Vol. 20 No. 2 April 2021 ALEXIAD (!7+=3!G) $2.00 This will be a seventeen year cicada year. The cicadas will The 147th Running of the Kentucky Derby will be May 1, 2021. emerge in hordes and take over for a few weeks. Admissions will be limited to 30% — 50% of maximum capacity. Today is April 14, year 109 to the day since the Titanic The 146th Running of the Preakness Stakes will be May 15, 2021. sank. The 152nd Running of the Belmont Stakes will be June 5, 2021. — Lisa Printed on April 20, 2021 Table of Contents Deadline is June 6, 2021 Editorial. 1 Reviewer’s Notes . 1 Reviewer’s Notes The Blue and the Scarlet: The Pig War. 6 We now have a Barsoomian flyer. That is, the Ingenuity drone USS Bush . 2 probe has made its first flight on Mars. This may not be as useful as it Five Plays . 7 is exciting; the drone had to be transported there, which meant it had to Hugo Nominations . 9 be light enough to not unduly burden the Perseverance rover. We may Nebula Nominations . 7 have to content ourselves with some low-altitude pictures. Psychobabble . 3 Some people are celebrating. Type “Ingenuity NASA” into Google Shots and Injections . 2 and click the helicopter. Thinking for Myself . 8 It was all very different sixty years ago. Then, we expected that nu Book Reviews 2021 the flying vehicles on Mars would be going from one human JTM Cozort, The Best of Space Bats & Butterflies . 5 settlement to another. The probes would be landing on the surface of JTM Kowal, The Fated Sky . 3 Pluto, which was a planet then. JTM Kowal, The Relentless Moon . 4 Reality in its many facets bit back. The costs of such matters were JTM Litwin, On the Trail of Delusion . 5 greater than we had believed. The will to go had been less, outside of JTM Munroe, How To . 5 our bubble. The dreams were blown away, and died unmourned. JTM Robeson/Murray, Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow . 4 JTM Roberts, True Summit . 5 The committee has spoken, and the Worldcon will be in December. JTM Turtledove, Or Even Eagle Flew . 4 Weather will make getting there even more problematic. The Hugo JTM White, The Malice of Fortune . 4 voting will clash with the 2022 Hugo voting. The site selection will be cramped, with four months less for the winning bid to arrange affairs. Random Jottings . 2 And in all this, the Good and the True are making sure that all their political views are considered. Newer and more virtuous views Letters . 11 portend, and the former Good and True are destined to be unmasked as Richard A. Dengrove, Tom Feller, John Hertz, Robert S. Kennedy, being repressive and bigoted. Lloyd Penney, George W. Price, Darrell Schweitzer, David M. In the middle of this, the hope of just getting together and seeing old Shea, Thomas E. Simmons, R-Laurraine Tutihasi, Taras Wolansky friends, of mourning those who have gone and welcoming those who are new, is lost like tears in rain. Perhaps indeed it is time to die. Comments are by JTM or LTM At least racing is beginning to return. The Kentucky Derby Festival Trivia: . 16 has its differences, mostly to prevent crowds. But there will be a full racing program on Derby Day — and the Kentucky Oaks, the day Art: before. (But that’s Good Friday.) Sheryl Birkhead . 9, 11 The Kentucky Horse Park has continued operations. Can horses get Trinlay Khadro . 2 coronavirus? Old Friends, the thoroughbred retirement facility, is still Marc Schirmeister . 12, 13, 14, 15 going, even though they have had to suspend operations. It turns out there is a new thoroughbred retirement facility near to Louisville. Center for Disease Control . 15 Horses go on. Pascha is May 2. — Joe Page 2 April 2021 Alexiad the same level with having a stick of dynamite the car going. I left the engine running to RANDOM JOTTINGS go off in your face, and emerging from a cloud recharge the battery. by Joe with clothes torn, all smoke-blackened, with a Then we reached the front of the line, and startled look on your face. I had to get into the line to be given an assign- ment. This required my driver’s license (fortu- The Heinlein Forum people have discovered nately I had the new one that had a picture of that there is a writer named Thorby Rudbek. me without glasses), my insurance card, and Really. And he seems to know his Heinlein. the letter giving me a reservation. Pen name, or named by Heinlein fan parents? That done, we went into Broadbent Arena He’s on Amazon.com so it might be possible to and got in another line. After a few minutes I look. got to the shot table, and they gave me a stick. I got the Pfizer vaccine. A fire in the engine room has severely Then I had to pull out and wait fifteen damanged the Australian Antarctic resupply minutes to make sure I didn’t faint, throw up, ship MPV Everest. No one was killed or in- start having coronavirus-shaped tumors grow- jured, but there was some damage to the fittings. ing out of my arm, or anything of the sort. The ship was bringing back Australian station That done, we went off. Buy my books. (All available on members who were being relieved. My next appointment is April 7. Amazon.com for quite reasonable prices, except the Hugo-nominated Heinlein’s MONARCHICAL NEWS Two days later, Lisa had her shot. The Children, which can be bought directly from library would re-open on March 26, and we got George Price for a reasonable sum, or from We regret to report the death of Goodwill called on the eleventh saying she AB- ReAnimus Press in electronic format.) Zwelithini kaBhekzulu, King of the Zulus, on SOLUTELY HAD to make an appointment for March 12, 2021. Born July 14, 1948, he the next day. So we got there after work. https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01BMIC4M succeeded his father Cyprian Bhekuzulu in She got the Johnson & Johnson one-shot U?ref_=pe_1724030_132998070 1968. The King ruled during the turbulent immunization. So far she’s doing fine. transition from Apartheid, and the still disturbed https://reanimus.com/store period now. But I have many other medical appoint- King Goodwill was descended from King ments. I went to see the blood specialist. The — Advt. Mpande ka Senzangakhona, the half-brother of tests showed I had iron-poor blood. There are Shaka, and from his son King Cetshwayo supplements, but they wouldn’t work, either, 1916: The War for America (Second kaMpande (as in Zulu (1964; reviewed in since the part of my intestine that absorbs iron American Civil War Book 3), the sequel to Alexiad V. 2 #5)) is damaged. 1910: War in the Pacific and 1912: War for The likely successor is his oldest surviving The symptoms of iron deficiency include the White House (reviewed in Alexiad V. 20 son Misuzulu Zulu, a son of his Great Wife. fatigue, shortness of breath, and eating non- #1) is now available (2021; ISBN 979- The prime minister, Mangosuthu Gatsha food items. This latter is called “pica”, which 8701223798; $15.95; 2021; Amazon Digital Buthelezi (yes, him) announced that the king, is not the typeface size “pica”. Normally this Services (Kindle); $2.99). Jeff Thomas re- who had been suffering from diabetes, had died pica is eating earth (which was referenced in counts how the breakdown in American soci- of COVID-19. “The Year of the Jackpot” (Galaxy 3/1952, ety led to fighting, rioting, starvation, and in Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster for bring- 1959: NHOL G.097)) but it’s also eating ice. the end a scene where President Davies should ing this to our attention. That’s the one I do. go into a flaming rant over General Steiner not Bayete! (But then, back a while ago while at the being able to attack. And there are frightening vet’s I noticed a listing of symptoms of arthritis parallels to other events and sinister connec- SHOTS AND INJECTIONS in dogs. I had all of them except “Constantly tions to the future. by Joe licking a joint”.) So I have been having iron infusions. Five On December 21, 2020, 36 people from I’ve had my first immunization shot for of them, one each subsequent Friday afternoon. the Chilean Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme COVID-19. Now Grant had his, tested pos- I sit in the chair and read while red ferric Base in the Antarctic Peninsula tested positive itive, and was quarantined for two weeks with- sludge drains into my veins. The hardest part for COVID-19 and were evacuated from out developing symptoms. He suspected that of the procedure seems to be finding a vein. Antarctica. So there’s no escape even there. Tim had died of COVID, but had no proof as The last one this is going to cover had a the nursing home doesn’t release that informa- striking accompaniment. There was a parade The N3F people review animes and man- tion. And we know about Lloyd and Yvonne in the halls, with sound intended to be music, gas. (The readership may be divided between Penney. Various of my relatives have tested cheering, and other such whoop-jamboreehoo people who have no idea what the National positive for COVID, and one died of it. My (as Mr. Finn would have put it).