(1) YOU’RE INVITED TO HELP WITH FANHISTORY. The Fanac Fanhistory Project reminds people they will be at LAcon V at the end of this month.

FANAC.org will be travelling to Los Angeles for Worldcon, and we plan to bring our new interactive photo ID station with us.  

In April 2026, we announced that we had revamped our photo galleries. We’ve now reached over 11,000 photos. Photos come from all over fandom, both in space and time. Unfortunately, that means that we don’t always know the names of the people from those spaces and times. We bet that some of you do.  

Mark Olson’s new photo ID software lets you tell us. If you’re coming to LAcon V, *please* come by the FANAC table (near the Fanzine Lounge), and take a look. Among others, we have photos from the collections of well-known fans such as Elinor Busby (thanks to Linda Deneroff), Bjo Trimble (thanks to Bruce Mai), and Bruce Pelz (thanks to Bruce and Elayne), along with others. Help us make these photos more useful to everybody by identifying the people you know that we don’t.

You can start before the con and take a look at the photos online too, at https://photos.fanac.org/ . Any photo with the keyword “Needs-ID” has at least one name missing. Send us a note, with the information including the photo URL to [email protected]. Or at con, come to the table, pick up your Fan History ribbon, and tell us who you know that we don’t. If you have convention or fannish photos for us to put up, bring those too.

And of course, fanzines and Conpubs and recordings: We also plan to have a scanning station at LAcon V, to scan and digitally archive more fanzines. If you’re a fanzine editor, bring your old fanzines to the fan table area at the con. If you have convention publications not already online, bring them too (fanac.org/conpubs/). We will scan them onsite and be able to give them back to you at con. Bring memorable and worthwhile fanzines by other editors as well as your own. We will reach out to them for permission before we put them online.  Bring your convention digital or audio cassette recordings too. We’ll try to digitize the cassettes before the convention is done.

We do have to unstaple the zines to scan them*. If they are perfect-bound, we cannot scan them at con.

If you can, please drop us a note (to [email protected]) telling us what you plan to bring.

(2) RETIREMENT BECKONS. Brian Keene shares his exit strategy in “Letters From the Labyrinth 482”.

Way back in 1995, when I was first writing things with an eye toward publication, I decided that all of my fictional works would take place in a shared universe, similar to the Marvel and DC Comics I’d read as a kid in the 1970s and as a teen in the 1980s. Events in one novel or short story would impact and have ramifications in other novels and stories. Sometimes, characters would crossover. Behind it all would be an uber-narrative. In time, my readership began to refer to it as ‘The Labyrinth Mythos’. I liked that a lot, so I called it that, too….

… And that’s how it has been for the last thirty years, with each new short story and novel and novella forming another puzzle piece in the overarching Labyrinth Mythos.

Now, as I approach age 59 and am eyeing retirement, that mythos is drawing to an end….

…Why end everything? Well, as I said, by the end of this year, I’ll turn 59 and Mary and I will move from Central Pennsylvania to forty acres of forested mountains in West Virginia, where we intend to retire and live out the rest of our lives together. I am downsizing, and I am also acutely aware that I am slowing down. I am proud of the relationship I’ve maintained with my readers for the last thirty years. And just in case my time as a retiree is cut short due to health or some unforeseen circumstance, I want to make sure The Labyrinth Mythos is all tied up with a neat little bow. I don’t want my legacy to be Horror fiction’s version of The Kingkiller Chronicle or A Song of Ice and Fire, nor do I want to end up in a situation where a younger writer and dear friend like Wile E. Young or Stephen Kozeniewski has to finish it for me they way Brandon Sanderson so admirably did for Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. The thought of passing away, or perhaps being rendered unable to write, before finishing this uber-saga literally wakes me up at night. I owe it to you to finish it, and finish it I will.

Retirement doesn’t mean that I’ll stop writing, though. Far from it. But it does mean that I won’t be strapped to a grindstone anymore, beholden to deadlines and signings and touring. I’ll write when I feel like it, and honestly, I can’t imagine going a day without writing. But instead of writing for seven or eight hours a day, I’ll probably write two or three. (I know that Joe R. Lansdale and Stephen King and others have done something similar in retirement, and it’s something I think has value and nobility to it)….

(3) CYBILS AWARD ENDS. The Children’s & YA Book Lovers’ Literary Awards – the CYBILS – will no longer be presented: “Time to Close the Book”.

(4) FOUNDING BEINGS. James Davis Nicoll extols “Five SF Works About Building a New Nation” at Reactor.

Nations have a natural progression from (presumably) optimistic formation to eventual collapse. Collapse has obvious dramatic potential (see here, here, and here for some examples); thus the many works set amid crumbling or recently expunged civilizations. However, the early days of new polities can be just as exciting….

One of the choices is –

Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster (1982)

By the era that is the setting of Icerigger and The Tar-Aiym Krang, Foster’s imagined Humanx Commonwealth is simply a backdrop, a vast, wealthy, powerful and efficient polity that enables peace and prosperity on a galactic scale. However, a neutral observer might wonder how it came to be. Why would the beautiful insectoid Thranx even consider partnering with hideous soft-skinned humans?

First contact between people and humans goes poorly. Humans are even uglier than the lizardoid Aann and no doubt even more violent. Clearly the Thranx must protect themselves from the humans, who are doubtless egg-eaters. Eccentric Ryo disagrees; perhaps there is some good in these space-horrors. Easy enough to prove… provided Ryo doesn’t mind committing a legendary crime spree.

Every SF author gets their one impossible assumption. In Foster’s case, it is that something lacking an exoskeleton might not be the monster that they appear to be.

(5) TEN BEST. Collider says these are the “10 Most Perfect Sci-Fi Shows of the Last 30 Years”.

…Over the past three decades, sci-fi has continued to reinvent itself, from the craftsmanship of building practical sets when CGI was still in its infancy to imagining alternate versions of Earth where technology has gained the upper hand over society. From a hive mind that sparks an existential crisis to an animated series written by Harvard graduates, here are the most perfect sci-fi shows of the last 30 years, ranked….

At the top of the list is –

‘Severance’ (2022–Present)

Everyone wants the perfect work-life balance, and Severance shows it is possible—at a very intrusive cost. The corporate cult sci-fi series takes the mundaneness of bleak cubicles and fluorescent-lit ceilings and gives it an unnerving twist. To improve office efficiency, Lumon Industries creates the severance chip, a surgical brain implant designed to divide a person’s consciousness.

The device creates two personalities: the “innie,” who exists only in the workplace with no recollection of the outside world, and the “outie,” who gets to live a normal life. In theory, it sounds like the perfect solution. In practice, Severance exposes the inhumane lengths corporations are willing to go to in the name of productivity—a premise that doesn’t feel entirely fictional.

(6) SOUNDS FINE TO ME. “Book hidden in fireplace returned to Australian library 150 years overdue” reports BBC. (Subscription required by readers outside the UK.)

A book borrowed 150 years ago has finally been returned to an Australian library, with the culprit linked to the Houses of Parliament in London.

Antiquities of Athens was borrowed from a local library in Kiama, a seaside town about 120km (75 miles) south of Sydney, some time in the mid-1870s.

The book on classic Greek architecture was stored in a tea chest hidden behind a boarded-up fireplace for decades before it was recently discovered by a family member.

Ross Simmons, 77, thinks his great-grandfather, John Simmons, might have borrowed the book to help with his career, having worked as an apprentice stonemason in Westminster in the mid-1800s before becoming an architect in Australia….

… Kiama Library staff worked out that the fine would be £97 – or in today’s currency AU$28,000 ($20,000; £15,000), allowing for inflation. But luckily for the Simmons family, the fine has been waived….

(7) DAVE NEE (1953-2026). [Item by Tom Whitmore.] Dave Nee, co-founder of The Other Change of Hobbit and long-term chair of the Safety Committee for SF Pride, died of an apparent heart attack while out shopping on August 6, 2026. He was 73.

Dave was active in the science fiction and Gay Pride communities throughout his life. He was an expert on all types of music, a collector and dealer in several fandoms, and regularly took on major leadership roles. He is survived by his husband D. Scott Marley. There will not be a funeral, but there will be various memorial celebrations at times to be announced. Watch for more information.

Nee published the newzine Sanders from 1971-1972. He was the final winner of the Sampo Award, given annually from 1970-1980 for “previously unrecognized services to fandom”.

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Also, here’s a link to David Bratman’s tribute “Dave Nee, 1953-2026” at Kalimac’s Corner.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

August 9, 1927 — Daniel Keyes. (Died 2014.)

By Paul Weimer: Yes, I am here for one book, but what a book! Flowers for Algernon is one of the most potent and melancholy books in science fiction, but I think that the short story is even stronger in some ways. Both tell the same story, of a man with intellectual disability who is given the brief ability to have human and then superhuman intelligence, but only for a short time. The story shows us his gradual increase in intelligence, erudition and perception. It shows us the keystone, when he reads a book and finds out there is no more to the story, and asks WHY?  

That why is a hinge of the entire story. It shows his breakthrough into the world of thought and cognition. It shows he has transcended (although it will be brief) his disabled origins and can now do more, read more, and be more. But, again, it is at a heavy cost and a tragic end that even if you never heard of the story before, you can guess.  The novel is a masterpiece in showing Charlie’s rise and fall, using the epistolary format to best effect I’ve ever seen (Best Epistolary SF novel ever? Maybe!) 

But the wonder of the story is the path up and then down again, and the emotional bond that the novel makes with the reader to follow Charlie’s story. It’s a novel that makes us feel deeply for the plight of the main character, to cheer for the brief success of the operation, and then the tragedy of its brief effectiveness. When Charlie starts slipping, it’s subtle. And then it becomes a landslide and my heart breaks just thinking of those passages. 

I think the novel was robbed of a Hugo by The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Sorry, Bob. Flowers for Algernon is a more powerful, potent and a better book. Period.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• Frazz appreciates the night sky.
• Junk Drawer presents an inspiring scene.
• Liō lives a quote.
• Non Sequitur denies the power of AI.
• Speed Bump questions avian superiority.
• Wumo bumps into the next advance.

(10) IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND THERE LIVED… “Switzerland has more nuclear bunkers than any other country” reports NPR.

From the outside, the Sonnenberg nuclear bunker looks innocent enough: its entrance is in the middle of a children’s playground. But past the seesaws and swing sets, carved into a hill, is a thick blast-proof door that, when opened, exposes a narrow, well-lit tunnel that gently descends as far as the eye can see.

Sonnenberg Bunker guide Zora Schelbert walks slowly down the tunnel toward the main structure of the bunker, built in the 1970s, during the Cold War, to house 20,000 people in the event of a nuclear war.

“Back then, 20,000 people constituted a third of our city’s inhabitants,” says Schelbert. “So every third person in the city of Lucerne was once supposed to be sheltered in this bunker.”

If a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were to happen, Swiss officials reasoned at the time, Switzerland — an historically neutral nation — would likely not suffer a direct hit. But it would be in the path of nuclear fallout from its non-neutral neighbors. So they supplied diesel-powered generators that had enough fuel to power this bunker for two weeks….

…Instead of scrapping its nationwide network of bomb shelters after the Cold War ended, Switzerland doubled down and kept building them, guaranteeing every one of its 9 million citizens a bomb shelter space, just in case. The country has more than 370,000 nuclear bomb shelters….

(11) IMAGINATIVE FOSSILS. [Item by Lew Wolkoff.] This morning, PBS’ Sunday Edition did a feature on the Pokémon Fossil Exhibit that just opened at the Fields Museum in Chicago after a successful run at a museum in Japan. The Fields Museum aselected because of its large collection of actual dinosaur fossils.

The exhibit is in the form of a paleontology dig, with fossilized Pokémon next to similarly shaped, real fossils. The exhibit may have been inspired by an early episode of the Pokémon TV series, where the characters encountered fossil Pokémon.

Besides a number of Pokémon collectables in the museum gift shop, the exhibit features information about bird watching, insect collecting, and other naturalist hobbies. The creator of Pokémon, himself, an amateur collector of insects, and the goal is to encourage attendees at the exhibit to try such hobbies for themselves.

The exhibit will be at the Fields Museum until next April when it will move to another, currently undisclosed North American museum. “Pokémon Fossil Museum – Field Museum”.

(12) DYSON SPHERE SEARCH DETECTS FALSE POSITIVES. “JWST Just Examined Two Stars Suspected of Harboring Dyson Spheres. Here’s What It Found” reports ScienceAlert.

Somewhere in the Universe, an alien culture may have developed the technology to build giant megastructures around stars, harnessing their energy on an unimaginable scale.

First proposed in 1960 by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, the Dyson sphere has become one of the most enduring symbols of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

This is because such structures should change starlight in ways we can detect from Earth – telltale technosignatures that could finally reveal an advanced alien civilization.

Now, astronomers have used the JWST‘s golden infrared eye to put two of the strongest Dyson sphere candidates to the test.

“Waste heat. That is the whole game,” astrophysicist Olivia Curtis of Pennsylvania State University, co-author of a preprint describing the analysis, told ScienceAlert….

…That glow would be unavoidable. Just as a laptop or lightbulb gives off waste heat, so too would any machine that harvests a star’s energy. The larger the hypothetical megastructure, the brighter that excess infrared radiation should become.

That excess is exactly what Project Hephaistos, led by astrophysicist Erik Zackrisson of Uppsala University in Sweden, set out to find. Even false positives could teach us how to better search for alien tech – by revealing the many ways the Universe can mimic it.

The search sifted through roughly five million Milky Way stars looking for exactly this kind of infrared excess – more mid-infrared light than an ordinary star should produce.

Seven stars survived the team’s increasingly stringent tests, with the two studied here emerging as the search’s most compelling candidates.

JWST quickly exposed the two candidates as Dyson sphere impostors – and the explanation was brilliantly simple. The light from both stars was being boosted by a distant galaxy almost perfectly lined up behind them.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Tom Whitmore, Bill, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day JeffWarner.]