(1) Shea Serrano at Grantland asks “Which Movie Astronauts Would You Want To Be Stranded With In Outer Space?”
And which ones would you definitely not want to be with in outer space?
This doesn’t necessarily presume that you and your astronaut friend will definitely face a life-or-death situation, but it does consider how that astronaut would navigate any life-or-death situation that might arise. Other things involved: How would he or she handle the mental punishment that being in space inflicts upon the brain? How would he or she deal with the possibility of having to spend the rest of his or her life in space? How would he or she react should aliens turn out to be real? And so on.
Normally, these sorts of conversations require rules to function efficiently, but really there’s only one that needs to be instituted here. It’s easy: We need to get rid of the astronauts from movies in which people live in space full time (or mostly full time), because those characters are already comfortable with the unnaturalness of Being In Space. So let’s consider only those who have traveled to space or been placed into space in a temporary context.
His article lists lots of obvious favorites, and others I’d never thought of in those terms.
(2) ”Skin Feeling” , Sofia Samatar’s beautifully-written essay on what it is like to be an African-American professor (she teaches at the University of California Channel Islands) covers a lot of ground, and one of her points is this:
In the logic of diversity work, bodies of color form a material that must accumulate until it reaches a certain mass. Once that’s done, everyone can stop talking about it. For now, we minimize talk by representing our work with charts that can be taken in instantly, at a glance. In her book On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, Sara Ahmed writes of diversity workers of color: “We are ticks in the boxes; we tick their boxes.” The box is the predictable form, the tick the sign of how quickly you can get past it. Get past us.
Well, you ask, should we dissolve all the committees, then? Keep faculty of color off them? What’s your solution? Try to read the demand for solutions and your frustration for what they are: products of the logic of diversity work, which wants to get the debt paid, over with, done. Diversity work is slow and yet it’s always in a rush. It can’t relax. It can’t afford the informal gesture, the improvised note, the tangential question that moves off script, away from representation into some weird territory of you and me talking in this room right now. Diversity work can’t afford to entertain the thought that some debts can’t be paid, that they might just be past due. With agonizing slowness, this work grinds on toward payment—that is, toward the point where it will no longer exist. It’s a suicidal project.
(3) The sf magazine field is probably about to experience a contraction, says Neil Clarke in “Editor’s Desk: The Sad Truth About Short Fiction Magazines” at Clarkesworld.
- Quality
If the number of quality stories isn’t growing as fast as the number of stories publishers need to fill all their slots, then quality must dip to fill the void.
- Sustainability
If the number of readers willing to pay for short fiction isn’t growing as fast as the financial need of the publishers, the field begins to starve itself.
…But what can any of us do about it? Here’s a few suggestions:
- Subscribe to or support any magazine that you’d be willing to bail out if they were to run aground. Just-in-time funding is not a sane or sustainable business model. If you want them to succeed, then be there before they need you.
- If a magazine doesn’t offer subscriptions or have something like a Patreon page you can support them financially through, encourage them to do so.
- Encourage SFWA to raise their qualifying rate for short fiction. Why? Given the small explosion in markets that are paying that rate, it’s clearly too easy for publishers to earn that badge. Yes, that rate is a badge of honor for publishers. Seriously though, the authors deserve better.
- Don’t support new (or revival) projects until they clearly outline reasonable goals to sustain the publication after their initial funding runs out.
- Introduce new readers to your favorite stories and magazines. This is particularly easy with so many online magazines being freely available at the moment. We need more short fiction readers if all this is to remain sustainable. This plays into my comments on short fiction reviews last month.
(4) Neal Stephenson has been named a Miller Distinguished Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute. He visited SFI this week and will return for periodic visits through the end of 2016.
The Miller Distinguished Scholarship is the most prestigious visiting position at SFI, awarded to highly accomplished, creative thinkers who make profound contributions to our understandings of society, science, and culture.
Stephenson will be the sixth SFI Miller Scholar since SFI Board Chair Emeritus Bill Miller conceived and underwrote the scholarship in 2010. Stephenson follows philosopher of science Daniel Dennett (2010), quantum physicist Seth Lloyd (2010-2011), actor/playwright Sam Shepard (2010-2011), philosopher/author Rebecca Goldstein (2011-2012), and author/narrative historian Hampton Sides (2015-2016).
(5) George R.R. Martin describes his fascination with the red planet for the Guardian in “Our long obsession with Mars”.
Once upon a time there was a planet called Mars, a world of red sands, canals and endless adventure. I remember it well, for I went there often as a child. I come from a blue-collar, working-class background. My family never had much money. We lived in a federal housing project in Bayonne, New Jersey, never owned a car, never saw much of anywhere. The projects were on First Street, my school was on Fifth Street, and for most of my childhood those five blocks were my world.
It never mattered, though, for I had other worlds. A voracious reader, first of comic books (superheroes, mostly, but some Classics Illustrated and Disney stuff as well), then of paperbacks (science fiction, horror and fantasy, with a seasoning of murder mysteries, adventure yarns, and historicals), I travelled far and wide while hunched down in my favourite chair, turning pages.
… Growing up, I think I went to Mars more often than I went to New York City, though Manhattan was only 45 minutes and 15 cents away by bus.
Mars, though … I knew Mars inside and out. A desert planet, dry and cold and red (of course), it had seen a thousand civilisations rise and fall. The Martians that remained were a dwindling race, old and wise and mysterious, sometimes malignant, sometimes benevolent, always unknowable. Mars was a land of strange and savage beasts (thoats! Tharks! sandmice!), whispering winds, towering mountains, vast seas of red sand crisscrossed by dry canals, and crumbling porcelain cities where mystery and adventure lurked around every corner.
(6) “Still not a reason to start drinking coffee,” says John King Tarpinian. Star Wars Spiced Latte.
(7) Today in History:
October 2, 1950 —
- The “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz was published for the first time.
October 2, 1959 —
- Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone debuts on TV with the episode Where Is Everybody? in which a man finds himself alone in the small town and without any recollection of where or who he is.
(8) Today’s birthday boy –
#HappyBirthday Hugo, Locus, Prometheus, Campbell Awards winner #VernorVinge
http://t.co/SK31zHqnXf pic.twitter.com/9SPzc3xCVz— Victor Farmington Library (@VictorLibrary) October 2, 2015
(9) Kevin J. Anderson recommends the Superstars Writing Seminar, to be held February 4-6, 2016.
If you’re serious about taking your writing career to the next level, this business seminar is a must—three days and nights immersed in a heightened atmosphere of real-world wisdom and professional advice dispensed by best-selling authors Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, David Farland, Eric flint, and James A. Owen. Some of the guest speakers for the 2016 Seminar include Jody Lynn Nye, Penguin/Putnam editor Ann Sowards, and some urban fantasy author named…Bisher…Bonger…no, uhm…Butcher. Yeah, that’s it. Jim Butcher.
There are five scholarships available from the Don Hodge Memorial Scholarship Fund.
(10) Harrison Ford will be honored by BAFTA on October 30 at the Britannia Awards.
Ford will receive the Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Entertainment at the ceremony to be held at the Beverly Hilton.
“It is impossible to imagine the past 40 years of Hollywood history without Harrison Ford, and his performances are as iconic as the films themselves,” BAFTA Los Angeles chairman Kieran Breen said in a statement.
The ceremony, hosted by actor-comedian Jack Whitehall, will air Nov. 6 on Pop. The Britannia Awards had aired on BBC America in recent years but were carried by TV Guide Network, the predecessor of Pop, in 2010 and 2011.
Other Britannia honorees this year include Orlando Bloom, who will receive the Britannia Humanitarian Award, and Meryl Streep, who will receive the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film. Sam Mendes, James Corden, Amy Schumer and event production company Done + Dusted will also be recognized.
(11) Here’s a list of “The Best Haunted House for Adults in Los Angeles”.
Though there are nearly 5,000 professional haunted attractions operating nationwide every Halloween, there’s never a guarantee when it comes to true, bone-chilling quality. From haunted mansions and abandoned asylums to old prisons or open fields, you want the haunts that’ll scare you the most. They provide visitors with a horror experience that just makes you feel like you’re in your favorite horror movie. Given its close ties to the entertainment industry, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Los Angeles is home to some of the best haunted houses for adults. This Halloween, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to face your fears at the five best haunted houses for adults in Los Angeles.
(12) A new film clip from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 – “Star Squad”
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, Will R., Mark sans surname, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
@Kathodus: You’re welcome! That was one of those things where I had the show on in the background while I was cooking or something, then realized they’re doing a parody of what?!?
As for currently reading, I’m about 60 pages into Uprooted and enjoying it immensely.
I’m reading the second part of God Stalk.
Ok; the only thing I can contribute on is coffee. Specifically, Croatian coffee. Great stuff for plodding through torrential downpours in obscure archaeological sites, but I suspect that sleep may be a problem.
I’m absolutely certain that Wookie would bale at the first hint of said torrential downpours…
I think the Wookie would bail as opposed to baling. Torrential downpours produce conditions in which boats need to be bailed. (And I’m pretty sure this verb is where bailing out–as in quitting–comes from, FWIW.) Baling hay, by contrast, calls for *dry* weather.
I helped at the Friends Of The Library booth at Old Time Saturday today. It went from grey but dry to sprinkling within a few minutes of arriving, and then from sprinkling to honestly raining and blowing. Attendance was way down from last year–I’d have bailed myself but I’d promised to be there. It’s a hot chocolate kind of day.
On the other hand, expressed as a percentage, how many Ripley-crewmembers survive versus Kirk-crew members? Screenwriter’s fault or not, the outcome is what would concern me.
I think I might look for a nice safe comedy with attractive women in it. Like JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE. Except, well, I don’t think I’d want to be trapped with people that dumb playing music that shallow.
Hmm. And there’d need to be books, too. I wonder if being stranded with, say, Kal-El would count, since that could mean being stuck on Earth. Admittedly an Earth full of dopey people that can be quite dangerous in certain iterations…
Quark had The Bettys. You would be working on a garbage ship. Safe, but not quite what they promised us for adventures in outer space.
I don’t want adventures. Just a modestly-luxurious hobbit-hole with an ocean view where I can write stories.
You want Baggins, down the way.
Diversity is an intensely relative measure, and it’s generally the wrong measure. It’s also, like profit and happiness, a terrible objective.
Any ongoing collective effort toward a larger goal, whether a con, a university, or a company, is an active process of social unit formation. If what you observe is that the result never has women in it, or never has anyone in it who isn’t white, or any other kind of observance of existing social stratification, it’s inescapable — the purpose of a system is what it is observed to do — that the purpose of the social unit formation includes “doesn’t have any women in it” or “result should all be white”. Trying to move numbers of classifiable participants without using a different mechanism of social unit formation isn’t going to be successful.
The question of different mechanism often works out to “not with these people”. It’s extremely difficult to get a volunteer organization like a fannish con to decide to be run by someone else.
Napoleon’s maxim about wanting lucky generals comes to mind. Ripley is a calm head in a crisis and gets stuff done but ‘lucky’ she isn’t. On reflection the best astronaut would be Bob/Bobbie Spacepants* the former warrant officer of the Nostromo who transferred to a different ship at some point before the events of Alien start, thus creating the vacancy which led to Ripley’s appointment. Bob/Bobbie Spacepants* had a successful career in the merchant space-navy and retired happy after encountering exactly ZERO xenomorphs.
*[We have no information on Bob/Bobbie Spacepants, including what their actual name is, but their existence can be inferred from the basic set up of the movie.]
@Tasha Turner
“The entire article is about diversity issues so you might have missed the point ”
Absolutely true. I responded to what I read in the excerpt. And as I said, I grew up in a different place with different issues. And I have spent my life in occupations that are either self-selecting for or were forced to integrate to the point of color-blindness before I joined them. So ALL I can get out of the article is ‘how hard it can be there in college as a POC,’ which to me sounds a lot like ‘how hard it can be for (anyone of any qualifier) in college.’ Since I spent approximately 20 years in the world of academia, that doesn’t resonate strongly for me.
I would love to serve with James T. Kirk as long as I’m in the Sciences Branch…
Al the Great and Powerful on October 3, 2015 at 2:28 pm said:
Hmm, as a viewer, I confess I lean towards Kirk, but as a crewperson, I think I’d feel safer serving under Picard. Not sure if the actual body counts justify that feeling, but somehow, Picard’s style just seems more professional.
Has anyone done a detailed statistical breakdown on what colour shirt was safest in the original Star Trek? … Wait, this is the Internet, what am I talking about… Can anyone direct me to the most reliable of the 5,271,009 detailed statistical breakdowns on what colour shirt was safest, please?
(My recollection is that there were a couple of episodes that were very bad news for redshirts, but there was a sort of constant attrition going on among all three colours as the series progressed.)
I would definitely rather serve under Picard. At the very least, if I die, I genuinely believe he’d be haunted by it. Kirk would angst for two seconds, square his jaw, and move on, and the best I could hope for would be that my shirt wound up in his laundry and turned it all pink.
@Al the great and mighty
Again you seem to be mistaking professors with students which I’m finding frustrating. She is a professor not a student. There are a lot less PoC professors than students and the problems are going to be different.
Although I guess you could say it’s the same for all working/trying to work PoC. Even in our military I believe a significant number of the officers are white – integration is mostly at the enlisted level – and varies depending on which branch.
I want a long-term contract if I’m going to serve unde Kirk, Picard, or Janeway. With severe penalties for killing me off early. 😉
Steve Wright on October 3, 2015 at 3:40 pm said:
Well they had a weird arrangement in starfleet where engineers AND security had the same uniforms, like the enterprise’s equivalent of Lister and Rimmer would be wearing the same uniforms as the ship’s MPs.
Is that a thing in real world navies?
This looked pretty reliable to me Redshirt Character Wikipedia
In Star Trek, red-uniformed security officers and engineers who accompany the main characters on landing parties often suffer quick deaths.[2] The trope first appears in the episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (1966).[3] Of the 59 crew members killed in the series, 43 (73%) were wearing red shirts.[4] The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine book Legends of the Ferengi says Starfleet security personnel “rarely survive beyond the second act break”.[5]An episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine titled “Valiant” (1998) also references red as a sort of bad luck omen, in which the plot centers around a group of cadets calling themselves “Red Squad” who all die later in the episode.[6] The cinematic reboot of the franchise features a character named Olson (portrayed by Greg Ellis) who dies early on during a mission; he wears a red uniform in homage to the trope from the original series.[7]
Lit Crit from the New Statesman:
Asking a decent editor to save this book would have been like asking a doctor to help a corpse that had fallen from the top of the Empire State Building.
Ouch. About Morrissey’s book.
Heaven knows he must be miserable now.*
[*OK I’m guessing that joke must have been done on every comment section to each of the many bad reviews for Morrissey’s book but it had to be said.]
Chris S: I seem to have missed something. What are you talking about?
I did a search through this thread looking for anyone named “Morrissey” and came up blank.
It’s a non-sequitor. Lead singer with the Smiths releases novel, it’s terrible. Apparently it is message fiction (vegetarianism) and contains ghosts.
Final round of this bracket coming up. For set 1, please rank them IRV style. Setting a tie between any two or all three is also allowed, as is abstaining.
For set 2, if you think another book should have won, now’s the last chance to make your case!
@Camestros – he’s made a career out of being miserable 🙂 so is unlikely to stop now.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1 Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
2 Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
3 Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
ALL THE BOOKS.
Chris S: Thanks. Never heard of the guy, never heard of his book, and so was confused.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
Echoing Cally here…
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1 Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
2 Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
3 Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
A world where Breq doesn’t win isn’t one I want to be a part of.
Round Six Statistics:
In the final bracket round, women are a definite majority — and had this ended up being a 2-book bracket, odds are good it might have been 100%; we’ll find out when the voting is done which ones would have been the Top Two. It’s also all U.S. authors. And Bujold is once again a contender in the top tier, as she was in the 21st century fantasy bracket.
Women: 66.7% (2/3)
Men: 33.3% (1/3)
U.S.: 100% (3/3)
Brackets:
1. Ancillary Justice.
2. The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anders-uh, no.
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
2. Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
3. Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Fitzpatrick’s War, Theodore Judson
Was it even in these brackets? What about Julian Comstock (Robert Charles Wilson)?
After this one, I’ll once again be taking a break from the brackets for a while. I believe that there are people champing at the bit to run ones for (at least) comics and TV, so the site will likely not remain unbracketed for long.
1. Abstain.
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Station Eleven
1. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Bujold & Stephenson: Tie
WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON
Still a sob of regret for Fledgling, but in my heart of hearts, I can’t say it’s a better book than Justice.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
2 Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
1 Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
I need 5 gross of unscented forehead cloths. A month or so ago I reread all the Milesverse and it was just such an overwhelming joy. Each book in its own way. While each stands on its own the whole together makes each better. I just can’t get over how good each one was in a different way.
I enjoyed Ancillary Justice and Sword but it didn’t have me interrupting my husband every few minutes to share a line. I reread AJ only to prepare for AS. The second read had me noticing more things but didn’t give the same sense of wonder the first read had.
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
All the books. Depending on my mood and what new books I’ve read I might make very different choices.
> “Fitzpatrick’s War, Theodore Judson … Was it even in these brackets? What about Julian Comstock (Robert Charles Wilson)?”
Neither Fitzpatrick’s War nor Julian Comstock received any votes during the nomination process, and therefore were not in the brackets.
Two other works by Robert Charles Wilson did receive votes, however (four for Spin and one for Burning Paradise), and Spin made it into the brackets, where it defeated The Knife of Never Letting Go in the first round and lost to Farthing in the second.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
(1) Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
(2) Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
(3) Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
I’m satisfied, right this minute, if either Ancillary or DI win. That opinion is subject to the phase of the moon, though!
Kyra on October 3, 2015 at 4:38 pm said:
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
2. Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
3. Anathem, Neal Stephenson
I guess.
Just, just, why?
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Why can’t they all just be friends?
@Lauowolf:
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
3. Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
2. Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Unlike the 21st century fantasy bracket, where none of my faves made it into the Top Two, Ancillary Justice is one of my top picks and I’ll be perfectly happy if it wins. Anathem is also pretty high up on my list. Would I have picked either as the best SF book of the 21st century? Hmm …
If I made a list of the 21st Century SF books I’d read that really made me go Whoa!, there are about eleven — Feed by M. T. Anderson, Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Lost Steersman by Rosemary Kirstein, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, Anathem by Neal Stephenson, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, and Farthing by Jo Walton. (There are PLENTY of others I liked A LOT, I could list dozens I enjoyed immensely, but those are those ones that would top my chart, I think.)
If I were to cut that down a set of eight, I think I’d be left with Feed by M. T. Anderson, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Lost Steersman by Rosemary Kirstein, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, and Farthing by Jo Walton.
Going down to four from there is … hard. Today I’ll go with The Lost Steersman, Ancillary Justice, Cloud Atlas, and Annihilation. Going down to two … urg. Ancillary Justice and The Lost Steersman, maybe. And from there I’ll go with, um, er, um …
The Lost Steersman, by Rosemary Kirstein
Today, anyway.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1. Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie.
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Anathem (he continued to say boringly).
I can’t complain. Almost all of my picks made it to this or the last round.
That said, TIE.
They are all so very excellent in their own way.
I’m going to go drink now.
Tasha Turner on October 3, 2015 at 4:00 pm said:
Nah, you don’t need a contract. Just a full name. 😀
—
eta: Oh, brackets.
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
Very tough call. I could easily have gone for AJ, but overall, I think this I like this a tiny bit more. Ask me tomorrow, and I might say otherwise. (And I still predict AJ as overall winner.)
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
3. Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
2. Anathem, Neal Stephenson
There are many Bujolds which would have scored higher with me, though I don’t know whether any of them are 21st century science fiction novels.
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
I remain Fledgling‘s partisan, but I’ll put in a word too for Monica Byrne’s The Girl in the Road, which I think came up in brainstorming but didn’t make it into the bracket proper. I felt in some ways upset and betrayed by it, but as science fiction it amazed me.
Kyra: Thank you for your epic work assembling and running these brackets. They’ve been a lot of fun, and produced mounting TBR piles on at least three continents.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
2. Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
3. Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Another vote for All The Books!
@Andy H:
I read the first chapter of The Girl in the Road earlier this year and liked it pretty well. But the book proved very put-downable. I left it aside to do something else and just never got back to it.
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1.Anathem, Neal Stephenson
2. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
3.Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Hmmm. I’ll stick with Anathem
Any of these Starfleet captains would be better to serve under than Roj Blake. He would manipulate you into sacrificing your life in a doomed and futile attack, then exploit your death to emotionally blackmail the surviving crew into continuing to follow his lead into inevitable and pointless death for all concerned.
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION PART SIX:
THUS READ ZARATHUSTRA
1. MILES, MILLENARIAN MATHS, AND MULTIPLE MIANAAI
1. Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
2. Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
Anathem, Neal Stephenson
Difficult to decide between Leckie and Bujold and indeed a different Bujold might well have beaten Leckie. Meanwhile, I still don’t like Anathem.
2. WHAT SHOULD HAVE WON?
Either Ancillary Justice or Diplomatic Immunity would be excellent winners.