Pixel Scroll 7/27 Riffing on AD&D

A long-eared geezer, eight stories and an embarrassing admission in today’s Scroll.

(1) Today’s birthday boy is… Bugs Bunny. He’s 75 years old.

(2) David Steffen answers “Why Do I Value The Hugos?” on Diabolical Plots.

[Excerpt is the second of seven points.]

I’ve been following the Hugos closely for several years, trying to read and review as many of the nominated works as I can digest between the announcement of the ballot and the final deadline.  I also follow the Nebulas, and I glance at the results from other SF genre awards, but for me the Hugos take up most of my attention come award season.  With this eventful Hugo year, it crossed my mind to wonder why the Hugos specifically, and whether I might perhaps be better off devoting more of my attention to awards that don’t collect controversy the way the Hugo Awards always seem to do, and in escalating fashion these last few years….

  1.  The Hugos Have a Long Reading Period

The Nebulas and the Locus awards have very short reading periods (the period of time between the announcement of the ballot and the voting deadline) of only about a month.  If I want to read as much of the fiction as possible, that’s not nearly enough time–I can’t finish all the short fiction, let alone start the novels.  The Hugo ballot is announced around Easter weekend (usually early April or so) and the voting deadline is at the end of July, so there are nearly four months to try to do all the reading.  The Hugo Packet isn’t released right at the beginning of the reading period, but usually enough of the short fiction was published in online venues so that I can fill my reading time with Hugo material.

https://twitter.com/LisaR_M/status/625448045316943872

(3) Then maybe Lisa would rather hear about – Worldcon site selection?

Spacefaring Kitten thinks it’s only fair that Helsinki win the right to host 2017 because all the other contenders have already had a turn…or seven.

A few facts to consider:

Five last countries that have hosted a Worldcon: United States (2015), United Kingdom (2014), United States (2013), United States (2012), United States (2011). Next year, the Worldcon will be in United States. In case the bid for Washington DC in 2017 (that is sort of a favorite at the moment, I guess) is successful, that’s third United States year in a row, and given the fact that there are only US bids for 2018 at the moment, it’s quite probably going to be four years of back-to-back United States Worldcons and seven United States Worldcons in eight years. That’s a lot of United States in one paragraph.

Competing for the 2017 Worldcon location, there are also bids for Montreal (in Canada) and Shizuoka City (in Japan). After 2000, the Worldcon has been in Canada twice (2009, 2003) and in Japan once (2007). Now, I’m sure that all proposed locations would hold a wonderful convention, but Helsinki would certainly be something new.

worldcon(4) Toymakers have got to protect the brand. Or, “Why Thomas the Tank Engine Doesn’t Kill Anybody in Ant-Man.

“I believe in Edgar [Wright] and Joe Cornish’s original drafts it was a train set,” Reed recalls. “At some point in the process that predated my involvement it became Thomas. As I came on, they had not secured the rights to Thomas. We had to do this whole thing where we did this presentation for the people who own the rights to Thomas. Thank God they agreed and found it funny, but there were definite stipulations. For example, nobody could be tied to the tracks and run over by Thomas. Thomas couldn’t be doing anything that could be perceived by children as evil Thomas. Thomas had to stay neutral in the battle, which was always our intention. Like anybody, they’re protective of their brand. I didn’t know what we were going to do if we didn’t get the rights to that. There are certain things I was going to be devastated about if we couldn’t have them. Thomas was one, because… you could do any kind of toy train, but the personality of that thing and the eyes moving back and forth give it a whole vibe and took it to another level.”

(5) Another Castalia House child prodigy! Jeffro Johnson reports in “First Session Report for my Daughter’s Dungeon Design!”

At the age of nine, my daughter has designed a 15 level dungeon, gotten paid for her work, and received back playtest report. It doesn’t get any better than that…!

It’s true – and entertaining, too.

(6) The Official Tolkien Calendar 2016 featuring artwork by Tove Jansson will be released on July 30. The cost is £9.99.

Jansson, who passed away in 2001, is well-known worldwide as the author and artists behind the popular Moomin series. As an accomplished artist, she provided the artwork for the Swedish editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hobbit (also later used in Finnish editions). In Boel Westin’s autobiography of Jansson, she is quoted as saying “The figures are banal: dwarves, gnomes, fairies, dark-elves. But the scenery is luring in its macabre cruelty … Haunted woods, pitch-dark rivers, a moon-lit moor with burning wolves.

2016 Tolkien Calendar(7) Ursula K. Le Guin is offering writing advice through an “Online Fiction Workshop” at Book View Cafe. Use the form at the post to submit your question.

I have enough vigor and stamina these days to write poems, for which I am very thankful. It takes quite a lot of vigor and stamina to write a story, and a huge amount to write a novel. I don’t have those any more, and I miss writing fiction.

Reliable vigor and stamina is also required to teach a class or run a workshop, and so I had to give up teaching several years ago. But I miss being in touch with serious prentice writers.

So in in hope of regaining some of the pleasures of teaching and talking about writing fiction with people who do, I’m going to try an experiment: a kind of open consultation or informal ongoing workshop in Fictional Navigation, here on Book View Café.

I hope it will work its own process out as we go along, but here’s how I plan to start:

I invite questions about writing fiction from people who are working seriously at writing fiction.

(8) Explore the author’s earliest novels in Part I of SF Signal’s Interview with Samuel R. Delany.

Q: Your new book, A, B, C: THREE SHORT NOVELS, takes the reader back to the beginning of your career by offering up your first three novels. What is it about these works that impelled you to offer them up again?

Samuel R. Delany: With all these books’ clumsinesses and immaturities, I think—I hope—I was trying for something that is probably harder and harder to see with time’s passing. Indeed, it may never have been there. The only thing that might have thrown some highlighting onto it at the time they were published were slight differences between them and what was then coming out in the genre. Because so many changes have taken place in the background against which individual works now register, however, it’s harder and harder to read the signals.

(9) The Guardian included Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves on its 70 title longlist for the “Not The Booker prize”.

If you want to become part of this noble process, all you have to do is vote for two books from the longlist, from two different publishers, and accompany those votes with a review of at least one of your chosen books in the comments section below. This review should be something over 100 words long, although, as the rules state, we probably won’t be counting all that carefully.

Readers have until August 2 to vote titles onto the shortlist.

(10) After using geometric logic to deduce the wrong writer behind “Ray Blank’s” real-life identity, I was informed by a friend that it’s not even a secret. Eric Priezkalns says it’s him:

Ray Blank is the pen name I use when submitting speculative fiction to publishers.

And just in case I needed more convincing, my friend also ran comparative text samples through IBM Watson Personality Insights. Because science!

Really, though, it’s just not any kind of a secret.

[Thanks to JJ, Mark, Will R., Jonathan Olfert, and John King Tarpinain for some of these stories. Title credit to Soon Lee]

250 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 7/27 Riffing on AD&D

  1. Petréa Mitchell on July 28, 2015 at 8:44 am said:

    I really wish the high-profile supporters of Helsinki in 2017 could put as much energy into explaining how it would be an entertaining and well-run convention as they do into explaining why it’s totally not anyone else’s turn.

    Hope the high-profile supporters do. Me, I’m definitely as low-profile as you can get. 😀

    Seriously though, I hope people realize that only the most grumpy-ish slice of my post is quoted here and I wrote about some other things as well. However, fair global distribution of Worldcons is still something that ought to be discussed, in my opinion. US seven times out of eight is quite horrible.

  2. Ah, yes, Cats Laughing. Given a shameless reference in Bull’s Bone Dance, too. (Though at least she picked a track sung by LoJo Russo so her remarks on the singer aren’t self-serving)

    They’re alright as a whole, and some of the songs are MUCH better than alright, but I prefer Bull’s next project, the exceedingly quirky folk duo the Flash Girls, with Lorraine Garland (Best known outside her musical career as Neil Gaiman’s assistant).

  3. SOME UPDATES AT THE END OF THE FIRST HALF:

    War for the Oaks and The Hero and the Crown are incredibly close. This could be a squeaker.

    Mythago Wood and Fire and Hemlock are nearly as close.

    For both Soldier of the Mist / Anubis Gates and Daggerspell / The Silent Tower, one book is in the lead but it still could turn around.

    In the other four brackets, a definite victor seems to be emerging.

    The Dragon Waiting is the off-bracket book getting the most support.

  4. (Also of note: MInneapolis SF/F writers in the 80s and 90s? HUGE and busy and vivid community. Many have moved elsewhere and/or there since, too. I’ve always said if I was forced to move to the states I’d rather move to Minneapolis than anywhere and that is one of the reasons.)

  5. 1 – Bridge of Birds

    I believe this is the book that I have purchased most frequently. I’ve bought it at least six times (three by itself and three as part of an omnibus).

    4 – The Anubis Gates

    I came into Tim Powers because our local library had a copy of Dinner at Deviant’s Palace. And I read it because it (like Brin’s The Postman) was post-apocalyptic and set vaguely in the area where I grew up. Little did I know that he was soon to release many more books that would be much better.

  6. Fantasy bracket, 80s, my choices:

    I swore there would be no ties or write-ins. I’m doing both in this bracket! Thou art cruel, Kyra!

    1)-Bridge of Birds, by a hair. I think both are great and they nearly tied, but I like the Hughart more.

    2)-Tea With the Black Dragon, because great beats very good all the time.

    3)-War For the Oaks, in another tight choice. It will get worse for me!

    4)-Mammoth AAARGH!!!! TIE OR MY HEAD WILL EXPLODE!

    5)-The Dragon Waiting I haven’t read either of the choices and TDW is great! Mike Ford died way too soon.

    6)-Mythago Wood, because it still haunts me.

    7)-Little, Big, not even close. I finished Mists and went “Meh”. Haven’t bothered to read it again and never will.

    8)-Abstain, as I haven’t read one of them and I resolved not to vote if I’d only read one title. The question now is, what evil, wicked thing will you do to make me break that vow? Put Wind In the Willows against something I haven’t read? I’m going back in the corner.

  7. THE EIGHTIES!
    Abstaining because there is no bracket in which I have read both candidates. (I know…)

    In other news: Apparently there is a Qatar Worldcon bid for 2022

    Iain Coleman at 2:36 am: That’s rather uncharitable. The criticism expressed of the chain lightning spell is that it took two hours of real time to calculate all of its effects. I’ve been in some tedious over-finicky combat sessions in my time, but that takes the biscuit.

    Having played in sessions where “Chain Lightning” was deployed, I am very surprised it took that long to calculate its effects. It is a high level spell, and a powerful one (as it should be) which is part of the fun.

  8. Spacefaring Kitten:

    However, fair global distribution of Worldcons is still something that ought to be discussed, in my opinion. US seven times out of eight is quite horrible.

    Well, why not discuss that, then, rather than trying to tell the voters they are bad people if they don’t vote for your candidate?

    What would you consider a reasonable basis for determining fairness? Dividing the world up by countries? Languages? Regions? Is it fair for all of east Asia to not be allowed another Worldcon because there’s only one country in the region with fans ready and willing to run one? Is it fair to consider a country spanning six time zones the equivalent of one with a population of 5 million? Would it be fair to limit the number of non-US bids in a year? (Shizuoka was the first to declare for 2017; the Montréal folks originally bid for 2019 but then changed their minds; Helsinki could have had an easy win for 2016 but decided to pile into 2017 with two other international bidders already present. How many of them would it be fair to ban from making a 2017 bid?)

  9. 1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
    God Stalk, P. C. Hodgell

    Oh. My. Gnu. I hate you, Kyra. I can’t choose.
    Hah! After reading the comments, I vote for “God Stalk”, purely to get its numbers up.

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Wizard’s Bane, Rick Cook

    I’ve read both and was blah on both. Wizard’s Bane was much, much better. How can you not like a book where a computer programmer from Silicon Valley manages to write the O/S for magic?

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    War for the Oaks, Emma Bull

    I have to vote for this because I wanted to use it in the last go around for the Magic in the Modern World category.

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly

    ARGGGHHH!! Both of these were good, but I liked the Hambly just a hair more.

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Dragon in Waiting, John Ford

    I read a comment from David Goldfarb and I think this category is a better fit.

    7. TIGANA VS MORGAN LE FAY
    Road to Avalon, Joan Wolf

    I didn’t read either of the offerings; but, hands down this is my favorite story about Morgan Le Fay. Actually, this is more historical-like fiction than fantasy. But, Arthur is fantasy, right?

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    The Warhound and the World’s Pain, Michael Moorcock

    I did like both offerings, but I think this is the better book for this category. This was the 1st book I ever read where Lucifer was depicted as trying to atone and showed that Mankind did not need God or the Devil.

  10. 4. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers

    The only Wolfe I ever tried was Shadow of the Torturer, through which I couldn’t get, but The Anubis Gates completely blew me away with its originality, and the ‘total straightforwardness’ of its narrative, especially after Dinner at Deviant’s Palace had left me fearing that The Drawing of the Dark was the only good book Powers had in him.

    7. Little, Big, John Crowley

    I’ve never heard of Little, Big, or of John Crowley for that matter, but I found Mists of Avalon to be an unreadable mess, and that was as a big Darkover fan.

  11. 1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart

    Yay for non pseudo-medieval Europe settings.

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Wizard of the Pigeons, Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley

    I love that in this story defeating the dragon is at most the halfway point of the story. Also that magic and heroic actions have major consequences

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers

    Call me shallow, but I bounced off the Wolfe

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    Daggerspell, Katharine Kerr

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones

    I was very impressed by Mythago Wood, but Fire and Hemlock did so many things well- unreliable narrators, a gradual sense of weirdness, modern fey, a skeptical lolol at the idea of heroes and an ambiguous ending.

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    Little, Big, John Crowley

    Even if Little Big wasn’t such a well done story, I’d still vote for it, because it’s not fucking Bradley.

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    Good Omens just missed this one, right? Oh well.

    Was there something about the 90s where there were simply fewer women writing fantasy?

  12. Spacefaring Kitten:

    However, fair global distribution of Worldcons is still something that ought to be discussed, in my opinion. US seven times out of eight is quite horrible.

    I’m not sure what you’re basing the above on, but over the past ten years Worldcon has been held outside the U.S. five times. Twice in the U.K., in Glasgow (2005) and London (2014), Once in Australia (2010), Japan (2007) and Canada (2009). This isn’t a horrible record of provincialism.

  13. Helsinki sounds like a fun place to hold a WorldCon and one of my friends recently went to a con in Finland and came back full of praise for the con and the country.

    I don’t see why we have to forbid this or that country from bidding–and furthermore I don’t see anyone else advocating that. If it’s okay to nudge people to consider checking out works by women or minorities, what’s wrong with nudging people to remember that Worldcon has world in its name and might want to get out a bit and hey Helsinki sounds cool?

  14. THE EIGHTIES!
    1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
    God Stalk, P. C. Hodgell

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Wizard of the Pigeons, Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm
    Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy
    Abstain, I don’t know either

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
    War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
    Again abstain, I don’t know either

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
    The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
    Again abstain, I don’t know either. What was I reading in the 80s? Oh yes, it was childcare books

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    Daggerspell, Katharine Kerr
    The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly
    Again abstain, I don’t know either

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
    Abstain! Put on TBR list

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    Little, Big, John Crowley
    The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
    Despite the author’s reported behaviour this was a good book when I read it.

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    The Darkangel, Meredith Ann Pierce
    To Reign in Hell, Stephen Brust
    Oh dear, again abstain, I don’t know either

  15. > “The question now is, what evil, wicked thing will you do to make me break that vow? Put Wind In the Willows against something I haven’t read?”

    Kyra makes a note

    In an EVIL notebook

  16. Cat:

    [W]hat’s wrong with nudging people to remember that Worldcon has world in its name and might want to get out a bit and hey Helsinki sounds cool?

    What I’m complaining about is leaving out the “and hey Helsinki sounds cool” and replacing it with “but none of these other countries count as part of ‘the world'”.

  17. 1. Bridge of Birds. This is a book I recommend to non-genre readers, in full faith that it will capture hearts.

    2. Tea With the Black Dragon

    3. The Heero and the Crown. Yes, Emma Bull is wonderful, but I have reread and reread McKinley, and this is her quintessential book.

    4. And 5. Abstain, need to do further reading.

    6. Mythago Wood.

    7. Little, Big. Easier choice than I thought it would be, possibly because of the MZB revelations. Perhaps I ought to be able to keep the work and creator more disentangled, but when I reconsidered certain troubling scenes in the book given the new information about the author… Well, an uglier picture of what she might have been assuming and intending came into focus.

    8. The Darkangel.

  18. Ah, never mind about my last post. I get what the point is after forgetting about it being made already, doh.

  19. @Lenora Rose on July 28, 2015: “(Also of note: MInneapolis SF/F writers in the 80s and 90s? HUGE and busy and vivid community. Many have moved elsewhere and/or there since, too. I’ve always said if I was forced to move to the states I’d rather move to Minneapolis than anywhere and that is one of the reasons.)”

    I have very fond memories of that gang. Several of them were active on Fidonet’s SF echo, which was very hard to keep up with when you only have an hour a day to do so. That’s where I got hooked on Guardians of the Flame and soured on The Wheel of Time, all at once. (The two biggest conversations at the time were about those, and having to skip past “all those damned Wheel of Time posts” to get to what I was interested in served as accidental aversion therapy.)

    Bracket modification: I wish to follow Ha Nguyen’s lead in writing in Rick Cook’s Wizard’s Bane.

  20. Wow. I know I read fantasy in the 80s, but it was mostly from my high school library which got almost all its fantasy selection from someone who had a book club membership and dropped them on us. Guess they kept the newer ones, because the only thing I remember reading from that list was the Brust, and that was recently, after I’d read the Vlad books. It’s… very much an early work.

  21. Here’s why I’m voting Helsinki second, to D.C.’s first.

    1) If D.C. wins, it will be the first Worldcon in the NA Eastern time zone in eight years, and the first in the BosWash corridor in 13.

    2) Right now, Dublin and New Zealand are the only bidders for ’19 and ’20. Should D.C. not win, we could very likely end up with 3 of 4 Worldcons outside the US.

    Why do I think these are a problem? Not because I’m against Worldcon being outside the US; I’m not provincial. I’ve lived in Switzerland and traveled to around 20 other non-US countries. I’d love for Helsinki to have a Worldcon….it’s just the timing of going up against that first in 13 year BosWash possibility and what’s backed up behind it.

    I believe that we (inadvertently) made a big mistake in where Worldcons were this century; 2000-2006, all in major cities with big fan communities and hitting all four of our established peak attending membership locations (CA, BosWash, Chicago, Britain…and we hit LA and Boston, the top sublocations within CA and BosWash). But then 2007-2011 had 3 of 5 out of the US (and yes, attendance is significantly lower in Canada vis a vis the US), 2 of the 5 very far from both the US and Europe, the two that were in the US were in relatively isolated metro areas and Reno was in the smallest US metro area ever to hold a Worldcon.

    So then we pop back to Chicago….which had 20% less attendance than in 2000. The next year in San Antonio (a second tier US site), attendance was also off from the last time it was held there. London was huge…but Spokane is Reno redux with respect to location, the exception being there is more of a local fan community. Both Reno, and it looks like Spokane, did/will do better attendance than I expected, but still at the low end of a US-based Worldcon.

    So, my point is that in order to keep attendance up and have Worldcon be significant, we need to regularly hold it in those four tier-one areas such that the con-going population in those areas gets/stays in a Worldcon habit. Holding it outside the US/UK is great…but not too many too close together so that overall attendance drops off. Also, it’s important that Worldcon keep attracting a fair number of significant authors, artists, editors, etc. to make it more than just a big regional con. That also runs into trouble if it’s too many scattered in location too close together in time.

    Do I wish it were otherwise? Yep. But for a lot of reasons I won’t bother to go into, I don’t think it is. Thus, since I think the D.C. bid is run by competent people with decent facilities, the time since we were last in one of our four strongholds means to me I have to rank it first, and Helsinki second.

  22. 1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
    Because I almost got charged with contempt of court for sneaking pages of it during jury deliberation.

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy
    Because if I can’t have Ista as middle-aged female protagonist, I want Martha.

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
    Probably the easiest choice in the bracket.

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
    The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
    Abstain, having read neither.

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly
    There’s just some quality in Hambly’s writing I find engaging.

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
    Abstain — I read both many years ago, and neither title is resonating with me. Though in general I do like Jones…

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    Little, Big, John Crowley
    Eh. I’m not a huge fan of Little, Big (in a magical-realism category I’d go with Winter’s Tale) but I can’t vote for MZB.

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    The Darkangel, Meredith Ann Pierce
    To Reign in Hell, Steven Brust
    Abstain, but added to my TBR list.

  23. 1. the bridge of birds
    2. tea with the black dragon
    3. The hero and the crown
    5. The ladies of Mandrigyn (Hambly) because I really liked it.
    7. Little, big (of course)

    And, like Beth, I’m a fan of Silverlock.

  24. Having played in sessions where “Chain Lightning” was deployed, I am very surprised it took that long to calculate its effects.

    Chain Lightning wasn’t as bad as Fireball in my experience.

    “A Fireball expands to fill 27,000 cubic feet. It is targeted into a 5′ x 5′ x 20 hallway, that opens into an angled 30′ long room that is 40′ by 10′ at the far end. Are any of the party outside the blast radius? Do you care, because you cast the damn thing fifteen feet away from you?”

    And then there was Meteor Swarm, which shot off a HALF DOZEN fireballs. That’s the sort of thing that causes a DM to drink heavily.

  25. > “A Fireball expands to fill 27,000 cubic feet.”

    I accidentally immolated the thief so many times.

  26. “And then there was Meteor Swarm, which shot off a HALF DOZEN fireballs. That’s the sort of thing that causes a DM to drink heavily.”

    The ones that really made me drink heavily were those two ‘spell matrix/spell sequencer’ things that they put in the Forgotten Realms supplement for 3.5. Those were two game ending spells and one of them was only a 7th level spell, if I recall. If a hostile npc spellcaster had either of those spells or the group’s wizard had his prepared, it was mutually assured destruction.

  27. 1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
    God Stalk, P. C. Hodgell
    — by a mile

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Wizard of the Pigeons, Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm
    Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy
    — another runaway winner

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
    War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
    SO HARD. CAN’T PICK. TIE.

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
    The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
    I love Powers, but not this one. Soldier *should* have one a whole bunch of lit-fic prizes.

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    Daggerspell, Katharine Kerr
    The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly
    — Hambly all the way

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
    — I haven’t read this DWJ but I’m voting for it anyway.

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    Little, Big, John Crowley
    The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
    Little, Big is freakin’ brilliant, while Mists is the tome that prompted a friend to ask, “Why do all these people who claim to love trees write such long books?!?”

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    The Darkangel, Meredith Ann Pierce
    To Reign in Hell, Stephen Brust
    — write-in, Brust’s Taltos.

  28. Note to self:

    In future, remember that, when dealing with an evil genius bracketeer, it is probably a BAD IDEA to give them ideas in the form of questions (particularly when there is an EVIL notebook in hand and they do wicked filking to boot)!

    Back into the corner I go!

  29. Yes, Cats Laughing is a fun little group. Got referenced in a few places as well, such as having Kitty Pryde being a fan of theirs in the Excalibur comics from Marvel, and running into simulations of the group at one point…

    Hmm, I see they had a reunion this year. Need to look that up to go along with the ‘Another Way to Travel’ CD I have here.

  30. Thought I would have done rather better with this list, but in three brackets I haven’t read either of the contenders (would have been four, but read The War for the Oaks a year or two back). So: only four votes, but three of those were not nice decisions to have to make this early.
    1. Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart. The easy one. Read this seven or eight times, and always dissolve at the climax. “The sequels are weaker” – well, yes, but that’s rather like criticising the other mountains in the Himalayas for being smaller than Everest.
    2. Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy. The hardest one. Would happily take either to read again right now, and probably opt for MacAvoy if my arm was twisted; what makes it easier is that she also write the Damiano books.
    3. abstain
    4. Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe. The one I really didn’t want to have to do. (I read the pairings about eight hours ago and only recently stopped swearing about this one). Love them both, but Wolfe gets the nod because of the things I’ll pick up for the first time on the next reread.
    5. abstain
    6. abstain
    7. Little, Big, John Crowley. Gets better with repeated reading. Not sure that the same can be said of Mists, although it’s due for another try (along with a hundred or so others on my shelves)
    8. abstain

  31. 1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Tea with the Black Dragon is very good, but I haven’t read Wizard of the Pigeons (I tried, no e-book). Abstain.

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    I’ll stick The Dragon Waiting by Ford here. Mainly for the joke of it having anything but a straightforward narrative. I have been lobbied successfully.

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    Abstain, haven’t read either.

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
    No Contest (also, my suggestion!)

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    Abstain. I haven’t read Little Big.

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    The Darkangel, Meredith Ann Pierce
    No contest. Go forth and read everything Meredith Ann Pierce has ever written.

  32. 1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
    God Stalk, P. C. Hodgell

    I really liked Bridge when I first read it, but when the sequel came out, a Chinese-American friend made some cogent points about its stereotypical treatment of Chinese culture, which rather soured me on it.

    God Stalk, by contrast, is a terrific start to a very good series.

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Wizard of the Pigeons, Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm
    Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
    War for the Oaks, Emma Bull

    The McKinley’s very good but the Bull is one of my favorites.

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
    The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers

    Wolfe is excellent, but the Powers is one of my favorites.

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    Daggerspell, Katharine Kerr
    The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly

    Here is my official write-in for The Dragon Waiting. John M. Ford was an underappreciated genius and that is his masterpiece. Leaving it off the bracket was a crime.

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock

    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones

    Gotta vote for Jones.

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    Little, Big, John Crowley
    The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley

    Another masterpiece to vote for.

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    The Darkangel, Meredith Ann Pierce
    To Reign in Hell, Steven Brust

    One of Brust’s weaker books, IMO (wasn’t it his first published novel?) but a very strong career.

  33. I must be way out of sync with Kyra for 80s fantasy. Or was there some rule about series I missed? Anyway, I scatter my write ins to the thorny ground.

    PS: doing this on my phone at the cottage. Nightmare.

    1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    The Black Company, Glen Cook

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Master of Five Magics, Lyndon Hardy

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    Warhound and the World’s Pain by that bane of crypto-Fascists everywhere, Michael Moorcock.

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES

    Half a vote for the Silent Tower; I’d rather have seen Time of the Dark.

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    The Elfstones of Shanara, Terry Brooks

    Much less sucky than the first book.

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGEL
    To Reign in Hell, Stephen Brust

    A fine book I remember liking a lot, although in my heart it should be Jhereg.

  34. Oh, I think I’ll add a vote for Mike Ford’s The Dragon Waiting, if I’m allowed.

  35. Wait a minute, wasn’t Soldier of Sidon supposed to be the first of a pair of books, like the first two? If it was meant to be standalone, I’m going to have to re-read it.

  36. So many half read brackets! This round: another write-in and a hard choice.

    3. The Dreamstone, CJ Cherryh
    Poetic and bittersweet, verging on dreamlike at the end, this is the perfect bite. In a slender volume of 200 pages, or so, it packs more punch than sagas magnitudes larger. It has the melancholy of loss and victories only at a cost. This is Cherryh at her best in Fantasy. Only Paladin comes close to it and that written in a very different voice. The Dreamstone spawned a sequel that it is best forgotten. As a standalone it ranks in the top of my fantasy reads.

    7. The Mists of Avalon
    But not Marion Zimmer Bradley. When a friend introduced me to Mists I thought it the first interesting take on the Arthurian myth I had read in ages (Side bar shout out to Andre Norton for Merlin’s Mirror though that is mostly sentiment I think). I also know multiple female fans who came to the genre from reading this book specifically. Other friends, already long-time SFF readers, expressed its strong focus on the women characters as making it the first fantasy written for them specifically. I hate the fact that legacy is now forever tarnished by Bradley and her mate’s evil. I also don’t know if I could read it now without a strong taste of squick. Still I vote it as read and not as it is defaced now.

  37. *offers Kyra’s Cure-listening teenage self a nice, cold bottle of Angsty Bitters*

    There, there. Drink up. You’re right, no one understands, and we are all doing this just to hurt you, to spite all your hard work.

    😉 Angsty Bitters. For when it’s time to make it Even Worse.

  38. Aaron: There are a couple of Puppies who have commented on George R.R. Martin’s most recent blog post about the Hugos. In them the Puppies continue to prove that they are as incoherent and idiotic they have ever been.

    Yeah, one of those commenters has definitely drunk the Crazy Paranoia Kool-Aid, and seems to genuinely believe that Tor has been controlling the Hugos.

    GRRM: Will Puppygate fade and be forgotten after Sasquan, or will we need to fight the same battles next year?

    jordan179: If you mean, “Will we just give up and accept the Tor Clique controlling the Hugos, which will remain prestigious,” the answer is “Hell, no.” Either the Hugos will be returned to the control of fandom in general, or you’ll keep them by changing the voting rules in such a way that they become purely the Tor Awards To Their Own Favored Writers.

    As for Kary English, I’m guessing she assumes that your side’s going to win and remain gatekeepers and hence that displaying anything other than abject submission to Tor will wreck her career. Given how markets operate, she’s probably wrong, and she’s just tossed aside a possible Hugo and a lot of popularity for the sake of this submission. Tor has embarked on a course that will reduce their own sales, even as Baen continues rising — and independent publishing is also an increasingly viable option.

    With no enforcement mechanism other than shunning, Tor and your Old Guard can’t stop this.

    Jordan179 is obviously delusional. Yes, Tor had a particularly good year last year:

    Tor’s Hugo fiction nominations
    2014: 6 of 19, 3 winners
    2013: 1 of 18, 1 winners
    2012: 3 of 21, 2 winners
    2011: 1 of 19, 0 winners
    2010: 4 of 23, 0 winners
    2009: 2 of 20, 0 winners
    2008: 2 of 20, 0 winners
    2007: 3 of 20, 1 winners
    2006: 3 of 20, 1 winners
    2005: 0 of 20, 0 winners

    But it’s clear from whence the Sekrit Cabal which has been controlling the Hugos really emanates:

    Asimov’s Hugo fiction nominations
    2014: 0 of 19, 0 winners
    2013: 1 of 18, 0 winners
    2012: 5 of 21, 1 winners
    2011: 5 of 19, 2 winners
    2010: 3 of 23, 1 winners
    2009: 7 of 20, 2 winners
    2008: 7 of 20, 2 winners
    2007: 10 of 20, 3 winners
    2006: 4 of 20, 2 winners
    2005: 3 of 20, 1 winners

  39. Dammit, the bolds came through in preview! And when I was looking on Chrome!

    For clarity, Kyra, here’s a re-post of my vote:
    1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
    — by a mile

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy
    — another runaway winner

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
    War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
    SO HARD. CAN’T PICK. TIE.

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
    I love Powers, but not this one. Soldier *should* have one a whole bunch of lit-fic prizes.

    5. WE DON’T DIE, WE JUST MOVE TO OTHER BODIES
    The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly
    — Hambly all the way

    6. MYTH MADE FLESH
    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
    — I haven’t read this DWJ but I’m voting for it anyway.

    7. TITANIA VS. MORGAN LE FAY
    Little, Big, John Crowley
    — Little, Big is freakin’ brilliant, while Mists is the tome that prompted a friend to ask, “Why do all these people who claim to love trees write such long books?!?”

    8. HELL IS OTHER ANGELS
    The Darkangel, Meredith Ann Pierce
    To Reign in Hell, Stephen Brust
    — write-in, Brust’s Taltos.

  40. As close as we’ve all grown these last few months, I’d just like to say that…

    …I hate everyone who voted against God Stalk forever.

    @NelC

    Wait a minute, wasn’t Soldier of Sidon supposed to be the first of a pair of books, like the first two? If it was meant to be standalone, I’m going to have to re-read it.

    Pope Francis said you don’t have to do this. Specifically, even if there were such a book, which there is not, you would not be required to re-read it.

  41. *Offers Jim Henley a cold bottle of Angsty Bitters*

    And I’d vote against it again in a heartbeat, given the competition.

  42. 1. FROM KU-FU TO TAI-TASTIGON
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart

    2. WEST COAST MAGIC
    Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy

    3. THE SWORD OR THE CHORD

    War for the Oaks, Emma Bull (this was a close one)

    4. TOTALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVE
    I’m writing in John M. Ford The Dragon Waiting here, rather than in 5, because
    the category seems to fit better.

    Abstaining on the rest, because it’s a mix of things I haven’t read (mostly) and things I wasn’t impressed by.

  43. Tom Galloway wrote “Here’s why I’m voting Helsinki second, to D.C.’s first.”.

    Here’s why I’m voting Helsinki first:
    Since I started going to Worldcons in 1971, there have been (counting this year’s Worldcon, which hasn’t happened yet):
    8 Worldcons in BosWash
    14 on the U.S. East Coast or within an easy one-day drive from coastal states (I’m counting Toronto and Montreal, as well as east-coast states)
    34 in North America
    42.5 in Anglophone locations (I’m counting Montreal as 1/2)
    6 in Europe
    11 not in North America
    2.5 in non-Anglophone locations
    0 in Scandinavia

    I don’t consider smaller Worldcon attendance numbers to be a problem; smaller Worldcons are a bonus, if anything.
    North American fans, and BosWash con-attending fans in particular, are not going to get “out of the Worldcon habit” just because a few cons are inaccessible to them.
    I’m at least as interested in maintaining Worldcon-going inertia in Europe as in North America, and with slightly more than 3 out of 4 Worldcons in North America, I don’t consider a short run of 3 out of 4 outside of North America to be a problem.

    I know many of the members of the DC bid committee, and I’m sure they’re competent con-runners (although more than one were members of the committee who thought that it was a good idea to have a Worldcon in Reno, and have thus lost a lot of credibility with me), and if DC wins we’ll have a perfectly okay run-of-the-mill US Worldcon. But I don’t see DC offering anything more than that, and when we have an opportunity to have something different from an okay US Worldcon, I think it’s a shame to lose it.

  44. In other news, Brad torgersen has been commenting on GRRM latest blog post. There’s now a shiny new justification for SP3!

    Spoiler Alert: Apparently, since the whole bias against religous writers, then the bias against conservative writers justifications didn’t work out too well, he’s trying out for a bias against *outspoken* conservative writers.

    Ie, apparently Outspoken conservatives have never won, but outspoken liberals have by the dozen! Shock horror!

    It’s not working too well for poor Brad. Mind you, given that his idea of an outspoken liberal is probably includes Scalzi!, I fear he’s not gonna do too well.

    Regardless, nice to see him fighting the good(?) fight to the bitter end.

  45. @bloodstone75

    Good points about Master of Five Magics and Black Company !

    I really liked those books and one could look at them as precursors to Sanderson (detailed magic systems) and GrimDark (mil fantasy)

  46. @snowcrash
    I read those for a bit. I don’t know why BT posts there, it does not seem like a productive discussion will ever emerge.

  47. @ Jim Henley – I feel similarly about those who voted against Hero and the Crown.

    I love you all (with a couple notable exceptions) but you guys are totally out of the will.

  48. Sasquan has sent out its last-minute Hugo voting reminder.

    Hugo Award Voting Closes THIS Friday, July 31 at 11:59 pm PDT!?
    With less than a week to go to vote for the Hugo Awards, we want to remind everyone of the following:

    Voting will close for good at 11:59 PM PDT, *this* Friday, July 31. To vote, you will need your membership number and PIN. To avoid confusion, your membership number is the short number (up to five digits in length), and the PIN is the long number starting with “SQ”.

    Go to the Hugo Award Voting page to cast your ballot. Your entire ballot is recorded each time you hit “Save” next to any entry. You can change your vote as many times as you wish, with the final “Save” being what will be counted. You will receive e-mail confirmation of your ballot each time you click “Save.”

    Please check your ballot one last time before voting closes, even if you’ve already selected your choices, to confirm that the ballot accurately reflects your preferences.

    John Lorentz and Ruth Sachter
    Hugo Administrators, Sasquan

     
    If you haven’t received your PIN yet, or can’t find it,
    Request Your PIN Here.

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