(1) DATA AND YAR AT TANAGRA. Seattle’s EMP Museum is opening Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds to the public on May 21. Tickets required.
Plus, be among the first to visit Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds and get an up-close look at more than 100 artifacts and props from the five Star Trek television series, spin-offs, and films, including set pieces from the original series like Captain Kirk’s command chair and the navigation console (on display for the first time to the public); Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and McCoy original series costumes; and the 6-foot U.S.S. Enterprise filming model from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Opening day is also when Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) and Brent Spiner (Data) will appear – additional charge for photos and autographs, naturally.
(2) OMAZE WINNER. SFWA’s Director of Operations Kate Baker learned during the Nebula conference that she was the Omaze winner, and will join Chris Pratt on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 set.
Tired and sweaty after hours of work, I sat down to check my phone as we planned to grab something to eat. There in my Twitter feed was a message from a new follower; Omaze. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the company, they partner with a celebrity and charity, design a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a random donor, (and here is the most important part) — raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for deserving charities around the world….
I quickly followed them back and responded. That’s when I found out that I was a finalist for the grand prize and to satisfy their partners and sponsors, they wanted to do a short Skype interview that evening.
Unable to contain my excitement, I rushed around my room, curling my hair, refreshing make-up, doing cartwheels, moving furniture, opening blinds, you know — normal things.
As 6:00 CST hit, I took a deep breath and answered the call….. That’s when they sprung the surprise.
(3) CLARKE AHEAD. Award Director Tom Hunter has posted at Medium “14 ways I’m thinking about the future of the Arthur C. Clarke Award”.
8. Governance & succession planning
As mentioned in my section on charitable status, the Clarke Award is currently administered by just 3 volunteers. Could we do more if we had more people involved?
A fair few people have promoted themselves to me as viable candidates over the years, but while many have been keen to have a say in the running of the award (or just like telling me they could do a better job with it) right now one of the reasons the award has weathered its troubles so well has been because of our ability to move faster on key decisions than a continual vote by committee model would likely have allowed us.
Still, as I look to the future again, there are many potential advantages to be gained from our increasing our board membership, not least the fact that when I first took this role a decade ago I only planned to stay for 5 years.
I changed my mind back then because of the need to build a new financial resilience into the award to keep it going, but one day sooner or later I intend to step down after I’ve recruited my replacement.
Padawans wanted. Apply here.
(4) ANTIQUE ZINE. This APA-L cover by Bea Barrio glowed in the dark when it was originally made – in the 1970s. Wonder if it still does?
https://twitter.com/highly_nice/status/732782065591160833
(5) MASKED MEN. Comic Book Resources boosts the signal: “Dynamite Announces ‘The Lone Ranger Meets the Green Hornet: Champions of Justice”.
What is the connection between the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet? Dynamite Entertainment’s new “The Lone Ranger Meets the Green Hornet: Champions of Justice” series has the answer. CBR can exclusively reveal that writer Michael Uslan and artist Giovanni Timpano are reuniting for the new series, a crossover 80 years in the making.
According to an official series description,
The first chapter, entitled “Return With Us Now,” creates a world of carefully researched alternative history in 1936. Readers will learn whatever happened to The Lone Ranger and discover his familial link to the emergence of a man who is a modern day urban version of The Lone Ranger himself. What is the blood connection of The Green Hornet to The Lone Ranger? What is the link of Olympic runner Jesse Owens to The Green Hornet? What role does Bat Masterson play in The Lone Ranger’s New York adventure? What intense rift tears a family apart just when America desperately needs a great champion of justice? The shocking answers lie in the landmark new series ‘The Lone Ranger Meets the Green Hornet: Champions of Justice!’
(6) DEARLY BELOVED. Lit Brick has done a comic about “If you were a dinosaur, my love”.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born May 19, 1944 — Before Peter Mayhew was Chewy he was Minaton in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, his first role.
(8) FLORSCHUTZ OUT. Max Florschutz explains why he pulled his book from a contest: “Unusual Events Has Been Removed From SPFBO 2016”.
All right, guys, it’s official. I just heard back from Mark Lawrence, the head of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, and now that the competition has begun, my book could not be moved to another reviewer, so instead, I’ve elected to withdraw my entry from the competition (for the reasons for doing so, see this post here). It’s sad that it had to be done, but I feel my reasons were sound.
Florschutz outlined reasons for asking for his book to be reassigned in a previous post, “When Did Ethnicity and Sex Become the Most Important Thing?”
Bear with me for a moment, and take a look at these few excerpts from a book review I read this morning, posted on a fantasy review blog (which you can find here, though I’m loathe to give them a link after perusing the site since it’s a little messed up). I’d been poking around the place since they are a participating member of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a contest between 300 different self-published fantasy books, and Unusual Events is one of those titles. This site is the one that will be handling Unusual Events review.
I’m not sure how I feel about that now. In fact, I may request to have it passed to another site, since I’m pretty sure I can already see how its going to go. Because I’ve been reading their other reviews, and I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. Let’s look at some quotes:
Otherbound is that last sort of book.
I’m fairly certain I discovered it on Tumblr, recommended by one of those blogs which include lists of books that are commendable for their diversity.
Okay, that’s … interesting. A little background on the title. I guess that’s important? Let’s see what happens if we go further.
… fantasy novels are written by and about (and quite possibly for) white men who like running around with swords saving the world.
Uh-oh. Okay. Sensing a theme here, but—
As I said, it’s an incredible story, and honestly, I’d probably have loved the book even if both of the leads were white and straight.
Wait, what?
So they’re saying that it’s also likely that they wouldn’t have liked the book had the main characters been, to use their own words “white and straight”? The book would be inferior simply because of the color of the main character’s skin or their sexual orientation?
….Now, to get back to something I said earlier, I’m considering contacting the SPFBO 2016 ringleaders and asking to have my book moved to another reviewer. And no, it’s not because my book is “… written by and about (and quite possibly for) white men who like running around with swords saving the world.” because it isn’t. But more because now I know that there’s a very high chance that that fact is what the reviewer is going to fixate on regardless. My sex, and my ethnic heritage, as well as that of the characters I wrote, is going to matter to her more than the rest of what’s inside the book’s pages. More than the stories those characters experience, the trials that they undergo.
(9) TEACHING WRITING. “’Between Utter Chaos and Total Brilliance.’ Daniel José Older Talks About Teaching Writing in the Prison System” – a set of Older’s tweets curated by Leah Schnelbach at Tor.com.
(10) PURSUED. David M. Perry profiles Older at Pacific Standard – “Daniel José Older and Progressive Science Fiction After Gamergate”.
The Internet trolls picked a bad week to call Daniel José Older “irrelevant.” As we meet in the opulent lobby of the Palmer House Hotel in downtown Chicago, his young-adult book Shadowshaper is sitting on a New York Times bestseller list. He’s in town because the book was been nominated for the Andre Norton Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America, which is holding its annual Nebula conference in Chicago. Best of all, he’s just signed a contract for two sequels. There’s also his well-reviewed adult fiction, the “Bone Street Rumba” series. By no standard of publishing is this person irrelevant.
So why the trolls? They’re coming after Older for the same reason that he’s succeeding as a writer?—?his urban fantasy novels actually look like urban America (including the ghosts) and he’s got no patience for the bros who want to keep their fantasy worlds white.
(11) DAMN BREAK. Kameron Hurley charts the history of hydraulic pressure in sf: “The Establishment Has Always Hated The New Kids”.
…Though there has been momentum building for some time, a backlash against the backlash, I’d say it wasn’t until about 2013 when publishing started to catch up. Ann Leckie wrote a space opera (a woman wrote a space opera! With women in it! AND PEOPLE BOUGHT IT SHOCKING I KNOW AS IF NO ONE HAD BOUGHT LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS OR ANYTHING BY CJ CHERRYH OR OCTAVIA BUTLER), and it swept the awards. We Need Diverse Books was able to organize the conversation about the overwhelming whiteness of publishing, bringing together disparate voices into one voice crying out for change in who writes, edits, and publishes books, while the first Muslim Ms. Marvel comic book (written by a Muslim, even!) broke sales records.
The water has been building up behind the damn for a long time, and it’s finally burst.
Watching the pushback to this new wave of writers finally breaking out from the margins to the mainstream has been especially amusing for me, as I spent my early 20’s doing a lot of old-school SF reading, including reading SFF history (I will always think of Justine Larbalestier as the author of The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction). I was, of course, especially interested in the history of feminist science fiction. Women have always written SFF, of course, but the New Wave of the 60’s and 70’s brought with it an influx of women writers of all races and men of color that was unprecedented in the field (if still small compared to the overall general population of said writers in America). This was the age of Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler, Sam Delany, and nutty young upstarts like Harlan Ellison. These writers brought a much needed and refreshing new perspective into the field. They raised the bar for what science fiction was. And so the writing got better. The politics and social mores being dissected got more interesting and varied, as one would expect when you introduce a great wave of writers into a field that was happy to award the same handful of folks year after year. They shook up the field. They changed science fiction forever. The established pros had to write their hearts out to catch up….
(12) KEN LIU’S OPINION OF HOGWARTS. Rachel Swirsky did a “Silly Interview with Ken Liu who HAS THE SCHEMATICS for a Time Turner!”
RS: Speaking of Harry Potter, if you could send your kids to Hogwarts, would you?
KL: I’d have to ask my kids. Personally, I’m not a big fan of sending them away to boarding school because I want to spend more time with them. Parents get so little time with their children as is… But if they really want to go and learn magic, I’ll support them. And I hope they work hard to challenge the rather authoritarian system at Hogwarts and engage in campus activism.
(13) THERE WILL BE WALRUS. Steve Davidson did a silly interview of his own — with Timothy the Talking Cat, at Amazing Stories.
ASM: What kind of cat are you (alley, purebred,,,?), or is that kind of inquiry offensive? Do cats themselves make such distinctions?
TTTC: I’m glad you asked. Some people have claimed that I am a British Shorthair cat. However, my cousin had a DNA test and apparently my family are actually the rare French Chartreux breed. This is an important distinction and finally shows what liars those people are who have accused me of being a Francophobe, ‘anti-French’ and/or in some way prejudiced against France, the French and anything remotely Gallic. People need to understand that when I point out that France is a looming danger to all right thinking people in America and other countries as well, like maybe Scotland or Japan. I really can’t stress this enough – the French-Squirrel axis is real and it is plotting against us all. This why Britain needs to leave the European Union right now. I have zero tolerance for those who say we should wait for the referendum – that is just playing into their hands. But understand I am not anti-French as my DNA proves. Squirrels like to say ‘Timothy you are such a Francophobe’ as if that was a dialectical argument against my well thought out positions. They have no answer when I point out that I am MORE French than Charles DeGaulle. Squirrels just can’t think straight about these things. Notice that if you even try and type ‘Francophobe’ your computer will try to turn it into ‘Francophone’ – that is how deep the Franco-Squirrel conspiracy goes. Squirrel convergence happens at high levels in IT companies these days – that is how I lost my verification tick on Twitter.
I don’t talk to other cats these days. Frankly many of them are idiots….
(14) HENRY AND ERROL. The editors of Galactic Journey and File 770. Two handsome dudes – but ornery.
[May 14, 1961] In which me and Mike Glyer disagree: https://t.co/Wfo3w1nS0s #sciencefiction pic.twitter.com/72oPlswGjV
— Galactic Journey News (@journeygalactic) May 14, 2016
(15) CRITERIA. Dann collects his thoughts about “That Good Story” at Liberty At All Costs.
In a conversation I am having at File 770, I was asked to define what makes a science fiction/fantasy book “great” for me. Rather than losing these radiant pearls of wisdom to the effluence of teh intertoobery, I thought I would cement them here in my personal record….
Stay Away From Check Boxes Whoo boy. I can smell trouble burning at the other end of the wire already.
“Check box” fiction really undermines the quality of my reading experience. What is “check box” fiction? It is a story that includes elements indicating diversity in the cast of characters that has zero impact on the the story.
In a reverse of the above, I’d like to suggest N.K. Jemisin’s “The Fifth Season” as a good example of not doing “check box” fiction. One cluster of protagonists included a character that is straight, one that is seemingly bi-sexual, and one that is decidedly homosexual. They have a three-way.
And while the more patently descriptive passages of those events didn’t do much for me, the fact that their respective sexuality helped inform their motivations and moved the story forward made the effort in describing their sexuality worthwhile reading. She also did a reasonable job at expressing how physical appearances differed based on regionalism. [There were one or two other moments that could be considered “check box(es)”, but for the most part it wasn’t a factor in this book.]
IMHO, including a character that is “different” without having that difference impact the story is at the very least a waste of time that detracts from the story and at the very worst insultingly dismissive of the people that possess the same characters.
(16) IT AIN’T ME BABE. The Guardian got some clickbait from speculating about the identity of Chuck Tingle. Vox Day denies it’s him. Zoë Quinn doesn’t know who it is. The reporter, despite taking 2,000 words of interview notes, also is none the wiser.
Theories abound online: is Tingle Lemony Snicket? The South Park boys? Some sort of performance artist – perhaps the “Banksy of self-published dinosaur erotica” as someone once called him on Twitter? Last year, Jon Tingle – apparently the son of Chuck – appeared on a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread to share unsettling insights into his father: “Yes, my father is very real. He is an autistic savant, but also suffers from schizophrenia. To make it very clear, my father is one of the gentlest, sweetest people you could ever meet and is not at all dangerous, although he does have a history of SELF harm … I would not let him be the butt of some worldwide joke if I didn’t have faith that he was in on it in some way. Regardless, writing and self-publishing brings him a lot of joy.” If this is all a joke, it’s hard to know where it starts or where to laugh….
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Will R., JJ, and Tom Hunter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anna Nimmhaus.]
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They wouldn’t have a problem if they just used their scales.
@ Dann: Here’s a “read more carefully” backatcha. I didn’t say that I thought you’d have a problem with gay characters per se, but that given what you wrote, you would have a problem with their sexuality not having any impact on the story.
@ Xtifr: Openly atheist and cheerfully childfree, without (generally) being an asshole about either one — as opposed to Booth, who was regularly an asshole to her about both of those things. But that’s just fine, because he’s the good guy who’s just trying to FIX her. And eventually the writers came down hard on Booth’s side, and did indeed write her being fixed. But dammitall, she wasn’t broken!
The show was loosely based on a book series — but the books and the show were so different that I immediately decided they were AUs of each other. The only things they have in common are the name and profession of the protagonist; everything else is different.
@Darren Garrison: “(Also, on an unrelated note, I am now wondering what “dino jazz” would sound like.)”
It’s so old-school it’s practically prehistoric.
@alexvdl: (Castle finale)
Sadly, that’s what happens when the network waits ’till the last minute to decide between renewal and cancellation. It’s still better than the Enterprise finale, and I like it more than the alternative that would’ve been necessary if they had gotten another season. (Some contracts weren’t renewed, including for one of the core cast. Given that meta-knowledge, I can see how they changed a key scene to remove a cliffhanger… and my headcanon is happy they did!)
@dann: ” A good story doesn’t suddenly become remarkable simply by sprinkling around a diverse cast where the extra exposition doesn’t impact the story.”
Neither does a good story become bad by making the cast more diverse. A rollicking tale of the Space Patrol versus Evil Pirates is not made less fun by giving the Patrol captain dark skin or making one of the depicted romantic relationships same-sex.
@Soon Lee, @Mike I have to roar in approval at an exchange like that.
@Bones. I liked the first couple (?) seasons of Bones, but it’s like they’ve gone out of their way to make her odder as the series has gone along. (It’s probably just the distillation process that goes on as a series gets older and one characteristic or set of characteristics gets played up more for any long running character.) Initially, she might not have been up to date on pop culture, but was pretty normal. Now her very nature seems like a cheap Spock knockoff.
I always assumed that the introduction of stronger religious values might have been a Boreanaz thing, but that might be because his character usually does the most defending of the faith.
Oh, geez, I got my own URL wrong? That’s what I get for typing in URLs by hand like we’re still in the stone age. All I can say in my defense is that talking to people in general and self-promotion in particular tends to make me nervous, and thus, rushed. Yes, http://www.gofundme/ae2worldcon is the correct campaign.
@Cat: I’ve logged in and didn’t get any kind of alert or anything. There are also several donations now. Assuming none of them are you, please try again? Maybe there was a window where it hadn’t yet registered that I’d clicked the confirmation email, or something.
Empirically, Dinosaur Jazz (for certain values of jazz that aren’t really jazz but come up in High School Jazz Band covers when searching dinosaur jazz on YouTube):
Will R. might have to roar in approval but I only have groans for our Merry Punsters.
@Bob,
I knew about the protag and the support potentially leaving, but I still feel like the entire ending poorly done. I downgraded it to that, from stupid, after I read some stuff that explained the ending.
Bevtvanyyl V whfg gubhtug gurl qvrq. Obgu bs gurz. Ohg nccneragyl jung ernyyl unccrarq vf gur ibvpr bire jnf sebz frnfba bar, naq nccneragyl gur ynfg frira frnfbaf unir whfg orra fgbevrf va uvf obbxf. Juvpu, vf fgvyy qhzo, ohg orggre guna gur nygreangvir.
I wish to protest. My latest insomnia strategy is to read dead tree books, because apparently they don’t screw one’s brain in the way that, for example, iPads do.
So here am I, at 00.49 a.m trying to read a dead tree book, This Immortal , and the glue to the binding has gone, and I’ll have to find another dead tree book.
Life can be hard…
(13) I’ve read the whole thing, and the story by Timothy and Straw Puppy is quite good (Timothy’s right, his part is the best). However, Rod Walrus has the best line — the one about the time loop.
All joking mostly aside, it’s a lot of amusing work. Going on my longlist for BRW.
I’ve noticed some tick-box fiction: the SWM must be the hero, military equipment and guns must be mentioned in overwhelming detail, minorities are in support roles, and the putative strong woman must be rescued by the SWM and fall in love with him. cough*Larry*cough Often, she gives up her profession to stay home and have his babies. cough*Heinlein*cough Sometimes she gets fridged. cough*007*cough
Wow, let me get a lozenge.
@Lydy, if I was at the con, I’d take a rainbow ribbon. But I’m not, so alas.
Co-sign that “Chekhov’s Lesbian” is TM Darren Garrison.
Someone needs to add it to Urban Dictionary, with full credit. Then everyone else needs to vote it up.
@Alexandra Erin: I can’t donate, but I’ll spread the word. And a reading from SPRB in Park 770 would be fabulous! You’ll even have a bench to sit on.
@Alexandra Erin,
Your link doesn’t work for me:
http://www.gofundme/ae2worldcon
This link works:
https://www.gofundme.com/2582yek
The “.com” is missing from Alexandra Erin’s GoFundMe link; the correct link is:
https://www.gofundme.com/ae2worldcon
Is that the Cyndi Lauper episode? I have always assumed she was involved in the murder somehow, and the psychic crap was how she avoided self-incrimination.
Thanks for the catch JJ.
Speaking of raptors, they probably had lips!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/dinosaur-lips-1.3588975
I’m sure Chuck Tingle can incorporate this into his fiction.
People grouse about the “Castle” finale, but it was Shakespeare compared to the finale of “Enterprise” and most egregiously “How I Met Your Mother”, which retroactively negated the whole series. At least Castle’s emergency ending was happy.
Robert E. Howard didn’t actually leave it to the readers to picture a “rough group”:
“In one of these dens merriment thundered to the low smoke-stained roof, where rascals gathered in every stage of rags and tatters—furtive cut-purses, leering kidnappers, quick-fingered thieves, swaggering bravos with their wenches, strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery. Native rogues were the dominant element—dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts. But there were wolves of half a dozen outland nations there as well. There was a giant Hyperborean renegade, taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his great gaunt frame—for men wore steel openly in the Maul. There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold-eyed Brythunian wench, sitting on the knee of a tawny-haired Gunderman—a wandering mercenary soldier, a deserter from some defeated army. And the fat gross rogue whose bawdy jests were causing all the shouts of mirth was a professional kidnapper come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians who were born with more knowledge of the an than he could ever attain.”
Not, perhaps, the description a writer of today would use, but I’d rather have this than “rough group,” and being expected to flesh them out with images from gaming artwork and paperback covers.
alexvdl: Will R. might have to roar in approval but I only have groans for our Merry Punsters.
And if you have much experience of merry punsters, you know that’s what we like best.
@alexvdl:
I totally do not get anything close to “vzntvanel frnfbaf” from that ending. I understand that the we-get-another-season plan was for an ending where fur qvrf naq gur fubj ergbbyf gb sbphf ba uvf cevingr-rlr pnerre. With the cancellation, the ending looked to me like gurl pubccrq bss gur qrngu fprar naq mvccrq sbejneq (“Frira lrnef yngre”) gb fubj gung gurl fheivirq naq jrer fgvyy unccvyl zneevrq.
Consider this snippet from TVLine:
Basically, that “frira lrnef yngre” tag makes absolutely no sense if the takeaway is supposed to be “gur ynfg frireny frnfbaf arire unccrarq.” I could barely buy that scene as a “qlvat snagnfl,” but even then it wouldn’t renfr gur ynfg frireny frnfbaf. (And let’s not forget that jr unir gur Avxxv Urng obbxf nf gur vzntvanel irefvbaf bs gur frnfbaf!)
“I only have groans for our Merry Punsters”
Five Kesey Pieces?
dann665:
1. It connects with all of my reading “buttons”. I know that’s hard to define, but I think everyone can appreciate the point.
2. It has a positive view of humanity.
3. It has a positive view of the individual. In particular, there are flawed characters that want to be better people. We get to see them trying to be better people…and sometimes even succeeding!
4. It uses a level of detail that is sufficient to immerse me in the author’s vision without going overboard.
4A. This world/setting does not seem terribly derivative to me. Of course, I haven’t read a lot of steam-punk to date because of #1.
5. It has some humorous moments between the characters.
6. There is a military angle to it.
6A. That angle includes some military-style gallows humor. (See 5)
6B. Mr. Butcher managed to provide sufficient insight into both sides of the conflict to permit respect and perhaps even a bit of empathy for people on both sides.
7. Mr. Butcher also didn’t overdo the general exposition in setting up his world.
Okay, so I’ll ask again: which of those elements you just listed are you saying you believe the Hugo voters don’t like and tend to overlook in awards?
>Besides, if you submit a novel for review, you always run the risk of ending up with a reviewer who just doesn’t like or get your genre/subgenre or who dislikes your book for some potentially trivial reasons.
About Florschutz’ withdrawal: The man has as much right to concerns about reviewers’ preconceived attitudes as potential Stoker candidates did in the recent HWA squabble. Besides complaints about Neiderhoff’s review, he’s also noted other sources he felt were more focused on race and sex of characters/authors than the fiction, for example a io9 article about the Nebulas. This suggests it’s the cultural trend he’s concerned about.
About minority characters: As someone who often includes minority characters in my work, I don’t think minorities have to advance the plot, but they do need to fit into it. My feeling is that at least brief description of the characters should be given early so the reader can integrate these into imagination. This doesn’t mean we have to have all the particulars, which can develop later on. Afterthoughts that shout “I’m adding a [insert minority] character here!” are a clear form of activism and can lead to eye-rolling on the part of the reader, if not snapping the book shut.
“And if you have much experience of merry punsters, you know that’s what we like best.”
I think that love of puns is hereditary, much like diarrhea.
I remember Mendel and Darwin, but I must have missed science class the day that was taught.
@Mike Glyer,
It runs in your jeans.
@Rev. Bob.
I’m just going to rot13 the whole thing because it’s easier.
V trg jung lbh’er fnlvat, ohg gung ibvprbire vf sebz Frnfba 1, Rcvfbqr 1, naq vg gnyxf nobhg ubj Orpxrgg jnfa’g uvf cnegare ohg uvf zhfr. Frnfba 1 nverq va 2009, juvpu jnf 7 lrnef ntb. Shegurezber, rcvfbqr 1 vaibyirq crbcyr orvat hcfrg jvgu Pnfgyr nobhg xvyyvat bss uvf punenpgre Qrerx Fgbez. Jura nfxrq jul Pnfgyr fnvq “Ur tbg obevat”. Fb vg jbhyq znxr frafr gb xvyy bss fgbel Pnfgyr naq fgbel Xngr jura gurl “tbg obevat”.
Vg ernyyl whfg qbrfa’g zrfu sbe zr sbe gurz gb tb sebz oyrrqvat bhg ba gur sybbe nsgre univat orra fubg, gb “bu fbzrubj frira lrnef yngre gurl tbg 3 xvqf”. RFCRPVNYYL jura jr unq n dhvpx zbagntr gung gbbx hf onpx guebhtu gvzr gb Orpxrgg’f cerivbhf qvtf.
@Rev. Bob
ON the other hand I find it interesting that Nathan Fillion is moving right into Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Stana Katic is moving into… well. I’ll just copy posta what ABCnews had to say
Katic, on the other hand, has even more coming out this year.
The film “Lost in Florence” will see her team up with Brett Dalton. Yes, the guy from “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” The Marvel connections don’t stop!
The IMDb descriptions reads, “A heartbroken American in Florence gets involved in a dangerous local sport — and with an alluring local woman.” That movie is out in September.
The 38-year-old also appears in another movie, “Sister Cities,” alongside Amy Smart, Michelle Trachtenberg and “Pretty Little Liars” star Troian Bellisario.
This movie is a bit more serious, as “four estranged sisters reunite after their mother’s alleged suicide,” according to IMDb.
Why two ribbons? A single I AM CHUCK TINGLE/I AM NOT CHUCK TINGLE button or ribbon could be designed to work like those CLEAN/DIRTY signs that go on the front of your dishwasher.
Come to think of it, after the convention you could use a I AM/I AM NOT Tingle button on your dishwasher; works out pretty much the same.
Mike, is a roundup of various “I am Chuck Tingle” posts in order?
@alexvdl:
Using something from the first episode of a series in the finale is far from new; TNG did that in a huge way. I don’t think that aspect of the Castle finale has anywhere near the significance you attach to it. I mean, I could be mistaken, but:
1. I have yet to see any authoritative source saying “yeah, that’s what we were doing.”
2. That interpretation would be a tremendous middle-finger to the fans, for no apparent reason.
3. Neither of us seems to be particularly happy with that interpretation.
4. No network police are going to come take me away for re-education if you’re correct and I’m mistaken.
So, I may be wrong, but in the absence of solid evidence, I’m fine with that possibility. I’d rather be happy with warm fuzzies about the show than feel betrayed over one bad decision.
Plus, it means gur Gvzr Geniryre znl npghnyyl unir orra gur erny qrny. Gur fubj’f FS! 😀
This thread’s probably too busy, yet I must
/*-stalk
If you’re Tingle and you know it
Then your face will surely show it…
If you’re Tingle and you know it
Pound your butt…
The Unbearable Tingle of Pixels
Kratos? What are you doing in Hyperborea?
@RevBob
Agreed. I always seem to end up citing Heinlein’s Friday when the subject of “unmarked means white” comes up, because despite Whelan’s classic cover illustration, the title character explicitly isn’t white. Her skin color is never described, but Boss’s letter about her heritage (construction? design?) is very explicit about her being a mix of practically every race.
Your assertion, “Her skin color is never described,” set off an immediate Nuh-Uh in my head, because I thought I remembered a line where her skin color was described. So I got to flipping through my copy of Friday and found this, on p. 56-57 (Friday herself is speaking the first line):
“So, Vickie, this built-in suntan of mine–do you know where I got it?”
“Certainly, you told us. Amerindian. Uh, Cherokee, you said. Marj! Did I hurt your feelings? Oh, dear! It’s not like that at all! Everybody knows Amerindians are–Well, just like white people. Every bit as good.”
And in another place (forgot page number) Friday says blondes intimidate her, becuase when she was little, she thought she could get to be that color if she scrubbed hard enough.
So, yeah, as good as that mass-market paperback cover is, Friday isn’t white. (And for the life of me, I can’t see why Whelan would draw a perfectly good coverall unzipped to the navel just to show off a gratuitous bit of boob. That kind of ruins the effect for me.)
I think the place to start is that I’m not saying that any other book is necessarily bad. Some of the other works that I have/will criticized/criticize are still very good books that may include many features that I enjoy in TAW.
You are still avoiding the question. No one is claiming you’re saying other books are bad. No one said anything close to that. What is the “type” of book that The Aeronaut’s Windlass represents that you think Hugo voters have been overlooking? Is it just “books Dann thinks are neat to read”? Is the “type” really that banal?
If only you had. Some guy named Mike Glyer came up with it three months ago — https://file770.com/?p=27444&cpage=4#comment-397740
@JJ: IKR? Every single one of those is demonstrated by the “Ancillary” books, just for one example. Plus steampunk isn’t at all novel by now, whereas the concept of ancillaries was something you don’t see every day.
@Mike: Darren codified it better, though. Particularly since the example of Dumbledore being gay isn’t in any of the books, and the discussion here is about characteristics that are.
@Rev. Bob: I’m with you. Also in an interview, Katic herself said that she thought Pnfgyr naq Orpxrgg fubhyq unir guerr xvqf. Abobql nffbpvngrq jvgu gur fubj unf fnvq nalguvat yvxr jung nyrkqiy nyyrtrf.
@Bonnie: (Friday’s “suntan”)
Ah, right you are! I’d forgotten that line, which I will promptly blame on the – so far as I can discern – lack of a US-legal ebook edition of that novel.
I really ought to remember it, too; there’s a full-blood Cherokee in my paternal bloodline, and that marriage was such a scandal that the family split over it. I happened to discover a cousin from the other branch a few years ago; we’d become friends online a couple of years before, and a chance remark revealed the connection.
@alexvdl and @Rev Bob
Think I’ll end up watching the Castle finale but may end up wiping Seaon 8 from my head canon. Just like there was only one Highlander and Alien3 never happened.
1. Authoritative source?
2. Why would that be a middle finger to fans?
3. V’z unccvre jvgu gung gurbel guna gur zvfznfu bs vzntrf jr tbg. Pyvcf jurer gurl trg fubg, gura n ibvprbire sebz frnfba 1, gura fbzr enaqbz “tb onpx va gvzr fubgf”, naq gura n fprar jvgu gurz naq guerr xvqf qbrfa’g ernyyl cnvag n pburfvir fgbel. Rfcrpvnyyl pbafvqrevat gung Pnfgyr vf nobhg n ybg zebr guna Orpxrgg naq Pnfgyr. Qb Nyrkvf naq Unlyrl rire orpbzr na vgrz? Jvyy Wniv rire frggyr qbja? Vf Elna abj znxvat rabhtu zbarl gung ur qbrfa’g unir or n obhapre ng n fgevc pyho?
4. Correct. You may be wrong, I may be wrong, we may be wrong. That guy over there is definitely wrong.
Oddly enough, JK Rowlings thought that it was obvious from the text that Dumbledore was gay; he was in love with the bad guy, and blinded himself to the evidence that the bad guy was, indeed, a bad guy until it was almost too late.
This is not an uncommon event…
@Mike: Looks like you had the concept but not the pithy term.
I saw recently that Bones had a crossover with Sleepy freaking Hollow! (I enjoy fantasy-based fiction, but I’m a major stickler for fiction based in the real world being “hard reality”–meaning no characters who are taken seriously take any superstitions seriously–and the superstitions certainly shouldn’t be explicitly or implicitly cannon in-universe.)
Hopefully, he’s not pithed off about it.
Chandler fans:
send me an email and I’ll forward you a copy of the rim worlds alternate histories graph – [email protected]
Yes, Rimworlds has apparently been hit by the glitch bug. Working on it now – hoping it doesn’t have to be restored from an (older) backup
dann665:
So let’s evaluate these to see which might be things Hugo voters are overlooking.
This one. This might be a thing we are overlooking. I personally am not reading for “what will press dann665’s buttons” while nominating. I suspect that the number of Hugo nominators who both know your buttons and value you so much as a person that we overlook our own preferences to nominate work that will press them is a tiny minority and will remain so.
Hmm. I am going to treat these together because they seem to me to be closely related* Let me think about last year’s novel nominees that were not slated. Three Body Problem had a fairly bleak view of humanity. A major character betrays the human race after being treated extremely badly by most of the people around her. The other major character ignores his wife and children when they are not convenient–and this is not considered worthy of comment. The Goblin Emperor by contrast was deeply positive (granted about fantasy versions of “humanity”–goblins and elves) in that the major character succeeds in large part due to his caring about others and this was part of why many nominators loved it.. Ancillary Sword was mixed about humanity in general but certainly featured a protagonist who was trying to be a better person and succeeding.
Okay so these two can be scratched off as already met by Hugo Nominators.
(* unless the distinction is some sort of House UnAmerican Activities Committee thing; I don’t get those dog whistles but I know they exist.)
This is like #1–so subjective that a Hugo nominator would have to know you extremely well to avoid overlooking it. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that. However when it comes to detail (and my own imperfect memory) I recall The Goblin Emperor and Ancillary Sword as being fairly sparing on the detail, while using occasional well-chosen details to suggest a much richer world.
I didn’t get this sense from Three-Body Problem–the non-Earth sections in particular seemed dry and flavorless–weird but lacking in the details I need in actual words to bring a scene or character to life for me–but maybe other people remember it differently?
The Goblin Emperor could be seen as derivative I suppose–it has elves, and goblins. Their setting and culture seem pretty different from standard fantasy elf and goblin setting and culture, though.
Ancillary Sword has a star empire and FTL travel and war or the potential of war between different star governments, so I guess you could call that derivative, but the whole ancillary thing–one mind in many bodies, especially bodies that are taken by force and have their own pasts, doesn’t seem derivative to me.
Three Body Problem–the Earth sections seem pretty derivative. The non Earth sections didn’t, to the degree they were described at all, but they didn’t seem very well fleshed out.
The Ancillary books in particular were celebrated for this.
See the Ancillary books.
I loved Ancillary Mercy and it definitely had funny bits but my memory for details is poor. I invoke other Filers here–gallows humor, yes, or no? If no, did you nominate anything that would qualify as having gallows humor? (I am pretty sure my nomination for Bryony and Roses includes humor in the face of fear of death but it’s not actually *military* of course so maybe it doesn’t count.). Go ahead and speak up whether it made the ballot or not; it’s not the fault of normal Hugo Nominators that slaters pushed things off.
To the degree that this is objective rather than personal taste, see Ancillary Sword. And The Goblin Emperor.
…this strikes me as another thing that is so personal that people would have to know you very well to nominate books that meet your standards.
So what I’m seeing here is either stuff we already reward, or stuff we couldn’t reasonably be expected to take into account–your personal tastes.
Is there anything objective that we could be looking for as Hugo Nominators that we’re not already rewarding? Besides the niche-taste for gallows humor in an actually military context?
dann665: Just curious if you’ve read David Drake.
@Cat: Heh, good analysis! ::bowing:: I’m amused at how well the Hugos did last year for @dan665, especially given the slating. 😉
I’m thinking there may have been a bit of gallows humor in Ancillary Mercy, though “gallows humor in a military context” is way too specific a personal taste to reasonably expect to see even occasionally, IMNSHO. This reminds me of some of Kyra’s amusing off-the-cuff micro-sub-genres she occasionally creates in her mini-reviews here.
To distract you from the little penis-zippers?
@alexvdl: “Why would that be a middle finger to fans?”
How could saying “gur jubyr frevrf jnf n qnlqernz” be anything else? (Plus, if it had been, why would Castle have made a fool out of himself so often?)
Yes, the finale was rushed. Blame the network for waiting until the last minute to decide between cancellation and renewal. We’re lucky we got any kind of “the end” scene at all, instead of being left in eternal limbo like the fans of any number of other series. The sort of thing you’re asking for, where we get every single loose end for every significant character wrapped up in a neat little package… that was never a possibility. Not in an already-packed episode with zero prep time.
We already know – because the showrunners have said so in interviews – that they shot the epilogue scene “just in case,” before the renew/cancel decision was made, to be able to give the fans some kind of happy ending and sense of closure in the event of cancellation. I choose to be grateful for that rather than critical that they didn’t do more, and that public statement is why I disagree with your interpretation.
dann665: Also, I’m afraid I can’t share your enthusiasm for The Aeronaut’s Windlass, and it’s headed back to the library as a DNF. It should be punching my buttons, but I’ve bounced twice in the first 220 pages off things that make me think Butcher didn’t do his research before diving into MilSF.
The epilogue scene of Castle kinda reminds me of the voiceover ending they put to the last episode of Survival, the last Doctor Who episode before the movie and the reboot.
I am not Chuck Tingle, but I suspect one of my cats may be Satoshi Nakamoto.