aka The Pup Who Circumnavigated Hugoland In A Slate Of His Own Making
The roundup includes Lela E. Buis, Samantha Noll, David Gerrold, Max Florschutz, Vox Day, Alexandra Erin, Jim McCoy, David Mack, Wei Ming Kam, Lis Carey, Pluviann, Chad Orzel, Bonnie McDaniel, Ursula Vernon, May Tree, Laurie Mann and less identifiable others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Jim Henley and Alexandra Erin. Update: In case you’re keeping score at home, the subtitle is similar to one previously contributed by DMS, but not identical.)
Lela E. Buis
“SJWs in space” – May 30
The Puppies debate has some interesting facets, and it’s also an unusual opportunity to observe a little human behavior. One of the main accusations of the Puppies’ spokesmen Theodore Beale (aka Vox Day), Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia is that SF&F has been taken over by social justice warriors (aka SJW) who are pushing a liberal and literary agenda while forcing out old fashioned, right-leaning SF&F. I’ve just been reading about social justice, as it turns out. According to Professor Michael Reisch the definition of social justice is fairly open to question. This mutability means that different groups tend to co-opt the activist strategy and organize to advance their own definition of what social justice really is. Clearly, the Puppies have taken on the mantle and have now become social justice warriors, the very thing they have been loving to hate.
Samantha Noll on Dispatches from the Philosophy of Science Association’s Women’s Caucus
“A War of Words and Ideas: Philosophy, Science Fiction, and the Hugo Award Controversy” – May 30
So why is this important for society in general and for philosophers of science in particular? The answer to this question may become clearer when we reflect on why fringe groups are escalating their campaigns in science-fiction and other genres aimed at disenfranchising and silencing entire groups of people. As Kameron Hurley of The Atlantic argues “the truth is that our wars of words and narrative matter, especially those that tell us what sorts of possible futures we can build—and groups like Gamergate, Sad Puppies, and Rabid Puppies understand this.” During a time where the United States is becoming ever more diverse and citizens’ views ever more liberal, the push to suppress this trend is becoming ever more rabid, to appropriately apply Beale’s terminology. Barring those writing from diverse standpoints from receiving formal recognition helps to limit the exposure of these works and thus silences the authors. This is one of the reasons why it is important for those living in a democratic and multicultural society to ensure that those like Beale and Correia are not successful.
David Gerrold on Facebook – May 29
Worldcons, as we know them, have been around since 1939. Hugos have been awarded since 1953
Thousands of people have invested an enormous amount of time and energy into keeping the traditions of the World Science Fiction Convention going. Thousands have invested an enormous amount of time and energy in developing an award system designed to acknowledge excellence in the craft.
No award system is perfect — but it’s hard to argue with a system that has recognized the excellence of Dune, Left Hand Of Darkness, Starship Troopers, Ringworld, The Stars My Destination, Dragonflight, Stand On Zanzibar, Flowers For Algernon, City On The Edge Of Forever, Aye And Gomorrah, Blink, and other works that not only represent the best of the year — they also redefine what’s possible in the genre.
To some extent, there is an element of popularity in the voting. To some extent, there is an element of promotion by publishers and authors. To a larger extent, the problem with the Hugos is that the field has gotten so big and so sprawling that it’s impossible for any fan to be as widely read as in the past. This is why recommended reading lists are a great help.
There’s also a tradition of respect in fandom.
David Gerrold on Facebook – May 29
Some people have advocated going to Amazon and Goodreads and other sites to post one-star reviews of works by authors whose views they oppose.
Please, don’t do it.
It’s a failure of integrity.
If you’ve read the work, then post your honest opinion, good or bad. But punishing an author by down-voting his/her work — that’s not fair to the author, to the work, or to readers who are looking for useful reviews.
If you’re claiming to be one of the good guys, you gotta act like it.
Max Florschutz on Unusual Things
“I’m Not a Fan of Science-Fiction and Fantasy?” – May 30
I may not be a Science-Fiction and Fantasy fan.
Which is shocking. I always thought I was one. But no, according to a lot of these posts and comments I’m seeing and reading, I am not a “fan.” Or, to use the terms that some of the insulars have started to use, I am not a “trufan,” a term which, quite honestly, reminds me quite a bit of the ridiculous amount of self-inflicted (and mostly declarative) segregation in the gaming community between the “PC Master Race” and the “Console Gaming Peasants.” The console gamers aren’t really gamers, you see. They’re just casuals.
Caitlin on Devourer of Words
“Why I am voting for the Hugo Awards this year” – May 30
In general, I am disappointed that a small number of people think they have the right to dictate what the genres of sci-fi and fantasy consist of. In particular, people like Vox Day make me physically ill, and I don’t want promising new authors with awesome new ideas to leave the genre because of them. Vox Day in particular deserves to be defended against: this is a guy who doesn’t believe women should be allowed to vote…
Vox Day onVox Popoli
You know, we’ve wondered who was going to the new Hitler ever since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proved to be such a washout in that regard. My money was on Putin, so I had absolutely no idea it would turn out to be me. Someone get Hugo Boss on the line, we’re going to need some snappy new outfits for the VFM, stat! Let’s address the issues as Mr. Flint, real deal SJW, puts them forth.
- I don’t share Hitler’s views on race, as I have a basic grasp of human genetics and I am neither a eugenicist nor an Aryan supremacist.
- On the subject of Jews, I am a Zionist who edits and publishes the eminent Israeli military historian Dr. Martin van Creveld.
- I’m not opposed to women learning to read and write. I am opposed to women being encouraged to obtain advanced degrees in the place of husbands and children. Unlike Mr. Flint, I can do the demographic math.
- I don’t support honor killings. I never have.
- I don’t hide what I really believe. Mr. Flint claims to know what I really believe without me ever putting it into words because, and I quote, “peekaboo”. If anyone is “a fucking clown” here, it is observably Mr. Flint.
- I’m not trying to win Hugo Awards. I don’t care about winning awards.
- I have no delusions of grandeur. I’m not the one who keeps running to The Guardian, Entertainment Weekly, The New Zealand Herald, NPR, Popular Science, or the Wall Street Journal to talk about me. I haven’t issued a single press release or called a single member of the media about the Hugo Awards or anything else, for that matter.
- Western civilization is in peril. In large part thanks to idiots like Mr. Flint.
- I don’t like to portray myself with a flaming sword. That was the brainchild of the Star Tribune photographer who was taking pictures of me for a story the paper was doing. Apparently he was onto something, as it’s an image many people have remembered….
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“How big is the doghouse?” – May 30
So, Kate Paulk has been tapped as the standard-bearer of next year’s Sad Puppies campaign. She has declared that next year’s Hugo ballot-stuffing initiative will be done in a transparent and democratic manner. This does not fill one with confidence, since Brad Torgersen has made the same claims about this year’s ballot-stuffing initiative.
It also needs to be pointed out that it hardly matters who leads the Sad Puppies campaign or what they do or how they do it, as this year’s otherwise failed campaign only managed to achieve accidental relevance through the fact that the successful Rabid Puppies campaign largely copied and pasted their agenda.
With all that in mind, I have to say that I’m interested in Kate Paulk’s post about what she considers to be Hugo-worthy work only as an academic matter. If the list she assembles using it winds up being the ballot, it will likely be only because someone truly nasty as well as small-minded got behind her and started shoving, as happened this year.
Jim McCoy on Jimbos Awesome SFF Book and Movie Reviews
“Kate Paulk’s ConVent” – May 30
Before I get too far into the book, I wanted to mention Kate’s involvement with the Sad Puppies. She is next year’s evil, evil, evil ringleader. If you support evil, mean people who evilly think that you should evilly vote for good fiction written by evil people who evilly put story over message (because they’re evil) she’s worth supporting. Oh, and her book also kicks ass, but we’ll get to that in a minute. I just wanted to take a minute to give evil praise to Her Evilness, The Duchess of Snark. Does that make me evil? Probably. I’m OK with that. Now, onto the book.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Fandom” – May 30
It’s more than a little amusing. And those who walk away are the wise ones, because, as it has been sung:
Never kick a dog
Because it’s just a pup
You’d better run for cover when the pup grows up!
A Rabid Puppy #Hugo nominee put a sample in the awards packet that features direct insults to me & my work. Can I have my SJW badge now?
— David Mack (@DavidAlanMack) May 31, 2015
Wei Ming Kam on Fantasy Faction
“The pros and cons of the voting processes behind major SFF awards: Part 2” – May 31
This year, there is reportedly a massive upsurge in people buying supporting memberships of Sasquan, so basically people want to vote in the awards but have no interest in going to the con. Normally, the number of people who vote in the awards is small, so it’s reasonable to say that the upsurge is a result of the resentful manchildren making this year’s awards political. SADFACE. SAD SASQUATCH SADFACE.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“The Revenge of Hump Day–Hugo Nominated Best Fanzine” – May 31
It’s all perfectly competently and clearly written. I’m sure it’s well-received by its intended audience. On the other hand, I don’t see any exceptional excellence.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
This one I did not expect to like. I got a surprise. It’s intelligent, thoughtful, does some really interesting things, and Suzie, as an adult, is a librarian, and a well-done librarian is always a win for me, Yes, it’s self-indulgent. So sue me.
Pluviann on The Kingfishers Nest
“On a Spiritual Plain – Lou Antonelli” – May 30
Imagine a great caravan of giant aliens travelling across a bleak and open plain, above them the most glorious auroral display fills the sky, and travelling with them is a human chaplain on a segway enclosed by faraday cage. This image comes from Lou Antonelli’s ‘On a Spiritual Plain’ and it deserves fanart. It’s the best part of the short story, and the idea of a faraday segway in particular really tickled me.
Award-Winning Reading
“Best Fan Artist” – May 28
Fun fact: I almost voted No Award for this entire category. Now I’m voting for Elizabeth Leggett and No Award for everything else. I went looking at each nominees website to make sure that I was looking at everything that is award eligible. Ninni Aalto, Brad W. Foster and Steve Stiles all have similar styles (to my very untrained eye) that just does not appeal to me. Add in that I didn’t find the subject matter that interesting, and there is no reason for me to vote for any of them. I like that Spring Schoenhuth’s work consists mostly of jewelry. I don’t really recognize most of it though, and again the style doesn’t really appeal to me, so I won’t vote for her.
Award Winning Reading
“Totaled by Kary English” – May 29
There is some science talk in this story, but it was unobtrusive and easy to understand. It was just enough to give the story weight without pulling attention away from the storyline. The writing is beautiful. Descriptive, but concise. It really drew me into the story in a way that I was not expecting.
Award-Winning Reading
“On a Spiritual Plain by Lou Antonelli” – May 28
I liked the writing style. Not overly wordy but descriptive enough to ground the reader. I do also like that the story made me confront the idea that I decided what the story was about when I was halfway through and then got mad when it didn’t follow like I thought it should. While I’m a bear to be around when that happens, I like to be reminded that authors can do whatever they please without catering to my idea of what it should be.
Chad Orzel on Uncertain Principles
“Hugo Reading: Not-Novels” – May 30
In the short fiction categories, two of the longer nominees were weirdly incomplete. “Flow” by Arlan Andrews and “Championship B’Tok” by Edward Lerner are perfectly fine, but just… stop. I wouldn’t object to reading more in either setting, say if these were the introductory chapters of longer novels, but as self-contained stories, they’re kind of lacking.
“The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale” by Rajnar Vajra is a complete alien-contact story, and good enough in a Heinlein-pastiche sort of vein. It’s maybe a little shaggy, but it’s enjoyable enough. “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt is kind of stupid and pointless, featuring a world where gravity literally reverses itself after the narrator gets dumped. I’m not sure it’s all that much more stupid and pointless than last year’s “The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere,” though, and that ended up winning, so…
“A Single Samurai” by Steven Diamond is built around the nice image of a samurai climbing up the back of a mountain-sized monster in an attempt to kill it, but doesn’t quite pay off, and the bits where the narrator explains samurai stuff were kind of tedious. “Totaled” by Kary English may have been the best of the lot, a brain-in-a-vat story that had some genuine emotional content.
I don’t think any of these are brilliant, but I didn’t find any of them strikingly awful, either (“The Day The World Turned Upside Down” comes closest, but remained at “sigh heavily but keep reading” rather than “close the file and move on to the next thing”). I suspect there were probably better stories out there, but I say that almost every year that I read the short-fiction nominees, so…
Adult Onset Atheist
“Don’t crush THAT Hugo, hand me the SNARL” – May 30
Decades later I would find out that “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers” did not barely lose out to “No Award”, and that “Blows Against the Empire “ by Jefferson Starship had actually come in second place. I know that the Jefferson Starship supergroup that put out “Blows Against the Empire” was not really the same band that “Built This City” in 1985 (“Worst song of the 80s” by a Rolling Stone Reader’s poll), but the fact that they had the same name, and several of the same members, makes me think it was better that “No Award” won in that year. In addition to the dubious distinctions of most “No Award” winners, and for propelling films like “Flesh Gordon” (nominated 1975) to prominence, the Best Dramatic Presentation has been a place where stories too far ahead of their time could be reconsidered in a digested visual format some of the members of fandom could better relate to.
Bonnie McDaniel on Red Headed Femme
“The Hugo Project: ‘Wisdom From My Internet’” – May 30
I picked “Wisdom From My Internet” to review first, mainly to see if all the rumblings I’ve heard about it are true, and it is indeed the worst thing to disgrace the ballot in decades.
May I be perfectly frank for a moment?
Great Cthulhu, kill me now.
What the hell is this shit?
I really don’t want to hurt Michael Z. Williamson’s feelings, but I’m afraid it’s going to be unavoidable.
Ah, sweet internet, where I waste hundreds of hours trying desperately to set people on fire WITH MY MIND.
— Kingfisher & Wombat (@UrsulaV) May 29, 2015
May Tree in a comment on File 770 – May 29
Voting for Noms On a Summer Evening
Whose noms these are I think I know.
His blog is quite a silly show;
He will not see me stopping here
His lousy choices to forego.My Siamese Cat must think it queer
To stop without a Hugo near
But I must set aside this slate
And vote again another year.These stories, at best second-rate,
Were stuffed by Pups (and GamerGate?!)
The rockets they would try to sweep
Their wounded egos to inflate.The Puppy Poop is much too deep,
My sanity I’ll have to keep,
And “No Award” before I sleep,
And “No Award” before I sleep.
Laurie Mann on Facebook – May 30
This is not a joke. This group, Snarky Puppy, is playing in the INB Theater 3 months after the Hugo Awards are presented in the same building. http://www.inbpac.com/event.php?eventID=270
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>>Kate Paulk’s Hugo standards would accept NANCY DREW AND THE SECRET OF THE OLD CLOCK and reject JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL.
That’s my ticket to a Hugo next year: NANCY DREW IN SPACE.
Kennel in the Woods
The Mongrels are Due on Maple Street
Silent Slate, Secret Slate
Little Dog Lost
>> BCC Dr Strange and Mr Norrell >>
_Jonathan_ Strange, please. Once he gets a doctorate, Marvel Comics owns him.
First episode was good, despite rocketing through the plot like it needed to find a restroom. I look forward to more.
Thus farKaren Memory was a good read, as was Abercrombies book.
I really wanted to like Tregillis Mechanical, but went in with some high expectations that weren’t met, my own fault there.
Touch by North is in my TBR pile, which if it wasnt electronic would probably be teetering over right about now.
Best book I’ve read so far this year has been Ember in the Ashes, by Sabaa Tahir. It’s this years Fifteen Lives for me, edging out Golden Son thus far. It’s had some very great reviews, but because it’s published by Razorbill, I’m not sure it’ll get the mainstream notice it deserves. Heck if Paulk and SP4 were to get it nominated, I’d be OK with that…
Moviewise, the Martian is slated for a November release. I’m ambivalent about this, stellar cast, great book that should have been recognized in 2011 when it first came out, good writer, great director….It could be a great movie that gets nominated because its a great movie, or a bad movie that’s gets nominated because of name recognition (Yes, I’m looking at you Jupiter Ascending…).
Ex Machina was great, Selfless looks interesting. 400 Days, if its released in time, is a dark horse.
All in all, another good year for SF IMO.
2015 Best Graphic Story: Kurt’s too humble to mention Astro City, so I will.
And I think a lot of people here will enjoy The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies, which just completed.
For Best Graphic Story I’d also give consideration to the Edmonson/Noto Black Widow series.
Craig R: “He really does *not* have any sense of either self-awareness or subtext.”
And he’s dumber than a box of bricks to go with it. Since LeGuin’s story clearly puts the people who walk away from Omelas front and centre, making them braver and better than their compatriots for forsaking privilege buoyed by cruelty, how is that glorifying cowardice?
I think Wright might have overdosed on those nutty nuggets when he was a kid. His intellectual and emotional development are clearly stunted.
Peace: It wasn’t a case of going over the line.
I managed to read Lord of The Rings the first time (I was in high school) without it arousing the slightest suspicion of having any mundane religious overtones. There was a bumper sticker to the effect “Frodo gave his finger for you” and I figured there wasn’t any mythic overlap deeper than that.
However, others drawing on background material in Christopher Tolkien’s The History of Middle-Earth series have argued that Christianity is woven into the creation and history of LoTR.
So I suspected you of being arch in your choice of example. But maybe not!
Of course, I’m on Marvel Unlimited so I’m six months behind.
I am perfectly fine with just reading the complaints that sound unreasonable against almost any premise.
Of course, since this premise was entirely reasonable…
My Ghod, it’s true. He really does *not* have any sense of either self-awareness or subtext.
Rereading that comment by Wright – he is aggrieved against the story because, as a DM, he couldn’t come up with a way to make it difficult for the characters. So he’s blaming the story for his own failure of imagination. And hey – we’ve all had failures of imagination, but I do think getting vexed at Le Guin about it does take some chutzpah.
@Kurt
Darn it I thought I typed that one correctly 😉
I was thinking if Netflix’s Daredevil would be worthy but I feel it’s kinda borderline for a SF show at least this season – though he does have a superpower. Somehow Dr Strange popped out whilst typing.
Yes the first episode did gallop along but I am going to keep watching.
For Best Graphic Story I’d also give consideration to the Edmonson/Noto Black Widow series.
I’ve been liking Bitch Planet quite a bit It’s a good pulp plot; the feminist themes are pretty dang overt (I mean, the universe is specifically anti-women, so…) but it’s very well written. I’d like to think the pups would set aside their complaints about message fiction in exchange for some good characters and a nice bit of the ol’ ultraviolence.
@Going to Maine: https://file770.com/?p=22824&cpage=7#comment-273047
I’ll take your word, so cheers for that. I think we have discussed about role-playing games before, and back then the topic was about horrible ruleslawyers/powergamers and what not ruining the fun by generally breaking the game.
So, I kind of got curious towards who was he actually playing with?
By VD’s standards, a lot of classic SF was pink. Clarke and Asimov fail the Christianity test, and Poul Anderson was not on board with the VD definition of deviancy.
Have now also added The Invisible Library, Touch, The Buried Life, and (through roundabout ways) In The Now to my to-be-read list based on posts here.
Someday it will grow too large and eat me.
The Book of Spaniel.
The Ones Who Walk the Dogs in Omelas.
Beagle-17.
We, In Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Leash.
>> 2015 Best Graphic Story: Kurt’s too humble to mention Astro City, so I will.>>
Nice of you to say! I won’t bring up THE AUTUMNLANDS either!
I kinda wish I could nominate SATELLITE SAM, but it’s not SF at all, despite the 1950s SF TV show at the heart of it all.
But RAGNARÖK, INVISIBLE REPUBLIC, THEY’RE NOT LIKE US, THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, LUMBERJANES, BATTLEPUG, LAZARUS and TREES would all be worth a look-in.
And I haven’t been able to explore this one much, yet, but it looks gorgeous:
http://www.sssscomic.com/index.php
@Kurt & Shambles: I’m a couple of episodes ahead on JS&MN. It remains one of the better series’ I’ve watched lately, definitely worth keeping up with
So, I kind of got curious towards who was he actually playing with
We don’t know, but that isn’t really important. Wright, the DM in charge of the game, was unable to come up with a compelling way to adapt the Omelas setting to make it challenging (or, presumably, interesting) for his players. In describing how he wasn’t able to do so, he revealed that he misconstrued the story’s themes; he consequently blames Le Guin for both creating a bad story and making his game boring. The end. From this, we get that a) he misread the story, and b) he wasn’t a very good DM for one session.
@Going to Maine: Can I haz a linkburger? (Link to the post wherever it was?)
(Sorry, my mind is involved elsewhere at the moment.)
Going to Maine:
>> I’d like to think the pups would set aside their complaints about message fiction in exchange for some good characters and a nice bit of the ol’ ultra violence.>>
Oh, I think the whole “Noncompliant” thing would get their hackles up to the point that they wouldn’t see anything but an attack on male privilege (which, to be fair, is central).
But I should have listed it among my possible choices, too. It’s good stuff.
Jim:
>> The Ones Who Walk the Dogs in Omelas.>>
That’s awesome.
I’ve tried not to geek out here and have been successful for a month now.
I may rupture something if I don’t mention that my friends and I still use the phrase “Poor, doomed, Silver Agent.”
Last bit of geekery: Thank you for The Tarnished Angel .
You’re more than welcome, GSLamb.
Thanks for making it possible for us to keep doing it.
Lois Tilton: “I’d suggest that the Sad Puppy movement has already peaked, and Paulk’s 2016 effort will be inconsequential.”
I agree completely, and for the reasons you state.
I’d also add another reason, which is that I few people will agree to be on a Sad Puppy slate in 2016.
I think most Sad Puppy picks had no idea what they were agreeing to this year, and others didn’t even know the slates existed, let alone that they were on them. But after all the noise and melodrama of 2015, everyone knows what the Puppies are about now—and who wants to be dragged into their vitriolic mess? I think most people will either decline to be on future Sad slates or, if not asked for permission, will publicly dissociate themselves from the slates after discovering they’ve been listed.
So I think the Sad Puppy slates, if they even continue, will quickly devolve into annual lists of just the Puppies themselves, and maybe a few people who are so new to the genre or so removed from the genre (and mainstream media) that they’ve never heard of the Puppies and have no idea what’s going on. This won’t prevent the Saddies from creating slates for years, of course, but I agree that 2015 was their peak year. (And I’d say “was” is already the operative word, since I think Puppy works, though dominating the ballot, will make a poor showing in the vote.)
My #1 pic for Best Dramatic, Long form is the anti-Scientology documentary GOING CLEAR, which you should check out if you can.
@Laura Resnick https://file770.com/?p=22824&cpage=7#comment-273064
That is always a possibility. But I would still wait to see what happens after the Hugos.
@Kurt Busiek: Thank you! I’ll never top whoever came up with The Ballad of Lost C’Nine, but your kind words mean a lot.
“Blue SF says “fuck that” to strong independent female protagonists who ride rainbow-farting unicorns and flex their nonexistent muscles when they aren’t being mounted by corpses and canids”
The weird shit about Beale’s stupid list of characteristics of Pink SF is that he just recently put up a memorial blog entry for Tanith Lee (I was heartbroken to read about her death, and was looking for stuff on her, and was so dumbfounded to see Chlamydia’s praise of Lee as a great writer that I clicked on his Populi blog for the first – and only – time).
He seemed quite sincere – even though Lee’s novels and stories happily checked off Strong Female Protagonist (a few times even LITERALLY on a unicorn), Sexual “Deviancy”, Christianity Subversion, etc. – basically 1,4,6,7,9, and 10 on his Pink SF list. I wonder what depths of ‘rhetoric’ he would plunge to to reconcile this doublethink?
Nick,
Going Clear might be better in Best Related work. Lots of people seem pretty hyped on Fury Road for Long Form and I wouldn’t want there to be a clash
Nick Mamatas at 4:26: I’ve been strongly considering nominating Going Clear for Best Related, since it’s a documentary about the history of (and/or history tangential to) the genre. What makes you lean toward Dramatic Presentation?
So I just got curious and asked the internet, hey internet, are there any *other* SFF authors I like with books coming out in 2015? Did I miss a few? Maybe I can add a few more to my list and round it out.
Why, yes, said the internet. Margaret Atwood, Leigh Bargudo, Holly Black, Kendare Blake, Erin Bow, Kate Griffin, Barbara Hambly, Stina Leicht, Ruth Frances Long, Richelle Mead, Patrick Ness, Jeanette Winterson …
And then my reading list ate me.
jayn quoted: “Blue SF says “fuck that” to strong independent female protagonists who ride rainbow-farting unicorns and flex their nonexistent muscles when they aren’t being mounted by corpses and canids”
I wrote a novel about a strong independent male protagonist fornicating with a giant (male) cat. Does that make my stuff Blue or Pink?
I’m so confused.
I have heard good things about Sabaa Tahir’s novel Ember in the Ashes, but I haven’t read it. Since it’s already been mentioned, though, I’ll add my voice to those interested.
It’s a first novel too.
Houndation
How did I not think of that one before?
Song of Collie (Dan Simmons)
Setters from Atlantis (Robert Silverberg)
Pug Jack Barron (Norman Spinrad)
Precedent—non-fiction has appeared in Best Dramatic before: in 1970 coverage of the Apollo moon landing won. Best Related just doesn’t seem to be where movies of any sort go, and Hugo seems to look askance at category-shopping.
CraigR
As far as I can tell, Wright lacks self-awareness, doesn’t comprehend subtext and has no moral compass. I think he may have had some inkling (sorry, couldn’t resist it) of that last point, and instead of working on it, chose instead the path of the ‘more Catholic than the Pope’ convert. The difficulty is that the Pope is Francis who finds much of what Wright asserts to be morally repugnant.
Pope Francis, after all, believes that women should receive equal pay for equal labour, and I’m pretty sure Wright is completely baffled by the idea that wage equality is included in what Catholics should strive for.
And VD has a fit of the vapours whenever the very thought of women working is forced upon him; again, we can be pretty sure that VD and the pope are not exactly two hearts beating as one…
Also, I am very pleased with myself for being all cool and stuff about Kurt Busiek commenting here, instead of giving into my, like, actual feelings and being all like OH MY GOD KURT BUSIEK IS COMMENTING HERE ASTRO CITY IS THE BEST EVER SQUEEEEE
Because that would not be at all, like, cool.
Graphic Storywise I’m leaning to nominating Strong Female Protagonist for 2015. It’s a refreshing take on the “natural event causes superheroes” trope that notes global demographics…
While people are posting title suggestions, a shout out to the clever people at Fail Fandom Anon for their continuing coverage of the discussions with titles like:
Hugopocalypse: The Pups Who Scamper Away from Omongrelas
(http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/140986.html?thread=741871546#cmt741871546)
Hugopocalypse: Bark, Bark, Bark (Here Comes the Boogie Dog)
Hugopocalypse: Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til It Barks
Hugopocalypse: The Bark is Rising
Hugopocalypse: The Good, the Bad, and the Barking
und so weiter
@Whym: Pug Jack Barron is the best.
For Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, I was very impressed by “Fast Enough,” the season finale of “The Flash.” I have not seen “Daredevil,” of which I have heard good things, but with that one caveat I can say that I think that the 2014-2015 season of “The Flash” is probably one of the best, if not the best live action superhero show ever broadcast on television.
Warren Ellis’s comic book series TREES continues to be v. hot and a new story started with #9, so I have some hopes for that.
For novel, I suspect SEVENEVES is something both the mainline Hugo voter and Puppy factions will rally behind. It’s pretty amazing, if you like Stephensonian endings.
I thought Daredevil was “Nice. Nice. Not thrilling, but nice.” The Flash, however, is the bomb.
Best Dramatic, Short Form!
Neal Stephenson wrote a book about STEVE NIEVE? What?!
Nick: I really dislike Stevensonian endings, but sometimes enjoy the process enough that I’m okay with the overall results. Hoping Seveneyes is one such case.
Dammit, I suppose lack of a video disqualifies “Humans” by Jim Henley and the Forget-Me-Nots for Best Dramatic Short. Among many other reasons.
Certainly not. And it would be churlish of me to endanger his humility by pointing out that you’re not the first or even the second one this month either.
eeeeeeee–hem. Yes, not cool.