Pixel Scroll 9/19 Mouse wheel keep on turnin’ (turnin’) / Trolls gonna keep on burnin’ (burnin’)

(1) You might not have suspected that L. Frank Baum’s first book was about raising chickens.

At 20, Baum took on the then national craze—the breeding of fancy poultry. He specialized in raising of the Hamburg. In March 1880, he established a monthly trade journal, The Poultry Record.

And when he was 30, Baum published The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs.

(2) Peter Capaldi’s interview by a local LA Times writer signals the arrival of a new season of Doctor Who.

At the base of Los Angeles’ Bradbury Building, a slender man in an impossibly clever suit considers the wrought-iron coils of the past that adorned the future of Ridley’s Scott’s neo-noir film. Tucked behind his Ray-Bans, the eyebrows that launched a thousand GIFs furrow.

Just so we’re clear, the 12th Doctor is standing in the “Blade Runner” building….

“It’s a marathon,” Capaldi says. “[Matt] knows what it is like, when you’re on Episode 10 and you’re really sort of dying on your feet. You’re thinking, ‘I’m not going to be able to learn any more lines, I’m not going to be able to pull anymore faces.’ [Matt Smith is] great because I can text him and say, ‘This is where I’m at. Can you help or do you remember this?’ He has totally been such a huge support. As David [Tennant, the 10th Doctor] has as well.”

The last regeneration from baby-faced Smith to the gray-locked Capaldi wasn’t just a change in character age, but in tone as well.

“I think The Doctor has become more and more accessible as the show has become more successful, and this sounds bad, but weirdly I want to make him more distant,” he says. “I don’t want to be so user friendly. I didn’t want to go out and say to the audience, ‘Love me.’ I wanted to be a more spikey character. Hopefully I’m a character that might be uncomfortable to be around. But interesting.”

(3) And the Times ran a companion article full of hints about future episodes.

Spoilers are deadly here — to the fun, certainly, but conceivably to the person who reveals them as well — but a few cats have officially been let out of the bag. There will be Daleks — yes, again and already — including what feels like a nod back to Coleman’s first appearance in the series, before she became a companion, back in “Asylum of the Daleks.”

There will be Missy (Michelle Gomez), the transgender reincarnation of the Master — news whose goodness the two-part opener, “The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar,” penned by show runner Steven Moffat, only confirms. (One of Moffat’s great gifts to the series is a string of memorable women — indeed, all his best inventions have been female characters.)

Also, as trailers have shown, the Doctor will play an electric guitar with all the authority of a man — Capaldi, that is — who once led a Scottish punk band (Dreamboys, with Craig Ferguson — that Craig Ferguson — on drums). It’s a pointed, and explicitly pointed-out, reminder that David Tennant’s and Smith’s young and madcap Doctors still live within him: “It’s my party, and all of me are invited.” Said another way: He’s not as old as he looks. (Some 2,000 years of living notwithstanding.)

(4) On Monkeys Fighting Robots the “Top 10 Doctor Who Episodes” begin with —

  1. The Doctor’s Wife

The Season 6 episode “The Doctor’s Wife” was guest written by Neil Gaiman, a man best known for writing Stardust, Coraline and The Sandman and his episode was awarded the 2011 Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation and the Best Dramatic Presentation at the 2012 Hugo Awards.

This episode sees The Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams receiving a distress call from a Time Lord and enter into a rift between Universes to try and save him or her. Where they end up is a void made up from trash and space debris where a group of people have salvaged a living from the junk. Also with them is an eccentric woman called Idris who pretty much jumps on The Doctor when she first sees him.

What made this episode such a delight was Suranne Jones’ performance as Idris, a unhinged woman who is completely batty and has a mysterious connection to The Doctor. Jones was fantastic, letting out her inner Helena Bonham Carter and injected a lot of humor in the episode. Gaiman’s written ensure that was a balance of drama and comedy and references the history of the show.

(5) Missed a big 50th anniversary the other day – the first aired episode of Get Smart on September 18, 1965.

Max-and-99-get-smart-original-series-1716131-324-506The episode, Mr. Big, introduced Agent 86, Maxwell Smart played by Don Adams and his partner, the inimitable Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) as agents of CONTROL.

Headed by their boss, The Chief (Edward Platt), 86 and 99 worked together to fight the forces of KAOS.  In the pilot, Mr. Big, we see the only actual appearance of the head of KAOS, played by little person Michael Dunn, before he is killed by episode’s end by his own Doomsday death ray.

Inspired by The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (which in itself was inspired by the James Bond craze of the early 60’s), Get Smart spoofed every aspect of spy culture including colorful villains, outrageous gadgets and ridiculous plots.

(6) Brian K. Lowe in “It’s the Little Things that We Count”.

Sure, this is all for fun, and everybody’s entitled, but there are issues out there that we should be paying attention to: climate change, record refugee migrations, wealth distribution, a presidential election season being run by reality stars. (Somebody has probably actually predicted this somewhere along the line.) Why should we care if No Award got the Hugo for Best Short Story when right outside the auditorium record forest fires, fueled by unprecedented drought, made the air seem less like Spokane than Beijing?

And why isn’t anyone blogging about that?

I have a simple theory: It’s too big. We can’t handle this stuff. This is the sort of thing we elected those guys in Washington to solve for us. See how well that’s worked out.

But you know what? We’re Science Fiction. We think about the big issues, the future. Up until now, instead of the guys in Washington, we’ve let the guys in SFWA do the heavy lifting, so we can concentrate on nominating patterns and voting blocs. Except now the guys in SFWA are right down there with us. We’re letting a thousand ant-like problems distract us from the elephants in the room. Because it’s easier.

I’m not going to sit here at my computer and claim I have the way out. I’m not to claim that I’m any better than anyone else, that I’ve been fighting the good fight while everyone else sat at their bivouac. I don’t, and I haven’t. I’ve fed the monster of small concerns like a lot of others.

But it’s time to stop. It’s time for us in science fiction to stop squabbling about petty matters and get back to bigger things. The kind of looming apocalypses that we can imagine, because we’re not afraid to. The kind of doomsday scenarios that used to be science fiction.

(7) Daniel in “The Forgotten Core of Science Fiction is Not Science” on Castalia House Blog takes on David Brin’s critique of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora.

Good science fiction may include politics of some sort, but despite what Brin asserts, that shouldn’t be its measure. Nor should “competence porn.” It is simply a myth that science fiction’s job is to correct any perceived tropes of the past.

Ken Burnside demonstrated an understanding of this very well in his Hugo award-nominated The Hot Equations. His counsel on the better implementation of physics into space combat is less focused on correcting tropes and is instead written entirely from the perspective of serving an underserved genre:

Thermodynamically limited space opera is a greatly underserved niche, in the overlapping circles of a Venn diagram between Hard SF and military science fiction. – Ken Burnside, The Hot Equations

Where Burnside is on target, Brin is off base. Brin’s argument is based on a premise: that in the future, Science Fiction depends on better political messaging and a commitment to progress.

Brin is half right: Science Fiction can be about an optimistic future that comes about through hard work and sound engineering. But does not, at its core only include that. Despite what Brin asserts, 1984 is not a positive self-denying prophecy. Orwell did not prevent a society that falls repeatedly under totalitarian thought policing – he merely provided a fictional setting that helped some readers identify it when it came for them.

(8) Amanda Palmer is a songwriter, musician and performance artist. She’s about to have her first child. She spoke with NPR’s Rachel Martin about the dueling demands of motherhood and art in “An Artist Worries: Will Motherhood Compromise Creativity?”

MARTIN: So you get this letter from your faithful fan. And you write in the response that this person essentially confirmed your deepest fears about being a mother and an artist. What a nice thing for this person to have done.

PALMER: Yeah, I mean, the part of the letter that confirmed my deepest fears wasn’t so much the are you tricking us into crowdfunding a baby. It was more of this fan’s terror that now that I was having a baby, I wasn’t going to be a good artist anymore.

MARTIN: And is the concern that having a baby – for obvious reasons, it changes your daily routines and your life in terms of how you use your time. But is your concern more about what will be the impact on your creativity?

PALMER: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it’s seems like there’s a paradox out there because on the one hand, so many artists who are parents will tell you that having children unlocks this unforeseen wellspring of creativity. On the other hand, some of the proof of concept (laughter) can fly in the face of that. And, you know, there’s definitely artists out there who kind of get boring after they have kids but seem to not be aware of it. So nobody’s anecdotal evidence can really prepare you for what’s going to happen. You just know that you’re going to change and you don’t know how.

(9) Best Related Work, Edible? Tattooed Bakers made this Groot Cake, a frosted Jupiter, and a cake referencing The Hobbit.

Groot-cakeJupiter-Square_viewHobbit-square_view

[Thanks to Will R. and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Iphinome.]

226 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/19 Mouse wheel keep on turnin’ (turnin’) / Trolls gonna keep on burnin’ (burnin’)

  1. 21ST CENTURY FANTASY, ROUND TWO

    2. POLICE SQUAD!
    Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

    3. ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
    Coraline, Neil Gaiman

    5. YET MORE FALSE THINGS
    The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

    6. GARDEN PARTY
    In the Night Garden, Catherynne M. Valente

    7. ALL MANNER OF STRANGE BEINGS
    Perdido Street Station, China Mieville

    8. BATTLE OF THE BEST-SELLERS
    A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin

    10. THE HUMBLE AND THE ARROGANT
    The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

    11. NOT THE EUROPE YOU REMEMBER
    Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke

    13. MI-?
    The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

    14. DETERMINED YOUNG WOMEN
    The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner

    15. MAGIC LESSONS
    Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone

    16. IRV FTW
    The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin
    City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett

  2. 9. CARNIVOROUS UNICORNS, MILITARY DRAGONS is going to be pretty close, I think.

    I’ve been very good about not polishing my menacing crutch meaningfully at anyone voting against DRAGONS.

  3. Meredith on September 21, 2015 at 12:04 pm said:
    9. CARNIVOROUS UNICORNS, MILITARY DRAGONS is going to be pretty close, I think.

    I’ve been very good about not polishing my menacing crutch meaningfully at anyone voting against DRAGONS.

    You know, if there are two dragons left standing at the end of this round, she’s just going to pair dragons again.

  4. 1. THE KNIGHT ERRANT AND THE PALADIN
    Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
    2. POLICE SQUAD!
    Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
    3. ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
    Coraline, Neil Gaiman
    4. RESPECTABLE DRACONOLOGY
    Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton
    5. YET MORE FALSE THINGS
    The Tower at Stony Wood, Patricia McKillip
    6. GARDEN PARTY
    Abstain
    7. ALL MANNER OF STRANGE BEINGS
    The Cloud Roads, Martha Wells
    8. BATTLE OF THE BEST-SELLERS
    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling
    9. CARNIVOROUS UNICORNS, MILITARY DRAGONS
    To Ride a Rathorn, P. C. Hodgell
    His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik
    Tie. I cannot choose.

    10. THE HUMBLE AND THE ARROGANT
    The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
    11. NOT THE EUROPE YOU REMEMBER
    Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle
    12. MI-?
    Rivers of London (AKA Midnight Riot), Ben Aaronovitch
    13. MI-?
    Abstain
    14. DETERMINED YOUNG WOMEN
    Sunshine, Robin McKinley
    15. MAGIC LESSONS
    The Magicians, Lev Grossman
    16. IRV FTW
    City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett

  5. Now that we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty, I’m only voting if I’ve read both or, theoretically, if one of the books is the best thing in my universe (that one didn’t come up this round).

    21ST CENTURY FANTASY, ROUND TWO

    7. ALL MANNER OF STRANGE BEINGS
    Perdido Street Station, China Mieville

    That was hard, but my brain likes things dark and hopeless and pretty and psychedelic.

    8. BATTLE OF THE BEST-SELLERS
    A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin

    This time, if ASoIaF were complete, and the series up against the entire Harry Potter series, the outcome may have been different.

    10. THE HUMBLE AND THE ARROGANT
    The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

    Ugh, that was a hard one. I’m still not sure whether Rothfuss is pulling this series off, but his storytelling skills are pretty durn impressive. His world is an excellent escape from reality. TGE was one of my favorites from last year, but doesn’t quite hold up in comparison, though I suspect it is the technically superior work.

  6. 8. A Storm of Swords, Geroge R. R. Martin
    10: The Goblin Emperor. Katherine Addison
    12. Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch
    16. Range of Ghosts, Elizabeth Bear (Haven’t read City of Stairs yet.)

  7. Hope I’m not too late, but here’s my vote anyway.

    1. THE KNIGHT ERRANT AND THE PALADIN
    Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold

    2. POLICE SQUAD!
    Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

    3. ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
    Abstain

    4. RESPECTABLE DRACONOLOGY
    Abstain

    5. YET MORE FALSE THINGS
    Abstain

    6. GARDEN PARTY
    Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal

    7. ALL MANNER OF STRANGE BEINGS
    The Cloud Roads, Martha Wells

    8. BATTLE OF THE BEST-SELLERS
    A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin

    9. CARNIVOROUS UNICORNS, MILITARY DRAGONS
    To Ride a Rathorn, P. C. Hodgell

    Painful, but GOD STALk always wins. Sorry, Temeraire.

    10. THE HUMBLE AND THE ARROGANT
    The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

    This one was really painful, but I have to go with the epic worldbuilding and outstanding wordsmithing of Rothfuss over my fave emperor.

    11. NOT THE EUROPE YOU REMEMBER
    Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle

    12. MI-?
    Rivers of London (AKA Midnight Riot), Ben Aaronovitch

    13. MI-?
    Abstain

    14. DETERMINED YOUNG WOMEN
    Abstain

    15. MAGIC LESSONS
    Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone

    16. IRV FTW
    The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin

  8. 21ST CENTURY FANTASY, ROUND TWO RESULTS

    In addition to the results below, there were two votes for Jack O’Lantern Girl, and the traditional vote for Bold As Love.

    1. THE KNIGHT ERRANT AND THE PALADIN
    WINNER (seeded): Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold – 39 votes
    Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire – 9 votes
    We start with some good, but ultimately doomed, showings against some of the biggest powerhouses in the bracket. Rosemary and Rue put up a good fight against Paladin of Souls …

    2. POLICE SQUAD!
    WINNER (seeded): Night Watch, Terry Pratchett – 40 votes
    Snake Agent, Liz Williams – 6 votes
    … Liz Williams’ book did better against Night Watch than any other book thus far …

    3. ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
    WINNER (seeded): Coraline, Neil Gaiman – 29 votes
    Daughter of Mystery, Heather Rose Jones – 11 votes
    … and local hero HRJ reaches double digits against Coraline. Impressive showings for all.

    4. RESPECTABLE DRACONOLOGY
    WINNER: Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton – 25 votes
    A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan – 14 votes
    The next matches creep a bit closer, starting with another solid win for dragonkind over dragonkind …

    5. YET MORE FALSE THINGS
    WINNER: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch – 21 votes
    The Tower at Stony Wood, Patricia McKillip – 16 votes
    … then a quite close match between Lynch and McKillip, but a win for Lynch by 5 votes …

    6. GARDEN PARTY
    WINNER: Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal – 17 votes
    In the Night Garden, Catherynne M. Valente – 12 votes
    … then a quite close match between Kowal and Valente, but a win for Kowal by five votes …

    7. ALL MANNER OF STRANGE BEINGS
    WINNER: Perdido Street Station, China Mieville – 20 votes
    The Cloud Roads, Martha Wells – 15 votes
    … then a quite close match between Mieville and Wells, but a win for Mieville by five votes, I’m getting déjà vu here.

    8. BATTLE OF THE BEST-SELLERS
    WINNER (seeded): A Storm of Swords, George R. R. Martin – 26 votes
    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling – 20 votes
    At last, a win by SIX votes, in a highly contested match where the one that lost got more votes than some that won. Nearly everyone had an opinion on this one, but the Martin is the one going on.

    9. CARNIVOROUS UNICORNS, MILITARY DRAGONS
    WINNER (seeded): His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik – 27 votes
    To Ride a Rathorn, P. C. Hodgell – 15 votes
    Another win for the dragon contingent as one site favorite bests another. The Novik will go on, but still we shall cry GOD STALK!

    10. THE HUMBLE AND THE ARROGANT
    WINNER (seeded): The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison – 50 votes
    The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss – 12 votes
    It’s probably impressive that Rothfuss scored as highly as he did, but Addison racks up the highest vote score in the bracket; none have truly challenged this juggernaut so far.

    11. NOT THE EUROPE YOU REMEMBER
    WINNER (seeded): Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke – 26 votes
    Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle – 16 votes
    Another case where an admired book hits a bracket titan; JS&MN goes on, although Ash certainly put up a good fight.

    12. MI-Pi
    WINNER: The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross – 18 votes
    Rivers of London (AKA Midnight Riot), Ben Aaronovitch – 15 votes
    In the closest match of this round of the brackets, The Atrocity Archives just barely edges out site favorite Rivers of London.

    13. MI-Omega
    WINNER: Declare, Tim Powers – 21 votes
    The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde – 11 votes
    Not as close, but still a good showing on the part of the Eyre Affair. But Declare goes on.

    14. DETERMINED YOUNG WOMEN
    WINNER: The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner – 24 votes
    Sunshine, Robin McKinley – 17 votes
    Quite a close match, but The Privilege of the Sword takes it, and the last vampire novel contender is defeated.

    15. MAGIC LESSONS
    WINNER (seeded): Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone – 29 votes
    The Magicians, Lev Grossman – 9 votes
    And a convincing win for Three Parts Dead over The Magicians; Three Parts Dead seems to have retained its shine despite some thinking the sequels haven’t been up to its level. The Magicians, while still much-beloved, seems for some to have lost a little of its luster since it first came out.

    16. IRV FTW

    Round 1:
    The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin – 22 votes
    City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett – 11 votes
    Range of Ghosts, Elizabeth Bear – 12 votes

    Round 2:
    WINNER: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N. K. Jemisin – 25 votes
    Range of Ghosts, Elizabeth Bear – 14 votes
    (No Preference – 6 votes)

    And in the final contest, Jemisin beats both Bear and Bennett to go on to Round 3.

  9. Hark! A bracket!

    Edit: too slow! But I didn’t have internet all afternoon.
    Also I don’t think my votes would have changed the results.

    1. THE KNIGHT ERRANT AND THE PALADIN
    Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold

    2. POLICE SQUAD!
    Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

    When I saw the title, I feared a Pratchett/Aaronovitch matchup…

    3. ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
    Coraline, Neil Gaiman

    4. RESPECTABLE DRACONOLOGY

    5. YET MORE FALSE THINGS
    The Tower at Stony Wood, Patricia McKillip

    6. GARDEN PARTY

    7. ALL MANNER OF STRANGE BEINGS
    Perdido Street Station, China Mieville

    8. BATTLE OF THE BEST-SELLERS

    Tie between two works I like a lot.

    9. CARNIVOROUS UNICORNS, MILITARY DRAGONS
    His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik

    10. THE HUMBLE AND THE ARROGANT
    The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

    11. NOT THE EUROPE YOU REMEMBER

    Tie between two works I don’t like very much.

    12. MI-?
    Rivers of London (AKA Midnight Riot), Ben Aaronovitch

    13. MI-?

    14. DETERMINED YOUNG WOMEN

    15. MAGIC LESSONS

    16. IRV FTW

  10. 15. MAGIC LESSONS
    WINNER (seeded): Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone – 29 votes
    The Magicians, Lev Grossman – 9 votes
    And a convincing win for Three Parts Dead over The Magicians; Three Parts Dead seems to have retained its shine despite some thinking the sequels haven’t been up to its level. The Magicians, while still much-beloved, seems for some to have lost a little of its luster since it first came out.

    I curse your names. I curse your hearts, your souls, your bookcases. All 29 of you, you foul fiends.

    You 8 other people who weren’t me, though, I owe you a drink.

    Not this one, though. Cursing is thirsty work.

  11. Oddly enough, for both Gladstone and Grossman I like the sequels better than the first book. But I find Gladstone to be more fun and interesting overall.

  12. Kurt:

    I curse your names. I curse your hearts, your souls, your bookcases. All 29 of you, you foul fiends.

    No! Not the bookcases! {quails}

  13. Kurt Busiek: I curse your names. I curse your hearts, your souls, your bookcases. All 29 of you, you foul fiends. You 8 other people who weren’t me, though, I owe you a drink.

    I know, right? I’ll take you up on that drink at the Filer Meetup next year at MidAmericon II. 😉

  14. Now that my beloved Daughter is out of the running, I’d like to say how … I’m not sure I know the right word, touched? delighted? encouraged? … I am to see evidence that people like it. I went through some really discouraging times last year when I was convinced I’d made all the wrong publishing and marketing decisions and that the book was going to die in silence without ever finding any of its readerships. It means even more because this is a tough, opinionated crowd that knows its own mind. No fears of any pity votes here!

  15. I know, right? I’ll take you up on that drink at the Filer Meetup next year at MidAmericon II. ?

    Sounds good. We can curse Goldfarb more fully.

    Maybe his TV remote control, too.

  16. @Lauowolf: (early or late)

    It gets worse. I’m on Eastern time, so I was still up at almost 9am… and I had to be back up around noon. Sadly, my brain does that all day long.

  17. Rev. Bob on September 21, 2015 at 8:49 pm said:
    @Lauowolf: (early or late)

    It gets worse. I’m on Eastern time, so I was still up at almost 9am… and I had to be back up around noon. Sadly, my brain does that all day long.

    Time for a foil hat.
    And sleep.

  18. Heather: In all seriousness, Daughter of Mystery was one of those books I have wished for for a long time. Your elegantly light historical insertions were great, and I’m hard pressed to think of many other books at all that so well capture the way nerds talk about their shared scholarly interests. The way your protagonists felt their love, and felt about being in love, resonated very strongly with me.

    Good stuff. 🙂

  19. Daughter of Mystery is currently waiting until it doesn’t cost half again as much as most ebooks, but I’m sure I’ll love it once I get it. (The paperback costs three times as much as the average paperback, not that I usually buy dead tree versions. I assume the prices are a UK version thing.)

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