Ansible 469 -- August 2026

[Ansible Newsletter]

ANSIBLE(R) 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). Available for SAE, Extee Three, hokfusine, sunstones or zatku.

[NET NOTE. See https://news.ansible.uk/a469.html for the nice HTML version; https://news.ansible.uk/pdf/a469.pdf for a printable PDF. Mailing list subscribe/unsubscribe information appears below -- please don't send such requests to my own e-mail address. DRL]


### 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 ###

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 GBP67; 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. GBP30 reg; GBP20/day. See captionfestival.co.uk.

15 Aug [] STARS OF TIME (comics), Winter Gardens, Weston-super-Mare. GBP12.62; concessions/under-14s GBP8.30. See www.starsoftime.co.uk.

22-23 Aug [] FOR THE LOVE OF FANTASY, ExCel, London. Weekend tickets GBP53.90 (concessions GBP24.20) 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 GBP49 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. GBP140 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. GBP25. 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. GBP12.62; under-14s GBP8.30. 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. GBP40, _rising to GBP45 on 1 September_. See infinitymagazine.co.uk/product/darkfest-9/.

21 Nov [] TFNATION (_Transformers_), Steam Museum, Swindon. Adults GBP40; under-18s GBP25; 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_)


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### 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 _Ansible_s arrive, so are listed in this digital section only:

1 Aug [] MARGARET CAVENDISH'S MINDFEST, Bolsover Castle. Adult admission GBP15.84; other rates at tinyurl.com/4axam4yu.

SOLD OUT 1 Aug [] NORTHERN HORIZON (_Blake's 7_), Copthorne Hotel, Newcastle. 10am-4pm. GBP25; 'VIP' GBP80. 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 Dorleac_ (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_(R) 469 (C) 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