Pixel Scroll 2/20/21 (I’m Picking Up) Good Vibraniums

(1) A CELEBRATION. N. K. Jemisin and Walter Mosley will be among the participants in “A Celebration of Octavia E. Butler”, a live virtual event at Symphony Space on February 24 starting at 7 p.m. (Eastern). Tickets sold at the link.

Actors and authors come together for an evening of readings and conversation to celebrate the work of the visionary author whose Afrofuturistic feminist novels and short fiction have become even more poignant since her death. Her award-winning novels, including Parable of the SowerKindredDawn, and Wild Seed, have influenced a generation of writers. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon) will lead a discussion with authors N. K. Jemisin (How Long ’til Black Future Month?), Walter Mosley (The Awkward Black Man), and Imani Perry (Breathe: A Letter to My Sons); and actors Yetide Badaki (American Gods) and Adepero Oduye (When They See Us) will read selections from Butler’s prolific body of work.

Audience members will be invited to join the conversation with questions for the panelists.

(2) RED PLANET CLOSEUP. EiderFox Documentaries takes the NASA footage and gives you “Mars In 4K”.

A world first. New footage from Mars rendered in stunning 4K resolution. We also talk about the cameras on board the Martian rovers and how we made the video. The cameras on board the rovers were the height of technology when the respective missions launched. A question often asked is: ‘Why don’t we actually have live video from Mars?’ Although the cameras are high quality, the rate at which the rovers can send data back to earth is the biggest challenge. Curiosity can only send data directly back to earth at 32 kilo-bits per second. Instead, when the rover can connect to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, we get more favourable speeds of 2 Megabytes per second. However, this link is only available for about 8 minutes each Sol, or Martian day. As you would expect, sending HD video at these speeds would take a long long time. As nothing really moves on Mars, it makes more sense to take and send back images.

(3) WORLDCON FOLKS. Ty Schalter says he doesn’t know anything about the Worldcon, but his questions are good: “Worldcon vs. The World”. (Just the same it brings to mind a line from Field of Dreams: “Oh! You’re from the Sixties! There’s no room for you here in the future!”)

…How many of the people reading, writing, editing and publishing the state of the art in genre fiction also fly out to Worldcon every year? How many of the people who go to Worldcon every year are reading, say, FIYAH Magazine— the kind of bold, original, cutting-edge fantastic literature that’s currently earning Hugo Award nominations and wins?

I’m genuinely asking, because remember: I don’t know what I’m talking about. But from the outside, it sure looks like The SFF Community and Worldcon Folks are two pretty disparate groups of people, who don’t necessarily care for or value each other a whole lot.

I see it when SFF Twitter explodes with shock and outrage every time Worldcon steps on another rake— how did it happen again?! I see it every time Worldcon Folks are mystified that doing things the way they’ve always done them is now not just insufficient but immoral— and who are these people yelling at us, anyway?!

I see it every time I go to church.

Wait, church? Yes, at church — and in family businesses, and on non-profit boards. In Chambers of Commerce and Kiwanis clubs. In all the gray-haired, tuxedoed, former cultural revolutionaries of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame harrumphing about letting N.W.A. in their storied institution. In every walk of life, everywhere, there are cultural and social organizations caught in an existential battle of whether to preserve their traditions or their values.

As a white guy turning 40 this year, I have an appreciation for the SFF of the 20th century and its associated Baby Boomer fans, slans, SMOFs, etc. In many ways, they’re who I grew up aspiring to be. But now that I’m grown, I can see the cultural blind spots and moral holes in the kind of let’s-just-us-smart-people-get-on-a-rocket-and-let-all-the-dumb-people-die Visions of A Better Future that still entice prominent members of the middle-aged-and-up set….

(4) HUGO DYNAMICS. Eric Flint’s Facebook comments in a discussion about Baen’s Bar include his views about the Hugo Awards and the Sad Puppies slates.

(5) AURORA AWARDS ELIGIBILITY. The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association is compiling its eligibility lists. Do you know of  work that belongs there? More information at their website.

Just a quick reminder that the Aurora Award Eligibility Lists for works done by Canadians in 2020 are open and awaiting your submissions. The Eligibility Lists will close on February 28th at 11:59 EST.  If you have created, published, read, or know of works or activities that should be on our lists please assist us and submit them. Help us find all the fantastic work done by Canadians in 2020! All works should be submitted to the eligibility lists on our website at www.prixaurorawards.ca 

(6) BE LARRY’S GOOGLE MONKEY. Larry Correia is crowdsourcing the next step in his retaliation against the Worldcon for DisCon III disinviting Toni Weisskopf as a guest of honor. Camestros Felapton has the screencap in his post “More Larry Nonsense”. Correia’s public call says in part —

… I need examples of writers/editors/fans who WorldCon is perfectly comfortable with, and their shitty posts, tweets, memes, of things that aren’t “inclusive”. (advocating violence, shooting cops, killing Trump, celebrating Rush’s death, putting us in reeducation camps, whatever. If it makes you feel not included, I’d like to know)
If you don’t have a screen cap but are going from memory, that’s fine…. 

(7) HORRIBLE FAN BEHAVIOR. Examples of bad behavior in the sff community aren’t hard to come by. Harlan Ellison’s recitation of fannish awfulness, “Xenogenesis,” was probably written off the top of his head. It originated as his 1984 Westercon GoH speech. The Internet Archive has a copy in the transcript of an Asimov’s issue — https://archive.org/stream/Asimovs_v14n08_1990-08/Asimovs_v14n08_1990-08_djvu.txt

Ellison precedes his dossier of criminal acts and psychopathic behavior with this introduction:

… In biology there is a phenomenon known as xenogenesis. It is a pathological state in which the child does not resemble the parent. You may remember a fairly grisly 1975 film by my pal Larry Cohen titled It’s Alive! in which a fanged and taloned baby gnaws its way out of its mother’s womb and slaughters the attending nurses and gynecologist in the delivery room and then leaps straight up through a skylight, smashes out, and for the duration of the film crawls in and out of the frame ripping people’s throats.

Its natural father is a CPA or something similar. Most CPA’s do not, other than symbolically, have fangs and talons. Xenogenesis.

In the subculture of science fiction literature and its umbilically attached aficionados, we have the manifestation of a symbiotic relationship in which the behavior of the children, that is, the fans, does not resemble the noble ideals set forth in the writings and pronouncements of the parents, the writers. For all its apocalyptic doomsaying, its frequent pointing with alarm, its gardyloos of caution, the literature of imagination has ever and always promoted an ethic of good manners and kindness via its viewpoint characters.

The ones we are asked to relate to, in sf and fantasy, the ones we are urged to see as the Good Folks, are usually the ones who say excuse me and thank you, ma’am.

The most efficient narrative shorthand to explain why a particular character is the one struck by cosmic lightning or masticated by some nameless Lovecraftian horror is to paint that character as rude, insensitive, paralogical or slovenly.

Through this free-floating auctorial trope, the canon has promulgated as salutary an image of mannerliness, rectitude and humanism. The smart alecks, slugs, slimeworts and snipers of the universe in these fables unfailingly reap a terrible comeuppance.

That is the attitude of the parents, for the most part.

Yet the children of this ongoing education, the fans who incorporate the canon as a significant part of their world-view, frequently demonstrate a cruelty that would, in the fiction, bring them a reward of Job-like awfulness….

(8) WHO KNEW? Science Sensei regales fans with “40 Times Science Fiction Was Wrong About Predicted Future Events”. Connie Willis’ emcee routines about sf predictions are much funnier, admittedly.

… No matter how accurate some writers are about the future, they are victims of the time they live in. It’s not Verne’s fault that he wrote his books in the 1800s and lacked the knowledge we have today. Yet this is what happens when you write about the future. Those future people can look back to see how accurate you were. Verne is one of many amazing writers who were both right and wrong about his future predictions. Yet some were completely wrong, and this involves far more than books. That is what our article is about, the science fiction out there that ended up getting the future very wrong. Enjoy!

25. Back to the Future Part II (Food Hydrators In 2015)

The original Back to the Future, starring Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox came out in 1985. The movies were all released within 5 years in real-time but they had to always return to the year of the original film, 1985. Instead of the past, the second film focused on the future

In this film, we see a Future 2015, where they have an entire world we almost wish was real. One of the impressive futuristic inventions in the film was a Food Hydrator by Black & Decker. Any food you wanted could be made with it, cooked quickly and ready to go in seconds. We never saw this in 2015, and we’re still upset about it!

(9) THAT JOB IS HELLA HARD. David Gerrold comments on “What Would It Take to Actually Settle an Alien World?” and his writing generally in a new installment of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast at WIRED.

David Gerrold is the author of dozens of science fiction books, including The Martian Child and The Man Who Folded Himself. His new novel Hella, about a low-gravity planet inhabited by dinosaur-like aliens, was inspired by the 2011 TV series Terra Nova.

“The worldbuilding that they did was very interesting, very exciting, but because I was frustrated that they didn’t go in the direction I wanted to go, I was thinking, ‘Let me do a story where I can actually tackle the worldbuilding problems,’” Gerrold says in Episode 454 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

Hella goes into enormous detail about the logistics of settling an alien world, and grapples with questions like: Would it be safe for us to eat alien proteins? Would it be safe for us to breathe alien germs? What effect would plants and animals from Earth have on an alien ecology? It’s a far cry from many science fiction stories which assume that alien planets would be pretty much like Earth. “My theory is that there are no Earthlike planets, there’s just lazy writers,” Gerrold says….

(10) THE WORLD SF MAKES. Sherryl Vint’s Science Fiction is being released by MIT Press this month.

Summary

How science fiction has been a tool for understanding and living through rapid technological change.

…After a brief overview of the genre’s origins, science fiction authority Sherryl Vint considers how and why contemporary science fiction is changing. She explores anxieties in current science fiction over such key sites of technological innovation as artificial intelligence, genomic research and commodified biomedicine, and climate change. Connecting science fiction with speculative design and futurology in the corporate world, she argues that science fiction does not merely reflect these trends, but has a role in directing them.

(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • February 20, 1955  — On this day in 1955, Tarantula premiered. It was produced by William Alland, directed by Jack Arnold. It stars John Agar, Mara Corday, and Leo G. Carroll. The screenplay by Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley was based on a story by Arnold, which was in turn was based on by Fresco’s script for the Science Fiction Theatre “No Food for Thought” episode  which was also directed by Arnold.  It was a box office success earning more than a million dollars in its first month of release. Critics at the time liked it and even current audiences at Rotten Tomatoes gives at a sterling 92% rating. You can watch it here. (CE)

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born February 20, 1925 Robert Altman. I’m going to argue that his very first film in 1947, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, based off the James Thurber short story of the same name, is genre given its premise. Some twenty five years later Images was a full-blown horror film. And of course Popeye is pure comic literature at its very best. (Died 2006.) (CE)
  • Born February 20, 1926 Richard  Matheson. Best known for I Am Legend which has been adapted for the screen four times, as well as the film Somewhere In Time for which he wrote the screenplay based on his novel Bid Time Return. Seven of his novels have been adapted into films. In addition, he  wrote sixteen episodes of The Twilight Zone including “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” and “Steel”. The former episode of course has William Shatner in it. (Died 2013.)  (CE) 
  • Born February 20, 1926 – Pierre Boulle.  For us, Planet of the Apes and eight more novels, thirty shorter stories; famous for The Bridge on the River Kwai; a dozen other novels.  Knight of the Legion of Honor, Croix de GuerreMédaille de la Resistance, earned during World War II.   (Died 1994) [JH]
  • Born February 20, 1926 – Ed Clinton.  A score of short stories (some as Anthony More).  “Idea Man” essay in the Jan 44 Diablerie.  Review & Comments Editor for Rhodomagnetic Digest.  (Died 2006) [JH]
  • Born February 20, 1943 – Dan Goodman.  Active fan in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis.  Literate, articulate, wry.  Edited and I believe named the Minn-StF clubzine Einblatt.  For a while in The Cult, to which the Fancyclopedia III article hardly does justice, but see Hamlet Act II scene 2 (Folger Shakespeare line 555).  In Lofgeornost at least as recently as 2014.  A story in Tales of the Unanticipated.  A note by me here.  (Died 2020) [JH]
  • Born February 20, 1943 – Suford Lewis, F.N., age 78.  Active in the LASFS (L.A. Science Fantasy Soc.); then NESFA (New England SF Ass’n): a Founding Fellow (service; first year’s Fellow of NESFA awards, 1976), President, chaired Boskone 10, co-chaired B44, edited six Bujold books for NESFA Press, also the excellent Noreascon Two Memory Book (post-con; 38th Worldcon).  Ran the Retrospective-Hugo ceremony for L.A.con III (42nd), the Masquerade (our on-stage costume competition) for Noreascon Three (47th).  Co-ordinated and actually brought into being Bruce Pelz’ Fantasy Showcase Tarot Deck, herself drawing Strength (! – Major Arcana VIII; a dozen-year project; see all the images and BP’s introduction here, PDF), and exhibiting all the original artwork at N2.  Fan Guest of Honor at Windycon VI (with husband Tony Lewis).  That ain’t the half of it.  Big Heart (our highest service award).  [JH]
  • Born February 20, 1943 Diana Paxson, 78. Did you know she’s a founder of the Society for Creative Anachronism? Well she is. Genre wise, she’s best known for her Westria novels, and the later books in the Avalon series, which she first co-wrote with Marion Zimmer Bradley, then – after Bradley’s death, took over sole authorship of. All of her novels are heavily colored with paganism — sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. I like her Wodan’s Children series more than the Avalon material. (CE)
  • Born February 20, 1954 Anthony Head, 67. Perhaps best known as as Librarian and Watcher Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he also made an impressive Uther Pendragon in Merlin. He also shows up in Repo! The Genetic Operaas Nathan Wallace aka the Repo Man, in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance as Benedict, and in the awesomely great Batman: Gotham by Gaslight voicing Alfred Pennyworth. (CE)
  • Born February 20, 1964 – Tracey Rolfe, age 57.  Half a dozen novels, as many shorter stories.  Clarion South 2004 (see her among other graduates in Andromeda Spaceways 10).  “How do you deal with writer’s block?” ‘I usually take my dog out for a walk.’ [JH]
  • Born February 20, 1979 Brian James Freeman, 42. Horror author. Novels to date are Blue November StormsThis Painted Darkness and Black Fire (as James Kidman). He’s also done The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book (superbly done) which he co-authored with Bev Vincent and which is illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne. He publishes limited edition books here. (CE) 
  • Born February 20, 1989 – Nathália Suellen, age 32.  Digital artist and commercial illustrator.  A score of covers for us, but certainty is elusive at borders.  Here is Above.  Here is Unhinged.  Here is The Gathering Dark (U.K. title).  Here is Henry, the Gaoler.  Here is a self-portrait.  [JH]

(13) EMOTIONAL ROBOTS. On March 10, Writers Bloc presents “Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro with Westworld’s Lisa Joy”. Book purchase required for access to the livestream.

Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, seduces us with his storytelling. His novels (The Remains of the DayNever Let Me Go; and others) draw us in and we are powerless to leave the page. His novels are deceptive–while he lulls us into his gorgeous and straightforward prose, he presents us with profound observations of human behavior, and explorations of love, duty, and identity. In his new novel, Klara and the Sun, Ishiguro introduces us to Klara, an artificial object who watches the world from her perch in a shop. She watches the comings and goings of those who enter the shop, and those who merely pass by. She hopes that someone will choose her. and that she can be loved. Magnificent.

In conversation with Lisa Joy. Lisa Joy is one of the creators and writers of the acclaimed HBO series, Westworld. A dystopic genre-bending series, Westworld explores the fraught relationship between humans and human-looking robots at an amusement park. What happens when artificial intelligence interferes with the people who employ them? What happens when artificial intelligence breaks its own boundaries and those robots start to feel, to love, to cause harm? Westworld has won countless prestigious awards.

(14) ELUSIVE APPOINTMENTS. “How some frustrated COVID-19 vaccine hunters are trying to fix a broken system”The Seattle Times has the story.

That pretty much said it all, the other day, when a 90-year-old remarked in a Seattle Times story that the easy part of navigating our COVID-19 vaccine system was when she had to walk 6 miles through the snow to get the shot.

George Hu is only 52, but he can sympathize. When the former Microsoft developer tried to find appointments online for his 80-year-old in-laws, he was dumbfounded how primitive it all was.

“All tech people who see this setup are horrified,” Hu says.

That was my experience trying to nab a slot for my 91-year-old father. As everyone discovers, there isn’t one or a couple of places to hunt vaccine, but rather … hundreds, many with their own interfaces. I ran into one vaccine provider that was using Doodle for its vaccine appointment scheduling, another using Sign-Up Genius, another with a “don’t call us, we’ll text you back sometime” online form.

Rather than a global health emergency, it felt more like when the PTA is signing parents up for a bake sale.

“It’s whack-a-mole, except there are 300 holes,” Hu says. “And also you have no clue if the mole is ever going to pop up in any of them.”

(15) WHAT A BUNCH OF SCHIST. The headline made me click – “The missing continent it took 375 years to find” at BBC Future. Maybe your power to resist will be greater!

It took scientists 375 years to discover the eighth continent of the world, which has been hiding in plain sight all along. But mysteries still remain….

Zealandia was originally part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which was formed about 550 million years ago and essentially lumped together all the land in the southern hemisphere. It occupied a corner on the eastern side, where it bordered several others, including half of West Antarctica and all of eastern Australia.

Then around 105 million years ago, “due to a process which we don’t completely understand yet, Zealandia started to be pulled away”, says Tulloch.

Continental crust is usually around 40km deep – significantly thicker than oceanic crust, which tends to be around 10km. As it was strained, Zealandia ended up being stretched so much that its crust now only extends 20km (12.4 miles) down. Eventually, the wafter-thin continent sank – though not quite to the level of normal oceanic crust – and disappeared under the sea.

Despite being thin and submerged, geologists know that Zealandia is a continent because of the kinds of rocks found there. Continental crust tends to be made up of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks – like granite, schist and limestone, while the ocean floor is usually just made of igneous ones such as basalt.

But there are still many unknowns. The unusual origins of the eighth continent make it particularly intriguing to geologists, and more than a little baffling. For example, it’s still not clear how Zealandia managed to stay together when it’s so thin and not disintegrate into tiny micro-continents.

Another mystery is exactly when Zealandia ended up underwater – and whether it has ever, in fact, consisted of dry land. The parts that are currently above sea level are ridges that formed as the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates crumpled together. Tulloch says opinion is split as to whether it was always submerged apart from a few small islands, or once entirely dry land….

(16) THE BUZZ. Mental Floss assures us that Wasps Are Ridding Anne Boleyn’s Birthplace of Moth Infestation”.

…Now, however, it’s home to common clothes moths that could wreak havoc on rugs, clothing, and other vulnerable artifacts—including a rare 18th-century canopy bed and a tapestry that Catherine the Great bestowed upon the household in the 1760s. The moths have had much freer rein throughout Blickling Hall in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and periodic pest counts have proved that the population has grown considerably over the past year.

“There’s no doubt lockdown suited our resident bugs,” assistant national conservator Hilary Jarvis said in a press release. “The relative quiet, darkness, and absence of disruption from visitors and staff provided perfect conditions for larvae and adults alike from March onwards.”

To curb further spawning, the National Trust has enlisted the help of an unlikely ally: microscopic parasitoid wasps (Trichogramma evanescens). In 11 especially moth-ridden locations within the hall, staff members will plant dispensers that hold around 2400 wasps each, which will destroy moth eggs by laying their own eggs inside them. Though it seems like Blickling Hall will have simply swapped out one infestation for another, the wasps pose no threat to the upholstery or anything else—they’ll eventually die and “disappear inconspicuously into house dust,” if all goes according to plan….

(17) TENET COMMENTARY. CinemaWins tells you “Everything GREAT About Tenet!” There must have been more good stuff in there than I suspected.

  • Everything GREAT About Tenet! PART 0 (Plot Breakdown):
  • Everything GREAT About Tenet! PART 1: 
  • Everything GREAT About Tenet! PART 2: 

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Jim Henson Introduces Kermit The Frog to Dick” on YouTube is a November 1971 clip from The Dick Cavett Show with both Jim Henson and Kermit as guests where you can clearly see how Henson changed his voice to be Kermit.

[Thanks to Michael Toman, rcde, John Hertz, N., Andrew Porter, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

138 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/20/21 (I’m Picking Up) Good Vibraniums

  1. @Various: I’m not that into that quasi-abstract style of cover, though I probably liked it fine back in the day. But I have Methuselah’s Children (which seems to have Mrs. Methuselah on the cover), not in good condition; and The Puppet Masters (which suggests people on puppet strings, I suppose), in pretty good condition. Although not really my style now, they are, for me, the right covers for those two books, since they’re the ones I’ve had for years. 😉 While for other Heinlein books, the right covers are more recent ones, just because they’re the editions I read. 😉 Probably a little silly of me.

  2. @JJ, Cat, et al.: (cover heresy)

    Many of that particular set fall under my “sentimental attachment” exception, but c’mon. Don’t tell me you’d praise those nearly so highly if you’d never encountered them before and saw them for the first time today.

    @foamy: (Vorpatril cover)

    Yeah, that’s extremely generic, not to mention covered up by big blocky type. Can’t say I’m a fan of either generic covers or paying for artwork only to cover it up that way. The artwork itself, though? What I can see of it doesn’t look half bad.

    @Aaron: “I have a few books with those on my shelves. They are vastly better than anything Baen has put on a book cover in the last two decades.”

    Don’t forget to put those goalposts back when you’re done with them. Not only are we discussing the covers rather than the contents, but even allowing for that, they’ve released several Heinlein reprints and Bujold originals in the last two decades. I dare say those are worth putting covers on… even awful ones.

  3. Rev. Bob: Don’t tell me you’d praise those nearly so highly if you’d never encountered them before and saw them for the first time today.

    I would. I love that sort of art.

    Read Aaron’s comment again; he’s not talking about content, he’s talking about covers.

  4. JJ’s mention of Gene Szafran’s covers reminded me of my favorite Szafran, this cover for Eric Frank Russell’s WASP.

    Sadly, Szafran’s career as an artist was cut short when he developed multiple sclerosis, still in his 30’s. If he’d stayed healthy and continued to work in the SF field, I think he’d have become one of the Classic SF Artists.

  5. John A Arkansawyer: I am still looking for one of the white ones of The Puppet Masters. I love those abstract/geometric designs, some of which are representational enough.

    I don’t suppose you mean this one? I have this one on my shelf. But it’s not exactly abstract/geometric.

  6. Re covers, I think Tor covers tend to be brilliant. Interestingly enough, I can generally tell a Tor book by the cover as readily as Baen.

  7. rochrist: I think Tor covers tend to be brilliant.

    Agreed, Irene Gallo has been doing a fantastic job as the Art Director for Tor’s book covers.

    I also think that Christine Foltzer does an absolutely fabulous job on the Tor.com covers. I’ve hated a few of them, but the vast majority are absolutely beautiful, and the fonts take a back seat to the artwork, which is the way it should be.

    I’ve been really delighted to see Foltzer recognized on the Best Art Director shortlist for the Chesleys the last couple of years.

  8. @foamy:

    You said the original cover. That would be the one on the eARC, which shows a nondescript shuttle flying over skyscrapers. It’s in B&W at that link because the eARC’s no longer available, but while this Reddit link is quite pixellated, it’s obviously a color version of the same.

    I’ve never seen that “blue girl” cover before now, and I own a copy of the ebook.

  9. Rev. Bob: I’ve never seen that “blue girl” cover before now, and I own a copy of the ebook.

    That cover is notorious in the lore of bad book covers.

    The official release for the book was November 2012, and the notorious blue girl cover was out on or before December 2012.

  10. I bought CVA in hardcover on release, because what was I going to do, not get a Bujold book? And I have the cover with Rish and Tej. Grant you the eARC may have come out first because it is, after all, an advance copy, but I think ‘first hardcover edition’ is a reasonable thing to consider the original, too.

  11. @JJ and @Cora

    There are writers working in the 1632 ‘verse that do do extensive research on 17th Century German culture (and French; i love Virginia DeMarce’s output).

    However, there are several German writers grumbling in 1632_Tech that significant parts of the 1632 ‘verse don’t make sense in a German historical context. They get consistently slapped down by Walt Boyes, Bjorn Hasseler and Eric Flint with basically the argument: “This is Eric’s canon, shut up”.

    And the ignorance of the lead editors of the ‘verse is starting to get ever more irritating in the latest releases. It is as if they emphasize the inaccuracies to spite their German critics.

    And don’t get me started on the persistent misspellings of their Early Modern Dutch. At least Chuck Gannon got the culture more or less right, but he really needs to stop using Early Modern Dutch conversation fragments or names, or have a Dutch proofreader (at least I’m assuming it’s Chuck at fault, I never got the impression that Eric was responsible for the Dutch bits).

  12. Followup: Note: I’m pretty sure the art in question was the back cover of the hardcover, which would explain both why the eARC doesn’t have it. I can’t seem to find my copy immediately to hand to check my memory, though.

  13. In re the Vorpatril cover

    One thing I like about a couple of the original Catherine Asaro Skolian novels featuring Kelric is that the cove designers clearly took a look at Baen and thought “what if we genderflip the dynamics on that”. And it totally works.

  14. While we discuss Baen covers, I thought about how many Baen books I have in my collection. I think the only Baen paperbacks I have are used copies of The Incomplete Nifft by Michael Shea, The Paladin by C.J. Cherryh, and The Books of the Wars by Mark Geston (unread). Also, I would like to find a copy of Continent of Lies by James Morrow on Biblio some time soon.

  15. Don’t forget to put those goalposts back when you’re done with them. Not only are we discussing the covers rather than the contents, but even allowing for that, they’ve released several Heinlein reprints and Bujold originals in the last two decades. I dare say those are worth putting covers on… even awful ones.

    And? Whatever gave you the idea that I was talking about the contents of the books instead of the covers, especially when I said “covers” in my comment?

    The Heinlein reprints and Buold originals would be much better off with the kinds of covers you are dismissing instead of the terrible designs that Baen has foisted onto them in recent years.

  16. @JJ, foamy:

    The only place I see the “blue girl” cover actually used on a copy of the book is on the 2013 paperback edition. Every other edition I see is either a Baen printing with the “cityscape” cover, a Spectrum cover, or a non-Baen translated edition.

    @JJ:

    Look down in the comments at your blog link. (Which, note: not an official release channel.) “Joel” asked blog owner Aiden where that cover came from, because the hardcover uses a cityscape shot. He responded that it’s the paperback cover and that the art was “apparently” used on the back of the hardcover, which “David H.” confirmed in the next comment. Which leads me to…

    @foamy:

    Since when does anyone grade back cover art? The eARC matches the hardcovers and has the cityscape front cover. Click on the first link in this comment – to the Goodreads entry for the paperback, which does use that as the front cover, a year later! – and find the “all editions” link. Cityscape after cityscape in every other Baen printing… because that’s the original (front) cover.

  17. @Rob Thornton
    The earlier cover on “The Paladin”, where you’re seeing him reflected in her eyes? That one is better than the one on the e-book version.

  18. @ P.J. Evans

    Thanks, I’ll take a look. Unfortunately, my paperbacks are randomly stacked three deep so It will take some time to find it. 🙂

  19. @Rev. Bob

    Although I think Michael Whelan’s Friday cover still takes the cake for me in terms of character inaccuracy. I’m sure there are worse, but that one always springs to my mind.

    Speaking of bad Heinlein book covers and character inaccuracy, such a list would have to include versions of Tunnel in the Sky where Rod is white.

    But even those are much better than the Russian edition set in the Starfleet universe, or the German edition with Dave Bowman (and possibly the monolith) from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  20. @Rev. Bob

    Although I think Michael Whelan’s Friday cover still takes the cake for me in terms of character inaccuracy. I’m sure there are worse, but that one always springs to my mind.

    Speaking of bad Heinlein book covers and character inaccuracy, such a list would have to include versions of Tunnel in the Sky where Rod is white.

    But even those are much better than the Russian edition set in the Starfleet universe, or the German edition with Dave Bowman (and possibly the monolith) from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  21. @Rev Doc: I do in this case because it’s a book whose cover makes me embarrassed to read it in public.

  22. @ P.J. Evans

    Thanks! Very cool.

    P.S. I have never seen the Baen cover before, and my it’s awful! That earns my vote for worst Baen cover, though I haven’t really been paying attention.

  23. And don’t get me started on the persistent misspellings of their Early Modern Dutch. At least Chuck Gannon got the culture more or less right, but he really needs to stop using Early Modern Dutch conversation fragments or names, or have a Dutch proofreader (at least I’m assuming it’s Chuck at fault, I never got the impression that Eric was responsible for the Dutch bits).

    I never got as far as the mangled Dutch, though considering they have managed to mispell German townnames that are easy enough to look up, I’m not surprised.

  24. Rev. Bob: that it’s the paperback cover and that the art was “apparently” used on the back of the hardcover… Which leads me to… Since when does anyone grade back cover art?… Cityscape after cityscape in every other Baen printing… because that’s the original (front) cover.

    It is a book cover that was indeed published as a cover, and which has a certain notoriety for being supremely bad — even in just the subset of bad Baen covers, which is really saying something. You just hadn’t ever happened to hear about it.

    Congratulations! You’re one of Today’s Lucky 10,000. 🙂

  25. @Cora Buhlert

    And Baen seems to react to their attention with the good humour they’re famous for.

    Did they? I missed that.

  26. Re: Good Show Sir, it was interesting comparing the relative sizes of “Baen Books”, “DAW Books,” and “Tor Books” in the tag cloud. Also interesting that even among their Tor Books examples, they were using “Baen-Orange hues” as a descriptor in their commentary.

    Anyone else own the Baen omnibus edition of the first two God Stalk books? The one whose cover depicts Jame perched on top of a gargoyle while wearing a dress that’s seriously impractical for her line of work? An extremely boobtacular, cleavage-displaying dress, on a character who is, in the text, constantly being mistaken for a boy? Yeah. Baen covers. Woo.

  27. Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little: Anyone else own the Baen omnibus edition of the first two God Stalk books? The one whose cover depicts Jame perched on top of a gargoyle while wearing a dress that’s seriously impractical for her line of work? An extremely boobtacular, cleavage-displaying dress, on a character who is, in the text, constantly being mistaken for a boy? Yeah. Baen covers. Woo.

    That’s the one I got from my library when you lot convinced me to read Godstalk. 😀

    As I recall, the actual character is not only of an androgynous build, but also has extremely short hair and wears trousers. During a Worldcon Kaffeeklatsch a few years ago, someone brought up the subject of her Baen covers, and the look on Hodgell’s face was… informative.

  28. @JJ: “It is a book cover that was indeed published as a cover,”

    …which I do not take issue with. I also agree that it’s a hideous piece.

    What I object to is its characterization as “the original cover,” implying the first-edition front cover, which evidence indicates is not the case. Original back cover, okay, perhaps*… but as I asked, since when has anyone been cataloging and appraising back cover art? As far as I can tell, from picking through close to two dozen editions, that front cover made its debut on the mass-market paperback, a year after the hardcover was published.

    And since you appear to have missed it, I put “apparently” in quotes in the message to which you responded because I was quoting Aiden. It does not denote my own commentary on the matter.

    *I haven’t seen it myself to be sure, so I’m not claiming certainty. Unlike Aiden in his original post, which turned out to be wrong.

  29. Because apparently I’m not ready to go to bed yet, I did a search for Hodgell on Good Show Sir. The only one of the God Stalk covers they’ve roasted (well, the only search result I got) is this one:

    https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=7367

    It’s another inaccurately boobed and weirdly outfitted Jame, this time posing in front of a lion* with elf ears and recoiling in horror from the Baen logo. Like you do.

    *I’m honestly not sure if that’s supposed to be Jame’s blind ounce pal, all grown up and fearsome, or the god-like lion-ish character whose name I cannot at this time remember–it’s probably time for another series reread–but either way–elf ears?

  30. @Rev Bob: I have the trade paper (as opposed to pocket book) edition of CVA, and it definitely has the awkward blue woman on the front. I’m surprised to learn that the hardcover has a different image. Pocket books frequently do, but trades, in my experience, rarely do. So I would have made the same mistake of assuming that that was the original.

  31. I have the original hardcover of CVA – cityscape on the front and blue lady on the back. I’m not at all surprised that others remember that reversed, because it’s an odd choice to have the main characters represented on the back cover, not the front (if represented at all).

  32. Re: Godstalk covers. It’s what I’d expect from Clyde Caldwell (the artist for at least some of them – certainly Bound in Blood). It’s not that his women always have large amounts of cleavage on display, but it’s pretty common in his art.

  33. Pingback: Robert Hood – “Rev. Bob” – Has Died | File 770

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