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One of my favorite writers, H. Allen Smith, wrote a book titled, People Named Smith, which is just what it sounds like. He also dedicated it to everyone named Smith, noting that dedicatees will often buy a copy of a book, and that if even a fraction of them did, well, he’d be happy.
The other dedication of his that I particularly liked was when he dedicated 10% of a book to his agent.
@Mark Cora Buhlert on Why we celebrate that so many women and writers of colour won Hugos
Thanks for sharing. It’s a great read. Lots of good points.
Your confusion on this matter was (part of) the intended result. Norton used that given name to conceal from her target audience that she was a woman.
It took her about thirty years to get around to writing a novel focusing on a woman: the reaction was sadly reminiscent of a certain collection of infant dogs:
I saw a retweet almost immediately bragging that “The Midwest just shrugged off a 5.6M earthquake to start its Saturday. Hit us up when you can do tornadoes and blizzards, Cali.”
I restrained myself because I do not want to contribute to regional bickering especially at times of stress. But events covered what I would have said if I had not restrained myself: later the same day there was a report of a 5.6 earthquake off the coast that nobody noticed. Because, while the press calls 5.6 “moderately strong,” earthquake country residents call 5.6 a snooze, usually, depending on, as was mentioned upthread, exactly where it hits, whether the geometry of events magnifies the effect.
My concerns with Oklahoma having earthquakes are several, though.One is this: I’ve always expected that places that “don’t have earthquakes” will eventually have them, and it’s scary because–since they don’t have earthquakes–they don’t have earthquake-ready building codes and emergency procedures. Despite the dearth of coverage, it looks like they don’t have a lot of immediate damage (do they not have reporters in Oklahoma? if something this unusual and fraught happened in California–which would not be a 5.6 earthquake–it would be all over the net). But, and this is my other big concern: they do have a lot of not very regulated oil and gas industry lying around, and I’m worried about containment. Good for the governor! She’s ordered the disposal wells to shut down, using her emergency authority. And that leads to my third concern–we’ve been saying for years that this was a danger of fracking (along with the other problems), but instead of listening, the states have been making it harder to regulate. So I worry that Oklahoma is going to be joined by a lot of other places that “don’t have earthquakes.”
I have to share this article: https://www.gq.com/story/inside-federal-bureau-of-way-too-many-guns
Its about how guns are actualkly traced. Its a tangent on the discussions here, I know, but Its very interesting. Considering they are not allowed to use computers. Maybe someone uses the info in a novelish thing… 🙂
Hopefully someone will submit a story about an empowered female lead who does her thing in a plush costume with the title I misread it as.
As a native Californian who lived most of my life there before moving next door to Nevada in 2011, I look at all of the un-reinforced brick buildings in the Midwest and think, “Lovely buildings, but all of this is going to fall right over the next time the New Madrid fault ruptures.”
Kevin Standlee on September 4, 2016 at 9:00 am said:
Frisbie was commuting from LA to Dayton via St Louis one year (long story, not relevant), and his comment on the region was “The world market for used brick is not that big.”
I saw a retweet almost immediately bragging that “The Midwest just shrugged off a 5.6M earthquake to start its Saturday. Hit us up when you can do tornadoes and blizzards, Cali.”
We have those, too. (The tornadoes might be smaller, but they still hit sheet metal remarkably often. As for blizzards: Donner Pass.)
While I want someone to submit a story with a female lead who is a cardboard cutout, but only literally.
David Barnette at The New Statesman gets the prize for “best short description of the Puppies” — an unedifying tale almost as tangled as Racefail. The depth of scorn expressed in that single word “unedifying” is breathtaking.
Also, here’s what passes for “logic” in Puppyville, from a comment on Camestros’ blog:
I’m comparing the bland pedestrian and forgettable fanfic book to the nightmare-on-a-bun NKJ book. One of them is not like the other. Therefore politics plays a role in the awarding of the hugo.
Can you say “non-sequitur”, boys and girls? I knew you could.
Only a couple of hours left until the Dragon Awards results, I think.
Let’s see how many items from Vox Day’s published ballot (which was not an order to his minions because “Dragon Con is no enemy”) wins:
1. Best Science Fiction Novel
Somewhither by John C. Wright
2. Best Fantasy Novel
Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel
Changeling’s Island by Dave Freer
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel
Hell’s Foundations Quiver by David Weber
5. Best Alternate History Novel
League of Dragons by Naomi Novik
6. Best Apocalyptic Novel
Ctrl Alt Revolt! by Nick Cole
7. Best Horror Novel
Souldancer by Brian Niemeier
8. Best Comic Book
–
9. Best Graphic Novel
The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series
Game of Thrones – HBO
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
Deadpool
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game
Metal Gear Solid V by Konami Digital Entertainment
13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game
Fallout Shelter
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game
Talon
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game
Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game (7th Edition)
That’s quite a list of fan favorites and top earners in SFF.
Andrew M:
I actually thought there were three of them:
1. Gur zntvp Jnaq bs Cebgrpgvba if Fcnpr Gragnpyrf.
2. Gur zntvp Qveg bs Urnyvat.
3. Gur zntvp fcryy Unve gb Gragnpyrf.
I’m very glad to have my estimate of hundreds dead in the Loma Prieta quake to less than 100, with 42 on the Cypress structure. A friend’s husband was one of the rescuers climbing around on the collapsed freeway looking for survivors trapped in their cars. Very dystopian and scary.
The SFCC was large and crowded and exhausting, and full of cool art. Much younger crowd than Worldcon, and a very diverse crowd too. Soooo many Harley Quinns and Jokers.
My big fluffy cat is even fussier than me when it comes to travel, and the folks at the vet’s office love boarding him so much that they like to remind me when I need a vacation. He also tends to collect spectators whenever I bring him out of the house, and he has a terror-inducing effect on many dogs, startling them into hysterical barking fits, so he’s not very good at public appearances. But SJ isn’t too far, so we might head down for the SJCC and/or 2018 Worldcon.
Isn’t that basically Mannequin?
@ John A Arkansawyer
The SSN data is purely by spelling — no lumping of names that are variants of each other. (In fact, a lot of the data processing I had to do to make it usable for my research involved identifying “name groups”. Not necessarily spellings that are variants of the same name, but ones where the superficial sound/appearance shaded into each other.
@ Bruce Baugh
Writing it under a pen name might have something to do with that! At the time I wrote it, I thought I was going to continue doing more academic publishing in onomastics, and didn’t want the millstone of a baby-name book hanging around my neck. Life went in a different direction, and there really wasn’t any need for the pseudonym. There are a lot of Easter Eggs for SFF fans in the “examples of real world people with this name”.
@Lee
Also, here’s what passes for “logic” in Puppyville, from a comment on Camestros’ blog:
I’m comparing the bland pedestrian and forgettable fanfic book to the nightmare-on-a-bun NKJ book. One of them is not like the other. Therefore politics plays a role in the awarding of the hugo.
I would bet you real money that commenter is Our Beloved Phantom, who was eventually, if I recall correctly, banned here for being an ass. He has since taken it upon himself to bedevil Camestros, who shows far more patience and forbearance than I would.
@spacefaringkitten
Mr Beale picked Deadpool as his favorite SFF movie? Great Ghu. I tried to watch that and could not finish it. To me, it was the living embodiment of John Scalzi’s phrase, “The failure mode of clever is asshole.”
@ Steve Wright: It’s also painfully obvious that at least some of the Puppies don’t understand the concept of “not everything you like has to be exactly the same”. Apparently a taste for snarky humor rules out any possibility that you might like dark fantasy, and vice versa. It’s like the kids in my 7th-grade class who, having heard me say that I liked classical music, were stunned to find out that I also liked rock.
Re Paulk’s racist comments: this is pretty much just a bog-standard regurgitation of every anti-affirmative-action claim ever made. Funny how they never realize that all those claims apply just as well (or even more strongly) to white folks who get the shinies because of race-based privilege rather than on merit. Oh, but I forgot — anything a white person does automagically has more merit than a comparable thing done by a PoC. *ptui*
@JJ: I’ll definitely follow your good advice and watch the SciFi4Me interview with Paulk (which indeed I haven’t seen).
Please note that I made no comment on Ms. Paulk’s good faith or lack of same generally. I merely said I wouldn’t be so quick as Kurt was to rush to judgement on her passing rhetoric at the Business Meeting — that he reached a conclusion of ‘hypocrisy’ only by attributing the noisiest of the Puppy crowd’s WSFS nihilism to her personally, along with making an uncharitable interpretation of her Business Meeting remark.
My point is: In my experience, it’s useful to try to figure out where people are (figurative) coming from, irrespective of whether you like them or their deeds, and true dishonesty is rarer than many would assume. Being too quick to assume dishonesty is the express route to failing, IMO.
That having been said, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t ‘get’ Paulk. (Maybe I’m better off.)
(I’m also inclined to give people a 80% forgiveness allowance on overblown polemics of the moment. Most of the time.)
I think “nightmare-on-a-bun” is an apt description for Fifth Season, and high praise indeed. But then I’ve mentioned before how many of the things I love kick me repeatedly in the feels.
As for the “bland pedestrian and forgettable fanfic book”? I had to look up the finalists because I’d already forgotten The Aeronaut’s Windlass. Whoops.
@Soon Lee: I’m very helpful! Even when the situation does not call for it 😉
tl;dr I was in a minor biggish earthquake once, in Beverly Hills; I don’t understand the Sad Puppies; books are good.
My first (and only) big earthquake was while staying at a hotel in Beverly Hills. We were attending a comic convention, which is weird, now that I think of it, because what comic convention was held in Beverly Hills? This must’ve been between 2000 and 2004 or so. Measured 6.0, IIRC, with an epicenter pretty far away in the middle of nowhere. It was around 3am. Not having cable at home, I was enjoying the premium cable (HBO?) that came with the hotel room when the room started swaying. After a few seconds I started worrying, so I woke up my girlfriend, and said “I think this is an earthquake.” Her response was something along the lines of “Yeah, I think so. Go to sleep,” and she turned over and fell back asleep.
I have no idea how to communicate with the SPs. I occasionally have tried, having read something Paulk or Torgersen et. al. has written where they claim to want to get along, but also claim they are subject to constant abuse and mockery. Regardless how mild I am, how much I try to engage in a reasonable conversation with them, they react as if I’m invading their safe space and attacking them. I am definitely guilty of making snarky comments about the SPs here, and probably on MGC or other SP hangouts back before I realized that was self-defeating, but my most extreme comments about them do not come close to the vitriol some of the SP leaders (particularly Torgersen) unleashes regularly.
I waffle between thinking the SPs are honest but have extremely faulty memories, or that they are purely opportunistic liars attempting to gain publicity, or that I’m so completely immersed in confirmation bias that, even suspecting that I am, I can’t even see my way out of it. Most likely, it’s a combination of all three.
But I also loved the Ancillary series. And found “The Fifth Season” to be even better. I had honestly forgotten that Jemisin is the author VD had slurred several years back until I read it somewhere recently (I knew her name, and knew she was reviled by some pups, but didn’t remember why. “The Fifth Season” is the first Jemisin I recall reading, though I’ve meant to check her out for a while, so I didn’t have any strong associations with her name). I hated “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” with a passion, thought “Binti” had good worldbuilding, was well-written, and ultimately failed, do not think Sebastien de Castell should have gone under No Award, etc., etc.. My opinions don’t fall in line with what the SPs believe I believe. And I absolutely know that I like what I claim to like. I’m there in my head while I’m reading it. Some books are a slog. If “The Fifth Season” had been a boring slog with unlikable characters*, full of virtue signalling about climate change and race and that the mens are all evil, I would have bounced right the Hell off of it.
And I also don’t pay much attention to the race/sexuality/religion/sex/gender/age of authors I read. There was a while when I made a point of seeking out female authors, because I noticed my “should really check this author out someday” list had a large female::male ratio, but nowadays I’ve found this insane fountain of recommendations far beyond the realm of my local bookstore, and I barely have time to gather up the most interesting-sounding works, let alone worry about the author’s credentials, SJW or otherwise.
* This is a tough one. I very much enjoyed Abercrombie’s First Law series, and almost all of the characters in that series are horrible people who are likable when you are in their heads, as long as you don’t think about what they’re getting up to. And I love “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” So I may have a fondness for unlikable characters.
@junego Has he considered “New Scientist”? I’m pretty sure I remember them covering the origional just “Elite” in some depth.
@Nancy Sauer
It was my first ever earthquake, and though the effect here in Lincoln was minor and brief it was still pretty weird.
Earthquakes are a unique experience. Growing up in California may have added to my SFnal outlook. I mean, if the durned ground isn’t stable, why should a person expect anything else to be or remain what it is at any particular moment in time. Anything can happen!
Seriously, I hope no one was hurt and nothing was badly damaged. The people denying that the fracking is causing the earthquakes remind me of the people who deny climate change. Oh, wait, they are the same people and they deny for the same reason…profit. (Well, the professional deniers, anyway.)
A thought in passing — Valentinelli’s report on that Firefly panel demonstrates that people were not just being ejected from the con for expressing unpopular opinions, nor for ordinary levels of bad behavior.
@ Soon Lee: In large parts of America, based on last name only you would be assumed to be white and from the Old Confederate states. (I have a somewhat related gender-based rant about this.)
@ Rick: I would venture to say that Paulk may have missed that point altogether because until you’ve been to a few meetings, the entire process is arcane and confusing. After the past 2 years I think I have a better understanding of why they use RRO, but holy shit it still feels like wading thru molasses! And sometimes things happen that I’m not sure I’ve parsed correctly at the time.
@ Chip: There are reputable freelance editors. I know a few, and if I ever wanted something edited I would either hire them or (if they felt that knowing me would be a conflict of interest) ask them for a recommendation.
@Paul Weimer:
Are you sure that as an earthquake? It might have been just a neighbour playing Led Zeppelin. ;->
(I don’t even check what Lucy Jones has to say until it’s around a 6.)
To be serious for a moment, one difficulty is that there’s only a loose relationship between earthquake magnitude, a logarithmic measure[1] of the amount of energy released, and local intensity (which depends as well on ground structure, distance from epicentre, and duration of shaking). One could quantify intensity using the little-referenced Mercalli scale, but hardly anyone does.
In the ’89 Loma Prieta quake, the severe S.F. Marina District damage can be explained by those buildings being on a marsh loosely filled-in with mud, sand, and (irony alert) earthquake rubble immediately following the 1906 quake, while Fort Mason next door, built on bedrock, had no damage whatsoever.
[1] Seismologists these days use the M (subscript)W scale, called the ‘seismic moment magnitude’ scale, as Charles Richter’s original scale, M (subscript)L, saturates and becomes un-useful for larger quakes.
Looks like the Beale slate is batting 100% so far at the Dragon Awards. Wright and Correia winners so far, based on the tweets I’m seeing.
Oh, wait, the Pratchett novel won in YA Novel.
So far Shepherd’s Crown is the only exception.
Yeah, it’s 6 of 7 so far now that the genius of Brian Niemeier got awarded as well. Ms. Marvel won in the comic category, though.
And Ms Marvel.
He’ll have to come up with a comic book choice next year.
Well, The Martian, Fallout 4 and Pandemic Legacy weren’t on his ballot. So not a perfect sweep.
Control or just good prognostication?
Congratulations to the Dragon Award winners. I do not look forward to the next few days (?) weeks (?) months (?) years (?) decades (?) centuries (?) of the sore winners gloating over how all the “real fans” somehow triumphed in this ongoing non-contest of imaginary butt hurt:
“IN YOUR FACE, IRRELEVANT HUGO AWARDS!!!”
“REAL FANS HAVE FINALLY BEEN ABLE TO VOTE TRUE!!!”
etc, etc, etc…
Same as it ever was.
So it goes.
Well, if the Dragon Awards become effectively the Puppy Awards, maybe they’ll leavethe Hugos alone.
@Charon D: I thank you for parodying one of my very favorite Talking Heads songs ever. True story (but aren’t they all?): In 1980 or ’81, I was a big fan of local New Wave band the Malls. I did a couple of posters and a fan club application for them I’m still proud of, but the best thing was punch cards run through the card puncher (what were those things called, anyway?) twice. On one side, it gave their name and P. O. Box (147). On the other, they said, variously, “This ain’t no party”, “This ain’t no disco”, or “This ain’t no fooling around”. God knows what happened if you tried to run one through a reader.
So the Dragon Awards came up with credible winners (so far as I can tell) in the not-fiction-books categories and a mixed bag in the fiction-book categories. Okay. That’s about what one would expect, right? Strong in their strengths and not so strong elsewhere.
I don’t suppose they mentioned anything about how many people voted or such stuff. I’d like to be wrong about that.
Chad Saxelid: Congratulations to the Dragon Award winners. I do not look forward to the next few days (?) weeks (?) months (?) years (?) decades (?) centuries (?) of the sore winners gloating over how all the “real fans” somehow triumphed in this ongoing non-contest of imaginary butt hurt:
Oh dear, has poor Chuck Tingle been pounded in the butt again?
The Dragon Awards: the choice of the alt-right.
It looks to me a bit like what happened in the nominations for the Hugos – the slate triumphs except where there is a really strong wave of support for something else.
Weber and Novik can reasonably be considered prediction. And Gaiman. Correia beating Butcher is a bit odd, but he is genuinely popular – and he was trying to get out the vote (which, to be fair, the organisers encourage people to do – it’s a very different culture from the Hugos).
But Wright? Honestly, Wright? Above Leckie and Robinson and even Gannon? What are they thinking of? This is not a serious nominee that happens to appeal to puppyish tastes; it’s pure puppyishness. It makes the award look absurd.
At this rate the SP involvement next year should bring about an improvement.
As I said: The award awards the books best aligned with their base. Thats legit. If the award will be relevant is the question. And well see about that in years to come.
Just saw a video from Worldcon in which Eric Flint describes how the Dragon Awards voter numbers will be big enough to erase all the effects of voting blocks and the like. Maybe that didn’t work out after all.
I can’t remember my first earthquake. I’ve been here since I was 5. I was lucky that the OC didn’t get any major quakes until I was an adult. (Lots of little shakers. even some where we’d file out of school and sit outside for a while.)
My first big one was in ’71, the Sylmar quake. I was living on the second floor of an apartment building with a roommate and my 18 month old son. It hit in early morning. Luckily I had pj’s on. I just had time to grab the kid and my purse and run. As I staggered past my roommate’s door, it swung open and she and her fiance were flopping around on their water bed stark staring nekkid, unable to get up. I just yelled “hurry up!” (or something equally foolish) and bounced off the walls towards the stairs. We all got out safely, although people in LA died. Our building was condemned and we had to move. I just looked it up and it was a 6.5 – 6.7 quake and we were at least 40 miles from the epicenter.
[Timothy waves fist in the air declaiming: Declan Finn, thou shalt be avenged!]
John A. Arkansawyer:
I don’t suppose they mentioned anything about how many people voted or such stuff. I’d like to be wrong about that.
They do say ‘thanks to thousands of fans who registered to vote’. Not the most informative statement they could have made, it’s true.
I guess it all depends on how the media reports it. Groundswell of opinion or ugly hijack by neo fascists?
Bear in mind that this is FPTP, which favours blocs more than IRV does. In particular, the SF Novel result may be the result of a split vote.
According to a tweet, Declan Finn accepted for JCW.
Someone pointed out that they went through in about a half an hour. Don’t they realize it’s not a proper award show if someone doesn’t make a joke about how long it’s taking?
Maybe that’s just on TV.
I actually think Vox’s minions have messed things up for the award by voting slavishly in line with his wishes. The award has been dominated by the choices of a fringe conservative loon instead of being mainstream popular choices – nothing for Jim Butcher etc.
@junego: Although I’m certainly glad nobody in your crowd was hurt in ’71 Sylmar, running outside is dangerous and exactly the wrong thing to do in an earthquake. (Instinct is not your friend, here.) Duck under something sold, or stand next to an interior wall away from potential projectiles, but dashing outside in a serious quake is rather likely to get you maimed or killed.
The old advice to stand in a doorway is now deprecated. Apparently God hates JWs. (Joke.)
Just as in the good old days — I put up a post about the Dragon Awards — First Dragon Awards Presented.
Anyone want to run a sweep on when they’ll update their webpage with the winners?
/snark