Pixel Scroll 10/2/16 The Sorcerer’s Appertainment

(1) DISENCHANTED. Sharon Lee responded to the Best Series Hugo announcement in this “Sunday Morning Award Rant”.

There’s never been a Hugo for Best Series, which might strike some as odd, seeing as series is, and has always been, the backbone of science fiction and fantasy literature.  The thought, for many years, was that A Good Book Will Out, no matter if it was part of a series, or a standalone, and, indeed, many books which were parts of series have won the Novel Hugo (*).  In any case, the system kinda sorta worked most of the time, for most of the works involved.

Sort of like Ankh-Morpork under the Patrician’s rule, really.

However, the idea of a Series Hugo had been kicked around for a number of years, and the Collected Wisdom of the Business Meetings decided to go for it, despite the very real difficulties in administering — or even voting on — such an award.

What difficulties, you may ask?….

(2) ANIME CASHES IN. Makoto Shinkai’s latest movie is the highest-grossing film in Japan this year. The Guardian has the story.

Themes of body swapping, the search for love and a frantic quest to save a town from imminent destruction have combined to propel a Japanese animated film to box office gold, and prompted talk that the country has found its successor to the globally acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki.

Your Name, Makoto Shinkai’s fantasy about two teenagers drawn together by gender-swapping dreams, has been seen by more than 8 million people since its release in August, beating the hugely popular Godzilla Resurgence to become the highest-grossing film in Japan this year, and the ninth highest of all time.

It has earned more than 10bn yen (£77m) in box office receipts, an anime milestone previously achieved only by Miyazaki’s films.

(3) PUPPY CENSUS. Greg Hullender’s “Slate Voting Analysis Using EPH Data: 2014-2016” at Rocket Stack Rank confirmed that what I expected would happen actually did.

Look at Best Fanzine! Very few of the Rabid puppies were able to bring themselves to vote for File 770, even with Vox urging them on. I’m less clear on why almost half rejected “Penric’s Demon.”

rocketstack-slate-graphic

(4) HANDICAPPING TAKEI. When the animated Star Trek series premiered on a Saturday morning in the fall of 1973, the episode seen in the rest of the country was barred from being aired in Los Angeles because of local election politics.

Tom Bradley had been elected mayor of Los Angeles, the city’s first African-American mayor, on 29 May 1973. He’d been the City Councilman for its Tenth District prior to becoming mayor. The city had a special election held on 18 September 1973 to fill Bradley’s vacated position. Bradley had endorsed political consultant David Cunningham, Jr. to fill his seat. A few other men and women also campaigned for it. One of them was George Takei.

Nineteen years after the special election, Cunningham was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, “If you don’t exercise political muscle by voting, you are not part of anything but a nondescript group.” Apparently he knew something about the use of political muscle. Complaints were raised during the 1973 campaign for the Tenth District seat—possibly by Cunningham, possibly by a nondescript group: there was no published list of named complainers found at this point in time—regarding Takei’s recognition level within the voting population being higher than for other candidates because of his portrayal of Sulu on ST: TOS.  As a result of the Federal Communication Commission’s equal-time rule regarding political candidates on television, reruns of the original series were not broadcast in Los Angeles until the special election had ended.

Which brings us, once again, to 8 September 1973. The Los Angeles NBC affiliate KNBC didn’t broadcast “Beyond the Farthest Star” on that date like every other network affiliate in America; instead, it broadcast the episode scheduled to follow it, “Yesteryear”, because Takei-as-Sulu had no dialogue, nor was his character a part of the plotline, which his above-mentioned political opponents were convinced would be a factor in the election. The following week, KNBC broadcast “Yesteryear” again. “Beyond the Farthest Star” wasn’t shown in Los Angeles for the first time until 22 December 1973.

suluanimated

(5) LOOK UP. Here are the prime viewing dates for the Orionid Meteor Shower – and what luck, you don’t need premium cable for this.

In 2016, the Orionid meteor shower will be visible from October 2 to November 7. The shower is expected to peak on the night of October 20 and early morning of October 21.

When Can I See the Orionids?

Orionids tend to be active every year in the month of October, usually peaking around October 20. At its peak, up to 20 meteors are visible every hour.

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • October 2, 1950 — The “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz was published for the first time.
  • October 2, 1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents made its television debut.
  • October 2, 1959 The Twilight Zone, with host Rod Serling, premiered on U.S. television.

(7) TELL IT TO GROUCHO. And three years after Twilight Zone launched, Rod Serling was enough of a celebrity to receive a spot on Groucho Marx’ show.

(8) NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON’S GAME. “Expand your universe with Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s new video game” invites this Digital Trends article.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is entering the video game business. His new game, Neil deGrasse Tyson Presents: Space Odyssey, is an educational title developed to encourage players to explore space and science.

Although in early development, it’s being designed as a building game. Space Odyssey asks players to create their own galaxies. While there are elements of MineCraft and Civilization baked into the experience, Mark Murphy, co-creator and developer of the game from Whatnot Entertainment, said it’s something unique.

(9) AMAZING STORIES’ FICTION SCHEDULE. Starting October 5, Amazing Stories will begin posting the fiction comprising its Special Edition issue:

  • Jeremy Lichtman (“Bob the Hipster Knight”); October 5
  • Alex Shvartsman (“How Gaia and the Guardian Saved the World”); October 12
  • Vince Liberato (“Parental Guidance Recommended”); October 19
  • Stephen Power (“The Sounding Cataract”); October 26
  • Karen Skovmand (“The Mesmerist”); November 2
  • Trent Walters (“Awake the Snorting Citizens With the Bell”); November 9
  • James Gordon Harper (“A Clean Start”) ; November 16
  • Matt Downer (“The Size of the Fight”); November 22
  • Stuart Barton (“Lost Phoenixes”); November 23
  • Sean Monaghan (“Penny of Tharsis Montes”); November 24

We will be publishing two additional stories in addition to those Gernsback award winning stories:

  • Kermit Woodall (“We’re all Here in the Future”); November 30
  • David Gerrold (“The Great Milo”); December 7

The above will also be compiled into a special edition issue of the magazine and released in electronic and POD formats.

(10) KEEP ON CASTING. In “Fishing for Contracts”, Brad Torgersen tells Mad Genius Club readers the similarities between a writing career and sport fishing.

I think it’s much the same with the new world of indie publishing, too. In this case, you’re not selling to an editor, as much as you’re selling to the world at large. You’re still casting — each book or individual product is equivalent to throwing out a line. Whether or not your item(s) reel back the customers, is a calculated gamble. Having more item(s) on the market is much more likely to get you action, than having few, or one. More casting with more lures is upping your chances of getting strikes. If you happen to hit the right thing at the right time for the market, you may have the fish practically jumping out of the water at you. But you can’t have a moment like that, unless you can produce first. And production comes down to having a plan, sticking to that plan, and not letting the “skunked” days — when the fish aren’t biting — throw you off your game.

Also, don’t be fooled into thinking accouterment is a replacement for either craft, or effort. I have known some writers who devote far, far more time to attending writing workshops and using the latest software, or creating the perfect home office for themselves, than they do actually putting words down on the blank page. I think they mistake the trappings of the writerly life, for actual writing. An all-too-easy mindset to fall into, I know from experience! Believe me.

But then, all I have to do is look at my little, abused, green-plastic Flambeau box — with its attendant bargain-shopper no-name pole and reel — to be reminded of the fact that you don’t need a $2,000 laptop with the latest genius manuscript program, to haul in a lunker. My first award-winner for Analog was written on a hand-me-down POS computer from work — during nights I hunched at my daughter’s vinyl-padded play table in the unfinished basement. Because it was the only quiet spot I could find, when the family was fast asleep.

(11) NATHAN FILLION AT MOSCOW COMIC CON. This is news to me – a comic con in Russia.

Actor Nathan Fillion has been cracking us up since his role on the TV show Castle — and we couldn’t be more excited for him to keep us laughing in his new role on Modern Family as a weatherman named — wait for it — Rainer Shine.

But lately, his Instagram is where the jokes are at. Nathan is currently in Moscow attending Russia Comic Con 2016, and following along has been a feast of comedic delights. See for yourself:

(12) FRAUD AT BAT POLLS? Me TV ranked all 37 villains from the Sixties Batman TV series. I can’t believe The Riddler is Number One! I was always partial to Burgess Meredith squawking it up as The Penguin.

1. The Riddler

(No. 1)  Frank Gorshin

Gorshin appeared in nine episodes, far fewer than Meredith; however, he did earn an Emmy nomination for his work. As the only actor singled out for such an honor, he deserves a place at the top.

[Thanks to Dawn Incognito, Steve Davidson, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

60 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 10/2/16 The Sorcerer’s Appertainment

  1. (1) DISENCHANTED.

    There are some really bizarre statements in that piece.

    “One and Out”? So if someone wins the Best Novel Hugo, they can never win it again?

    Sorry, but that smacks suspiciously of “We need to spread the Hugos around so everybody gets one at some point.”

    While I agree that there are some perennial nominees and winners the quality of whose work does not necessarily warrant all the nominations they’ve gotten but who have big fan clubs, and that there are writers who’ve never gotten a nomination even though their work is fantastic, the Hugos aren’t a Participation Award. They’re an award for Excellence, as judged by Worldcon voters. Writers who continually produce excellence should get recognized for that.

    And I don’t get the “OMG I have to read all 150 series on that list” freakout. No, you don’t. You pick your own nominations from the ones you’ve read and feel are worthy. When the Finalist ballot comes up, read one or two in each of the nominated series which you haven’t read before — or don’t, and then vote based on what you feel is worthy (if any) and leave what you haven’t read off your ballot.

  2. (3) PUPPY CENSUS.

    Where is the graphic in the post above from? I could not find it in the linked post.

  3. (2) ANIME CASHES IN. Typo alert: I misspelled Makoto Shinkai when I submitted that item. Whoops!

    This one sounds interesting. I thought Voices of a Distant Star was brilliant, and was moved by Children Who Chase Lost Voices.

    The Unbearable Fiveness of Being

  4. @JJ

    Where is the graphic in the post above from? I could not find it in the linked post.

    Mike and I seem to have had a small miscommunication. It’s from a followup article. You can find it in When Slates Collide, published today. I’ve added some text to the opening of Slate Voting Analysis Using EPH Data: 2014-2016 to make this clear and link them together, but you must have got there quicker than I did. Anyway, no one else should be confused. I hope.

  5. Aaron: (1) There’s never been a Hugo for Best Series
    Yes there has. In 1966. Foundation won.

    One of the commenters did point that out to her.

     
    Lee says in a comment:
    Under the current rule our books qualify for consideration. Among a field of thousands, but — qualified. It’s the field of thousands part that makes the whole thing problematic, IMNSHO.

    Okay, so if the size of the field is to be reduced (and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with that), how does one decide which series/books do or do not get to be in it?

    I don’t think her suggestion for “Best Trilogy” is at all viable. Some series will not be well-suited to the trilogy format. Some are originally intended to be trilogies, and then the writer discovers that they can do better justice to the story if they put it into 4 or 5 or 6 volumes.

    I think that the Best Series committee wrestled a considerable amount with the issues that she’s raised, along with numerous other concerns. It’s not as if she is the only one, or even the first to think of them. The fact is that the committee threw out the idea of such limitations because they did not see a viable way to do them.

    I have a huge amount of respect for the committee, who worked really hard to bring forward a viable proposal, despite the logistical difficulties such a category presents.

    I think what will happen is that, depending on the result of next year’s award, the Business Meeting attendees will either tweak or vote down the proposal. We might as well all just get on with it, and see what happens.

  6. @JJ

    Thanks, Greg. I had a little bit of a Twilight Zone thing going on there for a while.

    I did clean the graph up a bit, removing bars that showed nothing of interest to make more room for ones that are interesting and then sorting it by the number of “soft rabid puppies” (maybe “renegade rabid puppies” would sound better).

    Anyway, the one result that really jumps off the page is that 85% of the Rabid Puppies refused to nominate File 770–Dark Lord’s Master Plan be damned.

    I tried to look for evidence of other slates (e.g. did anyone use the Nebula nominations or the Rocket Stack Rank suggestions as a slate) but it’s just impossible to see in the noise generated by the Puppies. (They just come back zero.) I’m quite sure that if anyone did use either list as a slate, it was fewer than 20 people, and most likely fewer than 10.

  7. 1) I think series which have a clear ending novel published in 2016 will dominate those series which put out the second book in the series etc. So I think this “continual renewal” clause will work itself out that way. Maybe I’m being optimistic.

    3) Good work, Greg. Hopefully we wont have to do this again next year but I’m afraid we’ll be giving the Hugo in the form of the “puppy-free” slot EPH provides for a couple years yet.

    9) I’m always happy to see more fiction! Greg, think RSR can squeeze one more set of reviews in for Amazing?

    I’m a bit surprised that they are taking so long to re-form as a fiction magazine. I thought we’d be having regular “issues” by now with more of a Lightspeed/Clarkesworld format. I mean you bought the name for a reason, yes? Hopefully this is the first step!

  8. 12) I’ll definitely agree with Frank Gorshin/The Riddler as the top Adam West-era villain.

    I think I’d go along with Burgess Meredith/The Penguin as number two (although Victor Buono/King Tut is comes close), but when I rewatched the entire series a couple of year ago when it became available in HD, Gorshin really stood out.

  9. 1) Will have to read through this when it’s not 7 AM on a public holiday. Though I actually think the Liaden Universe novels are an excellent candidate for the best series Hugo.

    3) Good work, Greg. I can imagine why many puppies refused to vote for Lois McMaster Bujold BTW. She’s a) a woman, b) had publicly repudiated them and c) her work is the sort of “pink SF SJW trash” Vox and his rabids claim to dislike.

    4) In Germany, we had a similar situation in 2005, when actor Peter Sodann, star of a popular crime drama series, ran for parliament for the Left Party and the TV station felt the need to suspend the series in the six weeks running up to the election to comply with regulations, even though the series itself and Sodann’s character had no connection to his political activities. That caused quite a stir at the time, especially since many believed (and there were some precedents) that Sodann’s series would not have been suspended, if he had chosen to run for a different party (Sodann is East German and the Left Party are the former East German communists). Coincidentally, one of his defenders was actress Uschi Glas, who is active for the very conservative Christian Social Union and whose movies/series were never removed from the broadcast schedule for her political views.

    12) I mainly remember Cesar Romero as the Joker and Eartha Kitt as one of three different Catwomen. But then, I first saw the 1960s Batman series during reruns in the Netherlands in the 1960s, when it was simply dated and silly, so I never had a chance to develop a fondness for any of the characters and actors.

  10. IMHO the comment about a field of thousands is silly. Pardon me launching into a ramble about that it and probably going off on tangents of my own. TL;DR: The field is large in all categories, but so what – the Hugo is just one award of many.

    Best Novel has a much larger set to draw upon (seeing as how it includes most of the series with eligible works, sometimes more than one in a series – plus all stand-alones in the year). I realize some may consider this problematic as well, but I don’t. SFF is a huge field, but a lot of it’s not Hugo worthy. And the Hugo isn’t the only award out there rewarding excellence in fiction, and some of the other awards are more tightly focused – so it’s not like the Hugo is the only award to hope for.

    Also, Lee’s not going up against all series that’re eligible. She’s hopefully going up against ones that’re Hugo worthy (presuming her series is; I haven’t read it, but of course I’ve heard of it). It’s like the mistake people make that “X people submit novels to publishers/agents, so I have 1/X ‘chance’ of being published.” Neither submissions nor awards are decided by a random number generator, AFAIK.

    IMHO we reduce the field by only nominating/voting for stuff that’s good enough, not by trying to reduce what’s eligible to a number of series (or novels, or short stories, or…etc.) that is smaller than some arbitrary number. I say “some arbitrary number” since if “thousands” is too many, this implies there’s some upper bound that’s acceptable (what would that be?).

    Side Note: As a reader, I’m not very sympathetic to author complaints that there’s too much competition, especially regarding awards. On the other paw, my TBR stack’s so big that I probably should be sympathetic!

    ObSFReading: I’m enjoying Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers (hoping I remembered her name right); I read a nice chunk today. It’s supposed to have one sequel (in theory!), so it won’t be up for Best Series unless that’s extended. 😉

  11. Re Gorshin and Meredith.

    It’s a puzzlement. Certainly the Penguiin left a better impression, visually (consider that the Penguin appeared in the 80’s/90s Batman movies first, and in a better movie, than the Riddler). On the other hand, Gorshin was brilliant, and did get that Emmy nomination.

    Favorite near-death by the 60’s Batman: That ridiculous giant clam that the Joker tried to feed Batman and Robin too. As I recall, Robin WAS briefly swallowed.

  12. @Greg:
    Data is data. But your explanation of the data in your Oct 2 post is weaker than in earlier posts. The 770 vote pattern and your explanation fit but others less so.

    You seem to be reaching for why Toni did not get 29 votes or Bujold was short x amount. Your explanations on other posts followed the data more closely than these did.

    I can suggest an alternative hypothesis on some of the categories. Was there a vote pattern of “not callista house” in the data if there were Callista house nominees? You might also look at the votes for Jim vs. Toni in editor to see if there was an understandable pattern between the two.

  13. [godstalk]

    Not eligible for Best Series, until she writes another one. Sea of Time came out in ’14.

  14. (3) For some reason reading the key to that graph in isolation made me laugh. “[] Rabid [] Rabid2 [] Sad” just looks so silly.

  15. I appertained myself a decent night’s sleep last night.

    Today I hope to appertain myself a quiet day of reading. Final genre classification of the current read still unexpectedly up in the air. Not, as anticipated, straight historical fiction. Some of the feel of steam punk with no actual steam punk elements present. We shall see. Thoroughly enjoying it.

    Oh, what book, you ask? A Most Extraordinary Pursuit, by Julia Grey. Or Gray. Will check before I hit post on the review, honest.

  16. @airboy

    I can suggest an alternative hypothesis on some of the categories. Was there a vote pattern of “not callista house” in the data if there were Callista house nominees?

    I tried that experiment (create separate Castalia and non-Castalia slates), but it didn’t do much. (That is, is moved fewer than 20 votes and/or reduced the total.)

    I spent a couple of days running every combination I could think of, but nothing beat the simplest one: create a soft slate of 4 items by removing the one that got the most nominating votes.

    I’m very open to other ideas. I agree that the only ones that are really strong are the Fanzine, Novel, and Novella numbers (and, of course, Pro Artist). The rest are on the borderline between signal and noise. Fanzine is very understandable, but there really is no good explanation for the other two, which is most of what I was trying to get at. If it’s about women, then women should have done badly in all categories, but they did not. If it’s about hostages, then hostages should have done badly in all categories, but they did not.

    It’s a puzzle.

  17. @Cattfish

    3) Good work, Greg. Hopefully we wont have to do this again next year but I’m afraid we’ll be giving the Hugo in the form of the “puppy-free” slot EPH provides for a couple years yet.

    Since they’ve promised to provide the data for next year in the same format as this year, I should be able to feed it into the same software and get a result immediately. That assumes they run actual slates next year. If they just nominate single items per category, I can make the estimate, but it’ll count everyone who nominated that item (and no other items) whether they did it from a slate or not. Having a longer slate helps the calculations a lot. When there’s just one item, the author’s friends, relatives, and fans get confused with the slaters.

    9) I’m always happy to see more fiction! Greg, think RSR can squeeze one more set of reviews in for Amazing?

    We definitely plan to have a look at it. Do we know how many will be original fiction vs. reprints?

  18. @Cora

    3) Good work, Greg. I can imagine why many puppies refused to vote for Lois McMaster Bujold BTW. She’s a) a woman, b) had publicly repudiated them and c) her work is the sort of “pink SF SJW trash” Vox and his rabids claim to dislike.

    I tried to find something where she had trashed them (or vice versa) before the nominations were announced, but I couldn’t find anything. Do you have a link?

  19. The biggest threat to Batman in the original TV series was that light blue Dodge van* that every single one of the villains used in the first season. I swear it was the real brains behind all of their crimes.

    * It tried to disguise itself by putting different signs on its sides.

  20. I do not know how many gamers there are around here but I just ran across an interesting new attempt at a real world physics based space combat game.
    Children of a Dead Earth
    It lets you design your own ships and the systems in them and then use them to smash your enemies. It is sort of like a more violent Kerbal Space Program with better physics. The graphics are primitive but they are not really important with this sort of game.

  21. I will say this for Frank Gorshin: a few years ago I saw the 1966 Batman movie on TV. There was a scene early on where the four villains – Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and Riddler – first got together to plot strategy. Cesar Romero and Burgess Meredith were capering and gibbering as usual, Lee Meriwether was doing a good job being Catwoman, and then… Gorshin just crooked his finger or something, and suddenly I had eyes for no one else. Totally in control of the scene when he wanted to be.

  22. (2) Now that everyone has just about accepted that Hayao Miyazaki is well and truly retired this time, Shinkai seems to be taking over as the one approved director for people who otherwise think cartoons are for kids.

    As long as I’m being grumpy, the official romanization of that movie’s title is actually your name.. I don’t blame the Guardian‘s copyeditor for thinking that must have been a typo.

  23. Gorshin was fantastic as The Riddler. A kind of bland villain with no given mannerisms, but he managed to be both creepy and campy at once. Tops my list, Penguin afterwards.

  24. Like others, I’m puzzled at how the potentially thousands of eligible candidates for Best Series is more of a problem that the potentially thousands of eligible candidates for Best Novel. Particularly given that the former is mostly going to be a subset of the latter. Nominators and voters will cope in a similar fashion.

  25. For whatever reason (probably a love of Vincent Price from a wee age), I always loved Egghead as a Batman villain.

    Re-watching them with my kids, I must admit that Gorshin was amazing.

  26. JJ wisely notes And I don’t get the “OMG I have to read all 150 series on that list” freakout. No, you don’t. You pick your own nominations from the ones you’ve read and feel are worthy. When the Finalist ballot comes up, read one or two in each of the nominated series which you haven’t read before — or don’t, and then vote based on what you feel is worthy (if any) and leave what you haven’t read off your ballot.

    I’d like to think that folks will nominate series that they’ve been reading as the novels and novellas and whatever came out. I as an example think that Neal Asher’s Polity series which had a novel out this year would be worthy of being nominated but glancing up at my bookshelves that it runs already to fifteen mostly thick novels.

    So I would suggest reading the svelte Prador Moon as a great look at the series. And I would hope folks suggesting other series would do the same thing.

  27. George R. R. Martin has reacted to being #4 on the list of “Hollywood’s Most Powerful Writers” from a few days ago:

    I seem to recall dimly that I was number seven a few years ago, so I guess I am getting more powerful by the day. Soon I will rule the world.

  28. @Cat Eldridge

    I’d like to think that folks will nominate series that they’ve been reading as the novels and novellas and whatever came out. I as an example think that Neal Asher’s Polity series which had a novel out this year would be worthy of being nominated but glancing up at my bookshelves that it runs already to fifteen mostly thick novels.

    I like that series a lot, but at some point I missed a book, and now I can’t recall where or when that was. Ugh.

  29. I can suggest an alternative hypothesis on some of the categories. Was there a vote pattern of “not callista house” in the data if there were Callista house nominees?

    There’s probably an element of that. When I first voted for the Hugos I found things that didn’t grab me, Wakula Springs for example, but I rad then hoping to understand what others saw in them
    Last year I read most of the nominees. I burnt out on JCW, but I rad the rest.
    This year, having grown used to detecting that certain smell, I dropped things as soon as I smelt it.

  30. kathodus notes I like that series a lot, but at some point I missed a book, and now I can’t recall where or when that was. Ugh.

    I’ve been reading it as it came, so I didn’t miss any of the books. And the Prador Moon novel is really the only one that deals with the sprawling continuity with brevity.

    Another ongoing series I’d nominate is Tanya Huff’s Confedration series but her newest novel in the series came out in 2015. Six novels deep, it is a series that must be read in order as there’s considerable development throughout the series.

  31. I’ve got a ticket to go see Kimi no Na wa later this month at an anime festivel here in Edinburgh. As for Shinkai being the next Miyazaki, nope. He is the first Shinkai though.

  32. Several favorite moments in the Batman comic come to mind, but the relevant one is from MAD LOVE, where the Joker is burning the midnight oil (not literally) to come up with his next scheme. At one point, he thinks he has it, then his smile fades, and he tosses it, murmuring “Too Riddler.”

    Since you ask, the other favorite Joker moment is also during a full-page soliloquy in an issue he doesn’t otherwise appear in (I think Len Wein wrote it. It was during the Rogers-Austin days), where he’s scheming about his grinning Joker fish. Suddenly, he’s gripped by worry: “But… what if everyone stops eating fish? I hadn’t thought of that!”

  33. Cat Eldridge: So I would suggest reading the svelte Prador Moon as a great look at the series. And I would hope folks suggesting other series would do the same thing.

    I read about two-thirds (more than 300 pages) of Dark Intelligence. The back cover synopsis sounded like it’d be right up my alley, but I found the book a real slog, which never grabbed me enough for me to sit down and read it in one or two sittings as I usually do with a novel. I finally just gave up and took it back to the library.

    I appreciate the suggestion. But it’ll probably be a while before I’ll be willing to pick up an Asher novel again. 😐

  34. Carl Slaughter asked me to announce he is looking for computer help:

    I need you to put out a call for help.  My computer has been attacked by ransomware. All my folders and documents, including those on my USB and including all my most up to date File 770 material, are jammed except the few that happened to be opened when the attack occurred.  I’ve already followed all the steps for restoring and recovering and going into safe mode and so on.  Nothing works.   I’m technology challenged.  I need a computer expert who has one of those apps that allows them to access my computer remotely so they can look around and figure out what’s wrong and do what needs to be done.
     

    If you can help, email him at — moreheadalumni (at) yahoo (dot) com

  35. @Cat Eldridge

    I’ve been reading it as it came, so I didn’t miss any of the books. And the Prador Moon novel is really the only one that deals with the sprawling continuity with brevity.

    From what I remember, Prador Moon was a sci-fi horror novel, basically. I agree it’s probably a good intro to the series. I found all of the different Polity-based series fun in their own right, as well. I just poked around a bit and I think the first unread book for me is either Orbus or The Technician.

    The Polity has been a sort of poor-man’s Culture for me. Or maybe a more horror-based Culture.

  36. FYI, the WSFS Rules page (Constitution, Standing Rules, Ruling & Resolutions of Continuing Effect, Business Passed On to next year’s Worldcon, and the enormous 145 page Minutes of the 2016 WSFS Business Meeting) are now online at the WSFS web site.

    Apparently calling this just “Rules” on the menu bar was confusing, so it’s now labeled as Constitution/Rules.

  37. “As for Shinkai being the next Miyazaki, nope. He is the first Shinkai though.”

    Otherwise, I guess Miyazaki would have been the previous Shinkai. Wonder what he would have thought about that.

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