(1) REMEMBERING HARTWELL. Rudy Rucker has one of the best personal tributes to the late David G. Hartwell that I’ve read.
In 2005, Dave got me invited to give the keynote talk at ICFA, the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, held in a brutally cold motel Florida. One of the organizers quipped, “We don’t come here for the sun, we come here for the air-conditioning.”
Dave told me that a member of the committee had said, “We can’t invite Rucker, he’s a difficult drunk,” and Dave told him, “Not any more.” By then I’d been sober for nearly ten years. I said to Dave, “I wonder if my drinking years had a bad effect on my career.” Dave said, “I don’t think so. Even now, I still talk to people who are very disappointed when they see you at a con and you aren’t swinging from the chandeliers.”
(2) JEMISIN DISCUSSES ROWLING’S NEW WORLD MAGIC. N.K. Jemisin’s verdict on Rowling’s magical North America is: “It could’ve been great.”
…I’m still careful, even with “dead” faiths, because I don’t know how playing with these things might hurt real people. Nations have been built upon and torn down by the concepts I’m playing with. The least I can do is research the hell out of a thing before I put a toe in that ancient water.
It’s even more crucial for religions that are alive, and whose adherents still suffer for misconceptions and misappropriations. But these are easier to research, and it’s often much easier to figure out when you’re about to put a foot right into a morass of discrimination and objectification. All the evidence is there, sometimes still wet with blood. You just need to read. You just need to ask people. You just need to think….
Anyway. This is just to say that there’s a number of ways Rowling could’ve made her Magical North America work without causing real harm to a lot of real people. That would be for her to have treated American peoples — all of us — with the same respect that she did European. Pretty sure she would never have dreamt of reducing all of Europe’s cultures to “European wizarding tradition”; instead she created Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and so on to capture the unique flavor of each of those cultures. It would’ve taken some work for her to research Navajo stories and pick (or request) some elements from that tradition that weren’t stereotypical or sacred — and then for her to do it again with the Paiutes and again with the Iroquois and so on. But that is work she should’ve done — for the sake of her readers who live those traditions, if not for her own edification as a writer. And how much more delightful could Magic in North America have been if she’d put an ancient, still-thriving Macchu Picchu magic school alongside a brash, newer New York school? How much richer could her history have been if she’d mentioned the ruins of a “lost” school at Cahokia, full of dangerous magical artifacts and the signs of mysterious, hasty abandonment? Or a New Orleanian school founded by Marie Laveau, that practiced real vodoun and was open/known to the locals as a temple — and in the old days as a safe place to plan slave rebellions, a la Congo Square? Or what if she’d mentioned that ancient Death Eater-ish wizards deliberately destroyed the magical school of Hawai’i — but native Hawai’ians are rebuilding it now as Liliuokalani Institute, better than before and open to all? …
(3) BAR’S NEW NAME. SF Site News, in its story “Geek Bar Rebrands”, reports that Geek Bar Chicago has changed its name to SFCO.
The rebranding will also bring in an influx of video consoles, late night programming, and new hours, Sunday and Wednesday from 5pm to 10pm, Thursday and Friday from 5pm to Midnight, and Saturday from 3 pm to 2 am. The bar will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. In addition to their game selection, SFCO will continue to offer a rotating menu of geek-themed signature cocktails and a pop culture reference-filled menu items. The news of the rebranding was followed by former CEO David Zoltan announcing that he had resigned from Geek Bar in January.
(4) JULIETTE WADE’S FANCAST. Juliette Wade’s TalkToYoUniverse is a great place to find regular coverage of “linguistics and anthropology, science fiction and fantasy, point of view, [and] grammar geekiness.” Wade is often joined by a guest writer, as in the latest installment, “Andrea Stewart – a Dive into Worldbuilding”.
Something that makes Wade’s project exceptional is that every episode is accompanied by a post fully detailing what was discussed. Here are the first few paragraphs about her visit with Stewart –
We were joined for this hangout by author Andrea Stewart, who told us a bit about her worldbuilding and her work. Her work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, IGMS, and Galaxy’s Edge.
We started by talking about a piece she had in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Set in a psudo-Chinese culture, it featured an opium den with magical smoke, in a place where the land surrounding the city was dying and this had become the people’s escape. Very cool story! Andrea explained that her mom is a Chinese immigrant, so half her family is Chinese. One of the key differences, she says, is in conversational interaction style.
I asked her about her series, the Changeling Wars. She told me that it had begun as a writing exercise, where every person in a group picks a word, and then each member has to write a piece that uses all the words chosen by the group. She describes this series as being part of a move from dark fantasy to a bit lighter fantasy. The first book begins when a woman walks in on her cheating husband, and her emotion is so powerful in that moment that it awakens magic in her. It turns out she’s a changeling, and not just adopted, as she believed.
Andrea has very warm words for writing exercises, which she says can spark ideas you might not otherwise come up with.
There are 101 Worldbuilding hangouts in the index, 25 featuring special guests, including Aliette de Bodard, N.K. Jemisin, Ken Liu, Myke Cole, Usman T. Malik, Cat Rambo, Sofia Samatar and Isabel Yap.
(5) IN FOR A DIME. Sonia Orin Lyris tells how she “Will Build Worlds for Spare Change” at The Fictorians.
The next week my inbox was filled with indignant treasures, among them this: “No, no, no! This is NOT a D&D game. Coins have names! Coins have histories!”
I instantly knew how right she was. Knew it like the contents of my own pocket.
Pennies. Nickels. Dimes. Not “coppers.” Not “large silvers.”
I dove back into my research and emerged soaked in currency-related facts, from minting to metals, from Greece to China. The facts went on and on, as did the likeness of people and horses and birds and insects, of ships and buildings, of angels and flowers, of myths and monarchs.
So many coins, each symbolizing their culture’s prosperity and priorities. Its very self-image.
I now understood that not only did coins have names and histories, but they were keys to wealth and power, to trade and politics. Coins affected everyone, from rulers to merchants to the poorest of the poor. Coins mattered, and mattered quite a bit.
Coins had names and histories. They had faces. Coins traveled.
That’s when it hit me: Coins are stories.
(6) EVEN MORE WORLDBUILDING ADVICE. Coining words is the focus of “This Kind of World Building :: An Interview with Sofia Samatar” at Weird Sister.
Kati Heng: One thing that always amazes me is when a writer is able to make up not just a story, but also an entire language behind it. Like all creative writing, there must be rules you set for its creation. Can you tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind Olondrian, and especially how the names of characters were created?
Sofia Samatar: Making up the languages was one of my favorite parts of creating the world of Olondria. The biggest influence on the Olondrian language is Arabic, which I had studied before writing A Stranger in Olondria, and was speaking daily while writing the book in South Sudan. I was inspired by Arabic plurals, for example, to devise a complicated system of plural patterns for Olondrian. Olondrian pronouns resemble Arabic pronouns as well. And, like Arabic, Olondrian has no P sound (any word with a P in it has been imported from another language).
The creation of the language was closely tied to the development of names. I don’t have anything close to a complete Olondrian vocabulary, but I do know what the names mean. “Vain” means forest, for example, so there are a bunch of “vains” on my map — Kelevain, Fanlevain, and so on. “Kele” means hunting. “Fanle” means apple.
To invent the names, I chose small chunks of sound that seemed pretty to me and played with combining them. Few activities can be more self-indulgent. It was wonderful
(7) VALLEY FORGE SHARES CoC DRAFT. The Valley Forge in 2017 NASFiC bid’s “Progress Update 2” links to its draft Code of Conduct and other policies. (They also unveiled their mascot, Proxie the Celestial Raccoon.)
Next, we have had a number of queries about what our code of conduct will look like if and when we win the bid. Like I mentioned in the last progress update, we’ve been working on a draft of the CoC for a while now, and it has been a whole heck of a lot of work for the entire team. After many, many hours of sweat and toil by all of us, we’re happy to be able to share version 1.0 of the Valley Forge 2017 Code of Conduct (html version) with you.
Now obviously, calling it “version 1.0” implies that we expect updates, and we do. The convention is a long way (and a successful vote) away and there are some details that we just can’t get in place until we have more structure, like phone numbers and room locations and websites. A lot can change in a year and a half, so what you see here may not be exactly the same thing you see if and when you show up at our door – but substantively, we are happy with what we have and are proud to put our names behind it. If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it.
We’re also elbow-deep in the guts of an internal procedures manual for how to deal with a variety of scenarios, including what to do if we receive a report of a code of conduct violation. That’s not quite ready for prime time yet, and may not be ready until we have a more formal concom structure in place of our current bidcom (in other words, until and unless we win the bid). If we can whip something into releasable shape before then, we will publish that as well.
(8) THE KESSEL RUNS. It is alleged the full title of Kitbashed’s “Complete History of the Millennium Falcon” is “The Complete Conceptual History of The Millennium Falcon or How I Started Worrying and Lost My Mind Completely Over a Fictional Spaceship Someone Please Do Something Send Help Why Are You Still Reading Someone Do Something.”
The Pork Burger
The ILM model shop built the new Pirate Ship model, and quickly found a way to distinguish it from the old one in conversation, namely by adopting Grant McCune’s nickname for it: The Pork Burger.
And if you want my theory, that’s where the myth of the design being based off of a burger Lucas was eating got started.
(9) FURRY CUSTOMS. The Independent learned from Twitter that “Syrian refugees in Canada got housed in same hotel as VancouFur furry convention and the children loved it”.
The fifth annual VancouFur convention, in which people dress up as fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics, was held at the same hotel where a number of Syrian refugees are currently being housed.
A message was given to all attendees at the convention that the hotel had been chosen as one of the temporary housing locations for the Syrian refugees in Canada, and that “a major concern that VancouFur has is ensuring that each and every one of the refugees (and attendees) feels welcome and safe and the fact that this is likely to be a major shock to them”.
“Keep in mind that they likely will not want to interact with you and consent is important to everyone,” the message added.
But luckily for everyone involved, the refugees – especially the children – loved it.
@pathhyena @VancouFUR @expressfur
Done we made there day <3 pic.twitter.com/upwmwQEvQf— ????spring lynx ???? fully vaccinated???? (@Jinxthelynx) March 8, 2016
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRL
- Born March 9, 1911 — Clara Rockmore.
Rockmore was a master of the theremin, the world’s first electronic music instrument and first instrument that could be played without being touched.
On what would have been her 105th birthday, Rockmore has been commemorated with a Google Doodle. The interactive game teaches you to play the theremin by hovering your mouse over the notes to play a melody.
(11) PROPHET IN HIS OWN LAND. Even George R.R. Martin won’t be allowed a hometown premiere of Game of Thrones Season 6.
And yes, it’s true. After last year’s unfortunate leak, HBO is not sending out any press screeners this year, to try and cut down on the piracy.
They have also eliminated all the regional premieres, including (sob) the one we had scheduled at my own Jean Cocteau Cinema. This year the only premiere will be the big one in LA at Grauman’s Chinese.
The Jean Cocteau will, however, go ahead with our season 5 marathon. Admission is free, so watch our website and newsletter for show times.
(12) LESSER OF TWO WEEVILS. Joe Hill brings his skills as a professional horror writer to bear on the Presidential race in his latest “Perspective”.
I asked my three sons and a cousin what would be scarier: 8 years of a Trump presidency, or two kaiju attacks, one on Washington D.C. and one on L.A., separated by 8 years. Assume standard kaiju size (20 stories, 80,000 tons), atomic breath, acid blood, probably the ability to produce subsonic blasts with one whap of the tail. Immune to conventional nuclear weapons. Highly aggressive.
By a vote of 3 – 1, they agreed two kaiju attacks would be much worse for the nation than if Trump were to become President of the United States. So if you feel depressed by Trump’s toxic mix of misogyny, xenophobia, and bullying, look to this for a cheer-up. It could be worse. You could be jellied beneath the trampling scaly feet of a salamander the size of a skyscraper.
Admit it. You feel better all ready.
(13) THIS JUST IN. “New Survey Finds 92% Of Evangelicals Would Have Supported Genghis Khan” reports Babylon Bee.
Genghis Khan, the genocidal warlord who conquered most of Central and Northeast Asia during the first part of the thirteenth century, enjoys widespread support from twenty-first century evangelicals, a new CNN poll revealed Tuesday.
“The level of support for the Supreme Khan of the Mongols is off the charts,” explained Malcom Johnstone, the pollster who conducted the survey for CNN. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Clearly, there is a strong correlation between being pro-God and pro-Genghis.”
Still, many Christians question the accuracy of the new findings.
Like Buddy Buchanan of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “I’ve been in a Bible church my whole life, and I’ve never met anyone who likes this Genghis fellow,” Buchanan revealed to sources. “I just don’t get it. I can’t think of a single person who supports him. I remember there was a cool-looking Khan in one of those Star Trek movies, but I don’t think that’s the same guy.”
(14) SHARKNADO FOUR. “Syfy and The Asylum announce Sharknado 4 casting” – Sci-Fi Storm has the story.
Syfy and The Asylum announced today that Ian Ziering will slay again in Sharknado 4 (working title), reprising his role as shark-fighting hero Fin Shepard, while Tara Reid is set to return as April Wexler to reveal the outcome of the fan-voted #AprilLives or #AprilDies social campaign. The fourth addition to the hit global franchise also sees the return of David Hasselhoff as Gil Shepard and Ryan Newman as Claudia Shepard.
(15) FOREVER FANS. Future War Stories presents the case for picking Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War as the best military sf work.
In 1974, Joe Haldeman, armed with his bachelors in Physics and Astronomy along with his experiences in the Vietnam War, would craft a military science fiction tale of UNEF soldier William Mendella. This book, The Forever War, would go on to win every major award and prize, rocketing Joe Haldeman into the realm of sci-fi literature. Since its original publication, The Forever War would be re-edited, translated into every major language, and be adapted into various forms, including an major studio film has been in the works since 2008 and the effort seems to be active. The book’s legacy is being hailed has the best military science fiction book of all time and it has been a source of inspiration for decades. In this installment of the continuing Masterworks series, we will explore and explain why Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is the best literary military science fiction work. A word of caution: this blog article contains spoilers on key moments of the book. Read at your own risk!
(16) STROSS INTERVIEW. Charles Stross, in an interview at SFF World, thinks magic might be a better metaphor for one of sf’s typical tropes.
And what of newer authors? Are there any personal favourites?
In the past year, I’ve read and been incredibly impressed by Seth Dickinson’s “The Traitor” (US: “The Traitor Baru Cormorant”); grim, harrowing, and deeply interesting for his use of secondary world fantasy as a tool for interrogating kyriarchy. I’ve also been impressed by Alyx Dellamonica’s “Child of a Hidden Sea” (and sequel “A Daughter of No Nation”), V. E. Schwab’s “A Darker Shade of Magic”, and Naomi Novik’s “Uprooted”—secondary world/portal fantasies for the most part. SF … I find myself having a knee-jerk reaction against most of what comes to me as highly-recommended or highly popular SF these days; I think this is partly because—for me, these days—magic works better as a metaphor for depicting alienating technology than actual ham-fisted attempts at describing the thing in itself. (And also because so much of the exotic tech in SF is basically warmed-over magic wands.)
(17) VINESPLAINING. In this GEICO commercial, Tarzan and Jane get into an argument about asking for directions. (I may have linked this before, but I can’t find it…)
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, James H. Burns, Will R., and Michael J. Walsh for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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My alt-New-England is next door to alt-New-Amsterdam. One could argue that proximity to a commercial power using the daalder as its principal currency would have driven the alt-New-Englanders to call their own money by the same name—or one could argue that they would distinguish themselves from those dissolute Dutchmen by remaining loyal to the good old-fashioned English pound.
And, from what I recall, the ‘dal’ there in Dutch is the same as the German ‘thal’, meaning ‘valley’… the leeuwendal being the name of the valley with the mine for the initial source of the metal for the coins.
*hits search engines* And Leeuwen means ‘lions’, apparently. Why a region in the Gelderland part of the Netherlands would be named after lions is a different question.
Peace Is My Middle Name said:
Most sources give it as a derivative of German t(h)aler. Leeuwendaler probably comes from the same root. More here (including the role of the Spanish dollar).
Jenora Feuer said:
Probably for reasons similar to why Lviv (in Ukraine) was once known as Leopolis– there was a time when lions lived in Europe. (Precisely which kind of lion is still being debated; there was a species specific to Europe that seems to have died out at the end of the last ice age, so it’s an open question whether it actually lasted longer than the fossil record discovered so far supports, or whether Europe used to be part of the range of the Asiatic or African lion.)
Darren Garrison said:
Or the CFA franc might include an extra country or two. (And maybe have a different acronym.)
Or maybe everyone says the hell with it and sticks with wampum (or creates a currency where the units imitate it). Wampum wasn’t used as money before the Europeans turned up, but it did become a form of money in the colonies for a while.
@Peace is My Middle Name: I couldn’t get into the Dresden books because the version of Chicago he was using was so unrecognizable as to be really distracting.
Ah well you see, it was set in Chicago, but was actually written in Vancouver…
GSLamb: Chiming in on the where-to-find-Kindle books advice–my public library loans Kindle ebooks. It’s a bit tricky to get them to download directly, mostly (I suspect) because I’m an absolute techno-klutz, but if your library offers that option, it’s a good way to try books/authors out. And yes, I’ve found some of the 2015 Hugo-eligible books available via library Kindle ebook (and requested others, though that sometimes takes a while).
Good thoughts for your recovery from me, as well.
Zenu
We’re talking about JK and the Native Americans now though, and that no, its not just as open season because they need to be rid of the mental pollution of their fantasies. “But they once made me feel persecuted in a different context” is no defense or excuse.
YP –
Who is making a defense or excuse? Plainly stated I think JK point is wacky as concerns Rowling. It would be wacky for Butcher as well. And while I think your argument is well stated, I reject it for myself totally. There is no incumbency what so ever to understand the culture and point of view of the religion she is using for a plot device. None. Zero. Zilch.
The larger point is not to condescend to religion – any of them. By helping to clean up the mental pollution that seem rampant to the human condition, one can indeed help everyone – especially the young that is brainwashed.
The proper response to JK’s point is … “meh”.
GSLamb : Here’s hoping you have a good recovery and read plenty ot great bboeoks.
@Rose Embolism: I’m not going to say that was the best comment I’ve ever seen. But I’m not going to say it wasn’t the best comment I’ve ever seen.
@GSLamb
You can also get digital versions of back issues of Analog and F&SF at most public libraries–without having to leave your hospital bed. http://www.rocketstackrank.com/p/2015-magazines.html
Get well soon!
Money for invented countries/timelines can tie you up in knots. When I got to a point in the Alpennia books when I wanted to make specific reference to the costs of things (e.g., the quarterly salary of a lady’s maid, typical agricultural rents, even just what one might expect to pay a boatman to row you upriver through the city) I spent an entire weekend pulling up websites on early 19th c. European currencies, conversion rates, typical price lists, etc. And then I waved my hands a bit. Fortunately the actual value of units with the same name could vary considerably, so there’s no reason why an “Alpennian mark” would correspond directly to anyone else’s mark. But…gah. Some day, so misguided fan will try to make it all make sense.
@Xenu:
I don’t think that showing some respect to those who believe in a religion is the same as condescending to the religion. I personally see religion “rampant to the human condition” and wonder what purpose it must serve if it’s so prevalent.
@GSLamb – Shoot me an email! UrsulaV in a gmail-ish direction. I’ll hook you up.
VD has his latest slate entry up, for novelettes. I lack the enthusiasm to copy and paste it, but it’s the same old tactic of mixing Castalia and credible candidates with huh wha? I was honestly expecting something more imaginative from him after a year of plotting.
@GSLamb,
Careful there. RedWombat is a dealer in stories, and you know street wisdom says “the first hit is always free”. Before you know it, you’re in danger of getting crushed by Mt. TBR (To Be Read), at least figuratively speaking. I say this as someone who continues to struggle with Fiction Addiction but I can quit any time I want.
[Hope you feel better soon.]
As the recent subject has placed me on the moderation list, I am content to leave the subject here.
Best to all of you.
@Mark
I think part of the strategy is to get embarrassing works nominated, since the list of Hugo nominees stays around forever, even if they end up voted under No Award. That’s doubtless why Space Raptor Butt Invasion, by Chuck Tingle, is on the list.
At the other end of the spectrum, this is the first time I’ve seen an outstanding Castalia nominee; What Price Humanity? by David VanDyke is genuinely Hugo-quality (or so I would argue). It’s definitely military SF, but, surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to make any sort of political statement at all. It didn’t make my personal list of nominees, but only because there are so many very strong novelettes this year.
Stoic Cynic:
Oh, come on! That trick never… bedamn, looks like it worked. I went downstairs and cycled the modems/routers. Couldn’t remember what order they should be done in, so I basically went with “every order” and unplugged and replugged everything once or twice, and now I can summon search engines from the vasty deep, looks like. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be back here whining again. Thanks, man! Your help is much appreciated.
Coins
Back around 1978–9, bqwhenever, I did a flyer for a con that the CSU Anti-Martian Society (later the CSU Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Martians) was throwing, and the theme was “the old con game comes to Fort Collins.” The drawing showed a bunch of fast talkers and smooth operators preying on gullible aliens (“Find the Pea” and “Choice Earth Real Estate: Bridges, National Monuments…”). On one of the booths was a small sign that said “No Galters Accepted!” This, it was decided, meant that the Galter was the official unit of currency on Mars. The More You Know! (I later did some Martian postage stamps I remain fairly proud of. “Grandia Respublica Marsk”)
::tickbox::
Re: COCs and reinventing the wheel. I can sort of understand the “different jurisdictions” thing, but what I think would really benefit everyone is to have some explanation from the various Cons why existing COCs weren’t adequate to their needs, and what changes they had to make to fit their specific needs and why.
A version control system (like Git or Mercurial) would be ideal for this sort of thing. Combined with a new tradition of adapting existing COCs, rather than starting from scratch. With descriptive changelogs as metadata*, so you can see why a particular con made a particular change. That change might be relevant to some other jurisdictions. We need to start capturing some of the wisdom that’s going into crafting these things—and also, to make sure that a new COC doesn’t leave out important details found in older ones.
That said, and remaining still skeptical of the “need” to forge new COCs every time, I’m glad to see VF focusing on staff training, which is definitely the more important element of all this. So this should not be taken as a criticism of VF.
But I’d still like to know the details of how they came up with what they did. What aspects of existing COCs didn’t meet their needs, and how did they fix those problems? This is information that could, potentially, be archived somewhere to help future ConComs.
tl;dr: if ConComs are going to keep issuing new COCs, it would be helpful to everyone to know why and how the existing ones didn’t meet their needs.
* A feature that comes for free with version control systems like Git.
Thanks, meanwhile, to whoever passed along the sale on the Kim Stanley Robinson collection the other day. It hasn’t been hugely SFal so far, but it’s great reading.
@Christian Brunschen: I stayed up much later than I should have, last night and the night before, watching the livestreams of Alphago vs. Lee Sedol. The games were fascinating: Alphago played a number of really strange-looking moves that nonetheless turned out to be quite effective. There was one, in the early part of the second game, which Lee looked at for a bit — and then got up and left the room! (Needless to say, he came back eventually.)
JUST HOOK THE TBR PILE DIRECTLY TO THE VEIN
WE CAN MAINLINE SF FOR YOU WHOLESALE
@Red Wombat: “JUST HOOK THE TBR PILE DIRECTLY TO THE VEIN”
Can I use the same port I use for coffee?
Re: Hugos. Any Penny Dreadful fans here? Fave S2 episode? I’m trying to pick one. Maybe Ep 3 (the Flashback) or Ep 10 (the Finale)?
1) Very nice.
2) I would read the HECK out of those proposed books. So much better than what we got. Even a casual mention of those ideas would have been good.
4) It’s a good podcast/blog — the summaries make it GREAT for people who don’t have the time or ears to listen. This week’s guest was Kelly Robson, discussing “Waters of Versailles”, summary coming soon. Anybody can participate in the live chat. If you have a blank spot on your Hugo ballot…
7) CoC looks pretty good, but those raccoon eyes are freaky.
9) Adorable.
@GSLamb: Oof. My dad had that and the acute phase was terrifying for the whole family. (Dad suddenly collapsed to the floor, unable to move and crying; Mom was out, pre-cell phone, I was slightly too young to have a driver’s license; thankfully Mom got home about 5 minutes later so we could get to the ER). Move as much as you can for the flexibility, do all your therapy, and happy reading. Amazon, B&N, and Google Play Books are the easiest to get books from, but there’s Smashwords, all the free older and classic books at Gutenberg, plus your local library. BookBub lists/emails free and discount books for all platforms. And Wombat. 🙂
@Dawn Incognito: One of Chuck’s finer rants. Which probably influences the next part of my comment, at least the CAPS.
Re: RowlingFAIL —
Yep, the Native American parts are still terrible.
The white people parts aren’t real good either — those stupid Americans are ALL Puritan religious fanatics who repress the nifty keen wizards and LOVE violence, OF COURSE. And the wizards are inbred, OF COURSE. A girl ruins it for everyone, OF COURSE.
And what about the wizard population among slaves? African-American people apparently don’t exist in her brain. (But then she’d probably fall back on “Song of the South” imagery, so never mind.) Neither do Catholics, Jews, moderate Christian sects, non-believers, Deists (like many of the Founding Fathers — the rest of ’em were Anglican), etc. Or Spanish and Dutch colonists, or the massive influx of Germans, or anybody who wasn’t British. Or THE ENTIRE SOUTH (Though, again, she’d probably go with SotS or GWTW style South).
And why her wizard order called itself a Congress of the United States of America nearly a hundred years before we had either of those, instead of something more sensible like “Magical Parliament of the American Colonies” is just dumb.
She does have search engines, right? Even Wikipedia is better-researched than this load of crap is. Sadly, she’s “too big to edit” so no one could point this out to her, and does she not know any actual Americans to talk to?
She’s never gonna answer the criticism on Twitter. At worst, she’s all defensive like “It’s just MY FABULOUS FICTION!”; at best, she’s realized how bad she screwed up and is too embarrassed to speak.
On Butcher/Chicago: See, this is why, given my druthers, I’d write original-world fantasy. Because I fail geography and keep referring to going “up” to New York when I live in MA. (And what I know of MA geography is basically what T line things are on.) I just need to write a disclaimer before everything: “This world represents the real world only in the vaguest possible manner. Also, if the author didn’t have a GPS, she’d try to drive to Providence and end up in Finland.”
@Isabel Cooper
Having grown up in MA we go down to states above us and up to states below or next to us and I wonder why I get lost driving. Put me in the woods as a kid with a compass I was fine. But my local geography for driving is so badly confused that when I stop in CT (halfway point/bathroom & Starbucks break) I still have to call my husband to confirm North or South when leaving to head for mom in MA or home in NJ after 10+ years.
@GSLamb Hope you feel better soon!
As a Massachusetts native, I think very ill of people whose idea of giving directions is “turn north on…”
Since 1980 I’ve lived in Georgia, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts and New York. Two things I miss most about Colorado:
1) Parallel roads spaced a mile apart out in the country. If they’re parallel here, they’re still parallel five miles from here.
2) Mountains, clearly visible, always and permanently defining West in an unmistakeable way.
@Tasha: Seriously. The highways around here do not help–I’ve gone north to go south, and east to go west, more than a few times.
@Lis: Yes! Because what am I, a Boy Scout? “When you come out of the station and are facing the Dunkin’ Donuts, turn right.” Those are directions.
@Kip W: I recall watching some documentary about a horrible thing happening in the Midwest and just thinking, wow, their streets are *so wide and straight*.
Phoenix, Arizona cannot lay claim to being an attractive city, but by god, it is a GRID. The only city I’ve ever lived in where I never got lost. You get confused, just drive long enough and you’ll hit Baseline or wind up in Guadalupe and you can figure it out from there.
Phoenix, Arizona cannot lay claim to being an attractive city, but by god, it is a GRID.
You may thank Mr. Jefferson for that.
I was so happy when I got my first GPS, because I could finally visit Minneapolis/St. Paul and not have to worry about a lake leaping out in front of me and sloshing evilly to itself as it confounded my navigation. And when it’s not a lake, it’s an impassible highway.
I once spent two hours starting at about 1 in the morning trying to get to a hotel whose sign I could (intermittently) SEE. But the directions I had were a postcard from the convention (no Mapquest or Google Maps yet), and the road was torn up, and you couldn’t GET there from here. (I drove up the entrance ramp to be confronted by barricades and a vertical drop. Why they didn’t have the barricades at the BOTTOM of the ramp, I’ve no idea. As I was backing down the ramp someone else was trying to go up….) And then I tried asking directions at a Dennys, and it was closed for the night! (For you non-USans, Dennys is a national diner chain that is famous for being always open. Except, apparently, in the Twin Cities.)
I grew up near Chicago, where we have a grid, with NUMBERS conveniently on the street signs, and very few diagonal streets. Also, as I remember a guidebook I saw in a grocery store being titled, “The Lake Is East”. (And you can usually see the Sears Tower, which, like mountains, is excellent for giving you your rough position.)
Thank you, Northwest Ordinance of 1787, for giving us a grid. One of the few things the Congress of the Confederation of the United States (the government under the Articles of Confederation) did right.
Isabel Cooper
Here’s how wide the streets got in my home town. Behold: College Avenue in 1960, with 17 cars side by side between the curbs. (I understand Fort Collins used to be known as “the town of wide streets and narrow minds.” Now it’s “the place so bleeding expensive, I will never in my life ever be able to move back.”)
One of the fun things about Chicago streets that I don’t think any fiction writer has ever noticed is a large chunk of them–the ones running north-south, west of Pulaski–are roughly alphabetical, from K through P. So you’ll get Keystone, Karlov, Keeler, Kedvale, Tripp (don’t ask), Kildare, Kolin, Kostner, and so on; or further west we have Neva, Nottingham, Nordica, Sayre (told you not to ask), Newland . . .
Not particularly important, just fun.
RedWombat said:
Oh, yeah? Does it have a prefix on every street name so you know what quadrant of the grid you’re in? Does it number the north-south streets and arrange street addresses so you can count how many blocks you are from the origin point? Huh? Huh??? Portland, OR has all that, so there!
(Except for this one bit downtown where the original landowner was a sea captain and laid out his part of grid according to magnetic north instead of geographical north and apparently everyone just felt too awkward about it to talk to him until it was too late.)
@ Kip W
The rule I follow when bouncing routers, etc. is start at the wall and move toward my actual computer and other end points.
So:
bounce the DSL/cable modem (or equivalent to get a solid link between you and the service provider
then bounce the router to bring the solid connection closer to your pc(s)
repeat as needed to move closer and closer to your pc if you have a bunch of network segments with routers or other equipment
then finally bounce the pc or its networking stack (and check other endpoints, too, in case they need a forced reconnect: my BlueRay player, satellite/cable box and Wii all use network connections, and my printer is network connected instead of hooked to a PC)
It was a fine grid! It was a perfectly serviceable grid! It was the best grid it knew how to be!
I WILL NOT BE GRIDSHAMED PETREA
@Mark: one of the nice things about relocating (temporarily) to Vietnam is that I can’t check Teddy’s blog even if I wanted to. WordPress and Blogspot subdomains are all blocked here, for some reason.
The highways around here do not help–I’ve gone north to go south, and east to go west, more than a few times.
There’s a section of freeway in Berkeley (CA) that’s both 80-East and 580-West. At the same time. (The other direction is, of course, 80-West and 580-East.) And 101, which is a north-south highway, includes about 120 miles that’s actually running east and west, from North Hollywood to Gaviota.
@GSLamb
Best wishes for a quick and complete recovery.
I don’t have a Kindle, so I have no further advice than what’s already been given. (But my son has the same fanaticism about dead trees which completely baffles me! 🙂
Stoic Cynic, thanks for the logical and easily remembered rule of thumb. Seriously, I might remember it: wall to PC. Who’da thunk?
@GSLamb
Adding my voice to those wishing you a speedy and complete recovery.
I became addicted to kindle/ebook reading while in the hospital and rehab after hit by truck due to no use of one arm and pain everywhere. Even paperbacks were uncomfortable to hold for an hour at a time. But reading on the iPhone and later an iPad I could do.
Look at humble bundles and story bundles which can be side loaded to your device. Shmaswords is ugly fugly to work with but doesn’t use DRM and does fairly easy side loading. I believe on Amazon both Tor and Baen sell without DRM as do many indies. It’s usually mentioned in the description. I think Deam Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rush’s WMG (?) publishing company sells without DRM. They are hybrid authors so it’s hit or miss with particular books.
@Kip W: Pity me, growing up in Colorado and then moving to the Bay Area, where the hills are to the EAST. I went the wrong way for quite a while.
@PJ Evans: We’ve taken pictures of that Berkeley sign just to show it to people, and alerted tourist passengers to read it when we’re merging onto it. Even better, at that point, you’re going geographically north or south! (Am I misremembering, or did that sign end up in a Pixar movie? It’s right by their studio.)
The freeways in LA are even worse, what with giving them all NAMES, where part of it’s 101 and part of it’s 134 or 170 or something, I haven’t driven in there for a while.
P J Evans on March 10, 2016 at 8:40 pm said:
And, of course, runs more-or-less north/south. 🙂
Not too many miles south of that, in the heart of Silicon Valley, you can drive along Highway 101 North, directly into the setting sun…
Or, if you go the other way on 101, “south” into San Jose, you’ll come to where it crosses a freeway, at 90 degrees, which is called “680 North” in one direction, and “280 North” in the other. Apparently, North is 90 degrees from South, either direction! 🙂