Meteor shower

Perseid Meteor Shower. Image from Illinois Science.

Cons:

WorldCon 77 starts Thursday in Dublin, and many of our favorite writers and artists are already there. Two Guests of Honor put together a Dublin eating and drinking guide. (Thanks to File770.)

GenCon was held earlier this month in Indianapolis, Indiana. It’s billed as “more games than you could ever play in your lifetime.” I’m not a game person, but the Parks game grabbed my attention!

Arisia faces another setback, with an arbitration decision going against them due to their cancellation of the Boston-based con. This leaves them owing more than they have in reserves or expect in future income.

ArmidilloCon expelled a participant after a Code of Conduct violation.

Books and Writing:

James Blaylock contemplates the meaning and purpose of the writer’s library. And I’m not envious of his under-the-stairs “study” at all. Not at all.

From SWFA’s site, useful information on how you feed your fantasy army. Or your actual army, for that matter.

Over at Nerds of a Feather, Adri Joy reviews the new Becky Chambers novella, To Be Taught if Fortunate.

McSweeney’s offers up a nice bit of political satire.

Publishers Weekly has the best sellers for last week. There aren’t many genre offerings, but Pierce Brown made it on there.

Over at The Guardian, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett discusses the rise of the witch in current modern fiction.

TV and Movies:

Universal Studios is cancelling the release of its grim, satirical thriller The Hunt, about plutocrats who abduct people and hunt them for sport, after a political outcry fanned by tweets from President Trump. The studio also cites a pair of mass shootings as another reason they have pulled the film.

Entertainment Weekly has an article on Dora and the Lost City of Gold, adapted from the beloved children’s series Dora the Explorer.

This item could fit with Writing and Books as well as here, but the film’s coming out soon so I chose here. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is produced by Guillermo del Toro; the film has a frame, and within the frame it incorporates many of the horror tales from the series of books by Alvin Schwartz.

AMC’s The Terror has morphed into an anthology show in the mold of American Horror Story. The second season is set during a shameful period of American history; the internment of American citizens of Japanese heritage, and legal Japanese residents, during World War II. AV Club, who was able to preview the show, liked it.

Science and Tech – actually, Some Business News:

Uber, after losing $5.2 billion (yes, billion with a B) in the most recent quarter, has instituted a hiring freeze in its engineering department. This article talks about how Uber makes (and loses) money, particularly in its ride-hailing arm.

Internet:

Superman joins Wonder Woman on Twitter.

Earth:

Here’s an article about the history of polar shifts as we know it. Since I just used “polar shift” as part of an explanation for some worldbuilding in a fiction piece I was interested. The good news; I had the basic mechanics right. The bad news, the shifts seem to take place over thousands of years, not overnight, darn it. By far the most interesting thing here is how they study the planet’s magnetic field.

Space:

The peak night of the Perseid meteor display was Monday, August 12, but you can still see the “shooting stars.” A waxing gibbous moon’s light will overpower the smaller particles, but get away from the city lights and treat yourself to a shower, a meteor shower, that is.

Author

  • Marion Deeds

    Marion Deeds, with us since March, 2011, is the author of the fantasy novella ALUMINUM LEAVES. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthologies BEYOND THE STARS, THE WAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, STRANGE CALIFORNIA, and in Podcastle, The Noyo River Review, Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online. She’s retired from 35 years in county government, and spends some of her free time volunteering at a second-hand bookstore in her home town.