(1) ARTEMIS II LAUNCHES. The Artemis II mission took off from Kennedy Space Center this evening. NASA is doing “LIVE: Artemis II Launch Day Updates” at the link.

6:35 p.m.

NASA’s Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, with the Orion spacecraft atop carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B in Florida at 6:35 p.m. EDT to begin its journey to deep space.  

The twin solid rocket boosters ignited first, delivering more than 75% of the thrust needed to lift the 5.75-million-pound rocket off the pad. Their combined power, along with the four RS-25 engines already at full thrust, generated an incredible 8.8 million pounds of force at liftoff. As the rocket rose, the umbilicals – which provided power, fuel, and data connections during prelaunch – disconnected and retracted into protective housings. This ensured the vehicle is free from ground systems and fully autonomous for flight. 

The approximately 10-day Artemis II mission around the Moon is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign. It will help test the systems and hardware needed to continue sending astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to continue building toward the first crewed missions to Mars. 

(2) SHATNER COMMENTS ON LAUNCH. “NASA Launches Manned Artemis Mission Around The Moon” in Deadline.

NASA launched a mega rocket headed to a swing around the moon on Wednesday, marking a return human journey beyond Earth’s orbit for the first time in more than a half century.

“The crew of Artemis II now bound for the moon. Humanity’s next great voyage begins,” NASA launch commentator Derrol Nail said on the space agency’s livestream.

Broadcast and cable networks carried the launch, but in contrast to the Apollo launches of the 1960s and 70s, the liftoff didn’t get the same level of attention as those historic journeys. The launch was among a number of stories that dominated cable news headlines through the day, including the Supreme Court arguments on birthright citizenship and previews of Donald Trump’s planned primetime address on Iran later on Wednesday evening….

…Four astronauts are onboard, including Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialist Christina Koch and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen. The 10-day mission will essentially be a flyby of the moon, with plans to land on the surface some time in 2028.

The coverage of the launch was a bit of a waiting game, with a hold resolved before the final 10-minute countdown.

On CNN, Miles O’Brien, a veteran of NASA coverage, provided commentary. After the launch, William Shatner, 95, shared his thoughts about “the fear that must be mixed with the sense of victory, with those people incarcerated in that ship.”

“With all their practice, with all their ingenuity, with all their technology, the fear of what could possibly happen must be lurking somewhere, and it certainly was in my brain,” Shatner said. In 2021, he was part of Jeff Bezos’ privately funded Blue Origin space shot….

(3) ANSIBLE. A new month, a new issue– Ansible® 465, April 2026 – and that’s no foolin’!

(4) SFWA’S SOLSTICE AWARD. And congratulations to the editor of Ansible, and editor (with John Clute) of SFE: SF Encyclopedia, who yesterday was honored by SFWA: “SFWA’s 2026 Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award Goes to David Langford”.

SFWA President Kate Ristau notes, “With his work on The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Langford has not only built, supported, and challenged the field of SFF; he has literally helped to define it. His decades of work have made science fiction a richer and more inclusive field. We are more than happy to present him with the Solstice Award in recognition of his career filled with positive, focused, and uplifting contributions.”

(5) DUNGEON MASTER. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Here is my analysis of the new trailer for the Masters of the Universe live action movie: “Cora’s Thoughts on the New Masters of the Universe Trailer”. (No action figure photos recreating scenes from the trailer this time around, because I didn’t have the time to take any.)

 … The trailer starts off a heavy door opening. Adam, looking pretty roughed up, is dragged by two of Skeletor’s goons – I think they’re called Skele-Knights – and thrown into a cell. The cell door then slams shut. It’s not clear whether this is the dungeon of Snake Mountain or the dungeon of Castle Grayskull or the dungeon Eternos Palace. Not that it matters much.

What does matter is that Adam isn’t alone in the dungeon. Duncan and Teela are there as well and immediately tend to the injured Adam. There’s also a bunch of other people in the dungeon. Some of them are familiar characters – we can clearly see Fisto, Ram-Man and Mekaneck as well as a young woman we’ve also spotted in the first trailer and who has since been identified as Dian, a fairly obscure character from the newspaper comic strips of the 1980s, where she’s an officer in the Royal Guard and friend of Teela’s. It’s good to see other female Eternian soldiers and it’s alway good to see Teela having some female friends, though it’s interesting that they went with the very obscure Dian rather than the better known characters Andra or Ileena who coud play a similar role. Perhaps there were rights issues with using Andra or Ileena.

The other people in the dungeon seem to be random Eternian civilians, quite possibly the Eternian resistance. He-Mania.com wonders whether an older black man in the background might be Dekker, Duncan’s old mentor and predecessor as Man-at-Arms. A screenshot of Mekaneck at He-Mania.com also shows a boy of maybe twelve standing next to Mekaneck. So did the movie remember that Mekaneck had a son in the Filmation cartoon?

At any rate, the trailer starts with all the heroes captured and locked up in a dungeon….

(6) CORA’S PHOTOS. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] But if you want photos, there are a lot of photos in this post where I share my Easter decorations, which are partly action figure based: “Easter Decorations 2026 and Springtime Photos”.

The guardian bunnies. If you want to get the Easter branches, you have to go past them first.

(7) END OF PARADISE. [Item by N.] Sterling K. Brown, star of Hulu’s Paradise, speaks on the show’s upcoming third season, which will be its last (article contains spoilers for season two): “Paradise Season 2 Finale: Sterling K. Brown Says Answers Come Season 3” in The Hollywood Reporter.

…Sterling K. Brown wants to assure you that Paradise is going to make good on its promise. “Everyone will get their answers by the time season three is done,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter after the season two finale.

The actor who stars as Xavier Collins — the former secret service agent to the president who is now the Hulu hit show’s version of a superhero — is able to make that promise because he’s also an executive producer….

This comes of the heels of what showrunner/creator Dan Fogelman and executive producer John Hoberg have said in a previous article, also from The Hollywood Reporter: “’Paradise’ Season 2 Premiere Raises Questions That Will Get Answered”.

… “This season is about: Do you believe that things happen for a reason, or is it chance? It’s a big, emotional question. It’s almost a religious question; a philosophical question. What do you believe?” executive producer and writer John Hoberg tells The Hollywood Reporter about the newly released second season of Paradise….

(8) APRIL FOOLISHNESS. Between AI, fake news, and every other misleading make-you-look post in social media, interest in April Fools stunts has waned in the past decade. But the Guardian still thinks these are clever: “Pot Noodle pizza to Doctor Who Darlic bread: this year’s best April fools”.

…A major theme in recent years of April fool jokes by brands has been the announcement of unlikely collaborations – especially in the food space. This year, Heinz and PerfectTed are claiming they are getting together to produce matcha-flavoured mayonnaise. A prank that hits a sweeter spot is the promise from the dessert manufacturer Gü that it is partnering with Dr Will’s sriracha hot sauce to produce a sriracha chocolate melting-middle pudding, which it says “takes the spicy sweetness trend to the next level”.

Pizza is a good topic for a joke. The pineapple producer Dole has announced the absolutely disgusting-sounding concept of the Hawaiian pizza in a can, and the restaurant chain Zizzi says it is offering pizza with a candyfloss topping.

Domino’s has suggested a new pizza will be available – the Pot Noodle stuffed crust – with a commenter on its Facebook page noting: “The joke is on them because that would actually be a best seller.” And what better to complement your pizza meal than Iceland’s new Doctor Who-themed Darlic bread?…

Meanwhile, The Onion’s April 1 post “Report: Decision Not To Call Film ‘The Baby Yoda Movie’ To Cost Disney $900 Million” is awfully hard to disbelieve.

Citing nearly a billion dollars of pent-up consumer demand for entertainment featuring an infant version of an already beloved character, a new report released Wednesday by Gower Street Analytics concluded that Disney’s decision not to call its upcoming Star Wars film The Baby Yoda Movie would cost the studio roughly $900 million. “By naming the film The Mandalorian And Grogu, Disney is leaving money on the table from consumers who have no idea who Grogu is but would immediately take out their phones and buy a ticket for any movie of any genre with ‘Baby Yoda’ in its title,” said report author Heather Flynn, who cited a poll in which 81% of potential moviegoers responded “Who the hell are they? Is this a Lord Of The Rings thing?” when presented with marketing materials for the upcoming film…. 

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series (1967)

Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series has a fascinating Hugo history.

She won a Hugo the first time she was nominated, for the novella “Weyr Search” at Baycon (tied with Philip José Farmer’s “Riders of the Purple Wage”.) It was published in Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact, October 1967. It’s in A Dragon-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic anthology which was edited by Margaret Weis, available from the usual suspects at a very reasonable price. 

It would be the only win for the Dragonriders of Pern series but by far is not the only nomination for the series. 

Next up would be the “Dragonrider” novella which was nominated one year later at St. Louiscon. Three years later, her Dragonquest novel would get a nod at the first L.A. Con showing that Con had impeccable taste. And at Seacon ‘79, The White Dragon was nominated. (I really love that novel.) The next L.A. Con would see another novel be nominated, Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern. (I’ve never heard of that one.) And the final nomination, also for a novel, was at MagiCon, for All the Weyrs of Pern.

The series did win a number of other awards including a Nebula for Dragonrider, a Ditmar and Gandalf for The White Dragon, a Balrog for Dragondrums and The Science Fiction Book Club’s Book of the Year Award for The Renegades of Pern. It is, after all, an expansive series.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

• Eek! complains about breakfast.
• Savage Chickens drops an A-Team reference.
• Speed Bump feels your pain.
• The Argyle Sweater shares the bill.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal shows why today’s barbarians find looting unprofitable.
• xkcd may now have more modes than the Creator.

(11) PENRIC COVER. Lois McMaster Bujold shared a “Darksight Dare e-cover sneak peek” on her Goodreads blog.

Artist Ron Miller and I got started on this several weeks ago, so the final version has arrived at about the same time as my final revisions pass, ongoing this week….

I also bagged the vendor-page copy:

“Penric takes a chance…

“Two intractable problems are brought to the door of sorcerer Learned Penric of Vilnoc and his Temple demon Desdemona. Cinar Camurat, a mutilated Cedonian cavalry captain, has traveled two thousand sea miles to Penric for aid. Iva of Bita, a secret hedge sorceress, lies dying in her Orban hill village, and wants no aid at all.

“Penric and Desdemona know well the hazards of medicine and magic, but their greatest puzzle may lodge in the tangle of hopes and fears in human and demonic hearts.”

I’m finding it increasingly interesting, though not easy, to explore stories and story structures that are not villain-driven with their too-often-facile action and boss-fight climaxes. I mean, I find bashing a well-drawn villain as cathartic as the next fangrrl, but surely there are more possibilities…

(12) STORY STRUCTURE. Henry Lien recently called fans’ attention to his appearance on Love Letters to the Future for “Unpacking Eastern Storytelling and the Four Act Structure with Henry Lien”.

In this episode of Love Letters to the Future, hosts PJ Manney and Laura Faye Tenenbaum engage with author Henry Lien to explore the nuances of storytelling, particularly focusing on Eastern storytelling structures like Kishotenketsu. They discuss the importance of stories in culture, the role of community, and how different narrative structures can evoke empathy and understanding. The conversation delves into the constraints of storytelling and how they can foster creativity, as well as the impact of cultural differences on narrative forms. Through examples and personal anecdotes, the episode highlights the transformative power of stories in shaping our perceptions and experiences.

(13) APRIL SHOWERS BRING GAME HOURS. [Item by N.] The A.V. Club looks forward to an April stacked with sci-fi video games: “April games preview: Saros leads a packed month for sci-fi action”.

[Dosa Divas Announcement Trailer] … Thanks to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a lot more people seem to be paying attention to how there have been heaps of great turn-based RPGs with active timing elements in recent years. Dosa Divas, the next from Outerloop Games (Thirsty Suitors, Falcon Age), has the potential to fit this trend, but with its own spice. The story centers on Samara and Amani, two sisters finally reconnecting after years of estrangement as they go on a road trip (in a mech suit) to visit their parents. To make matters complicated, they end up taking on a fast-food empire along the way. One that’s run by their sister, no less. Thankfully, this journey involves a lot of beating up dirtbag corpos, which is easy to relish thanks to a smart turn-based system that emphasizes hitting enemies’ culinary weaknesses. Between its personal story of familial reconnection and its many opportunities to mess up capitalist jerks, Dosa Divas could be cooking up something special. [Elijah Gonzalez]…

(14) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. Animation World Network invites everyone to “Watch Clips from ‘Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord’ Animated Series”.

Lucasfilm Animation has just released two clips from it all-new animated series Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, which will premiere exclusively on Disney+ on April 6, 2026.

Two episodes of the series will debut each week on the streaming platform, with the final two installments scheduled to air on May 4, otherwise known as “Star Wars Day,” when we all get to proclaim, “May the 4^th Be With You!”

Set after the events of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the story follows Maul as he attempts to rebuild his criminal syndicate on a planet untouched by the Empire. During his efforts, he encounters a disillusioned young Jedi Padawan who could become the apprentice he seeks in his pursuit of revenge.

[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Cora Buhlert, N., 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 Thomas the Red.]