(1) LONG TIME PASSING. “Where Have All the Book Reviews Gone?” asks the New York Times. (Link bypasses NYT paywall.)

…Even before the rise of A.I. there was a near-extinction-level wipeout of the American book review. It has gotten eerily quiet out there — it’s as if the bees, those kibitzing and sometimes stinging pollinators, have vanished — and few have noticed.

Only yesterday, it seems, nearly every American newspaper, dozens and dozens of them, even in midsize cities, ran book reviews by local critics. The alternative weeklies (I wrote for many of these) had feisty and clamorous and occasionally nutty book sections. “Sometimes an off-the-wall review,” Norman Mailer said, “can be as nourishing as a wild game dinner.”

Time, Newsweek and other weeklies had serious critics who mattered to the conversation and knocked their heads together like bighorn rams. So much of this is gone. The strangulation sounds of early dial-up should have served as warning.

The recent shutting of The Washington Post’s Book World, one of the nation’s last free-standing books sections, feels like the end of something larger. It marks an inflection point in America’s literature, which can’t thrive without serious, fervent and quick-witted criticism: public talk, back and forth, between competing voices, in something like real time. The thin crust of American intellectual life, long flaking, has begun to show bald patches.

It’s a grim business to linger on the numbers. In the 1960s, a good first novel might receive 90 individual newspaper reviews in America and England, the novelist Reynolds Price wrote in his memoir “Ardent Spirits.” By 2009, the year “Ardent Spirits” was issued, he reckoned the number was 20 at best. What would it be now? Two? Three?…

…But here’s a catch with A.I. It’s easy to tell when a reference, or a comparison, or a sentence, doesn’t belong to a writer. Erudition and style aren’t forgeable for long; they still must be earned. As for A.I.’s sleek, space-efficient text, we’ve already grown accustomed to what that sounds like — the flat, consistent tone, the pert little summary bits, the repetitions, the impersonal and fluorescent-lit mood. Reading it, you feel you’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.

It will get much better. Like a Nakamichi Model 500, perhaps, A.I. models will probably someday be programmed to calculate range and trajectory and to spit out rich critical prose….

(2) CENTURY’S BEST MOVIES SO FAR. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Collider named Mad Max: Fury Road tops in their list: “Collider’s 100 Greatest Movies of the 21st Century, Ranked”. The list has so many genre films it’s pointless to name them all here. But the next highest-ranked sff film is Parasite at number two, followed by The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring at three.

(3) BERNHARDT Q&A. “William Bernhardt on Comics, Superman, and the Legal Drama Behind an Icon’s Creation” at CrimeReads.

Keen-eyed readers of William Bernhardt’s last novel, Justice For All, might have noticed the dedication: to Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and Bill Finger, three legendary figures in the world of comic books. Published in 2024, Justice For All dives deep into the legal machinations a comic book artist must go through to win back the rights to his characters. The initial idea, that of art vs. commerce, served as a springboard for Bernhardt to explore the tragic tale of Siegel and Shuster….

Bernhardt’s nonfiction tome, The Superman Wars, tells their story. An attorney as well as a writer, Bernhardt spent more than two years researching what Siegel and Shuster endured.

Their initial publisher found himself squeezed out by two men with mob connections—Harry Donenfield and Jack Liebowitz—who benefited from the Superman radio series, movie serials, television shows and merchandise sales. By the time George Reeves donned the familiar costume for the 1950s The Adventures of Superman television series, Siegel and Shuster were practically destitute—fired after having the nerve to sue the publisher in 1947….

…LWH: The mob ties kind of threw me. I didn’t realize the publishers were connected.                              

WB: Harry used to brag about it. He wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest about that. He ended up getting a house on Long Island near Frank Costello. Harry did some rum running back in the day. He was indicted twice for pornography. That was another appeal of Superman for him – doing something that was clearly for children. It was not what those guys called a “Sing Sing job,” meaning it’ll end you up in prison….

(4) CENSORS WILL COUGH UP COOL MILLION. “Huntington Beach ordered to pay $1M in legal fees for censoring library books” reports LAist.

Huntington Beach [CA] suffered another courtroom loss in its culture war battles this week when a judge ordered the city to pay $1 million in legal fees for restricting minors’ access to library books.

The City Council passed a resolution in 2023 prohibiting children from accessing books deemed to contain sexual content in the city’s public libraries. Critics said the policy amounted to illegal censorship, and that it was actually an excuse to restrict books with LGBTQ characters and themes.

In September 2025, Orange County Judge Lindsey Martinez found the policy violated California’s newly passed Freedom to Read Act.

The city had also established a citizen review board with the power to censor children’s books at the library. Voters repealed that review board in a special city election in June 2025….

(5) RARE SFWA EPHEMERA. Michael Capobianco continues his series with “A Brief History of SFWA: The Nebula Awards Report” at SFWA’s Planetside.

Giving democratically chosen awards for writing isn’t easy. When the authors themselves are designing the process, there is additional pressure to make the process “fair.” It was even tougher before the Internet, when nominations and updates had to be mailed. In what was then called Science Fiction Writers of America, a small group of dedicated volunteers carried most of that burden. They were the Nebula Awards Report (NAR) Editors….

…Seven SFWA volunteers have been given the Kevin. O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award because of their work on the NAR: Chuq Von Rospach (NAR Editor 1989–1996), Brook and Julia West (NAR Editors 1989–2008), and Vonda N. McIntyre (NAR Editor 1972–1976). Other members who have taken a turn: C. L. Grant, George W. Proctor, Frank Catalano, Elizabeth Waters, Orson Scott Card, and Mark Van Name.

So, why did the NAR end? Rule changes made the Nebula more and more cumbersome to administer, and the awards were no longer tied to a specific year. Former SFWA President and current SFWA Operations Manager Russell Davis offers this summary: “The Nebula Award rules when I took office in 2008 were extraordinarily convoluted.” In 2009, the nomination process  changed to the simpler one still in place in 2026….

(6) BRIAN KEENE AMONG PLAINTIFFS. Publishers Lunch says “Authors’ Copyright Suit Against Databricks Will Continue”. (See the Complaint filed with the court at the link.)

Another copyright lawsuit from authors against a tech company for AI training is allowed to continue in Northern California federal court, a judge decided. Plaintiffs Stewart O’Nan, Abdi Nazemian, Brian Keene, Rebecca Makkai, and Jason Reynolds claim that MosaicML, which provides training data for AI companies and is owned by Databricks, used the Books3 dataset to train their own large language model, called MPT, and Databricks’s LLM, called DBRX.

Judge Charles B. Dreyer denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, stating “Defendants may ultimately prevail on this issue, but for now, Plaintiffs’ allegations are sufficient.”

The tech company did succeed in getting an earlier version of the authors’ complaint dismissed last year, stating that the claims weren’t specific enough.

(7) STEVE MASLOW (1944-2026). Oscar-winning re-recording mixer Steve Maslow died April 28. The Hollywood Reporter profiles his career here: “Steve Maslow Dead: ‘Empire Strikes Back,’ ‘Lost Ark’ Sound Man Was 81”.

Steve Maslow, the top-notch re-recording mixer whose seven Oscar nominations for best sound included wins for The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Speed, has died. He was 81.

Maslow died Monday at a therapy facility in West Hills after a battle with cancer, his wife, Ronna Maslow, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Los Angeles native also landed Oscar noms for his work on Dune (1984), Waterworld (1995), Twister (1996) and U-571 (2000).

Maslow did 200-plus features during his career, teaming with fellow mixer Gregg Landaker on more than 130 of them, starting with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). He specialized in dialogue and music while Landaker focused on sound effects, and he shared all his Oscar noms with him with the exception of Dune.

“Maz” also collaborated with John Carpenter on Escape From New York (1981), Halloween II (1981), The Thing (1982), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Christine (1983), Starman (1984) and Escape From L.A. (1996) and with Tim Burton on Beetlejuice (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Batman Returns (1992)….

… He segued into the movie business and worked on four films released in 1978, including the documentary The Last Waltz, and other music films followed, including Hair (1979), The Kids Are Alright (1979), Rust Never Sleeps (1979) and Stop Making Sense (1984).

Before he knew it, Maslow was working with producer George Lucas on More American Graffiti (1979), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and picking up Oscars in consecutive years.

Maslow’s impressive film résumé also included The Wanderers (1979), 10 (1979), Ordinary People (1980), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), My Favorite Year (1982), The Dead Zone (1983), St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), Teen Wolf (1985), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), Children of a Lesser God (1986), Angel Heart (1987), Broadcast News (1987), The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), Pet Sematary (1989), Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995), Patch Adams (1998), Bruce Almighty (2003), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Rocky Balboa (2006), The Town (2010), The Great Gatsby (2013), The Conjuring (2013), Non-Stop (2014) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). There are too many movies to mention….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

April 28, 1948 — Terry Pratchett. (Died 2015.)

By Paul Weimer: It took a second bite at the apple for me to fall for the works of Terry Pratchett.  My first attempt was in the 90’s, when I had vaguely heard about his work, and picked up The Color/Colour of Magic.  I thought it was fine and I also tried the Light Fantastic and Sourcery.  But it really didn’t gel for me. I thought at the time Pratchett was an okay writer, and maybe the humor wasn’t quite what I was looking for in fantasy at the time.  (To be fair, the humor in those early Discworld novels is a lot broader than the later more refined ones). 

It took over a decade and my late friend Scott to get me to try Pratchett again.  Scott was passionate about a number of writers. Zelazny, which we had in common. Lois M. Bujold, which we also had in common. Michael Scott Rohan. And Terry Pratchett.  Scott encouraged me and “talked me through” finding where I would best enjoy Pratchett’s oeuvre.  I found an affinity for Pyramids (and the best Mathematician on all of Discworld), but when it came to The Night Watch, I really started understanding the Discworld Project and what it was doing.  From then on, Pratchett was on auto-buy.  Vimes and company remained my favorite, although The Librarian is probably my single favorite minor character, if only for the fantastic idea of L-Space. 

Beyond Discworld, there is also Good Omens of course, and also the Long Earth series. The latter feels a lot more the work of his co-author Stephen Baxter than Pratchett but there are moments, scenes, images where the utter magic of Terry Pratchett’s work and writing and humanism comes through. 

One of my not-in-a-Pratchett bits that involves Pratchett is a bit in the late Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End. In that novel, in its (now a) alternate history, Pratchett went on to write many many more Discworld novels, and became so popular that people would use VR to cosplay as being from the new area of the Discworld these imaginary novels were set (basically an entrepot more along the lines of Alexandria, Egypt).  I could wish, Zelazny style, to walk into that world and bring home copies of those “lost” Pratchett novels. I would love to read them. 

And, sadly I never got to meet him in person. My loss. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee is invited.
• Crankshaft characterizes book loans.
• Mother Goose and Grimm shows an economic squeeze in the Charming household.
• Rhymes with Orange points out how long some things last.
• xkcd rediscovers air.

(10) NOT AFRAID OF NEEDLES. “Man breaks Marvel comic book heroes tattoo record” – BBC has the count. (Subscription required for readers outside UK.)

A man has broken the Guinness World Record for the number of Marvel comic book characters tattoos.

Tom Radford, from Hull, has 63 of the superheroes covering most of his body.

The 40-year-old said he has spent more than £18,000 and 350 hours under the needle getting the work done. 

He started with an image of Thanos in 2016 and managed to meet the actor Josh Brolin who plays the character in New York, adding his autograph to the body art.

Radford describes himself as a Marvel obsessive who collects “anything and everything Marvel-related”.

“When I got Thanos tattooed I wanted it placed at the top of my thigh because if it wasn’t perfect I could always hide it,” he said.

“Needless to say it was better than perfect and the urge for more began.”…

(11) ANIMATED STRANGER THINGS SPINOFF RENEWED. “‘Stranger Things: Tales From ’85’ Renewed for Season 2 at Netflix — Showrunner Eric Robles Teases What’s Ahead” in The Hollywood Reporter.

Netflix has renewed the Duffer Brothers’ animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 for a second season. 

The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal that the series, from animation veteran and showrunner Eric Robles, will return to Hawkins and the Upside Down sometime this fall. The show’s renewal comes just four days after season one’s debut, which saw Tales From ‘85 take the No. 7 spot on the streamer’s global top 10 list with 2.8 million views.  

The 10-episode first season has also officially landed in Netflix’s top 15 animated series debuts of all time. The spinoff’s renewal and season one success comes just four months after Stranger Things proper — the Duffer brothers’ original live-action series — concluded its decade-long, five-season run at the end of 2025. Following the release of that massive final season, the Stranger Things franchise has continued to perform across social media and with audiences….. 

(12) LOVE TO SHOVE. [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] You thought your luggage was treated badly before? “Humanoid robots to become baggage handlers in Japan airport experiment” reports the Guardian.

Japan’s famously conscientious but overburdened baggage handlers will soon be joined by extra staff at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – although their new colleagues will need to take regular recharging breaks.

Japan Airlines will introduce humanoid robots on a trial basis from the beginning of May, with a view to deploying them permanently as a solution to the country’s chronic labour shortage.

The Chinese-made humanoids will move travellers’ luggage and cargo on the tarmac at Haneda, which handles more than 60 million passengers a year.

JAL and its partner in the initiative, Japan Airlines GMO Internet Group, hope the experiment – which ends in 2028 – will lessen the burden on human employees amid a surge in inbound tourism and forecasts of more severe labour shortages.

In a demonstration for the media this week, a 130cm-tall robot manufactured by Hangzhou-based Unitree was seen tentatively “pushing” cargo on to a conveyer belt next to a JAL passenger plane and waving to an unseen colleague.

The president of JAL Ground Service, Yoshiteru Suzuki, said using robots to perform physically demanding work would “inevitably reduce the burden on workers and provide significant benefits to employees”, according to the Kyodo news agency.

Suzuki added, however, that certain key tasks – such as safety management – would continue to be performed by humans….

(13) BIG SQUEEZE. “Could the moon ever be blockaded? Experts predict cislunar space could be the next Strait of Hormuz” at Space.com.

…The closure of the Strait of Hormuz should inform our thinking about inhabiting the moon and defending cislunar space, said Feldman and Hugh Taylor, also a co-founder of the [Center for the Study of Space Crime, Piracy & Governance]. They authored the 2025 book Space Piracy: Preparing for a Criminal Crisis in Orbit.

“Just as the Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway, cislunar space, though seemingly large, actually contains a few unique and exclusive points of transit through which all lunar travel must pass,” said Feldman.

Like the Strait of Hormuz, cislunar space is a critical, strategic passage, Taylor and Feldman explained. “If it falls into the wrong hands, all of NASA’s and Elon Musk’s nascent lunar enterprises — the first steps in a multi-trillion dollar space economy — may have to be written off.”

Could cislunar space be shut down or interdicted in a similar way in the future?…

(14) I PREFER MY UNIVERSE LUMPY. [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] …like us lumpyproletariat. “100-year-old assumption about the universe may soon be overturned” in New Scientist. (Subscription required.)

Assumptions that physicists have made about the universe for over a century may be about to be overturned. Evidence is emerging that it is far lumpier than we had thought – a finding that could solve some of today’s most puzzling cosmological mysteries.

When modelling the universe, cosmologists can’t describe every single galaxy, so they make simplifications. Typically, they assume that the universe on the largest scales is homogeneous and isotropic, meaning that it is roughly the same no matter where you look….

(15) HELP WANTED. NASA Science says “You Can Help Humans Thrive in Space” through volunteer work.

The second Artemis mission took four astronauts around the moon and back – the first crewed deep-space flight since 1972. Not everyone gets a chance to put on a space suit, but you can still be an important part of NASA’s human space exploration story by doing NASA science!

Volunteers with NASA’s citizen science projects have tested chili pepper plant varieties to grow in space, monitored active regions on the Sun, and analyzed data from experiments on how life adapts to the low-gravity, high-radiation environment of space. Participation does not require citizenship in any particular country – you only need a love of science and a desire to help. Join one of the projects below and help NASA make space travel safer and healthier.

Here’s one example of a NASA project:

Are you a classroom teacher for students in grades 6-12? Through Growing Beyond Earth, middle and high school students and their teachers collaborate with Fairchild Botanical Garden scientists to grow candidate plants that are being evaluated as astronaut food. Today, on the International Space Station, astronauts tend to some of the same experimental leafy greens and hot pepper plants to unlock the secrets of how best to space farm terrestrial species. On really long missions, it won’t just be a question of easing the monotony of packaged/prepared foods – astronauts will have to grow their own food to supplement their diets. Sign up here to learn more.

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