The next session of the Business Meeting will be held in-person at LAcon V on August 30 at 10 a.m. Pacific.
Third Main Business Meeting, held August 9, 2026
Average attendance at the meeting, based on users logged into the virtual platform, was about 145.
The entirety of the meeting was held in executive session to receive the report from the Trial Committee related to the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards and take action on the recommendations within the report.
The meeting adopted several resolutions censuring individuals and requesting that future Worldcons ban certain individuals from membership or volunteering. The text of the adopted resolutions will be made available after the conclusion of the 2026 Business Meeting (which will happen when the final meeting on August 30 adjourns).
At the end of the meeting, the body also adopted a resolution requesting that the MPC look into ways to ensure the rights of WSFS members to view the minutes of the executive session once they have been prepared.
The next and final session will be the in-person Site Selection Business Meeting on Sunday, August 30 at 10:00am PDT. The Site Selection Business Meeting will receive the results of the 2028 Site Selection, hear a presentation from the winner of Site Selection, and have a time for Q&A for future seated Worldcons.
(1) WSFS TRIAL COMMITTEE REPORT NOW AVAILABLE. [Item by Kat Kourbeti.] The report of the Trial Committee is now available to read on the Lumi Platform for current WSFS/Worldcon members.
The full report is comprised of one main report document and one for appendices, which includes a transcript of an interview with Dave McCarty. Neither document will be available to download as they are only meant to be accessed by current WSFS members, but they will be viewable on the Lumi platform which people can log into through the LACon Portal.
The next virtual session of the Business Meeting will take place on Sunday 9th August at 9am PDT, and the report (as well as the Trial Committee’s resolutions) will be discussed in executive session, meaning none of the proceedings will be recorded or broadcast on LACon’s YouTube channel. The minutes (as well as the report itself) will only be available to WSFS members by request via the MPC after the Business Meeting is adjourned.
(2) HWA REMOVES TRUSTEE. The Horror Writers Association today removed Sèphera Girón as Trustee from its Board of Trustees. The action followed publication of Girón‘s comments about AI and its opponents in her “In the Trenches” column in the August 2026 installment of the HWA Member Newsletter. See HWA’s statement, quotes from Girón‘s comments, and excerpts from the social media response at the link: “Horror Writers Association Removes Sèphera Girón as Trustee”.
(4) NPR FEATURE ON “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS”.[Item by John A Arkansawyer.] Just this afternoon. It’s not bad, and it’s got Bradbury talking in it, briefly: “Today is the day after Ray Bradbury’s post-apocalyptic world” – hear the NPR audio broadcast clip at the link.
(5) CHERRYH UPDATE. C. J. Cherryh posted some encouraging words about the Washington state wildfire on Facebook.
The air is clearing, finally. Smoke has given both Jane and me a nagging cough—not often, unless we’re trying to eat. I have an ionizer running. But you can see less haze on distant prospects.
We’re just staying tucked down to relieve the pressure on streets and facilities: WE have a kitchen and ample food in storage, where some don’t have that luxury and won’t for a while. The manager of our favorite pub lost his whole house.
Had my regular checkup with the doc—all good news. I’m doing fine, bloodwork and all. I’ve dieted off weight: she approves.
We’re still cleaning up from the sort we did when we hauled out emergency stuff—reorganization is in order.
Outside is still not pleasant, but getting there. The heavy smoke has blocked sunlight, so at least we do get cooler temperatures —at least that has been a relief. Otherwise we’d be in the mid-90’s.
DEADLINE: In a very cheerful, upbeat reflection of whatever you want them to be. What were your thoughts when that landed for you, how incredibly relevant that was, whether by accident or not, and how did you and Vince [Gilligan] talk about it?
SEEHORN: I knew that Vince doesn’t write in themes. He’s not trying to speak to a specific theme. I also knew that he’s been mulling over some of these questions about humanity, society, all of the plethora of questions that the show brings up for 10- plus years.
So, believe it or not, I was surprised when we started doing the press junkets and people were bringing up, “Oh, this is a commentary on AI, right?” And I get it now and I know I look like an idiot, but I get so focused on playing the character in the story that she’s in, that I try very hard not to think about how I want it to be interpreted or what is this theme that this is speaking to. I didn’t think about the pandemic. Of course, that got brought up. Of course, there’s a comparison to be made there with isolation. And I’m a very extrovert-introvert, 50-50 person, and so I very much need my alone time, but the pandemic tested that, so be careful what you wish for, right? And I think Carol’s going through that.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
August 5, 1966 — James Gunn, 60.
Director James Gunn, who you surely know if only for the Guardians of the Galaxy films, has a very interesting career which we’ll look at tonight.
His first film, decidedly not genre, was Tromeo and Julietwhich I’m sure you can figure what its source material was. It definitely would’ve made Shakespeare pale it as quite extreme levels of sex and violence characteristic of almost every Troma film, not to overlook Gunn revised the ending. Anyone here seen it? It has a rather decent 61% rating among audience reviewers over at Rotten Tomatoes.
James Gunn, director.
Far sillier and not at all likely to offend lovers of classic literature, he scripted next Scooby –Doo and slightly later Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Really he did. Rotten Tomatoes gives them, well, let’s just say stink, stank, stunk ratings, but sandwiched in between these, and definitely not silly, he penned Dawn of the Dead. Versatile writer, eh?
His first directing gig (which he scripted as well) was Slither in which the plot such as it is has a meteorite bringing an intelligent alien parasite to Earth. Naturally I looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes — it has a strong sixty percent rating among critics and audience reviewers with Allison Shoemaker of Fox 10 Phoenix saying, “Slither is a visceral experience from the first, but as the creature grows, so does the film’s daring.”
So what next? His final work before the film you him know for was Super, described as a black comedy superhero film, again was written and directed by him. A short order cook becomes a superhero without actually any superpowers. Huh. Let me repeat. Huh. It gets a decent 50% at the usual place.
Ok now Disney hires him to write (the first with Nicole Perlman who picked this film because her loved of science fiction, the next two by himself) and direct the Guardians of the Galaxy films. He entered negotiations just two years prior to the film premiering with the possible directors including future MCU directors Peyton Reed and the duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.
Need I say all three films were extraordinarily successful films? At Rotten Tomatoes right now, they carry audiences review ratings of 92%, 87% and 82%. Yes, they did fall off slightly with each film, but an average of 87% is damn good.
Two years ago, Warner Bros. Discovery hired Gunn and Peter Safran to become co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios. That means they’re overseeing yet another reboot of the DC Expanded Universe. (I’ve lost track of how often this has occurred.) This starts with Superman out next year which, no surprise, he’s writing and directing.
Oh, remember that Warner Bros. Coyote v. Acme film still being a Schrödinger’s Roadrunner? (Try to catch that one!) He along with Jeremy Slater and Samy Burch wrote the story for it. Not the script as Burch did that.
What else should I mention? Well, he was one of the Executive Producers on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame; he’s the motion capture for Baby Groot in the first two of the Guardians films; and finally he was Doctor Flem Hocking in The Toxic Avenger IV. Yes, Troma Films produced The Toxic Avenger films.
So why am bringing this film to your attention? Because it is where we connect Gunn to Marvel. The narrator of this film was none other than Stan Lee himself so we can assume that two of them met and spent some time together while filming this, a reasonable assumption indeed.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
xkcd features a star collector on the Antiques Roadshow.
The sale of gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) for $55bn (£41bn) to a group of buyers including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has been finalised.
The American company is known for making and publishing best-selling games such as EA FC, formerly known as Fifa, The Sims and Mass Effect.
The investors, who include Affinity Partners – led by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner – are taking EA private, meaning all of its public shares will be purchased and it will no longer be traded on a stock exchange.
It is thought to be the largest leveraged buyout in history, meaning a significant part of it is paid for with borrowed money, which the company will have to pay back.
This is because as well as the $36bn it has already put into the deal, PIF needs to borrow $20bn from investment bankers JPMorgan to close it, with the business taking on the debt.
How paying back this debt will affect EA as a business has been the source of much speculation from journalists and analysts.
… While the Saudi Arabian government has spent years denying such claims, Osborn said the EA deal could present another way of allowing it to project its influence.
“If the PIF’s football strategy limited them to ownership of Newcastle United and some Saudi Pro League teams, owning EA hands them a relationship with the 20,000 players, 750 clubs and 35 leagues at the top of the professional game,” he said.
“What is clear is that a state seeking to shape perceptions now owns an asset with proven reach to billions of people.
“How it uses it in the years to come is something we should watch closely.”
PIF is controlled by Saudi Arabia’s prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose government has been accused of human rights violations….
More than 150 public figures have signed a letter calling for the government to reverse a “foolish” decision and “find funding immediately to save Jodrell Bank”.
Signatories of the letter include astronaut Tim Peake, musicians Sir Brian May and Jarvis Cocker, Scotland’s Astronomer Royal Prof Catherine Heymans, physicists Prof Jim Al-Khalili and Prof Brian Cox, and Judy Spence, the daughter of the site’s founder Sir Bernard Lovell.
The UK Research and Innovation agency (UKRI) has said it had to focus on projects that delivered “the greatest long-term impact”.
All scientific observations at Jodrell are expected to cease on the 1 April 2028 unless alternative funding can be found.
Twenty-eight jobs are at risk at the observatory, but its closure would also affect the work of nearly 3,000 scientists who use it in their research.
When the plan to cut funding was announced, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the UK’s world class research was “absolutely central to creating a better future for the UK”.
“I am committed to working with UKRI to ensure the UK remains able not only to sustain its world-leading research capabilities, but also to invest in the next generation of scientific facilities and infrastructure that will underpin discovery, innovation and growth in the years ahead,” he said.
The letter was signed by a number of figures who have presented TV shows at the observatory, such as Prof Jim Al-Khalili
The open letter was signed by a number of figures who have played concerts or broadcast from the observatory, including guitarist Johnny Marr, electronica pioneer Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk, the bands New Order, Elbow and Doves, comedian Dara Ó Briain and poet laureate Simon Armitage.
It stated Jodrell Bank was “an icon in UK cultural and scientific history”, which was the “thriving, thumping heart of space observation, research and education in the UK”.
“This beacon of science is more ambitious than ever, with exciting plans already under way that will ensure the UK’s relevance and leadership in the rapidly evolving domain of space exploration and utilisation,” it said….
[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Kat Kourbeti, John A Arkansawyer, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]
The next session of the Business Meeting is August 9 at 9 a.m. Pacific.
Second Main Business Meeting, held August 1, 2026
Average attendance at the meeting, based on users logged into the virtual platform, was about 115.
The results of the Mark Protection Committee election were announced: Alana Vincent, Andrew January, and Warren Buff.
The appointments to the Bidding Trust & Safety Committee were announced: Alana Vincent (chair), Anna Bradley, Brandon O’Brien, Chris Rose, Kathy Bond, Mara Michaud, Olav Rokne, and Steve Cooper.
The following items were addressed during this session:
Business Passed On (if passed, these items are added to the Constitution at the end of LAcon V)
E.14 Unnecessary PII – passed
E.15 End the False Binary – passed as amended with a lesser change, a neutral rewording that provides clarity without change to the meaning
New Constitutional Changes
F.1 Ethics Ombuds Office – passed as amended, changing the makeup of the ombuds office to be “at least” three members, only one of whom may be a member of the MPC who may not chair the ombuds office, and also adding the leadership of the immediately prior Worldcon to those who are disqualified from serving as an ombuds
F.2 There’s No Business Like Virtual Business – passed
F.3 Conversion Rights – failed
F.4 Fixed Bid Deadlines – failed
F.5 Advance Notice of Business Meeting Deadlines – failed
F.6 Responsive Late Business – referred to committee to report to the 2027 Business Meeting
F.7 Limitation on Listed Contributors for Hugo Award Finalists – previously withdrawn at the request of the proposer
F.8 Purposeful Proportionality – passed as amended, with an amendment from the committee it was referred to last week adding language clarifying that the changes made by F.8 do not apply to elections that have their own process specified elsewhere in the Constitution
F.9 The Tie That Doesn’t Bind – passed
Resolution
D.10 Eligibility Extension for The Event by Henry Bean – this was a late addition to the agenda, passed
Anyone wishing to serve on the F.6 Responsive Late Business committee should email [email protected] and indicate if they are willing to serve as chair of that committee.
The next session will take up the report from the Trial Committee related to the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards. The proceedings of that meeting will be held in executive session. The report from the Trial Committee will be published on the Lumi platform by Wednesday, August 5th.
The next session of the Business Meeting is August 1 at 9 a.m. Pacific.
First Main Business Meeting, held July 26, 2026
Average attendance at the meeting, based on users logged into the virtual platform, was about 130.
The Business Meeting Study group was reconstituted with Farah Mendlesohn and Kat Kourbeti as co-chairs. The membership of the committee formed by D.5 Bidding Trust & Safety will be announced at the August 1st meeting.
The following items were addressed during this session:
E.1 Clarifying Active Bids – passed as amended, adding “and that have not subsequently withdrawn” after “filed before the ballot deadline.” The body decided this was a lesser change and does not require re-ratification at the 2027 Business Meeting.
E.2 Clarifying Hugo Award Administrator’s Discretion – passed
E.3 Clarifying Best Graphic Story or Comic – passed
E.4 Clarifying Best Series – passed
E.5 Clarifying the Best Dramatic Presentation Categories – passed
E.6 Clarifying Nominee Diversity – passed
E.7 Clarifying WSFS Membership Rights (A) – passed
E.8 Clarifying WSFS Membership Rights (B) – passed
E.9 Hugo Award Software Source – passed
E.10 Site Selection Concordance – passed as amended, adding “and that have not subsequently withdrawn” after “filed before the ballot deadline.” This was ruled a lesser change and does not require re-ratification at the 2027 Business Meeting.
E.11 Mandated Hugo Admin Reports – passed
E.12 Speculative Poetry Hugo Award – passed
E.13 Retire NASFiC – passed
F.8 Purposeful Proportionality – referred to committee to report back to the August 1st meeting to address concerns that the language could be understood to apply to Hugo Award voting or nominating
All E.x items are ratifications of constitutional changes originally passed at the 2025
Business Meeting and will be added to the Constitution at the close of LAcon V.
Voting in the Mark Protection Committee election is being held through the LAcon V Member Portal and can be accessed from the Business Meeting card in the portal. The election will be open through noon Pacific time on Tuesday, July 28th. The results of the election will be announced at the August 1st meeting.
The August 1st Business Meeting is expected to handle E.14 and E.15, the report from the F.8 committee, and the rest of the F items.
(2) INSIDE BALLARD. At the LA Review of Books. Steven Shaviro takes up The Illuminated Man: Life, Death and the Worlds of J. G. Ballard by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan in “The Estranged Worlds of J. G. Ballard”.
… Ballard’s early novels featured world-shaking apocalyptic scenarios, but his later work was concerned with smaller—more mundane and intimate—disasters.
One common definition of science fiction describes it as the literature of cognitive estrangement—that is to say, it presents us with a reality that deviates in some crucial way from the actual, everyday world we live in, and thereby forces us to abandon our usual assumptions and expectations. Ballard’s mature fiction is indeed estranging or alienating in precisely this way; however, it is set entirely within the present-day world of advanced postindustrial society as we know it. Ballard does not present us with aliens and cosmic mysteries; instead, he writes about the minutiae of middle-class Western society: the world of automobiles, refrigerators, airplanes, and television. But he approaches these familiar elements of our lives and environment as if he were describing an alien planet. Crash (1973), his most famous and controversial novel, treats automobile accidents as pornographic spectacles. That book’s follow-up, Concrete Island (1974), rewrites Robinson Crusoe as the story of a man stranded, not on a distant island, but on a waste area wedged between several motorways. Ballard’s final novel, Kingdom Come (2006), discovers fascism at the heart of a vast postmodern shopping mall and seems to offer a premonitory vision of the state of the United Kingdom today, 20 years later, when the neofascist agitator Nigel Farage has a real shot at becoming prime minister after the next round of elections….
…The Illuminated Man is informative about the details of Ballard’s life, while at the same time striving to capture—to evoke if not explain—the strangeness of his fiction. It often gives us information about which the writer himself was not forthcoming. Ballard drew extensively upon his own memories and desires as sources for his work, but he tended to mythologize his life, and he often smoothed over or omitted certain crucial events in his past. Indeed, Ballard disputed “the received wisdom of the day that all disturbing or violent experience is inherently damaging,” claiming that he was “not sure that [he] ever suffered irreparable trauma”—not even, he said, from the death of his wife. As for his internment during the war, Ballard even “sometimes said it was the best time of his life.”
Priest and Allan do not directly dispute Ballard’s claim not to have been traumatized by the worst events of his life. Instead, they devote much of their book to tracing the strange alchemy by which Ballard was able to transmute both his personal experience and the often dreadful historical events of the mid- and late-20th century into fantastic fiction…
Let’s hope the writers and producers of HBO Max’s upcoming Big Bang Theory spinoff Stuart Fails To Save the Universe are not paid by the minute for what they have made.
Not shackled by broadcast schedules where half-hour comedies need to be exactly 22 minutes to fit into a 30-min slot with time for ads, episodes of streaming comedies typically run between 25 min – 35 min.
Not Stuart Fails To Save the Universe. Despite the fact that they do not have time constraints, the show’s creators, Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady and Zak Penn, went in the other direction with episodes that are very short, even by broadcast standards.
Of the 10 episodes of Season 1, one is 15-minutes long, four are 18 min with the other five at 20 min, 21 min, 22 min, 24 min and 25 min. Why was that? With the elaborate sets and special effects involved to create the different alternate realities in each episode, did the producers run out of money in the budget?
“No, no. We just felt that we’d successfully told the story, and to add would be padding, and padding, generally, is a hammock between important scenes, and why would we do that if there’s no real reason,” Lorre said.
He and Prady have spent most of their careers working in broadcast comedy, creating episodes to fit the 22-min template with breaks for commercials.
“The historic length of a show is entirely arbitrary, it comes from network television where a certain amount of advertising has to be sold to pay the way of making this television, but it’s not an element any longer in streaming,” Lorre said. “So, why not just make the best show we can and hope the audience is entertained and is not looking at their watch, going, ‘Oh, I need five more minutes. You need to go further with this.’ I don’t think that would happen, that’d be my guess. I would think you either loved the episode or you didn’t, and you weren’t looking at your watch.”…
…Somehow, whether through brilliance or opportunism or both, Cameron managed to make an urtext of sorts out of a sequel to someone else’s movie. Ripley protects a child, like the T-800 would go on to do in Terminator 2. The grunts speak in a colorfully cornball-pulp style just like the soldiers in the Avatar movies. The deaths and disasters that befall many of the characters are awesome in the truest sense of the word, just as they are in Titanic. Bill Paxton is there, as he is in most Cameron movies made during his too-brief lifetime. And just like Terminator 2 and Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron manages to make a sequel that is bigger and brawnier than the original….
(5) CAMPBELL R.I.P. At Galactic Journey, John Boston, Brian Collins and Cora Buhlert remember John W. Campbell who just died in Journey time (55 yars ago): “[July 18, 1971] The Tragedy of John W. Campbell (1910-1971)”. Cora Buhlert says, “I think we try to be fair to Campbell and both mention how very important he was to the genre, but also that he held some highly problematic views, even for the time.”
John Boston’s segment begins:
Campbell’s place in the history of SF is both fundamental and paradoxical. He made a revolution, sat down in it and became an establishment, and stayed there until he became a reactionary and was almost completely left behind….
(6) SHELFIES. Shelfies, edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin, “Takes a unique peek each week into one of our contributors’ weird and wonderful bookshelves.” A recent entry was Shelfies #97: Donna Scott.
The movie opens in theaters on July 17, so we’re taking a look at a selection of art from Getty’s collection that depicts some of the characters from The Odyssey—an art historical casting call, if you will. Shown side by side with Nolan’s star-studded cast, this corresponding group of artworks travels across time, mediums, and cultures….
Here’s an example from their gallery.
Odysseus
Matt Damon plays Odysseus in Nolan’s adaptation and is shown as a weathered, middle-aged man with unwavering determination. A number of objects in Getty’s collection depict Odysseus overcoming the various challenges on his journey home. For example, in the relief of a Roman drinking cup (above right), we see Odysseus brandishing his sword. Cast in silver, these types of vessels often featured recognizable narrative scenes and were used during refined dinners, where they inspired discussion among guests. This cup shows the moment when Odysseus travels to the Underworld to learn how to return home to Ithaca. By sacrificing a ram and ewe, he summons spirits of the dead and consults with the ghost of the blind seer Teiresias, the figure seated under the rocky outcropping, looking up to the left. During this visit to the Underworld, Homer stages a revelatory encounter between Odysseus and the ghost of Achilles, poignantly conveying the latter’s sorrow at having been slain, and marking a revision in what it means to be a hero.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
July 18, 1967 — Paul Cornell, 59.
By Paul Weimer: I came to Cornell differently. Not thanks to all of his excellent and groundbreaking work with Doctor Who (his DW novels were and are groundbreaking, and elements of those novels have made their way into multiple episodes of the rebooted show.) Nor was it for all of his work in television, from Coronation Street to Robin Hood, and much more. I didn’t even come to Cornell thanks to his extensive work in comics, from Captain Britain to Wolverine to Demon Knight. I was not aware of any of that vast oeuvre…at first
I came to Cornell’s work first thanks to the SF Squeecast. SF Squeecast was one of the high-water marks of professionals being fans and doing fannish things that was a major source of controversy back in the early 2010’s. I remember the discussions at Loncon in 2014, whether such productions such as Squeecast should really be “eligible” for fan awards, since they were “Stacked with pros”. But I knew, and personally knew, some of the people on the SF Squeecast, so I began listening to it, and discovering the work of people I didn’t know.
Just like Paul Cornell.
So I got in on the ground floor when Cornell announced his Shadow Police novel, London Falling, and I gave it a try (and even managed to get an ARC). I enjoyed it highly. It was part of a trend of Magical London novels out at that time — Ben Aaronovich, and others explored this as well. I highly enjoyed London Falling, and its two sequels, and so my reading of Cornell began in earnest. I started reading his Doctor Who work (The Discontinuity Guide in particular, was a revelation) and have continued to read him ever since.
Cornell’s wide oeuvre and styles continue to amaze. I also particularly like his switch from urban London to the more pastoral rural fantasy of the Witches of Lychford novellas. And again here, like the London novels, he has counterparts in work such as that of Juliet McKenna. I like to think of Cornell’s work as an amplifier and booster of themes and subgenres and ideas, adding his voices to a chorus and making his work, and the subgenre he works in, stronger and better.
Oh, and one last bit. For a number of years, Cornell came to Convergence, a local big con here in Minneapolis. Every year, Cornell had a special panel, where he would go out to a parking lot and teach us poor Americans how cricket works. These demonstrations were fun, entertaining, and I always came away feeling that I better understood the game. His absolute fun and joy in showing us the game is the takeaway and mental image I have of Paul.
It’s been roughly four years since Batgirl’s cancellation, and the unreleased movie continues to cause problems for DC.
In August 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery made the controversial decision to cancel Batgirl, a DC movie starring Leslie Grace as the titular hero. Filming had already been completed, and the original plan was to release the movie on HBO Max. However, CEO David Zaslav opted to write off Batgirl for tax purposes rather than inject more money into the movie during post-production. Batgirl’s estimated budget was $90 million, and the tax break came to around $20 million.
On one hand, DC believed Batgirl could not be fixed. DC co-CEO Peter Safran saw Batgirl and described it as “not releasable,” saying the film would “hurt DC.” It’s a fair take to say that releasing a bad movie would have hurt the DC brand, especially at the beginning of Safran and James Gunn’s creative reset.
However, it’s hard to tell if a movie is bad if mass audiences never saw it. Plus, one could even argue that Supergirl just hurt DC more, but that’s a different topic for another day….
… All Batgirl has become is a headache for DC. It’s the story that won’t go away. It’s been nearly four years since the cancellation, and it’s still being talked about. During a recent interview released this month, J.K. Simmons, who played Commissioner James Gordon in Batgirl, described the entire situation as “bizarre.”
“Apparently, one test audience saw it, and you know, it wasn’t like it was a bad score from the test audience. It was a whatever business decision, obviously,” Simmons said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.…
Dark Horse is launching a new series of deluxe reprint editions with Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X, an oversized hardcover featuring the origin of X-Men favourite Wolverine.
The 192pp volume will showcase material first published in the Marvel Comics anthology series Marvel Presents, plus two issues of The Uncanny X-Men; Windsor-Smith’s artwork will be rendered in black and white rather than the original colour.
Although the publisher’s press release quotes a January 2027 release date, two British booksellers have it listed for late November 2026.
Just before their election day, six Los Angeles city council candidates stood on stage at Hollywood’s Fonda Theatre. But they weren’t there for a debate or a black-tie gala. They were there to play Dungeons and Dragons.
Comedian Brennan Lee Mulligan guided the politicians through a short D&D campaign to defeat corporate villains and an evil dragon. Hundreds of enthusiastic fans in the crowd pledged additional donations up to $150 each to give the candidates what is called an “auto crit” for maximum damage to the dragon.
If this sounds like a bizarre merging of politics and play, organizers say it is not. “Most people want to be tapped and told how to help,” said Mulligan, a longtime DSA member and the dungeon master of D&D-themed hit YouTube series Critical Role and Dropout’s Dimension 20. “Then, lo and behold, there’s this new way to participate, bringing the platform I have to bear.”
The DSA-LA show raised $30,000 for the city’s primary election in June; five of the candidates onstage that night either won re-election or advanced to the general in November. The event is just one in a wider resistance movement by players of D&D and other tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs) against the current political climate – ICEraids, attacks on transgender rights and the rise of artificial intelligence. Over the past few years, groups across the country have been playing TTRPGs online and in person to raise money to develop games that express their frustration with the federal government and instruct people on how to help those most impacted by its policies….
Long-term space travel is bad for your health. Very bad. Being in space exposes humans to dangerously high levels of radiation; extended exposure to microgravity can damage a range of organ systems, including muscles, bones and eyes. Living for months or years in tight quarters can have severe psychological effects.
The key to solving these problems could be a 250m-year-old physiological strategy that allows mammals, birds, fish and other animals to survive extreme scarcity by essentially going offline: hibernation. When they hibernate, animals almost completely switch off their bodily functions; they don’t eat, drink or move, and just as importantly, aren’t hungry, or thirsty and don’t seem to suffer from the cold. This remarkable ability could prove crucial in helping humans get to Mars and beyond – and could also help save lives on Earth.
It turns out that hibernation can protect against many of the hazards of extended spaceflight, including radiation exposure and bone and muscle loss. Moreover, putting travelers in a long-term unconscious state could help reduce the toll of living in a confined space for months or years. Hibernation could also significantly decrease the amount of food and water needed for the trip, reducing payload and enabling astronauts to reach their destination – and return – in less time.
The problem, of course, is that humans aren’t natural hibernators. Unlike some squirrels, bears, bats and many other species, we haven’t evolved to radically decrease our metabolism when resources are scarce. To overcome this, a growing group of scientists around the world are working to develop techniques that can safely induce hibernation in humans.
These researchers, some of whom are being funded by the European Space Agency (Esa) and Nasa, are unraveling how hibernators switch themselves off – and then switch themselves on again – with no ill effects from months without food, water and exercise….
[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Paul Weimer, Steve Green, Cora Buhlert, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]
Average attendance at the meeting, based on users logged into the virtual platform, was about 120.
All standing committees were reauthorized to continue as currently constituted. The Ethics and Whistleblower Committee (“Sparkle Unicorn”) did not ask to be reauthorized, considering its work complete, and was discharged. The Business Meeting Study Group was instructed to report back to the July 26th meeting with their preference for a chair for the next year; the decision on reconstituting the Business Meeting Study Group and who shall serve as chair will be taken up at that time.
Nominations were taken for seats for the Mark Protection Committee; the following folks were nominated (and have not already indicated to Business Meeting Staff that they wish to decline the nomination): Alana Vincent, Andrew January, Arturo Serrano, Brianne Reeves, Gary Blog, Jesi Lipp, Jo Van, Joni Dashoff, Judy Bemis, Kat Kourbeti, Kris “Nchanter” Snyder, Linda Ross-Mansfield, Martin Pyne, Mike Willmoth, Roseanna Pendlebury, Todd Dashoff, Warren Buff. Nominees for the Mark Protection Committee should email [email protected] by 3 hours prior to the start of the July 26th meeting to accept or decline their nomination. They may also include a candidate statement of no more than 300 words which will be published on the Business Meeting Discord. Voting for the Mark Protection Committee will happen at the July 26th meeting.
The following items were addressed during this session:
C.1 Calling the Question At Any Point – passed and put into immediate effect
C.2 Minimum Substantive Debate on Main Motions – passed and put into immediate effect
C.3 Business Meeting Dislocation – passed
D.1 Clarifying Hugo Award Authority Delegation – passed as amended, striking the paragraph regarding Section 3.5 of the Constitution
D.2 WSFS Code of Ethics – passed
D.3 Whistleblower Policy – passed
D.4 Interim Ombuds Office – passed as amended, adding a request to the Mark Protection Committee to publish the Code of Ethics and Whistleblower Policy on wsfs.org
D.5 Bidding Trust and Safety – passed
Those interested in serving on the D.5 Bidding Trust and Safety committee should email [email protected] by 24 hours prior to the start of the July 26th meeting indicating their interest in serving and whether they would be willing to chair the committee.
In addition, the meeting also made the following edits to the agenda and the timing of items:
E.14 Unnecessary PII – postponed definitely to not be taken up before August 1st
E.15 End the False Binary – postponed definitely to not be taken up before August 1st
F.7 Limitation on Listed Contributors for Hugo Award Finalists – the maker of the motion requested permission from the body to withdraw this motion, which was granted; this item is no longer on the agenda
F.8 Purposeful Proportionality – postponed definitely until no later than 11:45am Pacific on July 26th
The meeting also set debate times for Business Passed On and New Constitutional Changes.
By Tammy Coxen: This year there is a proposal to the WSFS Business Meeting to limit the number of names associated with group finalists to eight individual names and/or brief group descriptors such as “<Finalist> Team.” This proposal is the culmination of a multi-year debate about who should be recognized as a finalist in this category. As a past and current Hugo Administrator, I have been involved in many of those conversations/arguments/shouting matches.
One of the reasons this issue keeps coming up is that the WSFS Constitution provides no guidance about how finalists should be listed on either the finalist list or the ballot. To a certain extent, this makes sense: the Constitution intentionally stays out of issues about how a committee runs its particular Worldcon. But when it comes to the Hugo Awards, the result is a huge amount of year-to-year variability in both what the ballot looks like and how the individual finalists experience the awards process. This proposal aims to reduce that variability.
Several past Hugo Administrators have joined as cosigners. Hugo Administrators do not like to have to make judgement calls. If, for example, nominators place a prose work in the wrong category, and the word count of that work is not within 20% of the incorrect category, then the administrator can’t include it in that category. The constitution aims to be very clear and reduce the need for judgement, and we like that.
Why, people ask, is there a desire to limit names at all?
There are logistical concerns, like not wanting to spread a single ballot category across multiple pages or screens. But the bigger issue is exactly what this proposal attempts to address: consistency.
The problem with having no fixed limits is that it leads to judgement calls which extend to the rest of the convention. Being named on the Hugo ballot comes with many potential perks, all of which consume volunteer labor and some of which consume convention money. These can include: a Hugo pin & certificate (which will normally be sent in the mail to non-attenders); an invitation (often with plus one) to the Hugo Reception; a guaranteed place on the convention program; free day passes, online attendance or attending supplement upgrades; and others.
There’s also the question of how the finalists in a category will be announced at the ceremony, with more names adding time and increasing the likelihood that a name will be mispronounced. In the past, disparity in the length of finalist lists has resulted in audience laughter at the finalists’ expense when particularly long lists are presented.
Choices must be made on all of these issues, and they are made by each Worldcon. Different Worldcons will have different constraints on what they can deliver and offer to finalists, and large numbers of finalists compound those differences. This means that finalists’ experience across Worldcons can vary dramatically for what looks like (to them) no apparent reason. And because there can be almost nothing about the actual running of the Worldcon mandated in the Constitution, rules for the Hugo Awards help mediate this downstream inconsistency.
Finally, a fixed limit in the Constitution protects the Hugo Administrators. Judgment calls invariably disappoint someone, and occasionally anger them. A rule that an Administrator can point to and say “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do” supports them as a volunteer.
Without clear rules, Hugo Administrators must rely on norms. In most categories, there are well established norms about what is listed on the ballot. For example, in the prose categories we list title, author, and publisher. If an author asked “can you list my editor and cover artist?” we’d say no. For Best Dramatic Presentation, we list only writers and directors. Semiprozine used to have a norm like this; we simply listed the editor(s).
While the proposal to the business meeting is about the number of listed finalists, I think the growth in the number of finalists in Semiprozine is linked to a change in the norms about what roles the category recognizes.
To see when and how that norm changed, I went back to 2012 — the last year of the Locus era — and examined title and role creep in the ballot listings. I have summarized my findings in the list below, listing new role titles the first year they appeared. Note that once a new role was allowed into the finalist listing, that finalist tended to continue to use it in subsequent years. And then other finalists often also started to include it. These additions are additive, so the list always gets longer.
Introduction Years of New Role Titles to Semiprozine Listings
2012 (last year of the Locus era)
All entries start with “edited by” and then a small number of names, winner is Locus which includes “et al.” in its entry.
2013
“edited by” only.
2014
“edited by” only.
2015
Abyss & Apex Skies lists their only name as “editor and publisher.”
Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine lists the name of the publishing organization as well as naming individual editors.
2016
All are prefaced with “edited by” but Strange Horizons appends “and the Strange Horizons staff.”
2017
Uncanny specifies two “podcast producers” who were previously included without title in “edited by.”
Beneath Ceaseless Skies lists their only name as “editor-in-chief and publisher”
2018
Escape Pod includes a named “assistant editor” beyond “edited by.”
Fireside Magazine adds named roles of “managing editor” “special feature editor” “publisher & art director.”
2019
Uncanny adds “special issue editors-in-chief.”
Fireside adds named roles of “copyeditor” “social coordinator” “special features editor” “founding editor.”
FIYAH differentiates “executive editors” and “editors.”
Shimmer lists a separate “publisher” and “senior editor.”
2020
Uncanny adds “nonfiction/managing editor.”
Escape Pod adds “audio producers” and “hosts.”
(Context note: I was the Hugo Admin that year and we had a seven-name limit.)
2021
FIYAH adds “poetry editor” “reviews and social media” “art director” as named roles and appends “and the FIYAH Team.”
Strange Horizons lists 85 names with no titles, plus “staff members who prefer not to be named” as well as “guest editor” and “guest first reader” for the Mexicanx special issue.
Both Escape Pod and Podcastle add “and the entire <finalist> team.”
(Context note: 2021 was one of the years where an attempt to put limits in place failed spectacularly.)
2022
FIYAH adds named roles of “web editor” “acquiring editors” and “technical assistant.”
Strange Horizons once again has a very long list of names with no titles.
2023
FIYAH, khōréō and Strange Horizons all are just listed with some version of “edited by <finalist> team.”
(Context note: finalists report that there was a seven-name limit that year.)
2024
Strange Horizons sticks with “Strange Horizons Editorial Collective.”
FIYAH adds “special projects manager” and “sponsor coordinator” titles.
Giganotosaurus adds “along with the GNS Slushreaders Team” but does not name names.
khōréō lists their thirty names under “produced by,” but with no titles provided.
2025
Deadlands adds “columnist” “assistant” and “proofreader.”
2026
khōréō adds titles for the first time to its list of names. New additions include “first reader” which has 25 names.
On Spec includes “interviewers.”
Deadlands adds “necromancer” “designer” and “social media skeleton” as first time titles.
One thing that’s clear from this analysis is that what a semiprozine is has changed a lot over the same time period. Now it’s often a magazine, a website, a podcast, and more all rolled into one thing.
One suggestion that I’ve seen in response to the proposal is that, rather than limiting the number of names listed, we should go back to only recognizing “editors.” But it’s very hard for an individual admin to say “this category only recognizes editors” when it hasn’t for the last nine years.
I took a look at the 2026 ballot to see how an “editors only” policy would have impacted the ballot this year.
(Note: the role titles for each finalist are enumerated in the order the finalist provided, so it’s reasonable to assume that these probably reflect relative importance or status of the title for the finalist.)
Escape Pod
2 editors
2 assistant editors
2 hosts
2 producers
11 associate editors
(15 “editors” or “publishers” out of 19 names)
khōréō
1 publisher
1 editor-in-chief
3 editors
5 audio
2 marketing
1 art
4 copyeditors
1 proofreader
25 first readers
(6 “editors” or “publishers” – does not include copyeditors – out of 43 names)
On Spec
1 publisher
1 managing editor/art director
2 poetry editors
20 fiction editors
2 interviewers
3 proofreaders
(24 “editors” or “publishers” out of 29 names)
Strange Horizons
no names or titles, just “The Strange Horizons Editorial Collective”
The Deadlands
1 publisher
1 editor-in-chief
2 poetry editors
1 non-fiction editor
1 necromancer
1 art director
2 copy editors
1 proofreader
1 designer
1 social media skeleton
(5 “editors” or “publishers” out of 12 names)
Uncanny
1 publisher and editor-in-chief
1 managing editor
1 poetry editor
2 podcast producers
(3 “editors” or “publishers” out of 5 names)
For all the reasons I wrote about earlier, I think there should be guidance on this in the Constitution. I do not think mandating the roles or titles that can be included would address the concerns. For one, a predictable outcome of an “editors only” policy would be that many of these different positions would get the word “editor” added, reducing the change’s impact on overall numbers. Additionally, the titles used do reflect real differences between finalists, such as those that include a podcast.
Eight names feels like it strikes the right balance between recognizing finalists and the real-world constraints of running a Worldcon. And I support that this proposal applies to all Hugo Hugo Award categories with group finalists. Finalists in other categories have started looking at Semiprozine and asking why they, too, cannot list everyone who was important to the creation of their work. So far we have managed to hold those lines.
It’s wrong to force Hugo Administrators to make this judgment call, year after year, disappointing finalists in the process though an appearance of capriciousness. By codifying this constraint into the constitution, we can set expectations for everyone involved.
American writer Ben Lerner has won this year’s Orwell prize for political fiction for Transcription, a novel exploring technology and memory.
In nonfiction, the prize went to Karen Bartlett for The Escape from Kabul, which looks at Afghan women lawyers who came under threat after the fall of Kabul in 2021.
The prizes, which aim to highlight books that best meet Orwell’s own ambition “to make political writing into an art”, come with £5,000.
The first section of Lerner’s novel sees the narrator travelling to Providence, Rhode Island, to conduct a final interview with an eccentric German intellectual, Thomas. However, in his hotel room, the narrator drops his phone in the sink, meaning he’s left with no functioning recording device. He proceeds with the interview without telling Thomas that the conversation is going unrecorded.
“A forensic study of our insatiable appetite for new technology, [Transcription] explores the unreliable stories we tell ourselves about hunger, love and connection,” said judging chair Fiammetta Rocco, who helmed the International Booker prize for 20 years. “It is about dying with dignity and growing up in a new world. It’s funny, brainy and timely. Lerner deserves to be a household name.”…
He is currently in St John of God Hospital in Ballarat. It appears that he has had fluid on his lungs which has weakened him, leading to a fall that ended him up in the hospital. He is currently in recovery and after that he will be in rehabilitation for about the coming week. He is doing alright, given the circumstances.
A few weeks ago a colleague and friend told me to be realistic about Generative AI. In fact, he insisted we all needed to be realistic. Generative AI is the Reality, the Inevitable Reality. Nothing to do but accept this and figure out how to live with it. Many people have told me that AI and other (heinous, unjust, abusive, destructive, stupid) systems are the Inevitable Reality. This Resistance-is-Futile mindset has ratcheted up recently in the face of Gen AI, Neo-Fascists, Climate Change, Forever Wars, etc. Don’t waste time fighting, figure how you’re going to deal!Only a few of us make history. This from the privileged and the dispossessed. Realism is often the default setting of acquiescence—empire normal, keeping us in line. As a writer, as a person in the world, I want to be fantastic, not realistic.
I’m an Afrofuturist in league with Indigenous Futurists. Stories that have been erased, stolen, warped, or hidden call to me. Characters, particularly women, who got left out of the action, raid my mind. I don’t want to comply with the Inevitable Reality or just make the best of a colonized future. I want to make a way out of no way. I want to conjure a wonderous future….
Daniel José Older creates an island nation in the Caribbean, San Madrigal, that for centuries offered sanctuary to Santeros, pirates, Sephardic Jews, and others running from persecution, despotic Caribbean empires, or pogroms in Europe. Fifteen years ago, the island nation sank under mysterious circumstances. The diverse population relocated to Brooklyn and reinvented their community—a fragile enterprise. The main character, Mateo, was born just as San Madrigal was slipping under the sea. Almost sixteen and of the island, but never living there, Mateo must recover lost history, discover his own powers, and heal the lethal rifts in his diverse community. He’s got to do this while maybe falling in love. As always Older writes in the vernacular of our spirits. He turns dreams into maps. The questions that haunt Mateo and all the characters, also haunt the readers: Who do you want to be? Who do you mean to be? What is that shadow on your soul? How can we be different, together? How do we make a world that can hold us all?
… It turned out in order to become a slasher fan, I only needed to watch more of them.
I have the type of brain that loves patterns. As a teenager, I imprinted on Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth as he validated what I’d already noticed from reading world mythology and Andrew Lang fairy tales: certain archetypes keep repeating themselves. While watching slashers, I immediately latched on to the “Final Girl”, as christened by Carol J. Clover in her 1992 film theory book Men, Women and Chain Saws. The last survivor of a slasher, usually female, who starts off quiet and unassuming, but eventually finds the agency to overcome the bad guy. (It’s perhaps not a coincidence I found this archetype appealing after making it through a divorce.)
Other slasher character tropes were apparent too, easy to spot when you grew up in the 1980s on teen movies like The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Can’t Buy Me Love. The stereotypes act as a story shorthand. Here is the meathead jock, the hapless nerd, the promiscuous cheerleader. The audience immediately grasps how they fit into the plot and the potential conflicts they might have with others. Who is the antagonist and who is the hero? Character tropes answer that question quickly, reinforcing the story’s formula and setting up viewer expectations. Especially in slasher films, where there’s not a lot of time to get to know the cast before the blood starts spraying. We’re introduced to the good girl who’s “not like the others”, and the ill-fated friends in her orbit. Thrown into a life-or-death situation, the terror strips away the characters’ pretenses until all they’re left with is who they truly are: victims or survivors….
A “major studio” behind an animated television series is requiring child actors to surrender their voices to use by generative AI in their contracts, according to a group of agents who specialize in working with minors.
The U.K.-based Agents of Young Performers Association made the allegations in an open letter to the industry published on Monday. Deadline has reported that the series in question is Peppa Pig, which airs on Nick Jr. in the U.S.
“Most recently, a major studio who owns the IP for an international children’s franchise producing a long running animated television series has offered contracts to child voice actors insisting that they agree to the use of AI thus allowing them to use the child’s voice in all commercial assets within their franchise,” the letter, which has more than 1,000 signatures from representatives and actors, stated. “The refusal to remove this clause with an attitude of ‘take it or leave it’ has led us write this letter to make it clear that this will not be accepted and to bring this matter to the attention of the wider industry.”…
Wishbound by Clemency Brown, Chicken House, £7.99 In the Wishmaker Institute, rebellious Leonie is being trained to control her magic. One day she’ll be Matched with a rich child, and dedicate the rest of her life to making their wishes come true. When she escapes her Matching and flees to our world, Leonie makes a new best friend, Cress – but as forces from her past pursue her, she has no choice but to grant Cress a dangerous wish, in this enthralling thought-provoking 9+ magical fantasy.
Demon Hunters: Soul Feeder by Jennifer Killick, illustrated by Marina Vidal, Barrington Stoke, £7.99 When Caiden and Sam help Caiden’s dad clear a creepy house, they don’t realise they’ve brought back a terrifying uninvited guest. A punchy, pared-back 9+ horror from an award-winning author and dyslexia-friendly publisher.
Lily Tripp: Diary of an Accidental Time Travellerby Amelia Tait, Starboard, £8.99 Lily Tripp is an ordinary 13-year-old – except for one small thing. Every New Year’s Day, Lily wakes up in a new century, trying to navigate first love, avoid her ever-present nemesis, and cope with life without chicken nuggets. Meticulously researched history meets hilariously relatable misadventure in this surefire winner for 10+ Lottie Brooks fans.’
(8) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
June 27, 1986 — Labyrinth film
Labyrinth premiered on this date forty years ago in the States.
Just consider to begin with that it was directed by Jim Henson with George Lucas as executive producer. Now consider also that the film was a collaboration between Henson and Brian Froud following a similar undertaking on The Dark Crystal four years previous.
This was in the period when Lucas was taking a hiatus from directing but was credited as executive producer and sometimes story writer for such undertakings as Ewoks: Caravan of Courage, Ewoks: Battle for Endor, Willow and the Indiana Jonesprequel series, as well as Howard the Duck. (What a foul film that was. Who here who thinks different?)
The Dark Crystal is solely the work of Froud. I feel Labyrinth is considerably lighter in tone than Dark Crystal was and the puppets here reflect that. The gelfs in Dark Crystal were the stuff nightmares were woven out of. I don’t think there’s really any darkness here at all which is reflected in it being rated a children’s film. Yes, it was, and the British Board of Film Classification at the time received virtually no complaints which almost any film that rated did.
Henson in news stories noted that Jim Henson’s Creature Shop had been building the puppets and characters required for around a year and a half, prior to shooting, but that it really only came together in the last few months. It was a tremendously complicated undertaking he said. Some of the puppets needed as much as five puppeteers, and the voice work was difficult as it didn’t come out of the mouth but elsewhere.
Now there was the cast. They needed a fourteen-year-old girl, a properly English lass. But instead they chose an American why so? Henson says why in the actual production diary, so let’s have it explain the decision…
“Selecting the actress who could play the role of Sarah was one of Henson’s first major decisions. He auditioned hundreds of applicants before selecting JENNIFER CONNELLY. ‘I wanted a girl who looked and could act that kind of dawn-twilight time between childhood and womanhood,’ Henson says. ‘And Jennifer was perfect. It was even more incredible that she was the same age as Sarah was intended in the script.’”
For the role of the Goblin King there was no one else considered, and I regard no one else as being worthy. As the film diary says:
”From the very beginning, director Jim Henson envisioned Bowie as the lead of this major new fantasy film production. ‘Way back when we first started working on the story, we came up with this idea of a Goblin King,’ Henson explains. ‘And then we thought; ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have music and someone who can sing?’ David was our first choice from the very beginning. And he liked the idea. So the whole thing was really written with him in mind.”
And Bowie was equally enthusiastic.
What attracted Bowie to the role? “Jim gave me the script, which I found very amusing,” he says. “It’s by Terry Jones, of Monty Python, and it has that kind of slightly inane insanity running through it. When I read the script and saw that Jim wanted to put music to it, it just felt as though it could be a really nice, funny thing to do.”
So we’ve got the King, we’ve the girl he’s enamored with, so who else do we need? Seriously that’s the film’s story. There are three other human characters — Toby Froud as Toby Williams, Sarah’s half-brother, Shelley Thompson who plays Irene Williams, Sarah’s stepmother and finally Christopher Malcolm as Robert Williams, Sarah’s father. But the story here is very much just between the Goblin King and Sarah. Or at least that’s my interpretation.
I like it, I think it’s a lovely story. And no I’ve not watched the newer series as I see absolutely no reason to do so. I like my memories unsullied by revisions, by expansions.
So how did it do? Not well in the States. Maybe it’s just too British. It did do exceptionally well on its home shores so it made thirty-nine against twenty-four million in production expenses, and has done extremely well in television rights, cassette and now DVD sales, and it’s streaming free right now on Prime as is the Dark Crystal and The Storyteller on Peacock. I really, really love that series. That dog seems real.
Now for those critics I’d say this review by Joss Winning of the Radio Times sums up the feeling of the vast majority of critics both in Britain and here: “More traditionally structured than Henson’s previous fantasy outing, The Dark Crystal, yet sharing its mysticism-meets-Muppets DNA, Labyrinth is a wholly unique dark fairy tale that enchants from start to finish.”
Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a eighty-six percent rating, a stellar one I’d say.
(10) NOW THAT THEY’RE FREE, THEY’RE NOT FOR FREE. Somewhere in the multiverse a court has recognized that fictional characters have rights: “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” by David Perlmutter. Of course, filmmakers object:
…“This is an insane and irrational decision,” remarked Producers Guild of America Chairman Lou Weingarten upon revelation of the verdict. “Fictional people do not have the same rights as real people.
“We exist all the time; they exist only when allowed to exist. And now they say we may have to pay them for all the ‘work’ they did for ‘free’. But you can’t pay people for work they didn’t do. In that case, it was the animators that did all the work, not the characters. And those animators ask for too much money as it is, considering how slipshod some of their work it is. I’m not a genius or anything, but I know you can’t give money to people if they never worked for you, like I said. And, regardless of what these folks are saying, we technically never interacted with them at all, much less worked with them. So why should we have to pay them off as if we did?”…
The goal of science fiction is to expand our horizons. The genre asks not only what is, but what might be. What might life be like in a time or place we haven’t seen yet? How might alien minds be different from our own?
These investigations start, like all literature, with studying our own experiences. Then, some of us ask: What if our senses, our social structures, our emotions were different?
Neuroscience can help answer that question. By revealing the building blocks of our own perception in the concrete forms of genes, proteins, and neurons, it gives us authors new toys to play with.
Did your aliens grow up in a place with a different spectrum of light? Is their sun a different type of star, or did they evolve in the black depths of an alien sea? Maybe their eyes need different photoreceptors from our own. They’ll see different colors or perhaps substitute vision with some completely different sense….
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Mark Roth-Whitworth.]
9 Resolutions; (However, the four resolutions submitted by the Trial Committee are not published, and will be “handled in executive session”.)
15 constitutional amendments first passed in 2025 and now up for ratification;
9 newly proposed constitutional amendments.
The Business Meeting will be held virtually on the Lumi Meeting platform for registered members of LAcon V, with the Site Selection meeting held in-person during the general convention.
The LAcon V WSFS Virtual Business Meetings page says the meeting “schedule is not fixed; items can be moved if the body chooses, and items may take more or less time than expected. However, here is a brief overview of what we anticipate will come up on each day. All times are Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)”:
Preliminary Business Meeting, Friday July 17, 2026 (online, 9:00am PDT): Committee reports, Standing Rule changes, Resolutions, Mark Protection Committee nominations, setting debate times for Business Passed On and New Constitutional Changes
First Main Business Meeting, Sunday July 26, 2026 (online, 9:00am PDT): Balloting for committee elections, ratifications of Business Passed On
Second Main Business Meeting, Saturday August 1, 2026 (online, 9:00am PDT): Results of committee elections, New Constitutional Changes
Third Main Business Meeting, Sunday August 9, 2026 (online, 9:00am PDT): Report from the Trial Committee on the 2023 Hugo Awards (to be held in executive session, please see the full agenda for more information)
Site Selection Business Meeting, Sunday August 30, 2026 (in person in the Anaheim Convention Center, 10:00am PDT): Results of 2028 Site Selection, Question and Answer Time for Future Seated Worldcons.
Prior to the first meeting, there will be Test Your Tech sessions to practice using the virtual meeting platform. The date and times of the Test Your Tech sessions will be announced once they have been scheduled.
(1) WSFS BUSINESS DEADLINES. People submitting business to the LAcon V Virtual Business meeting have a June 17 deadline.
Linda Deneroff, LAcon V WSFS Division Head, today reminded fans that the first WSFS Virtual Business Meeting will be held Friday, July 17.
Therefore, all new business must be submitted on or before June 17, 2026 (30 days before the start of the business meeting, per the WSFS Constitution). All financial reports from Worldcons and NASFiCs that have not closed their books are due on that date as well.
…Platform Decay introduces the emotion-check subroutine, a therapy module Murderbot has self-installed following the hallucinations and near-system-collapse depicted in System Collapse (2023). The module does not suppress or eliminate Murderbot’s anxiety. It surfaces the anxiety, forces a label on it, and allows continued operation. The recurring internal log — “Emotion check: Oh, for f—” — is both the book’s running joke and its most technically specific design choice.
What Wells has built here is a fictional implementation of metacognitive monitoring: an architecture in which a system’s internal states are treated as data to be processed rather than noise to be filtered. This maps directly onto an open research problem in AI safety. A 2025 study from researchers at UC San Diego and New York University found that large language models show a limited but measurable capacity to monitor and report on their own internal activations, with significant implications for how AI oversight systems are designed. The emotion-check subroutine models one design direction: not fix the distress, give the system structured tools to work with it while continuing to function. The design choice Wells makes — that the module doesn’t cure Murderbot but gives it a framework for handling the experience of being broken — is closer to current metacognitive safety research than to classical AI design, in which emotional analogs would simply be suppressed….
Matthew: I’m sure inquiring minds want to know your secret to writing a character that improves their emotional state despite living in a corporate hellscape. It hasn’t become a less relevant topic as the series goes on.
Martha: [laughs] I wish I really knew! Basically, my coping mechanism is the same one I gave Murderbot, which is basically TV, movies, stories, books… anything that just kind of takes you away from reality for a while.
Matthew: Speaking of which, since the Apple TV adaptation came out, I’ve been fascinated by how much people have latched on to The Rise and Fall ofSanctuary Moon, and how it’s developing its own fandom. Has that reaction changed the way you’ve engaged with that series?
Martha: Not really. It’s pretty much the same for me. I just think the way they did [Sanctuary Moon] in the TV series was so much fun. Just having so many surprise actors, and just the whole… taking the soap opera, telenovela concept and really pushing it as far as it could go into the outrageous. The costumes, the great music, and the situations. I just think that’s what people are responding to. It’s so silly, and it’s so fun, yet it’s kind of serious stuff. It was just incredibly likable.
While piracy has long been an issue for the book business, the rapid rise of unauthorized audiobooks on YouTube, which publishers and authors believe are eroding sales for their books, poses a new challenge for the industry.
Audiobooks have soared in popularity in recent years, driven by widespread smartphone use and the consequent spike in audio streaming services, and they have become a critical revenue stream for publishers. Publishers and audiobook producers are investing heavily in them, recording splashy, full-cast productions, replete with sound effects and musical scores, in a push to redefine audiobooks as their own narrative art form rather than just another publishing format.
At the same time, artificial intelligence programs have given pirates new tools to rapidly reproduce audiobooks, and to illegally profit from them by running advertisements.
A.I. has made it easier to quickly create audiobooks using synthetic narration. Because most antipiracy technology is designed to catch identical files, not altered ones, many of them avoid detection by programs used to identify copyright infringement. A.I. versions of highly anticipated titles often appear on YouTube hours after they are released….
(5) WHAT STAR WARS FANS WANT. With The Mandalorian & Grogu hitting cinemas soon, JustWatch – The Streaming Guide has just surveyed American Star Wars fans on their trilogy preferences, favorite TV shows, and which characters they want to see get their own spin-off. (Click for larger images.)
A few things that stood out:
The Original Trilogy still dominates at 83% — but nearly 30% of under-35s back the Prequels, compared to just 9% of over-35s.
Andor and The Mandalorian are splitting the audience down the middle: Andor leads among men and under-35s (51%), while women overwhelmingly favour The Mandalorian (61%).
Chewbacca tops the spin-off wish list — beating out Yoda, Lando Calrissian, and even Mace Windu.
A statue commemorating actor and writer Terry Jones has been vandalised just weeks after being unveiled.
Sculptor Nick Elphick said he was left “in shock” while Jones’ daughter, Sally, “seemed very upset” by the damage to the bronze statue at his birthplace in Colwyn Bay, Conwy county.
Jones’ family backed a £120,000 fundraising campaign to have him immortalised as the nude organist, a recurring character he played in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Elphick said the vandals had removed two door knockers from the statue which were a nod to the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth which Jones had co-written.
“I felt really low. It is a shock that has happened so quickly,” said Elphick….
…Elphick thanked the people who had found the vandalised pieces and said they would require repair and rewelding, costing about £1,000 to fix on-site.
“The expense is in the making of the bronzes, that’s why it costs a lot to have them done. Money value in the metal it is nothing,” he said. “My concern is that this was [an] incredibly tight budget to get this done. We’ve all really put our hearts and souls into this and I haven’t made a profit off of this.”…
(7) SUPER I SCREAM. It’s in demand in Michigan they say.
(8) MICHAEL KEATING (1947-2026). Actor Michael Keating, known to sf fans as Vila Restal in Blake’s 7, died this month at the age of 79. The Big Finish website paid tribute.
…As Vila Restal in the BBC’s Blake’s 7, Michael appeared across all four series of the show, from 1978 to 1981 – the only cast member to appear in all 52 episodes. Vila was nominally the gang’s thief and self-declared coward, though Michael always preferred a more precise description: cautious, not cowardly. In his hands, Vila was something richer than comic relief. He was warm, wily, honest about his own limitations, and almost impossible not to love.
Beyond the confines of the spaceship Liberator, Michael enjoyed a long and varied career in theatre and television, including stints with both the National Theatre and the Old Vic. In 1985, he created the role of Marty at the Phoenix Theatre in the West End in Are You Lonesome Tonight, Alan Bleasdale’s play about Elvis Presley, in which Martin Shaw played the King….
There’s also an overview of his many roles for Big Finish, for Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 stories.
(9) DR. MARTIN C. WEISSKOPF (1942-2026). NASA scientist Dr. Martin C. Weisskopf, father of editor Toni Weisskopf, died May 2. Read the complete family obituary at the link.
Dr. Martin C. Weisskopf, a pioneering physicist whose work helped shape modern X-ray astronomy, died on May 2, 2026, with his daughter at his side. He was 84.
Over a career spanning more than five decades, Dr. Weisskopf became widely respected within the scientific community for both his technical contributions and his leadership in advancing space-based X-ray astronomy. He served as Project Scientist for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and as Chief Scientist for X-ray Astronomy at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was also the Principal Investigator for the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, a mission that opened a new window on the high-energy universe…
…He began his academic career at Columbia University, where he rose from Research Associate to Assistant Professor. During those years, he conducted pioneering experiments, including the first detection of X-ray polarization from the Crab Nebula using a sounding rocket. He also contributed to the development of high-resolution X-ray optics and played key roles in experiments aboard the OSO-8 satellite and in what would become the Einstein Observatory.
In 1977, Dr. Weisskopf joined NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he would leave a lasting institutional and scientific legacy. He founded the X-ray Astronomy Branch and later served as its Chief, guiding major programs and mentoring generations of scientists. His work advanced technologies that enabled the first focused images of astronomical objects in hard X-rays and supported research that significantly expanded the study of galaxy clusters and cosmic structure. Over the course of his career, Dr. Weisskopf authored or co-authored more than 360 scientific publications. He remained deeply engaged in scientific work throughout his career and beyond, continuing as a NASA Emeritus following his retirement in May 2022….
,,, In lieu of flowers, the family requests that letters of support be directed to efforts sustaining NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which has provided decades of critical data on high-energy cosmic phenomena including black holes, supernovae, and the large-scale structure of the universe…
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
May 21, 1917 — Raymond Burr. (Died 1993.)
Surely you know Raymond Burr, the man whose Birthday it is today. So let’s get started.
I must of course start with his long running role as Perry Mason which is decidedly not genre. CBS paid Gardener for the rights to two hundred and seventy-two of his stories, a good idea given that Perry Mason would run nine seasons. Many early episodes were based off his stories and novels.
The role of Perry Mason proved the hardest to cast. Richard Carlson, Mike Connors, Richard Egan, and William Holden were considered. None at all suited the casting team. Burr initially read for the role of district attorney Hamilton Burger, but he told them that he was more interested in the Perry Mason role. They had seen him being a lawyer, and said he could play the role provided he lose at least sixty pounds. He did and got the role.
What a magnificent Perry Mason he made. Burr’s coolness, control and reserved sense of humor were such that he became so identified with the character that, for the television audience, that meant there was no other Mason but Burr. He was not the Mason that had existed, there were four before him, all on film, and the producers tried reviving the series after CBS cancelled it, but it utterly failed. And HBO had a new series that looks at early years of his life.
In the late Eighties he reprised his Mason role in twenty-six TV movies. The first has the title of Perry Mason Returns.
Now for his genre work. Mike joked with me when I said when I was doing him that he was the lawyer for Godzilla. Well, he was Steven Martin in Godzilla, King of the Monsters! It is a re-edited for American audiences of the 1954 Japanese film Godzilla which in its original wasn’t available outside Japan for fifty years. He would reprise this role in Godzilla 1985.
Raymond Burr, right, Frank Iwanaga, left, in Godzilla
He was the Grand Vizier Boreg al Buzzar in The Magic Carpet. Evil viziers! Dungeons! Magic carpets! Princesses!
He’s Cy Mill, hulking villainin Gorilla at Large. Remember what was said about his weight in his Burr casting. Well, this film was done just previous to this series and he was quoted as saying there, “I was just a fat heavy.” Burr told journalist James Bawden, “I split the heavy parts with Bill Conrad. We were both in our twenties playing much older men. I never got the girl but I once got the gorilla in a 3-D picture called Gorilla at Large.”
He was Vargo in Tarzan and the She-Devil , the seventeenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932’s Tarzan the Ape Man, twenty years earlier.
Television wise, he appeared on Tales on Tomorrow in “The Masks of Medusa” and in the horror film Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, he’s Jonash Sebastian. I thought there’d be more but there aren’t.
(12) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 160 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Global Nando’s Correspondents”, comes with an exclusive free gift*! (*free gift is theoretical/made up) John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty talk a little bit more about the Hugo Awards including the packet, but mostly they dive into their bulging mailbag and read out your letters and comments. (An uncorrected transcript is available here.)
…The 408-foot-tall (124 meters) V3 (“Version 3”) is bigger and more powerful than previous Starship iterations, which were already the biggest and most powerful rockets ever built, and it sports a number of other important upgrades as well.
For starters, it’s outfitted with the new V3 Raptor engine — 33 of them on Super Heavy and six on Ship — which provides more heft, and a far more streamlined design, than its predecessors.
The V3 Super Heavy also now has just three grid fins (which help it steer its way back to Earth for recovery and reuse) instead of four. And the “hot stage ring” — the structure that marks the meeting point of Super Heavy and Ship — is now attached to the booster, meaning it can be reused, whereas previously it had fallen away during flight. (Starship engages in “hot stage” separation, meaning Ship fires its engines before it has detached from Super Heavy.)…
Tomorrow Studios, the indie studio behind Netflix’s One Piece, has set out to adapt for television Skyward, the first book in bestselling author Brandon Sanderson‘s Cytoverse franchise. Sanderson will write the pilot script with TV writer-producers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)…
…In the Skyward (aka Cytoverse) sci-fi book series, humanity is trapped on a harsh planet and constantly under attack by mysterious alien forces. The story follows Spensa Nightshade, a determined pilot who dreams of joining the fighter corps to defend humanity and redeem her disgraced father’s legacy. Blending high-stakes aerial combat, advanced technology, and themes of courage, identity, and discovery, the series explores both the secrets of the galaxy and Spensa’s growth from an outsider into a key figure in humanity’s fight for survival….
…“I’ve been working on the Skyward series for nearly a decade, and to have a partner like Tomorrow Studios to help bring this story to television is a dream come true,” Sanderson said….
In the remote South Korea village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung- min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) are called to find a mysterious creature that has wreaked havoc on the village. In the nearby forest, a coterie of hunters, including Sung- ki (Zo In-Sung) set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead. But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]
