Category Archives: Editorial Notes

Great Firewall of China Update

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When Rich Lynch was in China last year he sent an e-mail to tell me that File 770 is blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

But the other day David Klaus tested File770.com at the Greatfirewallofchina.org and it shows my site is now available to Chinese web surfers.

I found that a bit disappointing. What, am I not controversial enough, not a sufficient beacon of liberty, to deserve being blocked anymore?

Fans from my generation will understand when I say – it’s like finding my name was removed from Nixon’s enemies list. (Well, if it had ever been on it.)

[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]

File 770 #161, #162 Available

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The dual October and November 2012 issues of File 770 are now available in PDF from eFanzines.

File 770 #161 is 44 pages, highlighted by “Throw of the Dice,” Taral Wayne’s epic 26-page Renovation and California/Nevada trip report.

File 770 #162 is 34 pages, featuring Keith Stokes’ Chicon 7 report, John Hertz’ coverage of the 2011 Worldcon and Marc Schirmeister’s 14-illo spin on aliens in sf magazine art.

Both issues have Grant Canfield covers, as well as copious art by ATom, Alan Beck, C. Ross Chamberlain, Brad Foster, Alexis Gilliland, Jose Sanchez, Steve Stiles and Taral Wayne.

Top 10 Posts For October 2012

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The sublime: Friends taken and a friend spared.

The ridiculous: Denny’s menu for second breakfast and Iranian excuses for Argo’s box office success.

And the rest of the list: reminds us why we call it science fiction fandom.

Here are the Top 10 posts for October 2012 according to Google Analytics:

1. Lard of the Rings
2. Enter the Facts
3. Faunt Rescued From Bounty
4. Danny Lieberman Passes Away 
5. Phillips: Dave Locke (1944-2012)
6. Benford, Niven Signing Bowl of Heaven
7. Read Like a Pirate Week
8. Tolkien’s Fall of Arthur Coming in 2013
9. Hannes Bok: A Life in Illustration
10. Iran Loves To Hate Argo

Argo, Technorati and Me

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Technorati specializes in the inscrutable business of ranking over a million blogs according to their “authority,” their impact on the blogosphere.

For a long time File 770‘s ranking has been pinned in the 15000 range. Compare that, if you will, to Scalzi’s Whatever. Today it ranks 2187 — but it has been as high as 130.

Ranking 15,000th means showing on the list between such internet luminaries as Slot Car News and Budget Travel Phillipines. No reflected glory there, unlike the day Whatever’s ranking of 401 threw it into a tie with Roger Ebert’s blog.

But for the first few weeks of October, File 770 embarked on a giddy ascent of Technorati’s list that seems to have been directly linked to the worldwide publicity for and immediate popularity of Ben Affleck’s movie Argo.

It’s not like I wrote that much about Argo, or more than the average number of people read those posts, or linked to them. However, I noticed that for many days Technorati had seemingly locked on one of my Argo posts as being File 770′s most recent, though in reality it had that status for a day at most. And while that post was locked on, here’s what was happening to my ranking –

October 9, 2012
Rating of 124
Ranking of 9922

October 10, 2012
Rating of 124
Ranking of 9003

October 16, 2012
Rating of 132
Ranking of 8033

October 17, 2012
Rating of 131
Ranking of 7623

October 18, 2012
Rating of 131
Ranking of 6891

October 19, 2012
Rating of 131
Ranking of 5996

October 24, 2012
Rating of 138
Ranking of 5632
(Between Steve Sailer Sucks and BTB Fitness.)

Then overnight on October 25, File 770 plunged back down the charts to 16413, just one notch above the Ashley Tisdale Fan Site. Apparently the market for Argo-inspired posts had crashed. 

One other peculiarity is that along the way, in addition to my subsidiary rankings for Entertainment (2155), Comics (485), Books (1258) and Science (1837) the system gratuitously added “Politics,” for which I ranked surprisingly well (7977) considering my studious effort to avoid ever touching on the subject.

Nor can I explain why File 770 ranks better among comics blogs than books – all the credit probably belongs to James Bacon for pointing me at his Forbidden Planet blog.

Top 10 Posts For September 2012

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After a Worldcon the Top 10 is usually dominated by the Hugo Awards. Not this year.

Chicon 7’s hoax program track became the lightning rod for an array of complaints about access at the Worldcon. Chicon 7 also was caught up in the heated discussions about sexual harassment at cons – directly, because of linkage to the Readercon story, and indirectly, by the controversy over old attitudes apparent in the historic online exhbit of correspondence from Chicon III.

That’s not to say the Hugos and the other things ordinarily of interest at Worldcons were overlooked completely…

Here are the Top 10 posts for September 2012 according to Google Analytics:

1. Monsters of the Idway
2. Access Issues at Chicon 7
3. Chicon 7 Apologizes for Access Issues
4. Readercon Bans René Walling for 2 Years 
5. 2007 Loss Surprise
6. Overserved at the Drink Tank?
7. 2012 Hugo Winners
8. Chicon 7 and Kate Kligman
9. Not That You Asked
10. Fan Hugos: Random Numbers

Top 10 Posts For August 2012

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Do you detect a trend in File 770’s most-viewed posts this month? What more needs be said?

Here are the Top 10 posts for August 2012 according to Google Analytics:

1. Readercon Bans René Walling for 2 Years
2. Readercon Updates
3. SCA Will Pay $1.3M To Settle Abuse Case
4. Readercon Committee’s Latest Statement
5. Past Masters
6. Mark Plummer Is Not Impressed
7. Chicon 7 Issues Code of Conduct
8. Whoops Factor Three
9. Two Gaiman Plays Coming To Worldcon
10. Steamy Outfits

Top 10 Posts For July 2012

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It took only four days for the lugubrious Readercon story to become File 770’s second most-viewed news post ever. The events triggered an insatiable search news and comment about harassment at sf conventions and, as a byproduct, leading bloggers added this link to their lists. In fact, the Readercon post will shortly overtake the 2010 report of Peter Watts’ suspended sentence, only 60 hits ahead at this writing.

Here are the Top 10 posts for July 2012 according to Google Analytics:

1. Readercon Bans René Walling for 2 Years
2. The Man Who Fact-Checked Ray Bradbury
3. John Picacio’s Experiment
4. Steamy Outfits
5. Never Heard of Him
6. In Space, No One Can Hear You Rot
7. Tarpinian: A Comic-Con Tribute To Ray Bradbury
8. Scalzi Brings ‘Em Back Alive
9. BSFS To Host Writing Workshops
10. Patrick Stewart Carries Olympic Torch

Plenty To Be Humble About

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As soon as I read John Scalzi plans to spend the month of August away from his blog it occurred to me I should volunteer to fill in for him. That’s the least I could do.

John must have known I would respond in that neighborly kind of way because he stopped in the middle of his post and said –

Don’t ask to be a guest blogger. If I want you I will ask you. For serious, y’all.

Wasn’t it thoughtful of him to spare me from writing an unnecessary e-mail? Means I can go straight to working on my post for Whatever. Which, frankly, is a little bit intimidating.

Picture this as the equivalent of Captain Nemo asking you to sit and play something on his pipe organ. Yes, sure, what a privilege! Only I don’t want to end up seated at the console and find the only thing I know how to play on a keyboard is “Chopsticks.”

So I’ll be hard at work writing up the insights from my professional writing career. Like that big $20 sale I once made to Mike Resnick. And… And…

Top 10 Posts For June 2012

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After looking at this list you’ll probably want a “medicine for melancholy.” Ray Bradbury’s death being the reason so many people wanted to read these posts, how appropriate that one of his short story collections bears that title.

The spillover from the world’s interest in Ray’s death helped shape this list as the Bradbury tag suddenly became a hot keyword search. Then, someone in Japan tweeted the links to John King Tarpinian’s photos from three recent Bradbury birthday celebrations and it seemed as if people from every village and hamlet in the islands clicked on them, yielding hundreds of hits apiece. 

While Ray’s passing was sad, Jim Young’s demise was shocking, as it followed only a few days after discovery of a malignant brain tumor

Unexpected and alarming, too,  was Stu Shiffman’s stroke. Fans have rallied around with messages of encouragement for him and support for his partner, Andi Shecter.

Here are the Top 10 posts for June 2012 according to Google Analytics:

1. Jim Young (1951-2012)
2. Ray Bradbury’s 90th Birthday Party
3. Ray Bradbury’s 88th Birthday Party
4. Ray Bradbury’s 89th Birthday Party
5. Ray Bradbury (tag)
6. John King Tarpinian (tag)
7. A LASFSian Remembers Ray Bradbury
8. Earn Free Ebooks at Planet Baen
9. DUFF Will Hold Over Funds
10. Stu Shiffman Hospitalized

The Man Who Fact-Checked Ray Bradbury

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There are things most of us instinctively understand do not belong in appreciations written about people who have recently passed away, assuming we are remembering them as a positive influence in the world. So will somebody please smack Stephen Andrew Hiltner who wrote Fact Checking Ray Bradbury for The Paris Review Daily?

Then came my first real assignment: We were running an interview with Ray Bradbury, and it needed fact-checking. I volunteered.

Ray Bradbury was, by then, eighty-nine years old. He’d had a stroke in 1999, and it showed in the interview manuscript: he misremembered dates, names, years; he attributed books to the wrong authors; the quotes he offered from memory—I remember one in particular from Moby-Dick—were nine-tenths invention. It made for a lot of work.

In the first place, if The Paris Review required precision it should not have been interviewing an 89-year-old stroke victim. Shouldn’t the whole point of the encounter have been to hear from one of our great fantasists? Might as well fact-check Buffalo Bill, Cool Papa Bell or Parson Weems. As the newspaper editor in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance says, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

In the second place, Mr. Hiltner, so what if you fact-checked that forgetful old man? We do not need to hear from you. Did you cash your check? Then shut up about it. Don’t gravy-train that pathetic assignment into another paycheck from The Paris Review for God’s sake.