By Jameson Quinn: The discussion here of Hugo reform proposals (3SV, EPH+, etc.) will have a new thread anon.
There’s a bit of a delay to make sure we’re not stepping on the toes of the people who were already working on this issue.
As soon as we work this out, we’ll have a post that summarizes and explains a set of proposals from the previous threads, and a chance to discuss things further.
Members of MidAmeriCon II can begin downloading the sample work provided by 2016 Hugo Award nominees.
All five Best Novel nominees are represented. Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves is complete. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin is labeled an excerpt, though there are 449 pages of story here, and the file is 500 pages (of what Amazon lists as a 512-page book), so without taking time to read the text one can say it’s at least a very generous portion of the whole. There are excerpts from Ancillary Mercy and Uprooted. And although not flagged as an excerpt, the Jim Butcher file ends on page 116, of what Amazon lists as a 640-page novel, QED.
From my quick inspection, it appeared all the novellas, novelettes and short stories are present. (The text of Cheah Kai Wai’s novelette is in the collection There Will Be War, vol. 10., part of the Best Editor, Short Form packet.) [Update] However, “If You Were an Award, My Love” by Juan Tabo and S. Harris, published on Vox Popoli, about which some objections have been raised, is not part of the download. [Update] The committee states that the story was not submitted to the packet.
The related works section excludes Safe Space as Rape Room – there is a statement with a link to the online text, as previously announced.
The graphic novels are represented by Invisible Republic, Sandman Overture, and The Divine. (Not present are Erin Dies Alone and Full Frontal Nerdity.
Best Editor (Long Form) nominees Jim Minz, Liz Gorinsky, and Sheila Gilbert provided lists of the books they worked on in 2015. There is no entry from Toni Weisskopf. Vox Day’s editorial production for Castalia House is represented by books in the Related Works section. Sheila Gilbert’s statement says she was “including excerpts from one novel written by each author whose work I published in 2015.” I didn’t find any excerpts in what I downloaded, and have written to the committee asking for clarification.
Best Editor (Short Form), in addition to Jerry Pournelle’s book, has a sample issue of Asimov’s edited by Sheila Williams, links to works edited by Ellen Datlow for Tor.com, Clarkesworld issue 100 edited by Neal Clarke (plus links to additional issues and stories), and from John Joseph Adams all the fiction published by Lightspeed in 2015.
There are portfolios from four Best Professional Artist nominees, Abigail Larson, Larry Rostant, Lars Braad Andersen and Michal Karcz. (None from Larry Elmore.)
The Best Semiprozine section has Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #183, a 71-page sampler from Sci Phi Journal, Strange Horizons’ Fund Drive Special 2015 (with an introductory comment disclaiming the Rabid Puppies slate, where it was an unwilling entry), and The Best of Uncanny 2015. Daily Science Fiction provided a link to its site.
The Best Fanzine category has samplers from four nominees (no submission from Superversive SF.) Three Best Fancast nominees compiled links to eligible works on their sites (Cane and Rinse, HelloGreedo, and Tales to Terrify.) All five Best Fan Writer nominees furnished samplers. The Best Fan Artist packet has work from Ku Kuru Yo, Matthew Callahan and Steve Stiles.
John W. Campbell nominees Alyssa Wong, Brian Niemeier and Sebastien de Castell provided copies of their short fiction or novels.
It is possible more samples will be added later — that has occurred in other years.
Update 05/28/2016: Corrected to show that one short story nominee is not accounted for. The committee says it was not submitted to the packet.
Last night’s opening ceremonies for Balticon 50, photographed by Sean Kirk. Pictured are the past and present Guests Of Honors in attendance for the convention’s 50th anniversary.
From left to right: George R. R. Martin, Jo Walton, Joe Halderman, Jody Lynn Nye, Charles Stross, Connie Willis, Larry Niven, Peter S. Beagle, Steve Barnes, Steve Miller, Sharon Lee, Kaja Foglio, Phil Foglio, Harry Turtledove, Allen Steele, Donald Kingsbury, and Nancy Springer.
(1) HANG ONTO YOUR TOWEL. Britain’s Radio 4 has provisionally ordered a six-episode Hitchhikers sequel.
Radio 4 has commissioned a new series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, over a decade since the last series aired.
It will become the sixth series for the sci-fi comedy on radio, with the show’s last run – Series 5 – having broadcast in 2005.
Expected to be titled ‘The Hexagonal Phase’, the British Comedy Guide understands that the new episodes will primarily be based around the book And Another Thing….
This news comes after Towel Day, the annual celebration of the work of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy creator Douglas Adams. The writer, who launched the hit series on Radio 4 in 1978, died in 2001.
In 2009 author Eoin Colfer was commissioned to write And Another Thing… featuring the same characters as seen and heard the previous radio series and books written by Adams. Although Colfer had the blessing of the creator’s widow, the announcement proved to be controversial at the time. Colfer has recognised that there was “semi-outrage” at the idea of another author contributing to the series, but he has been pleased by the reaction the book has since publication.
(2) THEY SAID NO. Esquire shows “This is What The Lord of the Rings Would Have Looked Like With Its Original Cast”.
7. Liam Neeson as Boromir
Details on this one are a little sketchy, so let’s file it under woulda, coulda, shoulda. “I have a particular set of skills… and a big ancestral horn.”
(3) HVP WARNINGS. Vox Day told his readers there will be warning labels on two items in the Hugo Voter Packet (the one for Tingle has already been reported here.)
The WorldCon convention has also issued at least two other “warning labels” to two other Hugo-nominated works in the packet, one a Best Related Work by Moira Greyland, the other a Best Short Story by Chuck Tingle.
(4) BEYOND CHARACTER POSTERS. ScreenRant has nice, large images: yesterday, “Star Trek Beyond: Jaylah & Bones Character Posters Released”, and today, “Star Trek Beyond: Spock and Chekov Character Posters”.
[The] the studio has unveiled two more posters that are obviously meant to highlight the film’s action quotient and its (new) cast of characters – two elements that have appealed to summer blockbuster fans over the series’ seven-year run thus far, and which Paramount clearly is banking on happening yet again. Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard McCoy is featured in one of the posters, while series newcomer Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service, the currently-in-production Mummy) as the mysterious Jaylah takes center stage in the other (see below).
(5) GENERATION HEX. At Observer, “A Millenial Reviews: ‘Star Trek’ Is a Blantant, Boring Rip-Off of ‘Star Wars’”.
I recently watched Star Trek because I never actually watched it growing up (I was busy having sex and hanging out with my friends after school) so I decided to marathon The Original Series. Let me tell you, good Yeezy almighty, Star Trek sucks earbuds. Now I’m a total geek, but I don’t understand how anyone can be expected to actually watch this stuff. Every episode is an hour long. Do you understand how long an hour is? That’s half of a podcast. If I don’t have 10 minutes to listen to Marc Maron talk about his dead cats then I don’t have 60 hours to watch a dudebro white-privilege his way across the galaxy in a deep V-neck. I tried though.
(6) ARISTOTLE! Atlas Obscura carries a Greek report that Aristotle’s tomb has been found.
A group of archaeologists in Greece say they have found the lost tomb of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and likely world’s first true scientist….
The archaeologists had been digging for 20 years at a site in the ancient northern Greece city of Stageira, where Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. Aristotle died 62 years later in Chalcis, about 50 miles north of Athens.
Ahead of the official announcement, the Greek Reporter has some more details on the tomb, saying that “literary sources” say that Aristotle’s ashes were transferred there after his death. It is located near the ancient city’s agora, apparently intended to be viewed by the public.
From the Greek Reporter
The top of the dome is at 10 meters and there is a square floor surrounding a Byzantine tower. A semi-circle wall stands at two-meters in height. A pathway leads to the tomb’s entrance for those that wished to pay their respects. Other findings included ceramics from the royal pottery workshops and fifty coins dated to the time of Alexander the Great.
Will R. asks, “I wonder if the tombstone reads, ‘Here Truths Aristotle.’”
(7) BIRDS OF A FEATHER. Scott Tyrell’s pictures of great authors as owls is heavy on British fantasy writers – Rowling, Tolkien, and Pratchett among them.
(8) BIRTHDAY BOYS AND A BAT-GIRL
Jason Davis of HarlanEllisonBooks.com figures the celebration is incomplete without people buying Harlan’s books and here’s his encouragement for ordering the latest volume of unfilmed scripts, Brain Movies 7.
If you’ve popped by HarlanEllisonBooks.com in the last couple days, you’ll have noticed that I surreptitiously announced that the sixty pages of bonus BRAIN MOVIES 7 content for those who pre-order will be Harlan’s unfinished motion picture adaption of his first novel WEB OF THE CITY; it’s called Rumble, as the book was known when this movie—which was to have starred Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello—was in development. It’s a very interesting adaptation and illustrates that Harlan was not averse to having a little fun with his own source material.
(9) PUPPIES FOR PEACE. The Huffington Post explains the TV host’s advice — “Samantha Bee Bets On Adorable Puppies To Reconcile Bernie And Hillary’s Feuding Supporters”.
So, in a bid to stop the “Democrat on Democrat violence” that’s been taking over people’s social media feeds, Bee’s team have created a new website: TotallyObjectivePoliticalFacts.org.
Clicking on the link brings up a picture of an adorable animal, alongside a salient quote — such as, “Why can’t we all just get long?”
“Just post that link in any thread where your liberal friends are tearing each other apart and end the argument,” Bee said in a YouTube clip on Thursday.
“Seriously, Democrats, just look at a picture of a puppy and hug it out before it’s too late…”
“She might regret going there….” says Steve Davidson.
(10) PREPARING TO VOTE. First-time Hugo voter and game writer Martin Ralya outlines his approach.
Will I be able to read 100% of the Hugo nominees? Realistically, probably not. I’ll do my best in the time I have, though.
I vote in the ENnie Awards every year, and I don’t even attempt to read/play every nominated work — doing so would entail giving up too much of my time. Instead, I play/read the stuff that interests me, and vote for stuff I feel familiar with. Unlike the Hugos, the ENnies don’t offer up a voter packet, but I make a point of visiting nominated blogs and checking out nominated free products.
I also don’t feel obligated to read every Hugo-nominated work, because fuck the Rabid Puppy agenda. I have a horseshit filter, and you know what? It didn’t stop working when I became a Hugo voter.
If a nominated work stands on its own merits, like Seveneves does, I don’t care if it also appears on the Rabid slate. If a slated work doesn’t stand on its own, or if it advances or supports Rabid Puppy horseshit, it’s going below No Award on my ballot.
(11) RECOMMENDED. Rachel Swirsky finds another story to love — “Friday Read! ‘The Traditional’ by Maria Dahvana Headley”.
I’m a big fan of science fiction that takes vivid, strange images into the future. I think, actually, I always have — and if you look at a lot of classic SF, that’s what it’s doing. That’s obvious when reading someone like Stanislaw Lem, but I think it’s still true about folks who we consider more traditional now. It’s just that some of the weird images they used have been carried on in the conversation so far now that they’ve become standard, and have lost their newness. Stories like this, and space opera by people like Yoon Ha Lee, bring a contemporary disjunctive strangeness to the genre. I look forward to seeing what happens when the next generation gets bored with it.
If you like odd surrealism and lyrical writing, Maria Dahvana Headley is worth perusing.
“The Traditional” by Maria Dahvana Headley….
(12) CHINESE SF MOVIES. Linus Fredriksson has posted the “Chinese Science Fiction Fimography (1958-2016) with lots of links to films, some with subtitles. He explains some of his idiosyncratic choices.
Even though we are faced with some small hindrance when setting a date for the birth of science fiction film in China we are facing an even bigger obstacle when it comes to defining what science fiction really is. According to me science fiction film is a film which uses some form of idea, invention, geographical discovery to convey an image of an alternative society different from the one were living in now. So the appearance of futuristic technical gimmicks and/or inventions in the film is not necessary for defining a film as science fiction. On the contrary, some of the films I’ve watched has not gotten in to the list much because the science fiction elements in the movie is merely a way to get the story going and in the end they’re absent of context and doesn’t bring any further narrative development of the impact that scifi-gimmick might have had.
Take for example Bugs … a catastrophe film from 2015 which begins with a foreign scientist trying to develop a protein, in order to end starvation in the world, by experimenting with insects. Instead of relief for starving people he creates a giant bug which sends out smaller bugs that eat human beings and then returns to its host to feed it. The entire movie, except for the first minute or two, is about escaping these bugs and then killing the big bug. It’s lack of motivating the science in the film and being consistent with it, made me choose not to have the film in my list. It’s pretty much the same when it comes to the rom-com film Oh My God … but here I reasoned differently mostly because the film has been advertised as a scifi-comedy whenever I read something about it. Therefore Oh My God is on the list.
Yes, the genre labeling for the films in the list might be a bit arbitrary and inconsistent at times but that’s also why I’m writing this blog post so that other people can have the chance to have a second opinion on the selection of films. At the end of the list I will add all those films which has been labeled as science fiction but which I personally didn’t consider to fulfill the requirements of falling under that category.
(13) THE TOUGHEST AROUND. The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog selects “6 of the Most Fearsome Warbands in Fantasy”.
Kailen’s Twenty, Snakewood, by Adrian Selby
This recent epic fantasy about a disbanded mercenary company plunged back into in their twilight years brings together an instantly iconic collection of gruff warrior types. The Twenty once turned back armies and toppled nations through chemical warfare, tactical cunning, and brute force, but the world has moved on. Kailen, their mastermind and leader, has gone into hiding, and the surviving members of this band of brothers are far past their prime, having retired to more peaceful pursuits or counting down their days working small mercenary contracts. When a shadowy assassin begins hunting them down, offing them one by one and leaving a single black coin on the bodies to signify an act of betrayal, and two of the Twenty, Gant and Shale, receive a desperate message from Kailen himself, they must embark on a journey to save their remaining friends from the legions of people who want their heads—but two past-their-prime swordsmen and an eccentric tactician may not be enough to turn the tide. The deeds of the Twenty were epic, but what truly makes them a warband for the ages is the chance to see what happens to a merc after the battles have ended.
(14) DESPERATELY SEEKING FRED’S TWO FEET. In Key West, they’re threatening to tow this car if they can’t find the owner.
The City of Key West, Fla., put out a call for help to find the owner of a most unusual illegally parked vehicle — a replica of a car from The Flintstones.
The city said in a Facebook post that a Stone Age vehicle resembling that driven by Fred Flintstone and company in the classic cartoon series (and live-action films) was found illegally parked without anyone around to claim the unique piece of property.
How long do you figure it’s been overparked, about 30,000 years?
[Thanks to Will R., John King Tarpinian, Alan Baumler, and Steve Davidson for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Matthew Johnson.]
With four days left to run, the Kickstarter to fund an audiobook edition of Diana Pavlac Glyer’s Bandersnatch has received $4,906 of pledges towards its $5,550 goal. Can it go the distance?
Bandersnatch is an inspiring new book that tells how C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings challenged and encouraged one another to accomplish great things. Written by award-winning author Diana Pavlac Glyer, it was published in January 2016 and is currently available in paperback and eBook formats. Now we are raising funds to cover the expense of recording a professional-quality Audiobook, narrated by Dr. Michael Ward. Bandersnatch goes AUDIO!!
Dr. Michael Ward is the author of Planet Narnia (2008) and co-editor of C. S. Lewis at Poets’ Corner (2016) and The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis (2010). To hear his voice, listen to this interview hosted by Eric Metaxas.
The book edition of Bandersnatch is beautifully illustrated by James A. Owen. Learn more at www.BandersnatchBook.com.
If the Kickstarter realizes support above and beyond its target, there will be perks for the achieving the following stretch goals —
Wait! Did somebody say “STRETCH GOALS”?
$5,650: DR. WARD and the JABBERWOCK: If we reach this stretch goal and get $5,650 in total pledges, we’ll pester Dr. Michael Ward just a little bit more. We’ll put him in front of the camera and listen as he reads Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” Wait till you hear how this guy says “BANDERSNATCH!” Oh, this will be good. Please: Let’s make this happen!!
$5,900: THE AUTHOR AS ARTIST: Sure, James A. Owen can draw a bandersnatch. In fact, James is so talented that he can probably draw a bandersnatch with his eyes closed. But can Diana draw one? Let’s put it to the test! If we reach this stretch goal, Diana Pavlac Glyer will have 20 minutes to draw a bandersnatch. And no matter how awful and embarrassing the result turns out, you will get a digital download. (Hmm. Material for blackmail, if nothing else…).
$6,400: Okay. NOW I’M CURIOUS: Can James A. Owen really draw a bandersnatch blindfolded? That could be fun. If we reach this stretch goal, we’ll make James draw a bandersnatch BLINDFOLDED. Might even videotape it on my iPhone. And once again, every backer at every level of support will get a digital download.
MidAmeriCon II has unveiled its Site Selection Voting page for the 2018 Worldcon and 2017 NASFiC. However, all you can do today is download a ballot and mail it in with a check. MACII’s token purchase system for buying Advance Supporting Memberships by credit card comes online June 1.
On the page is the documentation each bid was required to submit about its facilities and committee when it filed to appear on the ballot.
Rival groups are bidding to host the 2018 Worldcon in New Orleans and San Jose. Click to download the 2018 Worldcon Mail-In Ballot.
Bidders for San Juan, PR and Valley Forge, PA are vying to host the 2017 North American Science Fiction Convention. (NASFiC is held when the Worldcon for the year is outside North America). Here’s the link for the 2017 NASFiC Mail-in Ballot.
The deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots is Saturday, August 6. Site selection votes also can be cast at MidAmeriCon II until 6 p.m. CDT on Friday, August 19, 2016.
In order to vote in Site Selection, you must be an Attending or Supporting Member in MidAmeriCon II and pay the Advanced Supporting Membership fee for each election. This process also makes you a Supporting Member of the winning bid’s convention. Ballots and information about voting and paying the Advanced Supporting Membership fee will be distributed in a future progress report and will be available online.
MACII explained in a statement why electronic voting is unavailable, although it is an option under the rules:
While the WSFS Constitution now allows electronic Site Selection balloting, it also requires that the current Worldcon Committee and all bidding committees agree that electronic balloting will be allowed. The MidAmeriCon committee believes that there are several technical issues associated with electronic balloting which have not yet been solved, and therefore MidAmeriCon II is opting out of electronic Site Selection voting in 2016. The Site Selection Administrator and staff will, per the Constitution, be accepting only paper ballots either completed on site, mailed, or hand delivered, and will not accept ballots via any electronic means.
Mark Richards, who resigned as the Lunacon chair last December saying that circumstances did not allow him to present the kind of con he envisioned, is returning to conrunning as chair of HELIOsphere. The new convention will debut March 10-12, 2017 in Tarrytown, New York.
The website explains the theme:
The Heliosphere is the bubble-like region of space dominated by our sun, extending way past Pluto…to where the solar wind gives way to interstellar space.
HELIOsphere is our bubble, our world within a world for a weekend. Where fans of science fiction and fantasy participate in a shared appreciation of all things other-worldly.
Our group is comprised of fans who have come together to reimagine fandom…and to host a convention in the greater New York area for a new generation. A convention that aims to be a diverse, imaginative and all-inclusive experience.
The con’s guest of honor will be Jacqueline Carey, author of Kushiel’s Dart and three trilogies set in the world created for that novel. She is also the author of The Sundering series, high fantasy considered from the “dark” side, as well as the dystopian novels Santa Olivia and Saints Astray, and the paranormal Agent of Hel series.
The committee members are: Mark W. Richards, Chair, Elizabeth Crefin, Mary Catelynn Cunningham, Gabby Morel, Tara Walsh, Debi Chowdbury, Joni Brill Dashoff, Ira Donewitz, Maria Daggett Eskinazi, Larry Nelson, Andrea Senchy, Wrenn Sims, Ken Winter.
HELIOsphere 2017 will be at the DoubleTree in Tarrytown.
The convention’s parent organization is New Amsterdam Science Fiction and Fantasy Fandom (NASF3).
The winners of the 2016 Prix Imaginales have been announced. The awards will be given at Imaginales, the Festival of the Imaginary Worlds in Épinal, France on May 28.
The winners were selected by a jury composed of Anne Besson, Jacques Grasser (Président), Annaïg Houesnard (Secrétaire), Jean-Claude Van troyen (Vice-président), Jérôme Vincent, Stéphane Wieser (Directeur du Festival).
The Imaginales Awards recognizes the best works of fantasy of the year in six categories this year, with a prize of 1,000 euros for the first five categories and 500 euros for the last two:
Roman francophone / French Fantasy Novel
Nouvelle / French Fantasy Short Story
Roman étranger traduit / Translated International Fantasy Novel
Jeunesse / Translated International Young Adult Fantasy Fiction
Illustration
Prix spécial du Jury / The Jury’s Special Prize
[Via Europa SF, and the source of the category translations.]
(1) CAPTAIN SPOILED. At The Mary Sue “Comics Fans Respond to Captain America’s ‘Big Secret’”.
Um … whut? **SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: STEVE ROGERS #1**
If you read the new Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 that came out today, you already know: Steve Rogers and his mother had been recruited by HYDRA when he was a boy, and he’s apparently been a secret operative for HYDRA this whole time. Again, I say: Uh … whut?
Apparently, issue #2 will give us a better idea of what actually happened with Cap, and how he’s managed to be a HYDRA operative for this long. Naturally, fans were unnerved, and Breevoort’s already started getting emails:
“The idea of Captain America means something very primal and very strong to the people of this nation, and they have a very visceral reaction when you get to something like that,” Brevoort explains. “You want people to feel and react to your story. So far, so good.”
Sure, you want them to feel and react to your story … but what exactly do you want them to feel? A good writer knows exactly what they want to say and evoke, and it isn’t just strong feels for the sake of strong feels.
Whatever writer Nick Spencer and the folks over at Marvel are trying to evoke, Captain America fans are not having it….
Actor Chris Evans doesn’t like it either.
https://twitter.com/ChrisEvans/status/735696011172012033
(2) I SCREAM YOU SCREAM. Scott Edelman enjoys a serendipitous dinner with Maria Alexander in Episode 9 of his podcast Eating the Fantastic.
During the recent StokerCon in Las Vegas, I did what I always do during conventions—slip away as often as possible to chow down and catch up with friends. One of those meals took place in old-timey ice cream parlor Serendipity 3, and was recorded (as so many convention meals will be from now on) as an episode of Eating the Fantastic.
My dinner companion this time around was Maria Alexander, whose debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. But in addition to being a novelist, Maria’s also a poet, screenwriter, games writer, swordswoman, and so much more—and I attempted to explore all those facets in this episode.
Maria Alexander
(3) HERE’S MY NUMBER AND A DIME. According to The Verge, “Samsung made a Batman-inspired Galaxy S7 Edge”, though it’s only for sale in a limited number of countries.
Samsung has made a Batman-inspired smartphone … really. In true ludicrous Samsung fashion, it’s called the Galaxy S7 Edge Injustice Edition, and it features the superhero’s logo in gold on the back. The device is commemorating the third anniversary of Injustice: Gods Among Us, and it’s being produced in partnership with Warner Bros. The package appears to include a Samsung Gear VR headset, as well as a real gold-plated Batarang and a rubber phone case modeled after Batman’s armor.
(4) UNDERSTANDING THE TINGLE. “Satirical erotica author Chuck Tingle’s massive troll of conservative sci-fi fans, explained” at Vox (the megasite, no relation to VD.)
Tingle announced that if he won his category, Quinn would accept the award on his author persona’s behalf. This was undoubtedly anathema to many members of the SFF community who overlap with Gamergate; Quinn is essentially Gamergate enemy number one, and one of the women who has experienced the most harassment at the hands of angry men on the internet.
And now TheRabidPuppies.com is the latest volley in Tingle’s game. Realizing the domain was up for grabs, Tingle snapped it right up.
sometimes devils are so busy with scoundrel attacks they forget to REGISTER important website names. PLEASE ENJOY https://t.co/CTLiWFUDnm
— Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) May 23, 2016
Tingle didn’t just seize the opportunity and the sudden spike in attention to taunt the Puppies, though; he’s using the new website to drive traffic to three of the Puppies’ most reviled enemies and their projects:
- Quinn’s support network for online harassment victims, Crash Override
- Jemisin’s acclaimed novel The Fifth Season, which is currently nominated for the Hugo for Best Novel
- Fantasy writer Rachel Swirsky’s crowdfunding campaign to raise money for LGBTQ health resourcesTingle’s inclusion of Swirsky is significant. Her short story, “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,” is a surreal, jarring allegory for dealing with identity-motivated hate crime and violence. Its inclusion as a 2014 Hugo nominee was widely touted by the Sad/Rabid Puppies as being the ultimate example of how “SJWs” — the shorthand for “social justice warriors,” a derogatory term many in the “alt-right” use to refer to progressives and intersectional feminists — had invaded SFF culture.
(5) GRANDFEMMES FATALE. “Five Fantasy Grannies You Don’t Want To Fool With” at Suvudu.
Augusta Longbottom, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter
You’ve got to be a bad-ass to stand up to the Death Eaters, and Augusta Longbottom isn’t anyone’s chump. She is stern and demanding, but she isn’t heartless, as her grandson Neville eventually learns.
(6) SHORT ORDERS. At the upcoming Bonhams/Turner Classic Movies Drawn to Film auction, says a Hollywood Reporter story, “’Snow White’: Rare Concept Art of Rejected Dwarfs to Be Auctioned”.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was Disney’s first feature-length animated film and the animators worked to give each of the seven dwarfs a distinct personality. The concept sketches (see above) include such familiar ones as Doc, Grumpy, and Dopey, and the not so surprisingly dropped dwarfs, Deafy and Baldy. Other unused dwarf names included Jumpy, Wheezy, Tubby, and Sniffy. The estimate for the sketches is $3,500-$4,500.
(7) REAL ESTATE CLICKBAIT. Every so often there’s a speculative article like this – “Macmillan Publishers weighs leaving Flatiron Building for a new HQ”. (In 2009 there was a story that an Italian investor was going to turn the building into a hotel….) By implication, if Macmillan ever gives up the space, Tor Books will be moving to a new home —
Macmillan Publishers, the sole office tenant in the Flatiron Building, is considering relocating its headquarters when its lease expires in a few years.
Should that happen, it would give the property’s owners a blank slate to work with for the first time since the building was completed more than 100 years ago.
Macmillan, parent company to publishers like St. Martin’s Press and Henry Holt & Co., has been in the iconic tower in some shape or form for about half a century. Now, it occupies all of the office space — nearly 176,000 square feet — in the roughly 180,000-square-foot building at 175 Fifth Avenue.
The publisher’s longtime broker, Leon Manoff of Colliers International, said the company is considering all options for when its lease expires in a few years, including staying put or relocating elsewhere in Manhattan to a new, 150,000-square-foot headquarters.
Andrew Porter adds, “Admittedly the office space is constrained by the unique shape of the building. Doherty’s office is in the ‘prow’ of the building, with windows on the east, west, and north. Here’s my admittedly not well-lit photo of Doherty in his office:”
Tom Doherty in Flatiron office. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.
(8) RAMBO INTERVIEWED. Rachel Swirsky conducts a “Silly Interview with Cat Rambo Who Plays in the MUD”.
- Although you write stories in other venues, you have at least two persistent worlds. One is Tabat where your novel takes place. Can you talk about the world and how it came to be?
Tabat started with a game concept. A friend was working on a MUD (a text-based multi-player game) where each administrator would create their own city, and I decided to do a seaport. One of the cool things about the game engine was that you could add tags onto room, so there were bits of description that only appeared under certain conditions, including things like time of day, season, moon phase, tide, and so forth, including things like if the player was carrying a specific object or had particular spells on them.
I went nuts with it. I built a city where you smelled fish when the tide was high and the wind was coming from the south, and where the tiles of the great Moonway shifted in color depending on whether the moon was full or lean….
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
Peter Cushing
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
(11) STAR TREK TOURIST TRAP. Dave’s Geeky Ideas recommends that the vacant Houston Astrodome be repurposed as a life-sized Deep Space Nine.
Right now the folks in Houston are trying to figure out what to do with the Astrodome, which has been sitting vacant for several years. Many plans for the dome have fallen by the wayside, including this multi-use approach which I really like. I’m going to throw my esteemed hat into the ring and declare that the Astrodome be converted into Deep Space Nine.
That’s right: a mega Star Trek tourist destination in the very city where the Space Program resides. This resort would look and feel like the space station seen in the show.
This is made possible by building the central hub and encircling promenade in the middle of the field, with three bridges that connect to the existing concourse in the Astrodome. The dome’s circular shape is quite handy here!
(12) MIXED MOTIVES. Andrew Liptak recalls the nomination of Hubbard’s Black Genesis in “Gaming the System: The 1987 Hugo Awards” at Kirkus Reviews.
Following the publication of Battlefield Earth, Bridge Publications had begun to heavily promote its author. Hubbard and his publisher were pointed in the direction of a flaw in the Hugo Award voting system, particularly by Charles Platt, a science fiction author and editor. In a 1983 issue of his publication, The Patchin Review, he plastered a banner on the front page: “Vote for L. Ron Hubbard!” In his introductory editorial, he lamented that the Best Novel Hugo was “merely a measure of how personally popular a writer is among a small clique of science-fiction fans.”
He also noted that there were things that fans could do to change this: “Hubbard is no hero to the people who usually vote for Hugos. If he won, would it bring about a reformation of the Hugo system, or even its abolition? There’s only one way to find out.”
He wrote to Hubbard and the Bridge, noting that “anyone may nominate and vote. All you have to do is become a supporting member of this year’s world Science Fiction Convention. You do not have to attend the convention itself.”
Hubbard and the Bridge seem to have followed this advice, either coming to this conclusion on their own, or through Platt’s suggestion. Hubbard had established a major story contest, Writers of the Future, and had begun heavily sponsoring science fiction conventions in the mid-1980s. Writing in a fanzine, David Langford authored an essay that described the efforts of the publisher, noting that “it seemed that a large number of fans had become similarly, cumulatively bothered by the grotesque scale of the L. RON HUBBARD promotions,” during the 1987 Conspiracy Convention. The organization had begun promoting the books and sponsoring covers to get Hubbard’s name out before readers.
(13) A HAPPILY DISSATISFIED CUSTOMER. Dr. Mauser claims credit for the Three-Stage Voting (3SV) idea but feels others who have embraced it lack his human touch.
The problem, and it’s a problem common to most folks of a particular political vein, is that they’re trying to counter human behavior with Mathematics. This never works. But the other problem is that they’re ignoring the SOURCE of the data they’re feeding into their formulae — the Fans. The Fans are an incredible resource, and a solution to their problem that they are afraid to make use of, because fans are a Wild Magic, and unpredictable, and hard to control. Math is Safe, math is predictable, but math can’t tell you what is good SF (The Cold Equations notwithstanding).
Even with the Three Stage Voting idea, they’re coming at it all wrong. Some proposals involve “Negative Voting” which they want as a way of getting a gang together to knock out entries they don’t like (They do love them some of that No Award veto power!). They propose empowering the administrators to add or remove entries, or even remove individual voters they don’t like. It’s like they still don’t trust the fans to vote the “right” way. And let’s not even think about the canned Medusa’s head of their mathematical Slate Detection dream, which they swear would NEVER generate a false positive….
(14) INFLATION STOPPED. The ISS expansion isn’t going smoothly. The BBC reports, “Flexi-space room expansion suspended”.
The deployment of a new, expandable “room” on the International Space Station was suspended on Thursday when it failed to open up as expected.
Astronaut Jeff Williams began inflating the module, but controllers eventually told him to stand down after 3.5 hours of extremely slow progress.
Installed in a compact form, the vessel is supposed to stretch to 4m in length with a volume of 16 cu m.
But as Williams squirted air into the module, it stretched only a few cm.
Engineers on the ground will now review the data with a view to resuming the expansion on Friday.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module is a demonstrator for the type of habitats that may be used to build future orbiting labs.
(15) ABIGAIL ON APOCALYPSE. If you’re looking for a nuanced review of X-Men: Apocalypse, Abigail Nussbaum delivers.
I promise, at some point I’ll go back to writing about things that aren’t superheroes. Though that would require Hollywood to stop blasting superhero stories at us in such close succession (I haven’t even written anything about the second season of Daredevil, though you can get a sense of the existential despair it plunged me into from the thread starting at this tweet). Coming at the end of that barrage, it’s perhaps understandable that the third (or sixth, or eighth) X-Men movie should be met with a muted, not to say exhausted, response. And some of the reviews have gone further and been downright brutal. I’m here to say that both of these reactions are unearned. X-Men: Apocalypse is by no means a great movie, and it has some serious problems. But I still found myself enjoying it a great deal more than any other work in this genre since Deadpool. Perhaps this is simply the relief of a superhero story that is not about grim-faced men taking themselves very seriously, and which instead tells an unabashedly silly story in a totally committed way. Or it might be because alongside the flaws, there are also things to praise in X-Men: Apocalypse, things that hardly any other superhero works are doing right now.
(16) 1975 HUGOS. Fanac.org has posted video of the AussieCon (1975) Hugo Awards Banquet on its new YouTube channel.
AussieCon, the 33rd Worldcon, was held in Melbourne, Australia in 1975. This video includes the Hugos Awards (presented by John Bangsund), the First Fandom Award, The Gandalf Award and the Big Heart Award. Bob Silverberg, Ben Bova, Fan Guests of Honor Susan Wood and Mike Glicksohn, Rusty Hevelin and others appear. Thanks to Kathi Overton for 2016 video editing.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Will R., Andrew Porter, David K.M. Klaus, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day RedWombat.]
Daniel Enness announced he has been informed by MidAmeriCon II that “Safe Space as Rape Room,” his Hugo-nominated series of posts on the Castalia House Blog, will not be part of the Hugo Voter Packet:
Worldcon Members who are looking forward to the forthcoming Hugo Voter Packet – which traditionally contains as many of the works nominated for a Hugo Award as possible so that all voters can review the nominees in a unified set of documents – will notice a special warning from MidAmeriCon II in this year’s edition of the Packet:
As the World Science Fiction Convention, MidAmeriCon II has members from 35 countries. Safe Space as Rape Room quotes extensively from a written work containing explicit descriptions of children engaged in sexual activities. This material may be illegal in some home countries of members. MidAmeriCon II does not wish to put any member at risk of inadvertently violating the law in their country of residence by downloading it in the packet without intent. As such, under legal advice, we are not hosting or distributing this material directly. However, Safe Space as Rape Room is freely available on the Internet and can be found by anyone at….
The series of posts is nominated in the Best Related Works category.