Pixel Scroll 9/29/17 Like The Best And Worst Of Typos That Lose Control

(1) TASTING SESSION. James Davis Nicoll feeds his test subjects “Ugly Chickens” by Howard Waldrop at Young People Read Old SFF.

With so many works to choose from, which of Waldrop’s stories to pick? “The Ugly Chickens” seemed like a safe bet; the setting is comfortably mundane and it won both the Nebula and World Fantasy Award, as well as garnering nominations for the Hugo, the Locus and the Balrog. I’ve been wrong before; what did the Young People actually think?

Some say yay. Not Mikayla:

I’m not generally a fan of this style of story anyway, but it didn’t matter because I was pretty much done by the third paragraph.

(2) HOME COOKING. Aaron Pound has launched the “The Ad Astra Cooking Project” at Dreaming About Other Worlds.

I recently acquired Ad Astra: The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook, a collection of recipes from members of the Science Fiction Writers of America edited by Cat Rambo and Fran Wilde. As with all things, I intend to review it, but reviewing a cookbook poses a challenge that most other books do not: There is really no way to accurately review the book based upon reading it. Cookbooks are interactive – you can only appreciate them if you cook the recipes and eat them. So that is exactly what I am going to do….

The book was created to raise funds for the SFWA Legal Fund to support writers in need. The overall theme of the recipes in the book is supposed to be “party”, working on the theory that writers know how to throw a party. A lot of the recipes were solicited for this work, but some were originally collected by Astrid and Greg Bear for a cookbook that was never published. The introductory material includes Connie Willis passing on some excellent cooking advice from Charles Brown, and Carrie Vaughn explaining how to create a cocktail laboratory, including a couple of recipes for some classic cocktails to try. Larry Niven contributes a chapter on how to serve hundreds of cups of Irish Coffee to eager convention-attendees, an essay that is clearly informed by lots of experience….

First out of the oven is — “Ajvar by K.V. Johansen”.

The first recipe in Ad Astra: The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook is one that K.V. Johansen discovered when some of her books were translated into Macedonian and she began traveling to the Republic of Macedonia, presumably to promote her work. Ajvar is an eggplant and bell pepper concoction flavored with garlic, cider vinegar or lemon juice, and hot sauce that can be served as a spread on naan or bread….

(3) CHANGING COLORS OF THE SEASON. It’s time for Petréa Mitchell’s “Fall 2017 SF Anime Preview” at Amazing Stories. Here’s one example of what you have to look forward to –

ClassicaLoid 2

The premise: More surreal comedy about characters patterned on famous composers using musical powers to bend reality. And Antonín Dvo?ák will be a pygmy hippopotamus.

Derivative factor: Sequel

The buzz: The first ClassicaLoid was a surprise hit in Japan, but there’s less enthusiasm about it in English-speaking fandom.

Premiere: October 7

(4) ALL FALL. Meanwhile, back on American TV — “Your Guide To (The Many, Many) Sci-Fi And Fantasy TV Premieres And Returns In October” from Creators.

The Fall season launched in September with over a dozen returns and premieres, but things really kick into gear in October. At current count there are 23 (!) shows returning to the schedule or starting their freshman seasons this month, and that means you have quite a lot of #scifi and #fantasy shows to pick from. Below is a rundown of the October entries and you can see the full Fall schedule here.

 

(5) CLASSIC SF BOUND FOR TV. Deadline has a blast of genre news: “Amazon Developing ‘Ringworld’, ‘Lazarus’ & ‘Snow Crash’ In Genre Series Push”.

Amazon has set up three high-profile drama series for development: Ringworld, based on Larry Niven’s classic science fiction book; Lazarus, based on the comic book by Greg Rucka (Jessica Jones); and Snow Crash, based on Neal Stephenson’s cult novel.

The streaming platform has been ramping up its slate with new projects as part of a programming strategy overhaul in search of big, buzzy shows. A major emphasis has been put on fast-tracking big-scope genre drama series in the mold of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, with Sharon Tal, brought in earlier this year as Head Of Event Series, tasked with spearheading efforts. The deals for Ringworld, Lazarus and Snow Crash are part of that push….

More discussion at the link.

(6) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman beckons his audience to “Ruminate over reindeer with Johanna Sinisalo in Episode 48 of Eating the Fantastic.

Johanna Sinisalo

Joining me this episode was Johanna Sinisalo, who was one of this year’s Worldcon Guests of Honor. Her first novel, Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (Not Before Sundown) won the Finlandia Prize for Literature in 2000 and the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial award in 2004. Her novel Enkelten vert (Blood of Angels) won the English PEN Award. She was a Nebula Award nominee in 2009 for “Baby Doll.” Her novel Auringon ydin (The Core of the Sun) recently won the 2017 Prometheus Award for Best Novel. She has won the Atorox award for the best Finnish-language SF short story seven times.

We discussed what she learned in advertising that helped her be a better writer, how Moomins helped set her on the path to becoming a creator, why she held off attempting a novel until she had dozens of short stories published, the reason the Donald Duck comics of Carl Barks were some of her greatest inspirations, the circuitous way being an actor eventually led to her writing the science fiction film Iron Sky, and more.

(7) KINGS GO FORTH. Daniel Dern says, “This NPR segment gives a good sense of what the King father/son event I went to was like – some of the readings and the schmoozing, including many of the same points and anecdotes I heard them do in person. (hardly surprisingly).” — “Stephen And Owen King On The Horror Of A World Without Women In ‘Sleeping Beauties’, Author interview by Mary Louise Kelly”, initially on NPR’s Morning Edition.

(8) CAVEAT EMPTOR. These are supposed to be Top 10 Facts You Didn’t Know About Star Trek Discovery. If it turns out you knew them, I don’t know where you go for a refund.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Chip Hitchcock and John King Tarpinian send this warning about a peril for Filers, in yesterday’s Bizarro.

(10) SAFETY FIRST. John Scalzi’s question elicits a thread of entertaining answers….

(11) HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, WESLEY. Teresa Jusino is giving orders at The Mary Sue: “Star Trek: TNG at 30: Here’s Why Wesley Crusher Was Awesome, So You Just Shut Up.”.

Basically, the moral of so many episodes of TNG was basically Hey adults! Maybe if you’d listen to Wesley instead of telling him to shut up all the time, you might learn something! In “The Naked Now,” the entire Enterprise crew is infected with a Polywater intoxication that makes everyone all primal and horny and totally into their own deepest desires. So, naturally, what’s the oft-ignored Wesley’s deepest desire? (Besides Ashley Judd?) That’s right, he makes himself the Acting Captain of the ship thanks to a doohickey that he made for fun that can replicate Captain Picard’s voice.

And yet, even while under the influence, he’s such a genius that he’s able to figure out how to quickly turn the ship’s tractor beam into a repulsor beam when the adult Chief of Engineering tells him it would be too hard. He uses the repulsor beam to propel the disabled Enterprise away from another ship, narrowly avoiding the fragments of an exploding star that would’ve hit them. This is the kind of thing Wesley Crusher was capable of on a bad day….

(12) THE MONEY KEEPS ROLLING IN. Vox Day’s crowdfunded Alt*Hero raised $37,000 of its $25,000 goal in about a day. Three donations account for $10,000 of the receipts, however, the site reports 426 backers so far.

A new alternative comic series intended to challenge and eventually replace the SJW-converged comics of DC and Marvel.

(13) AVENGERS GO BOOM. But he may not be able to keep pace with Marvel’s effort to replace itself —

It’s the end of an Avengers Era as we know it! And in the team’s final days, a change has come to the Marvel Universe in the form of a story that’s filled with so much action and so much drama, Marvel had no choice but to make it a weekly epic!

Beginning this January, Marvel will unleash the epic AVENGERS: NO SURRENDER with AVENGERS #675, a weekly saga that unites the casts and creative teams of three titles into an epic tale of heroic action, jaw-dropping cliffhangers, and drastic adventures! The AVENGERS, UNCANNY AVENGERS and U.S. AVENGERS come together in a powerhouse of an event that will be unleashed in a story as spectacular and epic as the Marvel Universe itself.

Featuring one of Marvel’s biggest collaborations to date, each issue will be co-written by superstar writers Mark Waid, Al Ewing and Jim Zub with art by Pepe Larraz for the first month, Kim Jacinto for the second month, and Paco Medina for the third month.

(14) REMINDS ME OF HEINLEIN. More dreams: “Elon Musk says rockets will fly people from city to city in minutes”.

Mr Musk made the promise at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, Australia.

A promotional video says the London-New York journey would take 29 minutes.

Mr Musk told the audience he aimed to start sending people to Mars in 2024. His SpaceX company would begin building the necessary ships to support the mission next year.

He says he is refocusing SpaceX to work on just one type of vehicle – known as the BFR – which could do all of the firm’s current work and interplanetary travel.

(15) SURF’S UP. The BBC reports a journal article: “Tsunami drives species ‘army’ across Pacific to US coast”.

Scientists have detected hundreds of Japanese marine species on US coasts, swept across the Pacific by the deadly 2011 tsunami.

Mussels, starfish and dozens of other creatures great and small travelled across the waters, often on pieces of plastic debris.

Researchers were surprised that so many survived the long crossing, with new species still washing up in 2017.

The study is published in the journal Science.

(16) GENE FIXING. Beyond CRISPR: “DNA surgery on embryos removes disease”.

Precise “chemical surgery” has been performed on human embryos to remove disease in a world first, Chinese researchers have told the BBC.

The team at Sun Yat-sen University used a technique called base editing to correct a single error out of the three billion “letters” of our genetic code.

They altered lab-made embryos to remove the disease beta-thalassemia. The embryos were not implanted.

The team says the approach may one day treat a range of inherited diseases.

(17) DANGER UXB. Neat video: “WW2 bombs blown up at sea in Japan”.
US-made shells have been destroyed in a controlled underwater explosion in Japan.

(18) KILLING GROUND. Real-life source of some “Call of Duty” scenery: “The deadly germ warfare island abandoned by the Soviets”.

That expert was Dave Butler, who ended up going with them. “There was a lot that could have gone wrong,” he says. As a precaution, Butler put the entire team on antibiotics, starting the week before. As a matter of necessity, they wore gas masks with hi-tech air filters, thick rubber boots and full white forensic-style suits, from the moment they arrived.

They weren’t being paranoid. Aerial photographs taken by the CIA in 1962 revealed that while other islands had piers and fish-packing huts, this one had a rifle range, barracks and parade ground. But that wasn’t even the half of it. There were also research buildings, animal pens and an open-air testing site. The island had been turned into a military base of the most dangerous kind: it was a bioweapons testing facility.

(19) THANKS, DONORS. David Steffen’s Long List Anthology is getting longer — “3 Novellas Added! All 3 Print Copies Reward!”

9 days left to go in the campaign, and we’ve reached another stretch goal to add 3 novellas which adds another 58,000 words to the book!  All 3 excellent science fiction stories by S.B. Divya, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Gu Shi with translation by Ken Liu and S. Qiouyi Lu.

I’ve also added a reward level that includes a print and ebook copy of each of the 3 volumes of the anthology for $80–if you’ve already pledged but you’d like print copies of all 3 you can choose to upgrade.

There are still a couple of stretch goals left.  The next one’s just a short hop of $58 from where we are now to add “We Have a Cultural Difference, Can I Taste You” by Rebecca Ann Jordan.  And another $300 beyond that to add one more novella “Hammers on Bone” by Cassandra Khaw.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Daniel Dern, Cat Eldridge, JJ, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]

51 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/29/17 Like The Best And Worst Of Typos That Lose Control

  1. 2)
    I’ve never made Ajvar from scratch, but then jarred Ajvar is widely available in German supermarkets these days, probably because we have quite a lot of immigrants from the Balkan states. Personally, I use it as a sauce for vegetable stir-fries or for homemade sauce zingara.

  2. Fourth fifth.

    I can speak directly to Larry Niven’s expertise at serving mass quantities of Irish Coffee–he is indeed excellent at it.

    I’ve looked at the SFWA cookbook, and I’d judge it a bit of a mixed bag, judging purely as a cookbook, but it does have several recipes that look excellent, and anyway, that’s probably not its primary appeal. 🙂

  3. 2) You can buy Ajvar in most supermarkets in Sweden. I usually have it to sausage if I buy it.

  4. Wow, I was very surprised and disappointed at the poor reception of The Ugly Chickens.. It’s one of my favorite stories!

    My own annoyance with Wesley was only in the earlier seasons when they never really knew what to do with the character. The absolute low point for me was the episode “Justice” where they pretend Wil Wheaton hasn’t gone through puberty. This is the episode where Wesley gets a death sentence for stepping on some plants. When Wesley was treated as an actual teenager, I liked the character a lot. Though I still hate his special destiny..

  5. Also, I manages to fix the “Bad Request” problem that kept me from accessing File 770 with Safari on my iPad. Clearing the cookies resolved the situation. So it had nothing to do with the site directly. Just FYI for anyone who has this happen to them.

  6. CLASSIC SF BOUND FOR TV.

    Of these I’m most interested in Lazarus as an ongoing series. It doesn’t surprise me that the comics have been picked up for development, as they read quite cinematically (or televisually I guess). It has suitable story arcs and plenty of worldbuilding and action scenes that are ready to use.

    Snow Crash and Ringworld I can imagine working as miniseries, but the producers will have to make some sound decisions.

  7. Back from work trip in Britton, SD.

    14) Very Heinlein, and I do wonder about the reliability and practicaliy of such engineering.

    12) ” eventually replace the SJW-converged comics of DC and Marvel.”. Shooting for the stars, I see. Of course, given that I’ve backed too many KS projects which in the end have never delivered anything, the actual devil IS in the details.

    –I’ve gotten very much more parsimonious in who and what I back.

  8. ” eventually replace the SJW-converged comics of DC and Marvel.”. Shooting for the stars, I see.

    Just like he was going to take over Tor with his indie publishing house. How long ago was that plan supposed to come to fruition?

  9. @Aaron

    Assuming this isn’t just another grift, he’ll probably receive the worst possible result that he can imagine: a bunch of people in the comic book industry saying “Who is this person, and why exactly should we care?”

    But if these sorts of fundraisers make money maybe I’m in the wrong line of business. “Fundraiser to make Schnookums von Fancypants President of the Universe and also Pope while we’re at it but I promise while I’m there I’ll make SJWs cry and stuff. Goal: one meeeelyon dollars!”

  10. Humph — someone my edit after “First!” disappeared, even though I would have sworn I’d clicked the submit button within the 5-minute limit. I was observing that the commenters (down to 3 now?) seem unable to deal with a less-than-sympathetic narrator, which is unfortunate as this type can be useful even when it doesn’t learn better (one of the basic story types, according to some quotes of Heinlein). Although I’m not in much position to talk considering how I completely missed the point of “Fire Watch” (just as some of them did a few months ago) when I was about the ages I understand they are now; I also had trouble with Giraut Leones a decade later, but I suspect some Filers would find him to be intolerable even after he learns better.

    @Charon D.: but you’re early? Celery stalks at midnight!

    A missed anniversary: the BBC notes that the first episode of The Prisoner was aired yesterday (29 Sep 1967). ISFDB informs me that yesterday was also the 470th birthday of Cervantes; Wikipedia says this is an assumption based on his name (29 Sep is St. Michael’s day), because the baptismal record (dated several days later) says nothing about the birth.

  11. On 1), Tasting Session, I commented on the site, “Are there no spaying and neutering services there? I shudder to think that some of these people will apparently be passing their DNA on to future generations of readers.”

  12. Lazarus does have the potential to be something on the scale of Game Of Thrones all right, it’s got the scope and complexity, if only they can get it on the screen.

  13. Looking for information. I was checking to see if the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards had been given this year and found nothing. There doesn’t appear to be a Gaylaxicon scheduled either. Does anyone know what is happening?

  14. Recipes are the only form of literature that is most naturally written in second-person.

    Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories.

    Love songs.

    Infocom games.

  15. “You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
    There is a small Scroll here.”

    >Open Scroll

    Inside the Scroll is a Pixel.

    >Take Pixel.

    Taken

  16. The first (only?) full-length novel I remember reading in second-person was Will Shetterly’s Gospel of the Knife (sequel to Dogland). It took a while to wrap my head around it.

    I’m not entirely sure I’d say recipes are written in second-person; at least, they’re written in an imperative form and generally don’t say, “You.”

  17. There is a small Scroll here.”

    >Open Scroll

    Inside the Scroll is a Pixel.

    That’s too easy. As I remember it the correct order of commands would be

    >Open Scroll

    You don’t have that!

    >Take Scroll

    Ok.

    >Open scroll

    The scroll crumbles to dust. A pixel falls to the ground.

    >take pixel

    Ok.

  18. @Johan. If we were really sadistic, we’d do it Babel Fish Machine style. That might be beyond the bounds of my creativity. Or without judicious googling.

  19. @Andrew

    I’d forgotten about “Instructions”. Not a subtle story, but a lot of fun if you like deadpan black humour – thanks for the reminder. Now to see if I still have the anthology I found it in…

  20. @Chip – my post is in EST, my body is in PST, my heart is in Hawaii Standard (and I’m posting hula filk on my blog accordingly) and I attribute it all to that Ween concert the other night. (And Bunnicula is one of my favorite novels.)

  21. In re: second-person POV, I thought Charles Stross did a mighty fine job of second person in Halting State. I often find the technique irritating, but he made it quite interesting.

    And of course there’s Jemisin, whom I don’t think has been mentioned yet in this thread.

  22. The first (only?) full-length novel I remember reading in second-person was Will Shetterly’s Gospel of the Knife

    Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City is also written in the second person.

  23. The original post did say “most naturally written in second-person,” and prose fiction doesn’t seem to fit that.

    But as long as we’re listing things written in second person, the 1970s run of Iron Fist comics were written that way, as was, years later, the Spider-Girl series.

    I thought it worked really well for BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY.

  24. @Andrew Porter–

    On 1), Tasting Session, I commented on the site, “Are there no spaying and neutering services there? I shudder to think that some of these people will apparently be passing their DNA on to future generations of readers.”

    That’s not behavior you should be bragging about, Andrew.

  25. I agree with Lis Carey.

    @Mike Glyer

    I can’t find much about the awards, but this year the convention seems to be doing something different and next year they’re being hosted (?) by a different convention. They do seem to have solicited nominations but after that I have no idea, I’m afraid.

  26. Another form of literature which routinely uses the second person, as we are reminded at the beginning of Charlie Stross’ Rule 34 (the sequel to Halting State), is the letter (including both personal correspondence and form letters).

    Halting State (a mystery involving a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG) used the second person as an homage to the classic computer Adventure games, but both it and its sequel used it so subtly and well that I barely noticed the first time I read it. And the sequel actually offered a very interesting justification for the use of second person (which is, unfortunately, somewhat spoilerish).

  27. Iain Banks used the second person in alternate chapters in Complicity, those written from the killers PoV. In a way making the reader complicit with the crime.

  28. Re: 2nd person narratives: I remember a story in an old anthology about time travel called “Voyagers in Time” (possibly edited by Groff Conklin), where a narrator is telling the protagonist what he’s going to do once he gets into the time machine in his basement. No idea of the story’s title or author, but that story (like most of the others) stuck with me. I know I read the anthology over and over again.

    As a young reader I was obsessed with time travel stories. One of the first books I bought with my own money was H.G. Well’s The Time Machine. I was too young at at the time to fully grasp what was going on (The Classics Illustrated comic book version helped). I remember being very confused by the fact that one first-person narrator was relating the story from another first-person narrator (The Time Traveller), but I think I was in third grade at the time.

  29. @Joe H.: “I’m not entirely sure I’d say recipes are written in second-person; at least, they’re written in an imperative form and generally don’t say, “You.”

    The relative lack of inflection in English makes this kind of thing less obvious, but: imperatives directed at people other than the speaker are second-person, regardless of whether they use the word “you.” A sentence like “Sauté for five minutes” is necessarily second-person; English doesn’t really have a verb-only imperative form for other persons, instead it has hortatives using an auxiliary verb (e.g. first-person plural, “Let’s sauté for five minutes”).

    There is still plenty of ambiguity—you can’t tell how many chefs are being addressed, or (if it’s a potentially intransitive verb like “sauté”) whether the speaker is even talking to the chef as opposed to addressing the items in the pan—but not about whether it’s second person.

  30. “you can’t tell how many chefs are being addressed”

    One. Because every recipe assumes that when it says “add the remaining $ingredient”, it’s the same person doing that step as the previous one so they know how much $ingredient was added the first time.

    Why yes, I have cooked with groups of friends on many occasions.

  31. He says he is refocusing SpaceX to work on just one type of vehicle – known as the BFR – which could do all of the firm’s current work and interplanetary travel.

    I take it this means the Big Friendly Rocket, in an homage to Roald Dahl’s The BFG?

    (I suspect Dahl originally meant a word other than “Friendly”…)

  32. @HelenS
    The New York Times merely said that “The ‘B’ stands for ‘big’ and the ‘R’ stands for ‘rocket.'” The “F” must stand for “Falcon.” 😉

  33. Mike Glyer: I was checking to see if the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards had been given this year and found nothing. There doesn’t appear to be a Gaylaxicon scheduled either. Does anyone know what is happening?

    You can try contacting them here. There doesn’t appear to have been much activity on the website since last October, and the ConFabulous website doesn’t say anything about giving them out. I guess you’ll know in a week, if they do.

  34. @ Ghostbird

    I’d forgotten about “Instructions”. Not a subtle story, but a lot of fun if you like deadpan black humour – thanks for the reminder. Now to see if I still have the anthology I found it in…

    I should read more Leman – I’ve read several of his stories (“Instructions,” “Loob,” “Window”) in anthologies and magazines but never gotten around to picking up a collection of his stories.

    @John M. Cowan
    Re: 2nd person narratives: I remember a story in an old anthology about time travel called “Voyagers in Time” (possibly edited by Groff Conklin), where a narrator is telling the protagonist what he’s going to do once he gets into the time machine in his basement. No idea of the story’s title or author, but that story (like most of the others) stuck with me. I know I read the anthology over and over again

    That’s “And It Comes Out Here” by Lester Del Rey

    Another time travel story that uses 2nd person is “You were Right, Joe” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Were_Right,_Joe

    @Xtifr: Yeah, Stross’ use of 2nd person worked very well. In the 2nd book, the surprise was somewhat similar to the surprise at the end of Pohl’s “Man Plus” in which a different unusual voice is finally explained.

  35. @Charon D.: my post is in EST, my body is in PST… I’m not following this; all the times I see are PDT. (On my posts for sure, on others in the neighborhood unless there are more eccentric time zones than I know about, and on all of them by extrapolation.) Is that locally settable?

  36. @JJ

    Thanks – turns out I don’t have a physical copy any more (I’ve been purging my book collection pretty heavily over the last few years) so the link is very welcome.

  37. Anyone happen to know why Leman’s “Feesters in the Lake” is hard to get – copies are available, but only for more than $200. I guess it was just a very limited run?

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