Pixel Scroll 1/13/16 Scrollilas in the Mist

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(1) MIND MELD. SF Signal’s latest Mind Meld asks —

Q: What Speculative Fiction titles are you most looking forward to consuming in 2016?

The answers this time come from Rachel Cotterill, Fran Wilde, Lisa Taylor, Paul Weimer, Foz Meadows, Rachel Cordasco, Lynn Williams, Amanda Rutter, Robert Davis, Sally Ember, Ed.D., Nick Mamatas, Delilah S. Dawson, and Sunil Patel.

(2) ARE THE GUNS BIG ENOUGH? Camestros Felapton has added Sad Larry to his line of Hugo figure trading cards. Looks like he’s holding a pair of .32 Lego Specials. Hmm. May need to rethink that. Larry was shooting a .44 Magnum when he was eight years old, and later in life was a licensed machine gun dealer.

Camestros will post additional figure cards posted over the next few days. He says they are all male, and that he is worried about the gender balance of the collection.

So 9 figures only one of which *looks* female (by the crude standards of lego), only one of which is referred to as female and some which could be female. That’s a pretty bad showing. I really want to add some more but avoid anything that looks like I’m mocking somebody’s appearance.

Funny that someone who’s messing with Sad Larry thinks that is what he should be worrying about…

(3) GOING TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. George R.R. Martin’s update on the progress of The Winds of Winter indicated if the manuscript had been turned in by year-end it could have been out by March. Chris Lough at Tor.com explains how a book could be produced at warp speed in “How Could The Winds of Winter Be Published In Only Three Months?”

…The production process is broken into six steps below, with an overall explanation of how the process typically works, coupled with speculation on how that process could be condensed into a span of three months. It should be noted that some of the terminology used may be publisher-specific, even though the terminology describes a universal process within the industry….

(4) LITIGATION. The Last Unicorn Film Tour investors have filed a lawsuit against Connor Cochran. Support Peter Beagle’s summary is:

They’re suing Cochran for $450,000, based on the original investment, not to mention punitive damages for fraud and all legal costs incurred by them. You can read the sordid details here in Sandbox-Complaint-for-Damages.

(5) MARGULIES OBIT. Character actor David Margulies died January 11 of cancer at the age of 78. He was best known for playing the mayor in Ghostbusters and Tony Soprano’s sleazy lawyer. The New York Times recalled:

In “Ghostbusters” (1984) and “Ghostbusters II” (1989), he played the mayor, Lenny Clotch, who evoked the incumbent New York mayor at the time, Edward I. Koch. In the sequel, Mr. Margulies invokes a former mayor (“I spent an hour last night in my bedroom talking to Fiorello La Guardia, and he’s been dead for 40 years”) and expresses skepticism that the citizenry’s obnoxious behavior is to blame for the river of pink slime that is inundating the city.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asks the Ghostbusters team (including Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd). “Go on television and tell 10 million people they have to be nice to each other? Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker’s God-given right.”

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • January 13, 1128 — Pope Honorius II grants a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God.
  • January 13, 1930 – Mickey Mouse comic strip debuted in newspapers.
  • January 13, 1957 – The Wham-O Company developed the first Frisbee.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born January 13, 1893 — Clark Ashton Smith
  • Born January 13, 1933 — Ron Goulart

(8) CAMPBELL AWARD PARAPHERNALIA. Okay, we’ll definitely be watching for this to show up.

(9) NO SANITY CLAUS. Steve Davidson at Amazing Stories proves he’s as tired as anyone of writers who don’t finish in “F**K YOU, Dead Writers”.

The other day I was reading some commentary on George R.R. Martin’s FAILURE to meet his latest installment’s deadline and about how concerned he was regarding fan reaction.

Then, this morning, I was reading the comments to David Gerrold’s latest analysis of the CBS vs Axanar lawsuit and was reminded of David’s FAILURE to get the latest War with the Chtorr novel out – for 23 years,

And THAT reminded me of Harlan Ellison’s FAILURE to finish up a certain anthology I don’t dare mention by name for fear of invoking the wrath of Elcin, the wind god.

And THEN I was reminded of the fact that these living icons of science fictional disappointment are pikers compared to some.

You can not imagine how absolutely apoplectic I am about Robert A Heinlein.  Or Arthur C. Clarke.  Not to mention Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Eric Frank Russell, Fred Pohl, A. Bertram Chandler, Leigh Brackett, Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler, Henry Kuttner, Judith Merrill, C.L Moore, Doc Smith, Hamilton, Campbell, Bester, Chalker, Zelazny, Henderson, McCaffrey, Farmer, ….

You’re all dead and now you’ll NEVER finish ANYTHING! …

(10) CRITICAL MORASS. Lou Antonelli’s “On constructive criticism” manages to thread Lois Tilton, criticism, last year’s Hugos, and Catholic theology together on one string.

Most of the reviews of my short story “On a Spiritual Plain” boiled down to “The premise sucks, and it’s a weak story, and it’s badly written, and Lou Antonelli is a miserable human being, anyhow.”

Occasionally I was surprised by some genuinely thoughtful reviews. Any author worth his salt will recognize VALID criticisms. For example, saying a story of mine relies too much on dialogue and first person narration is valid; I lean on that a lot, and it indicates a weakness in my writing skills.

But IMHO, overall most so-called constructive criticism I hear simply reminds me (having been raised a Catholic) of original sin. Deep down, we’re all sinners, and it’s something we all have to fight constantly – to do good and help people, and improve the world.

Constructive criticism is usually just a justification for hatefulness.

(11) KNOW NOTHINGS. ScreenRant learned nothing about the next Star Trek series from an interview with the head of CBS Entertainment – because he doesn’t know anything either.

Despite being the launchpad for the new Star Trek series, CBS Entertainment’s new president Glen Geller revealed to Slashfilm that the show has been developed exclusively by and for the All Access streaming division.

“I’m not sure about the plans creatively for new characters. I don’t have anything to do with it. It really is for All Access. While the network will be broadcasting the pilot, I actually can’t answer any creative questions about it. I’m looking forward to seeing the new Star Trek. I think it’s going to be an exciting project.”

…While Geller says the new TV show will have no connection to the upcoming film, it may be inspired tonally by that franchise. Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote and produced the J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), will executive produce the 2017 series. He’ll be joined by Heather Kadin, with whom he also produces CBS series Limitless and Scorpion.

The first episode of the sixth Star Trek series will have to be impressive enough to convince viewers to sign up for a subscription service to see the rest. Netflix has set a precedent for getting new fans to sign up in order to watch episodes of series like Orange is the New Black and Daredevil, and CBS will be hoping longtime Trek fans will be extra motivated. For $5.99 a month, viewers can watch the new Star Trek series, plus every episode of its five predecessors. The service also includes on-demand viewing and live streaming of many of CBS’s other shows.

Star Trek Beyond opens in U.S. theaters on July 22, 2016. The new Star Trek TV show will debut on CBS in January 2017.

(12) TOUGH TO BE TOLKIEN. Sarah Monette/Katherine Addison’s “Doing Tolkien Wrong” is a reprint of a 2005 article.

I was given The Hobbit for my sixth birthday, The Lord of the Rings for my ninth. I’ve read The Silmarillion. I own the extended edition DVDs of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King–even though I don’t own a DVD player. In other words, I love Tolkien as much as the next really geeky person.

So when I say that Tolkien is an affliction and a curse, you understand that I’m saying it for a reason.

Specifically, Tolkien is an affliction and a curse to fantasy writers. This is a horribly ungrateful thing to say, when it’s largely thanks to Tolkien that fantasy writers can exist as a sub-species today at all. Certainly it’s thanks to Tolkien that so many fantasy novels, especially series of novels, can get published. But, nevertheless, the genre has reached a point where Tolkien causes more problems than he solves.

The reason for this is that, while Tolkien was a genius and a godsend to readers prepared to love secondary-world fantasy, he is a terrible model for writers. And that for a number of reasons, ranging from, on the macro level, his use of the quest plot to, on the micro level, the nature of his prose style. Imitating Tolkien – in and of itself, not a bad idea – has become mired down in slavish adherence to his product, rather than careful attention to his process.

(13) DICK AWARD. Joel Cunningham’s post “This Year’s Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Take SF in Strange New Directions” at B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog gives the Hugos a little bump en route to praising his favorite sf award.

Sorry Hugos, but for my money, there’s no more interesting award in sci-fi than the ones named for Philip K. Dick. In the tradition of everyone’s favorite gonzo pulpist, the “PKD Award” honors innovative genre works that debuted in paperback, offering a nice reminder that you don’t need the prestige of a hardcover release to write a mind-blowing book (just ask William Gibson, whose seminal cyberpunk classic Neuromancer claimed the title in 1984), and in fact, if past winners are any evidence, the format might be seem as a license to take greater risks.

 [Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and Will R., for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day  Soon Lee.]

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218 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/13/16 Scrollilas in the Mist”

  1. (3) I knew bits of this from convention panels and NESFA Press but the big picture is fascinating — as is the discovery that Tor has a Marco Palmieri on their staff. I wonder what happened to his brother Giuseppe?

  2. 2015 was also rough for the folk music scene — we lost both John Renbourn and Andy M. Stewart, and probably others that I’m not aware of. Sigh.

  6. I am reminded of the unwritten books in the library of John Charteris (Cabell’s Beyond Life): “Those shelves contain the cream of the unwritten books; the masterpieces that were planned and never carried through. Of them also, you perceive, there are a great many. Indeed, a number of persons who never published a line have contributed to that section. Yes, that is Thackeray’s mediaeval romance of Agincourt. Dickens, as you see, has several novels there: perhaps The Young Person and The Children of the Fathers are the best, but they all belong to his later and failing period…”

  7. 10) Lou Antonelli’s story was the first one I read (and reviewed) from the Puppy slate, way back in the early stages of the business, before Antonelli had, err, made his personality felt. So I came to it fairly clean and open-minded.

    I agree with Hampus and many others: it’s a potentially interesting idea from which all traces of dramatic conflict have been carefully removed (the closest we get to a conflict in this story is the bit where the narrator’s boss is briefly unwilling to lend him a Segway for his trip to the north pole). Given all the Puppy pronouncements about how they were bringing back good old-fashioned exciting sci-fi, I was unpleasantly surprised by how dull it was.

    If only there was some way of taking the drama and conflict out of Antonelli’s relationship with fandom and injecting it into his stories… some kind of spleen transplant, I suppose you could call it.

  8. According to the Guardian, Alan Rickman, aka Severus Snape, has left us.
    Same age as Bowie. God damn it.

    Aw shit. If I was a drinking person, this week might drive me to it.

    It wasn’t SF, but he was really good in Die Hard too. That villain chilled me to the bone.

  10. God dammit. I ran across the Hilly Krystal biopic CBGB on Netflix last week and it sort of launched a Rickman watch-fest for my wife and I. We just watched Galaxy Quest a couple days ago and have Dogma lined up for this weekend.

    By Grabthars hammer and the suns of Worvan, this blows.

  11. Joe H. on January 14, 2016 at 5:28 am said:

    2015 was also rough for the folk music scene — we lost both John Renbourn…

    We WHAT? Oh noooooooo!

  12. You guys believe what you want. To me, Elcin is the god of washing your hands after you go to the bathroom.

    Thread-binding: I recall having a flying disk called a “Pluto Platter.” I used to think it was a knock-off of the Frisbee, but according to Mr. Internet, it was made by Wham-O and was indeed a Frisbee. Last seen around 1970, so it was thrown out long ago. The photos at Marvin’s Flying Disc Collection show numerous styles, all described as ‘unbreakable,’ and several with cracks starting at the rim.

    (13) I see where the guys in the bird sanctuary in Oregon received a whole bag of dick awards. Unsalted.

  13. JR Lawrence on January 14, 2016 at 5:08 am said:

    @Paul, @Peace
    I’m taken aback by the intensity of the sense of loss and grief I’m feeling now.

    Lemmy – worked hard, played hard, lived hard; 70 seemed a good age, all things considered
    Bowie – huh? I thought he’d be here until the stars went out. He’s still out there, somewhere, surely…
    Rickman – oh, god no, so soon, so close, so much work still to do, god damn it.

    The funny thing is, Lemmy was 70. Both Bowie and Rickman were 69.

  14. My feeling is that Antonelli’s story would have worked as the first chapter of a novel. It set up a premise with which things might be done. Unfortunately, unlike several Puppy nominees, it wasn’t part of a novel.

  15. Ah this is sad news about Alan Rickman. I only knew him from Die Hard and Harry Potter. Any suggestions for other works to see him in ?

    Combining several threads of discussion over the last few weeks

    Hugo Patter and the 8 Deadly Scrolls

  16. I’m going to have to pause on discussing books and stories until I am a little less upset about EVERYBODY DYING.

  17. @Shambles:
    Galaxy Quest
    Truly, Madly, Deeply
    Dogma

    I’m sure there are plenty of others I’m missing.

  19. @Steve Wright

    If only there was some way of taking the drama and conflict out of Antonelli’s relationship with fandom and injecting it into his stories… some kind of spleen transplant, I suppose you could call it.

    *snort* you sir owe me a keyboard !

  21. It’s rather a stretch of Lou Antonelli to link my reviews to his thoughts about “constructive criticism” because I never reviewed the story in question [because I never read it, because I never received the publication in question].

    But as has already been pointed out here, “constructive criticism” has little to do with reviews. Generally, reviews aren’t addressed to the author but to the reader. By the time a story has reached the reviewer, it’s too late. The work has already been constructed and no comments by the reviewer will assist in this process.

  23. It’s rather a stretch of Lou Antonelli to link my reviews to his thoughts about “constructive criticism” because I never reviewed the story in question [because I never read it, because I never received the publication in question].

    He’s just mindlessly bloviating, as usual.

  24. @Peace
    70 and exactly 4 days, which somehow seems in character for Lemmy – (Birthday done, Christmas done, check out)

  26. Conservative columnist Ross Douthat of the NY Times just tweeted:

    “For some reason the Rickman line I always remember is his Colonel Brandon saying “give me an occupation, Miss Dashwood, or I shall run mad.””

    i.e. from Sense and Sensibility

    Like James above I thought first of Obadiah Slope in the Barchester Chronicles tv series.

    Neither of these science fiction or fantasy of course.

  28. I only heard about Andy M. Stewart on the Thistle & Shamrock last week, and went “Oh, hell.”

    But Rickman…god. If there was ever a patron saint of the smart, snarky, hurting kid in the back of the classroom…

  31. @Joe H – It is here, yeah! Runs partway through Backporch Music on WUNC. You should be able to find it in podcast form too?

  32. StephenfromOttawa: Even though Austen isn’t sf, her work is one of the things fans have annexed as genre, like the Heyer Regency novels.

  33. @Shambles

    Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

    It is by no means a good movie, but it is an excellent guilty watch, and Rickman is fantastic as the Sheriff of Nottingham.

  34. @Shambles
    Also, its worth watching the otherwise glum Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves just to watch Rickman give a masterclass in scenery-chewing of the highest quality.

    Legend has it Kevin Costner demanded cuts to most of Rickman’s scenes, to prevent being upstaged. If so, Costner failed dismally!

  37. @RedWombat — Not a podcast, but streaming on the NPR site and on their iPhone app. Thanks! I foresee much more Celtic music in my immediate future …

    Should also start plundering the archives of Ellen Kushner’s Sound & Spirit.

  39. #2: So Mr. Glyer, bald-faced trolling is now news worthy of reporting?

    #10 Paul Weimer (@princejvstin) on January 14, 2016 at 2:53 am said: “It is a reason that, while I read a fair amount of the Hugo nominees from the Puppies last year, I decided not to write reviews for such. I didn’t want to deal with even more dogpiles and accusations that I was personally attacking their lot, rather than the quality of their fiction.”

    And yet there was “The Day The World Turned Upside Down”. So much for “the quality of their fiction.”

  40. Re Critical Morass: All criticism, no matter how constructive, involves disagreement; given how poorly Puppies–and Antonelli in particular–handle disagreement it’s no surprise that Antonelli thinks constructive criticism is an oxymoron. The surprise would be if he thought anything else.

    And criticism of a published story can’t help the writer fix that story. But it can be a guide to areas the writer should work on in the future. If I say I found _On A Spiritual Plain_ lacking in conflict, (not that I say any such thing, mind you, not wanting the police to be set on me, but if) Antonelli could ask himself about future stories “where is the conflict in this story? How can I sharpen that?” If I say I found it bland and lacking in detail, Antonelli could remind himself, while writing future stories, to include a bit more detail–the crunch and slide of grit underfoot, the smell of dust, the ghostly brush of static electricity that stirs the fine hairs on the skin, the red wink of sunset light from a polished button as someone turns.

    So yeah, “this story sucks” is not helpful. But don’t throw all criticism in that bucket, and it’s important to remember that constructive criticism can improve more than just the story being discussed.

  42. @Peace
    Sense and Sensibility, thanks for the recommendation.

    @snowcrash and @JR Lawerence
    I generally am allegic to too much Kevin Costner so I avoided Robin Hood : The Prince of Thieves when it came out but now I need to watch it.

    My formative Robin Hood (Robin of Sherwood) was the BBC version done back in the 80s which I watched late at night on public television along with Dr Who.

  43. I see from the comments that Alan Rickman has moved on to join Grabthar. That is quite sad.

    We must be getting old.

    I’ll go play Tubular Bells now, I guess.

  44. My formative Robin Hood was the BBC version done back in the 80s which I watched late at night on public television alone with Dr Who.

    And did the Doctor hog the popcorn? I bet he did, didn’t he?

    ETA Oh, darn, you edited it.

  45. I like the idea of using something from Campbell’s run as a reference point for the new regalia. Like, maybe the staff in this cover, but covered in rhinestones, with rainbow panels lit by LEDs at the top.

    Those lighted capes are boss, but start at $400, and no ready to wear. Alas, my Cthulhu masquerade outfit for later this month will remain capeless!

  46. @Cally
    I like your version better ! That would be the best childhood, watching tv with Doctor Who 🙂

  47. Feel very lucky to have seen Rickman on stage in both Private Lives and his earlier Dangerous Liaisons. Magical. His voice melted me into a puddle. His costar Lindsay Duncan memorably said of his performance that audiences would leave the theatre wanting to have sex “and preferably with Alan Rickman”. She was right.

    Though Galaxy Quest is very dear to my heart.

  48. snowcrash on January 14, 2016 at 6:26 am said:
    In other, less depressing news, Oscar nominations are out. Fury Road and The Martian made Best Picture, and Matt Damon for Best Actor

    And of course, if they don’t both win Best Film it’ll be a conspiracy by, hell, let’s go for the Reverse Vampires and the RAND corporation to do… something.

  49. My formative Robin Hood was the BBC version done back in the 80s which I watched late at night on public television alone with Dr Who.

    That’s my favorite version of Robin Hood, although I’ve never met anyone in person who shared my love for that series.

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