(1) HORROR FAN. Tananarive Due was interviewed in the Washington Post in a story by Elahe Izadi about how people terrified by horror movies psychologically prepare themselves for seeing a quality horror film like A Quiet Place or Us. Due is the executive producer of Horror Noire and teaches a course at UCLA on Get Out. “Horror is a must-see genre again. What’s a scaredy-cat to do?”
Due loved horror as a child, when watching it was a fun way to be scared within a safe context; with age, it became a therapeutic method to deal with heavier anxieties. It’s a lesson she gleaned from her mother, the late civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, who was a horror fan; the genre served as an outlet for the racial trauma she endured.
“Headlines scare me. True crime stories scare me. .?.?. Real, human monstrosity is not fun for me to watch,” Due says. “When those people are supernatural or when there’s a fantasy element, when there’s a monster, now I’m ready to watch because the monster in a horror movie can be a stand-in for real-life monstrosity that lets me engage with it from a distance, but also leech out that trauma and expel it in a way that can feel fun.”
(2) WE LOST. New featurette from Marvel Studios’ Avengers Endgame, in theaters in one month.
(3) FUTURE TENSE. This month’s entry in the Future Tense Fiction series is “The Arisen” by Louisa Hall, author of the novels Speak and Trinity.
“Once upon a time,” Jim said, “in a country called Acirema—”
“Acirema,” I said. “How imaginative, it’s—”
“Do you want me to tell this story or not?” Jim said. His tone was suddenly harsh.
It’s in Slate along with a response essay “What Are Facts Without Fiction?” by librarian Jim O’Donnell.
Yes, it’s true that there are no true stories. Human beings are story-making creatures, but no story can possibly be better that an edited, digested, spin-doctored version of events in we might still call the real world. The real story makers, the ones who give us our professed fictions, know that well and take full advantage of the techniques and the conveniences of their craft, the better to point us toward thoughts we would not come to so easily otherwise.
(4) HELP FUND NICHELLE NICHOLS’ FINAL ROLE. Marc Zicree has started a GoFundMe to pay for “Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols Space Command Scene!”. In the first 24 hours, fans have contributed $600 towards the $15,000 goal.
…Now I’m making a new science fiction pilot called Space Command and want to shoot a very special scene with Nichelle, which will be her last acting role and a wonderful gift to her fans.
(You can watch the work in progress first hour of the Space Command pilot at https://youtu.be/zv-tx3DdKSg)
Total cost of the shoot, including cast and crew (I’m not taking any salary myself) will be $15,000.
Time is of the essence — we’d like to shoot as soon as possible — and it would mean so much for all of us to be able to make this happen.
(5) WHEN YOU OUTGROW THE GOLDEN AGE OF SF. John Scalzi gave this example of how his perspective has changed over time:
He brought back my memory of Harlan Ellison standing in the lobby after a 1977 Star Wars pre-screening, verbally assailing the movie he had just seen. However, the main thrust of Harlan’s complaints were that the story, a throwback to the serials, didn’t represent state-of-the-art science fiction. Likewise, he when he wrote about the movie in Harlan Ellison’s Watching he continued the same theme – that it was superficial, “the human heart is never touched.”
(6) GUIDEPOSTS. E.D.E. Bell’s “Two Simple Rules of Editing” explains why these are the rules that guide her work in a post for the SFWA Blog.
So, there’s only two—let’s go!
Rule #1: Consider all edits with an open mind
It sounds simple, but it’s not. Sometimes it helps to glance through all the edits, then just close the file. Come back the next day, if you can. Then consider, why did the editor make this suggestion? Don’t dismiss anything, and don’t hold anything too sacred to be changed.
Rule #2: Only make changes you like
It sounds simple, but it’s not. If the editor’s version is smoother, or more correct, or whatever, but you don’t like it, then don’t do it. You’ll be the one answering to readers if it reads funny, but that’s your call. It’s your story. It’s your art. You’re the one who knows what you meant.
(7) GAHAN WILSON. The GoFundMe for Gahan Wilson has received contributions from 1,180 people amounting to $55,547 of its $100,000 goal after 23 days. The most recent update said:
Gahan was interviewed today for a newspaper piece that will probably go out nationwide. The people on the reporting team were very sweet and sensitive to Gahan.
Gahan was on his game…speaking about his life and other things.
(8) PUGMIRE OBIT. The horror writer W.H. “Wilum” Pugmire died today, aged 67. The major influence upon his writing was H P Lovecraft, of course, and S T Joshi described him in 2010 as “perhaps the leading Lovecraftian author writing today.” Scott Edelman tweeted the photo below – Pugmire’s on the right.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born March 26, 1850 — Edward Bellamy. Looking Backward: 2000–1887 is really the only work that he’s remembered for today. He wrote two other largely forgotten works, Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process and Miss Ludington’s Sister: A Romance of Immortality. (Died 1898.)
- Born March 26, 1931 — Leonard Nimoy. I really don’t need to say who he played on Trek, do I? Did you know his first role was as a zombie in Zombies of the Stratosphere? Or that he did a a lot of Westerns ranging from Broken Arrow in which he played various Indians to The Tall Man in which at least his character had a name, Deputy Sheriff Johnny Swift. His other great genre role was on Mission: Impossible as The Great Paris, a character whose real name was never revealed, who was a retired magician. It was his first post-Trek series. He of course showed up on the usual other genre outings such as The Twilight Zone, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Outer Limits, Night Gallery and Get Smart. And then there’s the matter of “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”. (Died 2015.)
- Born March 26, 1942 — Erica Jong, 77. Witches, which was has amazing illustrations by Joseph A. Smiths, is still worth your time nearly forty years later. ISFDB also lists Shylock’s Daughter: A Novel of Love in Venice which is a time travel story but it soul does more like a romance novel to me. And Sappho’s Leap which they also list just seems soft core lesbian porn with a slight genre twist.
- Born March 26, 1950 — K. W. Jeter, 69. Farewell Horizontal may or may be punk of any manner but it’s a great read. Though I generally loathe such things, Morlock Night, his sequel to The Time Machine , is well-worth reading reading. I’ve heard good things about his Blade Runner sequels but haven’t read them. Opinions?
- Born March 26, 1953 — Christopher Fowler, 65. I started reading him when I encountered his Bryant & May series which though explicitly not genre does feature a couple of protagonists who are suspiciously old. Possibly a century or more now. The mysteries may or may not have genre aspects but are wonderfully weird. Other novels by him are I’d recommend are Roofworld and Rune which really are genre, and Hell Train which is quite delicious horror.
- Born March 26, 1960 — Brenda Strong, 59. First film genre appearance was on Spaceballs as Nurse Gretchen. The role you probably remember her was on Starship Troopers as Captain Deladier though post-death she shows up in Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation as Sergeant Dede Rake. She showed up on Next Gen as a character named Rashella in the “When the Bough Breaks” episode and she’s been a regular on Supergirl as Lillian Luthor.
- Born March 26, 1966 — Michael Imperioli, 53. Detective Len Fenerman in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones and Detective Ray Carling, the lead in Life on Mars and Rosencrantz in a recent Hamlet.
- Born March 26, 1985 — Keira Knightley, 34. To my surprise and this definitely shows I’m not a Star Wars geek, she was Sabé (Decoy Queen). Next up for her is Princess of Thieves, a loose adaptation of the Robin Hood legend. Now I didn’t see that but I did see her in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl as Elizabeth Swann though I’ll be damned if I remember her role. (She’s in several more of these films. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.) we saw Herve we saw as Guinevere, an odd Guinevere indeed, in King Arthur. Her last role I must note I must note is The Nutcracker and the Four Realms in which she was the Sugar Plum Fairy!
(10) TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT. We got a pair of big things wrong in Andrew Porter’s birthday listing the other day.
“Science Fiction Chronicle which he founded in May 1980…”
The first issue appeared Labor Day weekend, 1979, at the Louisville NASFiC, cover dated October 1979.
“Algol now known as Starship lasted less than five years…”
Algol started in 1963; the last issue of Algol/Starship, #44, appeared in 1984.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
Candorville stands up for Star Trek: Discovery.
(12) VOICES DISSENT. Anime News Network speculates about the potential for litigation in its story “Kameha Con Responds to Recent Guest Cancellations”. Several guests bailed after the con added Vic Mignogna to its lineup. An unnamed lawyer consulted by ANN says they may be in violation of their contracts if they don’t attend.
The staff of the upcoming Kameha Con in Irving, Texas issued a statement via Facebook and Twitter on Monday regarding recent guest cancellations due to the addition of voice actor Vic Mignogna as a guest. Mignogna was added to the convention’s guest roster on March 22 following a previous cancellation by con staff on February 2. Since the announcement, five voice actors have announced they will no longer attend the convention along with multiple panelists.
One commenter neatly summed up the situation:
(13) REFERENCE DIRECTOR! The Wrap argues that “‘Captain Marvel’ and ‘Us’ Have Pushed ‘The Right Stuff’ Back Into the Spotlight”.
…“The Right Stuff” tells the true story of the seven military pilots who were selected for the NASA project to launch the first ever manned spaceflight. In a similar way, Carol, an Air Force test pilot, ends up soaring farther than she could have ever expected when she travels into space and becomes a member of the Kree and, later, one of Earth’s superheroes.
In “Us,” that same VHS tape is much easier to miss, and is used in a possibly more ironic and darker context. You can find “The Right Stuff” among the VHS tapes that flank the TV displaying the Hands Across America commercial in the opening scene.
(14) LIVE THEATER. Marjorie Prime, a 2015 Pulitzer Prize nominee, set in a future of “beneficial AI,” will be staged in Norwich, CT the next two weekends. The special feature of the first two performances — March 29 and 31 – will be post-performance discussions led by sff writers Carlos Hernandez and Paul Di Filippo.
Additional performances Saturday April 6 at 7:30 pm and Sunday April 7 at 3 pm
Tickets are $10 in advance or seniors; $12 at door Cash or Check only—no credit cards
Open Seating—limited to 70 attendees
House Opens at 7 pm Friday and Saturday; 2:30 pm Sunday
United Congregational Church Hall 87 Broadway, Norwich CT. (Note: This address brings you to the church’s main door—do NOT enter there. Make first right on Willow Street, right turn into lower level of covered parking deck. A few stairs here. Level entrance and handicapped permit parking available at 11-39 Chestnut Street)
Friday March 29, 7:30 pm
Featuring. . . .a talkback led by Carlos Hernandez. Carlos Hernandez is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collection The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria (Rosarium 2016) and most recently, as part of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint of Disney Hyperion, the novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (2019). By day, Carlos is a mild-manned reporter associate professor of English at the City University of New York, with appointments at BMCC and the Graduate Center, and a game designer and enthusiast. Catch him on Twitter @writeteachplay.
Sunday March 31, 3 pm
Featuring. . .a talkback led by Paul Di Filippo, who has been publishing professionally for over 40 years. He has continued to reside in Providence throughout his career, with over 200 stories published and many novels. Beginning with The Steampunk Trilogy: (1995), which remains his most widely known title, this shorter material has been assembled in twenty substantial collections. Di Filippo also reviews widely, online and in print.
(15) SUCK FAIRY. Someone noticed — “The Matrix’s male power fantasy has dated badly.”
Ahead of its time when it was released 20 years ago, The Matrix is a monument to Generation X self-pity that is out of step with today, writes Nicholas Barber.
The Matrix was way ahead of its time. The Wachowskis’ tech-noir mind-bender came out in 1999 – 20 years ago – which meant that it reinvented big-screen superhero action a year before X-Men was released and showcased Hong Kong-style ‘wire-fu’ fight choreography a year before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Its ‘bullet-time’ effects have been copied by blockbusters ever since, and its thoughts about virtual reality and artificial intelligence have been mimicked just as often. Despite all this, though, in some crucial respects The Matrix has dated so badly that it now seems to be a relic. It is a film that, like the human race in the Wachowskis’ story, is trapped forever in the 1990s.
…It’s a fantastic premise, but it does have its flaws. Twenty years on, it’s embarrassing to see a white male saviour with two sidekicks – one black, one female – whose primary task is to assure him how gifted he is. The female sidekick, Trinity, even falls in love with him for no reason except, I suppose, that he looks like Keanu Reeves. And, in general, Anderson/Neo is one of those uninspiring heroes who do next to nothing to earn their hero status. He becomes an unbeatable martial artist not by training for years, but by being plugged into a teaching program for a few hours. And he becomes omnipotent in the Matrix not because he is particularly brave, noble or clever, but because, as Morpheus says, he is willing “to believe”.
(16) NIMBY. “A Battle Is Raging Over The Largest Solar Farm East Of The Rockies” – NPR has the story.
The largest solar farm east of the Rocky Mountains could soon be built in Virginia and, depending on whom you ask, it would be either a dangerous eyesore that will destroy the area’s rural character or a win-win, boosting the local economy and the environment. The solar panels would be spread across 10 square miles — 1.8 million panels soaking up the sun’s rays.
The project is planned for Spotsylvania County, about 60 miles south of Washington, D.C. Amid the county’s Civil War battlefields, farms and timberland, a fight is raging over the future of energy in Virginia, and in the Eastern U.S.
The heart of the solar resistance is in a gated community called Fawn Lake, built around a golf course and man-made lake.
“I mean we live at a resort, essentially,” says Dave Walsh, one of the many Fawn Lake residents organizing against the planned solar farm. One corner of the massive project would butt up against the back of the gated community. Walsh says he supports solar, in theory, but not here.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, Steve Green, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Joey Eschrich, Daniel Dern, Mike Kennedy, JJ, John King Tarpinian, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]
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Possible first?
12 – How dumb would the con have to be to sue people who bowed out because a sexual harasser had been sprung on them late in the process? I’m thinking dumber than inviting the sexual harasser in the first place, but I could be wrong.
I’ve also read somewhere else that some attendees – vendors, I think – feel they have no choice but to go despite their misgivings because they can’t afford to pay the fees without recouping their costs. That’s got to be a lousy situation to be in.
(15) “And he becomes omnipotent in the Matrix not because he is particularly brave, noble or clever, but because, as Morpheus says, he is willing ‘to believe’.”
While there certainly are clichés in the movie, I think any analysis of Neo’s role really ought to take the sequels into account – I’m pretty sure that the first movie was made with most of the full story in mind. And in that context I think it’s pretty clear that Neo’s specialness has nothing to do with an effort of will on his part; Morpheus was just guessing. Neo is a born messiah with basically paranormal mental powers, and he came about because the machines have been engineering the human race to produce such creatures at regular intervals. Whether this all makes sense is open to question, but that’s what the story is; it isn’t “random office schlub learns to believe, becomes awesome.”
The author also complains that Mr. Anderson didn’t pursue political activism in a soul-killing fake world, and that when he’s told by Morpheus that he’s always felt something was wrong with his life (something Morpheus of course would have told every other character), that just means he’s dissatisfied with his office job and not that he senses he’s in a soul-killing fake world. Come on!
“The only thing worse than being scrolled is not being scrolled.”
—Oscar Filde
(9) When Nimoy was trying to get away from the Spock character, one of the first shows he did was “In Search Of…”. I was watching it one day (when the TV I’d taken into my room happened to be working), and Dad wandered in, and hovered around for a few moments, then asked me “That Old Pointy Ears?” I nodded. It was, indeed, Old Pointy Ears. “Leonard, old man,” I murmured, “You’re lost.”
I always liked him as Paris, though.
Also, I’m too lazy to look at the Bilbo video (which I saw on “Malibu U,” I believe, when it first aired), but did wonder briefly if it’s the short version, or if it’s the long version that has to switch between color and black & white because of different sources.
@9: Knightley gets one of the better lines in the first movie: ~”You want agony? Try wearing a corset!” (“It’s only a guideline” has become more used, but it’s a running joke rather than one hard point.)
Edit: Fifth!
Clickity
(5) Star Wars has always just been a bad copy of The Hidden Fortress.
Ref: “When you outgrow….” Yeah, the original SW was hardly “great” cinema…but it was FUN! At least I thought so when I first saw it in ’77–golly, over 40 years ago.
I was given a box set of the first 6 Star Wars films for Christmas. Still haven’t watched the whole set yet, but I put in The Phantom Menace, which I enjoyed more than I did the previous time I’d seen it, in the theater when it first came out, because my expectations weren’t high this time. Attack of the Clones, yeah, I didn’t fall asleep this time. Revenge of the Sith — to my immense surprise, this was all new to me; I had apparently not even bothered with it when it came out. Like the others, it was okay, no great shakes, but I could sit through it. Next, Star Wars/A New Hope, and again I was surprised: I thoroughly enjoyed watching this one. I figured I was well past liking whatever I had liked about it originally, but despite the clunky bits it was still fun. Two more to go, eventually.
(9) Having previously seen the “Bilbo Baggins” song made this make ever so much more sense. (It also helps to know that Mercedes has, from time to time, been criticized for its small trunk space).
9) I mostly remember Erica Young for her disgusting racism. Naming a chapter in one if her books Arabs and other animals shows how deep her prejudices went, but racism against arabs has always been acceptable. Still is.
https://youtu.be/Mi1ZNEjEarw
15) As a lot of people have observed, The Matrix is probably best read as a trans narrative. Still very white, but it does put a different spin on the importance of believing in yourself.
Hampus Eckerman saysn I mostly remember Erica Young for her disgusting racism. Naming a chapter in one if her books Arabs and other animals shows how deep her prejudices went, but racism against arabs has always been acceptable. Still is.
So what book is that in?
Cat Eldridge: So what book is that in?
Still Flying
The new Storybundle is out:
The 2019 Space Opera Bundle
Contains books 1-3 in Kristine Smith’s Jani Kilian Chronicles, the 6th Kristine Kathryn Rusch Diving Universe novel from 2017, and an anthology which looks interesting. I can’t speak to the rest of the books which are in it, but I’m looking forward to giving them a try.
I can’t believe how badly I managed to misspell the name of Erica Jong…
9) Unless the US version of Life on Mars, which I haven’t seen, diverged even more from the UK version than I thought, Detective Ray Carling was not the lead of the show. The lead (and unwitting time travellers – or was he?) was Detective Sam Tyler.
The Suck Fairy phenomenon is ultimately a recognition that people change, culture changes, society changes and ultimately, even a book or movie or song of your heart will not and cannot always be so.
Cora Buhlert correctly notes Unless the US version of Life on Mars, which I haven’t seen, diverged even more from the UK version than I thought, Detective Ray Carling was not the lead of the show. The lead (and unwitting time travellers – or was he?) was Detective Sam Tyler.
So much for relying on a fan page for reliable information.
@KasaObake Star Wars has always just been a bad copy of The Hidden Fortress.
People say this but I’m not convinced personally. They rhyme, but the structure and feel is very different, despite the correspondences.
I wasn’t familiar with Pugmire. That photo compelled me to find out more about him.
His relationship to his Mormon faith is interesting and seemed to give him a lot of comfort, but the part about having to promise them he’d be celibate to return to the church is sad. He said in an interview, “My lifestyle at the time was queer punk transvestite, so at times I’d attend church with traces of last night’s drag and pink and green hair, etc etc. I was such an extreme case that it took the High Priests two years to decide I was cool enough for re-baptism, which happened on March 7, 2004. It took so long because I insisted that if they let me back in I will be a totally queer Mormon, but celibate. I’ve been celibate since 1985 so that was no problem.”
Tyler is the lead in the U.S. version. I saw the first 10 or so episodes of that show’s only season and thought it was pretty good.
If there’s any chance you might want to see it, take care to avoid spoilers about how they wrapped up the series.
(15) When discussing The Matrix and white savior theory, it is important to remember that the role of Neo was written for Wil Smith. He turned it down and instead made Wild Wild West.
@Paul Weimer:
That’s a distortion of the term; there’s a big difference between “This isn’t the wowie-zowie all-singing all-dancing amazing entertainment I remember it being!” and “I didn’t notice when I read this that it abused X, Y, and Z.” Dismissing the latter as “things change” ignores the direction a change has to go to make the Suck Fairy visible — although the former can also represent the dazzle that temporarily masks issues.
@Douglas Barry When discussing The Matrix and white savior theory, it is important to remember that the role of Neo was written for Wil Smith.
Is it, though? It’s interesting context, but we have to respond to the film the directors actually made.
Chip: Paul’s thesis on the Suck Fairy is every bit as valid as yours as its a concept that has absolutely no validity beyond the level of the individual. If I tell you that i re-read the first three novels in Le Guin’s Earthsea cycle forty years apart and the Suck Fairy had done terrible things to them in the decades that intervened, thats my personal Suck Fairy. Suck Fairy’s are personal deamons.
A work doesn’t need ‘issues’ to have the Suck Fairy effect it — the reader just neede to have had their reading tastes change.
Depends.
It’s worth discussing in the context of whether they were consciously trying to make a film with a white savior protagonist.
It’s not worth discussing if we’re evaluating whether the end product was a white savior film.
@Paul Weimer:
There’s a significant difference between “I didn’t realize this was cardboard” or “this was more fun before I read (or saw) other, better books that did the same thing” and Suck Fairy stuff like “how did I not notice the racism?” or “I liked this better when I thought all the gay characters being evil was because reality was like that.”
I don’t start talking about the Suck Fairy when I reread something, see where the jokes are, but no longer find any of them funny, not because they’re bigoted but because they just fall flat. That’s just me or my tastes changing, in a neutral way (in the same way that there’s no moral dimension to whether you like horseradish).
(I’m agreeing with and maybe expanding on what @Chip Hitchcock said.)
@rcade
That’s fair. The article’s very much about the film and not the directors, though – not that I think it’s a particularly interesting or perceptive analysis as it stands.
For me, the suck fairy means that I think a book isn’t good anymore. I don’t need the reason for that to belong in a specific category (sexism, racism, any other -ism). It just means I don’t like it any more. Even if the reason is only that I know more about psychology, care more about grammar or have read more stuff with better writing.
So I agree with Cat.
And Brenda Strong’s first TV genre appearance was in the short-lived paranormal ABC series Shadow Chasers, where she played an aerobic exorcist (yup) in an episode entitled “The Many Lives of Jonathon,” and I happen to know this because that ep was MY first TV genre appearance — my first television script sale. She has since forgiven me. Here’s a framegrab.
12) Ok, I have to take some issue with how this one was reported as it leaves out some key information and misconstrues the whole situation.
“Several guests bailed after the con added Vic Mignogna to its lineup.”
True, but the greater context that the ANN article explicitly states and that is missing from this recap is that his guest appearance was CANCELLED on February 2nd amid all the allegations and then reinstated on March 22nd due to the lack of contract language that would have allowed the convention to cancel his appearance. If Kameha Con did not reinstate his appearance, they would have opened themselves up to a lawsuit. Several guests canceled after Kameha Con was forced to reinstate his appearance. So in light of that, it makes it a very strange choice to include that particular tweet from a random commentator on the situation and to say that the tweet, “neatly summed up the situation”. No, it does not. Kameha Con tried to do the right thing, but legally, they found that they could not.
Additionally, the ANN article did not say that the unnamed lawyer they consulted said that the guests “may be in violation of their contracts if they don’t attend.” The unnamed lawyer ACTUALLY said that “it leaves the convention open to a lawsuit in the event that Kameha Con cancels a guest’s scheduled appearance for a reason outside those stipulated in the contract.” It could be inferred of course that the guests canceling their appearances may also be in violation of their contracts, but there is no indication as of yet that Kameha Con has any intention of suing any of them for doing so.
This is information that is all readily available in the linked article from ANN, so I’m surprised to see it spun so differently here.
15) so per IMDB, “Keanu’s father was born in Hawaii, of British, Portuguese, Native Hawaiian, and Chinese ancestry, and Keanu’s mother is originally from England.”
So that makes Keanu Reeves “white”? Not sure how many “white” guys are named Keanu.
Also, calling the Morpheus character (Laurence Fishburne), a “sidekick”, seems a little odd. He calls all the shots for big chunks of the movie.
I think a lot of the gripes this reviewer has trace back to the movie being cyberpunk, a written science fiction subgenre that began a decade — at least! — before the movie was made.
Froonium Ricky Manning quite proudly saysAnd Brenda Strong’s first TV genre appearance was in the short-lived paranormal ABC series Shadow Chasers, where she played an aerobic exorcist (yup) in an episode entitled “The Many Lives of Jonathon,” and I happen to know this because that ep was MY first TV genre appearance — my first television script sale. She has since forgiven me. Here’s a framegrab.
Yep I saw that. Figured someone here would point that out. Didn’t know it’d be someone actually involved in that show!
I’m going to consider Jo Walton’s definition to be gospel:
“In her simplest form, the Suck Fairy is just pure suckitude. You read a book you used to love, and—something’s happened to it! The prose is terrible, the characters are thin, the plot is ridiculous. Worst of all, that wonderful bit you always remembered, the bit where they swim into the captured city under the water gate at dawn, and when they come out of the water in the first light and stand dripping on the quay, it all smells different because the enemy’s campfires are cooking their different food—it turns out to be half a line.”
So, yes, “I didn’t realize this is cardboard” is the work of the Suck Fairy. But the Racism Fairy, Homophobia Fairy, and Sexism Fairy are all subspecies of Suck Fairy, too.
That’s also an untrue statement, using “legally” as a weasel word. The people running Kameha Con were at zero risk of criminal charges. What they faced was a situation to be addressed by contract law and litigation — which always has the potential to be settled well short of the courtroom. What you’re trying to justify is that Kameha Con couldn’t drop Mignogna for zero cost and for zero legal risk. It merely seemed more convenient to them to keep him on the program.
It’s also bogus for you to handwave away the other guests risks by making an unsupported guess at Kameha Con’s intentions. The ANN article was pointing out what the con would have the capability to do. Capability and intention are two different things.
JeeJay: A mentor role is designed to “call the shots” up until the student surpasses the master. Fishburne is Obi Wan Kenobi, not Luke Skywalker, and it’s obvious almost from the first meeting. He’s not the central character, and in a lot of important ways. Trinity is even worse; she’s the exemplar of the woman who is better at everything — right up until they need someone who is properly heroic-looking to take over. She even kisses him back to life, which is more of a superpower than he demonstrates.
No, I’m good with saying the movie is full of badly dated tropes including White Saviour effects — and what it might have been on another timeline, or with a different leading man, is useful if trying to process intent, but useless when it comes to IMPACT.
Yes, Keanu’s ancestry is not pure white. His opinion on the subject of ancestry versus cultural claim is a bit hard to suss out, considering his private nature, but most of his best known – and most influential – films pretty essentially treat his characters as white. Anderson/Neo isn’t presented as anything but default mainstream American male, probably white. Again, impact.
@rcade
Thanks, but I was extremely fond of the UK version and is sequel Ashes to Ashes (neither of which ever got the Hugo nod they deserved) that any other take can only pale against that. And while I wasn’t wild on the ultimate resolution of the UK version (which I understand is different from the resolution of the US version) either, they at least foreshadowed it well, if you know what to look for. Also, I have to admire Tony Jordan, Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh for sneaking a theme past the BBC, which they likely wouldn’t have greenlit, if they’d known beforehand.
JJ on March 27, 2019 at 1:31 am said:
I got the first Jani Kilian on sale, and liked it enough that I got the rest. I’m not sure that “space opera” is what they are – but they’re worth the money.
What is the purpose of trolling these different fan bases by telling them the stuff they like sucks?
That transformational movie I loved in 1999 that was created by 2 transgender individuals, had a black man literally breaking his chains, had an elderly black woman be the all-knowing prophet, had the first sequence of the movie be a woman kicking the crap out of everyone, had all of the villains played by white men, had offered the lead role to a black man, and ultimately cast a man of asian/samoan/euorpean heritage? It is White Saviour, racist crap that sucks.
The movie that started my science fiction fandom, that I rented 15-20 times during my childhood, that I still get a visceral reaction to when I hear the beginning of its musical score, that I made my mom sew a Jawa costume for me for Halloween? Don’t worry, this group has declared it sucks.
I read the Twitter exchanges about the “Suck Fairy” and was assured in Naomi Kritzer’s thread about it from a comment that the entire Golden Age of Science Fiction was just F-ing awful.
It comes off as petty and elitist.
@Jesse H
They’re talking about their own experiences. YMMV, as the phrase goes – don’t expect others to share your opinions on everything.
@Nickp: Walton’s note about that evocative scene you remember that turns out to be a half-line strikes a chord with me.
I’m also reminded of an episode of Frasier in which Frasier runs into the Shakespearean actor whose one man show at Frasier’s school had led to his lifelong love of theater. That man (Derek Jacobi) turns out to be an egregious ham, and by checking an old recording, Frasier realizes that he always had been a horrible actor. But Frasier is able to honor the old ham for being the doorway that led Frasier to theatre, even though Frasier can no longer enjoy his work.
@Jesse H–No one is telling you you can’t still enjoy that movie–whether or not you now see the same flaws in in that others see in it.
Your right to go on enjoying it, and not seeing those flaws if you don’t see them, does not, however, mean that anyone else has to shut up about the flaws they see, the way it changes the way they see the movie they previously loved, or about the fact that they may now think it’s not nearly as good as they once did.
It doesn’t mean they can’t describe that changed perception as the movie being visited by the Suck Fairy.
You describing that as “petty and elitist” just strikes me as as a quite feeble attempt to silence opinions you don’t like.
We all grow, learn, change, have tastes and views that evolve over the years from birth to old age. For some of us, perhaps most of us, perhaps not, that can hit particularly hard in painful ways with creative works that were formative for us. I loved the works of Walter Farley when I was a kid. Really, greatly, deeply loved. They truly mattered to me. At some point I stopped reading them, but cherished the memory. Then I stumbled across them in a library, and picked one up, and started reading…and really, I was horrified.
I stopped reading, put the book down, and promised myself to never look at one again, lest I run the risk of ranting at an innocent child, who might be able to enjoy those books the way I did, that those are awful put them down you can’t read them they’re awful.
But that’s with an impressionable kid. With another adult, I feel perfectly free to say that no, really, those books are awful. Loved them as a kid. They might still be great–for kids. As an adult, no, you don’t want to read them!
And if the adult has read them, and has an opinion different from mine (which, on those particular books, has literally never happened with an adult who has read one as an adult), great! We can talk about it if we both want to do so, or we can move on to something else.
And for me, the Suck Fairy was a downright liberating concept. It freed me from having to worry about the fact that what I now find to be truly awful books or movies or tv shows, were so important and formative for me as a kid. They really did great, wonderful, formative things for me–then. I’m a different person than I was then, and so, in important ways, the book or movie or tv show is a different work–for me, and often for a lot of other people, but not necessarily everyone, because we’re all different people.
We all get to talk about our experiences and opinions, and if you happen to wander into a space where a lot of people hold a very different opinion than you do about something you still find important and moving for you–yeah, that can feel pretty sucky, too.
But people talking about how they view this or that work isn’t an assault on you, or a demeaning of you, and not an excuse for you to, basically, tell them they have to stop saying these things, or they’re being petty and elitist.
And when someone starts talking about people they disagree with being “elitist,” that, sadly, has acquired its own flavoring from its usage over the last decade or so. It really has become a marker of people who think those who disagree with them need to shut up, and therefore a marker of people I’m not going to waste time listening to.
6) When we talk about editing, it is well worth noting that many late novels by upper-echelon writers suffer from bloat and lousy prose because the authors have the ability to reject edits. And Ezra Pound has been credited with single-handedly editing The Waste Land into existence. (Yes, I am a technical editor.)
@PJEvans
I don’t expect people to share all opinions but stating opinions in a trolling fashion is poor taste. Example: Cool to say “I like a lot of the newer science fiction and fantasy that represents more diversity in gender, sexuality, and race.” Trolling to say: “The golden age of science fiction was f-ing awful.”
Cool to say: “I like where a lot of newer science fiction movies have gone since Star Wars.” Trolling to say: “Star wars sucks.”
Cool to say: “I like the diversity we see in newer movies in their leads like Black Panther and Captain Marvel.” Trolling to say: “The Matrix is white saviour racist crap that sucked.”
@Jesse H
I’m so sorry you can’t read what people write about their own opinions and experiences without assuming they’re writing about what everyone else should think.
@Jesse H
So in other words, you want to tone-police, and have people who sincerely object to something express their objections only in ways that you approve of.
Sorry, that’s not how it works.
@Jesse H: With most of your comments, it’s hard to tell if you’re responding to other commenters here, or to the author of the linked article. If it’s the latter, it’d be a good idea to make that clear because it’s one thing to say that the author of some random contrarian article is “trolling”—which might be, though only that author knows for sure—and another to say that about the commenters here.
One thing you definitely did say about the commenters here is that “this group” has declared that Star Wars sucks. What the hell? One person very briefly said it was bad. Another person then disagreed. I don’t know what you think a “group” is but that’s not it. Similarly, it makes no sense to bring up your complaints about what was said on some Twitter thread somewhere and then act as if it represents File770’s opinion (if you think there’s a consensus here that Golden Age SF is no good, you obviously haven’t paid any attention to discussions here).
If you keep up that kind of thing, you are not going to find people here eager to discuss anything with you.
@Jesse H–
No.
That’s not trolling.
That’s expressing a negative opinion that you don’t like.
News flash: People get to say what they don’t like, as well as what they do like. Even if what they don’t like is something you like lots and lots.
Get used to it. You may be young; I don’t know. Don’t care, really. But if you continue to hang out in spaces where not everyone agrees with all your tastes, you’ll encounter a lot of it.
I guess we’re once again having one of those days where something appearing in the Scroll must mean everyone here agrees with it. Which is odd, because Mike frequently includes things he disagrees with, so why File770’s commentariat should be assumed to agree is an eternal mystery.
Especially when the comment section already has people disagreeing with it.
Hive mind, etc, buzz buzz.