(1) PLAY INSIDE PKD’S MIND. Chris Priestman of Kill Screen describes Californium, a game based on a famous sf writer in “The videogame tribute to Philip K. Dick is out today”.
In Californium, you essentially play an alternate world version of Dick himself. Cast as one Elvin Green after his wife and daughter leaves him, you start alone but for the pills in your cabinet and the sprawled pages of unfinished novels on the floor. As grim as the circumstances may be, Californium‘s world is brought to life thick with the exaggerated colors of sunny Orange County and a population of 2D cartoon characters drawn with rich expression. Granted, these encounters with fellow residents are mostly miserable—an angry landlady, a disappointed editor, a government agent trying to take you down—but considered strictly visually, the whole thing pops and beams out of the screen at you.
(2) SIMPLE ADDITION. Mary Robinette Kowal contributes eight “Thoughts about how to add diversity. Real simple thoughts.” Here is number 7.
7. To sum up: Diversity means, inviting people who aren't like you. Centering them. Listening to them.
— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) February 22, 2016
(3) FIRST FANDOM. Dave Kyle at Boskone.
David Kyle at #Boskone 2016! First fandom! pic.twitter.com/pf3QkVvXN1
— JY (@jypub) February 21, 2016
(4) NEXT FANDOM. Squeaker, David Gerrold, and Muffin at Boskone.
Squeaker and Muffin with @David_Gerrold at #Boskone. They know him as the tribble man. pic.twitter.com/1rjLBy2Vao
— Michael A. Burstein (@mabfan) February 21, 2016
(5) MERCURY TEST FAILS. At Galactic Journey, The Traveler has the latest space exploration news from 1961.
Unfortunately, MA-1 broke up 58 seconds after lift-off. It was a cloudy day, so no one saw it occur, but when the telemetry stopped and pieces of the craft fell from the sky, it was pretty clear the mission was over. The culprit was later identified as the junction between the capsule and booster.
(6) BUD WEBSTER MEDICAL FUND. A repeat signal boost for the Bud Webster Medical Fund drive. Rich Stow says the out-of-pocket medical expenses that Bud and Mary have incurred are staggering. Donations for these medical expenses are being accepted through the MarsCon online store link — https://squareup.com/market/marscon/bud-webster-medical-fund . [Cut and paste URL; I had trouble with the link, but no trouble if I pasted the URL directly into my browser.]
100% of every donation will go to Bud’s out-of-pocket medical and final expenses. The MarsCon Executive Committee has agreed to cover all of the fees that are levied by Square on each transaction. Thank you for any help you can give.
As an added thanks for your donation, you are entitled to receive some ebooks courtesy of ReAnimus Press, publisher of the ebook editions of three of Bud’s books. (Past Masters / The Joy of Booking / Anthopology 101: Reflections, Inspections and Dissections of SF Anthologies)
The perks escalate in proportion to the donations – see details at the site. Also 100% of sales of Bud’s ebooks from ReAnimus Press is going to Mary as well — http://ReAnimus.com/authors/budwebster.
(7) CAMPBELL-ELIGIBLE ANTHOLOGY. SL Huang and Kurt Hunt ([email protected]) have put out a call for submissions for Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors.
Authors eligible for the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer include writers who published their first qualifying professional science fiction or fantasy fiction in 2014 or 2015. This free e-anthology will collect stories by these award-eligible authors in one place, showcasing the work of exciting new talent for award nominators and for a general audience.
Up and Coming will be available in early March. See the submission link and writers guidelines here. The deadline for submissions is 8:00 a.m. Tokyo time on February 28 (February 27 in Western timezones).
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born February 21, 1946 – Alan Rickman
(9) NEXT, PREDICT THE NEBULA WINNER. Brandon Kempner at Chaos Horizons expected the finalists in the Nebula novel category would be the books on top of the Recommendation List, and they were. He says it won’t be as easy to predict the winner.
Winning a Nebula is very different than getting nominated; a small group of passionate fans can drive a nomination, but to win you need to build a broader coalition…
He produces some new tables, and comes up with some fresh analysis:
In some ways, [Fran] Wilde’s nomination is a key one. It’s the first time we’ve seen a novel receive both a Nebula Nomination and an Andre Norton nomination (the SFWA YA category). I don’t know what that means for Wilde’s chances in either, but it may signal a loosening of the SFWAs attitude towards YA fiction in the Best Novel category. That could have major implications moving forward.
(10) SPIDER-MAN AND HIS EXPENSIVE FRIENDS. Comic Book Resources counts down “The 10 Most Expensive Comic Books Ever Sold”.
On Thursday, February 18, Heritage Auctions auctioned off a Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) graded 9.4 copy of “Amazing Fantasy” #15 at their Comics and Comic Art Signature sale in Dallas. As one of the highest-graded copies of Spider-Man’s first appearance ever to be sold at public auction, it was expected to fetch a high price. In fact, it set a record, selling for $454,100. That’s the most ever paid for a Spider-Man comic at public auction.
(11) TRADITIONAL V. INDIE. Kristine Kathryn Rusch tells indie book authors to beware of “Book-Shaming”.
As I prepped for this blog today, I read article after article, opinion piece after opinion piece, shredding self-publishing. The language in these posts is condescending. The implication is clear: Self-publishing is for losers.
And yet, there’s a tinge of fear in all of these posts. The power brokers understand that things are changing. They can feel the change all around them, but they don’t understand it.
Rather than try to understand it, they’re shaming writers, playing to that writer insecurity. These former power brokers keep trying to convince writers who self-publish that they’re embarrassing themselves, that they’ll never amount to anything. Oh, sure they’re making money, but from whom? Readers who will read anything.
Let me be as blunt as I can here.
People who shame you are trying to control you. They want you to behave in a certain way. Rather than telling you to behave that way, they’re striving to subtly change your behavior by embarrassing you, and making you think less of yourself.
These people are trying to place themselves above you, to make you act the way that they want you to act, even if it is not in your own best interest. Shame is a particularly useful tool, because so many good-hearted people want to behave properly. These good-hearted folk don’t want to offend in any way. Yet shamers try to convince the good-hearted that they are offending or at least, making themselves objects of ridicule.
There’s an entire psychological area of study about this kind of shaming. It’s subtle, it’s nasty, and it often hurts the people it’s aimed at. Usually, shame is used by the powerful to keep the less-powerful under their thumbs.
That’s why shaming has suddenly become a huge part of the public discourse about how writers should publish their works these days. The powerful are losing their hold on the industry. This scares them. The language is getting more and more belligerent (and hard to believe) as the powerful realize they’re going to lose this battle
(12) WHAT RUSCH REALLY MEANT? But at Mad Genius Club, Fynbospress felt this was the takeaway from Rusch’s post:
So the next time someone tells you that you’re “racist sexist homophobic”, without ever trying to get to know you first, makes fun of your religion, expresses disgust at the idea of having children, belittles your choices in what to put in and what to leave out, how you publish, or makes fun of the type of fiction you like to read…
Tell them to take a long walk off a short pier, and keep writing what you makes you happy, and your readers want to read. They’re just trying to control you.
(13) BATMAN. A Los Angeles Times interviewer learns “Frank Miller has more in store for Batman”.
How would you distinguish what you do under the “Dark Knight” title and other Batman comics that you’ve done?
“The Dark Knight” was my ticket to freedom. I was able to do Batman as I’ve seen him. When I do Batman now it’s my version. I’m given a lot of leeway. The character is wonderfully adaptable to the times. There’s the version from the 1940s compared to the ’50s and compared to the ’60s and the Adam West show. They’re altogether different. Mine was just updated for the ’80s and ’90s.
My relationship with DC has always been very, very good. When I first did “Dark Knight” it was turbulent trying some new things out, but that’s the normal tension that happens between your publisher and the writer. There’s bound to be give and take as you hash things out.
There has been about a 15-year gap between each of your “Dark Knight” series.
It takes me a while to get as angry as he is. The character is one I can redo any old time. It’s about finding the right time and everybody’s schedules being open, and having the right people in place who want to get more daring. All these things have to combine at the right time. First of all, the story has to pop into my head.
(14) BOUND TO LIE. “’Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren’t’ Explores the World of Fake Books” at the New York Times.
Mindell Dubansky’s romance with fake books began nearly two decades ago at a Manhattan flea market, where she picked up a small volume carved from a piece of coal and bearing the name of a young man who had died in a mining accident in 1897.
Some 200 items from her collection went on display on Thursday at the Grolier Club in Manhattan, a temple to books, where they will remain through March 12. The exhibition, “Blooks: The Art of Books That Aren’t,” appears to be the first of its kind in the United States.
Most exhibitions at the Grolier, whose grand library holds more than 100,000 volumes with real pages and sometimes spectacular fine bindings, don’t include items like Secret Sam’s Spy Dictionary, a 1960s toy that lets users photograph enemies with a camera hidden inside a fake tome that also shoots plastic bullets out of its spine.
(15) ANOTHER PIECE OF ADVICE. A conversation between two characters in Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night.
Phoebe Tucker. He may be a perverse old idiot, but it’s more dignified not to say so in so many words. A bland and deadly courtesy is more devastating, don’t you think?
Harriet Vane. Infinitely.
(16) WINTER IS TRUMPING. Do Donald Trump’s border policies make more sense in Westeros?
In this video, his face and campaign audio have been cleverly grafted into footage from Game of Thrones.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and John Hertz for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cubist.]
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RE: Ancillary Leftist Virtue-Signaling
The conversation in MGC is a bit weird, particularly in a thread to a post about how you should read what you want to read and not be ashamed about it, but I *think* the leftist virtue signalling was that there was also a blurb/ pull quote from NPR, as well as somehow *signalling literature instead of SF*.
Which is whatever, but there was also a regular F770 lurker who was going on about “blurred spaceships being dull”. So Nutty Nuggets must have clearly defined spaceships I guess.
+1 microtherion.
I’ve mainly encountered it as a counter to three sort of people who can’t shut up with the “of course you’ll feel different when you’re older/meet the right man/etc” spiel.
I would go to a carnival of leftist-virtue signaling. Especially if they had rides.
Cannot the otherwise cryptic “lleftist virtue signaling” comment simply be regarded as the latest twist in the attempt to find a reasonable sounding reason for hating the Ancillary books?
It need have no more meaning than, oh, here’s something we haven’t tried yet.
As such, it is at least a refreshing break from the constant repetition of the same old much-debunked bunk.
TooManyJens on February 22, 2016 at 1:27 pm said:
Perhaps they were referring to the Subterranean Press covers?
@ RedWombat
Have you had luck with New Rocks (meaning more than one pair)? I had two pairs both of which had some – to put it mildly – quality control issues.
@jonesnori
Hmm. That’s a plausible hypothesis.
I’m sure a friendly game of leftist virtue-signaling would be an excellent way of passing a rainy afternoon.
17 letters? — First part is “shovel”? “dig”? “bury”? “inter”?
@TYP: If I had the spoons today to search through MGC or Vox Day or Wright’s blog
I have NEVER had that many spare spoons. My 18 year old healthy uninjured self would not have had that many spoons to waste. I’m going to adopt @Isabel Cooper’s motto: “Life is short, there are 7 billion people, and I have Netflix.”
@Lenora Rose: Yeah, okay, fair enough… but apparently they’ve ignored all of Kris’ strong women characters AND the entire series she’s written about the evils of structural racism in the US. Where poor black people are sympathetic characters instead of Fox Newz talking points (Also cracking good mystery books).
I too think children are noisy oozing germ balls, but if other people want to have them, fine by me. They’re pretty cute when not oozing! With those tiny toes and little bitty outfits! Just treat them well and bring them up to be responsible adults. But with the aforementioned 7 billion people, obviously “breeding” is something the majority of people do and isn’t an insult. It’s a very hard job, mostly done by women — and it’s women who also bear the brunt of being not TRULY women if they don’t have/don’t want children. Any way you use it, it’s a gendered insult, which makes me unsurprised that La Resnick heard it from Teddy. It’s also a big conservative worry: the brown people (Hispanic, Muslim, or both) are outbreeding the white people, so white folks who don’t have a quiverful are race traitors.
Impressionistic spaceships (giant and shuttle-sized) are a leftist virtue? Huh. Okay, I’ll go with that. It means that big-ass interstellar spaceships are leftist, yes? SOCIALISM… IN SPAAAAAACE!
Marxist merry-go-rounds… Stalin’s haunted house… Mao’s fried rice and funnel cake stand (Let ten thousand calories bloom!)… Gorbachev’s Tunnel of Glasnost… Lenin’s rollercoaster… balloons with Chomsky quotes for the kids.
@posmaster – I had one pair that wore really well, but eventually were retired because…well, I just don’t pull off the House Of Leather And Chains look like I used to. I know other people who’ve had great luck. My husband blew out a pair in like six months, though, so it may not just be you.
I’m not sure if it’s the model or how much you wear them or just dumb luck.
1. arte is a license fee financed joint German-French TV channel for arts and culture programming. That sounds rather dull, but they do a lot of great stuff, e.g. they have great documentaries and once had a camera follow around George R.R. Martin and Sibel Kekili for one evening.
I think the English version of the game is only for sale, but I downloaded the first episode of the German version, which is free. After all, my license fees helped to pay for this. Will report back once I’ve tried it.
11. I have occasionally heard self-publishing referred to as vanity publishing, but it’s getting increasingly rare, as self-publishing becomes more common. Though the noisy “Burn down the Big 5” self-publishing advocates give self-publishing a bad name. Personally, I’ve never quite understood those noisy advocates. I’m an indie writer myself, but I don’t want to see trade publishing fail. After all, I read a lot of trade published books.
12. As usual, puppies and mad geniuses misunderstand everything. BTW, I’m pretty sure Fynsbopress is the wife of Peter Grant of Tor boycott fame.
Yes, this. I don’t mind if other people want to have children and in fact I quite like children myself, when I see them for two hours or so. But personally, I don’t want to have any. That’s my decision and no one has the right to criticise it, just as I don’t criticise the decision of a good friend of mine to have four children.
Regarding the Imperial Radch covers, I have heard some complaints (and not just from the usual puppy suspects either) that the spaceships don’t look like “real spaceships” and that they’re blurry. Coincidentally, John Harris, the artist who does the Imperial Radch covers, also did the covers for some of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War novels as well as for some novels by puppy favourite Orson Scott Card. So much for “leftist virtue signalling”.
Cora Buhlert: As usual, puppies and mad geniuses misunderstand everything. BTW, I’m pretty sure Fynsbopress is the wife of Peter Grant of Tor boycott fame.
Yes, and yes.
Although with Puppies, I would define “misunderstand” as “twist anything they encounter into specious justifications for their bad behavior”.
As a professional artist who took a lot of art history and spent pretty much every waking hour in museums for about ten years, I love John Harris’ impressionistic, dynamic style.
Sure, photorealists who render every little detail on a spaceship as if they were coloring in a blueprint are danged impressive.
But pulling off a look like this is quite a feat as well.
I used to know a (straight, cis) guy who basically really hated children. He was the first person I knew in person to be militantly “child-free”, including going out of his way to be rude to families nearby in public places, without much regard for whether the children were being awful, great, or somewhere in between. We had mutual friends, but it quickly got to the point where I’d just decline to join any gathering that was in a public place where he’d be along, because I was disgusted and embarrassed to be in his company. (Gradually I faded away from the others, too, in part because of their tolerating his grotesque acting up. This is also why I didn’t join Mensa, despite their repeated invitations to come along for all the fun.)
There is an actual condition, tokophobia, the extreme fear of pregnancy and childbirth. It’s often tied up with trauma, as a lot of phobias are. A friend of mine has it, and it can be significantly life-impairing at the most mundane of times, like office showers. She manages it very responsibly, and clearly regrets the burdens it imposes sometimes. She has, basically, nothing in common with the jerk in the preceding paragraph.
Life’s like that.
@microtherion: I wish I could say I had only heard “breeder” used in the instances you describe. And you don’t even want to know the slurs some of the CF hardcore types use to refer to children.
@Lenore Jones: Huh, I’d never seen those covers. But the original comment in the subthread referred to the covers’ “blurry spaceships and indistinct backgrounds,” so they have to be talking about the Orbit ones.
@Isabel Cooper:
Mr. Sanders’ Wild Ride
Capitalists of the Caribbean
It’s a Small World (When the Workers Are United)
Peace Is My Middle Name: As a professional artist who took a lot of art history and spent pretty much every waking hour in museums for about ten years, I love John Harris’ impressionistic, dynamic style.
It has not escaped me that I love Harris’ work for the same reasons that I love Impressionist works, and I’m thrilled to be seeing his work on more and more covers now. If that’s being done in the hope of attracting notice for those books from the people who love Leckie’s and Scalzi’s novels, it’s certainly working on me.
It doesn’t make me decide to read a book — but it does get me to take a longer look at it than I otherwise might have, which increases the chances I’ll decide I like the synopsis enough to read it.
@RedWombat:
Oh. Count me as completely on the side of author!brain, because googling tells me New Rocks are *awesome* and very suitable for the Wicked Witch in your life. Granny Weatherwax loves them too. Illustrator!brain should suck it up and do what she’s told. Especially because the target audience, in my experience, *loves* matching the picture to the text. YMMV, of course.
I find the covers neutral but perfect for sci-fi book covers. I really hate the bad action photo thing I see in a lot of urban fantasy and Baen covers. I mostly read on my kindle nowadays, though, so covers are becoming less and less important to me.
@TooManyJens: Please tell me that when the workers rise up and throw off their chains, they’ll be able to write a less-annoying song. And keep the puppets multicultural while toning down the stereotypes.
Autotopia of Self-Driving Electric Cars
The Haunted By Centuries of Exploitation Mansion
Space Is For Everyone Mountain
Lurkertype:
The pedant (very nearly spelled that pendant) in me is making me clarify that her title was not Lady Wimsey, but instead Lady Peter Wimsey. There was no Lord or Lady Wimsey. There was the Duke and Duchess of Denver, and the Duke’s brother, Lord Peter Wimsey, and sister, Lady Mary Parker (née Wimsey). Tl/dr: British titles are confusing. Also sexist, like many naming systems.
@jonesnori: I blush to realize you are correct. She was “Lady Peter”. However, she’s Harriet to all who love her. But I must point out that you omitted the Dowager Duchess of Denver, which is an awesome alliterative title and well-deserved.
Lurkertype: indeed I did, and she’s one of my favorite characters! I also left out the charming Viscount St. George.
The first time I heard the term breeders was when I was reading historical writings about slavery. The second time I heard it was by some white guy freaking out that in X number of years its predicted that POC will make up 50% of the population “those f*cking breeders*. I’ve also heard the term used against Orthodox Jews, fundamental Christians, and observant Muslims because we all tend towards large families (no birth control).
Needless to say I’ve assumed anyone using the term means it derogatorily or wishing the good ole days of slavery were back.
Children has become a difficult topic for me. I didn’t think I wanted any until I met my current husband. Then I didn’t get pregnant. After having a partial hysterectomy to save my life a few years ago we found out why.
I always loved kids I just preferred them to be over the age of 8 so I could reason with them. I love spending time with my niece, nephews, grandnephew. I wish I had more energy to spend more time with them. But I’ve had the nickname auntie no-no when my oldest nephews were young (20s now). I’m very strict in my expectations for kids behavior.
As a young child (3-5) I could go out to fancy restaurants, sit for symphony performances, art museums, fancy tea at The Concord Inn, Concord, MA. I expect kids to be kids but I also expect them to follow any rules I’ve laid down. Most kids I spend time with aren’t used to implacable adults (not just my family). I also expect parents to be prepared. You don’t take your child to a fancy restaurant, or anywhere, with nothing to do but sit and be bored. Bring a book, paper, some crayons, a toy. And go out to eat at normal dinner time not after their bedtime.
I have thoughts. LOL
And the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, and of course the inestimable Bunter.
The Breeders were a ’90s (mostly female) band who had a hit with Cannonball, and during that era I can recall non-straight people using the term to describe straights. (“Let’s not go to the Blah Blah Lounge, new management bought it and turned it into a breeder bar.”) I don’t recall it being an insult back then, but a lot of words can turn into insults at the drop of an inflection.
As a non-breeding straight, I can confirm that people are sometimes catty about whether a woman has reproduced or intends to. Among other things.
Carnival rides?
Seven Dwarves Collective Mine Train
Roger Rabbit’s Alinskyist Spin
And specially for the Filers… The Enchanted Ticky Room
Say, does this make the just-released concept art for the new Star Wars Land on-topic now?
Speaking of offspring, one of mine is looking for a book:
The book was taken out of the library in the same batch as Scalzi’s The Android’s Dream.
Does it ring a bell?
The Jungle of Endangered Species Cruise
The Castle Formerly Owned by Sleeping Beauty, Now Collectivized
The Matterhorn (Now minus snow due to climate change)
Does anybody have suggestions on a service to host a PDF on? Free? *mumbles imprecations at Scribd* Per that scroll from a while back, with the lurker request, it got found and I even have permission from the rights holder of the story to distribute it. But not being the publishing sort, and loathe to drop it on some P2P place or shady spot, I’m not sure where to go.
Share it via a free dropbox account?
Good thought. Would that require the other person to have that service, though?
(12) The comments over at MGC started out pretty good, with a discussion of goat-shaming, but sadly deteriorated. Others have already covered that topic so I’ll skip it. Still, I found the whole topic of raising goats and dogs for reasons other than to be shown at shows to be interesting, the rest not so much.
Could the clone book be Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang?
If you want to make a PDF text permanently available for free access, the Internet Archive might be a good place to upload it. They have a nice interface for reading or downloading PDF texts, they have no ads or user-nosy nonsense, and they’re in it for the long term. You just need to go to https://archive.org/create/ (if you don’t have an account with them, you’ll get prompted to create one first, but that’s free and easy too), select the file for upload, and then enter some basic information about it. The PDF will be posted right away, and usually there will be page-turning and other formats automatically generated from it within a few hours.
@Doctor Science, might that be John Varley’s The Ophiuchi Hotline?
@Emburii, Dropbox provides you with URLs that anyone can use, like this one of my kitties.
I don’t think the clone book is as old as Ophiuchi Hotline or Where Late the Sweet Birds, because she took it out c. 2011 when she was in high school. More likely to be a YA. maybe? also, although they were packed up at the time, Mr Dr & I own both Ophiuchi and Sweet Birds, and I think we would have commented on her taking them out from the library.
I’ll check with her, but keep wracking (racking?) your brains, plz.
She looked at the first page of “Sweet Birds”, says “it’s way too sci-fi
the book i remember was very much literary fiction style aka nothing happens
post-apocalyptic, cloning, no ray guns, hardly any dialogue”
@Bruce Baugh: Probably not The Ophiuchi Hotline — that doesn’t have few characters, rather the reverse. True, there is a section where one version of the heroine wanders around an underpopulated earth being lonely. But it’s unlikely that someone would remember that and not the other versions of her on a crowded spaceship, or in the outer solar system, or trying to escape from a crime boss who repeatedly kills and reclones her.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro?
Bruce Baugh: might that be John Varley’s The Ophiuchi Hotline?
It won’t be that one; that’s John Varley’s prediction of The Internet, where human beings think that they’re getting a bunch of free information from the EFF — right up until Comcast’s Collections thugs show up at the front door.
@Doctor Science – Two of the library systems I frequent keep track of the books you’ve checked out.* I don’t know how may years back cause I’ve only used it once. So you might check if your library has that option/service.
*You can opt out if you want.
Oh, well, if we’re going outside the family, there’s lots of wonderful characters. How about the Dean?
Hmm. Never Let Me Go definitely fits the bill for literary-nothing-happening-but-beautifully-written sort of thing. But I recall the narrator/main character being female, and also no dogs… I could be mistaken though.
Nope, no dogs in Never Let Me Go, plus the characters weren’t a series of clones. Other than that, I got nothing.
So I just finished Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. Interesting. I’m going to need to digest what I just read a bit before I come to a firm conclusion about what I think. It was definitely a page-turner—I just bought it, and I’m somewhat startled that I’m done with it already. And it was fun, no question. But there was a lot that wouldn’t, I don’t think, make too much sense to someone who hadn’t read the rest of the series.
I think the thing that surprised me the most was gur ynpx bs qenzn. V xrcg rkcrpgvat fcnpr cvengrf gb nggnpx, be fbzr znwbe oybjhc jvgu gur Prgrtnaqnaf, be, ng gur irel yrnfg, n cbyvgvpny pevfvf/sernxbhg jura gur pbafreingvirf qvfpbirerq gung Pbeqryvn jnf pbafbegvat jvgu n ubzbfrkhny (nf gurl jbhyq cebonoyl frr vg). Naq cbffvoyl nyy guerr, ng bapr. Ohg abguvat yvxr gung rire unccrarq. Gur pybfrfg jr tbg jnf rkcybqvat ohtf (juvpu qvq, gb or snve, qvq pnhfr fbzr nccneragyl anfgl oheaf). Very unusual for a Vorkosigan story, to put it mildly. I think it worked, but, as I say, I’m going to have to chew on it.
Still hoping we’ll get an Admiral Quinn story at some point!
Anyway, up next is Ancillary Mercy, and I’m sure many of you here will tell me: “well, sheesh, it’s about time!” 🙂
@Xtifr
I keep trying to warn people it’s not an action/adventure book. I think it’s the least standalone book in the Vorkosiganverse.
Ancillary Mercy has more action.
Ita: Two of the library systems I frequent keep track of the books you’ve checked out.
This is great for when you’re trying to remember which book you read that had what plot point. (Quick: list me 3 novels which feature a city eternally traveling on train-like tracks that go all the way around the planet.)
But a lot of the SFF books I get from my library have people’s name or initials and a year or date scribbled on the back flyleaf. And my response to that is… really? You can’t read the jacket notes and tell whether you’ve already read the book? Are you actually even taking in what you’re reading? And if not, do you think maybe you should slow down and start taking it in? (N.B.: I usually read a non-GRRM novel in an evening.)
Maybe when I get older and even more senile, I’ll feel differently. But with the thousands of books that I’ve read, I’ve never had the problem where I couldn’t look at a synopsis and tell whether I’ve read the book.
@Emburii: If you have a Google account, you can upload it to Google Drive, and get a shareable link. Anybody can click to view or download.
e.g. ::looks looks looks for a handy share-able non-compromising document on my drive::,
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzzrY52E0ZlkeXFVOUVGWTRhZVk/view?usp=sharing
Leftist-signaling carnival rides —
20,000 Temperance Leagues Under the Sea
Big Rock Candy Thunder Mountain Railroad
The Commie Bear Jamboree
The Mad Hatter’s Homeopathic Chelation Teacup Ride