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  "PageContent": "<h3>File 770 | Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom</h3>(1) OVER THE DIGITAL TRANSOM. Neil Clarke thoroughly analyzes the “2025 Clarkesworld Submission Stats”. In 2025, we received 14,805 submissions and averaged 1,233 per month. That’s an increase of roughly 130 per month over the prior year.This data does not include the “AI”-generated submissions that resulted in bans, but does include works we consider suspicious. These are stories that we believe may have been “assisted” or translated by generative models, but weren’t certain enough to issue a ban. Instead, the author is flagged for increased scrutiny on future submissions. We don’t want to waste too much time researching each of these, so when uncertain we’re happy to just reject them and move on. The number of these submissions increased by… roughly 130 per month this year. None of those works stood a chance of progressing into the second round of evaluation….…179 stories (1.21%) made it to the second round, down 20 from the previous year. The difference can be attributed to an overall reduction in the percentage of first round submissions read by our slush readers. Editors tend to be pickier, so they send a lower percentage through to the next round. Despite the decrease, we saw a modest increase in acceptances during 2025. At present that count is three higher than 2024, but it will increase further as we clear the remaining 2025 submissions. (Stories in the second round are read multiple times and take longer to come to a final decision on.) We don’t regard these changes as a problem. It’s likely to rebalance as we rebuild our slush team this year….(2) BREAKING NEWS! Cora Buhlert stopped everything to give us “Cora’s Thoughts on the Masters of the Universe Movie Toys” after they were unexpectedly publicized during the Nuremberg Toy Fair. Click through to get the lowdown!…Mattel dropped the next bombshell.Because folks, we’ve got our first look at the Masters of the Universe movie tie-in toys. Which honestly wasn’t something I was expecting quite so soon.The 2026 Nuremberg Toy Fair, the world’s biggest toy fair, opened today. It was pretty clear that the tie-in toys for the Masters of the Universe live action movie would be displayed there, though personally I didn’t expect that we would get to see them.Because Nuremberg Toy Fair is strictly an industry event and not open to the public. As a regular person, you can’t get in at all. You need to be a toy industry professional, retail buyer or journalist to even get through the gates. In the past couple of years, they’ve also started admitting some YouTubers and other influencers. I’ve been wanting to go to Nuremberg Toy Fair for more than forty years now. So far, it’s a pipe dream and I have even considered offering my services to their interpreter pool (most major trade fairs have one)…… So in short, I knew that the Masters of the Universe movie toys would be on display at Nuremberg Toy Fair and I also knew that we wouldn’t see any of them, unless some clueless (American) ToyTuber or influencer leaked something. Because the German influencers know better than to do that.So imagine my surprise, when I opened Instagram and – voilá – there were movie toys….(3) BOB IGER’S END GAME. “Iger Has Told Associates He Plans to Leave [Disney] CEO Role Before Contract Expires” reports the Wall Street Journal. (Most of the article is behind a paywall unless you are on the Apple News site.)Iger‘s current contract runs through the end of the year. The board may select a new CEO as early as next week, but the timing and format of the transition is unknown.“People close to the company believe the CEO race has come down to two candidates: Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro, who oversees theme parks, consumer products and video games, and entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden, a veteran television executive.”I read the above as “which is more important, the parks or media?“ No doubt that’s an oversimplification, but…“In a recent public filing, Disney’s board said it would make its decision in the current quarter and that internal candidates are receiving mentoring from Iger and external coaches.“It’s said Iger wants to spend more time on his “new larger” superyacht and more time working with his wife on the women’s soccer team they own, Angel City FC. It’s not mentioned in the article, but it’s worth noting that Iger is currently 74. He’ll hit 75 on 10 February.(4) ICE GETTING PLOWED. According to Block Club Chicago, “’Abolish ICE’ Submitted 9,200 Times For Chicago Snowplow Naming Contest, Records Show”.As Chicagoans gear up to vote in the fourth annual snowplow naming contest, there appears to be a top contender.Among over 13,300 submissions to Chicagoshovels.org, “Abolish ICE” made up over 9,200 — or about 70 percent — of the entries, according to a list of submissions obtained through a public records request. The name also got an early nod of approval from Mayor Brandon Johnson last month.Alongside “Abolish ICE,” other anti-ICE sentiments made up about 79 percent of submissions, including “ICE Breaker,” “ICE Be Gone” and “No More Mr. ICE Guy.”Submissions for the contest closed Jan. 10. Residents will be able to vote on their favorite of the top 25 names chosen by the city when the contest goes live Feb. 1-14. There will be six winners. Residents can vote here when voting opens up…(5) GREG KETTER’S PRESENT AND FUTURE. Now The Comics Journal has published a lengthy interview with Greg Ketter: “Retail Therapy, ‘Fuck ICE’ Edition: A conversation with Greg Ketter of DreamHaven Books”.But has it been uncomfortable for you or strange for you to be getting as much attention as you have been over the last few days?Oh my God. I’m on the verge of hysteria every morning. If you saw the video, you could see it in me there. That was just the beginning, where I’m angry, and I’m sad, and I’m frustrated, and I’ll laugh and I’ll cry all in the same breath. And people have been so supportive. I mean, I’ve had thousands and thousands of emails, and texts, and phone calls, and it’s been overwhelmingly supportive. They say I speak for them, and I’m really very humbled by that. I mean, I was speaking for me, but I guess I hit the right words and the right tone. Have your customers been supportive?Oh, we’ve never seen such business. I had to call in some friends just to help out, and we don’t have enough space here to do it all, but we’re managing as fast as we can: processing book orders and people coming in the store to buy things, and people who’ve never been here – locals who’ve just heard about me, and decided to come see the store. Even as we’re talking, I’m getting phone calls, but they’ll have to call back in a little bit….So it’s not as though you have your eye on expansion at this point?No, no. I’m of an age that I’m thinking, how am I going to close this out someday?You feel like that’s coming anytime soon?I want to stick around till [the store turns] 50. That’ll be April 1st, 2027….(6) RISK ANALYSIS. Frank Catalano discusses “Borders, tourists and the Trump travel effect” in an opinion piece for the Cascadia Daily News.… The Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University published an infographic early in January that showed an overall 36% decrease in passenger vehicle traffic coming from British Columbia through Whatcom County land entry points last year. It totalled nearly a million fewer vehicles than in 2024. The negative percentages began, perhaps not surprisingly, in February, the month after Trump retook office. They never went positive again.BPRI Director Laurie Trautman, in an interview with CTV News, cited the successive impact of “51st state” rhetoric, threatened tariffs and increased border hassles as among the factors that soured our neighbors to the north on heading south. But as 2026 began, presidential rhetoric ramped up anew with a larger international target. It wasn’t just the dozens of countries that faced new visa restrictions and travel bans starting in January. It was also the long-time allies in Europe who were belittled and threatened with another round of punitive tariffs if the U.S. wouldn’t be allowed to somehow take over — by force, potentially — Greenland, itself part of NATO ally Denmark.The target countries, this time, included popular U.S. vacation destinations such as France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and the U.K. It was a tipping point for me and my wife, both seasoned independent travelers. Nearly a year ago, we had started planning to spend part of February 2026 in Germany and other parts of Europe. We had tickets, reservations and thoroughly explored copies of Rick Steves’ and Fodor’s guidebooks. I also knew, after decades of international trips, that tourists have traditionally been able to stay under the radar when it comes to the political actions of their governments. Locals tend to understand that leader policies and individual beliefs are separate. And for the most part, in my long experience traversing borders, that’s held true.But this felt different. The protests in Denmark (where I had spent time as a child) were a clue, as was the decision by my relatives in Germany to cancel plans to visit the U.S. for a relative’s significant 2026 birthday because of border unpredictability. It seemed more … personal.So we did something I had never before done: canceled all of our plans for an international vacation, even taking a financial hit for small portions that were nonrefundable….(7) NOW YOU KNOW. The New York Times tells how “‘Wonder Man’ Pushes Marvel Into Unfamiliar Territory”. (Behind a paywall.)“Wonder Man,” the new TV series from Marvel Studios, was born partly from a joke.One day on the set of the Marvel film “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” the director, Destin Daniel Cretton, remarked offhand to a producer that the studio could build a streaming series around the character Trevor Slattery, a ne’er-do-well actor played in the film as comic relief by the Oscar winner Ben Kingsley.On a lark, the producer had the art department mock up a poster: “Trevor Goes to Hollywood.”“And I was like, now we have to figure out how to do this show,” Cretton said.Marvel had already been developing a show set in Hollywood around the character Simon Williams, who takes on the persona of Wonder Man. In the comics, Simon is a wealthy industrialist with superpowers who also happens to be a movie star. Kevin Feige, the Marvel Studios chief, wanted to invert that dynamic and make Simon (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II on the show) an actor who just happened to have superpowers.Instead of presenting Simon’s abilities as an asset, however, “what if we made the superpowers his problem,” said Brad Winderbaum, who oversees Marvel’s TV projects. “It never was designed to be: Let’s watch him beat up a bunch of bad guys.” Instead, Simon’s powers would be “the impediment to doing what he loves, which is acting,” he said.Pairing this version of the character with Kingsley’s Trevor — introduced in “Iron Man 3” (2013) as a hapless libertine so desperate for acting work that he agrees to masquerade as a terrorist mastermind — was an irresistible idea….(8) THE RECIPE FOR ST. REMEDIUS PIE. [Item by Paul Riddell.] Partly inspired by Scott Edelman’s Eating the Fantastic dining installments and partly by Chloe N. Clark’s recipes for each of her novels, the Annals of St. Remedius Medical College announces the start of the regular feature Baking Through the Apocalypse, featuring unique takes on classic and obscure cakes, pies, and other baked goods that include St. Remedius backstories and complete recipes and instructions. Baking Through The Apocalypse 2026 starts with the recipe for “St. Remedius Pie”, combining Key Lime pie with Buddha’s hand citrons for a unique flavor combination and added tentacles: “St. Remedius Medical College: Baking Through The Apocalypse 2026 – The Annals of St. Remedius Medical College”.…As with many educational institutions throughout space-time, the area around St. Remedius Medical College had particular taste sensations associated with it that translated poorly with attempted transplants elsewhere. For every Norman Cookler’s Widely Celebrated Deep-Fried Tarantula with franchises around the planet, there were fifteen Salt Licks that were less failed chains and more wildly successful tax dodges and money laundering operations….(9) CATHERINE O’HARA (1954-2026). [Item by Mike Kennedy.] For genre credibility, one need look no further than Catherine O’Hara‘s work in The Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice (plus the sequel). A wider movie audience may remember her most as the mom in the non-genre Home Alone series, but even a cursory glance at her IMDb page shows dozens of SF/F/H entries. Her most recent associated movie role was voicing Pinktail in 2024’s The Wild Robot. Even more recently, she was in a three episode arc of season two of The Last of Us. “Catherine O’Hara, a Comedy Great from ‘SCTV’ to ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ Dead at 71” reports Rolling Stone.  …A rep for O’Hara confirmed her death to Rolling Stone, saying she died at her home in Los Angeles after a brief illness.O’Hara was one of several prominent performers to emerge from the fabled Second City improv comedy troupe in Toronto, alongside the likes of Martin Short, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, and Eugene Levy. Her work on the troupe’s hit sketch show, SCTV, earned her an Emmy Award for writing. Decades later, she took home the trophy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her turn as Moira Rose, the outlandish and loveably out-of-touch former soap opera star she played on Schitt’s Creek….Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2020, O’Hara credited her home country of Canada for shaping her sense of humor. Though frequently stereotyped as overly nice, O’Hara argued that Canadians “not only have a sense of humor about others, but also about themselves — which I think is the healthiest and best kind of sense of humor to have.” She continued: “And there’s an edge to it — but with compassion and love — but it’s a good, dark sense of humor, too, in there just because of awareness of the world around you.”…(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.[Written by Cat Eldridge.]January 30, 1955 — Judith Tarr, 71.Did you know Judith Tarr breeds Lipizzan horses at Dancing Horse Farm, her home in Vail, Arizona? They figure into the romantic fantasies that she wrote under the name Caitlin Brennan which she used for her White Magic series, The Mountain’s Call and sequels, and the House of the Star novel.  Yes, romantic fantasies. I grew up wish horses, so I can appreciate her both breeding them and using them in fiction. Her Hound and the Falcon trilogy (The Isle of Glass, The Golden Horn and The Hounds of God) is set in twelfth and thirteenth century Europe. With elves. Yes elves. Why not?Her Epona series (White Mare’s Daughter, The Shepherd Kings, Lady of Horses and Daughter of Lir) is set in prehistoric Europe. It makes use of the theories of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas that a matriarchal society existed in Paleolithic Europe. I’ve read her rationale on that — it’s interesting. The novels are a good read though perhaps a bit dogged at times. Now Household Gods co-written with Harry Turtledove is a rollicking good novel that’s fun to read. Time travel, ancient Roman gods, a feisty female character — what’s not to like?The next one being His Majesty’s Elephant. Charlemagne. A gift of magical elephant. A supernatural plot afoot. Again, what’s not to like? A Wind in Cairo allows her to show her love of horses as one of the characters is a male who for his transgressions is transformed by a sorcerer into a magnificent stallions in medieval Cairo where one of victims is now his jockey. See we have  more horses.Finally there’s Living in Threes which Book Cafe quite nice sums up this way, “Three lives. Three worlds. Three times. Three young women, past, present, and future, come together to solve an age-old mystery and save a world..” A novel where you don’t need the Bechdel test.  She’s written some fifty shorter pieces of fiction, none collected, save those in, and try not to be surprised, in her Nine White Horses: Nine Tales of Horses and Magic collection which is an Audible exclusive. I should listen to it.(11) COMICS SECTION.xkcd offers invisible proof.Bliss uses a timely but outdated gesture.Ink Pen lists the causes heroes are for. Off the Mark made a slight rearrangement.Speed Bump updates the Three Bears. Wumo tries out new material. (12) HOLY JOKER’S MUSTACHE, BATMAN! 🙂 [Item by Daniel Dern.] “Batman (1989): 20 Hidden Details You Completely Missed!” A bunch of interesting stuff I hadn’t known.…including this mustache detail (~7:40 in the video):Nicholson refused to shave his mustache, forcing Dudman to paint fleshcoled latex over it daily.And this wasn’t the first Joker with mustache issues — see Cesar Romero (from the Batman TV show): “Cesar Romero, The Original Joker Who Refused To Shave His Mustache” at Do You Remember? Many now remember him as the Joker who refused to shave his mustache for the role… and it was blatantly noticeable.Versus, say, Groucho Marx’s mustache.As opposed to “Ancillary Mustache”, which a quick search shows isn’t just my August  10, 2020 Scroll title but also a band name.(13) COLD DELAY. “NASA delays first Artemis moonshot with astronauts because of extreme cold” reports AP News.NASA has delayed astronauts’ upcoming trip to the moon because of near-freezing temperatures expected at the launch site.The first Artemis moonshot with a crew is now targeted for no earlier than Feb. 8, two days later than planned.NASA was all set to conduct a fueling test of the 322-foot (98-meter) moon rocket on Saturday, but called everything off late Thursday because of the expected cold.The critical dress rehearsal is now set for Monday, weather permitting. The change leaves NASA with only three days in February to send four astronauts around the moon and back, before slipping into March.“Any additional delays would result in a day for day change,” NASA said in a statement Friday.Heaters are keeping the Orion capsule warm atop the rocket, officials said, and rocket-purging systems are also being adapted to the cold….(14) THESE AREN’T THE DROIDS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The thing is, I do worry easily. I have often said that the machines are taking over but no-one ever listens… And now in Nature we have a piece entitled Humanoid robots step up their game: how useful are the latest droids?.  It goes on with the sub-head Chinese factories have embraced the machines, but many activities still require human operators… to which I can only reply, ‘but for how long?’The article itself opens with Humanoid robots are on the brink of being commercially useful, say Chinese and US firms that in the past three months have announced plans to produce them at scale. Is this wise I worry?Oh, the pain, the pain… Article here.(15) COLBERT GETS AN SFNAL INVITE. [Item by Daniel Dern.] From Late Night With Seth Meyers, January 28, 2026: “Stephen Colbert Is Auctioning a Stolen Senate Rug, Gets Corrections from Seth’s Jackals”. The cited bit starts at 8:20.“And some people — we have a P.O. box…”[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Daniel Dern, Cora Buhlert, Paul Riddell, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]",
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