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Ansible® 451, February 2025

From David Langford, 94 London Road, Reading, Berks, RG1 5AU, UK. Website news.ansible.uk. ISSN 0265-9816 (print); 1740-942X (e). Logo: Dan Steffan. Cartoon: Brad W. Foster. Available for SAE or the 17 volumes of Euralia Past and Present by Roger Scurvilegs.

Once on a Time

Neil Gaiman was publicly dropped by Dark Horse Comics (Xitter, 25 January) following more allegations of past sexual misconduct, which he denies (blog, 14 January). [SF²C] He seems to have quietly disappeared from the web pages of his UK film/tv/theatre agents, Casarotto Ramsay. [CE] See also Terry Pratchett below and January links at news.ansible.uk.

Mark Hodder is unhappy with the publishers who commissioned his novel A Dark and Subtle Light as a work-for-hire deal, paid for it and announced October 2024 publication – but then cancelled the book when the relevant editor left the company, and ‘forgot’ to tell the author or remove the Amazon listing. In response to fan enquiries, Hodder writes: ‘I’m afraid Rebellion (I’m now naming and shaming) have not only taken the novel off their schedule but they are also refusing to give it (or even sell it) back to me. Their stance is that I got paid so I don’t really have anything to complain about. A fucking atrocious attitude. [...] I consider it one of the best novels I have written and I am royally PISSED OFF that no one will get to read it.’ (Reddit, 20 January) [F770]

Demi Moore won a Golden Globe as best female actor ‘in a musical or comedy’ for her star part in that spectacularly gross body-horror film The Substance, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat. The Substance has since picked up five Oscar nominations: best picture, director, screenplay, makeup/hairstyling and (Demi Moore again) lead actress.

Kenneth Morris, author of that fine Celtic fantasy Book of the Three Dragons, was archived at the Theosophical Society library in Altadena, California – destroyed, alas, by the Eaton Fire on 8 January. A huge collection of Theosophy-related material, including some of Algernon Blackwood’s papers, has been lost. (The Wild Hunt, 9 January) [DAA/MA]

Lee Murray, the New Zealand sf/fantasy/horror author, anthologist and mentor, became an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in the NZ New Year honours. [GP]

George Orwell is commemorated by the UK Royal Mint’s latest £2 coin design, featuring a large eye/camera lens with the legend BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. (Manchester Evening News, 13 January) [AL]

Terry Pratchett’s estate updated the official Good Omens graphic novel fundraiser (nearly £2.5m raised) with a note saying inter alia that ‘Neil Gaiman will not receive any proceeds’. (Kickstarter, 30 January)

Robert Silverberg celebrated his ninetieth birthday on 15 January.

Norman Spinrad announced the end of his long-running (since 1983) Asimov’s column ‘On Books’, with a final forthcoming essay titled ‘Speculative Literature?’. The decision to stop, he notes, was his. [PDF]

Conoidal

Until 6 Apr • Sci-Fi Galactic Adventures (Star Wars exhibition), Riverside Museum, Glasgow. 10am-5pm; 11am-5pm Friday and Sunday. Free. See www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/sci-fi-galactic-adventures.

7-9 Feb • Contabile 35 (filk), Wensum Valley Hotel, Norwich. £43 reg; £33 concessions. More details at c35.contabile.org.uk.

7-10 Feb • Scotiacon (furry), Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow. ‘Magical Mayhem’ theme. £100 reg; day £45. See www.scotiacon.org.uk.

8-9 Feb • The Great Conjunction (Dark Crystal), Elstree, London. Adult weekend passes start at £102.95, rising to Very Expensive with VIP access; special rates for under-17s. See www.thegreatconjunction.com.

21-23 Feb • UK Ghost Story Festival, Museum of Making, Derby. In-person tickets £75 plus fee. Also online 14-16 February, £50 plus fee. See www.ukghoststoryfestival.co.uk.

22-23 Feb • Surrey Steampunk Convivial, Stoneleigh, Epsom. See bumpandthumper.wixsite.com/steampunkconvivials.

12-13 Apr • Conpulsion (games), The Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ. Tickets £20 or £10 each day, at the door only. See conpulsion.org.

25-27 Apr • Springmoot (Tolkien Society), annual dinner and members-only AGM, Leonardo Hotel, Cardiff. Room and dinner bookings at www.tolkiensociety.org/events/agm-and-springmoot-2025.

7-9 May • GIFCon (University of Glasgow conference), ‘Queering the Fantastic’, online. See tinyurl.com/yfdbvdwj.

5-6 Jul • Tolkien Society Seminar: ‘Arda’s Entangled Bodies ...’, Glasgow and online. Free. See www.tolkiensociety.org/events/.

13-17 Aug • Seattle Worldcon 2025, Seattle, WA, USA. Now $250 full adult registration, rising to $280 on 1 March 2025 and $300 on 1 May 2025. For the other rates see seattlein2025.org.

4-7 Sep • Oxonmoot (Tolkien Society), St Anne’s, Oxford. Registration awaited at www.tolkiensociety.org/events/oxonmoot-2025.

24-26 Oct • Festival of Fantastic Films, Pendulum Hotel, Manchester. £110 reg, rising to £120 on 1 March. Day rates: £30 Friday, £55 Saturday, £45 Sunday. See fantastic-films.uk.

Rumblings. Middle-earth Festival is to take place on the ‘weekend after Oxonmoot’, i.e. 11-12 September; UK field venue still not revealed.

Infinitely Improbable

As We See Us. ‘A science fiction convention, though, was definitely the worst. The people were loud. And friendly. And interested in you, themselves, each other, and the arts of rhetoric and personal adornment, in approximately that order.’ Also, ‘... the only way female fantasy writers could achieve respect was through bribery.’ (both Rosemary Edghill [eluki bes shahar], The Cloak of Night and Shadows, 1997) [BA]

Awards. Philip K. Dick Award shortlist: City of Dancing Gargoyles by Tara Campbell, Your Utopia: Stories by Bora Chung translated by Anton Hur, Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar, Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Triangulum by Subodhana Wijeyeratne.

Publishers and Sinners. Viking Classics (no connection with Penguin’s Viking Books, which is presumably not a problem for the beady-eyed Penguin legal department) reissues public domain works in which ‘Spelling and grammar are carefully edited’, as for example on the tasteful cover of their Kindle ebook Around the World in 80 Days by H.G. Wells – although, to be fair, they do show the right author on the title page. [MA]

80 Days cover

R.I.P. Alma Rosa Aguirre (1929-2025), Mexican actress in El fantasma de la casa roja (1956) and Los diablos del terror (1959), died on 27 January aged 95. [SJ]
Britt Allcroft (1943-2024), UK tv producer and writer who created the tv series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends – later just Thomas & Friends – and wrote 579 episodes 1984-2020 (there were also many spinoffs), died on 27 December aged 81.
Laurel Amberdine, US author, interviewer and member of the editorial teams at Lightspeed and Locus, died on 21 January. [L]
Mariano Antolín Rato (1943-2025), Spanish translator (of William S. Burroughs and others) and author of six sf novels beginning with Cuando 900 mil mach aprox (When 900 Thousand Mach Approx, 1973) – which introduced New Wave-mode sf to Spain – died on 10 January aged 81. [MV]
Jeff Baena (1977-2025), who wrote and directed the zombie romantic comedy Life After Beth (2014), committed suicide on 3 January aged 47. [SJ]
Christopher Benjamin (1934-2025), UK actor in The Plague Dogs (1982), the Jago & Litefoot podcast series (55 episodes spun off from the title characters’ appearance in Doctor Who: ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’, 1977) and The Legend of Tarzan (2016), died on 10 January aged 90.
John Brunas, US film historian who wrote extensively about horror and with his brother Michael plus Tom Weaver published Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931–1946 (1990), died on 19 January aged 76. [SJ]
John Capodice (1941-2024), Italian-US actor in Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), Gremlins 2 (1990), Independence Day (1996), The Phantom (1996) and others, died on 30 December aged 83. [SJ]
Leslie Charleson (1945-2025), US General Hospital actress whose films include The Day of the Dolphin (1973), died on 12 January aged 79. [SJ]
Barbara Clegg (1926-2025), UK Emergency Ward 10 actress who moved on to scriptwriting, adapting Wyndham’s The Chrysalids for Radio 4 (1981) and becoming the first woman to write for Doctor Who with her serial ‘Enlightenment’ (1983), died on 7 January aged 98. [SJ]
Phyllis Dalton (1925-2025), Oscar-winning UK costume designer whose films include Scrooge (1951), The Water Babies (1978), Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979) and The Princess Bride (1987), died on 9 January aged 99. [SJ]
Paul Danan (1978-2025), UK actor in The Queen’s Nose (3 episodes 2002), Are We Dead Yet? (2019) and Doll House (2022), was found dead on 15 January aged 46. [SJ]
Yevgenia Dobrovolskaya (1964-2025), Russian actress who starred in the children’s sf film Shchen iz sozvezdiya Gonchikh Psov (Pup from Canes Venatici, 1991), died on 10 January aged 60. [AM]
Jules Feiffer (1929-2025), Pulitzer-winning US cartoonist and author whose genre work included illustrations for The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), the pioneering comics study The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965) and the screenplay for Popeye (1980), died on 17 January aged 95. He entered the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2004.
Horst Janson (1935-2025), German actor in Hammer’s Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974), died on 28 January aged 89. [SJ]
Howard Andrew Jones, US author of historical and other fantasies beginning in 2011 with the ‘Chronicle of Sword and Sand’ sequence, and editor since 2017 of the magazine Tales from the Magician’s Skull, died on 16 January. [F770]
Charles Kay (1930-2025), UK actor in various genre series including Doctor Who (‘Excelis Rising’, 2002, as The Curator), died on 8 January aged 94. [SG]
Georgy Kuznetsov (1946-2025), Russian sf bibliographer, collector and fan who was a founder of the Novosibirsk sf fan club Amalthea (1977) and published Soviet science fiction of Siberia and Far East (2018), died on 18 January. [AM]
Diane Langton (1947-2025), UK actress in Percy’s Progress (1974), died on 15 January aged 77. [SJ]
Lily Li Li-Li (1950-2024), prolific Hong Kong actress whose many genre credits include The Bride with White Hair (title role, 1978), The Gods and Demons of Zu Mountain (1990) and Dark Tales (1996), died on 27 October 2024. [K]
David Lynch (1946-2025), noted US film and tv writer/director whose genre credits include Eraserhead (1977), Dune (1984), Twin Peaks (1990-1991) – with many spinoffs including the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) – and Inland Empire (2006), died on 15 January aged 78. [LP] He had accepted, and will receive posthumously, the Writers Guild of America West 2025 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
Pritish Nandy (1951-2025) Indian poet, journalist, parliamentarian and producer of the Hindi-language supernatural horror film Click (2010), died on 8 January. [AM]
Dame Joan Plowright (1929-2025), UK stage and screen actress whose genre films include Last Action Hero (1993), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Tom’s Midnight Garden (1999), George and the Dragon (2004) and The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008), died on 16 January aged 95.
Roger Pratt (1947-2024), UK cinematographer whose many credits include The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983), Brazil (1985), Batman (1989), 12 Monkeys (1995), 102 Dalmatians (2000) and two Harry Potter films, died in December aged 77. [AIP]
Andrew Pyper (1968-2025), Canadian author whose thrillers – beginning with the bestselling Lost Girls (2000) – have varying elements of supernatural horror, died on 3 January aged 56. [PDF] His novel William (2024, as by Mason Coile) is sf. [JC]
Gloria Romero (1933-2025), Filipino-US actress in Living Dead (1972), Fight! Batman, Fight! (1973), Rubberman (1996) and many others, died on 25 January aged 91. [SJ]
Johnny Russell (1933-2024), US former child actor with Shirley Temple in The Blue Bird (1940), died on 14 December aged 91. [SJ]
Al Sarrantonio (1952-2025), US author and anthologist whose first novel The Worms (1985) was horror and who moved into sf with the ‘Five Worlds Saga’ trilogy (1996-1998), died on 28 January aged 72. [GVG]
Jan Shepard (1928-2025), US actress in Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) and genre tv series including Science Fiction Theatre (3 episodes 1955-1957), died on 17 January aged 96. [LP]
Tony Slattery (1959-2025), UK actor/comedian in Carry on Columbus (1992) and The Rocky Horror Tribute Show (as narrator, 2006), died on 14 January aged 65. [SB]
Norman Chui Sui-Keung (1950-2024), Hong Kong actor in Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983), Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (1984) and Legend of the Liquid Sword (1993), died on 1 September 2024. [K]
Jeannot Szwarc (1939-2025), French-born US director of The Devil’s Daughter (1973), Bug (1975), Jaws 2 (1978), Somewhere in Time (1980), Supergirl (1984), Smallville (14 episodes 2003-2011) and more, died on 15 January aged 85. [SJ]
Bob Uecker (1934-2025), former US baseball player and broadcaster who voiced versions of himself in Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco (1996) and animated genre series, died on 16 January aged 90. [LP]
Wally (Wallace) Weber (1929-2025), US fan since 1947 who was a 1950s founder member of the Seattle ‘Nameless Ones’ fan club, coedited their Cry of the Nameless (1960 fanzine Hugo winner), chaired the 1961 Seattle Worldcon, won TAFF in 1963 and remained active in SAPS until 2021, died on 23 January aged 95. [AH/JK]
Dale Wilson (1950-2025), Canadian actor whose many genre credits include Watchers (1988), I Still Dream of Jeannie (1991), Stay Tuned (1992), Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002) and Killer Mountain (2011), died on 6 January aged 74. [SJ]
Peter Yarrow (1938-2025), US singer/songwriter who co-wrote and – as part of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary – sang ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ (1963), died on 7 January aged 86. [AIP]

Superfluous Technology. The tradition of porting the elderly sf first-person-shooter game Doom (1993) to unlikely platforms continues with a version that runs in a PDF (Portable Document Format) file, albeit rather slowly and in monochrome. Why? Because it was there, of course; or rather, because until now it wasn’t. (The Register, 14 January)

Cancel Culture. Harry Potter replica ‘Gryffindor Swords’ sold at a Japanese theme park have been recalled for being ‘too authentic’ – i.e. long (85cm), sharp and pointy – and thus running afoul of the country’s weapons control laws. (Herald Sun, Australia, 6 December) [DLR]

Magazine Scene. From the March issue, ‘Science Fiction Studies will be published under the auspices of the University of California Press consortium.’ This is a happy rescue, since the previous SFS academic host DePauw University reduced its budget to zero in 2024. [IC-R]
• Andy Cox – former publisher of Interzone and Black Static – and Richard Wagner have launched the quarterly printed horror magazine Remains, whose first issue appeared in January. Further details at remains.uk. [PDF]

Random Fandom. FAAn Awards 2024. Voting on these awards for fanzine activity opened in January and closes on 29 March. Anyone can vote: for further details see the latest issue of administrator Nic Farey’s The Incompleat Register at efanzines.com/TIR/Incompleat2024.pdf.
Glasgow 2024 Worldcon Souvenir Book Secrets. ‘Despite a membership of 8,000, only 5,000 were printed on the assumption that not everyone would want to pick theirs up. This was even more true than the committee thought, and only 4,200 went – sadly 800 were recycled after the con.’ (Rob Jackson, Inca 25, December)

Karma’s a Bitch is the Writer Beware headline for a report on the arrest in California of the CEO and VP of the notorious Phillipines-based PageTurner Press and Media aka Innocentrix, whose fleecing of would-be authors has been generating anguished complaints since 2018. According to the US DoJ, ‘the FBI identified more than 800 victims of the scheme who collectively lost more than $44 million....’ (Writer Beware, 3 January)

The Dead Past. 60 Years Ago, fandom learned that the new Tarzan series novels by ‘Barton Werper’, beginning with Tarzan and the Silver Globe (1964), were not only unauthorized – legal action from the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate was soon to follow – but partly plagiarized, with paragraphs lifted verbatim from ERB’s Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. (The Barsoomian Times 4, February 1965)
20 Years Ago, the Independent gave us a Lord of the Rings plot summary: ‘The plucky hobbits cross treacherous mountains to stop the evil Lord Sarumon obtaining the ring he needs for world domination.’ (Ansible 211, February 2005)

Fanfundery. TransAtlantic Fan Fund. Voting continues in the 2025 westbound TAFF race to the Seattle Worldcon, and will close on 23 April. See taff.org.uk for the ballot, candidates, and online voting form. While updating that site I found a strangely Douglas Adamsish name in a 1964 list of voters: Vov Ailcwevwef. Deep analysis of likely typewriter mishits suggested ‘Bob Silverberg’.
Canadian Unity Fan Fund. Garth Spencer, the 2023 CUFF winner and current administrator, has given up in response to widespread apathy. ‘If fans in Canada just don’t know or care what a fan fund is, there is not much point in doing this anymore.’ [F770]
The Corflu Fifty will bring Nic & Jen Farey to the UK for his last and her first visit, to Corflu 42 in April (corflu.org). There’s also a one-off fund to cover their further travel to Eastercon etc.: the title Nic Farey Fan Fund, or N3F, was rejected in favour of the Far-flung Farey Safari, or FFS! GoFundMe details are at www.gofundme.com/f/the-farflung-farey-safari.

Editorial. It’s suggested that issue 451 would be an appropriate point for Ansible to cease in a blaze of glory. Do I hear the Mechanical Hound?

Outraged Letters. Sue Jones on A450: ‘I am pleased to report that Scrooge’s gravestone (a real old, illegible, gravestone wearing a false name added for the George C. Scott film in 1984) has been repaired and replaced in St Chad’s Churchyard. It was already in two pieces and only has two more breaks, well away from the name.’

Thog’s Masterclass. Slim Fingers Dept. ‘... his hands clutching at the king's pimply throat as though ten piano wires were being tightened around that fleshy column.’ (Ron Miller, Hearts and Armour, 1992) [BA]
The Lorentz-FitzGerald Expansion. ‘‘‘By the general theory of relativity,” I said, “a body travelling at the speed of light would acquire infinite size and mass.”’ (Rex Gordon, First to the Stars, 1959)
Neat Tricks. ‘He slid back, flattened himself against the aluminum side of the stairwell, and stretched his ears.’ (Poul Anderson, ‘Brake’, August 1957 Astounding) [CG]
Fine Writing: Nonfiction Dept. ‘It melted like silk. The flavor dove into a deep, dark place, and then, just when I thought I had a handle on it, the bottom fell out of it and it dove some more.’ (Rowan Jacobsen, Wild Chocolate, 2024) [PE]

Geeks’ Corner

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Convention and Event Links
• British Isles – https://news.ansible.uk
• London – https://news.ansible.uk/london.html
• Overseas – https://news.ansible.uk/conlisti.html [no longer updated]

Endnotes

PayPal Tip Jar Thingy. Donate to support Ansible, cover website costs and keep the editor happy! Or just buy his books.
https://ansible.uk/paypal.html
https://ae.ansible.uk/
https://ansible.uk/books/index.html

Group Theory.
• 20 February 2025, evening: London Zoom meeting, third Thursday of each month. ‘Please share this with people who you know typically come to the Bishop’s Finger, but aren’t on Facebook.’
https://bohemiancoast.medium.com/first-thursday-london-sf-fan-virtual-drinks-5232021e961f

Rumblings II. Picocon 42 (Imperial College, London), normally in February, is reportedly to be held on 1 March. As Ansible goes to press there is no confirming Picocon web presence and it’s been hinted by one of the as yet unnannounced speakers that the date might change. [DH] Late news: it’s on!
https://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/shop/csp/science-fiction-and-fantasy/picocon-42-sentience-tickets

The Relentless Publishing Programme. The Ian Watson nonfiction collection Watto’s Wisdom is on course for ebook and paperback release on 1 March, with Sandra Bond hoping to sell the latter (all proceeds to TAFF) in the Eastercon dealers’ room and Ian intending to be there to sign them. The Incomplete GUFF Chronicles, a GUFF equivalent of the 2017 TAFF Trip Report Anthology ebook (taff.org.uk/ebooks.php?x=TAFFanth), is even now being proofread. No idea of what comes next....

R.I.P. II: Late Report. Marianne Faithfull (1946-2025), UK singer, songwriter and actress in Ghost Story (1974) and Absolutely Fabulous (3 episodes 1996-2001, as God) – plus voice parts in The Turn of the Screw (1992, as narrator) and Dune: Part One (2021) – died on 30 January aged 78. [LP]

Some Links from the Ansible home page.
• Neil Gaiman allegations continue
https://news.ansible.uk/misc/link25.html#Jan
• Steve Holland on Barry Malzberg (Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jan/09/barry-malzberg-obituary
The Incompleat Register 2024 (re FAAn awards)
https://efanzines.com/TIR/Incompleat2024.pdf
• TAFF online voting form
https://taff.org.uk/vote.php
TLDV: ‘The Last Orphan Stories’
https://amazingstories.com/2025/01/the-last-orphan-stories/
• George Zebrowski obituary (Times Union)
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/grondahl-george-zebrowski-prolific-sci-fi-20008416.php

Thog’s Golden Oldies from Ansible 211, February 2005. Understatement Dept. ‘Kassad was aware of the pain as a great sound beyond hearing, a huge, incessant foghorn of pain, as if thousands of untrained fingers were falling on thousands of keys playing a massive pipe organ of pain.' (Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion, 1990)
Magical Physics Dept (or, the Bounceless Bounce). ‘Satellites watched the residue of gas and energized particles strike the surface and rebound. There was no heat or momentum transfer.’ (Peter F. Hamilton, Pandora’s Star, 2004)
Solid Geometry Dept. ‘The capsule was a truncated cylinder, perhaps four meters in diameter at the base and three at the top ...’ (Charles Stross, Singularity Sky, 2003)

Ansible® 451 © David Langford, 2025. Thanks to Brian Ameringen, Douglas A. Anderson, Mike Ashley, Sandra Bond, John Clute, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Cat Eldridge, Paul Di Filippo, File 770, Carl Glover, Steve Green, David Haddock, Andy Hooper, Kari, Jerry Kaufman, Steve Jones, Locus, Art Lortie, Andrey Meshavkin, Lawrence Person, Gillian Polack, Andrew I. Porter, Private Eye, David L. Russell,SF² Concatenation, Gordon Van Gelder, Mariano Villarreal, and our Hero Distributors: Durdles Books (Brum Group), SCIS/Prophecy and Alan Stewart (Australia). 31 January 2025