(1) IT’S A WRAP. Tom Cruise will star in Universal’s reboot of The Mummy, now scheduled to arrive in theaters on June 9, 2017. This version will be set in the contemporary world. Cruise is not playing the title role, trade outlets are referring to his character as a former Navy SEAL.
So who is The Mummy?
Sofia Boutella, best recognized as the badass beauty with swords for legs in Kingsman: The Secret Service, will be playing this new version of the Mummy.
Who’s directing it?
Alex Kurtzman will be calling the shots. The only feature film he’s directed to date is People Like Us, but he’s best known for being a writer on a ton of big blockbuster movies, like Transformers, The Island, Mission: Impossible III, and J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek series. It currently has a script from Jon Spaihts (Prometheus).
(2) TRACING FIREBALLS TO THEIR SOURCE. In “A Precursor to the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement” Jon Peterson of Playing at the World identifies Leonard Patt as a forgotten influence or source on Gary Gygax, whose Chainmail (a collaboration with Jeff Perren) was the first game designed by Gygax sold as a professional product. It included a heavily Tolkien-influenced “Fantasy Supplement”, which made Chainmail the first commercially available set of rules for fantasy wargaming.
Patt, should he still be with us, would surely be unaware of how Chainmail followed his work, let alone the profound influence that concepts like “fire ball” and saving versus spells have had on numberless games over the decades that followed.
…In the early, pre-commercial days of miniature wargaming, the environment was very loose and collaborative, and these kinds of borrowings were not uncommon – but attribution was still an assumed courtesy. Gary Gygax has something of a reputation for adapting and expanding on the work of the gaming community without always attributing his original sources. The case of the Thief class is probably the most famous: the first draft of Gary’s rules do note their debt to the Aero Hobbies crowd, but as the published version of the rules in Greyhawk (1975) did not, the obligation of the Thief rules to Gary Switzer and the others at Aero Hobbies long went unacknowledged. Regarding Chainmail, Gary in late interviews says nothing to suggest that concepts like fireball were not of his own invention; Patt’s rules compel us to reevaluate those claims. Nonetheless, we must acknowledge that Gary had a singular gift for streamlining, augmenting and popularizing rules originally devised by others: certainly we wouldn’t say that Patt’s original rules could have inspired Blackmoor, and thus Dungeons & Dragons, without Gary’s magic touch and the elaboration we find in the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement.
But if you ever vanquished an enemy with a fireball in Dungeons & Dragons, or Magic: the Gathering, or Dragon Age, and especially if you ever made a saving throw against a fireball, thank Leonard Patt!
(3) LIGHTNING STRIKING AGAIN AND AGAIN. The Kickstarter appeal for People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction has raised $20,192 as of this writing – 400% of its original goal. Another special issue of Lightspeed, it will be guest-edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Kristine Ong Muslim, in partnership with section editors Nisi Shawl, Berit Ellingsen, Grace Dillon, and Sunil Patel, who are assembling a lineup of fiction, essays, and nonfiction from people of color.
Lightspeed’s Destroy series was started because of assertions that women, LGBTQ, and POC creators were destroying science fiction. The staff of Lightspeed took that as a challenge. Building on the astounding success of Lightspeed’s Women Destroy Science Fiction! (and Horror, and Fantasy) and Queers Destroy Science Fiction! (and Horror, and Fantasy), POC Destroy Science Fiction! brings attention to the rich history and future of POC-created science fiction and fantasy.
Like the previous Destroy issues, this campaign has the potential to unlock additional special issues focusing on Horror and Fantasy as well.
(4) DOUBTFUL. Breitbart.com’s Allum Bokhari dishonestly represents a commenter’s statement as a File 770 news item in “SJWs Are Purging Politically Incorrect Sci-Fi Authors From Bookstores”.
(5) BAKKA PHOENIX REPLIES. Yet he is getting the clicks he wants. One Toronto bookstore owner was intimidated into making a public denial — “A Question Worth Answering”.
We are Bakka Phoenix, a different bookstore entirely. We’re not going to comment on a rumour about XXX’s activities: that way lies madness and a lot of silly Twitter feuds. You might want to contact them directly (their website is XXX). Also, please note: from a Canadian perspective, Breitbart looks more like an outlet for the borderline-lunatic fringe than a credible news source.
But if you were wondering, we can assure you that we ourselves carry many books we find personally or politically reprehensible. Let’s face it, your left wing is somewhere off to our right, enough so that we’d have trouble even agreeing on the definition of ‘conservative’. Frankly, we find a lot of US political posturing completely unhinged.
But… so what? We’re in the business of selling books. Good books. Bad books. Titles some people love; titles others hate enough to throw across the room. Some books will transform readers minds and lives and be remembered for decades. Others will be forgotten immediately upon reading (or even partway through). We don’t have to like a book, its author, or its message in order to sell it. To suggest otherwise merely proves that the suggester spends very little time in actual bookstores.
The many wonderful independent booksellers I’ve met feel the same way. Independent bookstores exist for precisely that reason: to ensure that readers have the widest choice possible. So we — all of us — stock books we think our readers might be interested in, personal taste bedamned.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
- Born January 22, 1934 – Bill Bixby, of My Favorite Martian and The Hulk.
- Born January 22, 1959 – Linda Blair, of The Exorcist.
(7) BUTTER WOULDN’T MELT. Kate Paulk wrote a post educating her readers about the Best Editor Hugo categories.
Both these categories have seen controversy since their introduction: first the lobbying to split Best Editor – the whispers say this was so that a specific individual could receive an award instead of always playing second fiddle to a very prominent (and very skilled) magazine editor, the apparent hand-off of both through much of their history between an extremely small number of people – so much so that it appears a group of Tor editors considered the Long Form award to be their property (just look at the list of winners…).
The first comment, by Draven:
“yeah well, you know who we say for long form…”
The second comment, by Dorothy Grant:
“Hmmm, Maybe, maybe not. This year will be the last year David Hartwell will be eligible. (He edited L.E. Modesitt & John C. Wright, among others.) The industry lost a good man, and a good editor, yesterday. Granted, he’s won three, but these things do happen in tribute.”
The third comment, by Kate Paulk:
“They do indeed, and David Hartwell is certainly a worthy nominee.”
(8) BRUSHBACK PITCH. Clayton Kershaw, the best pitcher in the National League, also has a less well known claim to fame – his great-uncle Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. That explains his loyalty to the diminutive world, and his recent contradiction of NASA on Twitter.
Did you read about a new planet in our solar system? Is #planet9 real? Our head of Planetary Science discusses.https://t.co/t0b1Atqpqg
— NASA (@NASA) January 20, 2016
U mean 10th right? #neverforgetpluto
— Clayton Kershaw (@ClaytonKersh22) January 21, 2016
(9) SINBAD. The Alex Film Society will screen The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) on Thursday, April 28 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.
(10) A SCI-FI KID REMEMBERS. Film fan Steve Vertlieb has compiled his memories about meeting genre stars into one extravaganza post:
After some forty seven years of writing about films, film makers, and film music, I thought that I’d take a moment to remember the glorious moments, events, and artists who have so generously illustrated the pages of my life, and career, over these many remarkable years. Do return with me now to Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear when artistry and grandeur populated the days of our lives…days when gallant souls courageously rescued their leading ladies from screen villainy…days when culture and dignity proliferated the screen, television, radio, and the printed page. Look for it only in books, for its sweet reflection of gentle innocence is but a faded memory…a tender, poignant whisper of grace and wonder that, sadly, has Gone With The Wind.
Those memories are also the driving force of his autobiographical documentary Steve Vertlieb: The Man Who “Saved” The Movies. The director keeps an online journal of their progress.
A FILM DIRECTOR’S JOURNAL #3…THE PHILADELPHIA “SHOOT”
Whew! It would be a bitch of an exhausting marathon, because we had lots of LITERAL ground to cover in Center City, hopscotching from one locale to another blocks away; then to another, then to another; finally finishing up on the “high steel”, the center of the city’s Benjamin Franklin Bridge, stretching from Philadelphia across the Delaware River into Camden, N.J. But everyone agreed. And our “Philadelphia Marathon” was off and running.
The documentary film will wrap in February, 2016, with film festival screenings planned for this Spring.
(11) ALAN RICKMAN. Today Star Talk Radio site revisited Neil deGrasse Tyson’s 2012 conversation with Alan Rickman.
So what does astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson ask him about? Failing physics in high school, of course. They also talk a little about acting, including how Alan chooses and prepares for his roles, from researching the heart surgeon in Something the Lord Made to the wine-tasting scene in Bottle Shock. You’ll hear Alan explain his sense of responsibility to his audience and what he describes as “the mysterious mechanism of acting and theatre and storytelling.” Neil and Alan also get philosophical about the limits of human perception, the flocking behavior of birds, and the interaction of sound and memory.
(12) MARTIAN HOP. Tintinaus has a great addition to The Martian musical, based on Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler.”
Every Martian knows that the secret to survival,
Is solving the next problem,
And then the problem after that.
‘Cause every day’s a winner
Even if you’re gettin’ thinner,
And the best that you can hope for
Is growing tates in your crewmate’s scat.
You gotta know when to sow ’em
Know when to hoe ’em
Know when to harvest
For a bumper yield
You never count sauce satchels
‘Cause that would be depressing.
Knowing how long ungarnished taters
Will be your only meal.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kyra.]
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Greg Hullender on January 23, 2016 at 5:01 pm said:
Maybe, assuming I decide it is worth the rather substantial effort, considering the likely considerable debate over the pending constitutional amendments including EPH and 4/6. In addition, inasmuch as I’m BM Chair in 2017, I’d have to recuse myself on the ratification votes, which is a hassle. (OTOH, it would give my deputy some chair time, which is not a bad thing.)
It’s also very difficult to remove a Hugo Award category, and I’d be rather disappointed if we ended up adding three and deleting none. There is also the matter that there are people who say that Single Author Collection and Multiple Author Anthology are so different that they should not be part of the same category, and therefore if we add one, we must actually add two.
In any event, it’s a lot of work, and I’m also a BM staff member (assistant videographer), and not completely certain that it’s worth my while. OTOH, George RR Martin sort-of offered to co-sponsor the proposals as long as he doesn’t have to show up in person at the Business Meeting (which he last did in 1999 as I recall).
The pro-Baen faction (assuming that is distinct from the Puppies) see it as a ‘Best Publisher/Imprint/Label’ award both negatively (i.e. claiming it is owned by Tor) and positively (i.e. Baen books are good ergo the award should go to Toni W).
I assume from the origin of the award and also the 2012 link provided earlier of notable editors withdrawing from consideration, that the award is intended to encourage new talent in the field of SF/F editing. However, that makes it more of an industry award than the others. I don’t see much merit in an award that requires the level of inside knowledge that this one requires to make an informed judgement. Given how often it is unclear who edited a book never mind what contribution their editing made how are any of us supposed to make informed decisions except in a negative sense? (negative – i.e. when the flaws in the whole editorial process are obvious).
So perhaps the best option is to move to a best-publisher style award. I can see many positive argument for Baen being an award worthy producer of books but very few arguments for Baen being a great example of editing. In a sense that doesn’t even require a rule change, just a change in the way voters regard the award (and some already vote that way).
I have the first of those; give me another hour on the internet and I’ll have the second.
4) It never fails to amaze me how you supposedly ‘tolerant’ and ‘progressive’ types discount the even the possibility evil behavior from your side. It would not surprise me in the least that some SJW is circulating a letter trying to get Toronto bookstores to stop carrying Puppy authors. They do this kind of thing all the time, and bookstores do cave to them, all the time.
Case in point, you cannot buy Guns & Ammo or any other firearms magazine at Chapters, Canada’s only big-box book chain. Because SJWs had a little hate campaign about ten years ago or so, and Heather Reisman CEO of Chapters/Indigo decided Canadians didn’t need to buy Guns & Ammo or Shooting, or any of those other “American” magazines.
Since Chapters is essentially a monopoly in many parts of Canada, this ‘business’ decision means that to this day, you can’t get a gun magazine in much of the country unless you subscribe or have it delivered from Amazon.
Many of you no doubt think this is a good thing. That is because you are -stupid-. If a few little whiners can convince the only large book store in Canada to stop selling one of the more popular magazines in North America, don’t you think some other little whiners could get them to ban stuff -you- want to read? Most certainly that could happen.
Incidentally, Chapter’s CEO Heather Reisman’s effort to buy the SJWs off with her gun magazine ban failed, they picketed her in 2007 because she’s Jewish.
Oh. Yes. They. Did. Israel, you know. Look it up.
Just for the hell of it, here’s a blast from the past, DC Comics dropped Orson Scott Card from a Superman title because he said something about marriage once.
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2013/03/dc-comics-shooting-themselves-in-foot.html
5) Unlike y’all, I have actually been to Bakka Phoenix, and they have as good a selection of SF/F as anywhere in Toronto. I spent money there. I think it was a Larry Correia hardcover. I’m strongly tempted to drive over just to see what they say.
Their response to anyone telling them what to sell is the correct one, and the one I’d give as well. (I’d add the Glasgow Kiss and some loud F- word prose just because, but then I’m Scottish.)
You should all buy a bunch of stuff from them, help defray the cost of their over-priced retail space. The retail rents on even the crappiest of stores in Toronto are a crime against humanity. Send them money.
As seen above, other Canadian outlets large and small tend to acquiesce to whatever ban or boycott is fashionable among the excitable classes. Bravery is rare and should be rewarded.
Leslie C on January 23, 2016 at 2:11 pm said: “On a completely different topic, does anyone know how to discourage wild turkeys?”
Shotgun. .410 shot shell is sufficient, perhaps a Taurus pistol would do. 12 gauge might be a bit excessive at close range. You live in America, be sure to exercise your freedom while you still have it.
If you live in an un-free part and are using a stick, be prepared for a fight because it’s a big bird and it isn’t the least bit afraid of you. Upside to the shotgun solution, I understand (but cannot confirm from personal experience) that wild turkeys are delicious.
Personally I just glower at them, and they run off. Scottish, y’know.
Camestros Felapton on January 23, 2016 at 4:54 pm said:
My wife, with whom Steve and Lynn Donaldson used to live, informs me they never had fowl either large or small. Horses and Siamese cats, but not fowl.
ULTRAGOTHA: My wife, with whom Steve and Lynn Donaldson used to live, informs me they never had fowl either large or small. Horses and Siamese cats, but not fowl.
Ah, there you have it. Stephen R. Donaldson has SJW credentials.
Yes. They had FIVE of them. And goats, she tells me.
stewart said:
And now a dwarf planet.
“Which struck me as a very Hartwell thing to do.”
Exactly.
David Hartwell was an excellent editor AND an admirable human being: someone who was fully deserving of his multiple nominations and honors. His decision to decline further nominations demonstrated his honorable character.
One notes with interest the dramatic difference between David Hartwell and another recent “Hugo-nominated” editor, someone who is neither of those things – and who scrabbled onto the ballot only by dishonorably gaming the system.
IanP said:
You’re in for a treat!
Re: comments along the way about the protagonist. Yes, he is a nasty piece of work at the start of the book, but I personally found that nf ur pnzr gb ernyvmr vg, ur qrirybcrq vagb rabhtu bs n uhzna orvat sbe zr gb abg unir n ceboyrz jvgu uvz orvat gur cebgntbavfg. I was pulling for him at the very end.
@Kurt: “As for the lack of Editor Hugos for Baen editors, my approach remains thus:”
This King Bob (the Horizontal) agrees on all points. Especially the last one. 🙂
James Nicoll says
And at least one they didn’t publish was worse; see the Chicon IV book (the fiction collection, not the program book) for the unfigleafed version of a Freas cover.
I’m finding the three turkey problem quite delightful.
Less delightful is the question of Best Editor Long Form. The Hugo rules are clear that in order to qualify, one must edit four books in the calendar year being considered.
@JJ quotes Kate Paulk as writing, “This is one of the reasons I personally consider the Long Form award in particular more of a “participation prize” – it tends to be nominated for and awarded more in recognition of contributions to the field overall.”
And goes on to explain that as saying:
In other words, “I’m going to claim that we’re just doing what Hugo nominators and voters have done all along, by pretending that I have special knowledge of what their motivations have been”.
That seems particularly handwavy to me too, but there seems to be some justification for it.
As Kevin Standlee writes here “(a)t best, Editor Long Form could be seen as a proxy for the old Best Publisher category.” There is a possibly a certain amount of special pleading (I don’t mean that as a criticism) in that the post is about eliminating three categories, including BELF, but it seems equally handwavy in pretty much the same way as the official (?) puppy approach.
If the information about who edited what is available, which it mostly isn’t at the moment, without a significant amount of research or at all in the case of Baen, I think the average Hugo voter could come up with nominees who are actual editors rather than proxies for Best Publisher. An additional question is whether any nominee has been disqualified for not meeting the four works requirement.
Yes, yes, I know I’m being pedantic, but rules is rules except when they aren’t and I’m not fond of handwaving.
Also, the fish is one of my favorite parts (okay, so I have hundreds of favorite parts) of Ancillary Mercy. Thank you @Jim Henson.
@Cheryl S.:
“Turn me on, dead man.” — John Lennon. (Allegedly.)
Kendall asked if anyone edited multiple anthologies and/or collections in a single year. There are two that I know of, the most prolific being Ellen Datlow who does a lot of work for Tor, but who can be found with work being commissioned by any number of publishing houses; the other is Paula Guran whose work is on Prime Books.
Oh and I’m sure they others who also do so, but they don’t come to mind right now.
@Jim Henley, dyslexia and aphasia are a rather interesting combination. The best part is that I never know I’ve done it until I try to figure out a punchline. Heh. Thank you. Again.
…the dramatic difference between David Hartwell and another recent “Hugo-nominated” editor, someone who is neither of those things – and who scrabbled onto the ballot only by dishonorably gaming the system.
Well, that’s kind of the end point of my current preoccupation. If BELF is widely understood to be either a proxy for Best Publisher or Best Near or Long-term achievement, then (rules be damned and) Toni Weiskopf had a legitimate place on that ballot.
@Cheryl S.: No sweat. As you can imagine, this is hardly the first time that has happened. 🙂
@Camestros Felapton: (grins) You’re on a roll today!
@JJ: Ah, I was taking some things too literally; so, it’s not like a regular reprint anthology. Whoever edited/curated the anthology perhaps would be eligible, but the individual editors presumably weren’t involved – just edited the original selections. (That’s where I get to, anyway.) I didn’t look closely and think it through enough – thanks.
@Greg Hullender: “a gift to the slates that even EPH can’t fix” – I don’t see how EPH doesn’t help there, as it does with Best Novel – perhaps more so, since the field isn’t so scattered. I can’t predict what’ll happen with MAC 2, but if EPH passes, I don’t see why this means it’ll happen indefinitely (plus you presume Puppies won’t get bored at some point anyway). What am I missing that means it’ll get No Award for all eternity?
@Cheryl S.: Are the Best Artist categories also bad because one has to research them? It’s not just BELF where one frequently has to research. Not all books credit the artist, though more do now than in the past, or so it seems to me.
To me, BELF is what it says on the tin – not a proxy for Best Publisher (publishers have many editors, especially Baen and Tor, it seems) and certainly not an achievement award. Despite how Kevin or Kate may feel about it. But I’m just one voter. 😉
@A wee green man: I was thinking 4/year, not just multiple, and yes, Ellen Datlow came to mind for me, too. But if someone wanted to make the minimum for BESF require 4/year, we’d need a lot more than a few editors. or just basically admit the category’s really only for magazine editors. so I’m fine with the requirements being different, especially since it’s not the only category like this (the zines are like this too, and this category overlaps with prozines, which have no award). Sorry if I’m a bit extra-rambly here.
This is what ISFDB has for the people I think of as the most prolific anthology editors:
John Joseph Adams
The End Has Come with Hugh Howey
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 with Joe Hill
Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse
Operation Arcana
Press Start to Play with Daniel H. Wilson
Loosed Upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction
(and editing Lightspeed Magazine and Nightmare Magazine as well)
Paula Guran
New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird
The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2015
The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015
Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep
Blood Sisters: Vampire Stories by Women
Warrior Women
Ellen Datlow
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Seven
The Doll Collection
The Monstrous
Jonathan Strahan
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine
Meeting Infinity
Gardner Dozois
Old Venus (with GRRM)
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection
Rich Horton
The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015
I would also include David G. Hartwell and Martin H. Greenberg on that “most prolific” list, but neither of them produced anthologies last year.
That’s a fairly dramatic assessment of poor Hugh…
‘AsYouKnow’ Bob: another recent “Hugo-nominated” editor… who scrabbled onto the ballot only by dishonorably gaming the system.
I don’t think that’s a fair statement. Sure, she didn’t object, and I think she’d probably have been quite happy to ride the slate to a rocket gained via an unfair advantage, but she didn’t actually campaign for herself to be nominated in that category (unlike the horde of self-published authors doing so over at MGC).
@JJ: Psssst! I think ‘AsYouKnow’ Bob might mean someone who was on the ballots for both long and short form editor and who has their own printing house…
Jim, I got good enough at imitating “Turn me on, dead man” (“nur-ee-on, reb-mun”) that I could play my voice backwards and it would sound like “number nine.” Used to love playing with open-reel tape, which could be given a half twist for easy reversing. And I had a second machine, so I could multi-track myself singing “Chopsticks” (with obbligatto). I also used to read paragraphs of text backwards and see how it sounded the other way. It’s possible to do some of this stuff now with audio apps.
No doubt I’ve gone on about this before, but probably not here. Around 1968, my older sisters were convinced that there were clues on Beatles albums. Not those clues. Well, those clues, but not in the way… let me cut to it. They were into the belief that if one properly deciphered various clues on Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour, one would learn when and where to go wait, and that at the appointed time and place, a helicopter would come and take whoever was there away to a magical mystery tour on some wonderful magical island that the Beatles had somewhere. Ooh! As it happened, several of these were the same clues that proved the demise of Paul McCartney (or Saul Cartwright, in the Batman version, which had the twist ending that… oh, no; not going to spoil a lame 60s DC comic for anybody).
Reminds me of how I found a very old book on Nostradamus that breathlessly detailed just how amazingly accurate the old boy had been on predicting stuff that affected (let us say) France of the 1800s. The verse that we take as meaning the assassination of JFK, for instance, clearly foretold the demise of some popular princeling of the day. What a bunch of saps those guys were, not knowing that its words were clearly meant for MY generation and place.
I always thought DAW had the most eye-searing covers, till Baen was invented. And at least Baen didn’t happen till my most-easily- embarrassed years were past — and their bimbos have at least nominal clothing (if worse typography). Oddly, I remember the DAW cover of “Hestia” but have never read the book IIRC.
So Hartwell is eligible this year for BE Short Form? It would seem so — plenty of older anthologies, plus the 2015 Benford collection, and his past NYRSF work (which he specifically was very proud of). I only had 4 people in that category anyway. One (or two) anthology in 2015, many in the past — that’s 3.3.9.
The Editor categories are further proof that Puppies fundamentally don’t understand the Hugos. Many longtime Hugo voters don’t care about those categories, don’t nominate them, don’t vote on them, etc. Whereas Puppies fixate on them.
Kurt B: No Hugos for people who are fine with doing a shitty job.
Well, exactly. That’s enough all by itself. Plus, no individual awards for people who do a group job (crappily).
Michael Eochaidh: Psssst! I think ‘AsYouKnow’ Bob might mean someone who was on the ballots for both long and short form editor and who has their own printing house…
Ah, then in that case, I’d say that his statement was wholly accurate.
bookworm1398 wrote:
Young Ari. At its heart, the book is that staple of classic SF, the coming-of-age story of the young genius. Except that, unlike the standard trope, instead of being surrounded by people who hate her because she’s different, she’s surrounded by people who want to turn her into an evil old woman! (And then there’s the ones who want to kill her in order to keep her from turning into an evil old woman.)
The Union are not the good guys. In most of Cherryh’s Union/Alliance stories, they’re the antagonists. Calling them evil might be going a bit far (Cherryh’s world isn’t that black-and-white), but they’re certainly the ones who are most willing to indulge in morally…questionable activities. Like the aforementioned mind-tampering. So we have the innocent and charming young child trapped in the heart of darkness, and completely unaware of her danger–if danger it is. It’s a really good setup, and made all the better by the fact that young Ari—in stark contrast to her progenitor—really is a charming young person.
Of course, I tend to think of all the stuff before young Ari comes on the scene as the intro, and for an intro it’s awfully long, and stars a not-very-nice person (old Ari). I do wish it were shorter, but it does make it all the more scary to think that young Ari might turn into something like that.
Second, there’s the fact that the core concept of the book is trying to turn a staple of third-rate bad-SF into something plausible and real: Cloning someone and getting a duplicate of the original. That’s simply not possible (ignoring some improbable technologies like “downloading/uploading” personalities), but Cherryh decides to see how close we might be able to get—if we were living in a ruthless and desperate, but technologically advanced society. That’s sort of the meta-humor level of the book, and I love it.
But really what it boils down to is young Ari. She’s what saves the book from being a fascinating but extremely creepy intellectual exercise, and gives it a heart and soul. Her and her friends.
@rob_matic,
I’ve enjoyed everything of Walter Jon Williams’ I’ve read. I suspect one reason why he’s not as successful as he should be is because he is so able to turn his hand to writing such a diversity of stories. There is no single series that serves as a marketing cornerstone.
BELF: It’s a category I’ve always struggled with because of the paucity of data. I find I have to ask around to discover the identity of editor of a particular book I’ve enjoyed. IMO, that’s just not good enough in 2016 (or 9480 where the File770 Time Machine has sent me). It’s better with the final vote because of the Hugo Voter Packet, but it’s prior to the nomination stage that we needed that information.
Camestros Felapton:
There is now a sufficient history of words & deeds from the Puppy leaders, past & present that I (and everyone else) can use judgement in response to SP4. I plan to nominate works I’ve personally seen & read that I think are worthy. The rest of it? Let’s see what happens.
@Camestros,
Love your advice on dealing with wild turkeys, but am unsure of their usefulness. I find you can sometimes drink Wild Turkey problems away.
@Kendall – Are the Best Artist categories also bad because one has to research them? It’s not just BELF where one frequently has to research. Not all books credit the artist, though more do now than in the past, or so it seems to me.
To me, BELF is what it says on the tin – not a proxy for Best Publisher (publishers have many editors, especially Baen and Tor, it seems) and certainly not an achievement award. Despite how Kevin or Kate may feel about it. But I’m just one voter.
I am not having a problem with the Best Artist categories, except in having a wealth of choices. SFnal art is such a rich field that even if I were to totally ignore book covers, I wouldn’t have to visit many corners of the internet to fill up my nomination slots.
I agree with you about what BELF is supposed to be – the rules are quite clear – but the research to fill the category is daunting. Not only is the information about who edits what not all that easy to acquire, the job itself is variable. Some people are producing silk purses wrestled out of sow’s ears and others are shoving things out the door with an hour’s worth of copyediting.
I think Hugo voters are capable of voting on the category, but there is a certain amount of comparing apples to cotter pins involved in the nominating process. Or blind faith. Or ignoring the rules for the category in favor of your own personal interpretation of what the category is supposed to mean.
Okay, yes, I’m done now.
@Soon Lee: Your assessment of Walter Jon Williams is very much like my own. People who want every book to be just like the last one will be totally turned off by him, because nearly every book is completely different from the last (aside from the occasional trilogy). But I love that about him! His Drake Maijstral series is one of the best SF comedies of manners I’ve read, while the This is Not a Game trilogy is an outstanding technothriller, and Aristoi and Implied Spaces, which are two of my favorites, remind me strongly of early Delany and mid-period Zelazny, respectively. And of course, he’s got MilSF/Space Opera and Cyberpunk to his credit as well. The boggling thing is that he does them all so well. Really, really deserves a wider audience.
(And I’m *finally* going to remember to tick the box, this time for sure!) 🙂
others are shoving things out the door with an hour’s worth of copyediting.
Or less!
“Publishing in one hour or less, while you wait!”
Oh, I get so sick of writers who think copyediting is optional. Bad grammar, sloppy homophones, incoherent punctuation… I want to take a red pen to some of those “books,” deduct a dime from the price for every mistake I find, and send out bills. I think I could actually make more money than I spent if the authors paid up.
Not all of the works I want to do that to are self-published, but those do tend to be the worst offenders. (And of those, the worst I’ve seen are erotic short stories. I swear, I think some of those people type one-handed until they reach a stopping point, slap some prefab packaging and a $2.99 price on it, and hit “publish” without even doing any cleanup.)
True story: I read an indie superhero novel a couple of years ago that spelled a main character’s name three different ways. I forget what the actual variants were, but it was a “Joanne, JoAnn, Joanna” kind of situation. Now, I’ll grant that I just finished a tradpub superhero novel that made a similar goof, but the difference was that it was a secondary character and the author only made the mistake once, substituting a more-common spelling for the less-common one that was used elsewhere. I can forgive one extra E a lot more readily than I can repeated indecision.
Don’t even get me started on the book where someone “took the rains.”
@Rev. Bob: In “His Majesty’s Dragon”, the first Temeraire book, there was suddenly a line spoken by a dragon who had never been introduced before. It took me a little time to realize it was probably meant to be an existing dragon with a similar-sounding name.
The most annoying part about it was that I have an omnibus edition published a long time after the book was originally published, and it’s an e-book where it’s easier to correct the text, so it should have been possible to catch and fix it.
@The Phantom: Nice trolling attempt, but you should at least try to stick to accuracy if you want to be taken seriously.
@Xtifr
I really liked Implied Spaces, every time I thought I had it pinned down it would change. Made for a very satisfying read. That’s the book that decided me on deliberately working through his back catalogue.
@Rev Bob
Sweet marmalade and toast, yes! It is a problem across the board. Large press, small press, indy, and worst of all are the magazines.
Regards,
Dann
Johan P: I’d like to see The Phantom attempt to kill turkeys with a shotgun on the sidewalk next to a busy road. Wait, no. No, I wouldn’t. Because it would be stupid and dangerous. Seriously, who thinks that firing shotguns in the middle of a city is a good idea?
@Mike Glyer
I had, but I had been under the impression that Paulk was discussing long-form, and not short form.
(Outside editing window)
My question was that in the comments, it didn’t really seem like that Paulk’s followers were distinguishing between the two, and really quite engaged with the idea of nominating Hartwell for his work on their favorite southern gentle-knight’s novels. As they seemed focused on the long-form, it contradicted what was at the link from ’12.
Not really buying the Phantom’s attempt to play the tartan card either. Nobody here really calls it a Glasgow kiss. It’s “I’ll stick the heid on you” I’ll withhold judgement on Scottish, though I’d call myself a Scot or Scots. Just don’t call us Scotch…
@IanP: I don’t blame the English. They’re just gettin’ on wi’ their shite.
File770 deserves a better class of troll. Should I point out that I buy the vast majority of my SF/F books there? Should I point out that there are several Toronto residents who post here (including obviously Dex)? Nah, the dude’s got his mind made up already.
For those using Stylish, the Phantom’s whiteout address is:
4b1e05d5d5e554f9923485570054ea47
Just added him myself. I have no interest in listening to his drivel.
Rev. Bob:
The first time I read Watchmen, it was a serialized translation into swedish. In it we hade the same character named The Comedian, The Humorist and The Jokester.
The Comedian, The Humorist & The Jokester walk into a bar.
The bartender says, “Are you trying to be funny?”
[Rewind]
The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”
I’ll see myself out…
@Jim Henley
Autocorrect hates it when I drop into Scots.
People may be amused to learn that the original Scots word for a turkey was bubbly-jock… https://sco.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbly-jock
Presumably fae the noise they mak.
@Soon Lee: There was a Best Editor wiki, but now the page is a GoDaddy placeholder. ;-(
@Cheryl S.: In fairness, I can’t really disagree much with what you say there. Sorry if I was a little nit picky.
@Rev. Bob: Occasionally I’ve seen my mom take a very light pencil to tweak something that just seems wrong to her. (She used to be an English teacher.) This annoyed the heck outta me when it happened in a book of mine, but I kinda understood where she was coming from. I suppose in theory I could correct mistakes in ebooks I read. 😉 Spelling a main character’s name several ways – SIGH, that’s pretty bad.
(emphasis added) LOL, I see what you did there (perhaps unintentionally).
Kendall, I copy-edit my ebooks all the time…
@Cassy B.: Heh, I’m not sure if doing that would make me happier (YAY NOW IT’S RIGHT) or more annoyed (OMG WHY MAKE ME WORK). 😉 If I remember, though, I’ll tell my mom she’s not the only one who does this.
@Kendall:
Oh, I intended it. 😉
@IanP: Aye, and yer Hielanders ken it’s a “French chicken”!
(Auto-translate gets most upset when it reads the Gaelic; always thinks it’s Irish.)
Must admit to making notes in my ebook sometimes on egregious and repeated copy editing errors. Or particularly funny ones. Now if only these would get back to the original authors and be acted upon! It could be a meta-textual game amongst readers if enough people did it and sharing of notes was on. Heck, I’d settle for being able to edit my own copy of an ebook so I wouldn’t have to come across the errors again.
But I cannot bring myself to write in dead-tree books, nor to dog ear them. They are SACRED!!! (Well okay, sometimes in reference books when something’s wrongly cross-referenced or there’s a wrong name in there, like confusing King Blerg XXII with King Blerg XXIII.)
The Phantom said:
“Guns and Ammo” is one of the most popular magazines in North America? Bummer.