Schedule note: There will not be a Scroll on January 16 – I will be away at a meeting and won’t have time to prepare one. I’ll still moderate comments, since I can do that by using my Kindle to check in periodically.
(1) DOWN THESE MEAN FOOTPATHS. Peter McLean, author of Drake, explains some of his work in a post at Black Gate, “On Writing Modern Noir Fantasy”.
A Noir world.
So what’s that? Noir needs to be dark, by definition, but I don’t think it has to be tied to any particular time period. The classic Hollywood Noir is set in LA or New York in the 1940s but it can work equally well in the backstreets of ancient Rome or the mean cantinas of Mos Eisley, or even in modern South London for that matter.
Noir implies bitter, cynical black-and-white men in hats and beautiful, dangerous women with secrets to hide, but it doesn’t have to be that either. You could have a hard-bitten battle-scarred female veteran of an alien war as your main character and still be writing Noir.
It’s about the feel and the vibe rather than the place or even the people who occupy that place. Noir is about dark thoughts and dark motives, deep introspection followed by double-crosses in back alleys and brief moments of sudden, brutal violence.
But there is a certain aesthetic as well, and I think that’s important. To understand the visual motif you only have to look at how the old movies play with light and shadow, the half-seen faces and the way sunbeams stream through the slats of a blind into the air of a smoky room.
(2) LISTEN IN. Leah Schnelbach of Tor.com was there for – “Race, Publishing, and H.P. Lovecraft: A Conversation With Daniel José Older and Victor LaValle”.
Earlier this week, a large and enthusiastic crowd packed Greenlight Bookstore in defiance of freezing temperature and threats of snow. Greenlight hosted a launch party for Midnight Taxi Tango, Daniel José Older’s second novel in the Bone Street Rumba series. But rather than the usual reading-and-wine-soaked-light-conversation that is the centerpiece of most literary events, this party soon became a lively and wide-ranging conversation about race, publishing, and the true legacy of H.P. Lovecraft. Older’s reading was fantastic, but it was his discussion with Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver and the forthcoming The Ballad of Black Tom, that turned the event into one of the best literary nights I’ve ever attended.
(3) FREAKY FRIDAY. Washington Post writer Peter Marks reports the Disney Theatrical Group and Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia are producing a musical version of Freaky Friday, which will receive its premiere this fall. The musical will be composed by Tom Kitt with lyrics by Brian Yorkey.
In a deal that rockets Signature Theatre into a whole new producing orbit, the Arlington company will team up this fall with the Walt Disney Co. to present a world-premiere musical version of “Freaky Friday,” with a score by the Pulitzer Prize-winning team behind “Next to Normal.”
(4) BEAR NECESSITIES. Adam Rowe’s “The Taxonomy of Crazy Fantasy Art: A Visual History of 1970s Polar Bear-Drawn Sleighs” at the B&N Sci-FI & Fantasy Blog, a glorious post idea in its own right, includes this insightful quote —
As one blogger at the Ragged Claws Network puts it, “Chaykin’s attempt to supply Urlik Skarsol’s polar bear team with a semi-plausible harness […] actually diminishes rather than enhances Frazetta’s gloriously silly original concept by drawing undue attention to the mundane question of how, exactly, the fantasy hero’s cool mode of transportation could be made to work in the real world and whether Chaykin’s design is, in fact, a viable solution.”
(5) NOT HAPPY DAYS. Geek Art Gallery shows what forces would have been awakened if these new heroes and villains had met while attending Star Wars High School.
(6) YODA YOU CAN TALK LIKE. Infogram by Grammarly.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Alan Baumler.]
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@Vasha
That sounds very interesting. Are you the filer who recommended “Bold as Love?” That’s on my kindle waiting to be read.
@Jayn
Same here.
Jon: Maybe some other creature brackets would be fun too. Animal protagonist. Animal companion (to a human/alien protagonist). Canine, feline, and/or murine? Or, going back to humans (or aliens, legendary creatures), pairings (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser final against the winner of everyone else?)
That horse was already beaten to death a while back, starting here.
NelC: Ken MacLeod’s Learning the World has a galactic economy of generation ships shuttling between worlds, as I recall, generally not coming to sticky ends.
And Robert Reed’s Greatship universe has a similar thing going on.
I read “Wylding Hall” a couple months ago and immediately put it on my nomination list. So beautifully-written.
@Kathodus: No, I haven’t read Bold as Love. It’s on my to-read-someday-maybe list.
@j-grizz
I should have thought of Puff. The bio on my twitter reads simply
(I always wondered why pirates reacted so cravenly to someone shouting “PUFF!”)
@Vasha Ah, someone else, then. Just scurried over to amazon to buy Wylding Hall, based on your and lurkertype’s recommendations. That’s up next after Saunders’ “The Long March.”
I also love Wylding Hall, and pretty much everything Elizabeth Hand writes. I used to think my favorite book of hers was Saffron and Brimstone, but then Chip Crockett’s Christmas Carol got an ebook edition and that’s my new favorite.
The Foz Meadows piece was interesting and very thoughtfully written, with lots of things to think more deeply about. Where I got lost though was the way in which personal experience was universalized to invalidate the character’s actual experience. Yes, I know I’m comparing a real person to a fictional one, but so was Foz Meadows. So, as I prefer to let real people define their own perception of past and present, I’m comfortable doing the same with fictional people.
And…I realize I’m dancing around the central core of what bugged me about the analysis because I don’t want anyone triggered. So, not at all bluntly, Foz Meadows’ late arrival to an understanding of what had happened does not mean a character in a novel is equally unaware and therefore can’t be trusted with accurate reportage.
That said, V jnf irel qvfnccbvagrq jura gur Qentba ghearq bhg gb or n ybir vagrerfg. Xnfvn jbhyq unir znqr zber frafr naq gurer jbhyqa’g unir orra gur jubyr nohfvir fgneg gb gur eryngvbafuvc ceboyrz.
Shidonia no Kishi is set on a generation ship ,the Shidonia of the title. Their tech level seems to be high enough that they do not suffer from most of the more common problem. Of course it is a little different in that they are running away from an enemy as opposed to just looking for a new planet,though they are doing that as well.
Note to potential nominators: Although Wylding Hall is a short novel in form and length, it fits within the novella category by grace of the 20% rule.
*buys Wylding Hall*
Re: Madonna/whore issue.
To me the issue of that characterization read as very similar to the whole patriarchal “the women related t me/mine are GOOD women,” and “these other women I don’t own I can do whatever I want,” especially given the class difference in the novel.
That’s related to the “madonna/whore” issue of course, but there’s an additional level relating to other double standards that exist in a sexist system.
Kendall on January 17, 2016 at 3:39 pm said:
If we do a Dragon bracket, I think we should all chip in to pre-position a pallet of forehead cloths in Meredith’s house. She’ll need them.
.
I, too, just finished Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. I’m going to need some processing time and then a re-read. I’ve found that anything I feel is off with a new Bujold book, generally disappears on re-reading. One of the reasons I love her books so much is that almost every time I re-read one of them it’s a slightly different book.
I do like how, whenever my brain was heading off in one direction, the story popped off in another. That was fun.
@Cheryl S – I completely agree with your ROT 13d text. That was the most disappointing aspect of Uprooted for me. I still love it, but yeah.
I’m looking forward to getting our hardcover of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen next month and doing a reread. It was not what I was expecting in so many ways. I’m sure I missed lots of little details as my brain was trying to assimilate the big things.
Literally just finished Uprooted just now. But it’s 4 AM so I’ll be posting my thoughts sometime tomorrow, I think.
And I finished Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss — another really excellent Tor novella; sort of a highly-concentrated dose of heroic fantasy.
@Shambles, @Ultragotha
I don’t think there’s any way for me to accurately described how much I loved Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. Not only did it give a starring role to my favourite person in the Vorkosigan-verse, it made her just as fantastic as she was when I first read her. I also concur that it’s one of those books that improves in every re-read.
It, along with Ancillary Mercy are currently the only sure-to-nominates on my list (Sevenves and Uprooted were there as well, but there’s been a couple of books after that have made me question my nominee list)
snowcrash: Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is a 2016 publication . . . if you’re already reading for next year, I’m going to feel really behind! 🙂
@Mary Frances
Is that for sure? Baen had it for sale as an eBook last October. That’s when I picked it up. It was an official release, so that should make it a 2015 book, right?
@Mary Frances
I’m going by the release date on the ebook I bought from the Baen store, which has the publication date as Oct 2015 IIRC.
ETA: Ninja’d!
Dragons. Morkeleb the Black was briefly mentioned, but not his context in Barbara Hambly’s Dragonsbane series. Wen Spencer’s Tinker series has several dragons, more good than not. I am particularly fond of Impatience. And there’s a very impressive dragon, not named that I recall, in Elizabeth Moon’s recent books.
And of course Steven Brust has a whole House full, but they’re not quite the same thing.
Baen had it for sale as an eBook last October.
Weren’t they selling it as an ARC, not the final version?
Those rules Yodify I must.
1.In front of the subject-verb phrase your modifiers, modifier phrases, and objects move.
2.Your subject-verb order swap.
3.When most verbs negating, the auxiliary “do” drop and after the verb the negation place.
4.Contractions use not.
5.In present tense questions the auxiliary “do” drop.
@Anne:
There is only “speak.” Or “speak not.” There are no rules.
😉
I suspect there will be some split votes on Bujold’s latest. Baen’s habit of selling eArcs makes it unclear when a book is published. I’m considering it published when the final version was released this year, 2016. Some people are considering the release 2015 when the eArc was released.
My prediction it won’t get enough votes to be on the long list this year. Next year it will be long list/shortlist and Helsinki Hugo admins will have to rule on it’s eligibility.
We may find out there is another reason Baen frequently isn’t winning Hugos. Their eArc publishing pattern makes it hard to figure out what year a book is published.
It would be weird if a book I paid a publisher money for in 2015 wasn’t eligible in that year. Maybe it gets treated like magazine cover dates, where the cover month/date often has no relation to the date of sale and availability.
I, personally, am not going to risk the 2017 Hugo administrators ruling that having a book for sale in 2015 allows it to be eligible for 2017.
Note the Hugo rules don’t say published.
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen appeared, for sale to the general public, in 2015. So if I nominate Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, it will be this year.
I think it only matters if it’s an ARC if it was limited distribution (ie reviewers, etc). Since it was pretty much released online to everyone, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen qualifies. As per ULTRAGOTHA, I’m not gonna run the risk of not nominating one of the best books I read last year because of it.
Ryan H: I don’t know for sure, but I have a suspicion that eARCs don’t count as published editions–maybe because a “release date” isn’t an official copyright or publication date? The ebook of Gentleman Jole has a publication date of January 16, 2016; the hardcover is due out officially on February 2, 2016. Is there an edition number on the eARC? If not, then I suspect that eARC would be the equivalent of the old-fashioned “proof” copies that you used to be able to buy at conventions (not from the publisher, but from people who had been sent them to review or blurb, usually): those were clearly marked “not final edition, may contain errors,” so the reviewers would know not to expect a fully copy-edited text.
In other words, even if you can read it pre-publication, a book isn’t necessarily in print yet, and I don’t know where Gentleman Jole would fit. It probably depends on whether or not there are any differences between the eARC and the final edition–and that depends on the publisher’s standards and practices, of course. In any case, I imagine the Hugo admins will have to sort out what to do about eARCS in general at some point, given Baen’s practice of selling advance copies to a general readership.
ETA: Could you buy the eARC anywhere but Baen’s own website? That might make a difference, too–even though they charged for it, the eARC might be considered “pre-publication promotional material” or something like that. But if you could buy it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever, well, then . . .
@Tasha Turner: Agreed! Baen doesn’t do themselves any favors with this; it splits the vote. Forget figuring out the year – most people just look at what the book says, so probably not everyone realizes there’s any disagreement on when a book was published. Granted, this only affects late-year eARC/early next year finished stuff.
From Baen’s site, the eARC was published in 2015 (I was wondering if they really used the term “publication date”; yes) and the finished one in 2016. Most would say it’s the same book (and their approach to editing supports this); there’s just a perhaps-revised version. Revised enough to make a new work, though? I wouldn’t know, but I’m a bit skeptical of calling it a different book and giving it two bites at the apple.
This strategy must make them money, though! They charge $15 for the eARC and $9.99 for the, uh, whatever they call the current version. 😉
So I’m confused: is the final (not e-ARC) version of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen available now? Or are people talking about the ARC? (Yeah, yeah, I could go look and find out for myself.)
I just remembered the Richard A Knack Dragon Realm books. They had good and bad dragons.
Heather Rose Jones: Amazon is currently selling Gentleman Jole as an ebook but not as a hardcover; the ebook publication date is January 16, while the hardcover won’t be available until February 2. And I checked–only Baen’s website had/has the eARCS–they are supposed to “disappear” when the “official” final edition is available.
I’m not sure why the ebook is available two weeks before the hardcover but still isn’t an eARC, but then, I’m finding this whole business fairly confusing.
Generation ships. I vaguely remember “Mayflies” by Kevin O’Donnel. Told mostly from the perspective of the ship. I read it a long time ago.
@Mary Frances: I’ve seen an ebook available before a hardcover before, methinks. Format doesn’t matter for eligibility anyway, though.
Re. publication date, the link I posted above makes it clear the eARC has a publication date. It was available for anyone to buy. The fact that they only sold it on their site seems irrelevant to me, absent any “how many stores have it” rules. If anyone can buy it on the ‘net, surely one store’s enough.
So the more I think about this, the more methinks ULTRAGOTHA’s got the critical part of the Hugo rules above – “appearing for the first time” – and the eARC counts, because it was available worldwide from their regular ebook store where they sell all their regular books. I’m sure there are some micropublishers out there that only sell directly, or sell directly before adding it to other ebookstores.
Baen calling it an eARC almost feels like a marketing gimmick, especially when it’s $5.01 more in eARC form than in the next version’s form – like a hardback costs more than a paperback, but whatever’s released first is what matters for eligibility.
Granted, there’s nothing about ARCs in the Hugo rules. I don’t believe the Hugo admins have to figure out anything with other ARCs, as they’re not generally available for purchase in advance, are they? Baen seems to be unique in putting theirs into their regular ebook store for anyone on the planet to buy, or at least, I haven’t heard of other publishers doing it. Anyone else know of a setup quite like Baen’s?
Of course, I’m no Hugo Admin! But they tend to go with the will of the voters, and while I’ve seen them say “hey that’s been published before” (including last year), it would feel very wrong to me if they to say “that book y’all bought last year: that’s not eligible yet.”
Just my rambly thoughts on it now that I’ve read more comments here and thought about it more. Take with grains of salt.
Kendall: Oh, I readily admit that insisting on a 2016 pub date when the eARC was for sale in 2015 is problematic–not to say dogmatic. We’ll see what the admins decide–this might be a good test case. On the whole, I think I’m just concerned because I’m unlikely to be able to read the book before the 2015 voting closes, so I won’t be able to consider nominating it. I wasn’t worried about that because I thought I’d certainly have it read for 2016, but so it goes.
I also have been thinking of the eARCs as the equivalent of the old review-proof copies, with which I had some familiarity at one point in time. They were bound, often (though not always) with a version of the finished cover art, and weren’t substantially different from the final book–they should have been reviewed by the writer and editor, though they probably hadn’t gone through the final copy-edit yet–but they did tend to be messy. And they certainly didn’t qualify as “first editions.” The Baen books I’ve read aren’t nearly as messy as those old proofs often were, in my experience, so I’ve been assuming that the eARCs were ditto. Apparently incorrectly?
@Joe H, re Sunset Mantle
I enjoyed it as well. I particularly liked the way politics and customs got used in the conflict as much as the more traditional hacking and slashing.
@Mary Frances: “I’m not sure why the ebook is available two weeks before the hardcover but still isn’t an eARC, but then, I’m finding this whole business fairly confusing.”
Okay, I can answer this one. The short version is two words: monthly bundles.
Y’see, Baen has a deal where you can preorder all of their ebooks for one calendar month for a set price, right up through the 15th of the previous month. Thus, in this case, the February bundle – including the final version of Bujold’s book – was available for purchase through January 15th. On the 16th, two things happen: the bundle goes away, and the individual books become available at least half a month earlier than the dead-tree books, which are slated for release throughout February. Thing is, the second part of that equation isn’t exclusive; the individual books unlock for general purchase, not just for the bundle buyers.
So, that’s the story. I can’t attest to whether the eARC’s content is any different (aside from copyright data) from the January 16th final version, but this is not an unusual situation for a high-profile Baen book. It’s only a Big Puzzle because this specific tome has attracted additional attention due to the year-splitting.
Loved Wylding Hall. It reminded me of George RR Martin’s Armageddon Rag.
I also enjoyed the link to Foz Meadows’ review of Uprooted, which presents a case for it involving an abusive relationship. I usually like Naomi Novik but I disliked that book, although I thought it was more of a case of my not being remotely interested in the fetishes it was trying to fuel.
Baen specifically called the version for sale last year an eArc. Anyone in the know (TM) should know that’s an unofficial pre-release “reviewers” copy as that’s the industry standard for the terminology (arc/eArc). LOL
Obviously Baen needs to clarify what they mean by an eArc. You may be paying a premium for the review copy/eArc where they are crowdsourcing the beta reading/editing to be part of the process and getting to read the book early. I noticed their eArcs are no longer available on Netgalley.
If someone wants an official ruling from Baen they could drop by Baen’s bar and ask Toni W. for her opinion. Or if feeling less adventurous, drop her an email.
I guess someone could contact a Hugo admin also. This is beyond my capabilities as I sometimes don’t check email for a week.
I’m reminiscing over the days when I only voted and didn’t nominate. Life was simpler then. Someone else did the hard work of figuring out what was eligible, kept ever changing list, etc. I feel like I’ve lied to people when I’ve said read a few things and if you think they are Hugo worthy vote for them. The rules of what’s eligible in each category is more complicated than it appears. *grumble, grumble, being a responsible grownup is a lot of work, grumble*
Baen’s eArcs are a joke. “Here, pay twice as much to get the book a couple of months early, with twice the usual errors in grammar and spelling of the final edition!” What a deal. 😐
Dragons: Balerion the Black Dread is the best dragon. If by “best dragon” we mean “most terrifying war machine”. But judged as a character he obviously suffers from only existing as a legend and a skull.
There’s also Ancalagon the black – but he is also mostly a vague legend.
I vaguely remember well-written dragons in the later Deverry books. Its a long time since I read those, but I recall it as a convincing description both from the dragon’s point of view as a sentient, but non-human, being, and from a human point of view as a distant threat looming in the distance.
I never got very far in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Trader books, but as far as I understood the mythology the ships are technically dragons.
eARC publication date: My understanding is that the crucial date is when a work is available to the public. Distribution to a limited number of reviewers might not count as publication, but selling the book to everyone who pays 15$ does. What it’s called at that point is not really relevant – that the publisher uses a term which usually means limited distribution does not make the distribution limited.
They can call it a cardigan if they like, but they were
a) selling it
b) to the general public.
An Arc is not usually considered publication because it is given (free) to reviewers. That isn’t what Baen have done here.
“Baen’s eArcs are a joke. “Here, pay twice as much to get the book a couple of months early, with twice the usual errors in grammar and spelling of the final edition!” “
I kinda disagree here, though I must admit the only eARCs I’ve bought thus far are Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, and the last couple of David Weber’s Honorverse books. AFAI can tell, there wasn’t any difference between the ebook and the paperback I read (and, well the grammar and spelling were fine for those. But gods can someone get Weber a better editor please? Or, if the internet is to be believed, *any* editor.)
eArcs are just a clever variation of the premium-priced hardcover release tactic. If Baen can make money out of them then good luck to them.
snowcrash: I kinda disagree here, though I must admit the only eARCs I’ve bought thus far are Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, and the last couple of David Weber’s Honorverse books.
I’ve had at least 3 of their eArcs for review purposes (a Gannon, an Asaro, and a Weber/Zahn, and maybe another I can’t remember). The spelling and grammar errors were pretty rife in all three eArcs, and I only re-read the Gannon in final book form, but it was better than the eArc.
And yes, I’d be quite happy to chip in with you to get Weber an editor. 😀
@Jack Lint:
My dad read those books to my brother and me when we were littluns. Loved them.
My boys both love the My Father’s Dragon books.
Re: Good dragons, has Ellegon from Joel Rosenberg’s “Guardians of the Flame” series been forgotten already? Not only a good but a sarcastic dragon.