C-3PO, Classic Stephen King, and Cheating Relativity!

Plus Some Stellar Moons! To view this email as a web page, go [here.]( [Tor.com Newsletter]( [Forward to a Friend]( GOLDEN GOD [A Reminder That Talking to Ewoks Is the Most Important Thing That Ever Happened in Star Wars]( Return of the Jedi has always been a film with a ragged reputation among Star Wars devotees. We’ve gone back and forth for decades over whether it deserves the ire and frustration aimed in its direction by a certain stripe of fan, but you can’t get around one all-important factor in Star Wars experiences—how old you were for your first viewing of any given installment. Given that, we’re no closer to solving the conundrum of its position at the bottom of many Star Wars movie ranking lists. But Emmet Asher-Perrin is here to talk about what makes Return of the Jedi a brilliant piece of movie myth-making: the awesomeness of C-3PO. [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( THAT'S NO MOON [Five Fantasy Stories in Which The Moon is More Than a Moon]( What is it with moons in fantasy? Is it possible that Earth’s rocky tag-a-long is too boring and barren for us? Fantasy moons need verve, a bit of spice! They can’t simply hang out, endlessly revolving, reflecting the light of whatever sun(s) shine on the magical worlds we hold dear… Join Cole Rush for five of his favorite fictional instances of lunar lunacy and moons that are more than they seem… [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( NEW REREAD! [Dissecting The Dark Descent: Stephen King’s “The Reach,” and Why Reading Order Matters]( In 1987, editor David G. Hartwell embarked on a massive undertaking. Having noticed that a lot of the works that drove horror history appeared to be short stories, he compiled what he felt was a definitive work on shorter horror at the crossroads of the genre. The result was The Dark Descent —meant as an all-encompassing paean to dark fiction, to discuss and outline Hartwell’s own thoughts and definitions of the genre. In a new biweekly series, Sam Reader will revisit each story in the anthology, beginning with the first tale: Stephen King’s “The Reach.” [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( DEFYING PHYSICS [Five Ways SF Writers Sidestep the Problem of Relativity]( Relativity! Extremely well supported by the evidence, and extremely inconvenient for SF authors who want jaunts to the galactic core to be as easy as popping down the road. Given a universe so large that light takes as long as anatomically modern humans have existed to meander across a single galaxy, combined with a very strict speed limit of C, and you face a cosmic reality that makes many stories authors might want to write quite simply physically impossible. Trust James Davis Nicoll to find five instances of authors finding a way around impossible. [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( WISKAYOK PRIDE [Buzz Buzz! Recommended Reading for the Characters of Yellowjackets]( Listen. Not all the characters on Yellowjackets seem like big readers. But that doesn’t scare Maggie Tokuda-Hall. She’s rustled up a recommendation for each of them that she knows would be their next favorite book. Or, if not their favorite book, the book they really need to read. From Pet by Akwaeke Emezi to Victor Lavalle’s The Devil in Silver, she’s so confident in this list that she thinks the teens would like these books even when they aren’t stuck in a cabin with no music or TV or deli meat. [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( NOSTALGIA [Five of the Scariest Scenes From Animated Kids Movies]( There are some people who hear the words “animated film” and automatically (and wrongly!) assume that it’ll be cozy, sanitized fluff. While some animated movies do match that description, fans of animation know that there’s just as much variety in the medium as there is in live-action films. Not only are there countless animated films that aren’t at all child-friendly, but the ones that do cater to younger audiences can be just as artful, intelligent, and potentially even as frightening as their live-action counterparts. In this spirit, Lorna Wallace is here to guide you through five of the most frightening moments in children’s animation. [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( CLOSE READS [All Hail Aunt Nora, Jumanji’s Adultiest Adult]( “When Aunt Nora, played by Bebe Neuwirth, walks into the old Parrish house, it’s rusted and weathered by the years since little Alan Parrish disappeared into a malevolent board game. But Aunt Nora, with charcoal gray beret and unshakeable enthusiasm, sees nothing but potential. She’s planning to turn it into a bed and breakfast, she tells the real estate agent, taking off her gloves and mentally rearranging the furniture. ‘Judy, Peter, come look at this!’ she calls. ‘Is this something, or what?’” Melissa Kagen looks back at the unsung hero of Jumanji, Bebe Neuwirth’s Aunt Nora, and asks an important question: why can’t the poor woman have some fun? [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( TIME TRAVEL TWISTS [Back to the Future Part II Rewrites the Rules of the Blockbuster Sequel]( Four years passed between Back to the Future Part I and Part II, and in the interim, Robert Zemeckis had helmed Who Framed Roger Rabbit . By the time the director got back to pondering the further adventures of Doc and Marty, it seems he and co-writer Bob Gale were not eager to just throw a handful of robots into the Recyclotron and call it a day. Instead, Zemeckis would rely on his talent for leveraging filmic techniques and special effects to create something that doubled down on BTTF’s time-travel concepts while also deconstructing the whole notion of the commercial sequel. Dan Persons shares his thoughts on the second film in the trilogy. [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( ORIGINAL FICTION [“Pretty Good Neighbor” by Jeffrey Ford]( In Jeffrey Ford’s “Pretty Good Neighbor”, there are worse things than a local gangster’s cronies lurking in New Jersey’s wetlands... [Read more]( SHARE THIS: [Publish to Facebook]( [Publish to Twitter]( Follow Tor.com to get updates on all of our original fiction. FOLLOW US: [Follow Us on Facebook]( [Follow Us on Twitter]( [Follow Us on Tumblr]( [Follow Us on Pinterest]( This email was sent by: Macmillan 120 Broadway New York, NY, 10271, US We respect your right to privacy - [view our policy]( Macmillan believes piracy hurts writers, readers and everyone who loves books. Learn more and report suspicious activity [here.]( To subscribe to this or other email communications from Macmillan, please click [here](. Visit our [profile center]( to update your email address and/or other information. 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