276 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 11/8 Five If By Scroll”

1. RedWombat on November 9, 2015 at 12:16 pm said:

   *And if you say that it’s because Road Warrior was actually good, I will fight you. Not because you’re wrong.

   I was going to say that, but I’ve seen how wombats fight o_O

2. next thing you know, somebody will say that the “SJWs” are hoydenish.

   Bluestockings, the lot of them!

3. I was curious about hoity-toity so I looked it up. I didn’t realize at one point it meant frolicsome/frivolous. It didn’t become haughty until the 19th century.

4. @Bigelow T

   when Princess Leia told Han Solo she loved him and his answer was, “I know,” I was out.

   But all you thought about _A Boy And His Dog_ was “weird”? You didn’t have any stronger reaction than that to what they were eating at the end of the movie?

   Maybe I’m thinking of a different movie… because whichever one it was it made me much angrier than “I know.”

5. 1. In addition to the authors mentioned above, Joanna Russ absolutely hated the novel. Her essay on it is both ruthlessly critical and hilarious. (She also hated A Boy and His Dog, which she thought was grotesquely misogynist, which had a lot to do with the ending that Cat mentions. Both essays can be found in her volume of essays, To Write Like a Woman.)
   2. I watched the first Star Trek film recently, and the plot is genuinely weird in a generally positive sense. The problem is that the director really wanted to create that sense of the sublime that you find in 2001 or Solaris, but it just kind of looks cheap. (Especially if you look at the contemporary films Star Wars and Alien, which just blow it out of the water aesthetically.) The soundtrack is continually cuing that sense of wonder, but the visuals just can’t deliver.

6. WRT “being familiar with the classics,” some thoughts (some mine, some quoted/cited):

   1, Caution, books (and other media) may look less exciting in the mirror…

   a. What’s exciting when you’re a young(er) reader (let’s say ~8-15) may be different from what grabs you when you’re older.

   b. The sf of its times reflects its times, just like other genre fiction, etc. Example: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, etc.

   2. Familiarity as a reader isn’t the same as “as an award voter” or “as a creator.”

   3. Yeah, the amount of stuff written in the past grows. I dunno if there’s an equivalent of Moore Law. I remember when the intro in a Years Best anthology commented that the amount of new SF per year had exceeded (most) peoples’ ability to Read Everything That Came Out That Year.

   4. Just because You Can’t Read It All doesn’t mean you can’t read a reasonable enough amount for context. It’s not like there aren’t good historical anthologies (e.g., SFWA Hall Of Fame), nor reasonable lists. I was on a con panel a few years ago (at, IIRC, Arisia) with Eric Van (one of the core ReaderCon runners, until a few years ago), something like “Which of the award-winners have stood the test of time?” Eric had done a list/mind-merge of winners, I think looking at Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. While his and my opinions may have been YMMV, the list itself was certainly a good baseline syllabus. I could ping Eric for a copy of that list.

   5. Lots of classic SF is shorter – stories, novellas, sub-100,000-word novels.

   In his post Classics : a third way yesterday (Nov 8, 2015)
   Brad R. Torgersen said, among other things:

   Nor have I had to read Heinlein to the same extent I’ve read Niven, to discern the obvious impact Heinlein had on the field; and the obvious influence Heinlein had on both Niven and his frequent collaborator, Jerry Pournelle — two men who have been influential on me. (NOTE: I am fond of calling myself a grandchild of Heinlein, in this way, though I will always — out of respect to the Heinlein faithful — make clear that I can’t claim to be any kind of Heinlein devotee. I know many of his more famous short works because I read a treasury of them when I was 20 years old, and I have read perhaps two or three Heinlein long works, such as the fix-up book Revolt in 2100. And not even his most famous publication: Starship Troopers. That book also sits — with the The Sword of Shannara — on my to-read pile.)

   One could easily read through Heinlein’s novels and stories, say, up through THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, in a month… (although better read over 3-6 months, I’d suggest). You might not savor them all, but it’s arguably core homework reading. In my opinion, of course.

   Or you could invest a year working through NPR’s 2011 “Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books” … there’s a fair amount there that I would read (or reread), but I’m sure there’s stuff on MY list YOU wouldn’t care for, etc.

   If there’s a point here (and there might not), I think it’s that there’s got to be some medium between a (cough) long tail and a short tail, in terms of familiarity as a reader, as a writer, as a reviewer/critic. ‘Nuff posted!

7. Cat: You’re thinking of the correct movie, and yes. Ditto. (I think the story is better than the film, but it was one of my least favorite stories back when I was an Ellison fan).

8. Greg Hullender said:

   “By 1973, Nixon was clearly on his way out. It was just a question of how much longer it would drag on. Certainly if he was running the evil empire, it wasn’t very good at crushing dissent.”

   That’s the view in hindsight. At the time, Nixon’s defiance of the House subpoena was leading a lot of people to wonder what he might decide to do in the event that the Supreme Court ruled he had to turn over the tapes. There was a palpable sense of relief when Nixon announced that he was going to abide by the Court’s ruling.

   Good source for the “Star Wars as Nixon allegory” stuff: ‘The Making of Star Wars’, by J.W. Rinzler. Relies on a lot of contemporary documents from the Lucasfilm vaults, as well as interviews with his friends and fellow filmmakers regarding the journey that ‘Star Wars’ took from script to screen.

   Good source for the “Nixon was viewed at the time as dangerously overreaching to the detriment of America” stuff: ‘The Final Days’, by Woodward and Bernstein. Draws on dozens of interviews with key players in the Nixon White House to portray Nixon’s last year in office, from the aftermath of the election up through his final resignation. One of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read.

9. I really liked Flight of the Navigator. The music was great. No idea what I’d think of it if I watched it now.

   I watched – I think – the special edition VHS release of the Star Wars trilogy when I was, I don’t know, definitely under ten. I loved every minute of it, even the ewoks. 😉 I’m still entirely happy to watch them (when I can watch things) even though I’m old enough now to spot some of the weak points.

   I watched The Phantom Menace and promptly decided I didn’t really need to watch the next two, and I’ve never regretted that decision. Oh, and I can also complain about Twilight since, while I haven’t read the books, I got dragged to the cinema to see the first one once and the second one twice and after that level of suffering I think I earned the right.

   PS. Amazon UK ebook sales post is being skipped today for reasons. But! I did have a look before concluding that a write-up wasn’t going to happen and I don’t think anyone will be missing much. The only thing that really appealed to me (not that I limit the selections to just stuff that appeals to me, since my taste is not everyone’s taste) was Miss Phryne Fisher Investigates, the first of the series that inspired that tv show I keep hearing about in glowing terms.

10. I was the ONLY person I knew who was unenthusiastic about Star Wars when it came out. I was gleeful to see science fiction/fantasy on the big screen making a big splash, but I found all three of them emotionally uninvolving. When my compatriots pointed out the “Luke, I am your father” scene, and the “there is another” scene, my response was “three movies with TWO good scenes? And I’m supposed to get excited?” But I was already grown when they came out, and I was the only one I knew who felt that way. I am, however, excited for the new movie, just on the strength of the fan-made super-cut of the trailer. Sure hope the movie is as good!

11. The Empire is meant to be Nixon’s America, a dystopian allegory

    This reminds me of the time my mother watched The Dark Crystal. She had little interest I SF&F, but was very political- app halfway through the film she started laughing.
    “It’s about the hippies.” she said. “You have all these old men in the Pentagon, and then you have the hippies that they’re chasing after.”
    It was honestly one if they oddest interpretations I had heard of a fantasy film. But I really couldn’t argue with it.

    As far as Star Wars goes, I’ve talky had to remember how utterly depressing SF (nobody did fantasy) movies were. I mean, you had a choice between the literary movies:
    A Dog and His Boy
    Clockwork Orange
    Planet of the Apes
    Soylent Green,
    Logan’s Run
    THX 1138
    Silent Running
    2001

    See a common theme? They were all drilling in the message that even if we don’t annihilate ourselves with nuclear wrappings, the fire would be an awful, sterile, grim horror where the living should envy the dead. Hell, the closest thing to a cheerful fantasy film was Yellow Submarine. It was, simply, a fucking depressing time.

    And then on the other hand, they’re we’re the Crap SF films. Barbarella, monster films, Godzilla films, that weird movie where flying saucers were coming from a musical planet (evidently posted by theremin)….It’s sad when to get something fun, you’d have to go see “Destroy All Monsters.”

    Do they’re I am, 12 year ok me, sitting a theatre waiting tip see a film that had some interesting if slow T.V. ads (seriously, go look at them). And they’res the crawl. And then hey, here’s a small planet, and another small planet, obtaining down, OK so far-

    BAM! BIG PLANET! Like what it would look like from orbit! Wow! Spaceship! Then-

    AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! IT KEEPS GOING AND GOING AND GOING!

    Honestly, it was like a drug. And I came out of that theatre knowing nothing in movies would be the same. I honestly don’t think you could explain to someone younger what a huge impact it had. I guess that’s what a Singularity looks like.

12. Star Wars — I saw the preview at MidAmericon, and loved the movie. Note, I knew damn well at the time it was ‘space opera’ and took its line from the old movie serials, so I wasn’t expecting it to be a mind-blowing SF film.

    Star Trek, the Motionless Picture? The only sequence worth keeping is the tour of the Enterprise. Total waste of cast and special effects.

    2001 — hated it. The only enjoyable sections were the apes and the space station waltz. (I don’t like the story, either — Clarke’s forte is short stories. I haven’t found anything by him in novel length I like.)

    Close Encounters of the Third Kind — I prefer the original cut over the directors, and some of the love IS due to the score.

    Marooned — ooff — I saw it the night Apollo Thirteen had its major malfunction. Ever since I will NOT watch a film about the space program when we have someone up there…

13. Since you kids are gathered on the lawn (not mine, thank ghu), I can offer at least one geezer’s recollection re: SW-as-allegory*. Never occurred to me, and the antics of Nixon and his tin soldiers had roiled my immediate environment plenty. (Ah! The scent of tear gas in the morning!) Had anyone suggested it at the time, I would have viewed it with the same skepticism I aimed at allegoriziations of Tolkien (“it’s about the Nazis”; “the Ring is The Bomb”). My immediate “what’s being represented here” response was, as I posted above, “old movies.” (And by “immediate” I mean “when the opening scroll appeared on screen.”) And eventually there was the revelation of how Lucas used old dogfight footage to shape the space battles.

    * Geezerhood calibration data: I was 32 when we saw it in initial release.

14. Russell Letson: That’s how it looked to me, too. Much too subtle if it was meant to be criticizing Nixon, in a country that had already seen The Smothers Brothers Show.

    Not that I refuse to believe Lucas could have had that intention. I never saw the Christianity in The Lord of the Rings when I read it originally.

15. “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! IT KEEPS GOING AND GOING AND GOING!”

    That’s where it got me, too. Baird Searles, reviewing SW for F&SF, said he “broke down and abandoned all attempts at critical acumen” (I think I’ve remembered that right) at the spaceport bar scene (“been reading about them all these years, never thought I’d get to see one”), but a mile-long spaceship will do it for me every time.

    I was 19-20 when I first saw it, second year at university. Half a dozen of us went together; halfway back to college afterwards, babbling to each other, and Steve Hemingway stopped and said “Hey, chaps, it’s snowing!”, and we all came back down to Earth and realised it was, too; and I remember looking at the trail of footprints behind me and wondering how they got there, because I certainly hadn’t being walking on the ground…

    @robinreid
    … and, in the summer of 1983, I saw all three films in that same Cardiff cinema. Not on a rainy Sunday, though, I think

16. Much too subtle if it was meant to be criticizing Nixon, in a country that had already seen The Smothers Brothers Show.

    On the other hand, if that’s what he was doing, it’s still okay to be subtle — the audience doesn’t have to get the references. If it gave him a workable structure that let him spin out a culture that had specificity and a conflict that fueled the writing, he might have just thought, “Okay, that gives me a good foundation, now I’m going to have fun.”

    Whatever gets you what you need.

17. Rose Embolism on November 9, 2015 at 2:21 pm said:
    The Empire is meant to be Nixon’s America, a dystopian allegory

    This reminds me of the time my mother watched The Dark Crystal. She had little interest I SF&F, but was very political- app halfway through the film she started laughing.
    “It’s about the hippies.” she said. “You have all these old men in the Pentagon, and then you have the hippies that they’re chasing after.”
    It was honestly one if they oddest interpretations I had heard of a fantasy film. But I really couldn’t argue with it.

    Anyone who knew Jim Henson would probably not be surprised at that.

18. As a writer, one good reason to acquaint oneself with the classics is to avoid the “Third Artist Syndrome” a.k.a. “Third Artist Problem”.

    Fantastic article and covers many of my problems with books I read. Pay attention to the real world and make sure you aren’t asking readers to suspend belief too frequently/for things that aren’t part of your worldbuidling.

    I’m not sure what it has to do with why someone should read more classics however. There are many ways to become familiar with a genres tropes. She talks about not reading only “middle/2nd generation books and ignoring the world around you when writing”. I’m not sure it’s the same thing as “read classics and pay attention to the world around you”.

    I’m not saying it’s bad to “read classics and pay attention to the world around you”. I’m just saying I think you can read “post-1st generation genre books as long as you also pay attention to the world around you”. Reading multi-generation genre books will add depth to your understanding of tropes but don’t forget to pay attention to the world around you and think carefully about what you write – are you asking your readers to suspend belief outside of your worldbuilding – if so you should probably rewrite as you may be asking too much of/betraying your readers.

19. If it gave him a workable structure that let him spin out a culture that had specificity and a conflict that fueled the writing, he might have just thought, “Okay, that gives me a good foundation, now I’m going to have fun.”

    It certainly worked better than whatever conflict was behind Phantom Menace.

20. Meredith says:

    I really liked Flight of the Navigator. The music was great. No idea what I’d think of it if I watched it now.

    I was in the target age demographic for it and thought it was painfully stupid.

    Ditto for SpaceCamp, in case anyone remembers that one. The part where the one guy just steals the other kid’s place and never suffers any consequences felt deeploy wrong at the time. These days, noting that it was an entitled white dude taking a minority kid’s place, I rank this as the #1 Geek Dudebro Movie of the ’80s.

    SF/F movies I thought were pretty awesome around that time: Return of the Jedi, Ghostbusters, Airplane II, The Dark Crystal.

21. @Tasha Turner,

    For me, it’s like the difference between the writer who takes inspiration from Terry Brooks’ Shannara stories vs. the writer who takes inspiration from Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”.

22. There are a couple mentions upstream along the lines of “catching up with the classics via historical/best-of anthologies. As a means of being familiar with the history of the field, these have many of the same problems as lists of approved canon: they reflect the often-silent filters of the curators.

    But all in all I come down on the side of it being valuable–especially for a writer–to know the history of your field and to be familiar with the ongoing conversations. I get a lot of head-desk time in when contemplating what passes for “innovative sff” in lesbian publishing. Too often it’s stale, recycled tropes just with the genders rearranged. (Believe me, I *do* understand why potential readers sometimes jump to peculiar erroneous assumptions about my own books.) As a separate genre, re-inventing the wheel, that isn’t necessarily a problem. But sometimes those authors unwarily wander into the mainstream sff highway and don’t understand (or mis-attribute) why they aren’t getting the reception they expect.

23. Heather Rose’s post reminds me of all the times SF enthusiasts have scornfully pointed out how some mainstream writer’s attempt to do SF comes across as watered-down, reinvention-of-the-wheel (sometimes as a rectangle) stuff. As Charlie the anvil salesman says (and says and says), “You gotta know the territory!”

    Which doesn’t mean that every reader-for-pleasure ought to be cramming for an exam. There won’t even be a pop quiz. (Bloviating bloggers might be held to a higher standard, though.)

24. I know many of his more famous short works because I read a treasury of them when I was 20 years old, and I have read perhaps two or three Heinlein long works, such as the fix-up book Revolt in 2100. And not even his most famous publication: Starship Troopers.

    Note that this is the level of familiarity that Brad thinks makes him “aware of the field’s major literary players”. As I’ve noted before, one thing that is pervasive among the Pups is their relatively obvious ignorance of the science fiction field when compared to those they criticize.

25. In space, no one can hear you bark.

26. Brad may be making multiple reasonable points – but his dismissal of Le Guin ruins it for me. Fine, he bounced off Dispossessed – there are many novels of hers I’ve liked better. Fine, he doesn’t want to try another work of hers – tastes differ. But to assume that the purity of his ignorance makes him capable of predicting a future in which he snidely allows that Le Guin will be remembered at least by the academics is reverse snobbery of the most offputting sort.
    Dick.

27. I rank this as the #1 Geek Dudebro Movie of the ’80s.

    Surely The Last Starfighter gets an honorable mention!

28. @jayn: I predict that, many years from now, when Heinlein, Niven, and Pournelle are forgotten by all but the most die hard science fiction fans, Le Guin’s work will still be widely read and admired.

29. Aaron on November 9, 2015 at 4:13 pm said:
    @jayn: I predict that, many years from now, when Heinlein, Niven, and Pournelle are forgotten by all but the most die hard science fiction fans, Le Guin’s work will still be widely read and admired.

    I will say, I read “The Lathe of Heaven” for the first time this summer, and I found it shockingly contemporary and relevant.

30. > “… all the times SF enthusiasts have scornfully pointed out how some mainstream writer’s attempt to do SF comes across as watered-down, reinvention-of-the-wheel …”

    Eh. I’ve read as much “oh my god this is brilliant wow” SF from usually-outside-the-genre authors as I’ve read “ugh this sux” SF from them. The hit and miss ratio seems to be about the same as that of … genre SF authors. Which has left me unimpressed by the “mainstream authors don’t get SF” thing.

    I think it’s a little more reasonable to get annoyed when *critics* laud a work from a mainstream author as amazingly-innovative-never-been-done-before because the critics aren’t familiar with a genre, but even then that doesn’t say much about, and isn’t the fault of, the work or author in question.

31. Herewith a disquisition on ogres in “The Bone Swans of Amandale.”

    Gur znlbe bs Nznaqnyr, Hyvn Tby, vf “Bter ba ure Znzn’f fvqr. Tvnag ba ure Qnqql’f”, naq gurersber naguebcbcuntbhf; rfcrpvnyyl na rngre bs puvyqera. Vg jnf vafcverq bs Pbbarl gb nffbpvngr guvf svther jvgu gur Cvrq Cvcre fgbel. Bterf pna or zber guna whfg zbafgref; gurl pna or rzoyrzngvp bs onq cneragny svtherf, sebz Pebabf bajneq. Va Creenhyg”f irefvba bs “Fyrrcvat Ornhgl”, gur Cevapr”f zbgure vf na bter jub gevrf gb rng uvf lbhat jvsr naq gurve puvyqera, naq jubz ur riraghnyyl unf gb xvyy. Va “Gur Whavcre Gerr”, gur (fgrc)zbgure xvyyf n lbhat obl, gheaf uvz vagb fgrj, naq srrqf uvz gb uvf sngure. Fb Unzrya vf na ragver gbja bs onq cneragf, jub pnerq zber nobhg zbarl guna gurve puvyqera’f fnsrgl. Va Nznaqnyr, gur cbchynpr’f cbyvgvpny ncngul nyybjrq gurz gb ryrpg n zbafgre bs n znlbe, jub zvfznantrf gur gbja bhg bs terrq. (Fur vf n perngher nccrgvgrf nygbtrgure: “Fur yvxrq urnegl qvavat naq n tbbq, uneq qnl ng gur uhag. Jnf xabja sbe ure svar juvfxrl, rkbgvp ybiref, vagevpngr pnyyvtencul, naq qnooyvat va fznyy—gbgnyyl unezyrff, vg jnf fnvq—zntvpf, zbfgyl va gur ernyz bs gur Cresbezvat Negf.” Hasbeghangryl guvf fgbel pbagnvaf n ynetr qbfr bs gur zvfbtlavfgvp vzntr bs gur zbafgebhfyl qribhevat frkhnyyl ibenpvbhf srznyr, abg whfg gur znlbe, ohg gur Snvel Dhrra jub znqr Avpubynf fb nsenvq bs nyy jbzra. Vg’f n uvtuyl genqvgvbany fgbel, sbe obgu orggre naq jbefr.) Fb gur gbjafcrbcyr yvgrenyyl unaq gurve puvyqera bire gb gur znlbe. Fur vf na rknttrengvba naq cnebql bs srzvavavgl jvgu ure cersrerapr sbe cvax naq ure bireevcr syrfu (nygubhtu “bireevcr” vf n pbairagvbany nqwrpgvir gb qrfpevor byqre jbzra, gehfg Znhevpr gb znxr gung yvgreny ol fnlvat “Fur fzryyrq birecbjrevatyl bs ebggra crnef naq fbhe tencrf.”) Fur vf gur vzntr bs gur zbafgebhf zbgure. Jung’f vaabingvir va Pbbarl vf pbaarpgvat gung gb gur fvghngvba va Nznaqnyr, naq gb gur ybfg puvyqera.

    I also found the romantic plotline more satisfying when considering it further, although again it is a very traditional one. Nsgre Znhevpr’f fnpevsvpvny qrngu naq genafsbezngvba (juvpu gnxrf cynpr va n znaare cnenyyryvat gur onyynq bs gur Gjb Fvfgref: gur lbhatre fvfgre vf qebjarq naq sybngf qbja gur evire gb gur zvyyre’f qnz, ybbxvat yvxr n fjna, jurerhcba “Gur zvyyre ena bhg jvgu uvf svfu ubbx/Gb svfu gur fjna bhg bs gur oebbx”; fur vf gura genafsbezrq vagb n unec), ur frrf Qben Ebfr ba gur gerr naq vf fgehpx ol ubj gehyl hajbegul bs ure ur vf; gura, hayvxr uvf rneyvre yrpurebhf nqinaprf, ur qbrfa’g qner gb xvff ure. Vg vf bayl ol erpbtavmvat uvf hajbeguvarff gung ur cebirf jbegul.

    ——
    I am tired of superficial use of fairy tales, but this is anything but superficial. In short, it’s brilliant and I love it, and also I can’t blame anyone who doesn’t love it.

    ——
    @Peace: Yes, Maurice as in Sendak, a very probable hypothesis.

32. @Aaron

    To be fair, he only said he was aware of them rather than familiar with their work. 🙂 I’m aware of lots of authors by whom I’ve never read a single word.

33. In terms of what becomes a classic and what doesn’t — it’s very interesting to take a look through the online catalogs of big library systems. Apart from a few books that have entered ‘the canon’, most of the big at the time 50s and 60s sf authors have withered away. You’ll find only a scattering of their books, and the books that are there are seldom checked out. For example, almost no Heinlein juveniles survive and not much of his late work, little Niven beyond _Ringworld_ and the first sequel, not much of Clarke beyond Childhood’s End and 2001, etc, etc. This is particularly sharply notable in the ebook collections. But at least in the US systems I have looked at, there is a *shitton* of Phillip Dick books, and not just the famous ones you would expect, a lot of minor works like _Galactic Pot Healer_ too.

34. Kyra on November 9, 2015 at 4:32 pm said:
    I think it’s a little more reasonable to get annoyed when *critics* laud a work from a mainstream author as amazingly-innovative-never-been-done-before because the critics aren’t familiar with a genre, but even then that doesn’t say much about, and isn’t the fault of, the work or author in question.

    While Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” was beautifully written and worthy of being shortlisted for the Booker Prize, it sure was grating to hear mainstream critics praising the shocking and delicately horrific ideas that had been old hat when they had been made into “Parts: The Clonus Horror” twenty-five years earlier.

35. A quick check of the Ottawa Public Library online catalogue finds 8 or 9 Heinlein juveniles and most of his other books, including late ones, and over 20 different titles by Arthur C. Clarke.

36. In terms of “classics” in libraries, it really depends on how much space they have and on who is weeding the collection. Most public libraries toss books that haven’t been checked out in a certain period of time–say, five to ten years (depending on how desperate they are for shelf space). In fiction, they keep “classics,” which usually means A) anything taught in an English literature class, and B) anything the librarian doing the weeding happens to remember. And even the best public librarians can’t read everything . . . though the best of them do worry about making mistakes, in my experience. (Once upon a time, as mere hourly part-time staff, I was in charge of weeding a public library’s sf collection–because I was literally the only person on staff who had read the stuff. The head librarian was touchingly apologetic about asking me to do something that was clearly above my pay grade, and of course they double-checked every book I tossed–but they really were grateful not to have slipped and deaccessioned a book that might be considered a “classic” sf novel.)

37. I am totally useless at time zones, but I think that there may be a couple of hours left to go on the fundraising for Rochita at:

    http://fundsforrochita.likhain.net

    There is some amazing stuff donated by other writers and artists, so if you donate you are not only reaching out to give a helping hand to Rochita and her family, following the sudden death of her husband, but also getting some wonderful things. If you can spare some money then this would be a very good thing to do.

38. the change to Denethor’s demise.

    I didn’t mind some of the character changes Jackson made, but he completely screwed up with Denethor. Even in his despair he was proud and resolute. There was no way he would have run screaming as shown.

39. I was already a young adult when Star Wars came out: and I realized that I would have had to have been ten years younger for it to hit me hard. Mostly it glanced off me: I didn’t hate it, much, (…except for the “Trust The Force” nonsense…); but I didn’t much love it, either.

    As it was, it had all sorts of strikes against it for me to fall in love with it:
    – I had already seen Dam Busters, and Bridges at Toko-Ri – and I recognized the shot-for-shot “homage”;
    – heck, I had even seen The Hidden Fortress, and I recognized those elements, too.
    For that matter, I saw it with a bunch of electrical engineers – – who were rolling in the aisles when Lucas used a Grass Valley video switcher as the “Planet Destruct” control panel:

    http://www.kcet.org/shows/tvtalk/kcet-tv-throwback/how-kcet-destroyed-alderaan.html

    It rather broke the mood.

    And I had done enough college theater to have seen – up close – several talented community actors who would have been more convincing as Skywalker.

40. Aaron

    Note that this is the level of familiarity that Brad thinks makes him “aware of the field’s major literary players”.

    No, his knowledge came from reading the SF encyclipedia he spoke of. That’s why he knows Olaf Stapelton was ground-breaking despite not reading him.

41. There was no way he would have run screaming as shown.

    Or as far.

42. @ Vasha
    re: Bone Swans and folklore

    Thank you for the analysis, that was great geekery! The story is so much better with that understanding of the antecedents and backstory. A big takeaway for me, and part of why I thought it was a brilliant ‘fairytale’ was that the innocent would pay the

    (Since there’s a concurrent discussion on the value of reading the ‘classics’, here’s an example of me appreciating a story without deeper information and then *really* appreciating the story after getting a little more education on the subject!)

    Abg fher vs guvf arrqf ebg13, ohg orggre pnhgvbhf guna lryyrq ng. 😉

    Bar ernfba V gubhtug vg jnf oevyyvnag snvelgnyvat jnf gung gur vaabprag (puvyqera) cnvq sbe gur fvaf bs gur thvygl (nqhygf), jub, nf sne nf gur fgbel tbrf, bayl ybfr gur 20 puvyqera fnpevsvprq nf chavfuzrag naq rira evq gurzfryirf bs gur bter/tvnag gurzfryirf. Gubfr 20 jrer zbfgyl vaabprag, jung gurl qvq jnf haqre qherff, zbfgyl, naq ng gur orurfg bs nqhygf erfcbafvoyr sbe gurz. Gung’f gur jnl gur jbeyq hfhnyyl jbexf, fnqyl.

    Gur guerr puvyqera jub qvq qrsl gur bter ner tvira fbzr pbzcrafngvba sbe gurve ybffrf, ohg abj bayl unir gur Cvcre naq rnpu bgure sbe pbzzhavgl naq ner cebonoyl urnqrq haqre uvyy va gur shgher, na hapregnva ‘erjneq’. Va guvf pnfr, erfvfgnapr gb rivy unf na qhovbhf bhgpbzr.

    Abg rknpgyl tevzqnex, ohg fgvyy tevz.

43. No, his knowledge came from reading the SF encyclipedia he spoke of. That’s why he knows Olaf Stapelton was ground-breaking despite not reading him.

    That’s not really any better.

44. @Junego: you’re absolutely right, this story works according to the logic of myth, which is often a harsh logic.

    On the one hand, the dead return to life (if not exactly as they were); on the other hand, punishment falls on the peripherally involved.

45. When Brit Mandelo reviewed this collection, she spoke of “Cooney’s particular approach to using the trappings and traditions of mythic narratives to structure her stories: each of these pieces has an obvious genetic tie to the world of myth, a place where structured magic is as real as the dirt people stand on and there is a specific and often grave logic to the consequences of our actions…. And these stories also treat the logic of myth, which tends to be the logic of sacrifice and ritual, as a true narrative logic. That can be refreshing and weird, considering that a great deal of the time the logic of religious or mythic plot is not the same thing as the logic of short story plot…. “The Bone Swans of Amandale”… [is] all about sacrifices made at the right time for the right reasons, getting back things that aren’t quite what you wanted, and the very hard reality of ritual magic.”

46. Stapledon’s work is great stuff. I’ll never forget the pleasure of reading “Last and First Men” back in the 1980s. A reason to read “classic” sf is that there’s a good chance it will deliver what a reader wants from this kind of fiction. Some of it isn’t so great, depending on your taste, but some of it is.

    Torgersen is a pretty successful writer who presumably knows what he’s doing. Maybe in terms of the tradition or subgenre he works in, Le Guin is irrelevant and Heinlein a distant ancestral figure. For science fiction writers or readers with broader interests their work may well be deeply interesting and rewarding.

47. Hey, I just clicked on my RSS feed of Subterranean Press news, and they’re offering a special hardcover edition of Ancillary Sword for $50. It’s limited to 500 copies. (I missed out on their initial hardcover of Justice and bought it off Ebay later for [mumbledy] dollars–the most I’ve ever paid for a book in my life.)

    Subterranean Press does great work. Check out that cover! It’s just gorgeous.

48. Torgersen is a pretty successful writer who presumably knows what he’s doing. Maybe in terms of the tradition or subgenre he works in, Le Guin is irrelevant and Heinlein a distant ancestral figure.

    I don’t think anyone would be particularly concerned with what Torgersen had or had not read if he hadn’t set himself up as the defender of the “good old stuff” from days of yore and spent much of the last year loudly telling everyone voting for the Hugos that they have been doing it wrong.

49. Brad is the Dunning-Kruger Effect come to life, let’s face it. Everyone who’s not a Sad Puppy realizes this (Even the Rabids). He’s also the Third Artist, to use our own Heather Rose Jones’ metaphor. (Also, how does a right-wing milSF guy NOT read “Starship Troopers?!)

    The usual suspects who hate anything that’s popular and they didn’t do (Moorcock, Ellison, etc.) pooh-poohed “Star Wars”. Everyone else loved it, because there it was on-screen, in color, with no visible wires, great music, etc. I first became aware of it at a Star Trek convention a few months before it opened, where we all thought “Huh, that looks pretty neat, probably worth going to see.” It was only at one theater in my area, and Mom probably got tired of driving me and my friends there. And it cost a whole $3.50 a ticket! But the Star Destroyer that kept going and going and GOING! Lightsaber! Aliens in the bar! Mom (who loved 30’s and 40’s serials, having grown up on them) eventually watched it with us and remained a fan of the movies; thankfully, she didn’t live to see the prequels.

    I mean, Asimov liked it, what more do you want? The original 3 movies all won the Hugo easily. They showed the 3 back-to-back starting at midnight at L.A. Worldcon 1984, and people got in line that afternoon (missing part of the con, and the Hugos) and stayed awake all night watching them (missing the parties and any sleep). And that was Worldcon, well-known as hoity-toity… by people who don’t know anything about Worldcon.

    And along with the pew-pew, pretty much everyone alive then who wasn’t brain-dead recognized the parallels to Vietnam and Nixon’s Enemies list, etc. We did enjoy the pew-pew during stagflation and Our National Malaise (Google it, kids). And after a long run of depressing SF movies, as Rose Embolism listed.

    “A Boy and His Dog” doesn’t hold up too well today, except as a trippy, wacky reminder of those gonzo hippie pot/cocaine days. And a very beautiful young Don Johnson. It’s a really cynical movie, though, which makes it ho-hum now, and suuuuuper misogynist, which makes it ARGH now. Young Don is so pretty, though.

    “Marooned” was pretty dull. Not Greg Peck’s finest. I like 2001, but the earlier parts rather than the later. Apes, space station, Moon, that’s good stuff. Although you can’t go wrong with Keir Dullea’s eyes, which are still so blue.

    “Star Trek: The Motionless Picture” did not look so good by comparison. I mean, we didn’t fall asleep in “Star Wars” or “Alien”. Thank goodness for KHAAAAAN.

    LeGuin’s in the kids’ textbooks (or was when I was a kid; do the teens still read “Omelas”?) and I suspect will still be read for some decades.

    “Bone Swans” I thought was good, but not Hugo-oh-wow-good. I think it’s more clever than great. Yes, nice job working all the fairy tales into a whole, but it ended up as less than the sum of its parts. I guess I really just didn’t care about anyone in the story and was just watching the plot unfurl. Maurice = Sendak, I’m sure. Meh.

50. next thing you know, somebody will say that the “SJWs” are hoydenish.

    Bluestockings, the lot of them!

    Shag-rag, care-for-naught, loose fish, I say!

Comments are closed.