(1) FOR THE RECORD. Odyssey Con co-chair Alex Merrill published an official response to the departure of GoH Monica Valentinelli yesterday – filling the void left by Richard S. Russell’s retracted statement with something more socially acceptable.
We, the Convention Committee of Odyssey Con, deeply regret losing Monica as a Guest of Honor, especially in the way the last twenty-four hours have unfolded. Odyssey Con strives to be a warm and welcoming place for all people to express themselves and engage in fandoms. We took a long and hard look at the issue of having Jim Frenkel continue to be a member of our convention committee when he was banned from WisCon in 2012. Our position at that time was to look at our policy on harassment and ensure that any situation that may take place at our convention would be dealt with professionally. We now have an ombudsman, anonymous reporting procedures, and a very detailed policy. There have been no complaints filed against Mr. Frenkel from attendees of Odyssey Con. However, in light of Monica’s email, the following changes have been made: Mr. Frenkel is no longer a member of our ConCom in any capacity, he has no position of authority in the convention proper, and he is not a panelist or lecturer. He has the right to purchase a badge and attend the convention, but as of this writing, I do not know if he is planning to do that.
I personally wish to apologize for the mishandling of our response to Monica’s concerns. It has never been our intent to minimize any guest’s complaints. Odyssey Con is an all volunteer organization staffed by people who have many strengths, but not all of us are great communicators.
I have already reached out to Monica to personally apologize for the email response she received from one of our ConCom members and for the subsequent posting of email chains publicly. This exchange was not an example of Odyssey Con as a whole, which is run by fans, for fans. I hope to have a continued dialogue with you all.
However, the first comment left on the post identified a number of questions that remained unanswered by the statement.
And after K. Tempest Bradford looked over the new response, she shared her reaction in the comments of her blog.
…No matter how much the Internet is mad at your organization, that does not excuse any implication that the person reporting feeling unsafe because a harasser is involved in running the con is at fault here. That’s immature. That’s not professional. That’s yet another indication that guests would not have been treated professionally by OddCon as an organization.
Also an indication that attendees will not be treated in a professional manner.
And being a volunteer run con is not an excuse for that. Yeah, you’re all volunteers, but you’re running an event. People attending said event as fans or guests have the right to expect a certain level of safety and respectful treatment from those running the event. That was not what happened. Now they’re sorry. Yet I still do not see that behavior addressed in a meaningful way in this Sorry….
(2) MARVEL FIRES SYAF. Marvel pencil artist Ardian Syaf, who inserted anti-Semitic and anti-Christian political references into his work on X-Men Gold has now been officially terminated.
Over the weekend, Marvel released a statement that it had been unaware of the references, and they would remove the artwork from all upcoming versions of the issue.
The company’s follow-up statement, quoted in Paste Magazine, says:
Marvel has terminated Ardian Syaf’s contract effective immediately. X-Men: Gold #2 and #3 featuring his work have already been sent to the printer and will continue to ship bi-weekly.
Issues #4, #5, and #6 will be drawn by R. B. Silva and issues #7, #8, and #9 will be drawn by Ken Lashley. A permanent replacement artist will be assigned to X-Men: Gold in the coming weeks.
Syaf wrote on his Facebook page:
Hello, Worlds…
My career is over now.
It’s the consequence what I did, and I take it.
Please no more mockery, debat, no more hate. I hope all in peace.
In this last chance, I want to tell you the true meaning of the numbers, 212 and QS 5:51. It is number of JUSTICE. It is number of LOVE. My love to Holy Qur’an…my love to the last prophet, the Messenger…my love to ALLAH, The One God.
My apologize for all the noise. Good bye, May God bless you all. I love all of you.
Ardian Syaf
However, Coconuts warns that statement should not be confused with Syaf actually regretting his actions.
…In an interview about the controversy with local newspaper Jawa Pos published today, Ardian explained why he thought that Marvel could not accept his explanation for including the references.
’But Marvel is owned by Disney. When Jews are offended, there is no mercy,” he was quoted as saying.
After making the anti-Semitic remark, Ardian reiterated to the interviewer that he was not anti-Semitic or anti-Christian because, if he was, he wouldn’t have worked for a foreign publisher.
(3) WHITE AWARD DELAYED. The British Science Fiction Association has postponed the date for revealing the winner of the James White Award:
With apologies to those who have entered this year’s competition, we are sorry to announce that the announcement of this year’s James White Award winner has been delayed.
The longlist will announced shortly after Easter and the shortlist shortly after that. We are working to complete the judging as quickly as possible.
We intend to announce the winner by Friday, 19 May at the latest.
(4) SFWA STORYBUNDLE. Cat Rambo has unveiled The SFWA Science Fiction Storybundle.
The SFWA Science Fiction Bundle is a very special collection full of great sci-fi books that benefit a great cause! If you’re unfamiliar with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, it’s over 50 years old, and has a membership of professional writers and publishing professionals from around the globe. It administers the Nebula Awards each year. This bundle is filled with talented SFWA members and their wonderful works, such as Tech Heaven by Locus-award-winning Linda Nagata and Factoring Humanity by Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial Award winning Robert J. Sawyer, plus 10 more tremendous reads. You can easily choose to donate part of your purchase to the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers of America to support these fantastic authors. Don’t forget to click here to read much more about the bundle, and make sure to click on each cover for reviews, a preview and a personal note from our curator!
It has another 22 days to run.
(5) DISTRACTIONS. With so much happening in 1962, Galactic Journey’s Victoria Silverwolf finds it hard to concentrate on her reading — “[April 12, 1962] Don’t Bug Me (May 1962 Fantastic)”.
Maybe it’s because it’s almost time to mail in those tax forms to Uncle Sam, or maybe it’s because of the tension between President Kennedy and the steel companies, or maybe it’s because Jack Parr left his television series (which will now be known by the boring, generic title The Tonight Show), or maybe it’s because the constant radio play of the smash hit Johnny Angel by actress Shelley Fabares of The Donna Reed Show is driving me out of my mind, or maybe it’s because of George Schelling’s B movie cover art for the May 1962 issue of Fantastic; but for whatever reason your faithful correspondent approached the contents of the magazine with a leery eye….
(6) TIPTREE. There will be a Tiptree Auction at WisCon 41 on Saturday, May 27.
Can’t get enough Tiptree fun on Facebook? Are you curious about Tiptree auctions? Fan of Sumana Harihareswara? Want to support science fiction that explores and expands gender? Want to roar with laughter? There are dozens of possible reasons to go to the Tiptree Auction at WisCon 41.
(7) APEX REPRINTS EDITOR. Apex Magazine is bringing aboard Maurice Broaddus as reprints editor. The magazine publishes one reprint in each issue, and he will be responsible for finding those reprints beginning with issue 98, July 2017.
Maurice Broaddus and Apex Publications have a long history together going back 10 years. He has been published in several of our anthologies, including most recently in Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling edited by Monica Vallentinelli and Jaym Gates. He has also had several books published through Apex, including Orgy of Souls (co-written by Wrath James White), I Can Transform You, and the anthologies Dark Faith and Dark Faith: Invocations which he co-edited with Jerry Gordon. Most recently, Maurice Broaddus guest edited an issue of Apex Magazine—issue 95 (http://www.apex-magazine.com/issue-95-april-2017/) , which included original fiction by Walter Mosley, Chesya Burke, Sheree Renee Thomas, and Kendra Fortmeyer, poetry by Linda D. Addison and LH Moore, and nonfiction by Tanya C. DePass.
(8) NEW COLUMNIST. Galaxy’s Edge magazine has a new columnist, Robert J. Sawyer. He’ll replace Barry N. Malzberg starting with issue 27.
Robert J. Sawyer, author of the bestselling novel Quantum Night, has agreed to write a regular column for Galaxy’s Edge magazine. Robert is currently one of the foremost science fiction authors in the field and one of Canada’s top writers. He was admitted into The Order of Canada (one of the country’s highest civilian honors) in 2016. His novels have won more awards than any other person in the history of the genre (as per the Locus index for science fiction awards) from countries around the world.
(9) SINISALO. At Europa SF, Cristin Tamas conducts a lengthy interview with 2017 Worldcon GoH Johanna Sinisalo.
Cristian Tamas : “Johanna Sinisalo seems to have emerged, along with Leena Krohn and Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, as a central figure in the ‘‘Finnish Weird’’, which like many such movements may be a coincidence, a plot, or even, as Sinisalo herself said in her introduction to last year’s Finnish Weird anthology, simply a ‘‘brand.’’ In any case, it seems to carry with it a celebratory feeling of having just rediscovered the possibilities of nonrealistic fiction, even as some of its major works come with pretty grim premises.” – Gary K.Wolfe ; Please comment !
Johanna Sinisalo : Finnish Weird is basically a term invented for commercial uses, based on the fact that most of the Finnish Weird writers do not want to be pigeonholed as fantasy or sf or horror writers. Words like “nonrealistic” or “speculative fiction” are relatively strange to the wider audiences, so we came up with this kind of definition that could perhaps be compared to the commercial term “Nordic Noir”. Analogically, the Scandinavian crime writers have not “rediscovered the possibilities of crime fiction”, but the term Nordic Noir tells the reader that those books are a part of a certain literary tradition (and in many cases it is also considered as a sign of high quality).
Cristian Tamas : Isn’it weird that the oldest (beginning of the 13th century) known document in any Finnic language, the Birch Bark Letter no.292 is written in Cyrillic alphabet in the Karelian dialect of the archaic Finnish (or Finnic language) and it was found in 1957 by a Soviet expedition led by Artemiy Artsikhovsky in the Nerevsky excavation on the left coast side of Novgorod, Russia ? Is this an avant-la-lettre sample of Finnish Weird ?
Johanna Sinisalo: It is an interesting document. As far as I know the only words in that letter that the scholars totally agree upon are “God” and “arrow”, and the most popular theory is that the the text is a spell or prayer protecting from lightnings, saying “Jumaliennuoli on nimezhi”, roughly ”You are / will be called as the Arrow of Gods”. Perhaps it forecasts that we Finnish Weird writers are lightnings of the literary gods?
(10) TODAY’S DAY
Bookmobile Day
Bookmobile Day is an opportunity to celebrate one of the many services offered through public libraries. Originating in the nineteenth century, the earliest bookmobiles were horse-drawn wagons filled with boxes of books. In the 1920s, Sarah Byrd Askew, a New Jersey librarian, thought reading and literacy so important that she delivered books to rural readers in her own Ford Model T. And today, Kenya still uses camels to deliver materials to fans of reading in rural areas.
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
- April 12, 1981 — Space shuttle Columbia first launched.
(12) COMIC SECTION. A horrible pun and a funny gag – John King Tarpinian recommends today’s Brevity.
(13) HATERS. John Scalzi, the midst of his annual Reader Request Week, takes up the subject of “Haters and How I Deal With Them”. This section of his post is from a list of “things I know about haters, and how they relate to me.”
Fourth, I’ve come to realize that some people are using hating me primarily as a transactional enterprise; they see some personal business advantage to holding me up as someone to be hated, and doing so allows them to, say, peddle to the gullible and strident wares that they might not otherwise be able to profitably market. To this respect the hating isn’t actually about me — if I didn’t exist, they’d just pick someone else who suited their needs. That being the case, why get worked up about it? Especially if it’s not having any noticeable effect on my own personal or professional fortunes.
(14) MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH. Quite coincidentally, Vox Day put up a post titled “This is what ‘Zero Fucks’ looks like” that’s all about….would you like to guess?
(15) LIBRARIANS LIKE IT. Library Journal gives its take on the 2017 Hugo ballot in “Quality and Diversity”
After a contentious two years owing to the Sad/Rapid Puppies dispute, last week’s announcement of the 2017 Hugo Award nominees was received with acclaim. Library Journal sf columnist Megan McArdle, noting that the puppies appeared to have lost their fangs, was thrilled by the lists. “The fact that so many women are represented (and trans women! and women of color!), just shows that diversity is actually valued by the majority of SFF fans, which is great to see after so much drama in past years.” She was also excited to see a couple of her favorites—Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky and Becky Chambers’s A Closed and Common Orbit—make the list.
Co-columnist Kristi Chadwick was equally excited by the nominations, which are voted on by attendees of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and paying members of the World Science Fiction Society. “I am a big squeeing girlfan of Seanan McGuire, and I think Every Heart a Doorway has given fantastical tropes a way to bend sideways. Then I see N.K. Jesmin, Charlie Jane Anders, and [Lois McMaster] Bujold? Amazing stories that never cross our desks? The editors, movies and everything else that makes this genre amazing? I am so thrilled with the wealth of knowledge and imagination available to readers today.”
(16) A VISIT TO DYSTOPIA. Nerds of a Feather continues its series on Dystopian Visions. Here are excerpts from two of the major critical essays. And the link will also lead you to innumerable posts about individual books and films with dystopian themes.
What marked Utopia out from these fantasies of plenty was that it could be reached, and reached in two ways. Reached physically: there was a long, arduous but supposedly practicable journey that could get you from here to there. It was a journey beyond the abilities and wishes of most people, but the idea was established that perfection did not exist only in dreams or upon death, but here in the everyday world we all inhabited. And it could be reached structurally: this perfection was not the province of god or of fairies or some supernatural inversion of the natural world, this perfection was achieved by rational men. If a safe, secure, happy existence could be achieved by sensible human organisation in Utopia, then sensible, rational men could achieve the same here.
No, I don’t think science fiction’s exploration of dystopian presents and futures has been instrumental in bringing on twenty-first century dystopia, but the genre as a whole does bear some small responsibility for our comfort with what we should be deeply uncomfortable with…
Three science fiction novels spring to mind as examples, published in 2011, 2013 and 2014. One was by a highly-regarded genre writer, who has spent the last twenty years writing fiction not actually published as science fiction. Another was written by a successful British author of space operas. The earliest of the three is also a space opera, the first in a series of, to date, six novels, which was adapted for television in 2014.
…The three books are: The Peripheral by William Gibson, published in 2014, Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey, published in 2011, and Marauder by Gary Gibson, published in 2013.
Since its beginnings, science fiction has exhibited a blithe disregard for the characters who people its stories, outside those of the central cast of heroes, anti-heroes, villains, love interests, etc. Frank Herbert’s Dune from 1965, for instance, describes how Paul Muad’Dib launches a jihad across the galaxy which kills billions. EE ‘Doc’ Smith’s Second Stage Lensman, originally serialised in 1941, opens with a space battle between a fleet of over one million giant warships and an equal number of “mobile planets”… Manipulating scale to evoke sense of wonder is one thing, but the lack of affect with which science fiction stories and novels massacre vast numbers of people, for whatever narrative reason, is more astonishing.
(17) DO YOU? I had to answer “No.”
https://twitter.com/sigridellis/statuses/852241336141000710
(18) EXOTIC GAME. Review of Simon Stålenhags RPG Tales from The Loop at Geek & Sundry — “Tales from the Loop Invites You to Roleplay in the ‘80s That Never Was”.
Tales from the Loop takes place in a retro-futuristic version of the 80’s where Cold War Era science brought us hover-vehicles, robots, and other advancements that pepper this light sci-fi landscape. It’s an idyllic time. Kids are free to roam after dark. The same children who have grown up around robots and Magnetrine Vehicles geek out over Dungeons & Dragons and Atari systems. There are problems, but the future is hopeful.
If this whole setting sounds like a sci-fi version of Stranger Things you wouldn’t be far off. If that’s what it takes to get you to crack into this portal into a future past then by all means: it’s a sci-fi version of Stranger Things. But in reality it captures more of the feeling of E.T. or The Goonies. Mike, Dustin, and Lucas were able to get help from Joyce and Sheriff Hopper. In Tales from the Loop the focus is squarely on the trials, challenges, and successes of the kids. One of the 6 Principles of the game right in the book is that “Adults Are Out of Reach and Out of Touch”, and if your character ever turns 16 years old, they age out of the campaign
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Hampus Eckerman, Cat Eldridge, JJ, and Marc Criley for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W, who will be awarded a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the basic Scroll title DNA.]
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@Cat Rambo:
I agree. Just the implication that VD’s obsession with Scalzi is sexual makes me kinda uncomfortable, even when I’m not reading it as homophobic.
… and I hadn’t noticed that Mike already had a post up about the Eugie Award …
[remembers to tick this time]
I’ve experienced brake failure, as well, and can verify that, yep, parking brakes (applied slowly and with care) is the way to go.
ETA I like the new WFA statuette. Much better looking than the creepy Lovecraft bust, and more illustrative of fantasy.
Mike Glyer, lucky man, now officially knows about the WFC trophy change: However, I have now been emailed a copy of the press release. So there’s that.
If it’s any consolation, Ansible still hasn’t been officially told and continues to wail in the outer darkness. Except for seeing Facebook posts from staunch defenders of something or other who assert that this is a very evil thing and that they for one will totally and forever boycott anyone unfortunate enough to receive one of these new trophies. Because, er, Aristotleian logic.
David Langford: Well, now that I know that, the malice theory goes out the window.
gottacook: All this discussion of Juan Rico and not once is “Johnnie” spelled correctly… I’m not a pedant, just an editor.
Sorry about that – I just checked the text and to my surprise, it is Johnnie, not Johnny. Time for a reread!
“Scrolls the Pixel of Rodger Young”
re: American Gods. Yes, the older gods came over with each wave of immigrants. But the real Old Gods of America aren’t from Europe, and the Native Americans are *still here*. Where are Thunderbird and Coyote, Spider Grandmother and Onatah?
Erased. File not found.
I really have a whole beehive in my bonnet about this, I should probably do a stand-alone post. TLDR: “American Gods” erases Native Americans from mythology, and it really enrages me because it’s so popular (and, with the TV series, about to become more so) and no-one cares about what’s missing.
His name was Juan. His friend was Carmencita. I made no notice of their ethnicity because I grew up on the Mexican border, and everyone was named Juan!
That’s going to cause some confusion – mind if we call you Bruce?
Greg:
I think airboy may see someone being pleased that stories by women are getting nominated, and assume that gender is all that person cares about, rather than being pleased both that there are such good stories out there by women authors and that they’re getting recognized.
Why airboy feels this way may have something to do with why his favorite Hugo nominations of recent years included an author who wasn’t nominated, but who fit the Puppy brand of virtue-signaling.
It’s hard to convincingly feign being opposed to messages when you’re so intent on sending them.
Paul:
Woot! Bought nine of those (because I already owned the tenth, digitally), and seven of them I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, so score!
[I must be ticking the “Jewish” box, right? It can’t be true that I’m delighted to get good books for cheap.]
Anyone need a moisture vaporator?
Wow. I’ve…caught up. Sort of. Ever since, oh, June (and I’m not sure whether that was 2015 or 2016, pretty sure the former) I’ve been trying to read all of the Pixel Scrolls and their comments, but I keep slipping behind — especially when I first started reading here and threads were frequently hundreds of posts — so now and again I end up skipping several months. I still have a tab open to a post from December which I guess I can get back to.
And since I keep feeling that I can only comment on the current day, it’s taken me an extra ten days to say: wasn’t Anne McCaffrey also an April 1 birth? I remember when I first read an about-the-author with “Born on such an auspicious natal day…” and was so young I didn’t know what either auspicious or natal meant.
Anyway, um. I think my only other post here was to wish Mike a speedy recovery when he was in hospital. Hi.
Pixels, Mr. Rico. Zillions of ’em! I’m a-scrollin’ them down!
Some years back, my eldest had very specific book-reading interests: They wanted books about girls, set in the real world, doing real-world things like school and summer camp and such. These were not the only books Danny would read, but they were the books Danny most wanted to read, so I was glad that such books were available, and I can see why librarians would be too.
Sneering about people wanting to know what the author’s favorite food is strikes me as evidence not just of an utter lack of empathy, but of stupidity as well.
Doing so repeatedly, in an attempt to get a rise out of people, strikes me as being an asshole.
I thought there were Native American gods/spirits in AMERICAN GODS. There are Thunderbirds, and Buffalo Man/Woman, and Coyote. And Whiskey Jack, who says he isn’t a god but who’s one of the manitou.
And we see the very first gods of the Americas arriving with the very first settlers, coming across the land bridge.
But as the gods, at least in the novel, seem to be the creations of believers, and fade as their believers fade, I expect the European swamping of the continent did bad things for the Native American gods. But they seem to still be there, in one form or another.
kathodus on April 13, 2017 at 1:59 pm said:
Agreed. I had my brakes fade on me early in my driving days, when I was going too fast down roads from the mountains. Fortunately for me, I realized what was happening about the time the twisty mountain road straightened out for a bit and I was able to down-shift and carefully use the parking brake to slow me to the point where what was left of the overheated main brakes would stop the car, whereupon I pulled over and let it cool down and my heart slow down from what could have been a terminal experience for me.
@Kurt Busiek – I mentioned there was a lot of box-checking at 770 quite a while back. The off-hand comment was met with a chorus of “nay nay, no box checking (or at least very little box checking).” I started mentioning box-checking when it was particularly blatant. I guess that would be perceived by you as “an utter lack of empathy” and “stupidity.” I look at it as pointing out the facts and identifying hypocritical behavior by the 770 hardcore.
But I don’t have to claim that you “lack empathy” are “stupid” or an “asshole” to make my point. I leave that to people who wish to polish their bully credentials.
@Kurt Busiek: Thank you for posting. Because I do remember Native American gods and heroes in AMERICAN GODS, and I was briefly terrified about where those allegedly-false memories were coming from.
I had a wheel throw a bearing as I was heading up into the mountains. Turns out the wheel would have fallen off in another moment or two. The brakes went out along with that, but I stopped with the parking brake and downshifting.
When we lived in Houston, we had a crappy Plymouth Arrow (I realize there’s a superfluous word in there) that needed DOT-3 brake fluid the way other lemons need motor oil. Coupled with the constant stress of maintaining a supply of the stuff was the threat of what would happen if we didn’t keep putting it in constantly.
Is it controversial to say that there isn’t a complete overlap between men and women, people who are cis and those who are trans, hetero and non-hetero, etc.? Because if it isn’t, I’m not sure why it’s called box checking when I go looking for books that aren’t by straight white men, just so I can occasionally read fiction that doesn’t have an extra layer of alien to it.
Please note that if you are a straight white man, you probably won’t be able to get a side of alien with your fiction unless you search out diverse authors. So there’s that.
In a few weeks, I won’t have a car with a manual transmission for the first time in decades. I should probably make a plan for brake failure that doesn’t involve compression and downshifting.
I’ve been lucky that the time I had brake failure it was in the middle of winter (in MN) and I was able to use the snowbanks on the side of the intersection in order to slow the car down for the turn. (and stop)
What an asshole thing to do.
airboy: I did not mention it and nor do I care. Nor did I “You don’t have to like it that other people enjoy different things than you do.” In fact, I said the exact opposite… I mentioned there was a lot of box-checking at 770 quite a while back
Yes, you said the opposite — but have repeatedly contradicted that with your posts about supposed “box-checking”, banging on and on and ON about it constantly.
You’ve made your point. You don’t think people should care about whether their books feature diverse characters, or whether their books are written by people with diverse cultural and experiential backgrounds. That’s fine.
But at this point, you’re like a sad, pathetic broken record, complaining continually that other people are thrilled about having diverse books. Pointing out that you keep doing this is not “bullying” — but your continully haranguing other people for liking diverse books, and claiming that it is “box-checking”, certainly does smack of bullying.
@Robin. That’s impressive dedication. You ever find old posts that seem strange in light of what has happened since?
You know, whenever someone claims that they don’t pay attention to an author’s gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc…, but only want “good books”, and you ask them which books they recently read, it turns out that they read almost exclusively books by straight white men. Funny how all the “good books” just happen to be written by straight white men.
@airboy, I assume you are a straight white man and the books you claim to enjoy are written by straight white men as well, mostly with straight white men as protagonists. So you are seeking out books with protagonists that resemble you and are engaging in box-ticking, even if you don’t realise that’s what you’re doing, because straight white American men are still the default in much of our genre. And you know what, that’s okay. You can read whatever you like and if books by straight white men hit your reading sweetspot best, then so be it.
However, you should also grant everybody else the right to read what they like (e,g, I find reading Larry Correia about as pleasant as a visit to the dentist), whether that involves books by authors and featuring characters that resemble them or that or deliberately unlike them or a mixture of both.
@JJ – You are a sad, pathetic broken bully.
@ Kurt Busiek – your insult vocabulary is weak.
But I’ve made my point. There is a lot of box checking at 770. The 770 hardcore now admit and embrace it. Since the hardcore are out of denial and have embraced reality, I’ll stop mentioning.
Bless your heart.
But I’ve made my point. There is a lot of box checking at 770. The 770 hardcore now admit and embrace it.
Actually, you’ve embarrassed yourself quite badly. You seem to think that noticing the characteristics of an author amounts to “box-checking”, but the reality is, you have no clue what you are talking about, which you have proven time and again.
You seem to think that people choose authors to read (or appreciate when particular authors are honored) out of a desire to mark some imaginary score sheet. This is not what people other than you are doing. What is clear that, despite your protestations, that you do that all the time – you are obsessed with checking boxes in a way that no one else on File 770 is.
When I pay attention to the authors I am reading, it is because I want to get a wide range of viewpoints – and a black author, or a female author, or a Hispanic author each bring to the table a different set of experiences than a white male author would, and that informs and affects their writing. I pay attention to the authors I read because I want to experience different things on a regular basis. This enriches my reading experience. I am not “box-checking”, I am getting a better overall set of reading material.
When those authors I like who are members of minority or marginalized groups are recognized by the community as a whole, I am glad to see it, because I believe their writing deserves it. In a just world, I think such authors would have received more recognition than they have in the past, so seeing it happen now is something that I consider to be long overdue, and well-deserves. I am not “box checking”, I am stating that I am glad that people who I think should be honored are now, in many cases belatedly, being honored.
But you don’t understand any of that. You just see “people are reading diversely and liking that diverse authors are getting recognized”, and your tiny brain kicks to “box-checking”.
@airboy: I just don’t really get why you perceive diversity as something bad? It’s not as if a white male American is banished from the world of publishing every time someone chooses to publish an author who doesn’t match that description.
@airboy
There is a lot of box checking at 770. The 770 hardcore now admit and embrace it.
Nonsense.
Why is “diversity” such a dirty word to you? Reading, and publishing, is not a zero-sum game, you know. Especially with all the new avenues open for those who want to self-publish, who can build their own specialized audiences. Just because N.K. Jemisin won the Hugo for her fantastic book (which I thought, and will continue to say, was the best book I read last year) doesn’t mean Larry Correia was banished to the Twilight Zone. (If there’s ever another Dragon Award, I imagine he’ll be on the shortlist.) Hell, people can even like Jemisin and Correia at the same time! Horrors!
Frankly, you are coming across as nastier, more smug, and more self-serving with each comment. What you are saying is simply not true, and you have been around here long enough to know it.
Kurt, Nancy:
OK, now I AM going to have to re-read, more carefully, before the premiere. Some use of Amazon’s Look Inside feature says that the long conversations with Whiskey Jack happen in the second half of the book, when I was already seriously annoyed (for reasons I’ll try to pin down if they recur with the re-read).
I’m not sure which is worse for reading comprehension: disliking a book intensely, or liking it too much.
airboy-
Yes that you’re a broken record who justifies negative assumptions in others by jumping to poorly thought out conclusions, without thinking about why it is you jump to those conclusions when it comes to diversity.
You’ve certainly shown hypocrisy in something alright 😉
ok read through some earlier comments in the thread – urgh.
So. For me, a lot of my “diverse” reading comes about because I’m interested in other countries’ cultures. Mainly that would be Japan, Korea and, to a lesser extent, China and a bunch of other countries usually lumped into East and South-East Asia. I’m not “box checking” when I read these authors; they overlap with my interests. I assume the majority of people who are looking for some kind of diversity in fiction are either like me (looking for interesting things outside of their own experience) OR seeking out a voice which resembles their own in some way. The former is cool, the latter is fucking essential.
Read what you want, just please don’t boil down any talk of diversity in publishing (or anywhere the fuck else) down to “box checking” as if it’s only done for social brownie points.
If you have to tell us that, you probably didn’t.
One of the primary characteristics of File 770 is that it is full of reviews. People here talk forever about the books they’ve read. When someone notes an author’s background, that’s the beginning of a conversation on the work, not the end. Hundreds of books and stories are discussed here each month.
You want to tell us we’re just checking boxes, but we demonstrate in our conversations that we value a lot of different things about a work and diversity is just one of them.
Doc:
Both can certainly have a distorting effect!
Oneiros:
Calling it “box checking” is being done for social brownie points.
@Oneiros – I assume the majority of people who are looking for some kind of diversity in fiction are either like me (looking for interesting things outside of their own experience) OR seeking out a voice which resembles their own in some way. The former is cool, the latter is fucking essential.
Yeah, it really is. Thanks for saying it so eloquently.
@airboy, when you were just a young airboy reading science fiction, you probably had a choice of writers and protagonists who looked like you, except maybe taller. And maybe manlier, because aspirational stories are baked into SFF.
I didn’t have that experience when I was a child. While I have a necessarily high tolerance for male focused/male written fiction, it’s indescribably restful to have female protagonists in fiction written by women. Bonus points if there are characters who are not heterosexual, because that’s also been done to death.
Just because you aren’t aware that you’re doing the same kind of selection that I am – those who believe they’re the default make a lot of assumptions about what deviates from (their conception of) normal – doesn’t mean you aren’t doing it.
You know, this isn’t the first time that I’ve left a thread to go to sleep and woken up to find airboy’s thick-headed insistence on sneering at diversity (sorry, “box checking”) has derailed the conversation.
Bro, it’s really convenient that you’ve invented a stance for yourself where you can dismiss everything others enjoy that you don’t as an exercise in “box checking”, and tell yourself that you “just read good books” and how could anyone do better for themselves than that?
But you’ve been had it explained multiple times across multiple threads, not least this one, why others have different reading habits to you and the pleasure they derive from them. And yet you’ve persisted in your nasty jabs with this reductive “box checking” label, with added insults thrown in towards members who have lost patience with these constant cycles of thick-headedness. Adding “I hope they’re/you’re happy” after every mini-moan doesn’t disguise and excuse how persistently rude and unwilling to learn you have been on this topic.
Yes, a lot of people – myself included – track their reading based on some demographic criteria. I seek out books by women, with women protagonists, because those protagonists are more likely to resonate and reflect with me, and I seek out books by non-white authors (at a demonstrably lesser rate, as my book tracking tells me) so I can experience different perspectives and broaden my horizons in reading, in a way which doesn’t affect my enjoyment. Those two things are contradictory because I read different things for different reasons, just like how a person can watch comedy movies in order to laugh and documentary movies in order to admire lizards and volcanoes.
Right now my “box checking” translates to 66% of my books read in 2017 being by women and 19% by PoC. Even for a “box checker” like me, 26% of my reading came from white men, so if I’m trying to filter them out I’m doing a terrible job right now. I have no idea what any of my authors’ favourite foods are, because that information is of no relevance to my reading choices, difficult to consistently access, and I doubt it would be a good indicator of books I’d enjoy.
I’m very happy with my reading so far this year, except for the day when I pushed myself to read most of Cyteen, because that book was grim and slow and I should have just read it slowly over a period of weeks alongside other things. I’m still pleased I read it though, it was fantastic SF regardless of the gender, race and sexual orientation of the writer. I’m also glad a woman who isn’t heterosexual was writing and being recognised for works this difficult in the 1980s.
So there’s another data point for you to either smush into your tiny existing worldview. Or maybe you can try, just try, to absorb what you’ve been told so far (yes even by your “bullies”, they’ve just lost patience with your constant disingenuity), accept what many people are telling you are their reasons for reading in good faith, and we can all move on from having/looking at the same conversation with you over and over again?
@Doctor Science:
I find myself in an odd position wrt AMERICAN GODS. I read the whole thing, and I thought it was mostly well-done*, and when I was finished I had zero urge to read anything else Gaiman had written.
*I’m not forgiving him anytime soon for associating Easter with an obscure Anglo-Saxon goddess.
ANYWAY I came here to talk about American Gods and other related books:
So the ten-years-ago me who read American Gods liked the premise just fine, and thought the execution was alright, though I generally don’t get along super well with Neil Gaiman’s prose – I just find it doesn’t “spark” in the way that the scenarios and plotlines should lend themselves to? I don’t know, its not enough to make me avoid him but I’ve got a lot of other authors I’d read first, which is also why I wouldn’t go back and reread it to figure out if my feelings have changed. I’ve also read most (all?) of the Percy Jackson books 5 – 2 years ago and really enjoyed that series too, and the erasure in that is just as bad IIRC.
If I’m being honest with myself, I think the part of me that kneejerk dislikes Celtic-myth-displaced-to-the-US is a British sense of ownership and not wanting to “lose” that mythology or have it “done wrong”, rather than a visceral objection to the erasure of Native American culture. The analytical part of my brain says my first objection is probably overstated and the second has significantly more potential for damage, and I should do my best to pay attention to it where possible…
Also of interest to this conversation might be Gunnerkrigg Court, a webcomic with Coyote as one of the main characters in a mythology set around a school/forest in the UK Midlands.
wrt American Gods: not only were all the eastern-hemisphere gods imported with their people; they are also not as in control as they’d like to think. It’s arguable that they’re merely squabbling over votaries while the native gods control most of the territory. (@Doctor Science: did you read the whole book? It’s unclear from your last response. Note that the book is by an immigrant writing about the immigrant experience; I get the impression the native gods couldn’t be arsed to pay attention to the easterners’ petty echoes, who couldn’t be as disruptive as Friesner showed the Fae court being in Elf Defense.)
wrt October Daye: the Court is nasty enough to have treated local powers the way European mortals treated native mortals, although she doesn’t go into the detail that Alex Bledsoe does in the course of the first few Tufa books (and the Tufa are admittedly confined to a much smaller area). And IIRC some of the closer-to-the-ground native myths do appear as the story goes on — although not as much as in her Incryptid books.
@Kurt Busiek: Calling it “box checking” is being done for social brownie points. Brownie or brown-nosing?
Brownie points
Brown shirting or vice signaling?
Blame the Venerable Bede. He started it.
Kurt Busiek: Calling it “box checking” is being done for social brownie points.
And it’s straight out of the VD Playbook, too!
Despite having been repeatedly proven wrong, I’m going to announce that I have been TOTALLY proven right and declare VICTORY, in the hope that everyone reading along will be stupid enough to believe it!
I knew of Beale back when he was a creationist flea posting on WND.
He has not substantially changed.
At all.
@NickPheas: I’m confused; I missed some mention in the Humble Bundle about U.S. limitations, or is that just a general HB limitation? (4 of the 7 items are DRM-free ebooks from Sanderson’s Dragonsteel; surely he can send them anywhere.) I wouldn’t be surprised by a limitation on the audiobooks, though, since those are done by a third party and there may be specific rights sales for them.
I’m tempted by the bundle because I want to get the two “Legion” novellas and hey, $1 or more for the pair sounds good. The audiobooks being split into three parts is a sneaky thing to do; is that the usual way they do it? If I like it, I’ll regret not getting the whole bundle; or I should just get the whole thing in case I do like it. ::obsess::
@Matthew: Great award design and I’ve always appreciated Villafranca’s stuff since first seeing his work at (IIRC) Worldcon. Thanks for the link!
@Robin Whiskers: Welcome (after a fashion) and congrats! 😉
@Various: Airboy’s being airboy; also, water is wet. It’s nearly impossible for me not to be aware of the gender of the author; while I can guess wrong, usually the first name gives it away. It’s odd someone would pretend they don’t know this and other facts about authors.
@Kendall: not sure if that’s how audiobooks normally are (I would guess not?) but it’s a very Humble Bundle thing to do – with comics they like to give you a taste (the first couple of issues, or the first trade volume) and then add in later issues/volumes in the higher tiers. I might just be imagining it but I’m sure I’ve also seen it where they’ll give away vol. 2 in a low tier and include vol. 1 in a higher one. So it doesn’t surprise me that they might hack up an audiobook to incentivise people to spend a little extra on the full set.
Edit: I know that when you purchase a bundle you are also given the chance to increase your purchase amount afterwards if you like it. I’m not sure if doing so actually unlocks the rest of the bundle or not though, so probably best to either email them or find out if someone here has experience of that particular HB feature 🙂
I don’t know why exactly, but during this last election I realized that, to many pundits, if I was supporting a woman candidate, I was participating in “identity politics,” no matter what my actual reasons were. However, if I supported the white male candidate, it was just “politics.” Whenever anyone is accused of “box checking,” I get mad all over again.
You know who just about never gets accused of “box-checking”?
All those young boys who supposedly won’t read a story with a female protagonist. The ones that young adult authors are always getting warned about. That’s never shameful, shameful box-checking; that’s just audience demographics and smart marketing.
But flip it around, hear a woman saying she’s glad there are so many great books written by women and starring female characters, so much more than there were in her youth–oh, she’s a terrible box-checker whose imagination is so small because she can’t identify with someone different from her!
(Isn’t it funny how some straight white cismale people will tut-tut over how marginalized people should be more generous in identifying with protagonists who are different from them, and how all this fuss over having protagonists who look like you is totally overrated… right up until they’re asked to give more readerly attention to authors and protagonists who don’t look like them. Then listen to them them howl about box-checking and affirmative action policies and too many concepts unfamiliar to “normal” readers!)
Actually, I put that badly. What really irked me was that if I personally supported a woman candidate, it was ascribed to identity politics. But if middle-aged white hetero men voted for a middle-aged white hetero man, it was just politics. THAT’S what I meant to say, and if that’s not box-checking, I don’t know what is. (Apparently I missed the window to edit or delete my first post – sorry for the repetition!)
@Oneiros: Vol. 2 at a lower tier and 1 at a higher one – now that’s just mean! 😉