Pixel Scroll 2/11/21 The Englishfan Who Filed Up To-Be-Read Hill But Scrolled Down Mount Tsundoku

(1) CHANGING OF THE GUARDIAN. Lisa Tuttle has taken the handoff from The Guardian’s SF/Fantasy reviewer Eric Brown who ended his fifteen-year run in January. Tuttle’s first genre round-up will appear in The Guardian’s books section on Saturday, February 13.

(2) MANDALORIAN ACTRESS OUT. Deadline reports “Gina Carano Off ‘The Mandalorian’ After Social Media Comments”. Their article quotes from the posts she made immediately following this excerpt:

In the wake of Gina Carano’s controversial social media posts, Lucasfilm has released a statement Wednesday night, with a spokesperson saying “Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Carano played bounty hunter Cara Dune on the first two seasons Lucasfilm and Disney+’s The Mandalorianand it looked like we’d be seeing more of her. It appears not….

(3) ROBORIGHTS. A film based on the short story “Dolly” by Elizabeth Bear is in development: “Apple TV+ Lands Hot Package ‘Dolly’ With Florence Pugh On Board To Star” at Deadline.

Following competitive bidding war, Apple Studios has landed Dolly, a new feature film with Academy Award-nominee Florence Pugh attached to star with Vanessa Taylor and Drew Pearce Penning the script. Insiders close to the project stress the project is not greenlit at this time as the script still needs to penned and a director still needs to be attached. Insiders go on to add that the package caught the interest of a total of four bidders that included multiple studios and another streamer with Apple TV+ emerging as the winner earlier this week.

The film is a sci-fi courtroom drama in which a robotic “companion doll” kills its owner and then shocks the world by claiming that she is not guilty and asking for a lawyer. The film, which is inspired by Elizabeth Bear’s short story of the same name, has elements of both classic courtroom drama and sci-fi….

(4) FOURTH COMING. In “The Four Types of Time Travel (And What They Say About Ourselves and the World Around Us)” at CrimeReads, Dan Frey looks at whether time travel novels have characters going forwards or backwards in time and whether they retrieve objects.

Time travel is a genre unto itself, one that spans sci-fi, mystery, fantasy, history and more. But there are distinct categories of time travel narratives, each with its own set of rules—and each with a different baked-in outlook.

Getting to a taxonomy of time travel stories, the first question is—who or what is actually time-traveling? Because while the first stories we think of involve spaceships and Deloreans, the oldest time travel stories are stories about…

1. SEEING THE FUTURE

In these stories, it is actually INFORMATION that travels through time. And this might be the most scientifically plausible form of time travel, one that is already happening all the time on the quantum level….

(5) WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. Robert J. Sawyer tells Facebook readers that 26 years ago Ace Science Fiction thought they were going to land a contract with Lucasfilm to produce a trilogy of novels outlining the origins of the alien races from the Star Wars universe:

Ace editor Ginjer Buchanan approached me to write those books, and before the license was finalized I produced an 11,000-word outline and also the first 11,000 words of the manuscript of volume one. But the deal fell apart — yes, they’d get a Lucasfilm license, but, no, I couldn’t use any of the actual STAR WARS races, and so I walked away. Since I was never paid for the work, I posted the material on my website as fan fiction.

Sawyer mentioned this because the Yub Nub podcast episode “Hollywood Dinners and Alien Exodus”, which dropped today, discusses that project beginning at the 36:30 mark.

Sawyer reminds fans that the outline for the whole book is here: “Alien Exodus Outline”. And his opening chapters are here: “Alien Exodus Chapters”.

(6) THE WORDS OF SFF. In the February 6 Financial Times, book columnist Nilanjana Roy discusses the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction website.

Skipping from ‘ecotopia’ (first used back in 1975) to ‘Frankenstein complex ‘(coined by Isaac Asimov in 1947 to describe the anxiety and distrust held by humans towards robots), a living history of science fiction began to take shape in my mind.  The HDSF records language coined by eminent figures from the realms of literature and science, but also long-forgotten hacks who wrote stories for the pulps…

…The HDSF is full of surprises, even to an unabashed sf fan.  Many entries are older than I imagined:  ‘teleport’ might seem like a word dreamt up in the 1950s, for instance, but the first recorded instance comes from an 1878 mention in the Times Of India:  ‘The teleport,.an apparatus by which men can be reduced to infinitessimal (sic) atoms, transmitted through the wire, and reproduced safe and sound on the other end!’ While “infodump” was first used in a 1978 conference on science.

(7) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. Someone who dismissed the Locus Recommended Reading List as “useless” was pointed at the Tangent Online 2020 Recommended Reading List” which contains these introductory remarks by Dave Truesdale:

Looking at short fiction over at least the past 10 years, a general observation can be made. It would appear that Woke Culture is as pervasive and cancerous as it has ever been for at least the past 10 years. The dearth of true originality when it comes to political or socially themed short fiction is becoming more and more apparent to those of us who have observed and studied the field for decades. Political Correctness has now infiltrated the field like a metastazing cancer, to the point where long time readers are beginning to voice complaints. The complaints arise not from what is published in the magazines or some of the original anthologies, but what is not being published. Identity Politics and the Cancel Culture have inserted themselves into the field to the extent that not only magazine fiction editors, but other areas of the SF field are bowing to intimidation and peer pressure to conform to the total obeisance the Woke doctrine demands….

(8) PRESENT AT THE CREATION. The documentary Marvel’s Behind the Mask premieres tomorrow on Disney+. Variety has an exclusive clip, and homes in on one topic — how the “Black Panther’s ‘Perfect’ Marvel Comic Book Launch Had One Major Flaw”.

When Marvel Comics first launched the character of Black Panther, it was in the July 1966 issue of “Fantastic Four.” As explained in this exclusive clip from the upcoming Disney Plus documentary “Marvel’s Behind the Mask,” premiering Feb. 12, the character of T’Challa, the King of Wakanda, was presented just like any other Marvel superhero — attention wasn’t paid to the color of his skin, but rather to the supreme quality of his abilities.

“The first Black superhero, Black Panther, comes out perfect,” says writer-director Reginald Hudlin, who wrote a run of Black Panther comics in the 2000s. “He’s this cool, elegant, handsome guy who’s just got it on lock.”

But as the clip also demonstrates, there’s one essential element of Black Panther that was glaringly incorrect: His skin is grey, not brown.

…Rather than shy away from its less than admirable history, the “Behind the Mask” filmmakers say Marvel’s executives were on board with a warts-and-all look at the company’s efforts with representation. “They were complete partners,” says Gary. “They accepted the fact that we were going to make some things uncomfortable.” The company even opened up its vault so the filmmakers could access the full range of its history.

“There were certain things that we needed to scan that weren’t part of the digital history, that were important to the storytelling,” says Simon. “We needed to get that older imagery out of the vault.”…

(9) NYT JAMES GUNN OBITUARY. The New York Times paid their respects today: “James Gunn, Prizewinning Science Fiction Author, Dies at 97”.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

  • 1971 — Fifty years ago at Noreascon I, Fritz Leiber wins the Hugo for Best Novella with “Ill Met in Lankhmar”, one of his Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser tales. It was originally published in the April issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The other nominees were “The Thing in the Stone” by Clifford D. Simak,  “The Region Between” by Harlan Ellison.  “The World Outside” by Robert Silverberg and “Beastchild” by Dean R. Koontz.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born February 11, 1898 – Leo Szilard.  Vital in the Manhattan Project; first to connect thermodynamics and information theory; filed earliest known patent applications for the electron microscope, the linear accelerator, and the cyclotron (but did not build all these, nor publish in scientific journals, so credit went to others; Lawrence had the Nobel Prize for the cyclotron, Ruska for the electron microscope).  Present when the first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved in the first nuclear reactor; shook Fermi’s hand.  Credited with coining the term “breeder reactor”.  Half a dozen short stories for us.  To him is attributed “We are among you.  We call ourselves Hungarians.”  (Died 1964) [JH]
  • Born February 11, 1910 L. T. C. Rolt. English writer whose enthusiasm for heritage railways is writ large in his 1948 Sleep No More collection of supernatural horror stories which tend to be set in rural railways. (Simon R. Green may be influenced by him in his Ghost Finders series which often uses these railways as a setting.)  Some of these stories were adapted as radio dramas.  Sleep No More isavailable from the usual digital suspects. (Died 1974.) (CE) 
  • Born February 11, 1915 – Mabel Allan.  Four novels, one shorter story for us; a hundred seventy books all told, some under other names; some in series e.g. a dozen about Drina Adams who at age 10 wants to be a ballerina and finally is.  Here is the Mabel Project for reading MA’s books in chronological order.  (Died 1998) [JH]
  • Born February 11, 1920 – Daniel Galouye.  (“Ga-lou-ey”)  Navy pilot during World War II; journalist; New Orleans fan who developed a pro career.  Half a dozen novels, five dozen shorter stories.  Guest of Honor at Consolacon, DeepSouthCon 6.  Interviewed in Speculation.  Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award.  (Died 1976) [JH]
  • Born February 11, 1926 Leslie Nielsen. I know the comic, bumbling fool who delighted generations of film goers. But his first starring role was as Commander John J. Adams in one of the finest SF films of all time Forbidden Planet. I am most decidedly not a fan of his later films but I think he’s brilliant here. (Died 2010.) (CE)
  • Born February 11, 1939 Jane Yolen, 82. She loves dark chocolate so I send her some from time to time. She wrote me into a novel as a character, an ethnomusicologist in One-Armed Queen to be precise in exchange for finding her a fairytale collection she wanted. Don’t remember now what it was other than it was very old and very rare. My favorite book by her is The Wild Hunt which she’s signing a copy for me now, and I love that she financed the production of Boiled of Lead’s Antler Dance which her son Adam Stemple was lead vocalist on. (CE) 
  • Born February 11, 1948 Robert Reginald. He’s here because of two Phantom Detective novels he wrote late in his career which are most popcorn literature. (The Phantom Detective series started in 1936 so he used the Robert Wallace house name.) He has two series of some length, the Nova Europa Fantasy Saga and War of Two Worlds. Much of what he wrote is available from the usual digital sources. (Died 2013.) (CE) 
  • Born February 11, 1950 Alain Bergeron, 70. He received an Aurora Award for Best Short Story for “Les Crabes de Vénus regardent le ciel” published In Solaris number 73, and a Sideways Award for Alternate History for  “Le huitième registre” (translated in English as “The Eighth Register” by Howard Scott). (CE) 
  • Born February 11, 1953 Wayne Hammond, 68. He’s married to fellow Tolkien scholar Christina Scull. Together they’ve done some of the finest work on him that’s been done including J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s CompanionThe Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book and The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. (CE)
  • Born February 11, 1965 – John Zeleznik, age 56.  A dozen covers, a score of interiors.  Here is Find Your Own Truth.  Here is The Heart of Sparrill.  Here is his Rifts Coloring Book.  Here is a Magic: the Gathering card.  Ten years in Spectrum anthologies.  Website.  [JH]
  • Born February 11, 1970 – Reinhard Kleist, age 51.  Half a dozen covers, as many interiors.  Here is Asimov’s collection Azazel.  Here is Das Böse kommt auf leisen Sohlen (German, “Evil comes on quiet feet” – more literally Sohlen are soles – tr. Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes).  [JH]
  • Born February 11, 1975 – Kathy McMillan, age 46.  Two novels for us, four others (one got an Indies Award); eight resource books for educators, librarians, parents. ASL (American Sign Language) Interpreter.  Website says Author & Language Geek.  [JH]

(12) COMICS SECTION.

(13) UNFORGOTTEN LORE. Gene Luen Yang fills readers in  “On the Connection Between Chinese Folktales and American Comic Book Heroes” at Literary Hub.

I first heard about the monkey king from my mom.

When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me Chinese folktales before bedtime. My mother is an immigrant. She was born in mainland China and eventually made her way to the United States for graduate school.

She told me those stories so that I wouldn’t forget the culture that she had left. Even though I hadn’t ever experienced that culture firsthand, she wanted me to remember it.

Of all her stories, my favorites by far were about Sun Wukong, the monkey king. Here was a monkey who was so good at kung fu that his fighting skills leveled up to superpowers. He could call a cloud down from the sky and ride it like a surfboard. He could change his shape into anything he wanted. He could grow and shrink with the slightest thought. And he could clone himself by plucking hairs from his head and then breathing on them. How cool was that?…

…Turns out, my mother was pretty faithful. As I read it, I realized that American superheroes hadn’t replaced Sun Wukong in my heart after all. Superman, Spider?Man, and Captain America were simply Western expressions of everything I loved about the monkey king….

(14) THE MILLENNIUM HAS ARRIVED. The thousandth book by a woman reviewed on James Nicoll Reviews: “Just Keep Listening”.

K.B. Spangler’s 2021 coming-of-age space opera The Blackwing War is the first book in her Deep Witches Trilogy. It is set in the same universe as Spangler’s 2017 Stoneskin .

Tembi Stoneskin was rescued from abject poverty when the Deep, the vast, enigmatic entity that facilitates transgalactic teleportation, took a shine to her. As long as the Deep retains its affection for Tembi, she will be an ageless Witch, stepping from world to world as it pleases her. There is little chance Tembi will alienate the Deep. 

There is, however, every chance she will alienate her superiors in the Witch hierarchy. Youthful Tembi is that most dreaded of beings, an idealist…. 

(15) YOU DON’T HAVE TO DIAL M ANYMORE. In “The Rise of the Digital Gothic” on CrimeReads, Katie Lowe says many of today’s Gothic novelists are coming up with plots that involve apparitions or other supernatural phenomena coming out of characters’ smartphones.

…But for all that this new technology gives, there’s also the sense of our personal spaces—the physical homes we inhabit—seeming always invaded by others, both strangers and not. They wander through, startling us with questions as we brew our morning coffee; scanning our living rooms while we’re on Zoom; liking our family photos as we crawl into bed. Our daily lives are interrupted constantly by apparitions: by the voices and figures of people who simply are not there.

This is not, however, a state of being sprung entirely from the pandemic—nor is it unique to fiction. In her 2014 essay “Return of the Gothic: Digital Anxiety in the Domestic Sphere,” critic Melissa Gronlund observed similarities between recent work in the visual arts. She suggests that artists using “the Gothic tropes of the uncanny, the undead, and intrusions into the home” in their work are searching for “a way to wrestle with daunting, ongoing questions prompted by current technological shifts: How has the internet affected our sense of self? Our interaction with others? The structures of family and kinship?”

(16) MARS MERCH. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum told people on its mailing list that the limited edition Mars Perseverance merchandise collection will only be available until February 21. (Click for larger images.)

(17) MR. SCOTT’S SECRET STUFF. Say, we just mentioned this substance the other day: “The Science Behind Transparent Aluminum on ‘Star Trek’” at Heavy.

Forbes reports that there are two methods of creating transparent aluminum in common use today. The first method involves taking a powdered aluminum-magnesium compound that is subjected to high pressure and heated, a method used by the US Military, specifically the US Naval Laboratory. This method produces a somewhat cloudy material that needs to be polished prior to use. An alternative method, which creates a slightly stronger and much clearer material, also exists. This end-product is called aluminium oxynitride, sold under the name ALON.

(18) UNBELIEVABLE TAZ. MeTV remembers how “Taz was so crazy, he convinced the world that Tasmanian devils didn’t exist”. And the iconic character has been used to help the real ones avoid extinction.

People accept that fantasy creatures like unicorns and dragons do not really exist, and it was that kind of categorical thinking that led many Looney Tunes fans around the world to assume that a Tasmanian devil is not a real animal.

They’d never seen one before. They’d never heard of one before. It must be a made-up animal!

When the cartoon devil called “Taz” was introduced in cartoons in the 1950s, creator Robert McKinson had no idea he would be creating so much confusion with his brand-new character, which he never foresaw becoming such an icon….

(19) THAT’S CAT. They’re everywhere – on these altered versions of book covers – like the ferocious feline on the front of Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace.

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Mask Up America” on YouTube is a PSA from WarnerMedia in which Wonder Woman, Harry Potter, and Humphrey Bogart urge you to wear masks.

[Thanks to Joel Zakem, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Danny Sichel, Iphinome, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, JJ, John Hertz, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

75 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/11/21 The Englishfan Who Filed Up To-Be-Read Hill But Scrolled Down Mount Tsundoku

  1. (10). This is a bit garbled. The Best Novel winner that year was Larry Niven’s Ringworld. The Leiber novella did win a Hugo, in the Novella category, but not against the four works mentioned in this item.

  2. Rich Lynch saysThis is incorrect. The Best Novel winner that year was Larry Niven’s Ringworld. The Leiber novella did win a Hugo, in the Novella category, but not against the four works mentioned in this item.

    You’re right. My brain went wrong. I’ve sent OGH the right ones.

  3. (7) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. When stories deal – whether in the foreground or background – with politics, religion, or social issues – the Progressive or Woke viewpoint is represented in a positive light. When any other viewpoint is represented at all, it is in a negative light

    Racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia are never presented in a positive light in the stories being published today!!! Help, help, I’m being repressed! 🙄

  4. Here are the actual novella nominees per the Hugo Awards’ own website, other than “Ill Met in Lankhmar”:

    “The Thing in the Stone” by Clifford D. Simak [If Mar 1970]
    “The Region Between” by Harlan Ellison [Galaxy Mar 1970]
    “The World Outside” by Robert Silverberg [Galaxy Oct/Nov 1970]
    “Beastchild” by Dean R. Koontz [Venture Aug 1970]

    The Silverberg became a section of the fixup The World Inside. Must have been a weak category that year (no disrespect to Leiber); I can’t imagine that story holding up on its own – unlike, say, “A Happy Day in 2381” (the first Urban Monad story, published by Ben Bova) or “In The Beginning,” either of which would have made a strong Short Story nominee.

  5. (7) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. When stories deal – whether in the foreground or background – with politics, religion, or social issues – the Progressive or Woke viewpoint is represented in a positive light. When any other viewpoint is represented at all, it is in a negative light.

    Gee, stories that avoid celebrating as JJ notes “racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia”. And this is a negative how?

  6. 7) And we must write with a lot of Significant Capitals! (A failing, I admit, I often suffer from myself, but nowhere near to this extent.) I’m curious about the actual quality of the fiction being recommended here. Am I going to regret if I read some? Much of it appears to have been published by the mainstream magazines, which implies a certain floor of quality and also gives the lie to the idea that the fiction they want isn’t being published.

    Possibly of interest to folks here: the Soviet-era Russian Sherlock Holmes adaptation is all on YouTube with English subtitles. (In one thirteen-hour video because apparently that was better than uploading all the episodes separately.) So far it seems pretty good but I’m not very far in.

  7. Kit Harding says And we must write with a lot of Significant Capitals! (A failing, I admit, I often suffer from myself, but nowhere near to this extent.) I’m curious about the actual quality of the fiction being recommended here. Am I going to regret if I read some? Much of it appears to have been published by the mainstream magazines, which implies a certain floor of quality and also gives the lie to the idea that the fiction they want isn’t being published.

    Kit, genre fiction in very large quantities has been published outside of our admittedly number of small publications for a very long time now. As I’ve said before, Ellen Datlow used to note in her comments in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror that she read hundreds of publications a year looking for stories worth including there. I assume the same is still true for her editing of the Year’s Best Horror.

  8. I know I should look this up before committing myself, but I’m going by memory, and if my memory is wrong…oh, well.

    In the magazine version of “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” our heroes decide to split the loot “fifty-fifty.” In the book version, this is improved to “sixty-sixty.”

  9. (7) Identity Politics and the Cancel Culture have inserted themselves into the field to the extent that not only magazine fiction editors, but other areas of the SF field are bowing to intimidation and peer pressure to conform to the total obeisance the Woke doctrine demands….
    I can’t be bothered to do a count, but given the large fraction of the recommended stories that appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, F&SF… – you know, all those magazines that have bowed to the awful power of Woke doctrine – what does Truesdale even think he’s going on about? Is he saying that he doesn’t think the stories they’re recommending are actually good?

  10. 10)
    “Ill Met in Lankhmar” is a brilliant story, which segues seemlessly from humour into complete horror and manages to pull it off. It’s probably my favourite Hugo-winning novella of all time.

    And yes, in my edition they agree to split the loot sixty-sixty, math not being Fafhrd’s strong point.

  11. Kit Harding: I’m curious about the actual quality of the fiction being recommended here. Am I going to regret if I read some?

    My advice would be to read 2 or 3 reviews on the Tangent Online website for works which you’ve already read, and see whether their assessments align fairly closely with yours. The book and story recommendations on File 770 to which I pay closest attention are those made by people whose responses to various works have been similar to mine.

    If you haven’t already done so, I suggest you check out the 2020 Recommended SF/F thread, which in past years has surfaced a lot of works which went on to be award finalists.

  12. I can’t be bothered to do a count, but given the large fraction of the recommended stories that appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, F&SF… – you know, all those magazines that have bowed to the awful power of Woke doctrine – what does Truesdale even think he’s going on about? Is he saying that he doesn’t think the stories they’re recommending are actually good?

    It might be that his reviewers, who may not necessarily share his views, have recommended those stories. Also, I do see stories from places like Cirsova Magazine or various Baen anthologies, which would rarely pop up e.g. on the Locus Recommended Reading List.

  13. Robert Reginald–aka Michael Burgess–was also a pretty significant bibliographer of SF and other genres and was founding publisher of Borgo Press, which issued quite a few monographs on SF/F. His entry in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia is longer than many other writers’.

  14. (7) I am blunt everyone who was propuppy like Trusdale doesn’t have any creditability left to suggest anythink in my opinion. (Sorry they have proven to have terrible taste)
    I can also live with never having to read stories that chelebrate “racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia” and while I am very welcome to see tipps for good stories I take them from people I have a mininum of trust in. I am still asking myself if I should have a look just because of curiosity.

  15. (7) Okay I was curious. It is just a very long list (haven’t read the editorial). I reconised some of the names of the writers, and would be very suprised if they chelebrate see above, but it is just a list without links or discriptions why the story was good. You will find some stuff there worth checking out, but there are better resurces out there, where you either can see, why people liked the stuff (look above the 2020 recomentationtread or JJ Novellapalooza or are at last more userfriendly (lets mention the spreadsheet of doom) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w5rNvJLJZ1lno7X4PXzG9BBhCjtHjAc0cgPoKfQUgRs/edit?usp=sharing
    and hope that works.

  16. Meredith moment: all the novels of George Alec Effinger’s The Budayeen Cycle are available at the usual digital suspects for a very reasonable $1.99 apiece.

  17. 10) A classic and a favorite.It does look like, as noted above, its Hugo competition was weak. That doesn’t distract from its goodness.

    18) For a long time, I thought the Tasmanian Devil was not a thing…thanks to Taz.

  18. (3) A few years back I read a story with a similar background to “Dolly,” I think. Anyone remember what it might be?

  19. Paul Weimer: “For a long time, I thought the Tasmanian Devil was not a thing…thanks to Taz.”

    Right? Meanwhile, no word yet on whether Martians wear scrubby brush plumes on their centurion helmets.

  20. Andrew (not Werdna): A few years back I read a story with a similar background to “Dolly,” I think. Anyone remember what it might be?

    It shares some elements with the novella An Unnatural Life by Erin K. Wagner, but that’s a 2020 release.

  21. 7) So I take it the person declaring the Locus List “useless” was complaining about its “wokeness”? Or was it something else? Was it Truesdale himself? I find the Locus List very useful myself.

    As for the Tangent List’s usefulness, the editor’s note before that rant states that it is Truesdale’s opinion and not necessarily shared by his reviewers. I don’t believe Truesdale has quite driven away all the reviewers who don’t share his views. The recommendations are labeled by which reviewer recommended them. So you could take a look at some reviews there and then just look at recommendations from certain reviewers.

  22. (7) I went and looked at that page, started skimming, and ran head-first into: “One [anti-woke anthology] is Andrew Fox’s anthology Again, Hazardous Imaginings”.

    After a bit of consideration, I’ve decided to laugh at it as being the same kind of thing as all those Christian pop-culture knockoffs.

    (I didn’t read either “Dangerous Visions” until something like y2k so my reaction was along the lines of “please don’t cut yourself on all this edge”, and from that perspective Fox’s thing isn’t that different, just done poorly)

  23. @Cora: It might be that his reviewers, who may not necessarily share his views, have recommended those stories.

    Yes, I understand that. I’m just wondering if Truesdale realizes that he’s implicitly disparaging a large fraction of the stories being recommended on his own website.

  24. You could look at which stories are on both Locus and Tangent’s lists. (Assuming there are some.) Then look for other recs from those reviewers on Tangent’s list.

  25. PhilRM says Yes, I understand that. I’m just wondering if Truesdale realizes that he’s implicitly disparaging a large fraction of the stories being recommended on his own website.

    I’m sure he has not a clue how far back the actuality of woke culture goes. It’s not a recent invention but dates back to the early Sixties and is intrinsically linked to Black culture. It in its present form is only a decade old but it has a long history at this point.

  26. 7) Nice to see some attention being paid to TR Napper’s Neon Leviathan collection. His novella is among my nominations this year.

    Also nice to see some attention being paid to Grimdark Magazine.

    8) Gabe Jones (and perhaps Blade) would like a word.

    Now playing “You are so beautiful” by Charles Lloyd & the Marvels w/ Norah Jones

    Regards,
    Dann
    Tolerance always has limits – it cannot tolerate what is itself actively intolerant. – Sidney Hook (1975). “Pragmatism and the tragic sense of life”

  27. @Jeff Smith: I just looked, and the magazine version has the split at 50-50. Someone on the F&SF editorial staff may have “corrected” it.j

  28. Political Correctness has now infiltrated the field like a metastazing cancer, to the point where long time readers are beginning to voice complaints.

    The best part about this sentence is the word “beginning,” which suggests quite ludicrously there was once a time where reactionaries like Truesdale weren’t complaining.

  29. I know, right? How many years has Truesdale himself been voicing this complaint now? How long ago was he tossed out of a con for hijacking a short fiction panel with a similar rant?

  30. @Paul Weimer

    10) A classic and a favorite.It does look like, as noted above, its Hugo competition was weak. That doesn’t distract from its goodness.

    Weak competition or not, “Ill Met in Lankhmar” is a brilliant story.

  31. As for the Tangent List’s usefulness, the editor’s note before that rant states that it is Truesdale’s opinion and not necessarily shared by his reviewers. I don’t believe Truesdale has quite driven away all the reviewers who don’t share his views.

    On the subject of how far reviewers’ reviews are allowed to stray from David Truesdale’s opinions, Charles Payseur (“Quick Sips”) tweets, “I mean the calls of Thought Policing are rich considering when I reviewed at Tangent Truesdale made me change reviews to better align with his opinions or he wouldn’t run the reviews.”

    And on the subject of how many good works are on the Tangent Online reading list, and whether it would therefore be wrong to discount it, Jason Sanford had a thread in which he says, “My suggestion: Ignore the Tangent Recommended Reading List. Yes, there are some good stories on the list, added to give Truesdale cover for his angry screeds. But you’ll find those stories honored elsewhere. … I should add another thing Truesdale does is use the good authors and stories on the list to give cover to him adding bad stories with politics he supports to the list.

    In both cases, the full threads are enlightening, but I wanted to highlight these particular quotes, as they seem relevant.

  32. Val: Pedro pascal and Arnold Schwarzenegger minimising and trivialising Holocaust

    Using a link to a Koch-funded website to complain about Holocaust comparisons is… not conducive to credibility of any sort.

    Contrary to Carano’s claims, Tr*mp supporters aren’t being disparaged for their political views. They’re being disparaged for their racism, sexism, and white supremacy.

    Here are some examples of
    Political Issues:

    “Should we levy another School Tax this year?”

    “Is the maximum building height for this zone appropriate, or should we alter it?”

    “Do we need a light rail for our city?”

    “How much of our state budget should go to road upkeep this year?”

     
    Here are some examples of
    Not Political Issues:

    “Are gay people human beings?”

    “Should women be paid the same as men?”

    “Are Nazis bad?”

    “Is extortion bad?”

    “Are war crimes bad?”

    “Why should presidents not be allowed to abuse power?”

    “Are black people bad?”

  33. I didn’t know about the website.. I’ll check it out to see if you’re right..but the point still stands, Pedro pascal and Arnold Schwarzenegger minimising and trivialising Holocaust was fine.
    AS was beyond the pale and was met with praise, how does that compute?

    Making lists of All people who voted for Trump is exactly disparaging for their political views or vote.. saying they need rehabilitation or some such also is.
    (Or do you think the black people, the LatinX people, Asian etc that voted for Trump are by default racists?)

    Racism, sexism, homophobia are bad, but not all conservatives like this, I agree the alt right are. You again are engaging in dehumanising 49.6% of Americans, if we go by the vote. Do you think that’s ok? You’re proving Gina Carano’s point by the way…

  34. Val, I’m going to ask you to clarify some of your claims.

    First of all, around 29% of the U.S. adult population voted for Tr*mp. Not 49.6%.

    Second, how is condemning people for supporting racism, sexism, homophobia, and white supremacy “dehumanizing” them? What they are supporting is the dehumanizing of a large percentage of the population. Why is condemning that a problem?

    Third, what exactly do you, and Carano, mean by “making lists”?

    Fourth, can you explain exactly how you claim Pascal and Schwarzenegger “trivialized” the Holocaust?

  35. Contrary to Carano’s claims, Tr*mp supporters aren’t being disparaged for their political views. They’re being disparaged for their racism, sexism, and white supremacy.

    Carano isn’t being disparaged for racism, sexism, or white supremacy.

  36. bill: Carano isn’t being disparaged for racism, sexism, or white supremacy.

    No, she’s being disparaged — and rightly so — for claiming that condemning people for advocating racism, sexism, and white supremacy is equivalent to what was done to Jews in the Holocaust.

Comments are closed.