(1) HAN SOLO DIRECTORS AXED. The untitled Star Wars Han Solo spinoff started principal photography on February 20 at London’s Pinewood Studios, but progress has come to an ass-grinding stop with the departure of directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who cited “creative differences” for the split.
Variety’s article puts it a bit differently — “’Star Wars’ Han Solo Spinoff: Lord & Miller Fired After Clashing With Kathleen Kennedy”.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s reputation for writing irreverent, poppy films such as “21 Jump Street” and “The Lego Movie” helped the white-hot writing and directing duo land one of the most coveted gigs in Hollywood — a chance to call the shots on a “Star Wars” film.
But their chance to put their stamp on a galaxy far, far away collapsed on Tuesday with the stunning announcement that the pair would be departing the still untitled Han Solo spin-off movie in the midst of production. Their exit comes after months of conflict with producer Kathleen Kennedy, others from her LucasFilm team, and co-writer and executive producer Lawrence Kasdan, and the two directors hired to infuse the “Star Wars” universe with a tongue-in-cheek sensibility.
Miller and Lord were stunned to find that they were not being granted freedom to run the production in the manner that they were accustomed to. They balked at Kennedy’s tight control on the set.
(2) SAY IT OUT LOUD. Madeleine E. Robins has some advice about dialect in “’Ow’s that, Guv’nor?: The Art of Reading to an Audience”.
So maybe, even if you hear the words you’ve written with a perfect what-ever-it-is accent, you’ll want to think carefully before giving voice to their accents. This is a time when enlisting the assistance of a friend can be useful. Read aloud to them and ask them to tell tell you if it works. If your listener says you’re more [Dick Van Dyke’s Bert the chimney sweep] than Sir Ben Kingsley, rethink.
But my dialogue is written in dialect! Okay, but you don’t have to read inflections that are not in the page. If you’ve got a character saying “I don’t know ‘ow!” you can soften the presumed “Oi” in I; if you aren’t good at the vowels, don’t hit ’em hard. And remember, it’s more important that your listeners follow the sense and meaning of the words than that they get a full theatrical performance.
(3) RED PLANET INTERIOR DECORATORS. Jeremy White in WIRED (“IKEA designers are living in a Mars simulator to get inspiration for future collections. Really”) says that IKEA sent an in-house design team to spend seven days at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, who then decided how to make a Mars mission “more homey” and then use that knowledge to aid in IKEA’s product development.
At its annual Democratic Design Day event in Älmhult, Sweden, IKEA has revealed its latest collaborations and products, with a focus on millennials and space travel. Yes, space travel.
To this end, IKEA has done something rather drastic. It’s banished a delegation of its in-house design team to live in a simulated Mars habitat at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, America, to learn what it’s like to live in the inhospitable and cramped environs of off-world settlements.
When the company learned that Nasa and students from Sweden’s Lund University School of Industrial Design were working on what would be needed for a three-year space mission to Mars, IKEA requested to join the project.
The home furnishings giant wants to tap in to what scientists and engineers learn from spaceflight to Mars, and apply these discoveries to products and methods for everyday life at home. Marcus Engman, head of design at IKEA, said the company wants to find out what could make space travel “homey” and to identify the boundaries and restraints needed to work in that environment, and then port that knowledge into IKEA’s own product development and “use space knowledge for a better everyday life on Earth”.
(4) TENTACLE TIME. Camestros Felapton reviews a science fictional-themed brew, complete with photos of its exotic label, in “Tuesday Beer: Galactopus @LittleBangBrew”.
…I know my readers would WANT me to drink a beer called “Galactopus”, which features a planet devouring octopus on the label.
The sacrifices I make for you all.
The label has some very clever copy. I wonder how many beer labels a person has to author to qualify for SFWA?
(5) RHETORICAL QUESTION. Having seen the Wonder Woman movie Daniel Dern wants to know, “Why no kangas on Paradise Island?”
(6) HOWARD. The duck’s cameos in Guardians of the Galaxy give his leading lady a new excuse to brag: “Lea Thompson Talks ‘Howard the Duck,’ Claims Her Crown as First Queen of Marvel”.
Lea Thompson couldn’t give a quack about what you think of Howard the Duck, the puntastic 1986 Marvel Comics-based action-comedy that ran afowl of movie critics and has lived in film infamy ever since. The George Lucas-produced movie has a fan base out there, and that’s good enough for her.
“People love that movie!” Thompson said of “HTD,” as she likes to call it, during a Facebook Live interview with Yahoo Movies (watch the full interview below). “They’re releasing it again in Blu-ray or something… They don’t just do that because they’re nice.” (The film was made available on Blu-ray for the first time last May.) “It’s a hilariously bizarre movie,” Thompson continued. “The only thing that I can say that I don’t like about it is that I thought it was a little long.”
The film, which featured the Back to the Future breakout as a Cleveland singer who helps the anthropomorphic duck acclimate to life on Earth, runs 110 minutes, which is still well short of the average runtime of today’s Marvel movies, including the two Guardians of the Galaxy films that have briefly resuscitated Mr. HTD
(7) FIVE STARS. Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper each take a cut at Daryl Gregory’s Spoonbenders at Fantastic Literature. Here’s Marion’s first paragraph:
Spoonbenders (2017) by Daryl Gregory, is multi-generational family saga. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s a psychic adventure story and a weird conspiracy tale for lovers of shadowy CIA projects like MKULTRA. It’s a gangster story. There’s a heist. There is a long con, and a madcap comedy along the lines of classic Marx Brothers routines. There are a couple of romances, a direct-distribution scheme, a medallion, a cow and a puppy. If we’re talking genre, I don’t know what Spoonbenders is. I know I loved it. I know it was fun and made me laugh, I know it was scary at times and I know I closed the book feeling happy and sad. And I know it’s a five-star book.
(8) COMIC SECTION. John King Tarpinian notes an amusing sf reference today in Bliss.
(9) SAD PUPPIES PROGRESS REPORT. Sarah A. Hoyt returned to tell Mad Genius Club readers what happened to Sad Puppies 5 in “About Those Lost Puppies”. After a lengthy recap of her version of history, she reaches the tentative present:
…Our intention was always to just create a page, in which those who register can post reading recommendations, not just of recent years, but of anything that struck their fancy. There will be a place where you can say when the book was published and if it’s eligible for an award — and not just a science fiction award — and a link to the award page for people to follow, if so minded. Yeah, we’ll include the Hugo, but probably with a note saying the award is in the process of self-destructing.
Thing is, I meant to have this up before nominations for the Dragon Award opened. But on top of the comedy of errors above, our website provider either crashed or was hacked, so while trying to survive auto-immune and meeting more deliveries than UPS, I’ve been trying to get it up and running again. (My author site is down also.)
So, that’s where we are. We’ll put it up sometime in the next couple of months, and then Amanda and I will run it, and then Amanda will take over Or Amanda, Kate and I will continue shepherding it.
When we said this before and pointed out that PARTICULARLY indie books need some place to mention them, we were linked to/lectured by someone one the rabid side, because apparently they already have a site, so we don’t need one of our own.
Tips hat to the right. Thank you kindly. But you guys are aware your aesthetics and goals aren’t ours, right?
You just turned Marxist aesthetics on their head, and are judging books by being anti-Marxist and how much they don’t support the neo Marxist idea of justice. That’s cool and all. To each his own. And since, so far, your crazy isn’t being taught in schools, it’s slightly less annoying than the Marxist crazy.
It is still annoying, though, because you’re still judging literary value by whether it fits your (at least as crazy-cakes’ as the Marxists) narrative and your precepts….
(10) I ATE THE WHOLE THING. It’s been reliably reported that Whole Foods was not long for existence if Bezos or the like hadn’t bought them. “Amazon Eats Up Whole Foods as the New Masters of the Universe Plunder America” japes The Daily Beast’s Joel Kotkin.
Unlike our old moguls, the new Masters don’t promise greater prosperity but a world where most people are to be satiated by a state-provided basic income and occasional ‘gig’ work.
(11) PLAY BALL The Washington Post’s Scott Allen, in a piece called “Nationals will hide ‘dragon eggs’ ahead of ‘Game of Thrones’ Night”, says the Washington Nationals have hidden 10 “dragon eggs” in the D.C. area, and if you find one fabulous prizes can be yours at the Nationals’ Game of Thrones night.
Nationals Park will look and feel a bit more like Westeros, the fictional continent from the popular HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s novels, when the Nationals host the Reds on “Game of Thrones” Night on Friday.
Ahead of the event, the Nationals will hide 10 prize-filled “dragon eggs” in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. A Westeros-themed map posted on the team’s social channels and in The Washington Post Express on Tuesday morning will guide fans to the eggs, which contain a Nationals and “Game of Thrones” co-branded T-shirt, two tickets to Friday’s game and a fast-pass to pose for a photo on the 800-pound Iron Throne that will be located in the Right Field Plaza.
…The Racing Presidents will wear different-colored cloaks with faux fur designed by Ingrid Crepeau, the same woman behind the elaborate costumes that the Racing Presidents have worn on “Star Wars Day” since 2015. Teddy and George showed off their costumes at AwesomeCon in D.C. over the weekend. Screech will be dressed as his favorite “Game of Thrones” character, the three-eyed Raven.
(12) SEUSS MUSEUM. The Washington Post’s Andrea Sachs asks, “Will the Dr. Seuss museum be one of the places you’ll go?” Her article reports on the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss museum in Springfield, Massachusetts, where museumgoers can make small books or “a Lorax mustache on a wooden stick, look at his art, and see the rooms where he wrote and drew his books, including hats given him from fans of The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.
The ground floor brings to life several of his 40-plus children’s books. The front door opens up to “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” the first children’s book Seuss published. A statue of a police officer patrols a zany parade painted on the wall. Around the bend, step into McGrew’s Zoo, a riot of animals, most not found in the wild. A diagram shows some of the pretend creatures from “If I Ran the Zoo.” There is a preep, a proo, a nerkle and a nerd. Yes, a nerd — a word Seuss made up. Continue onward to make the acquaintance of Thing One and Thing Two, the Cat in the Hat, the Lorax and the tower of turtles from — burp — “Yertle the Turtle.”
Here’s the direct link to “The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum”.
The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss is a permanent, bilingual museum designed to introduce children and their families to the stories of Ted Geisel, promote joy in reading, and nurture specific literacy skills. The 3,200-square-foot first floor exhibition will provide opportunities to explore new sounds and vocabulary, play rhyming games, invent stories, and engage in activities that encourage teamwork and creative thinking.
The second floor will be filled with personal memorabilia belonging to Ted Geisel, including original oil paintings, a collection of zany hats and bowties, the original Geisel Grove sign which used to hang in Forest Park, and furniture from Ted’s sitting room and studio, including his drawing board, breakfast table, sofa, and armchair.
(13) NAZI RELICS. Matt Novak of Gizmodo covers the “Huge Collection of Nazi Artifacts Discovered Inside Secret Room in Argentina”.
Federal police in Argentina recently discovered a time capsule of evil, hidden inside a house near Buenos Aires. Roughly 75 Nazi artifacts, including everything from a large knife to Nazi medical devices to a photo negative of Adolph Hitler, were uncovered in a secret room. Police are investigating when and how the items entered the South American country….
One reason that authorities in Buenos Aires has some degree of certainty that they are originals is that some items from the collection are pictured in photographs with Nazi leaders. For example, one item in the collection is a magnifying glass. The same magnifying glass is seen in a photo negative from the collection showing Hitler himself. Investigators showed the photo to the Associated Press on the condition that the photo not be published.
“This is a way to commercialize them, showing that they were used by the horror, by the Fuhrer. There are photos of him with the objects,” said Bullrich.
[Thanks to JJ, Daniel Dern, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer Sylvester.]
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SEUSS MUSEUM
I haven’t been to many places in the US, but a few years ago I did swing by Springfield solely to visit the Seuss sculpture garden.
Stoic Cynic <applause>
The Seuss Museum is after my time, but the quadrangle it’s on (museums and public library) had the sculptures already when we were there, and they really did a bang-up job of actualizing his characters three-dimensionally in bronze. They also put up the complete book, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!, fitting the text into the two pages of an open (standing) volume. Oh, the pictures I took.
Rev. Bob, TYP
Not only was there a version with Obama as J. Caesar, it happens that one of their uncomplaining/proud sponsors was the same Delta Airlines that was shocked, shocked! to find that there was regicide in this play.
Bruce Arthurs
In my Senior year of high school, Dave Mattingly was the Marxist (or at least a serious hippie in all but consumption), and Scot W. (who, like most of the guys in the story, was on the speech team with me) was the anti-Marxist. They edited the school paper together, abetting one another’s schemes and controversies. Dave ran for office, and Scot was his campaign manager, on the Apathy ticket. Dave, in fact, ran for every office, submitting a letter of intent for each: Neatly centered on a sheet of SWOP was typed, “My name is David Mattingly and I wish to run for [name of office].” I’ve told this before—you might have first seen it in the apa.
Anyway, he gave one speech with his mouth full of fried chicken. He gave one with his back to the audience. He gave one where he simply contradicted everything the previous candidate had said. Each time, he bowed out of the race after giving his speech. (He was a master of public speaking, having won annual awards for the Optimists’ contests, and going on to knock me off the extemp team in forensics.)
Came the speech for the big office. Cheerleader (and full of school spirit!) Lisa M. gave a speech (I didn’t see any of this, being at Voc-Tech from 8:30 to 11:30 each day, but when I got off the bus to rejoin the newspaper staff in progress, I got the story from Dave, and later got additions from others.) where she urged everyone to clap along with her. “You see that? We’re all clapping together! It proves that when we all work together, we make things happen, and we can make this the best school year ever!” Dave resisted the temptation to go up and stomp his foot and say, “You see that? We’re all stomping together! You know what that proves? It proves you’re all a bunch of sheep and you’ll do anything anybody says!” Instead, he gave his actual, prepared speech about how everybody’s apathetic, and they should elect someone who doesn’t care. “If I’m elected,” he promised, “I will not attend any Student Council meetings!”
So I came to the classroom that was the newspaper office, and Dave was in high spirits, seeing how far back he could lean in his chair before falling over again. “I gave my speech,” he told me, “And nobody was buying it, but then Brad (another friend, big on the Student Council) stood up and said ‘Dave’s right! You should listen to him!’ and they started going along with it. And then Lisa stood up, and she’s all crying and stuff, and she said, (new voice) ‘Well. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting pretty pissed!’ And she said, ‘If you elect him as President, I’m… I’m going to… QUIT STUDENT COUNCIL!’ And I went back up there and said, well, doggone, look, she’s crying real tears! I hereby resign from the race in favor of Lisa M.!”
So this was where I started seeing it happen in real time. Scot was feverishly making posters and putting them up around the school: “YOU CAN STILL VOTE FOR MATTINGLY!” “VOTE FOR MATTINGLY ANYWAY!” “Doggone, Scot, what are you doing?” the candidate protested. “I said I quit the fucking race!” Scot explained to me that he believed that if Dave won, he would refuse the office, and that, since the school’s constitution didn’t address the contingency, that it would effectively break the system. So I made posters as well.
Dave won. He told me that the school principal, Dr. Wells (whose pen can on his desk was, indeed, a can of the lesser-known Dr. Pepper knockoff) shook his hand and said, “David, I can’t tell you how sorry I am you won the election.” He didn’t turn down the office after all. He may have even attended a meeting, but other than that, he was pretty faithful to his campaign.
Speaking of fannish kerfluffles, this happened last weekend:
My opening remarks at Fourth Street Fantasy Convention
More grist for the dark satanic mills of whatever (or whomever’s) grindstone is being turned.
@ Bruce Arthur:
If you combine a pro-Marxist and an anti-Marxist, the result (according to the Marxist Dialectic) should be a synthesis-Marxist.
@Kip W – A good friend of mine at our (tiny, semi-rural) high school, as part of his strategy to get into a good college, joined every club he could, edited the yearbook, and ran for student council president. He campaigned on basically the same premise – “If elected, I will ignore this useless position entirely.” He won, and people were very upset when he ignored his “duties” (making posters for football games and the like).
SAD PUPPIES PROGRESS REPORT
Dunno how I missed all the Neo-Marxist aesthetics when I was doing my Computer Science degree at Edinburgh. I should have gone to more lectures.
Surprise Titlle credit is the best title credit!
David Lindelof is set to adapt Watchmen as an HBO series. Judging from his past work, I guess we will get 5 great seasons and then no resolution.
(9) In Lucky Luke vs. Joss Jamon, the latter wrote leaffleats to topple the newly elected major and used a certain word a lot (In German it was “infam”, dont know what it was in english). When called out, he said something like “Its a great word – nobody is really sure what it means and so they everyone can project anything the dislike in it”
Hoyts use of the word “Marxist” in the Mad Pixel Club must be something similiar, because, I have met, like 5 Marxists in my whole life. And I live in Germany. And count myself (moderate) left. Shes using the word a lot and I dont think it means, what she thinks it means.
Its too bad, because along the lines you can really read the frustration that she had with the rabids aka “Anti-Marxists” (so the rabids must be Stalinists then!) and I think this is the most vocal she was about them so far. Well, Who cares, really.
I’m not a puppy kicker, and that’s okay
I’ll use a rolled up newspaper.
Pay no attention to that scroll behind the pixel.
I am not a puppy kicker,
I’m a puppy kicker’s son
and I’m only kicking puppies
’til the puppy kicker comes.
@ Stoic Cynic
*applause*
@Peer Sylvester
I’m thinking that the reason is that “Marxist” is “Scary Other” for people who know they are far too well educated to call those who disagree with them as scary others. They are not some idiot from the wrong side of the tracks shrieking at the different looking or acting person; they are a well educated and rational person, who knows that their fear of the different looking and acting person must come from their education and rationality.
A friend of mine had this encounter when they moved South from New England a number of years ago. Where they’d been to college, “libertarian” tended to mean “anyone not a Democrat who had broadly tolerant social views.” All well and good. He stopped calling himself that in Mississippi when he realized that “libertarian” meant white supremacist with a college degree.
Not that these Mississippi libertarians would call themselves white supremacists. Never! A white supremacist was Cousin Jerry out in his trailer talking about the World Government. These were ‘rational’ men – who just knew that “those” people were better off taking orders and needed affirmative action to be anything more than day laborers. And as someone of their class and education could not be a “white supremacist” they were “libertarians.” “Rationalists.” “Realists.”
In this case, the alt-right means mouth-breathing twitter egg or Neo Nazi. Thus we have our puppies who aren’t that – they just hate Marxists, defined as everything and everyone the alt-right does not like.
@Typ I agree (Which is why I always write “Alt” right, with quotation marks). Its just bugs me, because calling someone Marxist is so terrible imprecise. Its like calling Mormons “Christians”. But I guess ignorance is bliss here (and I like the thought, that she called the rabids Stalinists, if you squint a little).
I like what Sarah Hoyt has done with Sad Puppies, turning it into a fan project whose sole purpose is to tell people a couple times a year that it hasn’t died.
One of her commenters, Uncle Lar, offers some great unintentional comedy.
First Lar writes, “Sad Puppies over four years served its purpose well, demonstrating that the Hugo Awards were the wholly owned subsidiary of Worldcon …”
The jig is up, people! Sad Puppies exposed the fact that Worldcon owns the Hugos. We should’ve been more careful with this information, instead of telling it to everyone for the entire 64-year history of the awards and putting it in our constitution.
Lar continues, “It is a true pity that there are those who would appropriate and subvert Sad Puppies for their own misguided aggrandizement.”
Yeah, there’s nothing worse than when an outside group tries to wreck what you’re doing for their own self-promotion.
Wednesday and Thursday I’ve been enlisted to help some more with my mother-in-law (she needs assistance because of age and serious medical problems) so this is another Late Scroll Alert.
And if you accidentally see any sf news, I welcome your help — my email is mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com
David W.
I’m with the person who made the first comment on the post. I agree that it’s good to challenge and be challenged by different ideas and discuss them in an open setting. Safe space is typically defined as a place where people will not be subject of discrimination, harassment and violence. It feels like you used the terminology to be provocative in your statements while also extending that definition to mean a place where people’s ideas aren’t challenged.
Of course provocative terms might wake your audience up, it might also provoke them. Especially if a member of the audience has been discriminated against, harassed or been a victim of violence who uses the term safe space to describe an area where they feel safe from that and to have you say that you don’t want that place to be a safe space anymore, but you don’t mean it in the same way that they understand it, might be confusing at best to your audience. It might also be taken as demeaning or watering down the term ‘safe space’ which a person who might sometimes fear for their physical safety would likely not appreciate. Those of us who don’t worry about physical safety should be careful about equating uncomfortable exchange of ideas and actual safety.
Semantics maybe. Still I’d hope given the nature of the speech you’d welcome those that challenge the ideas, assumptions and format it was presented in. Because if those assumptions can’t be challenged then what was the point of the speech?
@rcade: There’s nothing worse than when someone else takes your plan for self-aggrandizement and does such a better job of it that your self-aggrandizement is all for naught.
@Matt Y: The speech was by Steven Brust; David W was just linking to it.
I wonder the same thing every time Hoyt/Faulk/other tries to convince people Sad Puppies didn’t fizzle out. Hoyt and Faulk are known for Mad Genius Club and that site’s publishing new content regularly and drawing links and comments.
Given that, why are they investing any of their name and reputation in an infamous inactive project they obviously don’t want to work on? Hoyt can’t even muster up fake enthusiasm when making empty promises about Sad Puppies’ future. We were gonna just let this die, but someone sucky would take it so I guess we gotta do something in the future and we will someday but maybe not soon here’s our vague plan but remember we are busy busy busy quit boddering me kid.
Forget Julius Caesar, someone needs to adapt MacBeth. Perhaps update Barbara Garson’s MacBird! as MacDonald!
Lexica on June 21, 2017 at 11:56 am said:
Whoops! Sorry!
I…I’m just staring at that and marveling at the mind who could come up with it.
I’m half tempted to nominate the new LEGO Saturn V set for Best Related Work next year.
@rcade I just wonder if they are afraid that Declan Finn will make some announcements in their name, that old anti-marxist. They hate this guy-or are at least annoyed with him. (Or maybe Im confusing puppies again. So difficult to keep all those SFJusticeFighters apart!)
*sigh* The unacknowledged element in the 4th St Con speech is the differential distribution of whose “beliefs about writing, and what is good, and how to make it good” typically get “challenged” in the default discussion space. Or perhaps more pertinently, what form those “challenges” take depending on whose ideas and beliefs are being challenged. If one set of ideas and beliefs get challenged with enthusiastic debate and another set gets challenged with personal abuse and threats, then it’s disingenuous to think that encouraging the challenging of ideas is a level playing field.
And it’s pretty clear from some of the supporting comments in that post that at least some segment of those who heard the message heard it as support for abusive and threatening behavior.
I’ve read the comments there and so far I do not think that’s happening, and Brust himself forthrightly rejected such behavior in the third sentence of his speech.
“Sad Puppies over four years served its purpose well, demonstrating that the Hugo Awards were the wholly owned subsidiary of Worldcon …”
I grok it though. What I think Hoyt is really saying is that the impression that some people had that the Hugo Awards were a separate entity was ripped away and the truth that its really a Worldcon thing revealed.
Given that years ago, I didn’t understand this either, I can kinda understand that some people who didn’t read WSFS constitution missed that this is really the case.,
I guess I can understand that too, as once upon a time I was a twelve year old who only knew about the Hugo Awards based on the words being printed in large type on a paperback SF book cover. But to weep about the veils being torn from ones eyes is, well, rather eye-rolling stuff.
I like the idea of a website for being a clearinghouse of indie books.
I especially like the idea of reviews on the same site. Reviews that get into the details of the same books, because many indie books are badly edited and derivative of SF works from 40-50 years ago.
However, if folks can suggest indie books that are decently edited and original, I’d be very appreciative.
And yes, I do keep adding to mount TBR from the recommendations here.
The quote you responded to is by a Hoyt commenter, not Hoyt.
I guess some puppies think it diminishes the Hugos to state they are an extension of Worldcon. This ignores the fact that Worldcon goes back to 1939 and is as strongly associated with the greats of early SF/F as the awards — if not more. If you join SF/F fandom and want to follow in the footsteps of the giants, you eventually find yourself involved in the Hugos and Worldcon.
The puppies who are still chasing the thrill of discovering SF as a child, when many of those giants walked among us, would have more fun being a part of the Hugos and Worldcon than posturing against them all the time for their angry comment brigade. Believing that a work was wrongly denied a Hugo nomination is hardly a position that ostracizes someone from our august company. It’s the norm.
Paul Weimer notes Given that years ago, I didn’t understand this either, I can kinda understand that some people who didn’t read WSFS constitution missed that this is really the case.,
Actually anyone with any knowledge of the SFF community didn’t need to read the WSFS constitution to know that. reading LOCUS would make that known as being involved in any group like this. I’ve never read the WSFS constitution and I’ve known since the 80s that the Hugo Awards are owned by WSFS. Sarah and the other not yet toilet trained Puppies are just plain stupid.
And who gives a flying fuck outside of the SFF community who the Hugo Awards are administered by? Except in press releases and on the book covers of the books that win, it has no general cultural usage.
True – although the weirdest one was when SpacefaringKitten got banned because MGC thought they were Brianna Wu.
I almost always like Brust’s books, and I very frequently disagree with his views. In this case he’s gone wrong pretty much at the start by equating “safe” with “don’t want to be disagreed with”, and so it all falls apart after that.
“I’ve read the comments there and so far I do not think that’s happening, and Brust himself forthrightly rejected such behavior in the third sentence of his speech.”
David W., reading this post by Lydy Nickerson may fill in some of what you are not catching when you read those comments:
http://lydy.dreamwidth.org/162990.html
The technique of using a charged phrase and then saying you didn’t really mean it that way can be used for good by a skilled writer, but what was done by Steve in that speech (for which I was present) brought to mind both “kidding on the square” and dog-whistling. A disclaimer in the third sentence looks more like a coy wink — but read Lydy’s piece, where she put it much more clearly (and forcefully) than I.
Thanks for the perspective, and since I wasn’t there I don’t know anything about the physical context of the speech. My own simple take based on what I’ve read is that it was being provocative on the subject of “safe spaces” in the sense of them being safe from speech that’s deemed in some way to be unsafe; not unsafe as in being actual harassment but unsafe with respect to the ideas and subjects being discussed. But I know there’s more to the subject that just that observation.
@BLP: (decent indie books)
I’ve mentioned a few in my time here, but I’ve just started the fourth of Robert Bevan’s “Critical Failures” novels. They’re decently – not perfectly, but pretty well – edited, and he usually puts the previous volumes (and the short story collections) on sale when a new book comes out, so the price is right.
Take the “Guardians of the Flame” trope about a DM sending a group of roleplayers into the game world, as their characters. Now make the group more of the “beer and pretzels” type than a serious troupe, play it for laughs at their expense, and make sure there are a lot of jokes about body parts and bodily functions. (The title of book four is The Phantom Pinas. ‘Nuff said?) The half-orc with abysmal Charisma stinks and has an incontinence problem, thoroughly justifying the low score, but they’re stuck with him. High art this is not.
It’s pretty funny, though, if that’s what you happen to be in the mood for. And right now, I am.
Beneath the low-brow humor, there’s actually some solid thought about how the situation might actually play out. It’s a game world, so it adheres to the rigid rules defined in the game books – as nonsensical and arbitrary as they may be. The rules don’t approximate that reality; they define it. They have their character sheets, too, as tangible magical items that keep themselves up to date – and when someone goes missing, they check his sheet to see if he’s okay. The worldbuilding actually works; it’s not ignored when convenient for the sake of humor. (See the case of the vampire with the bath powered by an endless pitcher of water… running water, which immediately burns her. Oops!)
A word about the short stories: “optional.” That is, they loosely fit into the setting, but they don’t really mesh well with the novels. They’re more like side quests that could happen sometime during the second novel, or maybe on a divergent timeline, and they have no impact on the novels’ arc. I think one or two are up for free, and they’re decent samples to judge from.
David W., one of the key lines from Lydy’s post is this one:
“You reveal much more than you know with your word choice, and your demand to be taken literally is a cowardly retreat from what we both know you said.” (Emphasis mine.)
Lydy was there, and she has known Steve for a long time. I was there, and I have also known Steve for a long time. I agree entirely with Lydy’s take on what Steve said, and so do a number of other people commenting on her post, including at least one editor in the field.
A little more context for you:
When someone’s been mocking or undermining work towards a code of conduct, and they then decide that “This is not a safe space!” is the right thing to say from the platform at opening ceremonies where they are welcoming people to a convention they founded, protestations of not meaning to look like an authority speaking for the convention ring a little hollow.
Note: AS seen above, the quote about the Hugos and WSFS was not Hoyt herself but a commenter.
As far as who administers an award, I disagree, Cat, who and what body an award comes from does have value to know. Its useful information to know how and where an award’s legitimacy and constituency comes from, and for the Hugos, the most prestigious of the SF awards, its especially so.
I’m going to toss out my periodic bromide that it would help de-escalate the SP issues if they were afforded the same consideration that is given to anyone else that perceives they have had an unpleasant experience. The best way to keep a group isolated is to keep isolating that group.
On a related issue, I’m far enough into Obelisk Gate to want to ignore the minor problematic issues and put it in first place on my ballot. It is in close competition with All The Birds In The Sky. I very much appreciate one of the themese in ATBITS relating to the need to discuss differences with people instead of just choosing a course and moving forward without consideration to other positions. I think that message in this fiction is worth promoting.
@BLP3
For MilSF, I suggest J.R. Handley and Christopher Nuttall as good recent choices. At least the first books in their respective MilSF series were very good.
I also think that Nick Cole is someone worth watching based on some of his earlier works. It wasn’t “blow me away” great, but it suggested the potential for him to produce something very good. A couple of his books are in my TBR pile.
Michael R. Fletcher’s work is very good and some of it is self-published. He swims in the GrimDark partion of the SFF pool.
All the above seem to have a mix of self-published material as well as more traditionally published works.
Regards,
Dann
Elise M., I think I understand how it being the opening speech and how that could speak in some official way about convention rules was a problem. Given what you say were past disagreements would make it come across as being an underhanded way to relitigate past decisions that were made, regardless of the actual intent. Thanks again.
Lar continues, “It is a true pity that there are those who would appropriate and subvert Sad Puppies for their own misguided aggrandizement.”
I noticed that later, another commenter asserts that if they let the Sad Puppies lie fallow, the “CHORFs” will have taken it over within a few years. It is funny that they think anyone outside their circle jerk is actually interested in the Sad Puppy brand. Or it would be funny if it wasn’t so very very sad and pathetic.
I think the reason Hoyt, Paulk, and the others can’t let go of the Sad Puppy label is that they are trapped by their own propaganda. Walking away from Sad Puppies would be effectively the same as admitting defeat, and they can never admit defeat. They “won” you see, by showing all those Hugo voters that they are insular elitists who like books the Sad Pups don’t approve of. That’s why Hoyt had to throw in the line in her post about the how the Hugos are “self-destructing”. Of course, there is no evidence they are self-destructing outside of the fevered imaginations of the Pups, but evidence and reality aren’t their strong suits. But that doesn’t matter – the Pups “won” because they said they did, despite the fact that they never actually won anything, or even made a coherent argument in support of their cause.
But they can’t walk away from the “brand” now, because that would be admitting that it was worthless, and that they had spent years fruitlessly tilting at windmills. So they are trapped into perpetuating the failed brand because anything else would be giving in, and they simply cannot be seen as doing that or their fan base would immediately turn on them.
@Dann: “I’m going to toss out my periodic bromide that it would help de-escalate the SP issues if they were afforded the same consideration that is given to anyone else that perceives they have had an unpleasant experience. The best way to keep a group isolated is to keep isolating that group.”
If someone took a shit in your local public pool, how interested would you be in whether the shitter considered being ejected from the facility to be an unpleasant experience?
You make it sound like some neutral thing happened that affected two sides equally, and that the proper course of action is for them to come together in the aftermath of this disaster and hug it out. That is not what happened. The Puppies committed an act of war upon Worldcon, the Hugos, and those who value them. They were – and are – the aggressors. If there is any reconciliation to be had, the first mandatory step is for them to lay down their arms and apologize. Only then can there be any consideration of peace talks.
Given that they are entirely unwilling to do either, they can continue to fuck right off… in the same way that your local pool would continue banning the asshole who shat in the pool until he at least acknowledged that he fucked up and took steps to make it right. They damn sure wouldn’t let him back in if he was going around town bragging about what he’d done and how the pool was a toilet anyway because someone took a shit in it.
rob_matic on June 21, 2017 at 10:02 am said:
You probably didn’t notice because they were hiding under the bed.
Dann on June 21, 2017 at 2:33 pm said:
Ah yes, if only we can find a way to appease them, then perhaps we can achieve peace for our time.
My sympathy for the “unpleasant experience” of people who have not only shot themselves in the foot, but insist on continuing to do so is rather limited.
it would help de-escalate the SP issues if they were afforded the same consideration that is given to anyone else that perceives they have had an unpleasant experience.
The Sad Puppies didn’t “have an unpleasant experience”. The Sad Puppies caused an unpleasant experience for a lot of other people. The Sad Puppies are not victims, they are perpetrators.
The problem is us, then? Not the people who launched a mean-spirited campaign to burn down the Hugos and continue years later to write viciously insulting tirades against good people in fandom?
Not buying that.
If only we could come together and see reason with the Puppies, SFF would be happiness and sweetness. If only we could see their point of view, and come to respect their concerns. If only we could be reasonable.
Sorry, I TRIED THAT. A lot. And got only grief for my pains.
Only an eternal optimist would so frequently run the risk of creating an example of the sort of thing that needs to happen a little less frequently.
Regards,
Dann
Hoyt’s references to ‘Marxists’ and ‘Marxism’ don’t seem much different than the alt-right obsession with the term ‘cultural Marxism’. Neither term has much to do with the long, complex, and often contradictory history of Marxism, but operate to mark their enemies as the alien other.