A lot of material out there because of the Hugo voting deadline tomorrow but if you want more than the three items I included in today’s Scroll then Google is your friend.
(1) Today in History!
1932: Walt Disney released his first color cartoon, “Flowers and Trees,” made in three-color Technicolor.
1976: NASA released the famous “Face on Mars” photo, taken by Viking 1
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image by its HiRISE camera of the “Face on Mars”. Viking Orbiter image inset in bottom right corner.
(2) And Today’s Birthday Boy and Girl – what a coincidence!
Born 1965: J. K. Rowling
Born: Harry Potter (main character of Harry Potter series)
(3) “The Tom-cademy Awards: The Only Awards Show Exclusively for Tom Cruise Movies” is part of a weeklong Cruise-themed series on Grantland. The author anoints Emily Blunt as the Best Supporting Actress of any Cruise movie.
The wonderful thing about EoT is that it’s really funny. It achieves that by not pretending the audience has never seen a time-travel movie. Instead, Edge of Tomorrow claps the audience firmly on the shoulder and, smiling, asks (rhetorically), “Hey, wanna see Tom Cruise get iced?” And, as it turns out, watching The Character Named Tom Cruise getting killed in fun and interesting ways, ways that show just enough exposed cranium to make the exercise mean something, is pretty invigorating.
But! Do we not, paradoxically, also want to see The Character Named Tom Cruise succeed? To save the world and get the girl? Yeah, of course we do. This is Tom Cruise we’re talking about. And it’s Blunt, playing it straight the whole time while kicking a Ripley-in-Aliens level of xenomorph butt, who has to downshift from hero-on-a-recruiting-poster to woman-who-we-kind-of-want-to-see-kiss-Tom-Cruise in order to make Cage’s journey from charming coward to soldier/love interest believable. He’s the hero we deserve, that we also need to see die.
Genre films Minority Report (Best Visual Effects) and Interview With The Vampire (Best Costume Design) also take home the hardware.
(4) Janis Ian, who now writes in the sf field, has her own Bill Cosby story from when she was a teenager preparing to sing her hit song on The Smothers Brothers show in 1967.
“No, I was not sexually bothered by Bill Cosby,” said Ian in a Facebook post Tuesday, reacting to a New York magazine report featuring 35 women who accuse Cosby of sexual impropriety.
In her post, Ian accused Cosby of publicly outing her as a lesbian, based on a chance meeting backstage at a television show.
“Cosby was right in one thing. I am gay. Or bi, if you prefer, since I dearly loved the two men I lived with over the years. My tilt is toward women, though, and he was right about that.”
(5) On to tamer subjects – the Worldcon business meeting. Kevin Standlee hopes to discourage complaints while rewarding the reader’s attention with a good discussion of why meetings adopt Roberts Rules or the equivalent:
The reason that parliamentary procedure is complex is that it’s trying to balance a bunch of contradictory rights. If you’re someone who is convinced that your personal, individual right to speak for as long as you want and as many times at you want trumps the rights of the group to be able to finish the discussion and reach a decision in a reasonable time, well, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be happy with any rules that allow for limits on debate. If you’re someone who has no patience with debate and just wants the Strong Man to Make Decisions, you’ll never be pleased with rules that allow for people to debate and reach a group decision through voting….
And he invites your help to improve how WSFS meetings are run.
WSFS rules are complicated because the people who attend the meetings have effectively voted for complexity, but also because some of the complexity is required to protect the rights of members, both individually and in groups, and including the members who aren’t even at the meeting. If you have a better way for deciding how we should run things, the onus is on you to propose something. As long as you just complain that “it’s too complicated,” without proposing something both easier and workable, don’t expect to be taken seriously.
(6 ) Russell Blackford on Metamagician and the Hellfire Club delivers “The Hugo Awards – 2015 – Summation”.
Even if there is a legitimate grain of truth somewhere amongst the complaints of the Sad Puppies group, their actions have led to an exceptionally weak Hugo field this year and to some specific perverse outcomes. If the Sad Puppies campaigners merely thought that there is a “usual suspects” tendency in recent Hugo nomination lists, and that politically conservative authors are often overlooked in recent times, they could have simply argued their case based on evidence. Likewise, they could have taken far wiser, far more moderate – far less destructive – actions to identify some genuinely outstanding works that might otherwise have been missed. What we saw this year, with politicised voting on an unprecedented scale, approached the level of sabotaging the awards. I repeat my hope that the Sad Puppies campaign will not take place next year, at least in anything like the same form. If it does, my attitude will definitely harden. I’ve been rather mild about the Sad Puppies affair compared to many others in SF fandom, and I think I can justify that, but enough is enough.
I really can’t understand how Blackford processes the ethics of the 2015 situation, this being the third go-round for Sad Puppies, that “enough” had not happened already to warrant a stronger expression of his disapproval, but a fourth iteration will.
(7) The shortest “fisking” in history — Larry Correia strikes back at Sad Puppies references in The New Yorker’s Delany interview The boldfaced sentences below are literally 66% of what he had to say.
The ensuing controversy has been described, by Jeet Heer in the New Republic, as “a cultural war over diversity,” since the Sad Puppies, in their pushback against perceived liberals and experimental writers, seem to favor the work of white men.
Diversity my ass. Last years winners were like a dozen white liberals and one Asian liberal and they hailed that as a huge win for diversity.
Delany said he was dismayed by all this, but not surprised. “The context changes,” he told me, “but the rhetoric remains the same.”
Well, that’s a stupid conclusion.
Alert the bugler to blow “Taps” over the fallen standards of Correia fisks….
(8) Cheryl Morgan tells fans don’t give up.
Look, there will be some weird stuff in the results this year. There may well be a few No Awards given out, and possibly some really bad works winning awards. It is not as if that hasn’t happened before, though perhaps not in the same quantities. On the other hand, people are talking about the Hugos much more this year than they ever have before, and in many more high profile places. In addition vastly more people have bought supporting memberships, and we are looking at a record number of people participating in the final ballot. All of those people will be eligible to nominate next year. This isn’t the way I would have liked to get that result, but it is a result all the same.
for the first time EVER, I just voted for the Hugo Awards. I suspect it would have been fun any other year.
— MamaDeb (@_mamadeb) July 30, 2015
(9) John Scalzi realized he would have a more restful day if instead of discussing the Hugos he spent his time doing computer maintenance.
Windows 10 71% downloaded. Horrible gulping, weeping sounds coming from the basement. I mean, more than usual.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 29, 2015
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, David K.M. Klaus and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit to File 770 contributing editor Soon Lee.]
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So, I’ll try,
Brian: If you are so convinced that the SP/RPs shouldn’t slate, and the Hugos shouldn’t be fixed by EPH or other system, why don’t *you* go to Beale’s Blog, and Brad’s, and Correia’s, and argue against slating.
Or have you and we just missed it?
1. EVERYONE LOVES AN ECCENTRIC WIZARD
The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
I expect she’ll lose but I love Hambly more so The Silent Tower
2. FROM YOUR SMALL HOME TOWN TO THE GREAT BEYOND
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
Stardust, Neil Gaman
Even though or maybe because there are still things I don’t understand, The Riddle-Master of Hed
3. ADVENTURERS TWO
Two Sought Adventure, Fritz Leiber
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
Bridge of Birds
4. OF COURSE YOU REALIZE THIS MEANS WAR
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
A Game of Thrones
5. SERIOUSLY TARAN WHAT’S UP SHOULD WE SEND HELP
Taran Wanderer, Lloyd Alexander
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Dracula
6. ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
I’ve stopped voting for what I “should” so Nine Princes in Amber
7. TEA AND CACOASTRUM
To Reign in Hell, Steven Brust
Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy
Haven’t read this Brust. Two Hundred Years After would definitely get my vote. I ought to abstain but I’m going to cheat and vote for Tea with the Black Dragon
8. 1990 VS. 1999
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
Tigana because I’ve never re-read any of Harry Potter.
9. TALES OF THE SUBTLE FAE
Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees
Fire and Hemlock
10. GRAND ADVENTURES
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Sword of Conan, Robert E. Howard
Watership Down
11. TI-JEANNE VS. BUTTERCUP
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
Brown Girl in the Ring
12. LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights
13. EVERYTHING SLOWLY GOING DOWNHILL
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
One Hundred Years of Solitude
14. LEARNING THAT YOU’RE UNHAPPY
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany
The Tombs of Atuan
15. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
Soldier of the Mist
16. ACROSS THE SCOPE OF HISTORY
Little, Big, John Crowley
Silverlock, John Myers Myers
Little, Big
17. VICTORY BY DROPPING STUFF ON PEOPLE’S HEADS
The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
My toughest choice in this one. The Hero and the Crown
18. STRANGE DOINGS UP AT THE CASTLE
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford
The Dragon Waiting
I nod off for a day or two every now and again, so this is the first I’ve heard of felice’s work on EPH. While I’m naturally inclined to accept Brian Z’s abstract at face value, being well acquainted with his long and laudable history of honest citation, I’m curious about a few technical details of the study. Anyone got a link?
Laertes, link here:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016283.html#016283
Be prepared to scroll.
@Paul – To you who are about to shout endlessly into the void, we salute you!
@redwombat. Oh I wasn’t suggesting *me*. The last time I went to Torgersen’s blog, I got myself entangled with my evil Twin James May. I’ve been told by Kate Elliott herself not to do that anymore, and I am not going to argue with the likes of her. She’s formidable!
I was suggesting Brian Z do it. He does a lot of work here trying to get us to see the Puppies are just folks, I was wondering when he’d go over to their blogs and argue that we’re just folks too.
How about it, Brian?
felice’s results are facially plausible because they rest on the fact that the same sized slate is a larger portion of total short-fiction nominees than it is in the novel category. And if the folks who ran the EPH tests on prior-year data didn’t think to test the proposal against the less-voted categories, that was a significant oversight. There’s no point trying to wave felice’s results away.
But the action item seems to be: “Pass EPH this year and keep looking.” EPH does some good. felice’s straw results may represent a worst-case in the short-fiction categories and it’s still an improvement over the 100% lock a slate can get on those categories now. Passing EPH now puts us on a path to at least marginal improvement while we stress-test EPH itself further and consider proposals that might have more effect on the short-fiction categories. If further tests of EPH go poorly, people can always vote it down next year.
Not passing EPH because of felice’s straw test leaves us with nothing in hand.
Here are my votes: http://sfkittens.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/voting-for-the-hugos
@David W: Thanks very much. That’s good stuff. I wonder, though, if anyone’s got a link to felice’s later work, the stuff Brian Z talks about when he says:
The work you link above is something else entirely–in that thread felice shows that EPH would reduce slate performance in all categories except (perhaps) Best Novel. Has anyone got a link to the (presumably later) work which Brian Z cites and which shows precisely the opposite?
@ Laertes
You might find it looking through Felice’s recent comments http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/commentlist-oneauthor.php?commentid=4197015
I doubt it though, I didn’t see anything from her that I would précis as Brian did.
You could ask Brian to cite his source and link to it.
Oh, ouch; what have we wrought?
1. The Once and Future King, T. H. White
2. The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
3. Two Sought Adventure, Fritz Leiber
4. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
6. Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
10. The Sword of Conan, Robert E. Howard
11. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
13. The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
14. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
8. 1990 VS. 1999
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
12. LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
13. EVERYTHING SLOWLY GOING DOWNHILL
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
14. LEARNING THAT YOU’RE UNHAPPY
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany
15. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
16. ACROSS THE SCOPE OF HISTORY
Little, Big, John Crowley
Silverlock, John Myers Myers
17. VICTORY BY DROPPING STUFF ON PEOPLE’S HEADS
The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
18. STRANGE DOINGS UP AT THE CASTLE
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford
Personally, I don’t think the Puppies will do a single thing differently next year and in years to come whether I engage them politely, heap them with vitriol, or ignore them completely.
I also don’t think they will do a single thing differently if I carefully read and weigh every work on the ballot, rank every slated piece below No Award sight unseen, rank every work they offer Totally The Best in hopes of appeasement, or simply vote according to the random dictates of my Evil Dice.
Therefore I’m pretty much going to move ahead however I feel like, no matter what any of them say I should or should not be doing and whether it will make them Declare Victory.
> “Was I the only one who immediately wondered if RedWombat had managed to bud off a clone of herself …”
I at first briefly assumed that the father of her sibling was an Herbal Supplement.
I thought maybe her brother (Herb?) was a plant (late-blooming, of course). Like Swamp Thing.
Thrilled, THRILLED I say, to see so many Hambly votes.
(waves pompoms and jumps up and down cheering)
I just found out last night, through reading an afterword to one of the novellas published in electronic form, that she publishes other series under pseuds (Barbara Hamilton, Anne Steelyard).
What Felice’s observation does demonstrate to me is that fans of quality short fiction will have some extra load as long as the Puppies do slates. They’ll need to tell others interested in quality fiction in general that the numbers sufficient to make a dent in the most popular categories, like Best Novel, are sufficient to totally flood less popular ones, like Best Short Story. So it’ll help if more of us read and nominate short fiction along with other categories.
People who gather up good recommendations, and make good recs of their own, will be very important to this effort.
It stands to reason that Puppies did best in the lesser voted categories, because their relative impact was greater there. EPH isn’t a panacea, it’s a way to mitigate the impact of slate voters who make up a small fraction of the total vote. If only a few nominators vote in certain categories like Best Artist because they don’t feel qualified to judge art, those who dutifully fill out their slates as Dear Puppy Leader instructs will still dominate the nominations in those categories.
Some years back, without meaning to or noticing, I got out of the habit of reading a lot of short fiction. It’s back on my radar this year, because reasons, and my ears are still ringing from When it ends, he catches her. I wonder what else I’ve been missing, all these years.
Can’t wait to see all the rec lists when nomination season rolls around again. I won’t miss this year’s crop.
THE COMPLEAT FANTASY BRACKET, FIRST ROUND (THE BIG ONE)
So, I’m going for those I love, not for reputation. I read, those I have read, at different times so I’m probably not going to be consistent. Bolding because that’s easiest on a tablet.
1. EVERYONE LOVES AN ECCENTRIC WIZARD
The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
2. FROM YOUR SMALL HOME TOWN TO THE GREAT BEYOND
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
Stardust, Neil Gaman
3. ADVENTURERS TWO
Two Sought Adventure, Fritz Leiber
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
4. OF COURSE YOU REALIZE THIS MEANS WAR
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
Abstain.
5. SERIOUSLY TARAN WHAT’S UP SHOULD WE SEND HELP
Taran Wanderer, Lloyd Alexander
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Abstain. As with 4 I’ve read one, but not found it outstanding.
6. ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
Corwin rules!
7. TEA AND CACOASTRUM
To Reign in Hell, Steven Brust
Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy
Abstain
8. 1990 VS. 1999
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
Best of the 7 IMO.
9. TALES OF THE SUBTLE FAE
Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees
Sob, too hard.
10. GRAND ADVENTURES
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Sword of Conan, Robert E. Howard
11. TI-JEANNE VS. BUTTERCUP
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
Abstain. Neither spoke to me.
12. LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
13. EVERYTHING SLOWLY GOING DOWNHILL
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
Abstain
14. LEARNING THAT YOU’RE UNHAPPY
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany
Hardest so far. I wouldn’t have thought I would vote against LeGuin so soon.
15. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
Abstain
16. ACROSS THE SCOPE OF HISTORY
Little, Big, John Crowley
Silverlock, John Myers Myers
Abstain
17. VICTORY BY DROPPING STUFF ON PEOPLE’S HEADS
The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
18. STRANGE DOINGS UP AT THE CASTLE
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford
I see I have a lot of reading to do.
I think there are decent and well-meaning puppies. At least some of them have been played for suckers, by Brad and then by Pox. I don’t think they’re very good at admitting that they’ve been played for suckers, certainly not publicly, some of them not even privately.
Brad for example. Still seems to be trying desperately to pretend that MZW’s tosh has literary merit.
Just a general point about voting/nominating systems. Any system whose purpose is to pick an outcome that reflects the most preferred outcome of the participants will necessarily tend towards exactly the same results as any other system (assuming the same number of final outcomes – i.e. the same number ow winners) as given outcome becomes more popular. It doesn’t matter what voting system you use when you have a really popular candidate so long as it is actually based on the principle that the most preferred outcome should win.
In terms of slates and voting systems the same applies. A really popular slate (within a category and ‘popular’ taken as a proportion of people nominating in that category) will sweep the board regardless of what voting system you use unless that voting system is insane.
I know the above is probably obvious to everybody but…well I couldn’t think of a poem and I’m still mulling over my bracket vote.
tl:dr magic doesn’t exit (sorry)
There are now nine pairings on the bracket that are quite close, including two exact ties, five more where the current difference is four votes or fewer (which is close enough to flip pretty easily), and two more where the current difference is six votes or fewer (which is close enough that I still wouldn’t try to call it.)
In several cases, works which had been behind by a DOUBLE DIGIT MARGIN are now tied, a couple of votes behind, or LEADING.
Bookies are tearing out their hair, prognosticators are eating their hats on live TV, the swingometer is on fire, etc.
@Gully Foyle: Thanks for looping back with me on Sandbaggers! I love that show as much as anything – why, dare I say it? at least as much as I love God Stalk! – so when other people discover it and it speaks to them I become very happy.
2. The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
3. Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
4. War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
6. Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
7. To Reign in Hell, Steven Brust
8. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
9. Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
11. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
13. The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
14. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
17. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
18. The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford
Lot of votes this time. Yay? Yay!
3 Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
6 The Metamorphosis, Kafka
8 Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
11 The Princess Bride, William Goldman
12 The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
15 The Last Unicorn, Peter S Beagle
17 Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
My favorite Zelazny is probably A Night in the Lonesome October. Or at least it’s the one I’ve re-read most frequently.
Kyra, your dice and I need a short, sharp talk in a dark alley.
1. EVERYONE LOVES AN ECCENTRIC WIZARD
Abstain. The one Hambly I read was so-so and I haven’t read this one.
2. FROM YOUR SMALL HOME TOWN TO THE GREAT BEYOND
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
Gaiman is excellent. Stardust is good. The Riddle-Master of Hed is extraordinary.
3. ADVENTURERS TWO
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
4. OF COURSE YOU REALIZE THIS MEANS WAR
Abstain, didn’t like either.
5. SERIOUSLY TARAN WHAT’S UP SHOULD WE SEND HELP
Abstain
6. ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
7. TEA AND CACOASTRUM
Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy
I’ve bounced off Brust.
8. 1990 VS. 1999
Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
No contest, much as I like Harry Potter.
9. TALES OF THE SUBTLE FAE
Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
I will grind your dice to dust for this one. And join those drinking in their rooms. I, who rarely drink.
10. GRAND ADVENTURES
Watership Down, Richard Adams
11. TI-JEANNE VS. BUTTERCUP
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
Again with the dead dice.
12. LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
That hurt.
13. EVERYTHING SLOWLY GOING DOWNHILL
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
14. LEARNING THAT YOU’RE UNHAPPY
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
15. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
16. ACROSS THE SCOPE OF HISTORY
Little, Big, John Crowley
17. VICTORY BY DROPPING STUFF ON PEOPLE’S HEADS
The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
OH MY GOD!!!! ~~TIE~~
18. STRANGE DOINGS UP AT THE CASTLE
The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford
.
cmm on July 31, 2015 at 6:01 am said:
They are wonderful books. I hope you enjoy them a lot. I love the relationship between Bel and Rowan. I love the way Kirstein reveals the ^^Spoiler Here.^^ I love the society and the world building and the off-hand way men and women do equal things. I love Rowan’s curiosity and how she goes about satisfying it and the method of inquiry she brings to her world. I love the concept of Steerswomen.
.
Jack Lint on July 31, 2015 at 6:28 am said:
Golf clap.
I’m not out of the woods yet and the winnowing still leaves me with lots of books I’ve read paired with books I haven’t 🙂
5. SERIOUSLY TARAN WHAT’S UP SHOULD WE SEND HELP
I vote for Dracula, Bram Stoker. Important, clever and atmospheric. A node that connects genres.
8. 1990 VS. 1999
I vote for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
I found Tigana a bit ‘meh’. An easy choice.
What I’m hoping makes it through but am not voting on:
Watership Down, Richard Adams – mythology, an epic fantasy landscape that is just farmer’s fields
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman – an utterly different take on a parallel world plus talking bears
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin – claustrophobic but enchanting
Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe – remind me to vote for this as I’ll forget tomorrow
Little, Big, John Crowley – bigger on the inside
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake – bigger on the inside and the outside
Others either I haven’t read or don’t have strong opinions on.
@Andy H., Cassy B.: (why bold no work?)
This blog likes the STRONG tag a lot more than it does the shorter B – so this text should show up bold for everyone, but this text will only show up bold for some people. Use STRONG.
@Kyra: “Personally, I don’t think the Puppies will do a single thing differently next year and in years to come whether I engage them politely, heap them with vitriol, or ignore them completely.”
I concur, and my actions will also not be governed by their ever-shifting morass of supposed victory conditions. My priority is the quality of the Hugo awards, not the Puppies’ culture war.
Clearly, he reflected, this whole elaborate “brackets” charade was designed to get him to hate a writer named Barry Hughart, and it was working well enough. But why?
Bruce, David, Camestros
I agree; it is self-evident that the smaller the overall numbers the easier it is for a slate to dominate. It’s equally self-evident that simply increasing the number of nominations won’t stop the slate obtaining an artificially high level of representation on the Hugo ballot. Nobody has ever claimed that EPH will magically fix all of this.
I’m having difficulties in understanding why people claim not to understand this.
THE COMPLEAT FANTASY BRACKET, FIRST ROUND (THE BIG ONE)
Voting for those I can, embarrassed that the number is so low.
5. SERIOUSLY TARAN WHAT’S UP SHOULD WE SEND HELP
Taran Wanderer, Lloyd Alexander
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Love both. Read the Prydain series multiple times, including this past winter, but “Dracula” is a masterpiece of storytelling. “Taran Wanderer” is my favorite of that series, but it just doesn’t hold up, writing-wise.
6. ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
Kafka is good, but seen as SFF, it doesn’t hold up for me. Much more imagination and insanity in Zelazny.
10. GRAND ADVENTURES
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Sword of Conan, Robert E. Howard
Very difficult choice, but I’ve read and re-read “Watership Down” many times. It was also the grimmest cartoon I ever saw as a child.
13. EVERYTHING SLOWLY GOING DOWNHILL
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
Read the story about the wizard with the demon tattooed on his back in an Asimov collection of short stories when I was very young, and that story has always stuck with me. Finally figured out it was a Vance story a couple years back and read all the Dying Earth material I could find. I bounced off Marquez several times in college. I should go back and re-try it.
Very bummed I can’t vote for some of those that are my all-time favorites, but, as one example, I haven’t read “Soldier in the Mist”, and knowing Gene Wolfe’s material, I can’t guarantee it’d fall below Beagle.
Stevie: I suspect that a lot of people haven’t actually thought about the extra problems a slate makes for less-voted-on categories.
I am reading “The Girl WIth All The Gifts” now and why did none of you tell me I was going to be crying in a restaurant by page 30?
Bruce Baugh: The short story category was already struggling with a very large number of scattered votes — looked like 800 people nominated their own story — and couldn’t always fill five slots because of the 5% rule (like in 2013, where only 3 short stories qualified). That’s easy pickings for a slate.
I guess it is because initially it is hard to see what EPH does mechanically and so when offered as a fix some people took it that the algorithm has a magic slate detection capacity [OK they probably didn’t actually think it was magic but still some way of spotting slated votes and making them count less]. That notion of people somehow arithmetically spotting slated nominations and throwing away ballots has been floating around for a long while [I think somebody quoted a Baen’s Bar comment about it being a thing from way, way back].
And so, I speculate that, some people thought that
1. EPH was a slate detector that throws away slate noms
2. Which encouraged some anti-EPH sentiment
3. Which fed into the general antipathy from the Puppy quarter which holds that any reaction that isn’t owned by the Puppies is a bad reaction and bad because it is bad as an axiom
4. Which when people worked out (or were patiently told) that EPH is not a magic slate detector morphed into ‘EPH doesn’t work’ [where EPH not working means EPH isn’t a magic slate detector] as a fall back position.
5. also Brian Z just trolling
and that is my theory which is a theory that is mine
Out of revenge for all the difficult choices you have put us through 🙂
It does pack a bit of an emotional wallop, doesn’t it?
What I’d rather not see become of the Hugos: http://richardthe23rd.livejournal.com/567734.html
Camestros: Sounds about right.
Mike: True, that. Clearly, we need more overtly crappy short fiction to save the field!
I’m not expecting you to defend the joke, I am expecting you to see that comparison made about MZW are not without merit or wholly uncalled for. I don’t know what kind of person MZW actually is but given how he positions himself both in his Hugo nominated work and on the internet he really isn’t in much of position to claim hurt feelings. If he genuinely thinks such things are funny then he should take his own advice and laugh such comparisons off. That he doesn’t, means that he applies one rule to his hurt feelings and a different rule to the feelings of the targets of his humor. Which means, on reflection, we do have some idea of what kind of person MZW is.
It figures he’d end this Hugo voting period as dishonestly as he started.
He reminds me of Grover Dill, the little bastard who kept egging on Skut Farkus in A Christmas Story as he bullied the whole neighborhood. Skut’s abuse target Ralphie finally loses it and fights back and suddenly Grover’s all “hey, hey, kid — I’m tellin’ my dad!” Grover suddenly developed an expectation of fair play when his pal was being pounded into hamburger.
To the short story mines everybody! We need a hundred surprising twists by COB Thursday!
The hero was actually a platypus! The alien creature was actually Charles Darwin!
New York is actually old York! Wall Street is run by Vikings!
Helicopters are an illusion! Planes actually work by training bees!
The reader is the alien! The letter z is sentient!
Longsighted people are at war with shortsighted people! Contact lenses are class traitors!
Tuesday actually follows Friday! There is a time wormhole at the start of Saturday!
Meat robots have taken over the world! Only sausage machines can save us!
The zombie apocalypse already happened! We buy deodorant to hide our rotten smell!
We invent space travel! But now nobody can travel SLOWER than the speed of light!
The vegetables are watching! The zucchini is Satan!
Coffee is a conspiracy! Baristas come from Baristaland!
The Steerswomen books are great and I hope I will be able to see another entry in the series.
THE COMPLEAT FANTASY BRACKET, FIRST ROUND (THE BIG ONE)
1. The Once and Future King, T. H. White
2. The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
3. Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
4. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
5. Abstain
6. Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
7. Abstain
8. 1990 VS. 1999
Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
9. Abstain
10. The Sword of Conan, Robert E. Howard
11. Abstain
12. The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
13. The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
14. The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany
15. The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
16. Little, Big, John Crowley
17. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
18. The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford
[RUBBER STAMP BRIAN RESPONSE]
Hey Brian, are you going to reply to Oneiros’ comment or are you going to keep hand-wringing and trying to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt)?
[/RUBBER STAMP BRIAN RESPONSE]
Also: EPH was never a silver bullet but it’s better than no rule change.
Camestros: Dear entity, enclosed find bill for one (1) shirt laundering and two (2) lens wipes, used to remove beverage previously in client’s mouth from computer monitor, to which it made an unauthorized.
Yours sincerely,
Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, and McCormick
@Kyra on July 31, 2015 at 2:56 pm said:
We wanted it to be a surprise.
Also, I’m not sure if I’m bummed because I didn’t read it during the Hugo nominating window, or relieved because it didn’t get bumped off the ballot by a slated mediocrity.
It’s just as well my iPad is in its senior years; it wasn’t worth much before I spluttered gin and tonic all over it. On the other hand, the gin was Bombay Sapphire, and I need a refill.
I’m looking forward to reading Camestros’s collected short fiction in due course…
Rub it in, why don’t you…
@Amina
Well, Euro-American is bit less loaded than white American. Europe is pretty diverse (granted, probably not as much in 1967). I’d go so far as to call them Western, and I don’t see a problem with that. It is only one colony, it’s not necessarily a blanket statement about the future.
They take on the Hindu mantle on purpose as a tool of social control (and I think they needed a “combative” religion because the planet was actively hostile), just as Sam “invents” Buddhism as a tool of resistance. That’s not even appropriation, that’s purely utilitarian.
Hinduism is the best tool because they actually have reincarnation technology, which dovetails in ways that other religions wouldn’t. They aren’t believers. The only believer, Renfrew the former chaplain, goes off alone and in the end dies in the arms of the Buddha. I imagine that Jesus couldn’t make headway when real reincarnation is commonplace. Wrong tool.
If it bothers you that “someone else’s” religion is nakedly employed in this way, there’s no real way around it (other than charm, which it has). Since I think all religions work this way anyway, it doesn’t bother me. I like that it manages to be both cynical and philosophical.