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File 770
Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom
A way to keep time from hapening all at once.
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@Jeb Kinnison
Thanks for the link and the photos. When I looked at your report and the photos last night, I did a double-take and thought, “Wow, there’s a woman in a niqab. At WorldCon! It’s really more diverse than I thought.”
Then I looked at the photo again and realised that it wasn’t a woman in a niqab at all but the Heinlein bust covered with a black cloth, which gave me a good laugh.
@Mark
Thanks for the link. Glad y’all enjoyed my post.
@rcade
Thanks for the background on Larry Elmore. I’m not sure why my book omitted him, maybe whoever compiled that book for Taschen (source of most art books I own – there was an outlet bookstore carrying lots of Taschen books in my city until approx. 2000) didn’t care for his work or maybe there were rights issues. And since I’m not a gamer, I wasn’t aware of his name in that context either. However, I googled Larry Elmore during the voting phase and found only a (not very good) Larry Correia cover as a 2015 work and a lot of fantasy art obviously dating from the 1970s/80s.
@Bill
Checking the Library of Congress copyright dates is a bit difficult, if one is outside the US, unless they have an online look-up. And the info I had always said that Captain America debuted in 1941. Marvel seems to think the same. So if there’s a Retro Hugos next year, I’ll happily nominate Captain America #1 and Nightfall and the many other goodies from 1941.
@Bartimaeus: You’re right, I’ve fixed that
I believe it’s a general rule that if a provision has two readings, one of which is unclear and one of which isn’t, then you should choose the reading that gives clear instruction.
I’m not familiar with that as a general rule. Should it be added to the WSFS as a specific rule?
Also, I believe the two readings are equally clear. What is unclear is the supporting data behind one of them — when was CA#1 actually published? Dec 1940, or Jan 1941?
Bill, the people who wrote that rule knew that cover dates were often inaccurate, and that magazines with cover dates in January and February were often physically available the year before. They also knew that the average voter did not have the time, inclination, or resources to track down which magazines in their collection were published in January, and which ones in December, so for administrative convenience and to avoid being unfair to the voters they decided to go by cover date.
If they’d wanted the rule to work they way you seem to think it should, they would have written it differently.
Bill: No, because in my reading of the rules, in dated periodicals, such as Captain America #1, the cover date is explicitly what overrules copyright date, instead of the publication date. And in other works, one can apply for a copyright years before something is actually published, but the publication date is what determines eligibility. By my reading, Captain America #1 would be eligible for a Retro Hugo next year (if the WWII Hugo provision was in effect), or in 26 years (ditto), not this past year.
I’ll rephrase in hopes of fewer tangles:
People have and do copyright things that don’t see the light of publication for years and years later. Despite this, first publication date is still what counts for the Hugos. When it comes to dated periodicals, it’s not the publication date that’s stated to supersede copyright date, but rather cover date. So by my reading, for dated periodicals like comics, the cover date is the ruling date.
@Cora
Checking the Library of Congress copyright dates is a bit difficult, if one is outside the US, unless they have an online look-up.
It is difficult to do even if you live in the U.S. Some volumes that summarize registration are online (as the one I linked), some records are online at the Copyright Office. They can’t be assumed to be complete, or to have accurate indexes. They are subject in some cases to errors in OCR and may be difficult to search. And they are for the most part, summaries — the actual forms filled out by copyright holders are not online at all, and they have more data than what is online. If you really need to know (are suing an infringer, for example), you have to go and search in person, or pay someone to do it for you.
And the info I had always said that Captain America debuted in 1941. Marvel seems to think the same. They are all using the cover date as a proxy for when it actually appeared. Which is understandable. I am only suggesting that there may be a more accurate way of determining when it debuted, one that might lead to a date of 1940.
Gray Lensman, for retro-Hugo purposes, is treated as a 1940 work because the last installment was in the Jan 1940 issue of Astounding. But all of the installments were published in 1939.
If publication date is most important (and as I read the constitution as a whole, I think it is), Gray Lensman was a 1939 work and was miscategorized. If simplicity in administration is most important (and I can certainly see the argument for that), they got it right.
So if there’s a Retro Hugos next year, I’ll happily nominate Captain America #1 and Nightfall and the many other goodies from 1941.
@PhilRM: no, the rouge planet is obvious where the infamous Rouge Queen(*) lives. And you understate Mars, which a 1959 movie tells us is une Planète rouge en colère
(*) I am certain I’ve seen this cover (typo’d from de Camp), but ISFDB doesn’t show it; possibly the typo was spine-only, or possibly they’re missing this edition (none of the covers look right). This was a true typo, not like the infamous Beggars in Spam (a misreading caused by a overwrought typeface).
With regard to the “publication date versus cover date” debate, I found this posted by Kevin Standlee:
http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/1552143.html
I also know that, when I was subscribing to the various magazines, the January and February issues arrived in November and December of the previous year, but were eligible for the Hugos based on cover date as opposed to date made available. That would make Captain America #1 a 1941 publication based on the cover date per Hugo rules.
I’m still a bit miffed that Prince Valiant wasn’t nominated for Best Graphic Novel in the Retro-Hugos. The art was superior to anything else during that time, possible exception Flash Gordon. And the storyline, the plot, everything was on a total different level than for the superhero comics (Batman, The Spirit, Captain Marvel, Captain America) that took their first stumbling steps.
I shall continue to grumble about this in quiet. *grumble grumble*
I’m looking at a copy of “Rogue/Rouge Queen” from Bluejay Books and Chip Hitchcock’s surmise is correct: the Cover is okay, the Spine is typoed.
@Chip Hitchcock: Mon Dieu!
That’s all I found too, and I didn’t know of it when I cast my Hugo vote.
It’s not a Hugo-caliber cover in my view. I wouldn’t put it in the top 50 artworks Elmore has created.
It’s generally true that the eligibility of material appearing in magazines or comics is eligible for the date on the cover. This is due to the fact that magazines and comics are printed and distributed ahead of the date on the cover so they’ll be in stores on that date. So an issue dated January 1940 that was printed and shipped in November 1939 is eligible in 1940.
I’m sure Kevin will be along shortly if I’m wrong. 😉
HI MIKE!
Excellent roundup, Cora.
“Invisible Library” — 2015 UK, 2016 US, but how does that relate to eligibility for a Worldcon in neither of those countries? Do we need a ruling, or is that covered? (please don’t make me look at the Hugo rules again this month)
I think the kids didn’t get “That Only a Mother” because they don’t remember the Cold War. Everything was just peachy in the 50s, except we all might be wiped out of existence any minute. Duck and cover, Beav and Wally! (I spent a couple years of my childhood literally living in the shadow of Cheyenne Mountain; we knew the Rooskis had missiles aimed at it). So of course everyone was of two minds.
So Sad Puppies think Worldcon will collapse without their money? Gosh, however did it manage for the 70 years before they started meddling? I wish them great success with the Dragon Awards, since they never had any with the Hugos. And I hope the rest of the Puppies give them some support with their endeavor; it really doesn’t look good for their “we’re not sexist!” claim to quit promoting it right when women are in charge.
Aaron:Brad :: Scalzi:Teddy
@Vasha: Oh, would that CQB and If-Then-Else had been on the ballot; those were the finest hours of SF I saw last year.
So Sad Puppies think Worldcon will collapse without their money?
The best I can figure is that they believe that the “silent majority” of Worldcon attendees actually agree with them, but are somehow too cowed by the shadowy cabal the Pups think run everything to openly support the Puppy cause. Look at how often BT has claimed that when some author has rejected the Puppies that they were “scared” of retaliation from some sort of anti-Puppy source – he made that claim regarding Gaiman’s Hugo acceptance speech in which he rebuked the Pups, for example.
I think that they believe that as soon as there is some other award that voters can support (i.e. the Dragon Award) as a marker of quality science fiction, this silent majority will abandon Worldcon and all start supporting Dragon*Con while cheering for the Puppies. There isn’t really a good reason to believe this will happen, but the Pups don’t deal with reality very well.
@Aaron The best I can figure is that they believe that the “silent majority” of Worldcon attendees actually agree with them, but are somehow too cowed by the shadowy cabal the Pups think run everything to openly support the Puppy cause.
So cowed their vote is silent. Really stretches one’s imagination. But no crazier than Trump’s claim the elections are rigged against him. Not believable but a consistent delusion.
The most obvious awards the silent majority could have switched to and promoted would be the Goodreads People’s Choice where readers decide.
Gah! You people! I’m deprived of internet access for 36 hours, and when I get back to it, it takes me another 36 hours to read all of your comments!
Darren Garrison: Has this series of posts been linked here yet? The day-by-day experiences of a Puppy-adjacent first-time Worldcon visitor.
He’s not Puppy-adjacent. He’s a Puppy. He was hanging out in the private Puppy consuite (to which Kate Paulk referred).
Aaron: The best I can figure is that they believe that the “silent majority” of Worldcon attendees actually agree with them, but are somehow too cowed by the shadowy cabal the Pups think run everything to openly support the Puppy cause.
With regard to the blogger Darren mentioned, I read all of his blog posts about MAC II, and he genuinely thinks that most of the people there were Puppy-sympatico. In other words, he heard only wanted he wanted to hear.
He also complained that 80-some of us went to read his blog posts, but none of us commented.
That consuite had one rule on the wall, photographed here and signed by Paulk.
rcade: That consuite had one rule on the wall, photographed here and signed by Paulk.
That “Sad Puppies Bigger Every Year” ribbon just seems really sad and pathetic in light of their “campaign” this year, doesn’t it?
DMS: In other news, I’m thinking maybe I don’t need to finish Too Like The Lightning. I don’t think it’s a bad book, but having gotten about a third of the way through, I’m rather indifferent.
I found it profoundly “meh”. I thought it was ambitious, but very muddled. I actually kept falling asleep while trying to read it, something I never do — usually I’m staying up until 2am on a work night because I can’t put a novel down without finishing it. And I was unimpressed that it just STOPPED without even making an attempt at providing a satisfying ending for the first book of a duology.
I don’t know if I’ll be willing to read the second one — because I think I’d have to read the first one again to see if it made enough sense the second time around to make the second one worth reading.
Bartimaeus: If you look at the 2012 Hugo stats, three episodes of Game of Thrones were ruled ineligible in Short Form because “Game of Thrones: Season 1” was nominated in Long Form. (It doesn’t say why they were ruled ineligible in Short Form – I’m not sure if it was because it got more nominations in Long Form or whether the admins asked the creators to decide between the two.)
As I recall, they weren’t ruled ineligible, Martin chose to withdraw them in favor of leaving Season 1 on the ballot instead. In other words, he very graciously chose not to be a pig, because he could have left one of the episodes on the ballot in Short Form, too, and have it stand a good chance of winning.
Andrew M: Thomas Olde Heuvelt has a book out (shelved under Horror rather than SF, but my local bookshop shelves all sorts of things under Horror). Should we prepare ourselves to see it on next year’s Hugo ballot?
Egads, I hope not — because I really don’t want to have to read it.
Petréa Mitchell: IIRC, there was a comment on an MGC post early this year to the effect that VD is the only person who’s ever been blocked from commenting there.
Well, that’s not true, as they’ve blocked Camestros there, and I think another Filer as well… maybe snowcrash?
Aaron: @lurkertype: I highly recommend Time Salvager, which is the first book in Chu’s trilogy.
What he said. I’m looking forward to reading Time Siege.
Arifel: Sorry I’m having far too chatty a sick day over here and will be going to bed soon but have to add to what is already common knowledge among Filers: omg the Invisible Library is AMAZING… Is this 2016 published in the US?
Yes, it is eligible for nomination next year because of delayed US publication. I really enjoyed both it and the second book, The Masked City, and am looking forward to The Burning Page, which I believe comes out in January 2017.
That “Sad Puppies Bigger Every Year” ribbon just seems really sad and pathetic in light of their “campaign” this year, doesn’t it?
Pretty much everything about the Sad Puppy campaign this year has seemed really sad and pathetic.
CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #1 did indeed come out in December 1940.
For Hugo purposes, it’s a 1941 release, due to the cover date.
And BATMAN #1 doesn’t merit a Best Graphic Story Hugo over whatever was in FLASH GORDON (or THIMBLE THEATER), even aside from the fact that BATMAN #1 isn’t a story, it’s several stories.
It’s a historically important comic (though not as important as DETECTIVE COMICS #27), but it’s not well-crafted, not by comparison to the newspaper strips.
@JJ
I was curious about why Martin would prefer Long Form to Short and did some digging. In the process I found this comment from Kevin Standlee:
So I presume GRRM (or the producers) got to define which category it fit in, and then the admins removed it from the other one.
(And as to why he would have chosen Long Form – there’s no direct source but I can speculate: in that year’s Hugo blog post he calls Doctor Who a juggernaut in Short Form, and 2012 was the year of Neil Gaiman’s The Doctor’s Wife.)
(ETA: added the context of Kevin Standlee’s comment)
I’m not blocked as such (unlike at Vox Popoli*) – it’s just Dave has a habit of deleting my posts for various reasons and declaring special rules for me. I think Mark has some kind of special limitations on him as well (or maybe Snowcrash or maybe both).
*[achievement unlocked]
I’m mostly banned at MGC, although Dave did later offer me a special “3 posts with a max of 6 lines* in total rule” in replacement. I declined, because it usually takes that long to get him round to the point. There’s also Dave’s rule against posting links, which Snowcrash among others got dinged for, although I notice that the rest of MGC deny that that rule exists.
*I never did ask him how he was counting “lines” in an electronic format where everyone’s reading on different devices….
Everyone, including Kevin Standlee (who obviously knows much more about this than I ever will), seems to interpret the rules as saying that a cover date trumps actual publication dates (and by “publication date”, I mean the date on which a work was published, not a date printed on or in a work [the date on the indicia inside CA #1 is also Mar 1941]). I don’t think the rules say that, but if that is what custom and precedent say, I won’t continue to argue otherwise.
The first Justice Society of America comic would seem to be potentially worthy of a retro nom. It was All-Star Comics #3. Its cover date was “Winter Issue”. I’ll refrain from guessing if that means late 1940, or early 1941. Also confusing would be the first Wonder Woman, in All-Star Comics #8, cover dated “Dec.-Jan.” (of 1941-1942).
These are noteworthy for their historical importance. Just about any 1941 Spirit would be a “better” work in terms of quality.
@Cora
So if there’s a Retro Hugos next year, I’ll happily nominate Captain America #1
Unfortunately, it won’t be eligible next year either:
“3.2.2: A work shall not be eligible if in a prior year it received sufficient nominations to appear on the final award ballot.”
It got enough to appear this year, and was DQ’ed. So it can’t be on it next year.
@Vasha: Thanks for the alternate universe long list; interesting methodology, BTW. Now how do I move to that universe? 😉
@JJ: It’s no easier for some of us trying to catch up 1-2 times in 24 hours! 😉
@JJ
I’m not blocked there, and I don’t think Camestros is. They’ve got some other people blocked there as I recall – one/ many trolls referred to as clamp or yama comes to mind. Possibly one more person (Hyman Rose?) as well.
As @Mark and @Camestros have noted, the MGC moderation technique (Freer variant) is to get annoyed when he’s called out on his more argle-bargle statements, set some sort of arbitrary limit (You can only respond for another 5 posts of 2 lines each, no matter what is being said), and then overwriting all your comments subsequently for breaching aforementioned arbitrary guidelines.
Freer *really* doesn’t like it when links to non-approved sites are posted, a list that seems to include File770, and Jim Hines and Chuck Wendig’s blogs.
Their house, their rules. Though it does get noticeably funny when they get all huffy about how moderation elsewhere is Bad. Like it’s the Worst, man. If only those darn EssJayDubya’s would be like us and be accepting of different viewpoints.
Actually shipped November 1940. I don’t have a copy of the indicia, but #4 is Mar-April 1941 and says it’s published quarterly, which would suggest #3 is equivalent to Dec-Jan 1940-41. I think on those double-barreled dates, the earlier one is the one usually counted, so that’d make it a 1940 book.
DC has always dated Wonder Woman as debuting in 1941, so either they’re going by the ship date or the first half of that cover date.
Next year I am going to outsource all my retro-comic eligibility questions to Kurt Busiek.
@Tasha: The Puppies tried to take over the Goodreads Awards this year. They weren’t the silent majority there either, being even less successful than they were at the Hugos. If they manage to take over the Dragons, it’ll be because they can gin up enough fake email addresses to make themselves the majority there.
Be prepared for my cries of “Look to the comic strips, child! Look to the comic strips!” With rare exception, the comic books weren’t really cooking yet. Even Eisner’s hybrid THE SPIRIT wasn’t what it would become after the war — there was a bunch of talent in fairly raw, nascent shape in the comic books, but what was going on in the newspaper strips was the stuff they were imitating, in some cases until they found their own voices.
Still, I bet the winner will be whichever character was most popular, not whichever stories were actually good…
The MGC/Torgersen school of moderation is pretty effective, though. After seeing Snowcrash, Camestros, Weimer, Mark, and others repeatedly mocked, and their posts edited or deleted when they were arguing – not yelling, not trolling, but attempting to engage in honest debate – and then after being mocked myself a couple times after attempting to engage, I’ve stopped trying to have a discussion with the Mad *ahem* Geniuses, or with Torgersen, et al.. I think this will be the genesis of the Puppies’ ultimate demise. I can’t even talk about this with my girlfriend or any other friends any more, because it’s just so stupid and they dont care. We’re deep into pig wrestling territory now, except with Puppies, and they don’t even seem to really enjoy it any more, either. And without the free advertising, neither the Rabid nor the Sad Puppies have any reason to exist.
@Snowcrash
Their house, their rules. Though it does get noticeably funny when they get all huffy about how moderation elsewhere is Bad. Like it’s the Worst, man. If only those darn EssJayDubya’s would be like us and be accepting of different viewpoints.
I should have added that – they can do what they like on their own site, but their occasional whine that they get moderated elsewhere is rather hypocritical. I mean, I think Mike has made it through 18 months of serious traffic on contentious issues with only a handful of major bans – Tank Marmot and Brian are the only ones that really jump to my mind, plus dinging a few gratuitous drive bys. I can’t think of any MGC writers or commenters that he has actually banned.
@Mark – Did Brian Z get banned? I kind of dropped out for a little while, just reading the articles and not the comments, but I haven’t seen him in a long while now.
Wait, Brian Z was banned? I was wondering why there hadn’t been any drive-by snipes at me inserted into largely unrelated comments (I think he was pissed off about that one time I managed to keep him distracted and out of the main thread for awhile). What happened there?
As far as I know it wasn’t any one specific thing, just built-up Brian-ness. I may have missed it though – I only saw Mike mentioning it after the fact.
Also, nice to have you back and chatting, Meredith.
I think Brian Z was banned for deliberately trying to see how far he could push Mike. I frankly think Mike deserved a medal for putting up with BZ’s shit for well over a year.
I think Phantom finally got banned, too, because Mike got tired of continually having to expend extra effort on screening his posts, which frequently went out of bounds. In addition to the Marmot, Buwaya and xdPaul (aka Mr. Safe Space as Rape Room) got themselves banned, too.
@JJ
Ah, you’ve been paying more attention than me then. I thought Phantom just got fed up of being in perma-mod here, and decided that haunting Camestros was more fun.
I guess xdPaul counts as a MGC commenter who’s genuinely been banned then.
@lurkertype
I didn’t mean the SPs should try to takeover the Goodreads awards the way the RPs did. I meant they could focus on promoting them as the people’s award . Focus year round on books which are eligible for Goodreads award and must reads. Reminding people to leave ratings and reviews for books they enjoyed on Goodreads – not attack and leave negative – be positive. Talk to Goodreads, Amazon, and a few publishers about labeling books Goodreads winner and Goodreads finalist maybe even Goodreads 1st/2nd round nominee. I know a crazy idea for them to be positive and proactive and do front-end work.
They could try the same with the D*C awards but it’s year one so I don’t think they’d get much interest from publishers. Given how little publicity around them and the fact they won’t be announced at the main banquet at D*C I don’t see a jump in visibility.
@Kurt Busiek:
I nominated that year’s run of Krazy Kat, among other things. It’s probably not exactly SF but I’m not sure it isn’t.
Just wanted to note that you have SO MUCH MORE TO LOOK FORWARD TO FROM HER!
Seriously, she’s brilliant.
@ JJ
Those who pop over there to read his blog may spot a familiar name…mine. Wednesday morning, before programming started, I was wandering around trying to get the lay of the land for future reference, and we both found ourselves staring at the convention center map down at the far end of the programming space (the 3500s area) and struck up a conversation. When I heard that he and his girlfriend?/wife?/companion? were not simply attending their first Worldcon (they had the relevant badge ribbon) but their first convention ever (they were geographically local and thought they’d take the opportunity) I turned on welcome-wagon mode, gave them what I hoped was useful advice (yes, it’s overwhelming; no, you can’t do everything; treat it as a buffet and taste as much as you can; DEFINITELY go to the “so this is your first Worldcon” panel that they were contemplating going to). I certainly hope that my interaction would have been identical if I’d had a clue they were puppy supporters.
It’s a little amusing that he took my self-deprecating comment about how my signing slot being at mid-day on the first day was a refection of me being a minor new writer and turned it into a sly dig (” An early signing, she said, meant she wasn’t rated very high. The “prestigious” authors get other times.”) but it’s a more or less faithful quote of what I said and is, in fact, simple truth.
And they did show up at one of my panels, most likely specifically because of meeting me and having that connection. And I went out of my way before the panel to greet them and ask if they were enjoying the convention. I have no idea what sort of story they’ve fit me into in their experience–whether it’s “established Worldcon-goer and SJW who was friendly and helpful” or whether it’s something less challenging to the puppy worldview.
Bill:
I don’t think it works that way. If a work was disqualified because the year it was voted for was not its year of eligibility, then it did not show up on the ballot, and the situation isn’t triggered. It can get nominated again for its correct year of eligibility. We almost had a test of that with Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer, which was on the list for the wrong year the first time it was nominated. The rule you were citing is in case a work published in the UK or Japan or the like is popular enough to make the short list in its initial release, then comes out 2 years later with a US publication, not to ban things which were erroneously nominated in the wrong year (and which have therefore not yet had their legitimate shot at the award).
Heather Rose Jones: I was saddened by the bits in their comments about how they (commentor, not OP, but OP seemed to agree) couldn’t buy your books because lesbian, and it was a pity you didn’t write for the mainstream…