(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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I’m a little outraged that Gaiman couldn’t have made the irony more obvious, so his joke didn’t fall flat. He’s a professional writer!
::ticky::
Of interest to Bay Area folks who are watching The Expanse: there’s going to be a meetup with linguist Nick Farmer, who created the Belter creole for the show, this Wednesday at 5pm at Longitude in Oakland (14th & Webster, two blocks from the 12th Street BART station).
https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/688799949769736192
Hey copengs, mi pensa kowlting gonya gut, kowlmang gonya xush. Milowda see tolowda, ke?
Between the Anne Wheaton and Gaiman stories, I now have two more reasons for not ever using Twitter.
On The Martian poster, am I the only one who thought of Good Will Hunting as yet another Matt Damon rescue mission?
I should probably stop here, but just one more observation on my part:
If something like Gaiman’s tweet bothers you sufficiently to make you very upset, then a tweet like that may just be the least of your problems.
I’ve literally had people pat me on the head like I was a dog or a two year old (or just completely ignore me) and then ask someone I was with a question about me. It happened most recently in the last couple of years.
Maybe I have an easier time of letting things slide because I have the hide of a rhino, but something like the Gaiman tweet, I laugh about, maybe roll my eyes and then I get on with the day. I’ve been writing since I can remember. I will never, ever, be able to even consider Clarion, just from a monetary standpoint. BFD.
You cannot control the comments and behavior of others. You can, however, control how you react to said comments/behavior.
Yes, you’re just cynical.
Neil has a four-month old baby at home. Anyone thinking he should lose sleep over this faux pas, no worries, I’m sure he is. Anyone overanalyzing it as a serious statement when you now know it was hyperbole, you aren’t helping anyone.
Bill Sienkiewicz, this morning on Twitter, said “I am in my friend!” There was much hilarity over the missing comma, but nobody’s still going on about how he really should have known better. Twitter isn’t exactly the place to expect polished prose.
I occasionally am asked by people how to send submissions to a comics publisher, and I tell them that virtually all comics publishers have submissions guidelines at their website. Some of these people will then ask me for website URLs, and I’m trying to think of a polite way to say, “A freelancer in comics is a small businessman. If your skills don’t encompass the ability or energy to find a publisher’s URL yourself, you don’t have what it takes.”
In this case, I have to admit, I’m at least partially thinking, “If you are so underconfident as a writer that Neil Gaiman being hyperbolic about Clarion on Twitter chases you off from pursuing a career in the field, you don’t have what it takes either. You will encounter far higher hurdles than that, some of them not imaginary.”
That doesn’t sound polite either, but for Pete’s sake, what will these people do when they run into someone who says “You have to know someone; it ain’t skill, it’s contacts”? That person’s wrong, too, but there are a lot of them out there.
One odd side development of the Gaiman dust up is that I have discovered that I am still living rent-free in Brad Torgersen’s head.
@Kurt: “for Pete’s sake, what will these people do when they run into someone who says “You have to know someone; it ain’t skill, it’s contacts”?”
Judging by recent history? Attempt to start a culture war to game the system. Just a hunch.
Jim,
Please point to where I said he was being abused.
@Tintinaus:
I’m saying if there’s not abuse there’s no “mob.” This is the core of our disagreement over the word mob. You seem to think the word “mob” has validity in the absence of a crowd of attackers (as opposed to critics). I don’t.
(13) ANOTHER TWITTER MAELSTROM
I’ve been offline for a bit. What on earth is the beef with Clarion?
ETA: NM, I’m reading (13) and (14). Good grief.
Peace:
It’s all just a typo for this:
http://comicsalliance.com/files/2014/10/AC031.jpg
@Robert Reynolds
I’ve literally had people pat me on the head like I was a dog or a two year old (or just completely ignore me) and then ask someone I was with a question about me.
Gah, I hate that. That’s so dehumanizing. I work in a pharmacy, and I make it a point to always speak to the patient, even if their caregiver is with them and it’s obvious that the patient won’t understand me.
‘Yes, Jason Blood, your worse nightmare has come true. Etrigan got hold of your Twitter password. You’re now wanted for defamation, blasphemy, Rhyme Crime and Grammar Violations in 23 jurisdictions and gamergate have had you beatified.’
‘Oh, wait… yes, you’ve just been nominated for a Hugo.’
2) A TOP TEN WITH FANGS
@Mike Glyer
You could farm this out to filers. Crowdsource it. Brackets even.
4) FUNICELLO OBIT
Still sad after all these years.
9) MEET KYLO
I sound like a broken record – why not Rey or General Leia – never a woman
11) ABOUT SPECTRAL PRESS
What a mess. I feel sorry for just about everyone involved
12) ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH
No but her husband is. She is a public person in her own right (based on number of followers she had). She has every right to stop using social media.
My issue is with how many people don’t understand that in today’s world of social media we all are public people. If you have friends/followers in the thousands you just might be a social media celebrity as the lines are blurring. As soon as you sign up for any social media you become a public person. Your data is being mined and anything you say could go viral even if you keep your accounts locked/private as your “friends/followers/family” can copy and share it with the world. Heck anything written down on paper/offline photos could be scanned and posted online using a phone. Not everyone respects our requests to keep our stuff private (or knows/remembers).
What is reasonable to expect others to respect and what’s unreasonable? How much are others expected to remember about each “friend/follower”? If one has 3,000 friends/followers should they expect all friends/followers are going to remember their profile/account is locked/private? That one doesn’t like pictures tagged/shared? That they can all be trusted at all times to have your best interest at heart and know why doing x might harm you?
Again Anne has very good reasons for leaving Twitter. Some of her statements seemed naïve to me. I see similar statements frequently enough that they are a red button for me.
13) ANOTHER TWITTER MAELSTROM
13) ONE THUMB DOWN (doubles today thank goodness for titles)
14) ANOTHER THUMB DOWN
Twitter where it’s so easy to type without context and boom it’s on. Good for BT being a voice of reason. I can understand people who wish they could attend Clarion and can’t for a number of reasons overreacting to NEED and the tweet coming across from a place of privilege.
16) DAVIDSON ON THE FINE POINTS
I liked most of this. Definitely can see he’s written rules/directions before as he’s very clear. It makes it easy to see where one agrees or disagrees. I disagree on “posting how I’ll vote” and posted a comment explaining why with caveats.
@Kurt Busiek
Yes this. Also when I see authors complaining about something their editor/alphas/beta reader said I wonder how they are going to deal with one star reviews.
BTW I’ve been in your situation in several different industries (I’m sure you are good at answering this but this is how I’ve done it for 30 years – substitute library for Google in earlier times)
A freelancer in comics is a small businessman. You need to build the skills and energy to find publishers URLs. I wouldn’t be doing you any favors if I supplied you with them. Google is you friend. May you be successful in your career. 😀
Jim,
Never go into the country. A {group name for sheep} might attack you. And stay away from public places in case you are assaulted by a {group of people suddenly gathering for a seemingly spontaneous expression of humour or art}.
I made explicit what I considered to be mob behaviour in this case(1/3 of my feed made up of anti Clarion/Gaiman tweets/links, previous vocal supporters of Clarion joining in) and find your being unable to use the term without mentally applying the word lynch to it perplexing. The word mob by itself is implication free and the problem is you have chosen only to see it in its very worst light.
Tasha,
That skit was bad enough without me suffering the pain of having someone I like being the butt of the joke.
Interesting comment on tables of contents by Chinelo Onwualu, editor of the relatively new African SF magazine Omenana:
@Tintinaus:
This is the crux of our disagreement, yes.
Because Adam Driver was that week’s SNL host.
@ Tasha
I suspect because Kylo wears a mask and you wouldn’t need the actual actor there to do the meet & greet. A better question might be why not Captain Phasma.
The answer might be as simple that Kylo is the new Vader; the “big bad character”.
Regards,
Dann
FYI, the item Tasha was referencing wasn’t the SNL skit, it was about a Star Wars feature at a theme park.
Also, I was thinking pretty much what Dann said re said feature.
Aww, shit. This week’s starting out as bad as last week. Just saw at the New York Times that Glenn Frey (of the Eagles) died.
This week’s starting out as bad as last week.
And Mic Gillette from Tower of Power, and Dale Griffin from Mott the Hoople.
I would support a Lightspeed American Conservative Rightwing destroy SFF And American Progressive Leftwing destroy SF issues done in dueling manner
@Tintinaus & @rcade
SNL decides who’s replacing Darth Vader at Disney World? I’m talking about the article prior to the one you two are so I think our wires are crossed.
@Aaron
Oh dear, and he’d been doing so well today before that.
So you’re telling me it was about the right to bear arms, not the right to arm bears?
Oh, that’s very different. Never mind.
Tasha and Kathodus,
Oops. Conclusions were jumped to, and they were wrong.
@Harold Osler: Damn. Florence King’s With Charity Toward None is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.
(12) Some people just really hate googly eyes.
(No connection to Barney Google this time.)
It could be residual Wesley Crusher hate. Some people just can’t let things go. It’s been like 25 years.
Clarion Dropout
Your future’s so unclear now
What’s left of your career now?
Can’t even get a trade in on your similes
Clarion dropout
No graduation day for you
Clarion dropout
Missed your deadlines and flunked reviews
Well, at least you could have taken time
To respond and shut your foes up
After spending all that dough
To have editors fix your prose up
Baby stop writin’
(Better stop writin’)
Why keep your feeble tropes alive?
Too much backbitin’?
(Too much backbitin’)
You’ve got the dream but not the drive
If you’d gone for your MFA you coulda joined the adjunct pool
Turn in your Writer’s Digest and go back to night school
Clarion dropout
Clarion dropout
Hangin’ around …
Apologies accepted.
I just finished The Fifth Season and now I desperately need the next book in the series. Since I can’t get my hands on that anytime soon, I’m planning to finish The Hunt For Vulcan…and How Albert Einstein Destroyed A Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe.
What recent nonfiction have you read that informs your sf reading? I’m always looking for interesting things along these lines.
Glenn Frey, Mic Gillette, and Dale Griffin?
Damn. I’m starting to get a case of the smugglers’ blues over here.
9) MEET KYLO
If they wanted a villain face character behind a mask for ease of casting, why not Captain Phasma?????
For some reason, this is reported more in the English language press than in German language media. At any rate, I found only two German language news posts about this magazine, one of which was a translation of the Motherboard/Vice article. I also found the magazine’s Twitter account, which has a measly 104 followers, half of whom are journalists or run jihadi watchblogs, and seems very eager to point out that they are not IS.
Regarding Clarion, I missed the uproar due to being busy with this thing called “real life”. But I can see where the people who were upset about Gaiman’s tweet are coming from.
I’m one of those people who can’t go to Clarion or any other big US based workshop, because living in Europe means high travel costs in addition to the already massive workshop costs. Never mind that I have health issues which make long flights problematic. And I’m fairly privileged as international writers go, since I live in a visa waiver country.
I’ve certainly seen “Well, if you really were serious about writing, you’d find the time and the money to attend Clarion/other big name workshop” reactions online. Now I don’t think that Neil Gaiman actually meant to imply that, but his tweet was unfortunately worded and it set off a lot of writers who’ve heard those “If you were really serious, you’d find a way to do it” remarks before.
Yeah, why not a less important character who got less screen time? How could they possibly not have thought of that, and instead gone with one of the major characters?
Novella review: “The Flying Man of Stone” by Dilman Dila; in AfroSFv2.
I’ve talked before about Dilman Dila’s short story “How My Father Became a God”; this novella is a sequel of sorts to it. The first story is set in precolonial Uganda, and involves a girl evading her relatives’ attempt to marry her off with the help of her father who has invented or discovered some wonderfully quirky technology that makes miraculous machines out of everyday objects; notably a flying machine and a light-powered gun. It is a tribute to the liberating power of intellect and discovery, told in a simple style; I liked it very much.
“The Flying Man of Stone” brings this premise into the present day; alas, optimism has now vanished. The main character, Kera, is a teenage boy; fleeing from brutal civil war, he and his father Baba stumble across an alien(?) species who grant Baba telepathy and the secrets of their technology in exchange for his help repairing their underground hiding place, broken open by artillery fire. Besides the aforementioned flying machine and gun, Baba draws up plans for ways to get energy, water, and all manner of life improvements.
What good is this in a land overrun with soldiers looting and massacring, though? Kera, naive, plans on using these weapons to kill all the soldiers, imagining becoming like a hero of ancient legend. The local demagogue “Teacher”, who has long argued that whites and their goods and religions are the cause of all the country’s problems, seizes the opportunity to claim that Baba’s miraculous feats are a sign that the old gods have returned and want the people to throw away all western possessions and kill all mzungu. All too many people are willing to listen to him. As violence spreads, Baba urges using his machines for peace, but is forced to retreat underground. Can Kera salvage any good from the situation?
As a commentary on the double-edged nature of technology and the poisonous legacy of colonialism, the tone of “The Flying Man of Stone” is much more overtly didactic than that of “How My Father Became a God”. I didn’t find Kera a very engaging hero, either. It was disappointing to find this sequel comparatively graceless; but it still may be worth a read.
rcade: There’s lots of sex in [Luna: New Moon], so I was amused when I reached the longest and most anatomically described sex scene — and it was solo activity. The character is so exceptionally taken with herself that no one else could compare.
I had to set that book aside a month or so ago, because I’d just started it when it came due and I was not able to renew it because it had a Hold list. I’ve just now gotten it back — but between what you’re saying, and what other Filers have said about it, I’m really giving it the side-eye now.
I love sex — when I’m the one getting it. I don’t really care for it in my SFF, though a little is fine — but certainly not to the extent you describe. I think it’s going to the bottom of my current library stack for the moment.
Were you very upset when you wrote this post? You weren’t? Why then do you presume that the folks who had a response to Gaiman’s tweet were very upset?
@Rose Embolism: Very good short-short story! Thumbs (and giggles) up.
@Aaron: Should we start a GoFundMe to get you into a better neighborhood?
It’s been a bad year for music and acting already, and it’s only Jan. 18.
Jim,
Thank you for your amazingly concise non-response. If you find yourself with anything substantive to say I will always be ready to listen.
rcade: I didn’t recognize the name Anne Wheaton, so I wondered why she’d become a target of venomous abuse on Twitter. Silly me. She’s a woman who spoke out on something, so quite obviously the ragemonkeys who ruined her experience were from GamerGate.
She’s also married to celebrity Uber-Geek Wil Wheaton, who is huge in the video and board-gaming world (he also appeared in several years’ World Series of Poker). He has been very vehemently, vocally condemnatory about GG. So I am sure that the little man-boys are keen to go after her, as yet another way to go after him.
Good for her on cutting Twitter loose. She’s got a busy, rewarding life, and I don’t blame her for not wanting to deal with unnecessary crap.
@Tintinaus:
I was being polite. In my view, we have clarified where our disagreement lies and further back-and-forth on the topic would be fruitless.
Luna: New Moon has more sex in it than I expected for a SF novel, though if I was reading a thriller I’d probably not be phased. I can’t say I was hoping for so much nookie, but I do like the implicit acceptance of alternate sexual orientations that Ian McDonald’s future represents.
Someone here not long ago said that he prefers novels where gays face some challenges due to bigotry and/or societal disapproval, because that connects to his own life experience more than complete acceptance would. That reader wouldn’t like this aspect of how Luna treats sexuality.
A lot of the sex results from one protagonist being an attractive, wealthy, responsibility-free man from a major family who just became an adult and spends a lot of his time bed hopping. I’m still wondering why he’s getting so much attention in the book.
@Kurt
I was inferring from Tasha that she was concerned about the Disney experience and that she wanted more opportunities for female characters.
I was assuming that Darth Vader was originally selected because anyone can wear the suit/mask. Captain Phasma was the most prominent female masked character from the latest movie that I could think of.
Regards,
Dann
@Dann you’d be inferring right. 🙂
@MaxL-Did you read some of the responses to Gaiman’s tweet? Did you read what I actually wrote (particularly the section you quoted)? Clearly, some of those people were very upset. Not all of them, but some of them were. That’s where the word “If” comes in in my comment. That some of the people reacting to Gaiman were upset really isn’t in much doubt if you read their comments. A minority of the respondents, to be sure, but some were clearly upset by Gaiman’s tweet..
Jim,
POLITE? You know what would have been polite?
Being polite would have been once you understood our difference in understanding is going back to where I stated I was upset about your presumptions on what I said, to re-examine what you and I said in the context of your new understanding and APOLOGISE, even if it was just for misunderstanding!
Instead you decided I wasn’t worth an apologising to, even though this is the standard practice at this blog when people state they are upset about something, and tried to pretend nothing happened.
You have not been polite during this whole discussion since not once have you tried to look at the situation from outside your own perspective, which even if you looked and then decided I was wrong in my inference, is a minimum I would expect from you in other circumstances.
COMMENTS ON PIXELS:
(1) HONEST POSTERS. LOL, although the one for “The Martian” is probably the best. There’ve done this before and some of the past recreations are pretty funny, too.
(2) A TOP TEN WITH FANGS. I gotta send this to my friend who loves wolves as much as Meredith loves dragons. But our top Dragons bracket (if it happens) will chomp on the top wolves and eat them for a snack!
(10) KYLO ON SNL. Hahaha, I liked this! I’ve seen parts of a few “Undercover Boss” episodes (yawn) and this was a great Star Wars themed parody.
(13 #1) ANOTHER TWITTER MAELSTROM. Stopped clocks and all that. Anyway, what a tempest in a teapot.
(20) RAINBOW BATMAN. Some of us always knew Batman was gay. I’m surprised you didn’t put this after the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards info, @Mike Glyer. 😉 I’m a bit surprised the one on the left is hot pink instead of red. And wow, the cover of that comic is really, really goofy. 😀
COMMENTS ON COMMENTS:
@snowcrash: Thanks for the link and reminding me about “One-Minute Time Machine”! I’d seen it, but I’d forgotten all about it! (updating my nomnomnom lis)
@NickPheas: LOL @ your destroy idea!
@Tasha Turner: I was thinking earlier today that a “Conservatives Destroy SF” would be amusing, but your idea’s 50 times better – dueling Right and Left wings destroying SF!
@Rose Embolism: Duhn duhn duhn! LOL, thanks for writing that spoof. 🙂
@Hal Winslow’s Old Buddy: ROFLMAO! I burst out laughing at the line “Why keep your feeble tropes alive?” thanks!
The last non-fiction I read was Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music by Rob Young, because I heard Elizabeth Hand speak approvingly of it in an interview before the release of Wylding Hall. It wasn’t quite the exhaustive history of the British folk revival and folk rock scene I was looking for, but it did have a lot of information that was new to me, and the two-disc CD (available separately) is outstanding.
@Tintinaus:
You seem to imagine that because I didn’t use the magic words “I am offended” by you characterizing decent people, some of whom I count as friends, as “a mob,” that I could not possibly have been offended, or that because you used the magic words first that somehow your offense is trumps. I disagree. I also don’t wish to further discuss the subject with you.