Pixel Scroll 9/16/17 We’ll Have Fun, Fun, Fun, ‘Til Her Daddy Scrolls The Pixel Away.

(1) PROOF AND REPROOF. David Brin, after congratulating N.K. Jemisin for her latest Hugo win, asks readers to predict what’s coming next in the sff genre, in “Perspectives from Science Fiction: Hugos and other marvels”.

Oh and also, let’s celebrate that science fiction has always – and yes always, ever since it was founded by our revered grandmother of SF, Mary Wollstonecraft (Shelley) – been the genre of literature most welcoming to bold ideas about human and non-human diversity, and brashly exploratory authors. Yes, SF was always “better than its times” when it came to such things, though every decade deserved the reproof of later decades, for its own myopic misdeeds. Leaving our self-critical movement always looking for the next cause for self-improvement!

So what are we doing now, that will cause later generations of brave questioners and boundary-pushers to reprove? What terrible habit will reformers tell us to break next, when we get the upper hand on racism, sexism and cultural conformity? I think I know what it will be! (Hint: what is the most harmful and nasty thing that even good people now routinely do to each other, with barely a thought to fairness or consequences? And I include people as good as you envision yourself to be. Discuss in comments, below.)

(2) THE SHAPE OF YEARS TO COME. And at Examined Worlds, Ethan Mills wants to know “Where did all the far-future science fiction go?”

This is a question I’ve thought about a lot lately.  I recently re-read the last book in the Dune series and am working my way through the delightfully/impossibly difficult Book of the New Sun, which my Goodreads review describes as “like taking an acid trip through a thesaurus.”

These days far-future stuff is harder to find.  There’s even a popular genre of science fiction that takes place in the past: steampunk.  Contemporary readers will call a book “far future” if it takes place a mere few hundred years or even sooner. See this list of allegedly “far future” science fiction that puts Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 on the list, and even more weirdly, Charles Stross’s Accelerando.  One of the main complaints about Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves was that people didn’t care for the the part that takes place in thousands of years (which for the record was my favorite part — see my review for more).

(3) THE RONDO OF A LIFETIME. Steven J. Vertlieb recently found buried digital treasure:

Discovered these wonderful photographs for the first time recently on my brother’s cell phone while vacationing in Los Angeles just a couple of weeks ago. This marvelous shot was taken in Louisville, Kentucky during the prestigious annual Rondo Award ceremony in early June, 2016, after which actor, director, artist, writer, and old pal Mark Redfield and I were awarded these coveted Rondo “Hall of Fame” plaques in joyous recognition of a lifetime of creative productivity, and dedication to the arts.

(4) PUPPIES AND RACE.  In “Words Matter, Actions Matter and Race Definitely Matters” at Amazing Stories, Chris M. Barkley rebuts author Christopher Nuttall’s editorial, “A Character Who Happens To Be Black”.

When a writer, of any ethnicity, admits using characters of different ethnicities without even the slightest hint of any sort of context for doing so, it is the worst sort of cultural appropriation and is an insult to his readers as well. Using the “I don’t see color” explanation to pander his own world view about race may be satisfying to his bubble of readers ordering online, but I am quite willing to bet it would not pass muster at most publishing houses or with discerning and critical readers as well.

By erasing ethnicity, class or race as a factor in his characters, Mr. Nuttal is stating those centuries of history and culture, on which his future or fantasy worlds are built upon, don’t matter or worse, never happened. By homogenizing his black characters with his white male viewpoint, he is giving them the “gift” of being white and being as good as anyone else and calling for their heritage and culture is a bad thing and should essentially be swept under the rug. His attempt to do so does not make them equal, it diminishes them. It’s disingenuous at the very least and a patronizing example of white privilege at worse.

No person who is consciously aware of their ethnicity, culture and history would tolerate such a cleansing. By taking away their joy, you also take away their sorrow and their history. We are all human and that is the factor that should unites us, not divide us. By erasing our differences to make everyone the same, no one is special or an individual.

(5) APOLOGIZING. At Fast Company, Mike Su proffers “7 Lessons White People Can Learn From Bodega’s Apology”.

… Setting aside the idea of rebranding a mini-bar and putting it in apartment buildings and street corners and calling it disruption, there are some important lessons that can be learned from their poor apology that can be particularly important for well-meaning white people to understand when they unintentionally offend. Here are my key takeaways:

1. “I Didn’t Mean To” Doesn’t Matter

“Despite our best intentions and our admiration for traditional bodegas…”

Most of the post was focused on helping people understand what they were really trying to do. Why they weren’t super evil, and all the steps that they took, and basically, “I know we seemed like assholes, but we’re not! Or, at least, we didn’t mean to be!”

But here’s the thing?—?just cause you didn’t mean to hurt someone doesn’t mean you didn’t actually hurt them.

But if you spend all your time explaining what you meant to do?—?you’re spending all your effort on trying to make yourself look less bad, and make yourself feel less bad. That may do it for you, but then your apology is not about actually making the person you offended feel any better. Which leads me to…

(6) IN THE NEWS. Brookline, MA Town Meeting member (and noted sf writer) Michael A. Burstein isn’t kidding: “Town Leaders Seek to Make ‘Selectwoman’ the Official Title”.

“There’s been some recent interest in Massachusetts to change the name of board of selectmen to something that would be a bit more gender-neutral,” said Michael Burstein, a town meeting member.

Two warrants have been submitted to the Board of Selectmen and take aim at changing the governing body’s title and title of its members.

“One of them is kind of a straight forward and just wants to create gender-neutral language,” said Hamilton.

The other warrant filed by Burstein is very specific.

“I deliberately and specifically filed a warrant to change the name of Board of Selectmen to Board of Selectwomen,” he said.

The Boston NBC affiliate interviewed him for its September 14 news broadcast.

(7) ROMM OBIT. SF Site News reports the death of Minneapolis fan Baron Dave Romm.

Fan Dave E Romm (b.1955) died on September 14. Dave was active in Minneapolis fandom and was an avid photographer, taking pictures of various Minicons and other conventions he was able to get to. He traveled to Antarctic in 2005 and wrote about his experience in Argentus. He also hosted Shockwave Radio Theatre on KFAI-AM and archived the podcasts on his website. Romm became a baron of the micro-country of Ladonia in 2001.

(8) GOGOS OBIT. Bloody Disgusting bids farewell to “Legendary Monster Artist Basil Gogos” (1939-2017)  who died September 14.

Some of the most iconic pieces of classic monster art were found on the front covers of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine throughout the ’60s and ’70s, that art no doubt responsible for countless monster kids being bitten by the proverbial bug. Vibrant and eye-catching, the magazine’s cover art made horror stylish, beautiful and cool.

Those paintings were the work of illustrator Basil Gogos, who we’re sad to report is the latest in a long line of true horror legends who have recently left us….

Gogos also provided cover art for several other Warren magazines including Creepy, Eerie, Spaceman, Wildest Westerns and The Spirit.

(9) HANGDOG CHARACTER ACTOR. Harry Dean Stanton (1926-2017) died September 15 says The Hollywood Reporter.

Stanton, who also was memorable in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981) and John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink (1986) — in fact, what wasn’t he memorable in? — died Friday afternoon of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his agent, John Kelly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

(10) TODAY’S DAY

Play-Doh Day

Play-Doh Day is an opportunity for everyone, whether a child or simply young at heart, to celebrate this iconic modeling clay. Play-Doh was originally developed in the 1930’s, not as a toy but as a product for cleaning wallpaper! It was not until the 1950’s that it was marketed as a toy, in the trademark vibrant colors of red, blue, yellow and white.

(11) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • September 16, 1926 — Many people reported seeing lake monster Ogopogo in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia.
  • September 16, 1963 The Outer Limits premiered on television.
  • September 16, 1977 — Returned television audiences to the world of Logan’s Run.
  • September 16, 1983 – The aptly-titled Strange Invaders was first screened.

(12) TODAY’S FORBIDDEN PLANET BIRTHDAYS

  • Born September 16, 1927 — Jack Kelly
  • Born September 16, 1930 — Anne Francis

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born September 16, 1917 – Art Widner

(14) JAY KAY KLEIN PHOTOS. Crowdsourced identification of Jay Kay Klein’s digitized fanhistorical photos is proceeding apace.

J.J. Jacobson, the Jay Kay and Doris Klein Science Fiction Librarian at the UC Riverside Library, says —

The first re-index of the Klein photos on Calisphere has loaded. We’ve harvested amazing amounts of amazing information, thanks to the generosity of the fan community.

She has been keeping an eye on the info form and as of September 11 there had been 448 entries, many of them containing multiple identifications.

(15) QUARRELING CURATORS. New Statesman says “Two museums are having a fight on Twitter and it’s gloriously informative”. They’ve collected the tweets.

2017 is undoubtedly the year of the feud. As celebrities and corporations alike take to Twitter to hash things out, two of the UK’s most respected scientific institutions, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum have got in on the action.

It all started with this rather innocous tweet, during The Natural History Museum’s Ask a Curator event on Twitter, where users could tweet in questions to The Natural History Museum’s twitter account. The resulting back and forth is both amusing and educational….

(16) THE TRUE MEASURE OF A MAN’S INTELLIGENCE… JC Carlton’s goodbye to Jerry Pournelle at The Arts Mechanical begins with a memory of the author’s opposition to the lowered expectations policy of the Seventies. That was one of the first things that came to my own mind when I heard he had died. And while Carlton was looking at another collection of his science essays, I was taking down That Crazy Buck Rogers Stuff from my own shelf.

At a time when technical optimists were as scarce as hen’s teeth, at least in the public eye, Jerry was unabashedly that technical optimist.  I did a post about  A Step Farther Out when I started this blog and how relevant it still remains today.

https://theartsmechanical.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/stepping-farther-out/

At a time when the language of the day all across the media was how we were all DOOMED, DOOMED by the monsters of our own creation and that there was nothing that could be done to save us.  Even the best stuff in media, like the classic series Connections was mildly pessimistic. Contrast that with any column in A Step Farther Out. 

… He thought though that, that people wouldn’t just collapse into a series of unending ghettos and endless tyranny.  he thought that people would use the skill and minds, the technologies that humans had created to overcome the problems we had.  He never accepted that we would just surrender and mostly die. he was also optimistic that with a little more oomph people would reach for the stars and create wealth for all.

(17) THE BREWS THAT MADE SPEC FIC FAMOUS. Charles Payseur is back with another installment of his review column where he pairs short stories with the appropriate beer: “THE MONTHLY ROUND – A Taster’s Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 08/2017”.

Welcome! Pull up a stool—let me tell you what’s on tap today. August represents the height of summer for some, and for others the first step toward Autumn. For my SFF reading, the month seems full of heat, decay, distance, and ghosts. Which makes a certain amount of sense, what with 2017 on its downward slope, having cleared the peak of June and July and entered into the fast descent toward the end of the year. And what a year…

The flavors are mostly heavy, alluding to the coming harvest with the sweet tones of apple and barley. Looming behind that, though, is the specter of winter, and scarcity, and cold. The bite of IPA stands as a resistance to going gentle in that good night, a fire to guide lonely travelers through the chilling dark. The stories are pulled from across SFF, with a lean toward fantasy, from contemporary to historical to second world, but there’s a hint of science fiction as well, a glimpse of the void and a voice calling out into the distance of space….

Tasting Flight – August 2017

“Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live” by Sacha Lamb (Book Smugglers)

Notes: Singing with notes of sweet romance complicated by the spices of trust, betrayal, and perception, its cloudy pour slowly resolves into a golden hue that shines with warmth.

Pairs with: Chai Spiced Ale…

 

(18) FAVORITE SON. Are you ready? In “Holy Adam West Day, Walla Walla!” the Union-Tribune tells everyone what’s laid on for the celebration happening Tuesday, September 19.

From before noon and into the evening, businesses around town will display Bat signal stickers and posters of West and offer special promotions. The city will also install a new sign commemorating West near his childhood home at the intersection of Clinton Street and Alvarado Terrace.

Other memorials to West can be found at the post office at 128 N. 2nd Ave and at the Marcus Whitman, both based around photos from the collection of Joe Drazan.

West will also be the focus of a series of events throughout the day. Here’s the itinerary, as listed by Grant:

11 a.m. — Opening ceremonies at the corner of First Avenue and Main Street. Mayor Alan Pomraning will present a key to the city to members of West’s family, and attendees will have the opportunity to meet Batman and pose for photos with an exact replica of the Batmobile that West drove as the Caped Crusader….

(19) ESTATE SALE. The LA Times reports “Debbie Reynolds’ family ranch and dance studio to hit the auction block in October”.

The ranch-estate in Creston, Calif., had been offered for sale before Reynolds’ death last year for $4.8 million but was taken off the market in June. The studio on Lankershim Boulevard is for sale, with an asking price of $6.15 million.

Both will hit the auction block Oct. 7-8 in Los Angeles as part of the Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds personal property collection, according to auction house Profiles in History.

Owned by Reynolds for more than two decades, the 44-acre ranch comprises a main house, a guesthouse, a caretaker’s cottage, an art studio and a barn. A 10,000-square-foot support building with metal and stage workshops and a 6,000-square-foot film and television production studio are among other structures on the estate.

(20) HOBBITS INHALE. Matt Wallace’s tweetstorm shows that where there’s smoke….there’s even more smoke.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Steven H Silver, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Andrew Porter, JJ Jacobson, and Steve Vertlieb for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr.]

Pixel Scroll 11/22/16 Scrollhood’s End

(1) DOGGONE IT. Once upon a time Republicans obeyed the Eleventh Commandment – “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican” – and I thought that Sad Puppies followed the same philosophy until I read J. C. Carlton chastising Kate Paulk in “The Sad Puppies Should Have Done Better” at The Arts Mechanical.

What Happened To The Sad Puppies? In 2015 the Sad Puppies were a presence in SF and in culture in general.  In 2016 the Sad Puppies became almost a nonentity.  All through the year it was the Rabids that drove the show and that hurt both the Sad Puppies And possibly the future of Sf in the long term.

I think that the problem is that Kate Paulk, when she took over leadership didn’t understand what she was getting herself into. I think that she thought that if she had a more moderate approach that the kind of beating around that the Sad Puppies got in 2015 would be moderated.  I’m not sure what led her to believe that, but there was.

Then there was the launch of the Sad Puppies site, the nominations and then, nothing.  For months no reviews, no blog entries, nothing. It’s not as if she was off line either.  Yet for months she left the stage empty except for the Puppy Kickers and Vox.   I’m not sure why but it may be that she was hoping to avoid conflict.  Or she just got busy and could not give Sad Puppies the attention it deserved.  Yet there weren’t even any blog posts on either the Sad Puppies blog or the Mad Genius Club…..

Essentially as result of inactivity the Puppies left the field to Vox and “Raptor Butt invasion.”  Which was funny for a while, but after a while you realize that it’s puppy butt that’s being invaded.

Observant as Carlton is about some things, he’s completely in denial about others.

As far as this goes, the Hugos are dead, The Puppies didn’t kill them, they were dead when Larry started the Puppies. The Hugos were dead because nobody cared anymore.

The Puppies provoked a surge in support for the Hugos – the voter turnout for 2015 was 65% more than it was the previous year. The final statistics showed only a fraction supported Torgersen’s Sad Puppy or Vox Day’s Rabid Puppy slates.

(2) DEFENDING KATE. Amanda S. Green was incensed over Carlton’s post. She penned a scalding response – “Really?” – for Mad Genius Club. (But she follows a common MGC trope of refusing to use the name of the person being held in contempt, referring to Carlton throughout as OP.)

OP then spends time, after saying Kate didn’t give us reviews, etc., quoting others who take issue with her reviews of the Hugo nominees. Kate did more than most who were telling people who to vote for. She read everything in the Hugo packet and gave her honest opinions. But that obviously isn’t enough, especially since OP quotes notoriously anti-puppy sites to back his stance.

Essentially as result of inactivity the Puppies left the field to Vox and “Raptor Butt invasion.”  Which was funny for a while, but after a while you realize that it’s puppy butt that’s being invaded.

OMFG. I don’t know whether to beat my head against the wall or the OP’s. That statement is not that much removed from that of the other side telling SPs they had to denounce Vox or it proved we were all cut from the same cloth. One thing those of us closely involved with the Sad Puppy movement learned in 2015 is that there is nothing anyone can do to rein in Vox. We would have had Raptor Butt no matter what. Vox will do what he wants, when he wants and he doesn’t give a flying fuck who he bumps against in the process.

The problem is that if there any desire to keep the Hugo Awards as anything other than a pissing contest between the vilest people in SF, we Puppies failed miserably.  The Rapids dominated the noms and the Kickers “No Awarded” every thing in sight, again. Both sides followed by crowing victory, when in fact everybody lost.

See, here is the biggest problem with OP’s post. He thinks that Sad Puppies is about saving the Hugos. It isn’t. I’m not sure it ever was. It was about showing how the Awards have been manipulated and ruled over by a very small group of Fans, folks who don’t want the unwashed masses joining in their little club. The Hugos were effectively dead, at least to most fans, long before Larry started Sad Puppies. It is in its death throes now. Don’t believe it? Look at the rules changes that are being proposed and those that have been passed. Fans with a capital “F” want to to make sure they continue to control the awards. Most real fans aren’t going to pay the price of even an associate membership just to vote. Why should they when they can buy a number of books for the same price?

… Sad Puppies 1 – 3 beautifully pointed out, and proved, the pettiness in Fandom. Sad Puppies 4 continued what Brad started with Sad Puppies 3, the ourtreach to those fans who didn’t understand what was going on. Fans who had been drawn in by the outrageous rhetoric from the other side started looking closer at Sad Puppies when Brad and his family were attacked. They started listening closer when Kate engaged only when she was forced to. So explain how, when Kate reached out and made connections with people how had never before considered backing the Sad Puppies, she failed in her job?

There is more to this battle than whipping out your dick and proving it is bigger than the other guy’s. Kate understood that. We should be thanking her for taking on the job instead of condemning her because she didn’t do “the job” the way someone else wanted her to.

(3) PUPPY SEASON APPROACHING? And in a comment on the previous post, Amanda S. Green predicts we will hear very soon what’s coming next.

George, there will be an announcement about this year’s effort within the next 24 hours, or so I’ve been assured.

(4) I WONDER WHO THEY MEAN. For another example of an MGC columnist refusing to use someone’s name, last week Kate Paulk, in “The Good Kind of Othering”, never mentioned N.K. Jemisin by name but everyone in the comments section knew exactly who she was dissing.

In an attempt to stay well away from the toxic soup of political matters, I’ve spent a lot of time this past week doing Other Stuff. This, I promise you, is a Good Thing, because my snark-o-matic was maxed out and the uber-cynical button stuck in the ‘on’ position.

While I’m quite sure there are those who enjoyed the results, it’s tiring and kind of draining when it lasts long enough: I’m the kind of extreme introvert who needs plenty of down time to recover from bouts of mega-snark.

Which means that I really, really shouldn’t go near the rather sad rant of a certain award-winning author who managed to let slip that she knows she’s a token winner but still thinks that’s okay because those who disagree are ___ist.

(5) EVERYTHING BUT PUPPIES. Once upon a time there was Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip. The anthropomorphized animals in the strip inspired Walt Willis and Bob Shaw, assisted by Vince Clarke, Chuck Harris, and James White, to produce a 1952 fanzine called Fen Crittur Comical Books [PDF file] – which is now available online at Fanac.org.

The cast of Fen Critturs includes Pogo Hoffum, Harlan Owl “an organsing genius”, and Birdbury “a vile pro.”

(6) THEY MAKE A DESERT, AND CALL IT A MINISERIES. Frank Herbert’s Dune has been optioned for possible TV and film projects reports Variety.

Legendary Entertainment has acquired the rights from the Frank Herbert estate for his iconic novel “Dune,” granting the production entity the film and television motion picture rights to the work.

The agreement calls for the development and production of possible film and TV projects for a global audience. The projects would be produced by Thomas Tull, Mary Parent and Cale Boyter, with Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt and Kim Herbert serving as executive producers.

(7) HINES STARTS FUNDRAISER AUCTIONS. Today Jim C. Hines posted the first of a bunch of SF/F auctions he’s doing as a fundraiser. Going under the hammer are two autographed Star Wars novels from Chuck Wendig.

Welcome to the first of 24 Transgender Michigan Fundraiser auctions.

Transgender Michigan was founded in 1997, and continues to run one of the only transgender helplines in the country, available 24/7 at 855-345-8464. Every tax-deductible donation helps them continue to provide support, advocacy, and education.

We begin the fundraiser with autographed copies of the Star Wars novels AFTERMATH (paperback) and AFTERMATH: LIFE DEBT (hardcover), by Chuck Wendig.

(8) AMAZON’S BEST SFF OF 2016. Now it’s Amazon’s turn to tell you its selections as the best science fiction and fantasy of 2016. Twenty titles, mostly familiar, but including a couple I don’t remember seeing anyone here discuss before.

(9) REFINING YOUR GOLDEN WORDS. Cat Rambo based this post on a day-long workshop she just taught at Clarion West: “For Writers: Re-visioning, Rewriting, and Other Forms of Fine-Tuning Your Fiction”.

Stage II of the Revision Process: You marked all over the printout, making changes and then incorporated them. Here I print out a fresh copy, because unfortunately my process is not particularly eco-conscious.

Now you’re looking at a finer level than the first pass. Stage I was coarse sandpaper; now you’re moving to a finer grade. This is the point where I look hard at paragraphing, splitting up overly long paragraphs, using single sentence paragraphs for an occasional punch, and making sure the first and last paragraph of every scene works, creating a transition that doesn’t allow the reader to escape the story.

I have an unfortunate propensity for scattering scene breaks through my work; this is the place where I remove a lot of them, because I know that every time one occurs, it bumps the reader out of the story and reminds them that they’re reading. I also remove a lot of unnecessary speech tags at this point. I make sure the speaker is identified every third or fourth speech act in two people dialogue so the reader never has to count back in order to figure out who is talking at any point.

I’m also looking at sentence length. Here is an exercise that may be useful: take a page of your prose and go through counting how many words are in each sentence. If they are all around the same length, it creates a sense of monotony. Split things up. Short sentences have punch; long sentences full of polysyllabic words create a languorous, dreamy feel that may be desirable to your narrative yet radically slows things down on the page. (Did you catch what I did there?)

(10) SPACE NEIGHBORS. If E.T. phones your home, Stephen Hawking’s advice is – don’t answer.

Hawking’s comments are motivated by a fear of what the aliens would do to us if they find us. In his mind, the aliens are the Spanish Conquistador Cortez and we are the Aztecs he made contact with in central America.

Tribal warfare, genocide and ethnic cleansing have been part of our history for thousands of years. Hawking’s fear is a fear of what we have done to ourselves.

Would advanced alien civilisations be as barbaric as we are? Are our genocidal tendencies at all representative of advanced alien civilisations? Maybe.

Hawking says he worries that any aliens “will be vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria”.

(11) PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM. A programming pioneer: “Margaret Hamilton, Apollo Software Engineer, Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom”.

The very first contract NASA issued for the Apollo program (in August 1961) was with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop the guidance and navigation system for the Apollo spacecraft. Hamilton, a computer programmer, would wind up leading the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory (now Draper Labs). Computer science, as we now know it, was just coming into existence at the time. Hamilton led the team that developed the building blocks of software engineering – a term that she coined herself. Her systems approach to the Apollo software development and insistence on rigorous testing was critical to the success of Apollo. As she noted, “There was no second chance. We all knew that.”

Her approach proved itself on July 20, 1969, when minutes before Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, the software overrode a command to switch the flight computer’s priority system to a radar system. The override was announced by a “1202 alarm” which let everyone know that the guidance computer was shedding less important tasks (like rendezvous radar) to focus on steering the descent engine and providing landing information to the crew. Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, rather than aborting the approach due to computer problems. In fact, the Apollo guidance software was so robust that no software bugs were found on any crewed Apollo missions, and it was adapted for use in Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the first digital fly-by-wire systems in aircraft. Hamilton was honored by NASA in 2003, when she was presented a special award recognizing the value of her innovations in the Apollo software development. The award included the largest financial award that NASA had ever presented to any individual up to that point.

Today, Margaret Hamilton is being honored again – this time at the White House. President Obama has selected her as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The highest civilian award of the United States, it is awarded to those who have made an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

(13) TOM HANKS GOES TO THE WHITE HOUSE…AGAIN. Actor Tom Hanks also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom today. The news reminded John King Tarpinian of a favorite anecdote:

Here is another cute story that is not specifically about Ray but at a Ray event.  As you know, if a library called Ray would come, even libraries that did not need financial help.  The last time, and I mean very last time, Ray was guest of honor for the Beverly Hills library he basically held court for the rich and famous.  Even the docents for the library were people of note.

A table was setup for Ray to chat with people and sign books, most of them personalized.  The library had pre-sold books or was given books by patrons who could not attend.  A docent would bring out half a dozen books at a time.  I’d take the books, open them to the signature page, then pass them to Ray for signing.

Ray’s caregiver was standing on the other side of Ray when the first batch of books were brought out.  He looks at the docent and says to him, “Have people ever told you that you look like a younger Tom Hanks?”  The response from the docent was, “Yes, I have been told that before.”  I have a big grin on my face as he looks over to me and gives an all knowing wink.  The docent was Colin Hanks.

This came to mind because Tom Hanks received the Medal of Freedom from the president today.

(14) MY FAVORITE HEADLINE OF THE DAY: “Sith Gets Real: Lucasfilm Releases New ‘Rogue One’ Stills With Clear Look At Darth Vader” — from ScienceFictin.com.

(15) YADA YODA. Gamespot leads us to this clip from Stephen Colbert’s Late Night show — “Carrie Fisher Reveals More (Fake) Star Wars Secrets”:

There were a lot of pranks on set. One time we cut off Mark Hamill’s hand and they decided to keep it in the movie.

 

[Thanks to Bartimaeus, JJ, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Darrah Chavey, and Daniel Dern for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

Pixel Scroll 4/17/16 Hives of Light

(1) TIE-IN BOOKS. “The Secret Life of Novelizations”, an 11 minute segment on WYNC.

Write a great book and you’re a genius. Turn a book into a great film and you’re a visionary. Turn a great film into a book…that’s another story.

Novelizations of films are regular best-sellers with cult followings — some are even more beloved than the films that spawned them — but respected they are not. Instead, they’re assumed to be the literary equivalent of merchandise: a way for the movie studios to make a few extra bucks, and a job for writers who aren’t good enough to do anything else. But the people who write them beg to differ.

OTM producer Jesse Brenneman goes inside the world of novelizations, featuring authors Max Allan CollinsAlan Dean FosterElizabeth Hand, and Lee Goldberg.

(2) SPOCK DOC. Lance Ulanoff reviews For the Love of Spock at Mashable — “’For the Love of Spock’ is a moving love letter to an icon and a father”.

For the Love of Spock is three stories woven together into a solid, emotionally charged strand. There is the story of a gifted actor — a renaissance man, as he is described in the film — and his journey from bit player to fame, fortune and permanent pop-culture icon status.

It’s also the story of a character who sprang from the mind of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, but became flesh and blood — and Vulcan salutes — in the hands of Nimoy. And finally, it’s the story of a father and son and their decades-long journey toward love and mutual acceptance.

There’s no way to fit 83 years into a rather fast-paced 100 minutes. As a consequence, huge swaths of Nimoy’s life and career are mentioned all-too-briefly (his directing career) or not at all (Star Trek V and VI, and much of his latter TV career).

(3) MORE FREQUENT DARK. SF Site News says editor Sean Wallace has announced his magazine is stepping up its schedule.

Sean Wallace has announced the the dark fantasy magazine The Dark will shift to a monthly schedule beginning with the May 2016 issue.

(4) ADAMANT. J.C. Carlton says he is really, really right about that book he still hasn’t read – “Why Generation Ships Will NOT ‘Sink’ A Failure To Communicate” at The Arts Mechanical.

As an engineer, I think that Mr. Robinson is clearly wrong.  Or at least, he doesn’t understand the basic rules for setting mission parameters and designing to meet those parameters.  Mr. Robison’s vessel failed because he wanted it to fail.  But to extend that to saying that ALL such proposals would fail is more than a little egotistical. And wrong, really wrong.

Now I haven’t as yet read the book.(Somehow this sticks in the craw of the people over at File 770….

Real pioneers don’t screw up  because failure is not an option and incompetence is something that can’t be tolerated. Yes the environment and the unknowns get the pioneers, think the Donner Party, but the typical pioneers don’t go down without a fight.  They do the work that needs to get done because they are working to make a better place for the next generation, not themselves.  We as a culture have suppressed the pioneer spirit in the last few years and maybe that’s a mistake.  Because pioneers desire and understand liberty and the alternative is tyranny.

Here’s a bunch of links to get the pioneer spirit started.  Sorry, Mr. Robinson, our carracks to the stars will not fail because the pioneer spirits in them, will not let them fail.  Look if my ancestors can cross the North Atlantic in a tiny leaky little boat, can I say anything less?

(5) HOWDY NEIGHBOR. “Never Before Seen Galaxy Spotted Orbiting the Milky Way”: New Scientist has the story.

The galaxy’s empire has a new colony. Astronomers have detected a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way whose span stretches farther than nearly all other Milky Way satellites. It may belong to a small group of galaxies that is falling into our own.

Giant galaxies like the Milky Way grew large when smaller galaxies merged, according to simulations. The simulations also suggest that whole groups of galaxies can fall into a single giant at the same time. The best examples in our cosmic neighbourhood are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the Milky Way’s two brightest satellites, which probably orbit each other.

Orbiting galaxies

About four dozen known galaxies orbit our own. The largest in terms of breadth is the Sagittarius dwarf, discovered in 1994 – but it’s big only because our galaxy’s gravity is ripping it apart. The next two largest are the Magellanic Clouds.

(6) BATMAN V SUPERMAN V ABIGAIL. This is the kind of post that has inspired me to write Abigail Nussbaum’s name on my Hugo ballot from time to time. In the paragraphs following the excerpt, she deconstructs a scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and gives us a wonderful premise for understanding what shaped Superman’s psyche in the Snyder and non-Snyder movie versions.

Nor am I here to talk about how Batman v Superman fundamentally betrays its two title characters–and betrays, along the way, the fact that Snyder and writers David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio fundamentally do not understand what either of those characters are about.  Because the truth is, I don’t really care.  I’m not a comic book reader, but I’ve been watching Batman movies for twenty years, and good or bad they all depict the character as, at best, someone who is working out their mommy-and-daddy issues by beating up poor criminals, and at worst, an outright fascist.  I’m perfectly willing to believe that there is more to the character, and that the comics (and the animated series) have captured that, but I think at this stage it’s a mug’s game to go to a Batman movie expecting to find more than what they’ve been known to give us.  As for Superman, if I want stories about a character who is all-powerful yet fundamentally good, and still interesting for all that, I’ve got the MCU’s Captain America, not to mention Supergirl, so that fact that Batman v Superman depicts Superman as someone who seems genuinely to dislike people, and to be carrying out acts of heroism (when he deigns to do so) out of a sense of aggrieved obligation, doesn’t really feel worth getting worked up over.  On the contrary, I was more upset by those scenes in Batman v Superman in which characters insisted–despite all available evidence–that its Superman was a figure of hope and inspiration, because they made it clear just how badly the people making the movie had misjudged its effect.

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • April 17, 1810 Lewis M. Norton patented a vat for forming pineapple-shaped cheese. (Even John King Tarpinian doesn’t know why he sent me this link.)
  • April 17, 1970 — With the world anxiously watching on television, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returned to Earth.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY DUCK.

  • April 17, 1937 – Daffy Duck.

From the CBS News Almanac: …That day saw the premiere of a Warner Brothers cartoon titled “Porky’s Duck Hunt.”

The cartoon followed Porky Pig as he attempted to bag a most unusual duck … a duck quite unwilling to follow the rules:

Porky: “Hey, that wasn’t in the script!” Daffy: “Don’t let that worry you, Skipper! I’m just a darn fool crazy duck!”

Actually, make that DAFFY Duck, in his very first film role — his first, but by no means his last.

(9) ACCOUNTING FOR TASTES. Fynbospress, in “Preorders” at Mad Genius Club, sorts out how that sales tool affects traditional and indie publishers differently.

Several years ago, indie publishers put up quite a hue and cry about not having preorders available to them on Amazon, unlike their trad pub competitors. Amazon listened, and made preorders available, with a few caveats to ensure that indie pub would indeed have the product ready on ship date, and not leave Amazon holding the bag while angry customers yelled at them.

With glee, indie pub rushed out to put things on preorder…. and promptly found it wasn’t all that and a bag of chips. It’s a useful tool, but it isn’t nearly as important to them as it’s made out to be.

The critical differences:

  1. Amazon counts a preorder toward the item’s sales rank the day the order is placed.

This makes logical sense in the non-publishing world, as the “sale” happens the day a contract to sell is agreed upon, not the ship date, not the date money changes hands, nor the date the customer receives the item. This is pretty standard whether ordering a run of shoes manufactured in China, selling wheat futures in Chicago, or a racehorse in Kentucky.

(10) QUIDDITCH ON TV. “Quidditch, the sport of wizards” was a segment on today’s CBS Sunday Morning. There’s a video report and a text article at the link.

Quidditch, anyone? No idle question in Columbia, South Carolina, where a big championship match is underway this weekend. Anna Werner attended last year’s contest, where she saw an author’s imaginary game come to life:

It’s been nearly 20 years since the first Harry Potter book came out and proceeded to cast a spell over fans around the world. J.K. Rowling’s creation became the most popular book series in publishing history, with over 450 million copies sold — and one of the biggest movie franchises in film history, with nearly $8 billion in ticket sales.

And now Potter-mania has spawned another craze, one based on the high-flying fantasy game played by Harry and his friends called Quidditch, which has now jumped from the world of wizards to the playing fields of Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Yes, real-world Quidditch, complete with players “riding” broomsticks.

“Quidditch has exploded into the college scene and the high school scene all over the world,” said one girl. “It’s absolutely amazing!”

It’s even been the subject of a documentary called “Mudbloods” (a Harry Potter reference, of course).

“People get passionate about it because they grew up with Harry Potter,” said one fan.

The documentary introduces Alex Benepe, one of the founders of Quidditch. He’s been playing since 2005, when a classmate at Middlebury College turned to him with an idea: “‘This weekend, we’re gonna try and play real-life Quidditch,'” Benepe recalled. “We were freshman. And I just thought to myself, ‘There’s no way this is gonna work. This is gonna be so dumb!'”

(11) PLAYING QUIDDITCH. CBS Sunday Morning also provides “A how-to guide to Quidditch”.

The Balls

A volleyball doubles as a Quaffle, which players use to score points, either by throwing it or kicking it through a hoop.

Bludgers are dodgeball-weapons used against opposing players; hit someone with a bludger, and they are temporarily out. They must drop whatever ball they possess, head to the sidelines, and touch a goalpost before returning back to the field.

In the J.K. Rowling books, a Snitch (or a Golden Snitch) is a winged ball that tried to avoid capture. Since magical equipment is harder to come by in real life, Snitches are instead played by people dressed in yellow, who run onto the field at the 18-minute mark and must evade players who try to steal their “tail.”

If a Snitch loses his tail (actually a tennis ball in a sock), the game is over, but in the event of a tie score, play goes into overtime.

(12) RUNNING LOGAN’S MOVIE. Once upon a time there was a Jeopardy! answer…

Jeopardy Logans Run

John King Tarpinian says “In the book middle age would be ten.”

And while we’re on the topic, John recommends Reading The Movie Episode 3: Logan’s Run, a 2011 video.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Xtifr, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]

Pixel Scroll 9/25 Slate Outta Dogpound

(1) Here are three science fiction and fantasy birthdays to celebrate on September 25.

Born 1951: Mark Hamill

Born 1930: Shel Silverstein

Born 1952: Christopher Reeve

(2) Plans are afoot to launch a San Juan in 2017 NASFiC bid at DeepSouthCon, which will be held next weekend. Source: committee member Warren Buff, who is working on the facilities. The website is mostly private at the moment.

(3) “NASA to Announce Mars Mystery Solved” on September 28, promises the press release.

NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency’s ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Taking part in the news conference will be Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters; Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters; graduate student Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

I don’t see Mark Watney’s name in there anywhere…

(4) On April 7, 2016, LASFS will welcome Hugo, Nebula, and Aurora winning author Robert J. Sawyer who will read from his new novel, Quantum Night. The book will be published by Ace Books on March 1. Kudos to President Matthew B. Tepper for lining up the engagement.

(5) Today in History

September 25, 1959 Hammer Films’ take on The Mummy premieres in England.

(6) The Nerdist alerts fans to updates in German artist Dirk Löchel’s online poster featuring hundreds of science fictional star ships ranging from Star Trek to Mass Effect.

A high-res version can be downloaded from the artist’s Deviant Art site, where he also discusses the updates in detail including such frequently asked questions as…

Q: Why isn’t the Death Star/CSO Carrier/V’Ger/other large ship on the chart?

A: For reasons of image quality and chart organisation, only ships between a minimum of 100 meters and 24000 meters are applicable for this chart, sorry. Arbitrary? Yes! But I had to draw the line somewhere.

Q: And where’s TARDIS?

A: It’s both too large and too small for the chart.

(7) J. C. Carlton in “How To Create Your Own Monsters” appeals for people to sympathize with Vox Day, linking to a long list of insulting things people have said about Vox over the years. Because, Carlton thinks, what Vox has orchestrated with the Hugo Awards is all their fault.

The puppy kickers had every opportunity to put a hand out and create some sort of consensus with Larry and the rest of the Sad Puppies.  They could have listened to what the puppies were saying and taken a more even handed stance.  Above all they could have avoided the fiasco of no awarding the Hugo Awards.   Instead they treated the puppies with abuse and disparagement, conducting yet another campaign of destruction.  But they aren’t hitting Vox the Count working against them.  All they have managed to do is create yet more Counts and hasten their own destruction.

(8) Al Harron explains why he is now a former contributor to The Cimmerian blog in “Matters of Importance” on A Wilderness of Peace.

[Leo Grin on The Cimmerian] “The Cimmerian Blog has been defunct for half a decade, but now that one of our former bloggers has been exposed as an SJW, we feel impelled to rise from our slumber to declare that we stand 100% against SJWs and their travelling freakshow of interlocking fetishes and predatory abuses.

As a now-confirmed SJW, Barbara Barrett is hereby EXPELLED from this blog. We have struck her prose from every post, and her face from every picture. Let her name be unheard and unspoken among us, erased from the memory of our august fellowship, for all time. So let it be written. So let it be done.“

Barbara Barrett is a friend, a colleague, and an erudite scholar. I wrote to Leo stating, in no uncertain terms, that if anyone on The Cimmerian was to be expelled, their prose struck, their faces scored out, their very names unheard and unspoken, for the “crime” of criticism, then they must do exactly the same to me.

I campaign for Scottish independence. I took great pride in our movement’s peaceful, positive message in the face of immense opposition. That opposition had the might of the entire UK Establishment at its back, seeking to crush anything that could threaten their dominion over these isles and their resources. Everyone in the movement has a story about being intimidated, being abused, being threatened. My mother has been physically assaulted three times in the past few years. The car was trashed, the windshield cracked, property vandalised and stolen. Grown men and women have screamed obscenities in my face, my mother’s, the children in my family. I have been called every name under the sun: “Nazi,” “Fascist,” “Taliban,” “Racist,” “Scum,” “Evil.” I do not need to have my name associated with the likes of Vox Day.

Yet I put up with the intimidation and abuse and threats, because some things are worth the struggle. Some things are that important. And frankly, I had spent too long being silent on the matters of Gamergate and Rabid Puppies, because I didn’t feel it was my place. I didn’t want to stick my neck out. But after three years campaigning for independence and facing down all the power of Westminster, I find myself completely unafraid and resolutely unphased by the schisms of fandoms – and it makes choosing sides a lot easier. What fear, what power, could they hold over me, given what I have just experienced?

So, to remove any doubt: I advocate the cause of social justice. I denounce the activities of Vox Day and his supporters. And I publicly express my support, unequivocally and without reservation, for my friend and fellow Robert E. Howard scholar, Barbara Barrett.

(9) Steve Davidson has posted “The 1941 Retro Hugo Awards (Part 7 Novels)” at Amazing Stories.

Final Blackout is generally considered both a golden age classic and perhaps the best story Hubbard turned out.  Typewriter In the Sky is an early example of alternate realities and the “author as god” concept.

Absent the reading I still need to do, I think the stand-outs in this list are Slan, Gray Lensman and If This Goes On… (though I’ve only read that in the fix-up Revolt in 2100).

(10) Bravo to Lauowolf for the impromptu filk “Filers of London”

I saw a Filer with a Kindle in his hand

Walking through the West End in the rain.
He was looking for a place called the Odeon Leicester Square.
Gonna go see The Martian on screen.
Aaoooooo!
Filers of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)

If you see him reading on a train,
Better not ask its name.
Little old lady downloaded a jillion ebooks in shame.
Filers of London again.
Asoooooo!
Filers of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)

He’s bleary-eyed alright, cause he’s blogging all the night.
And lately he’s been reading in the shower.
Better stay away from him
Or he’ll list some more books, Jim
But look at that tbr tower!
Asoooooo!
Filers of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)

(11) First a Hugo rocket, now a LEGO astronaut – see what’s floating in the window now at the International Space Station.

(12) The cast of Agent Carter promote the show with some Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper pranks.

https://twitter.com/HayleyAtwell/status/647176917196496896

https://twitter.com/HayleyAtwell/status/647204721241944064

(13) At Fast Company — “Take A Long Look At The Amazing Nic Cages/Tim Burton Superman That Almost Was”. (They say that like missing it was a bad thing…)

It’s a plot worthy of a comic book. In some alternative universe, Nicolas Cage might have have been Superman.

Back in the ’90s, Warner Bros had greenlit Superman Lives, a moodier take on the Man of Steel mythos to be produced by Jon Peters, directed by Tim Burton, and starring Cage, then hot off an Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas. The team caught the fascination of the comic zeitgeist, until an unfortunately-timed shot of a droopy-eyed Cage in superhero garb leaked and fan support soured. Two years, three scriptwriters, and a slew of concept art and costume tests later, the project was dead.

(14) J. W. Ocker, curator of OddThingsIveSeen.com, knows the harvest season is at hand, and that File 770 believes in “All Bradbury all the time.” Check out “Strange Stuff From My Study, Episode 4: Ray Bradbury’s Halloween Decorations”.

For this fourth episode of Strange Stuff From My Study, I dig into my collection to show you a pair of extremely special and extremely relevant-to-the-season items: Halloween decorations that once belonged to the Great Scribe of Halloween himself, Ray Bradbury.

 

Appropriate for any season is the author’s Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe:

My latest book is Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe, in which I visited every Poe site on the East Coast and across the Atlantic, meeting and talking to those men and women who are upholding the dark poet’s physical legacy. It’s a weird book, but it won the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biography.

Poe Land cover

(15) And while we’re in this eldritch neighborhood, The Last Witch Hunter trailer looks fairly horrifying.

(16) Did Ridley Scott just pull the rug out from under Neill Blomkamp’s Alien sequel? A September 24 news report says Scott just revealed the title of Prometheus 2 to reporters – and it’s not Prometheus 2.

During an interview with HeyUGuys, the 77-year-old filmmaker – and director of the original ground-breaking ‘Alien’ movie – revealed the rather surprising title.

“Actually, really it’s going to be called Alien: Paradise Lost,” he said. “So Prometheus 2 is not really what it’s going to be… it’s going to be Alien: Paradise Lost.”

Alien: Paradise Lost heads to cinemas on May 30 2017.

(17) A 7-minute video, To Scale: The Solar System, shows how “On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe.”

[Thanks to J.W. Ocker, JJ, Mark-with-no-last-name, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

The Castalia of Fu Manchihuahua 6/11

aka At The Mountains Of Muttness

Galloping through today’s roundup are Adam Troy-Castero, Steven Saus, Jim C. Hines, Moshe Feder, Vox Day, Larry Correia, Greg Machlin, J. C. Carlton, Tom Knighton, K. Tempest Bradford, Brenna Clarke Gray, Saumya Arya Haas, Simon Bucher-Jones, Lela E. Buis, Sean Struck, Heather Allen and Tqwana Brown, Lou Antonelli, Eric Flint, Lis Carey, Ferrett Steinmetz, Martin Wisse, Peter Grant, Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag, James Schardt, Patrick May, Charlotte Ashley, and Kate Paulk. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Anthony and SocialInjusticeWorrier.)

Adam-Troy Castro

“The Art Of The Apology Is Broken Beyond Repair” – June 11

[Numbers 5 and 6 of 11.]

The I-Can-Demand-An-Apology-But-Will-Never-Give-One-And-Never-Accept-One Dynamic: This is a related phenomenon to the previous, in which the offended party cannot and will not accept any responsibility for a mutual dispute, saying, “I would be more than happy to apologize if I was wrong,” which somehow never ever happens. In such relationships, the offended party can last years without ever being once in error. Imagine that. The current controversy in the SF community is led by an individual who has actually come out and told his followers, in as many words, that they should never apologize at any point no matter how excessive their behavior might have been, because that’s surrender. He has also simultaneously demanded apology for one offense or another an almost daily basis. Here, apology is used primarily as a tool to back the other party further and further away from his previous position, gaining ground but never at any point acknowledging any point on which ground might be given. Apology is here a strategy, and it’s all about getting the other guy to issue one. One manifestation of this is insisting that everybody on the other side apologize for and disavow every regrettable thing ever said by any ally, no matter how tangential, while simultaneously saying, “I’m not responsible for everything everybody on my side does!” Apology is here a military strategy, not an attempt at understanding.

The I-Can-Demand-An-Apology-While-Indulging-In-Equivalent-Behavior-Apology: Otherwise known as the Torgersen, this is best summarized as “X needs to apologize for tarring everybody on my side with the same brush, which is the way those SJWs and CHORFS always behave.” This manifests without any self-awareness or sense of irony. Again, this is about gaining ground, not achieving understanding.

 

Steven Saus on ideatrash

“On His Flaming Phallus Substitute (or ‘Why Does It Burn When Vox Posts?’) and The Whole Tor Thing” – June 11

Vox (or Theodore Beale) revealed that he had held on to the screencap in question for weeks for maximum effect.  To quote what he told File770 (source):

I’ve held onto this since I had the screencap, which as you correctly note was made several weeks ago. As for the “sinister plotting”, I have long been in the habit of never using all of my ammunition at once, or pointing-and-shrieking for its own sake. I am a patient man and I didn’t strike back at TNH, PNH, or even John Scalzi right away either.

So here’s the thing. I think Beale got a case of the supervillain soliloquy when he made that comment on File770 – because it tips his hand.  It clearly shows that this isn’t real outrage.  He’s not really upset about what was said. Vox’s actions are a deliberate, orchestrated, premeditated attack on a person and group that he has a beef with.  This isn’t about beliefs or values.  It isn’t about anything in fiction. This looks like nothing more than sociopathic pique, spite, and bile.

 

Jim C. Hines

“The Tor Mess” – June 10

Today: The apology thread at Tor.com has almost 500 comments. People on all sides are expressing anger at Tor and Tom Doherty, and some folks are still talking about a boycott…

…which would seem to be exactly what Beale wanted when he posted that screenshot and released the rabid hounds.

I mean, come on. You don’t think the man who routinely calls John Scalzi a rapist gives a damn about “libel,” do you? Gallo’s comment was a weapon he could use to try to damage Tor Books. And right now, in the heat of anger and argument, it looks like he succeeded.

Realistically though, I can’t imagine this boycott will be any more successful than his last effort. And most of the internet will probably have moved on by the end of the week.

 

Moshe Feder on Facebook  – June 10

As far as I can tell, Irene didn’t start her personal blog page intending to malign any Puppies, either Sad or Rabid. Rather, she responded in a spontaneous, unpremeditated way to a request for an explanation about the Hugo controversy, in the process accurately describing Theodore Beale as a neo-Nazi. Since her answer to the query was so brief, the Sad Puppies were mentioned in close proximity to that description, which understandably left them very uncomfortable. (Eric Flint‘s analysis concluding that this was all a deliberate subtle ploy on Irene’s part to use guilt by association against them gives her too much credit. Like many visual artists, she is a spontaneous writer and not a calculating one.)

Irene has never been known for her diplomacy — I say that as someone who’s knocked heads with her more than once on work-related matters — but I think the reaction to her off-the-cuff statement is more extreme and over-the-top than the statement itself. After all, in the end, it was just one person’s opinion, readily ignorable by those who differ with it. (In fact, it actually _was_ ignored for weeks, until someone decided to weaponize it.) It’s _trivial_ compared to Brad and Larry’s premeditated, organized effort to violate a social compact of 60 years standing. If you want to express outrage, that’s where it should properly be applied.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Moshe Feder doubles down… twice” – June 11

The Associate Editor of Tor Books doubled-down on Facebook:

I’ll be happy to say right now, here on my _personal_ FB page, speaking for myself and not Tor, that I agree with Irene that Vox Day can be fairly described as a neo-Nazi. – Moshe Feder, Associate Editor, Tor Books

It’s a very strange to accuse a self-declared Zionist who edits and publishes Israeli authors of being a neo-Nazi, but then, these are the same people who insist that Brad Torgersen is racist despite his marriage to a black woman…..

In light of these additional provocations by a Tor Books employee, I sent an email to Tom Doherty, Publisher at Tor Books, requesting that he deal directly with the public misbehavior of his Associate Publisher and his Associate Editor. I trust that he will address the situation in a professional and decisive manner. It should be obvious, at this point, that I am far from the only individual being attacked by his employees and that the unpleasantries are not going to end until those employees are held fully accountable for their ludicrously unprofessional actions.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Yes, but…” – June 11

A File 770 SJW frets that we won’t be satisfied with Gallo’s resignation: ….

Well, that all depends on how many SJWs Mr. Doherty and/or Macmillan have the good sense to stop inflicting on science fiction. But (and this is the relevant point), thousands of current customers attacked by Ms Gallo won’t stop buying their books. If Gallo was a fry cook or a sales clerk, she’d be gone already. You don’t show that kind of disrespect and hatred for your customers and keep your job. You simply don’t. I am under no illusion that anyone at Tor or Macmillan like me or wish to do me any favors. But I do assume that they are capable of doing basic math and grasping the lesson of Fox News. Of course, if they instead decide that they want to play the role of CNN and sell only to the left one-third of the population, well, that is certainly their prerogative.

 

Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation

“The latest Sad Puppies related stuff” – June 11

You might have noticed that I’ve not posted much about this topic lately. My original points, that there is political bias in the system, which would result in slander and sabotage, has been pretty well proven. I don’t have much else to add.

Recently a Tor editor said something false and asinine. This is kind of a tradition, but for a bunch of fans this was the final straw. People got really mad (it turns out regular fans don’t like being called neo-nazis) and this time the comments came to the attention of Tor management.

I’ve personally stayed out of this one. I’m used to being lied about by these people. However, it turns out regular fans aren’t. Go figure.

As far as I’m concerned, this is between Tor and its customers. A bunch of folks have come out to condemn Tom Doherty as a misogynist for trying to protect his company, and more #standwithGallo to double down on her comments about how everybody who disagrees with them politically is a racist, sexist, homophobe. That’s awesome. You guys do far more to prove my original contention than anything I could have ever done on my own.

 

J. C. Carlton

“Is It Smart To Piss Off Your Customers And Vendors?” – June 10

Most of the puppies had been giving Tor a break.  It was assumed that the extreme language that we had been seeing was the production of a very small group of individuals, not the entire Tor office.  The call was “not to punish Tor” for the actions of those few.  Ms. Gallo’s comment, and her actions represent  behavior far outside the normal course of business.  For that matter, so do those of the Neilson Haydon’s  and others at Tor.  The obvious intent was, from even before the nominations were announced to essentially destroy any credibility the puppies might have using the usual methods of the typical leftist power elite. Which is to cast anybody who has even a small argument against whatever the leftist agenda as “unrepentantly racist, misogynist, and homophobic.”

Well we have Mr. Doherty’s answer.

http://www.tor.com/2015/06/08/a-message-from-tom-doherty-to-our-readers-and-authors/#comment-526375

Apparently, using words like, “unrepentantly racist, misogynist, and homophobic.” as blanket statements under promotional posts for Tor’s is Ok as long as it’s not on Tor’s website.  I think that the problem at Tor isn’t that Gallo made the statements as libelous and disgusting as they were, but the fact that Tor is the kind of place where statement like that are even thought of as something you would say as part of the regular part of business.  the statement was made in response to an honest and easily answered question.  instead of doing what any of we puppies would do and point the questioner to a bunch of websites or saying google it, Gallo resorted to the worst kind destructive and hateful language. Is this what it’s like in the Tor office?  Apparently so.

 

Tom Knighton

“Where the differences lie” – June 11

From our perspective, the sin wasn’t that she [Irene Gallo] hated us.  While her choice of words was upsetting to say the least, that wouldn’t have been enough to “rally the troops”, so to speak.  The issue was that it was while she was promoting a Tor book.  The perception, for right or wrong, was that she was operating in a professional capacity within that post.

No one thinks her personal Facebook page is an extension of her professional life as a general rule.  The difference was what the post was.

Had her post simply been Puppy-bashing like Feder, both Neilsen Haydens, John Scalzi, David Gerrold, or a number of other people, nothing really would have been said.

The truth is, had it been any of those people, the apology wouldn’t have been enough for even me to call for folks to let it go.  Some critics of the Doherty statement are absolutely correct.  Those folks have said far, far more than Gallo ever did.  They owe us far more in the way of an apology than Gallo ever did.  They’ve said as much, if not worse, and said it far more often.  The simple fact is that they haven’t said it on the same posts that they used to promote books by their employer.

For me, the difference simply lies in what they were doing.

Here’s something for folks to remember about me personally.  The situation with Gallo is a historical note in Sad Puppies 3.  It’s over and done with.  But Patrick Neilsen Hayden and Moshe Feder?  No, they’re ongoing and they are the reason I’m still considering whether I really want to buy any Tor books down the road.  I’d rather not contribute to the level of hate I’ve seen come from them.

 

K. Tempest Bradford on Facebook – June 9

With the current situation, you have the big boss publicly shaming one female employee and sending a message to others that only certain behaviors are tolerated, and have you crossed the line? Watch out! (The line being: saying true things about a Tor author. The line not being: sexually harassing Tor authors, contractors, and employees.)

How the fuck are the other Tor editors supposed to feel about this? (This is not a call for said editors to tell us publicly. There’s a whole lot of reasons why they probably don’t want to do that. I don’t blame them.)

Then there’s the whole thing where Doherty just let Jim Frenkel do his thing for years and years, through multiple complaints from authors who weren’t signed with Tor, authors who were signed with Tor, independent contractors working with Tor, and Tor employees. I don’t remember a public statement about that. I don’t remember a Tor.com post shaming Frenkel. What I do remember is that we found out he was no longer employed at Tor from PNH’s Twitter account. I also remember that he wasn’t fired, he was allowed to resign.

I don’t remember Doherty apologizing to anyone for that.

 

Brenna Clarke Gray on Book Riot

“Reflecting on the Tor Letter as a Lady-Geek” – June 11

I am going to state three givens vis-à-vis this post: if you disagree with them, that’s cool, but maybe you shouldn’t bother reading this post because it will just make you want to say angry things on the internet that I don’t care to read.

  1. I think it’s pretty clear that Vox Day intentionally sat on Gallo’s weeks-old comments until Nebula Awards weekend when, presumably, it would have the greatest impact to trot them out and rally up an angry mob.
  2. I agree in spirit if not in language with Gallo’s critique of SP/RP.
  3. I’m a feminist. This post is categorized as “Feminism.” If the concept of feminism enrages you, feel free to go about your business elsewhere.

So. The Tor letter was a major disappointment for me as a female SFF fan. I was at NorWesCon when the Hugo Award nominees were announced and, having spent most of my weekend in well-attended panels dominated by female pros and openly discussing issues from Gamergate to Women in Refrigerators, hearing the success of Sad Puppies was a punch to the gut. Sometimes female fandom can feel like a game of one step forward, two steps back: every single time we make major representative strides, someone decides that our mere presence at the table — our mere desire to be seen — is political correctness run amok and we must be silenced.

 

Saumya Arya Haas on The The

“Infoxicated Corner: ALL THESE THINGS ARE TRUE: Saumya Arya Haas” – June 11

It is true. As in many SF/F tales, a world is at risk. The world of “tradition,” the world where straight, cis, white guys are the inheritors of the throne, the world where women and minorities have their identities dictated and blunted by a dominant narrative: that world is gravely at risk. It is slow erosion, but it’s real. The Puppies, caught up in the echo chamber of their own fantasies, see themselves as valiant heroes who must save this dying world. They want to control the narrative of the real world by symbolically controlling the narratives of a literary tradition. The world is being remade: by people living their lives out loud, by books, by outrage. We won’t be stuffed back into narrow margins. It must be terrifying to own the whole damn world and then feel it begin to slip away. No wonder they’re sad, and rabid.

We are not outraged about who wins a genre literary award; we are fighting over the world. We are outraged when our meaning comes in conflict with someone else’s meaning and there is a fight to subsume our perspective. We’re outraged because, for many of us, this is not a story about stories. This is the story of our lives. My sympathy with the other side evaporates because there is, very clearly, room for them in the new world we are building. There is room for everyone to have their own place and share their own stories and preserve their own traditions (there is not, however, room for them to impose their narrative on anyone else). Their world, the old world they are struggling to preserve, would grind me down into a minor character written by someone else.

 

Simon Bucher-Jones on SBJ’s pantechnicon extravaganza

“A helpful graphic comparing Vox Day with Nazis” – June 11

The rabid puppies are lead by one Vox Day (Theodore Beale) who believes (or chooses to post as if he believes – and lets give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s not lying) a lot of very right wing things.  These have lead to the sad puppies and the rabid puppies being called “extreme right wing to neo-nazi respectively”, and the woman who said that – the art director for Tor books has been upbraided by people who don’t understand the ‘to’ and ‘respectively’ in that description, and seemingly have read nothing by Vox Day.

So to help clarify matters here’s a simple diagram with footnotes:….

 

Bestertester on SFF World

“Sad Puppies Draw Blood” – June 10

Trolls just want attention. So does everybody else, especially authors. To have influence when you’re not rich and connected, you have to get the public’s attention somehow. The most effective way to get the public’s attention is to make people angry. The angry hubbub draws a crowd, and you’ve got name recognition and a following. Outrage goes viral better than anything else. Persecution bestows relevance. The more you harsh on the heretic, the more you fuel his movement. But when the heretic harshes on the establishment, he undermines them. If it’s not a level playing field then the warfare is asymmetric. What works for the underdog works only if you’re the underdog. Vox Day is crazy like a fox,

 

Lela E. Buis

“Cracks in the façade” – June 11

I like Tor books. I don’t care much for traditional, white male SF. I tend to be a flaming liberal, but like the Puppies, I am personally affronted by SJWs (from either side) and publications that assume I don’t really understand the issues and translate the power plays. Plus, I don’t want my submissions to any editor to be evaluated on hidden social justice assumptions.

Over the Nebula Weekend, Vox Day attacked Irene Gallo, who is an editor at Tor, for comments she made on her personal Facebook page. I support Gallo’s right to express her opinions, but this was ill advised. It looks like Gallo fell for the Puppies’ baiting and made a provocative statement that could be construed to represent Tor. Founder Tom Doherty responded with a post distancing himself and Tor from Gallo’s comments and suggesting that he could be forced into asking her to resign. This provoked an immediate chortle from the Puppy supporters, who then fired the opening salvo of an attack on Moshe Feder, another editor at Tor. There were also calls for a boycott of Tor books.

 

Shawn Struck on The Code

“How Tor Books Threw Its Women Employees Under The Bus” – June 11

What’s odd is that Editor at Tor Books Patrick Neilsen Hayden called the Sad Puppies evil. Best aelling author John Scalzi– yes the same John Scalzi that signed a 10 year deal with Tor Books for 3.4 million— has publicly feuded with Vox Day (the white supremacist behind the Rabid Puppies slate) and called him a bigot. Neither of these high profile men had these actions or statements repudiated in public statements from Tom Doherty. In fact,Tom Doherty’s been quiet about a lot of things done by men at Tor.

 

Heather Allen and Tqwana Brown on Around The World In 80 Books

“Tor Books: Mismanagement of PR” – June 11

I always imagine SFF as pushing the envelope, but, in fact, the actions of Tom Doherty takes women a few years back. He represents Tor just as much as Irene does, he just put himself and Tor in the public sphere. I don’t see any positivity coming from this post. Did you really think we would all be on your side? That there would be no consequences to calling out a female employee for something that is affecting the industry she works in? There was a better way to handle this situation which did not include seceding to pressure from a group of Sad Puppies, and which did not include publicly shaming an employee.

 

Lou Antonelli on Facebook – June 11

By the way, I want to take a minute to thank the many people who have been supportive and encouraging to me in the wake of the controversy engendered by this year’s Hugo nominations.

I am proud of my work. No, I am not the greatest s-f writer on the planet. I am not in the Top Ten. Heck, I don’t know if I am in the Top 100. But there are many people who enjoy my work, and they’re the reason I write. I certainly don’t do it for the money. I write for the fans and the enjoyment it brings both them and myself.

 

 

Eric Flint

“NO, AWARDS AREN’T “FAIR.” NEVER HAVE BEEN, NEVER WILL BE. SO WHAT?” – June 11

So, to those of you reading this who are writers yourselves and may have a story eligible to be considered for a Hugo award, have at it. But approach it like an author.

Don’t get worked up because a lot of what happens with awards isn’t “fair.” No, it’s not. It wasn’t “fair” a generation ago—consult the ghosts of Hal Clement, Andre Norton, Richard Matheson and James H. Schmitz—it’s not “fair” now and it’s not going to be “fair” after you’re dead and have joined those ghosts. Accept that now or you will just sink into stupid and pointless resentment.

Yes, there are some steps that could be taken that would improve the situation. I’ll get into those in my next essay. But there is no way to get around the objective reality that only a tiny percentage of eligible authors will ever or can ever receive a Hugo award—or even be nominated for one—and the odds that you will be in that select group are tiny. You will certainly improve your odds if you can write really well, but that’s all you can do—improve them.

If you can’t accept that—accept it ungrudgingly; better yet, cheerfully—then you’re not thinking like an author. You’re thinking like a damn fool.

 

Ferrett Steinmetz

“How Much Of The Sad Puppy Divide Is Just An Approach To Novelty?” – June 11

And I think a lot of the Sad Puppy divide comes down to those who value comfort reading – they want mostly what they’ve read before, with a few twists to keep it fresh – and those of us who only get off on things we haven’t seen before.

There’s nothing wrong with either side, of course – I don’t disdain those who want to read their Laurel K. Hamilton and Harry Potter books a hundred times over, even as I don’t understand it.  Reading is reading. Love what you like.

But I think at some point, people like Brad and company have metastatized their tastes to go “Everyone really wants to hear the same basic stories, deep down” – and from that perspective, of course we’re only adding these weird-ass characters because we’re pandering.  Why would you want to write a gay character when what you’ve read before are straight characters, and the only thing that really scratches your itch is stuff similar to what you’ve read before?

 

Kyle on The Blogdom

“Ugh” – June 11

I love science fiction and fantasy novels. I love the movies. I love comics. The characters, the stories, they make my imagination soar. I also love reading new things. I like it when people write in these genres from perspectives I’ve never thought about.

But right now, a certain subset of the fandom just makes me sick. I feel like we’ve just realized that Hydra has been within our ranks all along. I mean, I always knew there was a certain type of nerd out there. We’ve all run into these dudes. They’re white, afraid of anything not white, and usually very antagonistic towards women. Probably they smell. These shits are out there. Now they’re constantly trying to ruin science fiction and fantasy. The Hugo awards, this controversy, and the entire Sad/Rabid Puppy movement (how absurd is my world at this point? I just typed Sad/Rabid Puppy movement), not to mention the GamerGate shitvalanche, just proves that people still suck. In case you’ve been asleep for a while and maybe thought it was getting better. Nah, they’re still awful.

 

Headmisstress on The Common Room

“Well, hoity toity” – June 11

In a frontal attack, employees at Tor have been going on record attacking  sci-fi authors who , one Tor editor went so far as calling some of Tor’s own authors ((and the readers who read their books) neo-nazis, reprehensible, racist, misogynist, and homophobic (and amazingly, she still has a job). More here.  And here.

Progressives in general have little use or admiration for free speech, for initiative, for lone wolves, for individualism, and especially for entrepreneurs, so niche publishing, the explosion in self-publishing, the ability to say what you want to say without passing the approval of  a left side publisher and its Social Justice Warrior editors is, to them, a downside, not something they see as a benefit.  Niche marketing is not a good thing unless it’s their niche.

 

Martin Wisse on Wis[e]e Words

“Puppy baiting for fun, not profit” – June 11

Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens gets it right when they say we’re wasting time, energy and attention by engaging the Puppies: …

They miss one thing though: for all the outrage and anger it generates, it can also be fun to blogivate about how awful those people are. At least for those of us not the victim of harassement campaigns. It’s whack-a-mole, but it doesn’t have to cost too much energy as long as you manage to restrict yourself.

 

Peter Grant on Bayou Renaissance Man

“The conundrum of wider horizons and narrower systems” – June 11

This is why one side can categorize Sad or Rabid Puppies as ‘neo-Nazi’ or ‘racist’ or ‘bigoted’ or whatever.  Those words are defined on their own terms, not in relation to reality.  Anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together and an interest in history can define what actually made a Nazi a Nazi.  However, most people don’t bother to do that research.  They merely parrot the ‘Nazi’ label as it’s spoon-fed to them, and in time come to believe it, even though it’s factually false.  On the Puppy side of the fence, I’ve seen far too many people categorize all SJW’s as liars, communists, socialists, deluded, whatever.  I’ve no doubt some of them are, but not all of them – and if we refuse to look at our opponents as individuals, lumping them instead into categories or groups or races or ethnicities, aren’t we doing the same as both Communists and Nazis did?  They demonized “the bourgeoisie” or “the kulaks” or “the Jews” or “the Communists”, and treated them as subhuman, disposable groups.  (There was precious little to choose between Hitler and Stalin, between the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulags.)  Both sides disposed of those they demonized without consideration for their individual humanity.  Aren’t we at risk of doing the same to our opponents, at least in our minds?

I already know that the extremists on both sides will scoff at me for saying that.  “You can’t compromise with evil!”  “It’s no good talking to bigots!”  “If you’re not for us, you’re against us!”  “If you’re not against them, you’re for them!”  Trouble is, who defines evil?  Who defines what is or is not a bigot?  What gives anyone the right to define my beliefs or attitudes or opinions on my behalf?  The answer, of course, is “Nothing and no-one” . . . but that won’t stop them trying.

 

Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag

“The ongoing Hugo mess comes to haunt me again…” – June 11

In short, VD manipulated the puppies, all of them. He whistled and they all trotted up panting, he fed them a piece of month-old meat and they gleefully ripped it apart and started barking on cue. He completely owned them. All of them. And they totally fell for it. They are his dogs and he knows it. Any puppy who responded to that without saying, “why didn’t you bring this up a month ago when it was first posted, instead of on the night the Nebula’s were awarded?” is totally in VD’s control. Their souls belong to him.

As for the comment by Gallo? Well, I don’t know if all the sads are extreme rightwing, but I’m relatively certain that anyone who follows and supports VD fits the other category. I’m also not really sure if all the works on the slates are bad, though I suspect some fit the category of reprehensible. She probably shouldn’t have posted it, but a lot of us post things we later regret. Most of us are lucky enough to not be monitored by a sociopathic misogynistic sicko who has managed to manipulate a bunch of fans into fighting his battles for him, who wants to hurt us just for spits and giggles.

 

James Schardt on The Otherwhere Gazette

“In Defense of Irene Gallo” – June 11

This is another Hugo Award/ Sad Puppy post. I wish it were not true but there is something that needs to be said. The title of this piece says I am defending Irene Gallo regarding the remarks she made on her Facebook page. I am, to a point. And by the end of this article I know she will be angry at me for doing so. The gaffe was ugly and nothing I have to say will make it look any better. I am serious about what I am saying here. I say this because it can be difficult to deal with the fact that someone hates you and actually believes you hate them and their beliefs in return.

 

TPI’s Reading Diary

“My Hugo award votes 2015 part 2 – Short stories” – June 11

All nominees in this category originate from the “puppy lists”. And it shows. I wonder why selected these stories to their slates. There are mostly a celebration of mediocre writing and extreme stupid plotting. The only decent story was Totaled by Kary English. As the nomination was manipulated (and stories were mostly bad) I will vote “no award” for the first place and put the only decent story to the second place.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Skin Game (The Dresden Files #15), by Jim Butcher” – June 11

The writing here is nothing really exceptional, but it’s perfectly competent and smooth. The problem is that because this is a Hugo Best Novel nominee, I’m coming into the series at book number fifteen. At this point, the book relies on the fact that everyone reading it knows the major recurring characters and the world they live in–and I don’t. And sadly, without the backstory, I don’t care.

 

Patrick May

“2015 Hugo Awards Related Work Category” – June 10

[Preceded by comments on all nominees.]

My Hugo ballot for this category is:

  1. Letters from Gardner
  2. The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF
  3. No Award
  4. Wisdom from My Internet
  5. Why Science is Never Settled
  6. Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth.

Yes, “Transhuman and Subhuman” is bad enough to rank below two pieces that aren’t even appropriate for the category.

 

Charlotte Ashley in Apex Magazine

“Clavis Aurea #30: 2015 Hugo Awards Edition (Short Fiction)”

[Includes comments on all nominated short fiction.]

None of these stories challenged or delighted me the way a story meant to represent the best of the year should. They range from poorly executed to merely dull, a great disappointment, given some of the truly excellent work that was published last year.

 

Kate Paulk on Mad Genius Club

“Attack of the Infinite Stupid” – June 11

For starters, the Evil Legion of Evil is not Nazi, neo or otherwise. As if we’d associate ourselves with those losers. Seriously, how can an Evil organization expect to be taken seriously if it models itself after a political ideology that started by kicking out some of the most competent people in the country, and went on to our world’s version of “Never start a land war in Asia”, invading Russia.

We are most certainly not racist, misogynist, or homophobic. How could we be when half the ELOE’s founders are female, when the International Lord of HATE (Hi, Larry!) is Hispanic, right alongside Her Draconic Majesty, The Beautiful But Evil Space Princess, Sarah Hoyt. We even have a Brain in a Jar, and a Powder Blue Care Bear with a Bleeding Heart And a Flamethrower, two Redheads of Doom (no one really knows which one is The Redhead of Doom and which is the Other Redhead of Doom). I’m not entirely sure how one classifies the sexuality of a brain in a jar (presumably sapiosexual) but I’m not going to be the one to ask.

Is that not a truly diverse group of people? I haven’t even started on the Vile Faceless Minions or the Mini-Onions in the Tower, or… Oh, nevermind. These twits will never believe a word of it anyway.