(1) LEARNING ABOUT RUSSIAN SFF. Clarkesworld presents “A Brief History of Russian Science Fiction” by Alex Shvartsman.
It’s telling that the Russian term used to describe speculative fiction doesn’t distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. The word is fantastika —the literature of the fantastic. It is used equally to reference the Three Laws stories of Asimov and the Middle Earth tales of Tolkien. It is this lack of distinction—combined with Russia’s rich heritage of fairy tales and its rigorous education in mathematics and the sciences—that may be responsible for so many genre-bending tales penned by Russian-speaking authors, which have become classics of world literature. The history of Russian fantastika is inseparable from the history of Russia itself, and the political, economic, and social forces that have shaped it over the course of the twentieth century….
(2) WORLDCON FUNDAMENTALS. The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) – unincorporated – is the umbrella organization that awards the right to host Worldcons and sets the Hugo rules. Cheryl Morgan asks “Is WSFS Fit for Purpose?” at Salon Futura.
…The problem is that WSFS suffers from what we in the Diversity & Inclusion business called “Status Quo Bias”. When the existing system happens to favour one particular segment of a population over others, that system will be seen as grossly unfair. There will be pressure for change. And if change is impossible within the system, the aggrieved parties will look to leave that system for an alternative, or to destroy it.
The accepted wisdom is that if you want to change WSFS then you have to do so through the Business Meeting. But the way that works, with the time commitment and necessity of understanding Parliamentary Procedure, is itself a form of Status Quo Bias. Kevin [Standlee] can help people who want to create a new Hugo Award category, but I suspect that no amount of help will be enough for people who want to recraft the entire governance process of the Society.
Furthermore, mollifying upset fans is not the only reason why this should be done. We live in an increasingly corporate world. WSFS is not a corporate animal, and other corporations simply don’t know how to deal with it. Relatively simple things such as selling advertising in the souvenir book, or soliciting sponsorship, become much more complicated than they need to be because WSFS itself has no corporate existence, and external organisations have to deal with a different company each year. Being proudly unincorporated is all very well, but it makes it hard to do business….
Just one note before leaving this open to discussion – when the Worldcon is held in the U.S. the “different company each year” has for many years been a nonprofit corporation organized by the bidders under state corporation and federal tax laws.
(3) ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST. James Davis Nicoll’s Young People Read Old SFF panel take on Robert Bloch’s “That Hell-Bound Train.” And are young people impressed by this 1958 Hugo-winning short story? You’re kidding, aren’t you?
(4) STORY OF A LATE ADOPTER. Debarkle is Camestros Felapton’s work-in-progress chronicle of the history and consequences of the Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy Kerfuffle. He’s added a chapter that does a good job of capturing what I’ve tried to do with File 770 since issue #1: “Debarkle Chapter 29: Dramatis Personae — Mike Glyer & File 770”. For instance:
…The point is not that the fanzine was a paragon of feminism or even progressive politics but rather that a newszine had a responsibility to engage with issues of the day and in the process, the editor had to get to grips with those issues also….
(5) D & DEITY. James Davis Nicoll’s busy day continues with “Five Fantasy Novels Featuring Gods and Religious Sects” for Tor.com.
In the days of yore, if I wanted to buy a table-top roleplaying game, I had to travel to Toronto, the nearest major city. If I wanted inked dice, I had to hand-ink them myself. If I wanted fellow gamers, I had to shape mud into human form and breathe life into my golems (oops, no, I couldn’t do that, sometimes I just wished I could).
In those days, most TTRPGs treated gods as a sort of theological ConEd for wandering clerics. Gods had different names and superficial attributes, but otherwise their cults were much of a muchness, with no actual doctrinal differences.
One notable exception was Chaosium’s RuneQuest, particularly those supplements set in Greg Stafford’s gaming world of Glorantha….
(6) ABOUT THOSE FREE FANZINES. When David Langford learned that the N3F had started including copies of Ansible among the fanzines they were emailing to their distribution list it was news to him. And not welcome news, as Langford made clear:
Dear N3F President,
I’m told that the N3F is distributing PDF copies of Ansible in a bundle of “Free Fanzines from the N3F” without having asked my permission. Permission is not granted. You are welcome to circulate links to individual issues on the Ansible site at news.ansible.uk, but not to copy the issues themselves to others.
N3F President George Phillies wrote back an apology. That probably puts the matter to rest.
(7) JUNG OBIT. Actor Nathan Jung died April 24 at the age of 74. Deadline has the story —
Jung began his acting career in 1969 with a role as Genghis Khan in “The Savage Curtain” episode of the original Star Trek.
In the 1990s, he had stints on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman…His other [genre] film credits include Big Trouble in Little China, Darkman, The Shadow….
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
- Born May 3, 1896 — Dodie Smith. English children’s novelist and playwright, best remembered for The Hundred and One Dalmatians which of course became the animated film of the same name and thirty years later was remade by Disney as a live action film. (Saw the first a long time ago, never saw the latter.) Though The Starlight Barking, the sequel, was optioned, by Disney, neither sequel film (101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure and 102 Dalmatians) is based on it. Elizabeth Hand in her review column in F&SF praised it as one of the very best fantasies (“… Dodie Smith’s sophisticated canine society in The Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Starlight Barking…”) she had read. (Died 1990.) (CE)
- Born May 3, 1901 – John Collier. Three novels, twoscore shorter stories for us; poetry; screenplays, teleplays; two dozen short stories adapted for television by others. Collection Fancies and Goodnights won an Edgar and an Int’l Fantasy Award. (Died 1980) [JH]
- Born May 3, 1928 — Jeanne Bal. In Trek’s “The Man Trap” episode, she played Nancy Crate, a former lover of Leonard McCoy, who would be a victim of the lethal shape-shifting alien which craves salt. This was the episode that replaced “The Cage” episode which the Network really didn’t like. She also had one-offs in Thriller and I-Spy. (Died 1996.) (CE)
- Born May 3, 1939 — Dennis O’Neil. Writer and editor, mostly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics from the Sixties through the Nineties, and was the Group Editor for the Batman family of titles until his retirement which makes him there when Ed Brubaker’s amazing Gotham Central came out. He himself has written Wonder Woman and Green Arrow in both cases introducing some rather controversial storytelling ideas. He also did a rather brilliant DC Comics Shadow series with Michael Kaluta as the artist. (Died 2020.) (CE)
- Born May 3, 1946 – Elizabeth Horrocks, age 75. Three novels for us. Won at the British television programme Mastermind, her subjects Shakespeare’s plays, works of Tolkien, works of Dorothy L. Sayers. [JH]
- Born May 3, 1951 – Tatyana Tolstaya, age 70. One novel, three shorter stories for us available in English; for others outside our field, see here; hosted a Russian television-interview show a dozen years. Great-grandniece of literary giant Leo Tolstoy. [JH]
- Born May 3, 1962 – Stephan Martiniere, age 59. Two hundred seventy-five covers, fifty interiors. Artbooks Quantum Dreams, Quantumscapes, Velocity, Trajectory. One Hugo, two Chesleys; two BSFA (British SF Ass’n) Awards. Here is Heavy Planet. Here is Dozois’ 22nd Year’s Best SF. Here is Betrayer of Worlds. Here is The Three-Body Problem. Here is The Poet King. [JH]
- Born May 3, 1969 — Daryl Mallett, 52. By now you know that I’ve a deep fascination with the nonfiction documentation of our community. This author has done a number of works doing just that including several I’d love to see including Reginald’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards: A Comprehensive Guide to the Awards and Their Winners written with Robert Reginald. He’s also written some short fiction including one story with Forrest J Ackerman that bears the charming title of “A Typical Terran’s Thought When Spoken to by an Alien from the Planet Quarn in Its Native Language“. He’s even been an actor as well appearing in several Next Gen episodes (“Encounter at Farpoint” and “Hide and Q”) and The Undiscovered Country as well, all uncredited. He also appeared in Doctor Who and The Legends Of Time, a fan film which you can see here if you wish to. (CE)
- Born May 3, 1980 – Jessica Spotswood, age 41. Three novels, one shorter story, one anthology (with Tess Sharpe) for us. Works for Washington, D.C., Public Library. Has read five Anne of Green Gables books, three by Jane Austen, The Strange History of the American Quadroon, The Crucible, We Should All Be Feminists. [JH]
- Born May 3, 1982 — Rebecca Hall, 39. Lots of genre work — her first role was as Sarah Borden in The Prestige followed by being Emily Wotton in Dorian Gray and then as Florence Cathcart in The Awakening which in turn led to her being Maya Hansen in Iron Man 3. Next up? Mary in Roald Dahl’s The BFG. Is she done yet? No as next up is the English dub of the voice of Mother of Mirai no Mirai. She might’ve wanted to have stopped there as her most recent role was Dr. Grace Hart in Holmes & Watson which won an appalling four Golden Raspberries! (CE)
- Born May 3, 1984 – Ian Bristow, age 37. Four novels, two shorter stories, a dozen covers. Here is The Interspecies Poker Tournament. Here is Contact. Here is The Gaia Collection. [JH]
- Born May 3, 1985 — Becky Chambers, 36. I’m currently listening to The Galaxy, And The Ground Within which is most excellent. Her Wayfarers series won the Best Series Hugo at Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon. (A Closed and Common Orbit was on the final list at WorldCon 75 for Best Novel but lost out to another exemplary novel, N. K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate. Record of a Spaceborn Few would be on the ballot at Dublin 2019 but lost out to yet another exemplary novel, Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars.) (A digression: The Wayfarers are the best series I’ve listened to in a long time.) “To Be Taught, if Fortunate” was a finalist at ConZealand in the Best Novella category but lost out to “This Is How You Lose the Time War” by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. (CE)
(9) COMICS SECTION.
- Non Sequitur follows an outfit that knows their truth is out there. Maybe.
- Heathcliff doesn’t look very superheroic – that’s what makes him so dangerous.
- Maximumble shows why not all AI want to be more like humans.
(10) FAMILY TIME. Get your tissues ready. “Marvel Studios Celebrates The Movies” on YouTube is something Marvel Studios put together (with words by Stan Lee) about the importance of seeing MCU movies in theatres, along with a list of forthcoming MCU releases for the next two years.
The world may change and evolve, but the one thing that will never change: we’re all part of one big family.
(11) THE FATES OF THREE GENRE SHOWS. SYFY Wire says don’t change that channel – unless you want to watch Pennyworth: “The CW renews Stargirl & Kung Fu; HBO Max eyes Pennyworth pick-up”.
Stargirl will continue to shine bright on The CW with a third season, the network announced Monday. The DC show’s renewal also came with the news that Christina M. Kim’s Kung Fu reboot has scored a second, butt-kicking season. Stargirl‘s sophomore season is scheduled to kick off this summer, while Kung Fu is in the middle of airing its debut batch of episodes (the premiere garnered over 3.5 million audience members when it first dropped in early April)….
“STARGIRL SEASON 3!!!” Brec Bassinger, Stargirl‘s leading lady, wrote on Twitter. “I get to go be with my star fam another year.”
“Thank you to everyone who has been tuning in to our little show,” tweeted Olivia Lang, who headlines Kung Fu. “We hope we’ve made your lives brighter and brought joy into your homes.”
Elsewhere, Epix’s Batman prequel, Pennyworth, could score a third outing of its own, but not on Epix. According to a new report from Deadline, HBO Max is mulling over a decision to pick up the DC-inspired series about a young British spy (Jack Bannon) who will one day become the butler of Wayne Manor….
(12) THE PAST THROUGH TOMORROW. Brett Molina reviews the updates Atari: “Remember Atari? We played its latest video game console, Atari VCS” at Yahoo!
It is 2021, and I’m not playing on an Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo Switch. I’m playing Atari.
This isn’t an old Atari 2600 previously collecting dust in a closet or an emulator I found online. It’s a fresh home video game console: the Atari VCS.
Having spent some time playing Atari VCS, it’s easy to get trapped by the nostalgic feelings of popping in my “Asteroids” or “Missile Command” cartridges. However, the VCS delivers plenty of modern touches such as wireless, rechargeable controllers and Wi-Fi support for downloadable games.
The Atari VCS is available to preorder for $399.99 and includes the console, a wireless modern controller and a wireless classic joystick.
(13) REAL HANDWAVIUM. The New York Times reports “These Materials Could Make Science Fiction a Reality”.
Imagine operating a computer by moving your hands in the air as Tony Stark does in “Iron Man.” Or using a smartphone to magnify an object as does the device that Harrison Ford’s character uses in “Blade Runner.” Or a next-generation video meeting where augmented reality glasses make it possible to view 3-D avatars. Or a generation of autonomous vehicles capable of driving safely in city traffic.
These advances and a host of others on the horizon could happen because of metamaterials, making it possible to control beams of light with the same ease that computer chips control electricity.
The term metamaterials refers to a broad class of manufactured materials composed of structures that are finer than the wavelength of visible light, radio waves and other types of electromagnetic radiation. Together, they are now giving engineers extraordinary control in designing new types of ultracheap sensors that range from a telescope lens to an infrared thermometer.
“We are entering the consumer phase for metamaterials,” said Alan Huang, the chief technology officer at Terabit Corporation, a Silicon Valley consulting firm, who did early research in optical computing during his 12 years at Bell Labs. “It will go way beyond cameras and projectors and lead to things we don’t expect. It’s really a field of dreams.”
The first consumer products to take advantage of inexpensive metamaterials will be smartphones, which will improve their performance, but the ability to control light waves in new ways will also soon enable products like augmented reality glasses that overlay computerized images on the real world….
(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Mortal Kombat (2021) Pitch Meeting” on ScreenRant, which has spoilers, the producer explains he’s heard of the Mortal Kombat video game because “you mash a lot of buttons and someone’s spine explodes. Then you need a lot of therapy.” Also one character’s laser eye powers are discovered “by arguing about egg rolls” with another character.
[Thanks to Michael Toman, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Kendall, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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I have deep nostalgia for the Atari 2600…
But not to the tune of $400
Heathcliff looks like the cat that ate cheese and stood outside the mousehole, waiting for his prey with baited breath..
I thought I was going to read the scroll now, but it looks like I’m gong to fall backwards onto the bed, and read it later.
I like the little Russian SF I’ve read–Zamyatin’s We and a few stories in Mirra Ginsburg’s 1970 anthology The Ultimate Threshold. I also love the approach described at the beginning of this article. I understand the differences between science fiction proper and other forms of fantastic literature, but I like it when these various forms overlap. “It’s telling that the Russian term used to describe speculative fiction doesn’t distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. The word is fantastika —the literature of the fantastic. It is used equally to reference the Three Laws stories of Asimov and the Middle Earth tales of Tolkien. It is this lack of distinction—combined with Russia’s rich heritage of fairy tales and its rigorous education in mathematics and the sciences—that may be responsible for so many genre-bending tales penned by Russian-speaking authors, which have become classics of world literature.”
Paul Weimer on May 3, 2021 at 6:39 pm said:
I am seriously tempted. But I suspect it would be wiser to update our Nintendo experience first (we’re still playing on the original Wii).
I do still have an Atari 7800 gathering dust (that’s basically the 2600 but with a pause button and no B/W switch), so I should be able to assuage the nostalgia bug that way.
5) I’m actually in a RuneQuest: Glorantha (latest version) game right now. Unlike many games, our characters were just initiated into adulthood and haven’t been allowed to join any cults yet. I’m aiming for Humakti, the God of Death.
(8) Again, no disrespect intended, but, regarding “The Man Trap”: When NBC rejected the first pilot “The Cage” but commissioned a second pilot, it was offered three script ideas from which to choose, and “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was selected for production (the other two being “Mudd’s Women” and “The Omega Glory”). “Where No Man” (with a few minor edits) became the third episode broadcast, which must have confused fans of the first two to air, “The Man Trap” and “Charlie X,” because of cast/character differences. There were no good options for repurposing “Where No Man” in the same way that the first pilot was later made into the centerpiece of the two-part “The Menagerie,” although I wonder why it was decided to hold it back and not show it first instead of third.
(2) WORLDCON FUNDAMENTALS.
I would welcome a positive change in how Worldcon is run. I’d be interested if anyone is aware of a non-profit organization which runs conference-type events in countries all over the world without having to have a separate incorporation in each country to comply with that country’s regulations on non-profits. I have been unable to come up with an example of one.
Meredith moment. Robert Jackson Bennet’s Shorefall is 99p on the Amazon UK Kindle store.
Not to diss 101 Dalmatians, but when I think of Dodie Smith, I think of I Capture the Castle.
@ JJ:
Possibly Usenix (USENIX?)? They run computing-related conferences in multiple countries (US, Ireland, Germany, Israel, Australia, Netherlands; possibly more, those are the ones I can see from “now” to “2023”).
My understanding is that they do this with being a non-profit in the US, and payments being made internationally. This is, probably, less efficient than having more local banking, in pure monetary terms. Not sure how it starts stacking up once you consider costs of having local representation.
I own Foundryside but it is languishing in Mount TBR. Should I just go ahead and buy this anyway?
I enjoyed City of Stairs a lot.
(6) My thanks to Mike for telling me this was happening.
(12) This Abstruse Goose comic seems appropriate.
(8) I’m looking forward to Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built, too
(4) The Debarkle is excellent, particularly for someone like me, who knew little of the issues and almost none of the participants before the Hugo slating. Chapter 28 is a great intro, especially to OGH’s aims. If “writing leaves a trail that we can retrace to discover where we have been stupid”, OGH can look back at the kerfuffle and find very little stupidity in his work, while he chronicled and moderated much in others’. (I would have said this at Camestros’ place, but I seem to have been thrown out with the Gamergater bath water. )
Debarkle chapter twenty eight is here.
In my opinion? Yes. And if I’m wrong and you hate them, you’re only out 99 pence.
Me too, but it’s hard to deny that Dalmations is the better known title.
@rob_matic Foundryside Is excellent. I haven’t read Shorefall yet but at 99p it’s probably worthwhile (reviews seem to rate it lower than Foundryside). It’s a Daily Deal, so waiting isn’t much of an option
Meredith Moment: The ebook version of The Female Man by Joanna Russ is available for $2.99 at the Usual Suspects. IMHO, her writing is severely underrated and is worth checking out.
Meredith moment: Ursula K. Le Guin’s most excellent The Lathe of Heaven Is available from the usual suspects for a dollar ninety nine today. I know I’ve seen at least one filmed version
Kyra:
Sure, but how many people know it’s Dodie Smith? Do they actually trace the Disney films back to the original author? (Obvious answer: We don’t know.)
(8) Rebecca Hall also had a major role in the melancholy and beautiful Tales From the Loop series on Amazon.
Thanks – and sorry, spam filters were on max and your comments got caught by overzealous algorithms.
Jeff Smith says Sure, but how many people know it’s Dodie Smith? Do they actually trace the Disney films back to the original author? (Obvious answer: We don’t know.)
I can state without fear of being contradicted that a very small number of any film audience are interested in knowing the origin of the film that they just watched. I doubt that more than handful of the folk that saw Casablanca knew it was based on Everybody Comes to Rick’s, an unproduced play by Murray Burnett. Most folks take films as they are, not where they came from in most cases.
The Wizard of Oz is assumed by most folk to be based on the book whereas it’s just part of that work. We’re different than most folk — we like deep diving into the origins of things, be they literary works, novels or chocolate bars. We enjoying knowing more than most folk about things.
@ Jeff Smith — In the UK, most people of my era (I was born the year it was published) probably read The Hundred and One Dalmatians as a book, and I myself have never seen the Disney cartoon in its entirety (though my lifetime exposure to films and, particularly, TV is less than is perhaps typical).
I enjoyed the production values of the live-action film, but was extremely irritated by its inclusion, in a range of supposedly London-area fauna, of animals native to North America and unknown in the wild in Britain. Question to other filers: did the writers not know, did they not care, or did they think that US kiddiewinkies wouldn’t like the film if racoons and skunks weren’t included?
@ Camestros Felapton
No problem, will be glad to applaud from closer up!
3) I wonder how the Young Readers would have assessed the other short stories nominated on the same ballot as “Hell-Bound Train.” Would any of them have been considered worthy?
Jerry Kaufman says I wonder how the Young Readers would have assessed the other short stories nominated on the same ballot as “Hell-Bound Train.” Would any of them have been considered worthy?
I doubt they’d have been any more impressed. Looking at the listings over at the Hugo Awards site, I seen there were nine other nominated stories. Of those I can only remember reading “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” by Alfred Bester and “Nine Yards of Other Cloth” by Manly Wade Wellman. And that’s only because I’ve re-read collections by them as of late. “Hell-Bound Train” on the otter paw is one of my all time favorite stories by any author.
@Terry Hunt — It would make sense that UK audiences would be more familiar with the book than US audiences. Despite my omnivorous reading, I never encountered Dodie Smith at all as a child. I only knew I Capture the Castle because my wife loved it.
It puzzled me when I saw it. I couldn’t figure the why of it at all. They’d gone to some effort to get those animals into the film. It’s not like US-set kids films insist on a comical racoon segment.
rob_matic; I own Foundryside but it is languishing in Mount TBR. Should I just go ahead and buy this anyway? I enjoyed City of Stairs a lot.
I thought that Foundryside and Shorefall didn’t quite match the excellence of The Divine Cities trilogy, but they’re still very good. There’s an interesting magic system which verges on being a technology.
I think you should grab the deal, and definitely make time to try reading at least the first one to see if it grabs you.
Well, the play is mentioned in the opening credits. So whatever percentage of people were paying attention to those.
Ook ook!
It’s one of my favorite movies so I’ve read references to the play in articles — I wasn’t someone who spotted the mention in the credits. I was excited when one of the Epstein brothers (who worked on the script) came in for an appointment with a co-worker in the next booth. I didn’t get to talk to him, though.
On the “company” terminology: the legal entity type that has run the past few UK Worldcons is called a “company limited by guarantee,” and it’s the legal equivalent of what would be called a non-profit/not-for-profit/public benefit corporation in the USA (the actual term varies depending on the individual state’s corporate law, but they’re all effectively the same legal form). So “company” doesn’t necessarily mean “entity intended to earn a profit for its owners/shareholders.” For example, when I was a division manager for the 2005 Glasgow Worldcon, that made me one of the members of its corporate entity, each of whom guaranteed the corporation’s debts — to the limit of £1.
As I understand it, becoming the UK equivalent of a US 501c3 charitable organization is significantly more difficult than the US version.
Canadian terminology and ability to become a tax-exempt equivalent to a US 501c3 is much easier than the UK versions, and there are both provincial and federally-incorporated corporations. CanSMOF (parent of the Winnipeg bid and of the 2009 Montreal Worldcon) is a Canadian federally-incorporated (not provincial) non-profit corporation, for example, while CWSFA, the corporate entity behind Westercon 58 in Calgary, was an Alberta non-profit corporation.
David Goldfarb says Well, the play is mentioned in the opening credits. So whatever percentage of people were paying attention to those.
Yes, they might have read them, but I doubt they remembered the play existed a few minutes later. Movie credits until the modern era of the net when you could look them up and read them at your leisure were largely something that vanished from memory.
Thanks Kyra, Paul and JJ.
@Cat Eldridge
And yet when I first saw Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch,” 40 years ago, one of the things that stuck with me most vividly was the opening credit sequence, with the children burning scorpions and villain Robert Ryan’s name freeze-framed onto a horse’s ass.
bill says And yet when I first saw Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch,” 40 years ago, one of the things that stuck with me most vividly was the opening credit sequence, with the children burning scorpions and villain Robert Ryan’s name freeze-framed onto a horse’s ass.
Now tell me how much of the other credits from that film you remember…
William Holden, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin, Warren Oates, Edmond O’Brien, Bo Hopkins, Ben Johnson were the leads in the cast.
Music was by Jerry Fielding.
I should know who edited it, given how important the cutting of the final shoot-out is, but I don’t recall that.
I don’t think that remembering the names of the leads in a movie you’ve seen is that big of a deal, or of the principle members of the crew. That’s just part of being a movie fan. What I remember about the credits of the Wild Bunch is how they were integrated into the story; how the imagery behind Ryan’s credit reflected Peckinpah’s feelings about the character (who was not loyal to a friend — the dominant theme of the movie), or possibly the actor himself (who was apparently an ass during filming); how the pacing of the credits and Fielding’s rum-tat-tum snare drum score build the tension prior to the opening robbery.
Sometimes credits are simply cards with names and titles, and aren’t memorable (even with the internet to remind you of the information they hold). Other times, like so many of Saul Bass’s credits in the late fifties and the sixties (recall the names on the buildings in North by Northwest, or the kaleidoscoping designs of Vertigo); or the theme songs of the Pink Panther and the Bond movies; or David Fincher’s movies (remember Se7en?), the titles are very memorable, and do more than simply provide information.
2) I have been in fandom for almost 45 years. I’ve been to 29 Worldcons and a volunteer at them since 1983, mainly in the Press Office and in other positions as well.
So one of you may also know me for my activities at the Business Meeting, where I vigorously campaigned for changes in the Hugo Awards categories, from 1999 to 2019.
I publicly quit going to the Business at the Dublin Worldcon for all of the reasons outlined in Cheryl Morgan’s post.
Change is possible within WSFS and the changes I helped shepherd through over the years is proof of that
However, after twenty years of constant deflection, consternation, seemingly endless study committiees, derogatory comments, character assassination and outright hate directed towards myself and compatriots who have supported changes in award categories took it’s toll. You can only run into brick wall only so many times.
Somehow over the years, my concerns, good intentions and ardent advocacy of these issues became conflated in some minds as, “Oh, what the hell does he want this time? and “He’s doing this for his damned ego.”
In fact, I have not actively or publicly sought any sort of credit for ANYTHING I have ever done at a Worldcon.
One of the biggest problems regarding Worldcon concoms, staff members and volunteers is that those who have been entrenched in fandom for decades are seeming impervious to change (which is rather ironic) and have been generally unwelcoming to new people or ideas and innovations that might sustain our fannish ways into the future.
And that’s the real rub; we were incredibly quick to react to the attack from the Rabid and Sad Puppies and amend the Constitution’s voting procedures, yet we still have the “Semi-Prozine” category, which should have been scrapped years ago.
I am afraid for the future of Worldcons and fandom. I don’t have any solutions to offer. But it has been made very clear to me in so MANY ways that my help isn’t wanted, either.
Good Luck people, you’re going to need it.
@ Chris M Barkley:
The main recollection I have of your proposal from the 2019 WorldCon is that it seemed to come from a good place, but still placed English as a favoured language. As someone whose native tongue isn’t English, I frankly found this to be a less than ideal proposal and would have been OK with it, had only “into English” been dropped.
The current problem with WorldCon and WSFS seems to be that there has been a breakdown of trust between WorldCon running fandom and internet fandom. Neither one understands how the other works, or even who they are, and both harbour complex conspiracy theories about the other.
I have no idea how to solve this but I’m not sure that matters as much as we think because it is the wrong problem to concentrate on. We need an international convention which promotes contact and knowledge of SF across the world but even if we “fix” things to the satisfaction of the influx of younger fans they still won’t be able to afford to get to it.
Over the last year we’ve seen the emergence of online conventions which have a completely different set of advantages and disadvantages. Two of the great advantages are that they are much cheaper to take part in and you don’t have to put yourself into the legal jurisdiction of a government that you don’t trust.
Rather than making Worldcon a simultaneous online and real world event why don’t we split the two? An annual online event might make life a lot easier by allowing us to run both conventions in the best way for that setting. For a bidding committee from a country without a strong history of running conventions it would mean they avoid all the work of dealing with convention centres and hotels. Even for experienced committees this can come to eclipse the things they wanted to do with the convention in the first place.
A secondary advantage would be that we could start a whole new set of “online Hugos” which side steps our current situation of not being able to have some categories we would like to have while already having too many Hugo categories.
Lastly “online time” moves much faster than real world time. An online Worldcon can more easily try new things. Hopefully it can double as a laboratory for moving the ideas that work into the real world equivalent.
Martin Easterbrook: There’s no reason to think the network of volunteers with expertise in running all the phases of in-person Worldcons have any particular claim on being able to run online events at the same level. Maybe your jaw dropped when you read that sentence, thinking “What about the virtual CoNZealand Worldcon just last year?” But the pre-con dissastisfaction with their programming was met with CoNZealand Fringe, and their handling of the Hugo ceremony is reflected in the also-Hugo-nominated article telling their toastmaster to fuck off.
If this concept is a good one, and there are some attractive ideas in your comment, somebody is probably already at work on it who will dispense with the baggage that comes from being associated with the Worldcon.
@Mike Glyer
I don’t disagree with that. I’d expect some different people to be involved in an online WorldCon. That’s part of the point.