(1) DRAGON AWARDS. July 20 is the deadline to nominate for Dragon Con’s Dragon Awards. If you’re ever going to do it now would be a good time…. If you’re not, no hurry!
(2) “JUST WEAR CLOTHES, HONEY.” That’s the advice I got the time I called Arthur Bryant’s ribs place to ask if they had a dress code. I follow the same advice when I go to the Hugos.
I've seen the full range of fashion onstage at the Hugos. The bottom line: Be you. Some will be in formal wear. Some in jeans. Some in cosplay. This is a night to celebrate you and your work, not the clothes. Looking forward to seeing you there!
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) July 19, 2018
(3) TOR TAKES LIBRARIANS BY SURPRISE. And not in a good way: “Tor Scales Back Library E-book Lending as Part of Test” – Publishers Weekly has the story.
After years of relatively little change in the library e-book market, there has finally been some movement—unfortunately, librarians say, it is movement in the wrong direction. Leading Sci-Fi publisher Tor Books, a division of Macmillan, has announced that, beginning with July 2018 titles, newly released e-books, will be no longer be available to libraries for lending until four months after their retail on sale date.
In a statement to libraries through their vendors, Macmillan officials said the new embargo was part of “a test program” (although an “open ended” test, the release states) to assess the impact of library e-book lending on retail sales. But the statement goes on to say that the publisher’s “current analysis on eLending indicates that it is having a direct and adverse impact on retail eBook sales,” and that Tor will work with library vendors to “develop ongoing terms that will best support Tor’s authors, their agents, and Tor’s channel partners.”
…On July 19, American Library Association president Loida Garcia-Febo issued the following statement:
“The American Library Association and our members have worked diligently to increase access to and exposure for the widest range of e-books and authors. Over years, ALA made great strides in working with publishers and distributors to better serve readers with increasingly robust digital collections. We remain committed to a vibrant and accessible reading ecosystem for all.
I am dismayed now to see Tor bring forward a tired and unproven claim of library lending adversely affecting sales. This move undermines our shared commitment to readers and writers—particularly with no advance notice or discussion with libraries. In fact, Macmillan references its involvement with the Panorama Project, which is a large-scale, data-driven research project focused on understanding the impact of library holdings on book discovery, author brand development, and sales. For this reason, this change by Tor—literally on the heels of Panorama’s launch—is particularly unexpected and unwelcome.
“The ALA calls for Macmillan to move just as quickly to reverse its course and immediately lift the embargo while the Panorama Project does its work.”
(4) BIG REBOOTS TO FILL. Somebody thought this would be a good idea: “‘In Search Of’: Zachary Quinto Follows in Leonard Nimoy’s Footsteps… Again”.
We’re all very used to revivals and reboots these days but with the return of iconic sci-fi/mystery series In Search Of , one big reason to celebrate (besides its launch on the History Channel) is that actor Zachary Quinto is a part of this project.
Quinto, who first became known to TV fans for his role as the villainous Sylar on the original run of NBC’s Heroes, leapt to greater heights of fame in 2009 when he took over the role of the most famous Vulcan in the galaxy, Spock, in the updated Star Trek big-screen franchise. Of course, Spock was first played by Leonard Nimoy in the 1960s television series and, yes, Nimoy later hosted In Search Of.
(5) DROPPED IN POTTER’S FIELD. There’s an open question about why this happened: “London erects 25-foot Jeff Goldblum statue to commemorate ‘Jurassic Park’s 25th anniversary”.
They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should build a 25-foot replica of Jeff Goldblum.
Londoners and tourists alike were puzzled Wednesday morning to find a statue of Goldblum, his shirt unbuttoned in a recreation of his famous “Jurassic Park” pose, staring seductively at them from the banks of the River Thames near Tower Bridge.
25ft Jeff Goldblum statue pops up in London to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Jurassic Park, which was June 11th, a month ago. Also none of the movie was filmed in London nor is Jeff Goldblum a native of the English capital. So let's just bask in its nonsensical glory. pic.twitter.com/TKQKozleMn
— Adam (@imadamtr) July 18, 2018
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
- Born July 19 – Benedict Cumberbatch, 42. Some of his sort-of genre and definitely genre roles include Stephen Hawking in Hawking, The Hobbit films as a certain cranky dragon, Star Trek into Darkness, Doctor Strange, Sherlock, and possibly my fav role potentially by him as the voice of the title character in the forthcoming animated The Grinch film.
- Born July 19 – Jared Padalecki, 36. Best known for his role as Sam Winchester on Supernatural, and not surprisingly, Supernatural: The Animation.
(7) COMICS SECTION.
- What lure you use depends on what you’re trying to catch — In The Bleachers.
- In Tank McNamara we find that greenskeepers can be fans, too.
(8) OKAY. Mad Genius Club columnist Kate Paulk makes everything as clear as she usually does in “Eschew Claytons Diversity”.
…Take the Mad Geniuses. We’re Odds. We don’t fit in. But every last one of us fails to fit in in a different way than every other one of us….
(9) UNDER NEWTON’S TREE. At Galactic Journey, The Traveler is getting to dislike F&SF’s 1963 incarnation almost as much as he loathes Analog — “[July 18, 1963] Several bad apples (August Fantasy and Science Fiction)”.
I’ve discussed recently how this appears to be a revival period for science fiction what with two new magazines having been launched and the paperback industry on the rise. I’ve also noted that, with the advent of Avram Davidson at the helm of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the editorial course of that digest has…changed. That venerable outlet has definitely doubled down on its commitment to the esoteric and the literary.
Has Davidson determined that success relies on making his magazine as distinct from all the others as possible? Or do I have things backwards? Perhaps the profusion of new magazines is a reaction to F&SF’s new tack, sticking more closely to the mainstream of our genre.
All I can tell you is that the latest edition ain’t that great, though, to be fair, a lot of that is due to the absolutely awful Heinlein dross that fills half of the August 1963 Fantasy and Science Fiction. See for yourself…
“Heinlein dross” turns out to be code for an installment of the novel Glory Road.
(10) SPACE SAILS. [Item by Mike Kennedy] An exploratory project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville AL is examining metamaterials as the basis for a solar sail for CubeSat propulsion. The Near-Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout) is being developed by Marshall and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a candidate secondary payload to launch with EM-1 the first uncrewed test flight of the Space Launch System.
NEA Scout would be a robotic mission to fly by an NEA and return data “from an asteroid representative of NEAs that may one day be human destinations.” The asteroid chosen will depend on the launch date; the current target is 1991 VG. Though this is still only a candidate mission (and thus may never happen), NASA explains the mission like this:
Catching a ride on EM-1, NEA Scout will deploy from SLS after the Orion spacecraft is separated from the upper stage. Once it reaches the lunar vicinity, it will perform imaging for instrument calibration. Cold gas will provide the initial propulsive maneuvers, but the NEA Scout’s hallmark solar sail will leverage the CubeSat’s continual solar exposure for efficient transit to the target asteroid during an approximate two-year cruise.
Once it reaches its destination, NEA Scout will capture a series of low (50 cm/pixels) and high resolution (10 cm/pixels) images to determine global shape, spin rate, pole position, regional morphology, regolith properties, spectral class, and for local environment characterization.
A Popular Science article looks a little closer at the use of metamaterials for the sail, talking with Dr. Grover Swartzlander (Rochester Institute of Technology) who is the lead for the project.
The metamaterial Swartzlander is proposing would have several advantages over the reflective materials of the past. Swartzlander’s sails would have lower heat absorption rates due to their diffractive nature which would scatter solar rays, and the ability to re-use what Swartzlander told NASA was “the abundant untapped momentum of solar photons” to fly through the cosmos.
Swartzlander is leading an exploratory study through NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program. With nine months and $125,000, his research team will work on a NASA satellite called the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout for short. A robotic reconnaissance mission, NEA Scout is a CubeSat meant to explore asteroids. NEA Scout would be NASA’s first craft to be powered by sails.
(11) THEY SWORE A MIGHTY OATH. No “Second Variety”? “AI Innovators Take Pledge Against Autonomous Killer Weapons”.
The Terminator‘s killer robots may seem like a thing of science fiction. But leading scientists and tech innovators have signaled that such autonomous killers could materialize in the real world in frighteningly real ways.
During the annual International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Stockholm on Wednesday, some of the world’s top scientific minds came together to sign a pledge that calls for “laws against lethal autonomous weapons.”
“… we the undersigned agree that the decision to take a human life should never be delegated to a machine,” the pledge says. It goes on to say, “… we will neither participate in nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal autonomous weapons.”
The moniker “autonomous weapons” doesn’t draw the same fear or wonder as a killer robot, but weapons that can function without human oversight are a real concern.
(12) NOT THE SIZE OF A PLANET. No one will ever be wondering this about sff fans. Gizmodo’s article “Did Neanderthals Go Extinct Because of the Size of Their Brains?” follows up a paper in Scientific Reports and a theory that Homo neanderthalensis may have gone extinct because their brains — though larger than that of Homo sapiens — had a cerebellum that was proportionately underdeveloped relative to H. sapiens.
Indeed, though scientists have many Neanderthal skulls to work with, none of them contain actual brains, making it difficult to know what the inside of their heads actually looked like. The next best option, therefore, is to look at their fossilized skulls and try to figure out the shape, size, and orientation of the Neanderthal brain.
To do this, Ogihara’s team created virtual three-dimensional “casts” of brains using data derived from the skulls of four Neanderthals and four early modern humans (the skulls used in the study dated from between 135,000 and 32,000 years ago). This allowed the researchers to reconstruct and visualize the 3D structure of the brain’s grey and white matter regions, along with the cerebrospinal fluid regions. Then, using a large dataset from the Human Connectome Project, specifically MRI brain scans taken of more than 1,180 individuals, the researchers modeled the “average” human brain to provide a kind of baseline for the study and allow for the comparative analysis.
Using this method, the researchers uncovered “significant” differences in brain morphology. Even though Neanderthals had larger skulls, and thus larger brain volume overall, H. sapiens had a proportionately larger cerebellum, the part of brain involved in higher levels of thinking and action. Modern humans also featured a smaller occipital region in the cerebrum, which is tied to vision. Looking at these differences, the researchers inferred such abilities as cognitive flexibility (i.e. learning, adaptability, and out-of-the-box thinking), attention, language processing, and short-term and long-term memory. Homo sapiens, the researchers concluded, had better cognitive and social abilities than Neanderthals, and a greater capacity for long-term memory and language processing.
(13) FORTNITE. Brian Feldman, in “The Most Important Video Game on the Planet” in New York Magazine, looks at how Fortnite. since its introduction in July 2017, “has risen to become the most important video game currently in existence…obsessed over by rappers and athletes, hotly debated in high school cafeterias, and played by 125 million people.”
Since it launched in July of last year, Fortnite has risen to become the most important video game currently in existence. The 100-player, last-man-standing video-game shooter is obsessed over by rappers and athletes, hotly debated in high-school cafeterias, and played by 125 million people. All this, not because of a major technical or graphical breakthrough, or for a groundbreaking work of narrative depth, but for, essentially, a simple, endlessly playable cartoon. On a colorful island peppered with abandoned houses, towns, soccer fields, food trucks, and missile silos, players don colorful costumes, drop out of a floating school bus, and begin constructing ramshackle forts that look like they’ve popped straight out of a storybook, before blowing each other to smithereens.
(14) TITANS. Official trailer —
TITANS follows young heroes from across the DC Universe as they come of age and find belonging in a gritty take on the classic Teen Titans franchise.
[Thanks to JJ, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Lee, Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Dann, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kendall.]
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(5) At least it looks like him which puts it above the last few statues and busts mentioned here.
(14) That trailer is awful in so many ways that all I can hope for is that it is also awful at representing the show.
3) I can say personally in my case that the opposite is true. I’ve bought books I read first checking them out at the library and also bought books by authors I first encountered through the library.
9) The Traveler and I rarely agree, but that particular issue is weaker than most (though not because of Glory Road).
#3: I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at hearing this, as my two elibraries – particularly the New York Public Library – have definitely seen less tor novellas become available quickly lately. It makes me very sad – particularly for the tor.com novellas – I (and I suspect many others) really can’t afford to spend money on many works of that length (For comparison, Martha Wells’ Rogue Protocol has an opening e-price of $9.99 for a 160 page book (6.24 cents per page), whereas The Harbors of the Sun is $12.99 for a 400 page book (3.25 cents per page)).
The idea that an eLibrary is any more harmful than a paper library, which the Tor decision seems to be arguing, is almost certainly wrong. It’s just a bad decision all around.
Four!
[click]
In tonight’s episode of Cloak & Dagger, a police officer references her background in New York and name-drops a powered individual named Misty. I suppose that’s the show’s way of defending its behind-the-scenes claims to take place in the MCU.
My Meredith moment for today: The Hugo award finalist for Related Works, Iain M. Banks by Paul Kincaid, is on sale for $4.99. University of Illinois Press is having a $4.99 ebook sale at their website for the next couple days, and it includes the entire Modern Masters of Science Fiction series, and the Contemporary Film Directors series, which includes several directors with F/SF movies (e.g., David Lynch, Michael Bay).
2) Indeed,
I’ve dressed up the one time I was a Hugo nominee, and last year as a delegate for a nominee, but I do me, and other people should do what’s comfortable for them.
14) :sigh:
11) Autonomous Weapons – also called land mines and they have been around for decades. With lots of cases of them lurking and then killing someone long after the war was over.
2) Judging by photos, most people seem to dress up for the Hugos and I certainly would dress up, if I were ever to find myself in the situation of being a nominee or designated acceptor. But not everybody wants to and that’s okay. Besides, packing formal clothes can be a problem, when travelling.
8) How many times can they repackage the same point over and over again?
14) The official trailer is region locked, but here is a version that works worldwide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6rWiM1BQ5E
I did get a good laugh out of the dire mature audience warnings, when all we get is a bit of violence that’s not worse than what’s seen elsewhere and Robin – pardon, Nightwing – saying “Shpx Ongzna”.
I had NO idea that Tank McNamara was still going. I thought it folded when its original creator died.
14. This trailer cleverly doesn’t say where “Titans” will be broadcast.
(3) Disappointing, and simply wrong based on the evidence. Libraries promote reading and book buying.
I wonder how Tor authors feel about the whole thing. If Tor were my publisher, I’d be furious about this.
(2) “JUST WEAR CLOTHES, HONEY.”
Mary Robinette Kowal has offered a “FabFive” service team to any Hugo Finalists who want it, but says “What’s the point of being a geek if you feel forced to follow social pressures of dress? So if rainbow converse are your thing, or ratty jeans. Or a tux and a floofy skirt…wear it.”
I’ve been watching for a retraction or at least a walkback from Worldcon 76 on Hugo attire, but have disappointingly not seen one yet. 😐
Did a lot of writers wear ripped jeans, polo shirts, and sneakers to the Nebula Banquet? I saw no complaints about dressing up for that a few weeks ago.
My obscure point being I don’t see that Worldcon 76 needs to “walk back” its request. People can still wear whatever they’re going to.
Mike Glyer: Did a lot of writers wear ripped jeans, polo shirts, and sneakers to the Nebula Banquet? I saw no complaints about dressing up for that a few weeks ago.
Did SFWA send out an e-mail telling members what to wear to the ceremony?
Mike Glyer: My obscure point being I don’t see that Worldcon 76 needs to “walk back” its request. People can still wear whatever they’re going to.
I disagree. The way it was worded implies that people who don’t comply will look unprofessional and inelegant — and it was sent very late in the day to people who may not have considered whether they needed to make arrangements for special attire.
It has caused a lot of unnecessary last-minute stress for Finalists who are already worrying about getting ready for the convention and the ceremony — many of whom are on very limited budgets, some of whom have had to borrow or fundraise just to be able to go.
If they were going to do this, when they sent the Finalists the e-mail notification that the announcement had gone live 16 weeks ago, they should have included a line such as “many finalists like to wear semi-formal attire to the ceremony, if that helps you with your advance planning”. Doing it now, and in the way that it was worded, was really a poor move.
5) Is it just me, or is that a seriously unattractive statue?
14) Doesn’t look much like my cuppa, but I might watch one episode just to see the character concepts. Koriand’r in particular looks interesting.
@ Martin: Ditto. I’ll have to check it out; Tank was always one of my favorite strips because of the well-placed snark.
(2) “Semi-formal” is a pretty wide range. And it’s not like they’re going to throw you out if you aren’t dressed fancy. 99.9% of the audience is going to be in jeans and whatever T-shirt they bought that afternoon in the dealer’s room. I’ve been in the audience a lot of times and that’s what I always wear (But I would absolutely dress nice if I was a finalist or presenter. There are some pretty fancy jeans out there).
@Martin Wooster: “Norts Spews!”
(2) Semi-formal? But I already hired a tux!
2) What I want is a fan looking event. Cat ears, steampunk, hawaii shirts, formal dress, the whole lot of it. I want to think “this is my tribe”, not “these people look professional”.
14) Oh no, they snyderized it. 🙁
Indie Meredith Moment:
I’ve kinda been watching this duology, and today both books went on sale for the low, low price of free at Amazon. The Valentine & Hart books are about a single woman, about to turn 30, who suddenly gets swept into the supers biz… working for a supervillain. (As a henchman? Henchwoman? Henchperson?) Anyway, it looks like a light mix of supers, romance, and humor, and one cannot say the price isn’t right.
@Martin Wooster: “14. This trailer cleverly doesn’t say where “Titans” will be broadcast.”
Actually, it does. “DC Universe” is the new DC “comics and streaming and other digital” streaming platform, and that’s where it’s headed.
Gotta say, I’m getting pretty sick of all these different streaming services and their exclusive shows. If only there were some way to subscribe to the set as a package deal, and have someone run a dedicated data cable into the house that would plug right into my television so I could watch whatever I wanted without caring about which service it was on or whether they had an up-to-date app for my smart TV…
Naaah, it’d never work.
(2) Agree with Hampus. The Hugo ceremony is science fiction fandom’s premiere event of the year, and such are always guarded by dressing up. If that means a tux with a fluffy skirt, as Mary Robinette Kowal says, by all means go for it. When I went to the Loncon 3 Hugo ceremony, I wore a well-made black suit with a purple bowtie.
But if I ever were part of the people up front, I imagine my wife would demand me wearing white tie.
(12) So what were the neanderthal brains possibly better at?
garik16 : The idea that an eLibrary is any more harmful than a paper library, which the Tor decision seems to be arguing, is almost certainly wrong.
For me as a reader, the choice of buying a book or getting it from the library is to a some extent determined by how much hassle it is to get it from the library. So if we assume an eLibrary is more convenient to patrons than a paper library – which it ought to be, at least for readers who are familiar with ebooks in the first place – then I don’t think it’s wrong to say it’s also more harmful to sales.
***
Lurkertype: “Semi-formal” is a pretty wide range.
Well … only sort of. It’s not “dress up if you like but you don’t have to”, it’s a specific level of dressing up where a tux is too formal and a polo shirt or jeans are too casual.
I think Renay’s twitter thread (which Picacio is replying to) is a bit exaggerated, but all in all I agree with JJ’s last paragraph about how Worldcon76 ought to have done this.
14) Uh oh. Emo Titans.
@ bookworm1398:
That’s probably the bulk of them (in sheer volume), but it’d also count things like AI-controlled drones, AI-controlled anti-air (planes, missiles, drones, …), and any weapon that essentially goes from “sitting quietly” to “impacts and destroys” without human intervention.
At least landmines mostly stay where you put them, even if you (as is apparently common) completely forget where that was. Imagine the mess you’d have if landmines would all of a sudden start moving around at a decent clip!
@lurkertype:
Amiusingly, “semi-formal” is a clothing register I soimply have NOTHING in. I have a vast array of informal, and a narrow range of “quite formal indeed”. And in between, I neither have anything, nor a wish to have anything. And if I should happen to be a (god forbid, hopefully no one remembers Trigger…) Hugo finalist where “semi-formal” was the requirement (and announced this late in hte game) and the committee/con would not be amenable to negotiate that upwards, I’d simply have to drop out a few weeks before-hand.
Because, my lovelies, semi-formal just ain’t me. T-shirt, or black tie.
@Ingvar If you have two-piece formalwear, you could go quite formal indeed on the bottom/top and informal on the other, and take the average?
He, I have no semi-formal wear either. I have ultra formal and anti-formal. And steampunkish formal. While I think Renays reaction was a bit over the top (what microaggression?), I myself have an instant angry reaction against semi-formal wear and calls to look professional. I just hate it, people trying to fit me into a mold on how people are supposed to look.
My instant reaction wouldn’t have been jeans and sneakers, it would have been a bat kigurumi. But thats close enough.
Alexandra Erin: So I’m probably going to wear my cat onesie to the Hugos this year. I’m not a nominee and this year I’m not even close to the short list but solidarity with everyone who got hit with that bull sugar “elegant professional event” email. This is the Hugos. Let’s make it weird.
I myself intend to cosplay Timothy The Talking Cat.
3) I’d been wondering why The Calculating Stars had disappeared from Overdrive. Very disappointing decision, although speaking personally, there are no books that I can’t wait an additional 4+ months to read, so Tor’s not going to be getting any extra money out of me as a result of this change.
For that matter, I only buy ebooks when they’re on a really good sale and/or when I’m certain that I’ll want to reread them multiple times. And the latter relies on…drumroll, please…my having read a library copy of the book first.
CeeV: I’d been wondering why The Calculating Stars had disappeared from Overdrive.
ARRRGGGHH. That and The Fated Sky have disappeared from my Overdrive Hold list, too — with no notification. Murderbot 3 and 4 are still there, with their original expected “available” dates listed. I’ll have to keep checking on those.
I don’t know why they needed to remove them, they could have just changed the dates that they were expected to become available.
Isn’t part of the point of the Hugos that they are NOT professional, they are administered by volunteers and voted by ordinary fans?
@Niall – what, they’re “amatuer” awards?
I think they are unique.
I’m seriously thinking of taking Mary RK up on her suggestion…but I have a few questions:
what kind of shoes under the skirt? (hey, I’m sartorally challenged, ok? deal with it!)
I presume what we’re all thinking of is a tux jacket, tux shirt, bow tie. perhaps a cumberbund, topping a flowing, floor length skirt, yes?
JJ says I don’t know why they needed to remove them, they could have just changed the dates that they were expected to become available.
Depernding on which ebook and audiobook lending service that you’re taking about, decisions on content reflect not only how much the publisher wants, but how many libraries choose to parcipate in that service. My local library is using just cloudLibrary which is a 3M product IIRC as it’s the cheapest per lender item.
Overdrive is a service that charges per item borrowed which quickly became way too expensive for them even when they dropped the maximum number of items that could be borrowed every month.
I’ll point out that I’m still looking for some fresh reviewers for GMR if anyone’s interested. My email’s on the front page of the site.
It would look nice.
14) INT: Titan Tower meeting room.
Robin: “I don’t want to be Robin. That’s not me.”
Raven: “I know what you mean. I have a new name, and a new costume.”
Robin: “You too? Yes. We are not teens any more.”
Starfire: “Come on then, show us.”
[Robin & Raven exit via different doors]
Beast boy: “What do you think? Something dark, gritty, dramatic?”
Starfire: “You heard him, we’re not teens any more.”
[Robin & Raven enter from different doors, in bright red/yellow/blue costume]
Robin & Raven (in unison): “I am The Scarlet Macaw!”
Robin & Raven (in unison): “Man, you too?”
Robin & Raven (in unison): “Fine, let’s share it!”
Starfire: “We don’t need to try to prove we are cool, with dark clothes and angry faces; we are grown-up enough to be confident in being who we are.”
[Beast boy transforms into a green macaw]
(I am so tired of gritty grimdark, be it in comics, films, or books.)
Steve Davidson: I presume what we’re all thinking of is a tux jacket, tux shirt, bow tie. perhaps a cumberbund, topping a flowing, floor length skirt, yes?
I was just looking at a particularly fetching tuxedo cat onesie.
And then there are these.
Steve Davidson, I really think your skirt should, if possible, have glitter or spangles, perhaps in a stars-and-galaxies motif. But alas I don’t know if such fabric is available or, if it is, if someone could make it for you in the month or so we have left. But it would be AWESOME, and so very sffnal! (if it’s floor length, the shoes don’t matter so much, but I’d avoid ratty sneakers. Since you’re probably not used to heels and would have little time to practice, a nice pair of dress shoes or loafers should be fine.)
(1) If you are interested in voting for the Dragon Awards, here’s a link to a spreadsheet of eligible nominees. It’s late, but you can also add eligible nominees if you like. I’ll start work on next year’s nominees earlier because the eligibility period of the Dragon Awards is so weird.
I’m starting to think that whoever sent that email got precisely the reaction they were after – how could a fan not realise how fans would react to that sort of message? 🙂
3) I have also seen more restrictions on Edelweiss and Netgalley on the part of publishers, too, lately.
Oh and Happy Moon Landing Day
Oneiros: I’m starting to think that whoever sent that email got precisely the reaction they were after – how could a fan not realise how fans would react to that sort of message?
Yes, one would swear that it must be a demonstration of Poe’s Law — but no, I think it was sent by someone who is white and middle-class and just genuinely does not have a clue.
3) I think it’s an issue of friction. Having to go get physical books and never being sure when they will be available has opportunity costs. However eBook lending reduces that friction to an almost imperceptible level. At some point eBook lending is indistinguishable from an unlimited personal library.
I have sympathy for people who are not sure how that fits with their current business design and are not particularly interested in experimenting in real time.
2) Is this… an unusual request? I get that fandom tends to be a bit more of a cargo-shorts-and-Hawaiian-shirts crowd (a look I will never, ever understand) than a lot of others, but surely an awards ceremony is, in fact, a reasonably formal event? I have been to a few awards ceremonies (no fannish ones, though), and I would feel extremely awkward and even like I was being a bit disrespectful if I dressed as I would on a con floor (but that’s just me; ymmv). That being said, if this is an atypical expectation for the event, and if they are changing things late in the day, then sure, that’s both strange and a bit of a dick move. Also, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what semi-formal is (or maybe it’s ironic confusion?): but at least it’s not Business Casual, which is truly the worst sartorial category, but it is similarly in-between. (And as ever, women have dramatically more options in this space; a dress, pants, even certain kinds of shorts or one-pieces are all acceptable semi-formal wear for women. Men’s semi-formal and formal wear is, as ever, far more conservative.) It can be a pain to travel with clothing more formal than jeans and a t-shirt, but it’s not like, enormously painful most of the time. I used to travel cross-country several times a month with semi-formal wear in the same bag as my construction gear and most of what it required was an extra ten minutes or so at packing/unpacking times and some plastic bags (or a packing system, but I was always too cheap to spring for one of those).
8) Oh God, forgot to not read the comments…
14) I have yet to find a version of that trailer that works in Canada.
@steve davidson, now you’ve got me googling skirts with stars and galaxies. THIS would be great (LEDs! It actually TWINKLES!), but if you wanted floor-length, something like THIS or THIS might do….
(Apologies if I’m taking the joke too far, but you’ve gotten me genuinely interested….)
August: It can be a pain to travel with clothing more formal than jeans and a t-shirt, but it’s not like, enormously painful most of the time. I used to travel cross-country several times a month with semi-formal wear in the same bag as my construction gear and most of what it required was an extra ten minutes or so at packing/unpacking times and some plastic bags (or a packing system, but I was always too cheap to spring for one of those).
I encourage you to consider the possibility that your experience is not a universal one, and that not everyone is white, cisgender, middle-class, travels frequently, or has been to awards presentations before.
Imagine that you’ve never been to an awards presentation before and have no idea what to expect, or what’s considered “standard”. Imagine that you’re poor, you’ve rarely if ever traveled, you’ve borrowed and scraped just to afford a plane ticket, and will be staying in a hostel some distance from the convention center and eating bread and lunchmeat to save money. Imagine that you’re genderqueer, and there is no such thing as “appropriate semi-formal attire” for your identity and sensibilities. Imagine that this expectation has come out of the blue almost 4 months after you were notified that you are a Finalist and why the hell haven’t they said anything about it until now???
A significant number of the Hugo Finalists will not have ever attended a Worldcon before. I guarantee that there was more than one Hugo Finalist who was hyperventilating and/or in tears after that e-mail arrived.
I encourage you to do the same. I’m 38 years old and I’ve been middle class for five years. Prior to that my grocery budget was often $20 a month. *A MONTH*. I lived in desperate, borderline-starvation level poverty for decades, plural. I absolutely know what it’s like to do those things without those reasources, because I fucking have done them as a poor person who has begged, borrowed, and stolen, quite literally, to do them. I do, actually, know exactly what it’s like to do those things in many of those situations. So yeah, thank you for your time.
(2) I do feel like the spirit of the email was “hey, if you’re nominated, can you dress like it matters to you? KTHNX.” Maybe it was phrased a bit inelegantly, but I can’t help but feel like people are making a mountain out of a molehill of a perfectly normal request. (Especially since there’s no statement of ‘you will be ejected if you are not properly attired’.) Is it really that unreasonable a request? What am I missing here?
In that extreme case you mentioned, I really have to wonder– what were those people planning to wear up until now? I mean, for real, how “out of the blue” is the idea that an awards show is something you at least get a little dressy for?