(1) WISCON GOHS. Justine Larbalestier, Sofia Samatar, and Nalo Hopkinson.
https://twitter.com/Nalo_Hopkinson/status/736014262599098368
(2) AMERICAN SNARKER. John Z. Upjohn is at WisCon, too.
WisSched app has a picture of a rocket ship on it. Time was you could tell what an app would be like if it has an icon like that. #wiscon40
— John Z. Upjohn (@hymenaeushouse) May 26, 2016
That hack @alexandraerin is scheduled for two panels today. If she goes through with it, I will refuse to tweet when she is on, as a protest
— John Z. Upjohn (@hymenaeushouse) May 27, 2016
Met a panhandler on my way to breakfast. Believing the "teach a man to fish" philosophy, I gave him advice on constructing fly fishing lures
— John Z. Upjohn (@hymenaeushouse) May 28, 2016
Jesus will say to me, "John, I was hungry and you taught me to solve my own problems with an attractive lure and well-tied fly. You're in."
— John Z. Upjohn (@hymenaeushouse) May 28, 2016
(3) FIVE-OH. Meanwhile, Peter S. Beagle was signing at Balticon 50.
Getting my copy of #TheLastUnicorn signed by @petersbeagle at #Balticon pic.twitter.com/pj9NrfyMSm
— Archer??????????????????? (@bluestonearcher) May 28, 2016
(4) WHAT IT IS. George R.R. Martin made something clear during his Balticon 50 appearance.
https://twitter.com/AngryGoTFan/status/736671433867169792
(5) 1980 HUGOS. Nicholas Whyte has located a copy of the 1980 Hugo Awards voting statistics. He discusses the competition in a post for From the Heart of Europe.
The earliest Hugos for which I have been able to find full voting numbers are the 1980 Hugo awards given at Noreascon Two. The details were release in December 1980, some months after the convention was over, and are available in a seven-page PDF here (the last two pages of the scan are in the wrong order).
563 nomination votes were received, which was a record at the time but was exceeded four times in the rest of the 1980s. (See George Flynn’s records.) Nominations seem to have then dipped again until the recent rise.
The 1788 votes for the final ballot were also a record at the time, and a record which as far as I can tell stood for over thirty years until 2100 voted for the 2011 Hugos at Renovation.
(Incidentally I find it fascinating that participation in Site Selection was well ahead of the Hugos for most of the 1980s and 1990s, peaking at 2509 in 1992, a tight-fought campaign between the eventual 1995 Intersection in Glasgow and a rival bid from Atlanta.)
The closest result in 1980 was for the Gandalf Grand Master Award for life achievement in fantasy writing, won by Ray Bradbury by a single vote,mailed in late from England, ahead of Anne McCaffrey, 747 to 746….
The next closest result was the Hugo for Best Novel, which went to Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradiseby 19 votes, 671 to 652 for John Varley’s Titan. I have to feel that the Hugo voters got it right (even if Jo Walton disagrees – see also excellent comments); it’s a long time since I read Titan but I feel it was really a book of its time, whereas the Clarke is a satisfying capstone to a crucially important career in the genre. The Fountains of Paradise won the Nebula as well that year, but was only third in the Locus poll behind Titan (which won) and Frederik Pohl’s Jem. It was also nominated for the 1979 BSFA Award but lost to J.G. Ballard’s The Unlimited Dream Company.
(6) ANIMATED ROD SERLING INTERVIEW. Blank on Blank, the PBS video series that creates animated videos from old audio-only interviews with celebrities, writers, and pop culture icons, has given the treatment to a recording of Rod Serling taking questions from Australian radio personality Binny Lum in 1963.
Well, it’s a very beautiful day, and it’s made infinitely more pleasant for me by the fact that I am going to talk to Rod Serling. So many of you have enjoyed his television shows. The Twilight Zone I think is the one that everybody talks about. I’ve just confessed to Rod that I haven’t seen it.
Believe me, Binny, some of my best friends are quite unaware of this program back in the States, including relatives, I might add….
(7) ROLLING A 770 CHARACTER. Kind words from Tim Atkinson who launches his series of Hugo nominee review posts with a look at File 770.
It helps that – occasional op ed articles aside – the blog not only links back to the original stories but quotes liberally from the sources themselves. Glyer and other contributors usually confine themselves to introducing each item rather than responding to it, although occasionally a little mild frustration can be detected.
In short – if File 770’s had an DnD alignment, it would be Lawful Neutral, or at least trying to live up to it. Which is really what you need from a news service.
The File 770 community, on the other hand, existing in a ecosystem of comments on individual blog posts, is all about opinions plural. Whether it’s taking a position on the stories of the day, swapping book or recipe recommendations or engaging in an epic comic riff about what to say to the Balrog in Moria (archived here), the threads are always insightful. Occasionally a little hot-tempered, but by comparison to Twitter (say) they’re a paragon of civility. 🙂
(8) NOT ENOUGH SPACE. Ashley Pollard steps up at Galactic Journey with “[May 27, 1961] Red Star, Blue Star (May 1961 UK Fandom Report)”
….To summarize Great Britain’s role in space, we lag far behind both United States and the Soviet Union, our government having cancelled Blue Streak early last year, which was a medium-range ballistic missile that would’ve made a good basis for a British rocket. It was being tested at the Woomera Rocket Range in Australia (named, aptly, after an Aboriginal spear throwing aid). Woomera has plenty of room to fire rockets into space, unlike the Home Counties or anywhere else for that matter on the British Isles…..
However, that still leaves us with Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, which I haven’t mentioned before. He is the eponymous hero of the Eagle comic’s lead strip. Dan Dare is the lead test pilot of the “Interplanet Space Fleet”, whose adventures in space are still delighting its readers after ten years of weekly installments. The series was created by Frank Hampson who consulted Arthur C. Clarke on the comic strips’ science. While lots of spaceships have been lost, favourites like Dan Dare’s own Anastasia fly around the Solar system rescuing those in need of help, and defeating the various nefarious plans of enemies like the Mekon: large headed green alien overlords from Venus (and I expect you thought I would say Mars – still green though).
(9) BUT MORE SPACE THAN BEFORE. They finally succeeded in inflating the new room at the ISS.
NASA on Saturday successfully expanded and pressurized an add-on room at the International Space Station two days after aborting the first attempt when it ran into problems.
The flexible habitat, known as the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), slowly extended 67 inches (170 centimeters) soon after 4 pm (2000 GMT) following more than seven hours during which astronaut Jeff Williams released short blasts of air into the pod’s walls from the orbiting lab using a manual valve.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born May 28, 1908 — Ian Fleming, creator of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which I borrowed from the library while in junior high, assuming from the title it naturally would be another spy adventure like his James Bond.
(11) THE FUNNY PAGES. Will R. recommends this Hobotopia cartoon for a laugh.
And John King Tarpinian appreciates the references in today’s Brevity.
(12) STAY ON THE ISLAND. It’s the place to be, next time you’re in New York — “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ lair listed on AirBNB”.
An AirBNB listing is offering fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the opportunity to spend a night in the reptilian crime fighters’ secret lair.
The listing posted by the group’s very own Leonardo allows up to six guests to rent the Turtles’ three bedroom lair in Manhattan for just $10 a night.
“This high-tech dojo is fully loaded…a glow in the dark basketball court, a retro arcade, more video games with a pretty sweet tv wall…anything for hanging ninja-style,” the listing states.
While guests will get the opportunity to take full advantage of the lair and possibly even grab a bite of pizza, the Turtles themselves will not be present on the property due to their commitment to protecting the city.
(13) COMING TO VIMEO. A Neil Gaiman documentary will soon be posted online. The trailer says it can be pre-ordered for $12.99.
The documentary Neil Gaiman: Dream Dangerously will be exclusively shown on Vimeo, starting on July 8th. The film chronicles Gaiman’s childhood in Portsmouth UK to his initial success in writing The Sandman comic series to his more recent work with novels such as Coraline and The Graveyard Bookwhere he became the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work. His novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards.
(14) ANCIENT BOMB. Entertainment Weekly tells us “Mel Brooks was ‘ready to jump off a roof’ over sci-fi fiasco Solarbabies”.
How Did This Get Made? …recruited SlashFilm writer Blake Harris to speak with the makers — or, perhaps, “perpetrators” would be a better word — of the films featured in the podcast.
Harris can now claim to have struck bona fide gold with an interview in which comedy legend Mel Brooks talks about his backing of 1986’s Solarbabies, a sci-fi movie starring Jason Patric, Jami Gertz, and Lukas Haas. Don’t remember the film? Doesn’t matter. The always entertaining Blazing Saddles director, who exec-produced the movie through his Brooksfilms production company, remembers it like it was yesterday. In particular, Brooks has excellent recall of how the budget ballooned from a modest $5 million to a jaw-dropping $23 million…
(15) IT’S ABOUT TIME. Southern California Public Radio’s “Off-Ramp” segment delivers “DIY Film Fest: 6 time-travel flicks you’ll go back to (sorry) time after time” by Tim Cogshell, of CinemaInMind.
Off-Ramp has been after me asking me to do another DIY film festival, and I’ve been asked to talk sci-fi flicks with the sci-fi nerds over at the DigiGods podcast. They have a great audience and I know they are going to want to talk time-travel movies. Sci-fi nerds always want to talk time travel movies. So let’s kill two birds with one stone.
1. “Looper” (2012)
Let’s start with a modern film that’s fast becoming a cult classic. The nerds love Director Rian Johnson’s 2012 time-travel thriller “Looper,” and so do I. It stars Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt as the same guy from different moments in time. What I like most about Looper is that it’s a love story wrapped in a thriller hidden in a time-travel movie. And that it’s Johnson’s own original script. He worked it all out beat-by-beat in his head and “Looper” is tight as a drum.
(16) FANCY MEETING YOU HERE. Washington State Republican Party Chairman Susan Hutchison’s Unity Speech includes video clips of various pundits – including a brief excerpt from a YouTube conversation between Vox Day and Stefan Molyneux. Their snippet appears at the 2:00:10 mark.
As Cally observed, “He’s one of the few people in the video who’s actually got his name displayed; most are either anonymous people or, I suppose, people who you’re supposed to recognize on sight.”
(17) HARD SELL. Originally for those who GET HARD, this shirt is now HARD TO GET. Teespring lists the “Legends of Science Fiction” t-shirt as sold out two days ago. If you click the “I still want one” button they’ll take your e-mail address.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, David K.M. Klaus, Andrew Porter, and Will R., for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
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First?
Hunh, yeah, maybe Fountains has aged better than Titan, but I think I need to re-read both to make sure.
(15) Sci-fi nerds always want to talk time travel movies.
Apparently I’m not a sci-fi nerd, as time travel is one of my least favorite SF flavors.
The world is a scroll of a number of things.
I think we should all be happy as kings.
I haven’t read Fountains in a while, but I did re-read Titan just a few years ago, and while there were definite signs of aging, I thought it held up pretty well overall.
eta: pre-fifth!
5) Looking back at the 1980 Hugo nominees for Novel, the only one I remember with fondness and am likely to revisit is Harpist In the Wind (I thought On Wings of Song was well-written, but I wouldn’t want to read it again). The others ranged from okay to “meh”.
Compared to Twitter, a bar brawl is a “paragon of civility”.
I’ll go stand in the corner now.
ETA-once again I accidentally steal someone’s thunder.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which I borrowed from the library while in junior high, assuming from the title it naturally would be another spy adventure like his James Bond.
…and it turned out to be a novel about a former British Navy officer battling international crime with the aid of fantastic hi-tech gimmickry.
Plus fudge recipe.
@Kurt Busiek: As I was reading the scroll I planned to comment, “Did anyone else make or want to make the fudge recipe from the end of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when they were kids?”
Ticky Ticky Dang Dang!
(7) Tim Atkinson also compares File 770 to Metafilter.
I am a lurker on both of them and what delight me are the comments: clever, knowledgeable, funny, snarky without being vitriolic, and, thanks Mike, moderated with a light hand that encourages self-control.
As I recall, my sister did once. I’m not a big fan of fudge, so I can’t really say whether it came out well.
But even though it wasn’t a recipe that interested me, I’ve always liked books with recipes in the back — another was OLD BLACK WITCH, which had a recipe for blueberry pancakes in it that I know we made at least once (“Gobble dee gook/With a wooden spoon/The laugh of a toad/At the height of the moon!”), and I’m pretty sure there was at least one more among childhood favorites.
As a result, I’ve put recipes in the back of two comics — and when Howard Chaykin put a recipe for spaghetti frittata in the back of an issue of AMERICAN FLAGG, it was the first dinner I cooked for a date who has since become my wife.
Recipes in works of fiction are good things.
[actual fifth]
ETA: Whoops, guess not.
AFAIK, the full results from 1984 are lurking in Frisbie’s archives. Somewhere. (I have to assume he knows where, but I haven’t seen them in many years.) 1972’s full results are also around, in hardcopy.
I am unreasonably thrilled to achieve title credit! It’s my weekend’s high point which I’ve been spending recovering from a cold (why yes, my timing is so impeccable I managed to contract a cold just in time for the weekend).
(1) What a delightful photo.
(2) John Z. Upjohn refuses to livetweet Alexandra Erin? That cowardly scoundrel!
Also: *golf clap*
(4) Pre-fan-fiction surely? Unless we’re living in (15) a time travel movie, in which case I urgently urge those operating the time travelling device, whatever you do, don’t mess with causality! (Though looking at current affairs today, that warning’s too late! Or too early!*)
* I’m chronologically confused. It might be the fever talking.
(7) But File770 is selectively excerpting Tim Atkinson which must mean.. something. Of the many descriptors that can be used, we could do *much* worse than “occasionally a little hot-tempered”.
(10) Nearly LOLed, did I.
It’s about time, it’s about space…
I suppose I’m the only one who immediately flashed back to that silly TV show and its silly theme song.
Further Fantasy connections for CCBB, the movie car has been acquired by Peter Jackson, and is often seen at Hood Aerodrome, Masterton NZ, alongside aircraft of The Vintage Aviator Collection.
https://flic.kr/p/r8mM6R
There is, of course, a whole Discworld cookbook, written by the inimitable Nanny Ogg. (Though only a few of the Goodreads reviews will admit to having tried any of included recipes.)
John Z. Upjohn @hymenaeushouse · May 27
Her first panel is on welcoming SJ newbies. Ha! If SJWs were half as welcoming as gamers, we wouldn’t have to keep trying to run them off.
John Z. Upjohn @hymenaeushouse · May 27
Pronoun stickers? MY pronouns are AMERICAN/CHRISTIAN. Where’s my sticker at? #wiscon40
(15) IT’S ABOUT TIME.
What, no Primer? I am disappoint.
I’ve been meaning to watch La Jetée since I learned it was the source for 12 Monkeys.
But as it is, I’ve been watching:
Muppets Tonight. I gave my impressions after binging season 1, and wanted to report that I found season 2 much more enjoyable. Seymour and Pepe made me laugh on several occasions, especially their German opera bit. (“I’m Tristan!” “I’m Isolde!” “We’re two of a kind…”). I loved the cameo episode, in which Bobo the Bear accidentally killed Arsenio Hall. The subplot where Beaker went on a Star Trek cruise and met George Takei was gold. And Big Mean Carl is the perfect Muppet monster.
It was still a little uneven, but let’s be honest, so was The Muppet Show. Too bad it didn’t get more of a chance, as it was starting to find its voice.
Hell Girl: Two Mirrors. Hell Girl is one of those series that is incredibly difficult to watch. It features stories of retribution doled out by the title character, and as such features murder, rape, suicide, bullying, and basically abuse of all kinds. I enjoyed how the first series started out as episodic vignettes and then introduced a through line that revealed more about Hell Girl herself.
Two Mirrors is the second series, and features a little more of Hell Girl’s assistants, as well as introducing a truly creepy little girl. I’m about 2/3 through, and hoping it doesn’t botch the ending.
Also reading The Aeronaut’s Windlass. 220 pages in so far. I can’t say I particularly like Captain Grimm or Gwen Lancaster, but I’m liking Bridget and Rowl and Folly. More Folly!
I’m really quite spoonless for the moment due to several personal things going on, but wanted to report that Archivist Wasp (which can be found in the latest humble bundle) is excellent.
Also I read The Vegetarian recently and while it’s not sff I’d say it’s worth a read (although I should probably note that there are some quite nasty scenes, including self harm and trying to force feed someone meat)
#4 – Did anyone take the time to plead “Please, Mr Martin, don’t kill off Ramsey Bolton. I want him so much to live – in fact, as a fan, I demand you don’t kill him off”…?
“Es muß nicht immer Kaviar sein” by Johannes Mario Simmel. Full or recipes. I know I made flambéed crêpe suzette because of that one.
Recipes in works of fiction are good things.
They are. Having recipes can move a book from maybe to bought in my household.
Thanks, PJ Evans – Indeed, I now find that the 1972 Hugo final ballot statistics are available here, though nomination stats are not included and there is no figure for total ballots cast – the two most popular categories got 526 and 529 votes, so the total must have been 600-700.
The closest result was for Best Novel, where To Your Scattered Bodies Go beat Dragonquest by seven votes, 217 to 210. The Lathe of Heaven then beat Dragonquest for second place by two votes, 214 to 212. Dragonquest came third comfortably ahead of A Time of Changes, but Jack of Shadows then beat A Time of Changes for fourth place by seven votes, 209 to 202.
I reread To Your Scattered Bodies Go a few years ago, for the first time in decades. I thought it was awful.
Today the mailman brought me Dark Run by Mike Brooks, new space opera in what seems to be a Firefly vein. Will report back once I’ve read it.
Currently reading: The Rancher’s Daughter, book 3 in Kyra Halland’s indie fantasy western series Daughter of the Wildings. Indie SFF can be hit or miss, but this is one series I’m enjoying a whole lot and I normally don’t care for westerns at all. It’s a secondary world setting that’s basically the Old West with magic. The characters are engaging and there is a strong romance element. One thing I particularly like is that the central couple gets together by the end of the first book and doesn’t get separated by stupid misunderstandings or artificial drama, but instead tackle the problems facing them together. Because all too often authors believe that happy couples are boring and introduce all sorts of artificial drama to keep them apart. There’s one criticism I have and that’s that the series relies a bit much on threats of sexual violence. It’s not overly graphic, but the female protagonist gets threatened with sexual violence for three books in a row now, which is a bit much IMO.
That’s a really good one (both book and recipes). Probably Simmel’s best.
Cora Buhlert: Today the mailman brought me Dark Run by Mike Brooks, new space opera in what seems to be a Firefly vein. Will report back once I’ve read it.
That, and its 2016 sequel Dark Sky, are waiting at the library for me to pick up — I don’t know if it was you or someone else who mentioned the book, but I thought it sounded interesting enough to try.
(14) Solarbabies! I remember the title, which probably means I once rented it from the video shop, but I can’t remember anything about the story….
I’ll continue the alt-Western reviews with today’s read — The Gunfighter and the Gear-Head, by Cassandra Duffy.
In the wake of an alien invasion, the American Southwest has devolved into a lawless oh who cares because none of this makes the tiniest bit of sense anyway. In the kind of post-apocalyptic dystopia where all technology and infrastructure has collapsed but people are driving 200-mile-per-hour muscle cars around anyway, a former Victoria’s Secret model turned ruthless killer and an eccentric genius building airships and fully sentient AI’s alone by hand out of scraps get together to fight various foes and have lots of kinky sex, sometimes at pretty much the same time. Now, I can accept that kind of setting happily if it provides me with sufficient Awesome (cf. Mad Max: Fury Road), so I spent about 150 pages wondering whether I was laughing with this book or laughing at it. However, at around that point I realized that the book was expecting me to take these ridiculous lunatic characters and their unconvincing emotional traumas Very Very Seriously, at which point I decided I was laughing at it. This one gets a Nope! from me.
[waves from the lurker’s gallery]
Cheers for including me in the round-up. Embarassingly I’ve spotted two typos already and have gone back to tidy them up. 🙂
Have very much enjoyed File 770 over the past year – it’s been invaluable for understanding what’s been going on. Thanks Mike.
And in agreement with Francesca about the value of the commentary gang here too.
(12) STAY ON THE ISLAND. I’m not a Turtle fan, but the kid in me wants to stay there. 🙂 Possibly ‘cuz I’m tired and heading to sleep.
Much real love for Man, Name of Chuck, but the kerning on that Tingle shirt has committed crimes against typesetting and needs to go sit in the corner and think about what it’s done.
(14) Gods, I remember watching Solarbabies in the theater. One of the few times my Father did not admonish us to find something good to say about a film on our drive home.
Re recipes in books:
My wife collects mystery novels with recipes in the back. There is an entire sub-genre for this tactic.
In my library is The Essential Rumi, a collection of poetry by the great Sufi mystic. The last substantial item in the table of contents is “A Note on These Translations and a Few Recipes”.
If you’re curious: chana masaladar (spicy chickpeas), early morning curry, Sunday vegetable curry, and rassum (a spicy broth).
@Dawn Incognito I’ve been meaning to watch La Jetée since I learned it was the source for 12 Monkeys.
I liked 12 Monkeys but La Jetée is one of my favourite SF films of all time – I’d very much recommend it. It helps (I think) if you understand it as drawing on the pulpy-but-philosophical tradition of French SF comics.
(J G Ballard was impressed by it too, back in the day, and wrote an excellent review – spoiler warning, if that’s something you care about.)
There’s a kids’ comic called Rutabaga: Adventure Chef that includes recipes. I got an ARC of volume 2 at the Nebulas and my kids and I enjoyed it a lot (aside from the cooking motif, the moral that “even a goof can be a hero” was well appreciated in our house.)
I would like to try some of the recipes in Nero Wolfe books. Over the years, I have been intrigued by Saucisse Minuit, and his description of how to cook ears of corn seems persuasive. Any of you folks tried some of Rex Stout’s dishes? We have this one SF cookbook (famously included in fiction), but it’s so hard to get Man these days. I mean the good stuff.
I did a couple of cooking strips in New Pals, back in the day. One was hot dogs & beans, and the other was fish and chips, with potato chips you make.
Kyra
This one gets a Nope! from me.
Thanks to the patented mechanism between my eyes and brain which improve everything I read at least the first time, I saw this as “Nopel,” meaning the highest degree of literary refusal generally acknowledged. Nopel Prizes for everyone!
One early memory is reading “Cranberry Thanksgiving” (based on Amazon description I think that was the one anyways) with my mom and then us making the cranberry bread recipe in the back. There was also a Sesame Street book with a sugar cookies recipe I remember us reading and making. Best recollection: +1 for the bread and meh for the cookies.
Not recipes easter egged in books but outright genre cookbooks I’ve got on the shelf:
A Feast of Ice and Fire: authorized cookbook for Game of Thrones. The authors generally have two versions of any recipe – one based on medieval cooking sources and the other contemporary. Usually the recipes aren’t all that complicated and the results are good. It’s become a family favorite. Not bad for a bargain bin impulse buy.
The Nero Wolfe Cookbook: actually written by Rex Stout, it is pretty much what the name says – recipes from the Nero Wolfe books. This one my feelings are mixed on. A lot of the recipes feel complicated for the sake of complication. Ingredient lists and time requirements tend towards large-ish. Looking at contemporaneous gourmet cook books this seems to be common to the time it was written though, and not a tic of Mr Stout. Results are a mixed bag of good, bad, and indifferent. More of value as a look back to a different time, or a once in awhile special genre related meal, than as a practical every day cookbook.
@Kip W – You are in luck. There is the Nero Wolfe Cookbook With recipes for every dish discussed in the series (and a few only mentioned obliquely).
@Kip W.
For Nero Wolfe cooking see mini-review above 🙂
Thanks, GSLamb. I’d seen the cookbook, or more likely, I saw the version of it that was a collection of recipes as an appendix in one of the books. Stoic Cynic’s review is sort of what I was hoping for—a clew, as it were, about whether I should be trying to make any of the stuff.
@Stoic Cynic – While I admit that there are some recipes I do not wish to cook (squirrel, for instance), I use it for entertaining quite often.
@Kip W.
Without buying the book you might want to check out this site:
https://inspiredbywolfe.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/saucisse-minuit/
Several of the recipes are there along with practical notes from someone making them. A chance to get a taste, as it were 🙂
15) Is it just me, or did anyone else get a strong flavor of patronizing/othering from the narrative text? Maybe it was just the drumbeat repetition of what “sci-fi nerds love”, but it felt… off… to me.
@Stoic Cynic – Dangit, now I’ve got a hunger for saucisse minuit. It really is that much work AND that good. Though my favorite recipe is the veal birds.
I am now fondly remembering David Langford’s “Caligula Foxxe” parody, where the recipes include such exotic delicacies as crapaud dans le trou, lapin Pays de Galles and doigts de poisson oeil d’oiseau.
No love for the Official Star Trek Cooking Manual? I learned to cook out of that book.
@Rail
But, but…replicators?!
@snowcrash: Christine Chapel’s personal recipe notebook with an appendix of recipes from the actors and one example of a food synthesizer algorithm.
Replicators came later.
@GS Lamb:
Now I remember that Richard Hoyt’s first(?) novel, The Manna Enzyme, had a bunch of recipes in it, and I remember making at least one of them.
Also, A Dance With Dragons was a mess as a book, but I was inspired to try to reproduce one of Tyrion’s breakfasts.
When I was in junior high, I read a kid’s novel about a teenage boy in Maine who maintained his own lobster pots and faced trouble from the locals because [major plot point completely vanished from the memory]. The book ended with the hero and his friends motoring out to an island and having a big lobster bake with shellfish and corn on the cob and other goodies and landlocked me in the Allegheny Mountains wanted to be them so bad.
@Kip W:
I discovered that roasting corn on the cob in the oven produces the absolute best results, from flavor to ease of shucking afterward*. The tragedy is that corn season is the exact time of year you don’t want to be running your oven at 400F for 30 minutes plus preheating and cooldown time on either end.
—————————-
*Bit of a mixed bag on the shucking. The good thing is that, prepared this way, the silk comes right off with everything else. The bad thing is, hot! You kind of want gloves.