(1) PREVIEWING F&SF. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction’s May/June 2019 cover art is by Cory and Catska Ench.
(2) IT’S WINTERTIME IN THE CITY. “We must fight together now. Or die.” Game of Thrones returns for its final season on April 14.
(3) UNWRAPPING THE PACKAGE. Stephen Zeitchik in the Washington Post says the Writers Guild of America voted 7,882 to 382 to require a new code of conduct from agents that says they can only get money from writers’ commissions and not from packaging shows. If the Association of Talent Agents doesn’t agree, the result could still be mass firing of agents: “Hollywood writers overwhelmingly approve new code for agents, placing parties on a collision course”.
The Association of Talent Agents released a statement in the wake of the results.
“Now that the WGA is past its vote, we look forward to getting back into the room to work through an agreement that serves the best interest of writers, respects their individual choice, and prevents unnecessary disruption to our industry,” it said. “We stand ready and waiting.
(4) ED KRAMER DEVELOPMENTS. As a result of information made public in a motion filed by Ed Kramer’s lawyer, Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Kathryn Schrader said she has already stepped aside from hearing criminal matters involving District Attorney Danny Porter. The Daily Report has the story: “Gwinnett DA Seeks Recusal of Judge Under GBI Investigation Over Computer Hack Claim”.
Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge Kathryn Schrader has stopped hearing criminal cases after District Attorney Danny Porter called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into whether she improperly allowed third parties—including a convicted felon—to access her county computer to see whether the DA hacked it.
(5) SHEESH. Vice’s Samantha Cole determinedly misses the point of what was actually nominated: “An Internet Fan Fiction Archive Is Nominated for a Hugo”.
Archive of Our Own is a finalist in the prestigious Hugo award’s Best Related Works category—which means thousands of fanfics are Hugo finalists.
Frank Herbert’s Dune, Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, and Neuromancer by William Gibson—these classic Hugo award nominees, everyone has heard of. But what about the thousands of fanfiction works all addressing the question, “what if Steve Rogers and Tony Stark from the Avengers fucked?”
This week, the Hugo awards—a set of literary awards given to the best science fiction and fantasy works of the year—announced that Archive of Our Own (Ao3), a massive internet fanfic archive, is a finalist in the Best Related Works category for 2019. If the archive wins a Hugo this year, hundreds of thousands of user-created transformative works—much of it horny, weird, and beautiful fan-made takes on existing pop culture like the aforementioned Avengers fanfic—will join the past and current honorees.
(6) HUGO HIGHLIGHTS. Rocket Stack Rank has put online their annual “Annotated 2019 Hugo Award Finalists” for short fiction that highlights the 18 finalists among the top 280+ stories of 2018 in their Best SF/F list. Eric Wong explains –
Sorted by score, the red highlights make it easy to see there were no surprises among the finalists for novellas and novelettes (other than one outlier being outside the top 10 for each), whereas there was less broad agreement among awards, year’s best anthologies, and prolific reviewers for the short story finalists (especially compared to 2017 and 2016). Go to the article to see the results, with links that also show yellow highlights for stories that are also Nebula or Sturgeon finalists.
(7) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Dale Bailey and Arkady Martine on April 17.
Dale Bailey is the author of eight books, including In the Night Wood, The End of the End of Everything, and The Subterranean Season. His story “Death and Suffrage” was adapted for Showtime’s Masters of Horror television series. His short fiction has won the Shirley Jackson Award and the International Horror Guild Award and has been nominated for the Nebula and Bram Stoker awards.
and
Arkady Martine is a speculative fiction writer and, as Dr. AnnaLinden Weller, a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. Arkady grew up in New York City and, after some time in Turkey, Canada, and Sweden, lives in Baltimore with her wife, the author Vivian Shaw. Her debut novel, A Memory Called Empire, has received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, was named a Library Journal Debut of the Month, listed on Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Spring Debuts, and has been featured on NPR’s On the Record and AM 860 Philadelphia’s Fictional Frontiers. Find her at www.arkadymartine.net or on Twitter as @ArkadyMartine.
Begins April 17 at 7 p.m., KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs), New York, NY. Readings are free
(8) DON’T SNIFF. I’m not going to suddenly start covering candidates here, but I was hooked by the first paragraph of Joel Stein’s opinion piece and the search for advice about the boundaries of touch (or avoiding it): “Joe Biden wants to be mindful about personal space? Get him a hula hoop”.
Our nation is dangerously divided. A house cannot stand when some people are totally into being hugged by strangers and others, who are normal, hate it.
Long ago — before the Age of Hugging — I lived in New York City, a place known for its firm handshakes and disdain for all human emotion other than anger. When I came to L.A. for vacation, my high school friend Ross greeted me at LAX with a hug. I did not know why Ross did this. Was Ross telling me he was gay? Had I disrespected Ross’ gang and he’d put a hit on me? Was there some giant insect on my back?
Joe Biden is like Ross, not me….
(9) ONE MORE MINUTE OF ENDGAME. Marvel shares another peek with the theme “It’s not about how much we lost, it’s about how much we have left.”
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born April 3, 1783 — Washington Irving. Best known for his short stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, both of which appear in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. collection. The latter, in particular, has been endlessly reworked downed the centuries into genre fiction. (Died 1859.)
- Born April 3, 1924 — Marlon Brando. It looks like his role as Jor-El on Superman was his first venture into anything of a genre nature although his turn as Peter Quint in The Nightcomers might be considered as such. Certainly his work in The Island of Dr. Moreau as Dr. Moreau is scene-chewing at its very, very best. His appearance in Superman Returns is CGI combined with a not terribly clever re-adaptation of footage from the previous film. (Died 2004.)
- Born April 3, 1929 — Ernest Callenbach. Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston was rejected by every major publisher so Callenbach initially self-published it. Ecotopia Emerging is a prequel published later. Yes, I read both. As such fiction goes, they’re ok. Nothing spectacular, characters flat and writing style pedestrian. If you can find a copy, Christopher Swan’s YV 88: An Eco-Fiction of Tomorrow which depicts the regreening of Yosemite Valley, it is a much interesting read. (Died 2012.)
- Born April 3, 1936 — Reginald Hill. Now this surprised me. He’s the author of the most excellent Dalziel and Pascoe copper series centered on profane, often piggish Andrew Dalziel, and his long suffering, more by the book partner Peter Pascoe solving traditional Yorkshire crimes. Well there’s a SF mystery tucking in there set in 2010, many years after the other Dalziel and Pascoe stories, and involves them investigating the first Luna murder. I’ll need to read this one. (Died 2012)
- Born April 3, 1958 — Alec Baldwin, 61. I’ve no idea how many times I’ve see him in Beetlejuice as Adam Maitland as it’s one of my favorite films, period. Despite those who don’t like The Shadow and him in his dual role of Lamont Cranston and The Shadow, I’m quite fond of it. Let’s just skip past any mention of The Cat in the Hat… Ahhhh Rise of the Guardians where he voices Nicholas St. North. Another go to, feel good film for me. He’s Alan Hunley in some of Mission: Impossible franchise, a series I think I’ve only seen the first two films of. And here’s a weird one — the US. run of Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends replaced the U.K. narrator, some minor musician no one had ever heard of by the name of Ringo Starr with him.
- Born April 3, 1962 — James R. Black, 57. I’d like to say he’s best known for his leading role as Agent Michael Hailey on The Burning Zone but since it was short-lived and I’m sure not anyone actually watched it on UPN that might stretching reality a bit. If you like great SF, The Burning Zone is certainly worth seeing. Prior to his run on that series, he’s got a number of one-offs of Babylon 5, Deep Space 9, The Sentinel, Space: Above and Beyond and in his first genre role was Doctor Death in Zombie Cop.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
Sheldon applies the lessons of Dune at home.
(12) SUPPORT AMAZING. An Indiegogo appeal has launched for “Amazing Stories – Special All-Color Issue!”. In the opening hours the Amazing team has raised $1,561 of their $35,000 goal. The issue will include fiction by Shirley Meier, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Paul Levinson, Jack McDevitt, R.S. Belcher, Dave Creek, Adam, Troy-Castro, Sally McBride, Paul Di Filippo , Sean Chappell, and Allen Steele, and art by Melissa Des Rosiers, Ron Miller, Amanda Makepeace, Jon Eno, Tom Miller, Matt Taggart, M.D. Jackson, Chukwudi Nwaefulu, Oliva Beelby, and Vincent Di Fate.
Amazing Stories – the Special Edition
We’re Amazing Stories and we’ve been bringing you new science fiction, digitally since 2012 and also print and audio since 2018. We’re here to raise some money to go to the next level – a special all-color issue for the first issue of our second year with greatly improved print quality!
What Do You Get?
If you support our special edition campaign you will get discounts on subscriptions, but you can also get collectible cards, our famous comicbook, and lapel pins as well as the best in science fiction today. Science fiction that’s fun and entertaining!
(13) OLD NEWS MADE NEW. WED’s sexism in respect to animators’ salaries was notorious, but now “Disney accused of valuing ‘male workers more'”.
Walt Disney Co. is being sued over claims it underpays female employees.
Andrus Anderson LLP claims corporate policies, such as basing new employees’ wages on previous salaries, have a discriminatory effect on women.
The legal action, brought on behalf of two women, claims the company does not have an internal mechanism to ensure women are not paid less than male counterparts for the same work.
Disney denies the allegations calling them “without merit”.
According to the complaint, reported in Variety, financial analyst LaRonda Rasmussen raised a concern regarding her pay with Disney’s human resources after discovering six men who shared the same job title were being paid more than her.
(14) CO2 CAPTURED. “Climate change: ‘Magic bullet’ carbon solution takes big step”. The residue looks like what Thanos did to superheroes:
A technology that removes carbon dioxide from the air has received significant backing from major fossil fuel companies.
British Columbia-based Carbon Engineering has shown that it can extract CO2 in a cost-effective way.
It has now been boosted by $68m in new investment from Chevron, Occidental and coal giant BHP.
But climate campaigners are worried that the technology will be used to extract even more oil.
The quest for technology for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the air received significant scientific endorsement last year with the publication of the IPCC report on keeping the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C this century.
In their “summary for policymakers”, the scientists stated that: “All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5C with limited or no overshoot project the use of CDR …over the 21st century.”
… Carbon Engineering’s process is all about sucking in air and exposing it to a chemical solution that concentrates the CO2. Further refinements mean the gas can be purified into a form that can be stored or utilised as a liquid fuel.
(15) PARDON ME. “Mars methane surge spotted from space” reports BBC.
A European spacecraft has confirmed a report of methane being released from the surface of Mars.
The methane spike was first measured by Nasa’s Curiosity rover on the surface; now it has been confirmed by the Mars Express orbiter.
The nature and extent of methane in the Martian atmosphere is intensely debated.
The gas is of interest because terrestrial methane can be made by life forms, as well as geological processes.
Methane is only supposed to have a very short lifetime in the Martian atmosphere, so detecting it there means it must have been released very recently.
A strong signal of methane was measured by the Curiosity rover on 15 June 2013.
The measurement was confirmed in data collected the next day by the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on board Mars Express.
(16) WHAT ‘US’ MEANS. Behind a paywall in the March 28 Financial Times, Precious Adesina discusses African-Americans in horror films in a piece tied in to the release of Us.
In the 1940s, black people rarely featured in horror films, and when they did it was totally as comic relief. ‘The depiction of black (people) as helpless creatures was undoubtedly appealing to many white Americans,’ says the social and cultural historian Ann Kordas. Take King of the Zombies (1941), a film about an aeroplane that crash-lands on a Caribbean island, leaving the pilot, the passenger, and his black servant stranded at a mansion where the employee repeatedly encounters zombies in the kitchen. Despite his many attempts to warn the white protagonists about the danger, he is dismissed as foolish. This kind of simple-minded, cowardly black man was a regular trope of horror at the time…
…But of all these (horror) films, it is Us that makes perhaps the boldest statement–by making no explicit argument about race at all. Here blackness is not integral to the plot. By placing a black family in a story that could just as easily have featured a white one, Peele seems to suggest that people of colour no longer have to justify their existence as ordinary middle-class Americans. They can just be.
(17) SPIDER FAN. Cat Eldridge praises “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” at The Green Man Review.
There are also a black and white noir version of the hero from a thirties Universe, a pig version and a far future Japanese tech version — just a few of an infinite possibilities. All of these heroes, which are animated in a style true to the their trope. Somehow the producers will manage to use what seems like dozens of animation styles without them clashing. They even do this while making it sometimes look like you’ve dropped into a comic book itself, or that that a few pages of a given comic are being referred to. Neat!
(18) THE WHY BEHIND THE JOKER. The Hollywood Reporter has the story:
The first trailer for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker dropped Wednesday and fans got a better look at how the Oscar-nominated actor will portray one of cinema’s most iconic villains.
(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “The WInd in the Willows” on Vimeo starts off as appearing to be a trailer for an animated version of the children’s classic by Andy Biddle but turns into an advertisement for the Wildlife Trusts narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Gordon Van Gelder, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Nancy A. Collins, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter. Title credit goes to contributing editor of the day Paul Weimer.]
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Hey Title credit AND FIRST!
18) Pass. Not really interested in a Joker origin story, personally.
18) Right there with you Paul. Personally, I am done with cinematic Jokers for a good long time.
18) I’ll pass. The animated Jokers, particularly Mark Hamill’s take on Batman: The Animated Series has soured me on anything that has come since, but then that series soured me on the live action films in general.
Click
one more click
@10: Ecotopia made a certain amount of noise when it came out, but in retrospect it’s ridiculously naive (e.g., the idea that the area between California wine country and Salem OR would find common ground with San Francisco) and annoyingly sexist, and requires the new country to betray its own ideals to survive. Of its time, I suppose.
@18: Another origin story? Oh well.
Chip Hitchcock says Ecotopia made a certain amount of noise when it came out, but in retrospect it’s ridiculously naive (e.g., the idea that the area between California wine country and Salem OR would find common ground with San Francisco) and annoyingly sexist, and requires the new country to betray its own ideals to survive. Of its time, I suppose.
One of two Ecotopian novels has a sex scene every bit as embarrassing as those that we were discussing by Heinlein. As I said, badly written but immensely popular for quite awhile.
Exhausted, after driving into Boston’s Longwood Medical Area to visit a friend who just had heart surgery.
Hugo reading is where it’s at, after that exhausting drive, there and home again. Visit itself was very good.
10) Eddie Murphy, who stars in The Adventures Of Pluto Nash and Vampire In Brooklyn was born on this day in 1961.
So, sort of a modified “Killing Joke” Joker.
But, Doctor, I am Pixeliacci!
Promotional stuff for Avengers:Endgame has really kicked into high gear. I’m seeing it everywhere, especially since the Final Four is in Minneapolis and they’ve apparently partnered up. With all that, I’m surprised they didn’t put ads all over the Hulk. Seems like a missed opportunity, since after all he is a….
…giant banner.
We should be able to edit a comment right up till somebody makes the next comment.
(15) Not everyone is aware of a feature on located on exactly the opposite point of the planet as the well-known “face on Mars.”
an iron pixel in a velvet scroll
If anyone is wondering whether the latest Expanse book is a good addition to the series, I would say yes, yes it is. I like them all but I have to admit some of them tend to drag or are repetitive; not the case here. More [could be slightly spoilery if you haven’t read the rest of the series].
(10) the US. run of Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends replaced the U.K. narrator, some minor musician no one had ever heard of by the name of Ringo Starr with [Alec Baldwin].
They replaced Ringo with George Carlin. Baldwin came later, after Carlin died.
bill says They replaced Ringo with George Carlin. Baldwin came later, after Carlin died.
True but I like my telling better. Or I might’ve missed that being my brain p, twenty months post-dying still doesn’t desk well with sequential logic.
Yes,it’s three fifteen and I’m wide awake at Maine Medical. the head trauma has decided to rear itself up with extreme dizziness the past week or so if I stand up and decide to walk oh, even a dozen feet without chancing the more than probable chance of falling over. So I’m confined to bed until they figure that out.
If this has happened when I’d been out in the Real World™, there’s a more than likely chance that I’d be downstairs in ER with yet more severe head trauma.
(10) Reginald Hill wrote at least one dystopian sf novel. In 1974 he published “Albion! Albion!” under the pseudonym Dick Morland, about a future England ruled by competing tribes of football hooligans, which sounds as though it might aspire to the exploitative zeal of the 2000 AD comic at its best. The cover on the 1970s paperback reprint is wonderfully trashy:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Albion-Dick-Morland/dp/0450030156
Matthew Davis says Reginald Hill wrote at least one dystopian sf novel. In 1974 he published “Albion! Albion!” under the pseudonym Dick Morland, about a future England ruled by competing tribes of football hooligans, which sounds as though it might aspire to the exploitative zeal of the 2000 AD comic at its best. The cover on the 1970s paperback reprint is wonderfully trashy:
Good catch. I didn’t think of checking for pseudonyms as everything I read about him implied strongly that he always used his own name as he wanted the public damn it to know he wrote it.
5) I guess this answers OGH’s question in item 3 yesterday:
@Kip: hee!
Scroll Pixeler, reading a new file,
I’m scrolling you in style today…
(strums guitar)
@Eli I’d go a bit further than that: I think “Tiamat’s Wrath” is the best novel in the Expanse Series so far, bar none. All of the different story threads are interesting, none of the characters is a cardboard villain, and the worldbuilding continues to be fascinating.
But you really had to read all 7 of the previous volumes to enjoy this one.
@jayn:
My pixel lies over the scrollin’.
My pixel lies over the file.
My pixel lies over the scrollin’.
Oh, scroll back my pixel to me!
Hill also maintained another byline–Patrick Ruell–through the 1970s and 80s. The books are thrillers, and the ones I’ve found are quite good. There’s also a Charles Underhill pseudonym, but I’ve not come across any of those titles. The Guardian published a nice career-summarizing obituary.
@10: I was actually thinking about The Burning Zone last night, spurred by a spot for the upcoming adaptation of The Hot Zone. I thought I was the only one who remembered that series. I’m not sure if I made it through three episodes or just two before deciding I’d been insulted enough.
Joe says
5) I guess this answers OGH’s question in item 3 yesterday:
CLARIFYING TWEET. Archive of Our Own is up for the Best Related Work Hugo. The facility of the site, not the individual works of fanfic. Did someone need that explained, or were they only amusing themselves?
So the structure designed to hold the contents is what’s up for a Hugo? That makes sense.
9) Kinda undermines the touching scene from the earlier trailer of Tony Stark saying his last farewells as he runs out of food and air in space…I understand that they wanted “the whole gang together” vibe, and it’s not at all surprising that Stark does survive (for now?) and make it back, but it does kind of suck the emotional life out of that spaceship scene if it is actually included in the movie (maybe it was a trailer-only thing?).
Whatever, I can’t wait!
As for the observation that Avengers hype is really ramping up, I have been vaguely surprised that it has taken this long to really get underway — maybe to avoid hurting Captain Marvel. But it seems like it started MUCH earlier last year for Infinity War with every cast member appearing on every talk show and internet outlet.
I wonder if it’s because many of the actors are completely finished with their roles (allegedly) at this point. Last year they were still in the midst of shooting Endgame stuff and Disney/Marvel pretty much owned all their time. At this point they are long since finished filming and they probably have a contractual obligation to help with promotions but they are all also freed up to be doing other things at this point and it’s gonna be harder to wrangle them all into the various promotional venues.
Plus the work they did to promote Infinity War was also ultimately promoting Endgame because very few people who saw the first part are not going to come back to see how it all turns out! I’m just glad we didn’t have to wait three years like between Empire and Jedi.
Heck, it’s not even as long as the two year wait between Last Jedi and Episode IX (which I assume we’ll be getting a name and a teaser trailer for before too long?).
@ Joe H.
“Star Wars IX: J.J. Abrams Couldn’t Stay Away!”
New Borderlands game at last coming this fall!
Here in the year 9467, we still play them.
Russell Letson says Hill also maintained another byline–Patrick Ruell–through the 1970s and 80s. The books are thrillers, and the ones I’ve found are quite good. There’s also a Charles Underhill pseudonym, but I’ve not come across any of those titles. The Guardian published a nice career-summarizing obituary.
ABE lists but one title by Charles Underhill but it’s a doozy: Captain Fantom, being an account of sundry adventures in the life of Carlo Fantom soldier of misfortune, hard-man and ravisher.
@Kip Williams: …Pixeliaccia: good one, and wonderfully obscure. (Or maybe not; my collection of theatrical anecdotes has it with a French name.)
@Kip Williams, later: I am shocked, shocked! that the BBC neglected to mention that geological coincidence.
re the relatively-short separation between the last two Avengers movies: ISTM that the proper referent is not any of the SW movies (which were relatively discrete) but the release of the two films of the last Harry Potter book; Wikipedia says these were just 8 months apart. I wonder whether the Avengers pair would have been even closer than they are if the MCU hadn’t needed to introduce the save-their-asses character in another movie.
(5) I was wondering too. The list of nominees doesn’t specify, that the software is the nominee.
Chip Hitchcock: I decided to go with the Alan Moore version for the sake of the line. My canon has, for years, said that it was originally about the clown Joe Grimaldi, but recently—this year, in fact—a voice whispered to me “Dude. Your authority here is Robert Ripley.”
The voice didn’t need to say anything more.
@Chip Hitchcock — Along the same lines, it looks like there was about a six-month separation between the release of the two Matrix sequels, and a similar separation between the two parts of Kill Bill.
Having said that, I think the difference is that those were both essentially filmed all at once and the divided for release, whereas Endgame didn’t start filming until after Infinity War had wrapped? I’m not sure how things worked with Deathly Hallows 1 & 2, though.
Lise Andreasen: I was wondering too. The list of nominees doesn’t specify, that the software is the nominee.
No, but the category it’s in makes it obvious. Related Work is very specifically not for fiction:
“if fictional, is noteworthy for aspects other than the fictional text”
Also, as I mentioned in a different thread: back in the days when we used to award Best Professional Magazine, that didn’t mean that every story in every nominated/awarded magazine suddenly had a fraction of a nomination/award! So, no matter what the justification for nominating Archive of Our Own, it wouldn’t give the works there anything. That whole theory is simply idiotic!
If you are unsure if you are a Hugo finalist or not then ask yourself “did I have the power to withdraw from the award when notified?” If the answer is an unequivocal “yes”, then you are a Hugo finalist. If the answer is “I’d have to ask these other people who were part of the project with me but basically if they agree, yes” then yes, probably you are. If the answer is “I didn’t know about this until the full list was announced and even if I objected it wouldn’t be up to me” then no, you aren’t a finalist (although you may have contributed in some way).
AO3 is a finalist as a whole thing. The individual contributors are not, nor are the individual stories any more than individual contributors or stories would be in a semiprozine or fanzine that was a finalist. “Finalist” isn’t a hologram.
I’m not keen on the “it’s the software” argument either. Why would I vote for software independent of its content? It’s the whole thing surely, as a thing, not a part of the thing or a section of the thing, but the whole as a whole. What’s the point otherwise? i.e. The software, the stuff the software is organising and the fact that all this stuff has been organised.
I wouldn’t say that the AO3 software is the Hugo Finalist. I think that the finalist is the greater entity the thing has become, which includes the software, the structure, the useful platform with all of the works inside (if nothing was in it, it wouldn’t be terribly useful). But the fiction itself is not the finalist.
File 770 and AO3 aren’t comparable as Hugo Finalists. File 770 was nominated in the Fanzine category, which is very specifically about its content.
Yes, the library is the building, the staff, how the books are shelved and the books. But if the Library wins an award it’s not the books that won the award even though without the books it wouldn’t be much of a library.
@Camestros Felapton–
Very true, and it’s also not the building–at least, if it’s a library award and not an architectural award. It’s the Library Director, the staff, perhaps the trustees, whose work is being recognized. And people involved in running it, in making the decisions about how AO3 works, are the people whose work is being recognized in this Hugo nomination.
Except that it’s not a library award; it’s a non-fiction award, and they’re nominating the library for it on the grounds that since the library exists, it’s not fiction.
Greg Hullender: it’s a non-fiction award, and they’re nominating the library for it on the grounds that since the library exists, it’s not fiction.
They’re nominating it on the grounds that AO3 as an entity is a Work Related to SFF Genre and Fandom.
Kill Bill’s division was only decided on late in production, while the Matrix sequels and Deathly Hallows were shot together but intended as separate releases — so the same as the Avengers films in intent, just apparently with the shooting overlapping rather than being consecutive.
For me, the question is “should AO3 win a Hugo”? I don’t think so because to me it’s really about earning respect for fanfic, it does not need validation or recognition from anybody. Fanfic has earned respect on its own terms and I don’t think awarding them a Hugo will do much for the field. The fanfic authors don’t need an official imprimateur.
I would rather recognize something else that deserves and needs our support and recognition. AO3 is not in that category.
P.S. Long before I discovered fanfic or even fandom, I wrote a TNG parody script called “Wesley Gets Killed And Riker Doesn’t Get Any.”
I wrote a Star Trek script in 1975, where the Enterprise finds a planet full of Trekkies, because they’d lost their leader and were looking for a new one (as planets do), and found Gene Roddenberry, whose first Trek pilot had just been rejected.
It turned out to be a perfect society, so Kirk had it bombed back to the Stone Age. (“Execute Plan Eden.”)
“Fanfic has earned respect on its own terms”
You’d be surprised how many people don’t respect fanfic. They think it’s second class, at best, because it’s not “original” enough for them.
@ P J Evans
You’d be surprised how many people don’t respect fanfic. They think it’s second class, at best, because it’s not “original” enough for them.
Well, fanfic is amateur writing in the best (and worst) sense of the word. I truly respect and admire the community for their creativity, dedication, work ethic, and their willingness to get out there and write. I may not enjoy, respect, or admire every fanfic that comes down the pike.
Rob, I think some fanfic, like some fan art, is crap, but some of it is pro-level and worth the time (and some just needs a good editor to fix the grammar and spelling). It’s the people who diss the entire field based on the bad stuff that I’m unhappy with.
@ P J Evans
Makes sense.
If it’s really good, we call it a “pastiche,” not fan fiction. 🙂
@ Greg Hullender
Just be clear, I would identify what I wrote as “fanfic.” Absolutely.