionary rate (First Worldcon, Scottish / Local etc) or also plan to buy a WSFS Membership, as the Full Attending Rate may offer a cheaper option.
[Introduction: Melanie Stormm continues her humorous series of posts about the misdirected emails she’s been getting. Stormm is a multiracial writer who writes fiction, poetry, and audio theatre. Her novella, Last Poet of Wyrld’s End is available through Candlemark & Gleam. She is currently the editor at the SPECk, a monthly publication on speculative poetry by the SFPA.]
THE STOWAWAY
Hello, All! Melanie here.
When last we left our heroes, they were in the future of 2029 which is undergoing an inflation crisis no one saw coming. Since Writer X broke both wrists several weeks ago, her boyfriend, Tod Boadkins, has taken over writing these emails on her behalf.
Writer X, Tod, and X’s BFF Tryxy (a demon college student at Miskatonic Online University and one-half of the band DemonKitty) had jumped to a future when DemonKitty was on its first world tour to learn what songs Tryxy needed to write to become famous. Tryxy’s band has finally had some success. Still, he’s been unable to write enough music to capitalize on that success and play shows.
The good news is that DemonKitty had a world tour in 2029. The bad news is that when Tryxy missed a show here in 2024 last week, the 2029 world tour dates began dissolving in real-time.
It turns out Tryxy has been struggling with more than writing music. Tod began to suspect that Tryxy had ADHD. Last week, he convinced X of this, and they decided to refinance X’s house to take Tryxy out to breakfast and stage an intervention.
Without further ado…
Subject: Back in time
Hi Gladys,
I’ve been on hold for the last forty minutes with the doctor’s office to see if they take Tryxy’s health insurance while Tryxy’s on hold with the bursar’s office at Miskatonic U. It feels like everything hangs on getting the answer to this call. None of us have been off the phone since we returned from the future. Due to her injuries, not even X, who can’t actuallydial any phone, uses Siri to place calls with varying results.
About ten minutes ago, X yelled, “Hey Siri, call the pharmacist,” to see if demons are responsive to human ADHD medication. Siri put her in contact with an empathic Botswanan interior decorator in Gaborone, who traded screams with X on the speakerphone for an astonishing amount of time before they both hung up.
Fortunately, they both resolved whatever stress issues they’d been bottling up before the doctor’s office I was on hold with had picked up, or I’m sure the doctor’s office would have hung up at what can only be described as the sound of Hell splitting open.
Then I’d have to jump through these hoops all over again.
Once I get through with the doctors, I’ll take X back to her surgeon to have her casts sawn off and replaced because the stink wafting off her wrists has become incredible.
The doctor’s office thinks X may have an infection and wants her to come in immediately, but you and I know that’s not the case. You will know that’s not the case once I finish writing this email.
We took Tryxy to breakfast in 2029 the other day to discuss our hunches that he has ADHD. It went as well as it could, and this was likely thanks to X, who can read Tryxy like a book. It’s hard to tell someone you love that you think they need help, especially when they’re already blaming themselves for so much.
The inflation of 2029 was so terrible that we couldn’t afford much more than toast and jam, and that’s only because jam was complimentary. What event sets that off, I wonder?
Tryxy was still distressed at the cancellation of the first DemonKitty World Tour when we broke the news to him that skipping out on his festival gig in 2024 was likely the trigger that set off the chain of events that led to the tour’s demise.
Basically, we told Tryxy it was all his fault. Or that’s what it sounded like to him. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about people with ADHD, it’s that they already blame themselves for everything, so what Tryxy had trouble hearing was that we weren’t saying it was his fault; we were saying the problem was ADHD.
But after some tears and some time, we helped him understand what we were saying. Then Tryxy began to weep in earnest. Apparently, he’d been struggling for a long time.
Tryxy’s eyes glaze over when he has to do a lot of reading for his courses, and there’s nothing he can do about it except smack himself in the side of the head. He’s been chronically turning assignments in late and having his grades docked. Over a month ago, he received a letter saying that he was losing his scholarship next semester because his GPA was too low.
Gladys, he’d been sitting on that distressing news for a month without telling any of us. My heart broke for him.
We outlined a plan of attack to get his life back on track. He would need to contact his Miskatonic U, contact the scholarship program, and see if they’d offer a probationary period, as he suspects he has untreated ADHD. Next, he would contact the promoter and take responsibility for letting the promoter down. After that, he’d need to call his PCP to get a referral to a therapist and then find a therapist. He’d also need to research ADHD to learn more about himself and possibly even journal.
His eyes glazed over, and Tryxy became subdued. By the time we left the diner, X was covered in jam from head to toe (including dripping out of her casts). I had a sinking feeling that Tryxy wouldn’t do anything we had outlined.
You can’t just time jump in the future even if you own your own time machine. You have to go to a time port and have your jump approved. Then you have to line up on a time-mac (that’s what they call them instead of tarmac) and wait for clearance.
I flew the time machine. Tryxy fell asleep in the back. X and I whispered about our suspicions as X poured packets of coffee cream down her casts to “offset the itchiness of the jam.” These were also complimentary at the diner, and X filled her purse with about sixty of those little foil-capped cups.
“X, how bad will it get before he takes action? I don’t know what to do now. He’s sort of an adult, and it’s up to him to fix this.”
“Yeah, but he’s also our friend,” said X, pouring a packet of hazelnut-flavored coffee cream down her cast.
“Yeah, he’s our friend. That’s why we confronted him.”
X used her teeth to tear off four or five foil tops while gripping the coffee cream between her plastered palms. “Maybe he’s jelly.”
I gaped at X. Her pink velour tracksuit was irretrievable, stained in jam and dust. She had a patch of jam on her cheek beneath a fleck of mustard I have no idea how it got there. I assumed she was talking off the top of her head and didn’t quite know what she meant by that.
I was wrong.
“Maybe Tryxy’s jelly. Maybe if you have ADHD, you’re just jelly that moves best at high velocities. If you put it in a trebuchet or shot it out of canon, I’m pretty sure the jelly would go straight until it went splat. But if you slowly pour it on the floor, it will go everywhere because jelly needs a jar. Life is slow jelly. Tryxy is fast jelly. Fast jelly needs a trebuchet. Slow jelly needs a jar. We should be the jar until he can be one for himself.”
So that’s what we’ve been doing. Since we returned, X’s coffee cream bath has curdled and made her fists smell like feet, and we’ve been helping Tryxy write a daily to-do list to get his life on track. Then, we help him so long as he’s also helping himself.
It hasn’t been easy. It took forever to get Tryxy in to his PCP for a referral. Then, once we got the referral, we called almost every therapist in the area but they were all booked out. The one with the shortest waitlist for new patients told us they could see Tryxy in November of 2025. You’d think the medical profession would have recovered from the covidshortage by now, but it’s not the case.
X accidentally called a Greek Potato Whistler and found a therapist who does virtual visits and is available next week. But we can’t get Tryxy in until we know that they accept his health insurance, and the professional soothsayer who can tell whether insurance is in the network was on the line with about sixty other callers ahead of me.
There have been some wins. We were back just in time to file something with Miskatonic University. With the boom in build-your-own time machines, the school has lost many students to time travel mishaps and has created a special exception for students who fill out the correct forms. Tryxy will be given a couple of weeks to catch up on the classwork he missed, with the understanding that he gets a time-travel waiver just once. This was the best news Tryxy’s had since 2029.
X has also injected some silver lining into the situation. She pointed out that we now know that DemonKitty is capable of writing music, playing for audiences, and achieving a world tour in just five years. That perked Tryxy’s mind, and he’s been a little more wholehearted in his attempts to fix things.
He wrote a letter to the promoter, and the promoter said that if Tryxy gets things back on track, the promoter has a show booked at an auditorium in Boston this fall. DemonKitty is welcome back as the opening act’s opening act. And the best part is he’d only have to play three songs.
Oh! One thing I should have told you about. The stowaway. The stowaway is why we didn’t return from the future untiljust the other day.
While X and I were talking, we heard noises from a compartment under the floor. We opened the panels and discovered a disheveled economist in a cream-stained polo shirt attempting to hop a ride with us back in time.
Apparently, the inflation is so bad that economists are being hunted down, put in stocks, and have rotten tomatoes thrown at them by anyone frustrated with their grocery bill. Come to think of it, we saw quite a few economists in button-downs covered with dried tomato seeds with their fists and heads shoved through stocks on our way to the diner.
It turns out that economists have been banned from time travel. The government is furious with a profession whose sole job is to make predictions, who also has had access to time travel for as long as the general public has, and who still can’t manage to predict a crisis as crazy as the inflation of 2029. There have been a number of economists who have sought to escape persecution by hitching rides on private time machines.
The heat scanners on the Time Mac caught the economist before we had a chance to jump, but not before I asked him, “But why didn’t you go back in time before it was illegal and choose a different profession?”
“Sir, if I could predict the future, I wouldn’t have become an economist.”
Well, Gladys, the doctor’s office just picked up my call. I spent the last five minutes in circles with the soothsayer who couldn’t tell me whether they accept Tryxy’s insurance. She told me I needed to call the insurance company directly if I want to know whether her office accepts Tryxy’s insurance.
To which I said, “You don’t understand. He’s a demon. His insurance company headquarters are in Hell.”
To which the soothsayer replied, “Sir, all insurance company headquarters are in Hell. That’s why it’s called Hell-th Care.”
“Ivy, Angelica, Bay” by C. L. Polk (Tor Books, 2023)
Review by Lis Carey: Miss l’Abielle –Theresa Anne l’Abelle, but only for people outside the community is she anything but Miss l’Abielle –has just buried her mother, who was the witch protecting their whole community. She’s got to take over now, but she’s flattened by grief, and doesn’t really believe she’s up to the task. It seems a little worse, a little harder, when a visit from a desperate young woman results in her becoming the guardian of a mysterious orphan girl.
The girl’s name is Jael Brown, and she’s an innocent, frightened child abandoned on Miss l’Abielle’s doorstep with a battered suitcase with her only possessions. But something else makes itself felt; an insinuating, threatening magic touched them both before being dispersed. Something is wrong, and it’s just the first of many signs that something threatens her community.
She takes Jael with her as she goes around the neighborhood, and a bee leads them to a house that three days ago had a family in it. This leads to further question, which reveal that an outside, aggressive developer is after their community, and especially the park and the area around it, for a freeway.
But there’s something more than the freeway behind this–a powerful, landless magician who wants Miss l’Abielle’s community for their own property. Miss l’Abielle doesn’t yet fully inhabit her mother’s powers, and isn’t sure how to fight this, but she has to do it.
Jael herself proves to have witching talent, and is eager to help–and something other than what she seems. Something very other from what she seems. Is she a friend and added strength, or an enemy inside Miss l’Abielle’s defenses? And can Miss l’Abielle overcome the main enemy, with or without Jael?
Despite what’s going on, it’s a surprisingly gentle, positive story, despite some of what’s going on. Very different from “Even Though I Knew the End,” To me, that’s a very good thing.
This is a 2024 Hugo Awards Best Novelette Finalist.
(1) THE NO BODY PROBLEM. The other day File 770 linked to a report with the good news that Netflix confirmed 3 Body Problem will have a second and third season. Today, Giant Freakin’ Robot took the same story and turned it into a reason for panic: “Huge Netflix Sci-Fi Hit Gets Canceled After Season 3”. Got to get those clicks somehow!
Netflix has long had a reputation for canceling great shows right as they become mainstream hits, and it looks like that won’t be changing anytime soon. The streamer recently revealed that 3 Body Problem will be canceled after season 3.
That means that fans still have two more seasons to look forward to, but it’s not entirely clear how much of the original novels will ultimately be adapted by the show.
At first glance, the news that Netflix has canceled 3 Body Problem after season 3 comes as something of a shock.
After all, the first season was a genuine hit: it currently has a 79 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 78 percent audience score….
(2) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Grady Hendrix & Bracken MacLeod on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. The event begins 7:00 p.m. Eastern at the KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003; Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)
Grady Hendrix
Grady Hendrix is the New York Times-bestselling author of How To Sell a Haunted House, The Final Girl Support Group, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, and many more. His history of the horror paperback boom of the ’70s and ’80s, Paperbacks from Hell, won the Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction. His books have been translated into 23 languages and sold over a million copies, which means he is guaranteed a seat on the space ark when the earth becomes uninhabitable. You can learn more useless facts about him at www.gradyhendrix.com.
Bracken MacLeod
Bracken MacLeod is a Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and two-time Splatterpunk Award finalist and the author of several books including Closing Costs and 13 Views of the Suicide Woods, which the New York Times Book Review called, “Superb,” though he imagines the reviewer pronouncing that, “supOIB.” Before devoting himself to full-time writing, he’s survived car crashes, a near drowning, being shot at, a parachute malfunction, and the bar exam. So far, the only incident that has resulted in persistent nightmares is the bar exam. So, please don’t mention it.
(3) PHILLY SUMMER AUTHOR EVENTS SCRATCHED. Michael Swanwick alerted Facebook fans that the summer Author Events at the Free Library of Philadelphia have been cancelled. Apparently, the entire staff quit this morning. Here’s the announcement in its totality:
Dear Friends,
The entire lineup of scheduled Author Events is cancelled. The Author Events team is no longer with the Free Library Foundation.
With sincere thanks for your support over these many years of our program, “the big, beating heart of literature in Philadelphia,” (Philadelphia Inquirer),
Andy Kahan, Laura Kovacs, Jason Freeman, and Nell Mittelstead
Reasons for their quitting have yet to be reported.
UPDATE: The Philadelpha Free Library has followed up the earlier email with another saying that despite the resignations no Author Events have been cancelled. See the complete text of that email in Todd Dashoff’s comment below.
Here is the later message:
(4) MARK YOUR CALENDAR – AND MAP. Lev Grossman will be taking to the skies on “The Bright Sword Tour”. The full schedule is at the link. The journey starts in Brooklyn and ends at the San Diego Comic-Con
The Bright Sword is coming out on July 16th. I’m going on tour to promote it.
Not in any virtual or zoomy sense, I am actually going to transport my physical corporeal cells all around the USA. And to bits of the UK as well. Any other anglophone nations want a piece of this—Canada, Australia, New Zealand—you just let me know.
I’m really, really looking forward to it. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to travel around and talk to people about books.
There are definitely aspects of it that make me nervous. Like most writers I am a poorly distributed mix of intro- and extro-vert and I’m never quite sure which of these aspects is going to be outward-facing at any given moment.
But mostly I’m just unbelievably excited. My extrovert-face actually loves talking to crowds, especially about books and King Arthur and The Bright Sword, which I have been working on for ten years, and my family got sick of me talking about it about one year into that process, so you can imagine how much stuff I’ve got pent up. I love new places, and food, I don’t mind planes, and I actively, immoderately adore hotels of all kinds….
…The episode also accidentally fueled an emergent fan phenomenon: slash fiction. As fanfic readers know, the concept of slash fiction, in which fans pair one character with another, derives its name from Kirk/Spock fanfic, which imagined the famous duo as lovers. In “Turnabout Intruder,” after Spock mind-melds with Janet Lester and realizes Kirk is in her body, he holds their hand, treating Kirk like his girlfriend. It’s not subtle. Supposedly, even the actors were aware the story’s gender-role-switching elements prompted all kinds of questions about Kirk and Spock’s true feelings. In a famous outtake, William Shatner jokingly reworked his line to say, “Spock, it’s always been you, you know it’s always been you. Say you love me too.”
We know this because super-fan Joan Winston got herself onto the “Turnabout Intruder” set. In the fan-made essay collection Star Trek Lives!Winston recounted the experience in great detail, including the anecdote about Shatner jokingly professing his love to Spock. By 1972, Joan Winston would become one of the key organizers of the world’s first Star Trek conventions.
In 1970, only 300 people attended the first San Diego Comic-Con. In 1972, Winston brought 3,000 people to the first Star Trek convention. By 1974, Winston’s fourth Star Trek Lives! convention attracted at least 15,000 attendees. Star Trek conventions helped create large-scale genre-themed conventions in general, which is partially why today’s geek landscape even exists. Small fantasy and sci-fi conventions existed before Star Trek, but Trek made the idea of having a big convention possible, and Joan Winston was one of the movement’s key pioneers….
The audiobook market in the United States continues steadily growing, with revenue increasing by 9%, to $2 billion, in 2023, according to the Audio Publishers Association, which published data from its annual sales survey today. The sales survey, conducted by Toluna Harris Interactive, incorporates data from 27 publishers, including Audible, Hachette Audio, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster, among others.
In addition, the APA has released highlights from its 2024 consumer survey, carried out by Edison Research, which showed that 52% of U.S. adults, or nearly 149 million Americans, have listened to an audiobook. The survey also found that 38% of American adults listened to an audiobook in the last year, up from 35% reported in 2023….
(7) STOKERCON 2025. The StokerCon 2025 Guests of Honor are:
Paula Guran
Graham Masterson
Gaby Triana
Tim Waggoner
(8) SMALL WONDER KICKSTARTER FUNDS.
We funded! Small Wonders Year 2 is HAPPENING! Thank you all so much!
We still have nearly two whole days to stretch and reach more goals – like our awesome guest edited issue, more sticker unlocks, the best of year 1 anthology, and more! Let's do this!https://t.co/pGswlmtqdX?
— Small Wonders Magazine (@SmallwondersSFF) June 1, 2024
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
June 3, 1964 — James Purefoy, 60. James Purefoy has an interesting genre history though I’m going to start with his role in Hap and Leonard based off that series created by Joe R. Lansdale. There he was Hap Collins who was imprisoned for refusing to be drafted during the Vietnam War. He and Leonard Pine are rather eccentric private investigators for Hap’s girlfriend Brett Sawyer.
Remember A Knight’s Tale, a film that the Suck Fairy tells me that they don’t even have in their database. He played the dual role of Edward, the Black Prince of Wales and Sir Thomas Colville. It currently not surprisingly has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of eighty percent. It’s one of my favorite films.
James Purefoy at San Diego Comic-Con in 2012.
Next on his genre work is Solomon Kane where he played that character. Based on the Robert E. Howard character, he made a stellar Kane. It currently has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of seventy-one percent.
He was Kantos Kan, the Odwar, the commanding officer, of the ship Xavarian in the John Carter film. It currently has a much better rating than I was expecting at Rotten Tomatoes rating — sixty percent. Huh.
He is cast in a main role as Captain Gulliver “Gully” Troy / Captain Blighty in the second and third seasons of the Pennyworth series, the prequel to the Gotham series. I like it a lot better than the latter series.
He’s Philippe de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches series based off on Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy, and it’s named after the first book in the trilogy. I read and really loved these novels.
Almost on my list is his performance as Laurens Bancroft in the Altered Carbon series. Yes I read the Richard Morgan trilogy. I thought it was excellently well written story with great characters and a fascinating story. He’s a ruthless billionaire who cares for nothing but what he wants.
What is finally on my list is something I never knew had been done. BBC Radio 4 as part of their Dangerous Visions series broadcast a two-part adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Off the Philip K. Dick work. It stars James Purefoy as Rick Deckard and Jessica Raine as Rachael Rosen. No other cast is credited, a bit odd I think.
Sci-Fi World, a new “museum” that promises fans real and replica props, costumes and sets from popular films and TV shows, hosted its opening “gala” on Memorial Day in the historic former Sears building just a couple of blocks from the Santa Monica Pier.
More than a decade in the making, the museum has drawn the interest of “Star Trek” fans worldwide thanks to its genesis story: Superfan Huston Huddleston said he salvaged a replica of the bridge from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” from a discard pile outside of a Long Beach warehouse in 2011. Huddleston, known for his fanatical devotion to science fiction and horror, launched Kickstarter campaigns to restore the prop and open a museum to house it, raising nearly $163,000 in less than two years.
But now Huddleston, 54, has emerged as the nexus of questions swirling around the museum, which, despite the recent gala, did not actually open as scheduled. Some of those same sci-fi fans who were enthralled by the museum’s origin story have since learned that in 2018, Huddleston was convicted of misdemeanor possession of child pornography. He was required to serve 126 days in jail and three years of summary probation, complete 52 weeks of sex offender counseling and pay fines.
In an interview with The Times, Huddleston said he knew that any association with the museum after his conviction would be toxic for an organization that hopes to attract young fans, so he gave up control of the nonprofit and its collection of film and TV ephemera to the museum’s chief executive.
But several Sci-Fi World volunteers past and present told The Times that Huddleston remains active — if not central — in museum operations and preparations for opening. Lee Grimwade, one of the museum’s lead volunteers who quit a day before the gala, said Huddleston is “definitely 100% involved.”…
… It further examines the advancement and potential of video generation models that have gripped the industry, including OpenAI’s Sora and Google DeepMind’s Veo, which were announced in the first half of 2024.
Yet to understand how the tech is actively being used today also requires an understanding of its limitations and challenges. VIP+ digs into the specific factors holding back gen AI implementation as tools used to make the highest production-value content. Ethical use is now central and critical to gen AI decision making for media and entertainment companies, and it is the final focus area of this report.
Research for this special report partly draws from 28 independent interviews conducted on background from February to May 2024 with leaders at generative AI tech and service providers, those in VFX and content localization networks, film and TV concept and storyboard artists, independent filmmakers experimenting with generative AI, ethical technologists and lawyers specializing in entertainment and cybersecurity….
If The Bad Batch were a live-action series, it’d most certainly be considered an ensemble show. But given that one actor voiced 22 (!) characters in the final season of the animated series, that term might not quite fit in this case. It’s a point that the voice actor himself, Dee Bradley Baker, humbly acknowledges.
“The Bad Batch is a very different creative ask of an actor, to bring all of these full-fledged, full-bodied characters together in a scene as an ensemble, not as disconnected or one-offs,” says Baker. “This is an ensemble story in the same way that The Clone Wars was originally an ensemble story. It’s just in this particular ensemble, I’m most of the ensemble,” he adds, laughing.
The Disney+ series, which ended its three-season run on May 1, follows Clone Force 99, a special forces squad comprising clone solders who were enhanced with special abilities, in the aftermath of Order 66 (whereby Emperor Palpatine ordered the clones to kill all Jedi). The group is led by stellar tracker Hunter and includes the abnormally strong Wrecker, brilliant Tech and uber marksman Crosshair. The quintet is rounded out with Echo, a regular clone who, after cybernetic modifications, joined up with the Bad Batch. All five of those characters are voiced by Baker, who is an Emmy contender this awards season for his role as Crosshair….
Speaking of fans, what is the voice you get asked to do most often?
[In Wrecker’s voice] They want to hear Wrecker all the time. I always say Wrecker wrecks my voice, but I’ll talk like Wrecker anyway. [Switching to Crosshair’s voice] Also, Crosshair because he meant a lot to many of the fans. He was probably the most interesting character of all of the Bad Batch [switching back to his real voice] because Crosshair really had the arc, the transformational redemption arc, that was his story, and what started out to seem to be sort of an adversarial counter-character ends up being the character that you’re rooting for. And that is finally redeemed with that hug that he gets from Omega. It’s a really beautiful story, it’s an inspiring story, and people are really locked into that. But it’s a lot of fun [in Hunter’s voice] just to switch from character to character [in Tech’s voice] because each one is very different from the other [back to his real voice], and they’re all just different people, and they’re here within me.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve “Steely” Green.]
The WSFS Mark Protection Committee, chaired by Donald E. Eastlake III, is circulating drafts of amendments to the WSFS Constitution that they are considering submitting to the Glasgow Business Meeting. The drafts are being posted publicly for comment. Download a PDF copy here.
The first proposal replaces the current practice of informally licensing Worldcons to use the WSFS marks with a written license agreement.
The second proposal provides for independent monitoring of site election and Hugo Award administration.
It would make mandatory, instead of optional, the delegation of all authority over the Hugos to a Subcommittee whose decisions are irrevocable by the Worldcon Committee. Two members of that Subcommittee will be chosen by the Business Meeting and charged with reporting to the Business Meeting and Mark Protection Committee “as to the propriety of the procedures followed by the Hugo Award administrations.”
Likewise, the Business Meeting will choose two persons who shall report to the Business Meeting and to the Mark Protection Committee “as to the propriety of the procedures followed by the…site selection that they monitor.”
The third proposal makes two changes. It provides the means for Mark Protection Committee members to cause a meeting of the MPC to be held. And it creates authority and a mechanism for the Mark Protection Committee to remove an elected member of the MPC by a two-thirds vote of that committee.
The MPC gives a fuller justification for each proposal in the draft document.
