The Poppy War By R.F. Kuang 19.10 Study and pass a test to enter an academy to be trained as a member of the military or become the unwilling wife of a man twice her age all to benefit the Aunt and Uncle who adopted her –Fang Runin doesn’t really have much of a choice. Not only does she pass, but she soon becomes one of the highest-ranking students of Sinegard attracting the notice of the secretive and unstable Lore Master. Will he take her on as an apprentice? Can she survive the attentions of the Phoenix, the fractious god of fire who has taken an interest in her? Finally, can Rin survive the next Poppy War which is suddenly breaking out all around her and threatening all of Nikan? -November’s meeting is on the 20th at the Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg and the book of the month is Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne. -Cover art by Tithi Luadthong, modified by Jeff Young -Dear Crabby shines some light into the black hole that is Fortnite Check out the website at: watchtheskies.org or contact us at: [email protected] NEW RELEASES November 2019 BEN AARONOVITCH - False Value DAVID MOODY - Chokehold PIERS ANTHONY- Fire Sail ERIN MORGENSTERN - The Starless Sea HOLLY BLACK - The Queen of Nothing CLAIRE NORTH - The Pursuit of William Abbey RICHARD CHIZMAR - Gwendy’s Magic Feather DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER - The Book of Lost Saints GENEVIEVE COGMAN- The Secret Chapter SUSAN PALWICK - All Worlds Are Real EOIN COLFER - The Fowl Twins K.J. PARKER - My Beautiful Life GLEN COOK - Best of Glen Cook JERRY POURNELLE - The Best of Jerry Pournelle PAUL CORNELL - The Lights Go Out in Lychford TIM PRATT - Miracles & Marvels: Stories JOHN CROWLEY - And Go Like This HANNU RAJANIEMI & JACOB WEISMAN, JOHN CROWLEY - Reading Backwards EDS. - The New Voices of Science Fiction TERRY DOWLING - The Complete JENNIFER ROBERSON - Life and Limb Rynosseros BRANDON SANDERSON - Starsight JOHN FLESKES, ED. - Spectrum 26: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT, ED. - Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers TERRY GOODKIND - The Wasteland NEAL SHUSTERMAN - The Toll PAULA GURAN, ED. - The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019 Edition ANGELA SLATTER - The Heart Is a Mirror for Sinners and Other Stories ROBERT IRWIN - My Life Is Like a Fairy Tale RIVERS SOLOMON - The Deep ALLAN KASTER, ED. - The Year’s Top KAARON WARREN - Into Bones Like Oil Hard Science Fiction Stories 3 PETER WATTS - Peter Watts Is an Angry GARRY KILWORTH - Elemental Tales Sentient Tumor NAOMI KRITZER - Catfishing on CatNet MANLY WADE WELLMAN - The Complete John the Balladeer MERCEDES LACKEY, ED. - Seasons WALTER JON WILLIAMS - Quillifer the ALISON LITTLEWOOD - Mistletoe Knight JAMES LOVEGROVE - Age of Legends DANIEL H. WILSON - The Andromeda JONATHAN MABERRY - Rage Evolution IAN MCDONALD - The Menace from Farside FINAL ISSUE AVAILABLE AT PHILCON DEAR CRABBY Dear Crabby, OH MY GOD! THE END! What do I do now? Fortnite blew everything up and there's only a black hole! What do I do? Anon Dear Chicken Little, The end of the Fortnite season 10 or even the whole Fortnite world is not the end of the actual world itself. Breathe. How much of a noob are you that you don't realize that a) that's what this game does...it does big weird wacky stuff and b) nobody is going to kill the golden goose. Sources have approximated that 250 million people play this game worldwide...250 million! Nobody is just going to say goodbye to the revenue that brings in, buddy. Now what I think is amazingly sad is that we can't get 250 million people on board with anything as important as...oh, say ending world hunger, preventing the destruction of the planet we actually live on or even to get that amount of voter turnout for elections in the US. We came in at just over that amount of the population being of age to vote in 2016 and got less than an estimated 56% turnout. However, it's obvious to me now that if we held voting in cyberspace allowing people to pick costumes, an alias, and earn coins towards cool gadgets by doing crazy things like learning about current events, topics of interest, the candidates, the platform they run on, and maybe their political history and who buys them...I mean...supports them with donations...well, then I'm sure we could get a record turn out! I'm sure we could even get lots of volunteers from other countries to help run the election behind the scenes. Probably even ones with lots of experience in doing so already. Take your head out of your...device and get a real life. You're part of the problem. Crabby https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2019/10/fortnite-black-hole-everything-you-need-to- know/fortnite-black-hole-event -It isn’t always the face at the forefront that you remember. Robert Forster is someone you’ve seen before, but it may take you a moment to remember. Maybe it was Dan Holland, the captain in the movie The Black Hole. Perhaps as Arthur Petrelli in Heroes or Sheriff Truman in Twin Peaks: The Return. You might even know him as Ed, a vacuum cleaner salesman from Breaking Bad. Sadly, Robert passed away on October 11th from brain cancer, but his legacy lives on in his films and TV performances. -Dario Argento, famous for his unique Italian horror films, such as Suspiria plans to direct a TV show called Longinus. The show is to be set in the French Alps and the Siena of Palio. The title would seem to refer to the Roman Soldier from the crucifixion of Christ. Very little is known except rumors that it will include ancient mysteries and unexplained murders. -Terminator : Dark Fate has several things going for it that could make it a box office smash. The film falls directly after T2 in the franchise timeline. If you haven’t already seen the promo pics, it’s no surprise that Linda Hamilton is once again looking bad ass. Add on the fact the James Cameron is producing, Tim Miller (Deadpool) will be directing and Arnold Schwarnenegger and Edward Furlong are both returning to reprise their roles, it certainly gives one hope that things will be explosively cool. Dark Fate drops on November 1st. -December 1st marks the return of The Expanse for season four, this time on Amazon. Trailers do a good job of revealing the crews landing on Ilus and capturing the moment when Naomi first steps onto a world, which is a foreign thing to a Belter. Once again it looks like the series plans to follow closely to the books and Abbadon’s Gate is a nicely contained piece that will make for a solid season. -Lana Wachowski has chosen Yahya Abdul-Mateen II for an unrevealed pivotal role in the latest installment of the Matrix franchise. One of Yahya’s most recent roles was The Black Manta in DC’s movie, Aquaman. Since then, he’s also starred in Us and is part of HBO’s Watchmen series. The new Matrix film will include returning stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss reprising their roles as Neo and Trinity. There is also some more interesting Matrix news surfacing. Writer Zak Penn has also been working on another Matrix project. Little is known about it, but while Lana’s is a sequel, Zak’s is believed to be a prequel. As more news came out about the Wachowski project, Zak jumped on Twitter to let folks know that these are two separate entities. He stressed that neither project is a reboot of the original. Zak is known for his writing work on X-Men, Avengers and the TV show Alphas. -The Orville cast had fun at the New York Comicon riffing on an idea where others have gone before—a musical episode. Popularized by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode “Once More with Feeling”, the singing episode concept has also been embraced by The Flash, Fringe, Legends of Tomorrow (who did an entire Bollywood number) and The Magicians (whose piece of choice was Les Miserables). Since the show creator, Seth McFarlane, wasn’t with them, the cast played around with the concept in their conversation after a fan asked about a musical episode. Scott Grimes apparently tried to run with an idea that Penny Johnson Jerald had suggested on set about visiting a world where the inhabitants emote through song. Towards the end of things, Grimes decided to sing Air Supply’s “Goodbye” to Mark Jackson. -As a promotional gag, Starman and the Tesla in space are pretty hard to top. However, by now pundits believe that the roadster is no longer roadworthy. Sure, there’s no oxidizing going on, but there still are plenty of micrometeorites that have been peppering the car and its passenger in it 470 million mile journey. With regards to the paint job, cosmic rays and other radiation have certainly taken their toll. It’s not going to be shiny red any longer. A chemist commented that organic items like the leather seats wouldn’t even last a year. Not fear though, there’s only a 6% chance of it crashing on Earth. The Bodhana Group is a nonprofit organization that advocates the use of tabletop gaming as a directed therapeutic and clinical practice that can benefit personal growth as well as enhance social and educational services to individuals and families. Over the weekend of October 11 through 13th they also ran their annual convention “Save Against Fear”.