(1) WITH ADDED SHARKE. New Shadow Clarke juror Gary K. Wolfe gives his opening statement in “Conversations in a Noisy Room: Introducing Gary K. Wolfe”.
I initially came to SF criticism through academia, where matters of grace and clarity are not always the highest priority. My earliest publications were in scholarly journals or with university presses, at a time when everyone seemed enamored of structuralism as a theoretical model. (A few years later, of course, we escaped that cage, only to find everyone equally enamored of post-structuralism.) It was essentially a grammar of analysis and taxonomy, modeled largely on the language of the social sciences, and to the extent that it was evaluative at all, it was mostly in passing. It was also a language marvelously well-suited to disguising thinness of thought.
Then I was invited to begin writing for a now defunct magazine, Fantasy Review, for a very different kind of audience. What models I had for SF criticism consisted of those early volumes by Damon Knight, James Blish, and even Kingsley Amis, and the succession of remarkable reviewers in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – Judith Merril, Joanna Russ, Algis Budrys, and others. Budrys became a kind of mentor in my shift toward real-world reviewing and criticism. We disagreed a lot, but he showed me that while my opinions might be worthwhile, they were a lot more worthwhile if they had solid reasoning behind them, and if they described a context for the works under discussion….
(2) BEST SERIES. Now that voting has opened for Hugo nominations, keep in mind JJ’s tool: “Best Series Hugo: Eligible Series from 2017” and discussion thread.
To assist Hugo nominators, listed below are the series believed to be eligible as of this writing for the 2018 Best Series Hugo….
OTHER AIDS. JJ is also curating —
- The 2017 Recommended SF/F Page
- The 2017 Novellapalooza post and comments
(3) BEST SERIES CAVILS. Martin P. advocates that voters impose additional criteria beyond the rules: “On the Hugo Award for Best Series”
…However, just because something can’t be legislated doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be kept in mind while nominating and voting. The standard I intend to apply is that to be worthy of a Best Series Hugo, a story must be fully satisfying even if no other installments are ever published. This does not necessarily mean a story must be conclusively over. For instance, while I can certainly imagine new installments in the Vorkosigan Saga, last year’s winner in the award’s trial run (and if Lois McMaster Bujold wants to write them I’d happily read them), my enjoyment of the series will not be diminished if Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is ultimately the final installment. But I don’t think a series that is clearly incomplete is award-worthy, and I’m not inclined to grant credit for future work. Everybody can think of a series that started strong and then went off the rails. I’m not comfortable coming back in the future and saying “this received the Best Series Award but you need to ignore its conclusion”. I don’t even love new books getting a “Hugo-Nominated [or Hugo Winning] Series” stamp from their publisher when the Hugo electorate hasn’t had a chance to read the book yet, although I recognize that marketers are going to pull that kind of thing regardless.
I do not intend to nominate any series that does not meet this criteria, and I urge others to do likewise. I will also likely rank any clearly incomplete series nominated below No Award, although I might consider a series whose final installment is published in 2018 before the voting deadline, as such a series would be ineligible for future nomination. And yes, I fully anticipate that I will rank something I quite like below No Award.
…While it might be difficult to find satisfactory completed series every year, N. K. Jemisin’s exceptional Broken Earth trilogy is eligible for the 2018 Best Series Hugo. I’m nominating it. If you haven’t read it, I highly encourage you to do so.
(4) THANKS BUT NO THANKS. Despite endorsements like Martin P’s, author N.K. Jemisin, in “Hugo Nomination Rumination”, wants Hugo voters to leave her trilogy out when nominating in the Best Series category.
As I’ve mentioned on social media, I only have two works eligible for awards nomination from 2017: The Stone Sky, and my Uncanny short story Henosis. Last year was tough, so I didn’t get much writing done. I’m sure a lot of you can relate.
But since people have asked for my thoughts on this… Please, if you’re going to nominate The Stone Sky in any form, do so in the Novel category, rather than nominating the whole Broken Earth trilogy for Series. I mean, I can’t stop you from nominating it however you like — but let me point out, if you didn’t know, that The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate have both won Hugos already. This is awesome, but in my eyes, it simply wouldn’t be fair for those books to effectively get a second bite at the apple in the Series category. That this possibility exists has always been a potential problem of the category, IMO.
And here’s the thing: I understand that some folks believe I’d have a better chance at scoring a third Hugo in the Series category. I’m super-grateful to those of you who think about stuff like this, but as someone who never expected to get even one Hugo… y’all, I’m okay either way. If TSS doesn’t get nominated or win in the Novel category, and some other deserving work does win, then so be it. TSS is a New York Times and Locus bestseller and the series has been picked up for a TV show; I’m doin’ all right by most other measures. I’m not going to pretend I wouldn’t squee my head off if I won Hugo #3 at any point, but there won’t be any tears in my beer if I lose, either. (If for no other reason than that I don’t drink beer.)
(5) JUICY RUMORS. Been suffering from a lack of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones gossip? Reddit’s ASOIAF discussion group delivered a spicy serving today.
- First, a user who goes by the handle ExceedsCharacterLimi wrote — “[Spoilers Extended] A Media Professional in GRRM’s Outer-Orbit Relayed Some Relatively-Tame ‘Common Knowledge’ to Me”
- Then Adam Whitehead (Wertzone) deconstructed that report at length.
(6) YET ANOTHER STAR WARS SERIES. With Thrones creators D&D’s work on their HBO series ending, the pair have hooked up with Disney to make more Star Wars movies — “‘Game of Thrones’ Creators to Write, Produce New ‘Star Wars’ Series of Films”.
“Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are going to write and produce a new series of “Star Wars” films, Disney announced on Tuesday.
The new series will be separate from the main episodic Skywalker saga that started with “Star Wars: A New Hope” and is slated to wrap up with 2019’s “Star Wars: Episode IX.” It will also exist independently from a Rian Johnson-helmed series that was announced last year.
“David and Dan are some of the best storytellers working today,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, in a statement. “Their command of complex characters, depth of story and richness of mythology will break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting.”
It also comes at a time of transition for Benioff and Weiss. “Game of Thrones,” their sprawling fantasy epic, will end its run on HBO in 2019.
(7) KEEPING READER TRUST. Sandra M. Odell shares tips on “Building The Disabled World” at the SFWA Blog,
I love intricate, detailed worldbuilding; it’s the backbone of science fiction and fantasy stories, even those set in the modern era. Sadly, few things make me stop reading faster than the realization that a writer gave more thought to the description of a meal than they did to the how or why an accommodation for a character with disabilities came to be in a story. Inclusion and representation matter, and so do the supports that allow an individual with disabilities to interact with a writer’s world. You don’t need to include every last detail about the world on the page, but there should be enough detail and consistency in the presentation that I can trust that you know what you’re talking about.
When creating a world where individuals with disabilities play a role, you should answer four basic questions…
(8) CLOVERFIELD. Netflix put up The Cloverfield Paradox on Sunday. The trailer —
Yahoo! Entertainment has a spoiler-filled discussion: “How Does ‘The Cloverfield Paradox’ Fit With the Other Two ‘Cloverfield’ Movies?”
One of the bigger developments of Super Bowl Sunday, aside from the game itself being outstanding, was the news that “The Cloverfield Paradox” (previously known as “The God Particle”) would be surprise dropping on Netflix right after the game. It was a genius move from a marketing standpoint — the number of folks who watched the movie Sunday night probably far exceeded what the movie would have done at the box office. But now that we’ve seen it, it’s left a bunch of us scratching our heads.
Looper also has analysis (video) —
The Cloverfield movie-verse has now officially expanded into some wild new territory. Netflix surprised fans of the sci-fi film series by dropping the third installment, The Cloverfield Paradox, on Super Bowl Sunday without warning. Like the first two films, Cloverfield 3 offers a new perspective on why all of those giant monsters have appeared on Earth. If you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to click away now because we’re about to take a deep dive into outer space…
(9) CONAN UP THE AMAZON WITHOUT A PADDLE. According to Deadline, “Conan the Barbarian TV Series In Works At Amazon From Ryan Condal, Miguel Sapochnik & Warren Littlefield”.
Amazon is developing drama series Conan, based on the books by Robert E. Howard, Deadline has learned. The project hails from Colony co-creator Ryan Condal, Game of Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik, Fargo and The Handmaid’s Tale executive producer Warren Littlefield, Pathfinder Media and Endeavor Content.
Created and written by Condal, Conan retells the classic character’s story via a return to his literary origins. Driven out of his tribal homelands, Conan wanders the mysterious and treacherous world of civilization where he searches for purpose in a place that rejects him as a mindless savage….
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born February 6, 1947 – Eric Flint
(11) SALUTE TO THE BIRTHDAY BOY. At Black Gate, Steven H Silver continues his series – “Birthday Reviews: Eric Flint’s ‘Portraits’”:
“Portraits” first appeared in The Grantville Gazette, an online magazine tied to Flint’s 1632 series, which allows various authors to discuss the setting and try their hand at fiction. When Baen decided to publish hard copies of some of the articles and stories, “Portraits” was reprinted as the first story in Grantville Gazette Volume I (2004) and provided the volume with its cover art. It was subsequently reprinted in Flint’s collection Worlds.
“Portraits” tells the story of Anne Jefferson, an American nurse posing for the Flemish artist Pieter Paul Rubens. The story assumes knowledge of the 1632 situation and characters Flint introduced three years earlier. This is a story which relies on its published context to be fully appreciated.
(12) LISTEN UP. Marvel New Media and top podcast listening service Stitcher have released the trailer for Wolverine: The Long Night. The 10-episode series airs weekly beginning March 12, 2018 exclusively on Stitcher Premium. It will see a wide release across all podcast platforms in fall 2018.
Listen to the trailer for Wolverine: The Long Night” here: www.WolverinePodcast.com
The “Wolverine: The Long Night” story is a captivating hybrid of mystery and the larger-scale fantasy of the Marvel Universe. It follows agents Sally Pierce (Celia Keenan-Bolger) and Tad Marshall (Ato Essandoh) as they arrive in the fictional town of Burns, Alaska, to investigate a series of murders and quickly discover the town lives in fear of a serial killer. The agents team up with deputy Bobby Reid (Andrew Keenan-Bolger) to investigate their main suspect, Logan (Richard Armitage). Their search leads them on a fox hunt through the mysterious and corrupt town.
(13) FALCON HEAVY. It worked: “Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket launches successfully”. As of the time the BBC posted this article, two of the three first-stages were known to have detached and landed safely. They were still awaiting news of the third, which was making a sea landing.
It is designed to deliver a maximum payload to low-Earth orbit of 64 tonnes – the equivalent of putting five London double-decker buses in space.
Such performance is slightly more than double that of the world’s next most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy – but at one third of the cost, says Mr Musk.
For this experimental and uncertain mission, however, he decided on a much smaller and whimsical payload – his old cherry-red Tesla sports car.
A space-suited mannequin was strapped in the driver’s seat, and the radio set to play David Bowie’s classic hit Space Oddity on a loop.
…Two came back to touchdown zones on the Florida coast just south of Kennedy; the third booster was due to settle on a drone ship stationed several hundred kilometres out at sea.
During the launch, the video signal from the drone ship was lost, so the fate of the third booster is not yet clear.
(14) FRESH CYBERPUNK. Speculiction’s Jesse Hudson finds a winner: “Review of Graft by Matt Hill”
Cyberpunk is now roughly forty years old. With relevant works from writers like James Tiptree Jr. and John Brunner appearing in the 60s and 70s, it coalesced into a recognizable trend in the early 80s—the four decades since having seen a full exploration of the idea of ‘cyberpunk’ through hundreds of stories and books. Thus, in 2016, how does a writer do something original with the form? With its imagery and characters, settings and ideas well established, there is probably only one way: deliver unique prose combined with a competent package. Matt Hill, in his 2016 Graft, does precisely this….
(15) SPEAKER TO ALIENS. At Quick Sip Reviews, Charles Payseur delivers “Quick Sips – Lightspeed #93″, reviews of four stories, including —
“Four-Point Affective Calibration” by Bogi Takács (1450 words)
No Spoilers: A person must undergo a special kind of mental exercise to calibrate a machine that might allow them to communicate with aliens. The piece dissects emotions and the supposed universality of certain “core” emotions, as well as looks at the idea of expectation, immigration, and appearance. Quick but dense with hope, fear, and the barriers of language.
Keywords: Aliens, Emotions, Transcript, Non-binary MC, Immigration, Communication
Review: For me, this story hinges on understanding and communication. The piece is framed as a transcript of a sort of mental calibration—part test, part measurement to set a baseline to allow the narrator to communicate with aliens. I many ways, though, I feel like the communication with the aliens isn’t the most important relationship being explored. Or, I guess I mean, what I keep getting out of the story is that for the narrator, it’s not communicating with the aliens that seems fraught or difficult—it’s communicating with other humans. Because of the barriers that humans erect between each other in order to try and ease communication, but in practice make things much more difficult for many people, especially those who don’t fit in well enough, for whom the burden of communication and understanding is always on appeasing the dominant voices, the dominant empathies. For the narrator, this seems another way that they have to grapple with ideas, “core” emotions, that they might not feel the same as others—because they are autistic, because they aren’t a cisgender person. These things that people take for granted the narrator cannot, nor do they react to this central frustration in the ways that people expect, in ways that are expected of them. And it’s a short but very complex and moving story about the hazards and difficulties of communicating, and of being understood. That there is this frantic kicking of thoughts, worries, fears, just under the surface of the narrator’s thoughts, laid bare here by this test in the hopes that they’ll be able to have this opportunity, to be allowed to have a conversation that excites them. It’s a wonderful read!
(16) SHIMMER PROGRAM. Another Chinese story in translation is available at Clarkesworld.
#HighlightOfToday “The Power is Out”, by A Que, translated by Elizabeth Hanlon. First published in English in Clarkesworld, Issue 137, February 2018.
Read the story in English here: https://t.co/PTOT1ySK70 pic.twitter.com/awPXzlbopv
— The Shimmer Program (@ShimmerProgram) February 5, 2018
(17) ANSWER WITH A QUESTION. Steven H Silver reports this was “a triple stumper” on today’s Jeopardy!
(18) FOR SALE. Mel Hunter’s original art “Lunar landscape,” which appeared on the cover of the June 1960 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (with small painted rocket ships superimposed on the landscape), is offered by Illustration House. It is expected to bring $3,000-$4,000.
(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Nothing to do with sff whatsoever. Loved The Parking Lot Movie, recommend it highly. Here’s the trailer —
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Steven H Silver, Martin Morse Wooster, StephenfromOttawa, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, Mark Hepworth, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dann.]
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9) By Crom!
17) Heh. PJF lived in vain? Of course that’s Riverworld. I mean, haven’t the contestants at least seen the horrible Syfy movies?
And…First
Sleep study Thursday night.
Managed to get the paperwork together for date much sooner than I expected. I mean, when my sleep doctor told me he would have his staff send word to the hospital, and the hospital would call me, I didnt expect to get their call while driving home.
So, Thursday night.
Contents of the Pixels may have Scrolled during flight.
sacrificial fourth
Apparently the Falcon Heavy core had a biggish failure:
comment by one of the science nerds at Daily Kos
Actual fifth!
13) The SpaceX FH launch really feels like something out of science fiction. The simultaneous landing of the side boosters was amazing to watch.
There’s a live feed on the car in space here:
They had “DON’T PANIC” on the console screen, and the car in space reminds me very much of the car in Heavy Metal:
(not the same car, and it certainly won’t reenter, but I strongly suspect Musk remembers that movie).
On the downside, I think it is virtually certain that the center stage crashed. It’s been hours, so they surely know its fate, but there’s been no word from SpaceX yet. Also, the announcers seemed a bit flustered on the live stream, and I suspect they heard something but were told not to announce it.
It’s pure speculation, but I suspect the stage may have crashed hard, perhaps taking the drone ship out with it.
I see nothing wrong with that – Musk gave the mission a 50/50 chance of success, so this strikes me as a fairly minor issue. I’d think problems to be more likely with the center stage since its design is a bit different from a standard first stage, but I expect they’re going to wait until the car is on its way to a Mars-like orbit (after the next engine fire) before they announce what happened to the center stage.
Losing the center stage is unfortunate, but the two side boosters landing successfully, simultaneously, upright on their tails the way rockets are supposed to land, dammit!, was both a beautiful sight, and a further confirmation they’re going down the right path.
As is the fact that they pulled off successfully the heavy lift.
Also, the man clearly has a sense of humor that works for any sf fan. 😀
There’s a live feed on the car in space here…
Next Hugo noms list is off to a good start with a strong contender for Best Related Work.
Now that the Hugo nominations have started and I’ve entered some works on the ballot, I’m realizing how little 2017-published works I’ve read. It’s amazing, really. I read just a few books more this last year than I did in 2016, but almost nothing from 2017. Yeesh.
Lis Carey on February 6, 2018 at 6:13 pm said:
Word is that the two failed engines apparently ran out of juice for ignition; one engine alone wasn’t enough to land, but it did get to the drone ship.
Yes, I think they did pretty well, especially for a first test flight.
3) ‘But I don’t think a series that is clearly incomplete is award-worthy, and I’m not inclined to grant credit for future work. Everybody can think of a series that started strong and then went off the rails. I’m not comfortable coming back in the future and saying “this received the Best Series Award but you need to ignore its conclusion”‘
Amen. I don’t really care about awards any more but it’s the principle of the thing. (And, coincidentally, #17 fits this bill in large part – first book was great and it felt like it could support (though didn’t require) a series but I couldn’t finish the actual series.) I think “No Award” is generally some kind of disgrace but I think it’s perfectly appropriate to not give this out every year, somewhat like the original concept of the SFWA Grand Master.
(I mean, I know that nothing getting the award is not the point, but just saying… If some rank it above some things, all could rank it above all things in some cases and I’d still be okay with that here.)
I was disappointed that none of the contestants on “Jeopardy!” today gave the correct answer to the question about P.J. Farmer’s “Riverworld”. But I’m glad Phil got a mention.
Well, naturally, Spacex had to announce the center stage failure after the last time I Googled it (which I had done a number of times) and didn’t seem to have it on their Twitter feed, just so I’d post something a bit out of date here . . . (grumble, grumble). Ah, well.
(17) Reminds me of a panel from an early “Life In Hell” strip by Matt Groening where Binky the rabbit is watching “Jeopardy,” and we hear a contestant guess that Fred Flintstone’s signature cry was “Inka Dinka Doo.” “Yabba Dabba Doo!” sneers Binky, “Idiot! Those prizes are rightfully mine!”
17) “Inka Dinka Doo” was Jimmy Durante. (Maybe others’ too).
I’m sad that Car Talk isn’t doing new segments, I would love for Musk to call in, “My car won’t start. It’s not getting any air. Or traction.”
I also wonder how long before Sportscar in Space becomes a plot element in some thriller/sf story or movie, either ‘as is,’ or with retroactive backstory of having been equipped — by Q (Bond’s, not Trek’s), or Shield, or who/whatever with some internal rockets, some weaponry (mini-rockets? lasers? Expanse-class PDCs? etc.) Heh.
Separately (i.e., non-17)
Lis Carey on February 6, 2018 at 5:14 pm said:
Having done a few over the decades (including one ~ 6 months ago) (all re sleep apnea), some advice, 1, bring a book, 2, cut back on caffeine and fluids earlier than you usually do. If this is your first such, feel free to ping me off-Scroll. Think of it like medical cosplay 🙂
(8) Timothy and I just watched it but a review may take a bit longer to write up.
Kip W: “Idiot! Those prizes are rightfully mine!”
yes, this! I moved to L.A. in 1981 [please don’t ask] and found Life in Hell. Never will forget the strip where the one-eared child rabbit cowers in a ransacked room as the giant parent looms overhead. Mistakes were made.
(18): That’s a beautiful painting. It’s too bad the real lunar surface isn’t quite so dramatic.
Lex Berman, thank you for the visual example! I had looked without success for the strip on the web, and then I searched my shelves for it and eventually found it, but it’s way easier to just point to the “yes, this!” link in your comment above.
Lis Carey: Sleep study! Yes, I had one of those. Only instead of going somewhere else, they had me stick sensors on myself at home and bring the readings (and machine) back to the office. I must have won: I have a CPAP now. Cathy says I haven’t snored since I first put it on.
13) Watched the launch. That’s a beautiful rocket. And that awesome landing! That gave me goosebumps.
This will be by third sleep study, and yes, all for sleep apnea. The second was very shortly after the first, badly in the first that the results were useless. I failed the first test! Oh, the shame!
The second one got me a CPAP, and it made an enormous difference.
Then my life fell apart, and somewhere in the disruption, the CPAP fell by the wayside and got left behind. Now I want to start sleeping right again, and when I said, “more than a year,” the doctor started planning my new sleep study. Needed so I can get a new CPAP.
Stop caffeine early. Bring my Nook, fully charged. Today I made sure I have Dora’s paperwork to ensure I don’t get too much resistance on bringing her with me. (She’s not just my species-variant SJW credential; she’s also my service dog.)
Anyone else see this?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/mutant-crayfish-got-rid-of-males-and-its-clones-are-taking-over-the-world/
(8) The last ten seconds actually made me chuckle, which is not what J.J. intended. (not our J.J.) Now as far as the rest of the movie…
@Kip W, my sleep study was at home, too. My regular travel companion says I don’t snore any more. On the other hand, I have been dissatisfied with all three masks I’ve tried so far, and find the extra air flow hard on my eyes. It’s worth it, but I wish I could fix those things.
@Lis Carey, those crayfish are so amazing I want to disbelieve in them. So, for real?
13) Evidently my dragonboat practice saw some aspect of the SpaceX launch tonight. Here’s the description I posted on facebook:
A fb friend posted that the timeframe corresponded with other reports that were definitely SpaceX doing something or other. (Possibly one of the boosts, but probably not “debris” as we had speculated.)
@Heather Rose Jones
http://www.9news.com/mobile/article/news/weird/whatever-that-light-in-the-sky-was-norad-says-it-wasnt-a-threat/73-515496160
I saw it and thought it was a spotlight on an aircraft. It felt bright and “close”. It also felt kind of like a comet, but larger and brighter than Hale-Bobb. It was not a flash like a meteorite.
Sorry, I swear I typed Hale-Bopp there! I caught it after the timer expired
Musk announced the third boost was successful at about 7:45pm, so yeah, that was probably it – someone in Arizona got a photo of the burn. It’s going past Mars, nearly to Ceres, on the first orbit. ( https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/961083704230674438 )
also: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Strange-light-over-Northern-California-was-SpaceX-12557080.php
Can someone point me to lists of stuff eligible for retro-Hugos? I never bother with them, but my friend wants to read stuff so she can nominate and vote. This is all I could find as far as novels.
https://www.librarything.com/list/14520/all/1943-Retro-Hugo-Eligible-Novels
If anyone has links to short stories, novellas, etc., we’d appreciate it.
I gave some links for graphic novels for the retro hugos here and there are also some other links.
https://file770.com/?p=39294
(6) good luck to them. I’m just relieved they’ve decided to leave the US Civil War alone.
Thank you Hampus!! Very useful. I’ve passed the info on.
I should have thought to look at file770 comments.
Found on twitter:
@Stonekettle
Me: OK Google, set reminder for 1200
Google: What’s the reminder?
Me: SpaceX launch
Google: Setting reminder for space sex lunch.
Me:
Google:
Me: Yeah, that works.
https://twitter.com/Stonekettle/status/960895292513181697
(1) Nice thoughts on criticism and book reviewing, and some nice jabs at academic literary criticism too. I really like his conclusion that being listened to has to be earned by the critic.
(3) I think everyone involved includes additional criteria on every Hugo category, but I also think that it’s wrong if those turn out to be more than “my personal set of views of Hugo eligible material”.
To me eg, I think Hugo nominations should not only be good literary (or equivalent) AND sf works, they should add significantly to the field of science fiction in itself: in vision, in tools, in exploring new themes, in storytelling, direction, et c. And yes, I’m aware that I’ve argued against grading stories on originality and novum, but I think there is a difference between grading everything that way versus using that as a deciding factor for the very best sf works in a year.
But I’m not going to pretend that my view is universal or should be applied to everyone else. I also think it helps to be aware of the span between loosely-coupled (eg Discworld or Vorkosigan) and tightly-coupled (eg Broken Earth) series. (Of course, there are things that fall in the middle, like the Rivers of London series, or that start one way and then tends towards the other.)
(4) To me, there is a strong reason why The Broken Earth should be nominated as best series: it opens up the category with two excellent series that both have had noticable impact on the field of science ficton, and that nicely complements an open-ended loosely coupled long series with a self-contained tightly coupled short series.
Riverworld: Cool idea, not much done with that (And it didnt occur to me when I read it – but where there any women involved? Im too lazy to check now, but I can remember only men). The last was probably the best, but that didnt actually use any Riverworldish things.
If only the matches packed some content!
9) Conan wanders the mysterious and treacherous world of civilization where he searches for purpose in a place that rejects him as a mindless savage
As someone who likes the Conan stories a lot, my first reaction is that this doesn’t sound at all like Howard’s Conan… but my second thought is that the Conan stories are packed with super-racist pulp tropes and this frame at least offers a way to get around them.
13) Cheap launches are great, but I’m genuinely cross about the car. At best it’s a tacky publicity stunt and at worst it’s ostentatious waste. Give some researchers a chance to launch a cheap high-risk science package or put a cache of building material in orbit – don’t just spend millions of dollars of other people’s hard work on littering.
@Lenore Jones–
They certainly appear to be. I found multiple different articles in various sources. Different stories and takes, but same basic facts. It could be an unusually successful hoax, but I don’t think so.
4) There’s a lot to be said for nominating the “Broken Earth” trilogy… there’s also a lot to be said for respecting the author’s stated wishes. (On a practical level, Jemisin is free to decline the nomination, which would mean wasting a slot if you’ve nominated it.)
On balance, I think I’ll take that one out of my ballot… I still have stuff on there, including two completed trilogies, Robert Jackson Bennett’s “Divine Cities” and Peter Newman’s “The Vagrant”. I’m thinking of supporting that last one strongly, just so I can say “Vote Goat” a lot and annoy people.
In re this and 3), there’s a lot to be said, I think, for holding off on a “Best Series” nomination until you’re reasonably sure what you’re nominating is the best series – which would strengthen the argument against nominating incomplete works. There’s always room for things to go wrong… I mean, the first two or three “Gor” books weren’t that bad, but in light of how the series developed….
The Down Under Fan Fund Ballot for 2018 is now live!
https://downunderfanfund.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/duff-ballot-2018-australasia-to-north-america/?
@Lis, I feel like I should be making a Shakespearean quote, from Horatio. Amazing.
(3) BEST SERIES CAVILS
This is pretty much in line with my own thinking on nominations. It gets a bit fuzzy with the ongoing series problem but I trust people to tell the difference between Gentleman Jole &etc being a conclusion (if not necessarily the conclusion) and book 5 of an intended 10ish book series.
There’s also two pragmatic reasons: Concluding series won’t get swamped by ongoing fan favourites that will have later chances, and we’re more likely to get trilogies not six 20 book behemoths.
I’m really not sure about NAing if the results disagree with me though. Maybe if a series is so clearly still in its opening stages then I’ll say I just can’t judge it.
(4) THANKS BUT NO THANKS
This solves my problem of 6 possibles for 5 slots rather neatly.
(13) FALCON HEAVY
This sub title sounds like a Star Wars ship name 🙂
I do not think this is a co-incidence.
I thought a Falcon Heavy was an unnamed minor character in a Dashiell Hammett novel, but never mind.
@Peer Sylvester — it’s been 30+ years since I read them, but there was at least one woman in Riverworld — Alice Pleasance Liddell, I believe.
(Well, plus, you have to assume, every other woman who ever lived, but they must not have been doing anything important like the menfolk were. Sigh.)
(16) SHIMMER PROGRAM: Nobody let Ben Carson read that!
(3) My personal rule is that I won’t nominate a series unless it is complete. That avoids the possibility of awarding a series that falls off in later installments.
For example, I was mightily impressed with the early books in E.E. Knight’s (Eric Frisch) Vampire Earth series. It started to grow a little lackluster towards the middle. His Age of Fire series was also quite good, but I haven’t had the chance to finish it.
Sadly, this means that I have at least (3) series that I feel comfortable nominating this year.
(4) What??!!??? Is she nuts?? No beer????????
@Stobor
I was watching that clip from Heavy Metal yesterday while the landings were occurring for just that reason.
Re: CPAPs – If your snore….or if your significant other tells you that you stop breathing or gasp in your sleep….get it done. The long-term impact of not using a CPAP is disastrous. It simply changed my life for the better. Finding the right mask can be a pain, but I finally managed it.
@Ghostbird
Well, they are Musk’s millions to spend as he sees fit.
annnnddd…thanks for the title credit. Always glad to help.
Regards,
Dann
@Ghostbird – yes the car is a conspicuous waste, but it is conspicuous. It made the mainstream news headlines here in Ireland – “billionaires sports car launched to Mars” or some such.
And that’s what it is for, publicity.
@Niall McAuley And that’s what it is for, publicity.
As I said, yes. It’s the modern-day equivalent of a big gilded statue or a triumphal arch.
Dann says My personal rule is that I won’t nominate a series unless it is complete. That avoids the possibility of awarding a series that falls off in later installments.
KB Wagers is breaking her excellent Gunrunner Empress series into smaller units so the first three books forming a complete story with the next three presumably doing likewise. Would each completed take count as a series?
If you haven’t read them, their first person narration by the titular character is great and it’s set in matriarchal and female dominated Hindu worshiping empire quite some time in the future.with great characters, male and female, and a remarkable story.
3- Seems to make more sense to not nominate the works if a person doesn’t feel comfortable with nominating them, but otherwise I agree with the sentiment. Not only are there series where the wheels fall off, there’s series that never get finished at all. I completely get why someone wouldn’t want to nominate a work that’s unfinished, but also why some might be in love with an ongoing series and wants to recognize it.
Still it does feel kind of weird to think something is incredible only to be worried about ‘what if!’ scenarios later. Even if it craps the bed later what the worst that would happen, that a series won when it was at it’s best?
4- And here’s a completed series that doesn’t want to be in the running! For completed series in 2017 it goes up against two strong series in The Divine Cities and Shades of Magic. I think it’s nice that someone feels already awarded for their work and wants to spread the love and I’ll drink the beer she passes on.
@Cat Eldridge
Depends. The closest past analogy I could point to would be the various Dragonlance series. Those were story arcs largely told in 2 or 3 books. I could see where something similar where unique arcs involving the same basic cast of characters could result in multiple series that would be eligible.
That opens up the possibility of an author gaming the system to get multiple awards by breaking up a 4 or 5 book series into two 3 book series that are not really complete without each other. I trust fandom to be able to see through those kinds of shenanigans.
Regards,
Dann