(1) PETALS TO THE METAL. At Young People Read Old SFF, curator James Davis Nicoll is a little worried:
My hit rate for this series so far has been… somewhat lower than I hoped. It’s not that I am going out of my way to find older SF stories that do not consistently appeal to younger people; it is just that I turn out to have a remarkable talent for finding older SF stories that do not consistently appeal to younger people.
So this time he pulled out one of the greatest short stories in the genre, Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon”. Turns out his young audience wasn’t all that fired-up about it, either. Which reminds me of a favorite joke:
A dog food company once held a convention for its sales force. The president got up and said, “We have the greatest product in the world!” Everybody applauded. “We have the best sales people in the industry!” The cheered wildly. “So,” asked the president, “why aren’t we selling any dog food?” A little man in the back got up and shouted, “It’s the damn dogs, sir! They don’t like it!”
(2) DON’T STAND UNDERNEATH WHEN THEY FLY BY. The odds say that these things are supposed to crash in the ocean. Except when they don’t. “The Space Debris Problem: Dual Impact In Myanmar Shows What’s To Come”.
A mining facility in northern Myanmar became the crash site of a huge piece of space debris last Thursday. As the impact occurred, a smaller piece of debris with Chinese markings on it simultaneously destroyed the roof of a house in a nearby village. Fortunately, no one was injured in either incident.
The larger object is barrel-shaped and measures about 4.5 meters (15 ft) long, with a diameter barely over a meter. “The metal objects are assumed to be part of a satellite or the engine parts of a plane or missile,” a local news report said. The Chinese government is neither confirming nor denying whether both pieces of space junk came from the same object.
(3) FIGHT INTERNMENT. George Takei’s op-ed in the Washington Post reacts against talk about rounding up Muslims and reminds people of what happened when we interned the Japanese — “They interned my family. Don’t let them do it to Muslims”.
There is dangerous talk these days by those who have the ear of some at the highest levels of government. Earlier this week, Carl Higbie, an outspoken Trump surrogate and co-chair of Great America PAC, gave an interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News. They were discussing the notion of a national Muslim registry, a controversial part of the Trump administration’s national security plans, when Higbie dropped a bombshell: “We did it during World War II with Japanese, which, you know, call it what you will,” he said. Was he really citing the Japanese American internment, Kelly wanted to know, as grounds for treating Muslims the same way today? Higbie responded that he wasn’t saying we should return to putting people in camps. But then he added, “There is precedent for it.”
Stop and consider these words. The internment was a dark chapter of American history, in which 120,000 people, including me and my family, lost our homes, our livelihoods, and our freedoms because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. Higbie speaks of the internment in the abstract, as a “precedent” or a policy, ignoring the true human tragedy that occurred….
(4) THE FRANCHISE THAT LIVED. The BBC renders a verdict — “Film review: Is Fantastic Beasts a Rowling triumph?” Chip Hitchcock says, “tl;dr version: way too many characters for one movie. Rowling says it’s the first of five; sounds a bit like the opening episode ST:TNG, which spent most of its time setting up the main players.”
As exhilarating as all the new sights and sounds are, though, it’s soon apparent that Rowling et al are enjoying their relocation a little too much. A major flaw of the later Harry Potter films was that they crammed in so many characters and incidents from the ever-longer novels that they were baffling to anyone who didn’t know the books by heart. What’s slightly disappointing about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is that, even though it isn’t adapted from a novel, it has a similar problem. Rowling’s superabundant imagination won’t let the story build up momentum: she keeps shoving minor characters and irrelevant details in its path.
(5) TODAY IN HISTORY
- November 18, 1928— Mickey Mouse appeared for the first time, with Walt Disney doing the voice of his soon-to-be-famous creation, in “Steamboat Willie,” the first fully synchronized sound cartoon produced.
- November 18, 1963 — Push-button telephones made their debut. John King Tarpinian was one of the early button-pushers:
I remember being at the County Fair and there was a display with kiosks. You used a rotary phone to dial your number then using a push-button phone you dialed a random phone number. The elapsed time was displayed and you saw how much faster the push-button phone was compared to the rotary.
- November 18, 1990 — Stephen King’s It premieres on TV.
(6) TRIVIAL TRIVIA. Actor Charles Bronson appeared in the 1953 horror classic House of Wax as Vincent Price’s assistant, Igor. Bronson is credited under his real name, Charles Buchinsky.
(7) ABOLISHING A EUPHEMISM. NPR’s Glen Weldon says “The Term ‘Graphic Novel’ Has Had A Good Run. We Don’t Need It Anymore”.
…And all the other, sillier, less meaningful stuff. Science fiction, or whatever.
Oy. OK. Lots to unpack here, and, to be fair, at lot of it’s our fault. Comics readers and creators, that is.
By the time the great cartoonist Will Eisner slapped the term “graphic novel” on his 1978 book, A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories, the term had been percolating around comics fandom for years. Eisner, however, was a tireless advocate, and wanted people to appreciated that comics are a medium, not a genre. A medium dominated, then as now, by superheroes, but nevertheless a storytelling medium that could be used to tell an infinite number of stories in vastly different ways.
Which is why—
Um, OK. It looks like you’re ramping up. I’m gonna … I’m just gonna grab a seat then.
Fine, go ahead.
The reason Eisner latched onto the term “graphic novel” and ran with it is because … well, it was 1978. He needed to. Comics were considered, if they were considered at all, junk culture. Kid stuff that was beneath serious notice, if not beneath contempt….
Chip Hitchcock comments: “They use Gaiman’s less-colorful metaphor; when he spoke in NYC a decade or so back, he said someone who insisted he did ‘graphic novels’ made him feel like a streetwalker being told she was a lady of the night.”
(8) CHESTNUTS ROASTING. Annalee Newitz lists “All the science fiction and fantasy novels you need to make it through the winter” at Ars Technica.
Everfair, by Nisi Shawl
2016 was a good year for alternate histories, and Shawl’s thought experiment about 19th century colonialism in Everfair is no exception. In this alternate reality, Fabian socialists in Britain manage to team up with African-American missionaries to buy part of the Belgian Congo from King Leopold II, establishing the free African nation of Everfair. Based on an actual historical plan that never came to fruition, the novel imagines how Everfair would develop, changing the history of other colonized African nations as its population swells with American former slaves and liberated peoples of the Congo. Though there is a strong Utopian core to the novel, Shawl does not shy away from depicting thorny, internecine battles between different groups who have opposing definitions of freedom. Plus, we get to see how Everfair develops breathtaking new technologies. Shawl has done incredible research on the history of the Congo, and it shows. This is steampunk done right, with all the tarnish, sweat, and blood visible on the gears of the world’s great industrial technologies.
(9) AH, THAT EXPLAINS IT. I wondered why Vox Day kept using this as a figure for Trump. James McConnaughy makes the connection in “#NotMyGodEmperor: Why Are There So Many Actual Fascists in the Warhammer 40K Fandom?” at The Mary Sue.
That’s ridiculous, I told myself. There’s absolutely no way they could be genuinely identifying with the Imperium of Man or its fascist power structure. After all, the Imperium of Man is a parody of fascism, and not a particularly subtle one at that, since the game constantly talks about how much life sucks and how the authoritarianism causes more problems than it solves. They’d have to be blind to not see that Warhammer 40k is… kid…ding.
Oh. Oh no.
Let’s stop for a moment and talk about satire, because I like hard shifts like that. The problem with satire (or, more directly, the problem with writing satire) is that it has a goal, beyond simply being funny. Satire is pointed, it has a purpose, it is, to use a phrase I often dislike, saying something. More specifically, satire is saying something by taking something it wishes to criticize and blowing it up to absurd proportions.
And therein lies the problem: Satire is always walking the razor’s edge. By using the words and concepts of the thing you are satirizing, you are often giving voice to those words and concepts, and someone out there is going to agree with those words, not the actual point of your satire. That’s the basis of Poe’s Law: Without a blatant display of comedy, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.
(10) PLONK YOUR MAGIC TWANGER. The Financial Times has a regular feature about the one thing people take with them when they travel. Chris Hadfield explained in the November 12 issue why he always carries his guitar with him.
He explains that on his first trip to the Mir space station in 1995 he had a special guitar made by Wright Guitars where owner Rossco Wright “adapted one for me, cutting the neck in half and putting a locking piano hinge on it so it would fold and fit in the shuttle. I had to get approval from Nasa: from the highest level, the director of the space shuttle programme.”
“Just before the flight while I was in quarantine, I got a call from the payloads people saying that although Nasa had approved it, the Russians weren’t gonna let me take the guitar on to Mir because it hadn’t passed all the electromagnetic and flammability tests. So some people from Nasa came to my house, found my spare SoloEtte, did all the testing and passed the results to Russia. We launched–still without permission from the Russians–and I assembled the guitar on Mir, but we weren’t allowed to plug it in. Then,. as we were doing a press conference with Russian prime minister Victor Cheromydin, he said, ‘I understand you have a new guitar–play me a song.’ That sounded like permission, so we played a concert on Mir, and nothing caught fire or blew up.”
Hadfield says that the Larivee Parlour guitar Hadfield used to cover “Space Odyssey” in 2013 “was put there” in the International Space Station “for psychological support (along with books, movies, a harmonica and a couple of footballs” and has been in space since 2001.
(11) SPIGOT, RHYMES WITH… In October, Alexandra Erin created a satirical news feed on Medium called The Daily Spigot. She tells her Patreon supporters that she intended it to be daily, but that illness and the election interrupted her momentum; however, she has started writing new posts again. The latest is: “Trump Asking Every Business In Phone Book About Mexico Plans”
This reporter was allowed into Donald Trump’s private office to witness the real estate developer turned job saver in action.
“Hello, Triple A All-American Locksmiths?” he asked during a typical such call. “This is the President of the United States. That’s right,” he said, while an aide frantically mouthed the words “no, no, no” and another scrawled, “You have to stop saying that” on a piece of paper, which was then pushed across the desk to Trump, who frowned at it, signed it, then pushed it away.
“I’m just calling to see if you had any plans on moving your plant or any jobs to Mexico in, say, the next two months to four years? No? Great! Tremendous. Thanks a bunch. Make America great again!”
He then hung up the phone and said, “That’s another one for the Twitter.”
(12) GROWING UP GROOT. CinemaBlend poses some knotty questions in “How Groot Will Be Different In Guardians Of The Galaxy 2, According To Vin Diesel”.
While plugging his new movie Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk to Collider, Vin Diesel detoured into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 territory, and noted how in the sequel, Groot will have a significantly more naive mindset compared to how he was as an adult. While it was generally assumed that Baby Groot would behave like a juvenile, Diesel statement confirms that the alien basically be a child, albeit one with extraordinary abilities. However, that mentality doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t remember what he was like before he was destroyed and regrown. At San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said Baby Groot will retain his memories, although director James Gunn later told a fan that as far as Baby Groot being the original Groot or a “son,” that situation is “complicated.”.
(13) NOT YOUR AVERAGE OBLATE SPHEROID. Astronomers claim to have discovered the roundest object ever measured in nature. Write this on your hand.
Kepler 11145123 is a distant, slowly rotating star that’s more than twice the size of the Sun.
Researchers were able to show that the difference between its radius as measured to the equator and the radius measured to the poles was just 3km.
“This makes Kepler 11145123 the roundest natural object ever measured,” said lead author Prof Laurent Gizon.
He added that it was “even more round than the Sun”.
(14) INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY IN THE SKY. Elon Musk’s latest: satellite internet: “SpaceX aims to launch internet from space”.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, announced last year that the service would be “larger than anything that has been talked about to date” adding that it would take about $10bn (£8bn) to get it off the ground.
The latest documents did not include costs.
It suggested that the first 800 satellites would be used to expand internet access in the US, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin islands.
Each satellite, about the size of an average car, not including solar panels, would weigh 850 pounds (386kg), the firm said.
[Thanks to JJ, Todd, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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Three times not fifth.
Almost first! Also, I am in awe of this headline. Bravo!
(1) PETALS TO THE METAL.
I will agree that a lot of the Golden Age SF has not aged well, even for me. But despite them having repeatedly demonstrated that they are quite bright, I was dismayed that his Young People Reading Old SFF all seemed to completely miss the point of Nightfall.
@JJ: Yeah, the Young People seem awfully… literal-minded? To the point of them looking stupid on occasion, even though they’re not. Metaphors, kids.
(4) Just the trailers looked like a hot mess, frankly. The supporting stuff that came out beforehand was also a mess. And there’s going to be 4 more? Yikes.
(7) Nope. Sorry, disagree with this guy and Gaiman. We still need the word.
(9) The grimdark/apocalyptic/fascist fans always assume they’ll be the ones on top when it happens. They haven’t looked at themselves and their capabilities honestly. No, boys, at best you get to be cannon fodder or slaves. They also don’t seem to really understand satire, despite pleading it all the time in their freeze peach.
(12) Will Baby Groot get a bigger vocabulary? Even just a few more words? Baby talk for Baby Groot!
Yet another sacrificial fourth….
Also, (11) sounds sadly plausible. <sigh>
<edit> Actually fifth!
@1: my read is that the audience reacted to it better than any other story so far. I can understand the reaction calling it horribly depressing, but I wonder whether that reader avoids all depressing works or slobbers over modern teen-centered dystopias. (No, I didn’t like The Hunger Games; I thought it was poorly-written pandering.)
@4: my local paper (Boston Globe) took the same tack more bluntly: ~”Too much time putting up scaffolding and drywall for later movies”. But even they gave it 3 stars out of 4, so I’ll probably see it some time when the theaters aren’t jammed. (Sometimes retirement has its perks.)
@JohnFromGR: I am also in awe. But not awed enough not try another: “Never to walk on all fours. This is the scroll. Are we not pixels?”
Mixed news:
British terminally-ill teen sued to be allowed to be frozen
Book sharing project stumbles in China
The solar-forecast satellite
Just saw The Arrival. Great movie. The best science fiction movie I’ve seen in a long time, possibly ever. Saying much more would spoil it.
11) I’m happy to hear that, she has a real talent for humor.
@Aaron
“Just saw The Arrival.”
I didn’t know you were such a fan of Charlie Sheen 😉
Seriously, I loved it. Best movie I’ve seen this year.
(5) TODAY IN HISTORY
What about the Fleischer “bouncing ball” cartoons? “My Old Kentucky Home” dates from 1926.
F’rgot to ticky.
Sharon Jones has died. Fuck this year.
We are in Niemöller territory now. Anyone that will remain quiet when the president talks about registering muslims will always be part of the “First they came for the…”. This is a Litmus-test on everyones character, to see if they will protest or if they will just quietly accept the discrimination of others.
I’m predicting singing of “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” straightforwardly.
@Bonnie: hee! I actually saw that one, as the second feature in a drive-in where the first was something really worth seeing. My BFF fell asleep about 1/3 of the way through, then woke up near the end and said “Is this the one where… and character X is…” and gave the plot “twist”. The rest of the car said “Yep” and spent the rest of the movie predicting all the action and dialogue and trying to remember the oldest SF story we’d read that had the same idea. I was pretty sure it was Sturgeon.
@Dawn: dammit 2016.
@lurkertype
I feel the need to say, as someone who is often a fan of grimdark, that I definitely do not look at it as wish fulfillment fantasy. For me, it’s more of an escape because it’s usually an adventure/thriller kinda story in a setting that exaggerates the worst elements of today. I don’t think you were saying “all fans of grimdark are fans of fascism,” but on the very off chance…
Also, a hells yeah to “at best you get to be cannon fodder or slaves.” Reminds me of some lyrics in The Dead Kennedys song Nazi Punks Fuck Off: “In the real Third Reich you’d be the first to go.”
@Hampus Eckerman:
I’ve seen some meme-ish thing going around on social media lately: “First they came for the Muslims, and we said ‘Not this time, motherfucker!'” I think (hope) there are enough of us not-salt-of-the-earth types in the US to stop this garbage before it really gets rolling.
Joining the Arrival chorus. Will nominate plus it is my favorite sf movie of all time. Linguistic st for the win.
@kathodus: Oh, no, not you. Just the ones who want it to happen. Which is too many of them. The ones who drool (and other bodily fluids) over it.
Re #7. I’m not sure what he’s talking about. I like graphic novels because their covers are sturdier than regular comics, and their thickness means you can see what they are from the spines, so you can keep them on regular bookshelves without losing track. Yes, it means you have to wait longer than you would if you just read the monthly comics, but I’m a patient guy. I don’t mind.
I mean, I understand the history behind the term and all, but isn’t it used today to basically just refer to size and style of binding? The first graphic novel I ever encountered was Watchmen, which I got shortly after it came out, and that was very clearly a collection of individual comic books. It wasn’t until years later than I learned there was supposed to be another meaning to the term. I bet lots of younger folks have no idea. And will be utterly confused by the claim that we should drop the term.
Heck, most of the Gaiman I own that isn’t actual novels is…collected comic books printed in graphic novel format. (I think Stardust falls in the actual novel category, even though my copy is graphic-novel sized, and profusely illustrated.)
(7) ABOLISHING A EUPHEMISM. Nice article. Mostly agreeing, here. I read comics; That’s Okay. There’s more to it than that, but really, no energy to be coherent. It doesn’t bug me to hear the term, though – it’s been around a long time now.
@Chip Hitchcock: Thanks for the links, but your first two have an extra http:// which makes them not work (for me, anyway, till I fixed the URL I got, which was different – http with no “:”). Maybe @Mike Glyer can fix them.
SF Listening: The only thing slightly annoying about “The Devil You Know” is that the narrator doesn’t vary his voice much during non-speaking parts, so occasionally it’s confusing who’s narrating what. The story’s very good, though – I just hit the “oh carp, that’s what he’s up to?!” part.
In other news, After Atlas came in the mail, yay! I’m deep in another book, so I can’t start it yet, but yay! I’m looking forward to it a lot, though I expect it to be wildly different from Planetfall.
@Xtifr: I still feel like I see “graphic novel” used as a euphemism for “you know, high art – not a (gasp) comic book! (shudder)” – no matter what the form factor (or even whether it’s a physical item) – as opposed to a form factor reference. Didn’t we have other terms for the type of physical item (which is just a subset of how I hear/see “graphic novel” used), back in the day? (scratches head) Trade paperback, collection, something. Hmm. ::scratching head:: As they say, memory’s the second thing to go.
@Xtifr: That’s how I think of them, and I’m not exactly “younger people”. I don’t know anybody who uses it in the way this guy does. It’s not a snob thing. One issue of “Watchmen” is a comic book; half a dozen issues of Sonic the Hedgehog in one solid binding is a graphic novel.
The soda pop is fizzy and sweet whether you get a case of 20 cans or a bunch of 2 liter bottles. Is one of those more sophisticated?
@Kendall: honestly, I’m not sure. Us old fogeys might have to poll some whippersnappers to find out what the lingo is really like today. 😀
God, I keep forgetting to stalk!
Kendall: I fixed Chip’s links.
Let’s ask the kids in (1) to tell us how “graphic novel” vs. “comic book” is used.
The R.U.R. joke in the title is indeed pretty great, but shouldn’t the credit go to John Sladek? I’m pretty sure it’s from Roderick at Random.
@Xtifr: The term you’re looking for is “trade paperback”. That’s commonly used to describe collections in that format, and it refers clearly to the format, without any misleading implication about whether it is or isn’t a stand-alone work.
@Eli: maybe, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard trade paperback used in the context of comic book collections. Only for the same-size-as-hardcover paperback versions of actual text novels. As I say, the first time I heard “graphic novel” was to describe Watchmen. And, while I don’t follow the comic industry all that closely, I have several good friends who are industry insiders, and I suspect I would have been corrected if I’d misused the terminology all that badly.
But maybe not. Who knows.
Lurkertype: trying to remember the oldest SF story we’d read that had the same idea. I was pretty sure it was Sturgeon.
My guess was PKD, in 1953, with Impostor. But I haven’t read much Sturgeon.
@Xtifr: I know lots of people in the field too, & am marginally in it myself. Your friends didn’t correct you, and you didn’t make any kind of horrible mistake, but that doesn’t mean your usage is the consensus one. It means 1. your friends agree with you OR your friends are just nice people who see no reason to make a fuss over inexact usage of industry terms because otherwise they’d be doing that all the damn time… and 2. there isn’t really a consensus anyway, and that’s the problem. That is, everyone (at least everyone within the field for sure) will know what you mean if you say “trade paperback”, or something like “I’m not reading the single issues, I’ll wait till the trade comes out”. But not everyone will agree on what you mean by “graphic novel”… although some of them may think, as you do, that everyone *does* agree… therefore confusion may arise. And that’s just another reason that “graphic novel” is not a very useful term. Person A will say something like “my favorite graphic novel is volume 5 of The Complete Works of Gummo Bubbleman” and not have a clue that that won’t make sense to Person B.
I always thought a “trade paperback” was simply a book that was larger and sturdier than a “mass market paperback”, with no expectation as to the contents. (I think the UK equivalent is a C-format paperback, as distinct from the A-format ones we usually just call paperbacks, and the intermediate sized B-format?)
I suppose my point is, if someone told me a book was in trade paperback format, I wouldn’t necessarily know if it was comics or just print.
I have trouble calling something like The Sculptor or Digger a comic book. They clearly are not compilations of continuing series, but stand-alone stories that have a discrete beginning, middle and end. In other words, novels.
2016 Novel Reading
Of Sand and Malice Made by Bradley T. Beaulieu (2016) [Shattered Sands #2]
DAW Books, edited by Betsy Wollheim
cover art and interior illustrations by Rene Aigner, design by Shawn King/G-Force Design
maps by Maxime Plasse
Synopsis: This short novel is a prequel to Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, and it describes the confrontation between Çeda – whose alternate life is as a champion pit-fighter – and a powerful ehrekh (demon).
What I thought: I really enjoyed Kings, and I really enjoyed this; it’s just a really well-written story. Having read Sharakhai enhances it a bit, but it stands well on its own. And the cover has to be one of the most stunning 2016 covers that I’ve seen.
Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal (2016)
Tor Books, edited by Liz Gorinsky
cover art by Chris McGrath
Synopsis: In World War I, soldiers heading for the battlefront are programmed to report back on battle conditions and troop movements, when they die, to psychic mediums stationed in a secret outpost. But the Germans are getting closer to figuring out the Allies’ secret intelligence weapon.
What I thought: I started MRK’s Shades of Milk and Honey back when it came out, and I couldn’t finish it; it really was not my thing. I wasn’t terribly optimistic about how I’d feel about this one, given the jacket copy. And it took me about 50 pages to get past the whole psychic mediums thing 🙄 and just roll with it. I’m really glad that I did; right now it’s on my Hugo nomination longlist. It will probably not make my shortlist – but at the dismal rate that things are going with 2016 novels for me so far, you never know. The cover art is gorgeous, too.
Infomocracy by Malka Older (2016) [Centenal Cycle #1]
Tor.com, edited by Carl Engle-Laird
cover design by Will Staehle
Synopsis: In a near-future world run by global micro-democracies organized by geographic groups of 100,000 people, and elections held every 10 years to determine which party has primacy in the world government, an ostensibly-neutral global Information organization attempts to ensure that the public is well-educated on facts rather than propaganda.
What I thought: This is a pretty interesting book; it bears a lot of similarities to Genevieve Valentine’s 2015 novel Persona, but I liked this novel much better. I enjoyed it, but it’s a little too close to real-world politics right now to make it pleasant reading.
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar (2016)
Tachyon Publications, edited by Jill Roberts
Cover art and design by Sarah Anne Langton
Interior design and map by Elizabeth Story
(there’s a second cover image around, but I can’t find any evidence it was actually published)
Synopsis: This is a collection of very loosely linked stories set in a future, globalized Earth and solar system.
What I thought: Do not expect this to resemble anything like a novel. I got the impression that the author took a bunch of short stories they’d written, and retconned a passing mention of characters from some stories into the other stories in order to pretend that they were linked. I was finding the stories somewhat interesting, but not terribly gripping, but okay, I was happy to keep reading. Then about 30% in, I saw where the next story was going, and thought, “No, no, do NOT go there” – but they did. At which point the book met the wall and then got returned to the library. Urban Fantasy is one thing, but do not attempt to put vampires into your Science Fiction unless you’re Peter Watts. Gah. I feel like I was hoodwinked into reading this supposedly SF book.
Supernova by C.A. Higgins (2016) [Lightless #2] (3rd book Radiate out in May 2017)
Del Rey/Ballantine, editor unknown
Del Rey cover photograph by Lia Koltyrina, design by David G. Stevenson
Ballantine cover art by unknown
Synopsis: This book alternates between chapters of background on the galactic rebels set in the time before Lightless and chapters of what occurs after the events of that book, with a ship’s engineer and the sentient artificial intelligence into which the ship’s computer has evolved.
What I thought: I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first book, which was really good for a debut novel. I’ll probably read the third book, but I’ve kind of lost my enthusiasm for this series.
Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja (2016) [Epic Failure #1]
Saga Press, edited by Joe Monti
cover art by Leonardo Calamati
Synopsis: This is a Catch-22-ish satire of the military set in space, when the galaxy has been in a Two Hundred Years’ Peace (And Counting), with all the insane bureaucracy the military engenders.
What I thought: This book has been compared to Douglas Adams’ and Terry Pratchett’s books. It’s what I call “Try-Hard Humor”: it’s amusing at first, but I find that the humor gets old really fast. It was enjoyable enough that I read the whole book, but I doubt that I’ll be picking up the sequel.
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (2016) [Machineries of Empire #1] (2nd book Raven Stratagem out in June 2017)
Solaris, edited by Jonathan Oliver
cover art by Chris Moore
Synopsis: An unconventional military officer in a world where the calendar is differently-designed by each culture, and military weapons and tactics are affected by the calendar’s magical properties, is assigned to work with the insane spirit of a dead military tactician.
What I thought: I managed 100+ pages of the book (more than 25%). But it just seemed to me like it was the infodumping for an elaborate RPG worldbuilding setup, rather than a coherent novel. I may try it again when the sequel comes out. But right now I don’t have any enthusiasm for that.
The Rise of Io by Wesley Chu (2016) [Tao Universe]
Angry Robot, editor unknown
cover art by Tommy Arnold
Synopsis: A thief, con-artist and smuggler who is present at the death of a woman, becomes the receptacle from the alien fleeing her body at death.
What I thought: I really enjoyed this (although I figured out the “reveal” quite early on). The main character is a criminal, but nevertheless likable, and the novel kept me engrossed enough to finish it an evening. If there’s a sequel, I will definitely read it.
Crosstalk by Connie Willis (2016)
Del Rey/Gollancz/Subterranean Press (2017), editor unknown
Del Rey cover photograph by Brandon Hill, design by Faceout Studio/Jeff Miller
Gollancz cover by Jamie Carr
Subterranean Press cover by Jon Foster –> Stunning!
Synopsis: A young woman and her fiance decide to get empathic link technology installed, so that they can better share their feelings with each other.
What I thought:
I’m a huge Connie Willis fan, but I hope all of these characters die in a fire.
I’m a lot more inclined to accept the “wacky stuff” when all the characters are not raging idiots and assholes.
Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire (2016) [October Daye #10]
DAW Books, edited by Sheila Gilbert
cover art by Chris McGrath, design by G-Force
map by Priscilla Spencer
includes the bonus novella Dreams and Slumbers
Synopsis: A conclave of all the houses of faerie meets to decide whether to allow the use of a cure for the 100-year sleep caused by elfshot – a development which may have deathly consequences for the large number of half-fae, half-human changelings. As usual, murder and mayhem ensue, and Toby must race against time to find out who is killing, and why.
What I thought: This is another excellent entry in the series. However, it does not stand alone well; the reader really needs to have the character and event background of the previous books. On the other hand, I don’t particularly care for Urban Fantasy or Mythic Fantasy, and I still love this series – so consider this my recommendation for reading them all. It won’t be on my Novel shortlist, but the October Daye series is definitely on my Best Series shortlist.
The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross (2016) [The Laundry Files #7]
Orbit/Ace Books, editor unknown
Orbit cover design by Crush Creative
Ace Books cover art by Larry Rostant
Synopsis: The discovery of an eldritch computational algorithm has turned a bunch of bankers into vampires. One of them is recruited to work for the Laundry Files organization (alternative: permanent death), and assigned to set up a new headquarters in their hometown, where their parents are still living. But the alternate-universe eldritch demons have their own plans.
What I thought: Meh. Vampires. I give Stross kudos for continuing to switch up this series – and honestly, this is a pretty damn good book, for all that it features vampires. It won’t be on my Novel shortlist, but The Laundry Files is definitely on my Best Series shortlist.
Behind the Throne by K. B. Wagers (2016) [Indranan War #1] (2nd book After the Crown out in December 2016)
Orbit/Ace Books, editor unknown
Orbit cover images Arcangel and Shutterstock, design by Lauren Panepinto
Ace Books cover art by Larry Rostant
Synopsis: This is an SF space opera/ mystery adventure, the story of a reluctant ruler dragged back from their life as a smuggler to run the empire when all of their family members are assassinated.
What I thought: Yay! Finally, a novel I loved. It’s like The Goblin Emperor with a lot less of the “kinder, gentler” aspect of that book. The main character is flawed but really likeable. This is almost certainly going to be one of my Hugo nominees.
Not awake. Send more sleep.
Of the novels in JJ’s interesting batch of reviews I have so far read Infomocracy, Central Station, and The Nightmare Stacks, and enjoyed them all. don’t much care for “vampire” stories as such myself, but in my memory that was a relatively minor aspect of the Tidhar book, which I enjoyed partly for its allusions to earlier sf. Stross on the other hand does great stuff with the vampire concept, though it isn’t as central to The Nightmare Stacks as to the earlier work in which Dr. Schwarz was introduced. I really enjoyed this and thought it was one of the stronger Laundry books. (On the other hand I don’t have much use for superheroes and this has affected my response to other works by both Tidhar and Stross.)
StephenfromOttawa: don’t much care for “vampire” stories as such myself, but in my memory that was a relatively minor aspect of the Tidhar book
It probably was. It was just that I wasn’t finding the stories that gripping or enjoyable to begin with, and then the vampire story was enough to tip the balance to “Nah, you’ve used up all my goodwill, I’m done here” for me.
I’ve read 27 2016 novels thus far, and for 3 of them to be DNFs is pretty unprecedented for me. I’m OCD enough that I usually feel obligated to finish the books that I start. But I guess when I’ve got a list of 70 2016 novels to read, I’m aware of how precious my reading time is, and am not as forgiving as I might have been in the past.
@JJ
I liked both Persona and Infomocracy, but I liked Infomocracy more and am much more eager to read its sequel than Persona’s. (In fact I think I have an arc of Persona’s sequel, untouched, on the pile)
@JJ
That’s a great set of reviews, thank you.
You are correct that Central Station is a fix up of shorts with some new material. I finished it, and quite liked it for what it was, but it wasn’t really a story and so it’s not on my shortlist
The Nightmare Stacks – agreed – I really liked it, it’s not even remotely standalone, and The Laundry should be a strong contender for Series.
Ninefox Gambit – I’d encourage you to try it again, but it seems like you bounced off the exact bits I liked so maybe it’s just a bit marmite-y.
You’ve sold me on Behind The Throne, and off trying Crosstalk any time soon.
Mark: You’ve sold me on Behind The Throne, and off trying Crosstalk any time soon.
Well, ya know, everyone’s entitled to my own opinion. 😉
But I’ve read comments from Filers who’ve had exactly the opposite reaction to mine for pretty much every book on that list. So it doesn’t hurt to Google
book title file770
to see what other Filers had to say; I often do that, and find that it helps me consider aspects I might otherwise overlook.
Watchmen was a serial graphic novel. It’s not that different from any other form of serialization.
@JJ
I’ve read a few things that make me think Crosstalk will be Willis in my less-favourite of her modes. I’ll undoubtedly get round to it, but I’m starting to feel there’s limited 2016 reading time left and I ought to prioritise.
I reread The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers. It has held up over time.
Eli on November 19, 2016 at 12:03 am said:
Since it’s been decades since I read RaR, could be. I’d started browsing Capek’s THE ABSOLUTE AT LARGE last week (a fresh to me copy, I did read it decades ago), which may have trainwreck of consciousness led me to what I sent to Mike.
OTOH, I know for sure that Sladek didn’t write a Sturgeon riff title that I’ve sent to Mike (hint hint).
DPD
That was one of my nominations for the 1980 timewarp project, though it didn’t make it.
But you can find them in paperback and hardback. The term both of you are looking for is “omnibus.”
See:
http://theomnibuscollector.com/
http://www.cheapgraphicnovels.com/omnibus-editions/
http://themojoverse.blogspot.com/2013/04/dark-horse-omnibus-list.html
(plus any number of other examples that you can google up)
(3) The cast of Hamilton made an appeal to Vice President Elect Pence, who was in the audience, after the show.
Donald Trump responds to the cast of Hamilton responding to Mike Pence.
Oh the horror of musical theater being used as a platform to make a socio-political point. Maybe Pence should have gone to a non-political musical, like Rent. Wait, no. How about West Side Story? Umm, that’s not right. How about Cabaret, Porgy and Bess, Showboat, or maybe 1776? No, those won’t work. Hmm, maybe Oklahoma!. No, not even that.
@Aaron, please. After all, remember that the politicisation of theatre is a very recent creation by the EssJayDubyas, much like how they sneakily started infecting SF with their evil message fictions.
@Darren…. correct me if I’m wrong, but was that a call for safe spaces?
….
….
Well at least I’m just laughing now, instead of laughing and being horrified.
And then I look at the Secretary of State nominees….