(1) STAR WARS CARTOONS. In a Yahoo! Movies piece called “New ‘Star Wars’ Cartoon Shorts Debut Online, Bringing Female Heroes in Full Force”, Marcus Errico says that Disney is releasing sixteen three-minute cartoons online featuring female Star Wars heroes, The first, “Sands of Jakku” is online and has Daisy Ridley in it.
Lucasfilm Animation has produced an initial run of 16 shorts. New shorts will arrive daily at YouTube.com/Disney ahead of their broadcast premiere on the Disney Channel on July 9. Future episodes will center on Princess Leia, Padmé Amidala, Rogue One‘s Jyn Erso, The Clone Wars fan favorite Ahsoka Tano, and Sabine Wren from Star Wars Rebels, with each installment narrated by Maz Kanata and featuring John Williams’s seminal soundtrack.
In addition to Ridley, film stars John Boyega (Finn), Felicity Jones (Jyn) and Lupita Nyong’o (Maz) will reprise their roles, as will key talent from the TV series Clone Wars and Rebels, including Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka), Tiya Sicar (Sabine), and Vanessa Marshall (Hera Syndulla).
“The movies tell these epic heroes’ journeys, big pieces of mythology,” Carrie Beck, VP of Lucasfilm Story and Animation and a producer of Forces of Destiny, told Yahoo Movies earlier this year. “For this, we thought these stories could tell those moments of everyday heroism… the kind of stories that would be appropriate over two to three minutes.”
(2) UNHOLY ROAD TRIP. The LA Times questions “Neil Gaiman on the ‘American Gods’ season finale and what’s on tap for Season 2”.
The first season of Starz’s ambitious “American Gods” ended on the brink of a godly brawl. But Neil Gaiman, an executive producer of the series and author of the book from which it is adapted, teases that his divine road trip across the secret supernatural back roads of the United States is just beginning…
Did you have an emotional reaction to the end of the first season of “American Gods?”
I have all sorts of emotions.…I’m fascinated by how involved people are. How grumpy they are about the fact that, now they got their eight episodes, they have to wait for another season. I love watching the joy of having faces that plug into these characters who were names and descriptions in the book. I’m loving seeing how people argue online. There are people out there who think Laura [Moon, played by Emily Browning] is the best female character that they’ve ever seen on television.And there are people who would pay good money to make sure that she never appears on their screen ever again, but they love the whole series apart from her.
(3) GUESS WHO JOINED GAB. GAB is the new message platform popular with Vox Day, Jon Del Arroz, and others who find Twitter hasn’t always appreciated the way they exercise their freedom of speech.
And, unexpectedly, it now is someplace you can find Brianna Wu:
Why did I join Gab? Well, joining App.net early (another Twitter competitior) was amazing for my career. It was a networking goldmine. The other part is, I’m running for congress in a part of Massachusetts with many conservatives. Listening to the other side helps me be a better candidate.
(4) SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS. Top fantastic illustrators Wayne Barlowe, Donato Giancola, Greg Manchess will demonstrate their skills and techniques in an open forum at the Society of Illustrators in New York on July 8 from Noon to 4 p.m.
Plus! Have your portfolios reviewed by renowned art directors Irene Gallo (Associate Publisher, Tor.com/ Creative Director, Tor Books) and Lauren Panepinto (Creative Director, Orbit Books/ Yen Press). 15 minutes reviews. Reservations required
Admission: $50 Non-members | $40 Members | $20 Students/ seniors (Undergrad with valid ID) Price includes the catalog from The Korshak Collection: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature.
(5) SPACE SALVATION. Sylvia Engdahl revives a philosophical debate in “Space colonization, faith, and Pascal’s Wager” at The Space Review.
In his essay “Escaping Earth: Human Spaceflight as Religion” published in the journal Astropolitics, historian Roger Launius argues that enthusiasm for space can be viewed as a religion. He focuses mainly on comparisons with the outer trappings of religion, many of which are apt, but in one place he reaches the heart of the issue. “Like those espousing the immortality of the human soul among the world’s great religions… statements of humanity’s salvation through spaceflight are fundamentally statements of faith predicated on no knowledge whatsoever.”
I think Launius may be somewhat too pessimistic in his assertion that we have no knowledge whatsoever about our ability to develop technology that will enable humans live in the hostile environment of space, but that is beside the point. It’s true that we have no assurance that the colonization of space will ensure the long-term survival of humankind. “Absent the discovery of an Earthlike habitable exoplanet to which humanity might migrate,” Launius continues, “this salvation ideology seems problematic, a statement of faith rather than knowledge or reason.” And the accessibility of such an exoplanet is questionable, since by current knowledge it will not be possible to cross interstellar space rapidly enough to achieve much migration.
It is indeed faith that underlies the conviction that traveling beyond our home world will prevent the extinction of the human race. But Launius’ presentation of this fact seems to imply that it lessens the significance of such a conviction, as if beliefs supported by mere faith were not to be taken seriously. That is far from the case, as the history of human civilization clearly shows. Most major advances have been made by people who had faith in what they envisioned before they were able to produce evidence; that was what made them keep working toward it. Having faith in the future, whether a personal future or that of one’s successors, has always been what inspires human action.
On what grounds can faith without evidence be justified? This issue was addressed by the 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal in what is known as Pascal’s Wager, now considered the first formal use of decision theory. Pascal was considering whether is rational to believe in God, but the principle he formulated has been applied to many other questions. In his words, “Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.” If on the other hand, you bet on it being false and it turns out to be true, you lose everything; thus to do so would be stupid if the stakes are high.
(6) NEXT AT KGB. “Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series” hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Karen Neuler and Genevieve Valentine on July 19 at the KGB Bar. The event starts at 7 p.m.
Karen Heuler
Karen Heuler’s stories have appeared in over 100 literary and speculative magazines and anthologies, from Conjunctions to Clarkesworld to Weird Tales, as well as a number of Best Of anthologies. She has received an O. Henry award, been a finalist for the Iowa short fiction award, the Bellwether award, the Shirley Jackson award for short fiction (twice), and a bunch of other near-misses. She has published four novels and three story collections, and this month Aqueduct Press released her novella, In Search of Lost Time, about a woman who can steal time.
Genevieve Valentine
Genevieve Valentine is an author and critic. Her most recent book is the near-future spy novel ICON; her short fiction has appeared in over a dozen Best of the Year anthologies. Her comics work includes Catwoman for DC Comics and the Attack on Titan anthology from Kodansha. Her criticism and reviews have appeared in several venues including the AV Club, the Atlantic, and The New York Times. Please ask her about the new King Arthur movie.
(7) AMBIENT TRIBUTE TO DUNE SERIES. April Larson, a Louisiana ambient/drone/noise musician, has released a tribute album to the original Dune trilogy and the other Dune-related novels on Bandcamp.
It is titled “You Stand in a Valley Between Dunes” and the album features tracks with names such as “The Fall of Ix (Core Instability Mix),” “Lady Jessica,” and “Guild Navigator (Junction).”
April Larson is the representative of a tribe of naga located along the coast of Louisiana. She translates music into sense- data… through a collection of three interlaced brains. She continues her research in oneironautic listening and regularly delivers lectures on relevant tone-clusters to beehives and ghosts.
(8) RYAN OBIT. YouTuber Stevie Ryan (1984-2017): American comedian, actress and writer; found dead by apparent suicide on 3 July, aged 33. She appeared as a version of herself in the experimental thriller John Doe: Diary of a Serial Killer (2015, but apparently never released).
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
- July 3, 1985 — Back to the Future released, features 1981 DeLorean DMC-12.
- July 3, 1985 — George Romero’s Day of the Dead is seen for the first time.
- July 3, 1996 – Independence Day was released.
(10) FACE IN A DUFF CROWD. Paul Weimer took this picture on his trip Down Under. I’ve interacted with Ian Mond online but I’ve never seen him before.
Random DUFF picture. This is the irrepressible @Mondyboy pic.twitter.com/FFZWlGvCTT
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) July 3, 2017
(11) SKIFFY AND FANTY POLL. Man, this is a hard one!
https://twitter.com/SkiffyandFanty/status/881901008187789314
(12) BEWARE DOCTOR WHO SPOILER NEWS. You’ve been warned. Tariq Kyle, in “’Doctor Who’ season 10 finale explained: Yes, that is who you think it is” on Hypable, says that the mysterious guy in the end of the Season 10 finale of Doctor Who is in fact William Hartnell (played by David Bradley) and that Hartnell and Peter Capaldi will survive until this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special, at which time Capaldi will regenerate.
Doctor Who season 10 just ended with a cliffhanger that none of us saw coming, and if you’re wondering who the mysterious new character is and where they are in the Doctor’s timeline, then check out our explanation!
Obviously, if you haven’t seen the season 10 finale of Doctor Who yet, beware of huge spoilers. If you continue on and you don’t want to be spoiled, then ¯\_(?)_/¯.
(13) CHILL FACTOR. Reason TV has put out a video called “Mark Hamill v. Autographed Memorabilia: The Revenge of the Dark Side,” which is mostly about Bill Petrocelli of the San Francisco-based chain Book Passage and how his company will be affected by the California autograph law. The impetus for the law was Mark Hamill’s complaining about fake Hamill autographs, which caught the ear of the legislator who had the law introduced.
(14) WHAT AUNT MAY HAS TO SAY. This is not your uncle’s Aunt May: “WATCH: Marisa Tomei on making Aunt May cooler than Peter in Spider-Man: Homecoming”.
What is different is Aunt May herself. Let’s face it, Tiger: May has never been cooler than she is now, as portrayed by Oscar-winning actress Marisa Tomei. She’s much younger than she’s ever been portrayed in the comics or any of the previous Spider-Man feature films. The fact that the age difference between Peter and May is much less adds a new dynamic to their relationship … but, thankfully, not even a hint of sexual tension. (Hey, the actress brought it up, not me!)
SYFY WIRE talked with Tomei about how her Aunt May still worries about Peter, primarily about the fact that he doesn’t seem to have a social life. We also talked about whether May trusts Tony Stark as Peter’s mentor and what she wants to see in an Aunt May action figure.
(15) WHAT’S MY LINE? Meanwhile, back in the Sunday funnies: “Spider-Man and His Inker: Wrists Still Going Strong a Half-Century Later”. Joe Sinnott in his studio; several photos.
Joe Sinnott says spider webs drive him crazy, even though he has been drawing them for over 50 years for one of the world’s most famous superheroes.
“They’ve got to be so accurate, and they’ve got to be the same all the time,’’ he said. “It takes me about three days to do two pages.”
At 90, Mr. Sinnott still brings to life the action tales spun by Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man, continuing a collaboration begun in 1950 when Mr. Sinnott first went to work for Mr. Lee at what later became Marvel Comics. “Imagine having the same boss for 67 years,” Mr. Sinnott said. He added that they should be in the Guinness World Records book.
With pen and brush, he keeps Spider-Man flying over New York City, soaring from skyscraper to skyscraper, in a never-ending battle against supervillains. “It just takes time putting all those lines, and the tiny spider on Spider-Man’s chest, in such a small space,” Mr. Sinnott said.
(16) WEB REVIEW. The BBC says the new Spider-Man is “fun”.
The makers of Spider-Man: Homecoming have remembered something that the makers of almost every other recent superhero film have forgotten. They’ve remembered that if you’re going to tell a story about someone in a skin-tight costume who can throw cars around like frisbees, then it should probably be fun for all the family. That’s not to say that superhero movies can’t be used to lecture us on the international arms trade, or to examine why allies fall out and turn against each other. But sometimes they should return to their comic-book roots, and offer snazzy, buoyant entertainment for children as well as for their parents – and that’s what the latest Spider-Man film does.
Chip Hitchcock sent the link with a comment: “The story complains that the ‘gauche, geekily enthusiastic youngster with a pubescent squeak of a voice’ isn’t true to the comics; does anyone remember what Parker was like in the very early comics, when he was still in high school (as in the movie)?”
(17) SUNK COST. A first-class ticket to see the Titanic: “The ‘merman’ facing a Titanic mission”
Next year he will be taking dozens of paying passengers down about 12,500ft (nearly 2.4 miles or 3.8km) to the wreck of the Titanic, 370 miles south-southeast of Newfoundland.
OceanGate, the US firm behind the dives, says more people have been into space or climbed Mount Everest than have visited the Titanic’s final resting place.
The firm stresses that it is a survey expedition and not a tourist trip.
Over six weeks from next May, David will make repeated dives in a new carbon fibre submersible called Cyclops 2, designed to withstand depths of up to 4,000m.
On each trip to the bottom of the ocean, he will take three “mission specialists” – passengers who are underwriting the expedition – and a “content expert” with a good working knowledge of the wreck
The expedition doesn’t come cheap. Each one of the 54 people who have signed up for the deep dive is paying $105,129 for the privilege.
(18) LINEUP, SIGN UP, AND RE-ENLIST TODAY. The Washington Post’s Steve Hendrix asks “There are already four-hour lines at Walt Disney World’s new ‘Avatar’-themed attraction. Does Pandora live up to the hype?” And he answers that the Avatar-based “Pandora” section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a “trippy, tropical” and “an authentically immersive land that soothes even as it dazzles,” but prepared to wait four hours to get on the two rides in the section.
The Disney iteration, though, takes place generations after the miners have been driven out (hopefully with ample job-retraining for these victims of the War on Unobtanium) and the peacefully gigantic blue Na’vi of Pandora are busy restoring it to space-age splendor. That ingenious conceit allowed planners to combine dystopian ruins (the colossal exo-armor battle suit from the movie’s climax sits rusting outside the gift shop) with lush streambeds and flowering vines.
(19) SUBTRACTION BY DIVISION. Lela E. Buis, in “Does the Hugo really represent fandom?”, totes up the racial and sexual minorities among this year’s Hugo-nominated fiction authors only to find a problem with this diversity. And what is that problem?
So, what are the chances that SFF fandom as a whole would elect this ballot? Remember that taste is never random, but with equal participation I’d expect the SFF readership demographics should roughly match the ballot for a popular award. Assuming that everyone participates, of course.
What does that mean? If the right people were voting for the Hugos the list of winners would look like the Dragon Awards? Is that what this is code for?
(20) APPROPRIATION V. EXCHANGE. K. Tempest Bradford wrote a commentary NPR that declares “Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible”.
…Cultural appropriation can feel hard to get a handle on, because boiling it down to a two-sentence dictionary definition does no one any favors. Writer Maisha Z. Johnson offers an excellent starting point by describing it not only as the act of an individual, but an individual working within a “power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.”
That’s why appropriation and exchange are two different things, Johnson says — there’s no power imbalance involved in an exchange. And when artists appropriate, they can profit from what they take, while the oppressed group gets nothing.
I teach classes and seminars alongside author and editor Nisi Shawl on Writing the Other, and the foundation of our work is that authors should create characters from many different races, cultures, class backgrounds, physical abilities, and genders, even if — especially if — these don’t match their own. We are not alone in this. You won’t find many people advising authors to only create characters similar to themselves. You will find many who say: Don’t write characters from minority or marginalized identities if you are not going to put in the hard work to do it well and avoid cultural appropriation and other harmful outcomes. These are different messages. But writers often see or hear the latter and imagine that it means the former….
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for some of these stories and the fried chicken. Other story thanks goes to Rob Thornton, Dann, Steve Green, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, and Cat Eldridge. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]
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First! Gosh wow! Oboyoboy!
10)
Yay I made a scroll item!
As I lamented on twitter, the backwash of light in a dim restaurant made photographing him tough, so I did my best with the raw file to get it to decency. It was a kitschy trailer park burger joint, hence me tinting the black and white as I did. Burgers were good, though.
Ian didn’t attend Continuum, sadly (although his podcaster partner in crime Kirstyn McDermott did). So I got to meet the two of them…and I’ve photographed the both of them, just not at the same time (as I did with Galactic Suburbia).
Still chugging away on photos and the actual text of the DUFF report, as me leaking this picture indicates…
5) Just wanted to say that Sylvia Engdahl’s Children Of The Star trilogy was a big fave when I was in high school and it was highly resistant to the Suck Fairy last time I read it.
(19) I’m sure none of us has any idea what that’s code for, right?
Fifth!
And 19 seems to assume that women will only vote for women, men will only vote for men, Asians will only vote for Asians… which is just silly talk. Fen will vote for stories they like. I don’t know the demographics of many of the authors I read, and I don’t care. If it’s initials, is it automatically a women? If someone’s last name is Lee are they Asian or from Virginia? (or an Asian from Virginia?) <wry> Honestly, I think Buis hasn’t thought this through. I’ll vote for stories I like no matter who wrote them.
19) I’d like to think that people would expect me to read, like and vote for more than fellow cis white men on an award ballot.
Maybe Ms. Buis is assuming that all cancels out somehow, so that the identity of the writer “washes out” , so that if 31% of SFF works are by white men, they would statistically get 31% of Hugo nominations.
There are an amazing number of tags on that blog post. It’s clear to me that she strongly wants her argument to be seen and read..
For (19) there really is a surprising imbalance between male and female authors in the four fiction categories this year. Omitting the three puppy entries, out of 21 organic nominees there are only three people who were “assigned male at birth” for a total of 14%. That large an imbalance (either way) has only 15 chances in 10,000 of happening, so it’s statistically significant. (Two-tailed binomial distribution assuming 50% is “correct.”)
One might argue that it simply reflects a difference in quality of authors at the moment rather than having anything to do with how the Hugos are nominated. However, when I look at the most-recommended short fiction by reviewers, I find 9 out of 15 or 60% were male. This is not statistically significant. That is, 50% is a very reasonable number to expect. (I can’t test novels since I don’t have that data.)
I remember in the past seeing that some people had posted saying that they were only reading and recommending stories written by female authors, in an effort to correct the imbalance toward male authors that existed for so long. If enough people did that, and if most of the rest read equal numbers of works by male and female authors, then the nomination process could produce this result. I’m not sure what else could.
If that’s correct, it would actually be good news because it would mean that the long-standing bias against female authors has been broken. I’d want to see something similar next year before inferring too much from these numbers, but people ought to start entertaining the idea that this particular fight may have been won.
That Tempest Bradford piece i found really problematic. Not because I necessarily disagree with the premise she’s laying out, but because the whole thing comes off as a promo for the Writing The Other class she teaches, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If she wasn’t all, “This is a terrible thing, and for $199.95 I can teach you not to do it!”, it might be a good piece. Instead, it’s sullied by its crass shilling.
(3) I’ve been on Gab for sometime but I really wouldn’t recommend it. The net effect of being a platform for people who think Twitter is out to get them is exactly what you might expect it to be.
(3) I was under the impression that the “other side” frequently told Brianna exactly what they think. Repeatedly, without her needing to seek it out.
(11) Battlefield Earth. You can have fun with the others, but this is hit-you-over-the-head stupid.
(12) I found this part delightful and look forward to the happenings.
(17) Not a tourist trip. Riiiiight. Suuure.
(18) Four hours? No way.
(19) That is some serious dog whistles.
C4c
@Greg: I’d say I probably still read more male than female authors, as do most fen, because more published works are by men, and certainly more of those who get the buzz/good reviews are by men.
So that the fact that this year’s Hugo finalists skew so strongly female would seem to mean that women simply are producing higher-quality stuff that sticks in people’s minds.*
Dramatic Presentation remains extremely dudely, though; of 26 named people, 2 are women, none in BDP Short.
@JD: It was pretty heavy on the “I am the one who can teach you. Me. And my business partner. Give me $200.” Felt like one of those magazine ads that’s printed to look like a real article with “Advertisement” in tiny print. Try This One Weird Trick Not To Culturally Appropriate!
*(I think you might be miscounting the AMAB; what matters more would seem to be the currently regarded as male, though that might be a wash. And even the Pups managed to get one woman in there.)
(19) SUBTRACTION BY DIVISION.
It’s an interesting question to ask, but without data it’s just speculation.
Mike said:
Lela E. Buis didn’t say this so it’s probably drawing too long a bow to equate the Dragon Awards with “the whole of fandom”. The Hugos represent “the whole of fandom” as much as the Dragon Awards. IMO neither represent “the whole of fandom” but are both different subsets of “the whole of fandom”.
Buis said:
We do see white male SFF writers on the ballots, and not just now & then. I also find Buis’ thinking overly US-centric, as if only USAns read/write SFF when that is evidently not so.
It’s also borderline insulting to suggest that voters will only vote for works created by their own gender/ethnicity. That would limit me to nominating & voting for Malaysian Chinese Kiwi creators only, which is clearly tosh. It’s about the quality of the works, not the ethnicity/gender/race/nationality of the creators.
19) And yet if Scalzi had been on the ballot they’d still be throwing fits.
(12) Doctor Who spoiler news
At the risk of sounding like an anal-retentive Doctor Who nerd:
Saying that the character is “William Hartnell” is like saying that next year’s Star Wars movie will star Alden Ehrenreich as Harrison Ford. The character is “the First Doctor”, who has been played by Hartnell, Richard Hurndall, and (sort of) Peter Cushing. Four years ago David Bradley played Hartnell playing the First Doctor; now he’s going to be playing the First Doctor directly.
19) Then compare with the goodread awards or something. And remember that not all readers/writers are americans.
(19) I always assumed that if most of the Hugo finalists were on the Locus and Nebula finalist lists too, that it probably has something to do with the quality, not that there some some sort of diversity thing going on.
(19) Kee-ripes, Lela R. Buis is tiresome. There’s a wealth of good stuff on the ballot, almost back to what a Hugo ballot should be, and she’s complaining about a dearth of white males?? For frak’s sake.
(3) Good for her, if she can stand it and keep the sewage from sticking to her brain. There is a point to keeping track of what exclusionist or eliminationist groups (in the widest possible sense) say amongst themselves, and not only what they put into the public discourse. Even if you run the danger of being infected. (Having ready access to sounding boards is necessary. I believe Brianna Wu has considered this.)
(16) I think Chip Hitchcock misrepresents BBC’s review here. The full quote from the review is “More of a Spider-Boy than a Spider-Man, he is portrayed, charmingly, as a gauche, geekily enthusiastic youngster with a pubescent squeak of a voice. And while that characterisation isn’t quite true to the comics, it immediately feels definitive.”
Given that Marvel’s characterisation of Spiderman has been all over the map, but from what I remember from the origin story (whatever the version of it I read), Peter Parker was rather self-centered and more focused than enthusiastic. In any case, I view the review in this specific case is more “this is slightly different from the comics, but it’s handled well”.
(19) To me, the question is not to have the Hugos represent the whole of the SFF fandom (which would be nigh impossible to get), but to reward and celebrate the best, the most interesting, and the most ground-breaking works within science fiction and fantasy.
If a certain year manages to exclude a certain group it’s not necessarily a cause of concern, unless it becomes entrenched and sticks for the coming years.
(19) SUBTRACTION BY DIVISION.
How bizarre.
Based on Buis’ argument — that the demographics of the authors of Finalist works should align with the demographics of Hugo voters — we are apparently only allowed to nominate works by authors whose demographics match our own, since that is the only method by which one could expect the demographics of the finalist authors to match the demographics of fandom.
It’s a good thing we’re all nominating and voting for what we like, regardless of the author’s gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
And it’s very sad and pathetic that Buis doesn’t think people should do that. 🙄
19)
All of the non-puppy Hugo nominees in the fiction categories this year have been books/stories that got a lot of buzz. Plus, there is considerable overlap with the shortlists for other genre awards. So maybe 2016 simply was a strong year for women and writers of colour. Also, Lela E. Buis completely ignores the rest series category where we have three white women facing off against four white men.
Besides, which 2016 SFF novel by a white male author which got a lot of attention is conspicuous by its absence on the Hugo shortlist? Cause I can only think of one or two and those will probably show up on the longlist.
Note that not only is she ridiculously US-centric, she’s extra ridiculously US-centric, considering the con’s in Helsinki this year. By that measure, shouldn’t most of the nominees be Finnish, or at least European? I don’t think any of them are in the 4 written fiction categories except Mieville and Nina Allan, or many in other categories save Gaiman, Aaronovich, and the Doctor Who and Black Mirror guys, who are Brits. Some artists are European, I think.
If we’re going strictly by percentages, shouldn’t a bunch of the nominees be men from India and/or China? There’s only one of those!
Surely she’s not suggesting we ought to nominate white American men just because of their gender and ethnicity, instead of on the quality of their writing?
Cora: which 2016 SFF novel by a white male author which got a lot of attention is conspicuous by its absence on the Hugo shortlist?
I can only think of a few real possibilities: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett, Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson… maybe Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of the Earth and Sky (which I started, but put down pretty quickly, because meh). James S. A. Corey’s Babylon’s Ashes has been quite successful saleswise, but it does not stand well on its own, nor does Dave Hutchinson’s Europe in Winter, although it is an excellent finale to the trilogy.
I think that Nick Wood’s Azanian Bridges would have been more widely touted if it had had a U.S. release.
Neither Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad nor Ben H. Winters’ Underground Airlines is terribly SFFnal, which I think will hamper a book’s chances in the Hugos.
(I’m leaving off Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station, because it’s a collection, not a novel.)
Colson Whitehead is black, so he doesn’t count as one of the poor oppressed white menz. Lavie Tidhar’s not American.
And “James SA Corey”, as we all know, is in fact partly Hispanic.
Ah, yes, sorry about going outside Buis’ remit. 😉
I will note that she does not actually say anything about Americans.
City of Blades and Europe in Winter were two of those I thought of. Maybe Revenger by Alasdair Reynolds as well.
And Underground Railroad wouldn’t satisfy Lela E. Buis anyway, since Colson Whitehead is male, but not white.
I actually forgot about that bit. So that makes the best series ballot three white women, three white men and one Hispanic man. Still more than enough to satisfy Buis.
19) No, it doesn’t represent fandom and won’t ever, considering the awards themselves are so incredibly US-centric (there’s a reason for that, but that’s another topic), largely skewering perceptions of marginalized identities and culture through a USian lens, something the article (ironically) does in full spades. There are thousands of UK-based fans whose taste and styles differ very largely than from the US-ian crowds, (leaning a lot towards high fantasy) and no doubt we’d see that more if the Hugos represented fandom. But, as the article’s existence proves, it does not, and fandom is US-based as ever…
20) …which follows up very nicely with the next article. Tempest Bradford, the American, acting as Arbiter of All Things Race and Culture, deciding whose opinion is deemed worthy and who should shut up, because we can pay $200 for her classes (which she shamelessly plugged) to be told the way she thinks we should write (as long as US-ians say it’s okay). What an absolute and complete surprise.
Also, it’s rather amusing that she completely dismisses and slams Malik’s article (which I found to be food for thought), but draws on the excellent examples he uses, and then utilizes them for her own argument, even though she refuses to link his.
@David Goldfarb: (12) At the risk of muddying the waters even more, Phil Sandifer observes that William Hartnell didn’t even really play “the first Doctor”. He was certainly the first actor to play the Doctor, but that early version doesn’t necessarily reflect the later evolution of the character, notably once Troughton took over.* In many ways, the Doctor wasn’t even the “hero” of the initial version of the show in the way that he became later. Plus (and far more pedantically), “the Doctor” wasn’t the first until the second came along – a bit like the first monarch or Pope of a particular name only retrospectively becoming “I”. (Then again, we don’t really know much about the Doctor’s early history in terms of whether that version was indeed the first incarnation; there is conflicting internal circumstantial evidence.)
*indeed, Moffat may be using this as an excuse to provide an “in-show” explanation for at least some of that distinct character evolution. Because he likes doing things like that.
Be interesting if the Doctor’s regenerations are ultimately cyclical and from now on he’ll be played by a series of actors playing versions of the earlier incarnations.
@Jeremy Szal There are thousands of UK-based fans whose taste and styles differ very largely than from the US-ian crowds, (leaning a lot towards high fantasy)
Are you saying that UK based convention-going fan tastes lean more to high fantasy? Because that isn’t my experience. It isn’t reflected in say the BSFA Awards shortlists or even in the British Fantasy Awards.
12) I must admit, I’ve been watching Doctor Who for far too long, since it didn’t even occur to me that the “mysterious character” might have been meant to be a mystery. “Who is this person dressed as the original Doctor, talking like the original Doctor, played by the actor who played the existence-challenged William Hartnell who played the original Doctor? Surely, ’tis a most perplexing enigma!”
(Also, dressed as the original Doctor in “The Tenth Planet”, and wandering through a snowy landscape… which makes me wonder if the time line has actually wrapped around to the end of “The Tenth Planet” and the Christmas special will start at the South Pole in that far-off futuristic year of 1986….)
(19) I can’t speak for all white males (we’re not a monoculture) but I don’t really mind that the ballot this year has very few white males on it. What I care more about is: are the stories good? And by hell, of what I’ve read so far, at least, they are!
Yes, the early Hartnell stories are much more ensemble pieces, with the focus on the companions – in particular, William Russell as Ian Chesterton – as much as the Doctor.
The show’s been pretty consistent, in general, about the Hartnell version being the first one – with one exception: the “mind-bending” contest in the Tom Baker story “The Brain of Morbius”. In this bit, the Doctor is engaged in a sort of mental duel with ex-Time Lord Morbius, who seems to be winning, and who is ranting about driving the Doctor “back to your beginnings” … on a screen, we see images of the Tom Baker Doctor, then the third Doctor, then the second, then the first (or, at least, the Hartnell version), and then a series of other, different faces. Which is the only thing I know of that suggests there were regenerations before Hartnell… but we don’t really know how this “mind-bending” thing works in general, or how this particular contest was going. It’s entirely possible that this was some deception on the part of the Doctor, a kind of mental judo that made Morbius pursue illusory, phantom pasts until his brain (literally) blew a fuse. This, at any rate, seems to be the general fan-canon explanation.
(It might be interesting to think about others, in the context of the show. At the start of “Destiny of the Daleks”, Romana regenerates from Mary Tamm to Lalla Ward, and “tries on” several different bodies and faces before settling on Lalla Ward… might the first Doctor have done something similar, at some point in his life? Presumably he wasn’t born looking like a fifty-seven-year-old William Hartnell, after all.)
I have heard a rumour that the portrayer of an earlier incarnation now regrets having given up the role and would be up for a return. There’s also the appearance of Tom Baker in the 50th anniversary story “trying on an old look” and the repeated “I don’t want to change” from Capaldi…
20) I do not agree with K. Tempest Bradford. I think her way would lead to cultural segregation. I do think that artists should be allowed to find inspiration where it exists, even if it is an Elvis Presley, The Clash or Peter Seeger finding them outside their own culture. Or making covers of others music.
The problem wasn’t that they played covers or got inspiration from others (i.e appropriation). The problem was that the original artists didn’t first get the chance to play themselves. Or that their contributions and origin wasn’t acknowledged. But I’m not sure that’s only about the individual artist. It is more about choosing the easy target. And going against individuals when the whole system is wrong.
(12) “we were caught off guard”
Then their memories are too short to remember how the previous episode began: with Twelve emerging from the TARDIS into a snow-covered landscape, glowing with regeneration energy but resisting the process. I agree that the location is probably the South Pole during The Tenth Planet, but that raises the question of how the black-hole non-armored Cybermen got to Mondas. Maybe a newly-regenerated Missy and her TARDIS are involved…
My biggest gripe, frankly, is that I’m getting sick of the whole “the Doctor regenerates at Christmas” thing, feeding into the “everybody knows who the new actor is and exactly when he’ll step into the role months in advance” shtick. Let’s have a good, old-fashioned mid-season shock of a regeneration next time, with an embargo on the casting news and any curious onlookers being fooled into thinking the new Doctor’s a new companion or something. You know… an actual surprise on the screen. Wouldn’t that be novel?
@lurkertype, @Greg:
If I recall my Spreadsheet Of Read Stuffs for 2016 correctly, I think I had close to a 50/50 breakdown between “book written by female author” and “… by male …”, I don’t recall if I did explicitly break down the gender stats for “… that is eligible for the 2017 Hugo Awards”, but my feeling is that it skews more female than the “stuffs I’ve read” as a whole.
Yes, it started, a couple of years ago, as an intentional “try to skew teh gender balance of the set of authors I read”. It is no longer something I spend explicit effort to skew, what with the whole “it’s easy to keep buying authors you’re already reading”.
I’ll have a quick eyeball of the Hugo breakout when I’m next where I can check the numbers and try to remember to report back, because now I’m curious.
And of course I was intending to post: “Once more unto the pixel, my scrolls, once more.”
(5) On the one hand, interesting article. On the other hand, I do wonder whether anything that isn’t a particular kind of angry nihilism can be defined as a religion under those definitions. We all have faith in something, for a wide value of somethings.
(19) Damn. The “Make Fandom White Again” is getting pretty transparent, isn’t it. I clicked that link and half the dogs on the block started barking.
(20) How generous; it requires only that we purchase.
Btw, are we going to sponsor a bench this year too for W75?
I’ve never even seen the original run of Doctor Who other than dimly-remembered episodes run late at night on PBS (just before Jack Horkheimer’s Star Hustler and station sign-off) and even I thought it was pretty bloody obvious that it was supposed to be the 1st Doctor.
Although the Hurndall Doctor in THE FIVE DOCTORS is so different than the original Hartnell portrayal, I do like him. That said, I loved Bradley in An Adventure in Space and Time, and I seem to recall people at the time saying aloud that if they wanted to do a crossover with the 1st Doctor in the show’s run, he’d be perfect to bring back. Mission Accomplished!
19 female, 20 male, authors read in 2016.
56 books by female, and 42 by male.
Of those 98 books, 10 were eligible for the novel Hugo, all with different authors, of which 5 were female, and 5 male.
If, that is, I read the spreadsheet correctly.
Greg: Why use “assigned male at birth” rather than simply “men” (as far as I know all the nominees are adults)? I hope not for the (cynical) reason that it makes the results seem more meaningful if you count only men who were AMAB in coming up with your numbers. Perhaps relevantly, I have no idea whether any of the women on this year’s Hugo ballot were AMAB, because online bios don’t usually mention whether someone is cis or trans. It’s easy to assume that everyone is cisgender unless you have evidence to the contrary, but that’s like assuming that everyone whose race you don’t know is white, everyone is heterosexual unless you specifically know we’re not, and so on.
20) APPROPRIATION
I frequently find myself disagreeing with Tempest Bradford, but I think some of the commenters here are being a little unfair to her. Yes, in the linked article she does mention the classes she offers–once. But when writing a commentary on X, it isn’t unfair to mention that one deals with X on a professional basis. And a sloppy count of the article yields 6 links to free sources of information on appropriation issues, one of which is a page of links to still other sources. Someone who wanted it could get a whole lot of education from that article for free.
Greg: Why use “assigned male at birth” rather than simply “men” (as far as I know all the nominees are adults)? I hope not for the (cynical) reason that it makes the results seem more meaningful if you count only men who were AMAB in coming up with your numbers.
The weird thing is that you get the same numbers however you count people, because to the best of my knowledge, there are exactly two trans authors among the Hugo finalists, one man and one woman. So why even bring up how people were assigned at birth if it makes no difference to anthing? (No, wait, I can guess …)
19) Just for the heck of it, I dug out my own nominations ballot… it’s not nearly as much of a sausage-fest as Lela Buis would evidently expect, given that I am extremely white and about as cis-het-male as they come. But there are plenty of the usual suspects on it – N.K. Jemisin, Alyssa Wong, Yoon Ha Lee….
It’s almost as if, I dunno, women and/or minorities can write good stories or something.
There’s also a small but noticeable minority where I just don’t know the gender or ethnic origin of the nominees… yes, yes, we live in an information age, I could have looked this stuff up, but the fact is I didn’t, I just thought, “eh, that looks like good stuff, and I’ve got a slot open on my ballot there, in it goes,” without thinking about the demographics of the creator. This might be a good sign; it suggests that people like me, drifting rudderless on the sea of SF, are nonetheless drifting in a more diverse direction….
Novels read in 2016: 101 (2 were collections)
47 Female, 55 Male (1 was FM co-authors)
Novellas read in 2016: 60
27 Female, 33 Male
2016 Novels read: 59
34 Female, 25 Male
2016 Novellas read: 32
12 Female, 20 Male
@lurkertype. I think her joining makes sense; they all went somewhere else, making it all that much more likely that the platform will be used to gin something up. This way, Wu and team will have an opportunity for early warning and the ability to capture the raw data associated.