(1) Star Wars: The Force Awakens character posters are out.
(2) The WTF Bad Science Fiction Covers took a detour to Canadian sci-fi and comics.
Batman and Robin fail to prevent yet another Mountie murder due to their fondness for midnight, off-piste jaunts.
(3) Speaking of the Dynamic Duo, Batmobile designer George Barris passed away this morning at the age of 89.
In the ’60s TV show “Batman,” the Batmobile was powered by atomic batteries, equipped with a radar scope and “bat beam,” and slowed by parachutes. The latter really worked — Barris was once pulled over on the Hollywood Freeway for using them.
For many years, Barris’ handiwork was all over the television screen. He created the Munsters Koach — a combination of three Ford Model T’s — for “The Munsters”; the surfboard-topped, flower-decaled Barris Boogaloo for “The Bugaloos”; and the convertible version of KITT from “Knight Rider,” among many.
(4) Kalimac researches a Worldcon tradition.
The San Jose Worldcon bid wants to crowdsource suggestions for Guests of Honor. It says that among “the traditional criteria for Worldcon Guest of Honor consideration” is “an established career, usually considered to be 30 years from entry into the field.”
And I wondered, how long has it been 30 years? In the early days, the SF field hadn’t been around very long, and because it was small, new names could easily make a big impact. I remembered that Robert Heinlein was GoH at the third Worldcon in 1941, only two years after he sold his first story. That would be highly unlikely to happen today, even for another Heinlein.
So I made a list of all the professional fiction writers who’ve been Worldcon GoH over the years. Just the authors, because the SF Encyclopedia is conscientious about listing first published stories, but it’s not so rigorous with the entry dates of artists or other categories of pros. Making a quick chart, I found that less than 30 years was the rule up until about 1970, and, that among authors, only Hugo Gernsback (1952, 41 years since his first published SF story, but he was really honored as an editor, and it was only 26 years since he’d founded Amazing), Murray Leinster (1963, 44 years), and Edmond Hamilton (1964, 38 years) exceeded it, though a few others came close.
Since 1970, under-30s have been less common, though for many years they still occurred frequently (Zelazny, 1974, 12 years; Le Guin, 1975, 13 years; Ellison, 1978, 22 years; Haldeman, 1990, 21 years; and some others). But since 2001, there have only been two authors with less than 25 years: Bujold in 2008 (23 years), and 2017’s Nalo Hopkinson (who will be 21 years at that point).
(4) Amy Sterling Casil’s engaging and substantial new post for Medium has a satirical title, but here’s what it’s really about —
This article is about 3 fantastic women artists whose work was sold or misidentified as painted by a man. This is only connected to Tim Burton in the sense his film Big Eyes about Margaret Keane (Medium readers may know the film as featuring Bond villain Christoph Waltz) introduced me to the concept that rather than my personal problem, I might just be one of the more recent members of a long line of women whose creative work had been literally misappropriated by men. As in “sold for profit under male names” like Frank Keane did to “Big Eyes” artist Margaret Keane until she fought back in court and won.
(5) Like anyone, Joe Vasicek sometimes bounces off books, and not necessarily the ones you’d predict (Brandon Sanderson!).
He discussed several examples in a post on One Thousand and One Parsecs – “Books I haven’t been able to finish”.
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
On this I have to plead guilty of letting my own personal sentiments get in the way of enjoying the story. I read The Golden Compass and LOVED it… right up to the last five pages. I HATED the ending of that book—SO dissatisfying, as if the author had stuck out his tongue at me and said “neener neener neener! I’m not going to give you the ending you want—better read the next book!”
UGH. I hate that.
So I came at this book a little prejudiced. I read the first page with a judgmental eye, thinking “nope, no hook on the first page. Oh, and there’s an unnecessary adverb, and there’s a said bookism, and there’s a…” etc.
Still, I didn’t let that stop me from reading on, and after the first chapter, I was interested in the story. I just wasn’t… I don’t know, interested enough. The book stayed in my car, I got busy with other things, and eventually just dropped it.
(6) More people don’t bounce off Philip Pullman, whose epic fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials is going to be produced as a drama series for BBC One.
To be made in Wales, the series, which will be told across “many episodes and series” has been commissioned by Charlotte Moore, controller BBC One and Polly Hill, controller BBC Drama Commissioning, and will be produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema.
Hill said: “It is an honour to be bringing Philip Pullman’s extraordinary novels to BBC One. His Dark Materials is a stunning trilogy, and a drama event for young and old – a real family treat, that shows our commitment to original and ambitious storytelling.”
His Dark Materials consists of the Northern Lights, first published in 1995, which introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Lyra’s search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. In second novel, The Subtle Knife, she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in the third novel, The Amber Spyglass.
(7) Mark Lawrence answers the question “Do author blogs matter? One million hits” —
Very soon this blog of mine will pass 1,000,000 hits – it has 994,396 at the time of posting and averages around 1,400 hits a day.
I blog when I feel like it and generally don’t feel under pressure to come up with something to ‘fill the space’.
The high traffic author blogs tend to be political, championing the causes beloved of the more extreme left or right. I don’t go there. I’m more about curiosities of the genre, the business of writing, info graphics, and random shit.
I do get a lot of authors asking me whether blogging is ‘worth it’. Mostly they’re people who don’t want to blog, find it a chore to come up with regular posts, but worry that they’re somehow letting themselves down if they don’t – missing out on book sales that would otherwise be theirs.
So, is blogging ‘worth it’?
I tend to tell the authors who ask me this question that they can probably relax. If they enjoy blogging, go for it. It might help a little. But if they don’t enjoy it, just don’t. My feeling is that the difference between bestseller and getting pulped isn’t ever going to swing on whether you blogged.
(8) Kate Paulk ostentatiously pays no attention to Ancillary Felapton’s “An open letter to Kate Paulk” in “That Moment When” at Mad Genius Club.
Seriously, folks, when the best you can manage in so-called critique is to claim that something I wrote was poorly written (without evidence of my alleged poor writing – which means it’s probably a case of either “oooh, my feelz” or “I don’t get it, it must be horrible”) and then go on to repeat every single tactic I dissected with hardly any variations, you’re doing it wrong. You’re also kind of amusing, in a train-wreck kind of way.
I’m not going to bother dissecting this rather shallow bit of hurt feelings – I’d spend more time on it than it deserves and hand the so-called author more page views and it really isn’t worth that (yes, it. Since this particular author is using a handle that’s not obviously male or female, and is clearly so far in the non-binary-gender camp it’s through the other side or something, I can’t default to “he” or “she”. I’m writing in English, which leaves “it” as the sole option for the non-binary-gender sort.)
(9) Brad R. Torgersen wonders, could this be “The Year Without Politics?”
My Facebook friends have also noticed that I am dialed up extra-cranky about the cultural Chekist infestation that’s plaguing social media right now. I was prepared to launch into a lengthy tirade about the whole schizophrenic mess, but (irony of ironies) Bill Maher did it for me!
Now, nobody can accuse me of fondness for Maher; he’s far too much of a raging anti-theist. But I think he nailed it right between the eyes with his Halloween 2015 commentary. It really says something when a chap like Maher is going off on the Politically Correct. His point at the end is especially apt. It’s something I’ve been saying for awhile now: the cheap “virtue” of internet slacktivism, is no virtue at all. It’s just self-righteous no-effort self-huggies for people who don’t want to break a sweat, nor get their hands dirty. You want to make the world better? Get off the damned internet and go do something that takes work. Otherwise, you’re not helping anyone, or anything.
Which takes me to Sad Puppies — or, rather, the people who fought against Sad Puppies with every fiber of their being. Because when the Hugo awards went off-script, it was literally a catastrophe so terrible and great that the Puppy-kickers pulled out all the stops to challenge Lord Vox in the Ritual of Desecration.
(10) Kermit is in trouble with more than just Miss Piggy – “’The Muppets’ Showrunner Exits ABC Series”.
Bob Kushell is exiting ABC’s “The Muppets” as showrunner, TheWrap has learned.
Kushell’s exit comes amid reports that the executive producer clashed with co-creator Bill Prady on the creative direction of the series. No official replacement showrunner has yet been named.
The news comes after the network gave the freshman comedy an additional three episode order last week, bringing the total number of episodes for the first season to 16. The show’s most recent outing scored a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49 and an average of 4.5 million viewers during its half-hour run.
(11) This Week In History
On this day in 1928, THE VIKING, the 1st all-Technicolor feature with a synchronized soundtrack, opened in theaters. pic.twitter.com/r9ioGDYleE
— The Nitrate Diva (@NitrateDiva) November 2, 2015
(12) In NASA news, “Researchers Catch Comet Lovejoy Giving Away Alcohol”.
Comet Lovejoy lived up to its name by releasing large amounts of alcohol as well as a type of sugar into space, according to new observations by an international team. The discovery marks the first time ethyl alcohol, the same type in alcoholic beverages, has been observed in a comet. The finding adds to the evidence that comets could have been a source of the complex organic molecules necessary for the emergence of life.
Poul Anderson would have enjoyed this discovery – and perhaps used it as an excuse for a sequel to his short story “A Bicycle Built For Brew”.
(13) Alastair Reynolds reviews ”Asimov’s April/May 2015 double issue” on Approaching Pavonis Mons by balloon.
Unfortunately – for me, anyway – the lead story in this issue, “The New Mother” by Eugene Fischer, was one of those pieces I couldn’t finish. I did try. It’s an extremely lengthy account of the emergence of a strange new sexually transmitted pandemic that gives rise to diploid eggs, allowing for “virgin” births. It’s competently told – there’s nothing clumsy about it on a line by line or even page by page level – but the net result is, to my eyes, dull, diagrammatic storytelling, propped up by lengthy infodumps in the form of article excerpts. If you’ve ever wondered how the American medical system would respond to the kind of pandemic outlined in the story, it’s probably accurate enough in its imagined details, but despite two goes I couldn’t get more than a few dozen pages into it. I wasn’t engaged by the journalist protagonist, her situation, her travels, the dull-but-credible dialogue. The stuff I want from short science fiction – colour, pace, weirdness, estrangement, invention, language, mood … it’s all absent here. Sorry.
(14) Lis Carey’s review of “The New Mother” was rather more enthusiastic, though she also identifies a serious flaw (not quoted here).
I was totally caught up in it. This is in many ways a very American story, with the issues surrounding HCP very tied up with American culture wars issues. That’s not a weakness, but it is a reason this story may be less accessible to non-Americans.
(15) Today In History
- November 5, 1605 – Guy Fawkes is caught guarding a cache of explosives beneath the House of Lords, foiling the Gunpowder Plot. The date is set aside by Parliament for thanksgiving. Guy Fawkes Day comes to be celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. (The photo comes from an old issue of Tops.)
(16) Tammy Oler’s review of Ancillary Mercy at Slate, “Oh, the humanity”. SPOILER WARNING.
Central to Leckie’s trilogy is how important it is to feel a sense of control over one’s identity and how being recognized is a precondition for having power. These themes are not exclusive to one particular time or place, of course, but Leckie taps acutely into the feelings (and fears) that drive current American politics and movements for change. One of the chief pleasures of the trilogy is just how many wrongs Breq tries to make right and how committed she is to making incremental progress even when problems become fraught and complicated. Breq’s actions are underscored by her profound grief, anger, and shame that give way, even if just a little bit, to the solace and hope she finds in her crew and her makeshift family of A.I.s. The end of Ancillary Mercy is satisfying because it is so very un-Radchaai: diverse, messy, and honest. “In the end,” Breq realizes, “it’s only ever been one step, and then the next.”
(17) Famous Monsters’ Caroline Stephenson reviews Tamashii Nations’ samurai-inspired Ashigaru Stormtrooper.
(18) Today’s Scroll closes with this 30 for 30-style documentary remembering the magical season chronicled by Angels in the Outfield….
No one will ever forget the incredible run the 1994 California Angels made on the back of Mel Clark. It was a team in disarray, managed by former cop Roger Murtagh, beloved by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and starring Rust Cohle in centerfield. Despite the early season disaster, somehow, the team turned things around and went on to win the pennant.
ESPN’s 30 for 30 didn’t remember this improbable run in baseball history, probably because it’s from a movie, but College Humor did. The result is a five-minute mockumentary of pure perfection.
[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh, Will R., Hampus Eckerman, Susan de Guardiola, John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA.]
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Brian Z wrote
It is with a heart too full for words that I contemplate this event. Your departure will be deeply felt, but you must, of course, follow your conscience.
Was someone saying that SP4 was being presented as a beginning? Doesn’t the 4 in SP4 make that kind of a hard sell? But then I remember the reading comprehension demonstrated by the people she’s selling to and–never mind.
I do think that _Uprooted_ and even _Seveneves_ from what I hear would be a departure from the usual standards of quality for the Puppy slate. I hope they don’t go there.
_The Just City_ is not just about Plato but *also* about Socrates. But not Aristotle. That’s probably what really hurts.
@Cat
I’m one of those votes for Uprooted. Fallout from my brief bout of optimism.
In the discussion of gender-neutral pronouns, I was reminded of a new play called Hir, written by a playwright named Taylor Mac. Mac’s bio is particularly of interest:
So that’s kind of fun. I mean, if you’re a playwright writing a funny play about someone attempting to “dismantle the patriarchy,” you may as well give yourself a gender pronoun like judy. Judy’s title is pronounced like “here,” by the way, in case you wondered.
Hir is currently playing at Playwrights Horizons in NYC.
When I was reviewing the Sad Puppy offerings I had to figure out a way to refer to the non-binary-gender tank in Tank Marmot’s story. It took me all of a minute to Google, find a page proposing different pronouns, and decide to use ze and zir. (The other tanks in the story were either male or female, for reasons I still don’t get — why should tanks have gender!? — but had something to do with Marmot wanting to make fun of non-binary folk.)
And I’m delighted to learn the origin of the name Camestos Felapton. To me the whole phrase brings up a mental picture of a camel falling over.
Currently working my way through the Watchmaker of Filigree Street. This novel has really driven home that I am really really tired of reading about Victorian England. WoFS is saved to an extent by its focus on Meiji Japan, which is different at least. It still seems to be taking a leisurely approach to the plot, but at leastst it isn’t doing a massive Stephenson-style data-dump about the Lumiferous Ether. Gee, I hope we solve this mystery…
Xom-B on the other hand definitely falls on the “Press-A!” Side of the Kingdom Hearts-Resident Evil scale, but I just returned it to the library. I’m not sure why it didn’t grab me. Maybe it was the sketched out world-building, or the super-competent yet needs everything explained hero. Out the women that seemed to be tagging along because he is the hero. Or maybe that it felt like the novelization of a Hollywood movie. Anyway, it wasn’t bad, but I didn’t care about it.
If you are a person who believes that English singular personal pronouns have to be gendered then you are a person who is mistaken.
If you encounter such a person, all they need to do is consider the cases where the singular personal pronouns do not have a gender. 🙂
A writing challenge would be to pull off a stealth-Leckie i.e. write a novel with no English gendered personal pronouns but in such a way that nobody but grammar-pedants notice.
Having just discussed a review by Nino Cipri, I decided to check out a couple of Cipri’s stories. “Let Down, Set Free” is a pleasant little piece in which some airborne strangeness inspires a divorced woman to leave (in body, if not yet entirely in mind) ties to her unhappy married years. The Shape of My Name” is a bit more substantial. There’s a time-traveling family, who have ties to each other across time. The narrator addresses himself in this story to his absent mother, who rather inexplicably settled down to raise a family in 1947 America, and never could accept that her child was trans (a running theme is his refusal to use the feminine name she gave him). She feels trapped in time, but she seems even more trapped by her belief in the immutability of what is written in the book of history. Her son travels forward to remake himself in ways that would have been difficult in 1967, but also travels back to get Uncle Dante to erase his wrong name from the book of family history that he keeps (“he knew better than to write the future in ink” — if only the mother knew that). The mother betrayed her son twice, by abandonment and by a lack of faith rather unsuited to a time traveler. It’s not a bad story.
Rose Embolism
I share your pain; I slogged through to the end but it was hard work.
@Camestros
Scalzi did that on a much smaller scale – the main character of Lock In is never referred to in a gendered way, and it was subtle enough that most people didn’t even notice. All the other characters are gendered, though.
PS. 45 minute warning for the final found of the live-action television bracket – if you haven’t voted yet you’re nearly out of time. Vote for the winner, consolation round, who should have done better, and the bonus God Stalk question.
Well, probably 35 minute by now.
Slightly off-topic… I was scrolling through the deranged rantings on MGC and saw, in an article about large advances from publishers, mention of The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. The premise sounds interesting. Looking at it on Amazon I then found The Demonologist: A Novel, by Andrew Pyper. Both of these novels seem to fit sort of into literary horror. Anybody have any opinions on those books, or on the authors?
@Camestros, @Meredith, and a mystery writer did it, years ago. Mysteries told in the first person, and the narrator is never gendered. I think the sleuth was named Hillary, but I couldn’t swear to it; I read them years ago. One was centered on a performance of MacBeth, I remember that much. I wish I could remember the author….
Cassy B I think you mean Sarah Caudwell’s Hillary Tamar series. It is brilliant.
@ Kathodos: I was unimpressed by The Historian; (I am trying to phrase this so I sound less like a jerk). I got nothing more out of it than I did from the Stoker original, and mostly much less. I remember finishing annoyed (and some nice travelogue), but that’s it.
Someone more versed and invested in the sub-genre of ‘vampire’ or ‘horror’ might have gotten much more out of it. (I had the same reaction to *Salem’s Lot* for comparison purposes.)
@Cassy B you’re thinking of Sarah Caudwell’s mysteries. The sleuth is Prof Hilary something. It’s a long time since I reads them, so don’t remember MacBeth..
@ rrede and Cassy B: Definitely the Caudwell, most definitely brilliant. The opening of Thus Was Adonis Murdered is a faithful description of my life. Minus the gorgeous friends who look after me, sadly.
(Not like that. My friends are gorgeous, and they definitely look after me.)
Well, I’ve dived into Jodie Taylor’s time travel series and am really enjoying them; they’re pretty cheap on Amazon UK, always a plus point, and, in my view, superior to Connie’s work.
Of course, I may be biased on this one, but I live in central London, and don’t read people who can’t get the elementary facts (like how to get to Bart’s in the Blitz) straight; my home is built on the lands which were flattened in the Blitz. And, of course, the plague pits are directly below us.
I would not wish to dishearten any one previously unaware of these facts, but I would urge those writing about the Square Mile to be aware of these facts.
And OH non-committal narrator in detective fiction? The Continental Op.
The conversations here always make it really clear why complaints about – a book I liked didn’t get nominated! Travesty! A book I didn’t like got nominated! Secret conspiracy! – those are really ridiculous. I’m not sure I’ve seen more than a tiny handful of works get anything close to a universal response (the ones I recall off the top of my head were all Puppy nominees, and I think there’s already been a round or two of “bad stuff is easier to spot than what makes something great”).
If I went through (and I’m not going to do this, just to be very clear, especially for the benefit of OGH, who I hope I’ve already been clear and honest with about the extent of my intentions but just to be safe: not going to do this) and picked out the stories that have got the most frequent positive responses here, ran a slate and got those on the Hugo ballot, then a bunch of people here would be seriously annoyed with at least one of those nominees. All disagreeing with each other, enthusiastically, about which of those books was the not-good one.
Taste is subjective should not be such a hard concept for the Puppies, a group of people who are all grown-ups and all work in an industry of words and ideas.
Honestly, if ever a novel got a universally positive response here I would start seriously worrying about whether the publisher was inflicting mind control powers on everyone who read it.
Just finished watching Predestination. Really, really good, and I almost wonder how I would’ve reacted if I hadn’t known the story on which it was based.
Just to weigh in on “The Historian” – it’s been several years since I read it, and I have to admit that I can’t remember all the plot elements. What I do remember is becoming oddly unsettled while I read it, and then sleeping with the lights on for about a week. I’m not sure if that’s a recommendation or not…
Between CKCharles and Another Laura I think I’ll give The Historian a try. I was just getting the itch to re-read Dracula. I can always revert back to it if necessary.
Also, I loved loved loved Salem’s Lot as a kid (the “as a kid” bit is probably crucial here). I probably re-read it 20-30 times. I was never a huge vampire aficionado before that. I have no idea if the suck fairy has hit it since then, though.
I remember _THe Historian_ I thought I’d love it, bought immediately, read it, and was really really pissed at the ending. I’m not remembering quite why at the moment (it went into my “donate to student book sale” pile almost immediately). I think part of it was how easy it was for the protagonist to find All The Stuff in archives (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!), and it just clunked along so predictably/easily that I got bored. (I’m a huge vampire fan–I’m about ready to decide that generally I’m not all that thrilled with urban fantasy type novels with academic protagonists based on the few I’ve found/read).
(small clarification note: used to post under rrede but have decided to start posting under passport name–first time this has ever happened in a blog community! I just have to remember to clear the info on my phone so I’m not inadvertently posting under two names….)
I read it some time ago. Not so much a vampire book as a the-legends-are-real book. Had a decent creepy vibe but I tend to agree with the MCG comment that it was overhyped at the time. A good solid read though.
I enjoyed The Historian a lot. The ending was ungraceful, to put it mildly, but I very much enjoyed the trip there.
@robinreid
Hi! 😀 Robin for short or do you prefer the whole thing for @s?
I am having a sad moment about my lovely black long-haired elegant gorgeous cat, Tamar (who was named after the narrator/protagonist of Caudwell’s BRILLIANT did I mention series). I haven’t re-read them in a while and really should……sometimes when deep in hectic grading, it’s better to re-read than start new books which tempt me to say up until oh 2:45 a.m. in order to finish Kate Elliot’s newest novel, start of a trilogy, Black Wolves which may have happened last night. I graded until about 8:00, sat down for late diner, thought, oh, well, I could read a couple of chapters HAH. Dragged myself out of the story at 10 to walk the dogs, then we all crawled into bed for me to read and them to snore until I finished it.
As always with her work, brilliant worldbuilding, epic sweep but complete deconstruction of faux-medieval European fantasy tropes (including an amazing “we have found you oh lost and last dynastic heir return to us” — “no fucking way, I won’t leave the family who took me out of slavery and loved me and raised me” sub-plot) which had me rooting for Lifka the whole way through–I think she and Sarai are my favorite characters–I am sort of conflicted about Dannarah (five point of view characters, three women, happy sigh).
The novel (I’ve seen this with Elliott’s work before) has a somewhat slow pace in some ways at the start,so much is happening, but important stuff is being done and then BAM, she sweeps me away under tumbling me down through the storylines, and next thing you know it’s nearly 3 in the morning.
And, as Liz Bourke at tor says, “giant fucking eagles”!
Hi Meredith! Robin is just fine (and preferred). (I asked Mike to put my middle name in the credit line because otherwise I’ve learned that many people assume “Robin Reid” is a man–was snickering at the discussion earlier about gender markers and names and all that fun stuff because I’ve lived with that all my life!).
While I’m talking about Elliott, a cheer for Court of Fives, her first YA novel!
@Robin
Noted! ^^
I have a vague suspicion the gender ambiguity of my name might have been more of an issue if I’d spent more time in Wales (the name is Welsh), but the times I was there as a littl’un mostly had me in raptures because not only could everyone I met reliably get my name right first try (instead of cycling through Mary? Miriam? Marigold? And every other M name before accepting that my name is Meredith), those little souvenir things for kids where you pick the one with your name on had my name on for the first time ever. It was very exciting. I bought every single one I could afford with my holiday money. Still haven’t seen it again since.
I shared a banquet table with Sarah Caudwell one Bouchercon, and she was very pleasant company. The two things I most remember are that she insisted on buying all the wine for the table, and that she instructed us on the proper way to eat asperagus: as finger food. I haven’t taken a knife and fork to it since.
@Robin,
And so shall ye be, Robin, not rrede. I’ve long enjoyed your comments.
My first name is gendered, but long and unusual and easy to mistake for the other-gender version. Though it’s rare, I have been misgendered sometimes.
d@ Vasha
Thanks for reminding me about who gave the Weightless Books link.
@ Mark
Thanks for the link. Great alternate resource to The River and the lowercaseBooks.
ETA:
@ tonieee
Your welcome re: the Shadow Man link.
ETA2:
I have several responses lined up because the site was down. Not trying to be too talky!
@ various
re: Square
Interesting etiologies of the word usage.
Had no idea it went back to the 16th century!
Don’t know if it was Masonic, but it seems a logical inference.
The points about it being demoted/replaced by jazz slang and also still used for some purposes to indicate a good quality are right in line with my point (which is pretty uncontroversial). Mass communication has had major impact on our language (American English, anyway) by, imo, reducing regional accents and reducing regional colloquialisms (or standardizing some accents and colloquialisms, including adding Britishisms, see ‘gobsmacked’) and rapidly spreading new coinage/usage. Social media is accelerating this trend at warp speed and spreading it to the ‘written’ word, e.g. srlsly, luv u, btw…
Grandma was right. Those grbtz kids are standing on her lawn!!! Some days I feel like Granny. [sigh] :^]
@Chris S & Microtherion: LOL! Cedar’s name always reminds me of someone I knew in college named Cinnamon; I believe her parents were uber-hippies or something.
@Viverrine: LOL re. TBR stack proving we don’t read. 😀
@Heather Rose Jones: I’m off to read your review of Cho’s book!
@Eve: Thanks for that link – yes, fascinating! I’m glad that (in many? most? cases) the translators communicated with Leckie. I love the creative Bulgarian translator, who invented a feminine ending (not sure what “depreciative” means here, BTW, when she describes the -ka ending). It sounds like a couple of translators maybe went (IMHO) a bit overboard trying to gentle things for readers, which I don’t get – I mean, the point is “your language is gendered, but theirs isn’t,” so why try to work around it in a translation instead of leveraging it? (Maybe I’m the one going overboard.) Anyway, very interesting stuff. Changing the name of the book seems a bit over the top (because Justice is masculine in Hebrew).
I never heard “homeboy” as derogatory, but since it seems to have switched meanings by the time I was old enough to notice such things, I’ve just always thought of it as “an affectionate word used mostly by African-Americans to refer to people from their neighborhood.”
As predicted, I’m thinking Taylor Mac is a special snowflake and pretentious.
Meredith :
Oh, he’s more subtle than you think. Go back and reread “The Android’s Dream” and then ask yourself
“Jnf Fnz fubeg sbe Fnzhry be Fnznagun?”
@Kendall re: “depreciative” — it sounds like Bulgarian is undergoing the same change as English, where we’re starting to feel that adding a feminine ending to words like “authoress” marks that author out as separate and unequal, lesser, depreciated — and feminine endings are starting to disappear from even last holdouts like “actress”. (It certainly doesn’t help that in Bulgarian the feminine is the same suffix as the diminutive; this the translator inventing a new one).
This isn’t the case in all languages; German is undergoing exactly the opposite change, where they’re carefully adding a feminine suffix everywhere a word refers to a woman and where it might refer to a woman so that they’re explicitly included. They write things like “To all my readers and readeresses…” so as to never forget women are among the group. Of course this practice meets a lot of resistance but it’s increasing.
I’m liking this change except in one place. It would have been awesome to have Senator and Senatrix.
@ TheYoungPretender
“The Roboteer is a great deal of fun, and quite nicely written. I’m not thinking it’s going on my ballot unless this year has more of a drought than I think it will. But it was a thoroughly enjoyable space opera and much fun.”
I will concede that the book is fairly well written and the plot moves along quickly, but ‘thoroughly enjoyable’? Uhm, no. I posted a non-spoilery review near a week ago here:
Roboteer review 10/28/15
Gur fgbel ernqf yvxr n Ubyyljbbq oybpxohfgre cybg. Gung’f jurer V tbg fbzr rawblzrag bhg bs vg…gur “Trr Juvm, areqf trg gb or FhcreObl naq fnir rirelbar!”
Gur ebyr bs jbzra, gubhtu, jnf ceboyrzngvp naq gur ebznapr unq n irel whiravyr srry gb vg. Bhe ureb vf nggenpgrq gb gur urebvar orpnhfr fur’f ornhgvshy; gur jbzra ner gur znva ahegheref; nyy 3 CBI punenpgref ner znyr; nsgre qbhogvat gur ureb, gur urebvar frrf gur reebe bs ure jnlf naq fgnaqf ol ure zna gb gur raq, rfcrpvnyyl nsgre ur erfphrf ure; gur urebvar orpbzrf bar bs gur ureb’f cevmrf ng gur raq; abar bs gur ba-fgntr srznyr punenpgref ner va yrnqrefuvc cbfvgvbaf – cyhf zber yvggyr veevgnagf nybat gur fnzr yvar. Bar be guerr bs gur nobir jbhyq unir orra gbyrenoyr, ohg gurl nqqrq hc gb erqhpr zl rawblzrag n ybg.
Nqqrq gb gur znal haerny cybg cbvagf (znpuvarel rkcbfrq gb 10 *zvyyvba* lrnef bs uneq inphhz naq pbfzvp enlf whfg arrqf n srj ercnvef naq n fbsgjner cngpu gb jbex nf tbbq nf arj?!?) guvf obbx vf trggvat abjurer arne zl Uhtb onyybg. ;-9
With all that said, I *may* actually buy the next book. The author does have a good writing style and vigorous plotting. And I does luv me some space opera! If I can get past the irritants, that is.
@Xtifr: (singular “they”)
My main problem with that construct is that, as with other cases where words get overloaded with clashing definitions, it gets confusing in certain use cases. Like, for instance, describing a situation where three or more people are in the same place. “They” could then refer to a singular person or both people who are not the speaker, leading to such constructs as:
Eh? I mean, as the author, that line could make complete sense since I know who’s saying what to whom, but it’s still jarring.
Basically, I use singular-they as the least bad option, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting something better, more precise, which doesn’t lend itself to such ambiguities.
(ETA: Oh, and “they” does have an H. It’s right there before the vowel.)
A couple of Camestros-related notes:
1. I recently mentioned I was reading the novel Drood, to which Camestros’ rather clever approving response was “Dan Simmons going off the rails. But in a good way!”
I nodded and smiled.
It took me over 24 hours to realize that this was in fact a reference to the first chapter of the book itself, which references a horrifying accident Charles Dickens was in in which a train LITERALLY GOES OFF THE RAILS. (forehead-palm)
Belated thanks to Camestros.
2. They do not have that much fun over at MGC. The comments are all red-meat screaming about Chorfs and Puppy-kickers and AGGGGHHHHH.
3. My friend and web series co-writer David Butler invented a set of gender-neutral pronouns: Se (she or he), Ers (his or hers) and Erm (him or her). IN SEVENTH GRADE.
4. The only time it’s appropriate to use “it” is when the pronoun referent in question is actually an it. To whit, from my and Robby Karol’s pilot Alien Visas
([An immigration law office. Matton listens, horrified and helpless, as Stumpy is attacked by his client Cthulhu in the Small Conference Room.])
STUMPY (O.S.)
He ate my legs!
CTHULHU (O.S.)
Cthulhu does not identify as a single gender!
STUMPY
It ate my legs!
This, of course, also necessitates that we use “it” every time we refer to Cthulhu in the script. But it’s worth it for the “it” joke.
STUMPY
@Robin: (gender markers by name)
Heh. If I inform you that my mother now regrets not giving me a middle name that starts with N, will that be enough of a hint for you to guess which part of a car her husband had for a surname?
If not, perhaps telling you that V qba’g jrne gvtugf, terra be bgurejvfr, naq nz ubeevoyr ng nepurel will do the trick. 🙂
Yeah, I grok the fun that comes from distinctive nomenclature…
@Rev. Bob: American Sign Language has an advantage there: when telling a story, you can map out a narrative space in front of yourself, establish a position for each character, and show by the position of words who you’re referring to.
Vasha – another vote from me for Nino Cipri’s The Shape of My Name. It’s at the top of my nominations list in that Hugo category right now.
Kathodus – Good luck with The Historian. I didn’t like it. It lost me in the first chapter, largely set in one particular city whose current name is difficult for some foreigners to pronounce; so Kostova uses its Latin name, basically without explanation. I also didn’t love the nesting of narratives, five deep at one stage, all of which appeared to have the same voice. And as others have noted, the ending is a problem. Still, there will be enough second hand copies floating around these days that it won’t cost you much!
So, “Drood”: I really, really wanted to like this book (it’s Wilkie Collins! narrating as Charles Dickens and he investigate the possibly-supernatural vampiric figure of Drood skulking around underground London, while Collins grumbles about Dickens’ book sales), but… there Simmons makes three surprising errors that eventually prove fatal.
1) Wilkie Collins turns out to be very unsympathetic… And look, I’m a fan of both Richard III and Breaking Bad, but Walter White started out with clear stakes for doing what he did. Collins does something unforgiveable 400 pages in and never looks back… and you’ve got to have better reasons for bad behavior than Simmons created for Collins.
2) …And also very passive. Events happen around him. At several points the Inspector who’s working with Collins to track Drood complains that Collins isn’t doing enough to help. My sentiments exactly.
3) [SPOILER Rot-13ed] Vg vf fgebatyl vzcyvrq ng gur raq gung Qebbq qbrf abg rkvfg, gung vg jnf nyy ulcabfvf naq n zvaq tnzr ol Qvpxraf, naq gung Qvpxraf srryf greevoyr nobhg vg. Juvpu pbzcyrgryl haqrezvarf gur ragver pbby fhcreangheny nfcrpg bs gur obbx. Vg’f n purng, naq n cbvagyrff bar.
Wonderfully atmospheric, and Simmons clearly did his research–I totally believed I was watching Collins and Dickens in late 1860s London, but it needed a more sympathetic and active Collins, and for #3 not to happen.
I read The Shape of My Name a while ago and while it was decent, it didn’t particularly strike me. Perhaps it deserves a re-read.
@kathodus –
Like @CKCharles, I was also unimpressed with The Historian. I thought it seemed promising and intriguing at the start but devolved into just a long-winded and disappointing retread. And I definitely agree with comments that it was over-hyped.
(I have a copy of The Demonologist but haven’t read it yet.)
@ rrede:
I am a huge fan of Caudwell’s Hilary Tamar series!
The audiobook versions of Caudwell’s series are also delightful. Excellent narration by Eva Haddon.
@ Jeff Smith:
I started reading her books because I met her many years ago at Malice Domestic, and I really wanted to try the books of someone who was that witty and charming and interesting all weekend. And, sure enough, as soon as I opened the first book, I was hooked. Have re-read all four of her books multiple times and really wish she had written more.
Fun with “homeboy”:
It dates back to the 1940s. Someone from your hometown with ‘with overtones of “simpleton.”‘ Becomes more friendly by the 1980s. In parts of Canada it meant someone who was brought up in an orphanage. (From orphans’s home?) Plus the obvious stay at home boy/man in the 19th century.
In New Zealand in the 1920s, a homie/homey was slang for a recently arrived British immigrant.
Mark, I actually agree with you about “Shape of My Name” — you may have noticed a certain lack of excitement in my “not bad”.
Nicholas, I looked at your favorites list and it’s interesting how completely different our tastes are — I have read seven of those stories and every single one was no better than average to me, or just failed to connect. (My list is here for comparison). And yet I respect your opinions and have enjoyed your reviews for years. Something about different cultural backgrounds? Anyhow, I appreciate your reviews.