Scintillations

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It's all Brian Aldiss's fault! Newly released documents from the BBC archive reveal that it was he, then an editor at Penguin, who assisted the researchers in 1962 when the corporation started to seriously look at the possibility of doing a science fiction series.

Turning to British sf of more recent vintage, the Harry Potter Lexicon saga has finally come to a close. RDR has withdrawn its appeal and published the Lexicon book, altered to the requirements of the ruling. Harry Potter fandom continues much as before. Hallelujah.

For more international news: it's not quite Fans Around the World risen from the dead, but there is now a World SF News blog at LiveJournal (worldsf.livejournal.com). Topics so far have included Filipino speculative fiction, Indian superheroes, and the first known Arabic sf convention (a bit late for the Social Calendar, unfortunately, as it happened in 2007).

Elsewhere in international relations, in defiance of the International Astronomical Union-- and defense of native son Clyde Tombaugh-- the state of Illinois has decreed March 13th to be Pluto Day, and furthermore declared its support for restoring full planetary status.

And, as if there wasn't enough going on in space, to the well-known causes of delays and cost overruns at NASA, add this: counterfeit parts. Apparently there are suppliers not above supplying empty boxes, or genuine-looking fake doohickeys with pretigious aerospace manufacturer logos etched onto them. Now there's something I can't recall sf ever predicting.

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