(1) BRAITHWAITE RESTORES CLASSIC ARTWORK. Gracing the cover of Warp #93, the Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association clubzine, is this superlative painting —
The Doctor and his Companion, by Claude Monet (oil on canvas, 1875), a painting dating from a most fertile phase of the renowned French Impressionist’s career, was recently discovered in the attic of a house in Argenteuil in which Monet lived in the 1870s. Little is known of the subjects depicted as the artist left no notes as to their identity or relationship to him. No particulars on the gentleman or lady are to be found, either, in the local historical records of the time and the odd structure beside which the gentleman is standing remains a puzzle. Civic records offer no indication that such a structure ever existed, as if this curious blue box simply appeared out of thin air, and then disappeared just as mysteriously. The title of the work gives us our only clue as to the two subjects, suggesting that the gentleman was, perhaps, a medical doctor travelling with a female relative, Fiancée, or mistress. MonSFFA’s own Keith Braithwaite worked on the restoration of the painting.
(2) BLUE PEOPLE BEWARE. Yahoo! Movies reports “’The Force Awakens’ Barreling Toward ‘Avatar’Record”.
The space opera sequel is moving up the all-time domestic box office charts at a record clip and now is poised to overtake those pointy eared blue aliens as the top grossing film in history. Avatar earned $760.5 million during its stateside run and Star Wars: The Force Awakens has generated $740.4 million domestically after picking up $88.3 million over New Year’s weekend. It should take the crown from Avatar early next week.
(3) AXANAR DECONSTRUCTED. (There’s that word again. I hope I know what it means…) John Seavey at Mightygodking has created a FAQ about the Paramount/CBS lawsuit against Axanar Productions:
Q: Then why are they being sued? Paramount allows lots of these things, don’t they?
A: Oh, yeah. “Star Trek Renegades”, “Star Trek: Of Gods and Men”, “Star Trek Continues”…basically, it seems like as long as nobody’s making any money, Paramount turns a blind eye to these fan films.
Q: But this one they wouldn’t? Why?
A: Well, there is the fact that, in an update on Axanar’s Indigogo campaign, they said, “EVERYTHING costs more when you are a professional production and not a fan film. All of this and more is explained, along with our budget of how we spent the money in the Axanar Annual Report.”
And in that latest annual budget report, they said, “First and foremost, it is important to remember that what started out as a glorified fan film is now a fully professional production. That means we do things like a studio would. And of course, that means things cost more. We don’t cut corners. We don’t ask people to work full time for no pay. And the results speak for themselves.”
And:
“Please note that we are a professional production and thus RUN like a professional production. That means our full time employees get paid. Not much honestly, but everyone has bills to pay and if you work full time for Axanar, you get paid.
Also, no other fan film has production insurance like we do. We pay $ 12,000 a year for that. Again, a professional production.”
Also, in their Indiegogo FAQ, they had this little gem:
“Q: What is Axanar Productions?
Axanar is not just an independent Star Trek film; it is the beginning of a whole new way that fans can get the content they want, by funding it themselves. Why dump hundreds or thousands of dollars a year on 400 cable channels, when what you really want is a few good sci-fi shows? Hollywood is changing. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other providers are redefining content delivery, and Axanar Productions/Ares Studios hopes to be part of that movement.”
Which kind of contradicts the “fan film” statement.
(4) WILL SMITH’S CHARACTER IS LATE. John King Tarpinian imagines the conversation went like this: “You want how much? Sorry but your character just died.” In a Yahoo! News interview, “Will Smith Says It Was Terrible When He Found Out His Independence Day Character Died”.
Will Smith found it unpleasant to learn that the fat lady had sung on Steven Hiller, the character he played in 1996’s Independence Day. “It was terrible when I found out my character died,” Smith told Yahoo.
Hiller’s death was revealed on a viral site for Independence Day: Resurgence. “While test piloting the ESD’s first alien hybrid fighter, an unknown malfunction causes the untimely death of Col. Hiller,” the site’s timeline reads. “Hiller’s valor in the War of ’96 made him a beloved global icon whose selfless assault against the alien mothership lead directly to the enemy’s defeat. He is survived by his wife Jasmine and his son Dylan.” You can see an image of Hiller’s fiery death by clicking here.
(5) ALL KNIGHT. Admiring Fred Kiesche’s Damon Knight quote in a comment here, Damien G. Walter tweeted —
https://twitter.com/damiengwalter/status/683681839463022592
(6) HE FIGURES. Camestros Felapton forays into toy design with his new “Hugo” brand “Stage Your Own Kerfuffle” figures….
(7) JEFFRO MOVES UP. Vox Day is delegating management of the Castalia House blog to “The new sheriff in town”, Jeffro Johnson:
As Castalia House has grown, it has become increasingly difficult to balance my responsibilities as Lead Editor and as the manager of this blog. Because Castalia House shoots for excellence across the board, I have decided that it is time to step back and hand over my responsibilities for this blog to someone else.
And who is better suited to take it over than one of the very best bloggers in science fiction and gaming? I am absolutely delighted to announce that the Castalia House blogger, author of the epic Chapter N series, and 2015 Hugo nominee for Best Fan Writer, Jeffro Johnson, has agreed to accept the position of Blog Editor at Castalia House.
(8) ARISTOTLE. That leaves Vox Day more time to orchestrate his winter offensive. His first target is File 770 commenter Lis Carey.
Even I occasionally forget how fragile these psychologically decrepit specimens are. Anyhow, it’s a good reminder to ALWAYS USE RHETORIC on them. They’re vulnerable to it; they can’t take it. That’s why they resort to it even when it doesn’t make sense in the context of a discussion, because they are trying to make you feel the emotional pain that they feel whenever they are criticized.
Day is developing a Goodreads author page, and Carey mentioned yesterday she had already seen early signs of activity:
Ah, this may explain a recent comment on one of my reviews of last year’s Hugo nominees–and means maybe I can expect more.
The particular comments were on her review of Castalia House’s Riding The Red Horse.
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 3, 1841 — Herman Melville ships out on the whaler Acushnet to the South Seas.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born January 3, 1892 – J.R.R. Tolkien, honored by Emily Asher-Perrin at Tor.com:
But of course, the world remembers Tolkien for changing the fantasy genre forever. By penning The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien set a framework for fantasy literature that countless authors have attempted to recapture over the years. The creation of Middle-earth, from its languages to its poetry to its rich cultural history and varied peoples, was an astounding feat of imagination that no one had managed before with such detail and ardent care.
(11) SEMIPROZINES. Camestros Felapton continues moving through the alphabet in his “Semiprozine Round-Up: Cs and Ds”.
Keeping on going in the Cs and Ds of semiprozines.
- The Cascadia Subduction Zone
- The Colored Lens
- Crossed Genres Magazine
- Daily Science Fiction
- The Dark Magazine
- Diabolical Plots
(12) PARTS NOT TAKEN. “Leonardo DiCaprio Reflects On Turning Down Anakin Skywalker And Two SuperHero Roles” at ScienceFiction.com:
And it’s a philosophy that has led to him turning down parts in some guaranteed smashes and lots of cha-ching. He recently revealed that he actually met with George Lucas, but ultimately passed on playing Anakin Skywalker in the ‘Star Wars’ prequels.
“I did have a meeting with George Lucas about that, yes. I just didn’t feel ready to take that dive. At that point.”
Around this time, DiCaprio instead chose to make ‘Gangs of New York’ and ‘Catch Me If You Can’, the latter of which earned him a Golden Globe nomination.
Still he must be kicking himself. The role instead went to Hayden Christiansen and look at how his career took… oh, ahem. Nevermind.
(13) REMEMBERING BAEN. While researching another post, I rediscovered David Drake’s 2006 tribute to the late Jim Baen, who had just recently passed. Shortly before Baen’s death the two were on the phone and Baen asked, “You seem to like me. Why?” The answer is rather touching.
And then I thought further and said that when I was sure my career was tanking–
“You thought that? When was that?”
In the mid ’90s, I explained, when Military SF was going down the tubes with the downsizing of the military. But when I was at my lowest point, which was very low, I thought, “I can write two books a year. And Jim will pay me $20K apiece for them–”
“I’d have paid a lot more than that!”
And I explained that this wasn’t about reality: this was me in the irrational depths of real depression. And even when I was most depressed and most irrational, I knew in my heart that Jim Baen would pay me enough to keep me alive, because he was that sort of person. He’d done that for Keith Laumer whom he disliked, because Laumer had been an author Jim looked for when he was starting to read SF.
I could not get so crazy and depressed that I didn’t trust Jim Baen to stand by me if I needed him. I don’t know a better statement than that to sum up what was important about Jim, as a man and as a friend.
(14) PEACE IN OUR TIME. In “The Stormbunnies and Crybullies”, John C. Wright devotes over 2,000 words to making his closing offer irresistible in that special way only he knows how.
But I am a forgiving man, jovial and magnanimous. I make the following peace offer: Go your way. Cease to interfere with me and my livelihood, do your work, cease to libel me and meddle with my affairs, withhold your tongue from venom and your works from wickedness, and we shall all get along famously.
Otherwise, it is against my self interest to seek peace with you. Peace is a two sided affair: both parties must agree. So far only Mr. Martin has even expressed a desire for it.
(15) WHAT KEEPS YOU FROM WRITING? Nandini Balial at Pacific Standard helps writers name their fears — “Gremlins and Satyrs of Rejection: A Taxonomy of Writers’ Foes”
THE SATYRS OF MOUNT OUTLET: Like its cousin Olympus, Mount Outlet stretches far beyond human sight into luxurious billowy clouds. The work its satyrs produce is sharp and daring. Vast networks of bloggers, freelancers, and even reporters churn out viral but self-aware listicles, personal essays that make me cry more than they should, and short stories so good I’m inclined to simply put my pen away. On Twitter, their satyrs (editors) trade barbs and witticisms with the speed of a Gatling gun. A poor peasant like me may approach the foot of the mountain, but my tattered, unworthy scrolls and I will soon turn around and head home.
(16) PUBLISHING STINKS. Kristen Lamb, in “The Ugly Truth of Publishing & How BEST to Support Writers”, says don’t bother reviewing her books on Goodreads, because that’s where the trolls are:
Tweet a picture of our book. Put it on Facebook. People in your network ARE noticing. Peer review and approval is paramount in the digital age. And don’t support your favorite author on Goodreads as a first choice (AMAZON reviews are better). The only people hanging out on Goodreads for the most part are other writers and book trolls.
Support us on your regular Facebook page or Instagram or Twitter. Because when you post a great new book you LOVED your regular friends see that. When they get stranded in an Urgent Care or an airport? What will they remember? THAT BOOK. They won’t be on Goodreads. Trust me.
(17) DISSONANCE. After reading Kristen Lamb’s discouraging words, I encountered M. L. Brennan calling for everyone to get up and dance because “Generation V earned out and what that means”. That’s not the next post I’d have expected to see, straight from leaving Lamb’s black-crepe-draped explanation of the publishing industry.
One thing to bear in mind, because it’s easy to lose sight of it when you look at that last paragraph — if I hadn’t received an advance, I wouldn’t have made more money on this book. I would still have earned $7615.78 on the series — except earning that first $7500 would have taken me two years, rather than being entirely in my pocket on the day that Generation V hit the bookstores. And that $7500 paid my mortgage, my electric bill, and other bills, which made it substantially easier for me to write. Without that advance, it would’ve taken me longer to write Iron Night, Tainted Blood, and even Dark Ascension, because I would’ve been having to hustle other work elsewhere and spend less time writing.
(18) NONE DARE CALL IT SF. Whether Joshua Adam Anderson styles himself an sf fan I couldn’t say (though he did take a course from Professor James Gunn), but his LA Review of Books article “Toward a New Fantastic: Stop Calling It Science Fiction” is a deep dive into the abyss of genre. His attempt to define (redefine?) science fiction is precisely what fans love.
LAST JULY, Pakistani science fiction writer Usman Malik published a clarion call for his home country. In it, he made the claim that “[e]ncouraging science fiction, fantasy, and horror readership has the potential to alleviate or fix many of Pakistan’s problems.” While it would be difficult to disagree with the idea that science fiction is a positive force in the world, many of Malik’s reasons for championing the genre are problematic. To begin with, Malik — along with just about everyone else — still, for some reason, calls “science fiction” science fiction. His essay actually contains a handful of reasons why we should stop calling it “science fiction,” and it also inadvertently addresses how and why we need to liberate ourselves from genre itself — and how “science fiction” can help us do just that.
(19) PLANNING BEGINS: Paul Johnson’s early word is that the event to honor his father, the late George Clayton Johnson, might be in February at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Will R., Paul Weimer, Brian Z., and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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Looks like SF Gateway will be releasing a lot of R. A. Lafferty’s work in ebook form at the end of this month, in both the US and UK — this link should show you a list of titles. Most of his work’s been badly out of print for ages, so I’m very glad to see this (have already preordered Nine Hundred Grandmothers and Apocalypses).
Kevin Standlee : IANAL, but I suspect that if VD ever wants to try his chances in court, the case will be dismissed on any of a number of grounds. Besides the likely lack of success on the merits, it’s difficult (not impossible) to sue a dissolved corporation.
Is a person able to sue in a US court without setting foot in the US?
SF Gateway’s not available on the Canadian side of the Atlantic, though, right? I had planned to buy a bunch of Tanith Lees from them: no go.
Is SF Gateway the same as Open Road Media? I see that Open Road is going to be releasing some Tanith Lee eBooks in the US next month, most notably her Lionwolf trilogy which never got a US release, in paper or otherwise.
@ NickPheas:
LOL! I also saw him talking similar talk back in 2013, about some other CUNNINGLY CUNNING NEW CUNNING paradigm which he was about to launch by end-year and thus totally overthrow the publishing world! Etc., etc.
As I’ve said before, this silly fellow would be quite hilarious if he were not so toxic and tiresome.
Second (or third) in regards to Penric’s Demon including a reminder that it would eligible to be nominated for the Hugo Awards. Subterranean Press is supposed to be doing a limited edition hardcover (per Locus forthcoming books), although it is not yet up to pre-order.
For Pratchett, I’m not really sure what was the first Discworld book I read (definitely read Good Omens before any of those). However, once I got involved with the first North American Discworld Convention, I re-read the entire series in order of publication, which definitely gave some insight into how the series developed and progressed. I’m glad I did get to work with him for that convention, but definitely was sad to see how his “Embuggerance” slowly took him down. But he certainly went down fighting.
“I intend to run for a single term as President”
And the laughs keep on coming!
Yes, nothing will get SFWA so invested in letting VD join the organization as the prospect of him running AGAIN for SFWA president! Because the last time wasn’t embarrassing and disruptive enough for the organization–no doubt they want an encore, to truly test their ability to withstand it!
But, alas, IIRC, he couldn’t run, anyhow. I may misremember, but I seem to recall the BoD saying that one of the new measures in the new rules was that, in future, only someone who’d served in another position on the SFWA BoD would be qualified to run for SFWA pres. (Which makes sense. Coming into the job cold with no prior experience of how the organization works means the new pres, in a one-year term, spends too much of that term just learning how to do the job–and it’s a big job. That’s why in Novelists, Inc., we years ago implemented a procedure whereby the new pres is voted into a two-year terms, spending one year as pres-elect, functioning as part of the BoD and right-hand to the president.)
Oo. Lafferty. Something to look forward to!
My first Pratchett was Mort, which was good enough to hook me – at that point, it was his latest; I went back and picked up the first three, and, well, I got the jokes, at least. (I suppose it helps that I can rather empathize with the whiny and ineffectual Rincewind. I find I can relate to whiny ineffectual characters, in fiction anyway – some real-life examples, not so much.)
The series has had its ups and its downs, but I’ve never walked away from a Pratchett and felt sorry for having read it, and that’s the hallmark of a consistent writer, at least.
(I will admit to not being a great fan of the covers. Josh Kirby had his friends and admirers, and by all accounts was a great guy, but I’m just not, well, in sympathy with his style. My loss entirely, I’m sure.)
@Nigel, I really liked that. Did you ever read Midnight Nation, by Joe Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank? It reminded me of that, in a good way.
I’m not sure what my first Pratchett was (I was under 10 at the time) but the first one I really liked was Reaper Man.
Peace: Mildly disappointed. I checked and this is not a fully painted repro but a classic Monet painting, “Woman With A Parasol (Madame Monet And Her Son)”. Only the figure of the Doctor and th TARDIS have been added.
Oh. Sigh. Too bad. I really liked the idea of someone painting a time-traveling Monet . . .
“Riding the Red Hobby-Horse”.
(1) Beautiful. I guess this was after Van Gogh?
(3) Yep, that’s what I thought about Axanar.
(6) Bravo, Camestros! You can go back and add a mallet to Mr. S, right?
(12) Good choices, Leo.
(13) Shame that such a decent man’s name has been sullied by his successors.
Was the cover art so terrible when he was alive? I guess so. Nobody’s perfect. The “Young Flandry” cover is so egregious I’d have blanked it from memory except it caused the “Mary’s Angels” parody for charity. See @nickpheas link!
(19) I hope there’s a report on the reminiscences.
@Lis Carey: we are with you, you know that. I was going to congratulate you on scaring little Teddy, but honestly — what doesn’t? Including old women in wheelchairs. Thanks for the anecdote, @Laura R; I’ve seen Lee at a few cons and was trying to fit my mental picture of her to Teddy’s, thinking “Wait, isn’t she, like, older, in a chair? Helpful? That’s her, right?” Anyway, Lis, I’m sure your $3.4 million dollars or HBO show will be coming any day now. That sort of thing seems to come to people who oppose the Remittance Man.
@Scott Frazer: you speak for me in this instance too.
@PeaceIMMN: I agree exactly with your interpretation of “jovial”. It’s always, to me, had the implication of “laugh with me OR ELSE there will be thunderbolts”. I mean, it’s right there in the word. “Genial” is someone who’s much better company. “Magnanimous” also contains the condescending idea.
@redheadedfemme: Agreed with you on all points. “The Expanse” is keen. I wish they’d gotten the whole show into one calendar year for Hugo purposes as BDP Long. And it’s been renewed for another season, huzzah!
That Castro story went really well till the dud of an ending. I heard sad trombone noises. Stoopid. The Moraine story, by contrast, is lovely, beautiful, and swell.
Dammit, I want a Hugo too. And an EGOT. I’m oppressed!
Also, the
twothree lieutenant colonels in my family would consider Marmot and Bwad unworthy of the uniform and give them terrible reviews. The oldest LTC was infantry in WWII and Korea; the youngest is a RANGER in Afghanistan… and despite his rank, he’s so good he still has to go out into the field sometimes. Grandpa was the captain of a Navy ship in WWII, and a barnstormer before that. There are no REMF in my family.@Kip W: You’re exactly correct about the reasons for the SWM tears. What have you read lately that’s good?
@Nigel: Good-o.
A drift store. Sells driftwood? Sells flotsam and jetsam that washes up? Sells things you and your partner can use in your kaiju-killing robots?
Thanks, Bruce – no I never got around to reading that one, and Straszynski’s comic works always started strong but seemed to peter off unsatisfyingly, which made me reluctant to hunt it out.
guthrie: I come across a bookstore which basically has drifts of books all over the place, but they are increasingly unusual.
You know, that’s actually a pretty decent description of a used bookstore in my hometown when I was growing up–stacks and piles of books all over the place, no order at all, and if you wanted to find something you just had to dive in and burrow . . .
I loved Pratchett from the start, though admittedly Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic don’t hold up well. When I first read him I was in high school and just starting to get sick of reading the bad fantasy he was poking fun at, which was probably to his advantage.
As for the other line of discussion on thus thread, being a full time troll with a bunch of troll buddies clearly makes Beale feel powerful and yet doesn’t actually give him any real power. The discrepancy seems to confuse him greatly.
Back when Jim Baen was editing at Tor, his book covers were often ugly there, too, though I’m not sure whether it was just the typography or the paintings as well. But Baen liked book covers loud and garish, to make them stand out, much the way Gollancz books used to all have yellow spines.
Baen today seems to be following in that tradition. I don’t think “hideous, garish and vulgar” is really the best brand identity to go for, but as long as it works for them, they have no need to care what I think. They’re not aiming the books at me anyway, so the fact that the packaging doesn’t attract me doesn’t matter.
This guy desperately needs to find another ambition in life, or another marker of validation.
@JJ–You know, if the Puppies spent one-tenth of the time and energy they spend doing stupid infantile shit like this on learning their craft, writing good books, and/or reading good books, they could actually get something award-worthy put forward for the Hugo Awards.
I just figured that a majority of Puppie-dom aren’t writers but nihilists, hangers-on and bottom-dwellers looking for a good time.
@Nigel: Midnight Nation is, like Rising Stars, one of the few JMS stories I think has a really worthy ending. It fits, it works. Just so you know. 🙂
Review of The Infinite Loop posted. Wonderful dynamic visual storytelling, and a stirring call to social justice in narrative form. Not sure I would nominate it but glad I read it.
rob_matic at 4:35am:
VD at 4:57am:
Okay, okay, so you still write fantasy.
@Bruce, I do remember there being a good buzz about it. I will check it out if I get the chance.
First Pratchett was Small Gods, which almost instantly became one of favourite books (and still is – I re-read it at least yearly). Second was Hogfather, at which point I made the decision to buy the entire series sight unseen.
The SF world, it is explodin’,
Sad pups rage, and Rabids gloatin’,
Gals and gays want to take away that gun you’re totin’
And some guy named Noah wins the Hugo votin’
But you tell me,
O’er and o’er again, my friend,
That you don’t believe, we’re on the Eve
Of Deconstruction . . .
And since I clearly forgot to say it earlier: @Lis Carey, I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with unpleasant nonsense posted by unpleasant people.
@rea – excellent! Not hydrophobic in the slightest, for either the English or Puppish definition.
Pratchett/Discworld – I first read Pratchett via Good Omens, largely because I was a big Gaiman/Sandman fan. I read The Colour of Magic a little late in life to really love it. I would’ve been thrilled with it as a teenager, though. Read The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and, IIRC, an excerpt of the then-upcoming Tiffany Aching novel, and decided to give him some more chances. Ended up digging Equal Rites more than The Light Fantastic. After that, the books tended to have enough good to keep me going ’til the end, when I always looked back and dug them, until I hit the Wyrd Sisters, which convinced me to read the whole series, regardless of the occasional road bump.
Thanks again for all the kindness, everyone.
I don’t understand the Puppies. Real dogs make so much more sense!
Did I mention my most recent foster got adopted? She wasn’t with me even three weeks, and would have been gone sooner if she hadn’t needed a dental. As is, her new family met our adoption coordinator at the vet Hospital to finalize the adoption and take Destiny home as soon as the vet said she was ready to go.
Currently reading: Interim Errantry, by Diane Duane.
Currently listening to: The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman.
Enjoying both.
Goodness, I missed a visitation from VD.
Today I actually read something that wasn’t published in 2015. I’m about halfway through the first The Red book by Linda Nagata, and it’s excellent, so thank you to everyone that recommended it. It’s also not at all what I was expecting, and only the inconvenient need to sleep is preventing me finishing it asap.
I’ve no idea about whether/how being heavily engaged in Puppy activities does or does not affect the quality of Puppies’ writing, but I would think it’s likely to take a toll on productivity, since there are only so many hours in a day.
There’s a lot of pressure on writers these days to produce faster and to produce more works, and all of my writing friends are always thinking about and discussing productivity. Whether it’s how to get MORE productive (my hand goes up), how to avoid or prevent a reduction in productivity, how to remain productive while feeling less drained, what parts of the job can be offloaded to others (ex: marketing, packaging, social media, website updates, paperwork, etc.) in order to leave more time and focus for writing, etc.
Puppying seems to be very time-consuming (the blogging, the planning, the internet monitoring, the internet quarreling), and probably rather draining (ex. Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen, for example, wrote a number of times last year about experiencing significant stress in relation to their Puppy activities).
The reaction of most of my friends to the Puppies is, “How do they find time to WRITE BOOKS while doing all that blogging and quarreling and vote-planning and boycott-organizing, and so on?”
They may all be sublimely productive and producing a great deal of published fiction while also engaging in their Puppy activities. But I would think that, for at least some of them, their Puppy activities have negatively affected their writing productivity.
@ Lis Carey: “Did I mention my most recent foster got adopted?”
Fantastic news!
The rescue group I foster for, the Cat Adoption Team, had a great year in 2015, adopting out 349 cats and kittens, which is a record for us. It’s a small, all-volunteer group founded in 2010.
I’ve currently got one foster in residence who just became available for adoption a couple of days ago, after being pronounced fully recovered from a fairly complicated surgery he had last month for a polyp in his inner ear. If folks know anyone in the greater Cincinnati area who might be interested in a black cat who’s full of personality:
http://www.adoptapet.com/pet/14634308-covington-kentucky-cat
Mike Glyer on January 4, 2016 at 12:38 pm said:
Good point, and one that I hadn’t noticed. (SFWA might have been well-served to explicitly state that any Life Member expelled from the old corporation would not be considered a member in any capacity of the new one, but that’s water under the bridge now.) Nevertheless, the case still fails on its merits (as opposed on technical grounds), because neither the old nor the new bylaws included a “expulsion must be ratified by membership” rule that I saw.
Checking Massachusetts Nonprofit Corporation Law, the closest thing to a relevant section I can find is I.XXII.180.2 and the definition of a member:
I can find nothing else in Section 180 that requires a vote of the membership to expel a member, and therefore the Bylaws (old, Massachusetts) appear to apply per (e) above. The Bylaws appear to have been followed. Case closed, I think.
@Lis Carey:
This. Very much this.
My First Pratchett:
I have vague memories of having Strata from the public library many many years ago. The sensible thing to do would be to get hold of it again and see if it sets bells ringing, but sensible sometimes requires time which is in short supply. After that the story is very straightforward: bought The Colour of Magic on the basis of a decent review, enjoyed it enough to keep going; found rapid improvements from Equal Rites onwards and upwards to Small Gods, which I still think is probably his best (but I’m not going to argue with anyone who thinks differently). Switched to hardbacks from Men at Arms onwards, despite the added pressure on budget and shelf space (and found myself regularly snatching new paperback editions down from the shelves when they appeared before remembering I’d already got them). Yes, the early books were weaker, but I do enjoy Discworld when it was still somewhat fluid; the high points would be the period from Guards! Guards! to Men at Arms and the late blossoming from The Truth onwards.
Today’s bit of good news. It’s not all misanthropic puppies out there.
Coming late to the discussion about Baen covers, but I will say that I felt the need to wrap a piece of paper around Sarah Hoyt’s “Darkship Thieves” to read it on the bus. A mostly naked woman strategically wrapped up in some kind of robe . . . I can’t make the image work here, but you can look it up. Just didn’t seem like something to expose to fellow CTA riders.
Haven’t read her blog, just excerpts here, which make me want to stay very, very far away. But “Darkship Thieves” was good (I’d like to read the sequel, haven’t gotten to it yet) and I really enjoyed her book “Draw One in the Dark.”
Gee, a non-puppy can read a story and just sort of enjoy it without analyzing everything for political correctness. Who knew?
*snort* Hell, I’d run to keep him from being President. I’m deeply unqualified in every regard and responsibility for anybody but myself and the cat gives me hives. My response to everything would be “Have you noticed that I’m not that guy?” I expect I’d win by a landslide. (Fortunately, I am confident the situation will not arise, and also that someone else in SFWA with actual qualifications would step in.)
Also, on the subject of Real Puppies, I’m pleased to report that our recently adopted Redtick Coonhound has worked out beautifully. She is the BEST dog. She wants to be hugged by humans and to climb in your lap and look at you sadly. I am desperately fond of her.
Mark : Goodness, I missed a visitation from VD.
It was essentially this:
RedWombat :
I hope you’re not expecting a Nobel Peace Prize out of the deal…
Someone gave us a copy of The Unadulterated Cat many years ago. My wife loves it. I was vaguely aware of Pratchett as a very popular humourous fantasy author but didn’t read any of the Discworld stories until my voice teacher recommended Maskerade, in the course of a conversation about opera. Since then I’ ve started with The Colour of Magic and slowly read as far as Mort. Sounds like I haven’t reached the best stuff.
It didn’t look bad at all to me. For a Baen cover it’s practically Michelangelo.
Re Baen covers
I have good wrists. Why do I share this? Because I read many sff paperbacks, vintage of the 80s and 90s. Which means that I became very adept at holding at holding trade paperbacks with my left hand covering the more… salient features… of the covers in a way that looked vaguely natural.
I think I got good wrists from the art of removing the books from my bag, and holding them in a way that shielded the cover at all points. Heck, at times I think I shifted away from pulps just to feel respectable. Then for the writing.
The man who founded it sounds like a fine person though.
So… Cuckoo Song. I’d like to join Kyra in urging everyone to go read it right now.
Like the novella “Quarter Days” I discussed a few days ago, it is set in England just after World War One, has as an important theme the enormous social change that was happening then, and involves old magic adapting to new times. Otherwise, no resemblance between the two works. But I wonder if a century is about the right length of time for getting a proper broad historical overview while still recent enough to seem relevant.
Anyway, Cuckoo Song is a sophisticated book (yes, a sophisticated children’s book!) that works in a number of ways simultaneously. It will be hard to be specific without saying too much about the twisty, truly suspenseful plot. It has an excellent main character; she starts out knowing that she is 13-year-old Triss Crescent, the coddled darling child of a wealthy family, and yet feels vaguely wrong in that identity; as strangeness accumulates, she is in a terrifying dilemma, and her point of view is gripping throughout. It is also a moving, carefully drawn family drama, about a deeply damaged family. And as I said, a historical novel. And a creepy take on certain folkloric themes. It has a multitude of memorable characters, some of whom deserve a standing ovation — not giving away too much to praise Triss’s sister Pen, and Violet, a “new woman”, who are both troubled and heroic. Plus the writing; in yestetday’s thread, while reading, I couldn’t resist quoting bits.
This hasn’t a hope of getting on the Hugo ballot, being a children’s book; nonetheless it will be at the top of my nomination list, no matter how few others join me.
Sample downloaded on that recommendation, Vasha!
RedWombat, where did you find a sample of Cuckoo Song? I found it at Amazon.com, but they only have a paperback version, not a Kindle one.
I’d like to identify those people who work terribly hard to make a Worldcorn, but with VD around I won’t,,.
Ultragotha, there are a couple editions of Cuckoo Song (I presume one is the UK version or similar). Try: this.
Since I liked Colour of Magic, and was often told it was lesser Pratchett, that gave much to look forward to. So far for me Going Postal is the best. I was a stamp collector, so that may have something to do with my reaction to it.
I am not sure why so many people here dislike Pure Unadulterated Fun. One of the reasons I like early Pratchett is the hit after hit comedy with just the right elements of slapstick and goofyness alongside the breaking of genre conventions.
I developed my Rule of Sidetracks based on Pratchett and Adams, where the PUF is directly proportional to the amount of time the writer spends going off on tangents.
About the only Pratchetts I don’t like are the last few when he was in decline, Jingo(a bit too preachy) and the later Witch books(after Witches Abroad). The need for Granny Weatherwax to be Always Right – even if it meant bending reality around her to make it so, really gets my goat.
Oh and Strata is one of my feel good reads. I loves the ideas, the messaging, the characters and the worlds.
@paulcarp
And I always thought that philately would get me nowhere…
Just to be picky…
“Jovial” is derived, not directly from the Roman god’s attributes, but from the supposed influence of the astrological planet, much as “saturnine” or “mercurial” (or, for that matter, the relatively similar humour-derived terms like sanguine, choleric, splenetic, or melancholic). There’s no fulmination of thunderbolts lurking behind it.
That being said, it’s a pretty old-fashioned character it reflects; its close fellow is the aristocratic virtue of magnanimity.