Pixel Scroll 2/9/16 The Pixels That Bloom In The Scrolls (Tra La)

(1) DOC MARTIN. Texas A&M will give George R.R. Martin an honorary degree reports the Houston Chronicle.

Texas A&M University is set to give “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin the latest link in his maester’s chain this week, as the school offers up an honorary degree to the author.

Martin has a long history with A&M, which has been home to his writings since long before his books were picked up by HBO.

Martin, who calls himself a pack rat, regularly sends copies of just about everything he’s written, produced or been given, from games and calendars based on the series to replica swords and war hammers, to Texas A&M University’s Cushing Memorial Library and Archives. The library boasts a world-renowned sci-fi and fantasy collection and Martin’s works are its crown jewel.

Martin last year gave A&M a first-edition copy of “The Hobbit,” saying at the time that the Cushing library has one of the best science fiction and fantasy collections in the nation. The author acknowledged that A&M — “a place where people shout ‘yeehaw’ a lot, and of course lately (was) known for Johnny Football” — might seem like a strange place for such a collection.

(2) THE MEDIUM IS THE MIXED MESSAGE. Variety reports Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller has been named showrunner and co-creator of CBS’ new Star Trek series. Who suspected Hannibal would be the proving grounds for the next executive at the helm of the Trek franchise?

The new series is set to bow on CBS in January 2017, then move to CBS’ All Access digital subscription service. It will be the first original series to launch on a broadcast network but air primarily on an SVOD service.

“Bringing ‘Star Trek’ back to television means returning it to its roots, and for years those roots flourished under Bryan’s devoted care,” said Kurtzman. “His encyclopedic knowledge of ‘Trek’ canon is surpassed only by his love for Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic future, a vision that continues to guide us as we explore strange new worlds.”

The creative plan is for the series to introduce new characters and civilizations, existing outside of the mythology charted by previous series and the current movie franchises.

(3) WHO COUNTS. The Den of Geek tells us Steven Moffat has confirmed the length of the runs for the next seasons of his two BBC shows.

Speaking after receiving his OBE the other day, Steven Moffat confirmed that Doctor Who series 10 will have 13 episodes. And Sherlock series 4 will have three episodes.

(4) HMM. Anthony at the Castalia House Blog puts his finger on a problem with the Potterverse in “So You Made It Into Hufflepuff”.

Hufflepuff is noteworthy in the Harry Potter series for being supremely un-noteworthy (“A Very Potter Musical” famously lampshades this after the end of its opening number “Gotta Get Back to Hogwarts” with the immortal line “What the hell is a Hufflepuff?”). The Hufflepuff we know the best is Cedric Diggory. Diggory is a fine character, but he probably doesn’t even rank in the series’ top twenty most interesting. Even in “Goblet of Fire” we just don’t learn that much about him, except that he’s apparently an honorable man, a hard worker, and a capable wizard. Besides that – nothing.

Vox Day, pointing to the post in “The Shortchanging of House Hufflepuff”, extended the critique —

I could never figure out what Hermione was doing in Gryffindor when she was an obvious Ravensclaw. I mean, being intelligent and studious to the point of being annoying about it was the primary aspect of her personality.

(5) SORT YOURSELF. Moviepilot reports “Harry Potter Fans Are Officially Being Sorted Into Hogwarts Houses & They’re Not Happy About It!”

For now though, it seems that J.K. wants to take us back to basics. Over the weekend an official Sorting Hat quiz went live on Pottermore — and unlike the numerous ones you’ve probably taken over the years, this is the real deal because it was developed by the author herself.

 

The quiz determines whether you’re in Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw by asking you a series of personality questions and by placing you in a number of unique scenarios.

….Naturally, most Potter fans jumped at the chance to try out this new sorting utility — yet instead of uncontrollable excitement, many were overcome with a deep sense of despair. Indeed, when the quiz dropped, the Internet became awash with staunch criticism. Why? Well, because most people were mad they didn’t get into the house they felt they deserved to be in.

(6) A SECOND OPINION. Or if you think it’s too much bother to register at Pottermore, you can always take this quickie quiz at Moviepilot“The Ultimate Harry Potter Sorting Quiz Will Prove Which Hogwarts House You Belong In”.

“There’s nothing hidden in your head the Sorting Hat can’t see, so try me on and I will tell you where you ought to be!”

I took it and was identified as a Gryffindor. See what a reliable quiz this is?

(7) GERSON OBIT. Scriptwriter Daniel Gerson died February 6, age 49, of brain cancer. Genre credits include Monsters, Inc., Monsters University, and Big Hero 6.

(8) COOPER OBIT. Henry S.F. Cooper Jr., the author of eight books and a writer for The New Yorker, died January 31 at the age of 82.

Mr. Cooper celebrated scientific achievement, addressed scientific failure and demystified what was behind both.

Reviewing his book “Apollo on the Moon” in 1969 in The New York Times, Franklin A. Long, who was the vice president for research at Cornell University, said that Mr. Cooper’s description of an imminent mission to the moon was “remarkably evocative” and that a reader “gets the feel of what it is like to be a crew member in the lunar module.”

Mr. Cooper began his book “Thirteen: The Apollo Flight That Failed” this way: “At a little after 9 Central Standard Time on the night of Monday, April 13, 1970, there was, high in the western sky, a tiny flare of light that in some respects resembled a star exploding far away in our galaxy.”

The flare was caused by a cloud of frozen oxygen — a “tank failure,” as NASA engineers delicately described it — that would cripple the service module and jeopardize the crew’s return to Earth. The story was told in the 1995 film “Apollo 13,” starring Tom Hanks.

Brian Troutwine, in The Huffington Post, called Mr. Cooper’s book “one of the best technical explanations of a catastrophic failure and its resolution ever written.”

He was a descendant of famed author James Fenimore Cooper.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born February 9, 1928 – Frank Frazetta

(10) VISIT OTHER WORLDS. NASA has issued a new series of space tourism posters.

Final_Peg_51_Poster COMP

Each new poster mixes a bit of that reality with an optimistic take on what exploring our solar system might actually look like someday. The poster for Venus calls for visitors to come see the “Cloud 9 Observatory,” which isn’t far off from an idea that’s been thrown around at NASA. The poster for Europa advertises the ability to see underwater life — something that doesn’t feel so far-fetched considering the moon is home to a global subsurface ocean.

(11) RABID PUPPIES. Vox Day has advanced to Rabid Puppies 2016: Best Editor (short-form), and in this category has only one name for his slate, Jerry Pournelle, editor of There Will Be War, Vol. X.

(12) NUMEROUS SUGGESTIONS. George R.R. Martin gave his recommendations for Short Form in “A Rocket For The Editor, Part Two”. He covers quite a few names. Martin also emphasizes that he feels there is an equivalency between last year’s slate makers and advocates for No Award in the Best Editor (Short Form) category.

All that being said… the slates, by whatever means, did throw up some legitimate Hugo-worthy nominees in this category last year, though not as many as in Long Form. One of those stood well above the others, IMNSHO. The Hugo really should have gone to MIKE RESNICK. Resnick has a long and distinguished career as an anthologist, one stretching back decades, and while he has plenty of rockets on his mantle at home, and even more crashed upside down rockets on the shirts he wears at worldcon, he had never been recognized for his work as an editor before. In addition, Resnick had founded a new SF magazine, GALAXY’S EDGE; in an age when the older magazines are struggling just to keep going, starting up a new one is a bold act (maybe a little insane) that deserves applause. But even more than that, Resnick has been a mentor to generations of new young writers, featuring them in his anthologies and now his magazine, advising them, nurturing them, teaching them, even collaborating with them. His “writer babies,” I have heard them called. In a way, Resnick is a one-man Clarion. Finding and nurturing new talent is one of an editor’s most important tasks, and Resnick has been doing it, and doing it well, for decades.

He got my Hugo vote. He got a lot of other Hugo votes as well. But not enough to win. As with Long Form, this category went to No Award. The work that the Sad and Rabid Puppies began to wreck this Hugo category was completed by Steve Davidson of AMAZING, Deirdre Saoirse Moan, and the rest of the Nuclear Fans. Resnick was never part of the slates, fwiw. He took no part in the Puppy Wars on either side, preferring to stay above the fray. And he did deserve a Hugo. But guilt by association prevailed, and he was voted down with the rest. A real pity.

Now there are Nuclear Fans, to go along with the other names people get called? And, in the circumstances, a very unfortunate misspelling of Moen’s name?

(13) SHATNER ON NIMOY. Jen Chaney reviews Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship With A Remarkable Man by William Shatner (with David Fisher) in the Washington Post.

Leonard_Book_Jacket_William_Shatner COMPA few years before Leonard Nimoy died last February at age 83, he stopped speaking to William Shatner, his close friend since their many “Star Trek” adventures. As he explains in “Leonard,” his new book about that relationship, Shatner still isn’t sure what caused Nimoy to freeze out his Starship Enterprise other half. “It remains a mystery to me, and it is heartbreaking, heartbreaking,” Shatner writes. “It is something I will wonder about, and regret, forever.”

That revelation, both personal and laden with questions, is very much in keeping with the overall tone of Shatner’s book. At times, the actor recounts his connection to Nimoy with great candor and reverence, particularly when he discusses how that bond solidified after the death of Shatner’s third wife, Nerine Kidd, who drowned in the couple’s pool in 1999. But readers may wish they got a little more fly-on-the-wall perspective on the lengthy friendship born in a place where few are: on the set of an iconic sci-fi TV series. As Shatner says at one point, “When I think about Leonard, my memories are emotional more than specific.” His memories often read that way, too.

(14) TREK PARODY ON STAGE. Boldly Go!, a musical parody based upon Star Trek, opens February 26 at Caltech Theater in Pasadena, CA.

Boldly Go 35-captainkirk-sidebarBoldly Go! follows the intrepid crew of the Starship Enterprise, along with some new characters, on an exciting and hilarious adventure.

Assumptions will be confronted, paradigms challenged, alliances tested, and new contacts made – whether for good or ill as yet to be seen. And it’s all set to a side-splitting tour de force of musical mayhem!

While having fun with the sometimes farcical aspects of science fiction and parodying Star Trek, this new show also satirizes the musical theater genre. Boldly Go! is written by brothers Cole Remmen (University of Minnesota Theatre Arts Senior) and Grant Remmen (Caltech theoretical physics graduate student). The Caltech world premiere, featuring a talented cast from the Caltech and Jet Propulsion Lab communities, is being directed by Theater Arts Caltech director Brian Brophy (Star Trek TNG; Shawshank Redemption; PhD Comics 2).

A series of short videos about the production can be viewed at the site.

(15) HARRYHAUSEN CAMEO. John King Tarpinian enthused about Burke & Hare

Watched this Simon Pegg movie yesterday.  Even in period costume most of the actors were recognizable…except one who looked very familiar but I could not put my finger on who he was.  The ending credits identified him as Ray Harryhausen…a pleasant surprise.

Harryhausen can be seen in the closing credits at 1:03.

[Thanks to Brian Z., John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Michael J. Walsh and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Wright.]

249 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/9/16 The Pixels That Bloom In The Scrolls (Tra La)

  1. Wombat, that’s fine. If you like, you can say “I was not terribly impressed with the unevenness of Galaxy’s Edge in 2014.” I even agree with you. But I also agree with GRRM that Mike Resnick deserves applause for boldly starting such a magazine given the current market conditions, and I’m equally underwhelmed due to the unevenness of virtually every other magazine I’ve read lately.

    You can say that Galaxy’s Edge is objectively worse than other small print magazines. You can say – like Lois did – that Resnick’s best editing days are behind him. I don’t agree, since I think he still continues to demonstrate the qualities that have made him a great editor. But that’s fine. We can disagree.

    All I objected to was the fatuous claim that he had been no awarded on the basis of the voters reading and evaluating the 2014 issues of his magazine.

  2. @Cat – I seem to recall that Matthew Foster (Eugie Foster’s husband) advocated No Awarding every category significantly affected by the Puppies on the grounds that the remaining one or two honest candidates wouldn’t have enough competition for it to be fair.

    I’m currently reading Foster’s collection of his blog posts, Welcome to the Doomsphere. He proposed voting No Award any category that did not have two or more non-slate nominees, but also wrote that he broke his own rule in one category.

  3. Loved Sea Change. Didn’t care for anything else I saw Galaxy’s Edge. Wouldn’t nominate anyone for best editor based on Galaxy’s Edge.

    And the Best Editor Hugos are for editing done in the prior year. They are not lifetime achievement awards, nor awards for great love of the genre, no matter how much Brian Z wishes they were, or how hard he finds it to imagine they aren’t.

  4. Lis, I know many people want Best Editor to reflect only the previous year’s work and nothing else. There was even an attempt to amend the Constitution to say more or less that, but in my opinion that amendment inadvertently muddied the waters even more, and it has not been successful in clarifying this issue in the years since 1998.

    The award isn’t for the work. It is for the person. A person can remain a great editor – for all the reasons GRRM enumerated – even if he puts out a couple magazine issues that are fairly thin. And having the courage and tenacity to nurture young writers with a magazine like Galaxy’s Edge deserves applause.

  5. The award is absolutely for the work, not the person. No matter how much you want it to be otherwise, or want to pretend the WSFS constitution supports your fanciful interpretation.

  6. @Brian

    I note that you’ve obviously not read what the WSFS constitution says about the editor awards. I suggest that you familiarise yourself with them, as you’re getting it terribly wrong.

    Regardless, you are of course welcome to your interpretation of what is award worthy. I hope that you will grant the rest of us that same courtesy when we differ.

  7. 3.3.9: Best Editor Short Form. The editor of at least four (4) anthologies, collections or magazine issues (or their equivalent in other media) primarily devoted to science fiction and/or fantasy, at least one of which was published in the previous calendar year.

    It is absolutely an award for the person. Having a recent publication merely indicates that the person is eligible.

    However, there was some wording introduced to the Constitution in 1998 – 27 years after the Best Professional Editor category was first introduced and expectations for the category became established – which I believe has inadvertently muddied the waters.

    3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year.

    I gather that those introducing this amendment generally intended for it to mean that fans would be required to banish from their minds all knowledge of an editor’s past editing, a fan writer’s past fanac, etc., when deciding whether to or not to honor them in a particular year. But the new wording is not clear and unambiguous, since the “best person” editor is not for a work. And even if that were the unambiguous intent, a quick review of the “best person” winners shows that it has not worked out that way in practice.

    And it is not a question of “lifetime achievement.” In reality, the greatness of short form and most especially long form editors can often be discerned by observing their multi-year or even multi-decade relationships with authors and the trajectories of those authors. (One 2014 example that comes to mind is Kary English.)

  8. @Kyra: I also would like a “What Has Gone Before” section at times. Maybe many times.

    @David Goldfarb: ROFLMAO, thanks for that Hufflepuff/Lady Gaga video! 😀 That was a trip!

    @Various: GRRM is being a bit of an ass, which is a shame. I haven’t agreed with everything he’s said over the months, but he’s said some good stuff; but this isn’t some of that good stuff.

    @Cat & @Cheryl S.: I No Awarded a few categories with only one non-Puppy work. I think it’s entirely reasonable to say “this thing competing against nothing (effectively) – no, that’s not a fair win – this category is hosed.” So I did. Will I do that again? Who knows. I didn’t do it for all one-non-Puppy categories last year; it’s a case-by-case thing, for me, as apparently it was for Foster.

  9. Also, the complete 7-book set of Harry Potter is currently on sale on Amazon US for $14.99.

    Oh, excellent deal. I only have those in hardcover at the moment. Thanks for the tip, JJ!

  10. @Brian

    Thanks for that link to Yalow’s comment, where he does note that he, in line with what the rules indicate, nominates and votes based on the works of the year in question, and not some sore of Lifetime Achievement Award.

    Regarding 3.2.1 – it is in place. Just because you disagree with it doesn’t mean that you can get others to ignore it’s existence. For something constructive, I would suggest getting together a proposal to strike it out.

  11. That’s not quite correct. The awards for people are otherwise indicated: they are awards for people. The people are determined to be eligible if they have been active in the field in the past year. How the voter determines whether they are best or not is of course up to the voter.

    And to acknowledge that you can get a much better sense of the skills of an editor by looking at their work over a period of time instead of in a single snapshot is not to insist on a Lifetime Achievement Award.

  12. ” But it resulted in a book that was published in a specific year, and his work in helping to create that book (and all the other books that came out in the right year) are what he’s to be judged on.”

  13. There are a couple of aspects of the voting methods from last year that see to have gotten lost in the sauce.

    1. One reason that I (personally, for myself) crafted my “will not vote for any slated works” method the way that I did was specifically to make it either/or, and to specifically make it a ‘default’ option. For two reasons: First, it makes it about the methodology, not the works, and quite clearly. We don’t need to discuss merit, past history, the lifetime body of work who who is married to your second cousin twice removed. Pure, simple and straight-forward, only requiring one value judgement (slated or not slated).

    2. Across the board because, as we have seen already this year, anything less opens the voter up to questions about what, and how and why they did what they did.
    It’s tough to take a stand like that, I know (had my own issues with GotG but voted it off the ballot anyway (someone here earlier took the position that Edge of Tomorrow was better SF than GotG. If I’d thought that way I’d have had no problems with the category, but over here, anything with Cruise in it is automatically rendered as – at best – fantasy, so it doesn’t count in my book), but taking that stand and sticking to it is the only way to really demonstrate that you are voting on the principal of No Slates will be accepted.

    There are all kinds of ‘good’ reasons – friends, quality, lifetime body of work, the best of a bad lot (not that some of these are only justifiable on an individual basis) for making exceptions, but they’re exceptions and their presence waters down the original intent and opens the voter to questions (valid to some degree or another) about their methods and purposes.

    I also personally believe that doing the same this year is even more important than it was last year, for a variety of reasons (happy to provide offline).

    As for asking people to request removal fro slates to clear the way for consideration: IF the request had been made when asked for (after last year was done, before this year began) it would have been far less of a “political” statement and more of a personal one. In fact, I think it was the only way that one could remain neutral and above the fray. Now it is a different kettle of fish. But I’m still asking.

  14. Platypus is what you get when the Sorting Hat is sick and instead you get the Collation Committee.

    Having poison spurs makes them at least a bit Slytherin-y….

  15. @P J Evans: (Harry Potter at Kobo)

    On the one hand, Kobo isn’t proactively matching the Amazon deal. However, they do have a price match policy (difference + 10%, as store credit) and the Collection does qualify. All you have to do is fill out the form and give ’em a couple of days to verify.

    If I hadn’t already bought the complete set (in en-GB) from Pottermore 1.0, I’d certainly be attracted to this deal. I kind of still am, just to have an electronic en-US set… but I don’t need both.

  16. @Stevie:

    We’ve all heard of Do Not Rescucitate following cardiac and respiratory arrest; one would thought that those who share VD’s views about women should be true to their principles, and insist that they refuse point blank to be resuscitated by one or more women.

    There are people in the US who have refused to allow black doctors and nurses to save the lives of their children.

  17. @Brian Z

    Different people No Awarded the Editor categories for different reasons. Some because they think it’s not appropriate to expect readers to judge an editor. (Nothing to do with either the Puppies or the editors–some people do this every year whether slating is involved or not.) Some (a lot) because the Puppies locked fans’s honest favorites out of both those categories, and they thought running a race whose finalists got there by doping was pointless. Some (a lot) because they had faithfully read all the Puppy stuff in the fiction, fan writer and related work categories, come to the reasonable conclusion that everything else was more of the same, and stopped working so hard to treat an obvious trolling attempt as good faith nominations. And some because they knew Resnick’s work for the qualifying year and didn’t consider it worthy of a Hugo.

    If you’re unhappy that you can’t sort those out, you are talking to the wrong people.

    Also, I’m pretty sure both Mothership Zeta and Beneath Ceaseless Skies are magazines that started up recently. So why the big fanfare over Galaxy’s Edge?

  18. @ Cat, then we agree – few of the people who no awarded Resnick did so on the basis of reading and evaluating his editorial work.

    As for Beneath Ceaseless Skies, you’re in luck – it’s on a “puppy slate”! :p

  19. @Cat

    BCS has been going for several years, but MZ is shiny-new, yes. Uncanny have only just finished their first full year though.

    Incidentally, I recall some people liking Hic Sunt Monstra from Galaxy’s Edge last year (Jim Henley perhaps?). And I liked Sea Change that has been mentioned already, although it didn’t make my long list. As people have been saying above, it’s not like it’s being ignored, or people think it’s actively bad, it’s just there seem to be better regarded venues in people’s opinions.

  20. Brian Z on February 11, 2016 at 5:41 am said:
    few of the people who no awarded Resnick did so on the basis of reading and evaluating his editorial work.

    Was that because Worldcon members don’t appreciate 37 times Hugo nominated and 5 times Hugo winning Mike Resnick’s lifetime of work or was it because he was on a slate?

    When did the goalposts move so that the choice of some Worldcon members to penalise slate voting tactics became invalid?

  21. Another reason people may have put Resnick below No Award is that they had no opportunity of reading and evaluating his editorial work (in the year in question), as none of it was included in the Voter Packet, and it was no longer available on the web.

  22. Hampus: Speaking about dirty wand jokes…

    A++, would read again.

    I am now considering that ebook deal, partly to dump the hardbacks, and partly to run a search-and-replace of choice on them.

  23. Another reason people may have put Resnick below No Award is that they had no opportunity of reading and evaluating his editorial work (in the year in question), as none of it was included in the Voter Packet, and it was no longer available on the web.

    To read and evaluate his editorial work (other than the included “Totaled”), they might have had to pay upwards of three, maybe even four dollars! Faced with such an unspeakable horror, placing his name under No Award was clearly the only viable option.

  24. then we agree – few of the people who no awarded Resnick did so on the basis of reading and evaluating his editorial work.

    So, in addition to not really understanding what the WSFS constitution says, you didn’t really understand what Cat wrote, since that’s not what she said at all. Either you are incapable of reading basic English, or you’re a dishonest lying scumbag. Which is it?

  25. they (or their designated representative) keeps on harping on this “didn’t read” thing.

    (one of many harps played).

    I totally enjoy the implied conclusion that reading those works automatically requires a nomination/the only reason it wasn’t nominated was because it wasn’t read.

    Of course, the only reason the slated works were on the final ballot was because puppies voted for them without reading them.

    Because, of course, if they HAD read them, there is no way possible that even a puppy would have nominated them.

  26. Oh, the courage of starting a magazine in these uncertain times! Courage shared by at least four people I know personally. Yet somehow, their extraordinary courage and love of the genre went unrecognized. O, for a lute of fire and the tongue of a skald, to do honor to such bravery!

    Alas, that courage–extraordinary though it must have been–in Resnick’s case was in 2013, when GE was founded. The courage to actually continue putting out a magazine gets one slightly less time with the skalds. Glory is fleeting, as the ancestors knew, and sometimes we chew our shields in vain.

  27. steve davidson

    Reminds me that on another forum, I responded to someone who was outraged that Tor published X% of all SF books, yet received X+Y% of nominations, with a question of whether that meant every publisher should receive a percentage of nominations exactly equal to their percentage of publications. Sounded, to me, like a prize just for showing up. The reply that got was more sputtering about how PNH was greedy and (I hope you’re all seated) was hoping for his company’s books to get Hugos!

    I’m as shocked as you are.

  28. @steve davidson
    >One reason that I (personally, for myself) crafted my “will not vote for any slated works” method the way that I did was specifically to make it either/or, and to specifically make it a ‘default’ option. For two reasons: First, it makes it about the methodology, not the works, and quite clearly. We don’t need to discuss merit, past history, the lifetime body of work who who is married to your second cousin twice removed. Pure, simple and straight-forward, only requiring one value judgement (slated or not slated).

    The nominations seem to be a complex issue regardless of announced slates. Have you seen Chaos Horizon’s predictions of nominees and winners based on, for example, the Nebula Recommended Reading List and the Locus Recommended Reading List? They’re quite accurate, suggesting these lists function as a slate.

  29. For the record, incidentally, I No-Awarded Mr. Resnick based on the bit where he compared people who said that his good-ol-boy ribbing might not be appropriate for a professional newsletter to Chairman Mao. As one of those people, I didn’t particularly appreciate it, and furthermore, it seems to me that understanding that applying editorial policy is not actually crushing governmental censorship is one of the absolute fundamentals of being an editor. Should he ever come around, I’d be happy to reconsider, but I’ve got no time for editors who don’t know what censorship really means.

    That’s my personal standard, and I don’t require anyone else to share it.
    Of course, it was also my personal vote.

  30. Lela E. Buis: It is the accompanying political call to action — calling for people to vote the ticket for some reasons — that distinguishes a slate from a list of recommendations. There is no such call accompanying the Locus or Nebula lists.

  31. Lela E. Buis,

    The nominations seem to be a complex issue regardless of announced slates. Have you seen Chaos Horizon’s predictions of nominees and winners based on, for example, the Nebula Recommended Reading List and the Locus Recommended Reading List? They’re quite accurate, suggesting these lists function as a slate.

    Or, possibly, the Nebula Recommended Reading List and the Locus Recommended Reading List people are both good at spotting quality work?

    There are thousands of restaurants in (say) Chicago. Only a few show up in Michelin Guides. Oddly, those same restaurants are also disproportionally reviewed and recommended by local newspaper and TV show restaurant reviewers. Why aren’t they reviewing the Burger King next door? I call SLATE! … or, maybe, just a recognition of quality.

    It’s not always slating.

    In fact, if the Locus or Nebula lists actually functioned as a slate, the Puppies wouldn’t have been able to mostly sweep the nominations last year.

  32. @Glyer, Luis, etc.

    Yes, we pretty much settled the definition of “slate”:

    a fine-grained gray, green, or bluish metamorphic rock easily split into smooth, flat pieces (which can sometimes have fossils in it).

    For all the talk about “fans have always played politics” (not to mention “look, they did that bad thing forty years ago, so it’s ok for me to do it now), I think an important distinction was missed: Fans play fan politics (that may resemble mundane politics to some degree but are decidedly not related) and when it comes to institutions that are important to every fan, it has been hands off – except for those couple of times that the clueless and the brainwashed made attempts that were roundly condemned and rejected.

    It does not take a rocket scientist (of which there are many in fandom) to understand that the Hugo Awards have remained un-politicized because nearly everyone recognizes the inevitable (underlined and bolded), I say again, the inevitable consequences. Once it is deemed acceptable to campaign, money (or access to the influence that money provides) will become the sole arbiter of who and what wins the awards.

    And shortly thereafter, the award becomes nothing but a football that the monied interests kick around for gotchya points.

    Historically, the only people in fandom who had any kind of real money were the publishers (magazines first, then books). Most of the people running those shows had been (and mostly still were) fans and they understood the direct connection between using their influence=awards mean nothing.

    Historically, most fans are not counted among the 1, 2, 3 or even ten percenters economically speaking. They too recognized that the Hugo Awards needed to remain free from such influences, if for no other reason than that they could not afford the fight.

    No Slates is not just a complaint about some people putting one over on some other people. It is a fight against corrupting the Hugo Awards process with monied interests.

    The expansion of fandom into demographics that have no experience or appreciation for any of the foregoing makes it doubly important to curtail this now.

  33. @Lela E. Buis

    One thing I would note for the Locus & Nebula Reading Lists – they contain substantially more items than a slate or voting guide would. This year, Locus alone has (stealing from @Mike):

    -28 SF novels, 22 fantasy novels, 19 YA books, 13 first novels;
    -27 collections, 12 original anthologies, 11 reprint anthologies;
    -7 nonfiction books, 18 art books;
    -18 novellas
    -32 novelettes
    -66 short stories

    It’s a very large set, and it’s not at all surprising that there would be some – heck, a great deal of – crossover.

    If this was a slate, it’s a severely diluted one.

  34. Dear Mr. GRRM –

    As to the editor awards – I don’t care. That’s all inside baseball for youse guys. As you point out the pups decide the teams on the field and the fans said “meh”. Their judgment counts – yours does as well but you are only one fan.

    On the other hand, the fans gave Galaxy a Hugo even thought it was listed on the slates. No inside baseball to understand that call, is there?

    As to Deirdre Saoirse Moen, well done.

  35. The Young Pretender Said “I feel comfortable that in the end, I can can keep Teddy’s schemes out and still vote for Hugo finalists that won’t disgrace the award. “

    Yep. I think that is the right conclusion. For me it seems like…

    1. If you like it, rank it.
    2. If it’s puppy poop, leave it off the ballot.
    3. If you don’t know about a slated work, leave it off the ballot.

    If GRRM has some inside knowledge on number 3 – he can vote for it.

  36. Aaron:

    Either you are incapable of reading basic English, or you’re a dishonest lying scumbag. Which is it?

    What, both can’t be true?

    Brian must be happy as a pig in shit these days, he’s getting so much engagement with his dishonesty. Plus, there’s the shit.

  37. On the one hand, Kobo isn’t proactively matching the Amazon deal.

    I didn’t do a deep search for all that. (I also may still have the seven in dead-tree, and they’re not on my list of Want In E-Book.)

  38. @RedWombat @ 7:43 AM: ROFLMAO! Thanks for that. 🙂 Unsurprisingly, you have a way with words even in comment threads.

    @Lela E. Buis: I don’t read based on SFWA’s or Locus’s recs, and I don’t buy that they “function as a slate.” Regardless, it would be pretty odd if there were little overlap on long (quite long; check the Locus list, frex) lists of “hey these are really good.”

  39. Kendall: Oh what the heck: god-stalk!

    Podner, yer gettin’ pretty reckless with them there godstalks, you are.

    Don’t force me ta have ta take ya in. 😉

  40. @Kurt Busiek,
    Unfortunately Stylish doesn’t work on my phone. Also he’s escalated with the namecalling: at my direction but using the 5 minute edit window to change it before it’s permanent. It’s… something.

    ETA: I usually roll my eyes and scroll on.

  41. snowcrash on February 11, 2016 at 9:42 am said:
    @Lela E. Buis

    One thing I would note for the Locus & Nebula Reading Lists – they contain substantially more items than a slate or voting guide would. This year, Locus alone has (stealing from @Mike):

    -28 SF novels, 22 fantasy novels, 19 YA books, 13 first novels;
    -27 collections, 12 original anthologies, 11 reprint anthologies;
    -7 nonfiction books, 18 art books;
    -18 novellas
    -32 novelettes
    -66 short stories

    It’s a very large set, and it’s not at all surprising that there would be some – heck, a great deal of – crossover.

    If this was a slate, it’s a severely diluted one.

    If I put together a list of the 50 most highly regarded and talked about books of the year, I would be disappointed in myself if it didn’t correctly predict at least most of the 6 Hugo nominees. It would be in no way evidence of me having undue influence on the Hugo nomination process.

  42. @JJ:

    Podner, yer gettin’ pretty reckless with them there godstalks, you are.
    Don’t force me ta have ta take ya in.

    Heh, to paraphrase South Park:

    Skeeter: God-stalking, eh? We don’t take kindly to your kind ’round here.

    Some Other Person: Nowww Skeeter, he ain’t doin’ no harm.

  43. Also he’s escalated with the namecalling: at my direction but using the 5 minute edit window to change it before it’s permanent. It’s… something.

    That’s something, all right.

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