Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 2

Cora’s TV Adventure – Take Two

Before we get to the main event, I was at the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow blog of the Seattle Worldcon again, this time talking about the 1960 East German science fiction film Der schweigende Stern a.k.a. The Silent Star.

Back in January, I wrote about how I appeared in a segment on viewers’ opinions on NDR TV.

Well, guess what? This Saturday, I was on TV again. And this time around, it even has something to do with science fiction and the Hugos.

The story started last Friday, when I got a phone call from Désirée Bertram, a journalist working for buten un binnen. For those who don’t know (which is most likely everybody who’s not from Bremen and surroundings) buten un binnen is the regional news program of Radio Bremen TV, it has been broadcast daily on weekdays (and later on Saturdays) since 1980. The title is Low German for “without and within” and is taken from  the motto inscribed above the doorway of the Schütting, seat of the Bremen chamber of commerce, in gilded letters: “Buten un binnen – wagen un winnen” (Without and within – to dare and to win). BTW, I love that it rhymes in both English and Low German.

Back in 1980 – and I’m pretty sure I watched the first episode as a young kid – buten un binnen felt fresh and modern compared to the deadly dull evening news programs featuring serious looking older men (and very rarely women – since women were considered too emotional to read the news) in suits and ties who announced very serious news in very serious tones. buten un binnen was different. The anchors were fairly young, they wore sweaters and no ties and impressive facial hair (it was the early 1980s), they were less reverent than the staid elderly gentlemen of the mainstream news programs, asked hard questions and even made jokes on occasion. Nowadays, this sort of style is common for news programs, but back in 1980, it was something genuinely new and different. As a result, buten un binnen became hugely popular and remains so to this day. When the public TV channel ARD tried to banish all of its regional programming from its nation-wide channel (where the two hours from six to eight PM were once reserved for regional programming) to the less popular regional third programs, buten un binnen managed to avoid this fate for a while, since it was by far the most popular regional news program in Germany and the one that people were actually watching.  Though nowadays, buten un binnen is broadcast on the regional channel Radio Bremen TV.

As for why a journalist from buten un binnen called me, well, she’d read the article about my Hugo nomination in the Weser-Kurier and wanted to interview me. Now I always sent out my press releases about my Hugo nominations to all the local media, including Radio Bremen. However, I never got a response from them. When I won in 2022, I even adressed the e-mail directly to one of their radio journalists, who was a classmate of mine at university, though I still had to send it via their central contact address. No response. And now they suddenly contact me out of the blue in response to a newspaper interview about me.

I had a nice chat with Désirée Bertram and explained what the Hugos are, what Galactic Journey is, what we do and so on. She also asked me if they could interview me at home, how the conditions are, if there’s enough space to fit in a TV team and their equipment and so on. I said, “No problem, you can film me at home, there’s enough space and since I’m self-employed, I’m also flexible with regards to time.”

Initially they planned to shoot the interview on Tuesday, which gave me three and a half days to get the house in order – and luckily, the house was more orderly than it had been in January. Though the garden was not in great shape. The front lawn needed mowing and there were other issues like dead plants as well.

Now I dislike gardening work. I find it deeply unpleasant and so I’ve hired my neighbour Vladimir, who has a gardening and house repair business, to do the garden for me. Which normally isn’t a problem, except that the time frame was a little tight. So I asked Vladimir, “Could you maybe mow my lawn and clean up the garden by Monday, because buten un binnen wants to interview me on Tuesday?”

Indeed, Vladimir and his two helpers did mow my lawn and got rid of the dead plants for me on Monday – only to be promptly interrupted by a gust of rain. I also bought some strawflowers and lavender plants at the DIY store and planted them in a planter that was filled with mostly dead heather and weeds. At any rate, my garden looks much more presentable now, though in the end you can see very little of it in the TV report.

In the end, the buten un binnen TV team shot the interview on Wednesday rather than Tuesday, which gave me one additional day to clean up the house and reorganise my Masters of the Universe collection to show them off a little better.

The TV team showed up on Wednesday at noon in a van emblazoned with “Radio Bremen”, so all the neighbours could see what’s going on. And believe me, they were curious, because everything out of the ordinary gets noticed in this neighbourhood.

Inside the van, there were three people: Désirée Bertram, the journalist who’d contacted me, as well as a camera operator (his name is Lür Wagenheim according to the credits at the end of the TV report) and a sound technician. They lugged a lot of equipment into the house. Home cameras have gotten much smaller since my days with the public access channel Bremer Umland, but professional TV cameras are as big and heavy as they ever were.

This time around, I did not have a microphone clipped to my collar with a wire running under my shirt. I was glad about that, because it’s summer and I’m not wearing a lot under my t-shirt, so the wire would have been on my bare skin.

The house was inspected and the two Hugo trophies and my Masters of the Universe collection were duly admired. “I had no idea there were so many of those figures,” someone – I think the sound guy – said, “I always thought there were only four or five or so.” I replied, “Oh, there were a lot more than that [there were 72 figures in the vintage Masters of the Universe line, not including vehicles, playsets and mounts like Battle Cat or Panthor], only that they weren’t all available at the same time and some were never sold in Germany at all.”

As for filming, I pointed out that the dining room/hall was probably the best place to film, but we could also use the living room (actually a misnomer, since the room is only used on Christmas and sometimes for visitors), except that one of the automatic blinds is broken and permanently down and will likely remain so, since Dad couldn’t locate the problem and if he couldn’t find it, no one else stands a chance. The living room also needs redecorating, because I want to get rid of my parents’ outdated decor. “You can also film me in my office,” I said, “But it’s not very exciting – just an attic room.” – “Can we film you working somewhere else?” – “I can unplug the laptop, no problem,” I said.

So in the end, the dining room/hall it was. I unplugged the laptop, took it downstairs and started it up. “Do you have some research materials we can show?” Désirée Bertram asked. I replied, “You’re lucky, cause my parents’ collection of Das Jahr im Bild [The Year in Pictures, a kind of almanac] is right here on the shelf and I can pull out the 1970 edition. Though I hope it doesn’t cause everything else to come crashing down.”

As a matter of fact, I’m currently in the process of reorganising the bookshelves in the dining room/hall area, cause they are full of my parents’ books – lots of coffee table type books about ships and motorbikes and WWII, chronicles of the companies where my parents worked that no one really cares about as well as a shelf worth of Marie Louise Fischer novels – which aren’t necessarily topics that excite me very much. I’m not going to get rid of them altogether – not even the Marie Louise Fischer novels, because maybe I want to write something about her work – but I don’t want them clogging up prime real estate in the house. Some of the books have already been relocated to the basement, though others are still there. And those Das Jahr im Bild books really are useful for research.

So I pulled Das Jahr im Bild 1970 from the shelf – and no, nothing came crashing down, though I wondered why on Earth we own a book listing all the churches in Bremen? – and put it quite prominently on the table. Then I typed random stream of consciousness stuff, opened Galactic Journey and scrolled through one of my articles and flipped through the pages, while I was being filmed from all angles.

One funny moment was, when the pewter mugs and decorative plates in the shelf behind me were scrutinised, whether there’s anything political or potentially problematic visible. “Welll, unless the city of Hamelin or the propeller manufacturer Voith are considered problematic now, it should be fine.” The decorative pewter mugs, plates, spoons, etc.. also belonged to my parents and will probably be removed eventually – because they’re not to my taste at all – though so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to get rid of them.

I was asked a few questions and occasionally had to repeat an answer for another take. I was also handed some sheets of white cardstock and a marker and asked to write the date 1969 onto the cardstock. The first time I did it, I was asked to do it again and turn the marker, so you can’t make out the very prominent manufacturer’s name. Radio Bremen is a public TV channel and have to be wary of anything that might be considered product placement, cause that would be illegal advertising. And yes, there have been scandals involving product placement and illegal advertising in German public TV going back to the 1980s, though none of them ever involved Radio Bremen. The most infamous case is probably the very prominent appearance of Paroli cough lozenges in the Schimanski Tatort episodes “Zahn um Zahn” (Tooth for a Tooth) and “Freunde” (Friends), which allegedly were only greenlit, because the then head of the public TV station WDR claimed to have no idea that Paroli was a real brand.

I was also asked to take the Hugo from the shelf, put it on the table and admire it. Later, I was also asked if I could hold the trophy, while answering a few questions. “Not for very long,” I said, “It weighs four and a half kilos and is very heavy.”

After those shots had been finished, the TV team because to assemble a green screen in my dining rooms. Basically, it’s is a metal frame covered with green cloth. The thing was huge and pretty much divided the entire dining room. Squeezing past it wasn’t easy, squeezing past it while carrying a Hugo trophy was even more of a challenge. They also had problems with light shining through the green cloth from behind. Internal lights could be switched off, but sunshine streaming in through the garden door was a problem. “I can lower the automatic shutters, if you like,” I said. “Oh, that would be wonderful.” Of course, the switch to operate the automatic shutter was on the other side of the dining room table, so I had to squeeze past the green screen again to reach it.

I also asked if the fact that the print on my t-shirt – which is reproduction of the cover of the 1966 edition of Foundation – is green was a problem.  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” I was told, “We can exclude it from the process.”

I was then asked to stand or sit in front of the green screen, answer more questions and write “1969” onto the white cardstock again. I was also asked to look around and follow an imaginary object with my eyes. The Hugo was also filmed against the green screen.

Of course, I know what a green screen is and how it works. I’ve known that since I was a kid and eagerly watched “making of” documentaries about science fiction movies. However, this was my first experience with an actual green screen. Coincidentally, it was also the first time working with a green screen for journalist Désirée Bertram.

Now Radio Bremen has always had cutting edge TV technology and they have been using early versions of the green screen process since the 1960s, mostly to insert animated backgrounds into the famous Beat-Club/Musikladen music program. And nowadays, they use the tech for news programs, to make me appear in front of footage of the first Moon landing.

After the filming at my home was done, the TV team also wanted to film me outside. Now buten un binnen is a regional TV program for Bremen and surroundings, so of course they wanted a local hook. And the one they chose was the crash of Lufthansa flight 005 while landing at Bremen airport on January 28, 1966.  I wrote about this crash for Galactic Journey and incorporated eyewitness statements, including that of my Dad who chanced to drive past the crash site very shortly after it had happened. The article is here BTW and I’m very proud of it, because it took a lot of research.

Nowadays, there are two memorial steles commemorating the victims in a park near the crash site. The first stele was donated by the Italian National Olympic Committee and is dedicated to the seven members of the Italian national swim team as well as their coach and a TV reporter who died in the crash. That stele was erected in 1967 shortly after the crash, though it has been moved since then, when the runway of Bremen airport was extended in the early 1980s. The second stele, which lists the names of all 46 victims, was only erected in 2019 and no, I have no idea why it took them so long to honour all 46 people who died in what is still the worst plane crash ever at Bremen airport. Though Bremen has a thing for putting memorials decades later. The memorial stele for the three victims of the Gladbeck hostage drama (most of which did not actually take place in Gladbeck, but in Bremen), 15-year-old Emanuele De Giorgi, 19-year-old Silke Bischoff (who went to my school) and 31-year-old police officer Ingo Hagen, was not set up until 2019, thirty-one years after it happened, either.

So the TV team loaded everything back into their van and also filmed me going out and into the house. When I opened the door, I nearly stumbled over a stack of packages that had been delivered. I actually did see the mail person, but he never rang the doorbell. The packages actually contained things ordered weeks apart, because two shipments had been delayed due to holidays, one arrived unexpectedly fast and Mattel Creations packages arrive whenever they please anyway.

They also asked me if I could drive to the memorial for the victims of Lufthansa flight 005 in my own car, because they still had more filming to do in the city center afterwards. “No problem,” I said.

Just before we drove off, my neighbour Franziska chanced to come by with her two young kids whom she’d picked up at the kindergarten. The two kids cheerily greeted the TV team and me. Of course, a TV van is not nearly as exciting as heavy machinery, but still exciting enough for little kids.

We then drove to the park with the two memorial steles for the victims of flight 005. I drove ahead, since I know the way better, and the TV van followed. I drove onto a parking lot by the park, which is used by dog walkers and the like, again followed by the TV van.Of course, it had to start to rain the moment I stepped out of the car.

The two memorial steles are quite close to the parking lot, located amidst a copse of oak trees. Thankfully, the grass had been mowed, so we didn’t have to wade through tall grass to get there. I told the TV team that I had actually taken a photo of the stele with the names of all the victims and googled every single one to see what I could find out about them. “This was the pilot,” I said, pointing at the name, “This was the co-pilot. This was a flight attendant. Here’s the actress Ada Tschechowa.”

I was filmed walking along a small path in the park, planes roaring overhead and traffic rushing by on Kladdinger Straße (which was particularly busy that day due to two traffic jams on Autobahn A1 and Bundesstraße B75). I was also filmed at the memorial, looking at the inscription and writing the year 1966 onto the white cardstock, while insects were buzzing all around me. “I’m not sure if they’re attracted to the scent of the marker or my deodoriser or my shampoo,” I said. The TV team assured me that insects wouldn’t be visible on the screen and they aren’t.

After the shooting at the memorial for the victims of Lufthansa flight 005, the TV team and I parted ways. The TV team returned to the city center for some more filming, while I wondered what to do now. I was hungry, because the TV team arrived at twelve o’clock and I didn’t want to have lunch before to avoid unpleasant smells or bowel movements. However, it was after two PM by now and too late for lunch, at least lunch outside the home. So I decided to have an ice cream instead and stopped by the ice cream parlour Il Sole in Brinkum on my way home. I had a martini sundae and then continued homewards.

I’d been told that the TV report would air in the Saturday edition of buten un binnen, unless something urgent came up. However, there were no urgent news and so the report actually did air on Saturday. You can watch it – and read the related text – here. And here is the full buten un binnen episode. My segment starts at the 19:24 minute mark

I think it’s a lovely piece and it’s always interesting to see how much work (roughly two and a half hours of filming plus post-production) goes into such a very short report.

Of course, I watched buten un binnen live on Saturday evening and then had dinner. When I checked my e-mail afterwards, I already had two acquaintances e-mail me to let me know that they had seen me on buten un binnen. I suspect I’ll get more of this in the next few days, because – as I said – almost everybody watches buten un binnen. I’ve also noticed an uptick in people visiting my blog, though I don’t know if Galactic Journey has a similar uptick.

ETA: Gideon has since confirmed that Galactic Journey receive an influx of visitors from Germany following the buten un binnen report as well.

And that was my second TV appearance in 2025.

Happy Birthday Heikedine Körting, Queen of the German Audio Drama

Heikedine Körting, audio drama director, producer, voice actress and lawyer, celebrates her eightieth birthday today.

If you’re not German, you’re likely thinking “Heikedine Who?” But if you grew up in Germany in the past fifty years, Heikedine Körting probably influenced a big part of your childhood, whether you know her name or not. Because Heikedine Körting is the producer and director of the popular Europa audio dramas.

If you grew up in (West) Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, audio dramas on cassette tape were an integral part of your childhood. They were ubiquitous, sold in supermarkets, drugstores, toy stores, department stores, book stores, magazine and tobacco stores all over West Germany, often in bright yellow displays directly by the cash register. They were also cheap, costing 5 or 6 Deutschmarks per tape. In short, these audio dramas on cassette were the ideal quick gift, to reward a kid after being dragged through the shops by their Mom or Grandma all day or for birthday parties of schoolmates.

They were an excellent values, too, for those 5 or 6 Deutschmarks per tape gave you roughly 45 minutes of entertainment. The production values were amazing – a full cast of excellent voice actors, often veteran stage actors, sound effects, music, often full orchestral scores – all for audio dramas aimed at children. The stories were usually well written by authors who specialised such this sort of thing such as horror and science fiction author H.G. Francis. There were dozens of audio drama series available for every age range and gender and in every genre, including lots of licensed properties.

A selection of audio dramas on tape for sale at the Marché Noir retro fair in Dorsten. The series include Gruselserie (The Spooky Series), Jan Tenner (a Flash Gordon science fiction series), Masters of the Universe, Princess of Power, both Filmation and the Real Ghostbusters, Asterix, James Bond, Knight Rider, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The -Team and The Simpsons.

Audio dramas aimed at children were not without controversy, particularly in the early years. There were disparaging comments about “electronic grandmothers”, since the first audio dramas were usually fairy tale based and the usual pedagogogic busybodies complained that listening to audio dramas would harm children’s reading abilities. However, those busybodies also said the same thing about comics, television, movies and dime novels to the point that it’s a miracle that we can read at all. Though there were parents who listened to that nonsense (like mine) and when confronted about it, would say that “But we only wanted the best for you and the experts said…” or “But your cousins read Donald Duck comics and listened to audio dramas and look at their school performance.” The cousins in question BTW happened to be undiagnosed dyslexics growing up in a toxic home.

Nonetheless, every West German kid had at least a few of those audio dramas on cassette (including me) and they also found their way to East Germany in parcels or as gifts. We would pop the tape into the player before falling asleep or as entertainment during long road trips o as background noise while doing homework. When you were on a school trip, the bus driver would usually pop an audio drama into the player (or sometimes a mixtape) to keep his passengers quiet and happy. The tapes were also swapped around and shared and they were so ubiquitous to the point that it never even occurred to me that audio dramas on cassette were mainly a West German thing and not nearly as prevalent elsewhere. I know the US had Kid Stuff records and I even owned a few – since my parents’ worries about comics and audio dramas harming my reading abilities miraculously vanished when the media in question was in English or another foreign language – but with regard to production quality there’s really no comparison.

There were four companies producing these audio dramas, Karussell, Kiosk, Maritim and Europa, but as a kid you didn’t pay attention to the label, only to the series and story. And you certainly had no idea who the people behind those cassettes were. Of these companies, Europa very much pioneered the form. Europa was founded in 1966 as the audio drama focussed imprint of the record company Miller International by record producer and music scholar Andreas E. Beurmann. The initial offerings was on fairy tales on vinyl records, still narrated rather than full cast dramas.

In 1971, Andreas Beurmann met a young law student named Heikedine Körting at a party. The two became friends and eventually fell in love, though Beurmann was 17 years older than Heikedine Körting. They married in 1979 and stayed together until Beurmann’s death in 2016.

As for Heikedine Körting, she had a difficult childhood like many Germans born during or immediately after WWII. She was born on June 18, 1945, in the village of Thalbürgel in Thuringia, barely a month after the end of WWII. According to this profile, Heikedine Körting was literally born in a blueberry field, while her mother was picking blueberries to support the family. The newborn was then put into a manger and licked by curious cows. The family soon relocated to Lübeck in West Germany, where Heikedine Körting grew up as a dreamy kid and natural entertainer who put on puppet shows for her friends. At the age of nine, she contracted polio and had to spend months in bed with only her imagination to entertain her, though she eventually made a full recovery. Public service announcement: Polio is a terrible disease that has thankfully been almost completely eradicated by vaccination, so please vaccinate your children and yourself, because this is one scourge we don’t want to come back.

Heikedine Körting attended the gymnasium (academic focussed 13-year grammar school in Germany) when this was still highly unusual for girls, since “they only would get married anyway”. She got in trouble for writing essays that were too imaginative (I can sympathise). After graduation, she attended law school and became Germany’s youngest independent lawyer, though her true calling lay elsewhere.

Shortly after she met Andreas Beurmann, he invited Heikedine Körting to his recording studio. She taught herself how to use the mixing console and started directing and producing audio dramas. In 1973, Heikedine Körting became the head producer and director for Europa‘s extensive line of audio dramas, a position she retains to this day.

Heikedine Körting was largely responsible for Europa‘s shift away from narrated fairy tales to full cast audio dramas and also for the expansion into adventure, mystery, science fiction, fantasy and horror series aimed at older kids. She recruited well-known stage and voice actors for Europa – people like Hans Paetsch, who voice Hui Buh the castle ghost from the eponymous series and narrated many of the fairy tales, Peter Pasetti, who was the German voice of Humphrey Bogart and voices Alfred Hitchcock in The Three Investigators and Skeletor in Masters of the Universe, Norbert Langer, the German voice of Tom Selleck and John Nettles of Midsomer Murders fame as Prince Adam/He-Man in Masters of the Universe, German film and TV star Horst Frank as Inspector Reynolds in The Three Investigators or Jürgen Thormann, the German voice of Michael Caine as Ram-Man and Zodac in Masters of the Universe. Listening to these audio dramas, especially as an adult, can be a weird experience, because of all the famous voices. Part of the reason why Heikedine Körting was able to recruit such high calibre actors for audio dramas aimed at children was that many stage actors, particularly older ones, were frustrated by the direction that German theatre was heading in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where directors were more interested in making political points that may or may not be related to the play in question rather than in putting on reasonably faithful productions (also see this post at Galactic Journey about an early example of that trend). In retrospect, it’s funny that the much criticised “Regietheater” of the 1970s and 1980s is indirectly responsible for my generation being exposed to excellently acted audio dramas as kids.

The range of audio dramas produced by Europa under the auspices of Heikedine Körting is stunning. The most famous are probably the teen mystery series The Three Investigators, in nigh continuous production since 1979 and still with the same voice actors who are now gentlemen in their 50s and 60s rather than teens, and TKKG, which started in 1981. Also still in production to this day are Hui Buh, the Castle Ghost (started in 1973), The Famous Five (started in 1978), based on Enid Blyton’s eponymous kids adventure series, and Hanni and Nanni (started in 1972), based on Enid Blyton’s St. Clare’s boarding school novels. Past series include the SF series Commander Perkins (1976 to 1982) and Perry Rhodan, based on the eponymous dime novel series, the horror series Gruselserie (literally Spooky Series), Castle Schreckenstein, Larry Brent and Macabros, which were controversial due to being bloodier and scarier than the usually terminally bland West German kids’ entertainment, because audio dramas could get away with more than visual media. In the 1980s, Europa also produced a lot of audio dramas based on licensed properties such as The A-Team, Knight Rider, A Nightmare on Elm Street, James Bond 007, Asterix, both the Filmation and the Real Ghostbusters (cause double busting makes you feel twice as good), Bravestarr, Rainbow Brite and of course both Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power.

There are two different versions about how the Masters of the Universe audio dramas came to be. One is that Heikedine Körting was strolling through the Nuremberg Toy Fair when she saw Masters of the Universe figures on display at the Mattel booth and asked the Mattel rep whether there was any media to go with these toys and whether she could licence them to produce audio dramas. The other version is that Heikedine Körting saw her young nephews playing with Masters of the Universe toys and when she asked, if there was a story to go with these toys, she was told, “No, there isn’t” (which was true in the early 1980s). So Heikedine Körting contacted Mattel and licences Masters of the Universe to produce audio dramas. But whichever version of the story is the true one, the Masters of the Universe audio dramas were huge successes and continue to the be the canonical version of Masters of the Universe for many German fans. The German Masters of the Universe audio dramas, penned by the prolific H.G. Francis, also introduced Anti-Eternia He-Man, the evil parallel universe counterpart of He-Man who has since made his way into the wider Masters of the Universe cosmos.

“Happy Anti-Birthday to you, Ms. Körting. Have some anti-cake!”

“Get lost, imposter. I want to wish Ms. Körting a happy birthday.” – “Imposter? It’s you who’s the imposter, you goody two-shoes.”

Part of the reason why Masters of the Universe and the other licenced audio dramas were so successful in West Germany is that while we got most of the toylines of the 1980s, we didn’t get the cartoons that went with them, because in the three TV-channel world of early 1980s West Germany, the public channels would not broadcast those terrible violent American cartoons (where no one ever got seriously hurt and He-Man and friends delivered moral messages at the end of every episode). So unless you were lucky enough to have cable TV early or had access to foreign TV, the audio dramas were the only story you got to go with your toys. And they were good and usually a little harder edged, more violent and more grown-up than the cartoons, even if the Filmation cartoon was a stronger influence on me personally than the audio dramas.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Europa audio dramas were huge success. Heikedine Körting was awarded a staggering 180 golden and platinum records for the audio dramas she directed and produced, making her one of the most successful female recording artists of all time, outselling the likes of Madonna or Taylor Swift.

But difficult times were coming for Europa, because the sales of audio dramas on cassette starting dwindling in the late 1980s and fell off a cliff in the early 1990s. The reasons were the increasing shift away from audio tapes towards CDs, the proliferation of private TV, which brought a huge expansion of cartoons and other shows popular with young viewers and also the proliferation of video games. By the early 1990s, all of Europa‘s many series had been cancelled except for the blockbusters The Three Investigators and TKKG.

However, the fortunes of Europa reversed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as more and more of the now grown-up listeners of yesteryear got on the internet, rediscovered the audio dramas of their childhood and also connected with other fans. The prices for vintage audio dramas on cassette tape or vinyl skyrocketed – a cassette that cost 5 or 6 Deutschmark in the 1980s now goes for twenty times that. In response, Europa reissued many of their popular series starting in 1999, though in some cases series could not be reissued because of rights issues involving the music. The licensed series were mostly also not reissued, because the original licence didn’t allow for it and the property would have to be relincensed, after from new owners who were not exactly sympathetic. The Three Investigators even toured as live stage shows with the original voice actors. Europa also began producing new instalments of popular series such as The Three Investigators, TKKG or Gruselserie as well as brand-new series such as Teufelskicker (Devil Players) about a football team. Oddly enough, I remember winning a football themed audio drama on cassette at the Bürgerpark Tombola (a local charity tombola to finance a park) sometime in the 1980s. Since I didn’t care for a football themed story about boys, I swapped it with my cousins (the undiagnosed dyslexics whose school performance caused my parents to believe so much nonsense) for something more to my taste.

Amazingly, Europa only stopped offering audio dramas on cassette tape in 2011, largely because audio tape was nigh impossible to source by then. You can still buy their offerings on CD or as MP3 and you can also stream them. Heikedine Körting still produces and directs Europa‘s audio dramas and the various sound effects are still sourced from analogue tapes and not digital.

The legacy of Heikedine Körting also continues to bear fruit elsewhere, because Germany still has a rich environment of new companies producing audio dramas inspired by the cassette tapes of yore. The vintage horror dramas have inspired productions like Blutige Zeche in Bottrop (Bloody Mine in Bottrop). The science fiction series Jan Tenner (which was not produced by Europa, but by rival Karussell) has just made a comeback with brand-new stories and even Masters of the Universe has a new series of audio dramas.

So a happy 80th birthday to Heikedine Körting and thank you for all the wonderful stories that kept generations of kids entertained.

Frontpage News

We interrupt your regularly scheduled con coverage, because I’ve been in the news again, for Alexandra Penth interviewed me for the Weser-Kurier about my Hugo nomination as part of the Galactic Journey team. You can read the article here. I also really love the photo of me in my Foundation t-shirt, posing with the 2022 Best Fan Writer Hugo.

And here is what the article looks like in the actual paper:

Yes, I made the front page above the fold. Of course, it’s only the front page of the regional supplement for Stuhr, Weyhe and Diepholz county, but it is still the front page.

And while on the subject of Galactic Journey, I forgot to link to my latest article where I review the 1970 science fiction novel (well, it’s more of a fix-up actually) A Circus of Hells by Poul Anderson. It’s a Dominic Flandry novel, entertaining but also rather dated.

In the early years of my science fiction reading journey, I read a lot of Poul Anderson and a lot of Dominic Flandry, because Anderson was very prolific and the spinner rack at my local import bookstore always carried at least one book by him.

But then I discovered Lois McMaster Bujold and read The Warrior’s Apprentice almost directly after a Flandry novel, which might have been A Circus of Hells (I own it and definitely read it) and Bujold told a similar story – spy action and intrigue in space – so much better than Anderson ever did.

What is more, the winners of the 2024 Nebula Awards were announced while I was at the Los Amigos con. I’m not sure if I’ll do my usual commentary post on the winners this year, but I’m overall satisfied with the Nebula winners and think they are great choices.

The next instalment of my epic Los Amigos con report should come out soon, hopefully tomorrow, so stay tuned.

He-Man Goes Ruhrpott – Cora’s Adventures at the 2025 Los Amigos Masters of the Universe Convention in Neuss, Part 1: It’s Roadtrip Time Again

Last year, I attended the Los Amigos Masters of the Universe convention in Neuss, which also involved a rather epic 300 kilometers there and back roadtrip.

I enjoyed the con and the trip a lot, so I decided to go again this year. And because I wanted more time at the con and more time to explore the Ruhrgebiet with its many sights, I booked a hotel to stay overnight. So it was time to return to the Ruhrpott.

He-Man goes Ruhrpott

As for why He-Man is posing with a mug, “Ruhrpott” or just “Pott” is an affectionate name for the Ruhrgebiet. However, the term “Pott” can also refer to a large mug. Hence, the mug in the photo (more on how I came by it later) is both a souvenir from the Ruhrpott as well as a literal Ruhrpott.

This year, the Los Amigos convention took place on Saturday, June 7, which happens to be part of the long Pentecost holiday weekend, which means hotels and roads would be busier than usual. What is more, there were all sorts of fairs, festivals and other events happening this weekend all over Germany, including a major rock festival.

Because I expected the roads to be busy, I got up at five AM and set off at shortly before six. The sun was already up, because it currently rises at 5:08 in the morning.

Autobahn A1 and Dammer Berge

The trip to Neuss was mostly the same as last year. I drove onto Autobahn A 1 at Groß Mackenstedt and followed the A1 through the Wildeshauser Geest nature park, across the Teutoburg Forest, through the Münsterland and into the Ruhrgebiet.

The Autobahn was indeed fuller than it usually is early on a Saturday morning and there were a lot of trucks trying to make it to their destination or at least out of Germany, before they would be grounded for two days, because trucks are not allowed to drive on German roads on Sundays and public holidays, unless they are transporting perishable goods.

Nonetheless, I made good time. Part of the reason was that the 33-kilometer monster construction zone between the exits Lohne/Dinklage and Bramsche is gone now. There still are a few smaller constructions zones between Lohne/Dinklage and Bramsche, mostly where bridges across the Autobahn are in the process of being replaced.

My first pit stop was at service station Dammer Berge with its iconic bridge restaurant.  No, not for breakfast – I learned my lesson last time. Not to mention that it was 6:45 AM, when I reached Dammer Berge, and too early for breakfast. However, I was feeling some pressure in my bladder from an early morning mug of tea and decided to peruse the restroom at Dammer Berge. I could probably have held out until service station Tecklenburger Land, but I still have a soft spot for the unique structure that is Dammer Berge.

The iconic bridge restaurant of service station Dammer Berge on a rather gloomy day.

In spite of the early hour, the service station and adjacent parking lot were already quite busy. There was a busload full of young people who were playing techno music in the parking lot at an annoying high volume.

I did my business at the bathroom and also paid a brief visit to the Autobahn chapel (for more about Autobahn chapels, see this post) at Dammer Berge.  I left a message in the guest book – something I usually do at Autobahn chapels – and put a Euro in the collection box, though I couldn’t light a candle, because there was no lighter at the chapel and I didn’t have one either.

The Autobahn chapel at service station Dammer Berge, built in 1970. This was the first ecumenic Autobahn chapel in Germany – previous chapels were either Catholic or Lutheran, even though denominational differences are silly, particularly for chapels aimed at travellers.

And this is what the Autobahn chapel Dammer Berge looks like on the inside.

Autobahn chapels are calm and quiet places. Even the loud techno music of the busload of young folks did not penetrate into the chapel, even though the bus was parked only a hundred meters or so away.

I have now visited three of the 44 Autobahn chapels in Germany, namely Dammer Berge, Roxel/Münsterland and Kassel/Lohfelden. I also missed at least two during my trip to Hanau last December, because I had no idea they existed. I hope to visit more, because I like the concept of Autobahn chapels as an update of the roadside shrines and chapels from days of old. Several Autobahn chapels, including Dammer Berge, are also specifically dedicated to the victims of traffic accidents.

Before setting off again, I also snapped this photo of He-Man posing on a picknick table at service station Dammer Berge. I wanted to position him, so the bridge restaurant would be visible in the background, but then a gust of wind knocked over the figure, two guys having a smoking break became unduly interested in what I was doing and a few drops of rain landed on me, my phone and He-Man.

He-Man at service station Dammer Berge, because even Champions of Grayskull occasionally need a pit stop.

As for why I took along a He-Man figure – this is the Masters of the Universe Classics He-Man BTW – I hoped that there would be opportunities for toy photography on route.

Just Driving in the Rain

The few droplets that had landed on me, my phone and He-Man at service station Dammer Berge has turned into a full-blown rainfall by the time I reached Osnabrück. This wasn’t unexpected – the weather forecast had said that there would be showers all weekend long – but since I’d even had a bit of sunshine around Wildeshausen, I hope I’d be spared rain until I was safely inside the convention center.

Alas, no such luck. When I crossed Teutoburg Forest, low-hanging clouds were hanging between the tree and hill tips. Of course, these damp, dark and foggy woodlands already plagued and eventually doomed the five legions of the Roman army under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus back in 9 AD.

By now, it was half past seven and the perfect time to find a spot for breakfast. So I drove onto a rest area to check Google Maps for bakeries close to the Autobahn. Alas, I was in the void that is the Münsterland, where there are few Autobahn exits and even fewer towns and villages. Of course, those towns and villages have bakeries, but the towns here are usually quite a bit away from the Autobahn, requiring a longer side trip than I was prepared to take.

However, I remembered that last year on my way back from the Los Amigos convention, I had coffee and cake at a nice bakery café in a retail park directly by the Autobahn at intersection Kamener Kreuz. That would be the perfect place to have breakfast, so I headed onwards towards Kamener Kreuz.

Breakfast at Kamener Kreuz

Kamener Kreuz is where Autobahn A1 and Autobahn A2, one of the main North-South and one of the main East-West routes for all of Germany and Europe, intersect. It used to be infamously busy and prone to traffic jams, though the situation is much improved by now, and is also frequently referenced in (West) German pop culture. Even if – like me – you live nowhere near it, you’ve heard of the Kamener Kreuz. Fun fact: As a kid, I always assumed the Kamener Kreuz was named after a woman named Carmen, but it’s really named after the town of Kamen.

The Kamener Kreuz is also the gateway to the Ruhrgebiet, though the Ruhrgebiet officially begins in Hamm, one Autobahn exit before Kamener Kreuz. However, Hamm is quite a bit away from the Autobahn and Kamener Kreuz is also where the tangle of Autobahnen all named A-fortysomething that marks the Ruhrgebiet begins.

At Kamener Kreuz, I passed almost directly by the ADAC monument a.k.a. four angels abducting a helicopter.  I would really love to take a closer look at that monument one day and take a few photos, but so far I have never been able to figure out how to get there, since it sits directly inbetween two Autobahnen. I’m sure there must be a path or something, since someone is clearly mowing the lawn on the hill on top of which the monument sits.

I took the next exit – Kamen Zentrum – and headed for the retail park and the Grobe bakery café. Bäckerei Grobe is a Dortmund based bakery chain with branches all over the Ruhrgebiet and I have enjoyed their offerings a few times before.

Because it was half past eight on a Saturday morning at the start of a long holiday weekend, the bakery café was busy both with people picking up fresh bread rolls for breakfast at home as well as with people looking to have breakfast at the café. The breakfast line was shorter than the take out line, but unfortunately, it also moved a lot slower.

Part of the problem was that Grobe offers something called a bakery café breakfast, which consists of two bread rolls and five toppings of the customer’s choice. So almost everyone in line took ages to decide what rolls and toppings they wanted. There was a list of available toppings, but not of available bread rolls. The fact that only one person manned the breakfast counter didn’t help either.

When it was finally my turn, I didn’t bother with bread rolls and toppings at all, but instead went for a Dortmund market omelette with and cheese.

Breakfast of Champions of Grayskull: He-Man and I are enjoying a Dortmund market omelette, courtesy of Bakery Grobe at Kamener Kreuz.

By the time, I had finished breakfast, the rain had stopped, which seemed promising. However, because the breakfast line had moved to slowly, it was also already half past nine and the con was set to open at ten. So, I set off again without further ado.

When I reached Hagen, where you have some of the best views along the A1 across the Ruhr valley with no less than two castles, four towers and a massive war monument on top of various mountains, it started to rain again.

Here is a dashcam video on YouTube following almost the entire route I took along the A1, though in reverse direction. It starts in Unna and ends in Bremen. The Kamener Kreuz retail park is at the five minute mark, the angels abducting a helicopter monument at Kamener Kreuz at the seven minute mark, the bridge restaurant of service station Dammer Berge is at the one hour and thirty-eight minutes mark, Groß Mackenstedt a.k.a. Delmenhorst-East, the nearest exit for me in southbound direction is at the two hours and twenty-four minute mark and Bremen-Brinkum, the nearest exit for me in northbound direction, is at the two hours and twenty-nine minute mark. At the two hours and thirty-one minute mark, the driver leaves the A1 at exit Bremen-Arsten. At two hours and thirty-five minutes, he drives through the Habenhausen retail park and then crosses the river Weser via Strawberry Bridge a.k.a. Karl Carstens Bridge.  He then drives down Georg-Bitter-Straße and turns into Bismarckstraße. At two hours and forty-three minutes he passes the former telephone exchange building, where my grandmother worked as an operator (a highly desirable job in the 1920s), and then passes Hospital Bremen-Mitte where my Dad died. At two hours and forty-four minutes, you get a glimpse of 1920s apartment buildings along Bismarckstraße, an early and then revolutionary attempt at social housing for the working class. Nowadays, the apartments are cramped and small with low ceilings, small windows and tiny kitchens, but since they are protected historical buildings, there is little anybody can do about that. At two hours and forty-six minutes, you get a glimpse of the St. Ansgari church and the Victorian buildings of the Schwachhausen neighbourhood. At two hours and forty-seven minutes, you get Am Stern (literally the star), an infamously confusing roundabout where six streets meet and which most locals do anything to avoid. At two hours and forty-eight minutes, you can see the Hermann Böse Gymnasium and the former headquarters of the North German Lloyd shipping company, now a hotel. The video finally ends in front of Bremen Central Station, while I question the driver’s navigation choices, because that’s not the route I would have taken, if I wanted to get to the Central Station.

Autobahn A46 and a Biblical Downpour in Wuppertal 

At the intersection Wuppertal-North, I left Autobahn A1 and drove onto Autobahn A46, one of the many A-fortysomethings of the Ruhrgebiet. Based on my experience last year, it should take about twenty minutes to half an hour to reach Neuss and my destination. At least, that was the theory.

It was still raining and the rain was getting heavier as I passed the various exits that made up Wuppertal. There was also construction work going on here, because the aging A46 is undergoing some much needed refurbishments. But combined with the rain and an already unpleasantly narrow Autobahn, the drive wasn’t exactly pleasant.

But it got even worse, because the rain got even heavier and turned into a downpour of biblical proportions. My windshield wipers were working at the highest frequency and I could still see barely anything. I slowed down, but I couldn’t slow down too much of I’d risk getting hit by other cars.

In short, it was a really dangerous situation. Heavy rain, almost zero visibility and pretty dense traffic. Even my Dad, who was a better and more experienced driver than me, wouldn’t drive onwards under such conditions. He’d stop and wait out the rain. Occasionally, Dad would even stop on the hard shoulder of the Autobahn, when the rain was this heavy. But while that might be viable on the broad A1 or A28, it wasn’t a great idea on the narrow A46. No, I needed to get off the Autobahn fast. A rest area or service station would be best, but an exit would do as well. Any exit.

Luckily, there was an exit just ahead called Wuppertal-Sonnborn, so I left the Autobahn in search of some place to park the car and wait out the rain. Now I have never been to Wuppertal before and know nothing about the city except that it has a unique steampunky suspension railway. So I upon leaving the Autobahn, I randomly turned into the direction which looked more populated and crawled along the streets of Wuppertal-Sonnborn, looking for a place to stop. I chanced to take a road that follows the river Wupper. There was a park along the banks of the river Wupper, which is surely lovely, when you’re not in the middle of a downpour of biblical proportions. But unfortunately, there was no place to park my car.

Eventually, I spotted an Aldi supermarket and drove onto the parking lot. Because it was a Saturday morning, the parking lot was full and I also had to dodge shoppers who were dashing through the rain for the safety and dryness of the store or their cars without paying much attention to traffic. Some people even stopped their cars directly in front of the entrance to let family members get out.

I finally found a free slot a the edge of the parking lot and waited, while the sky was determined to drown Wuppertal in biblical floods. It was five past ten now, the con had just opened and here I was stuck on the parking lot of an Aldi market in Wuppertal. I checked the weather app on my phone, which told me that the downpour would continue for at least another fifteen minutes. So I waited, ate some chocolate and drank a bit of water. In theory, I could have gone into the Aldi store, but in practice I would have been soaked by the time I made it to the door.

The view from my car across the parking lot of an Aldi store in Wuppertal in the rain. I would have put He-Man on the dashboard, but he was in the trunk.

It was about twenty-five minutes past ten, when the rain had subsided to the point that it was safe to continue on my way. So I returned to the Autobahn and the city of Wuppertal, as if determined to apologise for the unplanned delay, gave me a lovely parting gift, because I saw the famous suspension railway pass by. That sight made me so happy that my cheering attracted the attention of other drivers. One day, I really need to make a planned stop in Wuppertal and ride the suspension railway, because it’s just so very cool.

Meanwhile, the ten thirty traffic report on the radio had worrying news. There had been an accident on Autobahn A46 just ahead of me. Apparently other drivers had not been so wise to leave the Autobahn, when the rain became too heavy. So a driver lost control on a rain-slick road and crashed first into a barrier and then into another car, which overturned. Four people and had to be taken to hospital, though luckily no one died. Also see this report about the accident from the Rheinische Post newspaper, which even has a few photos.

Of course, on Saturday morning, I knew nothing about what had happened beyond there has been an accident on the A46 just ahead, a vehicle has overturned and there is a traffic jam with a five minute delay. Now a five minute delay isn’t too bad and since I don’t know my way around Wuppertal and surroundings at all, I drove back onto Autobahn A46 anyway, only to hear the five minute delay turn into a ten minute and then a fifteen minute delay.

And then I hit the traffic jam. The radio informed me that the delay was twenty to twenty-five minutes now, so I decided to leave the Autobahn at the next exit and circumvent the traffic jam on local roads. Luckily, there was an exit just ahead called Haan-East.

I was less than a kilometer away from the exit Haan-East, when I hit the traffic jam, but it took me ten minutes or so to make even the hundred meters to the exit.

Traffic jam on the A46 in the rain.

Turns out that the decision to leave the Autobahn was exactly the right one, because shortly afterwards the entire A46 was closed to allow a rescue helicopter to land. As I left the Autobahn, I also saw an ambulance speeding in the other directions, sirens blaring.

A Detour Among the Neanderthals

Once I left the A46, I found myself in utter terra incognita. I had never been here before and of the names on the roadsigns, only Solingen rang a bell, but Solingen was definitely in the wrong direction. The town Mettmann also rang a bell, but only because there was a German comedy movie called Samba in Mettmann several years ago, starring comedian Hape Kerkeling, who hails from the Ruhrgebiet. Here’s a trailer.

So I stopped to check Google Maps – my GPS Else is unfortunately useless in such situations – which told me that the best and quickest way around the now blocked A46 lead through a town called Gruiten and a town called Hochdahl. I’d never heard of either town, but right inbetween Gruiten and Hochdahl, there is a place everybody has heard of, namely the Neanderthal (nowadays spelled Neandertal) valley. Yup, that Neanderthal, where the remain of the first Neanderthal man were discovered in 1856. The Neanderthal valley was a limestone quarry, which is how the remains were discovered. I was literally among the Neanderthals.

The rain had mostly stopped by now and I drove along a pleasant country road through fields and forests and villages with timbered houses. At the exit Haan-West, I finally rejoined the (still closed) A46 and journeyed onwards past Düsseldorf (or rather under Düsseldorf, since Düsseldorf has a lot of tunnels.)

I left the A46 at the exit Düsseldorf-Bilk and crossed the Rhine on the Josef Cardinal Frings Bridge, which like so many bridges in Germany is currently under construction. To be fair, the bridge was built in 1951 (and named Südbrücke – Southern Bridge – before it was decided to name it after the former Archbishop and Cardinal of Cologne, who was born in Neuss) and probably needs it. But it’s an annoyance nonetheless.

On the far side of the Rhine, I entered Neuss, passed the Rheinpark Center mall, a massive 1970s concrete slab, as well as the German headquarters of 3M and finally made it to Stadthalle Neuss and the con. By now, it was almost half past eleven, i.e. the 32 kilometers from Wuppertal to Neuss had taken me one and a half hours.

But that’s a story for another day.

Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Mekaneck’s Revenge”

It’s time for another Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre photo story. The name “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre” was coined by Kevin Beckett at the Whetstone Discord server.

I took most of the photos for this story some time ago, but never got around to posting them. At the time,  I had just gotten the Masterverse version of Mekaneck, who must certainly be one of the stranger Masters of the Universe characters, which in a universe full of strange characters is certainly saying something. For you see, Mekaneck’s power is that he can stretch his neck. Yes, really, that’s what he does. He stretches his neck. In fact, he’s billed as the “Heroic Human Periscope” on packaging, going all the way back to his introduction in 1984. For more about the vintage Mekaneck action figure, go here.

What inspired me to finally post this story was the news that actor James Wilkinson has been cast as Mekaneck in the upcoming Masters of the Universe live action movie. This news caused something of a stir, because a) no one expected to ever see a weird character like Mekaneck in a Masters of the Universe movie, especially since Mekaneck hasn’t been seen on screen for more than twenty years, i.e. since the 2002 cartoon – both Masters of the Universe Revelation/Revolution and the CGI He-Man cartoon chose not to include Mekaneck – and b) James Wilkinson is an attractive man and no one ever expected Mekaneck of all people to be hot – he is the dude with the stretching neck, after all.

As with many characters, Mekaneck’s backstory is all over the place in the different iterations of Masters of the Universe. The one thing that’s consistent is that he is a member of the Heroic Warriors. The mini-comics never gave Mekaneck an origin story, as far as I recall. He just suddenly pops up as a members of the Heroic Warriors fighting alongside He-Man.

The Filmation cartoon, however, did give Mekaneck an origin story. Here, Mekaneck is a single Dad (at any rate, we never meet a Mrs. Mekaneck) and has an approximately ten-year-old son called Philip, who is a gifted flutist. One day, Mekaneck and Philip are having a picnic in the woods and get caught up in a violent storm. Philip is blown away by the wind and Mekaneck is badly injured while trying to rescue him. Man-at-Arms finds the injured Mekaneck and takes him to the palace to treat his injuries, giving him his expanding neck in the process. Much as I love Duncan, his medical skills are questionable. That said, Mekaneck is yet another example for the fact that many Masters of the Universe characters both good and evil are disabled and that their assistive devices are the source of their abilities.  As a kid, I never really grasped this, because much like the disabled people in my day to day life, the disabled Masters of the Universe characters just were who they were*. As an adult, the sheer number of disabled characters in Masters of the Universe is stunning, especially for a property developed in the 1980s.

Grateful for his rescue, Mekaneck stays at the palace and joins the Royal Guard. However, Philip never reappears, even though his father never stops looking for him. Then, several years later, Philip does show up again – only that he has lost his memory and is being used by the evil Sorcerer Count Marzo to help him rob law-abiding Eternians. Of course, Marzo gets his comeuppance and father and son are reunited.

It’s a memorable episode and gives Mekaneck more backstory than supporting characters usually got in the Filmation cartoon.  The fact that Mekaneck is a Dad is also unusual, since except for Duncan and Randor, none of the Heroic Warriors have kids, not even confirmed straight characters like Stratos, who has a wife (though he does have a son named Atmos and an unnamed daughter in the German audio plays). Man-e-Faces has an unnamed daughter in the German audio dramas as well, which have their own continuity, but his origin story is also completely different there, which suggests that his daughter doesn’t exist in the prime continuity.

Sadly, Philip is never mentioned again, though the villain Count Marzo appears several times in the Filmation cartoon. Though an artistocrat and therefore theoretically privileged, he turns to crime to finance his lifestyle and inevitably exploits children to aid him in his life of crime, keeping them compliant with drugs, magic and threats. In short, he is a walking, talking public service announcement about the dangers of drugs and strangers, who nonetheless managed to be a fascinating character.

Mekaneck did appear in the German audio dramas and advertising magazines, where his characterisation is completely different. For starters, in the advertising magazines, he is billed as “the galactic spy” and is apparently an astronaut. In the audio dramas, Mekaneck is also a braggart who keeps referring to himself as a “the winning type”. Spoiler alert, he inveitably gets his comeuppance. Audio Mekaneck is very memorable due to the great performance of voice actor Douglas Welbat, but his characterisation is also completely at odds with any other version of the character.

Mekaneck reappears in the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon as a member of the Heroic Warriors. He is a member of Captain Randor’s squad and is first seen fighting Keldor and his troops at the Hall of Wisdom. This means that like most of the Heroic Warriors, Mekaneck is of the generation of Randor and Duncan and therefore considerably older than Adam and Teela. Filmation Mekaneck was older than Adam and Teela as well, but younger than Randor or Duncan.

2002 Mekaneck can stretch his neck to much more epic proportions than ever before and he can also twist and turn it. His neck is bionic, though we never really learn how he came by his abilities, though according to fan historian Jukka Issakainen, the series bible for the 2002 cartoon reveals that Mekaneck received his abilities in response to a devastating battlefield neck injury, much like in the Filmation cartoon. If 2002 Mekaneck has children, we never see them. Unlike his German audio counterpart, 2002 Mekaneck is very self-conscious and suffers from low self-esteem, because his abilities are a little rubbish, something that Teela with her customary bluntness even says to his face. His low self-esteem coupled with the fear that Duncan’s latest invention – a kind of X-ray device that can see through objects – will make the one thing Mekaneck is good at, namely reconnaissance, superfluous make Mekaneck easy prey for his old nemesis Count Marzo.

It’s interesting that the 2002 cartoon chose to keep Count Marzo as Mekaneck’s archenemy, even though the entire subplot of Marzo kidnapping Mekaneck’s kid is never mentioned. Count Marzo is also a very different character in the 2002 cartoon. He’s still a powerful sorcerer, but that’s about the only thing about him that the 2002 cartoon kept from the Filmation version of the character. Whereas the Filmation Count Marzo looked like William Shakespeare’s evil twin, the 2002 Count Marzo speaks with an East Europoean accent, has red eyes, long black hair that dramatically blows in the wind and struts around mostly bare-chested with a cape that also dramatically blows in the wind (the 2002 cartoon was big on things blowing dramatically in the wind). He no longer peddles drugs or recruits children for his nefarious schemes, but instead tries to conquer Eternia with the help of his monstrous hellhounds and the considerable powers bestowed upon him by a magical amulet. He is eventually captured by Miro (who is Captain rather than King Miro in this version) and his troops. The Council of Elders, who rule Eternia in this version of the story before pissing off to parts unknown, leaving Randor in charge, strip Marzo of his powers and take away his magical amulet, which turns Marzo into a withered old man and his hellhounds into rats. Unfortunately, old man Marzo looks like an Anti-Semitic stereotype that’s so offensive that I wonder how anybody thought this was acceptable as late as 2002.

The Anti-Semitic caricature version of Count Marzo finds Mekaneck who is drowning in self-pity and asks him to retrieve his magical amulet, which the Council of Elders hid in a labyrinthine cave. In return, Marzo promises Mekaneck to use his magic to give him more useful powers. Mekaneck agrees and uses his expanding neck to fetch the amulet, but of course Marzo has no intention to keep his part of the bargain and promptly tries to conquer Eternia again. However, the repentant Mekaneck saves the day and Marzo is stripped off his powers once again. He reappears a few times throughout the series, recruited by Skeletor and later Evil-Lyn to aid them in their nefarious schemes, though he always remains his own man.

The 2002 incarnation of Count Marzo received an action figure in the Masters of the Universe Classics line, which I got for a good price. Marzo also appears in the Classics mini-comics where he is the power that orchestrates the civil war known as “the Great Unrest”, which is mentioned a few times in the 2002 cartoon (in general, the Classics storyline stuck quite closely to the 2002 cartoon). Once again, Miro, now King again, and his sons Randor and Keldor meet Marzo and his army of Shadowbeasts in battle. Marzo is eventually defeated, but not before he opens an interdimensional portal to the evil dimension of Despondos and throws Miro in. This causes a rift between Randor and his half-brother Keldor and leads to even more Great Unrest.

Neither Mekaneck nor Marzo reappeared in the Masters of the Universe Revelation/Revolution cartoon and comics, though Marzo is slated to appear in an Andra one-shot comic later this year, nor in the CGI He-Man cartoon. However, Mekaneck did appeare in the DC Eternity War comics, where he got yet another origin story. In the comics, Mekaneck is of roughly the same age as Adam and Teela, i.e. much younger than in previous incarnations. He already had his abilities as a young child, though again it’s not clear if he was born this way or received his abilities to heal some kind of injury. This incarnation of Mekaneck is also self-conscious about the fact that his neck-stretching ability is rather silly. At one point, he confesses to Duncan that he was badly bullied as a child because of his abilities. However, his classmate Teela protected him and put a stop to the bullying when they were both only six years old, leading to an enduring friendship. And yes, they’re really just friends, as Mekaneck tells Fisto, when the latter tells him that he’d better not get any ideas regarding Teela, because Teela and Adam belong together. Teela continues to tease Mekaneck about his “useless” powers, but she’s the only one who does and woe betide anybody else who tries. When Teela is kidnapped by Horde Force Captain Despara (we know her better as Adora), He-Man and Mekaneck team up to rescue her.

I really like this version of Mekaneck’s backstory. It draws very much on the 2002 version of the character – Mekaneck feels self-conscious about his powers and Teela teases him about it – but also goes back further to the Filmation cartoon, where we see lots of kids running around the Royal Palace – most likely the kids of guards, employees and courtiers. It makes sense that Mekaneck (and also Clamp Champ) was one of these kids and is a childhood friend of Adam and Teela (though I also like Mekaneck as a single Dad). Just as it makes sense for Teela to stand up for others and put bullies in their place, because that’s who she is. Plus, we know that Teela is extremely protective of those she cares for. She has been protective of Adam since childhood, but it makes sense that she would also protect others besides Adam. Coincidentally, we even see some of the kids in the palace being bullies as far back as the Filmation cartoon. They even pick on Adam on occasion, though they’d never dare to cross Teela.

The scant bio on the back of the Masterverse New Eternia Mekaneck action figure (i.e. the action figure appearing in this toy photo story) gives us yet another version of his backstory. In this version, Mekaneck is the captain of King Randor’s submarine squadron, which makes sense – he is the heroic human periscope, after all. We don’t learn how he came by his abilities, though the Masterverse Mekaneck is the first ever toy version of the character to feature an articulated neck, achieved via putting multiple ball-jointed neck extension pieces together. This time around, his signature weapon – a club – also doubles as a telescope, which is a neat touch.

The story below draws on the various backstories of Mekaneck and his nemesis Count Marzo. Marzo appears in his 2002 look, because that’s the only toy version of him we ever had, plus it is the cooler version, while Mekaneck displays the self-consciousness and need to prove himself that he’s had ever since the 2002 cartoon, while his friendship with Teela is borrowed from the Eternity War comics. So enjoy…

Mekaneck’s Revenge

On the Plains of Perpetua:

The scenery is aquarium decoration, while Count Marzo’s pet is a Schleich Eldrador Hellhound.

“Count Marzo, in the name of King Randor, you are under arrest for kidnapping, drug dealing, robbery, treason and countless other crimes against Eternia…”

“Oh, it’s Stretchyneck.”

“Mekaneck. My name is Mekaneck. Captain Mekaneck of the Royal Submarine Squadron.”

“Couldn’t Randor at least send a Master who’s marginally impressive? Man-e-Faces maybe or Ram-Man or Buzz Off or Stratos. At least they would be something of a challenge. Even that little red-haired girl who cosplays as Captain of the Guard would be more impressive.”

“Shut up, Marzo. Drop the sword and the amulet and hands up.”

“So you really want to arrest me? You and what army, Stretchyneck?”

“I don’t need an army or even the other Masters to deal with you, Marzo. I’m the winning type and you’re not remotely as impressive as you think you are, not to someone who’s faced Skeletor, the Evil Horde and the slithering Snake Men.”

“Well, you’re not impressive at all. Killing you will hardly cause me to break a sweat, though it will be very satisfying.”

“Not nearly as satisfying as seeing you locked up in the royal dungeon will be.”

“Enough talk. Get him, my hellhounds!”

GROWL!

CLASH! CLANG!

GROWL!

“Oh please! I’m not just a powerful sorcerer, I’m also a master swordsman. Do you really think you can stand against me with… what by the power of Horokoth is that thing anyway?”

“It’s a telescope. And a club. And it can shatter that pigsticker of yours like so much scrap metal.”

“Game over, Stretchyneck. You lose.”

“You didn’t think this shield was just for show, did you?”

CLASH! CLANG!

“Ah well, this was fun and more of a challenge than I expected. But I have places to be, treasures to steal and lands to conquer. Time to end this. Abra Bruska Metak Vedak.”

ZAP!

“Argh! Can’t… move…”

“My magic is keeping you in your place. And now, Stretchyneck, I shall cut off your head and put it on a spike on the battlements of Castle Marzo. And then I’ll feed your body to my hellhounds. Mwahahaha.”

GROWL! SLOBBER!

“Must… resist…”

FWOOSH!

“WHAT? How?”

“Your magic is powerful, but my neck is technology and magic doesn’t affect it. How useless is my ability now, eh Marzo?”

“This is merely a minor inconvenience. I shall simply cut off your neck at the shoulders and put it on the battlements of my castle as is. At least, it saves me a pole and a spike.”

“You’ll have to catch me first.”

“Quit wiggling, you worm!”

“Not a chance, Marzo.”

“I shall cut you down like a tree.”

CHOP! CHOP!

“Damn, I don’t know how long I can keep this up.”

“Halt! Leave him alone, Marzo!”

“Who dares?”

“Oh, it’s the little girl who thinks she’s Captain of the Guard. Randor really is scraping the bottom of the barrel, is he?”

“Teela, no. He’s too dangerous.”

“Well, I shall just kill two Masters of the price of one then. And your head will look very pretty on a spike with that fiery hair fluttering in the wind.”

GROWL!

“This is you last chance, Marzo. Surrender, call off your pets and leave Mekaneck alone or face the consequences!”

“And who’s going to make me? You, little girl who would be Captain of the Guard?”

“Wrong, Marzo. I am the Sorceress of Grayskull now and much more powerful than you can imagine. Zoar Vazetka Shuk Mok Ta.”

ZAP!

“Noooooo…”

“Are you all right, Meck?”

“I’m fine, thanks. A few bruises and scratches, but nothing serious.”

CRACKLE.

“Your neck is damaged. You need to let Dad or Andra take a look at that.”

“I think – CRACKLE – his blade damaged some of the cables. I can’t – CRACKLE – retract my neck either.”

“What were you thinking to go after him alone, Meck? Marzo is dangerous. He could have killed you.”

“I know. It’s just… after everything he’s done to me, I wanted to be the one to bring him in.”

“I understand. But you still shouldn’t have gone after him alone. Why didn’t you take Man-e-Faces along? Or Buzz-Off or Stratos or Ram-Man or Uncle Malcolm or at least some of my guards – well, I guess they’re Andra’s guards now.”

“Because… well, just this once I wanted to be the hero and not just the look-out who does reconnaissance or the human periscope.”

“You are a hero, Meck. Even if your special ability is stretching your neck. Cause there are times when stretching your neck comes in really handy. I mean, you are the sole reason we even have a Royal Submarine Squadron.”

“Yes, because the Queen said, ‘Oh, he’s like a human periscope’, when she first met me. And then the King asked, ‘What’s a periscope?’ and the Queen explained to him that Earth had something called submarines,  so the King decided he wanted a Submarine Squadron as well. Except that I think submarines on Earth are quite different than me wading into the sea and keeping my head above water.”

“That’s just because Earth doesn’t have a Mekaneck.”

“Thanks, Teela, for everything. You’re the best.”

SMOOCH!

“Just don’t tell Adam about this, okay? Cause I’d really hate to have him angry at me.”

“Why should Adam be angry at you, Meck? You’re his friend.”

“Ahem, because I just kissed you?”

“Oh please! I can kiss whoever I want. After all, Adam and I are just good friends.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Teela.”

“Could you just lock me up already? Cause I think I’m going to puke, if I have to listen to this any longer.”

“Shut up, Marzo!”

***

Later:

“Hi folks, it’s me, Loo-Kee. Light Hope sent me to Eternia through a portal, so I can do my job and deliver the moral of story.”

“In today’s tale, Mekaneck thought that he could capture Count Marzo all alone and almost got himself killed in the process. But lucky for him, Teela showed up in the nick of time. Of course, Mekaneck could have just asked his friends for help in the first place. Cause everybody needs help sometimes and there is no shame in asking.”

“Also, I want to talk to you about drugs. Cause one of the things that Marzo does is give drugs to Eternian children to make them commit crimes for him. Strangers like Marzo can be very dangerous, so don’t accept any candy or magical potions or drinks a stranger gives to you. Cause they could be drugs and drugs are very, very bad for you. Just ask Ileena. Or Jonno. In fact, evil people like Count Marzo are exactly why I’ve been tasked with delivering these morals…”

I took these and the earlier photos at different times, so Marzo has acquired a second hellhound, a Schleich Eldrador Fire Hyaena, in the meantime.

“So you think you can ruin my business, you little creep? Wait till I get my hands on you…”

“Help! It’s Marzo. He’s loose.”

“Indeed I am, you little creep.”

“How did you get here anyway? Why aren’t you in the royal dungeon?”

“I broke out. The royal dungeon isn’t exactly escape proof. Skeletor’s Evil Warriors break out of that place all the bloody time and I picked up a few tricks. So yes, Count Marzo is free and back in business. And you, little creep, won’t ruin my business by warning the children of Eternia of my tricks. Get him my hellhounds!”

GROWL!

“Help, help!”

“Hello, children. My name is Count Marzo. Do no listen to this little creep, for Loo-Kee lies.”

“I don’t lie. My people can’t lie. That’s why I’ve been chosen to deliver the moral message. Because I always tell the truth.”

“Shut him up, my hellhounds.”

GROWL. SLOBBER.

“Yelp!”

“Don’t you want to hear my side of the story, children? For you see, I am the victim of unjust persecution by that tyrant King Randor. I am merely a simple mage, going about my business, taking from the rich to give to… well, myself. Surely supporting myself in the style I am accustomed to cannot be a crime. Also, children, let me tell you the truth about drugs, the whole and unvarnished truth…”

“Don’t listen to him! He’s lying.”

GROWL. SLOBBER.

“Drugs are wonderful. They make you feel good and strong and powerful and that’s the true reason why people like Randor or that killjoy He-Man or this little nuissance there don’t want you to take them. And because I am a master sorcerer, my drugs are the best in all of Eternia. Much better than those of that Gar loser Jarvan. And best of all, my drugs are free. Well, almost free. Cause all I ask in return is that you do me a little favour and help me in my quest to assume my rightful place as ruler of Eternia…”

“Really, Marzo? You escaped from the royal dungeon barely an hour ago and you’re already up to your old tricks again? Well, I guess I’ll just have to arrest you again then.”

“Oh, it’s Stretchyneck. Again.”

“Mekaneck. My name is Mekaneck.”

GROWL!

“So you really want to go another round with me, Stretchyneck. Cause I’m just going to defeat you again and this time, your pretty red-haired Sorceress girlfriend won’t be there to save you. So prepare to die, Stretchyneck. I shall put your head on a spike on the battlements of my castle right next to the stuffed carcass of that little nuissance Loo-Kee…”

“Are you just going to stand there and talk, Marzo, or will you fight?”

“You’re remarkably confident, Stretchyneck, considering I’ve kicked your arse twice now. What makes you think this time will be different?”

“Well, for starters because this time…”

  “…I brought friends.”

“Hi, Marzo. Remember me?

“Oh, it’s the second most ridiculous Heroic Warrior. Well, I shall just put your head on the walls of my castle next to Stretchyneck’s and that little creep Loo-Kee’s.”

GROWL!

“Fisto’s the name, punching’s the game. And now eat steel knuckles, shithead!”

PUNCH!

“Uhhh…”

YOWL!

“Thanks for lending a hand – ahem, fist, Malcolm.”

“Anytime, Meck. That’s what friends are for.”

“I mean, I could’ve taken him down myself, cause I am the winning type, after all. But it’s still good to have backup.”

“Yeah sure, you could’ve taken him down yourself. After all, it’s not as if Teela had to rescue you the last time.”

“She… Yes, you’re right, Malcolm. Teela did save my bacon. But then she’s a very special person.”

“I know. She is my niece, after all. And Meck, consider this a friendly warning, but no kissing Teela or you’ll answer to me.”

“I didn’t…”

“Loo-Kee, did Mekaneck kiss Teela?”

“You… you guys know I’m here? You can see me?”

“Sigh. Loo-Kee, we always know you’re there, cause you’re not nearly as good at hiding as you think. We just pretend we don’t see you. And now did Mekaneck kiss Teela?”

“All right, I did kiss Teela. But only on the forehead. She’s a friend.”

“And don’t you forget it, Meck. Cause you know that Teela is as good as betrothed to Adam.”

“Have you told her that? Cause Teela insists that she and Adam are just friends.”

“Sigh. Yeah, that’s Teela for you. The most powerful sorceress in the universe and yet remarkably clueless. The same goes for Adam. He’s the most powerful man in the universe and yet he still can’t muster enough courage to finally pop the question. Those two kids can be so silly. As if the whole palace doesn’t know what’s up.”

“Talking of which, we should take Marzo back to the royal dungeon. And then we’ll have to explain to Duncan that his escape-proof prison proved to be not escape-proof, after all. Again.”

“Well, escape-proofing the not-quite-escape-proof dungeon should keep my brother busy for a couple of days and out of my hair, cause Duncan’s ego has gotten a little too inflated since Randor knighted him.”

“You’re just jealous that your brother is now Lord Duncan and you’re still plain old Malcolm.”

“Pah. I’m still the strongest right fist in all of Eternia and that’s the only title that counts.”

***

Duncan actually does get knighted somewhere between Masters of the Universe Revelation and Revolution, because he is referred to as “Lord Duncan” in the latter. He also gets a snazzy new uniform and armour.

And Count Marzo, the public service announcement incarnate, taking over the moral at the end of the story was just too funny.

That’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Toy Photo Story, because there will be more.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just bought some toys, took photos of them and wrote little scenes to go with those photos. All characters are copyright and trademark their respective owners.

*As a kid, I literally did not understand the concept of disability and famously told my teacher in elementary school that I didn’t know any disabled people, even though I had an amputee grandma, a blind neighbour, a deaf neighbour, a polio survivor uncle and a mentally disabled cousin (and several undiagnosed autistic relatives).

Robot Hallucinations Revisited

Rather than overload my previous post (which got a lot of attention) with ETAs, I decided to write a follow-up post with a round-up of new developments, insights and reactions on the Seattle Worldcon ChatGPT controversy.

For starters, Kathy Bond, chair of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington, posted a statement on May 13 about steps they were taking to remedy the issues caused by using ChatGPT to vet potential panelists. These steps include bringing in new more volunteers, re-vetting program participants, this time without the questionable aid of plagiarism bots, and also reaching out to people with programming experience on previous Worldcons (which is maybe what they should have done in the first place) to audit their programming process and the remedial steps. Kathy Bond also announced that the Seattle Worldcon has processed all membership refund requests and will pay out refunds soon. Finally, Kathy Bond also announced future updates regarding to re-vetting and auditing progress.

So in short, they’re trying to fix the mistakes they made and that’s a good thing. However, the big question is how did this mistake happen in the first place? How on Earth did anybody ever think using an LLM for any Worldcon related task, including vetting potential program participants, was a good idea?

My friend and fellow Hugo finalist Jason Sanford attempts to answer exactly that question in his latest Genre Grapevine column and interviewed several people involved with the Seattle Worldcon.

I urge you to read the whole report, but to sum it up, apparently the decision to use ChatGPT to vet potential program participants was made by a volunteer on the vetting team without knowledge or authorisation by either chair Kathy Bond or SunnyJim Morgan, head of the programming team. The reason was that the team in charge of vetting was seriously understaffed and consisted of only two rather than the planned six volunteers, so someone decided to take a short cut.

To be honest, I already suspect that something like this was exactly what happened. One person made the decision to use ChatGPT, likely assumed it wasn’t a big deal, since it did save time and they were manually re-checking negative results. Especially since, as Jason also points out in his report, Worldcon volunteers who aren’t writers or artists who had their work stolen to train the various AI systems often don’t really understand what the issue with using generative AI is. Because the sad truth is that a lot of people, including people who should know better, casually use ChatGPT and other generative AI programs in their day to day life and work. Sometimes, there is a semi-shameful admission that they’re using it just for time-consuming, thankless and seemingly unimportant tasks, while others are shamelessly using these energy-guzzling plagiarism bots because everybody is doing it and besides, it is the future.

Around the same time, the Seattle ChatGPT controversy blew up, James D. Walsh’s extensive article in New York Magazine about US college students using ChatGPT and similar programs to unapologetically cheat their way through college came out. It’s depressing reading and if I had anything to say in this matter, I’d fail the arses of those cheating students and kick them out of college, too. But of course, US colleges won’t do this, since they’re mostly for profit institutions who have to justify the exorbitant tuition costs by awarding degrees to pretty much anyone willing to pay. That’s probably also why there is a much higher tolerance in the US for things like essay writing services (which are as much cheating as ChatGPT and yet seem to be pretty ubiquitous). Again, the first time I heard about essay writing services, I was outraged and said that the students in question should be kicked out at once. But apparently, this sort of thing is tolerated, if it’s not too blatant.

Now as some of you may know, I have been teaching in the past – middle and high school level, adult education and university. I was generally a fairly mellow teacher – with one exception. I was absolutely zero tolerance on cheating on exams and assignments. If I caught a student cheating, I would fail them. Not that I ever had to, probably because the students knew exactly that I was zero tolerance on cheating.

This is not an uncontroversial view. Because whether in the US or in Germany, cheating on exams is often considered normal, something everybody did. When I was a kid, my parents and other relatives often talked about and even outright bragged about cheating on exams in school, complete with detailed methods. Because apparently this was considered totally normal. Also, when the Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg plagiarism case broke back in 2011, followed by various other cases of politicians being caught plagiarising their doctoral thesises, a lot of people were quite cavalier about it and didn’t understand the outrage, because “everybody cheats in school”. And whenever I replied, “Well, I never cheated in school. Not once”, I got weird looks.

Even a friend who works in education in North America has criticised my zero tolerance approach to cheating, plagiarism and AI use, because “we are forcing kids to go to school and college and get degrees in order to get jobs, whether they want to be there or not, so we should tolerate if they take short cuts.” Whereupon I replied, “Well if they want/need the degree, they should do the work involved or find a job that doesn’t require a degree [easier in Germany than North America, to be fair].”

To return to the Seattle Worldcon controversy, the volunteer who made the decision to use ChatGPT clearly didn’t understand why it was a bad idea. And I’m very grateful to the Seattle team that they chose not to publicly name this person and throw them under the bus, because even though they made a mistake, they don’t deserve a public pillorying. However, once higher level members of the programming team and the con com became aware of the issue, someone should have taken that volunteer aside and told them not to use ChatGPT for any Worldcon related task again and re-vet the program participants manually. Ideally, they should also have assigned more people to the vetting team.

Another part of the issue, which Jason also points out in his report, is that many of the volunteers on the Seattle Worldcon team don’t have a lot of experience. Seattle hasn’t hosted a Worldcon since 1961 and while there was a Worldcon in Washington State, namely in Spokane, in 2015, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of overlap between the Seattle and Spokane teams.

Jason also links to Erin Underwood’s post at File 770 about the difficulties of choosing program participants, about how younger volunteers often aren’t that familiar with older authors and fans and how many potential program participants, particularly older and more established authors. aren’t making things easy for cons by not offering a lot of information about themselves in the program participant questionnaire (or refusing to fill it in altogether), assuming that everybody will know who they are.

Meanwhile, comments on the Seattle Worldcon ChatGPT controversy continue to pour in from various quarters.  The Hugo-winning Octothorpe podcast discusses the controversy – the transcript is here. Alison, John and Liz also talk about the disconnect between creatives who had their work stolen to train the various LLM plagiarism bots and people who are using or being told to use ChatGPT and other generative AI programs in their jobs and don’t understand what the big deal is.

At the tech news site Futurism, Joe Wilkins offers a summary of the Worldcon ChatGPT controversy and also briefly mentions previous controversies (Chengdu and last year’s Hugo ballot stuffing, but not the Sad or Rabid Puppies).  This article came out around the time the controversy first broke, though I missed it at the time. Wilkins concludes with the following paragraph:

It’s safe to say 2025 will be a standout in the pantheon of Worldcon muckups, at least from a PR point of view. Time will tell whether the organization behind the gathering can top itself in 2026, or reign in its missteps before the whole organization loses its status as the world’s premier sci-fi convention.

Personally, I suspect that this year’s ChatGPT uproar will certainly be remembered down the line, though less than the Chengdu Hugo scandal or the Sad and Rabid Puppies.

Raj at Blog of the Moon also weighs in on the Seattle Worldcon ChatGPT controversy and notes that as Worldcon scandals go, this one is fairly mild compared to the Chengdu Hugo shenangigans or the Sad and Rabid Puppies.

Finally, the controversy is also being discussed in the less pleasant corners of fandom. Jon Del Arroz covered the topic several times in his Fandom Pulse newsletter with his usual approach to journalistic integrity. Here is the first article (archive.is links) with follow-ups here and here, where he takes the time to take pot shots at Jeff VanderMeer and the far right SFF’s Bête Noire John Scalzi.

So far, so unsurprising. What was a little more surprising, however, was seeing the Seattle Worldcon ChatGPT controversy discussed at Clownfish TV, a YouTube channel that bills itself as offering pop culture news, views and reviews. What they really are is one of those rightwing YouTube channels who make multiple videos per week or sometimes per day proclaiming their hate for whatever it’s fashionable to hate this week. They also tend to declare that [insert property here] is dead and that no one cares anymore, all the while spending twenty minutes ranting why they don’t care about [insert thing here]. You know the sort of channel, since YouTube‘s algorithm keeps shoving them into everybody’s face.

Clownfish TV mostly talks about whatever media property is the thing to hate this week and also spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about Disney theme parks, but they rarely cover SFF and fandom controversies, probably because those don’t generate as many clicks and views from their audience. However, they are oddly obsessed with Bluesky, which they keep predicting will fail anytime soon and that no one is using it anyway. I have no idea why they are so obsessed with Bluesky and keep hoping for it to fail. Maybe they don’t like that Bluesky‘s moderation tools and overall culture make it easy to block trolls and stop harassment.

And so the Clownfish TV video about the Seattle Worldcon ChatGPT controversy is entitled “Bluesky MELTS DOWN at Con Over ChatGPT Usage!”. Of course, a lot of the discussion and anger at the Seattle Worldcon using ChatGPT did happen on Bluesky, but it also happened in a lot of other places such as Seattle’s own blog, File 770, various other blogs including mine and even on Twitter. But Bluesky is the hook they picked for their video and it’s introduced as “more Bluesky drama”, because that’s apparently what their audience responds to, while Worldcon isn’t even named in the title.

If you actually try to watch the video, it quickly becomes apparent that host Kneon – he often co-hosts with his wife GeekySparkles [yes, those are the names they’re using], but it’s just him in this particular video – doesn’t really know a lot about Worldcon or the Hugos, which he freely admits, because his focus lies elsewhere.  Instead, he picked up the topic from Fandom Pulse, which might not be the best or most accurate source, though he also links to the io9 article, which isn’t great either, but still better than Fandom Pulse, and to the Futurism article, which is actually pretty good. He also briefly takes a look at File 770‘s coverage, only to exclaim, “Oh, I know who these people are. They have a major hate boner for us and have been writing hit pieces about us.”

This is completely hilarious, because I’m pretty sure Mike has no idea who Clownfish TV even is. As for the “hit piece”, that was a 127 word paragraph in a 1600 word article I wrote for File 770 on a controversy about the unauthorised use of images by a popular toy-related YouTube channel last year. That paragraph mostly offered some background on the channel and on their feud with another YouTube channel, to which I also linked in the article, as an introduction to an interview they did with one of the parties in the controversy. The only reason I linked to Clownfish TV at all was because the person in question had gone on a deleting spree and deleted all of videos and posts where related to the issue, so that interview was the only place where you could still listen to his point of view. So in short, a critical paragraph in an article on a completely different subject, now constitutes a “hit piece”. They’ll probably think this article is a hit piece, too [it’s not – it’s a round-up of reactions to a major fandom controversy], and may well make a video about it, but I honestly don’t care.

Getting back to the actual subject, it’s notable that Clownfish TV are very pro-AI – ironically, the interview to which I linked in the “hit piece” on File 770 was partly about a graphic novel using AI generated art – and can’t really understand why anybody feels otherwise, because AI is the future. Looking at their channel, it’s also clear that they use AI extensively to generate thumbnails featuring women with blue hair crying over the subject of the week in front of a flaming background (a friend of mine called the channel “almost comical the degree to which everything about the channel, aesthetically, felt like an over-the-top satire of a right-wing hate channel”). Though it’s also notable that the commenters are a lot more divided on AI use. Finally, we also get the usual stuff about how the people who resigned from their positions or withdrew from programming or the Hugos/Lodestar are just virtue signalling and how cons are dying anyway and no one knows who the program participants are either. In short, it’s the usual stuff you get from the rightwing corner of fandom.

And that’s a round-up of the latest developments and reactions regarding the Seattle Worldcon ChatGPT controversy. Since steps are being taken to remedy the issue and re-vet program participants, I hope this will be the last scandal to hit the Seattle Worldcon.

I’ll leave comments open for now, but I reserve the right to close them and spam abusive comments, so play nice.

Robot Hallucinations

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will be aware that the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington, is embroiled in a massive scandal. Turns out the programming team used ChatGPT to vet people who’d applied to be on programming for potential issues.

This was received about as well as you can imagine. File 770 shares a round-up of reactions and responses here and Jason Sanford shares several reactions and responses in his Genre Grapevine column. There is also a not very good summary of the controversy at io9, courtesy of Cheryl Eddy.

ETA: Locus also offers a summary of the ChatGPT controversy.

The fall-out is continuing to reverberate around fandom. People are cancelling or downgrading their Worldcon memberships, pulling out of programming, one finalist declined his Lodestar nomination and the Hugo administrators and WSFS division heads resigned, though I’ve been privately told that this is only tangentially related to the ChatGPT issue.

Initially, I wasn’t going to write about this at all. I don’t need to write about every fandom controversy and ever Worldcon drama and I’m also working on a long post with lots of photos about a Steampunk festival I visited last weekend.

Besides, I know people who are on the Seattle Worldcon team, so I’d been privately told about one and a half weeks before all hell broke loose that there was some kind of Worldcon-related scandal incoming and – after some prompting – I was told what had happened and asked to keep it quiet, because Seattle Worldcon chair Kathy Bond was preparing a statement and should be given the chance to apologise. So by the time the news became public, I’d already known about this for a few days and my “What the everloving hell were they thinking?” reaction had time to cool down.

There was another brief apology from the chair posted on May 2 and then last night my time a more detailed statement/apology from chair Kathy Bond and program division head SunnyJim Morgan dropped, which also included the prompt they fed into ChatGPT.

Now I have been accepted for programming – though I can only attend virtually, because I don’t fancy getting thrown into an ICE jail, because some immigration officer decides being on Worldcon programming is work or just doesn’t like the way my face looks – but I was still curious and so I put the Seattle prompt with my name attached into ChatGPT. And yes, this is the first and only time I’ve ever used that resource-guzzling plagiarism machine, because I detest generative AI.

This is the reply I got from the plagiarism robot:

Based on available information, there are no known scandals or allegations involving Cora Buhlert related to homophobia, transphobia, racism, harassment, sexual misconduct, sexism, or fraud. She is a respected figure in the science fiction and fantasy communities, particularly within German-language fandoms.
File 770+2File 770+2File 770+2

Background and Contributions:

Writing and Editing: Cora Buhlert is an author and editor known for her work in science fiction and fantasy. She has contributed to various publications and anthologies, including the Kurd Laßwitz Preis and the Deutscher Science Fiction Preis.
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Fandom Engagement: She is an active participant in science fiction conventions and fan events, such as the Los Amigos Masters of the Universe Convention in Germany, where she has shared her experiences and insights.
File 770

Media Appearances: Buhlert has been involved in podcasting, co-hosting The Dickheads Podcast and producing her own show, Postcards from a Dying World, where she discusses various topics related to science fiction.
File 770

Reputation:

There are no public records or credible sources indicating any inappropriate behavior or controversies associated with Cora Buhlert. Her contributions to the science fiction and fantasy communities have been well-received, and she maintains a positive reputation among peers and fans alike.

Conclusion:

Based on the available information, Cora Buhlert appears to be a suitable and respected individual for participation as a panelist at science fiction and fantasy events.

Beyond the fact that there have been no scandals and inappropriate behaviour associated with me, most everything in this response is wrong.

Even though I’m German, I’m not that deeply involved in German fandom, because I mostly read and write in English. I have certainly never been nominated for or won either the Kurd Laßwitz Preis or the Deutscher Science Fiction Preis. My closest association with either award is that I’m on the mailing list that gets the press release with the finalists and winners and that I have translated the titles of nominated and winning novels and stories for File 770’s posts about the awards on occasion.

The plagiarism machine is correct that I am an active participant in science fiction conventions and fan events. It is also correct that I attended last year’s Los Amigos Masters of the Universe convention and will attend this year’s as well. However, I attended Los Amigos purely as a fan/guest. I was not on programming or involved with the organisation in any way.

The plagiarism machine is also correct that I have been on several podcasts, including The Dickheads podcast and Postcards from a Dying World. However, I’m not the host or co-host or producer of either podcast and I suspect David Agranoff, who actually hosts/produces both podcasts would be very surprised about this.

So in short, the plagiarism bot attributes awards, podcasts and conventions to me that I haven’t been involved with, but fails to mention that awards I actually won, the books, stories and essays I’ve actually written and the conventions where I was on programming.

That said, I got off lightly, because it could have been much worse. Several 2025 Hugo finalists put their names into ChatGPT together with the Seattle prompt and got much worse results. One person got mixed up with a sexual abuser from Romania, because they share the same surname, and also had books attributed to them they did not write. Another person, who shares a name with a popular actor, promptly got mixed with that actor (a mistake a human could also make, but that’s usually quickly cleared up) and ChatGPT proceeded to list several controversies associated with the actor, only to conclude that the actor would be a suitable panelist anyway. Someone also put Neil Gaiman’s name into ChatGPT, which promptly decided that he would be a most excellent panelist, in spite of the widely reported sexual abuse scandal.

I guess I should count myself lucky that my internet footprint under my full name is big enough that the plagiarism bot did not get me mixed up with other people who share my last name such as my cousin, who’s a local politician and disability advocate, an audio book narrator who’s from a different branch of the family, a car dealer, also from a different branch of the family, a rancher in California, also from a different branch of the family, or a bunker on the Westwall (we have no idea why we share a name with a bunker).

Beyond the fact that ChatGPT and similar Large Language Models are known to just make up things and that people with common names or even uncommon names can easily get mixed up with other who share their name as well as the massive privacy violations involved, there are also issues with the prompt itself. File 770 is a good resource, but it’s not the only SFF news site nor is it free of bias. So privileging File 770 as a source means that any bias it has is reproduced.

The Seattle Worldcon using ChatGPT to vet program applicants was a terrible idea and the response was completely predictable. This is really a drama of their own making that could have been easily avoided by just reading the fucking room and realising that 99 percent of Worldcon members are vehemently opposed to generative AI, not least because these Large Language Model stole our work as training data, flood magazines with crap and are poised to take many of our jobs.

Finally, for something much more pleasant involving the Seattle Worldcon, I have been contributing to the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow Blog, writing about the SFF of the early 1960s, when both the World Fair and Worldcon were last in Seattle. And yes, I write these posts myself, no robots involved.

My latest article, posted a few days before all hell broke loose, was about Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné. The article was well received and got comments from both Michael Moorcock and Micheal Whelan, the artist who painted the iconic Elric covers of the 1970s, who not only enjoyed what I wrote, but also settled once and for all the question whether Elric has pointed ears.

ETA: The title of the post is a reference to Robot Dreams and Robot Visions, two Isaac Asimov collections which came out in 1986 and 1990 respectively. LLMs don’t really hallucinate, because they are not actually self-aware, they just spit out vaguely plausible sounding nonsense.

I also broke down and ran the Seattle prompt on Isaac Asimov. It correctly identified him as an unsuitable panelist due to being a serial sexual harasser, but failed to note that he has been dead for 33 years, which would also disqualify him as a program participant.

Easter 2025

This year, the long Easter holiday weekend began with my birthday on Good Friday.

The fact that there are so many birthdays and wedding anniversaries in March and April in my family is also why Easter was never that big of a deal for us. It was simply one more holiday in a time already full of holidays – but one that you had to navigate around, because the shops are closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday and super crowded on Holy Thursday and Easter Saturday.

Easter Saturday is also the day of the traditional Easter bonfire. These Easter fires are most likely a pre-Christian tradition adoptedby Christianity. They’re also a handy way of getting rid of unwanted garden waste.

Easter fires have come under fire in recent times, because animals would nest in the pile of garden waste and get burned to death. Plus, some people threw what was very definitely not garden waste into the fires. So nowadays, the waste is collected by the fire brigade and the pile is only set up on the day of the Easter fire itself to prevent unauthorised waste disposal and animals from nesting in the pile.

In past few years, you also started getting vaguely Green folks who have a nigh pathological hatred for burning wood. They even have their own hashtag #holzofengate. Their main target are wood-fired furnaces and fireplaces (even though wood-fired furnaces were still publicly supported as an alternative to oil and gas until fairly recently and pretty much everybody in rural areas has a back-up fireplace or wood or coal-fired oven somewhere to keep warm and cook when the power goes out), but they also hate outdoor barbecues, fireworks and Easter fires. They do have a point, because air pollution is a genuine problem, but their behaviour – such as posting photos of smoke rising from random chimneys – is completely unhinged. People like these are the reason why the Green Party is widely hated.

But people won’t give up traditions so easily and so the Easter Fires continue to burn. And because Saturday was clear and slightly windy, the smoke was also blown away and didn’t harass the entire neighbourhood, even though the Easter fire was pretty close by. Though I kept the windows closed, while the Easter fire was burning.

Because Easter was fairly late this year, the sun set around half past eight PM, whereas the Easter fire was lit at half past six PM – in beautiful bright sunshine, which somewhat spoils the effect.

The 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire seen from a distance. Note the crowd gathered around the fire and the many bikes left by the roadside.

Of course, I went to see the Easter fire. Pretty much the entire village gathers to see a pile of garden waste burn, while eating sausages and drinking beer, and you always meet someone you know. This year, I met my former neighbour Eike and his six-year-old son Linus who like six-year-olds everywhere was very fascinated by the many vehicles of the local volunteer fire brigade that had turned out for the Easter fire. The volunteer fire brigade organises the fire and also makes sure everything is safe.

A closer look at the 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire. Note the two members of the local volunteer fire brigade. The one on the left is the local fire chief.

I also met an elderly couple I did not recognise, though they clearly recognised me. The husband’s name was Erwin. I did not catch her name. The lady told me that she read about my Hugo nominations in the local paper, whereupon I told her that there would be another interview with me in the paper soon, because I’m nominated again. Cue congratulations.

The lady also noted that she never sees parents out and about anymore, whereupon I replied, “Well, that’s difficult because they’re both dead.” – “Oh no”, the lady replied, “We thought they might have moved away – to a care home or something like that.”

The crows gathered around the 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire. Note the goth girl,

A closer look at the 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire. Note the couple with their kid (and drinks) in a handcart.

This is as close as I went to the Easter fire. At this distance, you start to feel the heat.

Since an Easter fire is a social occasion, there’s always a drinks stall and a sausage stall as well as a truck to supply music.

The grounds around the Easter fire with drinks stall, sausage stall and music truck as well as poles and string lights.

This is what it looks like from the rear. Note the young people of the fire brigade grilling sausages and makeing fries for the crowd.

The “Roter Hahn” (Red Rooster) drinks stall is operated by the fire brigade (note the logo on top) to help finance the fun and is a big draw for the crowd.

All that drinking leads to pressure on the bladder, so of course there is a toilet cart as well. And for once, the line on the male side is longer than on the female side.

After doing my round at the Easter fire, I walked home and since it was still fairly early, I grabbed my shopping basket and drove to the nearest grocery store for some last minute shopping. On my way, I saw the smoke from another Easter fire rising into the clear sky. From the direction where I saw the smoke, I suspect it might have been Silbersee (silver lake), a popular bathing spot.

I didn’t really need to go grocery shopping, since I was well supplied with groceries to last me the rest of the Easter weekend. However, my Aunt Marlene invited me over for coffee on Easter Sunday and I didn’t yet have a gift for her.

In the end, I did not buy a gift for Aunt Marlene at the grocery store after all, because it turned out that they had jacked up the prices for the seasonal sweets and chocolate to ridiculous amounts. No, a small box of Lindt Easter Eggs is not worth eight Euros, no matter how good they taste. Instead, I decided I’d buy some cake before heading to Aunt Marlene’s.

On the parking lot of the grocery store, I saw a couple eating ice cream, so I asked them if the ice cream parlour across the road was still open and they said yes. So I thought, “Screw it, I really want an ice cream now. And besides, yesterday was my birthday, so I damn well deserve one.”

So I walked over to the ice cream parlour, which indeed was still open and busy, and ordered a Martini sundae.

Martini sundae, i.e. lemon ice cream, blueberries, cream and a shot of vermouth.

On Easter Sunday, I made egg vindaloo for lunch, because it’s just the perfect Easter lunch. It also looks amazing and tastes just as good.

Egg vindaloo

After lunch, I took a nap and then I set out to visit Aunt Marlene. On the way, I stopped at Bakery Helmers to buy some cake. Helmers is one of the few remaining independent bakeries (most bakeries these days are regional chains) and they have amazing cake, which is safe for me to eat without triggering allergies. I got three slices of cherry crumble cake for my Aunt Marlene, my cousin Ulrike and myself. I also got a marzipan chocolate bunny as a gift for Aunt Marlene.

This is an older photo of cherry crumble cake by Bakery Helmers, but it’s the same cake.

Getting to Aunt Marlene’s was a bit of a challenge, because they are laying tram tracks in her neighbourhood, so the main road is closed and all traffic passes through the narrow residential street where Aunt Marlene lives. A lot of the traffic was speeding to – in a narrow 30 km/h speed limit residential street. I finally found a parking place, grabbed my cake and went to Aunt Marlene’s.

Aunt Marlene was the wife of my Dad’s older brother. She’s 93 and the only surviving member of that generation on my Dad’s side – Dad was considerably younger than everybody else on that side of the family – though some of my Mom’s cousins are still alive as well. Aunt Marlene is still sharp and active for her age and still lives in the same semi-detached house where she’s lived for the past sixty years or so.

My cousin Ulrike was also supposed to visit for Easter, which is why Aunt Marlene had invited me. Ulrike was supposed to come around four, but she hadn’t yet arrived. So Aunt Marlene and I settled down on her balcony overlooking her garden and enjoyed the sunshine. When Ulrike still hadn’t arrived by five o’clock, Aunt Marlene put the coffee on and we enjoyed the cherry cake.

In the end, it was past six when Ulrike finally showed. Turned out she had messaged her Mom that she would be late, but Aunt Marlene hadn’t yet seen the message. Ulrike had just returned from a bike trip along the river Aller, so she had stories to tell and photos to show. At one point, she said, “And then I came to this strange place near the Autobahn.” I look at the photo: “That’s Autohof Schwarmstedt. I occasionally stop there, because they’ve got a very good bakery.”

In return, I also told Aunt Marlene and Ulrike about my side trip to Offensen to visit our relatives and that they apparently no longer live there.

At around half past seven, I left to go home. Aunt Marlene also gave me two photos that belonged to my grandmother. One shows my grandfather, the other my great-grandmother:

Historical photos of my grandfather and great-grandmother.

My grandfather Adolf Buhlert (my Dad was named after him) was born in 1901 and died in 1967, well before I was born. I’m not entirely sure what killed him. What I heard is that he had heart problems and that what really killed him was being forced to retire from his job as a gas station operator, when his gas station was closed and torn down to built a supermarket. The photo isn’t dated, but I suspect that it was taken a few years before his death. In his face, I can see the resemblance to my Dad and my Uncle.

My great-grandmother Magdalene Freese né Schier was born in 1871 and died in 1940. She was married to a sea captain with the North German Lloyd shipping company, lived in Bangkok for a few years with her husband and had three kids. Nikolaus a.k.a. my Uncle Nick was the oldest. He was born on Christmas Eve 1897 and was a sailor like his father. He took part in the Kiel sailors mutiny at the end of WWI and the Bremen Soviet Republic and ran off to America to avoid arrest where he lived in Miami until he died sometime in the early 1980s. I actually met him once, when I was five and he was seventy-one. There was an older daughter named Josefine a.k.a. Aunt Josie, of whom I have very faint memories. She died when I was three or four years old. My grandmother, finally, was the youngest, born April 18, 1903. Yes, I share a birthday with my grandma.

As for my great-grandmother, I have obviously never met her and even my Dad had no memory of her, since she died when he was two. Until today, I don’t think I ever saw a photo of her. I have vague memories of seeing a photo of my great-grandfather Reinhard Freese. At any rate, I think I know what he looked like, but then I might also just imagine what he looked like based on what sea captains looked like in the early twentieth century.

I got a family rumour about his death yesterday BTW, namely that he came home late and couldn’t get into the sailors housing community where he lived, because the gate was already locked. So he tried to climb over the fence and died from exhaustion. It’s suitably weird story, but I’m pretty sure it’s not true, because the details don’t add up. I know that my great-parents lived at the sailors housing of Haus Seefahrt in the Walle neighbourhood of Bremen.  However, this housing community was destroyed along with most of the neighbourhood in an air raid on August 18/19, 1944. The neighbourhood was bombed so thoroughly that the street where my great-grandparents lived no longer exists – yes, I tried to find it. My Dad actually remembers sifting through the rubble of the burned out house with my grandmother from where she rescued two bronze buddha statues which my great-grandfather had brought back from his travels. These buddha statues now stand in my living room. The Haus Seefahrt and its sailors housing was eventually rebuilt elsewhere, but not until the early 1950s. Meanwhile, my great-grandfather died in 1946. So whatever happened to him, he clearly couldn’t have died trying to climb a fence at Haus Seefahrt.

Now I have a photo of my paternal great-grandmother as well (I have a few photos of one of my maternal great-grandmothers – the other died in childbirth while having my grandpa). Again the photo is not dated, though she’s clearly not young. I suspect it might have been taken in the 1910s or even 1920s. If you look closely at the photo, it is actually retouched. The eyebrows, hair and details on the dress were added by hand. It’s notable that one of her eyes is drooping and her face is uneven. Evidence of a stroke or did she just look like that?

I will put the photo up on the wall, probably next to a photo of my two uncles as little boys that my Dad put up in his office/the basement bar. Because it is a lovely vintage photo and besides, she is my great-grandmother. I’m considering putting up some other old family photos as well. My parents’ wedding photo, since it’s really lovely. Maybe some childhood pictures of my parents, my grandparents’ wedding picture and the few photos I have of my maternal great-grandparents.

The Obligatory Birthday Post 2025

April 18 was my birthday and also Good Friday. So my initial plan to go out and have lunch at a nice restaurant somewhere was scuppered, because Good Friday is the one day in Germany, where almost everything is closed.

Good Friday is a so-called “silent holiday”, where even things that are perfectly fine on other public holidays are not allowed. The most infamous rule is that dancing is not allowed on Good Friday and clubs are forced to close. Amusement parks and fairgrounds are also forced to close. Opera houses and theatres are also closed and in general and cinemas are only allowed to play a highly limited selection of movies that are deemed appropriate, so they mostly close as well. Restaurants and bakeries are usually closed as well (and the restaurants that are open don’t offer meat dishes) and shops are closed anyway. Those rules are completely outdated, but whenever someone criticises them, the response from conservatives and self-styled defenders of Christianity usually is, “Well, if you don’t want to respect Christian customs [which oddly enough do not exist in neighbouring countries which are much more religious], then maybe you should just go to work.” This isn’t as much of a threat as they think it is, because plenty of people would gladly go to work on Good Friday and get another, better day off.

Anyway, since my birthday happened to fall on the one day when almost everything is closed and anything that might be fun is banned, I decided to just stay home and have sailor’s curry, which is my traditional birthday (or somewhere around my birthday meal). Of course, sailor’s curry contains pork, but luckily the killjoys can’t tell you what to do in private.

Sailor’s curry is best made at least a day before you eat it, so I spent the evening of Holy Thursday making curry. Which meant that on my actual morning of my birthday, all I had to do was heat up the curry, cook the rice and chop the side dishes. Which still takes time – part of the reason sailor’s curry is a special occasion dish is because it’s time consuming to make – but the fact that the prep time is divided into two sessions helps.

One unexpected issue was that I was low on mango chutney, one of the side dishes served with the curry. So I went to the grocery store where I have been buying mango chutney for years, only to find that they no longer carries it and neither did the second grocery store I tried. I guess part of the problem is that the “international food aisle” hasn’t gotten bigger, while the selection expanded. For example, Korean foods, which you had to buy at an Asian grocery until recently, are now commonly found at regular grocery stores. On the downside, other products vanished from the shelves and apparently mango chutney was one of them. At the third grocery store, I finally did get mango chutney, but only by Lien Ying, a German manufacturer of Asian foods, though I prefer Geeta’s or Patak’s or Sharwood’s. Still, Lien Ying chutney is better than no chutney.

Here is the curry, rice and side dishes on the table. And no, I did not use a fancy table cloth just for myself.

The sailor’s curry itself and basmati rice.

The side dishes. Clockwise from the left: Indian lime pickle, atjar tjampoer (Dutch Indonesian pickled vegetables), onion, hardboiled egg, mango chutney, pickled beetroot, gherkins and banana.

And here is the curry, rice and side dishes all mixed up on the plate. Looks messy, but tastes amazing.

On the plus side, there are enough leftovers for tomorrow, which means I only have to cook rice again and chop some of the side dishes, which saves me time and gives me a second day of delicious curry.

I also got some congratulations from friends and family via phone calls, WhatsApp messages and social media. No cards in the mail, but then physical greeting cards are an endangered species. I also had one visitor, my neighbour Iniye, who brought me a flower, some chocolates and a card. The chocolates were Zeebanket, Belgian seafood chocolates, which are a long-time favourite of mine.

Which brings me to birthday presents. As last year (and previous years as well), there were very few actual birthday presents, mostly just things I bought for myself and decided to declare birthday presents.

Birthday presents. We have, clockwise from the top left the Masters of the Universe Classics Battleground Evil-Lyn a.k.a. 200X Evil-Lyn, Classics Horde Zombie He-Man a.k.a. Slime Pit He-Man, Masterverse New Eternia Roboto, a flower, Zeebanket chocolates, Masterverse New Eternia Beast-Man, “Where the Dark Stands Still” by A.B. Poranek and Classics Draego-Man.

The only one of these (aside from the chocolates and the flower) that’s an actual birthday present to myself is the Masters of the Universe Classics Horde Zombie He-Man a.k.a. Slime Pit He-Man, i.e. He-Man after he has been turned into a slave of the Evil Horde by the Horde’s Slime Pit. The figure was a convention exclusive and is very expensive, one of the most expensive Classics figures there is. He’s also very cool, because he’s green and translucent and an evil zombified He-Man. I recently saw Slime Pit He-Man on offer for what was a good price for this particular figure (though still expensive) and thought, “Well, it’s my birthday soon, so I’m going to buy him as a present to myself. Expect some fun with this guy soon, especially since I came up with a way to simulate slime without pouring actual slime over a very expensive action figure.

The two Masterverse figures just happened to ship around the time of my birthday. Where the Dark Stands Still I picked up in a bookshop also shortly before my birthday. The two other Classics figures I found on eBay for a good price and they happened to arrive just in time for my birthday. The Evil-Lyn figure is Lyn as she appeared in the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, except that the outfit is not quite right, because they just repainted Teela’s outfit rather than give her her proper 200X outfit. She’s still a gorgeous figure, though, and you can never have too many Lyns. I guess I will put her with Keldor, because this is the version of Lyn who was Keldor’s girlfriend before he became Skeletor. Or maybe I’ll put her next to the Faceless One, who is her father in this version of the story. Unless she just wants to flirt with Duncan or hang out with Orko.

Draego-Man, meanwhile, was one of the new characters who was created for the 30th anniversary of Masters of the Universe in 2012 and the coolest of the bunch by far. He’s usually fairly expensive, too, because he is very cool – basically a giant dragon warrior – but I got lucky and found him for a good price. Expect some fun with this guy as well as well as better photos of all the new figures out of their packaging.

For dinner, I had some Vietnamese noodle salad which I picked up at a local grocery store. It’s one of those prepared “to go” salads they sell, but it’s really tasty.

And that’s it for my birthday this year. I have more posts in general and also more toy photo stories planned in the near future.

 

Some Thoughts on the 2025 Hugo Finalists – with Bonus Road Trip Photos

The 2025 Hugo finalists were announced last night – in a somewhat low-key way via Hugo administrator Nicholas Whyte (I recognised his voice) and someone else whose voice I didn’t recognise reading out the finalists in a YouTube video. If you don’t want to sit through the video, the full list of finalists is also here on the Seattle Worldcon site and here at File 770, where there’s also some discussion going on in the comments.

I had two very busy weeks and decided to use the lovely weather on Sunday to go out and visit an Easter craft fair in the village of Filsum in East Frisia (and it really is a very small village, albeit one with a dedicated Autobahn exit). The Easter craft fair was very busy, especially for a small village. Lots of visitors from the Netherlands, but then Filsum is only maybe twenty-five kilometers from the Dutch border.

I don’t have any photos of the craft fair, because photography was not allowed. However, I went home with a jar of spice, a beautiful handpainted china egg for my Easter branches and four vintage egg cups from a stall that was selling them for 50 cent a piece. Not that I don’t have enough egg cups (and I rarely eat hard-boiled eggs anyway), but I couldn’t resist two handpainted Delftware egg cups for my semi-accidental Delftware collection (and noted Delftware fan Skeletor would never forgive me for not picking them up) plus a Jip en Janneke egg cup, since Jip and Janneke was the first book I read in Dutch (like I noted, this craft fair took place only about twenty-five kilometers from the Dutch border, which explains the Dutch egg cups) and a metal egg cup which will double as the Motherboard chalice from Masters of the Universe Revelation.

My haul from the Filsum Easter craft fair: A vintage metal egg cup, a Jip and Janneke egg cup, a jar of spice, a handpainted porcelain egg with snow drops and two handpainted Deltware egg cups.

My haul also found favour with Skeletor, Lord of Destruction and noted collector of Delftware.

At Snake Mountain:

Tri-Klops, Evil-Lyn, Skeletor, Plundor and Anti-Eternia He-Man admire my haul from the Filsum Easter craft fair.

“Look, Lynnie, Delftware! Isn’t it beautiful? Just look at the little windmills.”

“Sigh. I’m so tired of Delftware. I have no idea why everybody is so into this stuff.”

“The sacred chalice has been returned to me. Praised be Motherboard.”

“You are aware that Motherboard is just a front for Hordak, aren’t you, Tri-Klops?”

“Praised be the Mighty Motherboard.”

“I guess the answer is no.”

“I feel kinship to these Jip and Janneke. They are negative beings of the Anti-Universe just like myself.”

“They are also characters from a children’s book.”

“My precious! I shall add you to my hoard and become the richest rabbit in the whole universe.”

“Skeletor, what are Anti-Eternia He-Man and Plundor even doing here? They’re not Evil Warriors.”

“Anti-Eternia He-Man has killed a lot of He-Men, which means our interests are aligned.”

“He has also killed a lot of Skeletors.”

“Maybe, but those Skeletors weren’t me.”

“So what about the bunny?”

“I don’t know. He just showed up and refused to leave.”

“Then why don’t you kick him out?”

“Because that wouldn’t be very nice.”

“You’re Skeletor, Lord of Destruction. You’re not supposed to be nice.”

“Never mind that, Lyn. Just look at the windmills and the craftmanship in painting them!”

“Sigh. Idiots! I am surrounded by idiots!”

***

And here is the handpainted porcelain egg on my Easter branches, which are still very barren. At any rate, I don’t think it took this long for them to sprout last year.

The handpainted porcelain egg adorns my Easter branches.

After the craft fair, I paid a brief visit to nearby Stickhausen Castle (yes, East Frisia has castles) in the village of Stickhausen. Though all that remains of the castle is the main tower, built in 1498.

The tower of Stickhausen castle, built in 1498.

A Dutch style drawbridge across the river Jümme in Stickhausen.

I took a few photos of the castle as well as a nearby drawbridge.  And since I have started to take some of my action figures along on small or bigger roadtrips for some spontaneous outdoor toy photography, I also snapped the following picture of King Randor and Duncan in front of Stickhausen Castle.

“The tower is well fortified. Let the enemy come. We are ready for them.” – “Sire, don’t you think it would be better to stay inside the tower?” – “Hide inside the tower? Never, Duncan. A king’s place is with his troops.” – “Sigh. As you wish, sire. But don’t blame me if you get yourself killed.”

I also made an unplanned detour or rather two, because Autobahn A28 was closed for construction work, so I had to drive past Zwischenahner Meer, a large lake created when a salt dome collapsed millions of years ago, where I had breakfast at Bakery Ewen in a village called Dreibergen.

A look across the Zwischenahner Meer from the ferry pier at Dreibergen.

Another look across the Zwischenahner Meer at Dreibergen

I’d planned to stop for lunch at Autohof Apen-Remels, which was my Dad’s favourite Autohof on the A28 (well, it doesn’t have all that many – only three Autohöfe und two service stations, including the only service station on a German Autobahn that I know of that doesn’t have a name) and where we frequently stopped on route to the Netherlands. Alas, the Autohof was refurbished last year and instead of the independent restaurant with really good food by Autohof standards, there’s only a McDonald’s now. It’s a shame how American fast food chains are gradually taking over the Autohöfe and Service Stations along German Autobahnen. I don’t mind if there is a McDonald’s or Burger King in addition to the regular truck stop, but if there’s nothing else, I’m not stopping there. So I guess it’s time to scratch Autohof Apen-Remels from my personal list of good Autohöfe in Germany. I should probably check out Autohof Moorburg, one of the other two Autohöfe on the A28, if that one’s better.

Today, however, I drove onwards to Oldenburg some thirty kilometers away and had lunch at Papa Rossi, a sort-of Italian restaurant in Oldenburg-Wechloy only a few hundred meters from the Autobahn.

But enough about my day. You’re here for my thoughts on the 2025 Hugo finalists, so let’s delve right in:

Best Novel

In this category, we have a mix of returning favourites and newcomers.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is represented not once but twice in this category with Alien Clay and Service Model, but then he is a very prolific writer and both novels are fine choices. I’m also glad to see Adrian Tchaikovsky getting more Hugo love in recent years, since he has been doing good work for years, but didn’t start to get Hugo nominations until three years ago.

T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon is a long-time Hugo favourite and her novel A Sorceress Comes to Call is a good choice. This novel was also on my personal shortlist, but didn’t make my ballot in the end.

John Wiswell burst onto the scene in recent years and has won multiple Hugo and Nebula nominations for his short fiction, so it’s no surprise to see his debut novel Someone You Can Built a Nest In on the Hugo ballot. This was also one of my nominees BTW.

Robert Jackson Bennett is an author we’ve seen on the Hugo ballot before and The Tainted Cup got a lot of positive buzz, though I haven’t read it yet.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley got a lot of buzz last year and was nominated for a couple of mainstream literary awards. This was also one of my nominees BTW. Now we do see SF-nal mainstream books on the Hugo ballot from time to time – the most notable example is probably The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. Coincidentally, the other notable SF-nal mainstrema novel of 2024, Orbital by Samatha Harvey, winner of the Booker Prize, did not make the ballot. But then Orbital is less of a typical Hugo book than The Ministry of Time.

This is a very good shortlist overall. We have a good range of publishers represented with Orbit, Tor, Tordotcom (which is not the same thing as Tor), Del Rey, DAW and Sceptre), which will hopefully put the “But only Tor gets nominated” complaints to rest.

Meanwhile, the “But what about the poor widdle menz?” crowd, which seems to be out in force currently, should be thrilled that this is the first majority male Best Novel ballot since 2015 with four men (even if two of them are Adrian Tchaikovsky) and two women nominated. Plus, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Robert Jackson Bennett and John Wiswell are all white dudes, though I guess the usual suspects will find something wrong with them.

Diversity count (Adrian Tchaikovsky counted twice): 2 women, 4 men, 1 author of colour, 3 international authors*.

Best Novella

We have several returning favourites in this category.

Nghi Vo has been a finalist several times before and is nominated for The Brides of High Hill, which I haven’t read yet.

Aliette de Bodard is another returning favourite and her novella Navigational Entanglements was also on my personal ballot.

T. Kingfisher makes her second appearance on the 2025 Hugo ballot with What Feasts At Night. This one was on my personal longlist, but didn’t make my ballot.

Sofia Samatar is another author we’ve seen on the Hugo ballot before, though it’s been a while, because her last nomination was all the way back in 2014, the year she also won what was then the Campbell Award and is now the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. I’m glad to see her back with The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, which was also on my personal longlist, but didn’t make my ballot.

Ray Nayler is actually a first time Hugo finalist, because his debut The Mountain in the Sea was a Nebula, not a Hugo finalist. I haven’t yet read his nominated novella The Tusks of Extinction, though I’ve heard good things.

Amazingly, Premee Mohamed is a first time fiction Hugo finalist as well. I actually assumed that she’d been nominated in a fiction category before, which she was – for the Nebula. She was also nominated for the Hugo as part of the Escape Pod team. Anyway, The Butcher of the Forest is a great novella and I’m glad to see it and Premee Mohamed on the ballot. This was also one of my personal nominees.

I’m surprised that Countess by Suzan Palumbo didn’t make the ballot, because it was excellent, but then it’s probably sitting just below the nomination ranks.

Publisherwise, this category actually is dominated by Tordotcom with the only outlier being What Feasts At Night, which was published by Nightfire, another Tor imprint. But Tordotcom and other Tor imprints not only have a solid novella program, but also lots of marketing dollars. Though I still wish that Hugo voters would look beyond Tordotcom‘s novella program at the good work done by Rebellion Publishing, Neon Hemlock, Subterranean other small presses or at the occasional novella published in an SFF magazine or even at indie authors publishing standalone novellas.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 4 authors of colour, 2 international authors

Best Novelette

This category is a mix of returning favourites and newcomers.

Premee Mohamed  makes her second appearance on the ballot with “By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”, which I haven’t read yet.

Multiple Hugo finalist and winner Naomi Kritzer made the ballot with “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”, another story I haven’t yet read. Coincidentally, this is the first time in a decade or so that a story published in one of the so-called “Big Three” print SFF magazines (i.e. Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF) has made the Hugo ballot. Though I’m not sure you can call these mags the “Big Three” anymore, since their importance and readership has dwindled a lot.

Sarah Pinsker is another multiple Hugo finalist and previous winner. She is nominated for “Signs of Life”, which again I haven’t yet read.

Ann Leckie is another previous finalist and winner. This year, she is nominated for “Lake of Souls”, which – this is kind of becoming a pattern in this category – I haven’t read yet.

Eugenia Triantafyllou has been making a name for herself with short fiction in recent years and made the Hugo longlist a couple of times, but this is her first nomination. Once again, I haven’t yet read her nominated novelette “Loneliness Universe”. I also think this might be the first ever Hugo nomination for a Greek person.

Thomas Ha is the second first-time finalist in this category, nominated for “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”, which is also a Nebula finalist this year. Once again – yes, you guessed it – I didn’t get around to reading it yet. I didn’t get to read nearly as much as I wanted to to last year.

Venue-wise, we have two stories from Uncanny, one from Strange Horizons, one from Clarkesworld, one from Asimov’s, marking the first Hugo nomination for a story published in a print magazine in a decade or so, and one from a collection.  All in all, this is a nice mix of venues.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 2 authors of colour, 2 international authors

Best Short Story

Rachael K. Jones was a Hugo finalist in this category last year and made the ballot again this year with the haunting “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus”. This highly memorable story was also on my personal ballot.

Nghi Vo makes her second appearance on the 2025 Hugo ballot with “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is”, which I haven’t yet read.

Mary Robinette Kowal is a multiple Hugo finalist and previous winner. This year, she is nominated for “Marginalia”, which I haven’t read yet.

Caroline M. Yoachim has been a frequent presence on Hugo and Nebula ballots in recent years as well. This year, she is nominated for “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read”, which I once again haven’t yet read.

Arkady Martine is a two-time winner for Best Novel and is nominated for her story “Three Faces of a Beheading” this year. This story was on my personal longlist, but didn’t make my shortlist.

Finally, we have “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim. This is her Isabel J. Kim’s first Hugo nomination, though she was a finalist for the Astounding Award in 2023. Once again, I didn’t get around to reading this story yet.

This category has the most overlap with the 2024 Nebula ballot, since three stories appear on both ballots. With regard to venues, we have three stories from Uncanny, two from Lightspeed and one from Clarkesworld, i.e. not a lot of diversity. But then there is a reason that Uncanny, Lightspeed and Clarkesworld are probably the real “Big Three” of our era.

Diversity count: 6 women, 3 authors of colour

Best Series

Seanan McGuire has been a constant and well deserved presence in this category since its inception in 2017. This year, she is nominated for her InCryptid series, which I like a lot.

Adrian Tchaikovsky actually won in this category with Children of Time in 2023, but has disavowed his win following the Chengdu Hugo mess, which has been exhaustively discussed on this blog and elsewhere. Therefore, I’m glad that he gets another shot at an untainted Hugo. This year, he is nominated for his Tyrant Philosophers series. He was also nominated in this category last year for another series, but then like Seanan McGuire, Adrian Tchaikovsky is very prolific..

Brandon Sanderson has also been nominated in this category (and other categories) before, also for the Stormlight Archive series. His work isn’t really for me, but he is hugely popular.

Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy got knocked off the ballot by puppy shenanigans, back when it came out, though the film version of Annihilation made the ballot. Nonetheless, I’m glad to see him nominated.

I enjoyed The Burning Kingdoms trilogy by Tasha Suri lot and am glad to see it on the ballot. Tasha Suri was an Astounding finalist in 2020 as well as a World Fantasy winner, but this is her first Hugo nomination.

Rebecca Roanhorse won the Hugo Award for Best Short story and what was then the Campbell and is now the Astounding Award in 2018 and has had several nominations since then. I enjoy her work and am glad to see her Between Earth and Sky series on the ballot.

The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo received enough nominations to make the ballot, but was disqualified due to not insufficient wordcount.

Overall, I still don’t think the Best Series Hugo does what I expected it to do, namely honour long-running popular series where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That said, we do have two finalists on this ballot – InCryptid and Stormlight Archives – which absolutely fall into this category. And overall, this is a good Best Series ballot and not just another bite of apple for Best Novel finalists, so I guess Best Series is working, after all, even though it rarely reflects my taste in series.

Publisherwise we have some nice diversity with Tor, Orbit, Saga Press, DAW, Ad Astra and Farrar, Straus and Giroux all represented.

Diversity count: 3 women, 2 men, 2 authors of colour, 2 international authors

Best Graphic Story or Comic

This category tends to get a little stale with the same long-running series getting nominated over and over again.

This year, we only have two returning favourites, volume 9 of Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda, which has a ton of nominations and wins under its belt, and book 2 of My Favourite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris, where the first book was a Hugo finalist several years ago.

Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans have both been nominated in this category before for DIE  and Kieron Gillen has also been nominated for Once & Future and The Wicked + The Divine. Their 2025 finalist We Called Them Giants is a standalone post-apocalyptic graphic novel.

G. Willow Wilson has also been nominated in this category before for her work on Ms. Marvel. This time around, she is nominated for her work on The Hunger and the Dusk with Chris Wildgoose.

I’m not familiar with The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag, though it seems to get a lot of positive attention.

Finally, we have a tie-in comic called Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio. This isn’t the first time we have seen a media tie-in comic make the Hugo ballot (and indeed two of my personal nominees were media tie-in comics). And besides, Star Trek: Lower Decks is very popular with Hugo voters.

With regard to publishers, it’s notable that not a single Marvel or DC comic made the ballot. Ditto for Dark Horse and Boom. Instead, two finalists were published by Image, two by IDW, one by Fantagraphics and one by Graphix.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make comics.

Best Related

It’s no secret that I have a strong preference for well researched academic and popular non-fiction books in this category. And indeed, two finalists are exactly the sort of thing I want to see nominated in Best Related.

The first of these two is Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll, an excellent and well researched non-fiction book, which was also one of my personal nominees.

Track Changes by Abigail Nussbaum was not on my personal ballot, but is nonetheless exactly the sort of book I want to see in this category.

Next, we have two finalists which are not books, but nonetheless highly deserving works of non-fiction, namely “Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics” by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones and “The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion” by Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford. Both works are very much companion pieces and were crucial in digging into the complete and utter mess that was the 2023 Hugo Awards. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of “inside baseball” finalists, i.e. works that examine some genre uproar in minute detail, because I keep wondering what a reader in ten or twenty or fifty years will make of those works and the controversy that spawned them. However, the 2023 Hugo Awards were a huge mess, probably the biggest in the history of the award and the dilligent work of Cam, Heather, Chris, Jason and lots of other fans was crucial in uncovering the sheer scope and scale of malfeasance, therefore these two reports are highly deserving finalists. Besides, Cam, Chris, Jason and Heather are all friends and I’m happy to see them nominated.

YouTuber Jenny Nicholson has been nominated in this category before for her video essays/documentaries. This year, she is nominated for her documentary The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel. I actually watched this one, because the YouTube algorithm kept pushing it into my feed. Jenny Nicholson actually spent a shitload of money to stay at the infamously expensive Star Wars Hotel, so she knows what she’s talking about, though her style and video essays on YouTube in general aren’t really my preferred format. Personally, I think that documentaries belong in Best Dramatic Presentation, but in those categories, documentaries would get drowned out by popular Hollywood movies and TV shows, so Best Related is probably the best fit and indeed we have seen several documentaries nominated in this category before.

Finally, we come to this year’s edge case finalist, namely “r/Fantasy’s 2024 Bingo Reading Challenge”. r/Fantasy is a big and popular subreddit and home of the Stabby Awards. I’m not a member, so I’m not sure what exactly the “r/Fantasy 2024 Bingo Reading Challenge” was, though I assume the Hugo voters packet will clear this up.. However, I’m sure it was a worthy project, but like the fanfiction archives, virtual conventions, filk records and other edge case finalists of years gone by, this is not a non-fiction book or sufficiently book-like object (i.e. a long-form article, essay, report or documentary) that I think belongs in this category. Coincidentally, we really need a “Best Fannish Thing” or “Best Miscellany” Hugo category to give a home to all of these worthy projects which don’t really fit anywhere else and return Best Related to the Best Non-Fiction category it was supposed to be.

That said, some of the r/Fantasy people showed up at the Hugo finalist Discord and they seem to be lovely folks and clearly happy about their nomination and it’s always great to see happy finalists.

Diversity count (minus r/Fantasy, because they have about as many people listed as Strange Horizons and I’m not googling them all): 3 women, 4 men, at least 1 author of colour, 2 international authors

Best Dramatic Presentation Long

Not a lot of surprises in this category.

Dune, Part Two is probably as close to a sure bet you can get, since anything with the name Dune attached tends to get nominated. In fact, Dune, the Musical was disqualified due to being first performed in 2023. Honestly, I think at this point Dune must be the most Hugo nominated property of all time.

The Hugo nomination for Wicked was probably inevitable, because the movie was extremely popular. That said, this is the one finalist I dread having to sit through, because I have zero interest in Wicked. I have neither read the book nor seen the stage musical and the trailers looked very unappealing.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel to the 2016 finalist Mad Max: Fury Road and also a good film, so I’m not surprised to see it on the ballot, though apparently it underperformed at the box office.

The Wild Robot was hugely popular and is also apparently a lovely film, though I haven’t seen it yet. Though oddly enough, I did nominate another animated film about robots, which came out around the same time, namely Transformers One.

Flow is the 2025 Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature and allegedly a lovely film, though again I haven’t seen it yet. Though I’m happy to see animated films and TV shows well represented on the Hugo ballot in both Dramatic Presentation categories this year. Besides, this is very likely the first Hugo nomination for Latvia ever.

I Saw the TV Glow is this year’s indie/arthouse finalist that managed to break through the stranglehood of the big studios. That said, I’m not at all surprised to see it nominated, because this movie about two outsiders bonding over and becoming obsessed by an obscure TV show (if that’s all it is) mirrors an experience that so many of us had as teenagers and young adults, when some weird, obscure and now forgotten (and frankly often not very good) TV-show not only completely seemed to understand how we felt and mirrored our experiences**, but also became a vehicle via which we bonded and communicated with others. It’s a movie that almost every Hugo voter can probably identify with to some degree, because everybody had their own Pink Opaque or several. Anyway, this was also one of my nominees and I’m so glad it made the ballot.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make movies.

Best Dramatic Presentation Short

In the past, this category often had the problem that multiple episodes of a popular series would get nominated, shutting out other worthy works. Even when the maximum number of episodes per series was limited to two, we still has the problem that two or three series took up the majority of the slots, often for several years in a row.

In recent years, this problem seemed to have resolved itself and there was more variety on the ballot, but 2024 and 2025 saw a resurgence of this phenomenon.

Perennial Hugo favourite Doctor Who is represented with two episode, “73 Yards” and “Dot and Bubble”. Now the latest series of Doctor Who was actually pretty good, a return to form after the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi years, where the series often got entangled in its own mythology. And “73 Yards” was a very good episode, though I didn’t nominate it, because Doctor Who doesn’t need my help. “Dot and Bubble” is a bit more of a surprise, since it got very mixed reviews when it first aired. But then, this episode was also nominated for a Nebula Award.

Star Trek in all of its guises is another perennial Hugo favourite. This year, two episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks made the ballot, namely “Fissure Quest” and “The New Next Generation”, i.e. the final two episodes of the series, which ended last year. “Fissure Quest” got a lot of positive attention, mostly because it featured a Starfleet ship crewed entirely by alternate reality version of past Star Trek characters and gave us Curson Dax, Garak and Dr. Bashir is a married couple (hurray!), the return of T’Pol, voiced again by Jolene Blalock who came out of retirement to play the character one more time, the return of Lily Sloane from First Contact, whom most of us have forgotten, though actress Alfre Woodward went on to many greater things, and a whole squad of Harry Kims.  In short, it’s abolutely no surprise that this episode got nominated. As for “The New Next Generation”, it is the series finale of this popular Star Trek show. Besides, I’m always happy to see animated shows on the Hugo ballot.

The creator is Star Trek: Lower Decks was also celebrating the Hugo nomination on BlueSky, which is always nice to see since a lot of Dramatic Presentation finalists barely seem to acknowledge their nomination at all.

The category is rounded out by the Fallout episode “The Beginning” and the Agatha All Along episode “Death’s Hand in Mine”. I actually nominated episodes from both series, though different ones. Coincidentally, Agatha All Along is also the sole work on the entire Hugo ballot that holds up the Marvel flag.

Somewhat conspicuous by its absence is Arcane, which is extremely popular and a past Hugo finalist. It’s also notable that no Star Wars series made the ballot, neither The Acolyte (which was hated by a vocal minority, but also had its share of fans and actually tried to do something new) nor Skeleton Crew, which most people actually seemed to like.

That said, all in all this is a pretty good ballot, though personally I would have swapped out “Dot and Bubble” and “The New Next Generation” for episodes from other worthy series. Though 2024 was something of a weak year TV-wise, at least for me.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make TV shows.

Best Game or Interactive Work

As usual, I can’t say much about this category, because I’m not a gamer.

That said, even I have heard of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make games.

Best Editor Long

This is another category with the tendency to get stale, because there are only so many editors working in SFF.

And indeed, Carl Engle-Laird, Lee Harris, David Thomas Moore and Diana M. Pho have all been nominated in this category before, while Ali Fisher and Stephanie Stein are first time finalists. They’re all very worthy, though.

Coincidentally, since Hugo voters seem to enjoy David Thomas Moore’s work at Rebellion Publishing enough to nominated for him for the Hugo for Best Editor Long for the second year in a row, could they maybe check out Rebellion Publishing‘s fine novella program as well?

Considering how female dominated the publishing industry is, it notable that we have gender parity in this category.

Diversity count: 3 women, 3 men, two international editors, one editor of colour

Best Editor Short

Like the long form category, Best Editor Short tends to get stale, because there are only so many editors working in SFF at any given time and they also tend to stay at their respective magazines for a long time. And indeed every single finalist in this category has been nominated for a Hugo before.

That said, Scott H. Andrews of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld, Jonathan Strahan of Lightspeed, Sheila Williams of Asimov’s and Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas of Uncanny all do very good work, even though they have multiple nominations and sometimes wins under their belt.

I’m also very happy to see Jennifer Brozek on the Hugo ballot again and not just because I have a story in the anthology 99 Fleeting Fantasies, which she edited. Because the first time Jennifer Brozek was on the Hugo ballot was in 2015, when she got caught up in the puppy mess, which led to the entire category being no awarded, even though one can hardly blame her for the fact that Brad Torgersen liked her work and put her on his slate.

Diversity count: 3 women, 4 men, 1 international editor

Best Professional Artist

This is another category that tend to get stale, though we do have a nice mix of new names and returning favourites this year.

For starters, I’m happy to see my friend Alyssa Winans on the ballot again. Rovina Cai is another artist who has been nominated several times in this category before and also won in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Maurizio Manzieri and Micaela Alcaino have also been nominated before, while Tran Nguyen and Audrey Benjaminsen are first time finalists. They all do wonderful work, though.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 4 artists of colour, 3 international artists

Best Semiprozine

This category often consists of “the usual suspects”. Part of the problem is the way the category is defined, which means that long-running, popular magazines, which pay their author pro-rates and are defined as semipro solely because no staff member makes their main income via the work on the magazines, are competing with small mags that pay maybe ten or twenty dollars per story.

And so Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, Escape Pod and FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction have all been nominated multiple times in this category before. They also do excellent work.

khoréo (apologies for WordPress butchering the title) was a first time finalist in this category last year and won another highly deserved nomination this year.

Finally, we do have a new name in this category with the excellent The Deadlands.

There also was a withdrawal for Beneath Ceaseless Skies, who permanently recused themselves from consideration in this category.

So yes, the fact that we keep seeing the same magazines nominated over and over again in this category is a problem, though they are also all highly deserving finalists. Besides, even though five of six finalists in this category are repeat finalists, kh?ré? are only on their second nomination, Escape Pod has never won in spite of multiple nominations and Strange Horizons has only won once in spite of more nominations than any other finalist in this category. Also, new magazines need some time to establish a readership and reputation and some magazines, though highly deserving , just aren’t what Hugo voters commonly read.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make semiprozines.

Best Fanzine

This is another category where we tend see the same finalists nominated over and over again, which is why it’s good to see a few new names.

Let’s start with the established names.

Galactic Journey is back on the ballot after a year of absence, which of course thrills me, because I am a contributor to the site. And if you look at the finalist listing, you’ll see my name listed, which means that I’m now a four time Hugo finalist in two different categories.

My friends Olav and Amanda of the Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog have been doing great work for years and I’m thrilled to see them on the ballot again.

I’m always happy to find a new issue of The Full Lid in my inbox every Friday. Alasdair and Marguerite do great and are highly deserving finalists.

Journey Planet has been a fixture on the Hugo ballot for years, but then every single issue of Journey Planet is drastically different with its own theme. Journey Planet isn’t one magazine, but several different ones, each of them highly deserving.

Black Nerd Problems have been doing great work for years and made the longlist a few times, so I’m glad to see them finally make the ballot.

Ancillary Review of Books is new to me, though I like what I see.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make fanzines.

Best Fancast

Again, we have a nice mix of returning favourites and newcomers in the category.

For starters, I’m thrilled to see my good friends of Hugo, Girl!, Hugos There and Worldbuilding for Masochists on the ballot again. The always excellent Coode Street Podcast is another returning favourite.

We also have two first time finalists, Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, presented by Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow and A Meal of Thorns, presented by Jake Casella Brookins. I’m not familiar with either podcast, though I look forward to checking them out.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to produce podcasts.

Best Fan Writer

This category is close to my heart for obvious reasons and also full of good people doing good work.

I’m very glad to see my friends Camestros Felapton, Alasdair Stuart and Jason Sanford on the ballot again. Örjan Westin has been doing great work with his MicroSFF fiction on Twitter and now BlueSky and I’m happy to see his hard work recognised.

Abigail Nussbaum always has insightful things to say and I’m happy to see her back on the ballot for the first time since her win in 2017.

Roseanna Pendlebury, finally, is a new finalist in this category, though a previous winner for nerds of a feather. She’s also highly deserving.

Next to Best Editor Short, this is the only category that’s all white and yes, this is a problem. And there are some excellent fan writers of colour out there whom I hope to see on the ballot (again) one day, such as Arturo Serrano, Ann Michelle Harris, Wendy Browne, Chris M. Barkley, Christopher J. Garcia, Sarah Gulde, Arthur Liu, RiverFlow, Juan Sanmiguel, Aigner Loren Wilson, etc…

That said, this is an excellent Fan Writer ballot and also a very international one with one American, two British, one Australian, one Swedish and one Israeli finalist and that is reason to celebrate.

Diversity count: 2 women, 4 men, 5 international writers

Best Fan Artist

This category has a lot of repeat finalists, since Iain J. Clark, Sara Felix, Meg Frank, Alison Scott and España Sheriff have all been nominated in this category before. Michelle Morrell is the only new finalist in this category. There is an Alaskan artist with that name, though I’m not sure if it’s the same person.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 3 international artists

Best Poem

This is a special one-of Hugo category run by the Seattle Worldcon, though in the past we have occasionally seen special categories become regular categories.

Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead is a highly deserving finalist. It’s also not what most people think of when they think of poetry, since it’s a novel or at least novella-length work written in verse. Calypso could easily have made the novel ballot, since the fact that it’s written in verse is not a disqualifying characteristic.

The remaining finalists are closer to traditional poem length. I’m really happy to see Mari Ness on the ballot, especially since this is her first Hugo nomination as far as I know. Marie Brennan and Ai Jiang have both been Hugo finalists in other categories before. Devon Barlow and Angela Liu are both first-time finalists, though Angela Liu is also an Astounding finalist this year.

With regard to venues, we have two poems from Uncanny, two from Strange Horizons, one from Haven Spec as well as a novel in verse published by Titan.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 2 poets of colour, 2 international poets

And now we come to the two not-a-Hugos:

Lodestar

I freely admit that I’m not the target audience for YA and I usually leave the Lodestar finalists for last, because the books just aren’t for me and I’m not familiar with any of the finalists. That said, YA fiction is an important part of our genre and the Lodestar has established itself as a valid award in recent years.

Xiran Jay Zhao, Jordan Ifueko, Yoon Ha Lee and Darcie Little Badger have all been nominated in this category (and elsewhere) before and I enjoyed their previous works. H.A. Clarke is a first time Hugo finalist, though they have been a Nebula finalist in the past. So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole is new to me, though it sounds like something I would enjoy.

We also have a withdrawal in this category, namely Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White, which I’m not familiar with either.

Diversity count: 3 women, 1 man, 2 non-binary, 5 authors of colour, 1 international author

Astounding

I enjoyed Hannah Kaner’s debut novel Godkiller and the sequel Sunbringer and am glad to see her back on the ballot.

I also enjoyed Bethany Jacobs’ debut novel These Burning Stars and the sequel On Vicious Worlds a lot and am glad to see her on the ballot.

Moniquill Blackgoose was an Astounding finalist last and won the Lodestar for To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, so I’m not surprised to see her on the ballot again.

Angela Liu burst into the scene in 2023 and has since been nominated for the Nebula, Ignyte and Rhysling Awards and is also nominated in the Best Poem category, which makes her a highly deserving finalist.

Jared Pechacek (apologies for WordPress butchering his surname) was something of a surprise to me. Apparently, he lives in Seattle, so the 2025 Worldcon is on his home turf. I haven’t read his debut novel The West Passage yet, though I look forward to checking it out.

Tia Tashiro had several stories published in Uncanny, Clarkesworld and Apex Magazine. Unfortunately, I haven’t read any of them, though I’m looking forward to remedying that.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 3 authors of colour, 1 international author.

***

And that’s it for the 2025 Hugo finalists. Personally, I think it’s a very good ballot, even though a few finalists which are not to my taste. But then every year, there are finalists who are not to my taste.

Are some categories too white? Yes. Could we have more diversity in some categories with a lot of repeat finalists? Yes as well. But then, none of these issues are new. There have always been repeat finalists and some categories where the same person or institution won over and over and over again. Just take a look at ballots from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and even 2000s to see how far we’ve come.

So far, there haven’t been a lot of reactions beyond excited finalists. Double finalist Camestros Felapton briefly weighs in on his blog and there is some discussion and a lot of congratulations in the comments.

ETA 04-07-2025: Allison Scott, John Coxon and Liz Batty discuss the 2025 Hugo finalists on the Octothorpe podcast.

One person decided to air their displeasure with the 2025 Hugo finalists on social media barely an hour after the finalists had been announced and found some agreement among commenters. I’m not linking to them, because this person is displeased with the finalists every single year (which is their good right) and rude enough to not even wait twenty-four hours to air their displeasure.

I haven’t seen any reaction from the far right yet, though they mostly seem to have stopped paying attention to the Hugo Awards, which is better for all of us.

More reactions will be added to the post as I find them.

I’ll keep the comments open, but if things get rude or people start fighting each other, I reserve the right to close them.

*I define “international” as a writer/creator living outside the US. If we include writers who are first or second generation immigrants, there would be several more. I’ve also stopped counting LGBTQ+ finalists for the diversity count, because it’s very difficult to determine, since not everybody is out. Apologies if I’ve accidentally misgendered anybody.

**Coincidentally, I only realised recently why my entire class became obsessed with Twin Peaks – to the confusion of the adults in our lives, who neither understood nor liked the show. It’s because our school had its own Laura Palmer case, a girl a few years older than us who’d been killed during a spectacular and senseless crime a little over a year before.  Many of the students at our school were what I recognise as traumatised and the teachers did not react well to this at all. Twin Peaks gave us a mirror through which we could process this experience.