May 2017

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Roger Joseph Zelazny was born on May 13, 1937, in Euclid, Ohio, USA. Initially, his career as a writer was part time writing short fiction and only in 1965 a cut version of his novel “.. . And Call Me Conrad ” was published in “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction”. In 1966 the novel was published as an integral version as a book with the title “This Immortal”. The novel won the Hugo Award.

In 1965, Roger Zelazny also published the novella “He Who Shapes”, winner of the Nebula Award, which was expanded into the novel “The Dream Master” in 1966. In 1967, Roger Zelazny published the novel “Lord of Light”, who won the Hugo Award.

In 1970, Roger Zelazny published the first book of his fantasy cycle of the Chronicles of Amber “Nine Princes in Amber”. The first five books, published in the 1970s, describe the adventures of Prince Corwin of Amber and are for this reason also called the Corwin series.

Roger Zelazny died on June 14, 1995, because of a cancer that also caused him kidney failure. Some works were published posthumously such as “Psycoshop” in 1998, a novel started by Alfred Bester.

Skull of the Homo naledi nicknamed Neo (Image courtesy John Hawks/University of Wisconsin-Madison/Wits University)

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Three articles published in the journal “eLife” describe as many aspects of the research about Homo nalidi, the hominids discovered in the cave system called Rising Star in South Africa. The announcement of their discovery in September 2015 was accompanied by many questions. New fossils were discovered while the original individuals were dated between 236,000 and 335,000 years, relatively young considering their various primitive features.

Acritarch from the Doushantuo Formation (Image courtesy John Cunningham, University of Bristol)

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An article published in “The Journal of the Geological Society” describes a research on fossils dating back to about 600 million years ago found in the Chinese site of Weng’an. A team of researchers led by the British University of Bristol believes that those might not be some of the oldest remains of animals ever found but algae.

The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad

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The novel “The Iron Dream” by Norman Spinrad was published for the first time in 1972. It won the Prix Tour-Apollo Award.

Adolf Hitler emigrated to the USA after the end of World War I and there he began working as an illustrator for science fiction magazines. After a few years he became a writer and his 1953 novel “The Lord of the Swastika” won the Hugo Prize, a posthumous recognition since Hitler died shortly after its publication.

The novel “The Lord of the Swastika” is set in a post-atomic future where the world is mostly radioactive. The survivors rebuilt at least partially the human civilization but their descendants are mostly mutant. Feric Jaggar is a Trueman born in the Republic of Heldon but his family was exiled. As an adult he returns to his homeland but realizes that the Dominators are in power so he begins a political activity to make Heldon great again by getting rid of the mutants.

Fossil and drawing of Jianianhualong Tengi (Image courtesy Xu, Currie, Pittman et al.)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” describes the study of a feathered dinosaur called Jianianhualong Tengi that lived about 125 million years ago in today’s China, in Liaoning Province. A team of researchers studied this animal that was part of the family of troodontids, dinosaurs with various bird-like features, and is very interesting for its asymmetrical feathers, a feature associated with flight.