Pixel Scroll 2/4/16 “Who Nominated J.R.?”

John Hodgman

John Hodgman

(1) HODGMAN TO PRESENT NEBULAS. SFWA has picked comedian John Hodgman to emcee the 50th Annual Nebula Awards in Chicago at the SFWA Nebula Conference on May 14.

John Hodgman is the longtime Resident Expert on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the host of the popular Judge John Hodgman Podcast. He has also appeared on Conan, The Late Late Show, @midnight, and This American Life. The Village Voice named his show Ragnarok one of the top ten stand up specials of 2013. In 2015, he toured his new show Vacationland. He has performed comedy for the President of the United States and George R.R. Martin, and discussed love and alien abduction at the TED conference.

In addition to the Nebula Awards, SFWA will present the Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book, the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, the Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award, and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

(2) BYE BYE BABBAGE. Chris Garcia is mourning the withdrawal of the Babbage machine from exhibit from the Computer History Museum.

Babbage Difference Engine No 2

Babbage Difference Engine No 2

After eight years at the Computer History Museum (CHM), the Babbage Difference Engine No. 2 is bidding farewell and returning to its owner.

The Difference Engine No. 2 has had a wonderful home at the Museum. Our Babbage demonstrations have amazed more than 500,000 visitors, providing them with the unprecedented opportunity to see and hear the mechanical engine working—a stunning display of Victorian mechanics.

People will have to content themselves with CHM’s online Babbage exhibit.

Dave Doering said:

I figure they knew the price would one day come due for the chance to host it there for eight years. I mean, everyone today knows about “excess Babbage fees.”

(3) ASTEROID BELT AND SUSPENDERS. The government of Luxembourg announced it will be investing in the as-yet-unrealized industry of asteroid mining in “Luxembourg Hopes To Rocket To Front of Asteroid-Mining Space Race”. An NPR article says there are both technical and legal hurdles to overcome.

First, of course, there are technical challenges involved in finding promising targets, sending unmanned spacecraft to mine them and returning those resources safely to Earth.

Humans have yet to successfully collect even a proof-of-concept asteroid sample. …

The second issue is a legal one. Asteroids are governed by the Outer Space Treaty, nearly 50 years old now, which says space and space objects don’t belong to any individual nation. What that means for mining activities has never been tested in international courts because, well, nobody’s managed to mine an asteroid yet.

But there’s a fair amount of uncertainty, as Joanne Gabrynowicz, a director at the International Institute of Space Law, told NPR’s Here & Now last February.

“Anybody who wants to go to an asteroid now and extract a resource is facing a large legal open question,” she said.

The U.S. passed a law near the end of last year, the Space Act of 2015, which says American companies are permitted to harvest resources from outer space. The law asserts that extracting minerals from an extraterrestrial object isn’t a declaration of sovereignty. But it’s not clear what happens if another country passes a contradictory law, or if treaties are arranged that cover extraction of minerals from space.

Luxembourg hopes to address this issue, too, with a formal legal framework of its own — possibly constructed with international input — to ensure that those who harvest minerals can be confident that they’ll own what they bring home.

(4) WRITERS WHO THINK UP STUFF. Steven H Silver points out, “Of the authors listed in 8 Things Invented By Famous Writers at Mental Floss, Heinlein, Wolfe, Clarke, Atwood, Carroll, Dahl, and arguably Twain are SF authors.”

  1. THE PRINGLES CHIP MACHINE // GENE WOLFE

Prior to beginning his contributions to the science fiction genre with The Fifth Head of Cerberus in 1972, Wolfe was a mechanical engineering major who accepted a job with Procter & Gamble. During his employment, Wolfe devised a way for the unique, shingle-shaped Pringles chips to be fried and then dumped into their cylindrical packaging. (Despite his resemblance to Mr. Pringle, there is no evidence the chip mascot was based on him.)

(5) POLAR BOREALIS PREMIERES. The first issue of R. Graeme Cameron’s semipro fiction magazine Polar Borealis has been posted. Get a free copy here. Cameron explains how the magazine works:

Polar Borealis is aimed at beginning Canadian writers eager to make their first sale, with some pros to provide role models.

In Issue #1:

  • Art by Jean-Pierre Normand, Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk, and Taral Wayne.
  • Poems by Rissa Johnson, Eileen Kernaghan, and Rhea Rose.
  • Stories by Christel Bodenbender, R. Graeme Cameron, Steve Fahnestalk, Karl Johanson, Rissa Johnson, Kelly Ng, Craig Russell, Robert J. Sawyer, T.G. Shepherd, Casey June Wolf, and Flora Jo Zenthoefer.

(6) A RATHER LARGE SCIENCE FAIR. The Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair, to be held March 16-19 in Birmingham, “is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people in the UK.”

Held at the NEC, Birmingham 16-19 March 2016, The Big Bang Fair is an award-winning combination of exciting theatre shows, interactive workshops and exhibits, as well careers information from STEM professionals.

We aim to show young people (primarily aged 7-19) the exciting and rewarding opportunities out there for them with the right experience and qualifications, by bringing classroom learning to life.

Having grown from 6,500 visitors in its first year (2009) to nearly 70,000 in 2015, The Big Bang Fair is made possible thanks to the collaborative efforts of over 200 organisations

(7) JUST NEEDS A LITTLE SMACK. Michael Swanwick, in the gracious way people do on the internet, expressed his bad opinion of the movie I, Robot (2004) in these terms:

Just watched I, ROBOT. I want to punch everybody involved in the face. Very, very hard. Dr. Asimov would approve.

[Okay, to spare people’s feelings, I want to punch THOSE RESPONSIBLE in the face. Still hated the movie.]

This ticked off Jeff Vintar, who wrote the original spec script and shared credit for the screenplay. Vintar posted a 1,200 word comment telling how his original script got turned into an “adaptation” and how these links of Hollywood sausage got made.

Having been one of the film’s biggest critics, I have watched over the years — to my surprise — as many people find quite a bit of Asimov still in it. I’m always glad when I read a critical analysis on-line or a university paper that makes the case that it is more Asimov than its reputation would suggest, or when I get contacted by a real roboticist who tells me they were inspired by the movie and went on to a career in robotics. And then of course there are the kids, who love it to death…

But I never go around defending the film or talking about it, because although I still believe my original script would have made a phenomenal ‘I, Robot’ film, there is no point. That any film gets made at all seems at times like a miracle.

But your stupid, yes stupid, ‘punch in the face’ post compelled me to write. I love Asimov as much as you do, probably more, because of all the time I spent living and breathing it. I also wrote an adaptation of Foundation that I spent years and years fighting for.

So, you want to punch me in the face? My friend, I would have already knocked you senseless before you cocked back your arm. I have been in this fight for more than twenty years. You’re a babe in the woods when it comes to knowing anything about Hollywood compared to me, and what it’s like fighting for a project you love for ten years, some for twenty years and counting.

Yet this exchange did not end the way most of these Facebook contretemps do.

Michael Swanwick answered:

I feel bad for you. That must have been an awful experience. But I spoke as a typical viewer, not as a writer. The movie was like the parson’s egg — parts of it were excellent, but the whole thing was plopped down on the plate. For my own part, I’d love to have the Hollywood money, but have no desire at all to write screenplays. I’ve heard stories like yours before.

Then Vintar wrote another long reply, which said in part:

Other writers are not our enemies. We are not fighting each other, not competing with each other, although that is a powerful illusion. As always the only enemy is weakness within ourselves, and I suppose entropy, the laws of chance, and groupthink. Ha, there are others! But I stopped throwing punches a long time ago. (Believe me, I used to.) You guys are great, thanks Michael….

And the love fest began.

(8) OGDEN OBIT. Jon P. Ogden (1944-2016), devoted Heinlein fan and member of the Heinlein Society, died January 27, Craig Davis and David Lubkin reported on Facebook. [Via SF Site News.]

(9) ALASKEY OBIT. Voice actor Joe Alaskey, who took over performing Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck after actor Mel Blanc died in 1989, himself passed away February 3. CNN reports the 63-year-old actor had been battling cancer.

Mark Evanier’s tribute to Alaskey on News From Me also tells about one of his vocal triumphs outside the realm of animation —

When [Jackie] Gleason’s voice needed to be replicated to fix the audio on the “lost” Honeymooners episodes, Joe was the man.

A few years after that, Joe was called upon to redub an old Honeymooners clip for a TV commercial. When he got the call, Joe assured the ad agency that if they needed him, he could also match the voice of Art Carney as Ed Norton. He was told they already had someone to do that — someone who did it better. Joe was miffed until he arrived at the recording session and discovered that the actor they felt could do a better job as Art Carney…was Art Carney. Joe later said that playing Kramden to Carney’s Norton was the greatest thrill of his life, especially after Carney asked him for some pointers on how to sound more like Ed.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

cranky-snickers_0

  • February 4, 1930 – The Snickers bar hits the market.
  • February 4, 1938 — Disney releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. (Did Disney miss a product placement opportunity by naming a dwarf Grumpy instead of Cranky?)

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY CLUB

  • February 4, 1976 – Sfera, the oldest SF society in former Yugoslavia, was founded.

[Via Google Translate] On this day in 1976, a group of young (and less young) enthusiasts launched as part of the astronautical and rocket club Zagreb “Section for science fiction”…

(12) TODAY’S BITHDAY BOY

(13) WEIRD AL CAST. “Weird Al” Yankovic will voice the title character in Milo Murphy’s Law, Disney XD’s animated comedy series, reports Variety.

The satirical songwriter will provide the voice of the titular character Milo Murphy, the optimistic distant grandson of the famed Murphy’s Law namesake. In addition to voicing the main character, Yankovic will sing the show’s opening theme song and perform other songs throughout the duration of the series….

“Milo Murphy’s Law” will follow the adventures of Milo and his best friends Melissa and Zack as they attempt to embrace life’s catastrophes with positive attitudes and enthusiasm.

(14) RABID PUPPIES. Vox Day posted four picks for the Best Fancast category today.

(15) SAD PUPPIES. Damien G. Walter japed:

(16) PUPPY COMPARISON. Doris V. Sutherland posted “2014 Hugos Versus 2015 Sad Puppies: Novellas”, the third installment, the purpose of which she explains in the introduction —

In this series on the Sad Puppies controversy, I have been comparing the works picked for the 2015 Sad and Rabid Puppies slates with the stories that were nominated for the Hugo in 2014. Were the previous nominees truly overwhelmed with preachy “message fiction”? What kinds of stories had the Sad Puppies chosen to promote in response?

Having taken a look at the Best Short Story and Best Novelette categories, I shall now cover the Hugo Awards’ final short fiction category: Best Novella, the section for stories of between 17,500 and 40,000 words in length. Let us see how the two sets of stories compare…

At the end of her interesting commentary, she concludes:

…Let us take a look through some of the previously-discussed categories. Aside from Vox Day’s story, only one of the 2014 Best Novelette nominees can be read as “message fiction”: Aliette de Bodard’s “The Waiting Stars,” which has an anti-colonial theme. I have also heard the accusation of propaganda directed at John Chu’s “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”, a story about a gay couple. But once again, I see nothing clumsy or poorly-handled about de Bodard’s exploration of colonialism or Chu’s portrayal of a same-sex couple. So far, the accusation of preachiness appears to be based largely Rachel Swirsky’s “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, which has the straightforward message that hate begets hate.

None of these stories push a specific message as strongly or as directly as John C. Wright’s One Bright Star to Guide Them. This raises an obvious question: exactly which group is rewarding message fiction here…?

[Thanks to Gary Farber, JJ, David K.M. Klaus, Brian Z., Steven H Silver, Jumana Aumir, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and Dave Doering for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]

243 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/4/16 “Who Nominated J.R.?”

  1. Lee Whiteside: Maybe there’s an alt-history where John Scalzi never decided to try writing science fiction and none of this escalated like it has.

    Whackjobs like VD will always find something to fixate upon and escalate over, and about which to develop a crusade. If it hadn’t been Scalzi, it would have been something or someone else.

    And frankly, I enjoy living in a universe where John Scalzi has written science fiction. If there’s going to be an alternate universe, it should be one where VD doesn’t exist.

  2. @Mike Glyer: I was using the broader meaning for “SF” (speculative fiction), but perhaps that’s not what Steven H meant. Of course, no doubt “A Connecticut Yankee…” was all a dream anyway, so it was not SFF of any sort. ;-P

    Anyway, I’m amused at how this discussion took off running, but I’m sorry I have a day job (notsorry) and couldn’t get back to this until now!

    ETA: That is to say, among other things, the “is Twain SF” and “when did SF start” and all that.

    @JJ: LOL at your embarrassment of PINs. Are they unique or identical? One year, I was amused to get more than one PIN (I used just one of them, don’t worry). Also: I don’t care (much) about an author’s or publisher’s claim about the genre. Plus, bookstores and publishers, at least, historically have slotted things into one genre despite books frequently having, IMHO, more than one. I just use SFF descriptively (not set in real-world with all-known-science and no-fantastical-elements? hmm, probably SFF, in that case).

    @Hampus Eckerman: Hmm, Flexible Frank looks creepy, at least that version.

    A Darker Shade of Magic is, so far, good! 🙂 I’m gonna finish this sucker before Schwabe comes to town. I hope.

    I’m still wondering how well it’ll work if I nominate someone based on a one-name blog post handle, like Sting or Cher (not their real names).

  3. @Kendall: Cher is kind of her real name, isn’t it? (checks Wiki) Yes, it’s a short version of her first name. So it’s just like “Chris”, “Steve”, or many of those other names we were talking about the other day. Like, Madonna is also actually her real first name. But not Sting; to be fair, “Gordon” isn’t very rock and roll.

    @Lee and JJ: Scalzi also considered becoming a mystery writer; presumably in that universe, Teddy’s trying to XanaD’OH the Edgars and Shamuses.

  4. @lurkertype: Whoops, I didn’t know Cher was her real name. I did know about Madonna (so it didn’t even occur to me to use her as an example). Anyway, yeah, Sting was my better example.

    (TBH I don’t know whether the person I thought of is using their actual first name or not.)

  5. @Zenu: I saw something about that – I think here and somewhere else – and I say, cool! Sure, I’m too early on to tell if this would be a cool series or not, but I’m always happy for authors who get optioned, and extra happy for them if it actually happens! And extra happy for me if it turns into a good TV series/movie/what-not. 😉

    ETA: Oh lordy, I typo’d Schwab’s name up a few comments. (blush)

  6. I agree that the naming of a thing is not the creating of the thing.

    As to Flie 770, it is not on VDs slate. It is window dressing for VDs slate. Puppies know what to vote for and what not to vote for. They will not be voting for File 770.

    Strategy is easy here.

  7. Anyone heard of Join by Steve Toutonghi? This Unshelved comic brought it to my attention – it’s not out for a while, but in piqued my interest. Reading the publisher’s full description, it sounds like there’s more to it than the comic indicates. Apparently it’s a literary-SFF crossover. (Yay, genres!) 😉

    “What if you could live multiple lives simultaneously, have constant, perfect companionship, and never die? That’s the promise of Join, a revolutionary technology that allows small groups of minds to unite, forming a single consciousness that experiences the world through multiple bodies. But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors.”

    (There’s more; anyway, this intrigued me.)

  8. Zenu: As to Flie 770, it is not on VDs slate. It is window dressing for VDs slate. Puppies know what to vote for and what not to vote for. They will not be voting for File 770.

    It’s a little hard to believe they would do so, however, I have decided I need to factor into my response that they might really do it.

  9. Scalzi also considered becoming a mystery writer; presumably in that universe, Teddy’s trying to XanaD’OH the Edgars and Shamuses.

    Alternate Universe VD is moaning about the award wins for “Trenchcoats” and “If You Were A FBI Agent My Love”

  10. Hmm…

    “The Murder That Falls On You From Nowhere”
    The Three-Body Problem (works in both genres!)

    Damn, I am so bad at this.

  11. I’m still wondering how well it’ll work if I nominate someone based on a one-name blog post handle, like Sting or Cher (not their real names).

    I was thinking, when nominating someone for a category like Fan Writer, put the URL of their blog or another identifying link next to their name just to avoid any possible confusion.

  12. I was thinking, when nominating someone for a category like Fan Writer, put the URL of their blog or another identifying link next to their name just to avoid any possible confusion.

    I was just updating my notes last night to do just that. GMTA

  13. @Vasha

    I’m doing that for quite a few on my shortlist, particularly the artist ones – there’s quite a few single name artists out there

  14. @Mark Kitteh & @Oneiros: LOL! Great alt-universe titles!

    @Vasha: Good idea; I could put a URL pointing to a tag here, for example.

    ETA: @Mike Glyer: I love the Pixel Scroll title!

  15. @Vivienne Raper:

    Shabbat is out! The house is clean! Now where were we…

    When I studied postmodernism, we talked about irony and pastiche. One of the arguments in postmodernist literary theory – oversimplified – is no originality was possible because all texts are socially constructed and refer to each other. Although text can refer to something wider than ‘text on a page’, let’s assume that it means other books.

    Hmmm. That’s a very interesting way of phrasing things. I agree it seems related here. If I understand you correctly, it’s basically saying that the cross-referential nature of (text/fiction/culture) is so fundamental, that some ideas simply can’t be expressed – they have no frame of reference to be understood, or they clash with preexisting ideas that are already buried so deep in the (text/fiction/culture) gestalt, to such an extent that you can’t express them without them seeming nonsensical.

    And then you’re saying that truth and authenticity, uncovered by research, investigation, or personal experience, are capable of trumping those ideas held by the gestalt. In fact, you hold that the richness and “true-ness” are exactly what lets the gestalt change, because the uniqueness and authenticity will give your portrayal staying power against the stereotype held by the gestalt. Did I understand you correctly?

    (If I did, I agree entirely, and then it sounds like we’re on the same page here. When you know you’re going up against preexisting audience expectations, then, well, you need to handle that somehow. And different approaches to how are interesting!)

    Now, I think, without listening to the podcast (maybe I should) that they were talking more about fantasy. A situation where, for example, where you might have a jiangshi and some readers might feel a bit that’s not the vampires I was looking for, and you’ve got to manage those expectations. I don’t know how big an issue that is. For me, it isn’t, but I like novelty.

    I think kind of, but not exactly?

    Here’s a different analogy that might work better: Imagine you’re writing for an audience who loves science-fiction. Except for one thing: the only SF they know is Star Trek.

    So time dilation has never been a real consideration for them in how they imagine space travel. And they think spaceships should be able to do all these cool battle maneuvers in space, making whooshing sounds in space while they’re at it. They’ve never really been interested in where a spaceship keeps its fuel, or how it accelerates its own mass, or how it maintains artificial gravity. A spaceship is basically a ship, but in space! Right?

    Now, if your imagined novel, for this audience, does not display Trek’s blatant disregard for physics, then you’ve got a lot of gaps to cover. The worst of it is not that you need to explain to the reader the solutions you’ve chosen to each issue – it’s that you need to explain to the readers that these issues exist in the first place; that what they’ve been seeing so far is, in many senses, entirely wrong! And you need to do all this even though your story isn’t about all these generic decisions in SF spaceflight design – those are just ancillary details, which are mostly backdrop to your actual story!

    And here’s the other reason I think (I hope!) this makes a good example – this isn’t a matter of originality. It’s a matter of authenticity. Some authors write great space-opera yarns without a hint of scientific accuracy, and those certainly have their place. But you’ve got to have room and respect for the authors who are respecting the physics (to varying degrees…). And if you’re still at the point where huge swaths of your audience don’t know the issues, then those authors are going to have to compensate – they’re going to have to signal, somehow, a kind of “everything you know is wrong” signal.

    So I think this is somewhat beyond novelty and originality; there’s an element of getting things right, or at least of not getting them wrong in a familiar, painful way. It’s definitely beyond just fantasy; that just happens to be the specific genre of these specific books. (I’ve seen Jews in Space done cringe-inducingly poorly.)

    Although… “that’s not the vampires I was looking for” does sound like the kind of visceral reaction we’re talking about! (–whether a jiangshi, or Edward Cullen…)

    —-

    Ultimately, in the podcast, they present some interesting approaches! You can listen to the whole thing, or read the transcript, but in brief summary:

    Sriduanekaew’s was described as “Toss the reader in; don’t pander to him in any way; let him deal with it.” (Spaceflight analogy: Toss ’em in; don’t explain any of the physics that’ll be obvious to the characters; let the readers cope and learn.)

    De Boddard’s, if I understood correctly, is along the lines of “Present the unusual culture as a POV character, and then portray other characters making faulty assumptions about him — similar to the expected reader assumptions — so the reader learns the assumptions are wrong and painful.” (Spaceflight analogy: Have some physicists as POV characters, with others around them clearly not understanding how a spaceship works.)

    And Liu’s (again, the only one I’ve read) is really interesting (and a lot of what I loved about the episode is that I hadn’t noticed this on my own): The book does give us what we’re expecting. It starts everything off with that. But it gives it to us as opulence and spectacle – as something which is, in several different ways, hollow and false. And the more we read, the farther away we move – in other words, the narrative leaves those expectations behind, casts them off as false, and the reader’s expectations naturally evolve right along with that. I thought that was pretty cool, and a neat observation.
    (I don’t have an easy spaceflight analogy for this one 😛 Maybe something like: a marketing team singing the praises of the new spaceship and talking about all the possibilities it offers, and the more you read the clearer it is the marketers were full of B.S….)

  16. Rather than saying that there can’t be science fiction before the genre is defined, I would like to submit that there can’t be science fiction before science! Of course, that gets us into a whole ‘nuther debate: when did science start? But it’s a potentially fascinating debate as well, so I don’t mind. 🙂

    This does sort of eliminate Lucian from consideration as the first SF author (which I find entirely reasonable), but it still leaves Kepler, de Bergerac, and Cavendish as strong candidates. Personally, I lean towards de Bergerac for reasons related to what Mike Glyer said earlier:

    And, importantly, Wells also set up those ideas as being accomplished by technology, which Twain didn’t in respect to time travel […]

    De Bergerac used a giant honkin’ cannon to get his characters to the moon, while Kepler, a few years previously, used witches and demons. On the other hand, Kepler used his fantasy to illustrate scientific facts about how the Earth would appear from the Moon, so…I dunno. 🙂

    Cavendish is close, but she was published shortly after de Bergerac—and de Bergerac’s work was published posthumously.

    Still, I’d put all three on the ballot if we ever get around to the retro-Hugos for the 1600s. 😀

  17. Still, I’d put all three on the ballot if we ever get around to the retro-Hugos for the 1600s

    Me too. I think the thread has been contentious enough that a bracket of “1st 50 SF” books might be a task too great for even us to tackle. Would we include only US/Eurocentric fiction or does stuff from other cultures get included? If we do the “1st 50 fantasy books in the world” the debate would be fascinating. They would need their own posts I think. No I’m not volunteering. I’m still an early learner. I read something only to be referred to an earlier book, rinse, repeat.

    I’m pretty lenient with my genre precursors being within the genre. If someone wrote something and are considered one of the first to write what’s now a common theme/trope/idea I give them credit because we have no way to know if the genre would have developed without the early building blocks. Since that’s one of the reasons given for reading “classics” and “canon” and “golden age SFF” for me it applies to earlier work. 😉

  18. No MAC PIN yet. I have had two emails from Finnish Worldcon people and I check my spam and junk folders. Guess I will email tomorrow. Thanks to all here sharing information.

  19. I didn’t have my PIN as of twelve hours ago. Haven’t had the chance to check since.

  20. Hi,

    I’d like to respond to Kendall — up a bit on the thread — Yes! I’ve heard of Join! I recommend it too, but my recommendation should be viewed with an awareness of my certain bias.

    If you read it (and of course, I hope you do), I hope you enjoy it and would love to hear what you think!

  21. @steve toutonghi: LOL, thanks! Yeah, I may have to take your rec with a grain of salt. 😉

    I’ve read very little SFF with any sort of “group mind/consciousness” stuff going on, especially where people opt in/join on purpose, but the concept interests me. So your book’s already on my “sounds cool – read sample when available” list (not the real name of the list).

  22. @Standback said:

    If I understand you correctly, it’s basically saying that the cross-referential nature of (text/fiction/culture) is so fundamental, that some ideas simply can’t be expressed – they have no frame of reference to be understood, or they clash with preexisting ideas that are already buried so deep in the (text/fiction/culture) gestalt, to such an extent that you can’t express them without them seeming nonsensical.

    The actual argument was that we are slaves of our own cultural gestalt, doomed to plough the same imaginative ground over and over. This seemed to me silly so, yes, your interpretation is better 🙂

    In fact, you hold that the richness and “true-ness” are exactly what lets the gestalt change, because the uniqueness and authenticity will give your portrayal staying power against the stereotype held by the gestalt. Did I understand you correctly?

    Yes. In fact, one of my MFA tutors, a memoirist, argued that it was impossible to write anything except yourself. Thus, you couldn’t write anything authentically *except* memoir. I felt this was going a bit far, but – yes – my idea is that the richness and trueness of lived experience or second-hand research has staying power against the stereotype held by the gestalt.

    And here’s the other reason I think (I hope!) this makes a good example – this isn’t a matter of originality. It’s a matter of authenticity. Some authors write great space-opera yarns without a hint of scientific accuracy, and those certainly have their place. But you’ve got to have room and respect for the authors who are respecting the physics (to varying degrees…).

    I see what you’re getting at. This isn’t *just* a problem for writers writing about non-Western cultures for a Western audience. It’s also – as you show with Star Trek – a problem for hard SF writers. Basically, on a craft level, it’s “how do I manage readers’ assumptions without turning this into a cloggy mass of exposition?

    With my own novel, I have this problem big time. I evolved a culture from scratch using a population model and a lot of historical research. I have no way of easily explaining a ‘Free Company’. They’re not late medieval German mercenary companies (despite the name). They’re not the Mafia or Triad. They’re not European trading companies. They’re not cyberpunk corporations. And the Free Companies aren’t even particularly culturally alien to a Western audience as they draw upon English-language research.

    So I think this is somewhat beyond novelty and originality; there’s an element of getting things right, or at least of not getting them wrong in a familiar, painful way.

    Again, I think some of this is down to ‘not doing the research’. Ultimately, I wouldn’t dream of writing an entire novel about somewhere I’d never lived without a heck of a lot of research, including talking to people who’d lived there. That’s just good practice.

    There’s a separate issue that it depends on your audience. For example, you might not want to challenge expectations because you’re writing for an audience who share your worldview. Or because you have an axe to grind. All of those, I’d argue, are also legitimate decisions.

    ***

    I prefer (and use) Sriduanekaew’s approach. The others feel patronising because they assume the expectations of an imagined reader, which real readers may not have. That also creates a sense of unnecessary difference. So, for example, if a reader who shares De Boddard’s world view sees the imagined reader getting it wrong, their own view will be ‘well, the people outside my culture are idiots’.

    I’ll either read the transcript or download to listen on the train.

  23. @Vivienne:

    I see what you’re getting at. This isn’t *just* a problem for writers writing about non-Western cultures for a Western audience. It’s also – as you show with Star Trek – a problem for hard SF writers. Basically, on a craft level, it’s “how do I manage readers’ assumptions without turning this into a cloggy mass of exposition?”

    Exactly! Which I think is an interesting question, which I haven’t seen much on.

    There’s lots on “how do avoid clunky exposition to explain my system of (magic/technology/social structure/[[OTHER]]) which is new and big and convoluted.” But this adds another layer of difficulty on top of that, where not only does the reader need to learn a lot of new stuff, he thinks he already knows a bunch and might need to be disabused of that. I found that really interesting 🙂

    I prefer (and use) Sriduanekaew’s approach. The others feel patronising because they assume the expectations of an imagined reader, which real readers may not have. That also creates a sense of unnecessary difference. So, for example, if a reader who shares De Boddard’s world view sees the imagined reader getting it wrong, their own view will be ‘well, the people outside my culture are idiots’.

    I agree, and that’s a really good point. The failure mode here is reactions of “ergh, people aren’t that awful” – which isn’t a very good reaction even if the portrayal is 100% accurate and the reader’s reaction is 100% incorrect.

    I haven’t read the De Boddard, so I can’t comment on that one. But the Liu example is actually really interesting – and the way he does it (and they describe) actually solves this issue very neatly. In essence, he presents the stereotype as something you know is hollow – which works fine if you reject the stereotype, and also manages the transition if you’re coming in expecting the stereotype. I found that very elegant, and something I didn’t even consider when I read. Most of the episode is devoted to this one point, with the others kind of being counterpoints.

    If you do want to follow up on this, you could read the first chapter of Grace of Kings on the Kindle sample or some such, and then you’ll see and understand exactly what they’re talking about. (I personally disliked Grace of Kings intensely, so this really isn’t a recommendation for the book. But this one aspect is, as I say, interesting, and handily available 🙂 )

  24. @kendall, in exchange for an honest review (for Goodreads/Amazon), I could send an ARC (I have a couple left and only want to hang on to one). You’d just have to let me know where to send it–one easy way would be to pm via the contact form on my website ( http://www.stevetoutonghi.com/about/ ).

    For others on the thread–sorry about creating a tangent, and thank you for the discussion, which I’ve really been enjoying.

  25. @Standback It is an interesting question. Now I think about it, in my own novel draft, I have been deliberately subverting things people are expecting. For example, because people kept assuming cyberpunk, I tried to show the biological/agricultural/cornucopian motifs of the Free Company of Castillo. Cyberpunk corporations don’t tend to be rural or agricultural in ethos.

    However, it’s not an easy problem to solve…

    I’ve downloaded the podcast. I’ll read a sample of Grace of Kings – I’m interested in Ken Liu’s work anyhow because I’ve enjoyed his translations.

  26. @Vivienne: Cool! Let me know what you think 🙂

    (I also keep running into Liu’s translations, and really enjoying them. It’s fantastic to have someone working on such a great project as translating Chinese SF, and fantastic to see him doing it so well with such success. ((Oooh! Have you read What Has Passed Shall Yet In Kinder Light Appear? I loved that one.)) )

    (And agricultural cyberpunk sounds like an intriguing combination! I’m not clear on what you mean by that, but the variations that spring to mind sound really interesting…)

  27. As an e-book, Grace of Kings is currently $2.99 at Amazon US and at Nook store. At that price I added it to the virtual e-reader Mount F770; I read the free sample and was tickled enough to buy in.

    As a Sasquan supporting member, I received my Hugo PIN over the weekend.

  28. I haven’t read What Has Passed yet, but it’s free on Kindle Unlimited. I really enjoyed Security Check by Han Song because of the surrealist premise and ending. It was a memorable musing on the idea that nothing can be made perfectly safe.

    Cyberpunk tends to be ‘high tech, low life’ and about rapid tech change and invasive modification of the human body. Imagine that at the rural fringes of a struggling human colony.

  29. @Steve Toutonghi: Thank you, but I must, respectfully, decline. #1 I don’t leave reviews on sites like Goodreads (not a member) or Amazon (I know, authors probably all hate me). #2 I’m a slow reader, have a big backlog, and I buy way too much compared to my free time (i.e., no predicting when I’d read it). Seriously you don’t want to know how many unread books I’ve accumulated over time.

    Just trying to be honest! I feel like it’d be under false pretenses if I accepted your offer, so I’d rather not, but I do appreciate it, thanks! And I have your book, er, bookmarked, though. 🙂

    Oh and BTW there’s no such things as a tangent here, heh. Or everything’s a tangent? 😉 If everything’s a tangent then nothing is.

  30. @kendall — I understand completely. Growth of my to-read stack often appears exponential. Fortunately, it’s got a functional dependency on [free time spent browsing], which I can limit by actually reading and working, so I haven’t been buried alive yet. FWIW, I just saw a comp of the art for the final cover and it’s really beautiful.

  31. @Kendall: “Oh and BTW there’s no such things as a tangent here, heh. Or everything’s a tangent?”

    Coping with tangents is part of the deal here. We knew what we were getting into when we sined on.

  32. Coping with tangents is part of the deal here. We knew what we were getting into when we sined on.

    Cosigned.

  33. @Steve Toutonghi: Cool re. the cover! 🙂

    @Rev. Bob, etc.: (((groan))) Smacks all around! 😉

  34. @Standback I read up to ‘Part 2: Chapter 3’ (the Kindle sample) of Grace of Kings yesterday. I need to listen to the podcast now because I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be looking for :#/

    The beginning has a lot of spectacle. Is that supposed to represent an orientalised stereotype? And, if so, how? And what was I _supposed_ to be expecting as a westernised reader? It was just your bog standard pre-industrial society with some flying machine twiddly bits.

    My problem with the sample was that it felt ‘over edited’: the writing style felt flat and technical. I really liked ‘Article I’ by Ken Liu in War Stories from the Future, which had the same flat style, but it didn’t feel out-of-place there as it was hard speculative SF. In a fantasy novel, the style didn’t feel flowery enough (never thought I’d say that).

    There were a few things I liked. I enjoyed the ‘carrying the calf’ vignette. Don’t know if it’s based on a piece of mythology, or original to the author, but it’s a great origin story for that character.

  35. Took me a little while to circle back to this…

    Again, I didn’t like GoK either (including the writing style, as you mentioned). I still found the podcast’s point intriguing – they explain how the spectacle is one that invokes a lot of Oriental tropes. Like, you might be expecting elephants and pagodas in a book influenced by Chinese culture; those are things that can make you go, “ah, yes, that makes it Chinese.” But establishing these elements as spectacle rather than normative is a form of breaking away from those expectations. “Yes, yes, here are the Chinese tropes. But… that’s not actually what the world is like.”

    (Of course, it’s entirely possible this point just doesn’t resonate strongly for you, or that you still think it’s dead wrong! But it’s very cool of you to to look into it and reexamine it on merit. 🙂 )

  36. @Standback Thanks for coming back 🙂 I’ve listened to about half the podcast now and will probably listen to the rest later today.

    I’ve reached the bit discussing Aliette’s House of Shattered Wings. It’s definitely an interesting discussion and I’m glad to have been introduced to the podcast, but you’re right – it doesn’t resonate strongly for me.

    I don’t have any expectations myself of ‘Oriental tropes’ (and the podcasters didn’t either, I noticed). For example, my image of China includes internet censorship, rapidly-developing urban areas and air pollution. Yet there’s an expectation that someone somewhere thinks in crude stereotypes and that theoretical person will be challenged by Grace of Kings. There’s a sense in which the work feels self-congratulatory, i.e. ‘by reading and unpacking the imagery in this novel, I feel superior to those readers who will have their Orientalist viewpoint challenged’.

    As a separate issue, I think – perhaps because I’m an individualist – I don’t tend to expect characters to be relatable or ‘like me’. In fact, I enjoy reading characters utterly unlike me. I love the ‘Parker’ crime novels by Donald E. Westlake, for example, because Parker – a sociopathic master thief – is such a distinctive character. So I found the idea, in House of Shattered Wings, that the reader was being challenged by being placed outside of a European perspective odd.

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