(1) David Brin urges everyone to make a fashion statement for Back To the Future Day:
Okay so October 21 is “Back to the Future” Day,” when movie houses all over will be holding special showings of BTTF-II, to commemorate our crossing that particular frontier — when Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrived at the ‘future’ of 2015 from the year 1985. Here is a rundown of ways the film was eerily on target… and another… if you set aside hover boards and flying cars and hydrated pizzas. And Mr. Fusion, alas. Hey, everyone wear a DOUBLE TIE that day! I haven’t heard anyone else pushing that meme, so pass it on starting here!
(2) Jim C. Hines’ Icon report includes a photo of a group posed around the “Future Birthplace of James T. Kirk” monument in Riverside, Iowa. Hines is there with Ann Leckie, David Gerrold, Joe and Gay Haldeman, and some others I should probably recognize.
(3) Amanda S. Green considers possible outcomes of Amazon’s new move against fake reviews in “To Pay or Not to Pay”.
I can’t speak for Amazon but I have a feeling what we will see happening is that a number of reviews will simply drop off the site. These reviews will either be directly tied to the sites Amazon has suspicions about or will have key phrases that are oft repeated across other reviews. It is easy enough to code a data crawler to find such similarities. It is basically the same sort of tool that schools use to determine if a paper contains any plagiarized parts.
Amazon might go one step further. Right now, if you look at Amazon customer reviews, you will see some from verified purchasers and then those that aren’t. A verified purchaser is someone who actually purchased the item from Amazon. The only problem with this is it doesn’t reflect those who borrowed a book or short story under the Kindle Unlimited program. This may be the point where Amazon needs to add that as one of the descriptors. I know a number of authors, and readers alike, who have been asking Amazon to do just that. At least that way, people who look at reviews before buying something would have an idea if the reviewer actually put down money on the book in question.
There is always the possibility that Amazon will require you to have purchased an item from them before you are allowed to review it. I’ll admit to being torn about this option. That would keep reviewers like Shiny Book Review from posting reviews on all sales sites. It would kick out reviewers who receive free copies of books unless Amazon has them register as reviewers. This is a path I’m not sure I want to see them go down.
Right now, Amazon gives more weight to reviews written by verified purchasers. As they should.
(4) The Tiptree Award is looking for recommendations. Got one? Click and fill out their form.
Most of the books and stories that Tiptree Award jurors read to pick a winner are nominated by authors and readers. We need your suggestions. If you’ve read a work of science fiction or fantasy that explores or expands our notions of gender, please tell us about it by filling out the recommendation form below. If you have more than one, just fill out the form again with a new recommendation and submit it until you’ve told us about them all.
Recommendations close on the 1st of December, 2015.
(5) Fans and everyone seeking eyeballs for their blog are busy mining the newly-released Star Wars trailer for provocative material like – Who dies in the movie?
The first full-length trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens gave fans plenty to speculate wildly about, but one moment in particular is causing widespread panic across the galaxy — or at least, the Internet. Towards the end of the trailer (watch it here!), there is a one-second shot of heroine Rey (Daisy Ridley) sobbing over what looks like a dead body. So who dies?
(6) Geeks Are Sexy has photographic proof that Canada’s Newest Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is a member of the Rebel Alliance. Eh?
(7) Catherynne M. Valente delivers The Big Idea today at Whatever. You were warned!
Radiance doesn’t have a big idea at its heart.
It has about six. It’s a decopunk alt-history Hollywood space opera mystery thriller. With space whales.
Over-egging the pudding, you say? Too many cooks going at the soup? Gilding that lily like it’s going to the prom? I say: grab your eggs and hold onto your lilies because I am cannonballing into that soup FULL SPEED AHEAD.
(8) Brandon Kempner assesses the chances of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora getting a Hugo nomination.
The Hugo is a murkier award in 2016, given the turbulence surrounding it. 2312 took third place in 2013, and was also third in the nominations. Given the campaigns that are sure to take place in 2016, 3rd place is probably vulnerable to being pushed out. Add in that 2016 is a strong Hugo year (former Best Novel winners Robinson, Stephenson, Leckie, Walton, Bacigalupi, Scalzi, and Liu are all fighting for 5 spots, and that’s not even factoring in Puppy campaigns or buzzy authors like Novik). As a result, I think Robinson will miss the ballot, but a strong year-end push could definitely grab Robinson a spot.
As for metrics, as of mid-October 2015, Aurora has 2,535 Goodreads ratings with a 3.79 score and 264 Amazon ratings with a score of 3.7. Those aren’t great but they aren’t terrible. It’s a rare thing to see the Goodreads score higher than Amazon, but I couldn’t tell you what that means. I think around 1500 Goodreads / 100 Amazon is the cut off to be competitive, so KSR is well above that. Score doesn’t seem to matter for either the Hugos or Nebulas; VanderMeer won a Nebula last year with a 3.62 Goodreads score.
(9) Tobias Buckell is losing readers right and left. Mostly right. “Today’s passive aggressive fan mail: reader will not read more of my books because I don’t speak English English as my first language”
(10) Peter David “Just when boycotts couldn’t get any more stupid: Star War VII”
When the first “Star Wars” film came out in 1977, it was criticized for the overall whiteness of it. The one major black actor, James Earl Jones, wasn’t even given voice credit (his choice). This was answered with the introduction of Lando in the very next film, but still, mostly white.
So now the new film prominently features a black hero and there are actually idiots who are declaring it should be boycotted because of that? I mean, I knew there are people for whom Obama can do no right because of his skin color, but this is quite simply insane.
(11) But Gary Farber says it’s a fake boycott trolled by 4chan.Here’s one of those claiming credit.
https://twitter.com/The_Extrange/status/656225411773300736
(12) Meanwhile, in the interests of being fair and balanced, we bring you the A.V. Club’s post “Conservative pundit bravely comes out in support of the Galactic Empire”.
Star Wars’ Galactic Empire tends to get a bad rap. Oh sure, Emperor Palpatine started the whole thing by manufacturing a phony war to scare people into supporting a leader who would slowly take away their freedom in exchange for “safety,” the entire organization is suspiciously stocked with almost exclusively white human men, and there was that one time it destroyed an entire planet full of innocent people just to prove that it could, but is any of that stuff objectively evil? Conservative pundit Bill Kristol doesn’t think so, according to a tweet he posted this morning in response to a joke about how the Star Wars prequels encouraged conservatives to root for the Empire….
(13) Today In History:
- October 20, 1932 — James Whale’s The Old Dark House makes its theatrical debut.
(14) Today’s Birthday Boy:
- Born October 20, 1892 – Bela Lugosi. As they say at IMDB:
It’s ironic that Martin Landau won an Oscar for impersonating Bela Lugosi (in Ed Wood (1994)) when Lugosi himself never came within a mile of one, but that’s just the latest of many sad ironies surrounding Lugosi’s career.
(15) Today’s Birthday Book:
- October 20, 1955 – The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien published. The Wertzone pays tribute:
The Return of the King, being the third part of the novel, was released on 20 October 1955, completing the publication of the tome that had begun on 29 July 1954 with the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring. The Return of the King had originally been planned for release much earlier in the year, but Tolkien delayed it due to working on the book’s appendices, to the annoyance of readers (yet another epic fantasy trend begun by the Tolkmeister).
(16) Belfast-born writer C.S. Lewis is to be honored in his native city with a series of new sculptures depicting characters from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe reports the BBC.
Belfast City Council has commissioned six new pieces of public art, including Aslan the Lion and the White Witch.
They will be erected in a new civic square, currently under construction, at the Holywood Arches in east Belfast.
…As well as the lion and the witch, the six pieces of art also include sculptures of Mr Tumnus, Jewel the unicorn, Mr and Mrs Beaver and the Stone Table
(17) Belfast is also where the third C.S. Lewis Festival takes place from Thursday 19 – Sunday 22 November 2015, marking the 52nd anniversary of the death of the author, theologian, academic and creator of the incredible Chronicles of Narnia series.
Across 4 days of Lewis-related events will be reflections and assessments of the cultural significance of Lewis’ rich legacy, the impact he had on Belfast, as well as the strong influence his native city had on his vast body of work. There will be something for everyone with many magical and free events offered; it’s definitely worth checking out.
Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898. The C.S. Lewis Festival will recognise and celebrate both his life and his legacy to the world. Across 4 days of Lewis-related events will be reflections and assessments of the cultural significance of Lewis’ rich legacy, the impact he had on Belfast, as well as the strong influence his native city had on his vast body of work.
(18) Free lifetime memberships for trying it! One of the best book cataloging sites. LibraryThing launches in iPhone app.
We’re thrilled to announce the official LibraryThing iPhone App!
What it does. This is our first version, so we’ve limited it to doing the most basic functions you’ll need for cataloging on the go:
- Browse and search your library.
- Add books by scanning barcodes. Scanning to add is VERY FAST!
- Add books by searching.
- Browse and upload covers, using the iPhone camera.
- Do minor editing, such as changing collections and ratings. Major editing sends you to LibraryThing.
(19) Wait, you mean it isn’t fake? “This Software Lets Someone Else Control Your Face”
Researchers created expression transferring software that projects mouth, eye, and other facial movements onto another face in real time.
(20) “Life on Earth likely started 4.1 billion years ago – much earlier than scientists thought” reports Phys.org.
“Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously,” added Harrison, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. “With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly.”
The new research suggests that life existed prior to the massive bombardment of the inner solar system that formed the moon’s large craters 3.9 billion years ago.
“If all life on Earth died during this bombardment, which some scientists have argued, then life must have restarted quickly,” said Patrick Boehnke, a co-author of the research and a graduate student in Harrison’s laboratory.
Scientists had long believed the Earth was dry and desolate during that time period. Harrison’s research—including a 2008 study in Nature he co-authored with Craig Manning, a professor of geology and geochemistry at UCLA, and former UCLA graduate student Michelle Hopkins—is proving otherwise.
“The early Earth certainly wasn’t a hellish, dry, boiling planet; we see absolutely no evidence for that,” Harrison said. “The planet was probably much more like it is today than previously thought.”
The researchers, led by Elizabeth Bell—a postdoctoral scholar in Harrison’s laboratory—studied more than 10,000 zircons originally formed from molten rocks, or magmas, from Western Australia. Zircons are heavy, durable minerals related to the synthetic cubic zirconium used for imitation diamonds. They capture and preserve their immediate environment, meaning they can serve as time capsules.
(21) A New York Comic Con panel on the economics of Star Trek gathered Trek writer Chris Black; Manu Saadia, author of the book “Trekonomics”; Annalee Newitz, founding editor of the culture site io9; moderator Felix Salmon, of Fusion; Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist; and Brad DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
“Gene Roddenberry tried to paint our future,” said DeLong, noting that we’ve gone far down that road. “We’re now, in fact, approaching post-scarcity in food and products.”
But, as Newitz pointed out, because “Trek” is a future where money no longer exists, people work because they want to but are therefore supported by other economies. To prove her point, she cited as an example “Measure of a Man,” an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” that centered on the character of Lt. Cmdr. Data, an android.
Even though Data is a crew member of the starship “Enterprise,” unlike his fellow crewmates, he’s a robot. But does that make him a person or Starfleet property?
“We’re constantly being reminded that slavery and low wages support the comfortable, ‘Enterprise’ living,” Newitz said….
Salmon, the panel’s moderator, pointed out that in 2016, “Star Trek” will turn 50 and Thomas More’s book, “Utopia,” will turn 500. He then asked the panel if there is anything utopian about “Trek.”
“We are problem-solving, puzzle-solving, status-seeking creatures,” DeLong said.
Krugman responded by saying: “People have an amazing ability to be unhappy. The problem with utopia is not the lack of scarcity — it’s people.”
[Thanks to Will R., Steven H Silver, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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Having scanned through most of the SP4 novel recommendation I do recall that someone offered up Scalzi’s latest. Or was it one of the book’s bits in a shorter category?
Probably will be used as proof that the SJWs have tried to ruin the Puppies’s fun.
The wife just came back from the library with a new Tom Holt book: The Good, The Bad, and The Smug.
While Holt is very hit or miss with me, it is a Fantasy novel from 2015, so I’ll be giving it a shot.
Re Brian Z
I think even the most rabidly anti-slate of us wouldn’t see a recommendation thread, like those Scalzi hosts, as a slate.
Reason: it would contain dozens or hundreds of recommendations of people’s actual favorites in no particular order. Yes, it might be possible for each individual Puppy to scroll slowly through such a thread in the following months, tallying which ones were getting how many nominations and adding their nominations to the most popular.
But Puppies are not Puppies because they’re fond of making a real honest effort. I think most of them, faced with such a thread, would skim through it looking for the few items that appealed to them personally from among the heaving throng of recommendees, reading those few, and nominating their own honest favorites. Because that’s just easier than doing their own tallying.
And that is close enough to honest nominating for me to be content with it. (Can’t speak for others–we are not a group with leaders and spokespeople, the way Puppies are.)
If Kate Paulk does the ordering and tallying for them–which, face it, is what is going to *appear to happen–then they can do the easy thing and just vote for the top 5. And I think that is what most of them will do.
*appear as in I consider it highly likely that her results will be like Brads–i.e., not an honest tally. I would be pleased to be wrong about this, and unlike most Puppy leaders, will admit it, if I am.
The Puppies are very interested in retaining the unfair advantage given by slate nominating without paying the social cost of unfair behavior. To make this happen they’re trying to walk back the slate thing bit by bit to see exactly how much unfair advantage they must give up, hoping that it will still be cost effective. They are very bitter about having to do this, and I think they will be even more bitter as they discover that the social cost of unfair behavior lasts longer than its benefits.
@ Anna:
If these were my allergies, I would happily entertain the thought of hookworms, alien parasites, leeches, whatever it took. But the beloved is kind of indifferent to cats (I know! He really does have many qualities.), except insofar as their absence makes me and our child unhappy.
Thanks for the google-prompt, interesting stuff on hookworms, they look promising for all sorts of things. My totally unscientific gut feeling is that the hygiene hypothesis for allergies is right. Or that’s what I tell myself when I can’t stop the kid from being all gross and child-like.
I tried to talk to the sad puppies 4 in their introductory list, in hopes of seeing something reasonable as a response. i stopped when i was mocked for thinking guns, visible or concealed, in a high-population, high-alcohol, high-socially awkward environment like a con (Coupled with fake weaponry making people possibly careless) was scarier than, and a reasonable response to, Patrick Nielsen Hayden possibly yelling at a Puppy. (I also tried to remind people the award was for the book, not the author without judging their tastes)
I had been entertaining the possibility of suggesting a couple of titles if their replies were reasonable, and to test the sincerity of “anyone may suggest”. They weren’t,. so nope.
Well, current thinking and study results on food allergies suggest that keeping kids away from possible allergens until they’re older is more likely to cause than prevent, so feed them scary stuff quickly. Similar for exposing them to the outdoors.
I’m still personally anti-hookworm, but I admit I am highly conservative, and strongly subjective about it, when it comes to the interaction of bugs and people, and should not be the final arbiter.
@Bruce Arthurs: I have a ten inch with grooves. Is this a record?
This joke brought to you from the Vinyl Age.
Indeed. There are a handful of the more egregious Puppy leaders and figureheads who will never see a Hugo, regardless of what they write. Some will likely never even see another nomination, except insofar as they and their buddies can continue to cheat their way onto the ballot. To those who say that this is unfair, that they should be solely judged on the quality of their work, I have two things to say:
[I started a huge rant here, but why bother?]
1) They came to the party, shit all over the rug, crowed about how awesome it was to make us clean up the shit, and promised to come back next year and do it again. Forgive me for not wanting to have an honest discussion about whether or not they deserve to win the prize for Best Costume.
2) Most of their work is utter dross, anyway. If I’m looking for pearls, I’d rather find dozens of them diving for oysters than find one by sifting through pig shit.
It doesn’t really matter what the Sad Puppies do or say. They don’t count. Last year, the Rabid Puppies dominated the slate and I can’t see one single reason it shouldn’t happen again this year. Where Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies “suggestions” diverged, the Rabid Puppies mopped the floor with them.
He must have the body of Hugh Jackman, the wit of Terry Pratchett and the mind of Stephen Hawking. Mind you, were it me, if it was a choice between a combination of the three with some Jesus Christ thrown in and a cat, I’d pick the cat, but then I AM an old spinster… 😉
(goes away whistling I Never Wear White).
@Anna,
Actually there was one case where a Sad and a Rabid entry went head-to-head and the Sad entry won. (There were several cases the other way around, so there can be no doubt that the Rabids dominated, but I’m not sure it’s fair to say the Sads don’t count.)
Where Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies “suggestions” diverged, the Rabid Puppies mopped the floor with them.
I think this turned out to be largely an illusion. In Novel, the diverging picks knocked one another out. In Short Story they each got one pick in the top five, but the Sad pick turned out to be ineligible. In DP Short Form, it is true that a Rabid-only pick got on the ballot and no Sad-only picks did, but the Rabid-only pick in question was Game of Thrones, so that doesn’t really count. There were certainly more Rabid-only picks on the ballot, but that is because VD made more suggestions in the first place.
@Cat:
Yes. Both the nominating data and the voting data suggest the Sad and Rabid contingents were more equal at each stage than we believed before we had numbers to go by.
For example:
Skin Game (Both) – 387
Monster Hunter Nemesis (Both) – 372
Lines of Departure (Both) – 270
Dark Between the Stars (Both) – 263
Trial by Fire (Sad) – 199
Chaplain’s War (Rabid) – 196
The bolded numbers were very surprising when I first saw them. Had just the Sads or just the Rabids gone out, maybe Kloos and Anderson don’t make it at all. Then the Puppy placements are Butcher, Correia and either Torgersen or Gannon.
LunarG on October 22, 2015 at 6:31 am said:
… If I ever snap and become a supervillain, I will create a wand which inflicts migraine headaches on those who scoff at the idea of a debilitating headache. Don’t see any reason I can’t create settings for a few weeks worth of mental illness or a particular set of disabilities, while I am at it.
I would totally pay into the kickstarter for this one.
You’d need to add in for PMS and cramps though.
Niall McAuley on October 22, 2015 at 8:20 am said:
@Bruce Arthurs: I have a ten inch with grooves. Is this a record?
This joke brought to you from the Vinyl Age.
Dear Groover:
It is a record! “My Big Ten-Inch,” by Bull Moose Jackson, e.g.
Also recorded, apparently, by, among others, Aerosmith, per
http://www.metrolyrics.com/big-ten-inch-record-lyrics-aerosmith.html
I’m pretty sure I recently learned about this song from some NPR, ahem, segment.
Amazon reviews have their uses, but only when taken with several large grains of salt.
I ignore the stars, and read middle and bottom for content.
But mostly I’m looking for actual information: is this pan made in the US or in China? do they still make filters for this machine? that kind of thing.
Book reviews I’m usually checking to see if it’s the book I think it is, because I have a hard time keeping things straight.
I can’t imagine relying on them for recommendations, since even people I know and respect can come up with real turkeys at times.
I suspect there is no game-proof fix for the system.
The notion of requiring an Amazon purchase to do Amazon reviews is initially attractive, but enough people have pointed to problems that I can see it wouldn’t change much.
There might be something possible along the lines of ceilings on total numbers of reviews.
But in the end, it is probably pretty hopeless, though I appreciate that they do seem to respond to legitimate complaints.
In related news, does anyone know how you go about eliminating a Goodreads account?
I set one up in 2012 and never used it, and I’d like it to go away.
Here in 1373, the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty has just been signed and I think it will be quite promising.
Speaking as – I think – the person most likely to collate the Unofficial Filers770 Hugo Nomination 2016 Rec List, you may feel free to yell at me if I do something so silly as to say what was most popular. I was already planning, were I to make a list, which I haven’t decided yet, on (reluctantly) leaving off my customary “suggested by [name(s)]” in case that has a similar effect.
And I haven’t decided whether to make a list at all. It isn’t quite the same as the other lists, is it.
@lurkertype
They tried to phone, but since I had to set out hours before the appointment time I’d already left. Something of a flaw with failing to provide an office to an entire county.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan on October 22, 2015 at 9:51 am said:
The Puppies seem to think that if they post a slate but then say “We didn’t post a slate!” loudly and frequently enough, Hugo voters are stupid and gullible enough to take that on faith based on the Puppies’ word for it. It didn’t work this year, and it’s not going to work next year.
It doesn’t really matter what the Sad Puppies do or say. They don’t count. Last year, the Rabid Puppies dominated the slate and I can’t see one single reason it shouldn’t happen again this year.
What I see is a Sad Puppy PR scramble to see whether waving their arms about – “nothing to see here folks”- will be enough to prevent the appearance of a slate, and hence a second extinction event for slated nominees in the Hugo voting.
Can they please have their slate and voting too?
And, of course, no matter how successful the SP are in general bamboozlement, the RPs will just bring out another slate, because why not?
So I’m anticipating pretty much Second Verse, Same as the First.
Or, wait, we’re up to four now.
On the bright side, I have no idea – not being enough of a math type – whether it might even be possible for an influx of new nominations from people like me, my kid, and our ilk, who didn’t nominate last time, but signed up and turned out to vote, if enough of us actually follow through and nominate, could a flood of legit, therefore sort-of random, nominations overcome the effect of a RP SlateClassic and SP new SlateLite and end up getting at least some legitimate titles into the running.
Hope springs eternal and all.
The new exploding SJW heads tactic may be along the lines of including more non-puppy affiliates on their slate and non-slate lists.
If the RPs slated, say, Ancillary Mercy, would people expect Liske to withdraw, or can she just loudly disown slate backing?
Can we fine-tune responses enough to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary slating?
At least this time around, people are pretty much prepped to react one way or another.
And, finally, for that matter, is it possible that the total puppy voter pool might have lessened somewhat, given its failure to actually pull off a coup, and the tendency of things to fall apart in general.
I think the SP at the least were legitimately surprised not to be carrying off all the rockets.
They thought they were a victorious horde, and were rudely surprised to discover they were only a pest.
Is this an experience any sane person really wants to repeat.
I know Beale claims to have a dedicated cadre and all that, but it’s not as if he’s a reliable source.
And who really wants to pay $50 just to go down with the ship?
I think we should get the TV brackets in train since the clock is ticking down to NaNoWriMo and I may participate (in a cheating way). So!
SF/F TV BRACKET INAUGURAL COMMENT
There are some rules:
1. SF & fantasy television series, broadly considered. (Supernatural horror is in bounds; mimetic horror – Hannibal? – is not.
2. Live-action only. No cartoons. No puppets.
3. Continuing series only. It can be one-and-done, but it must have been programmed as a continuing series. So Firefly would be in, but Falling Skies would not.
4. Incept date no later than 2010, I think. This cutoff leaves Game of Thrones outside the window.
5. Whole series will be the contestants. There won’t be any business of, “Angel, but for Christ’s sake not Season 4,” or “Heroes, but only the first season” or “Nu Battlestar Galactica, but the series really ends when Starbuck pins her own picture on the Wall of the Dead.” In your secret heart, you can vote based on highs or lows, but the contestant is the entire series.
6. That said, for shows that had a reboot or a decade-plus hiatus, the revival is considered to be a separate show. That divides BSG and Doctor Who into two potential contestants each. Assuming anyone wants to nominate any of the four options there.
The order of events:
1. Discussion – Starts now, runs through tomorrow night. This is where you can post your long lists and your “Don’t Forgets” and engage in general net-casting.
2. Nominations – This will be a structured process distinct from and subsequent to the Discussion phase. It will run from sometime Saturday through Sunday afternoon. This is when I start actually counting things.
3. Selection Sunday – Just like real March madness! Sunday night I’ll release the seeding by regions.
4. Brackets, maybe – With regional seeding obtaining from Step 3, we have the option of having actual brackets, like in your office every March. Except maybe having an actual idea how good the teams are. Basically, if there’s interest, I’ll set up a template and people can post their brackets to Google Docs or something. This would show who you think will win as opposed to who you want to win. There would be fabulous prizes*.
5. Matches – The actual rounds of voting kick off after Phase 4 if we have it. Otherwise after Step 3.
So, Discussion Phase Is Go!
Forgot the footnote on the “fabulous prizes” mention. So here it is:
* This is a lie.
That sold me!
Community, if only because I take any opportunity to recommend Community.
It’s SF/F, from a certain angle. The writers, and some characters, are aware of and engage with SFnal tropes. None of the SFnal stuff is real, but (cue Jeff Winger speech) that doesn’t mean it isn’t important.
Also, it is very funny. You should watch it.
Ok, lets do a long list:
* The Storyteller
* Red Dwarf
* The Addams Family
* Twilight Zone
* The Outer Limits
* Merlin
* Mork and Mindy
* Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe
* The Day of the Triffids (1981)
* Ray Bradbury Theatre
* The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
* Holmes &Yo-Yo
* Pan Tau
* V
Thats enough for me. I’m not really into TV-series and most of my favourites are animated.
Some obvious (to me)starting points (I skip some obvious even to me because I didn’t watch them or didn’t like them, and am only endorsing my own tastes, not the tastes of the world.):
Doctor Who Classic
Doctor Who New
Buffy
Firefly
Babylon 5
Stargate SG-1
” Atlantis
Fringe
Battlestar Galactica (new)
Star Trek ToS
” Next Gen
Robin of Sherwood (BBC with Michael Praed/Jason Connery. I don’t know that any other Robin Hood series was fantasy, though.)
Merlin (it’s silly. I like it. Nyah.)
OK, if we’re in discussion phase, then let’s discuss!
If per-person nominations will be limited as Jim Henley has previously said he might, my nominations would probably go towards shows that at some point in my life I watched obsessively. That means some very good SFF shows that I liked, such as The Twilight Zone, Mork and Mindy, Joan of Arcadia, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek The Next Generation, Babylon 5, etc., etc., etc. would not make my list, because I did not feel compelled to watch them.
A number of shows I did watch with some degree of compulsion are disqualified because they are not live-action — e.g. Futurama, Serial Experiments Lain, Invader Zim, Revolutionary Girl Utena, .hack//Sign, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yugi, and The Muppet Show (I’d argue fantasy because talking frog, but it’s moot anyway.)
I’ll also leave off some shows that were only occasionally SFF, like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, or The Goodies. Even with Mr. Neutron, The Blancmanges, etc., they weren’t really SFF shows.
That leaves:
Star Trek: The Original Series. In my opinion the best of all the Treks. Not a perfect show by any means, but one that was never afraid to tackle bold issues, and use real science fiction writers to write real science fiction. High on the list.
The Prisoner. A nearly perfect show. Wild, thought provoking, and dazzlingly innovative. Probably my top pick.
The X-Files. Maybe about four glorious seasons when it was like nothing else on television. Then for all kinds of reasons it went straight to heck and stayed there forever. Lower down on my list because of that.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Hard as I find it to forgive the last season and a half, this show loomed large for a long, long time. High up on my list.
Angel. I even liked the seasons everyone else hated. But, it was never as good as Buffy at its best. Lowish on my list.
Battlestar Galactica (second version). Perhaps the strongest beginning of any show on television. But one of the weakest endings. Middling on the list.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hilarious. But … not as hilarious as the books. Lower on the list.
Farscape. Although there were puppets along with the human actors, surely this counts as a live-action show. And it was one of the best — after a rocky first season, it became a show that was truly willing to explore the limits of the genre in a way most shows don’t. High on my list.
Max Headroom. Good show, but it never quite lived up to the truly brilliant pilot. Lower on the list.
Mystery Science Theater 3000. This would be waaaay high up on the list in terms of quality, but … while the premise is science fiction, it isn’t really a science fiction *show*. I’ll have to think about that.
I think that covers it. There are others I sometimes watched, but those are the ones that I WATCHED.
For the Long List
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Mork and Mindy
I Dream of Jeannie
Back to the Future I, II, III
The Black Hole
I didn’t include Hitchhiker’s or the Prisoner because they’re essentially mini-series. otherwise I’d be adding those and Neverwhere.
Red Dwarf! I knew I’d forget something.
I like Community enough to want a bracket-runner’s ruling on whether it’s sfnal enough, and Storyteller enough to query if it’s live-action enough.
No idea if The Storyteller was intended as a series or not. It still one of my favourites, one I continue to watch again and again.
@Lauowolf
re: slate vs regular vting numbers
I’m not knowledgeable enough to calculate all the angles involved (and there are a lot of variables to consider if trying to figure how many free votes it would take to counter slate votes) but I saw ratios of 5/1 to 10/1 offered by some during the recent kerpupple. So the more who nominate and the more each person nominates the better our chances to overcome the advantage of slating. Course a lot depends on how disciplined/organized the slate(s) will be this time around, too.
@Jim Henley
re: SFF TV
So, for example, Twilight Zone is out, but Original Superman is in?
> “I didn’t include Hitchhiker’s or the Prisoner because they’re essentially mini-series.”
British TV series typically have much fewer episodes in a season than American ones. Six episodes is not uncommon for a full season of a comedy series — the original version of The Office was two seasons at 6 episodes apiece, plus two 45-minute Christmas specials.
Hitchhiker’s Guide had six episodes, so I would argue it counts as a full season of a British comedy series. The Prisoner had 17 episodes and I would say it easily qualifies.
I’m not sure I understand what this one means. Might be because I have never watched any of the examples given, never even heard of Falling Skies. But I haven’t had a TV for 15 years.
I’m aware of the British series length (And that your interpretation would therefore similarly qualify Neverwhere). I thought that the spirit of Jim’s rule was to exclude things with that small a closed storyline and *planned* finite run, though.
In any case, I am concurring with you on *quality*. And while it’s far from my favourite, I have this feeling that an SF TV shows contest without the Prisoner would be lacking significantly.
TV Bracket ideas (mostly brainstorming things that others haven’t mentioned yet, not necessarily my favorites)
Can’t leave off Xena: Warrior Princess!
(maybe more later)
Well, in terms of Hitchhiker’s Guide, according to wikipedia:
“A second series was planned at one point … However, Adams got into disputes with the BBC (accounts differ: problems with budget, scripts, and having Alan Bell and/or Geoffrey Perkins involved were all offered as causes), and the second series was never made … [planned elements of it] instead became the third novel, Life, the Universe and Everything.”
I can find less evidence for The Prisoner, but (again according to Wikipedia) apparently the original idea was that:
“The Prisoner was going to leave the Village and he was going to have adventures in many parts of the world, but ultimately he would always be a prisoner. By that I don’t mean he would always go back to the Village. He would always be a prisoner of his circumstances, his situation, his secret, his background … and ‘they’ would always be there to ensure that his captivity continues.”
Which perhaps implies the original idea was for an ongoing series?
I confess to being a little confused by the Continuing Series rule. Does that mean Babylon 5 is out, since (I believe) it always had a planned ending?
Personally, I would say that the only really good tv series are those with a closed storyline. The rest mostly go on repeat after season one or two and thats where I stop watching.
Which of course is why I almost never watch TV series. ^^
Oh, lets not forget The Avengers. If only for the dresscode.
Seconding some favorites:
* Robin of Sherwood
* MST3K (a strong majority of the movies the featured were sfnal, so IMHO it counts)
* Doctor Who
* Babylon 5
* Red Dwarf
Most of the shows I’ve loved this century have been animated. Why, may I ask, are they disqualified?
Some stuff I’m barely familiar with but which seems significant:
* Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (’90s series which is also the half the answer of a fun trivia question: Which were the first two TV series ever made in HD?)
* Quark
* Blake’s 7
* Beauty and the Beast (the series that began in 1987)
* U.F.O.
* Quantum Leap
Jim: I grovel only for “Quantum Leap”.
I beg for:
Now and Again
Farscape
Fringe
I heartily endorse:
Doctor Who (Old and Nu)
Star Trek (TOS and DS9)
Firefly
Babylon 5
X-Files
Red Dwarf
The Avengers (Steed and pals, but original only)
The Prisoner
Max Headroom
I what-the-hell, why not:
BSG (Original Flavor)
Quark
The Storyteller
Wizards and Warriors (“I’m not wearing a hat.” “Hi.”)
@Paul Weimer:
Forgive my ignorance, but aren’t these…movies?
Re: Community. Leaning against eligibility. I feel guilty, though, since I’m the guy who insists that Paul Theroux’s Pulitzer-prize-winning novel, The Mosquito Coast, is SF.
@junego: Did I inadvertantly rule out original Twilight Zone? I didn’t mean to, so please tell me how I did that. As I read the rules, original and revised TZ are separately eligible. Each were slotted as continuing series. All the live-action anthology shows – Amazing Stories etc. – are eligible.
@Hampus: If you haven’t had a TV for 15 years, this tournament may be of little interest to you. But the rule means that if a program was intended to be a continuing series it’s eligible even if it had a very short tenure on the air. Firefly and Space: Above and Beyond and John From Cincinnati are examples of shows this rule lets in. Neverwhere is a show it excludes.
@Lenora Rose: Ignoramus research indicates bulk of history agrees The Prisoner was indeed always intended as a limited run. So it’s out. Maybe somebody can do a limited-series bracket at some point. My reasoning for the ongoing-only rule in this one is that I think limited series have a chance to, in crit terms, observe the unities in a way ongoing series don’t, and that might give them an esthetic leg up. (Firefly ends up observing the unities by accident, which is one of the series’ strengths, and a reason I think the cancellation may even have been good for its legacy.)
@Kyra: On the Babylon 5 problem. Oh you are being difficult! 🙂
Babylon 5 is eligible. It ran for five seasons (or whatever, never finished it). It could have been cancelled at any time before then. I suppose mentally append “intended to run for multiple seasons” to the gloss on the definition.
There’s probably a fuzzy boundary between something like Neverwhere over here and Babylon 5 over there in which resides The Prisoner. Right now, the balance of evidence makes it look more like Neverwhere to me. My crack research team continues to look into the issue however.
@Petrea Mitchell: Animated series are not eligible because this is the live-action-series tournament. 🙂 Perhaps someone else will choose to run an animated-series tournament at some point.
Ack, sorry Jim, I realized too late you just wanted TV. Whoops 😉
Jim Henley:
In fact, it was cancelled before then– the episode which aired at the end of season 5 was originally made to air at end of season 4 when it looked like they were going to have to end the show there. Luckily it was picked up by someone new, though they had to scramble to make a new season 4 finale.
Query about “open ended” because weren’t some of the shows that lasted more than one season were planned to be finite, Babylon5 frex?
@Soon Lee: We have an official ruling on Babylon 5. It’s eligible. What are some other series like it? That is, SF/F shows planned as multiple-season runs, but also planned with a definite terminus? e.g. pitched and sold as, “This is going to take 3 seasons, but at the end of three seasons we are done?”
Paul Weimer:
I’m ready for the movie bracket afterwards. 😉
I like Jim’s rules and I agree Hitchiker’s would be out but The Prisoner should be in.
UK v US styles of programming do make comparisons tricky. US shows developed for syndication had to fit templates that BBC shows didn’t.
For the very long list and concentrating on the UK:
Quatermass: doesn’t fit Jim’s rules, and as far as TV goes I have only have seen the 1979 John Mills ‘reboot’ TV series (produced by Verity Lambert aka Doctor Who’s mum). However the film version of Quatermass and the Pit is worth a mention. – Still it deserves a shout out because of age and influence.
Things I saw as a kid that might not get a mention and you probably can’t access anywhere:
The Changes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changes_%28TV_series%29 but also breaks Jim’s rules. Definite beginning-middle-end story.
Likewise:
The Children of the Stones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Stones
But deserve a mention because a lot of SF/F UK TV was freaky stuff shown in kid’s time slots.
Probably been hit by the suck fairy – and haven’t seen the remake:
The Tomorrow People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tomorrow_People – does fit Jim’s rules
Grown up shows I probably shouldn’t have been watching as a kid:
Survivors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_%281975_TV_series%29 again there was a more recent remake I didn’t watch.
The Omega Factor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omega_Factor which was right scary and gave me lasting nightmare (but probably wasn’t all that scary at all really)
And more tea-time friendly but still spooky:
Sapphire & Steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire_%26_Steel
@Petréa Mitchell: Thanks for the info on Babylon 5’s near death. Now that you mention it, it rings a bell, but I had forgotten.
I don’t understand the use of Falling Skies for an example of a non-continuing series, especially if B5 is not considered such. FS lasted for 5 years, and could’ve been cancelled after any of the first four. And given that they changed showrunners almost every season, and each season semi-rebooted what was going on, if there was an original five year plan for the show beyond “And the humans win in the last episode”, I defy you to describe said plan so that it’d make sense and apply to what happened in the show.
?@Tom Galloway: My bad. I meant Ascension. I was looking for “that miniseries with Tricia Helfer in it that just ran,” but looking for it over crappy Amtrak WiFi, so I saw “Falling Skies (2015)” in her IMDB entry and stopped there. Apologies for the confusion. The actual show, Falling Skies, which I never heard of before but that don’t mean nothing, is certainly eligible.
ETA: Damn, what a boneheaded move. That’s going to sit up there and confuse the crap out of people. I should have used Neverwhere as my example.