(1) REPRESENTATION. Annalee Newitz tells “Why Pronouns Matter in Science Fiction” at Reactor.

This is definitely the most niche brag you will read today: with the release of A Wall Is Also a Road, I will have a 5/5 score when it comes to publishing sci-fi books with nonbinary protagonists. No matter the topic of my books—time travel, robots running a noodle restaurant, far-future terraformers—I always include a nonbinary point of view.

I do it for self-representation. Or self-preservation. Sometimes there is no difference. Octavia Butler once said that she made all of her main characters Black because “whether you’re part of the greater society or not, you got to write yourself in.” That’s how I feel about writing visibly nonbinary characters, with epicene pronouns that go beyond “he” and “she.” I want to normalize us, to weave our stories into the written record along with everyone else’s. 

This is trickier than it sounds, because nonbinary pronouns in science fiction have a pretty checkered history. Over the past century, sci-fi authors have often deployed nonbinary pronouns to make characters seem incomprehensibly abnormal. David Lindsay’s 1920 novel A Voyage to Arcturus is usually hailed as the first example of this sort. Interstellar traveler Maskull is visiting the planet Tormance, where he meets an ancient extraterrestrial who is “unmistakably of a third sex” and uses ae/aer pronouns. According to Maskull, ae is the most “foreign” creature he has yet encountered on Tormance, despite having recently hung out with a bunch of people who have giant, telepathic organs growing out of their heads. Let’s just say this isn’t exactly the representation I’m looking for….

… But something profound has changed: Today, nonbinary characters are protagonists. Readers are invited to identify with em, table-flip the typical narrative, and perceive binary gender as abnormal. This creates a sense of defamiliarization, the classic literary device for giving audiences a new perspective on old beliefs….

(2) BLEEP THE ALGORITHM. Matthew Kressel points readers to the resistance in “Books in the Time of Algorithms, Analog Meetings, Novel Excisions, &c.” at Off World.

… It used to be that when I entered a search on Google, it gave me a list of a few dozen websites, written by real people, and though I was not interacting with a human being directly, nevertheless, two human beings (myself and the creator of the website or information) communicated in some way.

Nowadays any and all web searches are immediately hijacked into a conversation with a know-it-all inhuman chatbot who has (without permission) slurped up the collective knowledge of humanity and wants to regurgitate it back to me for a monthly subscription fee. There are things that AI can do that are sometimes useful, sometimes astonishing, but I now feel one more step removed from other humans. When I go online I am no longer communicating with other humans (albeit poorly), I am speaking with a stochastic prediction device designed by a multibillion dollar conglomerate who is doing its best to make me dependent upon them….

… Our communication has been hijacked. We do not speak to other humans online anymore. We speak to algorithms and CPUs. We speak to datacenters and agendas.

On the subway recently, I overheard two young people talking, and one of them referred to hanging out with other people, in-person, as “analog meeting.” I thought they were being cheeky, but neither one of them smiled or laughed. “My friends and I want to do more analog meeting,” they said. They were young and probably in school when the lockdowns hit and likely spent most of their formative years at home, glued to screens, unable to escape the algorithm. But humans need social interaction, we are, in the best way, like dogs. We are pack animals, and we need others, not just to survive, or to become our best selves, but for the friction they cause us. These young people sensed that something was missing from their lives. That things is people. Specifically, social interaction with other human beings.

We want something that is authentic, real, unpredictable, chaotic, rough, uneasy, and alive. We want communication with other people that is not mediated by screens, algorithms, transactions, or agendas. We want what has been taken from us without us even realizing it: we want our humanity back. It’s time we take it.

(3) TAFF NEWS. From David Langford’s TransAtlantic Fan Fund site we learn:

The TAFF administrators have announced the schedule for the race to Montreal Worldcon 2027 (2-6 September), as below. Prospective candidates take note!

• Nominations open 1 November 2026
• Nominations close 31 December 23:59 pm Pacific
• Voting opens ASAP in January 2027
• Voting closes 1 April 23:59 pm Pacific

(4) HISTORY OF THE WIKIPEDIA. The New York Times’ Jennifer Szalai reviews “The Last Best Place on the Internet: A Human History of Wikipedia, by Richard Cooke”. (Behind a paywall.)

… Now, 25 years after its founding, Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia ever to have existed. The site has more than seven million articles in English and receives an average of 508 million views a day. The old-school utility of its pages makes it look like an earnest rejoinder to today’s poisoned chalices of sleek branding and gaudy A.I. slop. While social media platforms fuel engagement by egging on users’ baser instincts, Wikipedia still revolves around the quaint pleasures of human curiosity. Instead of enriching a tech billionaire, it is run as a nonprofit.

This isn’t to say that it’s been all sunshine and rainbows. As Wikipedia has grown, its rules have proliferated, making it more bureaucratic; it has also become a target in the accelerating culture wars, derided by Elon Musk as “Wokepedia.” But until recently, Wikipedia seemed to occupy the noncombatant’s sweet spot — what the journalist Richard Cooke terms the “no man’s land between ‘trust the experts’ and ‘do your own research.’”

In his wry and readable new book, “The Last Best Place on the Internet,” Cooke calls Wikipedia “an escapee from a parallel universe, a refugee of the internet as it should have been, instead of the internet as it is.” Since few people took Wikipedia seriously at first, its experiment in collective creation became a public landmark when no one was looking, and so there’s plenty about its early days that hasn’t been properly chronicled. Cooke’s subtitle promises a “human history of Wikipedia,” and though his treatment is conceptually rich — philosophy, literature and even architecture come into play — his emphasis is on the human, with all the tragedy and comedy that entails….

…As for Wikipedia’s other struggles, they have run the gamut from fraud, hoaxes, good-faith errors and bad-faith disinformation campaigns to the never-ending tug of war between Deletionists (who want a more curated experience) and Inclusionists (who believe the project should reflect the limitlessness of the internet). There are also, of course, the pedants, who fuss over minute specifics and believe that they are bringing discipline and rigor to the site, while their detractors fault them for exerting disproportionate control through “argument by exhaustion.”

Yet pedantry is also “a kind of engine,” Cooke writes, “fueled by an ardor verging on love.” Wikipedia probably wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for editors who wanted to sweat the small stuff, who delighted in teasing out detail after detail, who have volunteered their time and labor so that information could be free. Still, there is an undeniable tension between finicky obsessiveness and navigable ease. The upper limit for article length is supposed to be 10,000 words — the equivalent of a long story in The New Yorker. The entry for “Tartan” is almost 60,000 words.

This book introduced me to the term “fancruft,” which refers to the tendency of fans to indulge in “mountains of indiscriminate detail” that would be baffling or boring to non-fans. Despite his extensive stores of Wikipedia knowledge, Cooke never succumbs to fancruft in this consistently enjoyable book. Every informational tidbit has been judiciously chosen. He also keeps reminding us of the bigger picture, and how much it has transformed over time….

(5) STAR TREK? NEVER HEARD OF IT. [Item by Chris Barkley.] There are some SURPRISING rankings here, which makes it noteworthy… “25 Best Sci-Fi TV Shows Ever Made, Ranked” at TVLine.

…In television especially, sci-fi has been as prominent a genre as sitcoms or crime procedurals since the very beginning of the medium. Each era has been defined by its hit sci-fi series, not only acting as time capsules of the period in which they were made, but also prophecies about how humans and technology would continue to evolve over the next several decades. 

These 25 shows not only span the history of television, but their stories also cover the entire spectrum of human experiences. There’s science fiction that feels personal and grounded, as well as science fiction that feels relevant and meaningful. Whether comedic, dramatic, satirical, terrifying, nostalgic, or dystopian, these sci-fi shows aren’t just some of the best of their genre — they’re some of the best television shows ever made….

A couple examples of the surprises – Battlestar Galactica (3) finishes ahead of The Twilight Zone (4). And look what’s in first place —

1. Orphan Black

“Orphan Black” might not be a show that’s widely influenced science fiction or television as a whole, but what it does do is perfectly portray a deeply human and political story through its careful weaving of sci-fi tropes. Tatiana Maslany stars as Sarah Manning, a British con artist who discovers that she and many other women across the planet are doppelgängers born from an illicit human cloning experiment, uncovering a massive biotech conspiracy that threatens the lives of her and all her identical selves. 

Not only is the series impressive given that Maslany has to play over a dozen distinct characters, but the show perfectly utilizes its science fiction aspects to explore wider concepts of government deception, scientific ethics, and individuality. The most interesting and intimate scenes of “Orphan Black” feel straight out of a horror movie, never sacrificing the show’s eerie and psychologically thrilling tone in its most ambitious and experimental moments. 

With five seasons of consistently high quality, “Orphan Black” may not be the first show sci-fi fans would cite as the genre’s best on television. That being said, it’s hard to find a serious flaw in a show that’s this meticulously crafted, beautifully acted, and impressively stylized. Thankfully, Maslany secured an Emmy win in 2016 for playing five of the show’s central characters. 

(6) PARTY LIKE IT’S BLADE RUNNER 2099. “New ‘Blade Runner 2099’ trailer is a space fan’s dream with sinister starships and strange exoplanets” says Space.com.

Cue the depressing rain, dark trench coats, and a dire dystopian dirge because the Blade Runner 2099 trailer is here!

Cyberpunk is charging back in confident fashion with Prime Video’s latest detour into the neon-drenched dystopia of humans and rogue replicants first introduced in director Sir Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” from 1982, then revisited in Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049.”

Arriving Nov. 25, 2026, “Blade Runner 2099″‘s plot turns the tables as resentful artificial beings are now the ones running the show and hunting down Earth’s humans after a successful uprising against their original makers.

(7) BUBBLE MEMORY. “Daisy Ridley To Lead ‘Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea’ TV Series” reports Deadline.

Daisy Ridley (Star Wars, Young Woman and the Sea) plans to return to the small screen with a leading role in a reimagining of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, a TV series from Legendary Television in development at Paramount+….

…The new Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series follows brilliant ocean scientist Lee Crane (Ridley), who is pulled into a classified government program after a catastrophic Arctic expedition claims the life of her twin sister. At the center of the program is the USS Seaview, a retro-futuristic submarine found entombed in the ice, marked with symbols from a history that shouldn’t exist, and it powers up only when Lee steps aboard.

Thrust into command of a pressure-cooker crew and an uneasy alliance with government power brokers, Lee leads Seaview on daring undersea missions to contain mysterious forces leaking into our world, all while uncovering a hidden truth about the oceans, an erased chapter of human history, and the once-thought mythical city of Atlantis….

(8) OLIVIER MOURGUE (1939-2026). “Olivier Mourgue obituary” in the Guardian.

Olivier Mourgue always wanted to design the future. Growing up in Paris in the 1950s, he took against the ornate antique furniture of his parents’ apartment, the formality of a dining room with a table surrounded by elaborately uncomfortable chairs and a living room dominated by a sofa used only on special occasions. “Furniture like that has nothing to do with life,” he would suggest later. “One is never at ease in such rooms.”

Mourgue, who has died aged 87, set out to design furniture that belonged to the modern world, and blurred the boundaries between furniture and architecture. In his view, that meant that it should be flexible, informal, affordable and as close to the floor as possible. He succeeded in a way that he could not have expected.

The film director Stanley Kubrick made Mourgue’s designs an essential part of popular culture’s expectations of how the future would look, even though Mourgue’s work was produced by the thousand rather than in millions. Kubrick used a cluster of Mourgue’s Djinn armchairs to equip the lobby of the Hilton hotel orbiting the moon on Space Station V for one of the key scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Djinn seemed to float almost weightless, like a colourful bubble of air. There were no conventional arms or legs to be seen. Instead there was a lightweight steel structure and some sturdy rubber webbing to support the foam upholstery, all hidden inside a seamless surface.

Kubrick had a preternatural gift for finding what might be called “real” objects, such as Djinn, from his own time, that seemed to belong to the future. He used them to give a sense of authenticity to his sets. Kubrick filmed A Space Odyssey in 1968, when Djinn looked entirely at home in a plausible version of 2001 that did not yet exist. Almost 60 years later, Djinn still looks like a version of the future, fluid and colourful, covered with a specially made stretch fabric that was available in 15 different bright colours and light enough to carry under your arm.

Mourgue wanted to do more than change the way that things looked. He believed in designing furniture that reflected the way that people want to live. He created a low-cost range of mass-produced designs for the department store chain Prisunic, in the days when it was a French version of Ikea, selling through its catalogue as well as its network of stores. The 1969 Prisunic edition launched a collection that Mourgue described as “bringing beauty at the price of the ugly”. It included bookcases, beds, tables, and seating made from lightweight chipboard that could be easily dismantled if required. One piece was a floor-cushion seat with raised edges that formed a place to sit….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

October 21, 1956 — Carrie Fisher. (Died 2016.)

By Paul Weimer: She’ll always be Royalty to me, to quote the movie.

Since, as I have mentioned before, Return of the Jedi was the first Star Wars movie I saw, I got to see her in her most deprotagonized state, in the bikini, before seeing the more proactive and kick-ass heroine of the first two novels.  Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, given my age, and given her magnetism and charm, who could blame me?

So, when Fisher returned in the latest Star Wars Trilogy, after decades, I was cheered in The Force Awakens.  And then felt the tragedy and weight of her passing, both cinematic and real, in The Last Jedi. I didn’t quite realize just how much she was a formative figure in my genre life, until she had passed and I could reflect on it.  

In a non-genre mode, I highly enjoyed her as well in one of my favorite romantic comedies (if not the favorite), When Harry Met Sally. And again, who could blame Bruno Kirby’s character, upon seeing her on the double date, wanting to switch from Meg Ryan (sorry Meg) to Carrie Fisher first chance that he got. 

And off screen, she showed she was as smart as she was intelligent and charismatic with her skills in script writing and rewriting. Truly a talent far beyond a woman in a gold bikini…and one that is missed. 

Editorial note: This is her in Wonderwell, her last performance. She played Hazel who or may not be The Witch of The Woods. Though it was released in 2023, it was filmed in 2016. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

• Cornered stretches the joke.
• Pearls Before Swine recalls an internet legend.
• Reality Check coins a new horror term.
• The Argyle Sweater is impatient with a slow spirit.
• Wumo shouldn’t have believed the saying.
• xkcd counts.

(11) FREE READ. Charlie Jane Anders explains, “When Cities Fall in Love, They Have to Make a Choice” at Happy Dancing.

…I’m super proud of my short story that just came out in MIT’s Technology Review magazine. (Here’s a gift link!) It’s called “Love Is Infrastructure,” and it’s about a romance between two self-aware cities. 

… In my story, Mainspring City is a bit more corporate and buttoned down than St Barnabas — and when these two cities start falling in love, they certainly have their differences. But they are both built on privacy and direct democracy, and they both have a lot of heart and soul. But Mainspring City is also chatting with another city, Turnbull. And Turnbull is both extremely corporate and very oppressive — everything the citizens do is monitored, and democracy is a sham. At one point, Turnbull’s artificial consciousness explains proudly that sometimes the citizens vote for things that are a bad idea — and then the self-aware city and its leaders work together to ensure that the people get what they need, rather than what they voted for.

So when Mainspring City is torn between the artsy, hipstery St Barnabas and the controlling, uptight Turnbull, this felt like a way of thinking about what cities are, and what they could become. I won’t tell you what happens next!…

(12) HAN PUNTED FIRST. “Star Wars Officially Takes Over Super Bowl LXI for 50th Anniversary” – Collider tells how it will happen.

Ever since 2023, Disney and ESPN have joined the NFL in producing a Funday Football telecast, a real-time animated alternative to that day’s football broadcast featuring characters from an IP of their choosing. The first edition took place in Andy’s Bedroom from Toy Story and featured Woody, Buzz, and the gang taking part in the game, followed by The Simpsons in 2024 and Monsters, Inc. While these telecasts have taken place during normal games, Lucasfilm will join the team to help Star Wars take over the big game. On Sunday, February 14, 2027, Disney+, the ESPN app, Disney Channel, and Disney XD will all air the Star Wars Funday Football presentation side-by-side with Super Bowl LXI. The broadcast will be available in over 155 markets worldwide.

Like the previous Funday Football games, the Star Wars edition will recreate every play of the actual game, only with players turned into animated avatars and famous characters subbing in for key moments in the game. Judging from the new key art released alongside the announcement, this Super Bowl may take place under the twin suns of Tatooine, with Stormtroopers and droids alike in attendance for the first NFL game off-planet. Other easter eggs will pop up throughout the game, nodding to the long history of Star Wars. Already, one member of A New Hope‘s cast will be suiting up to play, as Anthony Daniels will reprise his longtime role as the voice of C-3PO.

…A Star Wars animated Super Bowl broadcast isn’t all ESPN has planned to celebrate 50 years of the groundbreaking space epic. The festivities start on October 20, when ESPN’s daily Disney+ SportsCenter show, SC+, will begin sharing “Hyperspace Highlights” that give the standout plays of the week the Star Wars visual treatment. The very next week, on Monday, October 26, an animated Darth Vader will make his SC+ debut to interview a player involved in that Monday Night Football matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, with new interviews featuring the Sith Lord airing each week….

(13) ENCORE. How It Should Have Ended has posted a rerun that’s lots of fun: “How Avengers Endgame Encore Should Have Ended”.

All of the Avengers Endgame HISHE cartoons exactly as before but now with Doomsday related post credits scenes. Just like Encore did. From the Trailer, to Captain America Returning the Stones, to the new Doctor Doom Hype Scenes. These Avengers HISHE’s have been completely re-rendered to meet our new Infinite Visions quality standard. Enjoy this special presentation!

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Oneiros.]