aka The Curs of Chalion
Today’s roundup offers the collected wisdom of Sarah A. Hoyt, David Mack, Paul Weimer, Adam-Troy Castro, Alexandra Erin, Lis Carey, Brian Niemeier, Lyle Hopwood, Chris Gerrib, David Langford, and Less Identifiable Others. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day JohnFromGR and KestrelHill.)
Sarah A. Hoyt on According To Hoyt
“Glamor and Fairy Gold” – June 2
We’ve seen the same effect over and over again with people who comment on blogs (clears throat) both cultural and political, and even historical and that, no matter how often they’re proven wrong, keep coming back and stating the same thing they said in different words, as though that would make it true. They seem incapable of processing challenges, doubts, or even factual disproof of their charges.
Glamor. They’re under an enchantment. Something has affected them so hard, they can’t think, but can only repeat what they were told.
It’s not true, of course. Or not quite.
The enchantment of the “cool kids” is the glamor of social approbation and of opinions as positional goods.
People who have bought into an hierarchy of opinions, with some of the opinions “politically correct” no matter how factually wrong, have agreed to put themselves under the arbitrary power of others, and to subsume their reason and thought to them.
David Mack on The Analog Blog
“Write back (not) in anger (#SFWApro)” – June 2
Last August, I received an e-mail from a reader who was so offended by my inclusion of a same-sex relationship between a Vulcan woman and Klingon (disguised as human) woman in my novel Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger that he swore off all my books forever. My public response, which I admit in hindsight was born more from passion than from reason, got noticed by a few sites.
When that post went wide, I expected to encounter some blowback and some criticism….For the most part, I deemed those uninformed responses unworthy of my attention or response.
Until this past weekend, I would have said the same about this piece by Amanda S. Green on the Mad Genius Blog: “Don’t break canon without good reason“.
For the impatient among you, here is a quick summary of her post: Amanda S. Green, an author and blogger who appears to have no professional experience writing or editing media tie-in fiction, tried to school me on the importance of adherence to canon when working in established universes, and on how I should have answered my homophobic critic.
Though Ms. Green provides absolutely no evidence to support her assertion, she accuses me of “breaking canon” vis-a-vis Star Trek for no reason other than to be “politically correct.” Her feeble attack on my professionalism and on my novel was published the day after my original post. Because Ms. Green did not mention me by name or link to my post, I didn’t learn of her essay until this past weekend, when a friend brought it to my attention…..
[Mack then analyzes the topic at length.]
Now, all this might seem to some folks like a lot of noise for very little signal. But I think it’s important to remember that as a nominee in the Best Fan Writer category, Ms. Green was offered the opportunity to submit self-selected examples of her work for the Hugo Voter Packet, to demonstrate which of her writings from 2014 show her to be worthy of taking home a Hugo award. That she chose to include the post I dissected above — an unresearched, factually deficient essay in which she lacks the basic courtesy even to name me as the author of the piece she tries (and fails) to deconstruct, never mind link to it so that readers can review the original materials and arrive at informed conclusions with regard to her arguments — speaks volumes.
I grew up knowing the Hugo awards stand for excellence in the broad and ever-changing field of science fiction and fantasy literature. Nothing I have seen in this essay from Ms. Green persuades me her work contains the insight or intellectual rigor that would make her worthy of being honored as a member of that longstanding tradition.
I also suspect she doesn’t know as much about Star Trek as she thinks she does.
I'm out of Nutty Nuggets
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) June 1, 2015
Adam-Troy Castro
Open Letter To The Ants At the Base Of The Monument – June 2
Few things mark you as a schmuck faster than attacking a master for being “old.”
You can have great differences with a master. You can argue bitterly with a master. You can even think a master is an asshole.
But the second you start using his age and past accomplishments as a negative in your rhetoric. you mark yourself as a non-entity, a jackass, a pipsqueak, an ant shouting at a monument.
This sin, currently in evidence among some supporters of the Sad Puppies, is not exclusive to either end of the political spectrum.
Fans from the left wing thought they had reason to be upset at Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, a couple of years back, and though it was arguable that they had a case, it was downright appalling how many of them thought they were issuing slammers when they complained that these greats hailed from before their time, or were “old and irrelevant,” or, tellingly, “I never even heard of them!”
That controversy provided fuel for this one, where among things fans from the right wing are slamming David Gerrold for being old and senile and irrelevant and all those things he most assuredly is not.
David Gerrold on Facebook – June 2
Okay, so now that I’ve laid some groundwork — see my two previous essays about communication forensics and compelling questions — I’m going to ask some compelling questions.
In the past, I’ve asked these questions about the sad-puppy slate and the rabid-puppy slate:
1) Who are the horrible, no-good, terrible people who have conspired against the science fiction that has been “overlooked?” How have they conspired?
2) What are the qualities of storytelling that define excellence? How are these qualities recognized by the reader?
3) The stories on the sad-puppy slate and the stories on the rabid-puppy slate? How do they demonstrate the qualities of excellence that would make a reader consider them award-worthy?
Let me add a few more questions here:
4) If you are a supporter of either or both slates, then did you read the stories on the slate you support before the ballot was announced? Did you nominate any or all of the stories on either slate? Did you nominate any story you had not read? Why?
5) Have you now read any or all of the stories on the final Hugo ballot? If so, can you please tell us which stories you feel are award-worthy? Why? (Let me rephrase that.) Without considering the author or the politics of the author, can you explain why any of the stories from either slate are award-worthy?
6) Which do you feel is more important in the award process — the excellence of the story or the political views of the author?
I’m not the only one posing these questions.
I thought that the Sad Puppies would quiet down between the nominations and the actual awards. Boy, was I ever wrong.
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) June 2, 2015
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“Because hope springs eternal.” – June 2
[Quoting a comment Erin left on Brad R. Torgersen’s blog.]
I’m sure I’m not the first person to try to tell you this, but the people who spew hot air about “warriors for social justice” are all over here with you. That’s not a thing people called themselves. It’s a pejorative made up to dismiss people, a la calling someone “PC patrol” or “feminazi” or “thought police”.
Some people have taken it as an ironic badge of honor or made geeky riffs on it (like “Social Justice Paladin” or “Social Justice Bard”), but by and large, you’re chiding people for not living up to the standards of a label that was foisted upon them in the first place.
Which is actually part of the function of the label. Most of the people I have seen getting slapped with the “SJW” label not only don’t describe themselves as social justice warriors, they don’t describe themselves as activists. They’re just people, living their lives, dealing with their own problems, and acting their consciences.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campbell Award Nominations: Jason Cordova” – May 26
Basing my assessment on these two submissions, Cordova has a future as an SF writer to be sure, and I enjoyed them both, but to me, his work does not rise to the level of previous Campbell winners such as Spider Robinson, C. J. Cherryh, Ted Chiang, Nalo Hopkinson, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Bear, Jo Walton, and others.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campbell Award Nominations: Wesley Chu” – May 26
Obviously, I am very much impressed by these two novels. Chu easily passes my standard as a worthy candidate for the Campbell.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campbell Award Nominations: Kary English” – May 26
English has some definite writing chops, but I felt that there wasn’t a lot of variety in the pieces offered, which weakens my overall assessment of her as a Campbell nominee. I have already noted the similarities in protagonist choice. There are also structural similarities in the pieces, and I was irked in that I wanted to use the word “bittersweet” in describing all three stories. I think English has definite potential and I hope she continues to develop her craft.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campell Award Nominations: Eric S. Raymond and Rolf Nelson” – June 2
Rolf Nelson and Eric S. Raymond did not submit any pieces [to the Hugo Voters Packet], but as there are samples of their writing in the Castalia House anthology Riding the Red Horse, submitted by the publisher in support of nominations of other pieces in the anthology, I read those in order to gain some sense of Nelson and Raymond’s work. I was not inspired by what was available to go searching for any more samples of either author’s work.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
Journey Planet is visually attractive, filled with interesting and thoughtful articles, well-written, and well-edited. I’m totally impressed. Go read it. Highly recommended.
Brian Niemeier on Superversive SF
“Transhuman and Subhuman Part VIII: Gene Wolfe, Genre Work, and Literary Duty” – June 2
The eighth essay in John C. Wright’s Transhuman and Subhuman collection is a meditation on the merits of speculative fiction occasioned by SFWA making Gene Wolfe a Grand Master. “He is the greatest living author writing in the English language today,” Wright declares, “and I do not confine that remark to genre authors.”
“Sometimes in this life,” Wright says in regard to Wolfe’s accolade, “we see justice done.” If honors are rightly given to those who perform their duty, what obligations do SFF authors owe to their readers, to society at large, and to the truth itself?
Wright seeks the answer through a critical via negativa. What causes our disappointment–even outrage–when due honor is denied?
Chris Gerrib on Private Mars Rocket
“Hugo Thoughts, Down-Ballot Edition” – June 2
More thoughts on this year’s Hugo.
Best Fan Writer (777 nominating ballots, 265 entries, range 129-201)
Dave Freer
Amanda S. Green
Jeffro Johnson
Laura J. Mixon
Cedar SandersonFreer’s been an ass to me, and incoherent at length to pretty much everybody, so no rocket for him. Green and Sanderson seem to not like SJWs like me, so I’ll return the favor. I’m a bit reluctant to give Mixon the award for an expose. Johnson at least restricts himself to book reviews, so my ballot is Johnson and no award.
Reading SFF
“2015 Hugo Awards reading: Kevin J. Anderson – The Dark Between the Stars (2014)” – June 2
I did not finish this novel. I abandoned it at about 25% in (and I am “proud” of having made it so far) but the book did not grab me and the writing is not good enough to keep me reading for the sake of the writing. If I have the time (and I probably won’t have the time) to get back to the book before voting on the Hugos closes, I will try to finish it. But only then.
Lyle Hopwood on Peromyscus
“Big Boys Don’t Cry by Tom Kr*tman (Castalia House)” – May 30
This is a Sad Puppy and Rabid Puppy nomination.
It’s is an okay story about the basic training of AIs used in combat. The methods used are cruel, but the humans don’t care. They wall off the AI’s memories of pain and injury after training is complete, but in the case of Maggie, severe damage during combat allows her (she’s a she) to recall the training sessions. All the while she is accessing her memories, she is being investigated for scrap value, and she can see and hear the humans discussing her fate. It’s not a very new concept, but it’s handled well. It’s just so very long. It’s interesting to compare this with Steve Rzasa’s story, Turncoat, as the AI warships come to very different conclusions about humans.
Alexandra Erin at Blue Author Is About To Write
“Sad Puppies Review Books: STREGA NONA” – June 2
Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)
If you want chilling proof of the radical feminist lesbian witch cult (also known as “Social Justice”) that has infiltrated all ranks of society, look no further than this book which blatantly glorifies witchcraft, matriarchy, and the creation of a loyal slave nation of emasculated beta male cucks.
Exactly as foretold in a literal straightforward reading of the Book of Revelation, this book portrays a near-future world where even the Catholic Church itself is in thrall of a woman. The church is no longer the Bride of Christ but the scarlet woman of Babylon.
“Although all the people in the town talked about her in whispers, they all went to see her if they had troubles. Even the priests and the sisters in the convent went, for Strega Nona had a magic touch.” If that isn’t straight out of the Bible then I don’t even know what the Bible says. I do know that it says to not suffer a witch to live, not to treat her as a valued civic leader.
David Langford in Ansible #335 – June 2015
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McJulie: “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” was such an obviously superb story that Torgersen dissing it seems to prove that he wouldn’t know good writing if it ran up and started biting his ankles.
It’s a beautiful and evocative story, with a real Twilight Zone of a twist: What if no one could lie? But, it’s also about coming out– A fraught process, whether you can lie about who you are or not– and won’t anyone think of the Nutty Nuggets? Please, won’t anyone think of the Nuggets?
Seth Gordon: I confess that when ranking the nominees for this year’s Hugos, one of my chief complaints regarding TGE is that the fantasy element is so attenuated as to practically not exist.
It’s at least as much a fantasy as Peake’s Gormenghast novels.
I am deeply uncomfortable with a definition of doxxing that includes a test for the difficulty of “outing” the person being doxxed in order to be considered genuine stalking or not.
@Seth Gordon:
The book is also a meditation on classic fantasy tropes and the grimdark turn.
PJEvans You wonder what else is going on in that world, out of sight.
I kept expecting that was the way the plot would go – particulalry during the first coup attempt. i.e. Maia would escape incognito and we would get to see the Elvish society beyond the walls of the palace including the hints of an industrial revolution mixed with magic etc.
idn’t happen. So
+1 to The Goblin Emperor for not following obvious plot developments – yay
-1 to The Goblin Emperor for keeping the reader stuck in the bloody palace for most of the story
+1 for The Goblin Emperor for making us empathize with Maia who is also stuck in that bloody palace with us.
Also that palace could have been a tad more bloody – I hadn’t realized that I craved violence in my reading quite so much until that guy got zapped by the magician guard and I felt happy that somebody had got killed.
It’s more than a simple Google search to pore over every comment someone has made to look for personal information and solicit help from other commenters — as [name withheld] did — to pin the person’s name and address down.
The comments by [name withheld] about [pseudonymous person] weren’t just guesses. He was letting the person know he’d found him by dropping partial bits of information such as his first name, in an attempt to intimidate.
I share that discomfort.
I think most people know that it is offensive and toxic behavior to dig for information on someone else’s online pseudonym just because you’re jawing at each other on a message board, blog post or some other forum that invites heated debate.
Part of the standard code of conduct for any forum should be that attempts to doxx someone will result in a site ban and the deletion of the messages.
Torgersen leaving up the doxxing attempts by [name withheld] in his comments are a mark against his judgment as a blogger.
Re magic in TGE: In addition to an assassin being killed with magic, the Witness for the Dead uses magic to get evidence from the dead. Two of Maia’s four perennial guards are magicians. The guard who betrayed him used a cantrip to knock out the other guard. It’s akin to the magic in Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones in that it’s wrapped up in the religion, which may be why people are overlooking it.
.
Rev Bob –
A Civil Campaign takes place in a MilSF universe, but I would not call that story MilSF, outside of Ivan being gorgeous in his uniform, Duv ditto, some military parades, and fireworks over the Star Bridge.
Unless you count liveried butterbugs or Miles’s paean to honey bees.
I’d more compare Ancillary Justice to Ethan of Athos (Terrance) Falling Free (Quaddies) Cetaganda (the Haut) Labyrinth (Tara) or Diplomatic Immunity (Guppy). Leckie is looking at AIs and shared consciousness. Bujold at how far can one get from the Human genome and still be Human (spoiler: pretty far).
.
Meredith –
They seem equally dismissive of the Bujold girly cooties.
rcade: Worldcon marketing is reinvented by each committee, which is not quite year-to-year in that they begin building awareness during the bid campaign, and then it’s two years from the time a bid is voted the right to host the Worldcon until the con is held.
There is a Hugo Marketing committee to publicize the award, created on the theory that if more people got involved in the Hugos then more would become interested in attending the Worldcon. That was the theory, anyway.
Camestros:Also that palace could have been a tad more bloody
Personally the lack of violence and especially grimdark was a big part of what made Goblin Emperor so refreshing.
Especially now that it feels like more and more works of fantasy are racing to see who can present the most sociopathic “hero”.
XS, oh, YES!
I am almost ready to run my own sad campaign over the dearth of upbeat fantasy. Grim is everywhere. I mean yeah for those who like it, but good grief is it exhausting for me. TGE was such a relief!
Good lord, reading James May’s comments are exhausting.
I hope he has a good exercise regime to vent all that hostility. It’s gotta be bad for your health.
@ XS —
All of this. It’s like traditional publishing just entered the same Dark Age of Grimdark and Allegedly Gritty Antiheroes that smote American comic publishers in the ’90s.
Mike answered part of rcade’s comment, so for the rest:
That’s SMOFdom, pretty much. It exists on ConRunner.net, and the SMOFs mailing list, and the JOF Facebook group, and Smofcon, and a bunch of regional knowledge-transfer cons.
There are difficulties in creating a hard-and-fast list of “what worked and what didn’t”. Sometimes it didn’t work last time, but last time was 20 years ago. Sometimes someone thinks it didn’t work because someone did it wrong. Sometimes it worked through sheer luck. Arguing about all this provides a lot of the traffic on the SMOFs list.
O.o
…
Nnnnnoooooooooooo!!!!!
MK41 –
Tell you what, you enjoy having imputedly adult people swear and threaten and act like teenaged vandals in your living room, have at it.
In former life I was director of a small computer group, and for my sins I had to take care of their BBS system (yes, I’m (as some pseudo-libertarian called me the other day) an old white guy. In another I was part of a moderation team for several fora on a large commercial system.
In both of those arenas I found that, yes, what form language took both shaped the interaction between people and the view the outside worlds saw.
If you allowed threats of violence, racist and sexist language to thrive, and tantrums that a 3 year-old would be ashamed of to proceed unabated the people who actually had something interesting to say, those who could discuss with intelligence, humor, respect and wit with people who they didn’t agree with socially or politically, those people would go away and you would be left with the dregs.
You would be left with the animals who thought it was clever to find out where people they didn’t agree with lived and open credit cards or subscriptions in those people’s names. You would be left with the pigs who gloried in nothing but disruption and insults because they could get away with it, and wanted nothing but attention, even if it was disgust.
The one bright moment I had when informing the animals that their accounts and sock puppets were being banned, that they had no “right to free speech,” because I was neither a government entity, nor were the fora I moderated and ran part of any governmental instrumentality. They had the limits of speech and behaviour that I, and others in my team, were willing to allow.
That is why we moderated the postings. Else it would be a cesspit for every idiot and would-be bully to wallow in. Eventually those sort of people built their own toxic spaces, like alt.language.tactical, or latterly, 4chan and 8chan.
They have their spaces, fine. Let them maintain it. I’m sure they feel right at home. For I certainly don’t feel any pressing need to let them into my home.
What makes doxxing a problem is not repeating publicly available information, even information which is non-trivial to acquire. What makes doxxing a problem is that it is an act of intimidation and/or part of a larger campaign of harassment.
Yes. This.
A burglary is no less a burglary if the homeowner left their house keys under the front mat.
Crimes are not excused based on how easy they are to perpetrate.
They are still criminal actions.
Nate Harada:It’s like traditional publishing just entered the same Dark Age of Grimdark and Allegedly Gritty Antiheroes that smote American comic publishers in the ’90s.
Oh dear God please no I’m not going back you can’t make me go back
“How many teeth are in a mouth? Like, a billion, right?”
http://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/2960508/worst-rob-liefeld-drawings
~TGE Spoiler ahoy~
Sooo did anyone else notice that as Maia grew in confidence the references to the colour of his skin gradually go from very frequent to none at all? Without the text ever explicitly drawing attention to it? I loved that.
Scott Frazer: Good lord, reading James May’s comments are exhausting.
I hope he has a good exercise regime to vent all that hostility. It’s gotta be bad for your health.
Well, be fair. Only half of it looks like actual conservative rant – the other half looks like the product of a Markov Chain generator fed on FreeRepublic comments. Perhaps he gets paid by the word and just pads out the middle of his huge screeds?
@ Meredith: “Most of the Puppy picks are poor enough on a structural level that I can’t understand why anyone would think they’re Hugo nomination worthy, ”
I’ve been bewildered by the Puppy ballot, since almost everything I’ve read on it is so bad, I feel very resentful that I wasted my treasured reading time on it. Then I realized after recent discussions here that the whole ballot makes a lot more sense if you don’t look at the work, but look at who was the publisher, editor, or author in every case, and ask, “Is this a friend of Larry or Brad’s? Is this someone Larry or Brad wants as a friend? Is this someone (or some company) whose favor Brad or Larry want to cultivate?” (In Vox’s case, it’s REALLY obvious, of course; his additions to the Sad ballot were mostly himself and things published by the small press he owns.) The whole Sad ballot starts making more sense when you look at it that way, instead of focusing on the work itself and wondering, “Why did the Puppies think this should be on a Hugo ballot?”
@Dela
I’m trying not to be cynical, and so I hope that Totaled by Kary English was chosen by Torgersen because of its quality and his stated wish to bring attention to overlooked writers, but… I can’t help but recall that English mentioned that Resnick said her story was Hugo worthy, and I wonder if it was chosen to curry favour with him instead. I doubt we’d ever get a straight answer out of Torgersen.
XS: Personally the lack of violence and especially grimdark was a big part of what made Goblin Emperor so refreshing.
Yes, this! I mean, flawed and violent characters are a staple of fantasy, and well, I just have trouble liking them sometimes. So it was nice to root for Maia from the very beginning. With him, violence was not the only answer to his problems. He used his brain and made allies and worked so hard to be a good Emperor!
Now I want to re-read TGE.
Request: I am in the middle of reading The Goblin Emperor & would appreciate that spoilers be signalled in some obvious fashion.
The incidentally decent stories on the Puppy ballot can be traced back either to their place of publication or the author’s activity with the Writers of the Future contest, of which Brad is a booster.
Another Music in a Different Dog House
Taking Hugo Mountain (by Strategy)
In The Court of the Crimson King Charles Spaniel
Dog Mask Replica
Barkness at the Edge of Town
Disraeli Grrrrrs
Velvet Underhound
@Meredith
With respect to the spoiler request, yep! I loved those subtle touches. 🙂
The main flaw (in my opinion) with The Goblin Emperor is that we never see him royally screw up and have to deal with the consequences, but since I didn’t notice that until three days after I finished it I’m not going to hold it against a book that instantly leapt into my favourite books list. 🙂
I don’t think they’d do it justice, since hollywood and tv execs have little interest in fantasy court intrigue, but a really good adaptation would be gorgeous. Elves! Airships! Fancy outfits! Steam powered stuff! Magical visions!
,em>Request: I am in the middle of reading The Goblin Emperor & would appreciate that spoilers be signalled in some obvious fashion.
Same request for the Ancillary books pretty please. I just got rather spoiled in the comments here as I’m not very far into the first one. I got it from the library last year but I had a huge stack of reading to do and didn’t get to it before I had to return it — and since it was new and a Hugo nom there was a waiting list for it and I couldn’t renew it.
So far the start of the book is very intriguing and I’m enjoying it a lot and should be able to finish it by the weekend. But how the bleeping bleeding bulldogs did anyone claim this book sounded like a fantasy? What fantasy talks about “hypothermia packs” instead of “fire spells” or “warming potions”??? Puppy logic. I just …I can’t even.
Soon Lee : Request: I am in the middle of reading The Goblin Emperor & would appreciate that spoilers be signalled in some obvious fashion.
You heard Soon Lee, people – no-one is to mention the Kraken. Or the scene with the two monkeys.
Gah! I forgot the spoiler warning. Sorry Soon Lee, I hope that wasn’t too much, 🙁 I do sympathise, I got spoiled pretty thoroughly for The Three-Body Problem.
@May Tree
The dratted cover has a spaceship on, too! Honestly, some Puppies…
@ULTRAGOTHA and Beth
Goblin Emperor SPOILER
Yes! All of that, and I loved that he wasn’t perfectly good but had to work at it. The self-awareness about his own urges towards petty vengeance and how poisonous it was early on was greatly appreciated, especially given the history of abuse he suffered.
And yeah, not saying there’s no place for grimdark anymore but it’ll be nice if TGE helps remind authors and publishers that there are more colors to work with.
If romantic fantasy is already going through a revival someone please let me know.
It’s worth bearing in mind the fact that someone making a credit card application in your name would be pretty straight forward prima facie evidence of fraud; the troll is, of course, perfectly free to argue that it was not a fraudulent action but one of intended harassment, but that might not help the troll very much.
I would advise anyone on the receiving end to report it to the police as well as reporting it to the credit card company. Admittedly, I live in the City of London itself, which has its own police force with vast expertise in fraud in all its forms, but it is the sensible thing to do…
May Tree:So far the start of the book is very intriguing and I’m enjoying it a lot and should be able to finish it by the weekend. But how the bleeping bleeding bulldogs did anyone claim this book sounded like a fantasy?
Ann Leckie should have known better to put that tavern and that snow so close together! There are rules!
Soon Lee on Request: I am in the middle of reading The Goblin Emperor & would appreciate that spoilers be signalled in some obvious fashion.
Eeek! Sorry – um I was actual writing about a completely different book with exactly the same name? [yeah that’ll fix it]
I got carried away is my only (genuine) excuse.
@Meredith:
***TGE Spoilers Ahead.***
I think missing the attempted usurpation and betrayal by his nohecharis was a pretty big screw up, and we get to see how he deals with the fall out from that.
***Spoilers done***
Incidentally, if anyone in the Pacific Northwest is really interested in learning more about how institutional knowledge about con-running is passed along, ConComCon is this coming weekend! Although usually a regional con about con-running, this year it’ll have some of the Sasquan committee and staff from outside the region participating.
I’m a relatively new poster here, and don’t know the site’s accepted ways to mark spoilers, but may I suggest encrypting it using Rot-13? http://www.rot13.com/ That way someone’s eye can’t accidentally drift across spoilery text.
XS on Personally the lack of violence and especially grimdark was a big part of what made Goblin Emperor so refreshing.
It certainly strikes a contrast with A Song of Fire and Ice 🙂
Still I would have preferred a bit more violence or a greater threat of violence (yes I know we had an exploding airship [not a spoiler because it is what starts the chain of events]) because otherwise I felt like the major threat Maia faced was abdicating from a job he didn’t want.
Well now I’ve said lots of bad things about it I feel honor bound to say I did really like it and it deserved its spot on the ballot. It’s core strength was the focus on a really likable character. Maia reminded me a little of Tenar/Arha from the Tombs of Atuan.
Soon Lee–I apologize for any spoilers! I did try to be vague! Hope you enjoy the book!
“may I suggest encrypting it using Rot-13?”
That is sort of neat.
naq jura Znvn trgf rngra ol n tvnag uvccbtevss V ernyyl sryg yvxr gur uvccbtevss ynpxrq ntrapl. Jung jnf gur zbgvingvba bs gur uvccbtevss naq jul jnf vg jrnevat gung ung? Nyfb V qvqa’g yvxr gur guerr pybja punenpgref be gurve fhocybg nobhg gur zvffvat purrfr cvengr.
“I confess that when ranking the nominees for this year’s Hugos, one of my chief complaints regarding TGE is that the fantasy element is so attenuated as to practically not exist.”
Quite aside from priestly dealings with the dead, I invite you to compare the customs, society, religion and government of TGE’s gaslight elves with airships and any historical European empire with the same technology.
**The Goblin Emperor spoilerspoilerspoiler**
@Camestros
Its not spelled out explicitly every time it comes up, but I thought it was clear that abdicating (or, at the beginning, failing to get coronated) would not be good for Maia’s health and prospects of reaching old age.
***endspoiler***
Camestros: Ohg gur zvffvat purrfr cvengr jnf gur xrl gb gur jubyr fgbel! Vs gur purrfr cvengr unqa’g tbar zvffvat, gura Znvn pbhyqa’g unir naarkrq gur Tboyva Xvatqbz sbe gurve eraarg!
@Jack Lint: “Apparently, masculine pronouns.”
Y’see, folks, this is why I invest in waterproof keyboards.
@Rek: “I love Bujold, but I have hard time considering A Civil Campaign as an example of MilSF. Mirror Dance, sure.”
My point was more that all the Miles books tend to get lumped together as MilSF, despite involving other topics and even (gasp) romance! In fact, most of the MilSF fans I know call out ACC as one of the strongest books in the series; if they include it in the category, so do I, and AJ/AS has just as much of a claim.
@Peace: “I am not sure when or why “Red” in the US suddenly started meaning conservative and “Blue” started meaning liberal.”
Blame the 2000 election. The networks used to switch up the colors, because it wasn’t important which color was used for which party as long as they differed so the map made sense. However, when the Bush/Gore results (using that color scheme) dragged out long enough for that specific assignment to get lodged in the American psyche, and it’s been locked down that way ever since.
@Cally
V’ir arire ernq n obbx gung uvatrq ba purrfr cebqhpgvba, naq abj V ernyyl ernyyl jnag gb.
His disproportionate anger is a serious red flag.
Reading TKs comments both here and elsewhere makes me think that he would, in a certain Stephenson reality, have “Poor Impulse Control” tattooed on his forehead.
Cally ” Ohg gur zvffvat purrfr cvengr jnf gur xrl gb gur jubyr fgbel! Vs gur purrfr cvengr unqa’g tbar zvffvat, gura Znvn pbhyqa’g unir naarkrq gur Tboyva Xvatqbz sbe gurve eraarg!”
Well I hadn’t read it that way but now that you mention it explains a lot of the reference to shoe size in chapter 37.
Meredith: My kids always enjoyed this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stinky_Cheese_Man_and_Other_Fairly_Stupid_Tales