"This is a time to support each other."

The following message from Seattle Worldcon regarding the current situation in the United States appeared in my mailbox this afternoon - I think it speaks for itself.  Sadly, my wife and I have already discussed the possibility that I might need to cancel my attendance if things change even more for the worse, and I'm pleased to see how the convention is responding.

- Sid

Dear Worldcon Community,

I am writing this statement in order to share the status of Seattle Worldcon’s current journey through living up to our theme of Building Yesterday's Future—For Everyone. We have received a number of concerns asking how the convention will respond to orders and actions of the U.S. government, which we condemn, that create hostile conditions and travel barriers for LGBTQ+ members and international members.

We appreciate everyone’s concerns as we navigate the current political landscape together. As I stated when we won the bid, our theme is an acknowledgment that we have not successfully built the future we have aspired to, but we are also inspired by optimism for a better future—including the movements that have existed throughout history pushing us to build communities and pushing us to recognize our shared humanity. The personal is political, and our fandom lives cannot and should not be separated from that reality. 

We are not going to get everything right, and I am explicitly asking for your grace as we move forward, do our best, listen to feedback, and correct our course as necessary. 

We do not have a list of all the steps we are going to take in light of the political landscape right now, as it continues to shift rapidly. We know this is not a particularly satisfying answer in light of the many concerns that we have heard from you about our members who need to enter the United States and what they might encounter trying to cross the border. We are not minimizing those concerns. The situation is frightening, and we encourage our members to make the best decisions for themselves even if that means that we will miss you at our convention. At the same time we are committed to not cancelling the in-person Worldcon as some have suggested because it is even more important than ever to gather with those who are able to do so to discuss our theme and celebrate the power of SFF to imagine different societies. 

We are investigating what concrete actions we can take and offer to our members. Our Code of Conduct, Diversity Commitment, and Anti-Racism Statement provide the guidelines we are using in making these determinations. We would also like to remind people about what we are already doing.  

First, we have in place a Virtual Membership for people who determine that they are no longer safe traveling to the U.S or cannot attend for other reasons. As part of our program, we are partnering with groups from around the world to bring virtual panels to the shoulder hours (before and after in-person programming) every day of the convention to broaden our streaming offerings and include members from other parts of the world. We are actively working on this part of our virtual event and more announcements will be forthcoming. You also can  participate in the Hugo Awards online – voting on the final ballot, and discussing Finalists with each other on our social media or in your own bookclubs. There is also the on-line Business Meeting as has been previously announced.  

Second, building on the work of other Worldcons and conventions, we will be having Safer Spaces Lounges available for members of marginalized communities who attend the convention in person. These spaces will be marked on convention maps.

Third, we will be drafting a resource guide to collate many of the wonderful resources that local organizations have already put together. In the interim, the ACLU of Washington has several Know Your Rights publications available, as does Northwest Immigrants Rights Project for individuals concerned about their rights while traveling.  

Fourth, we will be fundraising for the following nonprofit organizations at the convention: Books to Prisoners, The Bureau of Fearless Ideas, and Hugo House. All of these organizations do important work to promote literacy education in the Seattle area and help build community resilience.  

Finally, the political landscape is changing daily and impacting all of us in differing, but profound ways. Our staff is not immune. Many of our staff are deeply, personally impacted by the actions of the U.S. president, as his bigoted and hateful orders target our shared humanity. Many of us are federal employees who are now navigating what is happening to the civil service, terminations from our careers, and extreme uncertainty about our livelihoods. Many of us are also still dealing with the impact of the Los Angeles fires, Hurricane Helene, tornadoes, and other recent severe weather events on our families, loved ones, and friends. As citizens in the U.S. and around the world, we have many concerns, which are probably similar to yours. We all care deeply about our community and about Worldcon and are working diligently to navigate all of the waters that surround us, but we are also human with all the fallibility, blind spots, and competing demands on our time that entails. 

This is a time to support each other. If you have questions about how we can support you in deciding about your Worldcon attendance, please reach out to chair@seattlein2025.org.  

In solidarity,
Kathy Bond
(she/her)
Chair Seattle Worldcon 2025 

The Infinite Mickey.

Karli and I attended a matinee show of Mickey 17 this weekend, and I think she summarized our reaction well: if you're curious about the film, by all means go, but if you're on the fence, don't bother.

Why the mixed recommendation?  Mickey 17 is undeniably an interesting movie with a satisfying conclusion, the performances are good right across the board - Robert Pattinson in particular does a notably excellent job as the Mickeys, and Mark Ruffalo's colony leader Kenneth Marshall savagely channels Donald Trump at his worst  - but somehow, it fails to break through into brilliance. 

For anyone unfamiliar with the premise, Mickey Barnes is an affable if misguided loser, suffering from longterm guilt over his perceived responsibility for his mother's death in a car accident.

Hoping to escape from a loan shark with a fetishistic interest in brutally punishing borrowers who get behind on their payments, Mickey and his exploitive friend Timo (an epically underutilized Steven Yeun) attempt to get seats on the next interstellar colonization ship leaving Earth. Timo manages to bluff his way into a shuttle pilot job, but Mickey, lacking in any kind of skills or talents, unwittingly signs up to be an Expendable without reading any of the small print. 

As an Expendable, Mickey's body is scanned and his memories recorded so that a duplicate Mickey can be created every time he dies in the line of duty - and he dies a lot. He is callously treated as completely disposable, being used as a living guinea pig for the effects of solar radiation, and as a test subject for dangerous allergens (and fatally experimental iterations of possible vaccines) on Niflheim, the new colony planet.

His only solace is his girlfriend Nasha, played by Naomi Ackie.  Nasha is a member of the mission's security team, and the only person on the ship who treats him like a human being. 

Things change for the 17th Mickey when he is reported as dead and an 18th Mickey is printed*, when in fact Mickey 17 has been saved from an icy death by Niflheim's grublike indigenous species, the Creepers. Co-existing duplicates are forbidden by law, and both Mickeys are now under a death sentence as the colony goes to war with the Creepers.

The original concept isn't unique - I can think of three or four different novels that feature disposable duplicates, with the Cuckoo Saga series by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson being the closest in spirit to Mickey 17 in that the tachyon duplicates in their stories are tasked with terminal assignments. 

Without giving away too much, I would have ended the story differently.**  The movie returns Mickey's individuality at the end, whereas I would have had him embrace his multiplicity: in my version, Mickey would use the duplication technology to create hundreds of Mickeys - an army of Mickeys, if you will - who unite to defeat Marshall and his loyalists and bring stability and equality to the colony.

The final scenes would show Mickeys everywhere, a valued part of the settlement and a key part of its now-peaceful relationship with the Creepers.  The film would end with a small group of Mickeys in white lab coats observing the scientist most cruel in his treatment of earlier Mickeys, as he nervously explores an unstable icy catacomb under their supervision - what goes around, comes around.

 - Sid

* One of the running gags in the film is that each replacement copy of Mickey is literally printed, using a machine that deliberately evokes the jerky rhythm of early dot-matrix printers.

** Is there a technical term for the opposite of a spoiler - ie, telling people something that didn't happen in a movie? 

Because really, how hard is it to come up with ten ways to kill someone?

I'm looking forward to seeing Mickey 17, the new film by Oscar-winning South Korean director Bong Joon Ho. (Genre fans will know Bong as the director of The Host and Snowpiercer.  Everyone else will know him from Parasite.)

For readers unfamiliar with the film's premise, the titular Mickey is an Expendable, a human guinea pig who dies repeatedly as part of an interstellar colonization project, whose brain is recorded and imprinted onto a new copy of his body, death after death after death...until one time when the previous Mickey isn't actually dead yet.  Hijinks ensue, as they say.

However, I was a little confused by the title, given that the script is based on a 2022 novel by Edward Ashton titled Mickey 7*.  

When questioned on this unexpected alteration, Bong provided a very simple explanation:

I killed him 10 more times, that’s why we changed it.

Well, there you go, asked and answered.  Moving on...

 - Sid

* But not a lot confused - after all, Bladerunner is the title of a complete different novel than the one that the film is based on.