Pixel Scroll 9/30/19 Come Friends, Who Scroll The Files! Truce To Pixelation, Take Another Station

(1) MARS WANTS A REMATCH. BBC’s The War of the Worlds premiered September 29.

This is the original alien invasion story. Staring Eleanor Tomlinson, Rafe Spall and Robert Carlyle, this tense and thrilling drama follows a young couple’s race for survival against escalating terror of an alien enemy beyond their comprehension. The War of the Worlds is a major adaptation by Peter Harness of H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi title. This major new three-part drama is produced by Mammoth Screen for BBC One, and directed by award-winning director Craig Viveiros Set in Edwardian England, this new adaptation of H.G. Wells’ seminal tale – the first alien invasion story in literature – follows George (played by Rafe Spall) and his partner Amy (Eleanor Tomlinson) as they attempt to defy society and start a life together. Rupert Graves is Frederick, George’s elder brother, and Robert Carlyle plays Ogilvy, an astronomer and scientist. The War of the Worlds tells their story as they face the escalating terror of an alien invasion, fighting for their lives against an enemy beyond their comprehension.

(2) CRAFTS FOR CONS. Constanze Hofmann, who was head of display at WorldCon 77 and organized the Raksura Colony Tree project, muses about organizing community art and crafts project for future WorldCons in “What next?”

Worldcon has been over for more than a month now. I’ve had time to reflect on the things that we did in the run-up to Dublin 2019, and am still marveling at everything that happened at the convention itself. The Raksura Colony Tree turned out to be much better than I had imagined, and brought together a community of crafters. As the convention neared its end, I talked with a lot of people inside that community as well as others who enjoyed what we did. We discussed what it is that makes craft opportunities so important at a huge event like a Worldcon. There’s many good reasons I’ll discuss in a future post, but one thing we were all agreeing on is that we want projects like this to be part of future Worldcons as well.

(3) FIRST SNOWMAN OF THE FALL. The Hollywood Reporter declares “Box Office: ‘Abominable’ Scales the Chart With $21M”.

Marking the first studio animated pic of the fall season, DreamWorks Animation’s Abominable easily scaled the box office chart over the weekend with a winning $20.9 million from 4,242 theaters.

Abominable is from filmmaker Jill Culton, the first woman to be credited as the lead director and writer of an animated Hollywood studio pic (Todd Wilderman is credited as a co-director). It’s also the first co-production between DWA and China’s Pearl Studios. The movie is set to open Tuesday in China. 

(4) UNBIND THE HANDS OF THE CLOCK. Annalee Newitz’ “Yes, We’re in the Wrong Timeline” at Slate tells “How time-travel stories explain our uncanny era.”

Sometimes you find a profound political statement in the middle of a goofy adventure story. In Season 2 of the superhero show DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, our team of superpowered misfits use their badass time ship to correct historical “aberrations” during the Civil War. Jax, one of the team’s black characters, is shocked when he meets slaves for the first time. Not because of how horribly they are treated—he already knew about that—but because they still have so much hope for the future, even when they’ve been beaten and tied up for disobedience.

Jax is there to prevent a malicious time-traveler from changing the course of the war, but he decides to make his own unauthorized changes. Untying the slaves so they can escape, he realizes he’s creating new potential historical aberrations. But Jax welcomes this possibility. “Slavery is the aberration,” he says. With that one line, he explains both the lure of time-travel fiction and the reason why it feels so vital during periods of dramatic political instability like our own….

(5) GENDER INCLUSIVE DOLLS. “Mattel Launches Gender Inclusive Doll Line Inviting All Kids to Play”Business Wire has the story.

“Toys are a reflection of culture and as the world continues to celebrate the positive impact of inclusivity, we felt it was time to create a doll line free of labels,” said Kim Culmone, Senior Vice President of Mattel Fashion Doll Design. “Through research, we heard that kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms. This line allows all kids to express themselves freely which is why it resonates so strongly with them. We’re hopeful Creatable World will encourage people to think more broadly about how all kids can benefit from doll play.”

Mattel worked alongside a dedicated team of experts, parents, physicians and most importantly, kids, to create this one-of-a-kind play experience.

The Creatable World doll line consists of six different doll kits that are available in a variety of skin tones. Each kit includes one doll, two hairstyle options and endless styling possibilities.

(6) TRIVIAL TRIVIA.

In 2012, British artist and engineer David Cramner turned a taxidermied badger into a working theremin, a musical instrument patented in the 1920s that makes sounds by waving one’s hand between two metal antennas. The result was the Badgermin, which was sold and used in a recording studio.

Source: Nervous Squirrel

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • September 30, 1959 Men Into Space premiered on television.
  • September 30, 1960 The Flintstones made its television debut.
  • September 30, 1965 Thunderbirds first aired in the U.K.  Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, this Supermarionation based series ran for thirty episodes over two years before canceled. Gerry Anderson will later be responsible for Space: 1999
  • September 30, 1983 Manimal debuted. In case you’ve forgotten, the show centered on Dr. Chase, a shapeshifter who can turn himself into any animal he chooses. It lasted eight episodes. 
  • September 30, 2005 Serenity premiered. It was the big screen follow up to the Firefly series. It has an 83% rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. And It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation—Long Form. 

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 30, 1932 — Antoinette Bower, 86. I’ll start off with her being Sylvia in the classic Trek episode of “Catspaw” written by Robert Bloch. She had a previous genre appearances in a Twilight Zone story, “Probe 7, Over and Out” in which she was Eva Nord. It’s a shaggy God story as so termed by Brian Aldiss. She also had one-offs in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.The Wild Wild WestMission: Impossible, Get Smart and The Six Million Dollar Man.
  • Born September 30, 1946 — Dan O’Bannon. Screenwriter, director, visual effects supervisor, and  actor.  He wrote the Alien script, directed The Return of the Living Dead, provided special computer effects on Star Wars, writer of two segments of Heavy MetalSoft Landing and B-17, co-writer with Ronald Shusett and  Gary Goldman of the first Total Recall. That’s not complete listing by any stretch! (Died 2009.)
  • Born September 30, 1950 — Laura Esquivel, 69. Mexican author of Como agua para chocolate, Like Water for Chocolate in English. Magic realism and cooking with more than a small soupçon of eroticism. Seriously the film is amazing as is the book. ISFDB says she’s also written La ley del amor (The Law of Love) which I’ve not read. 
  • Born September 30, 1953 — S. M. Stirling, 66. My favorite work by him is The Peshawar Lancers. Other than that, I’ll admit that I’ve not read deep on him beyond In the Courts of the Crimson Kings and The Sky Prople.
  • Born September 30, 1959 — Debrah Farentino, 60. She’s been in the cast of Earth 2 (never saw it — how was it?) and the recurring character of Dr. Beverly Barlowe on Eureka (superb, her character and the series). She was also in Son of the Pink Panther1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns, and the “Mind over Matter” episode of Outer Limits
  • Born September 30, 1972 — Sheree Thomas, 47. She’s the editor of the Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora anthology and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones, each winners of a World Fantasy Award for Year’s Best Anthology. I highly recommend her Lady Sherlock series which I’m pleased to note is available on iBooks and Kindle. Kindle has her short collections. 
  • Born September 30, 1982 — Lacey Chabert, 37. Penny Robinson on the Lost in Space film reboot. She’s done mostly voice acting and children’s features at that. She did voice Gwen Stacy on The Spectacular Spider-Man series and does likewise for Zatanna Zatara on the current Young Justice series. 
  • Born September 30, 1985 — Katrina Law, 34. She’s well-known for playing the roles of Mira  on Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Spartacus: Vengeance, and  Nyssa al Ghul on  Arrow. She co-starred in Darkness Rising, a film two critics noted for its “terminal dullness” and which got a rare rating of 0% at Rotten Tomatoes. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) STAND BY TO BUY. IGN wants you to know “Every Star Wars Toy Announced for Force Friday”.

Lucasfilm has announced all the toys and products you’ll be able to purchase on Force Friday next week. Not only are there action figures and collectibles, but socks and underwear too for good measure. You know, for the true Star Wars fans.

(11) HAVE YE SEEN THE GREAT BLANK PAGE. I’m nearly always a sucker for another “making of Moby Dick“ article as long as it mentions Ray Bradbury. Nick Rowan’s “Reviving John Huston’s Moby Dick” for The Spectator qualifies. Tagline: “On Melville’s death day, reviewing the film reincarnations of a Leviathan that still threatens all who pursue him. Just ask Gregory Peck.”

… At an awards ceremony in 1983, where Huston was presented a lifetime achievement award in filmmaking, his longtime friend Orson Welles — whose brief appearance in the film as a preacher earned him enough money to stage his own theatrical production of Moby Dick — recalled the whale incidents and laughed, joking that Huston had always been “a Renaissance Prince, a Regency rake, a Mississippi gambler, an epicurean, and an amiable Count Dracula.”

(12) LIGHTS, CAMERA, ANNIHLATION. At Tor.com, James Davis Nicoll is ready to screen “5 Atomic War Films That Are Fun for the Whole Family”.

…Stanley Kramer’s adaptation of the 1957 Nevil Shute’s novel of the same title, 1959’s On the Beach features an all star cast (Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins). Nuclear proliferation put an end to all conflict in the northern hemisphere: those spared immediate death by nuclear blast were treated to death by enhanced fallout, courtesy of cobalt bombs. Australia and the other nations of the Southern Hemisphere were too insignificant to die in the exchange. Unfortunately, fallout is spreading slowly, inexorably south. The question is not how can the characters survive but rather how they will face their inevitable demise in a world without hope.

(13) FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT. It depends on how you spin it: “Chandrayaan-2: Was India’s Moon mission actually a success?”

India’s Moon lander, which lost contact with scientists seconds before it was to touch down on the lunar surface, is yet to be located. But scientists tell BBC Hindi’s Imran Qureshi why the ambitious mission cannot be dismissed as a failure.

…Chandrayaan-2 was the most complex mission ever attempted by India’s space agency, Isro. Its chairman K Sivan – who had earlier described the final descent as “15 minutes of terror” – has since said the mission was “98% successful”, based on the findings of an official committee.

Mr Sivan’s remarks have been met with criticism from scientists who said it was too early for Isro to term the mission a success, especially since its most important goal – to land a rover on the Moon’s surface that can gather crucial data – remains unrealised.

…Some former and current Isro scientists have however, supported Dr Sivan, and said it is unfair to call the mission a failure.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an Isro scientist told BBC Hindi that the success of a space mission has to be measured in terms of “the returns you get”.

“We had a precise launch, the orbiter was manoeuvred as anticipated which is a major part of the success and even the lander passed through all the three phases except that in the last phase it did not function as per our expectations,” he added.

He pointed out that they would now rely on data they received from the orbiter. “The life of the orbiter got enhanced from one year to seven years because a lot of fuel was not consumed. We were lucky. If you are getting data for seven years from orbiter, it means many technologies have worked.”

(14) A BITER BIT. He’s got the blarney going for him: “Limerick student tricks scammer to give him money”.

A student from County Kilkenny in the Republic of Ireland has managed to scam money out of an internet scammer.

The scammer transferred £25 to the student’s account, which he subsequently donated to charity.

This is the third time that Ross Walsh, a 22-year-old student at the University of Limerick, has extracted a small sum from online scammers for charity.

“I want to waste their time so they’re not wasting anyone else’s time,” he said.

(15) WORTH A LAUGH. If you were waiting to see Harley Quinn’s with one of her pet hyenas, let CinemaBlend show you the new Birds of Prey poster.

Harley Quinn debuted in Batman: The Animated Series, followed by a long tenure in comics. In most versions, the femme fatale has a pair of pet Hyenas named Bud and Lou. And it looks like they’ll make their live-action debut with Birds of Prey.

View this post on Instagram

About to show some teeth.

A post shared by Birds of Prey (@birdsofprey) on

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Cora Buhlert, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]

39 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/30/19 Come Friends, Who Scroll The Files! Truce To Pixelation, Take Another Station

  1. (6) In 2012, British artist and engineer David Cramner turned a taxidermied badger into a working theremin, a musical instrument patented in the 1920s that makes sounds by waving one’s hand between two metal antennas. The result was the Badgermin, which was sold and used in a recording studio.

    😶

  2. Come Pixel round Filers,
    Wherever you Scroll,
    And admit that the word counts around you have grown,

  3. 6) They must absolutely use the badgermin for the theme of Midsomer Murders, considering that one of the villages featured in the show is called badger’s drift.

  4. I wantz a hyena!
    Seriously, if I didn’t have dogs, I’d be looking for a laugh track of my own. So cute!
    Hey, fifth!

  5. @4: Newitz says Heroes who fight to keep the timeline fixed are therefore on a deeply conservative mission. Apparently she hasn’t heard of The Guns of the South

  6. (5) Oddly enough, I first heard of these Monday morning, from my therapist. Great idea! Good for Mattel.

    (15) There are so many reasons why live action real hyenas in a movie are a bad idea, but who cares what I think when they can do something spectacularly stupid?

  7. 2) One idea I got yesterday was to do a giant dollhouse. With a cheap shelf, like IKEA Kallax, you get lots of 12″ * 12″ slots you could put anything in. It could be so many different kinds of craft in such a project. Possibly you could even carve holes for doors or stairs in the shelf to really connect everything.

    It would be fun to see with the theme “Future Collective Living” or something.

  8. When I think “Dan O’Bannon”, I immediately think Dark Star. I know he’s done a lot of other stuff since, but that’s the one that sticks with me. Plus, it’s nearly his only acting appearance, aside from brief cameos and such.

    Such a great bad movie! 😀

    As for S M Stirling, I dunno–for some reason, his books don’t usually seem that appealing to me, but the ones I have tried have all been competently written and reasonably entertaining. I really should try some more.

  9. A Meredith Moment! Probably no dragons, though. Sorry, Meredith. 😉

    No Proper Lady (Dark Powers #1) by Isabel Cooper is free at the moment in the U.S. from Sourcebooks Casablanca (uses DRM). Free—how weird! I know that’s a thing in indie publishing, but not normally from traditional publishers, even small presses like this.

    In Joan’s time, demons run rampant and humanity fights for its existence. She’s sent back in time to Victorian England to kill the magician who unleashed the forces. On arrival, she saves Simon (not the magician) from demons. To get close to her target, she needs Simon to teach her how to fit into polite society; apparently flirting ensues, as part of said teaching.

    I’m creating a wildly misleading elevator pitch for this book: Outlander meets “The Terminator” (Apologies; it’s late and my brain is tired.)

    Anyway, I forget how this time travel fantasy romance novel originally came to my attention, but it’s on my “check it out” list. Has anyone read this? You can’t beat the price (designed to hook you into the series, but if it’s any good . . .).

  10. P.S. No Proper Lady is dragon-adjacent, BTW. Isabel Cooper has another series called “Highland Dragons” and another series called “Dawn of the Highland Dragon”. . . . 😉

  11. @Xtifr: When I drive to Tucson for Tuscon (say that five times fast), I usually drive through Benson, Arizona – and have the song stuck in my head for the next fifty miles. I should really learn to play it.

    8) In its original run, Earth 2 suffered badly from being interrupted by tornado warnings, at least where I lived at the time, making it impossible to get into. Later, after moving to New Mexico, I watched it on DVD, and immediately deduced it was filmed in the northern part of the state. I also found the show to be quite decent, at least in parts.

  12. 1) Correction: this hasn’t been shown yet, at least in the UK. In fact, there hasn’t even been a specific transmission date announced; a recent user comment in the Digital Spy (UK TV site) forums states: “The first episode is being shown at the BFI on 5 November, so it’ll likely be a couple of weeks after that.”

    Given how long this has been in production – IIRC it was originally thought to be due for transmission this time last year, although that might have needed the SFX to have been done fairly quickly, given the April 2018 filming – it’s definitely fallen into the “believe it when I see it” category for me.

  13. Not related to anything in this scroll, but this might be of interest:

    The “Ewilan’s Quest” (or “The Quest of Ewilan”) trilogy by French author Pierre Bottero is being made into an animated series, 24 episodes of 26 minutes each, with an absolutely gorgeous trailer:

    Trailer (on Vimeo)

    Tor.com Blog post for a bit more information in English.

  14. On the grounds that cryptozoology is at least genre-adjacent, I wanted to share the new media literacy campaign my organization launched today. We’ve brought back the House Hippo to send a message about the importance of double-checking before you believe or share anything you see online: https://mediasmarts.ca/break-fake

  15. (12) I like “Lights, Camera, Annihilation”, nice subheading (or whatever you call those.)

  16. Currently reading the Big Book of Classic Fantasy by the Vandermeers, and it’s very interesting. Authors include W.E.B. Du Bois, Washington Irving, Mary Wallstonecraft Shelley, Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde, Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, Rabindranath Tagore, Zora Neal Hurtson, Carl Kapek, H.P. Blavatskaya, and others.

    The only authors that seemed “genre” were G. K. Chesterton, Kenneth Grahame, H.G. Wells, A. Merritt, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber and (the last story in the book) Tolkien.

    I guess they are expanding the definition of fantasy to reach out of “genre” in multiple ways. Right now I am not too far into the book (which is massive of course), and I will report back when I feel ready.

  17. @Xtifr: Dark Star was also my reaction. The late Clam Chowder used to sing “Benson, Arizona” (one of them had even written a third verse for it) and I remember the Boskone where it was played shortly after “What’s Opera, Doc?” — the movie-program director told me that at the appropriate point people started singing “Kill the beachball!”
    (Clam Chowder was a BaltoWash folk group that appeared at many conventions including both Baltimore Worldcons; they formed out of connections in the Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia, but the first album mentioned them premiering at Disclave, and I remember them performing in the acoustic shell formed by the underside of a long escalator at early Balticons.)

  18. @Chip Hitchcock:
    I’ve got a copy of a CD of filk from the 1998 Worldcon called ‘Screams of the Vegetables’, where Clam Chowder did a cover of the aforementioned Arrogant Worms song, along with a cover of ‘Science Fiction Double Feature’ from Rocky Horror, and two other more traditional songs.

    They also had four songs on ‘The Filk was Great – The Best of Conterpoint 3’, including Sondheim’s ‘I Never Do Anything Twice’. A good mix of traditional and more modern pieces.

  19. @Matthew Johnson: While I am 100% behind the primary message, I am a little concerned about the recommendation to click the link (as part of “Find the Source”). Even if you ignore the issue of malware, driving traffic to the site, and thereby boosting what they can charge advertisers, is not an ideal solution, IMO. I realize it can be tricky to explain ways to find the source without clicking through, especially in these days of touchscreens and whatnot, and that a proper explanation would take too much time and would distract from the main issue, but it still seems that some mild warning, and perhaps a link to other suggestions, might be better.

    But aside from that quibble, big thumbs up! You should definitely be proud to be a part of that!

    @ass’t’d others: y’all got me interested in the song again, so I looked it up (should have done this years ago), and found that it was written by John Carpenter and Bill Taylor. So O’Bannon, who co-wrote the movie with Carpenter, apparently doesn’t get credit for the song. Not that we can’t still use his birthday as an excuse to discuss it. 🙂

    Does make me wonder how many other songwriting credits Carpenter has.

  20. @ Xtifr

    Does make me wonder how many other songwriting credits Carpenter has.

    Not sure exactly how many, but Carpenter has revived his composing career in recent years since his directing work has slowed. As is well known, Carpenter scored many of his own films (like Halloween), and recently he has released two nonsoundtrack albums Lost Themes and Lost Themes II. He also went out on tour in 2018 to support the first album with some backing musicians.

  21. @Xtifr — WRT Stirling, I’m partial to Conquistador, a pretty good multi-worlds yarn.

    Also, the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy. Alien space bats send Nantucket island and a Coast Guard sailing ship back 3500 years. Good storytelling.
    Also, this is the other half of his Emberverse. THAT series takes place in the universe Nantucket left behind.

    I read the Draka series, but that whole world is so damned depressing.

  22. @Techgrrl1972: Thanks! I’ve read the first Island in the Sea of Time book, but didn’t realize there was an associated universe-left-behind series. I’ll have to look for that after I finish the IitSoT books. Will also look for Conquistador, and will make a note about Draka, since I’m not a big fan of depressing.

  23. Xtifr — if you’ve not read it, check out The Peshawar Lancers, it’s a one-off that pretty much that most upbeat of his novels. The premise is damn interesting and even got at least one strong, intelligent female character in it.

    One of my two brain trauma therapists wants me to reread a novel that I’m familiar to see how much of it I remember and I may well use this novel for that exercise. (I can’t read new novels as I keep forgetting the narrative. I can listen to them just fine.) It’s just complex enough it’ll challenge me to pay attention.

    Having two such therapists is proving, errr, interesting. In a lab rat sort of way.

  24. @Jenora Feuer/Chip Hitchcock: I’m a big fan of Clam Chowder – I’ve got both the albums that Jenora mentioned, and I think I know just the place that Chip is talking about at the old Balticon hotel (the upper part of that escalator was near the entrance for the dealer’s room, if I recall correctly). My wife and I like to play filk CDs on the way to conventions…

  25. @Kendall:

    No Proper Lady was fun. At free, it might be worth a chance for people who don’t read romance, unless they’re violently allergic to romance cooties. It has sex scenes, but they don’t dominate the book.

    The second book in the series was a fantastic disappointment, much more conventional and not fun at all.

  26. @Lace
    I like the second book, too. Different characters, different plot, so of course YMMV.

  27. @P J Evans:

    Fair ’nuff. I’m never more “only I’m right about books” than when one has disappointed me bitterly. It hasn’t put me off more Cooper, in any event.

  28. Belated thanks for the title…it almost consoles me for never managing to write a second line that scanned after “With SJW credential-like tread, upon our scrolls we file…”

  29. Yeah,

    The Peshawar Lancers

    was pretty good. I’ve spent a number of years since it’s publication wishing he’d revisit that world or do something else in a similar vein.

  30. @Christian Brunschen: “Ewilan’s Quest” looks lovely!

    @Matthew Johnson: Good message and adorable house hippos. 🙂

    @Lace & @P J Evans: Thanks for the info and contrasting opinions, heh. I’ve read a couple of straight romances in my life and a fair bit of M/M stuff, so I’m not allergic, though I have been known to get impatient occasionally, if things are too over-the-top. Anyway, I downloaded the free one, but it’s not high on Mount TBR, I admit. I like the premise.

  31. At ‘free’ I figured I didn’t have anything to lose. Thanks for the pointer, Kendall. No Proper Lady was fun. It was well written and the plot easily held my interest.

    I found the world-building uneven, though. The magic and future history was handled competently–not too much detail and generally delivered by in-cluing, not infodumps–but the historical part was maddeningly vague. The spiritualism fad and a mention or two of the jubilee were the only things that pinned it down to a time and place. My only other reference points for “romance” are Heyer and Gabaldon, so the contrast was extreme.

  32. @Nickp
    The first “Highland Dragons” trilogy has an early motorcar in one; they’re in about the same period as the ones at Englefield. (I liked them, also: they’re shapeshifters, and have both dragon and human ancestors.)

  33. At ‘free’ I figured I didn’t have anything to lose. Thanks for the pointer, Kendall. No Proper Lady was fun. It was well written and the plot easily held my interest.

    I found the world-building uneven, though. The magic and future history was handled competently–not too much detail and generally delivered by in-cluing, not infodumps–but the historical part was maddeningly vague. The spiritualism fad and a mention or two of the jubilee were the only things that pinned it down to a time and place. My only other reference points for “romance” are Heyer and Gabaldon, so the contrast was extreme.

    Georgette Heyer and Diana Gabaldon are both very worldbuilding intensive by romance standards. Modern historical romance usually has much less historical details than Georgette Heyer, though there are exceptions. And Diana Gabaldon does her own thing and her work doesn’t really fit into any pigeon holes. Romance readers embraced Outlander, though it is atypical for a romance novel.

    It is commonly believed that romance readers don’t much care for worldbuilding. As someone who is primarily an SFF reader, I often find the thin worldbuilding in paranormal, science fiction and even historical romances annoying, because the worldbuilding to romance plot ratio is frequently tilted too far towards the romance plot for my tastes. There are exceptions of SFF romances and historical romances with good worldbuilding, but you have to find them first.

    Thanks for the Isabel Cooper tip BTW. I downloaded the book.

  34. Heyer was known for the research she did before writing. You can get some idea by looking at the sources listed in “An Infamous Army”, which is set in Brussels in June 1815.

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