Real-world Dystopias: Ponte City
By Hampus Eckerman. Johannesburg. When I was going to Ponte City, my taxi driver repeatedly asked me if I knew what I was doing. “It is a dodgy area,” he said. And asked me again if I really wanted to
Brianna Wu Loses Massachusetts Congressional Primary Race
The New York Times has picked incumbent Stephen Lynch to win the Democratic primary race for Massachusetts’ Eighth Congressional District and keep his seat, overcoming a challenge by Brianna Wu. With 31% of the ballots counted as this is written,
Pixel Scroll 9/6/18 Wild Pixels Couldn’t Scroll Me Away
DONATION BY WORLDCON SCIENCE GOH MAKES HEADLINES. BBC reports Dublin 2019 guest of honor Jocelyn Bell Burnell will donate the money coming to her as winner of a major science prize: “Physics star Bell Burnell gives away £2.3m prize”
Pixel Scroll 9/7/18 Pixel Yourself On A Spinning Space Station, With Alien Porters With Arthropod Eyes
HAPPENS TO THE BEST OF US. Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes about battling website and ISP) problems in “Business Musings: Website Issues”. The post begins — It’s tough to write my blog when my website is down…for the second time
Worldcon 76 Photos by Andrew Porter
Photos taken by and (c) Andrew Porter. I have filled in the captions where I can — Porter says I should crowdsource the rest! So help out in comments if you can…. Many more photos follow the jump.
Doctor Who Series 11 Release Date Trailer
#DoctorWho lands Sunday, October 7. Can you decipher the symbolism of the trailer? [Thanks to Cat Eldridge for the story.]
Burt Reynolds (1936-2018)
By Steve Green: Burt Reynolds (1936-2018): US actor, died September 6, aged 82. Genre appearances include The Twilight Zone (one episode, 1963, “The Bard”), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972), Frankenstein and
2018 Inky Awards Shortlists
The 2018 Inky Awards shortlists were announced August 10 – the Gold Inky for Australian titles, and the Silver Inky for international titles. The award recognizes achievement in young adult literature, with nominees and winners selected by voters under the
Pixel Scroll 9/5/18 With This Simple Trick You Can Scroll Wild Pixels From Home
DOCTOR WHO AIRDATE SET. The BBC has announced “Doctor Who to land on Sunday 7 October 2018” (in Great Britain). The Woman Who Fell to Earth The last time viewers saw the Doctor, she was falling from her TARDIS
Harlan Ellison Remembrance Panel at Worldcon 76
By Rich Lynch: There were panels at Worldcon 76 which were so popular that the audience filled every seat, took every standing room place around the room, and even spilled out into the convention center hallway. For those you had
Pixel Scroll 9/4/18 One Singularity Sensation
WORKING MAGIC. In The Guardian, Philip Pullman says there are reasons “Why we believe in magic”. But rationalism doesn’t make the magical universe go away. Possibly because I earn my living as a writer of fiction, and possibly because
Inner Space Station
By Nickpheas: A few days back there was a Scroll link to a storage centre in York, England with interesting SF statues. Sadly it was behind a paywall, so I don’t know if people saw the details. Happily, it’s just
A Filer in Heaven
By Hampus Eckerman: Johannesburg. A dodgy part of town, graffiti on the walls, people hanging around street corners, waiting for an opportunity. A sign proclaiming “Collectors Treasury”. But not in a place where you want to bring up your camera
Pixel Scroll 9/3/18 That Was The Scroll That Was
CINERAMA. GeekWire’s Frank Catalano writes, “I thought you might like to know that I went behind the scenes at Seattle Cinerama, one of only three movie theaters left in the world that can show Cinerama-formatted films, and one of
Margit Sandemo (1924-2018)
By Ahrvid Engholm: The Norwegian-Swedish – born in Norway, lived in Sweden and wrote in Swedish – fantasy author Margit Sandemo passed away September 1 at age 94. She wrote the long-running Sagan om Isfolket (“The Ice People Saga”) paperback
2018 Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF Readers’ Choice Award
Baen Books has announced the winner of the fourth annual Year’s Best Military and Adventure Science Fiction Readers’ Choice Award. Kacey Ezell won for her short story “Family Over Blood,” which came from the anthology Forged in Blood, edited by
Jacqueline Pearce (1943-2018)
By Steve Green: Jacqueline Pearce (1943-2018): British actress, died September 3, 2018 aged 74. Most famous for playing the villainous Servalan in 29 episodes of Blake’s 7 (1978-81). She also appeared in The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile
2018 New Prize in Literature Finalists
By Ahrvid Engholm: The Den Nya Akademin (DNA – “The New Academy”), a private initiative organized among Swedish culture workers because there’ll be no Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018, has announced the finalists for the 2018 New Prize in
Pixel Scroll 9/2/18 Elvish Has Left The Building
DECOPUNK CITATION. Language Log quotes Cat Valente today in “Decopunk and other quasicompositional compounds”. Complex lexical items generally have analogical historico-semantic accretions similar to those in the X-punk
