This Week’s News is Sponsored by Convention Wear(TM), Amazing Stories’ new line of distinctly SFnal shirts created just for Fans! You can learn more about them and see the designs here, or order them now in our store
Of Special Note
This week we’ve added a new section to the news – Reviews. Links to reviews of SF/F/H films, books, television shows, toys, events, and other related items with a Fannish appeal. Send a link of your review to Steve at amazingstories.com and we’ll include it here, and maybe send some additional traffic your way!
Other Special Note
Authors, you now have a chance to directly experience what “Exponential growth” means: an AI service offering to write and publish a “satirical” book in two minutes. (And you all thought the artists were the ones in trouble.)
AMAZING PEOPLE NEWS
David Langford publishes the September issue of Ansible
Steve Fahnestalk shares a photo of a jam session with, among others, Spider Robinson
Sean CW Korsgaard has posted numerous videos of panels from GenCon 2024
R. Graeme Cameron’s Polar Borealis #31 has been released
Alex Shvartsman announces his survival, 11 years after taking the Iron Throne
Samuel R. Delany announces that A Reference Guide To His Life and Works should be out next year
Jaym Gates reposts a complaint about the re-booting of Michael Crichton’s ER television show
Scott Edelman shares the event schedule from Discon II (held 50 years ago) as a comparison to today’s events. (Yes, Virginia, there did used to be single track programming at conventions, which meant that you could attend EVERYTHING)
Moshe Feder (see Just For Fun)
Ellen Datlow re-shares Pat Catigan’s lament about the treatment of older Fans
Fandom
Damien Walter shares news of a fifth woman coming forward with accusations against Neil Gaiman.
Laurence Fishburne is a fan like us
Space
Will they ever return, oh they may never return, their fate is still unlearned, they may orbit forever in a low earth orbit, the crew that never returned…Well, at least there’s now a plan for getting the Boeing Starliner crew back home…in February. (lyrics sung to the tune of “Poor Charlie, the man who never returned”)
NASA’s mobile launch pad project is way over budget
Science
THIS is pretty cool: two MIT students have developed gloves that interpret sign language.
Matching sets of fossilized dinosaur footprints have been identified on two continents
Oceanographers have discovered sea mounts taller than Mount Olympus
Have they found the source of the WOW! signal?
Industry
A new coating for clothes may help keep people cool (wearing sunglasses may help in the “cool” dept too)
Reviews
James Bow reviews Clifford Simak’s They Walked Like Men
The Red Headed Femme reviews Yoon Ha Lee’s Moonstorm
Literature
Dream Foundry has sent out their latest newsletter and you can sign-up for it on their website
Dean Wesley Smith announces WGM’s new writing classes
Film & TV
Rolling Stone covers the cancellation of The Acolyte, and chastises fans at the same time
Retro
Lots of people are talking about a re-make of THEM!, the 1954 classic. Lets not.
Social Commentary
Just For Fun
Moshe Feder shares a song parody poking fun at who else – Donald Trump
Mini-Editorial
Franchises. Cooked up to spread a brand and create a captive audience, originally for sewing machines and drugs. In Pohl & Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants, a small amount of an addictive substance is introduced into one brand’s franchised coffee to enforce consumer engagement. The studios and book publishers have discovered that they don’t even need to add the addictive substance…. The point being, franchises are wholly the creation of market commodification of art, and they’re destroying the art in the process.
In the Future
Monday – Free Fiction Be A Fine Guy, Kiss Me! by Sean McKendrick
Tuesday – The Big Idea: A.Z. Rozkills
Wednesday – Unexpected Questions with Ai Jiang
Friday – Matt’s Reviews: Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Featured Image
A view of the Murchison Wide Field Array from ABC News. Are they looking for signals from Moties?
