254 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 10/3 The Red Scroll of Westmarch”

1. Janice : “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.”

   Help us out – your comment is premised on the idea that this is a bad thing, right?

2. The Harry Potter studio tour is actually extremely good, although I can’t recommend the “butterbeer” they sell you halfway through – it’s the sickliest taste I’ve ever encountered.

3. I am also reminded of Woody Allen’s definition of “modern man”: someone who was born after Nietzche’s statement “God is dead” and before the release of the Beatles song “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

4. you’re four times more likely to accidentally shoot a member of your household than an intruder.

   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9715182/

   Or a four-legged member of your household will shoot you:

   http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-shocking-truth-about-gun-violence-by-dogs/

5. Dawn Incognito on October 4, 2015 at 10:51 am:

   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!)

   Interesting. I’m trying not to own too many books between budget and the prospect of moving next summer.
   And in that respect the library has been a godsend between its selection, ILL and Overdrive (which gives the Kindle a workout).

   I’d rather read books than own them I’ve discovered. Though there is a very short list of ones to get and hold onto.

6. @Tintinaus

   I’m sure interfering with the nature of causality is against Library rules.

7. McJulie on October 4, 2015 at 10:53 am said:
   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.

   Yes, this, and not just as a joke.
   The problem is, of course, that a “hero” is not actually necessarily the best life partner, exactly as Sanderson’s choice of Frodo versus Sam demonstrates.
   Sam was always in a relationship, and draws strength from it, while Frodo never finds, or indeed appears even to seek, such a pairing – outside of fanfic.
   (And, I gotta say, Frodo manages a fair bit of whining, and Gandalf has his cranky side.)
   Ignoring Sam to point at Gandalf and Frodo is emblematic of deeper issues with Sanderson’s framing of the discussion

   To being with, it’s interesting that in listing books for young people in the hopes of pointing them towards what she views as non-toxic relationships Sanderson explicitly rejects both the romance genre and YA category, for what seem to me to be no particular reason.
   Even she admits of romance (somewhat confusingly) that “some of my favorites back then had no plot of boy-meets-girl, and some of them did.”
   By which I think she means that romance is capable of focusing on more than the expected relationship.
   And she doesn’t seem to justify eliminating YA, nor to be totally successful at doing so.
   That kids are capable of reading adult works doesn’t, logically, mean they shouldn’t be reading YA as well.
   She shrugs off the discussion by limiting her audience: “I’m talking teens, and furthermore, teens like I was, who considered juvenile or YA books beneath them (yes, I was an arrogant little snot at that age).”
   YA today is much less limited than it once was, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only reader here who routinely tosses some into the the TBR pile.
   (And, as pointed out, despite her plan to avoid it, some YA crept into her lists anyway.)

   I focus on her intention to avoid romance and YA for two reasons.
   First, because neither of these seem to me to be as limited as she is suggesting: they’re not your mom’s Harlequins any more, and YA works address as serious topics as adult works, IMHO.
   Both seem to me – a fairly omnivorous reader – capable of providing readers with examples of heroic characters, male and female.
   But, importantly, what they also both tend to bring to the table, and what she seems to want to avoid, is a tendency to examine relationships, which she seems to implicitly believe is somehow antithetical to a display of heroic behavior.
   Thus, she points to Frodo and Gandalf for heroism, and ignores both Sam and Aragorn.
   (Yep, Galadrial’s on the list too.
   I guess I’m examining tendencies.
   And further, in LOTR Sam and Aragorn’s relationships are developing, and Galadrial’s is a fixed point.
   Be that as it may…)

   In any case, Sanderson intends this reading of male and female heroic characters as a means to provide boys and girls with “a role model that will influence their selection of a mate later in life.”
   There is some confusion here, since a role model is someone you model yourself after, and the characters she shows are not modeling making relationship choices.
   (A picky point, perhaps, but one does tend to place a high bar for using words to convey ideas for a person who is running a literary discussion.)
   Anyway, from the discussion it seems rather that she is suggesting that young readers should use these models of opposite sex heroes to shape their expectations and desired traits in a future spouse – hence, male characters for the girl’s list, and females for the boy’s.

   But here is where that restriction – no YA, no romance, no Sam and Aragorn versus Frodo and Gandalf – becomes crippling.
   If what you want to do is to literally “imprint” a young person with a set of desirable behaviors in potential life partners, shouldn’t those behaviors include important elements to do with their treatment of those they care for.
   The 1950’s canonical Superman was certainly a hero within the constraints of Sanderson’s criteria.
   But wanting a young woman to think his treatment of Lois Lane provides a valid model for the behavior of her own future spouse seems pretty questionable to me.

8. WillR wrote:

   “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)?

   Breq definitely has a female body; there’s a hint in the “tough little girl” quote, but rather more in the “She commands me and I obey” two-part short story that you really ought to read, as it’s a) utterly splendid and b) explains some of her backstory.

   Part 1

   Part 2

   Finally, Oerd vf gur napvyynel orvat znqr gb ercynpr gur bar xvyyrq va gur hccre pvgl juvpu hcfrgf Yvrhgranag Nja jura fur vf frag onpx hc gb Whfgvpr bs Gbera. (Fcrpvnyyl fryrpgrq ol gur zrqgrpu gb naabl gur Rfx yvrhgranagf, V nffhzr.)

9. McJulie commented on Pixel Scroll 10/3 The Red Scroll of Westmarch.

   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.

   That’s a great spider line, McJulie

   But I have two funny stories about men and scary critters.

   1) Too many years ago I roomed with a couple. The man was 6’5+” tall and fairly “manly” in demeanor. One day his cat brought a large dead rat to the back door. This guy totally freaked out and literally ran screaming through the house. Me and his wife dealt with it.

   2) MY husband found a large spider in the bed several years ago and began yelling and thrashing about. After I got him to stop yelling, I found the poor thing and put it outside.

   Not making fun of people’s phobias, I have a few of my own, but after you’ve spent your childhood sharing a room with a sister who drug in every creepy crawly available and ‘accidentally’ let them loose in the bedroom, you get acclimated. (The tarantula I found in my shoe one morning was typical.)

10. The modern man does not have the slightest interest in the opinions of attention-addicted, insecure Neandertals whose senses of self-worth can be measured by the size of their gun collections.

11. Scalzi also did some snarking about that NYT piece: https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/649624222348787712

    Correia and Scalzi agreeing about something (at least in broad outline, if not in detail). Isn’t this one of the signs of the apocalypse? 🙂

12. About heroes: In a Beowulf seminar years ago, John Gardner suggested that heroes are monstrous, a view that one can see in his Grendel. The dragon-slaying, hash-settling kind of heroism often ends in tears (it’s no accident that epic and tragedy are cultural siblings). Heroes of that kidney are set off from ordinary humankind–note that Frodo and Bilbo both eventually leave Middle Earth, forever marked by having borne the One Ring. But Sam’s heroism–which includes a “back again” that is permanent and part of the repair of his community–is the kind that gets up every morning and goes to work (at the factory or in the kitchen) without fanfare or parades and is not generally given carved monuments, other than the ones left in what my father called the “marble orchard.”

13. @cadbury Big thanks for that info, not least because it gives me more Breq to read.

14. @Xtifr:

    I think Scalzi and Correia made the same mistake in reading that article: they believe every item in the list applies to the same person. They either did not read or did not understand the title of the piece. It’s 27 “ways to be,” not “qualities of.”

    There is no One True Path to Modern Manhood. There are several, and some of them contradict each other. Mr. “Eat ALL the Steak!” is neither more nor less of a man than Mr. “Plug the Chargers In at Night.” Mr. “No Weakness” and Mr. “Little Spoon” are not the same person, but they can both be perfectly decent people.

    I read “27 Ways” as a counterpoint to the old Playboy idea, whereas Scalzi and Correia appear to read it as an attempt to update it. (For the uninitiated, Playboy set out to define a specific type of masculine ideal for their readers to identify with and aspire to: if you read this magazine, you are part of this elite group of refined men who know and savor The Right Things.) “27 Ways” is very much not that. It’s a list of inclusions, not exclusions. A “27 Qualities” article would require adherence to every item on the list, as if it were a test for manhood. “27 Ways” is the opposite; identifying with any example is “good enough,” and since it’s not “The 27 Ways,” it is possible to reject all of them and forge your own path.

    Words matter. It depresses me when professional writers forget that.

15. A few more stories with female protagonists who don’t end up romantically paired:
    Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
    Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind, by Hayao Miyazaki
    (and it’s been a long time since I read this last, so apologies if it’s wrong)
    The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, by Michael Swanwick

16. @WillR

    I aim to please, so Duck!

    There are a lot of very good reasons Ancillary Justice swept the awards; the level of detail in the worldbuilding, the matter-of-fact moments of absolute horror that are normal in that society, the characterisation, etc. It’s solidly constructed, superbly written, and my only regret is that it’s now D-2 for Ancillary Mercy and the end of the story.

    Sigh.

    I shall go and read The Goblin Emperor again. (Another superb, albeit entirely different, book.)

17. Dawn Incognito on October 4, 2015 at 6:44 am said:

    (Anyone have reqs with a female protagonist who doesn’t get paired off and is perfectly happy that way?)

    Try Ethan of Athos by Bujold.

    I actually like the entire Ellie/Miles romantic arc in the Vorkosigan books. They obviously love each other a LOT but Ellie cannot fulfill her life as Lady Vorkosigan; and Miles cannot fulfill his life as renegade Admiral Naismith. Ultimately they realize that about each other and let go.

    I also like that it’s Miles, the man (and Gregor the man) who goes through the books looking, on and off, for the perfect mate to complete his life.

    You also might look at The Steerswoman books by Rosemary Kirstein.

    Also, the Chanur books by Cherryh. Pyanfar is already married in the books but she certainly doesn’t need her husband for fulfillment.

    .

    Also: Carve one more notch in the Title belt. Thanks, Mike!!

18. Regarding the discussion on gun control. Interesting article about Australia here.

    http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback

19. Words matter. It depresses me when professional writers forget that.

    This. And so many seem to do it so frequently. 🙁

    In any case, Sanderson intends this reading of male and female heroic characters as a means to provide boys and girls with “a role model that will influence their selection of a mate later in life.”
    There is some confusion here, since a role model is someone you model yourself after, and the characters she shows are not modeling making relationship choices.

    This. She should be modeling couples who do it right rather than the opposite gender for the kind of person to marry. Several of the books/series she chooses even have a number of good relationships in them:
    1. Riryia (both series) by Michael J. Sullivan (I’m a big fan)
    2. Honorverse by David Weber
    3. Milesverse by Bujold
    4. Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews
    5. Mercy Thompson & spinoff Alpha & Omega by Patricia Briggs
    In all of the above you see people/aliens/paranormal creatures of multiple genders having complicated relationships based on respect for the people in their relationship based on more than their looks or physical strength. They negotiate through tough spots, take turns taking care of each other, deal with irritating foibles, self-doubt, jealousy, high stress crisis, and more while keeping their love alive. Just like real life… Well they have spaceships, aliens, vampires, werewolves, and more which to my knowledge we don’t.

20. Holly Jones may or may not get her boyfriend back at the end of Menace From Earth; either way, it’s obvious she doesn’t need him.

    I’m not curious enough about #25 to use up one of my 10 NYT articles on it, but the reaction reminds me of the Douglas Adams characters who demanded rigorously defined areas of doubt and uncertainty. Only, y’know, not *those*, because who are you to tell me what to do?

    Girls need to be given a list of books with male characters? Because… they’re so hard to find, or something?

21. One thing struck me in that Sanderson piece: boys get a role model to inspire their future partners, girls get a role model to honour and show duty to their future partners.

    There’s a not so subtle differences in those roles.

22. @Cadbury Moose

    re: Breq’s being female

    There’s also a very brief aside at the end of Ancillary Sword where gurer’f n qvfphffvba nobhg ercebqhpgvba, naq Oerd nfxf, “Pna lbh vzntvar zr jvgu na vasnag?”

    Jryy, ab.

23. @junego

    (The tarantula I found in my shoe one morning was typical.)

    Good heavens. If that happened to me, they would still be peeling me off the ceiling.

24. > “Anyone have reqs with a female protagonist who doesn’t get paired off and is perfectly happy that way?”

    Pretty much anything by Frances Hardinge. I’d particularly recommend Cuckoo Song and A Face Like Glass.

25. @redheadedfemme

    In an ungendered/postgendered society like the Radch that’s probably not evidence either way.

    But I take your point. (Ouch! That’s rather sharp, can you stick a cork on it before someone gets hurt, please.)

    D-2 and counting….

26. I’ve known from early in Ancillary Justice that Justice of Toren One Esk 19 was a female body. Also that Seivarden was male.

    My personal view is that the Raadchai DO know what sex everyone’s body is, just as Finns and Turks know that even though they don’t have gendered pronouns either. It just doesn’t matter as much to the Raadchai since they don’t have the level of misogynistic society we do and are, as a society, more comfortable with sexual liaisons with folks of any gender.

    Leckie said that early in writing Ancillary Justice she had not yet had the upsight to use female pronouns for all her characters and thus knew if they were male or female. Later, after she started using she/her for everyone she stopped knowing the sex of most later introduced characters because it just didn’t matter to the story. I think that’s very interesting. Scalzi has said the same about Chris in Lock In, he doesn’t know Chris’s sex and it doesn’t matter.

27. Yay new Breq! Thanks for pointing out that story, Cadbury Moose.

    I just came to a realization that many of my favourite protagonists have several similarities:

    Breq from the Ancillary books;
    Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica;
    Kino from Kino’s Journey;
    Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion

    Cold and focused and brutally practical. Can’t say I recall Rei in personal combat, but the other three would take you down in 0.87 seconds*.

    (Then there’s Reki from Haibane Renmei who tries so hard to be cold…*whimper*)

    *rkprcg Ubzhen jvgu Znzv

28. I have problems with the in-between spiders. I don’t mind regular spiders and, like Howl, let them have their corners. I don’t mind something about tarantula size though they aren’t native to where I live so I might be shocked to see one. It’s the spiders that are bigger than they should be. The barn spiders who spin webs on the porch and look like they could lose a little weight.

29. Saw a wolf spider in my bedroom once that reminded me of nothing so much as a brown Camaro. Very disturbing.

30. “30 Ways to Annoy Correia” (with apologies to Paul Simon and apologies to anybody who may had done this joke already 🙂 )

    The problem is all inside your head, said the NYT
    The answer is easy if you, Take it logically
    I’d like to help you in your struggle, To be a man
    There’s nearly thirty ways, To annoy Correia

    It said it’s really not my habit, To intrude
    Furthermore, I hope my meaning, Won’t be lost or misconstrued
    But I’ll repeat myself, At the risk of being crude
    There’s nearly thirty ways, To annoy Correia
    Thirty ways to annoy Correia

    [CHORUS:]
    Buy some new shoes, Jools
    Stiff upper lip, Skip
    You don’t eat the corn, Beorn
    Just to annoy our Larry
    Eat all that steak, Jake
    You don’t need to park much, Butch!
    Just charge up the kids phone, Sloane
    And annoy our Larry

    No Mountain Dew, Stu
    Don’t say ‘chopper’, Hopper
    Learn some new stuff, Gus
    Just to annoy Larry
    Dry the stuff on the rack, Jack
    Don’t Tweet to discuss much!
    Check the size of your soap, dope
    And annoy our Larry

    Play the Wu-Tang, Chang
    Write the list by hand, Brand
    Hardwood floors, Bors
    Just to annoy our Larry
    Human shield in your bed, Ted
    You don’t want to sleep much, Dutch!
    Just melons in balls, Pauls
    And annoy our Larry

    Shoehorn the boot, Scoot
    Buy the bouquet, Jay
    Be a little spoon, Boon
    Just to annoy our Larry
    Be nice to your kid, Skid
    You don’t need to dress up much!
    Just go and watch Heat, Pete
    And annoy our Larry

    Run that phone flat, Matt
    Don’t get a gun, Dun
    Cry into your mug, Doug
    Just to annoy our Larry
    Be a ‘sack of crap’, Jack
    You don’t have to dance neat, Pete!
    We just need three more on our score
    To annoy our Larry

31. Nicely done, Camestros.

    And on separate, evergreen topic, I’ll just leave this here.

32. Actually, come to think of it, “She Commands Me and I Obey” reminds me a bit of the Kino’s Journey episodes “Coliseum” pts 1 and 2. Looks like Kino can be streamed on Hulu for those in the US.

    I enjoyed it very much and am looking forward to reading Ancillary Mercy.

33. Jim H:

    That article about “Cherokee princess blood” has a curious omission. Genealogists know to tread carefully when tracing a white family claiming “Cherokee blood”, because there’s a very good chance you’ll find an African-American in the family tree, and not every family will be happy with this knowledge.

34. @Doctor Science: Interesting!

35. I leave for book tour tomorrow. Pray for Mojo.

36. I would have liked at least explicit mention of the fact that the untraceable ancestor always seems to be a “Cherokee princess” and never a “Cherokee prince.” (This is not my own idea, it’s from something I read quite a while ago, before routine DNA testing.)

37. @Tasha Turner: You…have…4800…unread ebooks?! Woah.

    @Cadbury Moose: Is that story about Breq? I didn’t read it, but can’t tell from a quick skim/search within the story, looking for references. Did I miss a hint, or did Leckie say this somewhere? My Radch books are hardcopies, so searching them for names from the story would be tough. I’m guessing it relates to gur vpba Oerd unf . . . ?

    Hmm, this story on Tor.com is more clearly set in the Radch universe. (bookmarking to read later)

38. VR: “I would have liked at least explicit mention of the fact that the untraceable ancestor always seems to be a “Cherokee princess” and never a “Cherokee prince.” ”

    Well, that might make the “Cherokee” in the woodpile just a bit too obvious…

39. I know I’ve been told by at least one (tenured, Ph.Ded) historian that “Cherokee” blood is usually the place holder for a either an African-American family with a white ancestor (somewhat understandably) wanting a better tale than the awful reality, or a White family not wanting to admit the the African-American ancestor.

    I’ve also heard from a few people from Oklahoma that one of the reason that “Cherokee” blood is at least plausible, besides what a big ethnic group it was/is is due to the fact that accredited members of one of the Cherokee tribes can be utterly vicious to people who aren’t Cherokee “enough,” or who don’t have enough Cherokee ancestors, or who married/had a kid with someone from the wrong side of the tracks, etc. Thus, there are enough people in Oklahoma and that area that who actually have a flesh and blood Cherokee grandparent or great grandparent, but would never be called Cherokee by accredited members of the respective tribes.

    So you have the case where the people who are more familiar with actual Cherokee are less inclined to call bullshit on people claiming the ancestry, and thus it spreads unchallenged. Fascinating confluence of different cultural factors.

40. @RedWombat: Consider it prayed.

41. Joe H. on October 4, 2015 at 11:48 am said:
    Well, I’m still working on a portal to allow access to Lucien’s library in Morpheus’ castle.

    I have dibs on the John M. Ford section, but I suspect I’d have to wait in line behind Neil Gaiman.

42. Well done Camestros

    @Kendall I’m a book hoarder now that ebooks take up little space. I always had a hard time deciding what to buy or take out of the library. Now I don’t. Instead I can spend hours browsing my ebook collection to see what I’m in the mood for. Although I’m still known to complain “I have nothing to read” which means “no book cover is screaming read me, read me” for the mood I’m in.

43. @Kendall: I mostly liked “Night’s Slow Poison” but I got confused by all the different pronouns. Why are some characters referred to as “he” and others “she”? Why WAIT WE DID THIS JOKE BACK IN JULY I THINK

44. Camestros: applause

    RedWombat: May all the little gods of logistics smile upon you! May it be smooth, and predictable, and as low-stress as possible!

45. Whoops forgot to say, @Camestros Felapton: Very nice!

    @Rev. Bob: Thanks for explaining re. “27 Ways.” I misunderstood the article. (blush) I noticed some items seemed to go in different directions; now that makes more sense.

46. @Anyone: I just got two used Iain M. Banks books; a friend was done with them: Matter and Surface Detail. I prefer reading a series in order, but that font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, claims one takes place in 1887 (HUH?!) and another in 2970. That’s far apart!

    Do the “Culture” books just share a general setting, but work out of order – no direct relation? Or will I regret not starting with Consider Phlebas (which I don’t own, but could pick up)? Granted, I won’t be reading these any time soon, but I just want to plan ahead. 😉

    BTW wow, these are proof that not only fantasy has doorstoppers; they’re big!

    Two other books passed along by my friend: Piper’s Little Fuzzy – already have a Project Gutenberg ebook of it – and Martin’s Fevre Dream – hey, this was on my “to consider” list, so that’s cool.

    @Jim Henley: LOL.

47. @ Rev. Bob

    Good point regarding 27 Ways… I think I will go back and reread that article.

    @ RedWombat

    Best wishes for mojo of the sort most needed at the time.

    @ Camestros

    Very nice!

48. @Kendall: I’m reading the Culture novels in publication order (just finished Excession), but there doesn’t seem to be a tight continuity there. The appendix of Consider Phlebas is nice because it makes clear that book takes place in Earth’s past (the 14th Century); the next couple take place roughly our time. I’m told Look to Windward is a sorta kinda direct sequel to Consider Phlebas; but otherwise, I’ve found no obvious reason to read them in order other than my own anal-retentiveness.

49. Bravo Lima Poppa on October 4, 2015 at 10:41 am said:

    Am I odd for storing my TBR list on a function of my local library’s website?

    I don’t think so. My library only lets me keep 20 books on my “hold” list (most of them are “frozen” at any time [and checking right now I see that I’m at the magic 20 number, with one ready for pickup)], so I also have 15 different lists: one for DVDs, one generic “to be read” list with 201 books on it, one list for a particular topic, and the rest are lists of nominees and finalists for various awards, going back to 2012. Reviewing these lists, I’m shocked that I don’t have a list for Tiptree Award finalists and winners; I know that I haven’t read all of those (yet).

50. Another book question (sorry, weird topic, I know 😉 ): Anyone read Gary Gibson? I have his first in the TBR mountain, and was just reading about his latest, Extinction Game, which intrigues me! Last-man-on-earth survivor is saved and put onto a team with other survivors of their own alternate earths, training to retrieve stuff from other apocalyptic alternate earths.

    I believe it just came out, although Amazon calling it a “reprint edition” confuses me. Anyone heard about it, read it, etc.? And/or just in general, have good or bad or meh things to say about Gibson’s books, why, etc.?

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