Think of your favorite fantasy or science fiction novel. You’ll know the author and title, of course. But can you think of its editor or publisher?
In publishing, the people who work behind the scenes rarely get their due. But on Oct. 1, 2024, at least, one industry pioneer got the limelight. On that day, PBS aired “Judy-Lynn del Rey: The Galaxy Gal,” the first episode of its new documentary series “Renegades,” which highlights little-known historical figures with disabilities.
A woman with dwarfism, Judy-Lynn del Rey was best known for founding Del Rey Books, a science fiction and fantasy imprint that turned fantasy in particular into a major publishing category.
As a scholar of fantasy literature, I had the good fortune to serve as research consultant for the PBS project. Due to time constraints, however, the episode could tell only half of del Rey’s story, passing over how she affected science fiction and fantasy themselves.
Judy-Lynn del Rey, you see, had very clear notions on what kind of stories people wanted to buy. For some critics, she also committed the unforgivable sin of being right.
The Mama of ‘Star Wars’
Over the course of her career, del Rey earned a reputation as a superstar editor among her authors. Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” called her the “most brilliant editor I ever encountered,” and Philip K. Dick said she was the “greatest editor since Maxwell Perkins,” the legendary editor of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
She got her start, though, working as an editorial assistant – in truth, a “gofer” – for the most lauded science fiction magazine of the 1960s, Galaxy. There she learned the basics of publishing and rose rapidly through the editorial ranks until Ballantine Books lured her away in 1973.
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Soon thereafter, Ballantine was acquired by publishing giant Random House, which then named del Rey senior editor. Yet her first big move was a risky one – cutting ties with Ballantine author John Norman, whose highly popular “Gor” novels were widely panned for their misogyny.
Del Rey’s acquisition of the rights to ‘Star Wars’ was a boon for Ballantine. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Nonetheless, del Rey’s mission was to develop a strong backlist of science fiction novels that could hook new generations of younger readers, not to mention adults. One early success was her “Star Trek Log” series, a sequence of 10 novels based on episodes of “Star Trek: The Animated Series.”
This savvy gamble led to years of lucrative tie-in products for Ballantine such as calendars, art books, sketchbooks, the Star Wars Intergalactic Passport and, of course, more novels set in the Star Wars universe – so many different tie-ins, in fact, that del Rey dubbed herself the “Mama of Star Wars.”
Afterward, she became someone who, as reporter Jennifer Crighton put it, radiated “with the shameless glee of one of the Rebel forces, an upstart who won.”
A big player in big fiction
Del Rey’s tendencies as an editor were sometimes criticized – often by competitors who could not match her line’s success – for focusing too much on Ballantine’s bottom line. But she also chose to work within the publishing landscape as it actually existed in the 1970s, rather than the one she only wished existed.
In his book “Big Fiction,” publishing industry scholar Dan Sinykin calls this period the “Conglomerate Era,” a time when publishing houses – usually small and family run – were being consolidated into larger corporations.
One benefit of this shift, however, was greater corporate investment in the industry, which boosted print runs, marketing budgets, author advances and salaries for personnel.
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Ballantine’s parent company, Random House, was also known as an industry leader in free speech, thanks to the efforts of legendary CEOs Bennett Cerf and Robert L. Bernstein.
Accordingly, Random House gave their publishing divisions, including Ballantine, immense creative autonomy.
And when del Rey was finally given her own imprint in 1977, she took her biggest risk of all: fantasy.
The Del Rey era
In prior decades, fantasy had a reputation for being unsellable – unless, of course, your name was J.R.R. Tolkien, or you wrote Conan-style barbarian fiction. Whereas the top science fiction magazines often had distinguished runs, fantasy magazines often folded due to lack of sales.
The popular film version of ‘The Princess Bride’ was aided by del Rey’s earlier advocacy for reissuing the novel. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
In 1975, though, del Rey hired her husband, Lester del Rey, to develop a fantasy line, and when Del Rey Books launched two years later, it landed major successes with bestsellers such as Terry Brooks’ “The Sword of Shannara” and Stephen R. Donaldson’s “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.” Yet even though Lester edited the fantasy authors, Judy-Lynn oversaw the imprint and the marketing.
Today, most people know the 1987 film, but the movie originated as a much earlier novel by William Goldman. The original 1973 edition, however, sold poorly. It might have faded into obscurity had del Rey not been determined to revive Ballantine’s backlist.
She reissued “The Princess Bride” in 1977 with a dazzling, gate-folded die-cut cover and a new promotional campaign, without which the novel – and the film – might never have found its later success.
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Accolades accumulate
Thanks to these efforts, Del Rey Books dominated genre publishing, producing more bestselling titles through 1990 than every other science fiction and fantasy publisher combined. Yet despite complaints that the imprint prioritized commercial success over literary merit, Del Rey authors earned their fair share of literary accolades.
The prestigious Locus Poll Award for best science fiction novel went to Del Rey authors Julian May and Isaac Asimov in 1982 and 1983. Other Locus awardees include Patricia A. McKillip, Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Barbara Hambly.
Barry Hughart’s “Bridge of Birds” was one of two winners for the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and won the Mythopoeic Society Award in 1986. Even more impressively, Del Rey ran away with the Science Fiction Book Club Award during that prize’s first nine years of existence, winning seven of them. The imprint’s titles also won three consecutive August Derleth Fantasy Awards – now called the British Fantasy Award – from 1977 through 1979.
Yet despite these accolades, Del Rey’s reputation continued to suffer from its own commercial success. Notably, Judy-Lynn del Rey was never nominated for a Hugo Award for best professional editor while she was alive. When she died in 1986, del Rey was belatedly voted for a posthumous award, but her husband, Lester, refused to accept it, saying that it came too late.
Although the current narrative continues to be that Del Rey Books published mainly formulaic mass-market fiction in its science fiction and fantasy lines, the time may be ripe to celebrate the foresight and iconoclasm of a publisher who expanded speculative fiction beyond the borders of a small genre fandom.
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Many film historians see ‘Jaws’ as the first true summer blockbuster.
Steve Kagan/Getty ImagesJared Bahir Browsh, University of Colorado Boulder
“Da, duh.”
Two simple notes – E and F – have become synonymous with tension, fear and sharks, representing the primal dread of being stalked by a predator.
And they largely have “Jaws” to thank.
Fifty years ago, Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster film – along with its spooky score composed by John Williams – convinced generations of swimmers to think twice before going in the water.
As a scholar of media history and popular culture, I decided to take a deeper dive into the staying power of these two notes and learned about how they’re influenced by 19th-century classical music, Mickey Mouse and Alfred Hitchcock.
The first summer blockbuster
In 1964, fisherman Frank Mundus killed a 4,500-pound great white shark off Long Island.
After hearing the story, freelance journalist Peter Benchley began pitching a novel based on three men’s attempt to capture a man-eating shark, basing the character of Quint off of Mundus. Doubleday commissioned Benchley to write the novel, and in 1973, Universal Studios producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown purchased the film rights to the novel before it was published. The 26-year-old Spielberg was signed on to be the director.
Tapping into both mythical and real fears regarding great white sharks – including an infamous set of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore in 1916 – Benchley’s 1974 novel became a bestseller. The book was a key part of Universal’s marketing campaign, which began several months before the film’s release.
Starting in the fall of 1974, Zanuck, Brown and Benchley appeared on a number of radio and television programs to simultaneously promote the release of the paperback edition of the novel and the upcoming film. The marketing also included a national television advertising campaign that featured emerging composer Williams’ two-note theme. The plan was for a summer release, which, at the time, was reserved for films with less than stellar reviews.
TV ads promoting the film featured John Williams’ two-note theme.
Films at the time typically were released market by market, preceded by local reviews. However, Universal’s decision to release the film in hundreds of theaters across the country on June 20, 1975, led to huge up-front profits, sparking a 14-week run as the No. 1 film in the U.S.
Many consider “Jaws” the first true summer blockbuster. It catapulted Spielberg to fame and kicked off the director’s long collaboration with Williams, who would go on to earn the second-highest number of Academy Award nominations in history – 54 – behind only Walt Disney’s 59.
The film’s beating heart
Though it’s now considered one of the greatest scores in film history, when Williams proposed the two-note theme, Spielberg initially thought it was a joke.
But Williams had been inspired by 19th and 20th century composers, including Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky and especially Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” In the “Jaws” theme, you can hear echoes of the end of Dvorak’s symphony, as well as the sounds of another character-driven musical piece, Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.”
“Peter and the Wolf” and the score from “Jaws” are both prime examples of leitmotifs, or a musical piece that represents a place or character.
The varying pace of the ostinato – a musical motif that repeats itself – elicits intensifying degrees of emotion and fear. This became more integral as Spielberg and the technical team struggled with the malfunctioning pneumatic sharks that they’d nicknamed “Bruce,” after Spielberg’s lawyer.
As a result, the shark does not appear until the 81-minute mark of the 124-minute film. But its presence is felt through Williams’ theme, which some music scholars have theorized evoke the shark’s heartbeat.
Mechanical issues with ‘Bruce,’ the mechanical shark, during filming forced Steven Spielberg to rely more on mood and atmosphere.Screen Archives/Moviepix via Getty Images
Sounds to manipulate emotions
Williams also has Disney to thank for revolutionizing character-driven music in film.
The two don’t just share a brimming trophy case. They also understood how music can heighten emotion and magnify action for audiences.
Although his career started in the silent film era, Disney became a titan of film, and later media, by leveraging sound to establish one of the greatest stars in media history, Mickey Mouse.
When Disney saw “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, he knew that sound would be the future of film.
On Nov. 18, 1928, “Steamboat Willie” premiered at Universal’s Colony Theater in New York City as Disney’s first animated film to incorporate synchronized sound.
Unlike previous attempts to bring sound to film by having record players concurrently play or deploying live musicians to perform in the theater, Disney used technology that recorded sound directly on the film reel.
It wasn’t the first animated film with synchronized sound, but it was a technical improvement to previous attempts at it, and “Steamboat Willie” became an international hit, launching Mickey’s – and Disney’s – career.
The use of music or sound to match the rhythm of the characters on screen became known as “Mickey Mousing.”
“King Kong” in 1933 would deftly deploy Mickey Mousing in a live action film, with music mimicking the giant gorilla’s movements. For example, in one scene, Kong carries away Ann Darrow, who’s played by actress Fay Wray. Composer Max Steiner uses lighter tones to convey Kong’s curiosity as he holds Ann, followed by ominous, faster, tones as Ann escapes and Kong chases after her. In doing so, Steiner encourages viewers to both fear and connect with the beast throughout the film, helping them suspend disbelief and enter a world of fantasy.
Mickey Mousing declined in popularity after World War II. Many filmmakers saw it as juvenile and too simplistic for the evolving and advancing film industry.
When less is more
In spite of this criticism, the technique was still used to score some iconic scenes, like the playing of violins in the shower as Marion Crane is stabbed in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”
Spielberg idolized Hitchcock. A young Spielberg was even kicked off the Universal lot after sneaking on to watch the production of Hitchcock’s 1966 film “Torn Curtain.”
Although Hitchcock and Spielberg never met, “Jaws” clearly exhibits the influence of Hitchcock, the “Master of Suspense.” And maybe that’s why Spielberg initially overcame his doubts about using something so simple to represent tension in the thriller.
Steven Spielberg was just 26 years old when he signed on to direct ‘Jaws.’Universal/Getty Images
The use of the two-note motif helped overcome the production issues Spielberg faced directing the first feature length movie to be filmed on the ocean. The malfunctioning animatronic shark forced Spielberg to leverage Williams’ minimalist theme to represent the shark’s ominous presence in spite of the limited appearances by the eponymous predatory star.
As Williams continued his legendary career, he would deploy a similar sonic motif for certain “Star Wars” characters. Each time Darth Vader appeared, the “Imperial March” was played to set the tone for the leader of the dark side.
As movie budgets creep closer to a half-billion dollars, the “Jaws” theme – and the way those two notes manipulate tension – is a reminder that in film, sometimes less can be more.
Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The culinary world is reeling from the sudden and tragic loss of beloved chef and television personality Anne Burrell, who was found dead in her Brooklyn, New York, home on the morning of Tuesday, June 17. She was 55 years old.
According to a statement from the New York City Police Department, officers from the 76th Precinct responded around 7:50 a.m. to a report of “an unconscious and unresponsive 55-year-old female.” Emergency medical services arrived shortly after and pronounced her dead at the scene. While police did not formally release her name pending family notification, public records and the address provided in the police statement confirm that the residence belongs to Burrell.
A cause of death has not yet been determined. The city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy to clarify the circumstances surrounding her passing.
Burrell’s representatives confirmed the heartbreaking news in a release obtained by People magazine, marking a devastating moment for fans, friends, and fellow chefs who admired her bold personality, bright red hair, and fierce culinary skills.
Best known for her work on Food Network shows like Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, Worst Cooks in America, and Iron Chef America, Burrell was a standout in the food television landscape. A classically trained chef and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, she blended expertise with an infectious enthusiasm that made her a favorite among viewers and a mentor to many aspiring cooks.
Tributes from across the food and entertainment communities have begun pouring in as the industry mourns the loss of one of its brightest and most unique stars. More details are expected in the coming days as the investigation continues and the autopsy results are released.
Anne Burrell’s legacy will live on through the meals she inspired, the careers she helped shape, and the joy she brought to countless kitchens around the world.
STM Daily News is a vibrant news blog dedicated to sharing the brighter side of human experiences. Emphasizing positive, uplifting stories, the site focuses on delivering inspiring, informative, and well-researched content. With a commitment to accurate, fair, and responsible journalism, STM Daily News aims to foster a community of readers passionate about positive change and engaged in meaningful conversations. Join the movement and explore stories that celebrate the positive impacts shaping our world.
This year saw a staggering 130,145 attendees—a new high for the event . That massive turnout speaks volumes about the guest lineup, community spirit, and post-pandemic resurgence.
Legendary Panels & Guest Moments
The Lord of the Rings crew—Sean Astin, Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd—dazzled with hilarious anecdotes and audience games .
Simon Pegg delivered a masterclass in storytelling, offering behind‑the‑scenes glimpses into franchises like Star Trek and Mission: Impossible.
Anthony Daniels (C‑3PO) meandered through the crowd answering fan questions, bringing warmth and surprise to his panel .
Community-Led Panels Shine
Fan-run sessions like the raucous Jar-Jarpardy (a Stars Wars–themed trivia panel) won praise for creativity and laughs .
The Not-So-Great
⏰ Panel Time Chaos
Hayden Christensen’s much-anticipated Q&A started an hour late. While some panels remained on schedule, this one left attendees waiting negatively .
🚶♂️ Overcrowded Vendor Hall
The surge in attendance made vendor aisles nearly impassable at peak times—great for sales, tough on foot traffic .
👮♀️ Security Tightening & Restrictions
Enhanced security measures limited cosplay props and banned food/drink items. The 18+ late-night parties, now with stricter checks, were less freewheeling and more controlled .
Mixed Bag Moments
Hayden Christensen Mania
Christensen’s debut appearance in Phoenix was a huge draw. But the set-up—separate ticketing, line-clearing between panels, and delays—created a mixed fan experience .
Heavy Panels Hit a Somber Note
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, present only on Friday, steered his panel toward serious topics like AI’s impact on film and personal reflections—a shift in tone after more light-hearted sessions .
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Final Thoughts
Phoenix Fan Fusion 2025 soared to new heights with record attendance, crowd-pleasing celebrity panels, and electrifying fan energy. But with that growth came growing pains—long waits, tight crowds, and tighter rules.
If history holds, 2026 will bring refinements—better crowd control, smoother scheduling, and more fan-focused fun. Until then, here’s to the highs, the quirks, and the memories made under the Phoenix convention center lights!
Looking for an entertainment experience that transcends the ordinary? Look no further than STM Daily News Blog’s vibrant Entertainment section. Immerse yourself in the captivating world of indie films, streaming and podcasts, movie reviews, music, expos, venues, and theme and amusement parks. Discover hidden cinematic gems, binge-worthy series and addictive podcasts, gain insights into the latest releases with our movie reviews, explore the latest trends in music, dive into the vibrant atmosphere of expos, and embark on thrilling adventures in breathtaking venues and theme parks. Join us at STM Entertainment and let your entertainment journey begin! https://stmdailynews.com/category/entertainment/
Hal Machina is a passionate writer, blogger, and self-proclaimed journalist who explores the intersection of science, tech, and futurism. Join him on a journey into innovative ideas and groundbreaking discoveries!
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