Pixel Scroll 12/25 All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Pixel Scrolls

Mowatt Rhino run on Christmas

(1) RHINO RACES SANTA. Jim Mowatt ran a 5K on Christmas Day as part of his campaign to Save the Rhino.

It’s Christmas Day in Ayr and Carrie and I are celebrating this festival of wine, beer, pigs in blankets and Christmas pud. by popping down to Rozelle Park to run the 5k parkrun. Just to make it that bit more interesting I’ll be wearing a rhino costume.

I got a great reception when I arrived, with a mighty cheer from all the lovely folks assembled near the start. There were several santas, some dogs and a couple of running buggys amongst the crowd. The run director tried to give her pre run briefing but stumbled a little. “Sorry folks,” she said, “I was distracted by the rhino.”

… If anyone gets the urge to donate to Save The Rhino then please visit the page http://virginmoneygiving.com/jimmowatt and donate whatever you feel you can afford.

 

(2) CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. “50 Page Fridays: Connie Willis” at Suvudu.

Every Friday, we here @ Del Rey Spectra will place a 50 page excerpt of a selected title on Suvudu. Whether it is science fiction, epic fantasy, alternate history, horror, urban fantasy, paranormal, the possibilities are endless.

This week, just in time for the holidays, we’re featuring the first 50 pages of Connie Willis’ MIRACLES AND OTHER CHRISTMAS STORIES. Read what the stories are all about and enjoy the excerpt.

  • This enchanting treasury includes: “Miracle,” in which a young woman’s carefully devised plans to find romance go awry when her guardian angel shows her the true meaning of love
  • “In Coppelius’s Toyshop,” where a jaded narcissist finds himself trapped in a crowded toy store at Christmastime
  • “Epiphany,” in which three modern-day wisemen embark on a quest unlike any they’ve ever experienced
  • “Inn,” where a choir singer gives shelter to a homeless man and his pregnant wife-only to learn later that there’s much more to the couple than meets the eye

And more…

(3) UNSUSPECTED STAR WARRIORS. “13 Actors You Didn’t Realize Were in the Star Wars Movies” at Esquire – illustrative photos at the site.

  1. Brian Blessed

Character: Rogur Nass

Appeared in: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Best known outside of Star Wars for: “GORDON’S ALIVE!” That is to say, Flash Gordon and shouting a lot.

Not convinced about that “Best Known” for Blessed. What about Young Arthur, Augustus Caesar in I, Claudius, or Northumberland in Henry V?

(4) A MISSED OPPORTUNITY: Martin Morse Wooster writes, “Thanks for posting Carol for Another Christmas.  I enjoyed it, and Sterling Hayden was great and Peter Sellers brilliant but…. ….this show is super liberal. It really is. Maybe if you headlined it, ‘THE FILM THE SAD PUPPIES DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE’ you’d get HUNDREDS of comments.”

(5) BEFORE MICROSOFT WAS RICH. The Digital Antiquarian’s post “A Pirate’s Life for me, Part 1: Don’t Copy That Floppy!” reproduces an open letter from Bill Gates that will surely bring a nostalgic tear to the eye.

February 3, 1976

An Open Letter to Hobbyists

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books, and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?

Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving, and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4 K, 8 K, Extended, ROM, and Disk BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however: 1) most of these “users” never bought BASIC (less than 10 percent of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) the amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 per hour.

(6) THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW. “IBM’s Supercomputer Watson Evolves” at Omni.

Watson has become something of a celebrity, perhaps the first artificially intelligent celebrity, making appearances at notable events such as the Tribeca Film Festival. Lauri Saft is director at IBM Watson Ecosystem. Since Watson, the supercomputer, never makes public appearances, Saft had been asked to speak on his behalf, for a program of talks loosely based on the theme of “imagination.” Saft wears her hair in a wavy blond bob and tends to dress in black. “Film and artists and creative people and narratives—that is the essence of what Watson handles best,” she said, mid-fest. “Words and language and sentiment and ideas, right? That’s what Watson does for a living.” Perhaps one day, Watson will be running a film studio.

The essential question is, what exactly is Watson? Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM’s DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson’s name comes from IBM’s first CEO and industrialist Thomas J. Watson. The computer system was specifically developed to answer questions on the quiz show Jeopardy! In 2011, Watson competed on Jeopardy! against former winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, and received the first place prize of $1 million.

(7) HOIST THE JOLLY ROGER. And then there are Space Pirates! From “Tom Corbett Space Cadet Push-Outs”  at Dreams of Space – Books and Ephemera.

I try every year to have a Christmas posting. Sometimes it is something Christmas related and others it is a toy for my readers. This is one of the most beautiful punch-out or push-out books I know of. Even though it is not children’s non-fiction it evokes the early 1950s vision of space. Plus everyone needs some toy rayguns and other gear for their own space cosplay over the holidays. Enjoy!

 

1952TomCobettPushOuts06

(8) HE WAS THERE. Jack Robins, the last surviving Futurian from the Wollheim side of the divide, says they were much nicer fellows than described by all those nasty fanhistorians. See “The Futurians – A Personal Experience” in The National Fantasy Fan for December 2015. (The issue is not online yet, but eventually will show up here at eFanzines.)

I believe I am the last living member of the Wollheim group of Futurians. But as a science fictionist, I am also a modern type of Futurian who is confident that mankind has a future, that global warming will be resolved before the tipping point (where temperatures keep rising out of control), that new sources of energy, such as Fusion, will become prevalent; and that new forms of space propulsion will be developed so that a trip to Mars would take only a week or two, not months.

PART ONE — THE ISA

I read the article by David Williams and was appalled at his description of the Futurians. David Kyle and I are the only Futurians left alive and neither he nor I would have associated with the Futurians of David’s description. He described them as a mean-spirited group intent only on disrupting other organ-izations. That was not my experience at all.

The first thing I learned was that they were a very active group. One of the members, Don Wollheim, told me that some months back they wanted to prove that the future of mail delivery was that it could be sent by rocket. They tied some letters to a rocket, sent it up at the border of anoth-er city and collected the mail. “So what did you do with the mail?” I asked. “Whatever letters weren’t burned we mailed in the nearest mail box,” was the reply. I read later that the police warned them against any further rocket demonstrations.

(9) RECOMMENDED SHORT. Redheadedfemme urges all to watch Hybrids. The blurb on the YouTube site reads —

Enjoy this fantastic Sci-Fi short film by the talented Patrick Kalyn! In the wake of an alien infestation, an ex-special forces soldier’s daughter is killed in an alien attack. Seeking revenge, she leads a team deep into alien territory to a quarantined lab. Soon, she discovers the aliens aren’t alien at all, but a failed government experiment to create a bio-hybrid soldier. She must then expose the governments cover-up and save the last standing city in the quarantined zone from falling.

 

(10) A DOUBTER. Vox Day responded to yesterday’s puppy post by George R.R. Martin on Vox Popoli.

Is it a Christmas miracle? Has Mr. Martin’s heart grown three sizes? It is an inspiration, is it not?

For my part, I will certainly pledge that when the time comes to make the recommendations for Rabid Puppies 2, there will not be a single reference to CHORFS and ASPS, to Puppykickers, or even to SJWs. There will be no negativity nor will any nominations be urged for the purposes of inspiring rapid cranial expansion; any head-exploding that happens to take place in response to the RP2 recommendations will be entirely unintended on my part.

I trust that all of the responses to those recommendations, by Mr. Martin and others, will be similarly restrained.

(11) TWO MORE GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON OBITS. Many appreciations have been posted since Johnson died earlier today.

Johnson was a longtime advocate for the legalization of marijuana and in his later years wrote comic books and was a frequent guest at sci-fi and comics conventions. He co-created the comic book series “Deepest Dimension Terror Anthology” with cartoonist and author Jay Allen Sanford.

“He had a special place in his heart for all of his fans, who sustained him and gave him a forum to share thoughts at a million miles a second,” his son said.

In a 2003 interview for the Archive of American Television, Johnson said, “I want to be remembered as a person who early on in his life took control of his life and set goals. When people gave me a lined paper, I wrote the other way. When people expect some certain behavior from me, I will frustrate their expectations.”

Although not widely known outside of science-fiction circles, Johnson was revered among fans of the genre for his work, which also included collaborating with Ray Bradbury on the 1962, Oscar-nominated, animated short film “Icarus Montgolfier Wright.”

A popular figure at science-fiction conventions for decades, the soft-spoken but friendly author was instantly recognizable for his long, flowing white hair and beard, as well as what might best be described as his hippie attire.

And here is the tribute to Johnson now on display at Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale.

Mystery & Imagination display dedicated to George Clayton Johnson. Photo by John King Tarpinian.

Mystery & Imagination display dedicated to George Clayton Johnson. Photo by John King Tarpinian.

(12) XMAS PASSINGS. In addition to George Clayton Johnson (2015), notables who passed away on Christmas Day include James Brown (2006), Dean Martin (1995), Charlie Chaplin (1977), and W.C. Fields (1946).

(13) STAR WARS CHARACTER INSPIRED BY TEACHER. “’Star Wars’ Character Based on Late Pali High English Teacher, Abrams Tells Palisadian-Post”:

Director J. J. Abrams, a Pacific Palisades resident and graduate of Palisades Charter High School, revealed to his hometown newspaper the Palisadian-Post that he based one of the characters in his box office record-breaking ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ on… [Rose] Gilbert, who was known to her students as ‘Mama G’… When she announced her retirement in 2013 at the age of 94, Gilbert was the oldest full-time teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and one of the oldest in the country.

David Feldman (author of the Imponderables books) says he took her classes, too.

And I wonder if any of the Hollander brothers did – LASFS members who also attended Pali High while she was on faculty.

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

94 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 12/25 All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Pixel Scrolls

  1. I’m a little uncomfortable with the lists which rank stories by number of recommendations.

    They suggest the sort of join-the-bandwagon-vote-the-winnaz approach favored by the Puppies.

    I much prefer to see recommended stories in some sort of alphabetical or other neutral order, without even saying how many people recommended them, so that people are better able to read them themselves and make up their own minds.

  2. @Peace is My Middle Name: I’m a little uncomfortable with the lists which rank stories by number of recommendations.

    I am also uncomfortable with any sort of list that includes ranking. Part of it is an aversion to joining bandwagons, but I think it’s also concern that I might not be able to entirely ignore someone else’s hierarchy. People talking about what they love and why works for me, a ranked order does not.

  3. Obligatory mention that I too have a favorites list.

    As for Radiance, I’m afraid I’ll be the dissenter from the enthusiasm that several people expressed here. Carherynne Valente’s writing can always be described with the word “excessive”, and although I am sometimes entertained by it, it more often it gets on my nerves. The worst offenders were the sections supposedly written by the screenwriter Vincenza Mako — I suppose the directing and cinematography must have been really good to turn her words into hit movies, but alas the reader doesn’t have that aid to get through her bad noir, bad gothic, and bad fairy tale stylings. Also a couple of unbearably coy gossip columnists. Also a whole cast of unlikable characters. Also a nonsensical plot — the revelation at the end is jus WTF? The one saving grace is Severin herself, the best narrative voice. If she’d narrated the whole thing I might — might! — not have gotten so irritated.

  4. @vasha

    re: Catherynne Valente

    I think her prose works better at shorter lengths. For instance, this story I just read, from the Queers Destroy Fantasy special issue, The Lily and the Horn. It’s gorgeous, and Hugo-eligible (and on my long list). But I don’t know if I could take that prose style for an entire book.

  5. Vasha: As for Radiance, I’m afraid I’ll be the dissenter from the enthusiasm that several people expressed here. Catherynne Valente’s writing can always be described with the word “excessive”, and although I am sometimes entertained by it, it more often it gets on my nerves.

    I’m afraid to even pick it up. When Palimpsest was nominated for a Hugo some years ago, I struggled through the turgid prose for about 20% of the book, then gave up in despair (and I only very rarely do not finish books, maybe 2 or 3 out of 150 in a year). It just seemed as though it was all about the lavish prose and not really about a story.

    Which makes me sad, because I’ve seen Valente in person a couple of times at panels at cons, and she’s incredibly bright and funny.

    Having said that, like redheadedfemme, I’ve read and enjoyed some of Valente’s shorter fiction.

  6. My problem with the Sad Puppies can perhaps best be expressed in terms of the way the U.S. 2016 presidential race has progressed so far and is likely to continue.

    In the existing head-to-head polls, Clinton defeats Trump pretty easily. By Puppy logic, that means everybody should vote for Clinton so their ballot will be cast for the winner… regardless of qualifications, positions, or anything else. That’s what the SP4 “nominate from the top of our list” directive amounts to, and it’s why I find slates so repulsive.

    It’s also interesting that several of the “in the dust” GOP candidates do better against Clinton than Trump does… meaning that nominating the frontrunner isn’t always the best choice if your goal is to win the election. In fact, booting Trump from the field looks like the best tactical move the GOP could make at this stage; it increases their chances of nominating a winning candidate.

    From what I can see, the Sad Puppies correspond to Trump voters (GOP frontrunner), the Rabid Puppies are voting for Huckabee (low-end GOP) or Deez Nuts (actual candidate, but ineligible), and the non-Puppies are studying the position papers to see who they like most. Meanwhile, both sets of Puppies look at the lines of voters and see a conspiracy of people organized to write in “Karl Marx.”

    I’d much rather see people follow the “pick the best” model than “pick from spite” or “pick the likely winner.” To me, any strategy besides “nominate the best” is a compromise; you’re giving other people power over a decision that should be yours alone, for no good reason. It’s not even social signaling, because the groups being signaled to can’t see your ballot. It’s like preferring Sanders on policy but voting for Trump to shock your friends… then refusing to say who you voted for. It doesn’t achieve your social goal and subverts your political preferences. Where’s the upside?

  7. If it’s more of a recommendation list than a ‘Vote For This’ list I’d even check it out because he’s well read and I always find it interesting to see what people recommend and why. Finding stuff I might never have heard of otherwise can be a great thing.

    Nothing rabid about that. Which is why I doubt it’ll happen. Also how will his legion of alpha males know who to vote for if he doesn’t tell them?

  8. Tear yourself away from the holiday celebrations for a little while and vote in the Finals of the Science Fiction Movie Bracket! The competing films for the top spot are different enough that I expect most people will have a clear preference, but in case you thought you were going to get away without using up any headcloths one of the bonus questions is a tough one – rank your five best science fiction films. I don’t know about anyone else but I had to indulge in some wailing and gnashing of teeth to cut it down to five.

    Temeraire reread + reading the two last ones all finished now (pyvss unatre! *juvzcre*) so I’ll be back to the Hugo reading refreshed and revitalised. Looking forward to it. 🙂

  9. I’m always so impressed with people who can read more than 100 books per year. I always seem to have a mid-year slump that completely ruins my year’s reading goals. That, combined with moving to SE Asia and various other things, mean I’ve only read 60ish books so far, and there isn’t a hell of a lot of time left to increase that number. Thank god my girlfriend loves to read too or I might never get any reading done!

    Oh, and of those 60, probably 10 or so were volumes of comics, too… (and on that note I got the Lumberjanes comics from the latest Humble Bundle so I might give those a go later today)

    On a related note I’m planning to try the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge next year. Looks fun, and may even open some doors into things I’d never have considered before!

  10. Actually, the reason Watson won on J! Was that the buzzer system was effectively rigged in its favor. Since it had no speech or visual recognition ability at all, clues were sent to it electronically. It then worked to figure out the clue and a response. When Alex finished reading the clue and the buzzers were unlocked, Watson was electronically notified. If it felt it had determined a correct response, it instantaneously activated its mechanical buzzer pusher.

    This meant Watson always had perfect buzzer response. It never had to worry about penalties for buzzing too early, and it would always buzz as fast as possible if it thought it knew the correct response. Fairer would have been to figure out Ken and Brad’s average time lag after they could possibly buzz in and add an appropriate smart random delay to Watson’s buzzer activation.

  11. Oneiros: I’m always so impressed with people who can read more than 100 books per year. I always seem to have a mid-year slump that completely ruins my year’s reading goals.

    Joining the File770 community has certainly cut into mine this year; I’m on track to do around 120 books by the 31st.

    Not that I’m complaining, mind you. This is a pretty wonderful place, and you all are pretty special people (some more “special” than others 😉 ).

  12. JJ:

    My at the time short Hugo related review for Palimset was:

    Modern Lit wannabe with lots of meaningless sex, beautiful but meaningless prose and an obscure meaningless ending. Hated it.

  13. I first noticed Blessed as Augustus when the series aired here in the US, which was a bit after it was in the UK and a bit before GORDON’S ALIVE!!! which I guess is where he decided shouty was the way to go with the rest of his career. Which, hey, he’s not wrong and it’s been fun for all.

    @Greg H: That’s what I thought from my vast experience of AI (six months in the late 80’s). Watson just searches faster and doesn’t really synthesize. It’s not really an expert system and it won’t ask for “Cat Pictures Please”. And @Tom G that too! It didn’t have to hear the question, then process, then hit the button. If it had the built-in delay of taking in the question answer word by word, and then had to activate a robot arm to hit the buzzer (or had a human-length delay built in), it would have done very badly.

    “Moderation” for Teddy means he doesn’t actually commit any of the felonies and acts against persons he’d like to do, he just talks them up a lot and wink-nudges his Elk to do and say stuff. And notice he’s “cleverly” Aristotled a tiny list of words he won’t use, leaving the whole rest of the language open for his slanders and lies. He’s still gonna come up with lists of five (heh) all published by his vanity press.

    @Rev Bob: good analogy.

    And while I love long lists, properly crowd-sourced to the entire public, I agree they shouldn’t be ranked by how many votes. Alphabetical order by title is my preference, though ordering by author is okay too. And 15-20 is a good length for a list in the more populated categories, like Short Story and Novel; Editor is of course going to be a shorter list. Just me personally has about 10 on my short story list of possibles, and I have only crowdsourced to me.

    @people who don’t like “Radiance”: You’re wrong. 😉 No, but seriously, I hated “Palimpsest” (at least the part I could struggle through) but “Radiance” dragged me right along the whole time. I think having the different POVs, which necessitates somewhat different styles (struggling actresses, hard-boiled detectives, Space Whales) makes it effectively a collection of shorter works.

  14. I still wish they would’ve brought in Brian Blessed to be the voice of Treebeard. He would’ve had to have been less shouty than usual, but I think he really could’ve nailed it.

  15. Happy post-holiday, holiday, or pre-holiday depending on what you celebrate, or don’t! Or just an early Happy New Year! In addition to the novels I got for Xmas (squee!), one other SFF gift I received was “The Star Wars Kama Sutra” – done with action figures and as silly as it sounds. 😉

    (10) A DOUBTER. What’s “ASPS” mean? A new insulting acronym? I’ve once again mislaid my Puppy-to-English dictionary.

    (12) XMAS PASSINGS. I didn’t realize so many famous people passed away the same day (ETA: in various years) as one of my grandfathers (ETA: many years ago).

  16. WRT the Radiance dissenters… I think it’s safe to say that Valente writes with a very definite voice of her own. A distinctive voice. Not bland or generic. Her writing has, as it were, a strong flavour to it.

    If something’s strongly flavoured, it’s not going to be to everyone’s taste. Or, to take another metaphor, her voice (which sounds lyrical and melodious to me) might grate on someone else’s ear. It’s all a matter of taste. Personally, I like lavish prose (though I have more sense than to try writing it myself), and so Valente’s style works for me. De gustibus non est disputandum and all that.

    (I’d still rather have Cat Valente writing lavish prose than J. Random Skiffyauthor #543531 writing undistinguished space opera. Others may disagree, and that’s fine with me.)

  17. Tintinaus: My at the time short Hugo related review for Palimpsest

    Thanks for that, Tintinaus. It’s good to know I’m not the only one. At the time, I was seriously wondering what was wrong with me that everyone else seemed to be so ga-ga over that book, and I was so very much… not.

  18. Steve Wright: her voice (which sounds lyrical and melodious to me)

    Oh, it sounds like that to me, too. But I can only eat a very small amount of cotton candy at one sitting — it’s sweet but it quickly grows cloying, and is lacking in substance and unsatisfying.

  19. @JJ: I can eat cotton candy all day long, which explains a lot about my physique.

    Just out of interest, do you have any opinions (either way) on E.R. Eddison or Lawrence Durrell? (Two long-standing favourites of mine, both with notably non-bland prose styles.)

  20. JJ said:

    When Palimpsest was nominated for a Hugo some years ago, I struggled through the turgid prose for about 20% of the book, then gave up in despair (and I only very rarely do not finish books, maybe 2 or 3 out of 150 in a year). It just seemed as though it was all about the lavish prose and not really about a story.

    Another Valente dissenter here. Palimpsest moved along better for me than it did for JJ, but I too was frustrated by the lack of story.
    Though, having actually finished it, I can report that stuff does actually eventually happen. Somewhere past page 300, IIRC.

  21. Steve Wright: Just out of interest, do you have any opinions (either way) on E.R. Eddison or Lawrence Durrell?

    I’ve not read either of them. Bear in mind that my drug of choice is science fiction. I can take or leave Tolkien (one reading of The Lord of the Rings was fine, but more than sufficient) and C.S. Lewis leaves me cold. I’ve enjoyed the Neil Gaiman books I’ve read, but don’t get why some people are so ga-ga over them. I don’t care for horror much. I don’t know what all the fuss is about Lovecraft; I don’t find his writing either scary or terribly interesting.

    I have read some fantasy that I really liked, such as Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy and Dreamblood Duology. I have been amazed at how much I like Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series. I read the PERN and Darkover and Zelazny’s Amber series when I was young and enjoyed them immensely, enough to have re-read them several times (though I note that all have science-fictional aspects). I enjoyed the Song of Ice and Fire and Wheel of Time series the first two times I read them all, but I’m frankly over them at this point. (And I was well over Harry Potter before Harry Potter was over.)

    I think it’s just that I’m far more into SF than Fantasy, and for me all the flowery prose in the world isn’t enough if there’s not a good story behind it.

  22. @JJ – fair enough: I was just wondering what you might make of two other notably (ahem) florid writers.

    (Durrell, of course, is officially Mainstream Literature, although his two-parter Revolt of Aphrodite – individual novels Tunc and Nunquam – is sometimes called SF. It’s certainly got an SFnal idea at the centre of it.)

  23. Oneiros: I’m always so impressed with people who can read more than 100 books per year. I always seem to have a mid-year slump that completely ruins my year’s reading goals.

    JJ: Joining the File770 community has certainly cut into mine this year; I’m on track to do around 120 books by the 31st.

    Assuming no glitches, I should have read and reviewed 330 works by Dec 31.

    Be interesting to see how badly being Vice for FASS eats into my pace.

  24. Assuming no glitches, I should have read and reviewed 330 works by Dec 31.

    Be interesting to see how badly being Vice for FASS eats into my pace.

    Ho.ly.c.r.a.p! That’s pretty amazing.

  25. @James

    Assuming no glitches, I should have read and reviewed 330 works by Dec 31.

    What really impresses me is your about equal ratio in male/female author for those books.

  26. Joe H. on December 26, 2015 at 8:52 pm said:
    I still wish they would’ve brought in Brian Blessed to be the voice of Treebeard. He would’ve had to have been less shouty than usual, but I think he really could’ve nailed it.

    James Earl Jones.

  27. When you can’t get BRIAN BLESSED! for something, you get his lower-cost equivalent, John Rhys-Davies (Think about it — stout bluff shouty British guy; some of their lesser roles could be interchangeable). Particularly when JR-D is already hanging about under contract. But he would have been a swell Treebeard, putting some of that elderly Augustus tone into it.

  28. Tasha Turner: What really impresses me is your about equal ratio in male/female author for those books.

    I admire this very much also. Sadly, it does take a real effort to do this, because books by female authors are so much less likely to be published, reviewed, and promoted than those written by men.

    I made a real effort to do this, and I’m still only hitting 45%.

  29. When you can’t get BRIAN BLESSED! for something, you get his lower-cost equivalent, John Rhys-Davies

    I’d thought it went the other way – Indiana Jones had Rhys-Davies, Flash Gordon could only afford Blessed.

    And having watched the 1940 Flash Gordon as it was meant to be seen – one episode a week on Saturday morning – I’m not sure where it goes on my Hugo list. It was fun overall, although the heroes got hit with the Idiot Bat in the last few episodes (Ming’s top agents had *much* less trouble escaping from Flash than Flash did from Ming, and the gap between “Ming thinks we’re dead, we have an advantage” to accidentally blabbing it over unsecured radio is appallingly short). There was also a clever bit of back masking when they needed aliens speaking an incomprehensible language, but no single episode stood out.

  30. One of my favorite Brian Blessed appearances is as both Dukes in the As You Like It with Bryce Dallas Howard. It’s an odd AYLI in other ways, although the art direction is gorgeous, and only the fact that they look identical clues you in that the same actor is playing both the good Duke and the usurper. He’s fun in the Branagh Much Ado, too.

    I very much enjoyed Radiance, but its alt-Hollywood swirliness and the Citizen Kaney multiple narrators/fragmented mystery structure are right up my alley. I can see why the very things I enjoyed might not hit a sweet spot for others, but it certainly worked for me.

  31. JJ, yes, I’ve discovered I need to actually pay attention to f/t or my reviews are dominated by the works that get the most noise, books by men. I would like to think I am above being influenced by institutionalized patriarchy but nope.

    The upside of making that effort is that when I put books by women on hold at the library, I never have to wait half as long as for books by men. Still waiting on Saturn Run but the de Bodard showed up almost immediately.

    I think my year end stats will be this:
    Total for the year 330.
    F/T 59%
    Total for writers of colour (using the “Assuming a Trump Presidency, could their race be used to justify deporting them from the US, even in the cases of people who were born in the US’’ for edge cases): 46 (14%) for the year (I can do better).

    I have finally spotted the edit link on Patreon so my Patreon page looks less crappy than it did. I hesitate to link to it here.

  32. Hmm, of my 62 books read so far this year, 26 or so were written by women. I’m currently reading Masks by Enchi Fumiko so I expect that number will be 27 of 63 before the year is done.

    Not a bad ratio, considering I’ve been doing nothing to consciously promote the reading of female authors.

  33. Oh, I should probably add that this was slightly skewed by the fact that I had to read all of Lauren Beukes’s novels in the last couple of months. She is way too good at what she does.

  34. @Oneiros:

    My numbers are rather similar to yours at 26/65, but that’s skewed a bit by Seanan McGuire’s short fiction in the InCryptid setting. (I’m counting “anything that gets an entry in Goodreads” – which includes a good bit of short work.) My total-read number is usually about double that, closer to 160 than 60, but this has been a weird year for me.

  35. I have read very few novels this year, but over 500 short works. I can’t access the overall numbers righrt now, but out of the 170 that I rated 4 or 5 stars, 62 were by men (and five by nonbinary people).

  36. I haven’t kept close track of absolutely everything I’ve read this year (in particular, I don’t necessarily track short fiction in a way that’s easy to count), but here are some stats:

    Non-fiction read and summarized for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project: 36 publications (both books and individual articles). Gender of authors would take some digging, but gender of subject matter can be guessed at easily.

    I’ve read other non-fiction as well, primarily research materials for my various fiction projects.

    Novels & Novellas (mostly SFF and historical), mostly new but a couple of re-reads: 22 (100% female authors, and yes, this is not accidental but neither is it a strict rule). I’ll probably be doing a sum-up post on my year’s reading on my blog this Friday (Friday being my usual review-posting day).

    Looked at that way, I guess my reading schedule hasn’t been entirely as pathetic as one might think. It’s just that it skews a bit toward the non-fiction side.

  37. Ok, book length works read this year (nonfiction, romance, sff, gaphic novels, others): 69. Number of those by men: 17.

  38. According to Goodreads my stats for 2015 total 288
    Female 252
    Male 33
    Non-binary 3
    Intersection info:
    POC 21
    LGBT 17
    Anthology/Magazine 3 finished 10 currently reading including women & queers destroy series

    Goodreads misses most of my short fiction and physical books where my male and POC reading is higher – Kickstarter anthologies and magazines and comics & library books. I’m sure my POC, LGBT, & non-binary reading is higher – I went by memory so it would only include authors who have been vocal in a way it stuck in my memory or pictures. I didn’t go through the anthologies to do author counts.

  39. I don’t keep track of my reading — I average a book a day, or the short fiction equivalent. At a guess, I’m running 60-40 dudes. Much, much worse percentage on PoC, though I have been trying. Gender and orientation I dunno either, but the queerness percentage is definitely way up this year, particularly in shorter fiction.

    As far as quality, my Hugo ballot is running about 80% women.

  40. I don’t keep good track of what I read. I record that I read it, but just noticed right now that there’s also a last-read-date field; sigh. So for 2015, it’s easiest for me to track books acquired and read, but not as much books previously acquired but read in 2015. Anyway, I’m surprised how the new/reread numbers come out. BTW most of my rereads are via audiobook.

    Written by Women: 12 new-to-me; 9 audio rereads
    Written by Men: 5 new-to-me; 7 audio rereads

    Other Characteristics: Probably mostly cis straight white authors, but I’m not really sure in some cases (especially re. sexuality). On the other paw, 9ish? books had GLBT characters and 4ish? had PoC protaganists (and/or significant supporting characters) – again, counting audio rereads. Guesstimating.

    This doesn’t include a few books I read/heard this year but bought longer ago. The new year is a good time to start keeping better track, I guess. 😉 Now that I know that date field is there!

    As few books as I read compared to some of you, my stats may be considered statistically insignificant. In 1979, I don’t really grok stats.

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