(1) HARLAN ELLISON’S PACKARD GETS NEW HOME. James Artimus Owen told Facebook readers today:

…My pal John Van Hassel and I have just picked up Harlan Ellison’s 1947 Packard from Hollywood, where her foster parents, my good friends Jim & Gabrielle Pascoe, have been looking after her, and we’re taking her to her new forever home at the Biblioteca Fantastica, in the historic Coppervale Studio, in Silvertown (Taylor), Arizona.

(2) MORALITY ON A LARGE SCALE. Timothy Snyder reminds us about “Tolkien’s Dragons and Ours” at Thinking About…

In the first month of a threatening year, in January of 1938, a great writer gathered himself to speak to children about dragons.

We know JRR Tolkien as the creator of Middle Earth and the author of the Lord of the Rings. But at the time he was just an Oxford university professor who had agreed to bring some light to a dark winter’s evening.

His first book, The Hobbit, had just been published. Most likely the children who gathered in the University Museum had not read it. Professor Tolkien over-prepared, bringing twenty-four pages of hand-written prose….

… The lecture gives us a bit of the moral theory behind The Hobbit, and of the books to follow. Dragons, explained Tolkien, assemble huge wealth, appreciating only its quantity, but taking no joy in any particular object. They are, however, enraged if any one piece were to go missing, and would burn the world with fury. They are obsessed to the point of paranoia with thieves. Their great intelligence is thus reduced to the cunning of protecting their hoard.A dragon is not a fearful beast of a real or imaginary past, but a way of being in the world. They are not the serpent that represents evil; they are not a symbol of something abstract. “The alarming thing about dragons as I have said is not only their shape — which may have dwindled or vanished — but their spirit.” Dragons convey to us a way that people can be evil, here in our world: turning the quality of small joys into the quantity of a senseless hoard, mocking and destroying others who still see the good things of life.

It is the spirit of dragons, concluded Tolkien, that has survived, and it survives in us, or in some of us. A man can become a dragon through sheer greed. If we want to find a dragon, the place to look is the “vaults of the Bank of England.” And if “you want to see a dragon-heath just go out and look” at a landscape tortured by machines, a sky blackened with smoke….

(3) STEVE VERTLIEB MEDICAL UPDATE. Steve Vertlieb is out of the hospital after a week of treatment for internal bleeding. He told Facebook friends today the full details (which I won’t quote here). Thankfully he’s still with us.

…Over the course of my nearly weeklong confinement to the emergency room and special care unit of the hospital, I was consigned an impossibly bland diet of liquids and clear broth. They remain the only boring part of my week. Finally on Friday, January 28th, as my vital signs had stabilized for an acceptable duration of time and testing, I was released from the hospital, along with the admonition that if symptoms recurred, to return immediately to the emergency room.

I’m weak and somewhat unsteady on my feet, but happy to be alive. Death had returned from his holiday, leaving me to return to my flawed, yet nearly concluded existence. I was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon, January 30th, 2026. My ordeal and “Long Day’s Journey into Night” had emerged once more into the life affirming brightness and future of day.

(4) 2026 DIAMOND DAGGER. The Crime Writers’ Association has announced the 2026 CWA Diamond Dagger recipient. Shots reports:

Mark Billingham is the 2026 recipient of the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger, sponsored by Karen Baugh Menuhin.

The award recognises authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre.

One of the UK’s most prominent societies, the CWA was founded in 1953 by John Creasey. The awards started in 1955 with its first award going to Winston Graham, best known for Poldark.

25 years ago, Mark Billingham’s debut novel Sleepyhead became an instant bestseller, launching a prolific career as a novelist….

… Nadine Matheson, Chair of the CWA, said: “Across a remarkable body of work, Mark has consistently set the bar for contemporary crime fiction, while also being generous with his time and support to emerging writers. His influence on the genre extends far beyond his own novels, shaping the crime writing community as a whole. For his outstanding contribution to crime fiction, his lasting impact on readers and writers alike, and his commitment to the genre, Mark Billingham is a thoroughly deserving recipient of the Diamond Dagger.”…

(5) NEW TOYS KEEP ON COMING. Cora Buhlert has written a follow-up post, “More Masters of the Universe Movie Toys Revealed” because Mattel has unveiled more figures and also the packaging at the Nuremberg Toy Fair.

…So what do I think about this first wave of Masters of the Universe movie figures? Well, I’m glad you asked (or not), cause here are my thoughts.

The first wave of Masters of the Universe Chronicles figures consists of a solid seven figures plus one mount – note that a normal Masterverse or Origins or Cartoon Collection wave consists of three figures, four at most. Of course, it’s also possible that we’re looking at more than one wave here.

The Heroic Warriors are represented by He-Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms and Battle Cat. The Evil Warriors are represented by Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Trap-Jaw and Tri-Klops. We already saw Man-at-Arms and Evil-Lyn in person plus He-Man and Tri-Klops on the cross sell yesterday. Trap-Jaw, Skeletor, Teela and Battle Cat are new.

It’s a solid assortment of characters and you can play out some mighty battles with those. Though it is notable that all seven characters (excluding Battle Cat for obvious reasons) are human or at least humanoid, which means that at least some parts (hands, feet, arms, etc…) can be reused, though these toys seem to have a lot of new tooling, which means a big investment. Non-human characters like Roboto, Beast-Man or Spikor, all of whom require a lot of new parts, are not included in this first wave. Whether we will also get deluxe figures (often two-packs or oversized characters such as Beast-Man or Roboto), vehicles and a Castle Grayskull playset remains to be seen…

(6) CROSS THEIR PALMS WITH SILVER. Joe Stech in the latest Compelling Science Fiction Newsletter says he is creating “The ‘bullion prerogative’ for science fiction authors”.

A while back I bought some silver coins on a whim. I discovered this week that they’ve appreciated considerably (despite the price drop yesterday). Selling them would trigger capital gains taxes, which does not excite me^*. And so, in the way that many terrible ideas are born, I found myself in Discord asking science fiction authors if they’d be willing to get paid in physical silver coins for their writing.

The response was immediate and enthusiastic, but not for any financially sound reasons. Here are a few choice selections of how authors were feeling about being paid in silver…

Here’s a couple of the responses:

“yes because that would be hilarious” — Isabel J. Kim

“I got paid in beer one time and I’ll always treasure that, would love to add silver to the weird payments list” — Parker M. O’Neill

Which Stech founding inspiring:

…By this point I was having visions of a full John Wick-style economy where science fiction authors just walk around with stacks of coins, paying for everything from conventions to Clarkesworld memberships with bullion….

(7) KEEPING UP WITH ANTHROPIC. Victoria Strauss has shared news about the Anthropic Settlement.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 31, 1934 — Gene DeWeese. (Died 2012.)

This Scroll I’m looking at a writer this I’ve never heard of before, Gene DeWeese. He was a member of fandom, and his stories were published in fanzines such as The Chigger Patch of Fandom, Fan-Fare and Yandro. He was a member of the Eastern Indiana Science Fiction Association and the Midwest Nomads. Fancyclopedia notes, “He tried to attend Midwestcon 4 in 1953 with his friends Bev Clark and Buck Coulson, but left when she wasn’t permitted in due to Beatley’s Hotel’s racist Jim Crow policy.”

His first professional novels appeared in the Sixties, a Man from U.N.C.L.E. book co-written with Robert “Buck” Coulson under the name Thomas Stratton, The Invisibility Affair. They would do one more book in this continuity, The Mind-Twisters Affair. 

(I do wish that these, like so many works of that era, had become digital publications. They didn’t obviously.)

In the Seventies he and Coulson wrote under their own names two novels set in fandom, Now You See It/Him/Them… and Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats.

Most of us remember DeWeese for his Trek novels which is interesting as they were written later in his career. The four that are set in the original continuity were written the Eighties onward, all by him except one he wrote with Margaret Wander Bonanno and Diane Duane.  He also wrote three set in the Next Generation continuity as well.

What else did he do? There’s Dinotopia novels, something I swear exists by the dozens even if they don’t. I think. And one in the Lost in Space continuity as well. 

What’s more interesting is the series that I’ve never heard of. The Black Suits from Outer Space YA trilogy involves, well, Men (possibly) in Black, plucky teenagers, spaceships, aliens (some cute, some not) and nothing terrible challenging. Fun is the best word to describe them. 

He wrote three novels in the Ravenloft continuity, a campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. I just got the giggles, errr, laughs reading the summary of that  module, but then I never played fantasy RPGs, just SF ones like the Traveller RPG. What a fantastic RPG that was! 

There’s still a lot of other novels that I’ve not mentioned and quite a bit of short stories (none collected). 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• Brewster Rockit learns the history of a saying. 
• Luann found a calling. 
• Speed Bump runs a specialized eye test. 
• Strange Brew does new patient intake. 
• The Argyle Sweater started small. 
• Tom Gauld on the rewards of enhanced reading.

(10) MUPPET SHOW REDUX. The Guardian’s review says, “The Muppet Show: this thrilling return is so great I can’t even count how many times I laughed”. Coming February 4.

… That’s why we love them. Do we not, too, know ourselves to be odd, hapless psychological caricatures? Do our plans not also lead to flaming wreckage? Do we not long to put on a vaudeville-style variety show in a classic theatre?

Which brings us to the 2026 Muppet Show (Disney+, from Wednesday 4 February), with executive producer Seth Rogen on board. It’s a one-off, but could lead to a whole new series, the trailer reveals, “depending on how tonight goes”. Happily, it hasn’t been updated so Fozzie is doing bits on TikTok, or Rowlf protesting about streaming royalties. The guys are still trying to put on that variety show, and it’s still all going wrong…

… A highlight is when Carpenter meets Miss Piggy, gushing how she has always loved her, and even copied her look. “My attorneys have taken note,” Piggy replies primly. The porcine diva is energetic throughout, trotting backstage to announce to anyone present that she is “on vocal rest”. Protecting her place in the running order, she undertakes a water-based romantic rescue mission, which culminates in a bisexual rug-pull moment. She’s doing a lot.

Even the show within the show is good. Expect toe-tapping needle drops old and new. Skits include period-drama parody Pigs in Wigs, and a science segment about screen time, which ends with Beaker losing his eyes. Unlike Sesame Street, where the Muppets also appear, there is no educational agenda. The agenda is electric mayhem…

(11) FAMILY WII COMPETITION. [Item by Steven French.] Dominik Diamond at the Guardian plots some gaming revenge … against his mum: “There’s a reason that Wii Bowling remains my mum’s favourite game of all time”.

My mother bore me. My mother nurtured me. My mother educated me. She has a resilience unmatched, a love all-forgiving. She is the glue that holds our family together. But right now, I am kicking her ass at video game bowling, and it feels good!

In the 00s, my mum was the best Wii Bowling player in the world. She was unbeatable. Strike after strike after strike. The Dudette in our family’s Big Lebowski. So when she said she was coming to visit us in Canada, I thought the time was right to buy the updated Nintendo Switch Sports version of her favourite game. She’s 76 now, and I might finally have a chance of beating her, I thought, especially if I allowed myself a cheeky tune-up on the game before she arrived.

I fire up Nintendo Switch Sports to get the lay of the land. Tennis and golf have survived the almost 20 years since Wii Sports, along with bowling. The tennis has nothing to keep me entertained for longer than 10 minutes, and I have been terrified of any golf game where you swing a controller since Christmas morning 2009, when my wife surprised me with Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf for the Wii and I surprised her by throwing my back out after a six-hour session on it….

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