Pixel Scroll 10/21/17 Stars in My Pocket Like Scrolls of Pixels.

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(1) HEART SURGERY. Vulture grilled Kirkus’s editor-in-chief Claiborne Smith about changes made to a review in the face of a swarm of critics: “Kirkus Editor-in-Chief Explains Why They Altered That American Heart Review“.

Kirkus was well-aware from the start that American Heart was something of a lightning rod, which Smith says was not a concern. “As you know, we’re no stranger to controversy,” he says, referring to the recent outrage surrounding Kirkus’s starred review for The Black Witch. And the response to this controversy, according to Smith, stemmed from a long-standing policy of listening when readers have something to say: “We do investigate [criticisms] and consider all of those claims.”

Yet while investigating criticisms may be business as usual, Smith admits this is the first time during his tenure that a review has been pulled and altered in this way. And while the Muslim woman who wrote the original review was involved in the editing process — “the decision to retract the star was made in full collaboration with the reviewer,” he says — altering the review does not appear to have been her idea in the first place. According to Smith, Kirkus concluded internally that edits would be made before reaching out to the reviewer.

“We wanted her to consider if changing what we thought was sort of reductive word choice, and adding deeper context, is something she thought might be appropriate,” he says, though he emphasizes it was ultimately her call: “I did not dictate that to her. She made that decision on her own.” (The word choice in question likely refers to text in the original review that referred to Sadaf as “a disillusioned immigrant,” which some commenters took exception to.)

Kirkus’s critics are skeptical of that claim; among the more cynical takes on the controversy is that Kirkus used the reviewer’s identity as a shield, only to then suppress her voice when it didn’t toe the line. Smith bristles at that: “It’s like no one believes that this reviewer has a mind and can change her opinion. Is that so difficult to believe?”

The answer isn’t necessarily clear. Would Kirkus’s reviewer have changed her mind independently, even if the review hadn’t been pulled for evaluation? Or did she feel pressured to alter what had proven to be a deeply unpopular opinion when asked if she wanted to, even without explicit instructions to do so? What is clear, though, is that the choice to un-star American Heart reflects something noteworthy about Kirkus’s framework for critique — one in which a book’s value is determined not just by the quality of its storytelling, but also by its politics. The sentence added to the review indicates that writing the book from Sarah Mary’s point of view remains an admirable choice from a craft perspective (“an effective world-building device”), but wrong from a moral one (“it is problematic that Sadaf is seen only through the white protagonist’s filter”). And while Smith says the call-out of said problematic element is not meant to dissuade readers from reading the book — “If readers don’t care that this novel is only told about a Muslim character, from the perspective of a white teenager, that’s fine” — he acknowledges that Kirkus does care, and does judge books at least in part on whether they adhere to certain progressive ideals. When I ask if the book’s star was revoked explicitly and exclusively because it features a Muslim character seen from the perspective of a white teenager, Smith pauses for only a second: “Yes.”

(2) INDIA 2049. “Call for Submissions: India 2049 – Utopias and Dystopias”. Mithila Review is doing this issue as a fundraiser, and is basically paying only an honorarium. Submissions for India 2049 are open until April 30, 2018.

“The developing countries such as those in the South Asia and Africa are not sufficiently depicted in typical SF stories.”— Cixin Liu, Mithila Review

Mithila Review is seeking submissions for India 2049: Utopias and Dystopias, an anthology of short stories and comics devoted to the exploration of Indian futures, utopias and dystopias, set in India, South Asia or beyond.

Editors: Salik Shah & Ajapa Sharma

Word Limit: 4000-12,000 words

Comics: Up to 24 pages

Deadline: April 30st, 2018

Eligibility: Stories should be set in India, South Asia, or told from Indian or South Asian perspective. We want excellent, characters-driven and thoughtful stories from emerging and established voices around the world. Your citizenship or nationality, or lack of it, isn’t a bar to submission. Please free to re/define India or South Asia to make it relevant to the future/s you’re creating. If you are new to Mithila Review, please go through our existing issues to get a taste and understanding of the kind of stories that define Mithila Review.

(3) THE SCI-FI PIPELINE. From IndieWire, “The New Golden Age of Studio Science-Fiction is Upon Us”

The New Golden Age of Studio Science-Fiction is Upon Us

We’ll be seeing a lot of major studios releasing auteur-driven science-fiction over the next couple years. Here are some of the titles you need to know about:

“Downsizing,” Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne is well regarded as a humanist and a sharp observer of middle-aged existential crises, which makes the thought of him directing a science-fiction movie all the more intriguing…. “

“Annihilation,” Alex Garland

…Studios were clearly paying attention to “Ex Machina’s” success, as Paramount quickly landed Garland to direct the big budget adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel “Annihilation.” …

“Ready Player One,” Steven Spielberg

You’d have to go back to “War of the Worlds” in 2006 to find the last pure Steven Spielberg science-fiction blockbuster….

“Gemini,” Ang Lee

Ang Lee’s unpredictable career has taken him from gay romances to historical dramas, war films, literary adaptations, and period pieces, but with “Gemini” he’s finally set to bring his boundless visual scope to the science-fiction genre….

“Ad Astra,” James Gray

James Gray has been upping the stakes of his narratives and working with larger budgets with each new film, so it was only a matter of time before the director would join forces with a studio to make something truly epic. “Ad Astra” sounds like that kind of mainstream breakthrough after the indie success of “The Lost City of Z.” Brad Pitt plays an astronaut who sets out on a mission through the solar system to find his father (Tommy Lee Jones), who disappeared 20 years earlier on a one-way mission to Neptune….

“Alita: Battle Angel,” Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez has only ever made big-budget action films for family audiences (see the “Spy Kids” franchise and “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl”), which is part of the reason the upcoming “Alita: Battle Angel” could mark a whole new chapter in the director’s career. The idea for a film adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s acclaimed manga series was first brought to James Cameron by Guillermo del Toro, but the director’s work on “Avatar” kept the project from being properly developed….

“The Predator,” Shane Black

Normally a studio reboot of “The Predator” franchise wouldn’t inspire much anticipation (and fans clearly weren’t too interested in the 2010 installment directed by Nimród Antal), but 20th Century Fox has made the exciting decision of putting none other than Shane Black in the director’s chair….

“Avatar” Sequels, James Cameron

The second “Avatar” movie will arrive over a decade after the original became the highest grossing movie of all time (adjusted for inflation). It’s been so long since “Avatar” conquered the box office that no one is really begging for a sequel anymore, and yet you’d have to be crazy not to be at least a little excited for another opportunity for James Cameron to play on the biggest canvas imaginable….

(4) HAWAIIAN SHIRT FRIGHT. High Seas Trading Company is willing to sell you the shirt off its back in time for Halloween: Classic Horror Monsters.

(5) ZINE TRANSCRIBERS SOUGHT. Slate Magazine, in “Retyping the Future’s Past”, tells about the University of Iowa Libraries project to crowdsource transcription of some of its holdings, like the Rusty Hevelin fanzine collection. I didn’t get involved myself because as it was put to me, the zines were not out of copyright so the transcriptions would not be made publicly available, only to scholars working through the library. My fellow fanzines fans would not immediately benefit from my work.

However, the face value the offer is certainly true – you get to read the ones you work on.

If you’d like to participate, you need to do little more than set up a free account with DIY History, select an issue from the hundreds available, and dive in. It’s hard to guess what you might find within, but the possibilities are promising. As some of us still do today, the science fiction fans of decades past imagined different worlds, sometimes better ones. Retyping their words is a welcome reminder that we have yet to write our own future.

(6) YESTERDAY’S DAY

International Sloth Day

We missed this.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRLS

  • Born October 21, 1929 – Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Born October 21, 1956 – Carrie Fisher

(8) TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM. Camestros Felapton has got himself a copy of Vox Day’s new book SJWs Always Double Down and penned a review titled “Reading Vox Day So You Don’t Have To…Again: Part 1”. Though not even Camestros takes that title literally – by the time he reaches Chapter 4 he’s writing:

Skim, skim, Google, skim, Twitter again (the social media platform so terrible that Vox came crawling back to it after his tantrum at Gab), some band I haven’t heard of. The chapter was supposed to be about ‘convergence’ but it was just another list of complaints.

(That being the case, it’s lucky for Camestros that this book seems to have only one Chapter 5.)

Did I mention that this chapter is called “The Convergence Sequence”. I guess I had assumed that previous chapter would be about that. Anyway this chapter is about how convergence happens (hint: women are all conspiring against Vox to get him). The previous chapter was “Convergence” so maybe chapter 4 was the first Chapter 5*

The convergence sequence, Vox claims, is this: 1. Infiltration. This is when women, oops sorry, “SJWs” join things and do work. Now you might think that would be both a good thing and inevitable that helpful, nice people predisposed to being helpful and nice would do things. This is bad though because then they’ll expect the think they joined to also be helpful and nice.

“SJWs are particularly drawn to HR in the corporate world and community management in the open source world, because these organizational roles tend to combine the two things that SJWs seek most, power over others and an absence of personal responsibility. They can also be found in volunteer roles; SJWs tend to have a lot of time on their hands and volunteering for the jobs that no one else wants to do is one of their favorite ways to make themselves appear indispensable to those who are in charge of the organization…. But if you want to identify the initial SJW in an organization, look for a longtime volunteer, usually female, who is quiet, selfless, well-regarded by everyone, and heavily relied upon by the leadership.”

See, I wasn’t being sarcastic earlier or even exaggerating. Note the key elements he sees as symptoms of being a “SJW” – not a tendency to quote Gramsci or use the term “intersectionality” or a hard to suppress desire to punch Nazis. Nope the key symptoms of Vox’s fear are:

  1. Being a woman (or ‘female’ as Vox says in what I presume is a Ferengi impression)
  2. Quiet
  3. Selfless
  4. Well-regarded by everyone
  5. Relied upon by leadership

I wonder if Vox ever reads the New Testament and if he does, does he shout “obvious SJW!” every so often.

(9) E.T.IQUETTE. John C. Wright tries to reconcile his preferences with contemporary practices in “A Courteous Note about Courtesy in Names”.

People with modern hence fake standards meeting someone loyal to older hence real standards are in the same position as that younger brother.

You have no idea what a cruel practical joke has been played on you by the modern inversion of the forms of courtesy, nor how much sincerity, fellowship, and elegance has been deliberately removed from the world.

But I am not a king nor a pope, so there is no reason why someone who knows me only through my public words and works should be required to address me by my Christian name.

It would be rather presumptuous of me to assume that I can impose the burdens of intimate friendship on you.

You have done me no wrong. Please do not fret over so minor a matter.

To which I should add a general word: I am prone to wrath, as it is one of my besetting sins, and would do well to avoid a sharp tongue. I find that, for myself, speaking formally to people who give a last name, and calling him by his last name, makes it easier to resist the temptation to be shrewish and rude.

A man or woman whose Internet handle is some presumptuous yet joking phrase or nickname is much harder to take seriously, and much harder for someone like me to treat seriously. I was able to keep my temper with Dr. Andreassen for years, or nearly so, despite his studied provocations, merely because I addressed him formally.

Someone with a dippy handle like “Gharlane of Backdoor” or “4ssclown Pharting” or “Visions-from-Trippy-High” inadvertently will create in me the impression the I am addressing a pimply and nasal sophomore in teeth braces with a dull sense of humor who is most likely on mood medication.

(10) DUBBING. Myke Cole supplies a caption for the iconic image from Blade Runner 2049:

(11) ALT SIGHT. Uprising Review’s unironic reference in their latest podcast to guest Jon Del Arroz as “the #1 Hispanic voice in science fiction” is more easily understood if you know that it recently devoted bandwidth to topics like “Help Fund A Civil Rights Lawsuit Against Charlottesville,” Dawn Witzke’s Dragon Con report, and a link roundup featuring JDA’s harassment of a Filer.

(12) I’M MELTING, MELTING. NPR explains why these are: “‘Impossible To Save’: Scientists Are Watching China’s Glaciers Disappear”.

Li calls out to scientists hiking nearly 1,000 feet above. In their bright parkas, they look like neon-colored ants. They call back, their voices bouncing off an ice and stone amphitheater that cradles the eastern glacier.

Scientists are the only people allowed here. The government has banned tourism on the glacier and shut down factories in the town below, laying off 7,000 workers to try to lessen the impact of pollution.

But local sources of pollution account for just 30 percent of the damage to glaciers, says Li. The other 70 percent is caused by global carbon emissions that have warmed the entire planet.

The central goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change — which the Trump administration has promised to pull the U.S. out of, but to which China is still a party — is to limit the rise in global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Tianshan is one of those rare places where the impact of climate change policy can be measured and seen.

“If every country sticks to the emissions reductions in the Paris Agreement, these two glaciers will be around for another hundred years,” says Li. “If not, then temperatures will continue to rise, and the glacier we’re walking on? It’ll be gone in 50 years.”

(13) HIS FAMILIARS. The Washington Post’s Savannah Stephens has an interview with Philip Pullman about La Belle Sauvage, including why he wanted to write prequels to “His Dark Materials” and what is his personal daemon — “Philip Pullman on what drew him back to the world of His Dark Materials”.

Q: Who were you most excited to revisit besides Lyra?

A: Hannah Relf is someone who appears near the beginning and near the end of “His Dark Materials.” She’s a woman whom I like very much and someone I respect a great deal. I was glad to give her a part that’s important in “La Belle Sauvage.” She lends Malcolm books, and she’s interested in his life, his thoughts, his education. Her character pays tribute to an old lady who had a big house in the village that I used to live in when I was a boy. She took an interest in me, and she let me borrow books from her library. She had books on every wall — bookcases all through her house. She very generously allowed me to come and borrow a couple of books every week. She didn’t tell me, “Oh no, you can’t have that, dear. That’s not for you.” She said, “Take anything you like. Read anything you like. We’ll talk about it when you bring it back.” I thought that was so nice, so I gave that part to Hannah Relf.

(14) A GOOD PLACE TO CRASH. They don’t want anybody underneath when these come down: “The place spacecraft go to die”.

The equivalent point in the ocean – the place furthest away from land – lies in the South Pacific some 2,700km (1,680 miles) south of the Pitcairn Islands – somewhere in the no-man’s land, or rather no-man’s-sea, between Australia, New Zealand and South America.

This oceanic pole of inaccessibility is not only of interest to explorers, satellite operators are interested in it as well. That’s because most of the satellites placed in orbit around the Earth will eventually come down, but where?

Smaller satellites will burn up but pieces of the larger ones will survive to reach the Earth’s surface. To avoid crashing on a populated area they are brought down near the point of oceanic inaccessibility.

Scattered over an area of approximately 1,500 sq km (580 sq miles) on the ocean floor of this region is a graveyard of satellites. At last count there were more than 260 of them, mostly Russian.

The wreckage of the Mir space station lies there. It was launched in 1986 and was visited by many teams of cosmonauts and international visitors.

With a mass of 120 tonnes it was never going to burn up in the atmosphere, so it was ditched in the region in 2001 and was seen by some fishermen as a fragmenting mass of glowing debris racing across the sky.

(15) HAMMERING. According to the BBC: “Thor out of five: Marvel’s latest has critics raving”.

Thor is a case in point. Whether toplining his own films or chipping in as part of the Avengers ensemble, this relic from Norse mythology has always seemed out of step with the rest of the extended franchise.

By recognising and embracing his core ridiculousness, though, Thor: Ragnarok may have finally found a way to integrate the character and his world into the wider MCU landscape.

Despite taking its title from a Norse word for apocalypse, the latest Marvel film is a joyously irreverent hoot in which superhero heroics are almost an afterthought.

The scenes in which Chris Hemsworth’s Thor banters and bickers with the now-talking Hulk are a delight, as are any in which Jeff Goldblum appears as the ostensibly villainous but actually rather affable Grandmaster.

(16) LIGHTNING STRIKING AGAIN AND. It’s a jungle out there.

[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Greg Hullender.]

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74 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 10/21/17 Stars in My Pocket Like Scrolls of Pixels.”

  1. @1: thank you, Kirkus, for playing into the right-wing narrative about political correctness.

    @2: I found Annihilation unfinishable; I wonder whether the movie will get any more sales than Solaris.

    edit: first!

  2. Like Pixels through the Scroll, so are the days of our lives.

    12) yeah, listened to that report today. Sobering.

  4. @Chip – I’m starting to wonder if it’s a “if you build it they will come” kind of scenario. I’ve been wondering that about a lot of today’s less understandable developments – from reality TV stars running countries, to neo-fascists entering the mainstream, to “SJWs” attempting to suppress YA novels.

  5. (9) E.T.IQUETTE.

    In other words, John C. Wright only demonstrates Christian behavior toward people when he happens to feel like it.

    Not that this is anything new, but it’s always nice when he comes out and admits it publicly.

  7. So John C. Wright would like to inform people that he is “not an emotional man,” and that he is “prone to wrath.”

    Unemotional wrath, though, I suppose.

  8. 9) “I am not an emotional man and I do not take offense at such things.”

    [Moments later]

    “I am prone to wrath, as it is one of my besetting sins, and would do well to avoid a sharp tongue.”

    I can relate. I’m bald, and I comb my hair every morning.

    Edit: Ya beat me to it, Kurt. Or is that “Mr. Busiek”?

  9. 3)

    Robert Rodriguez has only ever made big-budget action films for family audiences (see the “Spy Kids” franchise and “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl”),

    Are they completely ignoring the Mariachi trilogy, Sin City and Machete? Or are those not “big-budget” or something? Either way, I’ll be interested in the movie.

    14) As long as nothing splashes down at 47°9?S 126°43?W, we should be all right.

  10. (1)“the decision to retract the star was made in full collaboration with the reviewer,” he says
    I’d have believed him more if the word choice had been ‘support of’ instead of ‘collaboration with’. Having been part of too many “teams” whose imput never seemed to go very far in the final decisions.

    (9) John Wright always reads like the love-child of William Buckley; Monty Wooley and Clifton Webb to me. Jesus–if you don’t want people to call you by your ‘Christian’ name, tell them. But you’ll never be Maggie Smith in ‘Downton Abbey’.

    (11)Decided to check out Uprising Review and immediately lost interest after the second article I read referred to ‘gate-keepers’.

  11. 9: Is a dippy handle like “Gharlane of Backdoor” a dig at David G. Potter?

    I was thinking that very thing. One might suspect he was jealous.

    “Uprising Review’s unironic reference to in their latest podcast to guest Jon Del Arroz”

    There’s two “to”s in that sentence, before and after the link.

  13. 1. Wow, but his comments do not make this better. Correct politics are more important than good writing. So, they downgraded a review for political reasons. Are they upgrading them too?

  14. Dag Nabbit! I’m sure I posted variations on this scroll’s title at least twice, but Greg managed to post his version at just the right time to get it used instead of one of mine. Now what will I use as a claim to fame and glory? 😀

    Ah well, I’ve done a bunch of Delany recently. Maybe it’s time to try someone else.

    Nine Pixels in Amber?

  15. Xtifr: Dag Nabbit!

    I, for one, greatly appreciate all of your thoughtful commentary, and pretty much ignore everyone’s title suggestions.

    It is a mark of my particular form of geekiness, I think, that I do not understand why trying to think up Pixel Scroll titles (and actually scoring a title) is such a big deal to so many people.

  16. @JJ

    Heh, honestly, I post scroll title suggestions because it seems more entertaining than simply saying “ticking the box”.

    I do prefer to offer thoughtful commentary–and when I have some to offer, I usually don’t bother with title suggestions. Instead I save them for the next time I’m out of commentary for a particular scroll.

    As for why we want our suggestions chosen? I can only assume you haven’t seen the prize packages Mike hands out. Three more scroll titles, and I should be able to retire to the Bahamas! 😀

  17. (9) E.T.IQUETTE

    A man or woman whose Internet handle is some presumptuous yet joking phrase or nickname is much harder to take seriously,

    I assume that the placement of this item immediately after one about VD was a total coincidence.

  18. (1) I haven’t followed the Kirkus kerfuffle apart from what I’ve read here, but to me it is symptomatic of a general tendency, where a critique and analysis of the presentation or absence of minorities or underrepresented groups in literature (et c) in aggregate, gets applied to individual works as a tool for criticism.

    First, because the problem is seldom the individual work, the problem is all the works together and the society that spawned them. No single work can even attempt to show everything or give a true picture of our entire society. The Bechdel test is awesome to identify trends in movies, it is not so good at analysing a single movie.

    Second, becuase this tendency can be used by smart reactionaries or uneasy conservatives to dismiss and deflect the very valuable critique that is levied against games, books, or media by people like Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, Lindsay Ellis, Kameron Hurley, and many others. It’s not about them anymore, but some specific work made by someone else.

    Third, because the refocus on the specific work tends to place the negative focus on the more artistically and culturally ambitious works, in effect tearing them down, thus shielding the majority of mediocre works from criticism.

    (3) @James Davis Nicoll: Likely because big-budget Hollywood makes the science fiction ecosystem look absolutely egalitarian.

    (9) Strawmen in names much? Or the way that new standard are “fake”?

    (12) Those places are not really rare. I believe just about any glacier will do to see the effect of higher global temperatures and warmer seawater.

  21. Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that any Golden Age spearheaded by a string of Avatar sequels isn’t going to be very golden or very agey.

  22. (9) I found it very hard to get past the opening sentence of the excerpt:

    People with modern hence fake standards meeting someone loyal to older hence real standards are in the same position as that younger brother.

    It’s Turtles All The Way Down. Or maybe it hasn’t occurred to Mr Wright that his own standards are therefore fake by his parents’ generation standards? (Or maybe he thinks he’s upholding his parents’ generation standards? I think he might be surprised by how wrong he is.)

  23. RE #1: Maybe I’m old. Maybe I’m simply an absolutist about the creative process. Maybe both. I think it’s the job of the writer to write based on whatever criteria they choose. If the story is good, it’s good. If a reviewer doesn’t like it based upon a postmodern take on storytelling, then I suppose that’s fine for what it is. In no way, shape or form should a writer change anything about their craft because the current political environment doesn’t approve. It’s up to the reader and the reviewer to decide whether that’s acceptable to them or not. It’s up to the writer to decide whether their goal is to write what they please or to write based upon what will be a popular opinion.

  25. (8) Those excerpts from VD’s “book” read like the output of a Markov Chain text generator, the input of which was a book by VD.

    If all the pixels in this scroll were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  26. Pingback: AMAZING NEWS FROM FANDOM: 10-22-2017 - Amazing Stories

  28. @Chip Hitchcock: @2: I found Annihilation unfinishable; I wonder whether the movie will get any more sales than Solaris.

    I found it unputdownable and am really excited about the movie. Tastes differ.

    @Karl-Johan Norén: (12) Those places are not really rare. I believe just about any glacier will do to see the effect of higher global temperatures and warmer seawater.

    Twenty years ago I visited Glacier National Park in Montana; it was already almost unrecognizable from my first visit twenty years before that. Pretty soon they’re going to have to change the name to The Park Formerly Known as Glacier, because there won’t be any glaciers left.

  29. 1) Yeah, it’s always disappointing when a reviewer admits to slanting a review for political purposes, but it’s especially irritating when an excellent work is panned for those reasons.

    Inside the article was a link to an excellent related article: “The Toxic Drama on YA Twitter” which relates how one person writing a lengthy negative review (9,000 words) managed to create a huge fuss over a book that the reviewer apparently misunderstood completely. It’s about how a person raised in a racist environment learned to see that selkies, fae, wolfmen, etc. are people too. Apparently it had no reference to race in our world. The reviewer fixated on scenes where the narrator and other characters made racist comments.

    My favorite quote is:

    But a growing number of critics say the draggings, well-intended though they may be, are evidence of a growing dysfunction in the world of YA publishing. One author and former diversity advocate described why she no longer takes part: “I have never seen social interaction this fucked up,” she wrote in an email. “And I’ve been in prison.”

    Ironically, all the publicity seems to have helped sales, if anything, and reviews on Amazon pretty consistently get the book right.

  30. PhilRM – Pretty soon they’re going to have to change the name to The Park Formerly Known as Glacier, because there won’t be any glaciers left.

    Glacier Memorial Park.

  31. @Chip Hitchcock: @2: I found Annihilation unfinishable; I wonder whether the movie will get any more sales than Solaris.

    I found it unputdownable and am really excited about the movie. Tastes differ.

    Hah. And I found the book unenjoyable and yet look forward to the movie; I think a visual version of the story will be an ideal medium for it.

    Glacier Memorial Park.

    Ouch.

  32. @Kaerl-Johan – That is very well put.

    @Greg Hullender

    Ironically, all the publicity seems to have helped sales, if anything, and reviews on Amazon pretty consistently get the book right.

    I bought the book in question after reading the article you referenced, partly out of curiosity, partly because I don’t like bullying.

  33. 1) @Greg Hullender: “and reviews on Amazon pretty consistently get the book right.”

    That’s what gets me about “kill it before it grows” campaigns against books: The folks carrying them out seem afraid reviewers will disagree, so they pre-emptively strike.

  34. Since last I showed my face here (during/post-Worldcon?), I’ve been strapped for time and couldn’t catch up on File 770. I finally just read a bunch of posts from the past week, realizing it was foolish to keep thinking I could methodically go through posts from August/September (though I read a few posts here and there) and now. 😉 The “now” part just kept getting farther and farther away from the last post I’d read.

    On the plus side, I spent a lot of off-blog time reading, so I’ll post several 2017 recs to the 2017 rec thread, and non-2017 recs here.

    – – – – –

    Re. #1, I’m disappointed in Kirkus, but I tend to read the review and not worry about whether it got the coveted star. I suspect I could find two reviews with a similar level of praise, but one with a star and one without. So for me, the star just went from questionable to completely meaningless.

    one in which a book’s value according to Kirkus is determined not just by the quality of its storytelling, but also by its politics internet outrage.

    FTFY, Vulture. 😛

  35. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric’s Fox*, Penric’s Mission, and Mira’s Last Dance (Penric & Desdemona series): I’m enjoying this series a lot, though occasionally I feel like the story could move a bit quicker. (Penric’s Fox is from 2017.) I like the world, the demons, and Penric; “Mission” and “Last Dance” were an interesting change from the small-mystery feel of the other novellas.

  36. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos, & Borders of Infinity (Vorkosigan Saga; all audio; previously had read the first story from “Borders” in a different omnibus): My “OMG why didn’t I continue this series after partway through the 2nd ‘Young Miles’ book years ago?!” audio-love-fest with this series continues and probably won’t stop till I’ve heard them all. Bujold continues to do an excellent mix of mad-cap adventure, humor, and emotion that works for me. I just bought the Brothers in Arms audiobook (which will have to wait for the book I’m listening to).

    Also, kudos to Grover Gardner’s narration; he’s a great fit for this series! Maybe I should give away the 4 print Vorkosigan books I have (2 signed & personalized for me, though one by accident); I’m hooked on the audiobooks.

    Ethan of Athos was fun and my concerns about the setup (planet-o’-men) and how long ago it was written were mostly unfounded, yay. Ethan and his planet may not return, but I’ve already heard a couple of references to things from his book in other installments, so while it’s very stand-alone, the connections (beyond just Quinn) are there.

    Cetaganda was good, though I liked the previous two Miles books a little better. I liked seeing behind the curtain of the mysterious Cetagandan Empire.

    The first story in “Borders” was much better than I remembered, and all three of the stories in the collection hit me in the feels – the last one most of all, near the end.

    Did I mention I’m hooked on this series? 😉

  37. S.K. Dunstall’s Linesman (Linesman #1): I had minor issues with some dialog and with all the other Linesmen treating the main character stupidly, even though there’s ample evidence he’s gifted/savant (despite his unique approach). But overall I enjoyed it. I was interested in the story and universe they’re building (S.K. is a pair of sisters), and I liked the main character and his friends (and some of the antagonists-but-not-really-villains).

    I plan to read the other two books, though I was a little put off by a few negative reviews I saw that the second is slower and retreads some ground already covered, or something?! Anyone read the 2nd (or 2nd & 3rd)?

  38. Yeah, the whole Kirkus thing looks pretty bad, but I will point out that I can and have changed my opinions about works after someone has pointed out problematic elements that I managed to overlook (being a white male and all). It rarely makes a big change in my opinion–if the problems were big enough for that, I likely would have spotted them–but it could cause me to switch a work from being a low four to a high three, for example. And an outsider might say “wow, you took away a whole star just for that?” But of course, I wouldn’t do it unless I thought it barely deserved that last star in the first place.

    On the other hand, if this was an honest change of opinion about a already-borderline work, well…then Kirkus seems to have mishandled the whole situation about as badly as possible. Which makes me think that’s probably not what happened. Occam’s razor says this is a bad situation they’re trying to spin as not-as-bad, not a not-so-bad situation they’re accidentally spinning as worse-than-it-is.

    On the gripping hand, hearing from a source called “Vulture” doesn’t inspire confidence that I’m hearing impartial and unbiased reporting.

  39. Peter Clines’s The Fold: An interesting, well-done exploration of a couple of old SF concepts, with a couple of tendrils connecting it to 14 (as expected, based on a comment here). Okay, the scientists were freaking idiots in some respect (a shorter timeline for the project would’ve made their willful blindness make more sense), but other than that, it was very good.

    14 and The Fold are why I finally ordered Ex-Heroes, which has been on my “take a look” list for quite a while. I’m confident he can pull off zombie-apolcalypse* + superheroes. (* Wait, another zombie book? I swear, I’m not into zombies!)

    Clines’s two books made me think briefly of Steven Gould, another author who can take an old SF concept and breathe fascinating, exciting, crunchy new life into it (teleportation, alternate earths, mind control, et al.). There’s nothing new under the sun, I suppose, but not every author can make an old concept seem fresh.

  40. Last ones for now:

    #1 Khanna Rajan’s Rising Tide (Ben Gold #2): I’m not into zombies* or steampunk, but I like this near-future, post-zombie-apololyptic, pseudo-steampunk (airships) trilogy a lot! It has plenty of danger and action, a little romance, plenty of pain, and lots of tragedy in this one. Bet gets blamed for a lot that isn’t really his fault, but he has done foolish things and can be very act-first-think-later, so that’s only a minor niggle. I liked getting sort of a new view point – chapters from Miranda’s journals, giving us her take on things. I just started the conclusion, Raining Fire (2017 book).

    * I know, I know, I doth protest too much. 😉 But seriously.

    #2 Brandon Sanderson’s Legion & Legion: Skin Deep (Legion #1 & #2): These were quick, fun, slightly off-beat reads (more adventure than SF). I laughed several times in “Skin Deep” when one of the main character’s personalities came up with a wacky explanation for why he’s really not an alternate personality, and really ran with it. I hope Sanderson does another novella here.

    – – – – –

    Other Reading: I just started Paul Cornell’s A Long Day in Lychford (2017). It’s a little too topical for me, and Autumn needs to just check into drunk-rehab already (sigh). I suspect I won’t enjoy it as much as the first two (#1 was the best so far). I don’t usually start two books at once (this ebook & Raining Fire in print), but while I have a nice book light attached to be bed frame, I wanted something shorter to read on my iPad in bed.

    Other notable recent acquisitions I can’t wait to find time for include Ruff’s Lovecraft Country, Martinez’s MJ-12: Shadows (2017), and Clines’s Ex-Heroes. Ooh, there’s a new Penric & Desdemona coming soon (November?)? Yay!

  41. Okay, one more, but too soon to rec, as I’m only a couple of chapters into the audiobook. Kangaroo Too by Curtis C. Chen, narrated by P.J. Ochlan, started out with a couple of bangs! I pre-recommend it. 😉 Chen’s writing (amusing, action-packed) and P.J. Ochlan’s narration (perfect voice for Kangaroo) are living up to my expectations from book 1, at least so far.

    I’d somehow missed the audiobook at Audible (where I check the latest SFF releases religiously). I was preparing to buy it in print a few weeks ago, having given up, when I checked one last time and found the audiobook came out in September. Whew, but WTH! I would’ve been super-annoyed if I’d bought it in print and then found the audiobook was out.

    Anyway, if any of you read or (I recommend) listened to Waypoint Kangaroo and enjoyed it, don’t forget about the sequel!

  43. Kendall:

    “14 and The Fold are why I finally ordered Ex-Heroes, which has been on my “take a look” list for quite a while. I’m confident he can pull off zombie-apolcalypse* + superheroes. (* Wait, another zombie book? I swear, I’m not into zombies!)”

    I left my copy of Ex-Heroes in my hotel room in North-Korea. I wonder what they made of it.

  46. @Kendall – I plan to read the other two books, though I was a little put off by a few negative reviews I saw that the second is slower and retreads some ground already covered, or something?! Anyone read the 2nd (or 2nd & 3rd)?

    I’ve read all three of S. K. Dunstall’s books and am waiting not at all patiently for the next book in the series. I thought the second book better than the first and the third better than the second, for whatever that’s worth.

    9) E. T. IQUETTE – I’m not sure why (insufficient outrage today?), but I actually read that blog piece, aka that vomitous drivel from Wright. He’s nostalgic for the 1930s, apparently, which is fine, although I doubt he’d have liked that decade much, but since I stuck it out to the end (really not sure why), I found this gem: I never use “Ms.” because it is a crude insult to all married women, as it implies that the feat of winning a husband is as nothing.

    While I’m quite fond of both my ex-husbands, in an appropriately distant sort of way, they weren’t won like a fairground prize.

  48. Awwww…thanks for the mention. I don’t care what anyone says, you’re a sweetheart for promoting my work. Be sure to check out Lyonesse Issue 1 that just came out, Paragons is out Nov 1 and MAGA 2020 & Beyond is out Nov 8.

  49. @Cheryl S.: “While I’m quite fond of both my ex-husbands, in an appropriately distant sort of way, they weren’t won like a fairground prize.”

    You mean I’ve been entering myself in all those raffles for nothing? Damn! Sure wish I’d known. I’ve been packing and repacking my hope chest.

  50. John A Arkansawyer: I’ve been packing and repacking my hope chest.

    Now you’ve got me worried that the lid has been open so often the hope has escaped!

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