Ansible® 453, April 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 reliable escape routes from the Chester-Perry Building.
The Great Tea Trolley Disaster
Terry Brooks, who is 81, announced on a panel at Emerald City Comic Con in March that he’s retiring from writing fantasy – but will hand over the Shannara series to Delilah S. Dawson. (Popverse, 9 March)
Zen Cho is to deliver the 2025 Tolkien Lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford; for further details see the events list below.
Richard Shaver of Shaver Mystery fame is surprisingly remembered in a Paris Review article covering not only the ‘mystery’ – sinister underground ‘deros’ controlling human thoughts, etc. – but his belief that ordinary-looking rocks contain written and graphic records of ancient civilizations, clearly visible to Shaver if not to mere geologists, and his revelation of the original ur-alphabet Mantong: ‘A stands for animal / B stands for be, to exist ... to be. / C stands for vision ...’ (Paris Review, 20 March) [RH]
Jeanette Winterson, though acknowledging in passing that authors ripped off to train AI should be paid, is so utterly stupended by the ‘beautiful and moving’ result from a creative writing model fed with the complexly innovative prompt ‘Short Story. Metafiction. Grief.’ that she now feels we all need to be reading wonderful AI. (Guardian, 12 March) Maybe the Eliza Effect should be renamed as the Winterson Effect.
Conjugata
Click here for longlist • London • Overseas
5 Apr • Bedford Who Charity Con (Doctor Who), King’s House, Ampthill Road, Bedford, MK42 9AZ. 10am-5:30pm. Tickets £49.50; under-14s £20. See bedfordwhocharitycon.co.uk.
5 Apr • Terato Con (monsters), Future Inn, Cabot Circus, Bristol. 10am onward. £50 reg, for over-17s only. See teratocon.wordpress.com.
8 Apr - 30 Sep • Cats! (exhibition), Cartoon Museum, London. More at www.cartoonmuseum.org/whats-on-exhibitions/cats.
10 Apr • BFS/BSFA Social, Waterstones, Piccadilly, London. 6:30-8:30pm. Free booking (required) at tinyurl.com/y9kbbv8e.
11-13 Apr • Corflu 42 (fan), Chequers Hotel, Newbury. £75/$95 reg; £25/$32 supp; £10/$15 virtual. More details at corflu.org.
12-13 Apr • Conpulsion (games), The Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ. Tickets £20 or £10 each day, at the door only. See conpulsion.org.
18-21 Apr • Reconnect (Eastercon), Hilton Lanyon Place Hotel and ICC, Belfast. £100 reg, rising to £120 at the door; Eastercon first-timers and fans living in Ireland £70; £40 under-18s, concessions; £25 supp. See easterconbelfast.org. Online registration ends at midnight on 4 April.
19-20 Apr • Horrorfied (horror), Farnborough International Exhibition Centre. Tickets £49; day rate £29. See horrorfied.co.uk.
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.
26 Apr • Dragonmeet: Call to Adventure (gaming), Kensington Town Hall, London. 10am-5pm. Free tickets at dragonmeet.co.uk/cta.
26-27 Apr • Sci-Fi Scarborough (multimedia), The Spa, Scarborough. £30 reg; students £20; ‘kids’ £10. See scifiscarborough.co.uk.
2-4 May • Paracinema Cult Film Festival, QUAD Centre, Derby. Weekend passes £30 (£25 concessions) via paracinema.co.uk.
3-4 May • Portmeirion Steampunk event, Portmeirion. Day tickets £13, under-15s £11, under-5s free. See steampunk.wales.
19 May • Tolkien Lecture by Zen Cho, Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College, Oxford. 6pm. Free tickets from tolkienlecture.org.
25 May • Paperback & Pulp Book Fair, Holiday Inn Bloomsbury, Coram St, London. 9:30am-3pm. £3 entry. See etcfairs.com/2025/03/24/next-themed-fair-paperback-pulp-fair/.
25-28 Jul • Continuum (RPG), Cranfield University CMDC. Now £60 reg; day passes £25. Under-17s free. See continuumconvention.co.uk.
9 Aug • Northern Horizon (Blake’s 7), Tyneside Irish Centre, 10am-4pm. £20; VIP £75. See tinyurl.com/nhb7con.
13-17 Aug • Seattle Worldcon 2025, Seattle, WA, USA. Now $280 full adult registration, rising to $300 on 1 May. See seattlein2025.org for other rates. Hugo nominations closed on 14 March. Alas, many overseas members are staying away owing to the current US War on Tourism.
21-25 Aug • Frightfest (film), Odeon Luxe, Leicester Square, London. Tickets awaited at www.frightfest.co.uk/filmsandevents/.
20 Sep • Edge-Lit 11, QUAD Centre, Market Place, Derby. £35 reg plus £1 booking fee. See www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/edgelit11/.
27 Sep • Innsmouth Literary Festival, Kings House Centre, 245 Ampthill Rd, Bedford MK42 9AZ. 10am-5pm. £30 reg. Further details at innsmouthgold.com/innsmouth-literary-festival.
12-13 Oct • Octocon, Maldron Hotel, Tallaght, Dublin. €40 reg; concessions €25; under-22s €10; under-13s free; supp €20. In-person convention on Saturday; online only on Sunday. See octocon.com.
23-26 Oct • Edinburgh Horror Festival, Banshee Labyrinth and Lauriston Castle. Ticket sales awaited at www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
24-26 Oct • Festival of Fantastic Films, Pendulum Hotel, Manchester. Now £120 reg. Day rates at fantastic-films.uk.
25-26 Oct • BristolCon, Hilton DoubleTree Hotel, Bristol.£60 reg; £45 under-18s, concessions, disabled; under-14s free; £20 supporting only. Day rates and registration page at www.bristolcon.org.
31 Oct - 1 Nov • Frightfest Halloween (film), London venue as August above. Tickets awaited at www.frightfest.co.uk/filmsandevents/.
13-15 Mar 2026 • MinamiCon (anime), Novotel Hotel, Southampton. Registration opens July/August at www.minamicon.org.uk.
22-24 May 2026 • Satellite 9, Clayton Hotel, Glasgow. GoH Liz Williams. Now £75 reg; under-25s £60; under-18s £20; under-12s £5; under-5s £2. See nine.satellitex.org.uk.
27-31 Aug 2026 • LAcon V, Anaheim Convention Center, California. $200 reg; $175 first Worldcon; $125 YA (18-24); $100 teen (13-17); $50 child (6-12); infants free. $50 WSFS membership only. These rates are good to 1 May 2025 and will presumably then rise. More at www.lacon.org.
Infinitely Improbable
Publishers and Sinners. Buried deep in the current HarperFiction catalogue (January-June 2025) is a placeholder image for the yet-to-be-revealed cover of Fahrenheit 451 by J.R.R. Tolkien. [SF²C]
• Bloomsbury announced its new sf/fantasy imprint Bloomsbury Archer, whose coverage will range astonishingly ‘from fantasy and science fiction to crossover, speculative romance, and from horror to myth retellings’. (11 March) [L]
Awards. BSFA novel finalists: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Calypso by Oliver K Langmead, Rabbit in the Moon by Fiona Moore, Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley. See www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-shortlist for other categories.
• Climate Fiction Prize inaugural shortlist: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, And So I Roar by Abi Daré, Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, The Morningside by Téa Obreht (Guardian, 19 March).
• Crawford (debut fantasy): The West Passage by Jared Pechaček.
• Nebula novel finalists: Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov, Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, Asunder by Kerstin Hall, A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, The Book of Love by Kelly Link, Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. Full list at nebulas.sfwa.org/8528-2/. [SFWA]
• Oscars: best animated feature film, Flow.
• Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame: 2025 inductees include Frank R. Paul and Marie Severin. [AIP]
• Speculative Literature Foundation Illustration of the Year: ‘Star Thief’ by Flore Picard. [F770]
Outraged Letters. Ramsey Campbell on inspirational chocolate (see A452): ‘Ah, but you haven't read my novel Uncanny Chocolate yet, nor indeed The Bones of Toblerone or The Crunchies Creep....’ (Facebook, 24 March)
R.I.P. Brady Allen (1970-2025), US author of nearly 30 stories since 1998 – some collected as Back Roads & Frontal Lobes (2012) – died on 8 March aged 54. [GVG]
• Pamela Bach-Hasselhoff (1963-2025), US actress in Mansion of Blood (2015) and genre tv series, died on 5 March aged 61. [AIP]
• Yves Boisset (1939-2025), French director whose films include Le prix du danger (1983, based on Robert Sheckley’s ‘The Prize of Peril’), died on 31 March aged 86.
• Nadia Cassini (1949-2025), Italian-US actress in Starcrash (1978), Io zombo, tu zombi, lei zomba (1979) and others, died on 19 March aged 76. [SJ]
• Richard Chamberlain (1934-2025), US actor in The Slipper and the Rose (1976), The Last Wave (1977), The Swarm (1978), Murder by Phone (1982) and others, died on 29 March aged 90. [SJ]
• Margaret Clark (1955-2025), editor and author at DC Comics and Marvel, and later editor of many Star Trek novels and other spinoffs for Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, died on 16 March aged 69. [DM]
• David Steven Cohen (1958-2025), US screenwriter/producer whose credits include Courage the Cowardly Dog (52 episodes 1999-2002) and Balto (1995), died on 5 March aged 66.
• Donald Crombie (1942-2025), Australian director of Playing Beatie Bow (1986), Time Trax (6 episodes 1993-4) and Selkie (2000), died on 25 March aged 82. [GC]
• Bill Dare (1960-2025), UK author and radio/tv producer whose Swiftian fantasy novel Brian Gulliver’s Travels (2013) is based on his radio series of the same name (two seasons 2011, 2012), died on 1 March aged 64. [SG]
• Simon Fisher-Becker (1961-2025), UK actor in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and Doctor Who (2010-2011 and after), died on 9 March aged 63. [SJ]
• Eleonora Giorgi (1953-2025), Italian actress in The Sex Machine (1975), Inferno (1980) and others, died on 3 March aged 71. [SJ]
• Bruce Glover (1932-2025), US actor in Warlock: The Armageddon (1993), Night of the Scarecrow (1995), Die Hard Dracula (1998) and genre tv series, died on 12 March aged 92. [SG]
• Todd Grimson (Todd Spillum, 1952-2025), US author active from 1987 whose surreal horror novel Brand New Cherry Flavor (1996) was adapted for tv, died on 30 January aged 72. [L]
• Wings Hauser (1947-2025), US actor in Mutant (1984). Beastmaster 2 (1991), Tales from the Hood (1995), Rubber (2010) and others, died on 15 March aged 77. [LP]
• Thomas Hoobler (1942-2025), US author of the sf The Hunters (1978 plus 1983 sequel) with Burt Wetanson, and the nonfiction The Monsters: Mary Shelley & the Curse of Frankenstein (2006) with his wife Dorothy, died on 22 February aged 82. [JC]
• Takashi Inagaki (1937-2025), Japanese voice actor in A Spirit of the Sun (2006), Soul Eater (2008-2009) and others, died on 12 March aged 87.
• Dave James (1939-2025), US news anchorman seen in Night of the Living Dead (1968) and documentary spinoffs, died on 22 March aged 85. [SJ]
• David Johansen (1950-2025), US New York Dolls singer/songwriter who acted in Scrooged (1988), Tales from the Darkside (1990), Freejack (1992) and others, died on 28 February aged 75. [GVG]
• Yōko Kawanami (1957-2025), Japanese voice actress in Dragon Ball (1986), Dragon Ball Z (1992-1994) and others, died on 18 March aged 67.
• George Lowe (1958-2025), US voice actor best known as Space Ghost in Space Ghost Coast to Coast (113 episodes 1993-2012) and The Brak Show (29 episodes 2000-2007), died on 2 March aged 66. [LP]
• Peter Mabey (1926-2025), long-time UK fan who attended the first London Worldcon in 1957 and produced publications for the second in 1965, died on 19 February aged 98. He was active in the BSFA from its early years, received the first Doc Weir Award in 1963 and continued to attend cons well into the new century. Another pillar of UK fandom gone, alas. [AS]
• Dave Mallow (1948-2025), US voice actor in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (138 episodes 1993-1999) and many others, died on 11 March aged 76.
• Geoff Nicholson (1953-2025), idiosyncratic UK black-comedy author whose rock’n’roll novel Flesh Guitar (1998) has weird/fantastic elements, died on 18 January aged 71. [AIP]
• Richard Norton (1950-2025), Australian actor in Magic Crystal (1986), Equalizer 2000 (1987), Raiders of the Sun (1992), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and others, died on 30 March aged 75. [SJ]
• Clive Revill (1930-2025), New Zealand actor in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Transformers (1986), C.H.U.D. II (1989), Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future (18 episodes, 2002) and many more animations/videogames, died on 11 March aged 94. [LP]
• Bayazid Rzayev, Russian horror fan, editor and award-winning critic for the online Russian horror zine DARKER, died on 25 March. [AM]
• Paul Sawyer, UK editor of White Dwarf magazine 1993-2007 and co-founder of Warlord Games in 2007, died on 27 March. [MR]
• L.J. [Lisa Jane] Smith (1958-2025), US author whose debut was The Night of the Solstice (1987) and whose several fantasy series include ‘Vampire Diaries’ (adapted for tv) and ‘Night World’, died on 8 March aged 66. [L]
• Angelo Todaro (1945-2025), Italian comics artist who drew Italian versions of The Phantom (also scripting new stories) and Mandrake the Magician, died on 22 March aged 79.
• Ian Williams (1948-2025), UK fan, convention-runner and author active from the early 1970s – founder of the Newcastle fan group that became known as the Gannets and ran the 1974 Eastercon – died on 28 March aged 76. [CS/PS] Fanzines included Maya (as its first editor, 1970-1971), Goblin’s Grotto (1975-1976) and Siddhartha (1974-2010); his sf novel was The Lies That Bind (1989). Another old friend.
• Gene Winfield (1927-2025), US custom car designer whose sf vehicles appeared in Star Trek (1966-1969), Sleeper (1973), Blade Runner (1982), The Last Starfighter (1984), RoboCop (1987) and others, died on 4 March aged 97. [AIP]
• Andrei Yermash (1957-2025), Russian director of Lunnaya raduga (Moon Rainbow, 1983) and the Asimov-based Konets vechnosti (The End of Eternity, 1987) – both scripted by him – died on 25 March aged 68. [AM]
As Others See Us. A rare positive note: ‘I have always been a huge science fiction fan, and I find these days that it’s helping me in my work life. Great science fiction often deals with geopolitical issues, broad social pendulum shifts, and large-scale systems failure (think Dune, or Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation trilogy, which I inhaled when I was about 12 and re-read for fun every decade or so). All these are in play today, particularly in the US, where politics is totally in flux.’ (Rana Foroohar, Financial Times ‘Swamp Notes’, 10 February) [NW]
Court Circular. The Hollywood film-maker Carl Erik Rinsch is being prosecuted by the US Justice Department for misuse of some $11 million paid by Netflix for development of the sf series White Horse (later retitled Conquest) – spending the money on personal investments and desperate fun without completing a single episode. (New York Times, 18 March) [AIP]
Random Fandom. The Doc Weir Award for ‘unsung heroes’ of fandom will be presented as usual at Eastercon, in Belfast. The ballot box for in-person voting should be at Sandra Bond’s dealer table (along with the TAFF ballot box and copies of the latest TAFF-benefit paperback Watto’s Wisdom: Zine and Con Writing by Ian Watson, who plans to be there with his favourite signing pen). Reconnect members can also vote online at ansible.uk/docweir.php.
• Royal Mail postage rates rise yet again on 7 April: the basic 100g weight step in second class from 85p to 87p, first class from £1.65 to £1.70 and international letters from £2.80 to £3.20.
• James D. Nicoll, in reaction to Trumpian gibberings about acquiring or annexing his native land Canada, has taken to embellishing his online sf reviews and other posts with the phrase ‘America delenda est’.
Small Press. ‘Off Limits Press will be closing its doors on June 1, 2025’ says editor-in-chief Waylon Jordan (Bluesky, 28 February). [F770]
The Dead Past. 30 Years Ago: ‘Samuel R. Delany's tongue-in-cheek ploy to improve the political correctness of his reissued porno epic Equinox (aka The Tides of Lust) is to make all its characters 100 years older. No one could possibly complain about explicit underage sex scenes involving a boy and girl aged, respectively, 113 and 115....’ (Ansible 93, April 1995)
• 20 Years Ago: ‘Mark Lawson, connoisseur of fantasy, reports the news that Ian McKellen will feature in Coronation Street: “The explanation for Sir Ian’s soap debut may simply be that he wanted to speak some proper dialogue after appearing in all that Tolkein [sic] trog tosh ...” (Guardian, 12 March)’ (Ansible 213, April 2005)
• 10 Years Ago, a subtle literary insight: ‘“If you give Frodo Baggins a mobile phone, The Lord of the Rings becomes a considerably shorter book.” (Paul Mason, New Humanist)’ (Ansible 333, April 2015) Not unless someone else has one.
Court Circular II. Chris Barkley, who won the fanwriter Hugo at the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon, is suing the Hugo administrator Dave McCarty for not forwarding his and some others’ award trophies (damaged in their journey from China, with repair work promised) despite repeated enquiries. McCarty’s full and frank explanation to the US small claims court judge was: ‘I don’t think I owe anything.’ The action continues. [F770]
Fanfundery. TransAtlantic Fan Fund. Final alert: voting in the 2025 westbound TAFF race to the Seattle Worldcon closes on 23 April. See taff.org.uk for ballot, candidates, and online voting form.
• TAFF Books: the 2017 TAFF Trip Report Anthology of chapters from abandoned/unfinished reports now has a second edition, dropping material from since-completed reports and adding new chapters: taff.org.uk/ebooks.php?x=TAFFanth2.
• Alison Scott is selling UK fans’ old RPG kit on eBay for various fannish causes: a partial set of the Trollcrusher APA went for £950 and a tatty b/w 1976 Games Workshop catalogue for £80. Gorblimey.
• European Fan Fund: the new official site is effund.github.io, where nominations for a race to Eurocon 2025 (Åland, Finland, late June) opened with little publicity on 27 February. Reportedly no candidates emerged by the extended deadline of 30 March [CB], so plans for voting to open today and close on 25 April need to be rethought. The race may be held over to 2026.
Thog’s Masterclass. Tripodal. ‘Asman Ila indicated a small three-legged stool with a delicate gesture. It tipped alarmingly when Bardas sat on it; one leg was markedly shorter than the others.’ (K.J. Parker, The Proof House, 2000) [BA]
• Avatars of Klono. ‘“By Malgarth’s brazen bowels,” gasped Rogo Nug, “we’re stuck like flies in syrup!”’ (Jack Williamson, After World’s End, 1939) [AR]
• Eyeballs in the Sky. ‘His eyes bounced from the white coat.’ (Philip Wylie, Night Unto Night, 1944) [BA]
• The Empirical Approach, or the secret of surviving without a space helmet on a ‘small meteor’ orbiting Saturn: ‘Air, you say! Air on a meteor like that! Do you call yourself an astronomer? If so, you show your ignorance by such questioning! Yet at least something that served my purposes of breathing was there and that I am here alive to tell it must be your proof.’ (Ray Cummings, The Man on the Meteor, 1924) [AR]
Geeks’ Corner
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Convention and Event Links
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• 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
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Group Theory.
• 17 April 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
R.I.P. II – Last-Minute Report. Nancy Kilpatrick (1946-2025), US-born Canadian author whose fiction series include ‘The Darker Passions’ (1993-1998) as Amarantha Knight (erotic re-imaginings of Dracula, Frankenstein and others) and the vampire sagas ‘Power of the Blood World’ (1994-2000) and ‘Thrones of Blood’ (2017-2020), died on 31 March aged 78. [SJ]
Random Fandom II. FAAN Awards voting has closed: the awards will be presented at Corflu 42 on 13 April.
Some Links from the Ansible home page.
• BSFA Awards finalists
https://www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-shortlist
• The Cruciverbal Inquisitor celebrates Edward Gorey
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2025/03/04/inquisitor-1896-alphabets-by-phi/
• Details on the New Owners of Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF
https://locusmag.com/2025/03/details-on-the-new-owners-of-analog-asimovs-and-fsf/
• NASA deletes ‘women can be astronauts’ comics
https://futurism.com/nasa-deletes-comic-women-astronauts
• Nebula Awards finalists
https://nebulas.sfwa.org/8528-2/
• Seattle Worldcon 2025: Statement from the Chair
https://seattlein2025.org/2025/03/20/statement-from-worldcon-chair/
Thog’s Golden Oldies from Ansible 213, April 2005. Hazards of Spaceship Acceleration. ‘Grant slept fitfully, dreaming that some giant hand was shaking him, pummeling him mercilessly. He snapped awake and found that it was no dream.’ ‘Abruptly the thrusters shut off. Grant felt it like a blow to his crotch.’ (both Ben Bova, Jupiter, 2000)
• Arithmetic Dept. ‘Caine [...] hobbled to the kitchen, closing the door behind him, 1.3 seconds before three soldiers burst into the room. ... Their names are Martin Crowe, Juan Esposito, Ron McCoy, and Charlie Rainer.’ (Adam Fawer, Improbable, 2005)
• Dept of Supersonics. ‘The ships were so big, so vast, so fast. Faster than sound. The noise reached you after the ship made it. That was why there was never any warning.’ (Nicholas Fisk, Starstormers, 1980)
Ansible® 453 © David Langford, 2025. Thanks to Brian Ameringen,Claire Brialey, BSFA, John Clute, Gary Couzens, File 770, Steve Green, Rich Horton, Steve Jones, Locus, David Mack, Andrey Meshavkin, Lawrence Person, Andrew I. Porter, Adam Roberts, Marcus Rowland, Alison Scott, SF² Concatenation, Cas Skelton, Paul Skelton, Gordon Van Gelder, Nick Watkins, and as always our Hero Distributors: Durdles Books (Birmingham SF Group), SCIS/Prophecy and Alan Stewart (Australia). 1 April 2025