Pixel Scroll 5/7/19 What The Pixel Saw, It Was Against The Law

(1) IT’S GONE, MAN. Those who view the episode on streaming services won’t be seeing it — “HBO Edits ‘Game of Thrones’ Episode to Remove Errant Coffee Cup” reports Variety.

HBO has quietly scrubbed the misplaced coffee cup out of the “Game of Thrones” episode that aired Sunday night.

The premium cabler acknowledged the gaffe Monday after fans spotted the takeout cup on a table in front of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) in a scene in episode 4 of season 8 just before the 17:40 mark. It resembled a Starbucks cup but in fact came from the production’s craft services — and where someone left it behind in Winterfell.

“The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake. Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea,” HBO said in a statement.

As of Tuesday morning, the streaming version of the “GOT” episode available on HBO Now and HBO Go had removed the offending cup from the scene. A rep for HBO confirmed the coffee cup was deleted and that future airings of the episode, “The Last of the Starks,” would be of the updated version

(2) CHIANG COLLECTION. Joyce Carol Oates says “Science Fiction Doesn’t Have to Be Dystopian” in a brilliant review of Ted Chiang’s new collection Exhalation for The New Yorker.

…Indeed, irony is sparse in Ted Chiang’s cosmology. It is both a surprise and a relief to encounter fiction that explores counterfactual worlds like these with something of the ardor and earnestness of much young-adult fiction, asking anew philosophical questions that have been posed repeatedly through millennia to no avail. Chiang’s materialist universe is a secular place, in which God, if there is one, belongs to the phenomenal realm of scientific investigation and usually has no particular interest in humankind. But it is also a place in which the natural inquisitiveness of our species leads us to ever more astonishing truths, and an alliance with technological advances is likely to enhance us, not diminish us. Human curiosity, for Chiang, is a nearly divine engine of progress….

(3) MILES TO GO. Rudy Rucker’s entry for Whatever’s The Big Idea is really big!

Real-life road trips end before you want them to. You run into a coastline. The road stops. I wanted a road trip that goes on and on, with ever new adventures, and with opportunities to reach terrain never tread upon before. But how to do that in a car?

I peeled Earth like a grape, snipped out the oceans, shaped the flattened skin into a disk, and put a mountain range around it. Then I laid down a bunch more of these planetary rinds, arranging them like hexagonal tiles on a very wide-ranging floor. All set for a Million Mile Road Trip.

(4) CURRENCY EVENTS. The New York Times tells about an unexpected comics publisher in “Splat! Bam! It’s the Federal Reserve to the Rescue”.  The basic info is that the New York Federal Reserve bank produces comics as teaching tools, and all three have a scifi bent.

…In one scene, a group of itinerant monetary experts lands on Alpha-Numerica (“voted 3,675,927th best place to live”), where a severe recession is underway. Residents of the planet look like pencil erasers, gumdrops and other forms of geometrically sculpted goop. Unemployment is soaring, businesses are failing, and retirees are struggling to survive.

“This is not where I wanted to be at this point in my life,” says one resident, an old purple jelly bean who is sweeping a public square. “Tell me about it,” a younger resident says to itself. This individual, a green egg, wears a cap and gown. In one hand, it holds a diploma; in the other, a sign saying, “HIRE ME?”

The situation is dire but can be solved. What is needed is “expansionary monetary policy,” declares Glix, a green, lizardlike creature who likes to sing and wear capes.

Here is a link to the New York Fed’s download site for its comic books. 

The New York Fed’s Educational Comic Book Series teaches students about basic economic principles and the Federal Reserve’s role in the financial system.

Created for students at the middle school, high school, and introductory college levels, the series can help stimulate their curiosity and raise their awareness of careers in economics and finance. In addition, lesson plans created for each comic book meet national and state standards for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

The New York Fed has published comic books since the 1950s and is reintroducing this popular series with a modern spin. While the comic books are intended for a student audience, they are also available to the public.

(5) AGAINST THE HOUSE. ScienceFiction.com brings word that “Maisie Williams Is Currently Shooting Comic-Based Thriller ‘The Owners’”.

Filming of a new comic book adaptation, ‘The Owners’ has begun outside of London, in an isolated Victorian mansion in Kent.  Based on a Belgian comic book by award-winning artist Hermann (last name Huppen), and written by his son Yves H. ‘The Owners’ is being directed by Julius Berg (‘La forêt’), with a screenplay by Berg and Mathieu Gompel (‘The Dream Kids’).  The film’s producers, XYZ Films, are currently shopping the picture around at the Cannes Film Festival.

Heading up the cast is ‘Game of Thrones’ alum Maisie Williams.  Joining her are Sylvester McCoy, Rita Tushingham, Ian Kenny, Jake Curran, Andrew Ellis, and Stacha Hicks….

(6) HELP IS ON THE WAY. I bet readers of the Scroll can’t wait til I get this — “Microsoft Word AI ‘to improve writing'”. On the other hand, Chip Hitchcock sent the link with a skeptical comment, “I’ll believe it when the spellchecker starts handling context well enough to not make dumb corrections.”

A new feature in Microsoft’s Word aims to help improve writing beyond the usual grammar fixes.

Using artificial intelligence, Ideas will suggest rewrites for clunky sentences as well as changes to make sure language is gender inclusive.

It will help users lay out different parts of a document, including tables, and suggest synonyms and alternative phrases to make writing more concise.

It will be cloud-based and initially available to users of Word Online only.

A test version of Ideas will go live in June, becoming more widely available in the autumn.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 7, 1922 Darren McGavin. Carl Kolchak on Kolchak: The Night Stalker — How many times have seen it? I’ve lost count. Yes it was corny, yes, the monsters were low rent, but it was damn fun. And no, I did not watch a minute of the reboot. (Died 2006.)
  • Born May 7, 1923 Anne Baxter. The Batman series had a way of attracting the most interesting performers and she was no exception as she ended playing two roles there, first Zelda and then Olga, Queen of the Cossacks. Other genre roles were limited I think to an appearance as Irene Adler in the Peter Cushing Sherlock Holmes film The Masks of Death. (Died 1985)
  • Born May 7, 1931 Gene Wolfe. He’s best known for his Book of the New Sun series. My list of recommended novels would include Pirate FreedomThe Sorcerer’s House and the Book of the New Sun series. (Died 2019.)
  • Born May 7, 1940 Angela Carter. She’s often said to be best known for The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories where she took took fairy tales and made them very adult in tone. Personally I’d recommend The Curious Room as contains her original screenplays for the films The Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop, both of which were based on her own original stories. (Died 1992.)
  • Born May 7, 1951 Gary Westfahl, 68. SF reviewer for the LA Times, Internet Review of Science Fiction and Locus Online. Editor of The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders; author of  Immortal Engines: Life Extension and Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy (with George Slusser) and A Sense-of-Wonderful Century: Explorations of Science Fiction and Fantasy Films.
  • Born May 7, 1968 Traci Lords, 51. Yes, she did a number of reasonably legit genre appearances after her, errr, long adult acting career. She was for example in The Tommyknockers series along with the first Blade film. She’s also in the SF comedy Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II (I know, weird title that.) And finally, I should note she was Dejah Thoris in Princess of Mars which later re-released as John Carter of Mars. But the way her first post-adult film was a genre undertaking and that was Not of This Earth. Yes, it is a remake of Roger Corman’s 1957 film of the same name.
  • Born May 7, 1972 Jennifer Yuh Nelson, 46. She is the director of Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, and The Darkest Minds. Yuh is the first woman to solely direct an animated feature from a major Hollywood studio. The Darkest Minds is a dystopian SF film which RT gives a rating of 17% to. Ouch. 

(8) DRAGON AWARDS SEASON. Vox Day kicks off a “Dragon Awards discussion” [Internet Archive link] with his ideas about what comics published by his Arkhaven imprint ought to win Best Comic and Best Graphic Novel. Declan Finn jumps in to tell people which of his and his friends’ books should win the other categories, but meets resistance from a commenter who says he’d rather vote for Brian Neimeier (another Sad Puppy). There might not be enough kibble to go around!

(9) POP CULTURAL APPROPRIATION. “Viggo Mortensen: Vox ‘ridiculous’ to use Aragorn image” – BBC has the story.

Viggo Mortensen has denounced far right Spanish political party Vox after it tweeted a meme featuring the actor playing Aragorn in Lord of the Rings.

The meme, shared by the nationalist party’s official Twitter account in April, showed Aragorn lining up to face off against the assembled hordes of Vox’s apparent enemies, including the media, Catalan separatists and a small ghost wearing the colours of the rainbow flag typically used to represent LGBT pride.

“Let the battle begin,” the party tweeted.

In a letter to the editor of Spanish newspaper El Pais, published on Tuesday, Mortensen said Vox’s use of his image was “absurd”.

“Not only is it absurd that I, the actor who embodied this character for [Lord of the Rings director] Peter Jackson, and a person interested in the rich variety of cultures and languages that exist in Spain and the world, is linked to an ultra-nationalist and neo-fascist political party,” the actor wrote, “it is even more ridiculous to use the character of Aragorn, a polyglot statesman who advocates knowledge and inclusion of the diverse races, customs and languages of Middle Earth, to legitimise an anti-immigrant, anti-feminist and Islamophobic political group.”

(10) GO OUT, YOUNG HUMAN! The Washington Post: “Buzz Aldrin: It’s time to focus on the great migration of humankind to Mars”. In a WaPo oped, Buzz Aldrin advocates for not just returning to the Moon, but going to Mars. And sooner rather than later. He also calls for international cooperation with other countries to make it happen.

Last month, Vice President Pence announced that we are headed back to the moon. I am with him, in spirit and aspiration. Having been there, I can say it is high time we returned. When Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and I went to the moon 50 years ago this July, we did so with a mission. Apollo 11 aimed to prove America’s can-do commitment to space exploration, as well as its national security and technological superiority. We did all that. We also “Came in Peace for all Mankind.” More of that is needed now.

Today, many nations have eyes for the moon, from China and Russia to friends in Europe and Middle East. That is all good. The United States should cooperate — and offer itself as a willing team leader — in exploring every aspect of the moon, from its geology and topography to its hydrology and cosmic history. In doing so, we can take “low-Earth orbit” cooperation to the moon, openly, eagerly and collegially.

[…] As matter of orbital mechanics, missions from Earth to Mars for migration are complex. That said, human nature — and potentially the ultimate survival of our species — demands humanity’s continued outward reach into the universe. Call it curiosity or calculation, strategic planning or destiny. Put simply: We explore, or we expire. That is why we must get on with it.

In a world of division and distraction, this mission is unifying — for all Americans and for all humankind. So, I am personally glad we are headed back to the moon — and I thank President Trump and the vice p

(11) DECOROUS THEATERS. According to The Week:

The Roxy 8 multiplex in Dickson, Tennessee, is defending its decision to call the new HELLBOY movie HECKBOY in signs outside the theater.  Manager Belinda Daniel explained that the theater does not use ‘profanity’ on signs.  ‘We are located next to an elementary school and across from a church,’ she said.

(12) A DIFFERENT KIND OF GOOD TASTE. BBC introduces you to“The man who discovered umami”, long before it made news in the West.

For centuries, humanity lived with the concept of sweet, salty, bitter and sour – but another flavour was hiding on the sidelines

Kikunae Ikeda had been thinking a lot about soup.

The Japanese chemist had been studying a broth made from seaweed and dried fish flakes, called dashi. Dashi has a very specific flavour – warm, tasty, savoury – and through laborious, lengthy separations in a chemistry lab, Ikeda had been trying to isolate the molecules behind its distinctive taste. He felt sure that there was some connection between a molecule’s shape and the flavor perception it produced in humans.

But as it was just a few years past the turn of the 19th Century, there was not yet a great deal of evidence to support the idea.

Eventually, Ikeda did manage to isolate an important taste molecule from the seaweed in dashi: the amino acid glutamate, a key building block of proteins. In a 1909 paper, the Tokyo Imperial University professor suggested that the savoury sensation triggered by glutamate should be one of the basic tastes that give something flavour, on a par with sweet, sour, bitter, and salt. He called it “umami”, riffing on a Japanese word meaning “delicious”.

(13) LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR KIWI TOUR. Good news! Natural heated swimming hole available to visit on your CoNZealand2020 trip!

Bad News! May contain a staple of SciFi — The Brain-Eating Amoebas of Kerosene Creek

Kerosene Creek is a natural hot spring near Rotorua, on the North Island of New Zealand. And there have been official warnings for years: don’t put your head under water. It turns out that “brain-eating amoebas”, naegleria fowleri, are a real, if rare, thing.

[Thanks to Chris M. Barkley, JJ, Errolwi, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Tom Boswell, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

51 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 5/7/19 What The Pixel Saw, It Was Against The Law

  1. (4) Somehow I’d expect Kim Stanley Robinson to be involved with this

  2. 1) Alas, gone. Maybe it will return in the DVD extras but probably not.

    !3) Missed this one. Perhaps for the best.

  3. (7) Gene Wolfe. I think we can remember a lot more. The Book of the New Sun of course, but also The Fifth Head of Cerberus, There are Doors, the Soldier in the Mist series, the Long Sun and Short Sun books. And, oh my gosh, the short fiction. And the novellas above all — “Empires of Foliage and Flower”, “Tracking Song”, “Forlesen”, “Seven American Nights”, “The Zigguart”, “The Death of Doctor Island”, etc. etc. etc.

    He wasn’t just another SF writer. He was one of the very greatest SF writers of all time.

    My eulogy, if I may: In Memoriam, Gene Wolfe

  4. Rich Horton says Gene Wolfe. I think we can remember a lot more.

    Well I was tempted to just say ‘Go read everything. He’s that good.’ And you pretty much said that.

  5. 7) Hate to say it, but May 7th was Ray Harryhausen’s death date, not his birth date — he was born on June 29th, 1920.

    Having said which, my childhood (heck, my adulthood, for that matter) would have been infinitely the poorer without his films. At risk of repeating myself, I’d say Jason & the Argonauts is probably the best overall, Golden Voyage of Sinbad is my personal favorite, and Clash of the Titans has some of his best work — the Medusa scene in particular has never been equaled.

    And for anyone who’s interested, I highly recommend the Ray Harryhausen Podcast — it’s put out by a couple of guys associated with the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, and it’s been a fascinating wealth of information, including interviews with actors, surveys of the music, and general discussions of his work.

  6. Joe H: That explains why Cat didn’t find it. I put it in because I thought he missed it……. 🙁

  7. Any day when I find an excuse to bang on about Ray Harryhausen is going to be a good day.

  8. (2) CHIANG COLLECTION.

    Go read the collection before reading the review. Seriously. I thought it was an excellent review of the stories, but it is filled with spoilers to individual stories. Spoilers are not so bad in a novel review as novels tend to be complex & multi-layered enough that a spoiler wouldn’t necessarily ruin the reading experience, but IMO that’s not so true for a short story.

    The other thing I noticed & that has been pointed out elsewhere is the unfortunate error in this passage:

    Like such eclectic predecessors as Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree, Jr., Jorge Luis Borges, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, China Miéville, and Kazuo Ishiguro, Chiang has explored conventional tropes of science fiction in highly unconventional ways.

    Ted Chiang was published quite a few years before China Miéville.

  9. And with my much less than perfect memory, I’m looking at the Ray Harryhausen Birthday and wondering why I didn’t remember doing that one. So I had to go look at my sent email to make sure that I hadn’t done it before I sent an email to Mike thanking him for adding it in.

    Once I do these, I really don’t remember who’s been done until I see them here in the evening. Indeed if Mike drops or adds someone, it’ll not occur to me to me as I don’t keep track nor am concerned as that’s his final decision.

    Mike, it would’ve popped up on the media sf list I check daily which is why I figured that I’d done it. That list covers pretty much every major and minor media related Birthday that happens. Far more than you ever want me to include here.

  10. @11: I wonder whether the preacher at that church tells his congregation about the terrors of Heck? Or whether the theater owner thinks children can’t tell the difference between an obscenity and a label?

  11. (2) Regarding the list of authors who supposedly were “predecessors” of Ted Chiang, Kazuo Ishiguro didn’t start producing not-strictly-realistic fiction until after Chiang’s stories first appeared in 1990. (My introduction to Chiang was his third published story, “Understand,” in 1991 in Asimov’s. Damn good story, and probably my favorite present-tense story of any kind.)

    Also, I wonder whether Joyce Carol Oates and/or the present arts editors of The New Yorker knew who Tiptree really was. I might have expected an “(Alice Sheldon)” to be inserted after his name.

  12. Buzz Aldrin.
    Buzz Dixon.
    KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

    No, I didn’t read half the article thinking of the wrong one, YOU did!

    And I thought they scrolled bad on the outside.

  13. So I’ve finished Inkheart, which I don’t particularly recommend — lots of random action, lots of descriptions, surprisingly little sensewunda for a book that goes on and on about the magic of books — but I have a question for @Cora (or anyone else who’s seen the original): were all the chapters headed by quotes, and if so from where? I expect some of the sources exist in German, but I wouldn’t expect that of a translation of the Mabinogion.

  14. Soon Lee, China Mievillie’s first published work was in 1988, two years before the first by Chaing. It was the script for a Hellblazer Comic, No. 250 “Holiday Special”: “Snow Had Fallen”. He also has a number of short stories that actually I just notice that go back to 1986 according to ISFDB which is quite prior to when Chaing was first published. So the writer is correct.

  15. Cat Eldridge: China Mieville’s first work was before Ted Chaing’s.

    Chiang’s short stories go back to 1990. Miéville had one story published before that, then nothing until 1998. I really don’t think Miéville can be called a “predecessor” to Chiang.

  16. JJ says Chiang’s short stories go back to 1990. Miéville had one story published before that, then nothing until 1998. I really don’t think Miéville can be called a “predecessor” to Chiang.

    Mieville had three actually plus the Hellblazer which counts. And I wouldn’t say he was a predecessor. Soon Lee made the claim that he came way later which was what was refuting as he did not.

  17. @Chip Hitchcock

    So I’ve finished Inkheart, which I don’t particularly recommend — lots of random action, lots of descriptions, surprisingly little sensewunda for a book that goes on and on about the magic of books — but I have a question for @Cora (or anyone else who’s seen the original): were all the chapters headed by quotes, and if so from where? I expect some of the sources exist in German, but I wouldn’t expect that of a translation of the Mabinogion.

    The chapters in the German original are all headed by quotes and there is a lengthy list in the back listing where the quotes come from and – for foreign language texts – who translated them. Evangeline Walton’s Mabinogion is included and apparently had a German translation. In fact, I suspect that in some cases, it is more difficult to find an English than a German translation.

  18. @Cat,
    I hadn’t known about China Miéville’s earliest work so thank you for that information. Ted Chiang published his first story “Tower of Babylon” in 1990 in Omni. So “predecessor” is inaccurate; they are near contemporaries, though I struggle to see one’s influence in the other’s writing.

  19. Soon Lee says hadn’t known about China Miéville’s earliest work so thank you for that information. Ted Chiang published his first story “Tower of Babylon” in 1990 in Omni. So “predecessor” is inaccurate; they are near contemporaries, though I struggle to see one’s influence in the other’s writing.

    Oh I fully agree. I doubt that either influenced the other. Literary critics are infamous for their near neurotic belief in the influence by one or more writers on another writer. More often than not they simply develop their own styles irrespective of the existing literary field. Chaing’s writing reminds me of, well, his writing. And Mieville’s writing is very much is his own style as well.

    Each is a brilliant writer well worth reading.

  20. 7) I have to say I really went off Gene Wolfe in the last decade or so. He was a good – or at least a clever – writer but it got increasingly hard for me to ignore the smug Catholic apologism and reactionary views once I started to see them. Like Tim Powers, I now think of him of as a writer whose obvious merits got him a career-long pass for his equally obvious flaws.

    I’d still recommend The Fifth Head of Cerberus unreservedly, though.

  21. (2) Chiang stories certainly added to TBR pile.
    (6) Oh noes. Surely the AI would completely ruin Dan Brown for aeroplane and airport reading!
    (13) Our Aussie bacteria only eat flesh

    Still not finished reading ‘Europe at Midnight’. The joys of Provence too diverting. Not ever likely to get an Ernshire stamp on my passport though.Though I’m sure I could find a ‘Coureur’ in France.

  22. 6) “Ideas will suggest rewrites for clunky sentences as well as changes to make sure language is gender inclusive.” It’s grammatical correctness gone mad!

  23. 6) Considering the number of clunkers, solecisms and outright howlers perpetrated by the ordinary grammar checker against innocent prose, I can’t say I’m feeling optimistic about this one.

    (A character in one of my many deservedly unpublished novels is thirsting for vengeance. “I want whoever did this,” he says, “I want them”. My plucky heroine chimes in with “So do I.” The grammar checker helpfully corrects her line to “So do me.” And this is where I would have stopped trusting the grammar checker, if I’d ever started.)

  24. (13) I remember being warned about them on a tour of the Rotarua area in January 2000 which included a swim in a hot pond.

    Still, Rotarua isn’t terribly close to the con, google maps says a six hour drive, so not too great a risk

  25. @Juan Sanmiguel, every time I visit Florida I feel like I’m taking my life in my hands. Doesn’t help when the husband says things like “No, my parents never had an alligator in their swimming pool. That only happened to the neighbors across the street.”

  26. @A. P. Howell
    One of my bosses came back from a week’s business trip to Florida with photos of the alligator (at least six feet long) that walked through the parking lot at the company they were visiting. (And she was from Florida.)

  27. @CHip

    I wonder whether the preacher at that church tells his congregation about the terrors of Heck?

    “I darn you! I darn you to Heck!”
    –Phil, Prince of Insufficient Light, Supreme Ruler of Heck.

  28. May 7 is Ishiro Honda’s birthday. He was the director on a lot of the classic kaiju movies. The original Godzilla is pretty amazing. (Not the Americanized version with Raymond Burr.) Also a character on the episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow “Tagumo Attacks!!!”

    With a geekish grimace and a terrible sound
    He scrolls the pixel high fannish files down

  29. I was hoping somebody would come up with the correct quote from Dilbert….

  30. (13) These days doesn’t everyone have brain-eating amoeba? There was a story last December about a Seattle woman who used tap water* in her neti pot who later died from said amoeba. I also have read about people dying in the Midwest after swimming in the wrong ponds/lakes.

    * The FDA recommends you use distilled water or water that has been boiled for 3-5 minutes and then allowed to cool until it’s lukewarm.

  31. @Sophie Jane: Like Tim Powers, I now think of him of as a writer whose obvious merits got him a career-long pass for his equally obvious flaws.

    I’m having trouble seeing how that would distinguish Wolfe or Powers from any other writer. I mean, not counting writers who do not have any obvious merits nor obvious flaws. Isn’t liking someone for X in spite of Y a fairly standard thing?

  32. (2) I pre-ordered Exhalation, and got an email that it’s on its way….

    In other news, my first reaction to the Clarke shortlist yesterday was “Oh no! I guess the Sharkes didn’t start up this year!”

  33. @nickpheas: Rotorua is a major tourist area (due to the geothermal activity), and I expect many WorlCon visitors will at least overnight there after eg leaving Auckland and visiting Waitomo glowworm caves and/or Hobbiton.

  34. 7) I have to say I really went off Gene Wolfe in the last decade or so. He was a good – or at least a clever – writer but it got increasingly hard for me to ignore the smug Catholic apologism and reactionary views once I started to see them. Like Tim Powers, I now think of him of as a writer whose obvious merits got him a career-long pass for his equally obvious flaws.

    I was never that much into Gene Wolfe, but I did have a similar experience with Tim Powers. I loved The Anubis Gates, loved On Stranger Tides, loved Drawing of the Dark. Then everybody raved about Declare, so I got the book and did not like it at all. And while it wasn’t just the smug Catholicism, which put me off (I had issues with the depiction of Berlin and the fact that every Communist who did not convert was irredeemably evil), that played a large part. After that, I avoided every Tim Powers work set past WWII, but I could never again enjoy him like I did before.

  35. @Standback

    In other news, my first reaction to the Clarke shortlist yesterday was “Oh no! I guess the Sharkes didn’t start up this year!”

    Same here. Okay, so there is no Becky Chambers for the Sharkes to rant about this year, but I’d expect some ranting about Revenant Gun and The Electric State.

  36. Cora Buhlert: I was surprised to see Revenant Gun up for the Clarke Award, which may say something about me, or about the award, but I was glad to see it on the list.

  37. Regarding Florida and alligators: One of my great-aunts used to live in a retirement community in Florida that had a small creek or brook running through the grounds. One day, a friend of hers was out walking and saw an alligator just hanging out on the bank.

  38. @gottacook: “Understand” is a terrific story – I also read it when it was first published in Asimov’s.

  39. Occasionally alligators turn up in the Midwest; one was found in the Ohio River near Cincinnati a few years back. They don’t get here on their own. Many people who keep alligators as pets are exactly the people who should not keep alligators as pets. They dump the beasts in any nearby body of water when they get too big to handle. If the critters are lucky they get caught and taken to a zoo; if not, they die when winter comes around.

  40. @Mike

    Probably says more about you. Ninefox Gambit was on the Clarke shortlist two years ago. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and Ancillary Justice of Ann Leckie were both Clarke winners. The Clarkes are nothing if not eclectic.

  41. The Clarke is a bit of an odd one. Because books must be submitted by the publisher, some that shouldn’t really come close to the longlist get there anyway, and some that should definitely be on the longlist aren’t there.

    The PKD kind of ends up as an odd one as well, since only those works which are first published in paperback are eligible (if they are first published as hardcover, they are not eligible).

  42. @Eli I’m having trouble seeing how that would distinguish Wolfe or Powers from any other writer. I mean, not counting writers who do not have any obvious merits nor obvious flaws. Isn’t liking someone for X in spite of Y a fairly standard thing?

    I’m thinking of the critical consensus I guess, and the way both writers accumulate glowing reviews that never mention Wolfe’s politics(*) (visible right from the start, in “How the Whip Came Back”) or Powers’ shonky plotting and attitude to women. Or, for that matter, how rarely they’re acknowledged as Catholic writers at all.

    @Cora Bulhert I loved The Anubis Gates, loved On Stranger Tides, loved Drawing of the Dark. Then everybody raved about Declare, so I got the book and did not like it at all.

    I had very much the same experience, though I think I’d find the Racism Fairy had visited Drawing of the Dark if I went back to it.

    (*) David Langford, reviewing Shadow of the Torturer when it first came out, said “a lesser writer would have given [Severian] a twentieth century liberal conscience”. It was years until I realised Wolfe didn’t have one either.

  43. (11) I keep wondering if they think that not using the words will make kids forget that they exist (because I can assure you that kids know the words, even if they don’t use them in front of adults).

  44. @PJ Evans: Since this is “Bible-belt Tennessee”, surely the word “Hell” comes up fairly often in church and Sunday school?

  45. The problem is not the word “Hell” being used on the theater sign. It is that it is being used inappropriately: in the context of fun and entertainment.

    The only appropriate usage of “Hell”, as far as these people are concerned, is in context with “the place you’re going to go, full of fire and brimstone and eternal pain, unless you do exactly what we tell you to do.”

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