Monthly Archives: March 2017

2017 Audiobook of the Year Audie Award Finalists

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The Audio Publishers Association announced the finalists for 2017 Audiobook of the Year, as well as for Excellence in Design, Excellence in Marketing, and Excellence in Production on March 22. These are in addition to the individual nominees posted in February.

Genre works are up for Audiobook of the Year and all three Excellence categories, including audiobooks of novels by Kameron Hurley, John Scalzi, and Colson Whitehead.

Audiobook of the Year

  • Boys in the Trees, written and narrated by Carly Simon, published by Macmillan Audio
  • The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, written and narrated by Amy Schumer, published by Simon & Schuster Audio
  • Hamilton: The Revolution, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, narrated by Mariska Hargitay, with the authors, published by Hachette Audio
  • The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead, narrated by Bahni Turpin, published by Penguin Random House Audio / Books on Tape
  • Year of Yes, written and narrated by Shonda Rhimes, published by Simon & Schuster Audio

Excellence in Design

  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, design by David Drummond, published by Audible Studios
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, design by Levente Szabo, published by Audible Studios
  • Alien: Out of the Shadows: An Audible Original Drama, by Tim Lebbon and Dirk Maggs, design by James Jackson, published by Audible Studios
  • Geek Feminist Revolution, by Kameron Hurley, design by Jessica Daigle, published by HighBridge/Recorded Books
  • Grimm’s Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm, design by Divya Srinivasan, published by Listening Library

Excellence in Marketing

  • Alien: Out of the Shadows: An Audible Original Drama, by Tim Lebbon and Dirk Maggs, narrated by Rutger Hauer, Corey Johnson, Matthew Lewis, Kathryn Drysdale, Laurel Lefkow, Andrea Deck, and Mac McDonald, published by Audible Studios
  • Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000, by L. Ron Hubbard, narrated by Josh Clark, Scott Menville, Jim Meskimen, Phil Proctor, Stefan Rudnicki, Fred Tatasciore and a full cast, published by Galaxy Audio
  • Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, by Pappy Pariah, narrated by Sean Penn, published by Audible Studios
  • The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi, narrated by Zachary Quinto, published by Audible Studios
  • Hamilton: The Revolution, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, narrated by Mariska Hargitay, with the authors, published by Hachette Audio

Excellence in Production

  • Alien: Out of the Shadows: An Audible Original Drama, by Tim Lebbon and Dirk Maggs, narrated by Rutger Hauer, Corey Johnson, Matthew Lewis, Kathryn Drysdale, Laurel Lefkow, Andrea Deck, and Mac McDonald, published by Audible Studios
  • Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000, by L. Ron Hubbard, narrated by Josh Clark, Scott Menville, Jim Meskimen, Phil Proctor, Stefan Rudnicki, Fred Tatasciore, and a full cast, published by Galaxy Audio
  • Beric the Briton, by G.A. Henty. narrated by Brian Blessed, Brian Cox, Tom Baker, Honeysuckle Weeks, John Rhys-Davies, and a full cast, published by Heirloom Audio Productions
  • The Oedipus Plays: An Audible Original Drama, by Sophocles, narrated by Jamie Glover, Hayley Atwell, Michael Maloney, Samantha Bond, Julian Glover and David Horovitch, published by Audible Studios
  • The Secret History of Twin Peaks, by Mark Frost, narrated by a full cast, published by Macmillan Audio
  • A Wild Swan, by Michael Cunningham, narrated by Lili Taylor and Billy Hough, published by Macmillan Audio

Pixel Scroll 3/23/17 I Fifth The Pixel Electric

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(1) SACRIFICIAL FIRST. Camestros Felapton, who has been “Reading ‘Corrosion’so you don’t have to”, files this after-action report:

So with the tune of ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby’, running in my head I descend into ‘Corrosion: The Corroding Empire Part by Johan Kalsi and/or Harry Seldon Edited by Vox Day’.

Servo is a robot working in a cocktail bar, when we meet him. Again, if only this book was a pastiche of new-romantic pop lyrics but it isn’t – I mean how would it have been to have included a cocktail bar in the story?

Instead, we get a bunch of connected not-exactly awful stories set in a technological society run by ‘algorithms’. The style is one I shall now christen ‘Puppy Clunk’. If you read some of the less appalling slated works in 2015, you’ll recognise the style. It’s not illiterate or wholly unreadable but it just sort of goes ‘clunk’ in every sentence.

(2) FLAME ON. Entertainment Weekly’s James Hibbard assures everyone that the “’Game of Thrones’ dragaons are ‘the size of 747s’ in season 7”. Is there a word in Dothraki for “bodacious”?

The dragons are bigger this season. Okay, we say that every year. But this time, they are a lot bigger.

For Game of Thrones season 7, which has Daenerys’ trio of beasts headed to Westeros as part of the dragon queen’s invading fleet, the creatures are more fearsome than ever before.

“The dragons this year are the size of 747s,” director Matt Shakman tells EW. “Drogon is the biggest of the bunch – his flame is 30-feet in diameter!”

Shakman is one of four directors helming next season (the others are GoT vets Alan Taylor, Jeremy Podeswa, and Mark Mylod). He was probably being at least somewhat approximate when comparing the dragons to the venerable Boeing airliner. But for reference, a 747 is about 230 feet long with a 210 feet wingspan. So, really big.

(3) BLIND DATE. I’ve used up my quota of free articles in the Washington Post this month, however, Daniel Dern recommends this article about The Expanse. If you are still on the free side of the paywall, treat yourself to “The best show about international relations on television right now is on – wait for it – Syfy”.

(4) OCTAVIA BUTLER. Fortunately this Boston Globe article hasn’t gone behind the paywall just yet — “Science fiction, black music meet in Toshi Reagon’s opera-in-progress”.

In the parable of the sower in the Gospels, Jesus tells his followers about different outcomes from scattering seeds. Some are cast to the side and eaten by birds, some are planted in rocky soil or among thorns and fail to grow, but the seeds sown on “good ground” will take root and provide a bounty.

Science-fiction author Octavia E. Butler called back to that allegory about the word of God with her 1993 book “Parable of the Sower,” about a young woman in an apocalyptic future America who wanders a drought-stricken landscape, planting the seeds of a new religion fueled by empathy.

Now Butler’s book is adapted into an opera that synthesizes a wide range of musical styles culled from its creators’ deep reservoir of knowledge about black music in America.

(5) TODAY’S DAYS

You get your choice:

Commemorates March 23rd, 1989, when a large asteroid missed the Earth by a mere 500,000 miles – a very near miss indeed! What would you do if an asteroid was about to hit the Earth – how would you spend your last hours, and would you even want to know?

(6) FISHER MEMORIAL. The public memorial service for mother and daughter will take place March 25.

Fans will be able to pay their respects to Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher during a public memorial Saturday at Forest Lawn Memorial Park-Hollywood Hills, where the late stars were buried together in January.

The joint service — described as a “celebration of life” — will begin at 1 p.m., Todd Fisher said in an announcement about the tribute for his mother and sister on his website.

“We will be celebrating their lives with friends, family members, and the people who loved them, you,” he wrote in the announcement.

The memorial will take place inside the cemetery’s Hall of Liberty, which, according to the Forest Lawn website, seats more than 1,000.

(7) GRAVE CONCERNS. Patrick Stewart is among the people campaigning to preserve a piece of Brooklyn history — “Patrick Stewart: Revolutionary War heroes are buried under empty Gowanus lot!”

Starship Enterprise captain and Park Slope resident Sir Patrick Stewart is throwing his weight behind a controversial theory that the bodies of hundreds of Revolutionary War heroes are buried beneath an vacant lot in Gowanus — and he wants a memorial placed there so that history never forgets the name “Maryland 400.”

Stewart claimed in a recent Gentleman’s Quarterly interview that the empty Ninth Street site is the final resting place of the famed band of soldiers — who died saving General Washington’s rebel army from annihilation during the Battle of Brooklyn — and said he has personally petitioned Mayor DeBlasio to install a monument to them there, to which Hizzoner replied, “I’m on it.”

(8) NEAGLE OBIT. Long-time New Orleans-area fan Robert Neagle (1955-2017) passed away March 22 from a massive heart attack. He was active in many local and regional fan groups, and a veteran conrunner. I first met him at Nolacon II 1988), where he was wearing his Porno Patrol t-shirt. Neagle was the Captain of the Porno Patrol and I remember asking for an explanation of what they did, and vaguely remember an explanation involving the French Quarter. I remember much more clearly being grateful that he and his friends were volunteering at the con which needed all the help it could get.

Neagle was chairman of Crescent City Con throughout its 20-year history, ending in 2005. He was one of the founders of the Companions of Doctor Who, chaired DeepSouthCon 37 (1999), and worked on Vulcon, CoastCon and NOSFF, the New Orleans Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival. He was a member of Area 504 and the Amalgamation of Non-Aligned Lifeforms Starfleet.

He was the first Fan GoH of the (relatively new) Gulf Coast convention CONtraflow. He was honored for his contributions to Southern fandom with the Rebel Award in 2001.

Neagle is being cremated and there are no services planned at this time.

(9) COMIC SECTION. Pearls Before Swine has a real groaner today.

(10) STIFLED DISCOURSE. Lela E. Buis, in “Intimidating People Into Silence”, comments on a political trend to threaten and bully people:

In the last blog, I reported on a group (wisely anonymous) who advanced an article challenging Cecily Kane’s 2016 Fireside article that used a statistical analysis to show anti-black bias among SFF editors. Although the anonymous authors agreed there was a bias against black authors, they disagreed on the cause. After threats, they withdrew the article. Fireside then posted the article on their site.

So, what was the problem here? Why were these authors threatened? Was it because they challenged Kane’s specific conclusions about editorial bias? Or was it because they challenged possible gains that might have been made because of Kane’s article? Is this a political issue? Are the anonymous authors misguided statisticians? Or are they really racists trying to undermine black progress?

The interesting thing is that this isn’t an isolated case of attacking and bullying people, not just for their social/political views, but also for research that might contradict the opposition’s conclusions. It’s actually a fairly common theme in US society right now….

(11) KSR H2O NYC. From Scientific American — “Q&A: Kim Stanley Robinson Explains How He Flooded Manhattan”

His new book, New York 2140, explores the interplay of climate change and global finance on a warmer, wetter future world

What would you say this book is really about? It’s about climate change and sea level rise, but it’s also about the way that our economic system doesn’t allow us to afford a decent future. As one of the characters says early in the book, “We’ve got good tech, we’ve got a nice planet, but we’re fucking it up by way of stupid laws.”

Finance, globalization—this current moment of capitalism—has a stranglehold on the world by way of all our treaties and laws, but it adds up to a multigenerational Ponzi scheme, an agreement on the part of everybody to screw the future generations for the sake of present profits. By the logic of our current system we have to mess up the Earth, and that is crazy. My new novel explores this problem and how we might get out of it.

(12) WHO OF WHOVILLE. At the end of Daily Beast’s post about coverage of yesterday’s terror incident, “Londoners Reject British ‘Traitors’ Peddling Terror Dystopia on Fox News”, comes a genre reference —

James Moran, a screenwriter who worked on shows including Doctor Who and Torchwood, said the unique nature of London could never be altered.

“The only things that shut down London: (a) leaves, (b) 3 flakes of snow, (c) when you try to get on trains without letting people off first,” he wrote “Now let’s carry on being Londoners. Rude, always in a hurry, and completely ignoring each other, LIKE GOD INTENDED.”

[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Stephen Burridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Daniel Dern, Raymond Boudreau, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

In Case You Didn’t Watch The Flash Musical Episode…

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By Daniel Dern: Which, as cable-cutters, I know you didn’t…

…it’s worth watching all of, IMHO.

Note, like last season’s the “4-part crossover” of Supergirl, Flash, Green Arrow and Legends, there was only about 1 minute of relevant x-over in the Supergirl episode from the day before, and I believe that the Flash episode started with a recap of that anyway.

Here’s the relevant Supergirl snippet:

If you don’t want to watch the whole episode, you should at least watch Barry & Kara’s duet, “(I’m Your) Superfriend” written by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom:

Although it’s not hard to find all the songs via YouTube, of course,

Supergirl, “Moon River”

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”

“More I Cannot Wish You” (from Guys and Dolls, of course) — Joe West (Jesse L. Martin), Martin Stein (Victor Garber) & Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman)

“Runnin’ Home To You” — Grant Gustin (Flash)

(I think that’s all of them.)

And, unsurprisingly, there’s lots of related news clip interviews, including some “make of the episode” views

Carol Pinchefsky alerted me to an article that she wrote “9 Sci-Fi TV Musicals That Rocked Television Before Supergirl and The Flash”. Let me add more… there’s also a still-growing list of non-sf post-Buffy TV musical episodes, of course, e.g. (off the top of my head) including Scrubs, Castle, Gray’s Anatomy, Psych.

And here’s some lists via Mr KnowItAll the Internet:

Oddly, off-hand, I’m not seeing Cop Rock listed in any of these. Or else I didn’t read carefully enough… or that’s considered “a show which has songs in every episode.”

Lastly, this just in (seen): As I just learned from learned from io9.gizmodo.com, this week’s episode of The Magicians (which we haven’t seen yet) has characters doing a song from Les Miserables (I just watched about half of this).

Pixel Scroll 3/22/17 I Scroll The Pixel Electric

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(1) BATTERIES INCLUDED. The BBC reports plans for a short-distance electric passenger plane:

A new start-up says that it intends to offer an electric-powered commercial flight from London to Paris in 10 years.

Its plane, yet to go into development, would carry 150 people on journeys of less than 300 miles.

Wright Electric said by removing the need for jet fuel, the price of travel could drop dramatically.

British low-cost airline Easyjet has expressed its interest in the technology.

“Easyjet has had discussions with Wright Electric and is actively providing an airline operator’s perspective on the development of this exciting technology,” the airline told the BBC.

Chip Hitchcock adds: “Note the caveat of battery tech continuing to improve at its current rate. Reminds of the beginning of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, where the computer says there won’t be famine because matter transformation will be invented in a few years.”

(2) AND THEN I WROTE. In “Using Twine @TwineThreads”, Camestros Felapton gives a demonstration of the interactive story-writing software, amply illustrated by screencaps.

The software doesn’t present you with much: a simple screen with limited menu options. However, this really encourages you to jump straight in, start a story and start typing.

(3) FEWER BOOKS, MORE BOOZE. No, I’m not talking about Raymond Chandler. I’m reporting the observations by Barry Hoffman, publisher of Gauntlet Press, in his March 22 newsletter —

Late last year Barnes & Noble opened a new “superstore” in Eastchester, New York. The store features a full-service restaurant which serves alcohol. And, the store will be 20-25% smaller than its traditional superstores.

Normally, this news would be taken with a yawn (there are other such B&N superstores). But the sad fact is that B&N is responding to Amazon.com by adding a restaurant and cutting the number of books that it will carry. As it is B&N stores in Colorado Springs (where our offices are located) already devote a lot of space to other items besides books. The two stores in Colorado Springs have a Starbucks (a smart idea, in my opinion and it doesn’t take up all that much space), a large display for their Nook device, games, toys and other non-book related items. Since the price of these non-book related items are just as or more expensive than at nearby competitors such as Best Buy, Target, Walmart and Toys R Us it makes little sense to squeeze out books for them.

The B&N’s here used to sell CDs and DVDs but at a premium price which made no sense since there were competitors selling the same items at a greater discount. It seems that the B&N philosophy is to add these products and now large restaurants to their stores rather than come up with innovative approaches to selling books. To me this doesn’t seem the ideal approach to competing with Amazon.com.

(4) PAY THE WRITER. Lucy A. Snyder aired a grievance about MARCon, the annual Columbus, OH convention, in a public Facebook post.

Several people have asked me if I will be attending MARCon (Multiple Alternate Realities Convention) this year. I will not. As much as I would like to support one of the few remaining local Columbus conventions, I can no longer do so.

Last year, Marcon staff contacted me about leading a couple of writing workshops. We negotiated the same kind of deal as I had arranged for instructors at Context: they would charge for the workshops, and I would get half the fees with a minimum of $50 per workshop.

The convention completely failed to promote the workshops ahead of time, and didn’t even put an information page on their website so that I could promote them myself. They assured me that they would promote the workshops at the door and that I should plan to lead them, so I did my usual preparations.

Unsurprisingly, nobody signed up for my first workshop; I arrived at the expected time and then left when it was clear nobody was coming. They did sell several seats to the second workshop, and so I led that as expected. Aside from my time, my own costs to offer the workshops included $30 in parking garage fees, which I had expected to cover with the $50 for the workshop.

(I had expected a lot *more* than a net of $20, but I adjusted my expectations downward after I realized I wouldn’t be able to adequately promote my sessions. $20 was still better than nothing.)

A few months after the convention was over, I queried the staff who had recruited me to see when payment would be forthcoming, and received no reply.

Later, I forwarded the agreement to the programming email address with an inquiry, which also did not receive a reply.

Most recently, I forwarded the agreement to the convention chairs’ address; it’s been over a week and I haven’t gotten a reply.

So that’s three times I’ve emailed various staff, with zero replies from anyone. Not a “We’re working on it,” or a “The check’s in the mail,” or a “We’re kind of broke and need more time” or even a “Screw you, Snyder, we’re not paying you squat!” Nothing.

I’ve also talked to a Marcon volunteer who spent $120 on convention supplies and was promised reimbursement; so far, the convention has blown off her queries, too.

I would not be surprised to find out that other volunteers who were promised reimbursement of their registration fees have not received them.

The upshot is that Marcon appears to have become the kind of convention that won’t always honor its financial commitments.

There were other problems at last year’s convention that soured me on the experience, but failing to uphold business agreements and refusing to reply to communications is a definite deal breaker for me.

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born March 22, 1931 – William Shatner

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY STARSHIP CAPTAIN

  • Born March 22, 2233 – James Tiberius Kirk.

(7) SCALZI INTERVIEW. The Verge asked the questions and got this answer: “Sci-fi author John Scalzi on the future of publishing: ‘I aspire to be a cockroach’”.

The author of Old Man’s War and The Collapsing Empire lays out his plan for his 10-year book contract, and the future of science fiction publishing….

With concerns about publishers dying off, it’s intriguing that Tor is making this long-term commitment.

I think there’s a number of things going on there. I do think it was signaling. It is Tor and Macmillan saying: “We’re going to stay in business, and we’re going to do a good job of it.” This is part of an overall thing going on with Tor. Tor recently reorganized; brought in Devi Pillai [from rival publisher Hachette]; moved Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who’s my editor, from senior editor to associate publisher; brought in some new editors and some other new folks; and Macmillan basically gave it a huge vote of confidence.

It’s been fun and fashionable to talk about the death of publishing, and certainly publishing has had “exciting times,” I think that’s the euphemism we want to use, over the last decade. But the people who are in it do feel optimistic that not only are they going to be around for the next 10 years, but that they are going to do what they have always done, which is to bring exciting stories and people into the market, to keep people engaged in the genre, and to be a presence….

Did you just describe yourself as a cockroach?

I am a cockroach. I aspire to be a cockroach. But in all honesty, what that means is that as a writer, you have to recognize that nothing lasts and things change, that there’s no one time in the history of publishing where everything was one way, and then all of a sudden there was change. It’s always changing. So we will definitely try new things to see if they work. And if they don’t, you don’t do them again, or you wait for the market to come around to them again, whatever. I’m totally open to that…

(8) BOOK HEAVEN. Real Simple lists the best bookstore in every state.

When you think of a great local bookstore, you probably single it out for its conscientious curation, enthralling events, and splendid staff. But what makes a bookstore go from great to one of the best in America? We partnered with Yelp to explore the best independent bookstores our country has to offer. There are no chains on this list. Using an algorithm that looks at the number of reviews and star rating for each business, Yelp singled out the top bookseller in each state.

In California, it’s Century Books in Pasadena.

(9) SAD PUPPY SADNESS. On Twitter, SF/F author Matthew W. Rossi thought Declan Finn was telling him that it’s not that big a deal he’s going blind. Apparently that’s not what Finn meant:

(10) INSIDE THE SHELL. Ghost in the Shell (2017) – “Creating The Shell” Featurette.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, JJ, rcade, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]

Happy Birthday, William Shatner

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By Steven J. Vertlieb: William Shatner, the iconic actor who first sailed the Star Ship Enterprise through three intergalactic seasons on NBC Television beginning September 8, 1966, and starred in six Star Trek feature-length motion pictures, turns eighty-six years young today. He was the valiant inspiration for millions of young boys and men for decades of thrilling cinematic heroism. I conducted, perhaps, the very first “fan” interview with William Shatner ever published during July 1969, whilst the series was still being aired over NBC in its final re-runs, for the British magazine, L’Incroyable Cinema. He was both delightfully witty, and warm, sharing a memorable hour of his valuable time with us. Here are Erwin and I together with Captain James Tiberius Kirk outside his dressing room at The Playhouse In The Park where he was starring in a local Philadelphia Summer Stock production of “There’s A Girl In My Soup,” which co-starred Exodus star Jill Hayworth. Wishing James Tiberius Kirk a joyous, healthy, and especially “spacial” Happy 86th Birthday.

Issue No. 2 of The Monster Times, America’s premiere Creature Feature bi-weekly tabloid” (1972) that featured my cover story and interview with William Shatner (reprinted from my original 1969 L’Incroyable Cinema Magazine article). Quoting Jim Kirk at the conclusion of Nicholas Meyer’s Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, when questioned by “Bones” about how he felt on his birthday, he said…”I Feel…YOUNG.” Wishing the iconic Bill Shatner, A.K.A. Captain Kirk, a spectacular 86th Birthday. May you remain forever young.

Amazon Keeps Freeze on Sales of Castalia’s “Corrosion”

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Castalia House’s goon book The Corroding Empire keeps trying to come back from the dead, like a Universal Pictures monster. Amazon took the book down on its release day, March 20, because its title, author and cover were deemed misleading – each of those attributes having been made intentionally similar to John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire.

Castalia House publisher Vox Day promptly announced that the book would be back on Amazon with a new cover, title (Corrosion) and author name (Harry Seldon).

Instead, Vox Day got Amazon to restore The Corroding Empire page under the original pseudonym, but it’s not clear whether sales ever resumed and they are currently disabled (see screencap).

Day has been updating his “Back With A Vengeance” post at Vox Popoli after each go-round with Amazon.

Mr. Amazon SJW just blocked it again. Unsigned, of course. SJWs always double down.

We’re writing to let you know that readers have reported a problem in your book. The error significantly impacts the readability of your book. We have temporarily removed it from sale so that more readers don’t experience the same problem in your book

Error Category: Wrong_Content; Comments: The content of your book is a different edition than what the detail page indicates. Because this could be a serious issue for many customers, we have had to temporarily block your book from sale. Please correct the image so that we can make it available for sale again.

UPDATE: Another phone call and we’re back up again.

UPDATE: And blocked again, albeit this time UNDER REVIEW, not memory-holed.

UPDATE: Finally got to speak to a supervisor. She’s not only escalated the matter to legal, but has assured me that the book will be unblocked, stay unblocked, and that the matter will be fully investigated. It’s not just the three blocks, the culprit(s) also put the book on the Excluded list for Amazon Associates, which prevents others from being paid when someone buys the book.

Vox Day has also raised the spectre of “tortious interference”:

UPDATE: Since some people seem to want to go on the warpath, let me be perfectly clear here: Amazon is not to blame. I even suspect that it is entirely possible that Tor Books is not to blame either, based on a) when the book was pulled and b) the fact that the book has shown as Live for nearly 24 hours but still does not have a page on any Amazon site. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is a rogue low-level SJW employee, possibly two, in a specific department.

I have already spoken to the manager of one department and they have begun to investigate why Corrosion is Live but not available. They’ve done everything we asked and we have no problem with the way we have been treated.

While he has been arguing for scenarios involving misbehaving Amazon employees or interference by someone at Tor Books, it may be that customers using Amazon’s feedback system are having an impact – they may not have confined themselves to complaining about the one-star reviews left on Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire on its first day in release.

Former Amazon employee Greg Hullender also offered some insights in a comment on Camestros Felapton’s blog:

Having worked at Amazon and dealt with “bad merchants” I can tell you that Amazon keeps a list of “problem children.” After his previous two stunts (the Rape book and the Goodreads hack), I suspect Castalia House is on such a list. That would mean that it would require far fewer customer complaints to get a human involved that would normally be the case.

In this particular case, it almost looks as though VD had hoped to bamboozle a few Scalzi readers into buying his book by mistake. Given the way purchasing on Amazon works, I can’t see how that would happen in real life, but the appearance is bad. The company is extremely allergic to anything that looks like an attempt (however maladroit) to defraud its customers. (In other words, if it looks like you’re trying to rip people off, the fact that you’re using a method that could never work won’t cut any ice.) That could also explain the speed of Amazon’s reaction. (I’ll add that I personally think VD only wanted attention–I doubt he thought this would look like fraud.)….

However, a source disputes my description of Vox Day in yesterday’s Scroll as being “on thin ice” with Amazon. At this time the rest of Castalia House’s books are available for sale.

Update: Two hours after this post was published, Amazon had the book available for sale. I was able to order the sample sent to my Kindle. However, the page still displays the “item under review” box. // Further update: Now the review box is gone, too.

2016 Australian Shadows Awards Shortlist

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The Australian Horror Writers Association announced the finalists for the  2016 Australian Shadows Awards on March 19. The Shadows celebrate the finest in horror and dark fiction published by an Australian or New Zealander.

Best Short Fiction (Up to 7,500 words)

  • PROTEGE, BY ANTHONY FERGUSON (In ‘Monsters Among Us’ – Oscillate Wildly Press)
  • SELFIE, BY LEE MURRAY (In ‘SQ Magazine’ – IFWG Publishing)
  • D IS FOR DEATH, BY PETE ALDIN (In ‘Poise and Pen’)
  • WHAT THE SEA WANTS, BY DEB SHELDON (In ‘SQ Magazine’ – IFWG Publishing)
  • ALL ROLL OVER, BY KAARON WARREN (In ‘In Your Face’ – Fablecroft Publishing)
  • FADE TO GREY, BY JANEEN WEBB (In ‘Dreaming in the Dark’ – PS Publishing)
  • MIDNIGHT IN THE GRAFFITI TUNNEL, BY TERRY DOWLING (In ‘Dreaming in the Dark’ – PS Publishing)
  • UNCONTAINABLE, BY HELEN STUBBS (In ‘Apex Magazine’ online)
  • NO OTHER MEN IN MITCHELL, BY ROSE HARTLEY (In ‘Nightmare Magazine’ online)

Best Collected Works (3 or more short stories by a single author)

  • CROW SHINE BY ALAN BAXTER (Ticonderoga Publications)
  • EVERYTHING IS FINE BY GRANT STONE (Racket House)
  • CONCENTRATION BY JACK DANN (PS Publishing)

Best Edited Work (3 or more short stories by two (2) or more authors; edited by one or more editors:)

  • DEAD OF NIGHT, EDITED BY SHANE JIRAIYA CUMMINGS (Published by AHWA)
  • DREAMING IN THE DARK, EDITED BY JACK DANN (PS PUBLISHING)
  • AT THE EDGE, EDITED BY DAN RABARTS & LEE MURRAY (PAPER ROAD PRESS)

Best Novel (At least 40,000 words)

  • INTO THE MIST, BY LEE MURRAY (Cohesion Press)
  • THE DEVIL’S PRAYER, BY LUKE GRACIAS (Australian eBook Publisher)
  • UNBIDDEN, BY TJ PARK (Harper Collins)
  • HOLLOW HOUSE, BY GREG CHAPMAN (Omnium Gatherum)
  • PRESUMED DEAD, BY RICK KENNETT (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform)
  • DEVIL DRAGON, BY DEBORAH SHELDON (Severed Press)
  • THE GRIEF HOLE, BY KAARON WARREN (IFWG Publishing)

Paul Haines Award For Long Fiction (Between 7,501 to 39,999 words)

  • TIPUNA TAPU, BY DAN RABARTS (Clandestine Press)
  • BOX OF BONES, BY JEREMY BATES (Ghillinnein Books)
  • BURNT SUGAR, BY KIRSTYN MCDERMOTT (In ‘Dreaming in the Dark’ – PS Publishing)
  • THE HEART OF THE MISSION, BY MATTHEW R DAVIS (Oz Horror Con)
  • THE ESCHATOLOGIST, BY GREG CHAPMAN (Voodoo Press)
  • SERVED COLD, BY ALAN BAXTER (In ‘Dreaming in the Dark’ – PS Publishing)

Due to insufficient entries, the 2016 awards dropped the Comics/Graphic Novels category and The Rocky Wood Award for Non-Fiction and Criticism.

The Shadows are a juried award. This year’s jurors are:

  • The Paul Haines Award For Long Fiction: William Cook, Brett McBean, Lee Pletzers
  • Edited Works: Dmetri Kakmi, Piper Medjia, Craig Hughes
  • Collected Works: Lee Murray, Michael Pryor, Tracie McBride
  • Short Fiction: David Hoenig, William Cook, Lucy A. Snyder, Silvia Brown
  • Comics/Graphic Novels: Gareth Macready, Lee Pletzers, Steve Herczeg
  • The Rocky Wood Award for Non-Fiction and Criticism: Piper Mejia, Maree Kimberley, David Kernot
  • Novels: Chris Pulo, Lee Pletzers, Steven Casey, Robert N Stevenson

Pixel Scroll 3/21/17 Pixels Are Not Looking Good For Mr. Scroll

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(1) PICK YOUR OWN TALKING CATASTROPHE. After the SFWA Blog posted about Twine, the interactive game program, Camestros Felapton decided, “Because I had an important project at work to complete, I naturally ended up downloading Twine and playing with that instead of using my commute to work to get ahead with my deadlines. Here is a tourist guide to Timothy [the Talking Cat]’s home town.”

(2) CHOW TIME. “Binge on pork buns with Rosemary Clare Smith” in Episode 32 of Scott Edelman’s Eating the Fantastic podcast.

We discussed why she can’t seem to stop writing about dinosaurs, how her years as a lawyer helped her become a better writer, what caused an angry audience member to confront her after one of her readings, whether she’d be willing to risk Ray Bradbury’s butterfly effect by traveling back in time, if there are editorial differences between Analog editors Stanley Schmidt and Trevor Quachri, and much more.

 

Rosemary Claire Smith

(3) FELLOWSHIP. Sorry I wasn’t able to give advance warning on this – it airs Tuesday night — “D.C. Legends of Tomorrow features cameo by… J.R.R. Tolkien?”

On the upcoming episode of DC Legends of Tomorrow,  airing this Tuesday, March 21 at 9:00 p.m. EST on The CW channel, the team goes back to France during WWI and enlists the help of, yes,  J.R.R. Tolkien. The episode is titled “Fellowship of the Spear.”

From IMDB: “The Legends land in France during World War I and enlist the aid of J.R.R. Tolkien to retrieve the last pieces of the Spear of Destiny from the Legion of Doom.”

(4) INVENTED LANGUAGE. Atlas Obscura tells about the “Boontling Language of Booneville [California]”.

Anderson Valley, the logging region of California where Boontling got its start, was so isolated in those early years that the new language thrived, growing to 1,600 words. It never spread beyond the region. Part of the reason for this was a reluctance on the part of Boonville residents to share their language with visitors. What’s more, while the dialect is based on English, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Spanish, and Pomoan (a Native Californian language), many of the Boontling words were inspired by Boonville residents, and are therefore more personal for people in the area.

For instance, the word zeese, for coffee, came from Zachariah Clifton, or “Z.C.,” who brewed a particularly strong cup of joe. A pay phone is called Buckey Walter; buckey means nickel, and Walter was the first guy in the valley to have a phone. The name of the language is a combination of the Boontling word Boont, for Boonville, and ling, short for lingo.

One summer is the Sixties my father took my brother and me to a dude ranch. Booneville was the nearest town so we were in there a couple times. We didn’t know anything about Boontling, unfortunately, or we probably could have got a demonstration.

(5) GAIL SIMONE. The comics writer Gail Simone was invited on the JoCo 2017 geek cruise where she was asked to write the worst first page to a SF/F novel and deliver it to the crowd. Her part starts at 8:20.

(6) ELECTRONIC PRIVACY FOR TRAVELERS. For those heading to Helsinki for the Worldcon, or leaving the U.S. for anywhere, Cory Doctorow recommends reading the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s comprehensive guide to protecting your electronic data: “Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border: Protecting the Data On Your Devices and In The Cloud”. (There’s also a print-and-fold version).

The U.S. government reported a five-fold increase in the number of electronic media searches at the border in a single year, from 4,764 in 2015 to 23,877 in 2016.1 Every one of those searches was a potential privacy violation. Our lives are minutely documented on the phones and laptops we carry, and in the cloud. Our devices carry records of private conversations, family photos, medical documents, banking information, information about what websites we visit, and much more. Moreover, people in many professions, such as lawyers and journalists, have a heightened need to keep their electronic information confidential. How can travelers keep their digital data safe?

(7) WHERE ISN’T HE? Over the weekend a “’Where’s Waldo?’ fun run” brought in money for a good cause.

Thousands of runners donned iconic red and white-striped costumes in London for a “Where’s Waldo?” themed fun run.

The event Sunday in south London saw thousands of men, women, and children dress as the titular character from the children’s book series for a fun run that raised money for the National Literacy Trust.

(8) SQUARE PEG TIME. Declan Finn got a nip on the nose for trying to start Sad Puppies 5 himself but another website welcomed his “Superversive Dragon Award Suggestions” with open paws. Despite the welcome, he found it wasn’t easy to find the right category for all his friends’ books.

Obviously, certain of the books from the list fit no genre category. One of my novels from the list, Set to Kill, is a murder mystery that takes place in Atlanta, at a place called WyvernCon, in the middle of a political war about Tearful or Hydrophobic Puppies versus Puppy Punters from traditional Big Publishing. Obviously, this book has no similarities to real events. Heh.

However, while it is on the 2016 list, there is no murder mystery genre for the Dragons. Nor are there Westerns, so Brings the Lightning is out.  And while Chasing Freedom and The Big Sheep are both fun books with dystopic elements, they both came out too early last year in order to be eligible — and Chasing Freedom was already nominated for last year’s Dragons.  It’s the same for site favorite Ben Zyycky’s novel Beyond the Mist , which came out in January 2016.

(9) PLAGIARISM SUIT. Variety reports “Disney Accused of Stealing ‘Zootopia’ from ‘Total Recall’ Screenwriter”.

A veteran screenwriter filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday accusing Disney of stealing his idea for the hit animated film “Zootopia.”

Gary Goldman alleges that Disney took character designs, themes, lines of dialogue, and even the name “Zootopia” from a project that he first developed in 2000. He alleges that he twice pitched the project to Disney executives, in 2000 and 2009, and was rejected. The lawsuit accuses Disney of a long history of stealing ideas from others, and contends that “Zootopia” is only the most recent example of an embedded corporate practice.

“Although The Walt Disney Company rigorously enforces its copyrights, it has developed a culture that not only accepts the unauthorized copying of others’ original material, but encourages it,” Goldman alleges. “Instead of lawfully acquiring Goldman’s work, Defendants said they were not interested in producing it and sent him on his way. Thereafter, consistent with their culture of unauthorized copying, Defendants copied Goldman’s work.”

(10) COLLAPSING DAY. At long last it’s the release day for John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire. He noted on Twitter that the trolls had promptly gone to work adding negative reviews to the book’s Amazon page.

Already on thin ice with Amazon, Vox Day interrupted his unwelcoming comments about the book in general to emphasize his policy about fake reviews.

UPDATE: My position on fake reviews is what it has always been: never write fake reviews, for good or for ill. If you have not read a book or played a game, then you should not even consider reviewing it. As a former nationally syndicated professional game reviewer, I do not approve of fake reviews no matter who the author or developer is. Unlike most published authors, I have always abided by Amazon guidelines and never review books or games on Amazon. The only place I write reviews are a) on this blog, and b) on Recommend.

He also made a point in a comment:

How do you explain downvotes on that review if that is not what you wanted when you linked it?

They have nothing to do with me or what I want. If I wanted downvotes, there would be at least 535 downvotes there within an hour. Since there are not, it should be clear that I have not issued any such order or expressed any such desire.

Amazon has been removing the fake one-star reviews throughout the day as they pop up (and people complain). Although it’s gone now, too, an even rarer snarky five-star review stuck around for several hours.

(11) THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AISLE. Not all the grumpy people are on the right. On Whatever in Scalzi’s “The Collapsing Empire Is Here” post, he mentioned that Wil Wheaton voiced the audiobook and got back in comments —

“So you had your book narrated by a white man… Of course!”

(12) SUPERPREDICTABLE. Brian Niemeier marked the day by teeing off against Scalzi’s publisher, in “Tor Gets Desperate”, for having the Castalia House goon book The Corroding Empire taken down yesterday,.

This is what used to be called “parody” before the Left turned into control freaks with zero sense of humor. The only way you’d mistake one of those books for the other is if you couldn’t read. In which case, you’re probably not buying books in the first place.

(13) COVER CHARGE. Camestos Felapton worked over a different part of Niemeier’s post:

However, Brian is deeply impressed by Castalia House re-releasing their book with a new cover:

“While I was writing this post, Vox Day unveiled the new cover for CH’s censored book.

Let that sink in: they got a new cover done in less than a day.

The updated book should be back in the Kindle store tonight. This is why the small, fast mammals are taking down the dinosaurs.”

A generic spaceship against a background cover in LESS THAN A DAY! Gadzooks! Hmmm. I think I can do that in under an hour to Castalia House standards…

(14) MAGI STANDARD TIME. Hodinkee observes, “Balthazar, MB&F’s Latest Robot-Themed Clock, Has a Split Personality”.

Meet Balthazar. He’s a slightly terrifying robot-shaped clock that has a smiling face on one side and a grimacing skull on the other….

MB&F is calling Balthazar the big brother to Melchior, the robot clock it first launched at Baselworld 2015. The clocks have the same basic structure, each with discs for the time and the escapement in the dome on the robot’s head (unlike the smaller cousin clock, Sherman, which uses a more traditional display). If you know your New Testament, you’ll know that Melchior and Balthazar were two of the three magi to visit Jesus in the manger on the night of his birth – will we be seeing a Caspar clock sometime soon too? Personally, I’m hoping yes….

Balthazar is available with four different colors of armor – black, silver, blue, and green – each limited to 50 pieces. All colors will retail for 52,000 CHF (approximately $52,875 at time of publishing). For more, visit MB&F online.

 

(15) ASS-GRINDING HALT. Scarepop.com says “Stop the presses! Rob Lowe and his sons are making a paranormal series”.

Prolific actor, eighties teen heartthrob, Emmy-award winner and general national treasure Rob Lowe will star with his two sons, Matthew and John Owen, in an upcoming supernatural-themed A&E docuseries entitled The Lowe Files, in which the trio will travel around the country investigating unsolved legends and “eerie, age-old stories.”

As Rob Lowe himself (star of The Outsiders, St. Elmo’s Fire, and NBC’s The West Wing) tells us (via an A&E press release):

Since I was a kid I’ve loved unexplained legends, strange phenomena and the scary, supernatural stories told around campfires.

Okay. You can restart the presses now.

(16) COMIC R.I.P.S The Washington Post’s Michael Cavna has an appreciation of Bernie Wrightson as one of the greatest comic book artists to come from Baltimore…

Bernie Wrightson, who co-created the Swamp Thing, was one of his generation’s greatest masters of horror illustration and comics.

(17) QUITE A CATCH. It’s clickbait, but “Bookstore Earns Instagram Fame With Clever Snaps” only runs three pages and it’s amusing.

A bookstore in France is becoming a popular member of the Instagram community for all the right reasons. Not only does its account showcase products and events the store is offering, but also the creativity of its employees.

Librairie Mollat was the first independent bookstore to open in France in 1896. It is home to over 300,000 titles and has an inventory that spans every genre you can imagine. And while being one of the oldest bookstores in the country is a remarkable feat (especially when you consider the primarily digital world we now live in), it’s the clever Instagram posts that are getting this business noticed.

 

[Thanks to Camestros Felapton, JJ, rcade, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Scott Edelman, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Matt Y.]

Jim Fiscus to Receive Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award

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Jim Fiscus

Congratulations to Jim Fiscus, winner of the 2017 Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award for his outstanding work on behalf of the organization.

Jim Fiscus’ long service to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America began when he volunteered to host hospitality events at Westercons in the early 1990s. Later he began writing a column for the SFWA Bulletin looking at the business and legal aspects of the publishing industry, including an explanation of the Tasini case, contracts which were hostile to writers, and other aspects of the law.  Fiscus oversaw a review of the SFWA Handbook from 2002-3.

In 2008, SFWA President Russell Davis appointed Fiscus to succeed him in the position of Western Regional Director, a position Fiscus held until the California re-incorporation, at which time he became a Director-at-large until 2015.  While serving as a Director, Fiscus served as Chair of the Orphan Works Committee.  When the Orphan Works Committee was re-formed as the Legal Affairs Committee, Fiscus remained on board as co-Chair with Michael Capobianco.  Fiscus also joined the Contracts Committee in 2014 and became Chair when the former chair stepped down.

Past winners of the Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award include Victoria Strauss, George Zebrowski and Pamela Sargent (jointly), Michael Capobianco and Ann Crispin (joint awards), Keith Stokes, Vonda McIntyre and John E. Johnston III.

The award will be presented during the annual Nebula Award Conference, which will run from May 18-21 in Pittsburgh. On May 19, a mass autograph session will take place at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center and is open to the public.