(1) READ THE GAME. The Read it Forward site is celebrating Ready Player One’s theatrical debut this week with an interactive 8-bit-inspired excerpt that “gamifies” the prologue from Ernest Cline’s novel. [Click on the GIF to view.]
Read your way to the top of the Scoreboard as you earn points for discovering Easter eggs that bring the content to life. As readers learn of Parzival’s hunt for the keys to OASIS, they’ll maneuver their way around a maze, attend an ‘80s dance party, unlock footnotes, and more. Upon completion, readers can add their name to a Scoreboard and share their score with a link to the excerpt on social media. All of the excerpt’s hidden extras are unlocked once a reader earns the maximum score of 10,000 points.
(2) TV INTEREST IN THREE-BODY PROBLEM. From io9: “Report: Amazon May Pay $1 Billion to Adapt the Hugo-Winning Chinese Novel The Three-Body Problem”.
The Hugo-winning Chinese novel The Three-Body Problem could become Amazon’s Game of Thrones. A new report from Financial Times suggests Amazon is pursuing a deal to make a three-season television show based on the trilogy from Liu Cixin, and it may be willing to pay up to $1 billion to do so.
According to the Financial Times report, international investors say Amazon is negotiating for the rights to produce three seasons based on Remembrance of Earth’s Past, the scifi trilogy more commonly known by the title of its first book, The Three-Body Problem.
In a statement reported by Chinese news outlets, YooZoo Pictures stated that it remains the sole owners for the film and TV rights for The Three-Body Problem, though it didn’t comment on whether Amazon had approached the company or were in talks with them to collaborate on this reported streaming project. Cixin was also asked about this development by Chinese news outlet MTime.com, where he revealed he knew nothing about the project and doesn’t know if he’d be invited to work on it.
(3) DISSENTING VOICE. In contrast to those looking forward to the movie, Vox says “The Ready Player One book used to be considered a fun romp. Then Gamergate happened,” in “The Ready Player One backlash, explained”.
A time traveler from 2011 could be forgiven for being deeply confused by this response. In 2011, Ready Player One was beloved. It was “a guaranteed pleasure.” It was “witty.” It was not only “a simple bit of fun” but also “a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”
What gives? How did the consensus on a single book go from “exuberant and meaningful fun!” to “everything that is wrong with the internet!” over the span of seven years?
… But the main thing Ready Player One is doing is telling those ’80s-boy-culture-obsessed gamers that they matter, that in fact they are the most important people in the universe. That knowing every single goddamn word of Monty Python and the Holy Grail can have life-or-death stakes, because why shouldn’t it? (Yes, that is a crucial step in Wade’s battle to save the OASIS.)
For readers in Cline’s target demographic in 2011, that message felt empowering. For readers who weren’t, it felt like a harmless piece of affirmation meant for someone else. Everyone deserves a silly escapist fantasy, right? And since Cline’s silly escapist fantasy wasn’t specifically meant for girls — unlike, say, Twilight, which was getting savaged in popular culture at the time — Ready Player One was largely left alone by the people it wasn’t built for…
(4) ASHBY STORY. This month’s entry in the Future Tense Fiction series, “Domestic Violence” by Madeline Ashby, is a free read at Slate.
A partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University, Future Tense explores how emerging technologies will change the way we live. The latest consumer gadgets are intriguing, but we focus on the longer-term transformative power of robotics, information and communication technologies, synthetic biology, augmented reality, space exploration, and other technologies. Future Tense seeks to understand the latest technological and scientific breakthroughs, and what they mean for our environment, how we relate to one another, and what it means to be human. Future Tense also examines whether technology and its development can be governed democratically and ethically.
And there’s also a response essay from Ian Harris, who works on technology issues with the National Network to End Domestic Violence: “The Complicated Relationship Between Abuse and Tech”.
Violence against women is having something of a moment right now. Which is to say, portrayals of domestic violence in film and TV are gaining critical acclaim. Through shows like Big Little Lies and movies like I, Tonya, popular culture is grappling with more nuanced representations of domestic violence and the humanity of survivors of abuse. These are important conversations, and I hope that this is the start of a profound societal transformation, though time will tell. For me, the most disturbing part of these portrayals is not the brutality of the assaults, but how frequently physical violence is prioritized over other types of abusive behavior. It is what we don’t see that worries me.
We see this distorted prioritization in real life, too. I’ve been a domestic violence attorney for more than a decade. Despite the long list of clients who have struggled to get the justice system to live up to its name, I have found that survivors are much more likely to get help for physical assaults than for other kinds of abusive behavior such as stalking, surveillance, harassment, and intimate image disclosures, which frequently feel more harmful to the survivor.
(5) AVENGERS PLUG. A new TV spot for Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War.
The end is near. One month until Avengers: Infinity War.
(6) SEARCH FOR DIVERSE FICTION. Rocket Stack Rank has another new feature. Greg Hullender explains:
In response to readers who wanted a way to find good stories by diverse authors, we did an analysis of the most-recommended short speculative fiction stories written by people of color in 2015 and 2016 — “Best People of Color SF/F of 2015-2016”.
This only looks at stories that got some sort of recognition (e.g. solid recommendation from a prolific reviewer, inclusion in a years-best anthology, finalist for a major award), so just 481 stories across those two years. Of those, 112 were written by people of color.
The credit for this work goes to Eric Wong, who did the hard work of looking up information on all the authors as well as customizing the software to let readers group the data different ways.
(7) BLOWN UP, SIR. In “This teacher aims to get kids fired up about chemistry”, the Washington Post’s Kitson Jazynka profiles University of Texas chemistry instructor Kate Biberdorf, who “breathes fire and makes explosions that blast the eyes out of jack-o-lanterns.”
Or what about one who, with a quick pour of potassium iodide into a mix of hydrogen peroxide, dish soap and food coloring, makes bubbly foam that shoots toward the ceiling? Kate Biberdorf is no imaginary teacher. She’s real, and she’s coming to Washington next month, bringing along her blowtorch and cornstarch, her supplies of liquid nitrogen and dry ice, and a lot of enthusiasm for chemistry.
Bibersdorf’s website is http://katethechemist.com/. How could Filers NOT be interested in a woman who says her goal in life is “to have an explosive science show in Vegas?”
(8) HELP BILL SPENCER. Paul Di Filippo urges readers to support a GoFundMe that will “Give Back to Bill Spencer”.
We all need a little help sometimes. This is one of those times for Bill. He has several different health issues going on right now and the medical expenses he is incurring that are not covered through Medicare are mounting and could get much worse. As well, he’s facing some unforeseeable out of pocket expenses that could potentially end up being a serious problem. Right now, Bill simply doesn’t have enough for monthly bills, day to day living expenses and numerous co-pays that keep coming his way for various medical necessities.
Many readers know Bill as the award-winning writer William Browning Spencer, author of novels like Zod Wallop, Resume with Monsters and short-story collections like his latest, The Unorthodox Dr. Draper and Other Stories.
But Bill has contributed to others in a very different way as well. By freely and graciously donating endless amounts of his time over the years to sponsoring and supporting people who are facing their own daunting problems related to alcohol, drugs and living life. It’s time to give back to Bill what he has so freely given.
This is something Bill would never ask for himself, but he is one of my best friends and I know he is important to folks like yourself, who may wish to help in his time of need. Bill is truly one of the most amazing, caring and hilarious human beings I know and if you’re reading this you most likely feel the same. I think we’d all love for Bill to have the peace of mind of knowing that, whatever happens, he need not be stressed out and worried each day about how he’s going to pay for medication or a test or procedure he needs on top of his modest monthly and day to day expenses.
(9) BISCHOFF OBIT. Writer David Bischoff, 66, of Eugene, OR died March 19. He was a contributor to Doug Fratz’ 1970s fanzine Thrust. His first professional successes included The Seeker, a novel published in 1976, and the Nebula-nominated story “Tin Woodman,” co-authored with Dnnis Bailey, later adapted into both a novel and TV episode for Star Trek: The Next Generation. He also wrote the Star Trek tie-in novel Grounded, which spent time on the bestseller list. His other TV work included Dinosaucers (with Ted Pedersen). Bischoff wrote 75 original novels, and tie-in novels for movies and TV series.
David Bischoff. Photo by and copyright Andrew Porter.
(10) A POLICEMAN’S LOT. Camestros Felapton reacted to Richard Paolinelli’s minor league prank of complaining to the Aussie cops about Felapton’s blog.
A stalwart champion of free speech has attempted to report me to the federal police for the crime of having a blog – once again surpassing satire.
— Camestros Felapton (@CamestrosF) March 26, 2018
Cop’s spouse: did you catch many evil doers today honey?
Cop: Mainly read an advice column on the internet…by a dinosaur…about how t-Rexs drink too much and try to climb trees when they are drunk…
Cop’s spouse: Just another day on the mean crime ridden streets of Canberra— Camestros Felapton (@CamestrosF) March 27, 2018
(11) MOUNTAINTOP EXPERIENCE. “The hidden history of the UK’s highest peak”: A tourist hiking trail once led to an early weather station whose records are now being used to trace climate change.
Back in Victorian Britain, science was still largely an amateur pastime conducted by bands of self-financed enthusiasts who formed scientific societies. One was the Scottish Meteorological Society, which set up and maintained a network of weather stations across Scotland between 1855 and 1920.
(12) WAVE GOODBYE. “Stephen Hawking’s final interview: A beautiful Universe” starts from LIGO discovery of grav waves.
Tell us how important is the detection of two colliding neutron stars?
It is a genuine milestone. It is the first ever detection of a gravitational wave source with an electromagnetic counterpart. It confirms that short gamma-ray bursts occur with neutron star mergers. It gives a new way of determining distances in cosmology. And it teaches us about the behaviour of matter with incredibly high density.
(13) MAY THE ODDS BE ALWAYS IN YOUR FAVOR. Don’t look up — “Tiangong-1: China space station may fall to Earth ‘in days'”.
Should I be worried?
No. Most of the 8.5-tonne station will disintegrate as it passes through the atmosphere.
Some very dense parts such as the fuel tanks or rocket engines might not burn up completely. However, even if parts do survive to the Earth’s surface, the chances of them hitting a person are incredibly slim.
“Our experience is that for such large objects typically between 20% and 40% of the original mass will survive re-entry and then could be found on the ground, theoretically,” the head of Esa’s space debris office, Holger Krag, told reporters at a recent briefing.
“However, to be injured by one of these fragments is extremely unlikely. My estimate is that the probability of being injured by one of these fragments is similar to the probability of being hit by lightning twice in the same year.”
(14) WEDDING BELLS. Page Six headline: “‘Star Trek’ star marries Leonard Nimoy’s son”:
Live long and prosper, you two.
Adam Nimoy, son of the late “Star Trek” icon Leonard Nimoy, and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” actress Terry Farrell married on Monday, on what would’ve been Leonard Nimoy’s 87th birthday.
The couple tied the knot in a civil ceremony at City Hall in San Francisco, according to film critic Scott Mantz, who tweeted a photo of the couple on their wedding day. Farrell retweeted Mantz’s photo and wrote, “Freakin AWESOME day!!!!!!! Love ya all! Aka: Mrs. Adam Nimoy.”
She also changed her Twitter bio to include “Mrs. Adam Nimoy.”
RT BREAKING NEWS!! ADAM NIMOY & TERRY FARRELL got MARRIED TODAY at a CIVIL CEREMONY at CITY HALL in SAN FRANCISCO! Today is the BIRTHDAY of Adam’s father #LeonardNimoy! Big CONGRATS to the happy couple!! #LLAP #StarTrek pic.twitter.com/sGB8OX2Tir
— Scott Mantz ???? (@MovieMantz) March 26, 2018
(15) COMPLAINTS ABOUT DATE OF HUGO ANNOUNCEMENT. The announcement of the 2018 Hugo finalists wouldn’t be on March 31/Passover/Easter weekend/a Saturday if it was up to these folks:
https://twitter.com/leeflower/status/978651161560604672
https://twitter.com/leeflower/status/978653913250451457
Hey @Dublin2019, PLEASE, Next year, please announce the Hugo Award Finalists on a Monday or Tuesday morning, not on a Saturday.This is a tradition that long since has lost its usefulness. https://t.co/OZn8jADkDu
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) March 27, 2018
Without fail, WorldCon always announces the Hugos on the most inconvinient day possible. It's like they don't want people paying attention.
— Aidan Moher (@adribbleofink) March 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/RoseLemberg/status/978702831598342144
https://twitter.com/RoseLemberg/status/978704226028269568
Hugo nominations have almost always been announced the day before Easter. It’s a bad day to do this for so many reasons. Last year was a rare and happy exception.
— John Chu (@john_chu) March 27, 2018
Last year was the anomaly. Releasing the info simultaneously on the weekend of multiple Easter weekend conventions has been the tradition as long as I remember. (Not saying it's good or defensible. I was just pleasantly surprised it was a weekday last year)
— Mur Lafferty (@mightymur) March 27, 2018
It was a good anomaly, and they should have stuck with it. All I'm saying is, if they can break tradition once, it's clearly not that powerful or important a tradition.
— La Rappresentante di Navah ???????? ???????????????????????? (@navahw) March 27, 2018
Part of a longstanding tradition of announcing them the weekend of Easter, so it's always been an inconvenience to observant Christians. This year, by fluke of the calendar, they're discriminating a little bit less.
— Robert Thau — @[email protected] (@rsthau) March 27, 2018
Nebula finalists are usually announced on a weekday. Makes sense for getting press.
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) March 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/ohseafarer/status/978732880070434817
https://twitter.com/XtinaSchelin/status/978715492759240704
https://twitter.com/dongwon/status/978734074306203648
https://twitter.com/MikeRUnderwood/status/978738342220238850
https://twitter.com/ULTRAGOTHA/status/978738180089368576
(16) VERTLIEB CANVASSES. Rondo Awards voting closes April 8 at midnight and Steve Vertlieb hopes people will consider his nominated article “Robert Bloch: The Clown at Midnight” for Best Article of the Year.
My published work about the author of “Psycho” … “Robert Bloch: The Clown At Midnight” … has been nominated for a Rondo Award for “Best Article of the Year.” Anyone can vote. This year’s competition ends Sunday night, April 8th, at midnight. To vote for my remembrance of Robert, simply send your choice, along with your name, to [email protected]
This is the story of my twenty five year friendship with acclaimed writer Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho. It is the newly published remembrance of a complex, remarkable man, and our affectionate relationship over a quarter century.
Robert Bloch was one of the founding fathers of classic horror, fantasy, and science fiction whose prolific prose thrilled and influenced the popular genre, its writers, and readers, for much of the twentieth century. An early member of “The Lovecraft Circle,” a group of both aspiring and established writers of “Weird Fiction” assembled by Howard Phillips Lovecraft during the early 1930’s, Bloch became one of the most celebrated authors of that popular literary genre during the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s, culminating in the publication of his controversial novel concerning a boy, his mother, and a particularly seedy motel. When Alfred Hitchcock purchased his novel and released “Psycho” with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh in 1960, Bloch became one of the most sought after authors and screen writers in Hollywood. His numerous contributions to the acclaimed television anthology series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” are among the best of the director’s classic suspense series, while his legendary scripts, adaptations and teleplays for Boris Karloff’s “Thriller” series for NBC are among the most bone chilling, frightening, and horrifying screen presentations in television history. He also famously penned several classic episodes of NBC’s original “Star Trek” series for producer Gene Roddenberry. Writers Stephen King, Richard Matheson, and Harlan Ellison have written lovingly and profusely of their own literary debt to Robert Bloch. Bob was, for me, even more significantly, a profoundly singular mentor and cherished personal friend for a quarter century. This is the story of that unforgettable relationship.
(17) NUMBER PLEASE. A strange post at George R.R. Martin’s Not a Blog caught Greg Hullender’s eye: “I wonder if this is a coded announcement that Winds of Winter is coming?” “Yowza” consists of a series of pictures of hands with finger extended as though counting. But does the number 4534 really mean anything?
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Joey Eschrich, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Ghostbird, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Carl Slaughter, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Greg Hullender, Paul DiFilippo, and Mark Hepworth for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kurt Busiek.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two scrolls diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less pixeled
And that has made all the difference.
@Laura
Doesn’t really matter about the official video announcement. No doubt it will be live-tweeted as it happens.
I am not sure it has any bearing on the amount of live-streaming from the con. I am not sure whether Worldcon 76 will stream (and make available for later viewing) some panels (like 75 did) but I hope so as it gives potential future members an idea of what goes on at a SF con.
As not an observant jew, i think that the proper secular way to announce the Hugos is at the most appropriate time for the best coverage/largest impact it can have; what is historically the slowest news day, highest web traffic day, that is closest to announcement time.
(I also think that maybe it should be segmented, with the most popular awards being announced last, using the other announcements to build, but that runs the risk of boring people/dragging it out too long)
As far as ceremony on Sunday nite? it oughta be mandated to be Friday nite of the convention (Saturday in reserve), or maybe even Friday afternoon.
I tweeted it in one of Aidan Moher’s twitter threads above, but I didn’t see anyone else mention it here: Four years ago, John Scalzi made A Plea to Current and Future Worldcons, re: Announcing the Hugo Nominations. Seems like cons have not paid much attention yet.
EDIT: I see JJ mentioned the Scalzi post 2 days ago in the Hugo nominee announcement thread, never mind. 🙂
If the Nebulas routinely announce on a weekday, has anyone compared the level of mainstream media coverage with weekend-announced Hugos?
It sounds like the panel discussion could be had even without the live announcement, although you’d lose the first impressions aspect which may or may not be a significant loss – perhaps gaining some ability to do the homework first would make up for it? (Thanks, andyl, for the account.)
Eid will be on those days in a few years’ time.
Currently it’s in June but will have swung round to the end of March/beginning of April by 2025.
@Marshall Ryan Maresca:
The Hugos is the sf-related award with by far the highest public visibility (the only other award with any public visibility to talk of is the Nebula), so it is a great chance for nominated authors to get noticed.
In a way, this goes back to different views of fandom. On one hand, the Hugos and fandom are viewed as support structures for the business end of science fiction; on the other hand, the Hugos are a celebration within fandom for the things the fans there care about, which mostly happens to be science fiction.
Sorry to hear that this year’s announcements are particularly hard on Jews.
Most Christians are not subject to the same degree of Sabbath activity restrictions as observant Jews, though some Christian groups do have strict practices. In general, though, as an observant Christian I’ve never been a fan of cons that are deliberately scheduled on Easter weekend, when services, fasts and other observances around those days mean it’s not a good time for us to travel for unrelated activities. The message I’ve always gotten from those cons is “we don’t really care about you folks”. Which is their right, but doesn’t make me feel particularly welcome as a Christian SF fan.
The date of Easter in western Christianity is usually within a week of Passover (for our own set of $reasons). They’re not often within a day of each other, but they will be again next year, as well as in 2022.
That’s my last Pixel, scrolled on the screen
As if it were a living link. I ween
’Tis art; Our Gracious Host did ply his keys
To tap and click to teach, beguile, or tease.
Stay; appertain! Enjoy. His name I dropped—
I’m proud he used my link. He freely copped
To having helpers find him fodder to file,
Which with his words so often did beguile.
To my own pride, at times my links would do
And on occasion, he used my titles, too.
Say, we really are living in the future. Orwell’s future! The Guardian‘s Tim Morton downloaded his Google file to see what data of his they’d saved. Short answer: All of it. 5.5GB worth (O, Brave new world!). Every e-mail, every photo, every video looked at, every ad clicked on, every location his phone had been in, and every draft or document he’d ever deleted:
https://t.co/SmTn5zQFKg
@Charon D
So it seems. My corner was split on the book when it first got popular and then post-GG when the context the book could be read in was completely changed. Usually the issues were Cline’s introduction of themes and elements that he essentially abandoned, creating a shallow disappointing whole after a promising beginning, or Cline’s paperthin female character and his brushes with some of the worst aspects of toxic geek male attitudes. After GG, it became the elevation of gatekeeping at the expense of, literally, everyone else.
Movie looks like it might be a fun romp, but the ideas coded in it are problematic.
@John Mark Ockerbloom–
Yes indeed. There’s always, in my lifetime in fandom, been some sense that being openly antisemitic was icky, even if there might be a lack of real respect for Jewish religious beliefs. But Christianity? There’s an assumption, not uncommonly openly stated, that conventions on Easter weekend don’t inconvenience anyone who matters.
That real fans are atheists.
And it’s an unexamined, barely conscious assumption, so it’s hard to call people on it without confusing rather than enlightening them.
Nicholas Whyte (next year’s Hugo Administrator) has announced that Dublin will be announcing the Hugo Finalists before Easter in 2019 (mainly due to the fact that Easter is late in April next year so the timing is bad for an Easter weekend announcement).
https://twitter.com/nwbrux/status/978757069552672770
Why, is this Hugo announcement different from all other Hugo announcements? 🙂
For an April scroll:
Whan that Pixelle with his scrolles soote
The file of March hath perced to the roote …
my name is Filer.
i tayke the pith
and wen its tyme
for second fith,
and all the pups
haf played their trix i’ll
talk of books —
i scrol the pixel.
@Lis, @John Mark Ockerbloom:
Speaking as a practicing Catholic who regularly goes to a con on Holy Saturday (for Reasons), yep. And that feeds the narrative of the right-wing in-your-face Christians that they have a lock on observance within the community.
Bravo, Evil Rooster!
The itsy bitsy filer scrolled up the pixel spout.
I suspect that the timing of “stuffs” to Easter is due to the fact that many (if not all) Western countries have an assortment of no-work days around then, so you get a long weekend essentially for free (that is, no need to take days off to attend).
This is clearly sub-optimal for anyone who would like to use the very same days for something else, like religious ceremonies, visiting family, …
In Sweden, you’ll get a whole bunch of fandom-related activities correlated to these “there’s extra days off” weekends (Easter sees GothCon, the large gaming convention in Gothenburg), Ascension weekends sees LinCon (again, a gaming convention, in Linköping) ,Pentecost sees yet another gaming convention… These all also probably conflict with Swedish SF stuff, but my recollection is that historically, there’s a large overlap of the people involved, so maybe not.
Yup, we have a large stockpile of pith around here
Nice one, Evil Rooster
@Karl-Johan, You don’t have to Hugosplain to me. I know what the Hugos are, I’ve been to the ceremony.
What I found odd in this was the repeated use of “participate” in terms of the nominations announcement. Because you don’t participate in it; you react to it, and if anything is interactive, it’s the shared collective reaction: the congratulations, the thank yous, the griping, the hot takes. And, yeah, participating in that live and in the moment is where the most fun is. You come into Twitter on Monday morning, and most people have moved on to talking about cats or something.
But like I said: that’s not the event, that’s the reaction. And I’m trying to be sympathetic, but I feel like this is trying to frame things as discriminatory when it’s mostly just Fear Of Missing Out.
@Meredith
Last year there was a discussion panel on the novels. But it was just the novels and a lot of people, and some on the panel, hadn’t read them all. There was nothing on the short work or series or other categories.
At Eastercon we used to have a “Not the Clarkes” panel at Eastercon which used to discuss the Clarke shortlisted books and which one should win. However since the the Clarke Award moved its dates we can’t do that.
@Karl-Johan Norén
The Clarke has high visibility within the UK with The Guardian announcing the shortlist and usually featuring a review of the winner.
As for why Easter, I think Ingvar has it right. It is because it is already a long weekend (a 4 day weekend in the UK).
@JJ: I have been less involved in Worldcon recently; I note your reference shows some recent cons not releasing on Easter (although some seem to have lengthened the nomination period to allow for a late Easter), and I would be interested to see what the dates are more than a decade back — ISTM that this is a recent drift.
That’s a rather blunt assertion. As an agnostic I tend not to ask people about their beliefs (let alone the details of their observances), but I know through local acquaintances saying things that there is a wide range among professed Jews; I would not assume that there are enough Jews in genre who are so rigorous about chag and chol hamoed (thanks to @Standback for the terms) that this intersection is certain.
@steve davidson:
Why should the Hugos be early (or worse, in the afternoon, when there are a lot of other things going on)? N3 (1989) tried swapping Hugos and Masquerade; there was not a storm of protest, but IIRC the reaction was not great. AFAICR, Hugos have been on the night of the last full day of the convention since then.
@Sylvia Sotomayor: that seems very early for school start; is that classes, or employee callup (since you mentioned “work”)? There have been comments for over a decade that the once-traditional Labor Day weekend is bad for families because of the number of schools that start (or have important introductions) before then, but I haven’t seen hard numbers on how far back opening dates have moved. And is that a statewide date? If so, it seems uncommonly ill-planned for a group with a Worldcon history (although I don’t know how many of the current con’s management have form, or whether the newer ones listen to the more-experienced members). I would love to hear from Kevin about why the con runs into a work Monday; if I’m reading the Long List and my PDA calendar correctly, this is the first time a North American Worldcon has done this. (Most of the recent European Worldcons ran into a Monday in August, but I don’t know how their holiday schedules run.)
Meredith Moment:
The Long List Anthology 3 is on sale at Amazon US for $0.99. I don’t know if it’s also for sale elsewhere, but the timing suggests it may well be on sale broadly.
Chip Hitchcock on March 28, 2018 at 8:26 am said:
There are enough observant Jews, both fans and professionals, that are eligible for a Hugo in any given year that consideration of the fact that they *cannot participate at all* for up to 36 hours after the announcement should probably be a factor Worldcon committees take into consideration when deciding on when to announce. They won’t even HEAR about becoming a finalist until after Passover.
There are even more observant Jews who are keenly interested in the Hugos and look forward to the finalists announcement every year.
If Worldcon wasn’t aware up until this year what an issue this is, then we are aware now. Even if W76 doesn’t change their announcement date, Worldcons in the future should seriously consider this pushback when setting announcement dates (and also consider the pushback against a Sunday evening Hugo Ceremony when considering Event dates at the convention.)
And look into Eid dates as well in a few years.
I’d like to see the Hugo finalists announced on a Friday, early enough in the day for the American media to do something with the news. If there’s still a desire to tie this to Eastercon and Norwescon, put it in the earliest hour of programming that day which can be part of both cons. Maybe a Hugo finalist announcement could be at 7 p.m. at Eastercon and 11 a.m. at Norwescon, if I didn’t botch the timezones.
My hunch from years of web publishing and tweeting is that 10 a.m. Eastern Monday is the best time to announce news for maximum online impact. It’s also a good time to get media coverage.
This is off topic. I might have mentioned something to a couple of you in Helsinki.
I’m currently sat in hospital where my daughter Harriet Beatrice Eden was born this morning. She’s lovely.
ETA: she is not actually named after one of Red Wombat’s heroines, but I’m buying her a copy anyhow.
@rcade I’d like to see the Hugo finalists announced on a Friday, early enough in the day for the American media to do something with the news
I am happy with Friday. Although your general point seems to prioritise US media over that from other countries which seems a bit off to me.
CONGRATS NickPheas!
@ NickPheas
I’m currently sat in hospital where my daughter Harriet Beatrice Eden was born this morning. She’s lovely.
Congratulations!
NickPheas, I am so happy for you! Let me be the third to congratulate you!
@NickPheas–
Welcome to Harriet Beatrice Eden!
When can we expect her first comment here?
Congratulations, NikPheas!
They will already have been contacted by the committee about accepting their nominations before the public announcement happens.
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which appertainment is due to pour….
I get the feeling from some quarters that some folks think that Worldcon should be exactly 1 day long: Saturday. The only thing that happens should be the Hugo Award ceremony, because it’s the only think that Really Matters.
Congratulations, NickPheas!!!!
Welcome Harriet, and congratulations (and wishes for good rest when you can get it) to NickPheas!
@Dex — Yeah … I noted your objections to problematic underlying ideas and brushes with same, and I’ve also heard that RP1 is reactionary and almost-fascist (from a discussion I had here last weekend). It’s probably just me, but I have major issues with a work suddenly becoming (evil? conservative? fascist? unprogressive? not-our-kind-dear?) due solely to contextual reasons. It feels like people are grasping for reasons to condemn something because it appeals to what they feel is the wrong crowd and not for its own merits (or lack thereof). I’m presumably in the wrong crowd (as a videogame-loving ‘80s kid surrounded by people who are positive about RP1), even though my bubble includes a lot of female gamers who struggle with rage from creepy male gamers as well as gamer-haters – more nebulous contextual sort of sin. Videogames seem to inspire lots of contextual rage, so I’m presuming it’s probably safest to stay in my bubble and play Cuphead (OMG what a gorgeous game, I’m very glad it’s getting nominated for all sorts of awards).
@NickPheas – congrats!!
Congratulations to NickPheas!
@NickPheas
Congratulations, and best wishes for the new family.
Mike Glyer on March 28, 2018 at 9:54 am said:
You are correct. They won’t get to celebrate on line with their fellow-finalists, colleagues, friends, and fans until after Passover.
@NickPheas – Congratulations!
Congratulations, NickPheas!
I think I’d like to know every word in MONTY PYTHON AND THREHOLY GRAIL over anything Vox Day wrote, or EVER will write.
Ingvar: “I suspect that the timing of “stuffs” to Easter is due to the fact that many (if not all) Western countries have an assortment of no-work days around then, so you get a long weekend essentially for free (that is, no need to take days off to attend).”
Yep. All the long holiday weekends in the UK suitable for putting on our national convention are religious holidays – it used to be held at Whitsun before moving to Easter. This being so, are those Christians complaining about this suggesting everyone should instead choose a non-holiday weekend that would mean they’d have to take annual leave days off work to attend? That’s the only real alternative, and would be a very hard sell.
Congratulations NickPheas!
Im quite happy about the Voxarticle, because I didnt read the book (mediocre reviews here) and was a bit surprised about the strength of the backlah. Now I know. (And my tactic of not being bothered enough to actively investigate paid off)
The most leading voice of them all: Peer, if you’re going to keep using this handle, you also need to keep signing your comments “Peer”. Otherwise people will think I’m letting a certain other party run more than one sockpuppet at a time.
NickPheas, welcome to our newest Filer!