(1) Harry Potter fans taking the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in London have been trying to “free” Dobby the house elf by leaving socks beside his display case.
https://twitter.com/HogwartsLogic/status/648202470842195968
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lucious Malfoy is tricked into freeing Dobby by handing him a sock. (A house elf can only be freed from its service if its master gives it a gift of clothing.)
(2) James H. Burns recounts a memory of 1973, about the Mets clinching the pennant, and his 6th grade teacher, in the Long Island Press.
(3) Joel Achenbach in the Washington Post says, “Don’t worry. Matt Damon won’t get stuck on Mars. NASA can’t get him there”. He explains why it’s highly unlikely that NASA will lead an expedition to Mars in the next 25 years. Two key points: we don’t have a rocket, and NASA has no plans to develop a Martian lander.
(4) A collection of Vince Clarke’s fanwriting, assembled by David Langford, is a free download on the TAFF Ebooks page. More details and the list of contents here.
Mike Moorcock approves: “Glad the Vince Clarke book’s out. I mention Vince quite a lot in The Woods of Arcady. Sequel to W.Swarm … As I say in the book, Vince was something of a mentor to me and really helped me. Great bloke.”
(5) Patrick May reviews Dark Orbit:
“Dark Orbit” by Carolyn Ives Gilman tells the story of Saraswati “Sara” Callicot, a researcher who spends her life traveling via lightbeam, and Thora Lassiter, a member of an elite caste who was involved in an uprising of the women on the planet Orem against a male-dominated, Sharia-like government.
(6) Cedar Sanderson’s “A List of Books for Big Girls” at Mad Genius Club, while recommending characters, is also a built-in set of book and story recommendations.
Character! That’s what we want. And inspiring heroes, and damsels who can’t be bothered to be distressed, and the men who respect them… You’ll find all that and more in the list of books below.
I want to thank everyone who helped with suggestions for the lists. I’m not including all of the titles that were given to me, some because I wasn’t looking for YA, and some because I was emphasizing character rather than other features. You will find that I’m listing the books by character name, rather than individual books, as many of these are series. Some of the comments in the list are from the people who gave the recommendations to me (I’ve anonymized the lists since they were collected in private groups).
(7) I’m always a sucker for those internet list posts and get hooked into clicking through a whole series of pages by sites trying to maximize their ad exposure. I rarely post those here.
An exception I can recommend in the Scroll is complete on one page: “My Favorite Movie Endings of All Time”.
(8) I bet she’s right —
I’ve always felt that Twitter/social media only helps an author if they are on it saying many things other than Buy My Book. #YAieDay
— Catherynne M. Valente (@catvalente) October 3, 2015
(9) Can’t get it out of my mind. Iphinome’s lyrical comment on File 770.
We built this concom, we built this concom on pixel scroll.
Say you don’t scroll me, or pixelize my face,
Say you can’t lose Hugos with any grace.
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight,
Too many puppies, yapping in the night.Glyer posts a roundup, givin’ us the pixel scroll
Don’t you remember?
We built this concom
We built this concom on pixel scroll.
(10) Larry Correia explains in the beginning of his “Fisking the New York Times’ Modern Man” —
See, I have two sons. As a father, it is my duty to point out really stupid shit, so they can avoid becoming goony hipster douche balloons. So boys, this Fisk was written for you.
His target is Brian Lombardi’s “27 Ways to Be a Modern Man”, which is sort of wryly serious and so lends itself to Correia’s mockery.
SELF-HELP
Even the header is wrong. This article is the opposite of self-help. This is like the instruction guide for how to live life as a sex-free eunuch. …
- The modern man has hardwood flooring. His children can detect his mood from the stamp of his Kenneth Cole oxfords.
Most real men have whatever flooring their wife wanted when they built their house, because we don’t care, because we’re working all day so don’t get to stand on it much. Or they have whatever flooring came with the house when they moved in, and eventually when they can afford to they’ll put in whatever flooring their wife wants, because they don’t care. Some men do care, and they can put in whatever floor they feel like. Good for them. All of those men think this reporter is a douche.
I don’t even know what a Kenneth Cole is. I’m not sure what an oxford is, but from the context I believe it is a type of shoe. As a man who usually wears size 15 Danner boots, this is my Not Impressed Face.
(11) This Day in Non-Science-Fictional History
Debuted on this date in 1961, the first successful TV-show-within-a-TV-show, “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” When Carl Reiner created and starred in the pilot that preceded the hit show, it was not a success. Casting Dick was the one major change that propelled the show into a five-season successful run on CBS.
Also –
In 1955, the children’s TV show Captain Kangaroo with Bob Keeshan in the title role was broadcast for the first time.
(12) Marc Zicree delivers a quick tour of the Science Fiction Exhibit at the LA County Fair — complete with Rod Serling, Jurassic Park, the Back to the Future DeLorean and HAL 9000.
[Thanks to Will R., Martin Morse Wooster, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA.]
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Real men don’t read Larry Correia.
I am really starting to resent the “everyone needs to pair off boy-girl” attitude in so much that I read. Ditto “a female character is only important if the man wants to fuck her”. This caused me no end of angst as a weird shy nerdy girl who was a joke to the boys.
There’s slightly higher odds in the media I’ve consumed to see a man living a fulfilling life without a wife, but even then he usually seems to be awarded with a woman at the end. But a woman without a man? Seems to be only a half-person.
(Anyone have reqs with a female protagonist who doesn’t get paired off and is perfectly happy that way?)
Remnant Population off the top of my head. She’s a widow and not looking to unwidow.
Of course there’s always Breq.
OMFG can you imagine an AJ where Breq is pining after Seivarden or some such? *snickershudder*
(Badass singing Breq is my idol.)
ETA: thank you!
“Of course there’s always Breq.”
This may well be evidence of my having read these books too quickly, because a quick search online shows everyone assumes her to have a female body, but where was that actually stated (or “implied” as I saw in a couple of sources)? I read it as I wasn’t supposed to be sure (or care), as she doesn’t, and I enjoyed that aspect of it.
That said, I probably do picture her as a woman because I would think she’s cooler that way.
I recently read Paul McAuley’s Something Coming Through – it has a female lead, and a male lead, but there is no indication of them ever getting together, or that either of them might ever think that getting together is a good idea. The female lead isn’t in a relationship, and seems to be getting along perfectly well without that. It’s almost as if, y’know, they’re actual people with their own emotional lives and their own careers and their own priorities, and joining up in somebody else’s idea of an ideal relationship just isn’t on their agenda.
(It’s the only book I could think of, offhand, that I’ve read recently and that fits the criteria. This is probably because I don’t read enough books where anyone ends up happy, relationships or not.)
I’m mildly surprised that anyone would consider that “Modern Man” piece to be serious at all, wryly or otherwise. Or that Correia would have bothered to read the whole thing. The only reason I read that far was the discussion here, specifically wondering what point 25 was.
@Will R. – someone to whom gender distinctions matter refers to Breq as a “little girl” at some point, so I’ve chosen to assume they’re right, and also to assume that what I think of as a girl is roughly the same as what they think of as a girl. These assumptions may or may not be correct.
@Dawn Ripley comes to mind.
@Steve — that definitely would be an identifying clue.
Fifth plus fifty-five!
Following the link chain from Achenbach’s current article led to a good story on a recent demolition of the lies and delusions of the Mars One honchos.
Balance is not a feature of op-eds, I know, but it seems strange that Forbes would refer to public health concerns about guns as “trumped up.” And they seem to see something extraordinary–even sinister–in medical journals publishing studies carried out by medical professionals treating guns as a public health issue, like car accidents. To me that looks perfectly normal; I don’t understand the problem.
I can see why people paid by the NRA have an axe to grind about guns–it’s less obvious to me why people paid to improve public health would, as the op-ed seems to expect the reader to assume. It seems to me that something that makes people safer, like safety belts (or guns, according to the NRA) would be promoted by epidemiologists and other public health officials, who are paid to care about reducing death and injury, whether by cars or crime. So public health officials wouldn’t have anything against guns, unless guns were a danger to public health.
The Forbes op-ed does not appear to mention (it’s rather vague, so perhaps it just didn’t give enough details for me to pick this out) what I had thought was Kellerman’s major study on the subject, which shows a ratio of 1 self defense shooting to 22 accidents/attempted or completed homicides/attempted or completed suicides. I wondered if the Forbes op-ed was just older than the 1998 study, but no, it was written in 2013. I am not sure why it references a 1986 study instead of the more recent and more extensive one.
I grant you that Kellerman’s studies are preliminary data and might suffer from statistical blips caused by random chance. Maybe the three cities covered had a random reduction in self defense shootings and a random increase in suicides that year. Further study over wider areas and longer times would smooth out such statistical blips–so why does the NRA oppose that so adamantly? It looks as if the NRA believes the study is right.
In any case I had not heard that any Kellerman study was “discredited” by anything from the CDC. Does anyone have a link to this? I have tried to google it, but can’t find it.
One of the many things I liked about Captain America: The Winter Soldier was that there is never the faintest hint of romance between Cap and Natasha.
Peter Riegert in Crossing Delancy or GTFO when it comes to male role models.
I thought it was interesting that you felt you needed to explain the connection between Dobby&socks, and I wonder where the dividing line is between “things that need to be explained to file770 readers” and “things that any sf fan will recognize”.
Well, I didn’t know that, so it can be useful to save some of us the googling.
Harry Potter never did it for me. I had so many problems with the first book I never bothered with any of the others.
So that NYTimes article seems to be the desperate desire to find some male authenticity in every day life and have that substitute for greater meaning.
What problem could Larry Correia have with that? Anger that they’re imitating the themes of his book, and the great majority of his online presence?
“SF” is a pretty big field these days, and it’s probably never safe to assume everyone knows something, no matter how widespread or popular it is. (I’ve never read the Harry Potter books, myself. I’m waiting until they’re no longer cool.)
People keep thinking Ancillary Justice is about gender. Clearly we can’t expect everyone to know plot elements of widely popular books.
Dawn Incognito wrote
Godstalk pops to mind.
Cat: In any case I had not heard that any Kellerman study was “discredited” by anything from the CDC. Does anyone have a link to this? I have tried to google it, but can’t find it.
That was one of the things that caught my eye: the Forbes article mentions a 2003 CDC study as contradicting Kellerman: “‘In fact, the CDC conducted a major two-year independent study of various regulatory laws in 2003. The investigation considered bans on specified firearms or ammunition; gun registration; concealed-weapon carry; and zero-tolerance for firearms in schools. The study concluded there was ‘insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed for preventing violence.'” However, the link is to a Washington Post opinion piece arguing that Obama et al. should not try to fund CDC gun violence research that mentions the 2003 study but doesn’t link to it. Since CDC studies are government documents and are mostly available online, I wondered why not?
This just looks like a potentially useful exercise, to me. I teach Composition and Academic Writing, which includes Information Literacy, of course: I thought perhaps I could give the Kellerman article or articles, the Reason article mentioned in the Forbes piece (which is published in 1997 and attacks Kellerman for refusing to release his data), and perhaps an article attempting to discredit Kellerman’s 1998 study if I could find it, and let students try to figure out which source is more trustworthy/authoritative. I might ask them to write their opinions about gun control/gun ownership prior to beginning the exercise, and then later ask them to consider how/if their beliefs interacted with their evaluations of the research . . . but I’d need more specifics than I’ve been able to find just trying to track down the Forbes article’s contexts. For example, that article mentions an article Kellerman cites incorrectly in 1992, but doesn’t mention the article’s author, title, year of publication . . . how can I crosscheck what Forbes said about it? (By the way, the Reason article does exactly the same thing–I checked.)
So if anyone can give me more information–enough to help me track down some of the sources myself, and that includes any articles directly and specifically discrediting Kellerman–I’d appreciate it. I really do think that this would be something I could use in a class.
@Cat:
Cat, I think you just achieved final victory over File 770. I am in awe.
God Stalk is definitely in the TBR queue.
Ripley is a great example, and it’s just the right time of year for an Alien rewatch.
I will note that I was thrilled when Donna Noble showed no romantic interest in The Doctor whatsoever. It was quite refreshing after three seasons of Companion Mooning After Doctor.
(Perhaps I was a bit cranky this morning because I recently abandoned a third novel in a row due to gender relation issues ranging from aggravating to disgusting.)
Thanks everyone, kindly keep reqs coming! I don’t think Mt. TBR exceeds life expectancy yet 😉
Anyone have reqs with a female protagonist who doesn’t get paired off and is perfectly happy that way?
One of the things I’ve always loved about Elizabeth Peters’ first Vicky Bliss book, Borrower of the Night (1973), is that it’s an absolutely conventional gothic romance, complete with gorgeous heroine, spooky castle, and lost treasure, but at the end of it Vicky tells all of the men available to her to go away because she’s busy landing herself a good job. Of course, she does pair off with someone later in the series, but it’s a six-book series and I’ve always suspected that Peters didn’t have the later books in mind (or that particular pairing) when she wrote the first one . . .
Cedar Sanderson’s post says she’s listing
Like Tasha, I am… confused and vaguely horrified at the idea of children (or anyone, really) using fictional characters as models for what a spouse should be like (that was part of Emma Bovary’s big problem, IIRC). Especially considering that one of Sanderson’s criteria is:
I think almost everyone has moments when they become whiny and bitchy, especially when stressed, and everyone is flawed (although maybe not irredeemably, I suppose “leaves socks on floor” is redeemable, “serial killer” not so much). So I am afraid that looking to fiction for spousal role models is not very good preparation for real-life spouses.
@Dawn Incognito:
My real concern with mine is if it tips over and lands on me.
(Even with the Kindle app/epub library, too.)
Washington Times (aka “Moonie Times”), not Washington Post. Very different.
Re: Cedar: Having just re-read 1984, I’m struck that this was some of the reading material assigned to us teens back in high school. I didn’t get a lot of that vibe she’s talking about either time.
Dawn Icognito, (Anyone have reqs with a female protagonist who doesn’t get paired off and is perfectly happy that way?)
Well, I just finished The Library At Mount Char, and I think that qualifies. Note: trigger warnings for really horrific torture… but it’s so well-written it’s going on my Hugo nomination list.
Brian C: Washington Times (aka “Moonie Times”), not Washington Post. Very different.
Oops. Well, see, that’s the kind of mistake I hope to teach my students not to make! (Thanks.)
@Michael Eochaidh
Or punches a hole in space time…
Is there an equation that will effectively estimate from the number of books in a TBR Pile, the age of the reader, and the rate of acquisition/shelving, the probability that the reader will expire prior to reading/rejecting the final book?
@Janice, I think you also have to factor in the reading speed of the subject and the number of hours per day they have available for reading (not taken up with sleeping, walking the dog, holding down that pesky job….)
I think “empty TBR pile” is one of those ideal conditions, like absolute zero or a perfect gas or a spherical mass of uniform density… interesting to think about, but never actually achievable in the real world.
@Cassy B, You are absolutely correct.
@Steve Wright My TBR pile is presently entire empty. (For fiction, anyway. There’s four things in the non-fiction one.)
Not everybody wants a book they won’t have time to read.
Am I odd for storing my TBR list on a function of my local library’s website? If they have it, it goes on the list. Otherwise, I put an author watch and usually it turns up in a few weeks to a month.
Saves the budget immensely and helps preserve family harmony.
@Cassy B, Damn. Time ran out while I was editing. At first glance, yes, one might need to get that itsy. But I think we can get a pretty close idea just by measuring actual books coming and going. To tell the truth, I think without prior intervention by my heirs, friends, or the public health department, I will die with a huge pile of unread books. I was just thinking that it might be handy to have a general idea of how many truck should be rented to haul it all off.
The Venn diagram of “Every Book Ever Written From Gilgamesh Until I Die” and “My TBR Pile” would be a large circle for Every Book surrounding an ever-so-slightly smaller circle for TBR.
Some interesting reading there. Sad stuff. Common sense for the way we are now so the only real surprise for me was how many people owned guns according to one study (Alaska leads but I suspect they are hunting rifles. Lots of good game up there as well as dangerous wild animals.)
For a while I’ve had some really controversial issues on how to fix a number of our social problems if only I were in charge & could do what I wanted with all the money for 2+ generations
Starting with kindergarten and continuing every year until one graduates:
1. Teach about body ownership/respect and consent – this means all unwanted touching is dealt with as a violation of someone else’s body (unless self-defense)
2. As kids get old enough to be thinking about sex teach clear enthusiastic consent this is an add-on to #1
3. Make critical thinking part of education- get rid of rote learning & standardized testing which isn’t testing anything but memorized material – focus on teachering kids how to find answers as that skill is more important than rattling off a few facts
4. Create equal education budget at federal level so all public schools are starting with same level of materials and safe buildings as well as breakfast and lunch
5. Stop punishing teachers when students are the ones not doing the work a good portion of every class should be getting a C as that means average
6. Teach gun/weapon safety
What do I hope to accomplish with the above?
1. Everyone is a person and has rights
2. Kids who grow up being able to sift real facts from BS
3. End rape culture – if women are people too and you want to have sex with someone whose enthusiastic you are less likely to be fooled by the serial rapist who hide among you whispering “just get her drunk & she’s more likely to say yes”
4. End Americans weird gun fetish – make guns just a tool and a boring one at that – yeah you can kill with one but your car is a deadly weapon too
5. Create an educated populace which is able to be employed (flexible skills) and get us back to being skilled workers it’s good for our GNP
I don’t think any of my friends like my ideas. “OMG you want to do what” is a frequent respons. I’m fairly confident I’ll not live to see any of the above implemented. It’s too radical and expensive and our government is pretty invested in not educating the masses. It’d be harder to get elected by an educated populace.
Wow sorry that was long. Maybe if I ever get to writing fiction I could do something with the idea.
@Bravo Lima Poppa:
Not odd at all. The majority of my TBR lists are on the local library website and Goodreads. Unfortunately the library interferes with the reading of my stack of owned books.
(If this is the biggest problem I have to contend with, I should consider myself lucky. Oh noes, too many books to read!)
I can’t believe Cedar actually mentions LOTR as a source for “dude you would want to marry” and doesn’t mention Samwise. He’s the perfect man. You know, smart, brave, loyal, funny, humble, moral… salt of the earth, but also sensitive to truth and beauty… a great cook… he’ll carry the heavy pack, carry you if necessary, never whine or complain, and, most importantly, kill the spider for you no matter how big it is.
I buy shoes for my mother because our feet have a similar shape and I know the difference between the size of our feet. If I find a pair that fits me, I just subtract 2 sizes.
I’m mostly in agreement with Larry Correia on that article. Those kinds of idiotic articles are a regular recurrence—I don’t see why anyone would waste their time fisking one. I guess it was the guns that got to him. One issue fisker.
Empty TBR pile? Shudders at the thought. I don’t think I’d ever want to achieve that. This caused me to check my ebooks, take a guess at how many are unread 4800* of 5200, divide by 200 (average reading a year), and sigh with relief when I saw I have 24 years of reading covered. I’m 48 so that gets me to 72… Hmm maybe my husband has a point when he suggests I don’t need to buy/download anymore books… Nah, you can never have too many books. LOL
*not including eArc and other books not bought/gifted directly through Amazon – might be short by ~1,000 books & also leaves out our physical library of another 1-2,000 I’ve not read although some of those I’ve gotten in ebook form
You mean you don’t want your own personal portal into L-Space?
@ Joe H.
Alas, my TBR pile includes a large number of books that haven’t been written yet (and may never be written unless I do so myself).
@ McJulie
Almost got coffee on the keyboard there.
@Cassy B.
I have it on hold at the library, and thanks for the warning. I can read about abuse and torture at times, but I need to be prepared. It sounds interesting.
Well, I’m still working on a portal to allow access to Lucien’s library in Morpheus’ castle.
My girlfriend bought me a pair of winter boots a few years ago; I was and am grateful, because dry feet are good. The pair they replaced, I got by walking into a good shoe store and asking to see every pair of boots in my size. The salesperson was dubious, knowing how many styles of boots they had. I asked them to please check in back, and was brought six pairs, one of which fit reasonably well. By the time I needed another pair, that store had closed. She asked my shoe size, hunted around online, and had them sent to me. If they hadn’t fit, I would have sent them back.
The pair they replaced, I got by walking into a good shoe store and asking to see every pair of boots in my size. The salesperson was dubious, knowing how many styles of boots the store had. I asked them to please check in back, and was brought six pairs, one of which fit reasonably well. By the time I needed another pair, that store had closed. Most shoe stores, I ask what boots they have in an 8 wide, and am told they only carry medium widths. So I was willing to sit home, have shoes arrive, and risk sending them back.
Of course, I have no idea what a Real Man would do in that situation, since neither of us is a man, real or otherwise.