(1) HONEST POSTERS. “If 2016’s Oscar-nominated movie posters told the truth” they’d be very funny. Courtesy of Shiznit.
(2) A TOP TEN WITH FANGS. Here’s Fantasy Faction’s ingenious list – “Top Ten Wolves In Fantasy”. How come I never do Top 10 Lists for File 770? People love them. Ah well, there isn’t enough time to do everything that’s a good idea.
- Maugrim (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, by C.S.Lewis)
Maugrim was the head of The Witch’s Police in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and relished the dirty work that had to be done. Seen by many as an agent of the Devil, he is the ugly face of evil in Narnia and makes no bones about it. He is instrumental in the coming of age of Peter who eventually slays him, earning the name Sir Peter Wolfsbane.
(3) BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Gustaff Behr tries to work out “How Much Does It Cost Being A Doctor Who Fan?”
Fred starts where all new fans start. He wants to go back and take a look at how Doctor Who came back in 2005 which means, including Series 9 which he will definitely get; Fred needs 9 seasons of complete box sets which costs on average $65.00. That’s $585.00 in total for Chris, David, Matt, John and Peter.
Being a Who fan costs at least $585.00 if you buy all nine New Who seasons of Doctor Who.
And after watching nine seasons of Doctor Who, barely sleeping, bathing or eating, Fred craves more. He needs to see how Doctor Who started all the way back in 1963. He also has to see the celery Doctor, the scarf Doctor, the pullover one and all the other past Doctors he’s heard so much about. He knows there are 156 classic stories of Doctor Who which range between $13.99 and $16.99 so we’ll budget for $15.49 as a rough average. That’s $2416.44 for the whole of the Classic Era of Doctor Who.
Being a Who fan costs at least $3001.44 if you want to have the entire television collection of Doctor Who from William Hartnell all the way up to Peter Capaldi.
And then he moves on to the merchandise….
(4) FUNICELLO OBIT. [CORRECTION — Turns out the source has taken an old story and given it a 2016 timestamp. But it might still be news to somebody….] Annette Funicello (1942-20162013) died January 11, 2013 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. She was 70. Funicello was a child star as a Mousketeer on the original Mickey Mouse Club, and as a teenager starred opposite Frankie Avalon in several beach movies. Her genre work included Babes In Toyland (1961), and quasi-genre movies like The Monkey’s Uncle, and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.
(5) GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON TRIBUTE. The Girl George & the Dragons Radio Show talked about George Clayton Johnson with his son, Paul Johnson, and others on January 17.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 17, 1605 – Don Quixote was published.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY SITH
- Born January 17, 1931 — James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader (and an actor renowned for many other roles.)
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born January 17, 1962 – Jim Carrey, of Hugo-winner The Truman Show, The Mask, and other quasi-fantasy films.
(9) MEET KYLO. Joseph Pimentel reports in the Orange County Register that Kylo Ren will replace Darth Vader in the “meet-and-greet” section of Disneyland’s Star Wars area in Tomorrowland where people stand in line to get autographs and photos with Disney characters.
Guests will be able to mingle with Kylo Ren, a central character from the smash hit “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” in Tomorrowland, Disney announced Friday. The company declined to say when the light-saber-wielding dark warrior and Jedi slayer will debut.
Ren will join Chewbacca, and Boba Fett as characters from the “Star Wars” franchise available for visitors to meet and take photos with at the Star Wars Launch Bay. There’ll also First Order Stormtroopers roaming around.
The upper floor of the building, the Tomorrowland Expo Center formerly known as Innoventions, houses the Super Hero HQ where guests meet Spider-Man and Thor.
Ren will replace Darth Vader, the original “Star Wars” villain, in the meet-and-greet. The Sith Lord Vader will continue to be in the show “Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple.”
Meet-and-greets with various Disney characters have become one of Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s signature attractions, drawing long lines of visitors wanting autograph, pictures and hugs.
(10) KYLO ON SNL. Saturday Night Live sent Kylo Ren (guest star Adam Driver) undercover as Matt, a radar technician, in Star Wars Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base.
(11) ABOUT SPECTRAL PRESS. Simon Bestwick has written a lengthy, heavily-documented post about issues with Spectral Press, publishers of his book Black Mountain.
Readers may wish to pour themselves a large, stiff drink before continuing. This is going to be a long post.
I’ve thought long and hard before blogging on this topic, but there is a great deal of confusion and misinformation out there, and I believe it’s important that the facts be made available. There is also an issue of transparency to customers regarding Spectral Press in its past or present incarnations….
7) The Short Version Spectral Press has published books, which sold. A share of the money from their sales is, contractually, their authors’. Their authors have not received it, and yet Spectral do not have it. Spectral Press has taken money from customers from books that have gone undelivered and, in some cases, unpublished. Many of these customers want their money back, and yet Spectral do not have it. I would just like to close by reminding anyone who feels Spectral’s critics are being unreasonable, that this situation has persisted for over a year; that the amount owed is a very large sum for a small press to owe, and that the individual in whose hands this situation has been placed has responded to polite and factual criticism with insults and blocking critics on social media, and whose own history should be cause for concern.
(12) ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH. Anne Wheaton tells her blog readers why she bid Twitter goodbye.
In real life, I stand up for myself. If someone says or does something to me or someone around me, I do something about it. As my online presence grew, there were people who don’t follow me showing up to say something horrible about me, my husband, or my children. Yes, they can be muted, blocked, or reported, and I was doing that all the time, every day. Sometimes I responded because like I said, in real life I stand up for myself so occasionally, I will do that online. But after a while, it’s like trying to smile and have a pleasant conversation with a kind person in a room full of people screaming hateful things in your face. You can ignore it but eventually, it just isn’t worth even talking at all and you just have to walk out of that room to protect yourself.
I chose to be on Twitter. I am not a celebrity. I am a middle-aged woman who’s a retired hairdresser who now runs a non-profit, is on the Board of Directors at Pasadena Humane Society, has a house FULL of rescue animals, and has two wonderful boys. I do not have a job I need to promote, nor am I looking for a job to take on. I have a full life with an amazing husband and family, wonderful friends, and a successful business I run. If something I choose to do on the side isn’t fun, I need to walk away from it because my free time is pretty scarce. Twitter used to be the fun thing I did on the side, and for the most part, it just isn’t fun anymore, so I need to walk away from it and that’s okay.
(13) ANOTHER TWITTER MAELSTROM. Neil Gaiman’s tweet endorsing Clarion set off a wave of complaints. Brad R. Torgersen was as surprised as Gaiman himself by the controversy, but did a better job of understanding the reaction.
I guess Gaiman upset people with this?
https://t.co/KxqDo9CY9y is where you apply to go to Clarion. If you want to be a writer, you want to go to Clarion, NEED to go to Clarion.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) January 15, 2016
…Second, Gaiman is simply expressing what all of us have expressed — from time to time — about our favorite learning experiences. I have evangelized for the Kris Rusch and Dean Smith workshops, the Dave Wolverton workshops, the Writers of the Future workshop, the Superstars Writing Seminar, the “Life, The Universe & Everything” symposium, and so on, and so forth. All of them have been very valuable to me, and remain valuable long after attendance and participation….
It would be great if a Clarion-type experience were free. But running a workshop with that kind of scope and scale, is not cheap. And the truth is, there are people who will argue that it shouldn’t be cheap. That the high cost weeds out the dilettantes. So that only serious students, who are dedicated, will apply for acceptance. Clarion isn’t designed for wannabes. Clarion is for budding professional artists, who want to flower in an environment that will feed and nurture their professional artistry. Or at least that’s the ideal. And I definitely think Gaiman had the ideal in mind, when he wrote what he wrote.
Still, there is no royal road to publication and acclaim. I don’t have the stats in front of me, but I suspect Clarion’s success rate is probably on par with just about every other workshop going. Which means two-thirds of Clarion’s graduates, won’t make it. They won’t sell. Or at least, they won’t sell well. They will find that life has other work for them, and they will move on.
(13) ONE THUMB DOWN. Fran Wilde’s tweets, 10 of which are Storified here, illustrate the negative response.
https://twitter.com/fran_wilde/status/687982330942722049
(14) ANOTHER THUMB DOWN. Alex Bledsoe, in “Thoughts on Clarion, Privilege and Gaiman”, is one of many other writers sounding off about how they launched professional writing careers without the help of a workshop.
Now, I don’t for a moment believe that Gaiman literally meant need, as in you can’t consider yourself a real writer unless you have Clarion on your CV. But at the same time, I understand the outrage of those who see his statement as an unthinking beacon of privilege. Who the hell is Neil Gaiman, who will never again have to worry about paying bills, or child care, or taking time off from work, or any of the day-to-day struggles that most of his readers experience, to tell us what we need? It’s in the same ballpark as Gwyneth Paltrow’s famous statements about her being a “typical” mother.
Like a lot of writers, I never went to Clarion, or any professional writing workshop. I learned to write via journalism, both from studying it and working at it. I like to say it’s one reason my books are so short, but in another very important way, it taught me to approach writing as a job. A reporter is no special snowflake: if he or she can’t do the work, there’s always someone waiting to eagerly step up. So you get on with it, and do the best you can with what you have. That lesson has been incredibly useful as a fiction writer, too.
(15) GAYLACTIC SPECTRUM AWARDS. The winners and recommended short list for the 2014/2015 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards in the Best Novel category were announced at Chessiecon in November 2015.
- The 2015 award for 2013 titles winner was Death by Silver by Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold.
- The 2015 award for 2014 titles went to Fairs’ Point by Melissa Scott.
(16) DAVIDSON ON THE FINE POINTS. Steve Davidson discusses “How To Recommend Without Slating” at Amazing Stories.
As it has evolved, an acceptable Eligibility Post is limited to the following elements:
- A statement that a work is, under the rules in play, eligible for a particular category of award.
- Information on where and when the story was made available (so that others can verify its eligibility)
- A suggestion that those voting for the award in question might be interested in checking it out
- An Eligibility Post may also include an opportunity for others to add other works that are eligible
An Eligibility Post does not contain:
- reasons why someone ought to vote for the work
- begging for votes in any manner
- discussion of external politics that are somehow related to voting for the work
- discussion of the “messages” that will be sent by voting for the work
- plays for sympathy, or authorial love, mentions of career status
The Eligibility Post was soon joined by the “Recommended Reading” list…..
(17) POSTCARD FROM THE EDGE. In 2004, soon after meeting Howard Waldrop, Lou Antonelli succeeded in selling his first story.
I wrote Howard and told him meeting him had brought me good luck. He later dropped me this postcard. I recently found it in a drawer while cleaning up a messy storage shed, and thought I’d share it. If you have trouble reading Howard’s handwriting, this is what it says:
“Dear Lou,
“Congratulations on the sale to Gardner. (You were already getting rejection letters – it was only a matter of time, whether you came to Austin or not!) You’ve sentenced yourself to a life of bitterness and frustration, like me..
“Way to go!
“Yer pal,
“Howard”Howard is a great writer, a nice guy, and it also seems, a clairvoyant.
(18) BOWIE MOVIE SCREENINGS. The Vista Theatre in LA sold out its Labyrinth 30th Anniversary midnight screening (for obvious reasons) and has scheduled another.
In January we’re going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of our favorite fantasy films- LABYRINTH, featuring everyone’s favorite goblin king Jareth and his Bowie-bulge! Feel free to join us in costume and dance, magic dance! Response to this event was larger than we expected- we were trending towards a sell out by show night, but with the tragic passing of David Bowie yesterday we sold out in 6 hours of the news breaking. We want all our friends and Bowie fans in our nerd circle to be able to grieve in the manner they chose and if celebrating his life with Labyrinth on the big screen is what they want than we’re here to help. We’ve added this SATURDAY NIGHT midnight screening for those that were unable to catch tickets for Friday night. We will have a costume contest both nights, and hope everyone enjoys the hell out of this film and Bowie’s incredible performance on the big screen
(19) ONE BUSY HOMBRE. Today’s mandatory Guillermo del Toro news is that he will develop to potentially direct Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark for CBS Films. The film is based on the trilogy by Alvin Schwartz.
He is such a big fan of the books that he owns ten of the original illustrations by Gammell.
In addition to potentially directing, del Toro will also produce the film alongside Sean Daniel, Jason Brown and Elizabeth Grave. Alvin Schwartz’s trilogy of short story collections have sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. Even though, from the moment it was published in 1984, the Scary Stories series was one of the most banned from placement by the American Library Association, as the collections were considered to be too scary for children. The ensuing controversy only helped to fuel sales, and the trilogy has remained a cultural phenomenon ever since.
(20) RAINBOW BATMAN. DC Comics invites fans to “Brighten your batcave with Rainbow Batman figures”
Why should the criminals of Gotham get all the colorful costumes? Now you can have the Caped Crusader in pink, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.
Where did these come from? According to Yahoo! Movies —
A year ago, DC Collectibles opened up their vault to reveal prototypes of statues, action figures, and busts that were never produced and allowed fans to vote on which item from the collection should be produced and sold. A colorful line of Batmen figures based on “The Rainbow Batman” cover of Detective Comics #241 (1957) won the poll.
(21) JACK KIRBY DRAMATIZED. Now on stage in Seattle (through January 23), “’King Kirby’ play profiles the artist behind the superheroes, overshadowed by Stan Lee”.
“King Kirby” opens with the canonization of its subject at a high-level sale, where an auctioneer recounts the artist’s pictorial achievements and begins the bidding on each Kirby illustration at thousands of dollars.
From somewhere in the beyond, Kirby (who died in the 1990s, and is portrayed with vigor and conviction by Rick Espaillat) looks on disgustedly at the pretentious upscaling of his work.
In a pungent Brooklyn accent and with a defensive edginess, Kirby takes us back to his humble beginnings growing up in a rough neighborhood, where he had to use his fists to fend off attackers.
No wonder he invented heroic protectors and epic rescuers. Fascinated by mythology and quick with a sketchbook, Kirby starts out doing grunt work in a cartoon sweatshop, forms a partnership with a business-savvy pal, and comes into his own working under a series of amusingly irate moguls. In collaboration with head honcho and collaborator Stan Lee, he’s a big reason why Lee’s Marvel Comics still thrill the masses with spinoffs of characters created in the 1940s and ’50s.
Lee is portrayed as a marketing maestro and idea man, who not only stiffed his top artist out of franchise deals and royalties but also presented himself as the sole inventor of superheroes co-created and fleshed out by Kirby.
(22) STAN THE MAN. CBS Sunday Morning program featured “The Marvelous Life of Stan Lee” on January 17.
The comic starts out, as Stan started out, as Stanley Martin Leiber, born to Jewish immigrants in 1922. He grew up poor in a tiny Bronx apartment during the Depression.
When Stan was old enough, he started looking for jobs to help pay the bills, and in 1939 he landed at a publishing house which just happened to have a small division called Timely Comics.
“I’d fill the ink wells — in those days they used ink!” he said. “I’d run down and get them sandwiches at the drug store, and I’d proofread the pages, and sometimes in proofreading I’d say, ‘You know, this sentence doesn’t sound right. It ought to be written like this.’ ‘Well, go ahead and change it!’ They didn’t care!”
Characters like Destroyer, Father Time and Jack Frost soon had Stan’s fingerprints all over them.
He got so caught up in the battles of good vs. evil that after Pearl Harbor, it seemed only natural he join the Army.
“Oh hell, how could you not volunteer for the Army?” he said. “Hitler was over there doing all those horrible things.”
But instead of fighting, Lee found himself drawing. His best work: a poster telling soldiers how NOT to get VD.
“I drew a little soldier, very proudly,” he recalled. “And he’s saying, ‘VD? Not me!’ as he walks in. They must have printed a hundred trillion of those! I think I won the war single-handedly with that poster!”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Tom Galloway, Steve Lieber, Andrew Porter, and Kendall for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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First fifth!
Sigh. Neither first nor fifth. Maybe I should have gone to Clarion…
Also, Annette Funicello died in April 2013.
Might I recommend that all of you voting for Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form skip out on all those TV-series for a while and instead check out this site? There’s a lot of good stuff to be found:
http://iloveshortfilms.com/category/short-films-genre/sci-fi-films/
Also, this one is nice:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/27/8299419/watch-surreal-sci-fi-short-that-just-got-a-movie-deal
Fifth!
I blush.
Correction entered…
(1) HONEST POSTERS.- Holy crap these are hilarious (and make me really want to watch all the movies. Well, except the first one).
(10) KYLO ON SNL. – Wow. That was terrible.
@Hampus
In the same vein:
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/here-are-the-2015-sploid-short-film-festival-finalists-1742425601
Many of them are reaalllly good (I particularly recommend the One Minute Time Machine one)
ETA: Sec^H^H^H^Third Fifth?
Mike: In item 11, you twice wrote Spectrum Press when it should be Spectral.
Vasha: Thanks for the help.
Looks like one day off from Scrolling was either too many, or not enough…
Is it just me? I read the links to the Gaiman uproar and the one thing I took away was wondering why they say “I sure he was just being enthusiastic about the experience” and then proceeded to bitch. They came across very defensive.
Jesus Christ, people, it’s expensive, we get it, some people can’t afford it, boo hoo, move on already.
Also, I hate the “he should have known better” attitude.
Sorry, I’m having one of those ‘everywhere I go online someone’s having a moral issue’ days and I’m cranky.
Amen, Harold.
Surpised the Fenris Wolf wasn’t in the list. Or the mother of Romulus and Remus.
snowcrash:
Haha, that one was good! 😀 Excellent, now I feel will find some stuff to nominate in that category. TV-series are not for me.
@Harold, blowups like this are why I quit Twitter two years ago. It’s an endless sea of anguish and outrage whose culture encourages users to rely on reflexive indignation rather than thoughtful consideration. I mean, I’m unemployed, I’ve never made more than $10 on a story, and while I have some savings, I’m not prepared to blow them on Clarion anytime soon. But for the love of crap, the last thing I’d assume is that Neil Gaiman’s tweet was a slight against writers like me.
I wish I could go to that special Labyrinth showing. I hope those who go enjoy it to the max for me.
Psssst. Two number 13s.
Also, I would really like Rainbow Batman figures.
Third thirteenth!
I think the negativity to Gaiman’s tweet is going to make my long list for the WTF? Awards. The awards for for the most ludicrous dummy spits in the genre fan community.
Pretty sure Neil made it as a writer without attending Clarion, too, though he’s taught there since.
(10) KYLO ON SNL – Let’s not do that again. That was…not good.
(13A) ANOTHER TWITTER MAELSTROM – Possibly in contrast to (10), but maybe because it was actually good, I liked what Brad Torgerson had to say. There are a lot of ways to improve your writing and not everyone can or should go to Clarion or to Hedgebrook or to The Loft or to local writers groups,
Everyone is welcome to their own outrage parade, but I doubt Neil Gaiman meant to make even one person feel somehow less than.
eta: Today’s triskaidekaphobics meeting is in room 12.
Tintinaus: I think the negativity to Gaiman’s tweet is going to make my long list for the WTF? Awards. The awards for for the most ludicrous dummy spits in the genre fan community.
I think Gaiman meant well. I think he genuinely believes attending Clarion would be a huge asset to a writer’s career (and it would).
But I don’t think it ever occurred to him that he speaks from a position of “wealthy, successful writer” and that his Tweet would be real salt in the wound to struggling writers and writers-to-be who have no spare time or money for such a luxury… writers who would love to attend Clarion, but know that it is just not a possibility for them, and who know that they will never attain 1/100th or even 1/1000th of his success or money.
I know that I’ve been made angry by a thoughtless remark tossed off by someone who was in a huge position of privilege compared to my own, a remark that assumed things were much easier than they really were. It’s a natural human reaction to be hurt or angry in those circumstances.
Is their reaction a little over-the-top? Probably. Was his Tweet ill-advised? Probably.
Cheryl S.: Today’s triskaidekaphobics meeting is in room 12
… which can be found on Floor 14, which is one elevator stop above Floor 12. 😉
The Gaiman Clarion thing is an overreaction as is wont to happen frequently online. Twitter is really bad for nuance, though Gaiman also worded his tweet poorly. After all, he never attended Clarion himself.
(16) I endorse this.
On the cost of being a Doctor Who fan, I disagree with the quoted estimate in two ways:
1. I own all of the nuWho sets, but I have a habit of buying on sale. Amazon sales on BBC sets are hardly rare. A canny new fan can certainly make good use of those; my last major Who buy was five items (including Series 8) for 40% off.
2. Not all of the classic Who stories have reached DVD, due in part to some of them being Missing Stories.
So, estimating too high a price on too many items? That’s a sure way to overestimate costs.
(1) HONEST POSTERS.: Excellent. Because The Martian is not merely a musical but a musical comedy! I also like the cast credits on the Ex Machina poster.
(2) A TOP TEN WITH FANGS: I don’t know if I would consider Jack London as fantasy, particularly since Buck and White Fang are almost deliberately not anthropomorphised. Those are possibly my two favorite books starring canines, but I just don’t see them fitting with the rest of the list.
For a bit more fantastical character, one that didn’t make the list but that I rather liked was Blind Seer from the Firekeeper saga. And if we’re doing werewolves I’d toss in a few of Patricia Briggs’s characters.
(9) MEET KYLO: Oh good. Kylo Ren really seems like he needs hugs. Just make sure his lightsaber is somewhere far, far away.
(10) KYLO ON SNL: That wasn’t an especially good Star Wars parody, but dang it was on the nose for the show Undercover Boss. On. The. Nose.
Terrible undercover costume, check. Employees being able to see through the terrible costume, check. Exec fishing for info from employees over awkward meals, check. Competent manager disgusted by the exec’s ineptitude for basic tasks, check. Cheesy sob story from an employee that touches the undercover exec, check. It was pretty much every episode of Undercover Boss ever. The show is just that awful and formulaic.
First rule of celebrity deaths: Whenever one appears in your social media feed, you always, ALWAYS check Wikipedia. If it’s not someone trolling by trying to ride the coattails of recent real celebrity deaths with one that happened years ago, it’s some automatic news aggregator that—because most news sources don’t bother to put a year in their header—recognizes a story matches today’s date but from the wrong year. There are simply far too many reasons an ancient death could pop up in the present, and before you pass it on you have the responsibility to make sure you’re not serving last year’s leftovers.
(13A) ANOTHER TWITTER MAELSTROM: When Brad R. Torgersen is a nominal voice of reason in a dustup, there must be a great disturbance in the Force.
(16) DAVIDSON ON THE FINE POINTS: I’m rather impressed by the definition of “eligibility post.” It seems to codify a bit of what I held in my head as “acceptable” for such a post. I don’t know that I feel the same way about the “recommended reading list” guidelines…will have to consider those more carefully and figure out what’s bugging me about them.
(20) RAINBOW BATMAN: Oh em gee, that is one of my favorite classic Batman covers. But ugh, $70? I don’t know if I can justify that. Maybe I’ll just keep an eye out for rogue pink Batman figurines on eBay.
(22) STAN THE MAN:
Any way to purchase one of these posters for an upcoming comment section?
After someone retweeted a call for a dogpile the other day that included the unusual insult “Heliocentric” I have been increasingly pulled to the idea of creating an OutrageBot which would merely tweet “A celebrity has expressed an opinion on twitter! Outrage! Release the hounds” at regular intervals.
Speaking of The Martian…
I watched the movie yesterday and am about a quarter of the way through the novel now, and I just spotted what looks like a sizable plot hole in both. It’s relatively minor in terms of the A-plot, but since the movie’s still a very new home-media release, I’ll ROT13 it anyway:
ANFN’f qrpvfvba abg gb gryy gur perj nobhg Jngarl’f fheiviny qbrfa’g jbex. V unira’g tbggra gb gur (uru) pbeerfcbaqvat cbvag va gur obbx lrg, ohg gur zbivr znxrf vg rkcyvpvg gung gurl’er trggvat rznvy naq ivqrb sebz ubzr – va n jnl gung nccrnef hasvygrerq. Fb rvgure Zvffvba Pbageby unf zvenphybhfyl pbaivaprq gur cynarg gb cynl nybat, be gurl unir gb or prafbevat fb zhpu pbeerfcbaqrapr gung vg’q or Ernyyl Qnzarq Boivbhf va n uheel. Arvgure frrzf cnegvphyneyl granoyr.
@JJ I think it summed up pretty well. Using the word NEED, in caps, made his boostering of Clarion seem more like necessity, and as Fran indicated, not everyone can go off and do Clarion. Or Taos, or Stonecoast, or Odyssey. Did he mean it literally, though? Almost certainly not. But it’s easy, like Milo, to jump to the island of conclusions.
Writers can be temperamental sorts, as we all already know from the drama with the Puppies.
Uru. You know you’ve been reading too many File770 comment sections when you can parse ROT13’d acronyms and names like they haven’t been spoilered at all.
I’m trying to remember if there was anything about prafbevat rznvy in the book. Maybe? It does seem like a rather large thing to overlook.
Gosh, I am glad that someone has decided to tell us all what is an acceptable blog post. What a responsibility to assume!
@Wildcat:
Turns out the book does address it. At 40% of the way through the ebook, the voice message to the crew in Chapter 12 mentions it. I still think the scope of the operation required would’ve made the issue obvious to the crew well before that point. Even if they didn’t know what the sensitive data was, they’d spot the coverup itself.
Rev. Bob: Fb rvgure Zvffvba Pbageby unf zvenphybhfyl pbaivaprq gur cynarg gb cynl nybat, be gurl unir gb or prafbevat fb zhpu pbeerfcbaqrapr gung vg’q or Ernyyl Qnzarq Boivbhf va n uheel.
As I recall, ANFN qbrf nqzvg gurl’er prafbevat gur pbzzf gb gur Urezrf fb nf gb cerirag gur nfgebanhgf sebz sernxvat bhg ng gur qvfpbirel gung gurl yrsg Jngarl nybar ba Znef naq gelvat gb qb fbzrguvat nobhg vg — which is why gur ratvarref frag rapbqrq vafgehpgvbaf ba ubj gb znxr gur erghea gevc gb Znef qvfthvfrq nf n cvpgher sebz gur jvsr bs bar bs gur nfgebanhgf.
ETA: apologies if I let a bit of un-rot13ed spoiler out to anyone.
(16) DAVIDSON ON THE FINE POINTS
Good points there. I think he is perhaps a little bit too strict in what one shouldn’t do, but mostly I would say I agree.
re Rev Bob / Martian:
I vaguely remember the movie describing gung gurl bayl tbg cevingr znvy bapr va n juvyr. Naq gung gurer jnf pyrne onaqjvqgu yvzvgngvbaf. Ohg V zvtug or jebat.
Jura fbzrbar whzcf gur punva bs pbzznaq naq gryyf gurz nobhg gur cbffvovyvgl bs ergheavat jvgu Nerf gb cvpx hc Jngarl, gurl uvqr gur zrffntr va na nggnpuzrag jvgu n svyranzr fhttrfgvat na vzntr – juvpu fhttrfgf fbzr fbeg bs pbzzhavpngvba pbageby ohg abg n irel gubebhtu prafbevat (fvapr gung fubhyq unir cvpxrq hc gur snxr nggnpuzrag.)
I suspect struggling, insecure genre writers (that is, the vast majority of us) get twitchy whenever someone implies in an authoritative tone that there are still more gatekeepers to be passed. Which, I’m willing to stipulate, isn’t what Mr. Gaiman was saying – but it could certainly be taken that way.
@JJ, Johan:
First, I’m glad I watched the movie, because I haven’t gotten to the uvqqra zrffntr part in the book yet… which I thought would be obvious from my having to amend my criticism when I reached Chapter 12. I very deliberately stayed away from the book until I’d watched the movie, because I’m trying to see how they compare; book spoilers are still not welcome.
Second, my objection is to ubj zhpu prafbevat jbhyq unir gb or qbar gb fhpprffshyyl pbaprny Jngarl’f fheiviny. V zrna, vg’f Uhtr Qnza Arjf gung cenpgvpnyyl rirel pbzz sebz Gur Bhgfvqr Jbeyq jbhyq or qrznaqvat gurve bcvavbaf ba. Gur perj jbhyqa’g arprffnevyl xabj jung snpg jnf orvat uvqqra, ohg vg jbhyq or irel boivbhf – gb gurz naq gb Gur Bhgfvqr Jbeyq – gung gur prafbefuvc jnf unccravat.
I just don’t find the idea of NASA successfully keeping that up for two months convincing. Somebody would’ve caught on.
And why not? Can’t stand them bleedin’ Copernicans, comin’ over ‘ere, rearrangin’ our cosmologies….
Rev. Bob: I just don’t find the idea of NASA successfully keeping that up for two months convincing. Somebody would’ve caught on.
Remember, they’re on what? an 18 month trip back to Earth? (Sorry, I don’t remember the exact length.) The time lag on A/V comms is 1/2 hour or something like that. IIRC, each astronaut got a very limited amount of comm time. And it had to come via NASA. I’m quite sure family messages would be pre-recorded and then transmitted later (edited, if necessary). Any e-mails exchanged had to come through NASA, too — which meant they could easily be censored.
I don’t think that tight of control is hard to believe at all.
In fairness to Neil Gaiman, just imagine how successful J.K. Rowling might have been if she had bothered her arse to go to Clarion instead of hanging around in cafes scribbling the whole time.
@Nicholas Whyte: it’s a proscription for a particular kind of post, not “how to write a blog post”. But I think you knew that. Be more than happy to tell everyone else how to do just about anything else – but no one would really listen and the moment I started addressing book reviews, I’d be accused of offering a way to create slates. (Hmmm – coming sometime soon – How to Slate Without Recommending…)
Johan P: I’ve done a lot of sports officiating (and rules writing). Once players figure out where the “line” is, they start flirting with it. Without strict definitions, that line gets very fuzzy, very quickly, starts getting pushed and you end up with soup. You usually end up defining the line by those physical actions you can objectively measure (both feet have to touch in bounds, the ball has to be under control – which is largely subjective – etc.
I offered a line that is about as hard and fast as I could devise given the subject. And will suggest that those wanting to avoid accusations or confusion do so by staying back from the line.
*twitch*
Apologies if I’m getting this wrong, but this is like someone saying “just imagine how successful Gates/ Jobs/ Zuckerberg would’ve been if they bothered to finish uni”.
There are many arguments to be made against Gaiman’s overly broad characterisation (Twitter – where nuance goes to die!) but with all due respect, something like the above isn’t it.
Again, apologies if I’m not quite getting your point, but it’s similar to some arguments elsewhere and elsewhen that I’ve gotten really tired of, so I’m kinda kneejerky (or jerky?) about it.
(11) Surely mail fraud and similar charges could be used at this point? Not exactly subtle, but it tends to concentrate the mind in a big way.
Maybe it is just the places I hang out, but most of the responses I saw to Gaiman’s tweet seemed pretty measured. “Yeah he probably didn’t mean it literally, but anyway most people can’t afford to go and you don’t have to go to be a real writer.”
I *have* seen one tweet that struck me as less measured, but I’ve seen a lot more blog posts about unnecessary outrage than I’ve seen actual outrage. Maybe all the outrage is on Twitter and I don’t see it because Twitter and my browser only get along intermittently…
Did anyone SWAT Neil Gaiman? Threaten him physically? Contact his employer and try to get him fired? Those would all be unacceptable. There are probably other things.
I think Fenris Ulf was Maugrim’s name in the American edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (no idea why).
RE: Labyrinth. My local arthouse cinema (and by local, I mean a less than 10 minute walk from my front door) put on two showings last weekend and they were sold out before we even heard about them. Labyrinth is a very special movie for my wife and I – our first dance at our wedding was to As the World Falls Down
The whole Clarion thing rolled off my back completely, because I had several book contracts in hand before I ever heard of Clarion, but I fell into this gig sideways, so maybe it’s not surprising. (Also, the idea of weeks and weeks of having to talk to people about their writing, and having to hear them talk about my writing is my personal vision of hell, but that’s another story…)
But the extent of people’s feelings about Clarion was pretty surprising. People have Feelings, apparently. I think Gaiman stuck his foot into a rather large puddle of them.
One thing I DID hear, talking to friends, were a couple who felt they’d been snubbed by Clarion grads in the past. “Oh, well, I went to Clarion, so I’m one of the anointed, peon.” I can certainly understand feeling pretty uncharitable about that. (I also can’t swear that no one’s ever tried that on me–I am capable of some pretty solid cheerful obliviousness in person, particularly if I’ve been drinking, and I am extremely hard to snub as a result. So maybe the world is full of haughty Clarion grads, for all I know.)
I’m just going to enjoy Brad R. Torgerson being the voice of reason here for a little while longer… I suspect that such moments are rare and to be treasured.
Seriously, both Torgerson and Trump said sensible things in the space of one week. I’m actively worried.
Mike Glyer ”
“Looks like you picked the wrong week to quit wrangling idiots”?