Pixel Scroll 7/15

Six stories and a ribbon are tied together in today’s Scroll.

(1) Keith Kato, President of The Heinlein Society, says donors to Heinlein’s “Hall of Famous Missourians” bust who attend Worldcon and/or Loscon are eligible for this ribbon:

Heinlein donor ribbon

(2) The Planetary Society’s Emily Lakdawalla offers a first look at New Horizons’ Pluto and Charon images ,which a team member calls “baffling in a very interesting and wonderful way.”

There are other bodies in the solar system similar in size to Charon: Ariel, Umbriel, and Oberon. They, too, have some craters, as well as chasms. Yesterday, people were saying Charon looked more heavily cratered, hence, older. Seen at higher resolution, Charon is looking younger than we thought. Now I really, really wonder, if we could look more closely at Uranus’ moons, would we see more youthful surfaces than we thought?

The other most amazing image of the press briefing was Pluto, seen at high resolution. It is in the bright area that we have been informally calling the “heart” but which now has a still informal but slightly more official name: Tombaugh regio, named for the discoverer of Pluto. It is located near the southern end of Tombaugh Regio, near the terminator, where the Sun glances across the landscape at a low angle, highlighting topography. And oh my goodness, what topography.

(3) A Rancor costume at Comic-Con inspired this close analysis by Tech Crunch writer Greg Kumparak.

Comic Con is full of Vaders, Boba Fetts, and Storm Troopers. But how many people can say they’ve roamed the show in an ultra detailed, kind-of-terrifying Rancor costume?

Just one — special effects artist Frank Ippolito.

Built in just a month by Ippolito and a team of artists along with our friends over at Tested, the costume is about as intense as they get.

My favorite trick of the whole project: as you may note, the Rancor’s eyes don’t happen to fall in a place that offers the wearer much of a view to the outside world. So how do they keep him from running into walls and stepping on small children? There’s a camera hidden in one of the nostrils; inside the costume, he’s wearing a pair of goggles that beams that camera feed to his eyes.

The post includes a motion GIF of Rancor in action and a link to a video about how the costume was made.

(4) Vox Day has a new project in the works:

The good news. I will publish a book this fall, most likely in September, and it will be a non-fiction book entitled SJWS ALWAYS LIE: How to Defend Yourself From the Thought Police. The meme is rapidly spreading, more and more people are understanding that the First Law of SJW is both a truism and a reliable metric, and everyone needs to know how to defend themselves against an SJW swarm. And based on who is writing it, the Foreword may well be the best part.

(5) Entirely coincidentally, Alexandra Erin found renewed inspiration for two new humor pieces.

“Interview With A Pratt” – July 14

Q: You attribute what you call your tactical genius to your love of wargames. Forgive my ignorance, but how exactly does playing Warhammer make you an expert on 4GW? Don’t the rules only model conventional warfare?

A: That’s your problem exactly. The “rules”. Who wrote those precious rules? Who told you that you have to follow them? The use of Fourth Generation Warfare transcends the tabletop as it transcends all battlefields. 4GW is psychological. It changes from situation to situation. It adapts.

Q: How does it adapt to tabletop gaming?

Sometimes it means licking your opponent’s miniatures so he will not want to touch them.

“What’s Up With John Z. Upjohn” – July 15

Since it seems unlikely that The Freedom of Liberty will see the light of day anytime soon, [John Z. Upjohn] asked me if I would share it, so at least part of it might find an audience.

Jon P. Johnson was not a hateful man. There was no room for hate in heart, not with all the love of freedom crammed in there. But he was a man, all man, and he had the same natural reaction to homosexuals as every other man.

The comforting weight of the rifle in his hands was comforting to his hands. It was a custom made version of the latest model the finest weaponsmiths on Ceanndana could turn out: the Garand Turismo Mark III with the double extended clip and a polycarbonite stock with a gunmetal gray finish expertly covered over in stained walnut.

Not satisfied with the machine results, he had insisted on rifling the barrel by hand himself. He’d been shooting since before he could walk. What machine knew more about rifles than he did? His bold and unconventional and boldly unconventional choice had resulted in a weapon that was accurate to a range of approximately seven meters, but he was quite sure that no other weapon was quite as accurate at that range.

(6) Not sf, but a compelling literary event prompted Joseph Bentz, Professor of English at Azusa Pacific University, to answer readers who are unhappy with Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman:

[First of four points]

  1. I believe it is a mistake to see Atticus Finch as simply older and more racist than he was in Mockingbird. Instead, I think he is essentially a different character in Watchman than the reconceived Atticus in Mockingbird. In other words, there are two Atticuses, created by the author to fit the needs of the particular book.  

Why is Atticus Finch so different in Watchman than he is in Mockingbird? The publication history of the two novels is crucial in answering that question. Lee submitted Watchman to her editor in the 1950’s. The editor, enjoying the childhood flashbacks the most, urged Lee to write a novel set 20 years earlier, focusing on those elements of the story. In doing so, I believe Lee created an alternate version of Atticus Finch. He is a different character in Mockingbird than in Watchman, though carved from the same materials.

Mockingbird and Watchman are not really sequels or prequels to one another. They are separate treatments of the same core material. Even the outcome of the trial that is central to Mockingbird is different when it is referred to in Watchman. Lee never expected to publish both books. She did not need to keep the characters completely consistent between the two books. She had the freedom to adjust the characters to meet the needs of the particular book. One implication of this for readers is that if they don’t like the Atticus in Watchman, that doesn’t need to “ruin” the Atticus in Mockingbird for them. They can choose whichever conception of the character they like best.

The Scout character in Watchman, who is more commonly called Jean Louise, also strikes me as significantly different from the Scout character in Mockingbird. It’s not simply that she is twenty years older in Watchman, it’s that I don’t think she is simply a grown-up version of the Mockingbird Scout. She is a reconceived character. She is not radically different in the two books, but different in ways that novelists often change the personalities and other traits of their characters in later drafts of the stories.

104 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 7/15

  1. @Kyra
    I’m taking a break from SFF after all the Hugo stuff. Just finished one of Lawrence Block’s Keller novels.

  2. @rrede on July 16, 2015 at 4:14 am said:

    My second response was: is it vanity publishing when one owns the publishing house. I decided that yes it was.

    But it isn’t. It’s self-publishing.

  3. Other than the Hugo nominees, what’s everyone been reading lately?

    Recently finished A GAME OF THRONES, at long last.

    Before that, A JUST CITY by Jo Walton.

    Before that…

    FOXGLOVE SUMMER, Aaronovitch
    LONG BLACK CURL, Bledsoe
    THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST, North
    FINDERS KEEPERS, King
    SHADOW SCALE, Hartman
    UPROOTED, Novik

    Alongside stuff including GATHERING PREY (Sanford), A WORLD GONE BY (Lehane) and lots of comics…

  4. Other than the Hugo nominees, what’s everyone been reading lately?

    Let’s see
    – the Astro City series (and now I see why everyone here is tearing off their clothes and throwing themselves on Kurt)
    – the Gentleman Bastard series
    – just finished Ghost Fleet by Singer and Cole.
    – and I’ve got a second hand copy of “Revisions”, alt-history short stories, to go through.

  5. LunarG –

    The Area X trilogy as Carroll’s Wonderland… Does that make the moaning creature the caterpillar analogue?

    I’d go with The Crawler if I was going to go that far. Because you could argue that character is in a stage of transformation not unlike a caterpillar to a butterfly and that his long message might boil down to ‘Who are you?’. But I meant more metaphorically that the while I love Alice In Wonderland the Area X books gave me the impression that it’s much more fun to read about a stranger in a completely alien situation than it is to be that stranger. Area X put you in the pilot seat of that weirdness.

    Then again there were a bunch of white rabbits so maybe the allusion to Carroll is intentional.

    Kyra –

    Other than the Hugo nominees, what’s everyone been reading lately?

    Right now? 2312 per a recommendation from here. My wife read it before me and said she wondered if the writer had ever heard people speak to each other before but otherwise enjoyed it.

    Recently? Finders Keepers, Paradise Sky, The Southern Reach Trilogy, and Gathering Prey.

    I liked Finders Keepers more than Mr. Paradise but his set up for what I assume will be the plot for the third made me groan. Paradise Sky is a western by Lansdale and is fantastic but I said by Lansdale so I repeat myself. Gathering Prey was fun.

  6. But…how does VD expect people to get outraged about things the SJWs say when they already know everything the SJWs say is a lie? I’m so confused.

  7. Other than the Hugo nominees, what’s everyone been reading lately?

    I’ve been reading the WSFA Small Press Award nominees. Thus far, they have been quite good. I’ll post reviews of them after the voting closes at the end of the month.

  8. @Kyra: I’m onto the Culture novels now, in order. Maybe midway through The Player of Games right now. My mind is like a Hollywood producer, though: Jernau Gurgeh is clearly described as a dark-skinned bearded man, but my brain has given the role to Benedict Cumberbatch. When will my brain stop whitewashing protagonists?!

  9. I did a Twitter search for “SJWs always lie.” People do use the phrase, but as I scroll down I see an awful lot of repeat users. Over the last couple months, maybe a dozen or two uniques. That doesn’t seem like a lot.

  10. My recent reads:

    Primary Inversion, by Catherine Asaro.
    The middle third of this was a really, really good sci-fi book about a soldier with PTSD getting therapy. The first and last third were a kind of boring and silly space opera wrapped around it. Out of curiosity, can anyone tell me if the rest of her stuff more like the middle bit or more like the beginning and ending bits?

    Broken Monsters, by Lauren Beukes
    … Eh. I liked the police procedural parts, but the social media element seemed forced and made the characters more involved in that aspect of the story feel flat and unconvincing.

    A God In Ruins, by Kate Atkinson
    Good stuff. I don’t think it reaches the level of Life After Life, but I was interested through out, and really liked what how she made some characters completely understandable yet still unlikeable.

    Sorceress, by Claudia Gray
    A good end to the series, and I like how things were resolved. Set up early on, but nothing I would have predicted. All in all, a decent series, although not as good as her Evernight books.

    The Heir of Night, by Helen Lowe
    Hundreds of pages of people expositing at each other, broken up by the occasional battle. Not going to pick up the sequels to this one, I think.

  11. Cally: I’m halfway through Castle Hangnail, and finding it delightful.

    Me, too!

  12. Working my way through volume 1 of “Peter the Great” by Alexei Tolstoy. It doesn’t have a lot to recommend it so far. I would probably have wandered away from it already but for some reason want to see what happens to the romance developing between Peter and Anna. And so tempted to wiki the answer (if Anna was even real). Still trudging though.

    Since the book is a translation I do wonder if it really lives up to the original. A couple months back I read “Hard to be a God” by the Strugatski’s. Overall I liked it but some of the scenes got confusing or at least surreal. I’m not sure they came out the way the authors intended. Since then I’ve learned the edition I read is an English translation of a German translation from the original Russian. I understand there is a much newer English translation. Anyone have thoughts on whether it’s worth reading after the version I’ve already read?

  13. The recent translations of the Strugatskys’ works are really, really worth it, Stoic. Really worth it. In terms of clarity, it’s like going from a fuzzy multi-generation videotape dub to a fresh print in a good movie theater – the substance is as it ever ways, but so many nuances and depths emerge.

  14. “SJWs Always Lie” is a cute attempt at thought control, much how Republicans refer to “the mainstream media”– i.e. something that can be automatically dismissed, and the only truth comes from us. There’s even some evidence that it works, although only on people who are easily led.

  15. @Jim Henley: There was part of a Culture story that really got me to thinking about how I view or perceive characters in novels. Basically, when I realised that the Culture’s “Human Typical” isn’t necessarily what we might expect.

  16. I am still reading Indigo Springs by A.M. Dellamonica, and re-reading Waking up Naked in Strange Places by my sweetie.

  17. Recent reads:

    I’m 40% of the way through the last Saving Mars book right now, and will probably finish before the weekend. Then, as promised, it’s on to Abracadaver in between edits. The Torsday reads are probably next after that, even though they’re not all from Tor; the Simon Green is talking to me already. Of course, Stross’s new Laundry Files book just came out, and there’s a new Elemental Assassin novel coming out in a couple of weeks… right when Tom Holt’s new one hits. Heck, if my time is limited, I may jump straight from Resnick to Holt…

    On the editing front, J.B. gave me a look at the beginning of the new short story, and I found an awkward continuity glitch that’s since been fixed. I wasn’t sure which way the fix would go, since sticking to the novel would mean gutting a nice stretch of character interaction, but she found a way to save it by changing both passages and rearranging some things. (It’s neat when the bones for a fix are right there in the year-old chapter!) This is why I like working with all the pieces before any of ’em see print; he wouldn’t have been able to do that if that chunk had already been locked down. I think the changes strengthen the novel, too; the affected character shows some vulnerability early on, instead of being hyper-capable until…

    Well. That would be telling. 😉

  18. Reading: 48 LAWS OF POWER
    NEUROMANCER (first time)
    JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL (first time, 230+ pages in, really liking it.)

    Just finished: SECONDS (graphic novel) by Bryan Lee O’Malley–very well done.

  19. Just finished
    Uprooted by Naomi Novik
    Double Star by Robert Heinlein
    Seveneves by Neal Stephenson.

    Currently on Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

    Assuming nothing else kicks it down the reading list, next is the Chalion books by Bujold.

    I blame you lot for everything on the list above except for Seveneves.

  20. I’ve recently read Three parts dead, by Max Gladstone. Liked it a lot – although I almost put it down at an early point where there’s half a page of description with a completely ridiculous description of a rainstorm. It’s like Gladstone (or his editor) have never experienced rain and wind at the same time. (Hmm, I should find out where he lives. And move there.)

    Currently reading His Majesty’s Dragon which I also like. (And the one obvious editing error I’ve found is relatively easy to ignore. Although it’s annoying in it obviousness.)

    I happened to read some of the Hugo nominees in “Riding the red riding hood” (or whatever the title is) right after I had read the interview with T. Pratt. Getting some context for Pratt’s talk about “4GW” made Erin’s interview even funnier and almost made it worthwhile to read that riding hood book. (But nothing there rose to the top of my Hugo list.)

  21. Kyra, I was going to say that the one Asaro novel I’ve read was a lot like you described, but then I realized it was the same novel. So, uh. That’s helpful, I’m sure.

    I’ve read:

    Archivist Wasp, which I’ve previously mentioned here. Loved it. A ghost hunter (sort of) who is also an archivist (sort of) who is also trapped (completely) and goes about liberating herself after she’s Had Enough of Your Shit. Weird, grim, heartbreaking, exhilarating, wonderful. Read it read it read it.

    About a Girl by Sarah McCarry. Somewhat surreal character study that mixes Greek mythology into a contemporary novel of a girl finding herself. Light on plot, heavy on delightful prose and feels. Easily one of my favorite protagonists of, like, anything; her mix of confidence, competence, compassion, cruelty, and recklessness is immensely appealing, as is her voice. For example:

    I was not accustomed to muddling through; I had never met a problem I could not solve with brisk efficiency and diligent application of my tremendous intellect. The possibility that the calculus of the heart might differ from the formulae with which I had successfully plotted forces and velocities was not one I elected to allow.

  22. Jamoche on July 16, 2015 at 9:54 pm said:

    Not reading but watching: http://theworldofstevenuniverse.blogspot.com which is the official blog with all the episodes, since people here have recommended it.

    Well if we are counting reading via blogs then I’m reading The Last War In Albion here: http://www.philipsandifer.com/2015/07/art-that-cannot-move-people-effectively.html The magical war for Britain between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison has reached Watchmen…

  23. @Bruce Baugh

    As an intermittent anime watcher since the days of VHS that description really resonated 🙂 Newer translation on the to be purchased list!

    @Lis Carey

    The Pluto link was just FUN! Thank you for posting it.

  24. @Oneiros:

    There was part of a Culture story that really got me to thinking about how I view or perceive characters in novels. Basically, when I realised that the Culture’s “Human Typical” isn’t necessarily what we might expect.

    Yeah, at one point in The Player of Games, Banks describes Ambassador Za entertaining local children with “the nictitating membrane” over his eyes, frex. Conceivably it could be a fancy way of saying “eyelid” used as an estrangement tactic, but it seems more likely Culture humans have eyelids plus lizard-like screen protectors. Then one recalls that, if I’ve counted forward correctly from the first novel, Player of Games takes place during late-20th-century Earth time, so these people have nothing to do with us at all.

  25. The State of the Art novella? novellete? has the Culture visiting Earth. They are not our descendants

    (though even if they were, they might have decided to add nictating membranes at some point because, why not?)

  26. There’s a culture story in The State Of The Art about people from Contact visiting late twentieth century Earth and not being very impressed.
    The nictitating membrane thing though strikes me as being a little red herring. It might be that base line Culture humanoids come with them, but if it’s at all useful for a Culture citizen to have a nictitating membrane then they’d change themselves to they’d have them.

  27. Recently read:
    Uprooted, Naomi Novik. I’ve enjoyed the Temeraire series, and thought the first-chapter excerpt on tor.com was interesting. The buzz here got me to read it sooner than I otherwise would have.

    Points of Departure, Pamela Dean and Patricia Wrede. A fixup of their stories from the old “Liavek” shared-world series.

    The Philosopher Kings. I loved The Just City, and was not disappointed by its sequel.

    Grave Peril and Summer Knight, Jim Butcher. The Puppies put this series (which had been on my “one of these days” list) back on my radar, and then I happened to see the first volume in the library, so I picked it up. As you can see, I’ve been moving forward with it. The second volume took forever to become available as library e-books, so I put a hold on the third and fourth at the same time, and then they both became available at once…less demand for the later volumes, I suppose. So that pushed other stuff down the queue.

    On the near-future agenda: Aurora, The Annihilation Score, Last First Snow, A Succession of Bad Days.

  28. I took a nonfiction detour to At Day’s Close by Eckirch which is about night in the Middle Ages.

    It’s okay, not amazing. I’ve been a bit obsessed with segmented sleep ever since I heard about it, so I’m mostly reading to get to that.

  29. @Red Wombat: Yeah, segmented sleep was a mind-blower! And it actually helped me to learn about it. I tend to wake up at least once in the middle of the night – not least because somehow my bladder is 54 years old – but since learning about segmented sleep I don’t stress out over waking up in the middle of the night. And that makes it easier to fall back asleep than it used to be.

    I still don’t get up or go visit friends or anything though…

    @Ray: Yeah, it’s clear Culture humans are not our descendents as soon as the appendices in Consider Phlebas explain that everything we just read took place in the 14th Century BCE. But sure, our descendants may well end up adding nictitating membranes, if only for the cool selfies doing so enables.

  30. Reading: I started Jo Walton’s _The Philosopher Kings_ and am….disappointed in it. Switching to rot13

    Gur znva ceboyrz vf gung zl nofbyhgryl snibevgr zbfg ybirq punenpgre (Fvzzrn) sebz _Gur Whfg Pvgl_ vf zheqrerq ng gur fgneg va na *neg* envq (cerfhznoyl). Nabgure ceboyrz vf gung bar bs gur guerr aneengbef (fb sne) vf Ncbyyb/Clgurnf. V qvfyvxrq uvz va gur svefg abiry, ohg pbhyq yvir jvgu uvz orpnhfr bs Fvzzrn, naq ure ybir sbe uvz; va guvf abiry, ur frrzf n pbzcyrgr cengg jub vf “bu zl fcrpvny ntbal vf fb FCRPVNY,” nyy gur zber fb va uvf pbzcyrgr snvyher gb haqrefgnaq naq pner nobhg Nergr’f tevrs (uvf naq Fvzzrn’f qnhtugre, obea nsgre gur fcyvg gung raqrq gur svefg abiry). Znvn vf n aneengbe (V yvxrq ure fgehttyrf naq vffhrf va gur svefg abiry, ohg fb sne fur qbrfa’g frrz gb or qbvat zhpu urer, naq, yvxr Nergr, frrzf fhpxrq vagb aheghevat cbbe ybea gentvp Ncbyyb/Clgurnf). Gur qvfphffvba orgjrra Ncbyyb/Clgurnf naq uvf puvyqera nobhg jub vf n ureb (rffragvnyvfg ryrzrag qhr gb tbqyl oybbq) vf zber guna vexfbzr. Abj vg’f dhvgr cbffvoyr gung guvf abiry vf fubjvat gur nofbyhgr ubyybjarff bs n fcrpvsvp oenaq bs cuvybfbcul gerngrq nf n *havirefny* gehgu, ohg V gubhtug gur svefg bar qvq n zhpu orggre wbo bs vg (rfcrpvnyyl va gur gerngzrag bs frk, puvyqpner, rgp.). Ohg fvapr gur abiry cerfragf gur gurbel nobhg jung unccraf gb uhzna fbhyf va gur zbqry bs ervapneangvba nf “gehgu,” (V nffhzr gung vf cebonoyl pbaarpgrq gb Cyngbavp cuvybfbcul–jung V ernq bs CC vf gbb ybat ntb naq gbb sne njnl gb or fher, ohg gurer’f fb zhpu ryfr va gur abiryf gung’f gvrq gb gelvat gb jbex bhg gur vzcyvpngvbaf bs Cyngb’f–ABG Fbpengrf’–gurbevrf bs tbireanapr naq cbjre) V’z hafher gung gur pevgvpvfzf V’z neevivat ng (naq neevirq ng jvgu gur svefg barf) ner onfrq ba gur grkg be zber zl ovnffrf. V jvyy cebonoyl gel gb svavfu vg (znl er-ernq GWP svefg), ohg zl svefg erfcbafr jnf bu tbbq tevrs, naq obl, V jvfu Ncbyyb unq xvyyrq uvzfrys naq fnirq Fvzzrn orpnhfr jung n tbbq vqrn! Rira vs ur gura jbhyq or onpx va veevgngvat tbqubbq frys. (Cyhf, V zvff Fbpengrf, qnzavg.)

    I just not may be in the right frame of mind to read Walton right now (I can only read Charnas and Tiptree in some moods as well). But I am disappoint.

    So now am re-reading Bujold’s PALADIN!

    Vg qnjaf ba zr gung gur fho-aneengvir bs Sbvk npdhvevat n qrzba naq yrneavat ubj gb jbex jvgu vg qrfcvgr ql Punoba’f jbeevrf naq nqivpr vf fbeg bs n sberfunqbjvat (vagragvbany be abg) be gur znva cybg bs Craevp naq gur Qrzba, gubhtu jr qba’g trg nalguvat sebz Sbvk’f cbvag bs ivrj. Bs pbhefr, V ybir Sbvk FB Z

  31. David Goldfarb: I loved TJC too, but was disappointed with the few few chapters of TPK, so much so, I stopped reading. I talk about that above.

    Uprooted, OTOH, I loved so much I immediately re-read (on the plane, love having a good immersive experience when on planes).

  32. Max L: I will immediately try Archivist Wasp and About a Girl based on your recs–INTRIGUING!

  33. I have committed…something:

    “If you were a puppy, my love, you’d always exaggerate. Your exaggerations would billow outwards, faster than the speed of light, to fill the entire universe with your memes.

    If you always exaggerated, my puppy, you’d be a small one first, only teacup-sized. You’d be fragile in temperament, always finding fault with people. Your sad puppy eyes would follow me around the room.

    If you were a sad puppy, I’d read your slated works, despite their awfulness, just to see if there was even a smidgen of something to like about them. Your wisdom would be from the internets, but it wouldn’t be very wise at all. It would be full of hate and bile, and it would make us all turn away.

    If you weren’t a very wise puppy, you’d think that No Award meant something more than it does. You’d try to claim it was nuking the awards, or you’d claim that it meant everything, and you’d No-Award your own work. At the same time, you’d not No-Award anything, because it means you’d win.

    If you weren’t trying so hard to be meaningful, my little unwise puppy, you’d have noticed that you were being manipulated by hard men, soaked in Finnish vodka, who called everyone names like “liberal” and “SJW” and “CHORF”. You’d have been welcome amongst their targets, if only you’d known that you were not one of them, but one of us.

    If you hadn’t been trying so hard to be one of them, my puppy, you’d have gotten an award, somewhere, some day. You might even have been proud of it.

    If you hadn’t exaggerated all the time, my sweet little puppy, you would have been much much larger than a teacup. You’d have grown to be a Big Dog, and everyone would have petted you.”

    Erm. Reading and re-reading all the time! Right now, re-reading Deverry, and finishing Voyage of the Basilisk. And doing laundry, cleaning the house, waiting for my partner to send her daughter and family off to their new home in Hawai’i, and otherwise keeping on.

  34. Jim Henley on July 17, 2015 at 7:22 am said:

    Yeah, at one point in The Player of Games, Banks describes Ambassador Za entertaining local children with “the nictitating membrane” over his eyes, frex. Conceivably it could be a fancy way of saying “eyelid” used as an estrangement tactic, but it seems more likely Culture humans have eyelids plus lizard-like screen protectors. Then one recalls that, if I’ve counted forward correctly from the first novel, Player of Games takes place during late-20th-century Earth time, so these people have nothing to do with us at all.

    State of the Art visits the earth during the late 20th century, but Consider Phlebas happens some sometime around the 14th century AD – look to windward happens approximately 800 years after the war ended, which puts it at least 2 centuries in our future, and that happens after excession because there’s that comment about Grey Matter “disappearing”. however I don’t think there’s any meaningful clues as to where those books lie in relation to the internal Sma chronology which puts Inversion-State of the Art-Use of Weapons all within a hundred years of the 1980s.

    But it has to be understood that the Culture is (mostly) collection of multiple, generally heavily altered, humanoid aliens even before taking into account its use of non-culture mercenaries and agents; Ambassador Za in particular is a mercenery from a non-culture civilisation, like Zakalwe or Sma, which is important because it makes a note that he’s utterly without any of the culture’s more “normal” enhancements, like drug glands, which was how he got the assignment in the first place.

  35. @Fred: Thanks. One thing: IIRC from my reading of two nights ago, I thought Ambassador Za said he had his drug glands removed, rather than that he never had them. Za told Jernau he was able to give glanding advice “from memory.”

  36. Jim Henley on July 17, 2015 at 9:52 am said:

    @Fred: Thanks. One thing: IIRC from my reading of two nights ago, I thought Ambassador Za said he had his drug glands removed, rather than that he never had them. Za told Jernau he was able to give glanding advice “from memory.”

    Hmm, not sure actually, iirc he tried out glands when he joined the culture but then had them removed when he took up the ambassador position… but I could be wrong, I’ll have to face up to the [sarcasm] absolutely horrible and unberable [/sarcasm] possibility that I might need to reread it after I finish Dahlgren…

  37. @Fred Davis: Oh cool, you’re reading Dahlgren! I loved that book, though I only read t through the once. It has stuck with me in a way many books have not.

  38. CPaca: the Astro City series (and now I see why everyone here is tearing off their clothes and throwing themselves on Kurt)

    When I started reading Astro City, I thought “wow, this is good stuff.” Then I read the issue “On the Sidelines” and fell head over heels in must-subscribe-now, must-purchase-all-back-issues-as-soon-as-possible love.

    It’s so darn good.

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