Ansible® 469, August 2026
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, Extee Three, hokfusine, sunstones or zatku.
Thus Spake Zarathustra
Lois McMaster Bujold and Tim Burton have entered the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture’s SF and Fantasy Hall of Fame as this year’s honoured creators. The chosen creations for 2026 are the X-Men comics/cinema franchise and the classic film Metropolis (1927). [F770]
M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything is one of thirteen novels on the longlist for this year’s Booker Prize. [AIP]
Stephen King has again been banned in Utah schools under the weird state law saying that if a book – here Different Seasons – is removed from school libraries in four districts, the ban becomes state-wide. Past genre casualties include his Bag of Bones and GRRM’s A Clash of Kings. [L]
Boris Vallejo, now 85 and suffering from Parkinson’s, has ‘officially retired from commercial or commissioned work’ but will continue to paint for himself, sign prints and attend conventions. (Facebook, 19 July) [JB]
John Van Stry reports an email solicitation apparently from Toni Weisskopf of Baen Books, including her photo to guarantee authenticity and expressing strong interest in his sf novel Summer’s End – already published by Toni Weisskopf as a Baen book in 2022 . Special credit for the clever Gmail address ‘toniwei.beanbookpub’. (Blog, 9 July) [F770]
Constat
Click here for longlist • London • Overseas
SOLD OUT 7-10 Aug • Discworld Convention, Leonardo Hotel, Hinckley Island, Leicestershire. There is a waiting list at dwcon.org.
7-9 Aug • MCM Comic Con, Birmingham NEC. Weekend tickets £67; other rates at www.mcmcomiccon.com/birmingham/en-us.html.
15-16 Aug • Brickstock (steampunk), Bricklayers Arms, Kingston-upon-Thames. Successor to the apparently defunct Surrey Steampunk Convivials. See www.facebook.com/steampunkconvivials.
15-16 Aug • Caption (small press/comics), Seacourt Hall, Botley, Oxford, OX2 9TH. £30 reg; £20/day. See captionfestival.co.uk.
15 Aug • Stars of Time (comics), Winter Gardens, Weston-super-Mare. £12.62; concessions/under-14s £8.30. See www.starsoftime.co.uk.
22-23 Aug • For the Love of Fantasy, ExCel, London. Weekend tickets £53.90 (concessions £24.20) at fortheloveoffantasy.com.
27-31 Aug • Frightfest (film), Leicester Square & West End Odeons, London. Festival and day tickets now on sale at frightfest.co.uk/tickets/.
27-31 Aug • LAcon V, Anaheim Convention Center, California. $275 adult reg; $225 first Worldcon; $125 YA (18-24); $100 teen (13-17); $85 virtual membership; $50 child (6-12); accompanied infants free. $50 WSFS membership only. See www.lacon.org.
28-31 Aug • Asylum 16 (steampunk), The Lawns and other Lincoln venues. Weekend pass £49 at www.ministryofsteampunk.com.
28-30 Aug • Movie and Monster Con, Bridgwater, Somerset. Tickets variously priced at movieandmonstercon.weebly.com.
3-6 Sep • Oxonmoot (Tolkien Society), St Anne’s, Oxford. £140 reg; other rates at www.tolkiensociety.org/events/oxonmoot-2026/.
4-6 Sep • Fantasy Forest (cosplay), Hatfield House, Hatfield, with camping options. More at fantasyforest.co.uk.
20 Sep • NastyFest 2 (video nasties), Lumiere Cinema, Romford. 11am-11pm. £25. See infinitymagazine.co.uk/shop/.
2-10 Oct • Festival of Words, East Riding Libraries, Yorkshire. Some fantasy items: see eastridinglibraries.co.uk/festival-of-words/.
9-11 Oct • Birmingham Anime Film Festival, Mockingbird Cinema, Custard Factory, Birmingham. Tickets at www.baff.uk.
17-18 Oct • Cymera Loves Romantasy (festival), The Pleasance, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh. See www.cymerafestival.co.uk/romantasy.
7 Nov • Stars of Time (comics), Weston-super-Mare. £12.62; under-14s £8.30. See www.starsoftime.co.uk/weston-s-mare-winter.
21 Nov • DarkFest 9 (cult horror films), Genesis Cinema, 93-95 Mile End Road, London, E1 4UJ. £40, rising to £45 on 1 September. See infinitymagazine.co.uk/product/darkfest-9/.
21 Nov • TFnation (Transformers), Steam Museum, Swindon. Adults £40; under-18s £25; accompanied under-13s (up to 3 per adult) free. See tfnation.com/TFN-Swindon-2026.
2-3 May 2027 • Portmeirion Steampunk event, Portmeirion. Day tickets at the gate only, as in 2026? Rates awaited at steampunk.wales.
26 Jun 2027 • Stars of Time (comics), Steam Museum, Swindon. Tickets ‘on sale soon’ at www.starsoftime.co.uk/swindon.
Rumblings. Future Eurocons: the 2028 event – following a vote at the Berlin MetropolCon in July – will be Sferakon in Zagreb, Croatia. 2029 bids are Warsaw, Poland and Sofia, Bulgaria. 2030: Birmingham, UK (see A468) and Fiuggi, Italy. 2031 (tentative): Belgrade, Serbia. 2032: the 2030 bid for Copenhagen, Denmark, has reportedly switched to this year. [O] See listing at www.esfs.info/eurocons-2/future-eurocons/.
Infinitely Improbable
Royal Endorsement. Queen Camilla visited a Mayfair bookshop and made a traditional revelation: ‘Asked if there are any genres she does not like, Camilla said without pause: “I hate sci-fi,” pronouncing it sky-fi. / Laughing, she added: “That, I’m afraid, is not my favourite. I’m sure a lot of people love it, but, um… / “No science fiction. No, I can’t do that, you have to have some things you love and some things you really don’t love, and that really is one I don’t love.”’ (Press Association, 14 July) [BA] But fantasy is OK, as we learned from the announcement that over 800,000 copies of Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell are to be distributed to UK kids as ‘The Queen’s Christmas Present’. (Guardian, 17 July)
Awards. Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery: Suzette Haden Elgin.
• Prometheus (libertarian): A Kiss for Damocles by J. Kenton Pierce. HALL OF FAME Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. SPECIAL YA Storm-Dragon by Dave Freer.
• Mythopoeic: ADULT LITERATURE: Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher. YA The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum. CHILDREN’S The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman. INKLINGS STUDIES The Tower and the Ruin by Michael D.C. Drout. SCHOLARSHIP Fantasy: A Short History by Adam Roberts.
• Shirley Jackson: NOVEL Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker. NOVELLA The Death of Mountains by Jordan Kurella. NOVELETTE ‘Emily’ by Vanessa Santos. SHORT ‘Bitter Skin’ by Kaaron Warren. COLLECTION Issues with Authority by Nadia Bulkin. ANTHOLOGY (tie) Unquiet Guests ed. Dan Coxon; Night & Day ed. Ellen Datlow.
• Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel: The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths, a mystery involving time travel.
Publishers and Sinners. The Hachette/Orion/Gollancz reply to a reader’s query explains the cold commercial logic whereby the shuttered sfgateway.com ebook site now redirects to store.gollancz.co.uk – selling physical books only – rather than www.orionbooks.co.uk where ebooks can be found by diligent searching: ‘The SFGateway and associated sites were receiving so little traffic (fewer than 50 individual hits a year) that those sites have been closed down in favour of the digital retail sites where people search for these titles, and where all of the [author enquired about] titles are findable. Gateway has been closed for quite some time now, with no impact on sales or author profiles, and you are the first person to have noticed, so while the imprint continues it is not a decision our comms or tech teams will revisit.’ (Email, 1 July) Historical note: for its first decade Gateway was fed by links from author bibliographies in the SF Encyclopedia, a sponsorship connection which Orion severed in 2011.
Rule of the Road. ‘“Start cutting speed, you idiot. You can't go barging in to a planet like Neptune with the velocity of light.”’ (Edmond Hamilton, Captain Future’s Challenge, Summer 1940 Captain Future) [BA]
R.I.P. Mikhail Ardov (1937-2026), Russian author (later a priest) who co-scripted the children’s fantasy film Tri tolstyaka (Three Fat Men, 1966), died on 15 July. [AM]
• Joby Baker (1934-2026), Canadian actor in Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968) and genre tv series, died on 22 June aged 92. [LP]
• Wilford Lloyd Baumes (1939-2026), US producer of Search for the Gods (1975), Wonder Woman (1976-1977) and Snowbeast (1977), died on 29 June aged 86. [AIP]
• R.S. Belcher (1967-2026), US author of the ‘Golgotha’ weird-west series (2013-2020), the novelization Men in Black International (2019) and others, died on 10 July aged 59. [F770]
• Antoinette Bower (1932-2026), UK-born actress in Superbeast (1972), Time Walker (1982), and genre tv series, died on 30 April aged 93. [LP]
• Joe (Joseph) Caldwell (1928-2026), US scriptwriter for Dark Shadows (63 episodes 1967-1970) who co-created its popular vampire Barnabas Collins, died on 13 July aged 97. [AIP]
• Katharine T. Carroll (Katherine Trowbridge), US publicity director for Titan Publishing – including Titan Books, Titan Comics and Hard Case Crime – died on 28 June aged 68. [SF²C]
• Nikolay Cherginets (1937-2026), Belarussian author writing in Russian whose one sf novel was Iloty bezumiya (Helots of Madness, 1995), died on 7 July aged 88. [AM]
• James Ray Comer (1966-2026), author of ten genre stories 2015-2024 as J. Comer, plus essays and game sourcebooks, died in late April or early May aged 59. [L]
• Anna Dawson (1937-2026), UK actress in The Sexplorer (aka The Girl from Starship Venus, 1975), Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984) and Gabrielle and the Doodleman (1984), died on 27 June aged 88. [SJ]
• Emmanuel (Emmanuel Papadopoulos, ?1946-2026), UK fantasy artist who did covers for the first UK D&D rulebook, the AD&D Fiend Folio (1981), White Dwarf (1981, 1983) and The Citadel of Chaos (1983), died in May aged 80. [MG]
• Brenda Fricker (1945-2026), Oscar-winning Irish actress in Quatermass IV (1979), Angels in the Outfield (1994 remake) and I Was a Rat (2001), died on 16 July aged 81.
• Patrick Gleeson (1934-2026), US composer and synthesizer player who released his own electronic version of the Star Wars music in 1977 and whose soundtrack credits include The Plague Dogs (1982), Star Wars: Ewoks (1986) and Howling VI (1991), died on 19 July aged 91. [CMo]
• Mary Kate Golding, US set decorator whose tv series credits include Time After Time (2017), Gotham (2019) and Goosebumps (2025), was stabbed to death by her husband (who then hanged himself) on 21 July; she was 34. [AIP]
• Josh Grisetti (1981-2018), US actor in stage productions of Camelot, Spamalot, Peter and the Starcatcher, Beauty and the Beast and SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical, committed suicide on 10 July aged 44.
• Ralph Hemecker (1961-2026), US co-creator and writer of Witchblade (23 episodes 2001-2002), with tv series director credits for Once Upon a Time (28 Episodes 2012-2018), The Flash (2014-2018) and others, died on 10 July aged 65.
• Wai Ching Ho (1943-2026), Hong Kong actress in Robot Stories (2003), The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010), Daredevil (2015-2016), The Defenders (2017) and Iron Fist (2017-2018), died on 12 July aged 82.
• Kaylee Hottle (2007-2026), deaf US actress who talked with King Kong using ASL in Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) and its 2024 sequel, died in a car accident on 21 July aged 19. [BE]
• Don Iwerks (1929-2026), Oscar-winning cinema technician, son of Ub Iwerks, long with Disney where he made many innovations and worked on Tron (1982), died on 9 July aged 96. [AIP]
• Robin Johnson (1937-2026), long-time Australian fan active since the late 1960s, who chaired the first Aussie Worldcon in 1975, received a special Ditmar Award in 1983 and the Big Heart Award in 2009, and was fan GoH at Aussiecon 4 in 2010, died on 6 July aged 89. [CMu] Alas.
• Louise Lasser (1939-2026), US actress in Simon (1980), Frankenhooker (1990), Mystery Men (1999) and Wolves of Wall Street (2002), died on 7 July aged 87. [LP]
• Edward Lucie-Smith (1933-2026), Jamaica-born poet who compiled the early sf verse anthology Holding Your Eight Hands (1969), died on 11 July aged 93. [JC]
• Mark J. McGarry (1958-2026), US author whose sf novels are Sun Dogs (1981) and Blank Slate (1984) and who edited Empire and SFWA publications, died in May aged 68. [L]
• Randolph Mantooth (1945-2026), US actor in Bridge Across Time (aka Terror at London Bridge, 1985), Fire Serpent (2007) and genre tv series, died on 9 July aged 80. [SJ]
• Ian Maule (1952-2026), UK fan active since 1970, initially with Newcastle ‘Gannetfandom’ but in London since 1975, whose many fanzines included Paranoid (1972-2012) and Nabu (1977-1982), died on 8 July aged 74. [JM] He is survived by his wife (since 1976) Janice Maule, to whom all sympathy. Ian also edited issues of Maya and Checkpoint, worked on Eastercons and co-edited the 1970s UK fanthology By British (1979). Yet another old fan friend gone.
• Tofik Mirzoyev (1932-2026), Azerbaijanian actor who starred in the fantasy musical Cin mikrorayonda (Genie in the Neighbourhood, 1985) died on 21 July aged 94. [AM]
• Akihiro Miwa (1935-2026), Japanese singer and voice actor in Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke (1997) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), died on 20 June aged 91. [AIP]
• Danielle Naibert, US author of many self-published horror and children’s fantasy Kindle ebooks, and editor with G.W. Thomas of the 2005 Ghostbreakers anthologies, reportedly died earlier this year. [PDF]
• Sam Neill (1947-2026), UK-born New Zealand actor whose films include Sleeping Dogs (1977), Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Jurassic Park (1993 and sequels), Event Horizon (1997), Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997), Bicentennial Man (1999), The Magic Pudding (2000), Dean Spanley (2008), Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and The Portable Door (2023), died on 13 July aged 78. [PS-P]
• Kjell Nilsson (1949-2026), Swedish actor in Mad Max 2 (1981) and Hard Knuckle (1988), died on 2 July aged 76. [AIP]
• Bill Oddie (1941-2026), UK writer and actor who co-wrote and co-starred in The Goodies (76 episodes 1970-1982), died on 25 July aged 85. [SBo] He also co-wrote the space sitcom Astronauts (1981-1982) and acted in George and the Dragon (2004).
• Lars Olsson (1938-2026), Swedish librarian and (as ‘Lon’) prolific, award-winning fan cartoonist whose long-running superhero parody strip Blixt-Grodon (Flash Frogdon, 1964-1988) was collected as a 2024 hardback, died on 29 June aged 87. [J-HH]
• Zale Parry (1933-2026), US scuba diver, underwater stunt double and actress in Sea Hunt (1958-1959) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1965), died on 20 July aged 93. [F770]
• Joanna Pettet (1942-2026), UK/Canadian actress in The Evil (1978), Heaven Only Knows (1979) and genre tv series, died on 8 July aged 83. [SJ]
• Michael Preston (1938-2026), UK actor in Mad Max 2 (1981) and Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983) died on 8 June aged 88.
• Justin Richards (1961-2026), prolific UK author of Doctor Who novels and nonfiction since 1994, plus other sf, fantasy and paranormal novels and series, died on 28 June aged 64. [SH]
• Chuck (Charles) Russell (1952-2026), US director of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987), The Blob (1988), The Mask (1994), Bless the Child (2000), The Scorpion King (2002) and others, died on 22 July aged 74. [SJ]
• Bonnie Tyler (1951-2026), Welsh singer heard on the soundtrack of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), The Five Devils (2022), Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023) and many more, died on 8 July aged 75. [LP]
• Tony Williams, UK-born film scholar whose books include Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film (1996) and The Cinema of George A. Romero (2003), died in July aged 80. [AIP]
The Weakest Link. Q: ‘Which children’s author was named after the explorer Roald Amundsen?’ A: ‘Enid Blyton.’ (ITV, The Chase) [PE]
Publishers and Sinners II. Following the A468 snippet about cover credits on Steve Jones’s Shadows over Innsmouth, Jim Sanderson points out that the Penguin Random House distributor page (see tinyurl.com/3zb6zps6) disappears two more contributing authors – including Brian Lumley despite his front-cover billing – and rewrites others as Ramsay Campbell and David Lanford. Well, poot. I mean, Cthulhu fhtagn!
Random Fandom. An Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog approves of a dramatic suggestion for 2027: ‘This summer’s most entertaining science fiction blockbuster is not in any cinema, it’s going door-to-door in a small British seaside town. / We’ll be nominating “Count Binface’s by-election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea” for a Hugo Award.’ (Bluesky, 11 July)
• WSFS Business Meetings: on 26 July the new poetry Hugo was ratified as an official category, albeit with a 2029 sunset clause. [SBo] Also, virtual meetings from 2027 will be open to WSFS members without the extra need to pay for full virtual access to the Worldcon programme. [SBu]
The Dead Past. 30 Years Ago, we were last with the news: ‘Gene Wolfe, to confirm a recurrent net rumour, was indeed one of the Procter & Gamble engineers who designed the machinery for making Pringles. (The editor of Interzone has failed to comment.) Critics are re-scrutinizing The Book of the New Sun in hope of identifying one of the torture machines as originally intended to produce small, curly potato nibbles....’ (Ansible 109, August 1996)
• 20 Years Ago: ‘Carlton Cuse, executive producer of Lost, bows to the King: “One of my biggest influences was The Stand [...] The brilliance was the way it took a sci-fi premise and told a character story.” (TV Guide)’ (Ansible 229, August 2006)
Fanfundery. TAFF: Katrina ‘Kat’ Templeton is safely home after her 3-week European trip, initially ‘with a very bad cold’. She visited ‘eight countries, and passed through a ninth on the train’. (Facebook, July)
Thog’s Masterclass. Mysteries of Anatomy. ‘Chance ached, each muscle stiff, each bone not wanting to bend at the joints.’ (John Norman, Ghost Dance, 1970) [BA]
• Eyeballs in the Sky. ‘My eyes bounce around the terrain, seeking a hiding place ...’ (Tracy Deonn, Oathbound, 2025) [NW]
• Mot Juste. ‘Commuters in nice clothing hurry past, using the food hall as a shortcut to the subway. Tourists examine the stalls and malinger.’ (Isabel J. Kim, Sublimation, 2026) [KS]
• The Art of the Infodump. ‘She did not need to be told about the Cosmic Deflector – had she not been at Dan’s side during these many months when he had worked at it? Had she not shared his enthusiasm at the Gravitational Ray Theory? – the idea that gravity was due to an invisible ray shot out by the electrons and hence was akin to electricity in its origin? Had she not believed, with him, that this ray formed a current, which, like electricity, could be bent, or twisted from its course? Had she not glowed at the discovery of the telurium [sic] compound – telurox, they called it – which, on burning, would send out beams that diverted the rays of gravity? And had they not, poring together over his plans, decided that it would be possible to alter the movements of the very planets?’ (Stanton A. Coblentz, ‘The Cosmic Deflector’, January 1943 Amazing)
Geeks’ Corner
Subscriptions. To receive Ansible monthly via email, send a message to:
ansible-news+subscribe [at] googlegroups.com
You will be asked to confirm by email that you want to join the group. To resign from the Google Groups list, send email to:
ansible-news+unsubscribe [at] googlegroups.com
More details on this page:
https://news.ansible.uk/asubs.html
Home page – https://news.ansible.uk/
RSS feed – https://news.ansible.uk/rss.html
LiveJournal syndication – http://www.livejournal.com/users/ansiblezine/
Back issues – https://news.ansible.uk/aseries2.html
Printable PDFs – https://news.ansible.uk/pdf/
Email the editor – https://news.ansible.uk/contact.php
Books Received – https://ansible.uk/books.php
Convention and Event LinksS
• 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 August 2026, 6pm to late: 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
Events II. A couple of 1 August items (one sold out) that will have happened by the time printed Ansibles arrive, so are listed in this digital section only:
1 Aug • Margaret Cavendish’s MindFest, Bolsover Castle. Adult admission £15.84; other rates at tinyurl.com/4axam4yu.
SOLD OUT 1 Aug • Northern Horizon (Blake’s 7), Copthorne Hotel, Newcastle. 10am-4pm. £25; ‘VIP’ £80. See nufcmatters.co.uk/shop/.
SFE Feedback Fun. It’s widely believed in Scamistan that all authors with SF Encyclopedia entries can be reached via the SFE email feedback form. Recent promises of giving new life to extravagantly praised forgotten masterpieces have been sent by ‘Book Visibility Alchemists’ and others with secret power over book clubs and Amazon rankings to John Blaine (‘Rick Brant Science-Adventure’ series), David Drake (nonexistent title scraped from a Goodreads review), John M. Ford (The Last Hot Time), George Griffith (A Honeymoon in Space), William Tenn (‘Party of the Two Parts’), James Tiptree Jr (The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, not actually a Tiptree title) and several others no longer with us. When will the LLMs that generate this slop learn to infer that, for example, George Griffith’s dates 1857-1906 suggest he may be resistant to the chummy salutation ‘Hi George’?
R.I.P. – Last-Minute Reports. Mitch Byrd (1962-2026), US comics artist who was a penciller for various publishers including Marvel and DC – where his work on Green Lantern included the 1990s ‘Guy Gardner: Warrior’ series – died on 22 July aged 63. [SHS]
• Tom Chadbon (1946-2026), UK actor in Doctor Who (‘City of Death’ 1979 and ‘The Mysterious Planet’ 1986, plus audio spinoffs) and other genre tv series, died in July aged 80.
• Kevin Clement (1955-2026), US horror convention organizer who founded and produced the New Jersey event Chiller Theatre (now in its 35th year), died on 18 July aged 71. [SG]
• Jean-Pierre Dorléac (1943-2026), French costume designer whose credits include Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979) – for which he won an Emmy – Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), Somewhere in Time (1980) and Quantum Leap (1989-1993), died on 23 July aged 83. [AIP]
• Wade Gilbreath, US fan and artist, founding editor of the Birmingham (Alabama) SF Club’s Anvil, reportedly died in July. [RL]
• Djordje Kadijevic (1933-2026), Croatian film-maker who wrote and directed the Gogol-based Sveto mesto (A Holy Place, 1990) and others, died on 10 July aged 93. [SHS]
• Slaine Kelly (1982-2026), Irish actress whose films include Psychosis (2010) and Sodium Party (2013), died on 4 July aged 43. [SHS]
• John Lechago, Canadian-born independent horror film-maker who wrote and directed Blood Gnome (2004), Magus (2008), Contagion (2010), Killjoy 3 (2010, plus two sequels) and several more, died on 22 July aged 57. [SJ]
• Peter Van Norden (1950-2026), US actor in genre tv series including The Stand (1994), died on 9 July aged 75. [SHS]
Some Links from the Ansible home page.
• ESFS Awards winners
https://locusmag.com/2026/07/2026-esfs-awards-winners/
• LACon V Program Guide
https://guide.lacon.org
• Meta glasses banned by Comic-Con promoter after ‘secret filming’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c204le0nvn3o
• Unconfined (Eastercon 2027) PR1
https://easterconglasgow.org/progress-report-1-july-2027/
Thog’s Golden Oldies from Ansible 229, August 2006. Land of the Giants. ‘He ruled out Mars because the size of the planet – its mass is a tenth of ours – and its low gravity ruled out the possibility of “giants”; Jupiter and Saturn both have sufficient mass – and gravitation pull – to produce “giants”.’ (Colin Wilson, The Mind Parasites, 1967) (And Mesklinites are really huge.)
• Emotional Drool. ‘Kanna was beaming, but Reyad’s expression was hard and unforgiving as suppressed rage leaked from his twitching lips.’ (Maria V. Snyder, Poison Study, 2005)
• Eyeballs in the Sky. ‘Everard finished a night’s sleep and a breakfast which Deirdre’s eyes had made miserable by standing on deck as they came in to the private pier.’ (Poul Anderson, Guardians of Time, 1960; Time Patrol, 2006) ‘His eyes roamed around the workshop, knocking over tables and equipment, until they settled on my Master, who had looked up in surprise.’ (Matthew Skelton, Endymion Spring, 2006)
Ansible® 469 © David Langford, 2026. Thanks to Brian Ameringen, Julie Bell, Sandra Bond, Simon Bubb, John Clute, Bob Eggleton, Paul Di Filippo, File 770, Marc Gascoigne, Steve Green, John-Henri Holmberg, Steve Holland, Locus, Rich Lynch, Janice Maule, Andrey Meshavkin, Christopher Moore, Caroline Mullan, Octothorpe, Lawrence Person, Andrew I. Porter, Private Eye, SF² Concatenation, Karen Schaffer, Steven H Silver, Phil Stephensen-Payne, Nicholas Whyte, and Hero Distributors: Durdles Books (Brum Group) and SCIS/Prophecy. 31 July 2026