Pixel Scroll 1/16/24 What Can You Say About Chocolate Covered Pixels?

(1) WHAT, ME WORRY? Should we share Jeffrey Davies’ concern about “Is Reimagining History Through Biofiction Ethical?”. His Book Riot post focuses on work that is not marketed as genre, although it arguably is alternate history.

…On the other side of the argument, the popularity of biofiction in the digital age, where information about the past lives of our favorite celebrities and public figures is available instantly at our fingertips, speaks to an appetite for the comfort and familiarity a fictionalized account of our favorite famous people offers. Take Daisy Jones & The Six, for example. While not considered biofiction because Daisy Jones and her friends are entirely fictional, no one can deny that they bear a remarkable resemblance to Fleetwood Mac.

Sure, Daisy Jones is a rip-off, but don’t we like it that way? Doesn’t some part of us crave a new adventure surrounding characters we pretty much already know? It’s like rewatching a movie you haven’t seen in a really long time, but you remember enough of it that it’s not asking your brain to continue engaging with new material at the end of a long day. The same can be said for Lucy Holliday’s A Night in With Audrey Hepburn, also not quite biographical fiction, but the same effect.

Then there’s Elizabeth Letts’ Finding Dorothy, a biofiction novel following L. Frank Baum’s wife in the present (1938), witnessing the production of the MGM film adaptation of her husband’s most famous novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It then flashes back to the late 1800s, imagining the historical events that led to the inspiration for Oz. Because the author treats its history with respect, it’s a joy to read and fun for any fan of Dorothy Gale, big or small, even if some aspects of the narrative can be fictionalized….

(2) SPACE UNICORNS SOUND OFF. You have until February 12 to make your voice heard:

We’ve set up a poll for Uncanny readers to vote for their top three favorite original short stories from 2023. (You can find links to all of the stories here.)

The poll will be open from January 15 to February 12, after which we’ll announce the results. We’re excited for you to share which Uncanny stories made you feel!

snazzy certificate will be given to the creator whose work comes out on top of  the poll!

(3) WORLD FANTASY AWARDS 2024 SUBMISSIONS UPDATE. Peter Dennis Pautz today sent this change in the instructions for sending items to judge Thomas Olde Heuvelt:

Due to new customs practices in Europe and the UK, some packages that are still marked “GIFT” or “NO VALUE” or “NO COMMERCIAL VALUE” or “PROMOTIONAL” or “WORLD FANTASY AWARDS JURY MATERIAL” are requiring a duty or “landing fee” at the recipient’s end.

While some packages are getting through with those fees, there are no funds available from the WFC, WFA, or the jury member(s) to pay for or reimburse those costs.

Thus, please be aware that those submissions requiring a fee will be refused by WFA Judge Thomas Olde Heuvelt, with our agreement.

M. Olde Heuvelt still prefers hard copies of any submissions. However, I suggest backing up those submissions with PDF or EPUB to ensure your submissions receive their due attention.

(4) COLLECTIBLE CRAZE. “Pokémon pandemonium: did the Van Gogh Museum play its cards right?” asks the Guardian.

In early November, I was standing in a long line at the Van Gogh gift shop in Amsterdam waiting to purchase a Pokémon ballpoint pen. It was one of the few remaining items left in the store – this was the second month of the establishment’s Pokémon collaboration, but the clamour for the limited edition merchandise was ceaseless. Everything from T-shirts to notebooks to shoulder bags with an image of Pikachu on the front had been picked bare, leaving only prints and postcards behind the till. It was barely past midday but the number of people crammed into the shop meant the area was soon cordoned off with others now rejected entry until it calmed down.

This had become an all too familiar sight for attendees and staff. From the very start of the collaboration, which began in September for the museum’s 50th anniversary and was intended to introduce new audiences to the work of the Dutch artist, the Pokémon merch caused mayhem as eager fans – and scalpers – clamoured for the best stuff. But the main cause was a single item: a limited edition “Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat” trading card. As soon as the card was made available, it sold out online, while desperate gallery visitors had to enter scrums to try and pick one up. Footage of the Poké riots soon hit Twitter (now known as X), and later, eBay listings had the card on sale for up to $900. In mid-October, the card was discontinued….

Pikachu inspired by Self-Portrait With Grey Felt Hat, Naoyo Kimura (1960) at Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum exhibition, Amsterdam. Right: Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat, Vincent van Gogh, 1887. Photograph: The Pokémon Company International/Vincent van Gogh Foundation

(5) NEW HORROR UNIVERSITY WORKSHOPS. The Horror Writers Association has announced that from January 22 to April 8, 2024, Horror University will offer these live workshops to horror writers everywhere interested in refining their writing, learning new skills and techniques, exploring new writing formats, or better understanding the genre. Full descriptions and registration information is available at Teachable.com: “Horror University Online”. Registration now open.

The Winter 2024 Session includes:

  • January 22: An Evening with Ellen Datlow: A wide-ranging discussing with multiple-award-winner, Ellen Datlow, editor of the annual The Best Horror of the Year. 
  • January 29: Writing for Haunts with Kevin Wetmore: Learn tips and techniques for writing scripts for engaging and frightening live haunted house attractions.
  • February 5: Shifting Shapes: Writing the Transformation Scene with Michael Arnzen: Learn the scenecraft for depicting how a “normal” body mutates, a mind spirals into madness, or a human morphs into a monster.
  • February 11: Horror Archives at University of Pittsburgh with Benjamin T. Rubi, Linda Addison, Clay McLeod Chapman, Lisa Morton, Tim Waggoner, and L. Marie Wood: Join curator Ben Rubin and several horror authors for a discussion of the Horror Studies Collection at the University of Pittsburgh! THIS SESSION IS FREE!
  • February 12: Anti-Ableism in Horror with Callie Stoker: How to write accurately and avoid pitfalls when representing all abilities in the human spectrum.
  • February 26: Building Your Author Roadmap with JB Kish: An interactive workshop to help identify your goals and the steps to achieve them using techniques of project management.
  • March 4: Expanding Your Writing Horizons with Lisa Morton: Learn how to move beyond fiction into non-fiction, poetry, screenwriting, paid blogging, and more!
  • March 11: Writing the Witch with Stephanie Wytovich: Immerse yourself in the rich literary history of witchcraft and create fictional work inspired by our interpretation of witches over time.
  • March 18: Bringing Cosmic Horror Down to Earth with James Chambers: Explore techniques for developing grounded settings, well-developed characters, and troubling themes for effective cosmic horror stories.
  • March 25: The Horror Hero’s Journey with Tim Waggoner: Learn how to adapt the “hero’s journey” template to write epic horror fiction!
  • April 8: Marketing 101: Selling and Extending The Life of Your Work with Robert P. Ottone: Learn ways to market your work–and yourself–to better extend the life of your publications and more.

(6) HUMAN PREDICTABILITY. Dan Rockmore’s article in The New Yorker, “How Much of the World Is It Possible to Model?”, naturally includes an Asimov reference:

… But as scientific as all this sounds, it remains hopelessly messy: it’s a model not of a natural system but of a sentimental one. In his “Foundation” novels, the writer Isaac Asimov imagined “psychohistory,” a discipline that would bring the rigor of cause and effect to social dynamics through equations akin to Newton’s laws of motion…

(7) VINTAGE VIDEO. Michael J. Walsh mourns the passing of Howard Waldrop, adding: “I look back to the 2013 Capclave and am so glad we were able to pull this off.” Click through to watch “The Howard, George and Gardner Show”.

(8) WALDROP REMEMBRANCE. James Hollaman tells about the time he made Howard Waldrop the guest of honor at Room Con – his con inside a con at ConQuesT.

I was staying with a person and had woke up early like I normally do. I went to the library of books they had and picked up a book and read a story called “Thirty Minutes Over Broadway!” by Howard Waldrop. I really liked the style, there was something about it. This was my introduction to Howard’s work. I then found a few other things that Howard had wrote. I really enjoyed them all. They all had a flavor, a style that I loved. (I think the one word that comes close is vaudeville, but that doesnt do it justice. I would pick up anything that he worked on.

Cut a few years when Howard was a guest at a con in Oklahoma. Before the con Howard, Bradley Denton, the Murray/Bahm’s and I went to eat at a BBQ place. When it came to pay the check I paid for Howards meal (which was a barbecue bologna sandwich). I told him that I owed him for the joy his work brought me. I found out later this was the way to handle it. He normally didn’t like when people did this. getting to hear him read at the con was a joy. So great. He had wrote the story on his way up to the con, it was all hand written.

I started a party called Room Con. We was up to Room Con 6(66) and I wanted to really do something evil, but cool at the same time. It dawned on me that I liked the guest list that ConQuesT had, but i could do better. So I got a hold of Brad and got the info for Howard as I was going to ask him to be my guest of honor. I got his info and called him. A few rings of the phone and he picked up. There I was, talking to a legend. You don’t know how much that meant to me. He agreed to do so. I got his info, bought him a ticket, got him a room, paid him a per diem. He was all set up, all he had to do was show up.

Paula took and drove me to the airport to pick Howard up. We got there just as he was getting off the plane. There he was, just a small carry on in his hand. He was ready for the weekend. Got him to the hotel and in his room. He had a few panels (his pay for the membership to the con), one being the George and Howard show, 2 hours getting to hear Howard and George R.R. Martin talk. That was amazing. Over the weekend I got to eat with Howard several times, him and i would talk. I enjoyed every bit of the time I got to spend with him.

It was time to get Room Con started. Howard got to the party before we started and staid for the whole thing. He liked hearing Bland Lemon Denton and David Lee Anderson play music. Oh and he talked to everyone, just as nice as a human could be. During the party a person took and pulled me off to the side and told me that he had heard I had brought Howard in on my own, to which i said “yes, i did”. He was shocked. He had thought that ConQuesT had brought him in. This made my day. I found out that some others had thought the same, all was shocked I had brought him in.

I didn’t help get him to the airport, mainly because I was a little sad to see the weekend was done. I saw him at a few other cons after that, enjoyed any time I got to spend with him. We wrote each other mainly. I did call him a few times, but they was short calls. We talked about how he was doing and what was going on. While i did not have as close of a relationship with him as others did, I still had a closer relationship than others, and i am all the better for it.

Howard, you will be missed. Thank you for the friendship, thank you for all you have done. Thank you for your kindness.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born January 16, 1970 Garth Ennis, 54. Garth Ennis is without no doubt one of my favorite comic writers. Born in Northern Ireland, though a rare individual who grew up with no religious background (and you are fully aware why I’m mentioning that), he’s now resident in the States.

Garth Ennis. Photo by and © Luigi Novi.

So as a six-year-old, his teacher told the class that God was a being who could see inside their hearts, was always around them, and would ultimately reward or punish them. It scared, as he says in an interview, the shite out of him, and that was the genesis of Preacher. I love that series, have read it multiple times and no, I have not seen the series. 

Next up on the list of series he wrote that he created and I seriously adore is Hellblazer with the supernatural detective John Constantine. I can’t say that I’ve read every issue of that series as I lost interest in it a decade or so ago but his work on it, mostly from issues forty to eighty three, was among the best undertaken in the series. 

He had a run on The Authority for the Wildstorm imprint, that run being possibly the most annoying run in the history of the series as it focused on a character called Kev; and the first arc of the Authority spin-off series Midnighter, a character he admits was conceived as an ainti-Superman by him and artist Brian Hitch. 

Before you ask, where’s the Marvel Comics, I looked at his work there and since I hadn’t read any of it, save random issues of his Punisher writing, I can’t say what is good and what isn’t. So do feel free to tell me what is good over there.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Frazz admits another fandom interest.
  • Non Sequitur shows a side of public domain we never expected.
  • Hi and Lois illustrates why the difference between a Marvel superhero and Star Wars villain is just a little bit of sunshine.

(11) IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! IT’S A ONE LINER! [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Just as we always suspected. That kid from Smallville wants to be a comedian. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to make you laugh until your ribs hurt! Truth, Justice, and Impeccable Comedic Timing! “New Superman ‘Will Have a Sense of Humor,’ Says Lois Lane Actor Rachel Brosnahan: ‘Every Single Person Involved’ in the Film ‘Is a Perfect Nerd’” in Variety.

No surprise here. James Gunn is bringing comedy back to the Man of Steel, at least according to the director’s Lois Lane actor Rachel Brosnahan. The star recently told Entertainment Tonight that the new Superman (played by David Corenswet) will “have a sense of humor” and that her iteration of Lois Lane will be “feisty, marvelous and fiercely intelligent.”…

…Given that Gunn almost always infuses his work with comedy (see his “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy for Marvel), it’s not too surprising to hear his upcoming “Superman: Legacy” will be bringing out a more humorous side to the Man of Steel. It’s still a notable change given Superman’s last run on the big screen was defined largely by Zack Snyder’s ultra-serious and gritty tone. Henry Cavill played that iteration of the more super-serious Superman….

(12) EYE V. DRAGON. CBR.com wants to know “What If Smaug Had Survived The Hobbit?” Their thought experiment covers both the possibility that Sauron and Smaug would have allied, and that they would have become rivals.

Could Smaug Have Defeated Sauron?

…If Smaug and Sauron had gone to war with one another, the dragon would not have fared well. In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf noted that dragon fire was capable of melting most Rings of Power, but not the One Ring. Smaug might have been able to destroy the Nazgûl’s rings, thus robbing Sauron of his most loyal servants, but without destroying the One Ring, Sauron would have persisted. Even if Smaug had annihilated Sauron’s army, the Dark Lord was an immortal Maia, so he could have retreated and rebuilt from the shadows as he did after his defeat in the Second Age. Additionally, Smaug’s weakness was far more exploitable than Sauron’s. Tolkien gave little information about the creation of the black arrow, but Sauron and Saruman were both master craftsmen with plentiful resources, so they surely could have reproduced it. From there, it would only have been a matter of time before an Orc archer got a lucky shot against Smaug….

(13) BACK IN THE ZONE. Interzone has published the January issue in EPUB form — Interzone #297. Costs 5 euros. Here’s the cover.

(14) WOULDN’T YOU RATHER VOTE FOR THEM? Atlas Obscura takes us inside the “Hall of Fake Presidents – Washington, D.C.” (Photos at the link.)

…Regally displayed in the cinema lobby, Alamo Drafthouse’s Hall of Presidents includes a dozen fictional U.S. Presidents from popular films. This is a bipartisan gallery that includes beloved leaders like Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact and Harrison Ford in Air Force One, to more polarizing Commanders-in-Chief like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove and President Camacho himself: Terry Crews in Idiocracy. The hall’s centerpiece is a life-sized statue of President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) from Independence Day, framed by an engraving of his patriotic speech from that film….

(15) SMALL, CUTE ROBOTS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Gizmodo declares “These Were the Best, Cutest, Most Obscene Bots of CES 2024”. The cubist-face bot, the are-you-sure-this-isn’t-potentially-lethal industrial arm massage bot and the mini-Killdozer are particularly notable.

…Despite all the modern innovations, some of our favorite bots weren’t even meant to showcase the advancements of modern autonomous tech, one of our favorite displays was a simple, miniaturized Robot Wars demo layed out for tech press struggling after long days hoofing it through the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Sometimes, the best way to unwind after listening to an obscene amount of robot promotion is to literally dismantle an opponent’s bot with large, serrated teeth.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Resident Alien’s third season gets under way on February 14 says SYFY Wire: “Resident Alien Season 3 Gets Premiere Date & New Trailer”.

Greetings, Earthlings, and welcome back to Patience, Colorado, for Resident Alien Season 3. When we last left our out-of-this-world hero Harry Vanderspeigle (Alan Tudyk), he was carving out his place in our world, struggling with his newfound humanity, and … learning that his alien race isn’t the only one determined to kill us all.

“The Grey Aliens, they are here to destroy the planet,” Harry explains in the first trailer for Resident Alien Season 3 (above). Now that he’s firmly set down roots on Earth, he seems ready and willing to fight for humanity — but not everyone trusts his motives….

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Andrew (not Werdna) Michael J. Walsh, Daniel Dern, Kathy Sullivan, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]

2024 World Fantasy Awards Judges Announced

Peter Dennis Pautz, President of the World Fantasy Awards Association, today released the list of judges for the 2024 World Fantasy Awards, for work published in 2023.

The judges read and consider eligible materials received by June 1, 2024, the earlier the better. Pautz explains, “If, for instance, something is received on May 31 the judges may well have only one day to read it before their deliberations conclude. Anything received after June 1 will receive little or no consideration.”

2024 WORLD FANTASY AWARDS JUDGES 

  • Douglas A. Anderson, 11080 Mount Zion Road, Marcellus, MI 49067-8772; USA

[email protected]

Prefers HC (strongly), then PDF, then EPUB

  • Stephanie Feldman, PO Box 3257; 200 W. Butler Avenue; Ambler, PA 19002-9998; USA

[email protected]              

Prefers HC, then PDF

  • Thomas Olde Heuvelt, 1351 Route de Grasse; 06140 Tourrettes-sur-Loup; France

[email protected]

Prefers HC (strongly); then PDF, then EPUB (N.B. This judge’s last name is two words:  Olde Heuvelt)

  • Pat Murphy, 1400 Colorado St. Ste C; Boulder City, NV 89005; USA

[email protected]        

Prefers EPUB, then HC, then PDF

  • Dr Angela Slatter, C/ Pulp Fiction Booksellers; GPO Box 297; Brisbane, Q 4001; Australia

[email protected]

Prefers HC, then MOBI, then EPUB

(Judges’ order of preference as listed above:  HC=Hard Copy; MOBI=Mobipocket ebook format; EPUB=Electronic Publication; PDF=Portable Document Format; MSWord= Microsoft Word Document)

So that a comprehensive submission list may be kept, a copy should also go to:

Peter Dennis Pautz, President
World Fantasy Awards Association
3519 Glen Avenue
Palmer PA 18045-5812; USA
[email protected]

Send materials you wish to be considered by the panel directly to the addresses above, and very importantly, please mark all packages as PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS – NOT FOR SALE OR RESALE – NO COMMERCIAL VALUE — WORLD FANTASY AWARDS MATERIALS.  

Qualifications:  All books must have been originally published in English in 2023; magazines must have a 2023 cover date; short length stories must have been originally published in English in 2023; only living persons are eligible.

Fantasy Types:  All forms of fantasy are eligible, e.g. high, epic, dark, contemporary, literary, horror, etc.

Categories:  Life Achievement; Best Novel; Best Novella (10,001 to 40,000 words); Best Short Story; Best Anthology; Best Collection; Best Artist; Special Award—Professional; Special Award—Non‑Professional.

When submitting works shorter than novel length, please provide a word count for the judges’ benefit.

Please note that the nominees in the Life Achievement category will not be released, though the winners will be announced well before the awards banquet.

All questions pertaining to the convention should be directed to the Convention Chairs:

The awards will be presented at the convention, to be held Thursday through Sunday, October 17-20, 2024, at the Sheraton Niagara Falls, 300 3rd Street, Niagara Falls, NY 14303, USA.

Until January 17th, an attending membership costs $160.00 US, which does not include the Awards Banquet, tickets for which must be purchased separately. Virtual memberships are $80.00 US. Supporting memberships are $50.00 US.From January 18th through May 31, Attending tickets will be $210, Virtual $100, and Supporting $50. From June 1st through October 11th, Attending will be $260, Virtual $130, and Supporting $50. Banquet tickets will be available in late Summer, 2023. Information and forms can be found on the convention website.

[Based on a press release.]

Update 01/16/2024: Peter Dennis Pautz today sent this update to the instructions for sending items to judge Thomas Olde Heuvelt:

Due to new customs practices in Europe and the UK, some packages that are still marked “GIFT” or “NO VALUE” or “NO COMMERCIAL VALUE” or “PROMOTIONAL” or “WORLD FANTASY AWARDS JURY MATERIAL” are requiring a duty or “landing fee” at the recipient’s end.

While some packages are getting through with those fees, there are no funds available from the WFC, WFA, or the jury member(s) to pay for or reimburse those costs.

Thus, please be aware that those submissions requiring a fee will be refused by WFA Judge Thomas Olde Heuvelt, with our agreement.

M. Olde Heuvelt still prefers hard copies of any submissions. However, I suggest backing up those submissions with PDF or EPUB to ensure your submissions receive their due attention.

Premios Kelvin 505 —
2021 Winners

Spain’s Festival Celsius 232 committee revealed the 2021 winners of the Premios Kelvin 505 on June 17.

The trophies are scheduled for presentation at Festival Celsius 232 which takes place July 13-17 in Avilés, Spain.

Mejor novela original en castellano publicada por primera vez en España / Best original novel in Spanish published for the first time in Spain

  • Newropía, by Sofía Rhei (Minotauro)

Mejor novela traducida al castellano y publicada por primera vez en España / Best novel translated into Spanish and published for the first time in Spain

  • Hex, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, translated into Spanish by Ana Isabel Sánchez (Nocturna)

Mejor novela juvenil traducida al castellano y publicada por primera vez en España / Best youth novel translated into Spanish and published for the first time in Spain

  • La historia imposible de Sebastián Cole, by Ben Brooks, translated into Spanish by Rebeca González Izquierdo (Blackie Books)

Mejor novela juvenil original en castellano publicada por primera vez en España / Best original juvenile novel in Spanish published for the first time in Spain

  • El asesino de Alfas, by Patricia García-Rojo (SM)

Pixel Scroll 6/16/16 Schroedinger’s Kzin

(1) ARM-WRESTLING WITH A PUBLISHER. Kristine Kathryn Rusch sees writers as too prone to follow rules, and too prone to think themselves as powerless in the face of contractual language: “Business Musings: Thus, Lawyers, and Writers (Contracts/Dealbreakers)”.

Lawyers aren’t afraid of thugs and goons and cartoon characters that go bump in the night. They’re not afraid of someone who plays the Big Dog and says, You’ll never work in this town again. Lawyers generally say, Well, let’s see.

Lawyers know there’s usually a solution—and it’s often as simple as standing up and saying to the person on the other side of the contract, I’m not playing your silly game. No. I’m not doing it. Now, what are you going to do?

…. Here’s the bottom line, people. I know a bunch of you are stuck in contracts you don’t like. Publishers are reinterpreting contracts in whole new ways, ways that they never looked at in the past.

The big shift is that publishers no longer see themselves as manufacturers and distributers of books. They’re running a rights management business, which means taking advantage of the full copyright on a property, instead of licensing a tiny part of that copyright. (If you don’t understand that sentence, get a copy of the Copyright Handbook. If you’re too damn lazy or cheap to do that, at least see this blog post of mine.)

(2) ATWOOD. “Margaret Atwood awarded 2016 PEN Pinter Prize”.

Canadian poet, novelist and environmental activist Margaret Atwood has been awarded the 2016 PEN Pinter Prize. She will receive her award at a public event at the British Library on the evening of Thursday 13 October, where she will deliver an address.

Margaret Atwood was chosen by this year’s judges Vicky Featherstone, Zia Haider Rahman, Peter Stothard, Antonia Fraser and President of English PEN and Chair of Judges, Maureen Freely.

The judges praised Atwood as a ‘consistent supporter of political causes’, adding ‘her work championing environmental concerns comes well within the scope of human rights … she is a very important figure in terms of the principles of PEN and of Harold Pinter’.

Atwood said:

I am humbled to be the recipient of the 2016 PEN Pinter Prize. I knew Harold Pinter and worked with him – he wrote the scenario for the film version of The Handmaid’s Tale, back in 1989 – and his burning sense of injustice at human rights abuses and the repression of artists was impressive even then. Any winner of such an award is a stand-in for the thousands of people around the world who speak and act against such abuses. I am honoured to be this year’s stand-in.

(3) GUY WITH A GUN. Bruce Arthurs wrote about this army experience in 2012 after the Aurora theater shooting, and it’s relevant again this week: “Shots In The Dark, or, How I Became A Sharpshooter”.

Several ammo clips later, I and the other trainees have finished the Night Firing exercise and gather around to get our scores. I get a high score.  I get a surprisingly high score.  I get an astonishingly high score, far above the type of scores I’d gotten during daytime firing exercises.  I get a score so high that suddenly I’ve moved up into Sharpshooter-level numbers. That Holy Shit guy?  He skunked it.  Didn’t hit a single target. Well, let’s revise that statement, because it doesn’t take much time or brains to figure out what happened.  In the dark, with everyone firing around him, with multiple targets and multiple dim flashes, he’d gotten his orientation just slightly off and had been shooting at the wrong target.  The target of the guy next to him.  At my target.

(4) HOWARD TAYLER’S TAKE ON GUN OWNERSHIP.

(5) FIRST FIFTH. Joe Sherry continues his series at Nerds of a Feather with “Reading the Hugos: Novel”. Number five on his ballot is: The Aeronaut’s Windlass:

Butcher’s novel is the only finalist not on my nomination ballot. Prior to last year, I was completely unfamiliar with Butcher’s work. I knew that it existed, but until Skin Game‘s nomination, I had never read anything Butcher wrote. Happily, Skin Game was a solid read and one that I vastly preferred over the eventual winner, The Three-Body Problem. The Aeronaut’s Windlass is the first volume in a steampunk epic fantasy series from Butcher. I like it more than Skin Game, and I’m happy to be getting in on the ground floor of the series rather than jumping in at Book 15 like I did with the Dresden Files. The setting was fantastic (airships and insanely tall towers), but what drew me in was the characters. Gwen, Benedict, Brother Vincent, Bridget Tagwynn, Rowl, Captain Grimm, and pretty much everyone across the board are what sold me on this book. These are characters I would love to spent more time with.

This is one of those spots on my ballot that I could realistically swap positions with the next one up. I think Seveneves is an overall a better book, but I enjoyed The Aeronaut’s Windlass just about as much as I did Seveneves, just in different ways. They are two very different sorts of novels, and I’m down for more of Butcher’s Cinder Spires series, but Seveneves gets the nod today.

Sherry’s first installment was – “Watching the Hugos: Dramatic Presentation Long Form”.

(6) CONCLUSION OF FROZEN SKY. “Jeff Carlson has finished his Frozen Sky trilogy and the third book is by far the biggest and most ambitious of the 3 books,” reports Carl Slaughter. Frozen Sky 3: Blindsided was released June 11.
Carl interviewed Jeff in 2014 for Diabolical Plots. He was nominated for the John Campbell and Philip Dick awards and has been published in Asimov’s.

The aliens in The Frozen Sky are intelligent, but they look a bit like squids, they don’t speak and they don’t have sight. Why not bipedal aliens like Vulcans or Klingons or Romulans with vocal cords and eyes?

Because I’m not constrained by a production budget! Ha. “Let’s glue some ears on him. We’ll glue some forehead thingies on them. Okay, we’re done.”

Star Trek is good fun but limited in presentation. That’s the beauty of being a novelist. The medium requires the reader’s imagination. Yes, I direct the action, but hard sf readers are smart readers. They want to be strangers in a strange land. So I can say, well, I have this claustrophobic three-dimensional low-gravity environment like the mazes of an ant farm inside Europa’s icy crust. What would kind of creatures would evolve here? Six-foot-tall bipedal creatures like people? Heck no.

Jeff’s other series is the Plague series.

(7) GREAT GHOSTBUSTERS POSTER.

(8) EARLY WRITING. Jami Gray gets a great interview — “Hugo award winner, Seanan McGuire visits with latest InCryptid novel!”

Many writers have that first novel which will never see the light of day. Out of curiosity, do you have one stashed somewhere? Inquiring minds want to know: what was your first attempt at writing and how old were you?

My first serious attempt at writing was a fourteen-page essay when I was nine, explaining to my mother why she had to let me read Stephen King. It had footnotes and a bibliography. I finished my first book when I was twelve. It was called Dracula’s Castle, and if I knew where it was, I’d probably put it online.

(9) MORE STORIES. Editor Glenn Hauman’s Indiegogo appeal to fund the Altered States of the Union anthology has an update – “We’re annexing new territory!”

The response to the concept behind Altered States has inspired a lot of authors to join in the fun, so we’re proud to announce we’re expanding the book by almost 60%, adding new stories by:

  • Russ Colchamiro
  • Peter David
  • Keith R.A. DeCandido
  • Robert Greenberger
  • Meredith Peruzzi
  • Aaron Rosenberg
  • David Silverman & Hildy Silverman
  • Anne Toole

(10) A BOOKSTORE NEAR YOU. Dutch writer Thomas Olde Heuvelt will be on a book tour in the US in June and July, courtesy of TOR. The trip includes three appearances in California, including an LA-vicinity stop at Dark Delicacies Bookstore in Burbank on the evening of Tuesday, July 19.

TOH-US-Tour-2016

(11) MEDIA STRATEGY. Vox Day’s tells followers at Vox Popoli that his new philosophy is “Don’t talk to the media!”

In light of my ridiculous experience with Wired and after seeing how multiple media outlets turned to George RR Martin and John Scalzi to ask them to interpret my actions, I now turn down most media requests. I do so literally every week; I just turned down two yesterday alone. The media is not in the business of reporting the news, they are in the business of selling their masters’ Narrative.

(12) A MAD GENIUS ON THE HUGOS. Kate Paulk devotes half of “Hugo Awards – The Nominee Highlights – Best Fanzine” to criticizing Gregory Benford’s intention to vote for Steve Stiles in the Best Fan Artist category. Yet his reasons for supporting Stiles — Steve’s years of accomplishment as a cartoonist — parallel my reasons for voting for Toni Weisskopf as Best Pro Editor in 2015.

(13) PRINCE OF TIDES, THE GREAT SANTINI. George R.R. Martin urges readers to donate:

Pat [Conroy] passed away in March… but his books will live on, and so will his memory. In his memory, his family has now establishing a Pat Conroy Literary Center in his beloved home town of Beaufort, South Carolina. You can read about it here: http://patconroyliterarycenter.org/ A worthy project, I think. I’ll be donating. I urge all of you who love good writing to do the same.

(14) LOOKING FOR LAUGHS? The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog is enthusiastic about Joe Zieja’s humorous Mechanical Failure.

Comedy is a tricky beast, especially in science fiction. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is unquestionably a towering achievements of the form, but after than, opinions vary wildly (we’d wager John Scalzi has equal numbers of fans who either want him to stop trying to be funny, or to stop writing books that are so serious). It’s rare in genre to find a book that can do satire without being preachy, comedy without being entirely silly (not that a little silliness is a bad thing), and still manage toss a little “science fiction” into the mix. Joe Zieja’s debut novel, Mechanical Failure (the first part of the Epic Fail trilogy, which gives you a hint as to what you’re in for) makes as good a bid as we’ve seen in quite some time, diving headfirst into full-on military SF parody and making it look easy.

(15) UPJOHN OUTPACED BY REALITY? Alexandra Erin’s facing a challenge that reminds me of the one Garry Trudeau faced while producing Doonesbury during the Watergate era — it’s hard to be more absurd than real life.

Mr. Upjohn’s post-con report from WisCon is still forthcoming; it’s evolved and grown a few times since the con actually ended as I took reality onboard , which once again has made parody seem tame. When actual flesh and blood con attendants are decrying the “dystopian” tape lines designating travel lanes on the crowded party floor, I clearly need to step up the game.

Meanwhile, Erin writes, “I’d really love to close out my WorldCon fundraiser” – still needs $375.

(16) CHANGE OF ADDRESS. Juliette Wade has ported her TalkToYoUniverse content to her Dive Into Worldbuilding site.

Introducing the Dive into Worldbuilding Workshop at Patreon!

Dive into Worldbuilding started in 2011 – five years ago – when Google+ introduced their hangouts feature and I decided it would be fun to hang out with fellow writers and talk about worldbuilding. Since then, it has grown and changed, from just a bunch of friends meeting online with no record except my written summaries, to a meeting that got recorded and sent to YouTube, to a show featuring a wide variety of guest authors as well as regular topic discussions. With each change, my goal has been to reach a wider variety of interesting people, listen to more interesting views on worldbuilding, and share insights with as many people as possible.

Today, I’m taking it a step further with the Dive into Worldbuilding Patreon – which is also the Dive into Worldbuilding Workshop.

This Patreon will do more than just support my research into panel topics. It will help me to pay my guest authors for their time and expertise – but it will also let me help more of you.

(17) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • June 16, 1816 — At the Villa Diodati, Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests—Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori—and challenges each guest to write a ghost story, which culminates in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness.

[Thanks to Petréa Mitchell, Vincent Docherty, Michael J. Walsh, Carl Slaughter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 9/5 Their Eyes Were Watching Cod

(1) As noted by Patrick on Making Light, the Guardian has an editorial about the sudden turnaround in British public opinion regarding the need to help Syrian refugees, “a shift clearly caused by the heartrending photographs of young Aylan Kurdi’s drowned body washed up on a Turkish beach.” More commentary about the main topic in his post, but here’s the reason someone sent me the link —

Likewise, I’m as small-minded and focused on the local as anybody else. Normally the displacement of millions of innocent Syrians tends to weigh on me as merely one of a seemingly endless series of humanitarian crises for which there is never enough attention or care. But put one particular namecheck into a Guardian editorial and you have my undivided attention:

[I]t is also an astonishingly vivid demonstration of the inadequacy of statistics to move our moral sentiments compared with the power of pictures, and still more of pictures that bring to life stories, to affect us in ways that reasoning never could. As the critic Teresa Nielsen Hayden observed, “Story is a force of nature.” One single death and a refugee family have moved a nation to whom 200,000 deaths and 11 million refugees had remained for years merely a statistic, and not a very interesting one at that.

That was…unexpected.

(2) The impression I get from Larry Correia’s “MHI Challenge Coin Update” is that today – the 5th – is the last day to order Monster Hunter International challenge coins. Unlike another famous Puppy, he probably has only one 5th in his deck.

Monster Hunter International challenge coin

Monster Hunter International challenge coin

(3) Steve Davidson ends his new opinion piece about SP4 on Amazing Stories on a satirical note:

But until the event is scheduled, we’ve still got Sad Puppies IV to deal with, because the problem is, as spokesperson for that effort, Kate Paulk’s words do not match her stated intent.

I’ll shortly be announcing the creation of the One True SF/F Award Run by Real Fans for Real Reasons, which will be presented at a soon-to-be-announced convention, the One True SF/F Genre Convention Run by Real Fans for Real Reasons. Which no doubt will be quickly shortened to SFFGCRBRFFRRCon, just as the awards themselves (a silver flying saucer base, above which will be mounted a symbol for science fiction, fantasy or horror that will be crowd-sourced and unique every year) will soon be known as the SFFGCRBRFFRRies.

Everyone attending the convention will receive a ribbon to attach to their ID badge. That ribbon will state that the wearer is a REAL FAN for REAL REASONS. Additional ribbons, containing short, pithy summations of REASONS can be appended to the RFRR ribbons for those who wish greater specificity. Summations such as: “I’m clueless about fandom but it must be doing something wrong because I am not the center of attention”, “Money is the root of all evil, I earn so much I must be Evil”, “The message in my message fiction is that message fiction sucks” and “Someone on the internet told me that someone on the internet is doing it wrong”. For a fee, personal REASON ribbons will be made on site.

(4) Patrick May – “Sad Puppies 4:  A Slate By Any Other Name”

Recommendations will be collected on the Sadpuppies 4 website, where one page will be dedicated to each category. In February or March, Paulk’s stated goal is to post “a list of the ten or so most popular recommendations in each Hugo category, and a link to the full list in all its glory.” Paulk goes on to say “If you want to see your favorite author receive a nomination and an award, your best bet will be to cast your nomination ballot for one of the works in the top ten or thereabouts of The List.”

And therein lies the problem. Even though SP4 is not positioning their list as a slate and even though the organizers plan to provide a recommendation list with more entries than allowed nominees, the approach of ranking the recommendations and suggesting that people vote for more popular works gives the appearance of attempting to game the Hugo nomination process. As we saw at Sasquan, this raises the ire of a significant percentage of Hugo voters. Yes, some people voted against the works themselves and, yes, some people voted against the Sad Puppies personally, but many voted No Award because slates violate what they see as the spirit of the process. Skewing the voting patterns from anything other than purely individual choices will be interpreted similarly.

(5) We interrupt this Scroll to link “If You Were A Platypus, My Dear – A Play In As Many Acts As Is Required” by RedWombat (Part I and Part II)

Puppies: DO YOU SEE THIS ANTI-RURITANIAN SCREED!? IT WON THE HUGE AWARD!

Commenter D: No, it was only nominated—

Puppies: THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE HUGE AWARD!

Troll B: You’re all so racist against Ruritanians.

Commenter B: You’re the one who brought them up in the first place! No one was saying anything about Ruritanians!

Troll B: As an outsider, it’s obvious to me that’s what you were talking about. You should just admit that you all think they’re tax cheats.

Commenters J-Q: …we don’t. No one thinks that. That would be racist.

Troll B: JUST LIKE THAT RACIST PLATYPUS WHO HATES RURITANIANS

FFA: *makes popcorn*

(6) A post on Hackaday admires Sasquan’s Hugo base, made by Matthew Dockery (aka gfish):

A lot of hackers like science fiction. If you aren’t one of them, you might not know that the Hugo is a prestigious science fiction award handed out at the World Science Fiction Convention every year. The statue looks like a rocket ship, but every year the base the rocket ship rests on is different. Kinetic sculptor [gfish] realized the convention would be in Spokane (his hometown and near his current residence) and decided to enter the competition to create the bases. He won, so the 2015 Hugos all have [gfish’s] bases on them and it’s pretty neat that he’s shared the process he used to make them.

And base maker “gfish” takes you step-by-step through the design and manufcaturing process:

The image I had in mind was a kind of spiky, tessellated… something. Rocket blast, maybe, or the central plateau of Washington state, surrounded by mountains. I wanted to leave it ambiguous…

Once I was happy with the design, I needed to find a way to “unfold” it into individual polygons. I had heard of the Japanese papercraft program Pepakura being used by costumers to make armor, so I tried that. It worked — and it even let me test my design in paper first! I’m glad it did, because this let me refine the design in a very fast and cheap way. Things always look different in real life.

I’ve wondered whether people have been shanking themselves on the edges while carrying these Hugos. Flashback: In 1989 Deb Geiser says she cut herself working on a Hugo (mine, as it turned out) and those weren’t sharp at all.

Gfish/Dockery continued a tradition started by Hugo-maker Jack McKnight — missing part of the con to finish working on the awards —

There was a slight panic at the last minute because I sized the holes wrong on one of the nameplates before sending the file to the laser etching service, but that was easily solved with my dad’s drill press. And I missed the masquerade because I was stuck in a hotel room bolting on rockets. But you know what? That was absolutely okay. This is probably the closest I will ever come to winning a Hugo myself, and I loved every minute of it.

(7) Cracked delivers another round of honest movie posters.

little orphan ani

(8) Thomas Olde Heuvelt comments on John C. Wright’s “Hugo Controversy Quiz Questions”

What struck me is your answer to question 6. You state: “Do you remember how science fiction began? We write stories about space princesses being rescued by space heroes from space monsters, pirates, and evil robots. Those who attempt to find a deeper meaning or a social crusade in that are ill informed illwishers whose ulterior motives are unfriendly to our genre.” This much boils down to something I’ve read was part of the main argument for Sad Puppies 3 (I believe it was Brad Torgersen who said it, but I may be mistaken): that they wanted stories about tentacles, not social issues. A pledge for more ‘adventure’, to generalize. Which is a fair argument, I think.

Except… your story that got replaced by mine, “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Clause,” is not a story about space monsters or tentacles, it’s a story about a Christmas miracle imposed by God, and fairly evangelical as interpreted by many. (Whether it can be taken as an ‘adventure’ story, is an argument I won’t go into here). I immediately take your word that your intent is not to “indoctrinate the readers into a particular [in this case Christian] worldview” and even “reject that premise with scorn and umbrage”. But I do know that for many who are not Christian (like me), the story *may* read as evangelical and indoctrinating. So, if you didn’t have any agenda and just wanted to tell a good story, the interpretation of indoctrination is purely based on a difference between what is close to you and what is close to non-religious readers. And that, I think, is exactly the same the other way around. I am fairly sure that John Chu didn’t have any political agenda when he wrote a story with gay characters (“The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere”), and I’m a 100% sure that I didn’t have a political agenda when I wrote my first Hugo-nominated story, “The Boy Who Cast No Shadow” (which also happened to feature a gay character). I’ve read many misassumptions that stories like these are always part of some bigger conspiracy to push a social agenda. But that’s nonsense. I don’t have an agenda, except to write what I think are good stories. They may differ from what you think are good stories, and that’s perfectly fine. That’s the real diversity in sciencefiction and fantasy.

Let me state this: people who write different stories than what you know or like, not necessarily have “sad and narrow lives”. You glorify what you know. I glorify what I know. Stephen King glorifies what he knows. Whether it’s God, or a gay tentacle, or an evil clown – as long as they are good stories, who cares?

(9) Otherwise, a typical day at the office for John C. Wright – “More of the Same”

I note that Mr George RR Martin calls for a return to civility in the Sad Puppies debate (http://grrm.livejournal.com/440444.html). I welcome the idea and would not be displeased if the Puppykickers were men of such character as to be able to carry through with it. But I applaud the gesture….

They addicts of Social Justice seek forever to be outraged at some nonexistent injustice, so that they can paint themselves as martyrs and crusaders in a righteous cause, but without the inconvenience of suffering martyrdom or the travail of crusade which would accompany any fight against a real injustice.

One sign of Morlockery is to pen a missive asking one’s foes to abandon their arms and surrender in the name of compromise or civility or somesuch hogwash, while offering nothing, nothing whatsoever, in return, not even basic honesty.

Nor is Mr. Martin in a position to offer anything. Like the Sad Puppies, his side is a loose coalition of likeminded but independent members.

If he refrains from incivility, but his allies do not, I gain nothing by forswearing the use of such colorful terms as ‘Morlocks’ or accurate terms as ‘Christ-haters.’ If I wanted to be bland and inaccurate, I would adopt the flaccid language of political correctness.

And, by an entirely expected coincidence, during the same fortnight as Mr. Martin’s call for civility, we find other members of the SocJus movement busily not being civil or honest:

The surrealistic sensation of finding oneself subject to the two-minute hate for things one did not say by  eager Witch-hunters (leveling silly, false and negligent accusations apparently in hopes of gaining a reputation for zealotry) is not one I would wish on any unstoical soul. In this week’s episode, we find that I call men bad names not because they betray my trust, ruin my favorite show, and seek to worm their sick doctrines into the minds of impressionable children, but because I do not like women befriending women. Who knew?

https://quoteside.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/the-weekly-round-up-592015/

(10) Philip Sandifer – “Weird Kitties: Best Novel Open Thread”

So far, for my part, I’ve gotten through Seveneves, which I thought a good but not great Neal Stephenson novel, and am about a third of the way through The Vorrh, which is very much the sort of novel you’d expect Alan Moore to call “the current century’s first landmark work of fantasy and ranking amongst the best pieces ever written in that genre.” The latter will almost certainly make my ballot; the former could be knocked off without too much trouble. I’ll probably not get to The Shepherd’s Crown, since I’ve not read a Discworld novel in decades, but may well nominate it just because a Hugo ballot without it would just feel wrong somehow.

(11) The argument against reblogging entire posts:

[Thanks to Shao Ping, Mark, Steve Davidson and John King Tarpinian for some of these links. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Pixel Scroll 8/25 Polldark

(1) David Gerrold has posted the text of his Guest of Honor speech publicly on Facebook. He says later he will have an audio link so people can hear where he went off-script.

Great science fiction is innovative. It defies expectations.

The innovative story breaks rules, demolishes definitions, redefines what’s possible, and reinvents excellence.

The innovative story is unexpected and unpredictable, not only new — but shocking as well. Innovation demands that we rethink what’s possible. Innovation expands the event horizon of the imagination. It transforms our thinking.

And I think that on some level, even though I can’t speak for any other writer but myself, I still think that this is what most of us, maybe even all of us, aspire to — writing that story that startles and amazes and finally goes off like a time-bomb shoved down the reader’s throat. Doing it once establishes that you’re capable of greatness. Doing it consistently explodes the genre. So yes, that’s the real ambition — to be innovative — to transform thinking — to make a profound difference in who we are and what we’re up to. To be a part of the redesign of who we are and what we’re up to.

(2) Nobody had to wake up Thomas Olde Heuvelt to tell him he won a Hugo.

(3) Cixin Liu’s short stories are also getting translated into English.

(4) Here’s the bandwagon for a Best Poetry Hugo category – jump on it.

(5) One of James H. Burns’ U.N.C.L.E. pieces has been posted on Comics Bulletin. This one is about Ian Fleming, and more significantly, Sam Rolfe!

Fleming named the lead “Napoleon Solo.” He wanted Solo to live in New York City, wear bow-ties, and have as his two main research associates a local, elderly, lady librarian, and a newspaper editor. Fleming also wanted Solo to flirt with the secretary of the boss of whatever organization he worked for (a la Bond and Miss Moneypenny). Fleming named her “April Dancer” (which the producers later adopted for THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E.)!

(6) Loren, son of the late Frank Deitz, has scheduled the sale of his father’s book collection on Saturday, October 3 in Tucker, GA. Pass the word. Here is the Facebook event page.

He also has a massive amount of historical SF/Con materials and would like to find people that might be interested in them for archival purposes. Drop me a line if you want to get in contact.

(7) The Hynes Convention Center mentioned in this story is where the 1989 and 2004 Worldcons were held – “Boston Police Arrest Two Pokémon Players After Apparent Gun Threat Against World Championships”.

Two men who drove from Iowa to Boston for the Pokémon World Championships were arrested Friday after seemingly threatening violence over social media against attendees of the event, according to the Boston Police Department.

Kevin Norton, 18, and James Stumbo, 27, were arrested on several firearm-related charges. The official Pokémon site lists Kevin Norton and a James Stumbo, both from the U.S., as invitees in the “masters division” of the world championships of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Private security at the Hynes Convention Center, where the Championships were taking place, were also aware of the threats and stopped the two men when they attempted to enter on Thursday. Police detectives seized their car and upon delivery of a search warrant on Friday found within a 12 gauge shotgun, an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. They then arrested Norton and Stumbo that afternoon in Saugus, Massachusetts. The pair will be arraigned in Boston on Monday. The police released the above photo of the weapons confiscated from the car.

(8) Wendy N. Wagner writes to her younger self, “Dear Me at Age 12”

Just one more thing, little Me. I want to thank you for dreaming big. I don’t think there are a lot of kids out there who know what an editor is or want to write gaming tie-in fiction or would sit down and write “I want to win a Hugo award.” You’re kind of big weirdo, and I love that about you. I’m so glad I got to make your dreams come true.

Now I have to get back to work, because I didn’t stop dreaming when I was 12, and dreams don’t keep coming true if you don’t keep fighting for them. And don’t forget: you’re destroying science fiction, and that’s pretty great.

(9) Pay attention probies!

(10) On Facebook, a 1974 photo of A Change of Hobbit, Speculative Fiction Bookstore in Los Angeles.

(11) When I guessed John Scalzi would have no trouble finding an interesting lunch companion in LA, I was right…

(12) This is the Society for Creative Anachronism’s 50th anniversary, and as part of their observances they are developing The Shield Wall.

A project to memorialize people, households, groups and events that are not around any longer but of whom we all have fond memories

As we celebrate our Society completing its 50th year, we look around and see gaps. Dust to dust it is said, but “no one dies who lives within a heart” (Michael Longcor) and we want to share those who are lost to time but living in our hearts at this time. So, whether it is a person or some kind of entity (households, groups and events) that is no longer part of the fabric of our lives, the Shield Wall will be a highlight at the 50th Anniversary Celebration Event to share with the attendees.

Anyone who wishes to may create a standard size paper shield blank in any design that reminds THEM of the person, event, etc. It does not have to just be heraldry. It can be photos, toys, dolls, etc. We will take electronic submissions or you can mail your submission to our minions or you can get them to Indiana for the June 2016 event physically. We would appreciate you fill out the submission form so we can be sure to have room for your submission.

The shields would have a place of honor at 50 Year and be displayed for all to see.

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

Sasquan Replaces Two Ineligible Nominees on Hugo Ballot

Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, has made changes to the final Hugo ballot to reflect  eligibility rulings by Hugo administrator John Lorentz.

  • “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright was previously published on a web site in 2013 prior to its inclusion in The Book of Feasts & Seasons in 2014, so it is not eligible for the 2015 Novelette Hugo.
  • Jon Eno did not publish any qualifying artwork in 2014, so he is not eligible for the 2015 Professional Artist Hugo

Replacing Wright’s novelette on the ballot is “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014).

Kirk DouPonce has been elevated to take Eno’s place in the Best Professional Artist category.

Lorentz also reviewed the eligibility of two other works and allowed them to stand:

Both Big Boys Don’t Cry (Kratman) and One Bright Star to Guide Them (Wright) were previously published in much shorter versions, and were significantly expanded to novella-length in their 2014 publication.  Following previous precedents, for the purposes of the 2015 Hugos they are designated as new works.

Here is the new final ballot incorporating all these changes:

BEST NOVEL (1827 ballots)

  • Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
  • The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
  • Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos (47North)
  • Skin Game by Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

BEST NOVELLA (1083 ballots)

  • Big Boys Don’t Cry by Tom Kratman (Castalia House)
  • “Flow” by Arlan Andrews, Sr. (Analog, Nov 2014)
  • One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright (Castalia House)
  • “Pale Realms of Shade” by John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  • “The Plural of Helen of Troy” by John C. Wright (City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, Castalia House)

BEST NOVELETTE (1031 ballots)

  • “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium” by Gray Rinehart (Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, May 2014)
  • “Championship B’tok” by Edward M. Lerner (Analog, Sept 2014)
  • “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014)
  • “The Journeyman: In the Stone House” by Michael F. Flynn (Analog, June 2014)
  • “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale” by Rajnar Vajra (Analog, Jul/Aug 2014)

SHORT STORY (1174 ballots)

  • “Goodnight Stars” by Annie Bellet (The End is Now (Apocalypse Triptych Book 2), Broad Reach Publishing)
  • “On A Spiritual Plain” by Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, Nov 2014)
  • “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds” by John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  • “Totaled” by Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, July 2014)
  • “Turncoat” by Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)

BEST RELATED WORK (1150 ballots)

  • “The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF” by Ken Burnside (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
  • Letters from Gardner by Lou Antonelli (The Merry Blacksmith Press)
  • Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright (Castalia House)
  • “Why Science is Never Settled” by Tedd Roberts (Baen.com)
  • Wisdom from My Internet by Michael Z. Williamson (Patriarchy Press)

BEST GRAPHIC STORY (785 ballots)

  • Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt, (Marvel Comics)
  • Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery written by Kurtis J. Weibe, art by Roc Upchurch (Image Comics)
  • Saga Volume 3 written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
  • Sex Criminals Volume 1: One Weird Trick written by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)
  • The Zombie Nation Book #2: Reduce Reuse Reanimate by Carter Reid (The Zombie Nation)

DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (LONG FORM) (1285 ballots)

  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, concept and story by Ed Brubaker, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (Marvel Entertainment, Perception, Sony Pictures Imageworks)
  • Edge of Tomorrow screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth, directed by Doug Liman (Village Roadshow, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, 3 Arts Entertainment; Viz Productions)
  • Guardians of the Galaxy written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman, directed by James Gunn (Marvel Studios, Moving Picture Company)
  • Interstellar screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan (Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Lynda Obst Productions, Syncopy)
  • The Lego Movie written by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, story by Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, LEGO System A/S, Vertigo Entertainment, Lin Pictures, Warner Bros. Animation (as Warner Animation Group))

DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (SHORT FORM) (938 ballots)

  • Doctor Who: “Listen” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Douglas Mackinnon (BBC Television)
  • The Flash: “Pilot” teleplay by Andrew Kreisberg & Geoff Johns, story by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg & Geoff Johns, directed by David Nutter (The CW) (Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television)
  • Game of Thrones: “The Mountain and the Viper” written by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss, directed by Alex Graves ((HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)
  • Grimm: “Once We Were Gods” written by Alan DiFiore, directed by Steven DePaul (NBC) (GK Productions, Hazy Mills Productions, Universal TV)
  • Orphan Black: “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried written by Graham Manson, directed by John Fawcett (Temple Street Productions, Space/BBC America)

BEST EDITOR (SHORT FORM) (870 ballots)

  • Jennifer Brozek
  • Vox Day
  • Mike Resnick
  • Edmund R. Schubert
  • Bryan Thomas Schmidt

BEST EDITOR (LONG FORM) (712 ballots)

  • Vox Day
  • Sheila Gilbert
  • Jim Minz
  • Anne Sowards
  • Toni Weisskopf

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST (753 ballots)

  • Julie Dillon
  • Kirk DouPonce
  • Nick Greenwood
  • Alan Pollack
  • Carter Reid

BEST SEMIPROZINE (660 ballots)

  • Abyss & Apex Wendy Delmater editor and publisher
  • Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Association Incorporated, 2014 editors David Kernot and Sue Bursztynski
  • Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
  • Lightspeed Magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, Stefan Rudnicki, Rich Horton, Wendy N. Wagner, and Christie Yant
  • Strange Horizons Niall Harrison Editor-in-Chief

BEST FANZINE (576 ballots)

  • Black Gate edited by John O’Neill
  • Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond
  • Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Alissa McKersie, Colin Harris and Helen Montgomery
  • The Revenge of Hump Day edited by Tim Bolgeo
  • Tangent SF Online edited by Dave Truesdale

BEST FANCAST (668 ballots)

  • Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing Brent Bowen (Executive Producer), Kristi Charish, Timothy C. Ward, Shaun Ferrell & Moses Siregar III (Co-Hosts, Interviewers and Producers)
  • Dungeon Crawlers Radio Daniel Swenson (Producer/Host), Travis Alexander & Scott Tomlin (Hosts), Dale Newton (Host/Tech), Damien Swenson (Audio/Video Tech)
  • Galactic Suburbia Podcast Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
  • The Sci Phi Show Jason Rennie
  • Tea and Jeopardy Emma Newman & Peter Newman

BEST FAN WRITER (777 ballots)

  • Dave Freer
  • Amanda S. Green
  • Jeffro Johnson
  • Laura J. Mixon
  • Cedar Sanderson

BEST FAN ARTIST (296 ballots)

  • Ninni Aalto
  • Brad Foster
  • Elizabeth Leggett
  • Spring Schoenhuth
  • Steve Stiles

Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2013 or 2014, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).

CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER (851 ballots)

  • Wesley Chu *
  • Jason Cordova
  • Kary English *
  • Rolf Nelson
  • Eric S. Raymond

*Finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.

Update 04/14/2015: At 4 p.m. PDT. The official Sasquan press release follows the jump.

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