Pixel Scroll 4/23/18 It Was Me Who Ate All The Cupcakes In The File770 Office IN SELF DEFENCE!

(1) 100 LOVED BOOKS. PBS series The Great American Read premieres May 22. One hundred books, one winner:

THE GREAT AMERICAN READ is an eight-part series that explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels (as chosen in a national survey).  It investigates how and why writers create their fictional worlds, how we as readers are affected by these stories, and what these 100 different books have to say about our diverse nation and our shared human experience.

(2) AMAZING OPENS SUBMISSIONS WINDOW. Steve Davidson announced “General Submissions for Amazing Stories Opens Today”. See detailed guidelines at the link. Davidson had more to say on Facebook:

(3) COMPTON CROOK AWARD. Nicky Drayden announced on April 19 that her book Prey of Gods won the 2018 Compton Crook Award. [Via Locus Online.]

(4) RINGO’S WORLD. John Ringo’s April 16 Facebook post about his withdrawal as ConCarolinas special guest continues gathering moss, now with over 900 likes. Today Ringo showed everyone what they’ll be missing with a new comment that explains to his sycophants why ConCarolina’s Guest of Honor can’t compete with him.

No. Because nobody but people who pay close attention to the industry and awards has ever heard of her.

Her Amazon rankings are pretty low. Her bookscan ratings are low. That indicates she’s not particularly popular just heavily promoted and ‘popular’ with the ‘right crowd’. (Which is a very small crowd.)

James Patterson is a big name. JK Rowling is a big name. Hell, China Meville is a big name.

Seanan McGuire is not ‘a big name’.

I have no clue where we stand representationally in sales comparison to me but I suspect I sell more books. Just a suspicion, though, and it probably depends on the series.

Honestly, I suspect A Deeper Blue sold more books than all of hers combined.

(5) ENCHANTED MUSEUM. Atlas Obscura reveals the “Hidden Elves at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science”.

Back in the 1970s, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science hired artist Kent Pendleton to paint the backdrops for many of the museum’s wildlife dioramas. Little did it know that Pendleton’s penchant for hiding tiny mythical creatures in these paintings would add a whole new dimension to the museum experience.

It all began with eight elves—or gnomes, or leprechauns, depending who you ask—hidden in Pendleton’s wildlife dioramas. An elf hiding in the lowland river. An elf riding a dinosaur along a cretaceous creekbed. Another elf sat on a rock in the Great Smoky Mountains. And others, hard to spot but definitely there, in various backdrops throughout the museum.

In 2018, Pendleton told the Denverite: “It was just kind of my own little private joke. The first one was so small that hardly anyone could see it, but it sort of escalated over time, I guess. Some of the museum volunteers picked up on it and it developed a life of its own.”

(6) THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE. Kevin Standlee is running for office in his home town:

I’m Kevin Standlee, and I’m running for a seat on the Board of Directors of the North Lyon County Fire Protection District, which serves the city of Fernley, Nevada.

I grew up in a fire station. As the child of a US Forest Service officer, I lived a lot of my formative years on a series of fire outposts in the Sierra Nevada….

June 12 is Election Day.

(7) HISTORIC DUNES. ABC News tells about “Visiting the desert where ‘Star Wars’ was filmed”.

There’s a reason the original “Star Wars” movie was filmed in the deserts of southern Tunisia. This stark, remote landscape looks like another planet.

One of Tunisia’s vast desert regions is even called Tataouine (ta-TWEEN), like Luke Skywalker’s home planet, Tattoine.

And the underground home where Luke Skywalker first appeared living with his uncle and aunt is a real hotel in the town of Matmata, one of various desert locations used in the movies.

Masoud Berachad owns the Hotel Sidi Driss. He says visitors have dropped off since Tunisia’s democratic revolution in 2011 and attacks on tourists in 2015.

Still, devoted “Star Wars” fans keep the hotel in business….

(8) CURSED CHILD IN NEW YORK. David Rooney goes into great detail – perhaps too much – in his “‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’: Theater Review” for The Hollywood Reporter. Here’s a relatively spoiler-free excerpt:

…Pockets of racist outrage exploded online when it was first announced that a black actress had been cast as Hermione, which Rowling shot down in her no-nonsense style by pointing out that the character’s ethnicity was never mentioned in the books. In any case, only the most bigoted idiot could find fault with the brilliant Dumezweni’s performance, her haughtiness, quicksilver intellect and underlying warmth tracing a line way back to the precociously clever girl Harry first met on the train all those years ago.

Thornley’s Ron, too, is readily identifiable as the perennial joker of the trio. He’s acquired substance and a charming mellowness over the years, though a glimpse of him in a time-warped present tells a heartbreakingly different story. Miller takes the early indicators of Ginny’s strength and builds on them, shaping a smart, grounded woman capable of handling Harry’s complicated baggage. And Price’s Draco is still peevish and moody, his bitterness exploding in an entertaining clash of wands with Harry, but he’s found a softer side in maturity as well.

At the center of it all is Parker’s Harry, grown up and more confident but still pensive and troubled as ever, plagued by memories of the orphaned boy who slept under the stairs at his aunt and uncle’s home, and the reluctant hero he was forced to become. It’s a finely nuanced performance, with gravitas and heart, particularly as he wrestles with and eventually overcomes his struggles as a parent. Even with the sweet sentimentality of the closing scenes, what lingers most about Parker’s characterization is the stoical knowledge he carries with him that every moment of happiness contains the promise of more pain to come.

Of equal importance in the story are Albus and Scorpius, and while Clemmett is affecting in the more tortured role, at war with himself as much as his father, the discovery here is Boyle. His comic timing, nervous mannerisms and endearing awkwardness even in moments of triumph make him a quintessential Rowling character and a winning new addition. “My geekness is a-quivering,” he chirps at one point, probably echoing how half the audience is feeling. It’s stirring watching these two young outsiders conquer their self-doubt to find courage and fortitude….

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Daniel Dern doesn’t want Filers to miss xkcd’s cartoon “Misinterpretation.”
  • Lise Andreasen asks, “Things men weren’t meant to know?”

(10) GENESIS. In “How Stan Lee Became the Man Behind Marvel” Chris Yogerst of the LA Review of Books reviews Bob Batchelor’s biograpahy of the comics icon.

STAN LEE WAS FINISHED with comics. “We’re writing nonsense,” he once told his wife Joan. “It’s a stupid business for a grownup to be in.” After riding the early success of comic books, Lee was concerned about the future of the medium. He wanted to write more intelligent stories, something adults could connect to.

Following his wife’s advice, Lee decided to write one last story. With characters that were grounded in reality, stories that channeled Cold War tensions, and a narrative influenced by popular science fiction, Lee created the Fantastic Four. This was the type of story Lee would have wanted to read. If it was successful, maybe he would stick with comics a little longer.

Popular culture historian Bob Batchelor’s latest book turns a critical eye on the life of Lee, who ultimately became “the man behind Marvel.” Batchelor’s Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel focuses on where Lee came from, what influenced him, and how he became the immortal face of the comic book industry. In other words, to use the vernacular of the superhero genre, Batchelor gives us Lee’s origin story.

(11) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #800.Here’s another variant cover for the upcoming milestone issue.

It’s all been building to this – the biggest Peter Parker and Norman Osborn story of all time, and the first Marvel comic EVER to hit 800 issues! In celebration of the 800th issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and the now historic run of Dan Slott, Marvel is excited to show a variant cover from legendary artist Frank Cho and colorist David Curiel!

Witness the culmination of the Red Goblin story as Slott is joined for his final issue by epic artists such as Stuart Immonen, Humberto Ramos, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Nick Bradshaw!

(12) SKYWATCH. Bill Gates among backers of proposed live-video-from-space satellite constellation called EarthNow:

EarthNow takes advantage of an upgraded version of the satellite platform, or “bus,” developed originally for the OneWeb communications service. Each satellite is equipped with an unprecedented amount of onboard processing power, including more CPU cores than all other commercial satellites combined. According to Greg Wyler, Founder and Executive Chairman of OneWeb, “We created the World’s first lowcost, high-performance satellites for mass-production to bridge the digital divide. These very same satellite features will enable EarthNow to help humanity understand and manage its impact on Earth.”

Use cases are said to include:

  • Catch illegal fishing ships in the act
  • Watch hurricanes and typhoons as they evolve
  • Detect forest fires the moment they start
  • Watch volcanoes the instant they start to erupt
  • Assist the media in telling stories from around the world
  • Track large whales as they migrate
  • Help “smart cities” become more efficient
  • Assess the health of crops on demand
  • Observe conflict zones and respond immediately when crises arise
  • Instantly create “living” 3D models of a town or city, even in remote locations
  • See your home as the astronauts see it—a stunning blue marble in space

(13) TODAY’S COPYEDITING TIP. From Cherie Priest:

(14) LOSING FACE. Motherboard says “This Is the Facial Recognition Tool at the Heart of a Class Action Suit Against Facebook”.

On Monday, a federal judge ruled that a class action lawsuit against Facebook can move forward, paving the way for what could turn out to be a costly legal battle for the company.

As Reuters reports, the lawsuit alleges that Facebook improperly collected and stored users’ biometric data. It was originally filed in 2015 by Facebook users in Illinois, which passed the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) in 2008. The law regulates the collection and storage of biometric data, and requires that a company receive an individual’s consent before it obtains their information.

According to the lawsuit, Facebook ran afoul of BIPA when it began using a tool called Tag Suggestions, which was originally rolled out in 2011. Like many Facebook features, it’s designed to make your user experience better while also providing the company with your data—in this case, very specific facial features.

(15) KNOT OF THIS WORLD. Gizmodo’s Kristen V. Brown advises “Forget the Double Helix—Scientists Discovered a New DNA Structure Inside Human Cells”.

The double helix, though, is not the only form in which DNA exists. For the first time ever, scientists have identified the existence of a new DNA structure that looks more like a twisted, four-stranded knot than the double helix we all know from high school biology.

The newly identified structure, detailed Monday in the journal Nature Chemistry, could play a crucial role in how DNA is expressed.

Some research had previously suggested the existence of DNA in this tangled form, dubbed an i-motif, but it had never before been detected in living cells outside of the test tube. Researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia, though, found that not only does the structure exist in living human cells, but it is even quite common.

(16) ROCKET MAN. In his book What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede ranked William Shatner’s 1978 performance of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” at #17 on the list. Details from the Wikipedia —

At the 5th Saturn Awards Ceremony, which aired as the Science Fiction Film Awards in January 1978, Taupin introduced William Shatner’s spoken word[29] interpretation of the song. It used chroma key video techniques to simultaneously portray three different images of Shatner, representing the different facets of the Rocket Man’s character….

How can you not want to watch it after a build-up like that?

(17) MAKING A BIGGER BANG. Wil Wheaton has been having fun

Since last week, I’ve been working on the season finale of The Big Bang Theory, and today we shot Amy and Sheldon’s wedding.

It was an incredible day, and I am still in disbelief that I got to be in multiple scenes with Kathy Bates, Laurie Matcalf, Jerry O’Connell, Brian Posehn, Lauren Lapkus, Teller, Courtney Henggeler, and this guy, who is not only one of the kindest people I’ve ever worked with, but is also from a science fiction franchise, just like me!

[Thanks to David K.M. Klaus, JJ, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Daniel Dern, Michael Toman, Carl Slaughter, Lise Andreasen, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]

259 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/23/18 It Was Me Who Ate All The Cupcakes In The File770 Office IN SELF DEFENCE!

  1. I somehow got a free audiobook of Confederacy of Dunces, and my wife and I tried to listen to it on a six hour drive. I found parts of it mildly amusing but also the protagonist is (deliberately) annoying, and we stopped listening after about an hour. I’ve never bothered to go back to it.

    Since several people have brought up political diatribes in writing, I’d like to point out that one of John Ringo’s novels started whining about how unintended consequences by the eeeevil Democrats with their eeeevil CAFE standards caused the demise of station wagons (within the first 2-3 chapters of Princess of Wands IIRC). I’m not a motorhead lamenting the loss of gas-guzzling V8s, so I found the several paragraphs took me out of the story. In his recent zombie series, his 13 year old protagonist twice made Michael Moore fat jokes. Really? How many 13 year olds even know who Moore is? And at the end of one of the zombie books, it seemed pretty clear to me that gur fheivivat IC jnf zrnag gb or Fnenu Cnyva.

  2. I’ve read 59 of them. I counted series if I’d read more than half (so Harry Potter yes, Game of Thrones no). Some in school though, but most voluntarily. Weird choices, I have to say!

  3. Thank you for all the helpful suggestions!

    I finally succeeded in downloading the Toby Daye short fiction.

    I had to use Firefox. Right-clicking on the link and choosing “open in new tab” offered me the option of opening in a new tab, or downloading the epub file. When I chose download as epub file, it did that, and i was able to import it to Calibre and get it onto my Nook. For the second one, I took the option, also offered, to make that the default action for that kind of file, and downloading the rest was simpler and quicker.

    Counter-intuitive, and I wouldn’t have got there without the suggestions JJ, Kendall, and [someone else?] made, and wouldn’t even have been looking if Bonnie McDaniel hadn’t provided the links! Thank you all!

  4. Re background material: The Goblin Emperor includes a list of people and place names at the end, with some appendix material amplifying a few aspects of the culture. This was helpful, but I thought the book also needed a glossary and a map. The first lack I have tried to rectify (to some extent) here, and someone else provided me with a link to a hand-drawn sketch map by the author, which I also included.

  5. @ John A: The Velveteen books (not Velveteen Rabbit which is a different thing, although that’s where the heroine’s name comes from) are YA short novels written in episodic style IIRC.

    She also has a Patreon. If you sign up, you’ll get new short stories and vignettes with reasonable frequency.

    @ P J Evans: I hate continuity errors, and those sound really egregious. It’s one of the things that I’ll note as a flaw when I’m reviewing a book, usually with a grumble about how the editor should have caught it.

    MZB was very up-front about not keeping track of that sort of thing in her Darkover books, so that the same two cities might be one day’s ride apart in one book, and six days’ ride apart in another. It bothered me less back then, plus her honesty about it was refreshing.

  6. I just opened those files as PDFs, but I’m on a laptop. I read several of the InCryptid short stories. I’d read more by the author. These are kind of in my “uncanny valley” of fiction: Near enough what I really love (magic in the mundane world) that the ways in which they aren’t (not a biology person) are more jarring than they should be.

    That’s clearly a personal issue between me and the work. Should I try the Toby Daye stories? Pick up a novel? Or what? I think I’d like this writer, once I found the way in.

  7. @ John A: The Velveteen books (not Velveteen Rabbit which is a different thing, although that’s where the heroine’s name comes from) are YA short novels written in episodic style IIRC.

    She also has a Patreon. If you sign up, you’ll get new short stories and vignettes with reasonable frequency.

    @ P J Evans: I hate continuity errors, and those sound really egregious. It’s one of the things that I’ll note as a flaw when I’m reviewing a book, usually with a grumble about how the editor should have caught it.

    MZB was very up-front about not keeping track of that sort of thing in her Darkover books, so that the same two cities might be one day’s ride apart in one book, and six days’ ride apart in another. It bothered me less back then, plus her honesty about it was refreshing.

  8. @Lee Anonymous reading is indeed a good way to remove a lot of unconscious bias.

    There’s a case for actively preferring marginalised writers if you’re trying to redress the balance, but in practice the principle of “you have to be twice as good to do half as well” means blind submissions have nearly the same effect.

    4-ish) I actually read “A Hymn Before Battle” too – I think it was part of a Baen subscription package back when that was a thing I did? The writing was rough (though that’s expected in a first novel) and everyone was obsessed with the one woman character’s breasts, but the thing that actually bothered me was how obviously Nazi it was. I mean that in a literal way – a sinister racial conspiracy of lawyers and bankers is manipulating both the Slavering Communist Hordes and the outnumbered few who bravely oppose them so as to cement their rule from behind the scenes.

  9. @JJ et al.: “But I found that if I changed the “.zip” filetype suffix to “.epub”, then Calibre will import it just fine. See if that will work for you.”

    Yup, EPUBs are just ZIP files with a couple of special requirements tossed in, so it makes sense that autodetection algorithms would think they need the .zip suffix. Renaming is completely the right way to go.

  10. (This may be a duplicate comment; apologies if so.)

    @JJ et al.: “But I found that if I changed the “.zip” filetype suffix to “.epub”, then Calibre will import it just fine. See if that will work for you.”

    Yup. EPUBs are just ZIP files with a couple of special requirements tossed in, so it makes sense that autodetection algorithms would think they need the .zip suffix. Renaming is completely the right way to go in that situation.

  11. Lee: [McGuire] also has a Patreon. If you sign up, you’ll get new short stories and vignettes with reasonable frequency.

    And cat pictures. And cat stories. Sometimes they’re sad, as when she recently lost a beloved companion of many years, but she is wonderful about sharing her heart and and her life with her fans.

     
    John A Arkansawyer: Should I try the Toby Daye stories? Pick up a novel? Or what? I think I’d like this writer, once I found the way in.

    I really like this one; it’s only 10,000 words. It’s the origin story for one of the series’ main characters.

    “Rat-Catcher” by Seanan McGuire

  12. And just finished reading it. A very nice story. I hadn’t read McGuire before but will be looking for more of her writing. Thank you for posting it.

  13. I say bring back the dramatis personae lists we used to see at the start of paperback novels—and Dell Crime Maps! Those were great.

  14. re #1 I’ve read (mostly) 49/100 … some a long time ago. Recognizing that any compiled list like this is going to be subjective … I would like to add a couple of books that should have made it (not going to replace anything as whatever I choose, looking at you Twilight/Fifty Shades, would be to eliminate something that is equally valid and important for whatever audience yada yada).

    The Caine Mutiny – Herman Wouk; Pulitzer winning novel that IMO captures the essence of the American experience of WWII.

    A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking; yeah I know it’s a science book that is hard to understand .. but seriously, harder to read and grasp than War and Peace or Great Expectations?

    Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein; not much needs to be said here

  15. @John A. Arkansawyer: if her spate of Hugo-nominated shorter works are available, try them; I thought the zombie one was OK but the ~4 set in something like the Daye universe were all stunning. I don’t consider myself a biology person but am not sure what’s tripping you up in the shorter InCryptid works (which I haven’t read), but IME the novels are all fun (and then some); they introduce a lot of entities, most of them necessary and the rest useful color, without overwhelming the plot — and the arc gets steadily more serious. My recommendation (which I’ve also seen from other Filers) is to start the Daye books around #4; ISTM that McGuire was still learning her craft in #1 (I haven’t read 2-3) but #4ff were good enough (and provided enough catch-up material without being obtrusive) that I’ve kept reading them. I read #’s 1 & 3 of the zombie/news trilogy and didn’t care for them — I thought they were a little simpleminded about designating Heroes and Villains — but ISTM that’s not a majority viewpoint.

  16. Books that ought to be added to the list:

    Birth of the Modern – Paul Johnson; A fascinating book about the various trends that led up to modernity. Kinda long but unputdownable.

    The Gift – Lewis Hyde: A popular anthropological study of gift culture and its role in art and society. It’s a strong riposte to the dominance of materialism.

  17. Incidentally, Seanan McGuire recently announced this on her twitter feed: (copy-pasted):

    So this year’s Hugo Voter’s Packet will include:
    * DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON
    * MIDNIGHT BLUE-LIGHT SPECIAL
    * HALF-OFF RAGNAROK
    * POCKET APOCALYPSE
    * CHAOS CHOREOGRAPHY
    * MAGIC FOR NOTHING
    * All InCryptid short fiction originally published in an anthology

    I have to say that’s very generous…

  18. While no one is disputing that John Ringo is making an arse of himself and in fact seems to do so on a regular basis I think that some of the comments towards his and especially Baen Books as a whole have been unfair.

    I have read a fair number of Ringo’s books and I very much enjoyed the Prince Roger series that he writes with David Weber. The first four books in his Posleen series were good as well though not up to Prince Roger standards. He can write a decent adventure/SF action yarn though I have been turned off by some of his more recent books.

    Baen on the other hand I feel is entirely undeserving of the fairly harsh criticism they are getting in this thread. Yes they publish Ringo, Williamson, and Correia. They also publish Bujold, Asaro, Nye, Flint, and Weber and Flint has worked to bring several classic author’s books into print with Baen (e.g. Anderson, Anvil, Chandler, Garrett, and Leinster). Yes, they focus on adventure SF/F and do publish a lot of what can be described as gun porn. However, they also publish some very thoughtful SF/F. They also have been a leader in popularizing e-books and various advances in e-book distribution. To lump them in with Castillia House is a disservice.

    Cheers.

    John Adkins

  19. Baen definitely isn’t Castillia House. They publish some great stuff, and their move into ebook publishing was groundbreaking.

    They also have breathtakingly bad cover art.

    They haven’t been able to effectively market their books in Europe, with a very few exceptions.

    And they have embraced the Puppies.

    Being much better than bottom feeder Castillia House doesn’t make them exempt from all criticism.

  20. @John Adkins – not to mention Cherryh and Hodgell. I remember their pioneering of e-books, and used to love browsing their free library. It’s a bummer that a couple (just one?) prominent Baen employee helped fan the flames of the future Sad Puppies when they were embryonic puppies. Definitely not to be lumped in with a Hate Publisher like Castillia House (did I miss that – didn’t see anyone compare them), and IMO they get a little too much flak from people their dogs have bitten, but it’s understandable, given the bites.

    Their book covers, on the other hand, are a most egregious sin against decency and good taste.

  21. More to the point, Castalia House WISHES it could be honestly associated with Baen. Baen is successful.

    (The most common criticisms of Baen I have seen that are legit are: It DOES have a focus towards a particular target market. This is not a bad thing, but it is a distinctive thing. And it generally no longer copyedits to any degree whatsoever, leaving authors, if they care about copyediting, to hire their own or crowdsource. This I do think is to its detriment. Ditto for the covers; often containing bad art, and even when they don’t, they have a particular design style I do not especially like. This is somewhere between the two; it’s useful at-a-glance branding AND a bit to their detriment.)

  22. To lump them in with Castillia House is a disservice.

    Has anyone actually done that? This is literally the first mention of Castalia (however spelt) by name that I can find in the thread, and I can’t find any comments with “Baen” in them that make that comparison either.

  23. John Adkins on April 25, 2018 at 11:22 am said:

    While no one is disputing that John Ringo is making an arse of himself and in fact seems to do so on a regular basis I think that some of the comments towards his and especially Baen Books as a whole have been unfair.

    Which comments towards Baen? I just searched the whole thread for “Baen”, and didn’t find anything particularly negative, aside from snarking at their covers, which I think is entirely fair.

    Several people mentioned that they have trouble getting distributed in Europe. If that’s not true, I suppose it might be a bit unfair, but it seems like a fairly odd claim to make if it’s not true! (And easily refuted.)

    Aside from that, though, I’m genuinely curious what it was that bothered you.

  24. Their poor distribution is certainly true in the UK. They don’t appear in mainstream bookshops, only in specialists such as Forbidden Planet. When Borders were operating in the UK they were carrying Baen – that was where I first encountered Bujold – but they went bust almost a decade ago.

  25. I just searched back through the thread and am unable to find the comment that prompted my posting – even using CTRL-F to search each page. Either the initial post is now gone or the mouse that runs on the wheel in my head has taken a day off 🙂

    I could of sworn there was a comment to the effect of . . . Castellia House and Baen. . . blah blah but I was incorrect. Sorry guys. Long day 🙂

  26. >While no one is disputing that John Ringo is making an arse of himself and in fact seems to do so on a regular basis I think that some of the comments towards his and especially Baen Books as a whole have been unfair.

    It’s also troubling that Ringo is being attacked for the sexual content of his books (S&M rape fantasies?). This looks downright Victorian in the age of 50 Shades of Grey. If people don’t like his social commentary, then they should address that. Otherwise, this looks like a threat to erotica SFF writers in general.

  27. @Lela – I’ve seen people address his alleged jerkish behavior at panels. I’ve seen people point out that his attacks on people are sometimes misogynist. I’ve seen people point out that, combined with his misogynist behavior, some of his work provides additional evidence he may have an intrinsically misogynist worldview (there’s a very rapey excerpt from one of his books here). I can’t recall people saying they wouldn’t come to the convention because they don’t like that some of his writing contains explicit sex or S&M, nor have I seen people upset about erotica in general.

    The only writing I’ve seen referenced here is a thorough (38 page!) report of his often abhorrent behavior at a previous con: http://www.orthogonaltonormal.com/midden/RavenCon%202006.pdf

    Reading that, I would definitely not be interested in hanging out with him or attending any panels he was on. I don’t have much opinion about this lil’ kerfuffle because I wasn’t intending to attend the con regardless, and I don’t know the people or culture of the con – the people who decided not to attend probably have their own reasons, and I suspect they are much more closely related to the link I provide above than to any puritanical dread of smut.

  28. Lela E. Buis: It’s also troubling that Ringo is being attacked for the sexual content of his books (S&M rape fantasies?). This looks downright Victorian in the age of 50 Shades of Grey. If people don’t like his social commentary, then they should address that. Otherwise, this looks like a threat to erotica SFF writers in general.

    Rape fantasies aren’t “social commentary”. And one does not need to be a Victorian to object to misogyny being presented as normal and acceptable.

    I have to say, your days of being a troll here on File 770 are certainly coming to a middle.

  29. @kathodus: which Cherryh did Baen publish? DAW and Warner are the main publishers I see in a quick scan of bookshelves. (ISFDB should be able to tell me, but I don’t find a Publisher field in Advanced Search.)

    @Lela E. Buis: the comments I’ve seen about Ringo’s sex have little to do with S&M; consider, for instance, the quoted scene where a lone female soldier is told she’s going to have to spread for all five of the males in a confined unit. That’s actually uncomplimentary to males, as well as brutal to females; someone who is a soldier (rather than a brute in uniform) should be able to control himself.

  30. @Chip
    “The Paladin” was published by Baen. (The original cover is much better than the current one.)

  31. Lela E. Buis:

    “It’s also troubling that Ringo is being attacked for the sexual content of his books (S&M rape fantasies?). This looks downright Victorian in the age of 50 Shades of Grey. If people don’t like his social commentary, then they should address that. Otherwise, this looks like a threat to erotica SFF writers in general.”

    Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a very open BDSM-practitioner and I see no problem with being skeptic to how Ringo has chosen to write about rape.

  32. I have several erotic novels (containing BDSM). They’re better written, funnier, and have more interesting characters than ONJR’s novels, of which I’ve read about four (and looked at several others before deciding that he’s lost his way as a writer).

  33. Also, there is a reason why I as a BDSM-practitioner do not go into what I find attractive in some books – that others will find abhorrent. Because I know that I am the deviant, and there is absolutely nothing bad in reacting badly to scenes of cruelty.

  34. RE: Ringo

    >Rape fantasies aren’t “social commentary”. And one does not need to be a Victorian to object to misogyny being presented as normal and acceptable.

    It would depend on how they’re used, don’t you think?

  35. Also, plenty of people have criticized 50 Shades, for bad writing and for misrepresenting abuse as BDSM. We don’t see it so much here because it’s not SFF.

  36. Haven’t we already seen several people in this thread comparing Jacqueline Carey/Kushiel’s Dart to with Ringo’s stuff in terms of sexual content? There are enough people who like the one but can’t stand the other to make it clear that BDSM is not the problem with Ringo’s novels.

  37. “So, do you guys think Ghost is a satire? It actually looks very complex to me.”

    Hoa, troll level epic!

  38. @Troll: “Otherwise, this looks like a threat to erotica SFF writers in general.”

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, I’m sorry, did Buis mean that seriously?! Look, Ringo writing squicky (and it’s not just rape stuff, it’s the underage girl stuff, too, et al.) and people criticizing it – which, yanno, they may do if they don’t like it or feel it’s problematical – is no threat to actual erotica writers. Ring’s not an erotica writer. I’ve read erotica. You, sir . . . I mean, uh, John Ringo is no eroticist!

    BTW I seem to be the only person who can’t leave comments at File 770, as I’m reading tons of them, but when I try, I get errors (then I give up and figure, “well, I wasn’t posting anything useful anyway”). I may try this one multiple times though, ‘cuz @Troll’s comment really ticked me off.

  39. @Kendall, I got an error when I submitted my post and didn’t know it for several hours ’cause I went away and did something else. When I came back, I saw the error and thought “oh, well, I didn’t have anything really important to say.” Then I hit BACK, then I hit REFRESH, and dang, there was my post after all.

    So it’s not just you is what I’m saying.

  40. @Nicole:

    On a completely different (old) topic – I noticed a couple of neat things about Viggle recently, and figured I’d share in case you’re still using it. (Which, I think I saw your handle at ViggleRumors yesterday?)

    Anyway, first up is a trick with their “Name the Show” trivia game, which is my go-to when I want some easy points and it’s the wrong time of day to get ad points in the other apps. There’s a fairly small pool of questions and the photo clues are easy to remember, but the really neat thing is that the correct answers are always in alphabetical order. Specifically, they use a “remove spaces and sort” algorithm on the title as written on the button, so remember that “The Night Manager” is in the T’s and “Fuller House” comes before “Full House.” (E before H.) So, while the selection of questions is random, the sequence is not – making it much easier to guess the right answer if your mind blanks.

    Second, and specific to the Android app: it’s possible to check into a bonus show and play a trivia game from a non-bonus show at the same time. Check into the bonus show first, then go through the initial steps of checking into a streaming show that has the game you want (in my case, “Good Morning America”). However, instead of hitting the big red “confirm check-in” bar, hit the back-triangle. The check-in box goes away, but you’re still on the new show’s page. Tap the line for the desired game, hit Play, and the bar with the countdown ribbon (because you’re still checked into the first show) displays at the top while you play the game. When it gets close to zero, tap and it’ll go to your progress meter on the original show. Let the commercial break play, then you can hit the back-triangle to resume your game. Best of both worlds! When you finish the game, tap back to the second show’s screen and play again… and again…

    (If you’re curious, the app handles these instructions as a stack. The home screen is at the bottom, with the first check-in just above it. The second show’s page is next, then the game, then a second copy of the first show. The back-triangle always discards the current level, so as long as you know where you are, you can keep replaying trivia and scoring bonus points until the show ends – at which point, just back out to the home screen and rebuild the stack.)

  41. JJ: Rape fantasies aren’t “social commentary”. And one does not need to be a Victorian to object to misogyny being presented as normal and acceptable.

    Lela E. Buis: It would depend on how they’re used, don’t you think?

    Of course it depends on that. Given that Ringo’s books depict rape and misogyny as normal and acceptable, it’s hardly surprising that a lot of good human beings object to that.

    You’re pwning yourself here. Badly.

    Really, why bother commenting, if this sad, lackluster effort on your part is the best you can manage?

  42. @Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little: Thanks, and wow, I’d checked the page and the comment didn’t show up – but it is there now! Yay! 🙂 I feel like I’m not just shouting into the void.

    ETA: Ooh, and this one showed up immediately. Yay, @Mike Glyer!

  43. I’m behind on the latest Pixel Scroll, so I’m putting this here.

    Thanks to the folks here (and a post over at Tor.com quite a while back) who recommended KJ Charles! I finally tried The Magpie Lord and liked the sample enough that I bought it and it’s my current read. (Hugo reading? What Hugo reading?!) So far, so good! 🙂

    ETA: I saved a link to the page where Charles lists all the books in this series, the short stories, the related books, etc. so I can try to read things in sorta-kinda order. I will explore other series/books at some point, too, of course. 😉

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