Pixel Scroll 4/10/18 The Third Little Pixel Had Scrolled Beef

(1) TOLKIEN’S GONDOLIN. Tor.com carries the official word: “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Gondolin to Be Published as a Standalone for the First Time”. It will be published August 30.

HarperCollins UK announced today that it would publish The Fall of Gondolin, J.R.R. Tolkien’s tale documenting the rise of a great but hidden Elven kingdom and its terrible fall, for the first time as a standalone edition. Edited by Christopher Tolkien using the same “history in sequence” mode that he did for 2017’s standalone edition of Beren and Lúthien, and illustrated by Alan Lee, this edition will collect multiple versions of the story together for the first time.

Tolkien has called this story, which he first began writing in 1917, “the first real story of this imaginary world”; i.e., it was one of the first tales to be put to paper. The only complete version of The Fall of Gondolin was published posthumously in The Book of Lost Tales; however, different compressed versions appeared in both The Silmarillion and the collection Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth.

(2) POTTER ANNIVERSARY COVERS. Gwynne Watkins, in the Yahoo! Entertainment story “Accio ‘Harry Potter’ covers: See the dazzling new 20th anniversary artwork”, says the Harry Potter books are coming out with new covers by Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (which was the basis for the movie Hugo). See all the covers at the link.

Do your well-worn Harry Potter books need a new look for spring? In honor of the 20th anniversary of  the U.S. publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Scholastic is releasing new paperback editions of J.K. Rowling‘s entire series, featuring gorgeous cover art by Brian Selznick. When the seven books are placed side by side, the intricate black-and-white illustrations form a single piece of art chronicling Harry’s adventures. Scroll down to see the covers, which are full of tiny details for readers to discover. (Can you spot the Hogwarts Express? How about Harry’s Patronus?)

(3) ABOUT THE SIMPSONS’ APU. The Simpsons creators can’t figure out how something people laughed at in the past became “politically incorrect.” (And isn’t that term always a signal flare preceding a complete lack of empathy…) Entertainment Weekly’s Dana Schwartz discusses “Why The Simpsons’ response to the Apu controversy was so heartbreaking: Essay”.

…In 2017, comedian Hari Kondabolu wrote and starred in a documentary called The Problem with Apu in which he examined the cultural significance of The Simpsons character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Kwik-E-Mart owner, who speaks with a heavy, stereotypical Indian accent and is voiced by Hank Azaria, a white man.

Last night, The Simpsons offered its tepid reply.

The scene began with Marge reading a bedtime story to Lisa that had been neutered with social justice buzzwords. “What am I supposed to do?” Marge asks when Lisa complains.

“It’s hard to say,” says Lisa, breaking the fourth wall and looking directly at the camera. A photo of Apu on the nightstand helped make it very clear they were no longer talking about the fictional bedtime story. “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”

“Some things will be dealt with at a later date,” says Marge, also to the camera.

“—If it all,” Lisa concludes.

There’s something about the response that came across as not only tasteless but viscerally unsatisfying. In his documentary, Kondabolu initiated the complex conversation about what it meant to have a white actor voicing an Indian character (with a heavy, caricatured accent) during a time when there was little or no Indian representation in the media.

The Simpsons on-air response reveals that the minds behind the long-running animated series either entirely failed to grasp Kondabolu’s point or (perhaps, unfortunately, more likely) they were completely indifferent to it.

(4) VAST GALLERY OF SFF ART. Enjoy TheVaultofRetroSciFi — Lots and lots of SF images, from all sorts of media.

(5) PARANORMAL ROMANCE. Mad Genius Club’s Amanda S. Green explains why it’s hard to “Know Your Genre – Paranormal Romance”. She disagrees with the definitions posted on some of the leading sites.

…So why the confusion about what a PNR is when checking the RITA nominees?

Simply put, that confusion rests solely with RWA. A quick check of their website shows this definition for paranormal romance: “Romance novels in which fantasy worlds or paranormal or science fiction elements are an integral part of the plot.” See, there it is. Science fiction elements.

This definition might have worked several years ago, before there was an increase in the number of science fiction romance titles. Now, it only confuses the issue and muddies the waters when it comes to readers and booksellers. “Paranormal” doesn’t send most readers into the realm of sf, no way and no how. Yet, for RWA’s purposes, science fiction romance mixes and melds with PNR.

Is this the only definition? Far from it. One site defines PNR this way, “For a novel to be a Paranormal Romance, a simple thing must occur: love must begin between a human and a supernatural being (whether wholly supernatural or partially, just as long as there are supernatural elements present)”

Another site has this to say: “Most people hear the words ‘Paranormal Romance’ and visions of sparkly vamps and bare-chested wares seeking virginal human mates spring like crack-addicted leprechauns from the recesses of their minds. While these have certainly been the topic of many a novel **cough** Twilight **cough**, there are so many more topics joining the ranks of Paranormal Romance today.  Among them: Shapeshifters—half-human, half-animal beings with the ability to transmute between forms on cue, Angels, Demons, Nephilim, Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Ancient Greek mythology, and even the occasional Ghost or Alien thrown in for good measure. And I would be amiss in not mentioning the perennial time-traveling, kilt-wearing highlander with the rippling biceps and the heart of gold. His broadsword isn’t the only steely thing about him, if you know what I mean.” Where I have a dispute with the site and its definitions is when it say UF is a sub-genre of PNR. Nope, totally different.

(6) THE WASTELAND. The trailer for Future World has dropped:

In a post-apocalyptic world, where water and gasoline have long since dried-up, a prince from the oasis (one of the last known safe-havens) must venture out to find medicine for the ailing queen (Lucy Liu), but along the way he gets mixed up with the warlord (James Franco) and his robot Ash (Suki Waterhouse), which leads to a daring journey through the desolate wastelands.

 

(7) FOUNDATIONAL TELEVISION. From Deadline: “Apple Lands Isaac Asimov ‘Foundation’ TV Series From David Goyer & Josh Friedman”.

In a competitive situation, Apple has nabbed a TV series adaptation of Foundation, the seminal Isaac Asimov science fiction novel trilogy. The project, from Skydance Television, has been put in development for straight-to-series consideration. Deadline revealed last June that Skydance had made a deal with the Asimov estate and that David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman were cracking the code on a sprawling series based on the books that informed Star Wars and many other sci-fi films and TV series. Goyer and Friedman will be executive producers and showrunners. Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross also will executive produce….

The project shows a different level of ambition for Apple’s worldwide video programming team led by Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg. In November, they set their first scripted series, a morning show drama executive produced by and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, with a two-season, straight-to-series order. Apple also has given straight-to-series orders to Amazing Stories, a re-imagining of the anthology from Steven Spielberg, a Ronald D. Moore space drama, a Damien Chazelle series, a comedy starring Kristin Wiig, world-building drama See from Steven Knight and Francis Lawrence, as well as an M. Night Shyamalan psychological thriller.

(8) TWO BUTLER FANS SEEK FUNDS TO ATTEND WORLDCON. Alex Jennings asks “Help Me and Amanda Emily Smith Get to Worldcon 76” via a YouCaring fundraiser. To date people have chipped in $285 of their $2,500 goal.

Last year, Amanda and I both submitted letters to be published in Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler. Octavia was a huge influence on both of us, and Amanda and I had met her separately before her death.

Both our letters were accepted for publication, and we were so pleased to be a part of such a wonderful project. This event was even more of a milestone for Amanda as this was her first professional sale in the science fiction field.

On April 2, the official announcement came down that Letters to Octavia has been chosen as a finalist for the Hugo Award in the category of Related Work! We literally jumped for joy. Honoring one of our greatest influences had lifted us up, as well!

The Hugo Awards are basically the Oscars of Science Fiction. Both Amanda and I have dreamed of attending Worldcon and the Hugo Awards all our lives, but we’ve never been able to before. Now that a book we are both in is a finalist, we feel we must get to Worldcon 76 in San Jose by any means necessary.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • April 10, 1953 — Feature length, full color, 3-D movie premiered: House of Wax starring Vincent Price.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born April 10, 1953 – David Langford

(11) CANDLE TIME. Steven H Silver lights up Langford’s birthday cake at Black Gate with “Birthday Reviews: David Langford’s ‘Waiting for the Iron Age’”.

Langford may be best known as the holder of twenty-one Hugo Awards for Best Fan Writer, including an unprecedented nineteen year winning streak. During that time he also won six Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine for Ansible and a Best Short Story Hugo for “Different Kinds of Darkness.” In 2012, he won his 29th and most recent Hugo for Best Related Work for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition, edited with John Clute, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight. Langford has tied with Charles N. Brown for the most Hugo Awards won.

(12) SOCIETY PAGES. Liz Bourke, Sleeping With Monsters columnist and 2018 Hugo nominee, announced the good news earlier this month:

(13) READY FOR HIS CLOSEUP. Neil Gaiman will appear on The Big Bang Theory this month. He’s guested on various TV series over the years, sometimes as an animated character, but this will be live action.

It’s kind of pathetic there are people tweeting responses that they never heard of him. Who cares?

(14) THIS DOCTOR IS NOW IN. ScienceFiction.com reveals that “Peter Cushing’s ‘Doctor Who’ Is Now Canon (Sort Of)”.

One of the biggest tasks an anniversary special has is to balance fan service with a story that can stand on its own merits. Among the many ways ‘The Day of the Doctor’ accomplished this rare feat was to feature appearances by multiple incarnations of the Doctor. Though only three were really sharing the spotlight, every version of the beloved Time Lord made at least a brief appearance, mostly through the use of archival footage. On top of this, Steven Moffat even took the opportunity to introduce a new incarnation in the form of the War Doctor, unforgettably brought to life by John Hurt.

And now he’s done it again.

In the newly released novelization of the fiftieth anniversary special, Steven Moffat has slyly worked Peter Cushing’s version of the Doctor into the series’ continuity

(15) OUTWARD BOUND. A new find pushes the date back: “Finger bone points to early human exodus”.

New research suggests that modern humans were living in Saudi Arabia about 85,000 years ago.

A recently discovered finger bone believed to be Homo sapiens was dated using radio isotope techniques.

This adds to mounting evidence from Israel, China and Australia, of a widespread dispersal beyond Africa as early as 180,000 years ago.

Previously, it was theorised that Homo sapiens did not live continuously outside Africa until 60,000 years ago.

(16) MODEST TRIBUTE. The BBC says “Belgrade’s ‘tiny head’ Gagarin statue causes dismay”.

The bust of Yuri Gagarin was ordered by the city council last year, and was put up on a street that bears his name, the Blic news website reports.

But its appearance – a tiny bust on top of a tall plinth – has been met by a hugely negative reaction, the paper says.

“The only way you can see it clearly is to launch yourself into the sky,” the Noizz website says. “While this is somewhat symbolic,” adds writer Ivana Stojanov, “there’s certainly no common sense on show”.

(17) IT’S NOT DEAD, JIM. Nerd & Tie’s Trae Dorn tries to figure out what happened: “Cherry City Comic Con Confusingly Cancelled and then Uncancelled?”.

…Of course, as a Facebook video, it’s highly unlikely that anyone will really end up watching this. Which really does beg the question: if you uncancel a show no one knows was cancelled, did anything really happen at all? Because right now, most people have no idea.

Update 4/10, 12:00pm: In a strange series of events, Cherry City Comic Con has now been uncancelled. The announcement was made, again, with a Facebook video…

Of course, as a Facebook video, it’s highly unlikely that anyone will really end up watching this. Which really does beg the question: if you uncancel a show no one knows was cancelled, did anything really happen at all?

(18) QUICK FLASH. Charles Payseur turns his eye to “Quick Sips – Flash Fiction Online April 2018”.

Continuing the newer tradition of coming out with fairly thematically linked issues, Flash Fiction Online presents an April full of fools. Or maybe fooling. Also aliens. Yup, all three stories feature alien beings, and in most of them there’s also a vein of something…well, of someone pulling one over on someone else. Maybe it’s an actress tricking an alien monster to spare Earth, or a group of alien agents trying to set up first contact on the sly, or even the own paranoid post-drunken-weekend-in-Vegas thoughts of a man who might have just married an extraterrestrial. In any case, the stories are largely bright and fun, even when they brush against planet eating and possible invasion. So without further delay, to the reviews!

(19) ALL KNOWN BRITISH SFF. At THEN, Rob Hansen’s British fanhistory site, you can find scans of a 1937 British SF Bibliography. Once upon a time, the literary universe was a smaller place.

Edited by Douglas W. F. Mayer for the Science Fiction Association and dated August 1937, this was one of the earliest bibliographies to be produced by fandom and contains many titles that would be unfamiliar to a modern reader. A mimeographed publication, it was printed in purple-blue ink, had a soft card wraparound cover, and was stitch-bound. The particular copy scanned for this site includes its unknown previous owner’s checkmarks against many entries.

This is a list of books, only. However, it’s still an interesting coincidence that Mayer himself edited Amateur Science Stories #2, where Arthur C. Clarke’s first published story appeared in December 1937.

(20) JAWS. Or at least part of a jaw: “Ancient sea reptile was one of the largest animals ever”.

Sea reptiles the size of whales swam off the English coast while dinosaurs walked the land, according to a new fossil discovery.

The jaw bone, found on a Somerset beach, is giving clues to the ”last of the giants” that roamed the oceans 205 million years ago.

The one-metre-long bone came from the mouth of a huge predatory ichthyosaur.

The creature would have been one of the largest ever known, behind only blue whales and dinosaurs, say scientists.

(21) SUMMER MUNCH. The Meg is slated for release on August 10, 2018.

In the film, a deep-sea submersible—part of an international undersea observation program—has been attacked by a massive creature, previously thought to be extinct, and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific…with its crew trapped inside. With time running out, expert deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is recruited by a visionary Chinese oceanographer (Winston Chao), against the wishes of his daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing), to save the crew—and the ocean itself—from this unstoppable threat: a pre-historic 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon. What no one could have imagined is that, years before, Taylor had encountered this same terrifying creature. Now, teamed with Suyin, he must confront his fears and risk his own life to save everyone trapped below…bringing him face to face once more with the greatest and largest predator of all time.

 

(22) AND DON’T FORGET THESE SHARKES. The Shadow Clarke jury’s Nick Hubble picked six books on the submissions list to review, and tells why in this post.

My criteria for the selection of these six titles this year – none of which I have read – was not what I think might be in contention or even necessarily what I think I will personally rate. Instead, I have chosen a range of books that I hope will enable some sort of literary critical discussion of the field as a whole in 2018 (although clearly this remains an entirely subjective choice on my behalf). Therefore, I have tried to mix first-time authors with established novelists, sequels with standalone works, and genre and mainstream literary texts; but I have married this with a practical policy of also choosing books that took my fancy for whatever reason.

I was also trying to pick a set of choices similar to the that offered by this year’s shortlist for the BSFA Award for best novel: Nina Allan’s The Rift, Anne Charnock’s Dreams Before the Start of Time,? Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, and Ann Leckie’s Provenance?. I thought this was a good list because there were different types of novels, all of which I enjoyed (and because I have read them, I have excluded them from my Clarke selection below even though all have been submitted). Despite large differences in approach, these novels share a focus on family relationships that perhaps tells us something about the preoccupations of our age. It would be trite to argue that they simply demonstrate a retreat from political and ideological uncertainty to take refuge in the personal sphere but perhaps they suggest different ways in which politics and relationships are both being reconfigured in an age of digital communication. It will be interesting to see what patterns emerge from the wider Clarke submissions list.

(23) ABOUT KRESS. Joe Sherry is not fully satisfied with the book, but it’s close: “Microreview [book]: Tomorrow’s Kin, by Nancy Kress”, at Nerds of a Feather.

Once we move past the conclusion of Yesterday’s Kin, the focus remains on Dr. Marianne Jenner as well as pushing in tighter on that of her grandchildren. This is character driven science fiction. Kress explores the impact of Earth’s interaction with a spore cloud that was initially described as a world killer, but she does so through the lens of characters who have become as familiar as family. To a reader not steeped in the nuance and minutiae of science, the unpinning science of Tomorrow’s Kin comes across as fully rigorous as anything in a more traditional “hard” science fiction novel. Kress does not engage in interminable info dumping. I read Tomorrow’s Kin not long after finishing the latest Charles Stross novel, Dark State (my review). There is no real point of comparison between the two novels, except that I generally love the ideas that Stross plays with and wish he did a better job at actually telling the story. That generally isn’t the case with Nancy Kress. She is a far more accomplished writer and is far smoother with her storytelling. Kress’s ideas are just as big and just as bold, but they are strongly integrated into the story.

(24) CATS STAR ON SFF. Moshe Feder has discovered the true identify of Number One!

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Mark Hepworth, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, Hampus Eckerman, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ingvar.]

198 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/10/18 The Third Little Pixel Had Scrolled Beef

  1. @1, I guess this means “The Lord of the Rings” is the odds-on favorite for the Best Series Hugo next year….

  2. How many people being offended(or in this case theoretically offended it seems) by a book does it take to make pulling it a good thing? And does the number chance if you agree with them or not?

  3. I think this is the last book Christopher Tolkien will do – he’s 95 and
    resigned as director of the Tolkien estate and trust in 2017.

    I gave up on his books some time ago – I did hear from someone who bought it that the last one was another example of a bit of JRR scraped over too much book.

  4. Cassy B.: I guess this means “The Lord of the Rings” is the odds-on favorite for the Best Series Hugo next year

    Beren and Lúthien didn’t make it the favorite this year. I suspect that there are a lot of people like me who aren’t massive fans of Tolkien, who will nominate other things.

     
    Niall McAuley: I gave up on his books some time ago – I did hear from someone who bought it that the last one was another example of a bit of JRR scraped over too much book.

    I would be interested in hearing from people who are really knowledgeable whether they feel that Christopher’s contributions have actually made a meaningful addition to the universe, or are merely retreads done in an attempt to milk further money from the franchise, capture some of his father’s glory for himself, or both.

  5. (21) Well… at least the marketing department at Warner Brothers has unapologetically embraced the cheesiness of The Meg’s source material and core concept.

    I love monsters, especially giant monsters, so I will see this movie… I also look forward to The Meg’s inevitable guest appearance in a Skiffy and Fanty Torture Cinema episode.

  6. @JJ: It is Poor Relations.
    @David H.: Thanks for the info. I had seen only the one Goodreads comment, not Jo’s response.

  7. I think I stopped reading Anita Blake around Book 5. I have no objection to graphic sex, but I want plot to be foremost. LKH has given up everything that made her writing interesting and now writes sex scenes barely strung together by plot. Isn’t this the definition of hack? Someone with talent who throws it away to make a quick buck?

    Apparently there’s a large subsection of the reading public who want to read porn but don’t want to admit it, so her books are still selling well. It is very disappointing to readers who actually like to read. No doubt LKH is crying all the way to the bank.

  8. I heard a lot of people who disliked the sound of Walton’s plot and said they were going to avoid the book.

    Now I’m wondering if it’s this feedback, or feedback from people who actually looked at the MS, which tanked it.

    Because I’m all for an author backing out when sensitivity readers say, “uh, no” after seeing the manuscript. I’m even thinking it’s *possible* to do so based on an excerpt, depending on the excerpt, and maybe, at a stretch, on an authorial interview which demonstrates the blind spot. (There was some commentary from Walton at the time which added to the “uh oh” feeling.)

    I’m MUCH less confident when it’s based on feedback from people who read a marketing plug, which may not represent how it’s handled in story.

  9. (3) First heard about “The Problem With Apu” and the Simpsons creators’ disappointing response via the thread on Metafilter. Some especially poignant comments there from people who have felt the impact of the issue for years. Lots of people have always found his portrayal racist–but it’s only in recent years that anyone seems to be listening to them. It’s kind of a predictable dynamic when a marginalized demographic finally finds ways to make itself heard in a predominantly racist society.

    “He was always funny! Why is he suddenly offensive now?” turns out to be a pretty racist thing to say. It translates to “I never had to care what non-white people thought before–why should I care now?”

    (12) Eeeee! Congratulations to the happy couple!

  10. 1) For a long time back in the 60s and 70s I tried to get permission to reprint Tolkien’s “The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun” but was always refused. Even Ballantine Books was refused permission. Finally — finally!!! — in 2016, it as published by HarperCollins in a £16.99 hardcover.

    See details here:

    http://tinyurl.com/y9hnme59

    However, it was released on the Internet more than two decades ago, so screw the Tolkien estate over their foot-dragging. You can read it here, for free:

    http://tinyurl.com/742vp3

  11. Just to note that I do like parts of The Silmarillion once it gets going, and Christopher Tolkien’s work would be worth it just for that volume. I’m sure I read some Lost Tales but I don’t recall them well, and I started reading the history of the writing of the Lord of the Rings, but lost interest.

  12. 5) I had occasion to consider my definition of the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance a few years ago, and I came up with this: Urban fantasy may contain romance elements, but they are not the focus of the story. Paranormal romance resembles urban fantasy, but the romance is front and center. The Toby Daye books are IMO a good example of urban fantasy with romance elements. There was another book I was reading at the time (forgotten the title) which was very definitely paranormal romance; the romance was centered at what felt to me like the expense of the actual story. This was a case of book/reader mismatch; it wasn’t the author’s fault, and the cover did say “paranormal romance”, but I found myself mourning the book it could have been with a different focus.

    6) Definitely not my thing, but people who like the Mad Max movies (and don’t exclude Fury Road from the canon) should enjoy it.

    8) Have donated. That’s definitely a worthy cause.

  13. Re scroll title: Where is the beef?

    Re Apu: I know watched the whole clip and its worse than the paraphrased version. They start with a „PCed“ version of an old cowboy book, thats not interested anymore, because it wants to be completely inoffensive. That’s basically the usual right-wing „Lighten up!“ defense, but its also missing the point. The problem with Apu is not that it was offensive 20 years ago (which is bad enough), but that he still is a racial stereotype and they havent changed that in 20 years! So he gets compared with characters from todays shows and thats not pretty.
    (I have watched the first ten seasons or so. There is not much change, but Neds wife did die. So they could change or drop him off if they wanted to. But the writers get lazy I suppose)

  14. Just finished City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett at lunch for the Best Series reading. For me, it started slow but kept my interest, and was very well done! Not what I expected and I enjoyed it! Not sure where the series will place–after reading the first book, I want to read the other two now!

    Next up: The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells.

  15. Here’s a theory: Maybe Jo Walton withdrew the book because she doesn’t want to offend people. Not for some crucial number of sales or because something’s in the news, but because she doesn’t want to be hurtful. Could be she will make changes—I don’t know, so I’ll stop speculating there.

  16. @Arkansawyer: I don’t generally watch videos on current sites either, but there is occasionally something worthwhile on the BBC — not to mention historic gems. (Did you know the original production of Pacific Overtures is available? I hadn’t realized shows were being filmed that far back.)

    @bookworm1398 / @Oneiros: I’ve seen the similar {,b}ad behavior on other sites, e.g. npr.org and bbc.co.uk/news; however, those make it easy to distinguish between ads and story videos. I guess Facebook is less accommodating; why am I not surprised?

    @Cassy B (extending @JJ’s observation): how many of the current nominators do you think have actually read Tolkien — and would support it if they had? I remember being blown away when I read them around the first big US wave (all those “Frodo Lives!” buttons) — but that was over 50 years ago and I was in junior high. when I reread to see what the movies were leaving out I found them very dry (when not outright pompous), and had to skim to finish. There’s also the fact that when “Best All-Time Series” was on the ballot in 1966, Tolkien lost to Asimov despite being relatively fresh (in the US, where most of the voters were then) — and, according to some sources, the concom having put up the category specifically hoping to be able to recognize Tolkien.

  17. Who controls the scroll controls the tickbox. Who controls the pixel controls the scroll – George Scrollwell, 1985??

  18. Re: Jo Walton
    When I followed the link to Ana Mardoll’s blog I realized that I had read it before after following some link.
    Reading the comments based on a brief description of the book, not the actual book, you could tell there would be a major push-back against it on-line at least.

  19. Meredith Moment:

    Get In Trouble by Kelly Link is on sale (US for certain) at the Usual Suspects for $1.99.

    Here in 6724, we’re still waiting for flying cars (but tap-dancing skateboards are all the rage).

  20. I wouldn’t call myself particularly knowledgeable about Tolkien, but he’s one of the few writers I would name if someone asked me about “favourites”. I loved The Lord of the Rings when I was young, must’ve read it 10 or 12 times as an adolescent. Years later The Silmarillion gave me great pleasure. I didn’t pay much attention to the various other books that were published, but I reread LotR when the movies came out, and was of the opinion that it held up just fine. Also loved The Children of Hurin. I’ll get around to Beren and Luthien one of these days, it’s on my shelf. I also continue to read nonfiction about his life and work.

    However these wonderful works don’t really seem relevant to the 21st century Hugo Awards, imho.

  21. Wow. Turns out that the only Anita Blake books that I’ve read were Obsidian Butterfly and Narcissus in Chains. [Thanks Goodreads!!] Bad timing??

    Were you on Usenet? That’s about the time she’d hit peak Usenet discussion saturation (nowhere near WoT, but still big). I remember many people saying “if you like Buffy, check her out!”

    Narcissus had *just* come out, but I got Obsidian Butterfly in paperback instead, not wanting to risk hardcover $$$ on an unknown. Good choice – by the time I’d finished and thought “OK, not bad”, all her Usenet fans had finished the new book and were very unhappy indeed.

  22. I was a pleasantly surprised – and a bit impressed – when I discovered that my nephew was reading The Silmarillion a couple of years ago, at approximately age 15. I’m about 99% sure his older brother have read it too. That’s a small sample, but I’m skeptical to an assertion that kids today is not familiar with Tolkien.

    But of course whether they really like his works is another issue.

    ***
    On another note, I suspect some here might find this funny:
    https://electricliterature.com/if-youre-not-sure-how-a-male-author-would-describe-you-use-our-handy-chart-6a44afe0e586
    – a helpful chart to generate lurid descriptions of female characters, inspired by a recent twitter fad. If I was a woman described by a male novelist I would be described as she had curves like a tempestuous lemon and I longed to booty call her.

  23. JJ: I would be interested in hearing from people who are really knowledgeable whether they feel that Christopher’s contributions have actually made a meaningful addition to the universe, or are retreads done in an attempt to milk further money from the franchise, capture some of his father’s glory for himself, or both.

    I’m not really knowledgable but yes, Christopher Tolkien’s contributions mean a lot. He was instrumental in getting The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The Book of Lost Tales published. Significant sections of “Beren & Luthien”, “Fall of Gondolin”, “The Children of Hurin” were published as fragments in them, with commentary of different versions that existed. They are of tremendous value as scholarly works while providing valuable glimpses into his writing process. Some of that writing despite being fragments, is truly epic.

    I am less happy with attempts to knit these fragments into cohesive novels: “Beren & Luthien”, “Fall of Gondolin”, “The Children of Hurin”. It would have taken a large amount of work but also more than just editing IMO. Christopher Tolkien would have had to make a number of creative choices on which is the “canonical” version rather than presenting the reader with multiple versions. That seems not quite proper to me.

  24. (24) I am not a number! I am a pixel scroll!

    (Is there any easy way to get a list of all Pixel Scroll titles we can search to see if the one we just made up has been done before?)

  25. @Matt Y

    I agree with your thoughts about paranormal romance vs urban romance. I hope my comments weren’t taken as disparaging other’s choices rather than simply indicating that those books specifically (and a lot of paranormal romance in general, TBH) just isn’t my speed.

    @Jamoche

    I was on Usenet for quite some time. Mostly spent my time in a group dedicated to Robert A Heinlein and one dedicated to comic strips. I picked up my first Anita Blake book because it was on the discount pile and was willing to give it a shot.

    (21) I really enjoyed Steve Alten’s first couple of Meg books. This movie ought to be a fun ride.

    WRT to books and sensitivity, there seems to be very little sense of scale on this issue, IMHO. An author that writes something that has a minor feature that might be considered a bit insensitive in one or two areas is given the same response as someone that sprays every page with….just bad stuff.

    I’m in the most of the way through Six Wakes. I was more than a little surprised to see the existence of a “Pan Pacific Union” that appeared to incorporate many diverse Asian nations. Conflict between those nations has been flowing back and forth for thousands of years. Cooperation in trade is one thing. Joining the same government? A much harder sell between those various ethnic groups.

    Regards,
    Dann
    I am the American Dream. I am the epitome of what the American Dream basically said. It said you could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country. That’s exactly what I’ve done. – Whoopi Goldberg

  26. The only Laurel K. Hamilton book I’ve read is Anita Blake #12, Incubus Dreams. I don’t remember how I got a review copy, but there it was, and I read it and reviewed it.

    I was appalled to discover I couldn’t skip the kinky sex scenes because they were likely to contain important information regarding plot and character.

    It wasn’t badly written. It salted in enough background information, reasonably gracefully, that I didn’t feel completely lost.

    But it was 680 pages, with kinky sex scenes I couldn’t skip.

    And at a fairly early point, there was a tarot reading that told Anita that she would be getting help from someone from her past.

    Near the end of the 680 pages, that still hasn’t happened. We are reminded of it, and informed that that will happen in the future…

    There was already not much to tempt me to another volume of the series, but that was adding insult to injury.

  27. @StephenFromOttawa:

    However these wonderful works don’t really seem relevant to the 21st century Hugo Awards, imho.

    The relevance to 21st-century Hugos is that the Best Series award has no requirement for continuity and no limit on how far ago the series began; all it requires is 240K total words and an “installment” in the previous calendar year. (Despite the name, seriality per se is not required, just that it be “unified” somehow; see the WSFS Constitution, section 3.3.5 (bottom of p8 ff when I display it). There would be additional constraints if the series had previously been nominated, but those don’t apply here.) I expect there would be a lot of unhappy people if a Hugo administrator dared to say that a series was too old, discontinuous, … to qualify; there’s plenty of precedent that the administrator must be able to point to a clear clause in order to override the nominators. (IIRC, most overrides have related to discovered prior publication, but don’t quote me.) If the category had been available a decade ago people could have expressed their opinion of “unified” by nominating Heinlein’s “Future History”, based on the publication of Variable Star, even though critics might argue that the bulk of FH was about as old as LotR.s

  28. Dann – Oh yeah I didn’t get that from your comments at all, I mean the original article’s comments on the subgenre. I didn’t mean to make it sound like your comment was disparaging of the paranormal romance subgenre, and sorry if it comes off like I was trying to make it seem so.

  29. @Kip W:

    Here’s a theory: Maybe Jo Walton withdrew the book because she doesn’t want to offend people. Not for some crucial number of sales or because something’s in the news, but because she doesn’t want to be hurtful.

    I really like the way you think, Kip.

  30. @Dann
    I didn’t get a disparaging tone from your posts either. You didn’t care for the two LKH books you read, which is perfectly fine (and understandable, given that these books were where the tonal shift in the series went into overdrive). The original article, however, is another matter.

    In general, I tend to call out disparaging comments (not from anybody here, I hasten to add) about paranormal romance, science fiction romance, urban fantasy with strong romance elements, etc… because frankly it annoys me that the SFF subgenres or hybrid genres dominated by female authors are dismissed as irrelevant, while male dominated subgenres such as military SF of the nutty nugget type is given a pass. Not liking something is okay. Disparaging those who do is not.

  31. @Soon Lee: Just to note that Christopher Tolkien (and the uncredited Guy Gavriel Kay) made a lot of creative choices in putting The Silmarillion together back in the 70s, too. There were no versions of any of that material that JRR thought ready for publication.

    I’m glad they did that one.

  32. @Mister Dalliard: I use Google as follows. Search for:

    site:file770.com Pixel Scroll

    and you’ll get a list of pixel scroll titles per page.

    [Optionally, go to Google, Settings, Search Settings. Slide the results per Page across to 100 (Slower) and save/confirm, I AM NOT A ROBOT.

    Now you can see 100 titles per page]

    If you have a neat idea, you can search for:

    site:file770.com My Neat Pixel Scroll Title Idea

    to see if it has been used.

    As myself and Kip have discovered, this is less successful at picking up the fact that someone else already suggested My Neat Pixel Scroll Title Idea if Mike did not use it.

  33. @Chip Hitchcock

    An interesting comment. I wonder how many nomination votes Tolkien got this year. My point about relevance wasn’t about eligibility, just that the Tolkien “series” is old, its author long dead, its influence on the genre, while ongoing, largely a matter of 20th century history. In my opinion it makes more sense for the award to go to more current or recent works.

  34. Tolkien’s The Children of Hurin came out in 2007. It was not on the 2008 Hugo ballot, and a look at the published noms says if it was nominated, it got less than 19.

  35. Re scroll titles: If the title hasn’t already been used, I don’t see any reason not to submit it again. There are a lot of threads that get multiple submissions, and perhaps Mike has had to decide between several good options. OTOH, I don’t speak for Mike.

  36. WRT to books and sensitivity, there seems to be very little sense of scale on this issue, IMHO. An author that writes something that has a minor feature that might be considered a bit insensitive in one or two areas is given the same response as someone that sprays every page with….just bad stuff.

    I don’t find this to be true across the board – in that there’s a difference in approach, if not in frequency. Historical examples:

    “I love Georgette Heyer. Except you have to skip X chapter in the Grand Sophy if you don’t want to deal with some very dated anti-Semitism.”

    vs.

    “I don’t care how much you chant ‘of his time’, Lovecraft’s racism permeates almost every page.”

    And modern (First example is generic.)

    “Augh. The book is *almost* great. Except there’s this one scene where she does X, and I can’t believe she decided to do that in the 21st century. How did nobody notice? It has so much potential, but if the reviews suggest she hasn’t fixed it in the next book, or at least addressed it, I’m not picking it up.”

    vs.

    “I do, however, have a finely-tuned defense mechanism: whenever something trips my circuit breaker, causing me to cringe away from the page, I utter aloud a cry that resets my noggin. You will probably need it yourself, so I provide it here, as a public service: “OH JOHN RINGO NO.” ” (And of course later in the review: “Sometimes, Alas, Oh JOHN RINGO NO doesn’t give much relief”)

  37. I don’t think anybody’s said they shouldn’t be submitted again. I have succumbed, however, to the impulse to say, “I thought of that too!”—particularly when I was proud of having thought of it.

  38. @StephenFromOttawa: I suppose that’s the beauty of the Hugo “system”: voters can decline to nominate a work, or put it at the bottom of their votes, if they feel it doesn’t belong, but the system doesn’t knot itself up trying to adjudicate this. The classic example is the argument over whether Apollo 13 belonged in Dramatic Presentation. If I read the dating correctly, the official rules said ~”SF or fantasy” before nominations opened; the addition of “or related subjects” had been passed at the previous Worldcon but was awaiting final approval at the Worldcon handling the balloting. There were arguments that it was ineligible because it wasn’t SF or fantasy, and arguments that as a “docudrama” (or something even less precisely connected to reality) it was in fact science fiction, but it had enough nominations to get on the ballot so on it went; it lost to a Babylon 5 episode.

  39. Indeed, there is no requirement to check if a suggestion has been used before, never mind suggested and not used.

    I even suspect that OGH may have used the same title more than once!

    <img>dramatic_rodent_of_indeterminate-species.gif</img>

  40. Niall McAuley: I even suspect that OGH may have used the same title more than once!

    Niall knows where the bodies are buried.

  41. Lee: Re scroll titles: If the title hasn’t already been used, I don’t see any reason not to submit it again. There are a lot of threads that get multiple submissions, and perhaps Mike has had to decide between several good options. OTOH, I don’t speak for Mike.

    There have probably been about a thousand Scroll titles by now. If somebody wants to take on the project of creating a list of them and send it to me as a Word file, I would make a page from that and maintain it by adding subsequent titles.

    Now to pull back the curtain on the Secret Scroll Title Selection Process….

    Usually I pick a title by trawling through the suggestions made in the past few days. Most of the ones I like get used. (Sometimes I may even say, “Hey, that’s a really good one, I’ll bet it’s been used already” and run a search and be pleasantly surprised it hasn’t been.) A few Filers email me suggestions — which are either so good they become Instant Winners, or get instantly deleted, because I already have a ridiculous amount of stuff in my inbox.

  42. I vaguely plan on making a list of the titles as I go through collecting Filer book reviews for collation (possibly in a communal LibraryThing, but maybe a GoodReads), but I’m still in the Puppy roundups atm rather than at the Scroll ones.

  43. @Mike Glyer

    I do! I’m going through all the comments for book stuff so I’ve mainly been using the Next Post button in case of random reviews popping up in odd places, but I’ve been double-checking against that list to make sure I haven’t accidentally clicked past one of the big round-ups in a fit of over-enthusiastic clicking.

  44. Wait, I just realised how confusing I was. I’ve been working on a separate project for awhile to do with collecting Filer book reviews/discussion from comment threads, starting from the beginning of the Puppy coverage and working forward, and once I saw people asking if there was a list of Scroll titles I figured that it would be easy enough to write down the Scroll titles both suggested and used as I was working my through everything anyway – but I’m not quite there yet, I’m still in the Puppy stuff (I’m slow, and some of those comment threads are kinda long) and I haven’t got to the Scrolls yet. I’m not planning on keeping a record of the Puppy titles because there already is one. 🙂

    If anyone else gets to the titles first that’s fine, I just wanted to let people know that there is a very, very slow list in the works to be available at… some point. If no-one else does it first.

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