By Kevin Black: I have been following the discussion of the Hugo Award artist categories here by Tammy Coxen and Colin Harris closely, as well as the Facebook discussion threads on JOF. I am not a fan artist, although my spouse is–I do, however, amend code professionally, as senior counsel for a chamber of a state legislative body in the U.S. I have become convinced that it is important to reject ratification of the “F.18–Cleaning up the Art Categories” amendment which the business meeting in Glasgow passed forward to Seattle, but that there is a significant problem which needs addressing, which is the retitling of the Best Professional Artist Hugo category to Best Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration. It is time to solve the Fan vs. Pro Artist conundrum by cutting the Gordian Knot. The amendment which I recommend is set forth in full below, followed by explanation.
End the False Binary
Moved, to amend the WSFS constitution as follows:
3.3.13: Best Professional Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration. An illustratorartist whose illustrative work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy has appeared in a professional publication during the previous calendar year.
3.3.18: Best Fan Artist. An artist or cartoonist whose work related to science fiction, fantasy, or science fiction or fantasy fandom has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, non-professional, display (including at a convention or conventions, posting on the internet, in online or print-on-demand shops, or in another setting not requiring a fee to see the image in full-resolution) during the previous calendar year (including in semiprozine or fanzines, at a convention or conventions, posting on the internet, or in online or print-on-demand shops where the benefit from direct sales inure to the artist or the artist’s business instead of to a second party to whom the artist has sold or licensed their work).
3.10.2 In the Best Professional Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration category, the acceptance should include citations of at least three (3) works first published in the eligible year.
Explanation: Recent fan scholarship reveals remarkable stability in the Hugo Award categories of Best Professional Artist (awarded since 1955, first published description in 1968) and Best Fan Artist (awarded since 1967, first published description in 1972), until recent turbulence and Glasgow’s approval of “F.18–Cleaning up the Art Categories” for ratification in Seattle has threatened to overthrow the community’s understanding of what these categories are, and what work and artists should be recognized in each category. This amendment takes a measured approach by respecting the code we have and the community’s long-held understanding of the scope of the categories, while finding opportunities to more carefully and respectfully describe the differences between the artist categories.
The wellspring of angst, I argue, is the title of the Best Professional Artist category, which commits a multitude of sins:
It creates a false dichotomy between professional artists and fan artists, implying we should be able to defensibly sort artists into one category or another. But “professional” and “fan” are not opposites (or we would not allow artists to qualify in the same year in both categories). It should be obvious and understood that artists making fan art may operate and conduct themselves as professionals, and may produce work which is of professional quality.
It’s misleading.The Best Professional Artist category has been limited by its description to illustrators since 1975, but art is not limited to illustration, and professional artists exist who are not professional illustrators.
It’s insulting. By labeling only one form of art as “professional,” it implies that professional illustration is the only form of art the community values, and has the feeling of casting shade. Because one opposite of professional is unprofessional.
So, we should rename the category to reflect what it is actually for, Best Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration. I differ from some other commenters by believing that it makes evident and eminent sense to continue this community’s 70-year tradition of honoring professional illustration, based on its singular importance to our genre. Nor would it be fair or sporting to expect the artists producing fan art, which we equally revere with its own Hugo Award, to compete against beloved professional illustrators whose work receives mass market distribution and is attached to products and IP that we love. The amendment makes a small change to the category description by repositioning “has appeared in a professional publication” to make it clearer that genre illustrations may be counted for award consideration if they appear in a range of professional publications, including not just novels and magazines but other things like game cards and postage stamps.
No change is made to the Best Fan Artist category title, which respects our community’s tradition of recognizing and esteem for fan work. The changes made to the description in this category are almost entirely nonsubstantive and for the purpose of cleaning up convoluted language. The few substantive additions specify that the work must relate to “science fiction, fantasy, or science fiction or fantasy fandom,” and that if the work is for sale in an online or print-on-demand shop, the benefit from direct sales must inure to the artist or the artist’s business instead of to a second party to whom the artist has sold or licensed their work.
The Best Fan Artist amendments leave the scope of the category essentially unchanged since the last amendments to it were ratified in 2021, and arguably since “or other public display” was added to the description in 1974. Fan art itself has changed in the past 50 years, which has had an impact on what kind of artists get recognition in the category, but the category itself really hasn’t. The only period in which the category was limited to fanzine art was 1972-1974. Professional illustrators were recognized as fan artists all the way back in the 1970s and 80s. Fan art, understood as the kind of genre art appealing to fans which is commonly (but not exclusively) found at SFF conventions, is more prominent and important than ever–as reflected by the ability of some artists to reportedly make money producing it! Meanwhile art donated to fanzines and conventions continues to exist alongside these creations, and continues to receive Hugo Award recognition. This is no time to try to roll back the clock or put the genie back in the bottle. It will be easy to think of technically eligible artwork which does not feel like fan art to you–in which case, don’t nominate it! Don’t vote for it if it becomes a finalist! Ultimately it is the community, and not the business meeting or Hugo Administrator, which should continue to decide what merits the title of Best Fan Art.
These amendments maintain the Hugo Award artist category framework, which has worked for this community 98% of the time, while making a few small changes and one big change in retitling the Best Professional Artist category. They should end the reductive fan vs. pro artist debates. Free your mind from the pro vs. fan artist binary!
Here is an array of awards news – recent winners, plus a finally-completed set of shortlists.
BARRY AWARDS
The winners of the 2024 Barry Awards given by Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine were announced during Opening Ceremonies at the Nashville Bouchercon on August 29.
BEST MYSTERY OR CRIME NOVEL
Dennis Lehane, Small Mercies (Harper)
BEST FIRST MYSTERY OR CRIME NOVEL
I.S. Berry, The Peacock and the Sparrow (Atria)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL MYSTERY OR CRIME NOVEL
Jake Needham, Who The Hell Is Harry Black? (Half Penny)
BEST THRILLER
Mick Herron, The Secret Hours (Soho Crime)
SHAMUS AWARDS
The Private Eye Writers of America announced the winners of the 2024 Shamus Awards at Bouchercon in Nashville on August 29. The juried award is given for private eye novels and short stories first published in the United States in 2024.
BEST HARDCOVER P.I. NOVEL
Heart of the Nile by Will Thomas
BEST ORIGINAL PAPERBACK P.I. NOVEL
Liar’s Dice by Gabriel Valjan
BEST P.I. SHORT STORY
“Errand for a Neighbor” by Bill Bassman
NGAIO MARSH AWARDS
The winners of the Ngaio Marsh Awards were announced as part of a special event held in association with WORD Christchurch in late August.
Monica Vuu, When One of Us Hurts (Pan Macmillan Australia) Debut
NON-FICTION
Rebecca Hazel, The Schoolgirl, her Teacher and his Wife (Penguin Random House)
YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
Amy Doak, Eleanor Jones Is Not a Murderer (Penguin Random House) Debut
CHILDREN’S NOVELS
Lucinda Gifford, The Wolves of Greycoat Hall (Walker Books)
DEBUT AWARD
Christine Keighery, The Half Brother (Ultimo Press)
READERS CHOICE AWARD
Alison Goodman, The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies
NED KELLY AWARD
The complete list of finalists for Ned Kelly Awards have been announced by the Australian Crime Writers Association. The winners will be revealed on September 25.
BEST TRUE CRIME
Crossing the Line by Nick McKenzie
Killing for Country by David Marr
The Murder Squad by Michael Adams
Reckless by Marele Day
The Teacher’s Pet by Hedley Thomas
BEST DEBUT CRIME FICTION
Four Dogs Missing by Rhys Gard
Gus and the Missing Boy by Troy Hunter
Lowbridge by Lucy Campbell
Murder in the Pacific: Ifira Point by Matt Francis
The Fall Between by Darcy Tindale
The Beacon by P.A. Thomas
Violet Kelly and the Jade Owl by Fiona Britton
BEST INTERNATIONAL CRIME FICTION
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Dice by Claire Baylis
Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly
The Only Suspect by Louise Candlish
The Search Party by Hannah Richell
Zero Days by Ruth Ware
BEST CRIME FICTION
Killer Traitor Spy by Tim Ayliffe
Dark Corners by Megan Goldin
Dark Mode by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth
The Seven by Chris Hammer
Ripper by Shelley Burr
The Tea Ladies by Amanda Hampson
Everyone on this train is a suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
(1) AMIWRIMO? National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)’s post “What is NaNoWriMo’s position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?” is drawing a critical response. Outraged Writers Board members Daniel Jose Older, Cass Morris, and Rebecca Kim Wells have all resigned. (Coincidentally, this year’s new NaNoWriMo sponsor is ProWritingAid.com, which has now added unspecified “AI” functionality: “How to Unstick Your Camp NaNoWriMo Project” [Archive.is link].) Their position statement on AI is quoted below — including an update added after the first wave of negative responses hit social media:
NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI. NaNoWriMo’s mission is to “provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.” We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing. Please see this related post that speaks to our overall position on nondiscrimination with respect to approaches to creativity, writer’s resources, and personal choice.
Note: we have edited this post by adding this paragraph to reflect our acknowledgment that there are bad actors in the AI space who are doing harm to writers and who are acting unethically. We want to make clear that, though we find the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic for the reasons stated below, we are troubled by situational abuse of AI, and that certain situational abuses clearly conflict with our values. We also want to make clear that AI is a large umbrella technology and that the size and complexity of that category (which includes both non-generative and generative AI, among other uses) contributes to our belief that it is simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse.
We believe that to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.
Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.
Not all brains have same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals. The notion that all writers “should“ be able to perform certain functions independently or is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can’t “see” the issues in their writing without help.
General Access Issues.All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don’t always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.
Beyond that, we see value in sharing resources and information about AI and any emerging technology, issue, or discussion that is relevant to the writing community as a whole. It’s healthy for writers to be curious about what’s new and forthcoming, and what might impact their career space or their pursuit of the craft. Our events with a connection to AI have been extremely well-attended, further-proof that this programming is serving Wrimos who want to know more….
Three Board members quit over this post:
Here is a selection from among the many other negative responses to the post.
Disappointed Harry Potter fans booed after an annual announcement at London King’s Cross railway station did not happen.
People gathered at the station hoping to hear a message on the public address system that the fictional Hogwarts Express would depart from platform 9 ¾ at 11am, as happens in JK Rowling’s books.
The back to Hogwarts tradition, which celebrates the start of each academic year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry every 1 September, has previously also involved the train service being displayed on departure boards, with hundreds of fans attending the 2023 event.
But King’s Cross did not mark the occasion on Sunday.
A video posted on X shows an expectant crowd count down to 11am, and then booing when nothing happens.
Warner Bros Discovery, which owns the Harry Potter franchise, issued a statement in July urging fans to avoid travelling to King’s Cross on Sunday and instead watch a programme on YouTube hosted by the I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! winner Sam Thompson.
Thousands of hotel workers began a multiday strike in several cities across the U.S. to press for higher wages and increased staffingafter contract negotiations with major hotel chains Hyatt, Hilton and Marriott stalled.
Workers walked off the job on Sunday in 25 cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Greenwich, Conn., and Honolulu, said Unite Here, a union representing hospitality workers across North America. The strikes are planned to last between two to three days, organizers said, noting the timing of the strike happening on Labor Day. Workers in Baltimore, New Haven, Conn., Oakland, Calif., and Providence, R.I., were also prepared to join the strike…
… Earlier I mentioned about the series of unfortunate events. You already know about the fire alarm in the middle of the night and about catching Covid. The latter may have happened after the con. On top of that I also got the achievement for being splashed with water from the puddle from the top of my head downwards. Even coming back home posed a challenge and airline had to move me to another (later flight). Should it not be enough they also managed to leave my luggage in Amsterdam thanks to which I lost another 30 minutes. Yet you know what? All those unlucky incidents didn’t spoil my experience.
Glasgow 2024 was an amazing adventure. I have not seen as much of Scotland as I wanted to but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I had a great time. Once the con finished I was sad that it was over. And it lasted for eight days for me so, I dare to say, was rather long! It was definitely different than any of my previous Worldcons but I am happy with how it went. I don’t think that I should be rating it. As a member of concom I am not objective so I will leave the rating to the other members. Yet what I can say is that my experience was something I will treasure for many years to come….
… Charlaine Harris won the Best Alternate History award with All the Dead Shall Weep, the fifth book in her series about young mercenary Gunnie Rose. This was despite one of the other category finalists, Tom Kratman, lobbying his social media following to vote for his novel Dirty Water in retaliation for it receiving a negative review in Publishers’ Weekly; Kratman expressed a desire to “hammer the award up their collective ass,” a desire that must now remain unfulfilled…
(6) DRAGON AWARDS STATISTICS. Okay, you can stop laughing at the headline now. Here’s what Camestros Felapton – with a microscope – managed to extract from a press release: “Some Dragon Award Stats”.
…Anyway, here are the numbers they did provide:
“Approximately 7,000 fans cast ballots for this year’s Dragon Award winners, selected from among 67 properties in 11 categories covering the full range of fiction, comics, television, movies, video gaming, and tabletop gaming.”
Which is what they said last year, as in that is literally the same sentence….
…And it seems that Sir Ian McKellen could be coming back to his beloved role as J.R.R. Tolkien’s wizard after revealing that he had been approached about featuring in the new Lord of the Rings films.
McKellen told The Big Issue: “Enthusiasm for The Lord of the Rings shows no sign of abating … I can’t tell you any more than that. I’ve just been told there are going to be more films and Gandalf will be involved and they hope that I’ll be playing him.”
The 85-year-old actor, who is recovering from falling off stage in Player Kings in London’s West End, added: “When? I don’t know. What the script is? It’s not written yet. So, they better be quick.”
In a separate interview with BBC Breakfast, McKellen said he had no plans to retire from acting. “I shall just keep at it as long as the legs and the lungs and the mind keep working,” said the actor, who is promoting new movie The Critic….
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born September 2, 1964 — Keanu Reeves, 60. Keanu Reeves certainly has fascinating genre credits. So let’s get started and look at them.
First about that film. It was by no mean his first film, he’d done quite a few including some very serious films before that including Dangerous Liaisons, but his first film that we know him from is of course what is his most best loved film of a genre nature which isBill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. He played Ted “Theodore” Logan.
I’ll confess that since I deeply, madly adore this film, I’m not seen either of the sequels, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey or Bill & no Ted Face the Music. Why spoil perfection?
Keanu Reeves
A choice bit of stakes through the heart was up for him in Bram Stoker’s Dracula where he had the role Jonathan Harker .
Following that was Johnny Mnemonic which in its original version is considered one of the worst genre films ever made, but 12 years back, a black-and-white edition of the film which was titled Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White was released and William Gibson says is much closer, closer to his original vision. I see it’s available on Amazon, either in BluRay or DVD.
So what next? The Matrix where he played Neo, the protagonist throughout The Matrix franchise. I saw the first, found it interesting, but not enough to watch the next two. I see it was nominated for a Hugo at Chicon 2000 but didn’t win as that was the year that Galaxy Quest deservedly won.
He was Bob / Fed / Bruce in A Scanner Darkly as based off Philip K. Dick’s novel. And it too was nominated for Hugo, this being at Nippon 2007, the year Pan’s Labyrinth won.
Finally as John Wick can’t possibly be considered genre, he had potentially plum of a role as there was a remake of The Earth Stood Still and he was Klaatu! Yes, I did go to Rotten Tomatoes to see what to reaction was.
Well, the audience yours gave it a 21% rating, Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal said this, which is the overwhelming consensus: “Where the original film was unpretentious, this version, with Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, is insufferably full of itself, an X-Files episode pumped up to pseudo-cosmic proportions.”
“Star Wars” fans in Minnesota and Wisconsin yesterday got to experience a whole new version of the 1977 movie “A New Hope.” It’s a version dubbed into the language of one of the largest Indigenous groups in the U.S. and Canada. Minnesota Public Radio’s Melissa Olson has more.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS AND LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA’S “MAIN TITLE”)
MELISSA OLSON, BYLINE: Fans who came out to see the film got a chance to hear a language spoken in a galaxy far, far away for the first time. This version of the 1977 classic “Star Wars: A New Hope” has been dubbed in the Ojibwe language. It’s spoken by one of the largest Indigenous nations in the U.S. and Canada. One of the lead voice actors in the film just happened to be attending a showing in a Twin Cities suburb. He’s both a fan of the movie and a student of the language.
AJUAWAK KAPASHESIT: My name is Ajuawak Kapashesit, and I play Han Solo in this edition of “Star Wars: A New Hope.”…
The basic set-up of Terminator, in theory, creates two paradoxes. When the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent back in time to terminate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to future Resistance leader John Connor, the AI that controls him, Skynet clearly feels this is a solid plan. But, in sending the T-800 back, Skynet also causes the Resistance to send a human agent back, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who becomes John Connor’s father in the past. So Skynet messed up: Had they not sent the T-800 back in time, they wouldn’t have ever created their own, enemy, right?
In all great science fiction time travel stories, cause and effect don’t behave ordinarily, which is part of the fun. But, what the newest iteration of the Terminator franchise has just done has provided a new explanation not only for the set-up of the first film but the events of the second movie, too. Spoilers ahead….
NEW RESULTS FROM THE FIRST archaeological fieldwork conducted in space show the International Space Station is a rich cultural landscape where crew create their own “gravity” to replace Earth’s, and adapt module spaces to suit their needs.
Archaeology is usually thought of as the study of the distant past, but it’s ideally suited for revealing how people adapt to long-duration spaceflight. In the SQuARE experiment described in our new paper in PLOS ONE, we re-imagined a standard archaeological method for use in space, and got astronauts to carry it out for us.
The International Space Station is the first permanent human settlement in space. Close to 280 people have visited it in the past 23 years. Our team has studied displays of photos, religious icons, and artworks made by crew members from different countries, observed the cargo that is returned to Earth, and used NASA’s historic photo archive to examine the relationships between crew members who serve together….
(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George lets us step inside the Pitch Meeting that led to Alien: Romulus. You can check in any time you want, but you can never leave…
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, N., SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Mike Kennedy.]
By Steve Vertlieb: It was in 1997 that I first received a rather flattering telephone call from an editor in New York, asking if I’d be willing to participate in a new published anthology that he was compiling for Midnight Marquee Press. The book would assemble many genre writers of the period in a collaborative effort celebrating the “life,” and death of Bram Stoker’s literary creation in film.
Christopher Lee as Dracula
The “editor,” whose name shall go unspoken here, said that he had grown up with my work in such publications as The Monster Times, and that he would be honored to include a chapter by me in the pages of his forthcoming book, which was to be called Dracula, The First Hundred Years.
I was asked to write a somewhat light-hearted examination of the “Dracula,” and related vampire films, and television productions of the 1970’s.
Prompted, perhaps, by his professed “love” for my work, I agreed, and began fabricating a new article for his publication. I set about writing a lengthy new piece and, once finished, sent it off by mail to New York. I received a congratulatory telephone call from the “gentleman” in question shortly following its receipt, advising me that he was delighted with my work. He said that it was everything that he could have hoped for, and more, and that while many of his writers would need to be heavily edited, my work would be published essentially as I had written it.
Now, it’s normal for an editor to send each of his stable of writers the “proofs” of their edited work once completed, prior to publication, so that they might be gone over and approved for content. Months went by, however, without any further communication from the book’s editor.
I’d begun hearing ominous rumblings from a number of writers, grumbling that their efforts had been heavily tampered with and changed, and that there was brewing trouble in “paradise.” I continued to rest easily, however, in the spoken assurance that my work would be published essentially as written.
When the book was at last published, however, I discovered to my horror that my work had been badly distorted, compromised, and truncated.
Wherever I had spoken of actor Christopher Lee with affection and reverence, my text had been re-written to ridicule and attack him. Wherever I had spoken of actor Frank Langella with respect and admiration, my text had been re-written as would reflect the secret yearnings of a smitten school girl in drooling affection for her hero.
Large chunks of my writing had been unceremoniously removed and altered, without either my knowledge or permission by an unscrupulous “editor” who had unkindly inserted his own cryptic observations and prejudice under my name and byline, shabbily using my personal reputation either to malign or revere the films and performances that he had either loved or loathed.
When I asked why he had done this to me, he replied that he thought that “it was funny.”
Reviewers of the volume, who had taken offense to many of the cruel observations expressed supposedly by me, were harsh in their very personal criticism of my work. I set about composing a letter-writing campaign to address these issues, stating rather forcefully that the offensive opinions determined objectionable were either edited, or added, after my work had been submitted, and neither with my knowledge or consent.
Consequently, sales of the volume plummeted, and the “editor” complained that I had “murdered” his book.
In the twenty years since its publication, the title has come to be reviled by readers, and wholly disavowed by its unwitting publisher. In the decades that followed, I’d longed to have my work published in its entirety, and as originally conceived as written.
Here, then, for the first time ever, and with enthusiastic permission of Midnight Marquee Press, is the published premiere of my original work.
“Bullfrog County Atomic Jackalope Rescue” by Robert F. Lowell,
“Drinking Plot Holes” by David Hankins
The winner was selected by Baen editorial staff and Baen author Howard Andrew Jones.
The annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award contest began in 2014. The award honors stories that best exemplify the spirit of adventure, imagination, and great storytelling in a work of short fiction containing an element of the fantastic, whether epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, contemporary fantasy, or historical fantasy. The stories are judged anonymously.
The award was presented during the Baen Travelling Roadshow at Dragon Con.
Author of the Grand Prize story receives an award trophy, a prize box filled with Baen merchandise, and paid professional rates for first publication rights. The winning story also will be featured on Baen.com main webpage.
(1) SPSFC 4. The Self-Published Science Fiction Competition begins accepting book entries tomorrow, September 2. This will be the fourth iteration of the contest. Here are the key dates:
New book applications (Sept. 2, 2024 to Sept. 29, 2024)
Resubmissions (Sept. 17, 2024 to Sept. 29, 2024)
Judge teams finalized (October 2024)
Filter/confirm submissions (October 2024)
Team allocations and reading starts (October 2024)
Round One (October 2024 to March 2025)
Semifinals (March 2025 to May 2025)
Finals (May 2025 to July 2025)
Winner announced (July 2025)
(2) DRAGON CON AWARDS CEREMONY. Many awards were given at today’s Dragon Con ceremony.
(4) JULIE AWARD. And John Cleese popped up unexpectedly at the ceremony to be presented with Dragon Con’s “Julie Award”
In 1998, Dragon Con established the Julie Award presented annually in tribute to the legendary Julie Schwartz. The Julie Award is bestowed for universal achievement spanning multiple genres, selected each year by our esteemed panel of industry professionals. The first recipient in 1998 was science fiction and fantasy Grandmaster Ray Bradbury.
JOHN CLEESE IS AT THE DRAGON AWARDS! For any Monty Python loving nominees, you may have a bigger surprise than the statue if you win.#DragonCon2024pic.twitter.com/JTextyvxi4
(5) FREE DELANY ZOOM LECTURE. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago invites everyone to join them on September 10 for a live virtual lecture by writer Samuel R. Delany followed by an audience Q&A. Click HERE to join via Zoom at 6:00 p.m. Central. Free and open to the public. Registration is not required.
In 2016, Samuel R. Delany was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. A filmmaker, novelist, and critic, he is the author of the award-winning books Babel-17 and Dark Reflections, as well as Nova, Dhalgren, and the Return to Nevèrÿon series. He has won Nebula Awards from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association and two Hugo Awards from the World Science Fiction Convention. In 2013, he was made a Grand Master of Science Fiction. His works are available through his website at samueldelany.com. Presented on the occasion of the exhibition In Your Face: Barbara DeGenevieve, Artist and Educator on view at the SAIC Galleries August 28–December 7. A related symposium will take place on September 14.
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services.
(6) GRABBY ALIENS AND THE FERMI PARADOX. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Over a year ago there was much discussion about a 2021 paper that some scientists nicknamed the ‘Grabby Aliens’ paper. (If I have done right by Mike I’ll have clocked him in on this but we did cover it over at SF² Concatenation.) The original paper’s lead author was an economist from George Mason University in the US and the other authors were maths (or maths adjacent) academics from the US and UK.
Its basic contention was that either we are alone in the Galaxy or that we should very soon see long arcs in the sky from alien civilisations and that the aliens would arrive (possibly in a wave front travelling at over half the speed of light) and likely take us over, at least culturally/technologically, and so curb our own expansion to control a sphere of stars for ourselves.
There was much debate, but if you don’t want to take a deep dive into the rather dry paper then a year ago physicist Matt O’Dowd over at PBS Space Time did a neat 20-minute video (now over 2 million views) explaining it all.
“There are many possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox but a few have risen to particular prominence – including the “Grabby Aliens” hypothesis. Today, we’ll explore what this solution proposes, what it assumes, and ultimately three reasons why I personally don’t think it’s right.”
Those of you that know me, will not be surprised that I have my own views which I hinted at at the end of theSF² Concatenation coverage. However, it is important you make up your own mind.
(7) POLISH LEGENDS. lance oszko says the Balticon 59 Short Film Festival was seeking Legendy Polskie, a highly rated series of short videos.
Due to a Corporate Decision, the Multiverse Series “Legendy Polskie” is not available to Festivals.
A continuing theme is smart Polish People outwitting Evil. Meanwhile still on YouTube with Subtitles.
A series of 27 Legendy Polskie videos (including a teaser and other odds and ends) is available on YouTube; playlist at the link.
…It might only technically be out today, but Star Wars Outlaws early access means that players who bought into special editions have had their hands on the game for a few days already. And one of those has been playing around with the open worlds available on Star Wars Outlaws’ planets, utilizing the physics systems to really upset some unfortunate troopers.In a Reddit post, one player points out that you can shoot out the front of an incoming speeder, causing a dramatic drop in speed that sends the trooper riding the vehicle to be thrown, ragdoll-like, through the air. There are two clips in the video, including one where the unfortunate Empire grunt clatters at high speed into a small building, ping-ponging off it in a particularly slapstick moment….
The Star Wars toymaker spent two years secretly working on a kids lightsaber that can automatically extend and retract its blade — the very first of its kind. Hasbro acquired all rights to the idea from a previously unknown Israeli inventor and patented it around the world.
But instead of finishing the product, Hasbro walked away without explanation. It let the inventor claw back the rights. Today, with the help of a different manufacturer, you can finally buy it at Amazon, Walmart, and Target— as the Goliath Power Saber.
The $60 toy doesn’t have official Star Wars sounds or authentic Jedi or Sith hilts. The blade isn’t as long as the movie sabers, and it doesn’t have the build quality or sophistication of pricier props.
But a simple yet ingenious mechanism means we finally have a lightsaber toy that can actually retract its own blade. Slide the golden switch, and a noisy motor sends each of its glowing blade segments smoothly in and out of the handle. Poke someone with the saber, and its blade will safely collapse without damage. You can even safely point it at your own face — see that in my video below.
(10) DEBORAH CLAYPOOL. Southern fan Deborah Claypool passed away on August 30 after an extended illness her brother Tom reported on Facebook. She was the Vice-Chair of the Memphis State University SF Association when it was founded in 1980. We were both active in the apa Myriad around that time. Curt Phillips notes she also founded FOLD, an apa devoted to the art of origami. A memorial is planned for a later date.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
September 1, 1942 — C J Cherryh, 82.
By Paul Weimer:
The most amusing thing I can start off with my discussion of Cherryh is the fact that for the first few decades of my life, I thought her last name was pronounced Chair-uh, not Cherry like the fruit.
C. J. Cherryh
My love of her work began, given my age, predictably, with Morgaine. I actually encountered Morgaine, before the actual books, in Dragon Magazine, the official magazine of Dungeons and Dragons. In the early issues of Dragon Magazine, there was a column called “Giants in the Earth”. Issue 57 featured writeups and stats for Morgaine and her companion Vanye. Those writeups explained not only the stats but gave background to the characters and what they were all about:
“Morgaine is from a universe where an early civilization discovered or invented the ability to teleport via gates. These gates are controlled by a mechanical contrivance housed in a large cubical building. The lesser gates on a planet can transfer someone through space and/or time between each other. The master gate of a planet is physically located near the control center and has the additional capability to teleport to gates on other planets.”
Given my love of portal fantasies, teleportation and the like, this first paragraph was catnip. I had to read the Morgaine books. And I was delighted that the novels were every inch the column promised, and much more. Cherryh was a hell of a writer, and I was hooked. I went from Morgaine to the Faded Sun novels, to Cyteen, and on and on.
Cherryh’s facility with hard science fiction, with clever fantasy, and mixing the two in things like Morgaine just show her facility as a writer. I know the latter part of her career has seemingly been an endless series of Foreigner novels (and rightly so, the novels are a fascinating study of human-alien cultures) but her oeuvre is so wide and diverse, that I would almost recommend people start with something OTHER than Foreigner and its seemingly limitless series. Try the Pride of Chanur, with its fascinating aliens and a space station that certainly inspired Babylon 5. Or Fortress in the Eye of Time, and see the power of deep time and an old conflict and a wizard’s older ambition. Or the fantastic Downbelow Station, a slow burn novel in the Alliance-Union Wars that, when it goes off, it hits like a brick, and shows the power of the author’s work.
…NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3)caught a ride to space on April 24 on Rocket Lab’s Electron vehicle and, at the end of August, NASA shared in a release that its mission operators verified the technology reached full deployment in space. On Thursday, Aug. 29 at 1:33 p.m. EDT (5:33 UTC), the team obtained data indicating the test of the sail-hoisting boom system was a success. Just like the wind guides a sailboat on the water, it only takes a slight amount of sunlight to guide solar sails through space. Though photons don’t have mass, they can force momentum when they hit an object — that’s what a solar sail takes advantage of. Thankfully for us, the spacecraft that deployed the sail contains four cameras that can capture a panoramic view of both the reflective sail and the accompanying composite booms. The first of the high-resolution imagery is expected to be accessible on Wednesday, Sept. 4….
A new archaeological study revealed that an ancient board of a game, known as “Hounds and Jackals” or the “Game of 58 Holes”, found in 2018 on the Absheron peninsula in present-day Azerbaijan, is the oldest known.
For a long time, most have believed that the oldest board games originated in ancient Egypt. That presumption has been contested by a recent study, though. Analyzing board games found on Azerbaijan’s Absheron Peninsula indicates that they might have originated in Asia rather than Egypt.
The study is published in the European Journal of Archaeology. Traditional interpretations hold that the board game originated in ancient Egypt in the second millennium BCE, but evidence from recent excavations suggests that the game was also played in the South Caucasus during this time, casting doubt on this theory.
…Flying on autopilot, the Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to depart the station at approximately 6:04 pm EDT (22:04 UTC) on September 6. The capsule will fire its engines to drop out of orbit and target a parachute-assisted landing in New Mexico at 12:03 am EDT (04:03 UTC) on September 7, NASA said in a statement Thursday.
NASA officials completed the second part of a two-day Flight Readiness Review on Thursday to clear the Starliner spacecraft for undocking and landing. However, there are strict weather rules for landing a Starliner spacecraft, so NASA and Boeing managers will decide next week whether to proceed with the return next Friday night or wait for better conditions at the White Sands landing zone.
Over the last few days, flight controllers updated parameters in Starliner’s software to handle a fully autonomous return to Earth without inputs from astronauts flying in the cockpit, NASA said. Boeing has flown two unpiloted Starliner test flights using the same type of autonomous reentry and landing operations. This mission, called the Crew Flight Test (CFT), was the first time astronauts launched into orbit inside a Starliner spacecraft, and was expected to pave the way for future operational missions to rotate four-person crews to and from the space station….
(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. From 2015, Saturday Night Lives’“Hobbit Office” sketch.
After saving Middle-earth, Bilbo (Martin Freeman), Gandalf (Bobby Moynihan), Gollum (Taran Killam), Legolas (Kyle Mooney) and Tauriel (Kate McKinnon) take up office jobs.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Rich Lynch, Cath Jackel, Sean CW Korsgaard, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
The winner of the 2024 Mike Resnick Memorial Award for the best unpublished science fiction short story by a new author was announced at Dragon Con on September 1.
The award is sponsored by Galaxy’s Edge (published by Arc Manor) and Dragon Con. It was presented during the annual Dragon Awards ceremony.
The winner is:
“When I was Your Age” by Sam Brown
The first place winner gets a trophy, a cash award of $250 and has their story bought (at the magazine’s prevailing rate) by Galaxy’s Edge for publication in the magazine. The second place winner will be given a prize of $100 and the third place winner a prize of $50. The names of the runners up were not available as of this writing.
The members of the finalist judging panel were Lezli Robyn, Sheree Renée Thomas, Jody Lynn Nye, and William B. Fawcett.
