Monthly Archives: August 2025

Upcoming meeting

Science Guest Sept 20th meeting

EXOPLANETS top the Agenda, MonSFFA meeting Sept 20

Join us September 20, by Zoom or in person at the Hotel Nouvel, 1740 René-Lévesque Blvd W, Montreal, corner of St Mathieu.

Our guest speaker is Riley Rosener , a Physics Masters student at the Université de Montréal doing research on the detection and characterization of exoplanets. They recently moved to Montréal after doing a B.S. in Astrophysics (and a minor in History) at UChicago. They have been a long-time fan of science fiction, and particularly enjoy reading new SFF, exploring various TTRPG systems, and learning about unfamiliar history. They will be talking about the history and science behind the detection of the first exoplanets, modern developments in exoplanet astronomy, and their own research.

Also on the agenda:

The life, times, and music of Tom Lehrer, who famously put the Periodic Table of Elements to music! Expect a sing-a-long!
 Precognition, Prophesy, and Possibility: Different Ways of Knowing the Future, and What it Does to Us.
Obituary, Tributes

Guy H. Lillian III (1949-2025)

Guy H. Lillian III (1949-2025)

I was shocked today to learn of the passing of Guy Lillian, a well known and respected zine editor. Guy always had nice things to say about MonSFFA’s zine, WARP.  I had the pleasure of meeting him at World Cons, and we often corresponded. I submitted an article to an issue of Challenger, which he published to my great delight.

Guy’s Zine Challenger was nominated 12 times for the Hugo and he was twice nominated for best fan writer, but he never took home the rocket. It would be a wonderful gesture for the next world con to award a special trophy posthumously.

Learn more about Guy Lillian
Upcoming meeting

Meeting September 20 to feature tribute to Tom Lehrer

MonSFFA SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, don’t miss Joe Aspler’s tribute to musical satirist, Tom Lehrer!

A tribute to Tom Lehrer (1928 – 2025)
By Joe Aspler

Tom Lehrer was a young prodigy, in the era of white bread, crewcuts, and Father Knows Best. He threw, or rather, sang his spanner into the works of middle class America. He sang about STDs, which left the unaware listener in a state of unawareness. He sang about Poisoning Pigeons in the Park. He provided theme songs for World War III and sang about one time SS officer Dr. Werner von Braun. He sang The Elements – all 103 of them at the time. He received a giant boost in Britain when it was found that Princess Margaret was a fan. Most of his songs could not be played on the BBC, which turned his records into best sellers.

His influences included Broadway show tunes, Gilbert and Sullivan, and society around him. In turn he influenced Dr. Demento and Weird Al. At the age of 94, with no family to follow him, he released all of his works into the public domain. They’re there for everyone now!

In this tribute, I will look at the life, times, and songs of Tom Lehrer. Concert and recording excerpts will be shown, concluding with a final singalong.

Fanzines

Zines to share!

We have more zines to share!

From the N3F, the National Fantasy Fan for August
TNFF202508

From the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, De Profundis #612 – September 2025 

Added today at https://efanzines.com are:

  • Leybl Botwinik’s CyberCozen – August 2025
  • Henry Grynnsten’s Wild Ideas #62
  • Marcin “Alqua” Klak’s Forged Zine #3
  • Opuntia #607, edited by Dale Speirs
  • Octothorpe #141, a regular fannish podcast by John Coxon, Alison Scott and Liz Batty, is now on line

    —
    Bill

Astronomy News

THE BACKWARD TAIL OF COMET 3I/ATLAS:

THE BACKWARD TAIL OF COMET 3I/ATLAS: Last month, when astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph 3I/ATLAS, they had a “Eureka!” moment. The mysterious interstellar visitor had a fuzzy atmosphere and a growing tail. Clearly, it was a comet.

However, something was not quite right. Take a look, and see if you can spot the problem:

The tail of 3I/ATLAS points almost straight toward the sun. Normally, comet dust tails are pushed away from the sun by radiation pressure. 3I/ATLAS is doing the opposite—it’s backwards.

Why? Researchers led by David Jewitt of UCLA believe they have an explanation: “It is due to the preferential sublimation of ice on the hot day side of the nucleus and the near absence of sublimation on the night side,” they wrote in a paper reporting the observations.

In other words, 3I/ATLAS *is* a comet, but only the sun-heated side is producing lots of dust. The emerging dust particles are too big for radiation pressure to bend them back into an ordinary tail.

This is unusual, but not unheard of. Solar system comets have been known to produce sunward fans or jets, typically from localized “hot spots” on their rotating nuclei. What makes 3I/ATLAS different is the dominance of its sunward plume, dwarfing a barely visible anti-solar tail behind it.

READ MORE

Awards

2025 Astounding, Lodestar, and Hugo Award Winners

2025 Astounding, Lodestar, and Hugo Award Winners

  • Astounding Award
    Moniquill Blackgoose
  • 2025 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
    Sheine Lende, by Darcie Little Badger
  • Best Poem
    “A War of Words,” by Marie Brennan
  • Best Fan Artist
    Sara Felix
  • Best Fan Writer
    Abigail Nussbaum
  • Best Fancast
    Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, presented by Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow
  • Best Fanzine
    Black Nerd Problems, editors William Evans and Omar Holmon
  • Best Semiprozine
    Uncanny Magazine, publishers and editors-in-chief: Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas; managing editor Monte Lin; poetry editor Betsy Aoki, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky
  • Best Professional Artist
    Alyssa Winans
  • Best Editor, Long Form
    Diana M. Pho
  • Best Editor, Short Form
    Neil Clarke
  • Best Game or Interactive Work
    Caves of Qud, Freehold Games
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
    Star Trek: Lower Decks: “The New Next Generation,” created and written by Mike McMahan, directed by Megan Lloyd
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
    Dune: Part Two, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, directed by Denis Villeneuve
  • Best Related Work
    Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right, by Jordan S. Carroll
  • Best Graphic Story or Comic
    Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio
  • Best Series
    Between Earth and Sky, by Rebecca Roanhorse
  • Best Short Story
    “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is,” by Nghi Vo
  • Best Novelette
    “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea,” by Naomi Kritzer
  • Best Novella
    The Tusks of Extinction, by Ray Nayler
  • Best Novel
    The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Fanzines

Zines posted on efanzines

Due to my being away for awhile, there is quite an accumulation of zines on https://efanzines.com.  

Dale Speirs and Garth Spencer are Canadian.

  • Nic Farey’s This Here…#88, 89
  • James Allen’s Kalien #81
  • Robert Jennings’ Fadeaway #70
  • Garth Spencer’s The Obdurate Eye #53, 54
  • Heath Row’s The Stf Amateur, July 2025 (apazine bundle)
  • Opuntia #602, 603, 604, 605, 606 edited by Dale Speirs
  • Leybl Botwinik’s CyberCozen – July 2025
  • TurboCon 2 Brochure 8
  • Heath Row’s The Stf Amateur, August 2025 (apazine bundle)
  • Andy Hooper’s CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #80
  • Two Chairs in Print #6 & 7 by Perry Middlemiss and David Grigg
  • Perry Middlemiss’s Perryscope #55
  • Ray Palm’s The Ray X X-rayer #185
  • Sandra Bond’s TAFF newsletter, Taffluorescence #9
  • New page for Kim Huett’s P. H. U. Q.

—
Bill

Awards, CSFFA / Aurora Award / Hall of Fame

The 2025 Aurora Award Winners

The 2025 Aurora Award Winners

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Aurora Awards for excellence by Canadians in the fields of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.  We want to congratulate all of this year’s nominees.  Full details about this year’s awards and how voting and nominations went got our statistics document in our 2025 Archive page, https://www.csffa.ca/aurora-archives-home/2025-aurora-awards/

The awards went to:

  • Best Novel:  The Siege of Burning Grass, Premee Mohamed, Solaris
  • Best YA Novel: Heavenly Tyrant, Xiran Jay Zhao, Tundra Books
  • Best Novelette/Novella:  The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed, Tordotcom
  • Best Short Story: “Blood and Desert Dreams“, Y.M. Pang, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 408
  • Best Graphic Novel:  Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio, IDW Publishing
  • Best Poem/Song “Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka“, Y.M. Pang, Invitation: A One-shot Anthology of Speculative Fiction
  • Best Related Work:  Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Two,
    Stephen Kotowych, editor, Ansible Press
  • Best Cover Art/Interior Illustration:  Augur Magazine, Issue 7.1, cover art, Martine Nguyen
  • Best Fan Writing and Publication: SF&F Book Reviews, Robert Runté, Ottawa Review of Books
  • Best Fan Related Work:  murmurstations, Sonia Urlando, Augur Society, podcast

The awards were live-streamed on Sunday, August 10th, 2025, via YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. .