Reactor has an interview with Anna de Marcken, who won the Ursula K. LeGuin award with her novella It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, described as “not your usual zombie story.” She states she’s uncomfortable with metaphors.

Judith Tarr sometimes reviews older movies, especially ones with a speculative story element. Here she reviews 1996’s Loch Ness.

Readers won a victory against book-banning in Alaska.

In her newsletter, Charlie Jane Anders talks about first-draft revisions and making words count.

Films that flopped and then became classics: the Guardian has a list.

The 2024 World Fantasy Convention, held in Niagara Falls, NY, was a lot of fun. The World Fantasy Con on Sunday, October 20. They included The Reformatory by Tananarive Due for Best Novel, Half The House is Haunted by Josh Malerman for Best Novella, and “Silk and Cotton Awards were announced and Linen and Blood” by Nghi Vo for Best Short Fiction.

I am posting a picture of a black squirrel I saw at Niagara Falls park, because I had never seen that color variation before, and a picture of the waterfalls veiled in mist,

Yesterday, the second Tuesday of October, was officially Ada Lovelace Day, in honor of the mathematician who wrote formulae with Babbage, intended for use with his Analytical Engine.

World Fantasy Con starts next week, in Niagara Falls, NY. I’ll be there.

Freya Marske has Book One of a new series coming out, and Reactor has an excerpt.

Nerds of a Feather provides a review of The Principle of Moments. Clara Cohen’s review is harsh, but probably accurate.

File 770 offers a link to this radio interview with Susannah Clarke,

In Reactor, Molly Templeton stops to praise things that aren’t brilliant, awesome, amazing, or setting the genre on fire—they’re just good.

I loved The Fall when I first saw it, and then it disappeared. Nerds of a Feather rediscovered it and reviews it here.

Baen’s short story contest is open for submission until February 1, 2025. As I read the  summarized guidelines, it looks like they want science fiction.

Here is a list of local agencies providing relief in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene,

Per Locus, it’s official that F&SF has gone quarterly. I don’t know what this means for the magazine, but I don’t think it’s good.

Locus also reviewed Abigail Nussbaum’s new collection of reviews.

One of the smartest and most thoughtful writers in the SF field is Ted Chiang, and in the New Yorker he writes with intelligence and thought about AI as a maker of art.

Continuing with the intelligent and thoughtful writer theme, here’s Richard Powers being interviewed by the U.K.

Reactor reviews Suzan Palumbo’s newest, a space-opera retelling of The County of Monte Cristo. Sign me up.

And enjoy their review of an upcoming Netflix “Sci-fi movie with jokes,” It’s What’s Inside.

In honor of the anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Show (in Canada, where it aired first) Chris Barkley shares his 15 favorite episodes. How do they match up with yours?

Next year’s WorldCon, in Seattle, Washington, USA, will feature a film festival. Thanks to File 770 for this item.

File 770 shares the latest AI kerfuffle, as NaNoWriMo’s steering organization made an unpopular statement about use of AI in its Annual November write-a-thon. Their awkwardly worded statement implies seems to imply that disabled people couldn’t complete a book without  AI help. You can imagine how well this went over. It’s Item 1.

SFWA had a series of resignations and vacancies that came to a head last month. Jason Sanford covered it here on his Patreon. File 770 provides some updates. It looks like the organization is fundamentally sound and taking the right steps to correct the problems.

Some fans of Lost consider Season Three its best season. It is a pivotal season, with the growing hints about Jacob and the smoke monster/Man in Black. Two things make the season a fan favorite; the introduction of a character many people loved, Dr. Juliet Burke, and the plotline involving Charlie, which, unlike most plotlines in the show, actually resolves, and with meaning.

Season Three aired from October, 2006 through May, 2007. As always I’m indebted to Lostpedia for the facts and details. This column will include spoilers for this and future seasons.

In this season we see our first true “death as sacrifice.” We meet a super-powered Other,

The Bulwer-Lytton Contest winners were announced—awarded for the best example of the intentionally worst prose. Enjoy!

Nerds of a Feather reviews T. Kingfisher’s latest, A Sorceress Comes to Call.

NPR reports that explorers found the wreck of the British warship Hawke, sunk during WWI by a German submarine.

Moving on to love, EW.com lists 21 famous long-awaited TV kisses (spoiler alert—they are one short!). Is your favorite on here?

The Mary Sue offers streaming information for Alien: Romulus,

The 2024 Hugos were announced Saturday night. Best Novel: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh; Best Novella: Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher; Best Short Story: “Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer.

The 2026 WorldCon will be held in LA.

Item 3 of File770’s pixel scroll relates an incident at Glasgow’s WorldCon, involving disgraced and banned former Hugo Award director Dave McCarty and a woman in a lovely hat who may or may not have been Ursula Vernon.

Nerds of a Feather reviews Road to Ruin by Hana Lee.

The Dragon Awards ballot is out.

Google lost an important antitrust lawsuit this week.

CBR takes a moment to explore the origins of some of Batman’s best-known foes.

Nerds of  Feather review The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years.

As I was seeking out their book review, I rolled past Nerds’ video review of Pentiment, and paused because I was captivated by the art. Here’s the review.

“Hurricane Hunters” isn’t the name of an action movie (although it could be) but the high-altitude aircraft NOAA uses to study tropical storms and hurricanes.

The 2024 Hugo Awards Committee has disqualified 377 votes that were determined to have been not cast by “a natural person” as the WSFS constitution calls for. See the details here or watch the video below.

Charlie Jane Anders thinks there are plenty of Doctor Who stories left on the table, and she shares 11 story seeds in her newsletter.

The Sunday Morning Transport offers us a free story. (Thanks to File 770.)

Peruvian art installation/theme park Area 21 looks pretty cool.

I know we were all worried that the Glasgow WorldCon would go off with no scandals or dust-ups, but have no fear! George R.R. Martin has a complaint.

Tananarive Due, Laura Blackwell, Elizabeth Hand and others were honored at the Shirley Jackson Awards last weekend.

In the wake of last year’s disastrous Hugo candidate selection, this year’s WSFS business meeting faces 15 proposals that deal directly with the aftermath. Some attempt to remediate the damage done to eligible authors who were excluded for no known reason. Others attempt to prevent similar events in the future.

In my first post about Lost, I  casually referred to Jacob and his unnamed twin, two characters who appear in Seasons 5 and 6, as “demigods.” After I wrote that, I had some doubts. The traditional definition of “demigods” is the offspring of a deity and a mortal. (Hmmm… so it doesn’t have to be a human, just a “mortal.” There could be demigod rabbits or demigod earthworms or… Oh! Demigod trees!)

But I digress.

There is no mention in the lore of Lost that Jacob and his brother have a divine parent.

Babel by R.F. Huang won the 2024 Xingyun Award for best work in translation. You might remember this book. It was disqualified from the Hugo awards earlier this year for no known reason.

The Bram Stoker Awards were also announced.

Romance Writers of America filed for bankruptcy on May 29. Reasons included a dwindling membership—apparently down from 10,000 members in 2019 to about 2,000 members in 2023–and equally dwindling paid registrations at conventions. The organization itself, according to a Bloomberg headline, blames “DEI,” (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) for its problems.

If you’re a WorldCon member, you know the Hugo Voting Packets are available.

Fiction magazine Small Wonders has initiated a Kickstarter to fund its second year.

ReactorMag reports that Sandman has now cast the rest of the Endless (the siblings of Dream) including Destruction.

They also review the latest Doctor Who episode.

Here’s a fun article about Season 2 of House of the Dragon.

Atlas Obscura shares an interesting article about the Maya and their use of mirrors.