Pixel Scroll 2/18/17 The Fifth Scroll Is The Deepest

(1) THE HAT MAKES THE MAN. From Bored Panda, “Photographer Travels Across New Zealand With Gandalf Costume, And His Photos Are Epic”.

Who can be a better guide of New Zealand (Middle Earth) than Tolkien’s Gandalf himself? The guy has been traveling around that place for more than 2,000 years, so he probably knows his way around. That was the idea behind photographer Akhil Suhas’s 6-month trip across the country with a Gandalf costume.

Suhas called his 9,000-mile adventure #GandalfTheGuide and documented it using photos. “I wanted a recurring subject in my photos and with so many photographers visiting the country, I figured that I needed to do something to set me apart!” he said. “I was watching the LOTR for the 5th time when I figured New Zealand is famous for 2 things: its landscapes and the LOTR + Hobbit Trilogies. So why not combine the two by having Gandalf in the landscapes?”

At first, he tried self-portraits: “I tried the camera on a tripod with a timer shot, didn’t work for me,” Suhas said. “So, I started asking the people I met along the way if they wanted to put on the outfit.” Surprisingly, people agreed, and Suhas created an amazing small-person-big-landscape photo tour of New Zealand.

 

(2) A HEFTY PRICE. L. W. Currey is offering The David Rajchel Arkham House Archive for sale. Kim Huett writes: “Those of you interested in small-press fantasy publishing might want to have a look at this collection of Arkham House paperwork that’s being offered for sale even if the price being asked is out of our collective range.”

The Arkham House Archive contains over 4000 letters and documents related to publications issued by Arkham House, Mycroft & Moran and Stanton & Lee between 1939 and 1971, as well as correspondence and business papers related to Derleth’s activities as writer and editor for other publishers, including his editorial work as an anthologist in the 1940s and 1950s, and as a TV scriptwriter in the 1950s.

The David Rajchel Arkham House Archive is a highly important collection of letters and documents that compliment the papers held by the Wisconsin Historical Society. These papers and those held by WHS are essentially all the Arkham House papers that survive.

…One of the most important twentieth century small publisher’s archives offered for sale in the last several decades. The collection, $415,000.00

(3) KEEPING SCORE., A lot of movie music on the bill at the Hollywood Bowl this summer —

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – 2017-07-06

The Harry Potter™ film series is a once-in-a-lifetime cultural phenomenon that continues to delight millions around the world. Experience the second film in the series in high definition on our big screen while John Williams’ unforgettable music is performed live-to-picture.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – 2017-07-07

The Harry Potter™ phenomenon continues with the third film of the series. The Los Angeles Philharmonic will perform every note from John Williams’ sensational score while audiences relive the magic of the film projected in high definition on the big screen.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – 2017-08-04

The film that gave the world one of its most iconic movie heroes, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), is back and better than ever! Relive the magic of this swashbuckling adventure as one of John Williams’ best-loved film scores is performed live, while the thrilling film is shown in HD on the Bowl’s big screen

John Williams: Maestro of the Movies – 2017-09-01

Continuing a beloved Bowl tradition, legendary composer John Williams returns to conduct many of his greatest moments of movie music magic. David Newman kicks off the evening with more of the best in film music. A selection of clips will be featured on the big screen.

Fireworks Finale: The Muppets Take the Bowl – 2017-09-08

It’s time to get things started, to light the lights… the iconic and beloved Muppets will perform a sensational, inspirational live show you’ll never forget! Join Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, The Great Gonzo and the rest of the zany Muppet gang, including – fresh off their triumphant festival performance – Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, with legendary rock drummer Animal, for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. All this, plus special surprise guests and fireworks!

(4) SETTING A RECORD. And, by the way, “John Williams and Steven Spielberg’s Work Together Is Getting an ‘Ultimate Collection’”.

John Williams & Steven Spielberg: The Ultimate Collection is a three-disc retrospective due out March 17 from Sony Classical and includes new recording of Williams’ scores. Listen to a new recording and reworking of “Marion’s Theme” from Raiders of the Lost Ark and watch a behind-the-scenes video at the bottom of this story.

It’s an update of a previous collection, which over two discs included music for Spielberg films that Williams recorded with the Boston Pops Orchestra for 1991’s Sony Classical: The Spielberg/Williams Collaboration and 1995’s Williams on Williams: The Classic Spielberg Scores. Those collections featured music spanning 1974’s Sugarland Express through 1993’s Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List.

The update was recorded in 2016 with the Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles and includes work from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Amistad, The BFG, Lincoln, The Adventures of Tintin, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse, The Terminal, Munich and the 1999 documentary The Unfinished Journey.

(5) DUAL TO THE DEATH. At Break, Urbanski chronicles the feud between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison — “Two Of The Greatest Comic Book Writers Have Been In An Occult War For 25 Years”.

…By the early 90s, it was already obvious Moore had issues with Morrison. He claimed to have helped give Morrison a leg up in his career (Morrison later pointed out he was making comics, though much less famous ones, before Moore had become known at all), and that Morrison in return just ripped-off all of Moore’s work.

Morrison, on the other hand, claimed that Moore’s own work was derivative of a 1977 novel called Superfolks, and that “Watchmen” was not as great as everyone thought, and that Moore wants to take credit for everything great in comics while slagging anyone he sees as competition.

Moore has continued to insinuate throughout the years that Morrison has kept ripping off his ideas, once notably saying, “I’ve read Morrison’s work twice: first when I wrote it, then when he wrote it.”

…But it’s too easy to try to write the conflict off by painting Moore as some kind of grumpy old traditionalist, and Morrison as the bold in-your-face counter-culture rebel.

Remember, it was Moore who argued his way out of mainstream comics forever. On the other hand, Morrison plays the rebel but has become an icon of Mainstream Comics (though anyone reasonable would agree he’s transformed that mainstream and helped enormously to raise the quality of mainstream comics writing).

Morrison even got an MBE from the Queen, which Moore saw as the ultimate proof of Morrison’s fake rebel act being exposed as conformity. For it, he called Morrison a “Tory” (which, from Moore, is like the dirtiest word imaginable).

Morrison once claimed that Moore only had one “Watchmen”, while he does “one Watchmen a week”; which frankly is complete bullcrap. And you could laugh at Morrison’s arrogance for saying something like that, except that then he went on to launch a magical attack directly at Watchmen just to prove his point, with his comic “Pax Americana.”

“Watchmen” had started out as an idea Moore had using a certain group of DC-owned characters (Captain Atom, Peacemaker, The Question, Nightshade, the Blue Beetle, Thunderbolt) which DC wasn’t really using. Luckily for us all, DC didn’t let him use them, so he reinvented them as the Watchmen characters (Dr.Manhattan, Comedian, Rorschach, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, Ozymandias) and created a masterpiece.

But in “Pax Americana,” Morrison reversed the situation. First, he did get to use the DC characters; but he wrote them in a style that imitated (almost but not quite to the point of mockery) the style of Moore’s “Watchmen” characters. Then he makes a complete story in just one issue, that is just as much a work of genius as Moore’s 12 issues of “Watchmen.” This too is a magical technique, once again, Morrison has turned a comic book into a spell. “Pax Americana” itself even deals with the nature of time, and the keys to the universe in the number 8; he even magically over-rides “Watchmen”’s base-3 (9 panel) format with a base-4 (8 or 16 panel) format. It’s like a wizard crafting a more powerful magical square-talisman than his rival…

(6) 404 OF THE DAY. The editors of the Problem Daughters, Djibril al-Ayad, Rivqa Rafael, and Nicolette Barischoff packaged the “Intersectional SFF Roundtable” for Apex Magazine that was taken down after Likhain’s open letter to the editor protesting the involvement of Benjanun Sriduangkaew. Apex Magazine editor Jason Sizemore answered with an apology earlier this week.

Beginning February 14 – at least for awhile – an apology signed the three editors also appeared on The Future Fire site. It’s gone now (although for as long as it lasts the text can be read in the Google cache file). The gist of the apology was that they were sorry for not including a black woman in a panel about intersectionality. The controversy about Sriduangkaew’s participation was not addressed.

(7) DUFFY OBIT. Jonny Duffy, a LASFS member since 1990, has passed away from complications due to a removal of a growth in his neck reports Selena Phanara.

Duffy had five sf stories published in the 1990s, one in collaboration with G. David Nordley appeared in Analog.

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • February 18, 1930 — Planet Pluto discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

(9) YESTERDAY IN HISTORY

  • February 17, 1959  William Castle’s House On Haunted Hill opens in theaters

(10) MORE NEVERWHERE. Tor.com knows what Neil Gaiman is going to write next.

Now that Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology has hit shelves, the author has announced his next upcoming work–the long-awaited sequel to Neverwhere, titled The Seven Sisters.

Gaiman had already planned to write a sequel to Neverwhere, and the FAQ on his website had given the title of the sequel out some time ago. An event at London’s Southbank Centre this week ended with an announcement from Gaiman confirming that he had written the first three chapters, and that The Seven Sisters would be his next book.

The title of the book comes form an area of north London where seven elm trees are planted in a circle, denoting possible pagan worship at the site, stretching back to Roman times. There are legends and myths attached to the area that make it a perfect setting or launch point for a Neverwhere story.

(11) COUNTING JEDS. Danielle Bitette, in an article in the New York Daily News called “Mystery Surrounding Next Star Wars Title is Solved”, says that speculation is rife whether the subtitle of Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi refers to one Jedi or a lot of Jedis. After looking at the French and Spanish translations of this title she concluded that the subtitle refers to many Jedi.

Ah, remember, “Jedi” is both singular and plural.

Therefore, “Episode VIII” could very well be an uprising, of sorts, for the previously erased Jedi. That’s not to say the Council will reconvene — and that Luke will dispense justice across the galaxy from his ivory tower, the Temple retreat on Ahch-To. Just that “Episode VIII” could be a step toward “resurrection,” perhaps with the help of longtime enabler Maz Kanata, former Stormtrooper Finn (aka FN-2187), everyone’s favorite Wookiee, Chewbacca, and others.

In George Lucas’ prequels, fans of the franchise witnessed a galactic purge of the Jedi Order, in Emperor Palpatine’s infamous Order 66.

From that point on, Jedis were drastically reduced in number and were forced into hiding. Even Yoda, the grand master of the Jedi Order, does not survive to see Darth Vader deposed (but that’s only because he dies of natural causes on the planet Dagobah; he sees the victory in ghost form).

(12) UFO LORE. John Crowley reviews Jack Womack’s Flying Saucers Are Real! (and Tom Gauld’s Mooncop) in The Boston Review.

The ability to stand stock-still in the sky and then vanish away at impossibly high speed has long been a hallmark of saucer sightings, explained by believers with fantasy physics or appeals to cosmic forces. Flying saucers, so named as a sort of dismissive joke, first entered public awareness in 1947 when pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine flying past his plane near Mt. Rainier. The public’s obsession with UFOs reached fever pitch during the height of the Cold War, and had already lost much of their psychic force by the time I saw mine. I had not yet begun writing what could only be called science fiction novels (they were rather non-standard ones) but I had noticed that the issues and hopes and fears that animated science fiction since its beginnings—faster-than-light spaceships, telepathy, time travel, people-shaped robots, etc.—hadn’t come much closer to reality.

Flying saucers, though, were special: they inhabited a realm neither plainly actual nor wholly fantastic, explored in fiction but also by real-life investigators with extremely varied credentials, who published reams of exposés and personal accounts. And they persisted, as threat or promise, without ever actually appearing in any ascertainable way.

Flying Saucers Are Real is Jack Womack’s wondrous compilation of flying-saucer materials…

(13) LOOK, UP IN THE SKY. Stephanie Buck says, in contrast to Paris, on this night in 1994 LA was more like the City of Too Much Light.

In 1994, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake rumbled through Los Angeles at 4:30 a.m. The shaking woke residents, who discovered the power had gone out citywide.

Some left their houses or peered outside to check on the neighborhood. It was eerily dark—no streetlights and few cars at that late hour.

They looked up at the sky. It was flush with cosmic bodies that had been invisible up to that point?—?twinkling stars, clustered galaxies, distant planets, even a satellite or two. Then some people became nervous. What was that large silvery cloud that trailed over the city? It looked so sinister they called 911.

That cloud was the Milky Way. They had never seen it before.

I remember the earthquake but I didn’t get a look at the sky – I stayed in bed til sunrise because I expected to have to climb over piles of books to get to the door….

(14) MEET CUTE. John King Tarpinian says, “A buddy who collects movie scripts just bought this. The working title is different than the final title, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Notice who the copy belonged to…”

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer Sylvester.]

56 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/18/17 The Fifth Scroll Is The Deepest

  1. I always wanted to do a version of WATCHMEN based on the ACG comics, with Herbie as Rorschach (he talks like Herbie), and Magicman as Dr. Manhattan, and so on. The problem is the “so on,” because ACG just didn’t have that large a cast unless one delves into one-shots and such. Which sounds like fun, anyway.
    770 ERROR: FILE NOT SCROLLED

  2. Why have editors continued to promote Sriduangkaew despite her continuing behavior, while they’re dropping Sunil Patel like a rock? Interesting question?

  3. Some years ago, I participated in a forum where a guy kept coming in and demanding that participants re-hash subjects which had been discussed, in detail, days before — apparently because he couldn’t be bothered to go read the discussions for himself.

    I don’t think that he ever figured out that the reason most forum members eventually stopped interacting with him was because he was so lame and tiresome.

  4. @JJ

    I loved Neverwhere. I’m really looking forward to this.

    Same here. Neverwhere is probably my favourite of Gaiman’s works and I’m happy to hear there will be a sequel.

  5. The link for Jonny Duffy’s obituary doesn’t seem to link to anything having to do with Duffy. Instead, it goes to a page of sightseeing & tourism spots in the city of Twentynine Palms, CA.

  6. My roommate and I went outside after the earthquake because we wanted to make sure an elderly neighbor who lived alone was okay. He had a few bruises because his three dogs all jumped on him when the earthquake started so he could protect them. This was the only earthquake that I heard coming. I was lying in bed and I heard a sound something like an empty semi speeding down the freeway. At the time, I rented a house off Foothill Boulevard and could hear freeway traffic. I couldn’t believe how fast it was moving. It was so loud, I thought it must be on Foothill. Then I became alarmed because I wondered if that speeding semi was going to hit the house. It did, because it was the earthquake.

  7. @Lela: As far as I can see, some have and some haven’t.

    And I think the other thing is, Sriduangkaew was a more established, respected author than Patel was, when their respective stories broke. I’m gonna go a little hand-wave-y here, and I’m not kind of authority here, but my impression was: Sriduangkaew had established gravity, while a lot of the gravity Patel had was directly tied to his activity on identity, diversity, inclusivity issues.

    Which basically means Patel’s reputation was much more undercut by his exposure, than Sriduangkaew by hers. (I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that even at the most immediate, pragmatic level, Patel’s professional network and “home ground” were much likelier to spit out a harasser, than Sriduangkaew’s was.)

    And then, you really only need one or two respected venues to go “Listen, we judge the work, not the writer,” in order for there to be a crack in the “drop this writer” united front. (Without having formed a strong opinion on ideal policy for things like this, I will say this: I wouldn’t want there to be a well-coordinated, reliable way for all venues to blacklist an author. Even when I agree about much good such a blacklisting might do.)

    I think a really interesting question would be: are there any venues that disavowed Patel, but continue to support Sriduangkaew. If (if) the answer is “no,” that would be some support for my pseudoanalysis here — that it’s not the same people accepting one and rejecting the other, but different spheres within the industry, and Patel didn’t really break into the one that might have hung on to him.

  8. (1) THE HAT MAKES THE MAN

    I am in awe of the fantastic, fun, weird ideas people come up with, and invest effort and dedication into. Heaven knows, creating whimsy is hard work. People like this make the world a happier place. 🙂

  9. JJ & RDF (& anyone I missed:) Let the appertainment begin!

    They probably have a French phrase for that in New Orleans. “Revenons à nos moutons!” doesn’t quite hit it…

  10. Camestros wrote a piece, pondering if Hidden figures can be SF.
    I personally think a) that its SF if enough people think its SF and b) think SF should be set even a bit in the future, well aware that this opens a lot of grey zones itself, but c) Dont really care what genre I read as long as its entertaining

    And Alan Moon is also the name of a successful Board game Designer, so when I read about the other one, Im confused for a bit.

    Finally: Yay, Title editor for second fifth time I think. Do I get a hat?

  11. Peer Sylvester: Camestros wrote a piece, pondering if Hidden Figures can be SF. I personally think a) that its SF if enough people think its SF

    You understand that it doesn’t have to be SF to be eligible for Hugo Dramatic Presentation, right?

  12. Lela E. Buis on February 18, 2017 at 9:02 pm said:
    Why have editors continued to promote Sriduangkaew despite her continuing behavior, while they’re dropping Sunil Patel like a rock? Interesting question?

    Money. That’s my guess.

    I think she’s very wealthy. I think she uses her money to make friends and to keep them. Sunil Patel can’t make sure your anthology gets funded on kickstarter.

  13. (6) I’m not understanding that apology at all. Granted, I’ve only been reading what File 770 has reported and linked on this sorry affair, so I might very well have missed something.

    (No, I don’t view the a omission of a representative of any particular group in a discussion on intersectionality as a strike against such a discussion in and of itself. It matters more that they manage to represent a range of experiences and can hold a good and worthwhile discussion based on those.)

    @Lela E. Buis: No real idea on the difference in treatment between Sriduangkaew and Patel, though there is a difference in time: Patel was last autumn, while Sriduangkaew was exposed in 2014. I can think of several other possible reasons, but know too little about them, their activities, or their writings to feel comfortable speculating on it.

    (13) Nightfall!

  14. @Standback: Ah, someone with more knowledge than I do. (That’s what one gets for taking a long time posting one’s stuff, and not checking the intervening discussion.)

    Another possible reason, and if so a deeply troubling one, would be that we are seeing a power dynamic at play here. Patel seems to have chosen mainly white women as his targets; he was punching up. Sriduangkaew on the other hand, seems to have predominantly chosen black or non-cisgendered women as her targets; she was punching down.

    If that is the case, then our very reaction to them feeds into the structural oppression(s) that many of us are trying to resist and combat: if you are subject to harassment or creepy behaviour, your identity will play a crucial part in how the offender is treated.

    (I’m not saying this is the case here, but it’s a tendency that we should be vigilant against in ourselves.)

  15. @Karl:

    Ah, someone with more knowledge than I do.

    Eh, probably not, at least not by much 😛

    I’ve read Laura Mixon’s report, and Abigail Nussbaum’s rather briefer summary. And, well, I’ve seen Sriduangkaew’s name pop up, in magazines and on Twitter, and obviously by this point I’m prone to notice it 😛

    Your theory on targets is interesting, but I think there are more fundamental questions that need to be asked first. As I said, the very assumption that this is a case of hypocrisy, means we need to find some people who support Sriduangkaew but not Patel. Otherwise we’re just building towers in the air.

  16. (Although going back and re-reading Nussbaum’s piece now, I see she makes a claim that ties into yours — suggesting perhaps the reason Sriduangkaew got as much blowback as she did is because she’s low-status, female, and a POC.

    ::sigh:: No shortage of ways the world can be messed up, huh.)

  17. @Standback: Rightly so.

    Looking at it, I also find another clear difference between Sriduangkaew and Patel. Patel may have used his role as editor at Mothership Zeta and as columnist/reviewer/editor for Lightspeed magazine to further his harassment and gaslighting, and even if he didn’t, the very suspicion is damaging to the publisher, since they act at least part-time as a representive for the publisher.

    Sriduangkaew’s relation seems much more to be as an author to the publisher(s), and that relation is much more loose and doesn’t reflect on the publisher in the same way (at least most of the time).

  18. The reason Sriduangkaew “got as much blowback as she did” was because, among numerous other heinous things, she repeatedly abused people to the point of self-harm, and goaded them to kill themselves.

    I saw POC and allies, during the big BS/RH reveal, arguing that it was wrong to “out” or condemn BS/RH, because she would be used as a justification for white people to justify their bad behavior toward POC. I totally disagreed with that, because providing BS/RH with that sort of cover in itself provides those justifications.

    Patel didn’t “punch up”. His targets were women trying to break into the SFF publishing industry. Some were white, some were POC, but all of them had less power than him and were vulnerable to manipulation by someone who claimed that he could make or break them, and had the connections and the position to make such a threat believable. Do not claim that Patel was “punching up”.

    I see BS/RH still getting published, still being invited to do roundtables. Patel’s situation is more recent, so it’s hard to tell, but I don’t think that he’s getting off easier than she is — if anything, probably the opposite, because his publication history is a lot shorter and less acclaimed than hers was, starting out.

  19. Possible additional answer? Patel worked alone. RH created a group and used others. Some people will have a hard time accepting they have been part of a bullying group and for them to break contact with RH would be to acknowledge that.

  20. 1) Only if money were no object…

    11) Foreign languages for the win! Los Ultimos Jedi is definitely not El Ultimo Jedi, even if both translate to “The Last Jedi” in English. So, Rey and Luke, for certain make multiple Jedi.

  21. @JJ: Yeah, I agree.

    I’m very leery of trying to judge or estimate “community judgment” according to the mere fact of identity, without seeing some very convincing support that identity was a factor. I think there’s plenty in the actions and the environments, in and of themselves, to explain the reactions to each of the two cases. I think in both cases, we’ve seen very strong denunciation — such as the Mixon report getting a Hugo nomination and win, which certainly indicates popular sentiment. But, that denunciation isn’t universal, or the force of the denunciation isn’t universal.

    And then, well, strife. And despair of humanity, which I’ve now blocked out regular sessions for on Sundays and Wednesdays.

    (I think that, despite Karl’s use of “punching down” and “punching up,” his focus was on Patel’s victims being higher on the social/privilege ladder than RH’s, and therefore (he posits) they got more attention/respect. But even leaving aside my own qualifications about that view, I think JJ’s entirely right in pointing out that we’re still talking about women who were vulnerable and had zero influence, and “punching up” describes that very poorly.)

  22. One more hypothesis: Patel’s bad behavior was at least partly in meatspace, Sriduangkaew’s was entirely online. I think there are people who take meatspace more seriously.

  23. Thanks for the link to Akhil Suhas’s photos. New Zealanders should be proud of their beautiful country.

  24. I reviewed eight stories by Benjanun Sriduangkaew over the past two years. This makes her an extremely prolific writer; 75% of authors had just one single story in that time. (ISFDB reports fifteen of her stories in all venues.)

    But in the past five months, she’s had nothing published in the eleven magazines I’m following. Nothing in Clarkesworld in over a year, even though they’d published her twice a year for the prior three years. ISFDB shows her last story anywhere was in December in a magazine I’d never heard of before.

    Her career may not have come to a complete halt, but it has certainly hit a speed bump.

  25. @JJ: What Standback said. “Punching up” and “punching down” aren’t really good words here.

    And as Standback guessed, I do make a difference between the personal power dynamics (eg editor to author) and the systemic power dynamics about group identification.

  26. Greg Hullender on February 19, 2017 at 8:43 am said:

    I reviewed eight stories by Benjanun Sriduangkaew over the past two years. This makes her an extremely prolific writer; 75% of authors had just one single story in that time. (ISFDB reports fifteen of her stories in all venues.)

    Comparing the ISFDB pages of Sriduangkaew and Patel also shows that Patel’s contribution to various publications has been more in the form of essays and reviews rather than stories.

    A common element in both cases was the extent to which Requires Hate and Patel set themselves up as apparent gatekeepers and used that position to manipulate people. Arguably publishing fiction by either doesn’t enable them in the same way reviews or commentary would?

  27. @Camestros Felapton

    Arguably publishing fiction by either doesn’t enable them in the same way reviews or commentary would?

    In that case, however, some folks have explicitly said they won’t publish Patel’s stories, even going as far as to drop stories they were about to publish. I’ve never heard of anyone saying that with regard to Sriduangkaew. That doesn’t mean no one did it without saying anything, of course.

    As a general rule, I think stories should be evaluated independently of who wrote them. I’m not at all comfortable with “banning” authors like Sriduangkaew, Patel, or Antonelli–even informally–just because they’re bad people (or believed to be). Doing it because they’re bad writers is fine, though.

  28. @Greg Hullender

    I reviewed eight stories by Benjanun Sriduangkaew over the past two years. This makes her an extremely prolific writer; 75% of authors had just one single story in that time. (ISFDB reports fifteen of her stories in all venues.)

    But in the past five months, she’s had nothing published in the eleven magazines I’m following. Nothing in Clarkesworld in over a year, even though they’d published her twice a year for the prior three years. ISFDB shows her last story anywhere was in December in a magazine I’d never heard of before.

    Her career may not have come to a complete halt, but it has certainly hit a speed bump.

    I suspect a lot of the BS stories that appeared in 2015 and early 2016 had been bought and/or commissioned before the big reveal. Therefore, editors might have been reluctant to pull them, especially knowing what BS was capable of. As for The Future Fire, the outlet ultimately responsible for the roundtable, its editor had been supporting BS since the beginning and published some of her earliest work (I even seem to recall that the editor spoke favourably about her RH identity at one point), so I guess they have no issues with her. Which is their good right, though it certainly colours my view of the mag.

    As for why Sunil Patel seems to have been treated more harshly, in addition to other potential reasons already given, I suspect that Patel also fell victim to the fact that there had been too many missing stairs tolerated in the SFF world for far too long, so the next time a missing stair was revealed (and someone privately warned me about Patel approx. a year before the whole thing blew up, so apparently he was a missing stair) the reaction was harsher than it would have been without all the other missing stairs that came before.

    Ditto for Lou Antonelli, though I don’t think he was considered a missing stair before he turned puppy.

  29. I had noted Sriduangkaew as a “writer to keep an eye on” for some time before the RH thing blew up. Since then, I just don’t want to read her stories; they’re irredeemably tainted by her real-life behavior… just like Orson Scott Card. I’m sure she’s still an excellent writer, but I don’t choose to support her.

  30. I’m trying to decide what I would do if approached by a random stranger and asked to pose in a gandalf costume – sadly, I think I would probably decline. It’s fantastic that a bunch of people agreed.

  31. (1) The Hat Makes The Man – Pretty. I love that it was a collaborative work with strangers.

    (5) Dual To The Death – I can’t put my finger on why, but Morrison’s work has never really worked for me. I just don’t find it very memorable. Moore, on the other hand, I’ve enjoyed quite a few of his works. But they’re both a bit too into feuding.

    (6) 404 Of The Day – I would rather have seen some sort of response to Sriduangkaew’s inclusion, although Rivqa Rafael’s twitter posts seem to be saying that was an effort to reduce harm.

    Re: Antonelli – one of his many, many dramas was setting an internet mob on an editor, and that combined with less than outstanding work may have more to do with his publishing prospects than anything else.

  32. 5) DUAL TO THE DEATH – I’ve been trying to turn this into some sort of intentionally clever pun and not making any headway. Could it be “duel?”

    I think I’ll just stick with my view that RH/BS and Patel did horrible things and appear to also be horrible people without taking part in any sort of intellectual game about the relative consequences of their horribleness. That’s not to say that nobody should, just that I won’t.

  33. Cheryl S: 5) DUAL TO THE DEATH – I’ve been trying to turn this into some sort of intentionally clever pun and not making any headway. Could it be “duel?”

    I tried to turn it into an intentionally clever pun, too.

    Just like “Counting Jeds” is a deliberate typo that interplays with the discussion of pluralizing Jedi in the article.

    But as a high school friend of mine wisely said, “Intentional misspellings are meaningless when true errors abound.”

  34. (1) THE HAT MAKES THE MAN.
    There are ample opportunities in New Zealand of where you shall or shall not pass

    (5) DUAL TO THE DEATH.
    What is this I don’t even.

    (11) COUNTING JEDS
    It’s also plural in German. So do we now have a plurality of plurality?

  35. “Counting Jeds” is a deliberate typo

    Oh, not taking the vote on a motion before the United Nations of Barsoom then?

  36. Karl-Johan Norén: “Punching up” and “punching down” aren’t really good words here.

    “Punching up” refers to someone having a go at a person or group who is above them on the social or power structure, and it has nothing to do with the relative status and power of BS’ targets vs Patel’s targets. In both cases, the targets had less power and social status than their harassers — hence, both harassers were “punching down”.

     
    Lee: I had noted Sriduangkaew as a “writer to keep an eye on” for some time before the RH thing blew up. Since then, I just don’t want to read her stories; they’re irredeemably tainted by her real-life behavior… just like Orson Scott Card. I’m sure she’s still an excellent writer, but I don’t choose to support her.

    I had originally thought from the few stories I’d read by her that her prose was flowery and overwrought, and I didn’t get why so many people were raving about what she wrote. So it was no hardship for me to stop reading what I didn’t enjoy, anyway.

  37. Anthony: Oh, not taking the vote on a motion before the United Nations of Barsoom then?

    I’m going to deputize you as a pun consultant. Well played!

  38. A Meredith Moment for UK Filers: Monstrous Little Voices, a collection of (mostly) novellas which link together and expand upon some of the fantasy elements in Shakespeare’s work, is currently on sale for 99p on Amazon UK. Some highly recommended reads for Hugo nomination purposes in here. Authors are Jonathan Barnes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Foz Meadows and Kate Heartfield.

Comments are closed.