(1) AT THE CORE. James Davis Nicoll returns with a new list: “Twenty Core Speculative Fiction Mysteries Every True SF Fan Should Have On Their Shelves”. Here are the first four —
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
White Cat by Holly Black
The Mountains of Mourning by Lois Bujold
Tea from an Empty Cup by Pat Cadigan
(2) YOUR GUIDE TO MOUNT TBR. Gabino Iglesias devotes his LitReactor column to explaining “10 Things Only Hardcore Bookworms Do”.
- Buy the same book more than once
We buy books because they are great and smell good and feel right and occupy empty space and they’re our friends. “I don’t have this edition.” “This cover is too amazing to pass up.” “This one is signed.” “This is the one I had when I was a kid.” “This is only a dollar!” “I’ll keep it around and give it away to someone later.” I’ve even used this one to rationalize the purchase of a third edition of Langston Hughes’ The Dream Keeper and Other Poems: “I mean, I have two editions already, but this one’s illustrated!” Yeah, hardcore bookworms will come up with amazing reasons why they “need” to buy a book they already have. On the other hand, we will also buy the same book twice by accident. It’s there and it’s affordable…and we’re not going to drive home and look through our piles for it: we’re going to buy it again.
- Judge people by their books/shelves
I know this one is tough to swallow. I also know some of you will debate that you’re better human beings than me and you are above and beyond judging others. Well, fuck it, I’m being brutally honest here and being judgmental has kept me alive this far, so I’m gonna keep doing it. If you invite me to your house and give me a tour of it and I don’t see a single book, I kinda want to get out of there because who the hell doesn’t own at least a couple of books? A house without books is like a body without a soul. If you do have some books, us bookworms will find a way to sniff them out and study them. Then, silently and with a smile on our faces, we will judge you. John Waters said “If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them,” and I think most bookworms agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. Likewise, we will probably change the way we feel about you based on the quality of the books on your shelves. For me, the books you own/read and the way you treat animals are the two factors that lie at the top of the list. You read good shit and you’re good to animals, I’ll get down with you even if you’re a mercenary. Is this horrible? Yes. Is this unfair because “good books” is a subjective term? Yes. Does it matter to us? Nope. Will we change or stop doing it? Yeah…no.
(3) ACT CLEANUP NEEDED. Kisha Bertrand delivers a powerful rant about how trolls are coddled on a certain convention’s OFFICIAL Facebook group: “Shame on you, Dragon Con”.
Earlier today, a black girl posted this Io9 article in the group as she was excited about the movie adaptation and release of Black Panther along with the plethora of cosplay opportunities available to people of color. The post was meant to be positive and celebratory, but we all know what happens when black people get together in excitement of something that positively highlights us in any form of media. Yep. Angry and fragile white folx with their exclamations of, “But what about me? Why does it have to be about race?” and my all time favorite, “You only like it because it’s about black people.” Racist trolls begin crawling out of the woodwork spewing bile and nonsense to whoever will give them the time of day. I mean, god forbid PoC (“people of color” for those of you asleep in the back) are excited about a film involving superheroes who look like us and are at the forefront of the storyline.
Trolls are trolls and we all know they live to stir the pot and poke to get a rise out of people. Most of us know not to feed the trolls. In most cases we look the other way. I tend to bite my tongue because I don’t have the energy to challenge and educate bigots via social media. I’m fucking tired, y’all. I’m SOOO goddamn tired, BUT, there are those instances where trolling goes too far which is what happened today in the OFFICIAL Dragon Con Facebook group.
What started out as ignorant incompetence from some random redneck, turned into comments that were not only racist, but anti-semitic, transphobic, ableist and misogynist. It got to a point where it was no longer a matter of ignoring the troll. This guy was threatening people – a group of con goers who will be gathered in my city for Dragon Con in less than two months. People were pissed, myself included. I mean, the racist did refer to me as a monkey when I challenged him. A monkey… how clever.
Regardless of the troll, serious conversations were happening on this post. Some people were actually listening and being educated by PoC putting in the emotional labor to teach them. To be honest, some of these conversations were actually kind of awesome. The majority of white folx were celebrating the film and some of the more stubborn lot were legit backing off and LISTENING. Any PoC will tell you that getting white folx to stop making it about them and actually listen when we talk about our experiences is a pretty big deal. We’re unpacking some complicated stuff in these conversations.
Of course the troll wasn’t having it. He kept on pushing and taunting, reaching into the collection of shitty memes he was no doubt waiting to unleash at the right time – some of which were direct threats to Black and Jewish people specifically. This went on for several hours, all while members of the group were reporting this guy to not only the moderators of the OFFICIAL Dragon Con Facebook group, but also sending emails to the Dragon Con staff via dragoncon.org. Strength in numbers right? I was so proud of my extended nerd family of all backgrounds joining together to vanquish the evil troll. We were all just waiting on the moderators of the OFFICIAL Dragon Con Facebook group to swoop in, swing the ban hammer, and let us continue with our conversations and celebration of Black Panther and black cosplay. That was, in fact, the whole point of the post to begin with.
I guess banning the troll would have been too challenging for the moderators of the OFFICIAL Dragon Con Facebook group because what did they do? Rather than simply remove this terrible waste of human flesh from the group, they deleted the post in its entirety. They essentially swept the issue under the rug AND KEPT THE FUCKING RACIST PIECE OF SHIT TROLL IN THE GROUP.
What makes this terribly tragic (aside from the obvious) is this is NOT the first time such an instance has occurred in the OFFICIAL Dragon Con Facebook group. They deleted posts and conversations that came up after the 2016 convention when people wanted to discuss the costumes done in poor taste (e.g. blackface and the burning world trade center towers) and what we as a community could do to stop it. People wanted to discuss what they saw at Dragon Con in the OFFICIAL Dragon Con Facebook group because isn’t that what the fuck the group is for?!?! When members asked why they weren’t allowed to openly discuss these topics, one of the moderators (there are seven of them, five guys, two women, ALL WHITE) simply said, “You’re giving these people the attention they were looking for by discussing it. We just don’t have time to moderate and read through every post.” So your solution is to silence people in the community and ignore it? You don’t have time? Well golly gee, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do as a moderator of a group? MODERATE?!?! If you don’t have the time, maybe don’t volunteer to be a moderator of a group of over 12k members. I dunno. Just using a bit of logic here.
I guess we can expect any post about Black Panther and/or the celebration of black cosplay to eventually be deleted. Posts such as these will almost always bring out the racist assholes who want to stir the pot…because racism and transphobia and anti-semitism and ableism and misogyny sure are fucking funny, aren’t they? Rather than cut away the rot, you slap a band-aid over it and let it continue to fester because, “you don’t have the time”…
This was Dragon Con’s response:
(4) SPECULATIVE POET LAUREATE. The SPECPO blog announced that poet Tracy K. Smith, whose collection, Life on Mars won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, has been named the Poet Laureate of the United States.
Here’s an excerpt of the New York Times’ article:
Now the Library of Congress has named Ms. Smith its new poet laureate, the nation’s highest honor in that field. With the appointment, announced on Wednesday, Ms. Smith will take on a role held by some of the country’s most revered poets, among them Rita Dove, Louise Glück, Billy Collins, W. S. Merwin, Charles Simic and most recently, Juan Felipe Herrera.
Ms. Smith often plays with genre in her work and says it serves as “a distancing device.” Some of the verses in her 2007 collection, “Duende,” were inspired by westerns. Her 2011 collection, “Life on Mars,” which won the Pulitzer, is inflected with dystopian themes and tropes from science fiction. Many of the poems are meditations on cosmic affairs, like the incomprehensible vastness of space and humanity’s efforts to understand our place in the universe, but the collection is also anchored in the personal. The escapist, fantastical themes in the collection are blended with intimate reflections: mournful, elegiac verses about the death of her father, an engineer who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope.
“I was thinking about loss, and thinking as someone who was about to become a parent,” said Ms. Smith, who lives in Princeton with her husband, Raphael Allison, and their three children. “The distancing device of science fiction was helpful, and it changed the metaphors.”
(5) TODAY IN HISTORY
- July 6, 1990 — George Jetson took Jane and the rest of his gang from the boob tube up onto the silver screen as Jetsons: The Movie.
(6) BOOTS ON THE FACE. In keeping with the great tradition of Vice Presidential speeches about the space program, Mike Pence has made an Orwellian-sounding promise:
Vice President Mike Pence vowed Thursday to make space exploration a priority for the U.S., including the conquering of another planet.
“Our nation will return to the Moon and we will put American boots on the face of Mars,” Pence said during remarks at the Cape Canaveral headquarters in Florida.
(7) KICKOFF. Sports news blog SBNation.com is doing a serial science fiction story (July 5 through 15) about “What football will look like in the future”. The far future.
Danny Sichel sent the link with this endorsement: “Jon Bois is doing some incredible things with the medium, and I say this as someone who really doesn’t care about football.”
The whole thing was kind of dizzying to me – you’ve been warned.
(8) BRAVE NEW WORLD. Visiting the real site behind The Technicolor Time Machine: “The first European settlement in the New World”.
Twenty minutes later, I continued on my journey; it was another 80km to L’Anse Aux Meadows National Historic Site. Stepping out of the car, my nostrils filled with the crisp, briny sea air carried in by a breeze that rippled across the grassy landscape.
It is here, on the northern tip of Newfoundland, that a significant moment in human migration and exploration took place.
In the year 1000, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus set sail, a Viking longboat, skippered by Leif Erikson, brought 90 men and women from Iceland to establish a new settlement – the first European settlement in the New World.
(9) SCENERY CHEWER. Adam Rowe reprises “The Secret History of J. Jonah Jameson, Comics’ Greatest Supporting Character” at the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog.
J. Jonah immediately latched on to Spider-man for a weirdly specific reason: he feared the young hero’s violent actions would lead children to idolize him, and they’d get themselves hurt in the process. “He is a bad influence on our youngsters” is a direct quote from page five of Amazing Spider-Man #1, and a direct summation of Wertham’s views. The parallels get stronger from there: while Wertham compared superheroes to the “Nazi myth” of the Ubermensch, J Jonah contrasted Spider-man against his own son, all-American astronaut John Jameson. Wertham called for comic censorship, and J. Jonah called for Spider-Man to be “outlawed.”
(10) BACK TO THE PRESENT. Marvel has announced the following creative teams and Legacy titles:
FALCON #1: TAKE FLIGHT! PART 1
Written by RODNEY BARNES
Art by JOHN CASSARATHE INCREDIBLE HULK #709: RETURN TO PLANET HULK PART 1
Written by GREG PAK
Art by GREG LANDX-MEN GOLD #13: MOJO WORLDWIDE PART 1
Written by MARC GUGGENHEIM
Art by MIKE MAYHEWX-MEN BLUE #13: MOJO WORLDWIDE PART 2
Written by CULLEN BUNN
Art by JORGE MOLINA
(11) NOT THE SON OF A CARPENTER. But the creator himself! Variety has the story — “John Carpenter Inks Overall Deal With Universal Cable, to Develop Two New Series”.
Horror master John Carpenter has signed an overall deal with Universal Cable Productions (UCP), Variety has learned.
Under the new deal, Carpenter will executive produce scripted programming with UCP for the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment portfolio, as well as for external networks and streaming services, along with his producing partner, Sandy King, under their Storm King Productions banner.
UCP and Carpenter are already in development on “Tales for a Halloween Night” for SYFY. Based on Carpenter’s award-winning graphic novel anthology of stories, the series brings together storytellers from the worlds of movies, novels, and comics for a collection of horror stories featuring graveyards, sunken ships, and all the things that go bump in the night. A search for a writer is underway. Additionally, UCP and Carpenter are developing “Nightside,” based on the literary series by New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green, with “Scream” TV series co-creator Jill Blotevogel attached to write the script. In the series, Nightside is the secret heart of London where creatures of the night congregate
“John Carpenter is an incredible creator whose dark imagination has left an indelible mark in film and in our dreams,” said Dawn Olmstead, executive vice president of development at UCP. “We are thrilled to have a master of the horror genre join UCP.”
(12) HEAVY DUTY. LHC “double heavy” particle to shine light on strong force.
Scientists have detected a new particle at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern.
The discovery will help researchers learn more about the so-called “strong force” which holds the centres of atoms together.
The existence of the new particle was theoretically predicted but this is the first time it has been identified.
The details of the Xi-cc++ particle were presented at a high-energy physics conference in Venice.
…Nearly all the matter that we see around us is made of neutrons and protons, which form the centres of atoms. These are made up of three smaller particles called quarks which can be either light or heavy.
New arrangement
There are, however, six different types of quarks which combine in different ways to form other kinds of particle. Those that have been detected so far contain at most, one heavy quark.
This is the first time that researchers have confirmed the existence of one with two heavy quarks. According to Prof Guy Wilkinson of Oxford University, there is an intriguing difference between the new particle and the ones that have been discovered before.
“In contrast to other particles of this type, in which the three quarks perform an elaborate dance around each other, a particle with two heavy quarks is expected to act like a planetary system, where the heavy quarks are like two stars orbiting one around the other, with the lighter quark orbiting around this binary system.”
The research team will now measure the properties of the Xi-cc++ to establish how this new arrangement of quarks behaves and how the strong force holds the system together. They also expect to find more double heavy quark particles.
(13) THE SOOTH IS OUT THERE. Looking for the remnants of a volcano bigger than the one that spawned Frankenstein: “The massive volcano that scientists can’t find”.
It was 10 October 1465 – the day of the hotly anticipated wedding of King Alfonso II of Naples. He was set to marry the sophisticated Ippolita Maria Sforza, a noblewoman from Milan, in a lavish ceremony. As she entered the city, the crowds gasped. Before them was a sight so strange and beautiful, it was like nothing they had ever seen before.
….In fact, what Alfonso’s wedding party witnessed may have been more extraordinary than anyone imagined. Many thousands of miles away in the tropics, a giant volcano was making geological history. This was an eruption so big, it produced an ash cloud which enveloped the Earth and led to the coolest decade for centuries.
The blast itself would have been heard up to 2,000km (1,242 miles) away and created a tsunami which caused devastation hundreds of kilometres away. In terms of scale, it surpassed even the 1815 eruption of Tambora, which unleashed energy equivalent to 2.2 million Little Boy atomic bombs and killed at least 70,000 people. Traces of the eruption have been found from Antarctica to Greenland.
The thing is, scientists can’t find the volcano that did it. What’s going on?
(14) FIBER COUNT. Dirty laundry: Are your clothes polluting the ocean?
“Not many people know that lots of our clothes are made of plastic,” says Imogen Napper, a PhD student at Plymouth University, “polyester, acrylic.”
Ms Napper and Prof Richard Thompson study marine microplastics – fragments and fibres found in the ocean surface, the deep sea and the marine food chain.
And in a recent lab study, they found that polyester and acrylic clothing shed thousands of plastic fibres each time it was washed- sending another source of plastic pollution down the drain and, eventually, into the ocean.
(15) MORTALITY TABLES. Robert Chan, in a Yahoo! piece “‘Game of Thrones’ Season 7 Peril-o-Meter: Who Dies Next?”, looks at 20 characters on Game of Thrones and ranks them by the likelihood they will be killed.
It’s not easy predicting who will be the next to go on Game of Thrones. Some deaths seem so certain as to be almost predestined (Ramsay Bolton); some were literally predestined (Cersei’s children, Hodor); and some feel like they’re there just to mess with us — Ned Stark’s death basically told us, “This ain’t your grandfather’s fantasy series.” We did pretty well with last year’s Peril-o-Meter, so here are our best predictions for this season on a scale of 1 to 5 — with 1 being “Very Likely to Survive” and 5 being “Call a Mortician.”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, James Davis Nicoll, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Stephen Burridge, Andrew Porter, Jim Henley, and Danny Sichel for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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The Strand does it.
https://www.strandbooks.com/books-by-the-foot
(2) Also reminded me of a gag diagram someone posted of the pecking order in SFF fandom. Who looks down on who. One of the midrange boxes was: “The guy who refers to his shelf of Star Trek novels as his library.”
Note for the curious: Furries were at the bottom.
I’m sure there are plenty of furries that enjoy being the bottom.
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. Try the buffet, it’s great.
I remember that diagram! (linky linky)
@Chad: Here’s a link to the chart (originally on “The Brunching Shuttlecocks”) http://www.smofbabe.net/geekchart.pdf
@Andrew: ah, that one is much better than the one I was able to find.
(2) .3 – Peeping Bibliophiles Scrolling For Pixels!
Do note the fan group that was considered so geeky they didn’t even get to appear on the chart!
This must be one of those things I can’t walk past or I’ll be accepting it. I don’t see why this is a source of attempted humor in 2017.
Can you do that in a Jack Nicholson voice — “Is there any other kind?”
World Weary: Until Dragon Con proves otherwise by removing the trolls, I’m filling in the explanatory blank space with the assumption that they believe doing so would alienate a bunch of volunteers and attendees who approve the attitudes of the trolls. The con may be in Atlanta, but Atlanta is in the state of Georgia which often makes the news for problems in handling diversity.
Mike, I have to agree. Their slow and poor response makes it very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Re reading more than one book at a time. When I had more time to read, I used to do this frequently. I still do it occasionally when I will go between a nonfiction book and a lighter novel.
There’s something seriously wrong with the hips of every woman on that Xmen cover.
Nightscrolling deserves a quiet night
The box beside the comment, clicked years ago
Reading novels backwards so the subplots shows
Every page reveals the picture in reverse
Still, it’s so much clearer
I forgot to comment about The Water Knife
The mood is low tonight
Nightscrolling deserves a quiet night
I’m not sure all these puppies understand
It’s not like years ago
The fear of writing good
Of diversity and gender
They cannot understand
Their things, they go away
Replaced by better novels
Nightscrolling, remembering that night
Hugos coming soon
I’m pining for the Lee
And what if there were two
Side by side or an Dick
But certainly no Dragon?
That would be quite dumbed
Could not describe nightsscrolling
(2) Another pastime made more difficult by the rise of ebooks. Although, in some cases, this can be a plus. I’ve bought some embarrassing ebooks, and not so long ago. I’m pretty happy with them not being on display. (I still have loads of dead ents for people to see, though, along with the massive DVD and Blu-ray collection.)
As for multiple editions, I’ve been low-priority trying for a while to replace my physical books with electronic editions. I don’t get rid of signed books, though, or the final editions of books I own as ARCs, which is how I have ended up with three copies of one David Weber book. (Hardback that I think is signed, trade-format ARC that definitely is, and the ebook – which is e-signed.)
(3) Speaking of embarrassing… Once again, I am ashamed of the culture gathering around a convention I used to enjoy. Although, granted, I only stopped going due to funding and logistical issues; DC’s so big that I’m confident the neat people still outnumber the assholes. I still remember the time I started the “Bridge Over the River Kwai” tune on a whim while crossing one of the “habitrail” passageways, and most of the crowd joined in. That was fun.
(6) That “American boots on the face of Mars” line is just bad in so many ways. Ugh.
(11) “Additionally, UCP and Carpenter are developing “Nightside,” based on the literary series by New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green”
Oh, now THAT sounds neat!
(14) That, OTOH, not so much.
@Joe H.: “Never again!” indeed. I’m exactly the same way with respect to travel reading, except for the single-author focus. I prefer a bit more variety, but there was that time I started the Vorkosigan books while killing time between seeing the Space and Rocket Center and appearing at a local club. Frankly, I don’t like to leave the house without at least two ebooks on hand, even to go shopping. I’ve spent too many hours stranded or otherwise engaged in unplanned waiting; I want a book available if that happens, and another in case I finish that one!
@OGH: “This must be one of those things I can’t walk past or I’ll be accepting it.”
Are you implying that there’s something wrong with someone being a bottom? If so, what? Please be precise, if not (ahem) explicit.
My father was a bigot. I just kept away from any of his hot button topics that would start off any of his verbal rants.
I was doubting the propriety of making a joke about it here.
Many years back, Flann O’Brien wrote a satirical column about people who owned lots of books, but did read them and would hire people to thumb through the pages and make it look like the books had been read.
(2) YOUR GUIDE TO MOUNT TBR
I only judge people by their lack of bookshelves, although now that ebooks are a thing I just tell myself they must have a large digital library and then ignore any evidence to the contrary.
Back when I worked as a literacy quiz writer for YA and children’s literature (and some adult Literature with a capital L – think Jude the Obscure and other stuff poor unsuspecting teenagers get told to study) the vast majority of the office was, of course, not part of the creative department. It was a bit unnerving how many of them treated us like weird alien creatures because we read a lot of books, but clearly judging goes both ways…
(3) ACT CLEANUP NEEDED
Sigh. Cop out.
—
Glad people liked the fic. Temeraire is one of my favourite* perennial fandoms so I keep an eye out for new fic and I was pleased to see one in honour of the Best Series nomination. Very appropriate considering Naomi Novik’s strong ties with transformative works fandom.
*To the surprise of roughly no-one, I’m sure.
@Steve Wright
What counts as Excessive Fanfic..? *eyes Ao3 bookmarks worriedly*
@Rev. Bob,
I took OGH’s remark to mean that there’s nothing wrong with furries and nothing wrong with being a bottom, but that the joke veered into “LOL all furries are bottoms amirite?” territory.
I thought the Geek Heirarchy chart was a lot less humorous after I met some furries, btw.
(ETA just learned that the extra “u” doesn’t carry over into “humorous”. Huh.)
My impression was the same as Dawn Incognito’s.
@Dawn, Meredith:
Please introduce me to this new meaning of “plenty of” that means “all or nearly all of.” I haven’t encountered it before.
Frankly, OGH’s remark looked (and still looks) to me like kink-shaming of submissives, which I find offensive. I’m sure there are plenty of furries who like being bottoms – and for “furries” I could substitute “bankers” and “lawyers” and “taxi drivers” and damn near any other group of people. The statement would be just as true, and in none of those cases should there be any shame attached to it. It’s a sexual preference; what’s wrong with it?
(2) Guilty to a lot of them. I’ve ended up buying multiple copies of some books because (A) It was a better copy; (B) This copy had a jacket: and of course (C) either forgot I already had it or thought I had it but wasn’t sure if I did so I bought it anyway because it was so cheap–a hazard of really good thrifting/junking habits.
I’ve never really thought about looking at movies/TV bookshelves. I will, however, fess up to scrutinizing pictures in magazines,on-line articles and books of people’s bookshelves to see what they read. Or display, anyway.
I’ve thought about adding that John Water’s quote to the ones already scattered on my bookshelves.
My favorites right now : “Everything is disappointing to those who read a lot. There’s no question that at no time in my life have I ever thought that life was as good as reading. . . . But I would rather read than have any kind of real life, like working, or being responsible. “
Fran Lebowitz
“She had often noticed that when people with large libraries fell into trouble, the fact that the books had not risen en masse to help them always seemed to give those without books comfort.”
Amanda Cross
(1) Ive read 2 (I think, Im too lazy of checking the German titles – and they were from the time I ve read the German translations)
(2) Judging from Bookshelves? Of Course! Also the movies and the music, and boardgames if apply.
And yes Im putting a llot of thought into which books to bring (or I had in the pre-kindle age), especially since I tend to read nonfiction and fiction alternativly and have to make sure I have enough of both and backups if I dont like the books brought or if Im quicker than I thought or… AAARGH!
@Rev. Bob
I perceived the original joke as being rude/mean about that particular sexual preference, and I would have pushed back at it myself if it hadn’t already been done.
Hang on, I can word this.
@Rev. Bob:
I agree with you. However, popular culture has painted furries as people who dress up like animals and have freaky sex. This is not the case with bankers or lawyers or taxi drivers. Therefore I read the joke as playing into a tired stereotype that is, in itself, kink-shaming.
On an unrelated (save that Meredith is right here!) Momentary note, Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword is currently (newly?) available on Kindle for $1.99.
Another one of those books that I really, really, really should’ve read a long time ago, isn’t it?
Thanks for doubling down, Bob. I can’t believe how many people think I need their permission to oppose abusive language.
Seconding Dawn Incognito again, because she brain v gud compared to muggins here. (Hot.)
@Joe H.
The Blue Sword is great and I love it but I actually like the later book, The Hero and the Crown (a… prequel? sort of?), even more.* But The Blue Sword should really be read first, and yes you should definitely read it. 🙂
*And not just because dragons, honest.
In the Barnes and Noble bit about J Jonah Jameson, the accompanying clip of the “10 Greatest J. Jonah Jameson Moments” from the Tobey Maguire SPIDER MANS is really funny. J K Simmons was a GREAT J. Jonah Jameson.
@Meredith: I suspect it varies according to the individual. Let’s just say I’m not expecting any leniency over mine… and I have written a worrying amount of fanfic. Or an amount of worrying fanfic. One of the two.
Since everyone else has been admirably staying on top of Meredith Moment-ing, I thought I should probably put some effort in at some point. Although I was rather lazy about editing down the descriptions…
All Amazon UK:
The Paper Magician (and sequels) by Charlie N. Holmberg
Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic…forever. (To be honest, these seem to be on sale about once a month.)
Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
The fortunes of one of Bingtown’s oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy. But the fate of Vivacia – and the Vestrits – may ultimately lie in the hands of the dark and charming pirate, Kennit, who lusts after such a ship and has plans of his own . . .
Seed by Ania Ahlborn
When Jack, his wife Aimee, and their two small children survive a violent car crash, it seems like a miracle. But Jack knows what he saw on the road that night, and it wasn’t divine intervention. The profound evil from his past won’t let them die…at least not quickly. (The cover is pretty.)
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
FINALIST FOR BEST NOVEL IN THE 2017 HUGO AWARDS
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
In a world where people born with an exceptional skill, known as a Grace, are feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing.
Annihilation by Jeff VenderMeer
For thirty years, Area X, monitored by the secret agency known as the Southern Reach, has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border– an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness. Eleven expeditions have been sent in to investigate; even for those that have made it out alive, there have been terrible consequences.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Quentin Coldwater’s life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter: when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton he finds his interviewer dead – but a strange envelope bearing Quentin’s name leads him down a very different path to any he’d ever imagined.
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
One drowsy summer’s day in 1984, teenage runaway Holly Sykes encounters a strange woman who offers a small kindness in exchange for ‘asylum’. Decades will pass before Holly understands exactly what sort of asylum the woman was seeking . . .
@Joe H. – Another one of those books that I really, really, really should’ve read a long time ago, isn’t it?
Yes! And, as Meredith suggests, then its prequel which is even better.
And because I’m not immune to the lure of everything in (2), I will now go buy an e-book of The Blue Sword, because it’s the only way I know to make sure I have all of my favorite books to hand when I need them, even when I have perfectly good copies in bookshelves.
I used to be fairly casual about making sure I always had a book around. I mean, there were books in my car, and by my bed, and in most rooms wherever I lived, but I wasn’t rigid about making sure I had one on my person. Then I went boating with my family on the Sacramento Delta. The boat died in a backwater and it was nearly five hours before someone came close enough to hear our shouts. Five hours of listening to my family when they had nothing to do except squabble was all the reminder I will ever need to have at least one book with me.
The first thing I do when I go to someone’s house for the first time is look for and at their books. If they don’t have books, we can’t really be friends. I don’t really judge the quality though, just whether there are visible signs of reading.
Robin McKinley’s one of those authors that I really need to spend more quality time with; although I dearly love Sunshine and only wish I could go to the bakery therein.
@Dawn: “I agree with you. However, popular culture has painted furries as people who dress up like animals and have freaky sex. This is not the case with bankers or lawyers or taxi drivers. Therefore I read the joke as playing into a tired stereotype that is, in itself, kink-shaming.”
I suspect the bold part may be our disconnect. I’m not a furry and consider fursuiting kinda weird, but I don’t consider being a top or a bottom “freaky” at all. To me, the original joke might as well have been that “plenty of them” enjoy sex in the missionary position, or are gay, or are straight, or like strawberry ice cream. My reaction was, “statistically speaking, that’s almost certainly true.”
Then Mike comes along, and his comment – like yours above – equates “being a bottom” with “freaky,” and that’s the part I’m objecting to as kink-shaming. His doubling down by saying that calling someone a bottom is “abusive language” only makes his offense worse – now it’s offensive to speculate that there are people in a group who might find D/s enjoyable?
Basically, in your mutual rush to defend one group, you did so by insulting another – and it looks like you can’t even see that you’ve done so, or that this is a bad thing.
@Rev. Bob – My interpretation wasn’t that it was kink shaming, but that it was criticizing the over-sexualization of furries. But that comes from my PoV, which is that furries have been over-sexualized in popular culture, to the point where people seem to think of it as a kink in and of itself. IMO furries, like Bronies, have been unfairly targeted for mockery, much of it sexual.
Meredith on July 7, 2017 at 12:50 pm said:
And Kobo has some of those, as well as others (Rogue Moon!) so I indulged a little.
@kathodus:
Even if I grant the unalloyed truth of everything you just said, it doesn’t make Mike’s and Dawn’s reaction to “being a bottom” as if it were an insult one bit better.
Remember when someone tried to insult John Scalzi by calling him gay, and his response was “what would be wrong with that?” Same situation!
Mm, no, I think using the offensive furry stereotype (“people who dress up like animals and have freaky sex”) which was being drawn upon in the joke is what stigmatises D/s*, not the people pointing out that, well, putting that stereotype with that particular sexual activity (which has its own undeserved baggage!) is offensive to all parties being referenced. Otherwise, you see, it isn’t a joke – just a vaguely inappropriate reference to sexual activity. The joke, to be a joke, relies on those offensive stereotypes. That’s why I didn’t find it very funny.
*Although ‘bottom’ is not exclusive to D/s last I checked? So I think it has more to do with offensive societal stereotypes about men.
I am still not braining gud, so, er, I think that ended up a bit confused. Oh well.
Much in the same way objecting to a comment that “many Jews would enjoy making him a commercial loan” is shaming the financial services industry. It’s a legitimate career and I’m sure many Jews do enjoy it. The person who made that comment would surely have meant it innocently.
Just as, when John Scalzi responded to being called gay, the response was simply “what would be wrong with that,” with absolutely no discussion of how it was intended. Only people who objected to the (failed) attempt at a slur were casting it in any negative way, surely.
Or I could have just waited three minutes and someone would have said it better. 🙂 Oh well.
@P J Evans
Glad you found some shinies. 🙂 I always feel a bit guilty that I don’t crosscheck retailers but it would greatly increase the work and I’m trying to be realistic about stuff that’s reasonable to spend spoons on.
I don’t crosscheck retailers but it would greatly increase the work
Kobo allows sorting by title, A-Z and Z-A, but not by author. So it is a lot of work going through their 40 to 50 pages of sale titles (especially since they index on “A/An” and “The”. @#$%^&*!!! library illiterates).
@Mike OGH
A sincere apology. Scalzi’s (First? Fifth?) Rule of Humor applies here.
@Kurt:
The hole in your analogy is that very few people consider being a loan officer to be a shameful activity in and of itself. The same is not true of submissive sex play.
Since my previous attempts to clarify have apparently left something crucial unclear, let me try again.
I never defended Chad’s attempt at humor – which even his original post’s “try the buffet” line appeared to recognize as a cheap, lame gag. I never said it was funny, didn’t respond to it in any way. Why? Because I felt the only response it merited was a silent room.
Then Mike comes along and remarks on it in such a way that I found it unclear which aspect(s) of the lame gag he considered objectionable: the furries, the submission, or the combination. So I replied to Mike in an attempt to say, “hey, this looks like you’re validating the idea that being a bottom is shameful, because you reacted to that allegation as offensive, and I object to that premise.” After all, I doubt Mike would have commented had that aspect of the “joke” been “live with their parents” or “drive cars” or “enjoy reading/watching/writing SFF.” No, it appeared and appears to me that Mike objected to “a significant portion of group X participates in activity Y” because he perceived some measure of shame being attached to Y that merited a defense of X for the calumny of the association with Y.
I disagree with that premise, so I called him on it. Nothing wrong with X or Y, so why validate the idea that “X does Y” is shameful? The Scalzi approach: “so what?”
Since then, I’ve seen lots of words written in defense of furries, but they all incorporate the same thing I keep objecting to: acceptance of the premise that being a bottom is something horrible, that being labeled such is a stigma which must be defended against… that enjoying that is a kink to be ashamed of. It’s textbook kink-shaming, whether used in conjunction with furries or not, and that’s bad. I call it kink-shaming because it literally asserts that there is shame attached to that kink.
When Scalzi replied “so what?” to the person who called him gay, his point was that accepting the premise that being called gay is an insult perpetuates the notion that it is one, and that perpetuating that idea is harmful. That’s my point in reacting to “furries plus bottom equals insult to furries” – the unwritten part of that equation, which I keep trying to point out, is that it is predicated on “bottom equals shameful.”
I don’t need to defend the furry community. Plenty of people are doing that… but they’re doing it at the expense of another community, and nobody else appears interested in defending that group, so I’m doing so. Calling a furry a bottom tells me exactly one thing: that you think s/he has an active and inventive sex life. I refuse to let that idea get painted as an insult. Or, as Mike said:
Bob —
I think you misread Mike, I think you’ve dug your heels in to the point of doing it willfully, and I think I’ve made my point. So I’ll leave it at that.
1. Good list. I admit that I’m quite a fan of SF/Mystery. (Asimov’s Robot Mysteries are just about the only works of his that still hold up for me, among other things.) So I’m definitely taking notes.
I’d be remiss in my familial duties if I didn’t toss out Melisa Michaels’ Rosie Lavine books (Cold Iron and Sister to the Rain), which combine mystery, elves, and rock-and-roll. 🙂
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2. At this point, I’m reminded of the distinction between bibliophiles and readers. I’m a fanatic, devoted reader, but don’t care that much about books-as-objects. So, when I buy multiple copies of books, it’s because I’m going through that many copies–usually because I’m loaning copies to all my friends. I don’t care one bit about different editions (unless the words changed) or first editions or signatures or any of that junk. I only buy additional copies to have extras to lend, or because my first copy is wearing out.
It started with Stand on Zanzibar back when I was a teen. That was a book I wanted everyone to read–even my non-fannish friends. So I ended up with three or four copies, with two or three that went back out the door when ever someone returned one. I’m happy to say that many years later, a bunch of those non-fannish friends still list it among their favorites!
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As for the furry thing, I gotta side with OGH. Saying that saying “furries are often accused being into freaky sex” means that he thinks being a bottom is freaky is such a stretch that it should only be attempted by Reed Richards. 😀
Chad Saxelid has made a very gracious apology, and as for the rest I think I’d mostly be repeating myself. See: Appropriate spoon distribution.
@P J Evans
Yeah, I’ve got pretty good at worming information out of Amazon between its own cunningly hidden sorting features as well as sites like ereaderiQ but Kobo is a hassle and iBooks continues to elude me entirely. I stick to the easiest one and hope that people will be able to find equivalent prices on their preferred platform(s), which luckily is often the case.
“If all Files were Pixels, would you let your Scroll Tickbox One?”
It is not as if I haven’t seen this before. A small comment on sexuality or that makes someone else start all engines and go to town. Wasn’t expecting it here though. In the forums I moderate, it happens every week.
As this is not a forum for sexuality, I see no reason to write at length all the different meanings the word “bottom” can have. Lets just say that misunderstanding what the word means is not that uncommon. And that there is nothing abusive in the word.
On the other hand, some versions of the word refers to explicit sexual acts that I can understand if Mike does not want to encourage jokes around.
As we’re in the process of illustrating yet again, people’s sexual activities and preferences are a much more sensitive area in our culture than driving cars or even living with parents. That’s the very reason I took a moment to decide what I was going to do.
I could do nothing, which frankly I often consciously decide to do because many kinds of things will be worked out in discussion. Or I could strike the comment. Or I could leave it in and follow with a comment of my own, seeking to set a boundary, and that’s what I decided to do.
My perception from what I read in the fannish social media is that furries are still considered by some a “safe” group to laugh at — not with, at — and I doubted furries of my acquaintance would be amused to have their sexuality laughed at — especially for any whose sexuality includes being a bottom. I thought this was a case that needed an active nudge from the moderator to keep the discussion space from becoming unwelcoming for them.
Apology accepted.
@Rev. Bob:
I apologize for using the word “freaky”. I did not intend that as a commentary on D/s. I meant it as a comment about how people view being a furry as a fetish. Not that I think fetishes are bad. I apparently don’t know how to say that better.